Chapter 70
Maya took to the skies on Applekill's wings and surveyed her screaming, infected city. People fled their homes, scrabbling to escape squat, spidery Disciples. Across the city, in every quarter and Outer Aureu, they were under attack. She counted a dozen swarms before another Cyrus Force user shot up to her.
It was Request. “Shit, Maya, what the fuck happened?”
“No time. Kill every Disciple. You take the east, I'll take the west.”
The young Acolyte nodded, then they shot down to Aureu.
Maya landed sword first in a crowd of the Disciple spiders – these Black Widows – in northern Buyer's Haven, crushing six creatures as they neared a group of shrieking Zoners. The remaining spidery devils turned on her, scything their needling legs into Mission's protection. Maya slammed Mission's ring against them, throwing the monsters away or cutting them in two. It took quick reactions, frantic expulsion of Cyrus Force, but nearly a hundred were soon dead.
“We can't continue like this,” Mission said. “That took too long.”
“I know,” Maya said as she took to the sky, found the nearest swarm. “But we must fight.”
The Black Widows were all over the people they chased, delivering their horrible poisons so they died screaming. She roared as she threw herself across Aureu, landing just short of a pack. As she plummeted, she drew Applekill.
Controlling both Spirits required great concentration: sustaining links with two different mantras, different emotions and energies. She likened it to reading two books at once, one for each eye. It helped that Applekill and Mission were distinctive, but she couldn't afford to mix the two energies and waste both.
Maya fell into a fierce, hopefully-unbreakable battlemind and cleared the Disciple monsters from their victims. She made tough calls, prioritising those who still had fight left in them over the convulsing. Applekill melted metal hides, Mission sliced them apart, and they destroyed hundreds of Disciples, but only saved twelve people: the rest were already doomed from the poison in their systems.
Impotent rage, pitch and oily, crawled along the edge of her battlemind as she went from one glut of Disciples to next. This feeling rose and encircled her, probing at her self-control for a weakness, a release for whatever cruel aims it had. Maya tried to ignore it as she spotted children running from forty Disciple spiders, and was thankful when it relented for the fight that followed.
Whatever that overcoming darkness was, it didn't feel like part of her: it was akin to a parasite or a disease. Had she been in a normal state of mind, an alien infesting her psyche would have chilled her to her core. As it was, she continued fighting compromised: the rage urged her to go too far, to destroy whole blocks of Aureu to guarantee victory. It was only deep in her meditative state, her connections to her Spirits unyielding, that she could resist repeating the destruction she wreaked during the Second Invasion.
Sometimes, when she took to the air, she saw Request's inky Cyrus Force crashing down on more Disciples. They both worked down from the north, unconsciously matching tactics.
In some areas, people wearing matching clothes or daubed armour fought for their lives, furiously slicing into the Disciple bastards. Conventional weapons were more effective than Maya had expected. When she found one Gang had killed all but one Black Widow in a hoard, she changed tack: the Contegon and Shield populations of Sol's Greeting, Warrior's Welcome, and Sol's Landing would protect them, so she swept along the Journey to save the Merchants and Mariners fighting at Ocean's Edge. When done there, with a thousand kills to her name, she saw to Outer Aureu, cleared eight more clutches.
Working together with Request and the people of Aureu, they eventually destroyed every Disciple. She used much of Mission's energy and half of Applekill's in the fights: the icy Spirit was happy to be her armour, preferring to protect her instead of Applekill, who didn't argue at being left out.
Request flew into the air and remained still. Maya met her over the centre of Aureu, searching together for any Black Widows they missed. They saw people weeping over lost ones, and others cheering and raising their friends above their heads after surviving a Disciple attack without Contegons, Shields, or Acolytes. It was a cruel mix of desperate joy and broken sorrow, but it was better than a screaming city.
“Maya...” Request said when she was sure there was no more fighting to be done. Her eyes were streaming with tears, and her robes were soaked with sweat. Just like Maya's.
When she too was convinced they were done, Maya reached across and embraced her Acolyte, a Spirit-to-Spirit touch that felt as good as physical contact. The young girl – and she was just a girl, as Maya had been when she turned Heretic against the city she loved – sobbed.
“What happened?” Request asked. “What fucking happened?”
“We found the Heretic responsible for Lun's Burst. They were working with the Disciples.”
Request pushed Maya away, faced her. “Who was it?”
“Flux.”
“Flux? Flux? The fucking Farmer? I'll kill him, I'll–”
Maya shook her head. “No, not yet. You can be the executioner if you want, but he must stand for his crimes. For all of this... this murder. The people will need closure.”
Request looked down, her inky wings flapping to keep her afloat. She arced her back up at Lun and howled, a guttural and prehistoric noise. Maya examined her for signs of that horrible blackness which had infested her and found no sign of it: Request was venting normal, human pain and fury.
“At least,” Request said as she stared at Lun, her voice now croaky. “At least we can trust the prosecutors of the Hereticum. You and Tone won't allow the bastard to escape.”
“Request, Tone...” Maya couldn't say any more, her resolved breaking apart. She closed her eyes and felt tears gather to their corners.
“No. No, Maya, no! Don't you fucking say that!” Request grabbed Maya's shoulders, shook her, which momentarily affected her ability to fly. They descended until Request let go and shouted, “Don't you fucking tell me that Flux killed Tone.”
“He didn't. His Servant did.”
“Maya, no, no...”
Maya kept her eyes screwed shut, unable to look at her young Acolyte. “Receptacle was their connection to the Disciples. He seemed to be the one who planned this. When Tone and I confronted Flux, he assaulted us with those Black Widows. Tone... Tone was killed instantly.”
“Fuck. That's…. Why didn't you save her? What in the name of Sol were you doing?”
“You saw those things,” Maya shouted. “One can kill you in a moment. A dozen...”
Request shoved Maya back, fury in her voice. “And you're the god damn Acolyte Councillor. You're supposed to be the most powerful of us all. Why didn't you save her? Why?”
“Request...”
Maya opened her eyes and looked at her raging, brilliant young Acolyte. She was full of fire, of anger, but it was healthy, normal. And it was a cover for the pain of seeing so many deaths, the most of which was Tone’s. They must have grown close during their investigations.
“Request, I'm...” Maya nearly choked. “She was my friend too… I'm sorry...”
The young Acolyte shook her head and sobbed, a tiny, hurt sound.
Maya was about to comfort her when her mind was invaded by a strange sensation, a vibrating coldness. It made her stop, drew her attention to a patch of sky just by them, where an image formed.
“Do you feel that?” Request asked. She too was looking at that patch of sky.
“I do. And I don't know what it is.”
A hairless woman with blue veins throughout her form shimmered into existence. She wore simple, dark clothing, and the expression of a vicious statue. Tubes entered and exited her, pumping materials around them like Nephilim had with Candle. Some tubes disappeared, as though connected to the darkness.
Request reached out grabbed Maya's hand. A barrage of screams assailed them from below, and terror-tinged Cyrus Force filled the air: the two
Acolytes were not the only ones seeing this.
“I shall not be long,” the strange woman whispered. “I detected that our Black Widow Models had been engaged, so I thought it only fair to contact you. People of Aureu – Contegons, Shields, Acolytes, and Councillors – I am Brya of the organisation you call the Disciples, and I formally declare war on you. Each of you will die at my will, if not my hand. If you wish to survive, convert to our cause or leave this land.”
Brya... the name meant something. Hadn’t Nephilim and Candle mentioned it during their rushed preparations to save Aureu? Yes, she was the leader of the Disciples, the sick mind behind their constant assault and destruction of the people of Aureu.
“Fuck you,” Request hissed at her image. “You will be torn to shreds.”
The Disciple Leader's expression softened: however she connected to so many people, it wasn't easy on her. “I say farewell on this note: we have infiltrated your government on almost every level, and we have barely started. Consider that as you gather your dead.”
Brya disappeared, gone more rapidly than she had appeared.
“That was our true enemy,” Maya whispered. “She has hidden behind her Disciples for years, only now showing her face. Finally, we have seen her.”
“How do you know that?”
Maya turned to Request. “When I received the Gift, I was warned to beware of Brya. It's not a name our people would choose, so it was easy to do so. Even easier when she just appears before the whole city.”
“Then I will be the one to kill her, Maya,” Request said.
“Not if I get there first.”
Request smiled slightly. “Listen, Maya, about before–”
“Water along the Journey,” Maya said with a nod. “Let's report to the Council. They will want to hear confirmation that Brya's words were the truth.”
Request nodded and shot down toward Sol's Haven. Maya stayed a second longer, examined the spot where Brya had materialised: that’s the woman she was taught Cyrus Force control to kill, the hateful enemy who’d ended thousands of lives. She wondered how Nephilim had known her name, having been under the ground for most of his life: maybe the name was passed down through the Woodsman's history... which meant Brya had to have been in charge for more than a century, a strange and ancient being.
Maya followed Request then, keeping her eye on the young Acolyte. No matter how old Brya was, or what Request thought, that creature would die by Maya's will, if not her hand.