“The demarcation barrier itself is the front of the front line!” “Our border soldiers are the back of the front line!”
Bibwit hopped to his feet. “We need to get you to the crystal chamber, Alyss. Your imagination will be strongest there.”
“Great,” said Dodge. “So if Redd happens to remote view her, she’ll know where the Heart Crystal is.” “If Alyss cannot defeat Redd while standing next to the crystal-a necessity Redd’s apparent strength is
calling into question-it won’t matter if we try to hide it from her.”
Whether this convinced Dodge or he had simply resigned himself to the worst, he turned toward the door. “I’ll be with my men.” He was already halfway to the hall when-
“Wait!”
Alyss was standing, a pleading, concerned look in her eyes. But for what was she pleading? She could say nothing to keep him from going-she should say nothing-and she knew it.
He returned to her, but only for a moment. “I forgive you, Alyss. For lying to me. That’s something, isn’t it-a guardsman forgiving his queen?” He kissed her. “Please stay safe. I’ll try to do the same.”
He spun on his heels and was gone, and Alyss allowed Bibwit to lead her from the room.
CHAPTER 42
T HE ARMS dealer was a scurrying creature, a former Glebog who kept his merchandise beneath false drawer bottoms, behind artwork that popped out of frames, and inside clocks and cooking appliances whose mechanical workings had been removed. Hatter waited outside his tent while Weaver purchased as much as she was able with the gems he had given her. She emerged carrying a duffel, inside of which were a couple of AD52s with several additional projectile decks, a quiver of mind riders, and a scorpspitter.
Hatter armed himself in a nearby alley, latching the quiver and scorpspitter to his belt so that his laborer’s coat hid them from view. He pocketed the projectile decks, strapped one of the AD52s to a thigh and reached for the other.
“I’m keeping this one,” Weaver said. “I don’t think you should.”
“I know.”
The luxury of arguing was not an option. “At least wait until I’m inside,” Hatter said. “We only have a chance if I get to Molly before the worst of the fighting starts.”
As they entered Arch’s street, Weaver drifted off alone, loitering at a propaganda stall while Hatter slipped around to the back of the wives’ tent. He peered in through the cut in the canvas he’d made earlier. Nothing had changed inside: still just the thirteen wives, two ministers, and Molly.
From the distance, a rumbling approached, growing in volume.
Hatter pulled the scorpspitter out from under his coat and dropped it into the tent. Sploink! Splish! Bullets of poison splattered against the inside walls, and before the last of the wives ran screaming to the street, Hatter flicked open his wrist-blades and rammed them hard against the tent’s canvas. He stepped through the shreds. The ministers on either side of Molly unloaded their shooters at him, but he moved toward them, his blades deflecting the onslaught of their deadly crystal. He had gone just a step or two when the guard posted outside the tent’s entrance ran in, and behind him, Weaver.
“Hey!” Weaver shouted, and when the guard turned, she dealt a quarter-deck of razor-cards into him. Shwink! Hatter snapped open his belt sabers, twirled and sliced the life out of the ministers. Weaver was
rocking gently on her knees, holding her daughter.
“Your homburg?” Hatter asked.
“I don’t need it anymore,” the girl answered, ashamed.
This wasn’t the time to ask what she meant or to look for it. “We should hurry,” Hatter said. “I can’t move in this.”
With her eyes, Molly indicated her outfit. Hatter slashed the tight-fitting material with his wrist-blades and it fell in tatters without a single knife edge so much as scraping her skin. Weaver ferreted out something for Molly to wear from among the wives’ things. Hatter folded shut his wrist-blades, unlocked one of the bracelets and tossed it to his daughter along with the quiver of mind riders.
“I shouldn’t…” she said, looking glumly at the weapons. “I can’t be trusted. I’ve already messed up enough.”
Hatter stepped over and snapped the bracelet onto her wrist. “No more than any one of us,” he said, then unstrapped his AD52 and-
Fi-fi-fi-fi-fith! Fi-fi-fi-fi-fith!
He spun 360 degrees, dealing razor-cards at the surrounding tent, severing it in two-the wind blowing away the top half, the bottom half dropping to the ground.
Arch’s warriors were filling the street and adjacent tents. Hatter slammed projectile deck after projectile deck into his AD52’s ammo bay, dealing razor-cards at them until the last of his limited supply was gone and the weapon clicked empty. He used his one set of wrist-blades as a shield, their high-powered rotary action knocking the kill-quills, crystal shot, poison bullets, and razor-cards of his enemy toward unsoughtfor targets. Molly, wearing his other set of wrist-blades, apprehensively shielded their backside, and Weaver kept snug between them, firing her AD52.
“Follow close behind me!” Hatter yelled.
He charged straight at the Doomsine warriors in the street, his whirring wrist-blades held out in front of him. Doink! Patingk! Ping! The enemies’ missiles ricocheted off his blades, which stuttered and slowed when one of the warriors failed to get out of his way. But now they were on the move, he and Weaver and Molly hurrying down the street, and the Milliner might have considered this an improvement in his family’s situation if enemy fire hadn’t been coming at them from every direction, blasting out of heavily covered positions.
A flash of light: An orb generator came rocketing toward them. “Take cover!”
Father, mother, and daughter dove to the ground as one. Krachboooooooooooooooooooooooffffsh!
The quiet that settled after the explosion might have belonged to the grave, but soon they heard the thump of debris raining down around them. Every tent in the camp had collapsed. The Doomsines they’d been battling just a moment before were standing in stupefied silence, looking off at the horizon.
Hatter motioned for Weaver and Molly to crawl under the nearest tent and he crawled in after them. Whatever was going on outside, if it lasted long enough, they might be able to slip from one tent to another, unnoticed, and escape to the edge of camp.
Arch was being entertained by wives numbered nine, sixteen, twenty-three, and thirty-two when a minister rushed in and-
“Your Majesty,” the minister said, the rest of his words lost in the roar and rumble of an engine that grew increasingly louder until it was directly outside the tent. The minister finished speaking, the engine cut off, and Redd flounced in followed by The Cat, Vollrath, Siren Hecht, and Alistaire Poole.
“What, back already?” Arch said, not quite hiding his annoyance.
“Grouchy because I interrupted your family frolic, Archy?” Redd smirked. “I think I feel a pang of jealousy.”
“They’re my wives, Redd. They mean nothing to me.”
“Really? Then you won’t mind if I…” Redd made as if to throw her scepter as she would a spear. Boils and hairy cysts and mustaches shot out from its shriveled heart and lodged on the faces of the four wives, spoiling their pretty looks. “There, that’s better.” Redd turned back to Arch and wiggled her scepter.
“Do you know what this is?”
“It looks like a rotten bedpost that should have been incinerated long ago.”
“Close. It’s the scepter meant for me as queen, retrieved from my Looking Glass-”