Chapter The Lilies Wretched #2
The root remolds in the rhythm of the firefight.
A garbage chute becomes a stairwell, the clinic an arms depot, the corridors a shifting labyrinth.
Shortcuts and battlements open at the hiss of a venomous canister.
R he was much taller, lithe, with a lopsided, handsome smile and debts up to his shoulder.
They embraced, shared a cigarette, spoke about his new job at Borisch he forfeits the dunnies.
He claims the bridge and lays siege to the tenements where the enemy camps for the night, conquering half of Joyous Healing in one swoop.
He is ambushed by Metaldrip spearmen, and he cuts through them like wet clay.
When a rogue shot dislodges his mask, he discards it, tearing barefaced through the haze.
For the first time, he knows combat as it should be, as they told him it would be when they first put a repeater in his hands.
For the first time, he knows the ecstasy of sacrifice, the equivalence of death and beauty, the raison d’être of the Autotomic Brigade.
The siege continues for four days. They rest in shifts, or not at all; they take turns talking to the reporters that trundle down the elevator to document the corporate spat.
They loot the pantries and shops on Joyous Healing, they loot the bodies of the fallen.
Dawn recovers his captain’s arm and, rageful with grief, strips her fingers and uses each phalanx as a bullet.
When he flushes Franz Sreckt from his swarm of contractors, he gags him with a strip of her rubber tendon.
The ratty little man is cornered in the back room of a cobbler’s shop, where he immediately falls to his knees, begging for mercy.
Despite, or because of, this display of unrepentant cowardice, Dawn shows none.
He pushes Franz to the ground, stuffs his mouth, kneels on his wrist and slowly, meticulously, cuts off his thumb.
Two exterminators hold the man down while Dawn breaks the appendage.
He disarticulates the joint, then slices through the muscle with a whittling knife.
It comes away messily, in a dozen spurts of blood and a shrieking plea from its owner, but it is easily cleaned.
He scrapes its edges, wipes away the blood, shines the emerald ring still encircling it, and carries it back to R Florian, in contrast, embodies the art.
Steeped in ecdytoxin since his conception, every one of his cells has been cultivated for this exact task.
He is younger than Mallory, tireless and ruthless, and it takes only one off-beat parry to draw blood.
As soon as Mallory backs onto a landing, Florian whips his saber across his sleeve. A thin rope of red streaks the air.
Mallory stumbles back, loosening his grip on his hilt.
As he falters, Florian forces him toward the huge purple eye of a rose window, intent on driving him through.
The little Impaler advances with merciless speed, saber tipped in blood and the threads of his opponent’s shirtsleeve.
Mallory teeters, parries, wavering between falling to Florian’s blade or to the crowded street below.
Aster staggers to the base of the staircase, reaching into her purse for her stinger.
She has better aim than most, but the two figures seem to shrink in the glassy light, down the tunnel of her wheezing panic.
When a feint and a quick swipe draws a splatter of blood from Mallory’s forehead, Aster snaps the pearl safety from its place.
The wood heats in her hand. She steadies Florian in her sights, rests a finger over the trigger, and is immediately tackled by the nearest Tender Guard.
The gun discharges. Aimlessly, the bullet wails through the air, and the weapon spins from Aster’s hand.
The rose window shatters, spilling needles of pink light.
Florian throws one arm over his head, but Mallory steps through the deluge, a merciless fury in his eye.
He raises his blade, letting it drop from his injured hand to his good one, and swipes at Florian.
His smile glows in the scintillations of glass.
Right before the Guardsman shoves Aster’s face to the floor, she sees Mallory’s blow.
Neither graceful nor clean, it darts across Florian’s cheek, up his jaw to his nose; he stumbles backward, gash swelling with blood.
Before he can regain himself, Mallory thrusts the blade toward his throat.
The tip glides through his collar, then through flesh, and emerges from the back of his neck.
Wide-eyed, pinned by his last breath, Florian hovers in shock.