“Oh pipe down, boy,” the Electress snapped. “You’re in the same midden-cart as us, if you hadn’t noticed. Whatever she promised you”—Atalina stabbed a blunt finger at Lizanne—“won’t help now. The Emperor’s soldiers will kill us all just the same. You let her take the Tinkerer and she’ll have ghosted on her way by nightfall, leaving us to the slaughter.”
Korian’s cheeks bunched as he switched his glare to Lizanne, the innate suspicion of all things corporate rising in his gaze. “She makes a valid point,” he observed softly. “What assurances can you offer that Ironship will provide the arms they promised? Our agents in Corvus tell us they’re about to conclude a treaty with the Emperor.”
“Merely a matter of convenience,” Lizanne said, hoping her off-hand tone masked the insincerity. In truth she had no idea whether the Board would approve the contract with these fanatics, nor did she care. Their struggle was a distraction from larger concerns.
“She lies!” Helina’s voice was shrill with what Lizanne recognised as the pitch of the recently mad. The small woman stood amongst the Brotherhood, clutching her wounded arm and staring at Lizanne with wild-eyed malice. Demisol and the rest of the Learned Damned had apparently fallen in the charge to the gate, leaving this crazed wretch as their only representative. “Trust nothing that issues from this whore’s mouth!” Helina spat. “You would do the revolution a great service by killing her here and now!”
“You have no authority here, citizen,” Arberus told Helina, pointedly putting a hand on the hilt of his sabre.
“And what authority do you hold?” she snarled in return. “By all accounts you are nothing but this whore’s whore.”
Lizanne resisted the temptation to forestall any further insults via the expedient of smashing every tooth in Helina’s mouth, instead forcing a brisk but determined tone as she directed her words at Korian. “This avails us nothing. We have an agreement. Do you intend to honour it or not?”
“What if he doesn’t?” the Electress broke in, Lizanne turning to find a grin on the woman’s lips. It was a worryingly confident grin. “What if he tells you to fuck right off too? What will you do then, my dear? Use the Blessing to kill us all, perhaps? Got enough product for that?” She gave a meaningful glance to her right and Lizanne saw the reason for her confidence. Varkash was striding towards them from the direction of the blazing guard-house, a dense mob of Wise Fools at his back and a less orderly host of Scuttlers and sundry others on either side. Altogether, Lizanne estimated their number at well over three thousand people. Too many to kill, she knew. Too many to flee from.
“It seems to me,” the Electress went on, now fixing her gaze on Korian but speaking with sufficient volume to ensure the encroaching masses heard her, “we have a limited set of options. We can scatter, take to the hills and forests and scratch a living through banditry. Some of us might live a few years, most will find themselves captured and dangling from a rope within a few weeks. Or we can wait here where we’re certain to get slaughtered once the Emperor’s army turns up. Or we move on. The port city of Vorstek lies two hundred and fifty miles due east. Where’s there’s a port, there’s ships.”
“You propose seizing an Imperial city?” Korian asked with an appalled laugh.
“I don’t want to keep it.” The Electress’s gaze snapped to Lizanne. “Your Syndicate’s got plenty of ships, I hear. More than enough to carry us all away to a nice safe Mandinorian port. Isn’t that right?”
Lizanne watched Varkash come to a halt near by, the other escapees crowding in around to witness the scene. The huge Varestian crossed his arms and directed a steady gaze at Lizanne. He appeared to have emerged from the chaos without injury, and his gaze lacked the fury she saw in many faces. But there was an implacable purpose to it, a promise of inescapable consequences.
“Yes,” Lizanne told the Electress, once again hoping her tone concealed the lie. “I can arrange that. Dependent on his safe delivery,” she added, pointing at Tinkerer.
“Oh, Anatol will take very good care of him, be assured of that.” Atalina pinched Tinkerer’s chin. “As if he were a new-born babe.”
“I fail to see why the Brotherhood should take part in this farce,” Korian said.
“You get the arms she promised when the ships turn up,” the Electress told him. “But you also get something far more valuable.” She laughed and flung her arms out wide, encompassing the unwashed mob. “An army with which to relight the fires of revolution!”
? ? ?
“Two hundred and fifty miles,” Arberus said, scanning the sprawling and disorderly camp with military disdain. “This lot will be lucky to manage another thirty.”
“I wouldn’t under-estimate the Electress’s leadership abilities,” Lizanne cautioned. “In any case we have little option but to follow her course, at least until this army meets defeat, as it surely must before long.”
They sat atop a low hill a dozen miles or so from Scorazin where the Electress had ordered camp be made after a protracted and ill-disciplined march. The ranks had swollen to at least six thousand souls. This was substantially less than the population of Scorazin before the escape, so many having fallen and many others opting to take to their heels rather than join the Electress’s expedition.
Scorazin had burned as they marched away. Although none of the army’s principal figures had ordered it, every structure capable of burning had been put to the torch before the march began. Lizanne understood the instinctive desire that provoked the arson, the deep-set need to wipe this place from the earth thereby removing any chance they might be returned here one day. Inevitably the fires spread to the sulphur mines, birthing an inferno of such intensity it could still be seen on the western horizon.
“It might burn for years,” Arberus mused, watching the yellow-orange glow flicker on the distant clouds. “At the very least the Emperor will have to find himself a new prison. You achieved that if nothing else.”
“Is it true about the treaty?” Lizanne asked. “Is the Emperor close to an agreement with Ironship?”
“The Brotherhood has a few agents within the palace, but their reports are often contradictory. One day it appears the Emperor is entirely lucid and receptive to the delegation’s suggestions, the next he’s raving and executing guardsmen and nobles on a whim. But most agree that, mad or not, he will sign the treaty, if he hasn’t done so already.”
“Then we have a chance of opposing the White in decent strength, at least until we can unlock the secrets in Tinkerer’s head.”
“You’re convinced he’s that important?”
Lizanne thought back to the chamber Tinkerer had shown her, the circle of skeletons, each one a Blood-blessed. “I believe his presence in Scorazin is connected to the Artisan,” she said. “And I doubt it was accidental. He has knowledge that can help us, I’m certain of it.”
“You place a great deal of faith in a long-dead man and a pale-faced youth.”