dragon bard (beta)
Chapter eight: ruthless
This is a work in progress, meant for newsletter subscribers only! Please keep the link private, and excuse any typos, etc--fully edited book to come fall 2021!
Makina dropped. Clutched at her chest like all bodies affected by a chemicist do, then fell to her knees, then onto her side, laying over the lifeless body next to her, enough life snow swirling in the air that she prayed it looked convincing.
It wouldn’t be long-term, of course. Any Hands proficient enough to pass their exams would know to check the bodies, and any chemicist or thermagent would be able to read her body as too alive from paces away. But if she could get them all past her, get them all focused on whatever was ailing their comrade at the back door, then perhaps she would have a chance at the side door.
She kept her eyes open, unfocused, staring. Yes. The pack of four strode through the thinning mob at the front, faces flushed with battle, not a wound between them, already sticking threads into the crowd battling at the back door.
She had been those flushed, self-confident fighters once. Had been that hand of the Empress’ justice, eliminating whoever she was told, knowing only the rush of her power, the thrill of the possibility that this time, she would miss something. This time, some regular human would manage to trick her, to best her.
They never had. No wonder she’d been arrogant enough to come here.
The quartet passed, not-Alamina at their head, punching kinetic threads into the bodies at the back. Poor fools.
No, Makina thought viciously, crawling in quick bursts over the bodies of the fallen, trying to balance the risk of being seen with the need to get out. I’m the fool, for not showing more caution. For not checking the ship. Not staying away anyway. I got lazy. Another jerk of motion, rolling herself a pace closer to the door, someone’s discarded knife jabbing her through her furs.
No, that wasn’t it. She hadn’t been careless. She’d been bored. She’d been excited by the idea of a little danger, after sixteen years spent playing it safe. Still the Empress’ Hand, at heart. No rush left in life but the possibility of losing it.
She felt none of that now. What she felt in her heart, like a tide of black seawater rising to drown her, was dread. Dread for Kantalo, that he would wake motherless. Dread that he would blame himself, for her coming. That he would be alone in this world. This horrible, dangerous world she’d helped make.
Most of all, dread that they would trace her back to him.
That thought clutching at her heart, she risked one more jerking roll, the side door just a few paces away now, though the sounds of battle were dying at the back.
“Ah, what have we here, now?” came a voice far closer than it should have been.
Dread froze into determination, seawater hitting the absolute refusal that she would die here, alone, without Kantalo. That she would abandon him. A hand rolled her over, snorting softly at her unfocused gaze. “You’re not fooling me, friend.”
Makina rammed the needle into the man’s heart and jerked, no time to transfer the energy. It hit her like a punch to the gut, but it didn’t matter. He jerked once, eyes not even widening, then fell on her. That was how it happened, when kineticists stopped a heart. No chance of recovery, so long as she kept the thread tight, kept draining the twitches the heart muscle tried to make, its desperate attempts to restart itself. She could do it. The only problem was--
“Don’t move, bitch.” Someone shoved the man’s body off her, and Makina was left staring into the eyes of not-Alamina.
The girl’s eyes widened, following the thread from Makina’s hand to her comrade’s heart. “Let him go,” she spat, threading her own chemicist’s thread into Makina’s core. “Let him go or I kill you now.”
Makina snarled, jerking a second thread around the man’s spinal cord and tying it to her left hand, slowly, obviously, so even a chemicist could follow the actions.
“One jerk and he’s dead,” Makina said. “You know that, right? They taught you that in your fucking pathetic excuse for a training camp?” The words came unbidden from her mouth, acerbic, a dialectic she thought she’d forgotten years ago. “Then step the fuck back and let me go, or your friend dies.”
Not-Alamina snarled, the three other Hands gathering around her, then waved them back. “Go then. You’ll never escape alive.”
One of the other Hands was staring at her—the chemicist, from the back. “Ruthless?” he breathed. “Is that you?”
Fuck. Even worse. Makina stood, knowing it was a stupid gambit, but it was all she had. All Hands were trained to accept the loss of their comrades before their mission. They would kill her if she affected their goals at all. “Doesn’t matter who I am. I’m leaving.”
“Look at her,” the chemicist insisted. “That’s goddamned Ruthless! You know, the most famous Hand that ever lived? How are you still alive, anyway?”
“By this one thread, apparently,” Makina growled. “Now get out of my way.”
The chemicist smiled, broad, apologetic. “Well, we can’t let you go, of course, even if Nash here has a soft spot for the tall one. Whose heart you really should let start beating, you know. He’ll get stupid if you wait much longer. And then we really will have to kill you.”
Makina’s mind raced, Hands spreading out around her like the arms of a trap, air sharp with the salt-sugar taste of the chemicist’s work. Leave and be chased down. Kill the kineticist now and be killed a moment later.
Or risk her chances on this one kid’s apparent respect for a seventeen-years-dead reputation.
“Got me,” she said, dropping the threads. “Fuck. How did you know? Was it the beard?”
“I knew it!” the chemicist crowed, slapping an arm into not-Alamina—her name was Nash, apparently. “I fucking knew it! That’s Ruthless the goddamned Raven right there! Alive after all these years, on the ice of all places! You were supposed to be dead in Pentag!”
Makina grinned, trying to summon the cold-blooded humor she knew would ingratiate her here. “City’s got a hell of drainage system.”
“So you ran?” Nash demanded, while the long-haired kineticist spasmed and coughed on the pile of corpses, the color returning to his face. “You abandoned your brothers and sisters?”
“I have no brothers and sisters, remember?” Makina deadpanned, ramming the knife she still held back into her boot.
“Fuck,” the chemicist said again, like this was all some wildly entertaining play, and not the sad epilogue to a wholesale massacre. “That’s right. The only initiation in history to have a single survivor. Going to need that knife, by the way. Not sure what we’re going to do with you, but can’t have you walking around with that kind of weaponry, can we?” He chuckled to himself, taking the blade. “Powers-fucking Ruthless herself. Butterblades, get her weapons, huh?”
Makina let the girl search her, fingers quick and efficient, eyes dark and lifeless. She remembered seeing her own eyes like that in the water, flat like a shark’s. The end result of Her Majesty’s best training program. What a farce.
The tall one sucked in a breath, pushing up, one hand to his head. “What in power’s sweet cunt—”
“The Ruthless goddamned Raven is what, Nails. You just about got your neck snapped by the Raven herself. You oughta be honored!”
Nails grunted. “Glad someone’s excited about it.”
“And now we need to snap her neck,” Nash said, shedding her blood-stained Dukress dress for a form-fitting set of blacks. “We’ve been here too long. People will have heard, and we don’t need that. We’re not done yet. Kill her and let’s go.”
Makina’s gut tightened, readying the threads in her mind, one for each neck. Four threads, one quick jerk—there was no way she’d pull it off, of course, but she had to try. Just one thread, then. She’d take Nash with her, at least. She was the worst.
“Ease up,” the chemicist said. “You’re in the presence of a legend. And anyway, she can help us. Look like you’ve been living here a while, eh Ruthless?”
Makina pivoted, seeing her opportunity. It wasn’t much, probably wasn’t anything at all, but it was better than dying. “You need their leader. I can do that.”
“Unless you are their leader,” Nash spat. “It’d be like you, to try running as soon as things went south.
Makina let the insult slide. This bitch had no idea what the empire had been like during the war. Probably hadn’t even been born yet. But that wasn’t the thing to say here. “I’m not.”
“Ooh, but it’d be juicy if you were,” the chemicist grinned. “And give us an excuse not to freeze our asses off any longer. Are you sure?”
“Right. Why should we believe you?” the long-haired kineticist said, already steady on his feet as he stood, pulling the hair from his face.
“Because there’s no way in fuck I’d organize this”—she swept her arm at the piles of bodies—“without at least a secondary ambush in case cunts like you showed up. Archers in the rafters, maybe. Poison tips.”
The chemicist raised his eyebrows. “She makes a compelling argument. Come on, Nash, can we keep her? She can be our local informant and all that. Save us weeks out here. Powers know the wardens are worthless for it.”
The Hand named Nash scowled, looking Makina up and down. “No weapons. No freedom. No chances to escape. I want a thread in her at all times, all right? We’ll trade watches.” She got right into Makina’s face, her eyes as hard as any Hand’s had ever been. “You’re going to help me finish this mission, and then you’re going to fuck off before we remember you’ve had a kill order on your head for two decades. Try anything before that, and we do remember, Ruthless or not. Deal?”
Makina nodded, not trusting her voice to answer. She didn’t give a fuck about their deal. She just wanted Kantalo back, and if she had to pretend suss out and execute some rebel leader to do it, fine, she would do it. She would do anything.
And if the opportunity came to escape sooner, and it came over the corpses of this fistful of Hands, she would do that too.
Nash scowled. “Good. Then let’s move.”
It wouldn’t be long-term, of course. Any Hands proficient enough to pass their exams would know to check the bodies, and any chemicist or thermagent would be able to read her body as too alive from paces away. But if she could get them all past her, get them all focused on whatever was ailing their comrade at the back door, then perhaps she would have a chance at the side door.
She kept her eyes open, unfocused, staring. Yes. The pack of four strode through the thinning mob at the front, faces flushed with battle, not a wound between them, already sticking threads into the crowd battling at the back door.
She had been those flushed, self-confident fighters once. Had been that hand of the Empress’ justice, eliminating whoever she was told, knowing only the rush of her power, the thrill of the possibility that this time, she would miss something. This time, some regular human would manage to trick her, to best her.
They never had. No wonder she’d been arrogant enough to come here.
The quartet passed, not-Alamina at their head, punching kinetic threads into the bodies at the back. Poor fools.
No, Makina thought viciously, crawling in quick bursts over the bodies of the fallen, trying to balance the risk of being seen with the need to get out. I’m the fool, for not showing more caution. For not checking the ship. Not staying away anyway. I got lazy. Another jerk of motion, rolling herself a pace closer to the door, someone’s discarded knife jabbing her through her furs.
No, that wasn’t it. She hadn’t been careless. She’d been bored. She’d been excited by the idea of a little danger, after sixteen years spent playing it safe. Still the Empress’ Hand, at heart. No rush left in life but the possibility of losing it.
She felt none of that now. What she felt in her heart, like a tide of black seawater rising to drown her, was dread. Dread for Kantalo, that he would wake motherless. Dread that he would blame himself, for her coming. That he would be alone in this world. This horrible, dangerous world she’d helped make.
Most of all, dread that they would trace her back to him.
That thought clutching at her heart, she risked one more jerking roll, the side door just a few paces away now, though the sounds of battle were dying at the back.
“Ah, what have we here, now?” came a voice far closer than it should have been.
Dread froze into determination, seawater hitting the absolute refusal that she would die here, alone, without Kantalo. That she would abandon him. A hand rolled her over, snorting softly at her unfocused gaze. “You’re not fooling me, friend.”
Makina rammed the needle into the man’s heart and jerked, no time to transfer the energy. It hit her like a punch to the gut, but it didn’t matter. He jerked once, eyes not even widening, then fell on her. That was how it happened, when kineticists stopped a heart. No chance of recovery, so long as she kept the thread tight, kept draining the twitches the heart muscle tried to make, its desperate attempts to restart itself. She could do it. The only problem was--
“Don’t move, bitch.” Someone shoved the man’s body off her, and Makina was left staring into the eyes of not-Alamina.
The girl’s eyes widened, following the thread from Makina’s hand to her comrade’s heart. “Let him go,” she spat, threading her own chemicist’s thread into Makina’s core. “Let him go or I kill you now.”
Makina snarled, jerking a second thread around the man’s spinal cord and tying it to her left hand, slowly, obviously, so even a chemicist could follow the actions.
“One jerk and he’s dead,” Makina said. “You know that, right? They taught you that in your fucking pathetic excuse for a training camp?” The words came unbidden from her mouth, acerbic, a dialectic she thought she’d forgotten years ago. “Then step the fuck back and let me go, or your friend dies.”
Not-Alamina snarled, the three other Hands gathering around her, then waved them back. “Go then. You’ll never escape alive.”
One of the other Hands was staring at her—the chemicist, from the back. “Ruthless?” he breathed. “Is that you?”
Fuck. Even worse. Makina stood, knowing it was a stupid gambit, but it was all she had. All Hands were trained to accept the loss of their comrades before their mission. They would kill her if she affected their goals at all. “Doesn’t matter who I am. I’m leaving.”
“Look at her,” the chemicist insisted. “That’s goddamned Ruthless! You know, the most famous Hand that ever lived? How are you still alive, anyway?”
“By this one thread, apparently,” Makina growled. “Now get out of my way.”
The chemicist smiled, broad, apologetic. “Well, we can’t let you go, of course, even if Nash here has a soft spot for the tall one. Whose heart you really should let start beating, you know. He’ll get stupid if you wait much longer. And then we really will have to kill you.”
Makina’s mind raced, Hands spreading out around her like the arms of a trap, air sharp with the salt-sugar taste of the chemicist’s work. Leave and be chased down. Kill the kineticist now and be killed a moment later.
Or risk her chances on this one kid’s apparent respect for a seventeen-years-dead reputation.
“Got me,” she said, dropping the threads. “Fuck. How did you know? Was it the beard?”
“I knew it!” the chemicist crowed, slapping an arm into not-Alamina—her name was Nash, apparently. “I fucking knew it! That’s Ruthless the goddamned Raven right there! Alive after all these years, on the ice of all places! You were supposed to be dead in Pentag!”
Makina grinned, trying to summon the cold-blooded humor she knew would ingratiate her here. “City’s got a hell of drainage system.”
“So you ran?” Nash demanded, while the long-haired kineticist spasmed and coughed on the pile of corpses, the color returning to his face. “You abandoned your brothers and sisters?”
“I have no brothers and sisters, remember?” Makina deadpanned, ramming the knife she still held back into her boot.
“Fuck,” the chemicist said again, like this was all some wildly entertaining play, and not the sad epilogue to a wholesale massacre. “That’s right. The only initiation in history to have a single survivor. Going to need that knife, by the way. Not sure what we’re going to do with you, but can’t have you walking around with that kind of weaponry, can we?” He chuckled to himself, taking the blade. “Powers-fucking Ruthless herself. Butterblades, get her weapons, huh?”
Makina let the girl search her, fingers quick and efficient, eyes dark and lifeless. She remembered seeing her own eyes like that in the water, flat like a shark’s. The end result of Her Majesty’s best training program. What a farce.
The tall one sucked in a breath, pushing up, one hand to his head. “What in power’s sweet cunt—”
“The Ruthless goddamned Raven is what, Nails. You just about got your neck snapped by the Raven herself. You oughta be honored!”
Nails grunted. “Glad someone’s excited about it.”
“And now we need to snap her neck,” Nash said, shedding her blood-stained Dukress dress for a form-fitting set of blacks. “We’ve been here too long. People will have heard, and we don’t need that. We’re not done yet. Kill her and let’s go.”
Makina’s gut tightened, readying the threads in her mind, one for each neck. Four threads, one quick jerk—there was no way she’d pull it off, of course, but she had to try. Just one thread, then. She’d take Nash with her, at least. She was the worst.
“Ease up,” the chemicist said. “You’re in the presence of a legend. And anyway, she can help us. Look like you’ve been living here a while, eh Ruthless?”
Makina pivoted, seeing her opportunity. It wasn’t much, probably wasn’t anything at all, but it was better than dying. “You need their leader. I can do that.”
“Unless you are their leader,” Nash spat. “It’d be like you, to try running as soon as things went south.
Makina let the insult slide. This bitch had no idea what the empire had been like during the war. Probably hadn’t even been born yet. But that wasn’t the thing to say here. “I’m not.”
“Ooh, but it’d be juicy if you were,” the chemicist grinned. “And give us an excuse not to freeze our asses off any longer. Are you sure?”
“Right. Why should we believe you?” the long-haired kineticist said, already steady on his feet as he stood, pulling the hair from his face.
“Because there’s no way in fuck I’d organize this”—she swept her arm at the piles of bodies—“without at least a secondary ambush in case cunts like you showed up. Archers in the rafters, maybe. Poison tips.”
The chemicist raised his eyebrows. “She makes a compelling argument. Come on, Nash, can we keep her? She can be our local informant and all that. Save us weeks out here. Powers know the wardens are worthless for it.”
The Hand named Nash scowled, looking Makina up and down. “No weapons. No freedom. No chances to escape. I want a thread in her at all times, all right? We’ll trade watches.” She got right into Makina’s face, her eyes as hard as any Hand’s had ever been. “You’re going to help me finish this mission, and then you’re going to fuck off before we remember you’ve had a kill order on your head for two decades. Try anything before that, and we do remember, Ruthless or not. Deal?”
Makina nodded, not trusting her voice to answer. She didn’t give a fuck about their deal. She just wanted Kantalo back, and if she had to pretend suss out and execute some rebel leader to do it, fine, she would do it. She would do anything.
And if the opportunity came to escape sooner, and it came over the corpses of this fistful of Hands, she would do that too.
Nash scowled. “Good. Then let’s move.”
