Risen

11

The briefing broke up. Nimbus disappeared off with Landis, while most of the Keepers had gathered around Sonder. Tobias had walked over to Talisid’s projection and was questioning him about timings.

Could you follow all that? Luna asked.

It’s simple enough, I said. Scorpion tactics. Pincers hold; tail strikes. I reached forward and closed my thumb and forefinger in the air. Rain’s force pins down Richard. I did the same with my other hand. Landis’s force pins down Anne. I arced a finger over the top. Accumulator fires.

Oh. Why didn’t they just explain it like that?

I noticed that Rain wasn’t occupied and walked over. ‘Captain Rain.’

Rain had been frowning down at a tablet; now he glanced at me. ‘Verus,’ he said in his deep voice. ‘Been a while.’

‘Glad you’re not under orders to arrest me any more,’ I said. I’d always rather liked Rain. ‘How’s it look?’

Rain hesitated and I saw futures flicker as he decided how honest to be. ‘Not great,’ he admitted.

The tablet held a list of names, with separate columns for killed and wounded. ‘How many did you lose last night?’

‘Counting all serious casualties . . . a hundred and three.’

‘Jesus.’

‘We were supposed to be bringing over five hundred, with as many more in reserve.’ Rain didn’t let anything show on his face, but his voice was grim. ‘Right now, we’ve got maybe two hundred and forty effectives. We’re missing half our main force and all of our reserves and we’ve barely scratched them.’

So they’d been able to bring about three hundred and fifty into the shadow realm last night. And they’d lost almost a third of them already. ‘How were you hurt so badly?’ I asked. ‘Anne?’

Rain gave a nod. ‘She’d hit from the flanks, then fade away as soon as we brought mages to bear. Used those jann and shadows as distractions. She couldn’t stop our main force but she damn near bled us dry before Nimbus gave the order to fall back.’

I glanced towards the door where Nimbus had left. ‘Surprised he was so confident.’

Rain hesitated again, and through the futures I could see him caught between worry and discretion. He shook his head as he made his decision. ‘He’s not,’ Rain said, lowering his voice. ‘He spent half the night arguing with the Council. Wanted to hold position until they could bring in reinforcements. He’s only doing this attack under direct orders.’ Rain’s eyes flicked in the direction of Talisid’s projection, still talking with Tobias. ‘Your friend there’s watching to make sure Nimbus does as he’s told.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘That’s . . . not good.’

‘No shit,’ Rain said. ‘Listen, Verus, I know this woman’s your girlfriend, but . . . we’re going to need you for this one.’ His dark eyes bored into mine. ‘You with us?’

I was silent for a moment. ‘It’s not my girlfriend making the decisions any more,’ I said at last. Anne would never have fought as Rain described; Dark Anne would have gone in swinging, and Light Anne wouldn’t have attacked at all. ‘I’ll do all I can.’

Rain gave me a nod and went back to his tablet.

It was strange, but Council politics felt simpler these days. It was as though I’d only started to really understand the Council after I’d been kicked off it. Maybe you can’t see an organisation clearly until you’ve looked at it from both inside and out.

Luna had joined the Keepers around Sonder. I moved over to listen in. ‘. . . would have taken part in the ritual,’ Sonder was saying. ‘Each of them would have invested one of the focus crystals to reinforce the overall structure. They were doing that through the early hours of the morning.’

‘Suppose that’s why they’ve been leaving us alone,’ one Keeper said.

‘Can we bring down the ritual by killing the ifrit?’ another asked.

Sonder shook his head. ‘All you’d do is kill the host.’

‘Sonder?’ Luna asked. ‘You said you’d been researching these ifrit generals? What did you learn?’

‘Not very much,’ Sonder said, scratching his head. ‘Just a lot of battle reports, and those don’t go into detail. We do have their names though – it was only the marids that were unnamed, not the ifrit. They translate from Old Arabic as Lightning-amid-the-Storm, the Sun That Brings Death, the Eternal Sand or the Endless Sands – I’m not sure which translation is right – and the Water of Life.’

‘Sound lovely,’ a Keeper said.

‘How powerful are they?’ Luna asked.

‘We’re not sure,’ Sonder said. ‘But Lightning-amid-the-Storm was supposed to be the weakest, and the Sun That Brings Death the strongest.’

‘Lightning-amidst-the-Storm is the one possessing Aether, I think,’ I said. ‘Sagash’s old apprentice.’

‘Is that anti-jinn weapon going to work on them?’ Luna asked.

‘It’ll certainly weaken them—’

‘I mean is it going to banish them?’ Luna interrupted.

Sonder hesitated. ‘That’s . . . unclear.’

‘Really not what you want to hear going into battle, Sonder,’ a Keeper commented.

‘Well, I’m sorry, but it’s true. It’s not as though we had the chance to test it.’

‘Bit of a moot point, isn’t it?’ another Keeper said. ‘Since the bloody thing got stolen.’

Lumen was standing on her own. Like Sonder, she wore Keeper battle armour; like Sonder, she looked uncomfortable in it. I walked over. ‘Lumen.’

Lumen looked at me in surprise. ‘Oh, Verus. Last time was . . . Syria, wasn’t it?’

‘Nimbus is counting on you pretty heavily for this,’ I said.

Lumen grimaced. ‘I wish he wasn’t.’

‘I’m guessing this wasn’t the original plan?’

Lumen shook her head. ‘They were supposed to set up a forward siege base with special equipment. They had a team of specialist mages, heavily protected.’ She sighed. ‘Unfortunately, they were so heavily protected that they were put in the rearguard. So they never made it in.’

‘And you’re the substitute,’ I said. ‘Can it work?’

‘I mean, it can.’ Lumen raised a hand and a pinpoint of light glowed at her finger. ‘All you need for something like this is control. I don’t have the strength for proper battle magic, but the accumulator handles all the buffering.’

‘So your spark of light turns into a giant laser beam,’ I said, looking at the glow. ‘Will it be enough?’

‘Oh, power’s not the problem. Give it enough time and it’ll take out the wards and the whole corner of the keep with it. It’s the warmup time I’m worried about.’

‘Where are you going to fire from?’

‘Nimbus said we shouldn’t decide on that until we were ready,’ Lumen said, ‘and for once I agree with him. Sonder and I will be moving around until we’re ready to take the shot. No, what I’m worried about is what happens when they home in on the accumulator. There’s supposed to be no way to trace the signal to us, and we’ll be running dark so we won’t ping on magesight. But I still don’t like it.’ She glanced over towards Tobias. ‘Excuse me.’

The meeting was breaking up. I found Luna and we left the ready room. ‘Anything else?’ I asked her.

‘Sonder says Anne’s ritual is going to take about twenty-eight hours from start,’ Luna said. ‘So about 6 a.m. tomorrow. But the veil will start thinning before that – she’ll be able to summon jinn more easily starting from about eight this evening and it’ll get worse through the night.’ Luna looked at me. ‘Oh, and something else. Sonder thinks that the wards on the keep are stabilising the isolation ward. They’re stopping everything in the shadow realm from going completely crazy.’

‘So if we blow it up . . .’

‘Yeah,’ Luna said. ‘They’d better be right that taking those wards down will let us gate out, because it sounds like we won’t have much time.’

Ji-yeong walked up. She looked fresh and well-rested, and had somehow found the time in the middle of an invasion to redo her make-up. ‘Hey, guys,’ she said. ‘What did I miss?’

Luna and I filled her in on the Council’s plan.

Ji-yeong considered. ‘Will it work?’

I had to think about it. ‘It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t think much of Nimbus as a commander, but . . . once the accumulator is active then neither Anne nor Richard will have much time to react, and if they’re pinned down fighting then they might not be able to redeploy fast enough. And they’re right that the marid needs to defend those tombs. Those shadows are half its army, and if we occupy the place we can shut them down easily enough.’ I looked at Ji-yeong. ‘Right?’

Ji-yeong nodded. ‘But?’ Luna asked.

‘But there isn’t a backup plan if things go wrong,’ I said. ‘And in operations like this, something always goes wrong. If I were running this, I’d set some forces aside as a mobile reserve.’

‘Would they listen to you if you told them that?’

‘No.’

‘So what are we doing?’ Ji-yeong asked.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘There are three Council forces. We can go with one of the three, or we can strike off on our own. Attacking on our own is obviously stupid, and I don’t like going with Rain’s force to siege Richard either.’

‘He’s the one with that anti-jinn weapon,’ Luna said.

‘Yeah, but they’re not trying to take it; they’re just bottling him up. We go with them, best case, we sit around while the battle’s decided elsewhere.’ I looked between Luna and Ji-yeong. ‘That just leaves Landis’s force and the accumulator team. The accumulator can win the battle if it goes off, but again, if we go with them, we’ll just be sitting around.’

‘So you’re going with Landis,’ Luna said.

‘It’s dangerous, but it gives us the best chance to make a difference. And if the tombs are under threat, there’s a good chance Anne’s going to send everything she’s got to reinforce. That means Variam.’ I looked at Luna. ‘Maybe that good luck of yours can do something.’

‘I’ve played worse odds,’ Luna said with a nod.

I looked at Ji-yeong.

‘I’ll stick with you,’ she told me.

I nodded. ‘Zero hour is 10 a.m.’

It was a few minutes past nine. A group of men stood on the grass near the windmill, chatting and smoking. A sea breeze was blowing in from the cliffs, sending ripples across the millpond and making the sails of the windmill creak as they swung.

I’d spotted Landis and Nimbus standing on the other side of the windmill. They were talking – maybe arguing. I couldn’t get close enough to eavesdrop, but their body language was tense. For once Landis wasn’t smiling: his eyes were boring into the other mage.

Nimbus gave a final order with a chopping motion of his hand, and left. Landis stared after him for a moment, then turned and began walking slowly towards the men on the grass.

I intercepted him under the sails of the windmill. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘Director Nimbus has issued the personnel assignments for the attack,’ Landis said. His voice was quiet and he was looking past me at the men out in the open. ‘He’s reassigned men to the accumulator team.’

I followed Landis’s eyes. There were a little over twenty men on the grass, some sitting, some standing. They’d checked their gear and weapons and looked ready to go. ‘That’s the security contingent?’

‘That,’ Landis said, ‘is the force that will be guarding the accumulator while it charges.’

I frowned. ‘No mages?’

‘No,’ Landis said, his voice clipped. ‘I need to brief them. If you’ll excuse me.’ He brushed past.

I watched him go, still frowning. That wasn’t very many men for such an important job. I recognised several of the men and many were veterans, but even so . . .

Actually, I recognised a lot of the men. Sergeant Little, who I’d met in that bubble realm in Syria. Nowy and Peterson and Lisowski from my old team that I’d led in the early months of the war. Two others that I recognised. In fact, I recognised the whole group. I’d seen them recently. Desert sands . . . where had it been?

Hyperborea. It was the same team that had been sent with Avenor and Saffron into Hyperborea. Saffron had ordered them to arrest me, and they’d refused to fire.

I remembered what Sonder had said at the briefing. They were setting up a focus that would transport energy from the accumulator through a gateway. While the enemies homed in on the accumulator, Sonder and Lumen would be watching through a video link from far away.

I stood dead still for five seconds, then whirled and headed after Nimbus.

I slammed the door to the ready room open with a crash.

Nimbus started. He was alone in the room but for Sonder and Lumen, and looked like he’d been giving orders. ‘Verus? What do you think you’re—?’

I slammed the door behind me and stalked towards Nimbus. His eyes went wide and he took a step back, magic coming up around his hands. ‘You’re leaving twenty-three men to guard the windmill?’ I asked.

‘Your point?’ Nimbus snapped.

‘I ran into one of those ifrit hosts last night,’ I said tightly. ‘I had Luna and Ji-yeong with me. Three experienced combat mages, and all of us together could barely scrape a draw. And according to Sonder, that one was the runt of the litter. Twenty-three Council security is not even close to enough to hold the windmill against something like that.’

Nimbus raised his eyebrows at me. ‘You’re accompanying Captain Landis, I understand? Then the solution seems simple. Make sure the marid has no spare forces to send.’

‘Don’t give me that crap! If that accumulator fires, the marid loses, and if I can figure that out, it can too. It’ll make damn sure it gets someone here, even if it has to lose half its ifrit in the process. Why would it care? All it’ll be losing is host bodies. It can just get more.’

Nimbus turned. ‘Mage Sonder, Mage Verus appears upset. I suggest you escort him from the premises.’

Sonder hesitated.

‘You aren’t expecting to hold the windmill or the accumulator,’ I told Nimbus flatly. ‘That’s why you’re setting up the video link. Those men are a screen. The idea is that by dying, they’ll buy enough time and give enough warning that when those jinn smash down the door to the windmill, Lumen can fire her shot.’ I looked at Sonder and Lumen. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’

Neither Sonder nor Lumen met my eyes.

‘Verus, I really don’t have time for this,’ Nimbus said. Unlike the others, he wasn’t looking away; he looked irritated. ‘Given your recent activities, you clearly have no compunction about sacrificing men.’

‘If all you want is a sacrificial force, you don’t need to assign men at all. You could use traps, or automated defences—’

‘Which would not slow an attacker for long enough,’ Nimbus interrupted. ‘Human defenders raise the possibility that any of them could be a mage. This requires the jinn to neutralise each in turn before moving forward.’

‘Then,’ I said quietly, ‘maybe you could explain why every single one of those “human defenders” is from the same squad that disobeyed orders to arrest me last week in Hyperborea.’

Sonder and Lumen both looked at Nimbus. Apparently this was news to them as well.

‘Sacrificing troops is standard Council doctrine,’ I said. ‘But this? This is over the line even for you.’

‘Why?’ Nimbus sounded impatient. ‘Council security are used as a screening force. You know that; they know that. They know the risks when they take the money.’

‘And you’ve told them that, have you?’

‘If the accumulator fires, the marid loses,’ Nimbus said. ‘Your words, not mine. The chance of winning this war is well worth twenty-three casualties.’

‘Then if it’s that important, fortify this place properly. Mages, more men—’

‘Who would then be at risk,’ Nimbus said. ‘Ideally Captain Landis will be able to pin down all of the ifrit with his own attack, but the marid will do all it can to redeploy them here, and yes, it is possible that it will succeed, in which case a significant number of those defending the accumulator will die. With that in mind, any forces stationed here must be considered expendable.’

‘And those twenty-three are the most expendable?’

‘Mages are a limited resource,’ Nimbus said. ‘Normals are not. Particularly unreliable ones.’

‘You don’t need—’

‘I’m sorry, Verus,’ Nimbus interrupted. ‘Were you reassigned to the Keepers when I didn’t notice? Were you promoted from journeyman to lieutenant to captain, and then to director? Did you spend twenty years working for the Light Council until you were recognised and promoted for your efforts?’

I looked at Nimbus through narrowed eyes.

‘No,’ Nimbus said with a curl of his lip. ‘You never rose beyond journeyman Keeper, and that only because a Dark mage was able to force you in through a loophole. And now you think that because your friends on the Council have managed to cover up your crimes, you can waltz back in. Well, Verus, you have no friends here. You’re a jumped-up Dark mage who reached your position through nepotism and corruption. Nothing more.’

‘Talisid gave you orders to listen to me,’ I said. But it was a weak reply and I knew it.

‘Which I have done,’ Nimbus said pleasantly. ‘If you have objections to how your advice has been received, you are of course free to tell Talisid your reservations.’

I was silent.

‘I’m glad we understand each other.’ Nimbus began to walk past me, then paused. ‘Oh, and Verus? This is the second time in two days you’ve spoken to me with this level of disrespect.’ His voice hardened. ‘I am Director of Operations of the Order of the Star and if you do it a third time I will have you thrown into a cell. Do I make myself clear?’ Without waiting for an answer, he strode out.

Lumen and Sonder hesitated, looking at me, but the futures in which they spoke flickered and died. They followed Nimbus out and I was left alone.

Fifteen minutes to go.

The barracks had been abandoned, the contents packed away into spatial storage. Landis was delivering a last briefing to his assault force, gathered on the grass before the windmill. Luna and Ji-yeong were there, but I was keeping my distance.

The accumulator had been set up in the windmill, along with a big flat-screen monitor providing a video link to Sonder and Lumen. Deployed around the windmill were the men being left to guard it. Light machine gun emplacements had been set up on the towers overlooking the area, and on top of the windmill itself. I could see their barrels pointing up to the clouded sky. They’d do nothing to stop an ifrit.

I hadn’t even tried talking to Talisid. I knew what he’d say: Nimbus was in command, casualties an inevitable part of the operation, very regrettable, et cetera. And if I kept pushing, he’d raise an eyebrow and make some comment along the lines of how my hands weren’t exactly clean either.

I looked out over the sea. Much as I hated to admit it, Talisid and Nimbus had a point. I’d killed more than twenty-three people over the past month. A lot more.

Was I just being a hypocrite here? I didn’t like Nimbus – he was arrogant and cold. But if I picked any random mage from the British Isles, admitted everything I’d done over the past month, then asked them to compare that to what Nimbus was doing now . . . they’d judge me as worse.

It’s a disturbing feeling, realising something like that. As far as most people were concerned, I was one of the bad guys, and I wasn’t sure they were wrong. The part that really bothered me was that, when I looked back on the decisions that had brought me here, all of them had made sense at the time. There hadn’t been a moment where I’d had a clear choice between good and evil. I’d just had to choose between bad options, over and over again, and things had kept getting worse.

Was there a point at which it had all gone wrong? There had been the point at which Anne picked up the ring, and I’d kept it secret. Then after she’d been possessed, when I’d tried to cover up what she’d done in San Vittore. The attack on Arachne’s lair. The choice I’d been given in Richard’s shadow realm. Facing Abithriax in the bubble realm . . .

Maybe that had been it. That, at least, had been a clear choice. I’d sought out Abithriax, challenged him for the fateweaver and killed him.

But if I hadn’t, Anne and Variam would be dead . . .

I shook my head. No easy choices, no easy answers. And now I was keeping company with generals and politicians, the sort of people who make these kinds of choices every day. Pick option one, these people die. Pick option two, it’s some other people instead. Pick option three, and both groups live, but the problem isn’t solved and will come back at some unspecified time in the future, at which point it’ll probably be worse. Make your choice, and don’t take too long, because tomorrow you’ll have to do it all over again.

Maybe this was how you turned into someone like Levistus. Having to fight for your own position while also having to decide between life and death for the people below you every single day. Over time you’d get numb to it, and eventually you’d stop feeling anything at all. Was I becoming like that?

I didn’t know, and that frightened me.

Five minutes to go. I walked over to Landis.

Landis was going over the attack plan one final time. ‘Remember, the bulk of the enemy forces are going to be shadows.’ He was all business now. ‘Cut through them quickly and don’t slow down, because they won’t stop coming and we need to push as far as possible in the first three minutes. The primary threat will be the two ifrit.’ He glanced over at me. ‘Still two?’

I nodded.

‘Rearguard, remember, your duties are screening only. If enemy reinforcements push across the bridge towards you, pull back immediately. We are anticipating a full-strength push from the keep and I do not want you to get in their way! Rejoin the main force if possible, and if worse comes to worst get out of the line of advance and sit tight. They won’t want to slow down for stragglers.’ Landis looked around. ‘Everyone understand?’

There were nods.

Landis looked to his left. ‘Compass?’

Compass stepped up, a small pixie-like blonde woman with a spring to her step. One of the few women in the Order of the Shield, she was a space mage and Landis’s gate specialist. ‘All right, boys, it’ll be two gates!’ she shouted. ‘Three minutes!’

There was no more chatter. All around, soldiers were doing final checks on their weapons, mages testing their shields. Luna walked quickly over. ‘The ifrit mages in the tombs,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s Caldera and Barrayar, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘They were the first ones Anne took,’ Luna said. ‘So they’re probably possessed by two of the generals, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you haven’t seen Variam in any of the futures.’

‘No.’

‘It’s supposed to take a while for her to summon up one of those jinn,’ Luna said. Her eyes weighed me up. ‘And she must have spent most of last night on that ritual. So . . . maybe she hasn’t had time to possess Vari?’

I didn’t answer.

‘What do you think the chances are?’

‘About zero.’

Luna sighed. ‘I figured.’

‘Two minutes!’ Compass called. I felt the signature of space magic as she started her spell.

Ji-yeong walked over to us. She had her shield on her left arm, and was adjusting her sword in its scabbard. The Council communicator focus in my ear pinged. ‘Nimbus to command group,’ Nimbus’s voice said. ‘All teams report in.’

‘Alpha team ready,’ Rain said in his deep voice.

‘Beta team ready,’ Landis said briskly.

‘. . . Gamma team, ready,’ Sonder said.

‘Gamma team, status,’ Nimbus said.

Lumen spoke over the focus. ‘Accumulator is primed. We can activate remotely at any time.’

‘Confirm charging time estimates.’

‘Minimum charging time to break the keep’s wards and threaten the focus crystal is twelve minutes,’ Sonder said. He sounded nervous. Sonder’s not a battle mage, and this was probably the first time he’d been involved in something on this scale. ‘To guarantee complete destruction of that entire section, we’ll need to charge for seventeen and a half minutes before firing.’

‘Understood,’ Nimbus said calmly. ‘Captain Rain, Captain Landis, you are required to keep your targets engaged for seventeen and a half minutes. Confirm.’

‘Received and understood,’ Rain said.

‘Received and understood,’ Landis said. Whatever he was feeling, he didn’t let any of it show in his voice.

‘Begin final countdown,’ Nimbus ordered.

‘One minute!’ Compass shouted.

‘I don’t like this,’ Luna said quietly to herself.

‘Ji-yeong, stay close to me and Landis,’ I said. ‘If we get tied down with the ifrit, we’ll need you to deactivate the shadows’ spawning mechanism. I’ll cover you while you do.’

Ji-yeong nodded.

‘Thirty seconds!’ Compass shouted.

‘Confirm ready to attack,’ Nimbus said.

‘Ready,’ Landis said curtly.

‘Ready,’ said Rain.

‘You are cleared to attack,’ Nimbus said. ‘I repeat, you are cleared to attack.’

‘GO!’ Landis shouted, his voice booming out over the crowd.

On either side of Compass, just above the grass, a gate shimmered and formed. The first Council forces went through at a run.