“This wasn’t his fault,” he said simply. “He didn’t deserve this.”
She looked down at the dead men whose bodies lay in pieces. “But you killed him.”
“What choice did I have?”
Jenny shook her head, then stared up at the frigate. “Deray is a monster,” she said. “He is the Beast of the Apocalypse made flesh. He turns flesh against flesh and hearts against hearts. He is the defiler.”
Her voice was so strange now. Not like Jenny’s voice.
“Jenny—?”
She lowered the pistol and began to turn away. Then she paused and turned her head, looking over her shoulder at him.
“We love you, Grey,” she said. “We both love you.”
Then she raised both guns and rushed back into the fight.
We both love you.
A sick wave of horror washed through Grey’s soul.
“No…,” he said aloud.
No, he screamed in the empty halls of his breaking heart. He heard a chorus of despairing cries rise up from the defenders and he turned to look. What he saw nearly crushed him. The sky frigate had moved back across the chasm, past the blackened ruin of the bridge, to the far side. The undead aboard the frigate had cast down a dozen ropes, and the remaining soldiers on the far side of the gorge were lashing them to the arms of the metal giant. Then the ship rose again and bore Samson into the air.
Across the chasm.
Toward Paradise Falls.
Samson. An invulnerable engine of destruction. Coming. Not to join the fight, but to end it. To exterminate. To prove that the beast that was Deray was truly the conqueror that would crush the world under foot.
If there had been any part of Grey that was still sane, still undamaged by all that had happened over the last few days, then it broke in that moment. Understanding is a fist, a hammer, a bullet, and it smashed through him.
We both love you.
We.
With a scream so loud it tore blood from his throat, Grey followed her into the fight.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
If war is hell, and if wars are fought on Earth, then Earth itself is hell. At least it is when the flames of war burn hottest. Grey felt his humanity drain away as he fought. Fatigue and pain went with it, leaving behind something else. A construct as cold and inhuman as Samson, who now hung suspended from the airship. Grey saw Deray at the rail, a sword in his hand and a demonic smile on his face.
“Do it, you bastard,” whispered Grey. As if he could hear those words, Deray turned and slashed at the ropes that held Samson. The giant seemed to hang for a moment longer than he should, like a fist poised to deliver a death blow.
Then it fell.
Fell.
Like a comet.
Like the hammer of some ancient god.
Like the footfall of the antichrist.
It fell.
Tons of gleaming metal dropped through the swirling rain directly down toward the barricade. Undead and humans screamed and scattered, falling back as the colossus streaked downward.
Only Grey stood his ground, his Lazarus pistol raised. He had one shot left. One.
He pointed it at the giant and fired.
Knowing that it could do no good, but needing to try anyway. Needing to. The ghost rock bullet struck the bottom of the giant’s foot.
And then …
There was a sound, like a hammer striking a great gong. A ringing, crushing noise that sent Grey flying through the air once more. Flung again like debris.
The sound was accompanied by a flash of blue.
Massive.
Incredible. Greater than anything Grey had ever seen. Bigger than the blast out in Nevada that had torn apart the hills. Bigger than the thunderbolt that had destroyed the great worm in the desert.
Brighter than the sun. The blue fireball seemed to open like a mouth and then clamp its jaws around the giant in the instant before it would have crushed the sandbag barrier. Then, like the fist of God, it punched Samson away. Far away. Away from the barrier. Out toward the chasm in an arc that trailed azure flames. Samson, a crumpled, blackened, twisted parody of the invincible giant it had been, fell into the cleft and vanished from sight. Everyone stood or sprawled in stunned silence. In this moment the world made no sense at all. Not to the living or the dead.
Above them, the sky frigate tilted into the wind, its great balloon ruptured, the hull cracked and splintered. It slid lower in the sky, trailing smoke and gas as it dropped down, yard by yard until its keel bumped against the roof of big barn that stood on the edge of town. The barn that held the late Doctor Saint’s laboratory.
Grey Torrance climbed to his feet, unaware of the blood that ran from a dozen cuts, some of them deep, crisscrossing his frame. He had no weapon now, and his clothes hung in rags.
Everyone else got slowly to their feet. Undead and townsfolk. One by one they turned toward the town, staring at the thing that loomed there in the middle of the rainswept main street.
A wagon.
Ordinary in most ways. Two mules stood trembling in the traces, their ears back and teeth bared in terror.
On the wagon, looking like something from a nightmare invention from the mind of some fevered tinkerer, sat the massive shape of the Kingdom cannon. Blue smoke leaked from its barrel. Leaning against it, small, round, dripping blood, was Percival Saint.
He smiled weakly at the sea of faces. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he pitched backward off the cart to land bonelessly in the mud. He did not even try to break his fall.
“No!” cried a voice, and Thomas Looks Away staggered from the press of the crowd and took a tentative step toward the fallen scientist. Then he stopped and hung his head. He turned slowly back to the barricade and raised his Kingdom rifle. Grey had no idea if the Sioux had any rounds left, but there was pain and murder in his friend’s eyes.
None of the undead moved. There were still nearly two hundred of them. There were fewer of the townsfolk. Maybe a hundred left. Corpses were everywhere. The rain mixed the blood with the soil and mud. Grey saw movement on the sky frigate. Aleksander Deray was still alive. He had a bag of tools slung over his shoulder and was climbing a section of netting to reach the tear in the gas envelope.
“No,” said Grey. “No goddamn way.”
He took a step toward the barn and nearly fell. There was something wrong with his leg and pain exploded upward into his back. He didn’t care. He ate the pain and let it feed his desire to reach Deray. He needed to grasp a throat in his hands, to feel its structure crumble, to hear the rattle of a last breath. He forced himself on. First in a staggering walk, then as he feasted on his own pain, he broke into a run. Behind him, the battle—stalled by shock—began again.
He heard gunfire and screams.
As he ran he saw the ghosts again. No longer under the dead cottonwood. Now they stood in the road that led up to the barn. All of his men, everyone who had died at Bailey Creek. His sergeant, the corporals. All of his friends. Everyone who had trusted him.
And Annabelle.
Of all of them, she was the least substantial. Her shade was like something painted on glass. He could see through her. Her eyes, though, they were intense. Grey braced himself, thinking that they had come to intercept him, but as he ran toward the barn they stepped back to let him pass. The dead giving license to the doomed to fight the damned. He almost laughed. It was comedy. The kind the gods would enjoy. They were perverse enough to find all of this to their liking.
The barn door was closed but Grey launched himself at it and kicked it inward. It flew backward and he landed hard and stumbled inside. The stairs were in the far corner, and Grey ran past the tables filled with strange devices designed by Doctor Saint. He had no idea what any of them were. There were no Kingdom rifles, no Lazarus pistols. Nothing that he could use. All he had left were the Bowie knife on his belt and his fists.
That would have to be enough. If not, then he really would use his bare hands. Or his teeth, if
it came to that.
He heard a dull thump as the frigate bumped once more against the roof. Still there, he thought. Good.
“I’m coming,” he said as he climbed the stairs.
At the top of the second flight there was a ladder that stretched up to a trapdoor. Grey pulled it down, took a breath, and then climbed. The trapdoor had a simple slide bolt, which he shot as quietly as he could, then he raised the door an inch. The pitched roof of the barn, with its rows of black tarpaper shingles, stretched all the way to the edge thirty feet away. The frigate bobbed in the rain just beyond it, turned stern-on to the barn. All of the windows in the stern gallery had been smashed out, and Grey could see the wreckage of what had been an elegantly furnished captain’s cabin. The oak and teak from which the ship was built was ruined now—cracked and warped, singed and fractured. He saw dead men slumped over debris. Instead of a suit of sails, the ship had its big gas envelope, and Deray clung to the nettings and used what looked like a mop to smear some glistening goo along the edges of the tear. Every few seconds he paused, held the swab in one hand, and used the other to press torn sections of the canvas envelope into place. The substance he was applying must have been some kind of glue, because the fabric stuck fast. There was very little of the rupture left, though gas poured out of the diminishing hole with great force. Grey marveled at the strength of the man as he forced the pieces into place against that pressure. Deray must be fantastically strong.
Grey raised the trapdoor all the way and climbed out. There was a single beam running the length of the barn, with the rest of the roof sloping sharply down on either side. The beam was ten inches wide. One slip and he would plummet from the barn.
“So, don’t slip,” he muttered in a voice too quiet for anyone but himself to hear.
He stood up, and despite his confident words his body swayed with fatigue and injury. Even so, he drew his Bowie knife and stepped onto the beam. It wasn’t quite like walking a tightrope, but with the wind and rain it was a foolish and dangerous thing to do. He did it anyway.
Below the barn, the fight raged. He could see Jenny and Looks Away leading the fight, but it was impossible to tell who was winning. Or if “victory” was even possible with so many people already dead.
Deray had his back to him and he was nearly finished repairing the damage from the Kingdom cannon. The necromancer had a thin saber strapped to his waist but no gun. Grey saw only a few of the undead aboard. One lay on the deck, eyes glazed as he stared at the ragged red stumps where his legs had been. A second felt his way blindly along the rail; his face was a charred mask without eyes, lips, or nose.
Only the third was whole and seemed in command of himself. He stood at the wheel of the big frigate, wrestling with it to keep the ship steady in the storm winds.
“That’s done it!” cried Deray as he flung down the mop. “Hard to starboard. Bring her up and around. We’ll land on the far side, load as many troops as we can, and then bring them over here to finish this.”
“Aye aye,” said the dead man as he threw his weight against the wheel.
Neither of the men saw Grey coming. Neither heard him until he leaped from the end of the beam, across the shattered rail and landed with a thump on the deck. Then they both whirled.
The helmsman was closest, so Grey jumped at him and buried the point of the Bowie knife deep into his chest. The point struck the chunk of ghost rock and burst it into fragments of glittering black. There was a screeching sound from the stone and a louder scream from the undead as he staggered backward. As he fell, Grey tore the knife free and faced Deray.
The necromancer stood there, remarkably calm despite this invasion.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Who are you to come aboard my ship? Who are you to try and turn my own servant against me? Who are you to stand in the way of the natural order of things?”
“Natural?” said Grey. “Now that’s a funny damn word coming from you.”
The frigate began to move sideways, shoved by the hands of the storm winds. The sudden shift of the deck forced both men to take steps to keep their balance.
“Who are you?” repeated Deray. “Are you one of Saint’s colleagues? Are you a government agent?”
“Me?” said Grey with a smile, “I’m nobody at all.”
Rain dripped from the brim of Deray’s hat and ran down the length of his sheathed sword. The necromancer studied him with cold and calculating eyes. “Then what is any of this to you? Are you a mercenary? Is that it? Did these pathetic fools hire you? Did Saint or his pet savage hire you?”
“If you mean Thomas Looks Away, then yes. I work for him. He hired me to help protect this town from you and Nolan Chesterfield.”
Deray snorted. “You’re not very good at your job, are you?”
“No? Ask those poor sons of bitches who were on the bridge.”
Deray began pacing across the deck, his head turned so that he watched Grey out of the corner of his eyes. He was a handsome man with intelligent eyes and a smile that was almost charming. In another time and place Grey would have guessed that he was a doctor. Or maybe a stage actor. Even a politician. He had presence and charm, despite the harshness of his words.
“What is your name?” asked the necromancer.
“Grey Torrance. You won’t have heard of me.”
“No, and nor will anyone hereafter. History will not record your name either.”
Grey shrugged and turned in place so that he continued to face the man even as Deray walked in a wide circle around him. The ship shifted around now, orienting itself so that the bow pointed away from the wind. The heavy gusts pushed it toward the chasm and the rest of Deray’s army. Below the keel, the sounds of screams and gunfire continued unabated. Deray waved an arm toward the rail, indicating the battle.
“Listen to them,” he said. “Your employer, his friends, the rest of the town … it’s all going to perish. Soon this town will not even be a footnote in anyone’s register. There will be no trace of it on any map because I will redraw the maps of this world. I will wash it clean of people like this.” He spat the word “people” as if it was bile on his tongue. “This world has become chaotic and disordered. It no longer makes sense and at the rate it is going it will tear itself apart. When I look into the future I see more and greater wars. Not of conquest, not wars to build something that will last. Petty wars without purpose. Wars that do nothing but leave scars upon the earth and empower fools. This country—just look at what has happened to your America. After it broke away from England it showed such promise. It could have become a superior power, it should have become a new empire. One greater than Britain, greater even than Rome. And now it is fractured and divided and everyone here has gone mad.” Deray shook his head. “That is such a waste. I will create a new world and a new world order. Something nobler, better. Something—”
Grey held up a hand. “Listen, Mr. Deray, I’m sure you have a whole soliloquy rehearsed for moments like this. Shakespeare would be jealous, I have no doubt. But can we skip the rest? I don’t give a hairy rat’s ass about your plans. I don’t care why you want to conquer the world or why you think you’re entitled. On the way up here I thought I wanted to ask you those questions, but now that we’re up to it, I just want to slit your goddamn throat.”
The necromancer stopped pacing, and in a much less pretentious tone said, “You are no fun at all, are you? You have no sense of drama, no appreciation for the importance of a moment like this.”
“No, I don’t. As you said, I’m a nobody.” Grey raised the knife and showed it to Deray. The blade was still slick with the dark blood of the dead man he’d stabbed. “All I care about is what happens next.”
“Very well,” said Deray, and with a movement faster than the eye could see, he drew his sword. “Then let us proceed from conversation to murder.”
Chapter Eighty-Eight
The necromancer was fast.
So damned fast. He lunged forward with a thrust that drove straig
ht toward Grey’s heart. It was a beautifully timed movement, expertly delivered, and executed with power and speed. But Grey was waiting for it. He saw the shift of weight, the telltale alignment of posture and movement. Grey believed what he’d said when he told Deray that he was a nobody, but there was a lie even in his own admission.
He was somebody. He was a soldier. A fighter.
A warrior.
He had spent a life in combat and the slanting deck of this airship was not his first battlefield. Not even his hundredth. Grey twisted nimbly away as the saber’s tip sheared through the air where his heart had been. Grey turned his left side along the blade, feeling the cold edge of it trace a burning line along his arm and back as he turned. But at the end of the turn he swung the Bowie knife around in a terrible arc and slashed the blade across Aleksander Deray’s chest.
He had aimed for Deray’s throat, but the man had grasped his own error and tried to evade the counterattack. The Bowie knife sliced through shirt and vest and cut into the man’s skin. A line of red droplets flew into the air and was whipped away by the wind.
Deray howled and lashed out with his free hand, catching Grey across the mouth with the side of a closed fist. The blow was far more powerful than Grey had any right to expect from a normal man. The force of it sent Grey skidding across the deck toward the cabin wall. With a snarl, Deray leaped after him, slashing in a long diagonal line to try and catch his enemy between blade and wall. But Grey took the impact and went with it, shoving himself even faster and harder against the wall so that he struck and rebounded. He jumped to the right and the tip of Deray’s sword scored a line through the wood.
Without pausing, both men closed in for their next attacks—Deray with another diagonal slash and Grey with a lateral cut that would have disemboweled the necromancer. However the combined speed of their attacks brought them together into a bone-jarring crash that truncated each cut. They immediately locked arms around one another to prevent a close-quarters slash, and grappling like that they went into a staggering dance across the wet deck.