Chapter 20 #3
“Well, damn,” says Skotch. Out there on her island, the big one in the centre, there’s a clutch of animals, and some of them, at least, he knows by name. Time to go find out what the hell’s gone wrong. Because they’re down one nun and so this place just lost its divine protection.
Because nothing in his life can ever be easy, even getting over there is a trial.
The rat gondoliers usually plying their trade here have fled, and so it’s wade or swim.
And there are precious few animals who can’t swim, honestly, and the water’s not deep, but the cultists won’t doff their robes, and those things get sodden and heavy real quick.
In the end Skotch has to stride laboriously over with the entire cult clinging to him like he’s turned into Mother Possum.
Very aware of eyes on him. Knowing that someone out of all these fugitive beasts will already have turned quisling.
Be running off to the Reds or the Grays or someone, to say that the raccoon everyone was so interested in finally turned up.
Herr Fischer the toad is the one who helps Skotch up out of the water.
A rather token gesture given their difference in sizes, honestly.
The Mauler has his popgun slug across the bulging sack of his body, and Skotch sees a handful of other anarchists there as well.
And, fine, he’s not actually daggers-drawn with them—maybe one of the few factions he isn’t—but that doesn’t mean he’s ever going to be delighted to see this particular group of loose cannons.
There’s Wizzo the Rat, with his bandolier of outsize bullets and some kind of clockwork-assisted crossbow slung under his belly.
There’s a handful of others, squirrels, pigeons, a bat, a salamander with a bright belly, all with the red scarves of revolution proudly displayed.
Warning colours—in this case, warning Skotch that he’s probably picked the wrong side to throw his lot in with.
“Oh look,” he says sourly. “It’s the Revolutionary People’s Front of Neuwien.”
“Herr Bandit has finally put in an appearance,” Fischer observes.
“Ran into some trouble with…” Skotch pauses. “Let’s say just about everyone.”
“Skotch!” And any further verbal fencing is knocked sideways as Lulu totters over. She’s still bandaged up, and probably a bit hazy on painkillers, but apparently she’s pleased to see him. “Skotch, what happened? Where did you go? Did you find—”
“Amerikaner, you brought friends,” Wizzo breaks in. He’s sitting, cradling his crossbow, the other Maulers clustered about him, trying to look more belligerent than they are scared.
“These squeakers?” Skotch says, looking at the rather damp cultists wringing out their robes. “I mean—”
“Not them, Amerikaner,” Wizzo says. One rat finger points, and Skotch looks round to see that the army has arrived.
Armies, even. At one point along the Chapel’s circumference, there’s a crack in the wall that a force of Grays is filing out of, spreading out on the shore and with their beady eyes very much fixed on this central island, and Skotch.
Across the way from them, through one of the overflow pipes, come the Reds, no less a figure than Brass-Shirt at their head, in his polished cuirass.
Eddies of alarm amongst the various camps of refugees, and those closest to either incursion start putting distance between themselves and the uniforms. Some head for the central island, as though the ghost of Saint Frances lingers there.
Others see which way the soldiers are looking and move around the edge, clustering on every outcrop and rock and mound that’s neither between the two hereditary enemies nor in the way of their path to the Chapel’s heart.
Plenty give up on their last hope that the Chapel can offer any kind of sanctuary and just get the hell out by any egress by which the armies aren’t coming in.
“Well, damn,” Skotch says again. He keeps waiting for the two forces to start pot-shotting at one another, but right now trigger discipline prevails.
The Redcoats glower over at the Grays and the Grays scowl right back, but these are squirrels with a chain of command, and their officers are restraining them.
And everyone sees that. Not that they’re working together, because that’s a step too far to describe the détente on display here.
But that they’re pointed in the same direction and not trying to kill one another.
Skotch wonders whether this, here, will start some ripples that might lead to big changes in the future.
The guilds put up with the armies lording it over them, because the armies act as their own counterbalances.
Reds, Grays, that pigeon corps from across the city, they spend more time shoving one another than punching down.
But here’s evidence that it needn’t be that way.
Maybe tomorrow the guilds will start to organise against them, arm up, and throw off the parasitic rule of the militias.
Nice thought. Shame it seems unlikely Skotch’ll be there to see it happen.