One of the Sentinels stopped in front of Frey, ushering the other men past him. More were coming up behind, ten or twelve at least. Three of them carried the various parts of a gatling gun. ‘Come on!’ the Sentinel urged Frey. ‘There are Coalition troops right behind us!’
Frey didn’t miss a beat. He’d always been an agile liar. ‘Thank the Allsoul, brother! When I lost my unit, I thought I was dead!’
‘Get going!’ the Sentinel told him, and Frey ran off with the rest of the Awakeners, who were conveniently hurrying in the general direction of the Ketty Jay.
The recruits were mostly rural folk, by their dress. Some wore stitched Ciphers on their clothes, others didn’t. Some were grimly determined, some looked scared. The Awakener army was a rag-tag mob of untrained recruits. No match for the disciplined Coalition forces. The Archduke’s men could mop these fellers up without the help of people like Frey.
He kept pace with them, waiting for an opportunity to dump them and get away. It occurred to him that he might stay with them, and get to Trinica that way, but there was no chance he was leaving the Ketty Jay behind. Rot knew what would happen if Jez got at the controls, and she was the only other crew member who could fly her.
The street they were following ended in a small square with an ornamental fountain in the centre, long dry. The houses on all sides had been shaken to pieces by the quake. Weeds grew thick among cracked flagstones and piles of broken bricks. Flashes of light from above gave them brief snapshots of the ruin that surrounded them.
They were halfway across when a dozen Coalition soldiers ran into the square from a road to their left. The soldiers were as surprised as the Awakeners, and for a moment no one did anything but stare. No one but Frey, who threw himself over the stone lip of the fountain just before both sides let loose on one another.
Rifles and pistols snapped, men shouted, some shrieked as they were hit. Frey kept his head down while the rest of the Awakeners came piling into cover around him. Some of them had gunshot wounds. One man was shot in the back while trying to help another over.
The Sentinel who’d first spoke to Frey ended up next to him. ‘Get that gun firing!’ he yelled at a group of men down the line. They began hastily assembling the gatling gun. Then he glared at Frey. ‘What are you waiting for?’ And he aimed his rifle and started firing.
Frey pulled out the revolver that he’d emptied into the daemon back at the shrine, and began loading bullets into it. He had a full one in his belt, but he wanted time to think. He wasn’t keen on shooting at Coalition troops. That seemed like the kind of thing that might get a man into trouble. But he’d had no bright ideas by the time he was loaded, so he popped up and loosed off a couple of shots to look convincing. He aimed wild on purpose. The Sentinel was too busy to notice.
No way I’m dying with these losers, he thought, as he looked around for a way out. The Coalition troops had retreated into cover at the edge of the square. To his right, Frey could see a gap in the rubble, perhaps an old alley or something. It would take some clambering to get to, but it was an exit and, most importantly, it was sheltered from Coalition fire by a collapsed house.
There’s my way out, he thought. Now I just have to get there.
It wasn’t far, but it was far enough. If he broke out of cover he’d be a target for the Coalition soldiers. And once the Awakeners saw him deserting, he had little doubt they’d shoot him in the arse.
He hunkered down again as bullets chipped the stone fountain, showering him with speckles of grit. Damn it, he had to get to Trinica! He didn’t have time to get pinned down in a fire-fight!
The Sentinel next to him took advantage of a break in the shooting to pop his head up and aim again. Frey heard him take in a sharp breath and saw his eyes widen. ‘By the Code!’ he said. ‘That’s-’
He was rudely interrupted when his head blew apart, spraying Frey with blood and strips of gelatinous muck that used to be his brain.
‘Ewwww,’ Frey groaned. Getting covered in bits of other people ranked among his least favourite things. He wondered what the Sentinel had seen before he died, but he wasn’t curious enough to stick his head up and find out.
‘You men who fight for the Awakeners!’ roared a commanding voice. ‘Put down your arms and surrender!’
The gunfire petered out at the sound. Frey closed his eyes in silent despair. He knew that voice, and it meant he was screwed.
He found a crack in the fountain wide enough to peer through, and put his eye to it. It only confirmed what he already knew. There was Kedmund Drave, standing boldly before his troops, a smoking pistol in one hand.
Frey cursed his luck. If he was caught by Drave in the company of Awakeners, the Century Knight would string him up for sure.
‘This is your only chance!’ Drave shouted. ‘There won’t be another!’
A gunshot ran out, followed quickly by a second. Two shooters on the Awakener side, trying their luck. Drave thrust out his open hand, palm first. The first bullet sparked off his armoured glove, his hand moved with incredible speed, and the second one whined away too. His pistol came up, he fired twice, and the two shooters went down dead.
Thralled, Frey thought. His gloves have been thralled by a daemonist, just like my cutlass. No wonder the Century Knights seem superhuman, with tricks like that.
As quickly as it had stopped, the gunfire kicked up again. Drave ducked away into cover: even he couldn’t deflect that many bullets. Frey hunched down near the dead body of the Sentinel, shots flying all around him. He was getting desperate now. Maybe he could make that gap. Better than ending up in Drave’s hands. But it seemed an awfully long way between here and there.
He holstered his pistol, took a deep breath. Then he took another.
Ready, he told himself unconvincingly.
Then, from further along the fountain, came a sound that brought hope to his heart. The harsh rattle of a gatling gun. The Awakeners had got their shit together at last.
The Coalition forces retreated into cover as the gatling gun sprayed rounds across the square. Frey squeezed his hands into fists. This was the best chance he was going to have. Now, while their heads were down.
Now!
He scrambled to his feet, ran low around the fountain and vaulted over the lip before any of the Awakeners could react. Now he was out in the open, his feet pounding the flagstones, arms pumping, wild-eyed and afraid. It would only take him seconds to reach cover, but they were long, long seconds, and he could only hope that everyone was too preoccupied to notice him.
‘Frey!’ roared Drave. Frey looked over his shoulder in terror to see the Century Knight rising out of cover, heedless of the bullets flying all around him. He was sighting down the barrel of his pistol at Frey, and Century Knights didn’t miss.
Frey didn’t stop running. His hand went to his belt and his cutlass leaped into it. It guided his arm, moving faster than he ever could. He twisted in mid-stride just as Drave’s pistol fired, and threw the blade up between them.
The cutlass absorbed most of the impact, but not all. There was a jolt up his arm, a shower of sparks in front of his eyes, and he tumbled. But he tucked into a roll, shoulder-first, and came back up on to his feet. He sprinted the last few metres into cover before Drave could work out why his target wasn’t dead.
You’re not the only one who can deflect bullets, he thought.
Sheltered now from the Coalition forces, ignored by the Awakeners who had their own concerns, Frey went scrambling through the gap in the rubble towards the street beyond.
‘Frey!’ Drave yelled from somewhere behind him. ‘I’ll see you dead for this! You damned traitor!’