more reluctant to let go of the ropes.
As Artemisia stared upwards, Randur followed her gaze.
For a moment the Exmachina seemed to adopt a new texture entirely, as if now made up of tiny squares, then it shuddered and shot off in a streak of light towards the north. The sky above was suddenly vacant, but Hanuman fluttered down like ticker tape, drifting and flapping earthwards before perching on what remained of the city's rooftops. A distant thunder was heard. Randur wondered if the ship had already done what Artemisia promised.
The warrior woman unsheathed both massive sabres from over her shoulder and strode into the warzone.
*
Randur had never been to Villiren. He was stunned: the city had been crippled in a way he could not comprehend. Buildings leaned at bizarre angles, many now a haphazard lattice of timbers. Some streets were utterly silent save for the sea breeze rattling through them. Human and rumel remains nestled at the bases of walls, feral dogs or cats picking at the decomposing flesh. Across the accumulating snow, the red spray of death was everywhere. To one side, a rumel woman lay face down and naked, her throat slashed, and a crossbow bolt through the back of her skull. Randur half-expected Eir to show distress at the sight, but she had become hardened of late, and remained impassive.
The small group followed Artemisia through this apocalyptic nightmare, stepping over tiny gutters filled with bloodstained debris and ice. Groups of men with machetes lingered everywhere, whether civilian soldiers or looters, he couldn't tell.
A cacophony of sounds and voices could be heard in the distance.
Eventually they came across a sector of the city packed with Imperial soldiers. A church spire had collapsed down on to its side, now covered in snow, and troops lined up either side of it. Some men at the rear turned towards Artemisia, and tried to stop her from advancing, but she easily brushed them aside. When she drew her sword Rika leapt in-between.
'Who the fuck are you lot?' one soldier demanded.
'I am Jamur Rika,' she replied.
He searched his mind for the correct protocol then gave up and stood back.
Artemisia pressed on through the military lines, which parted as if by her will; she was a good head taller than most of them.
Suddenly, a unit at the front were dispatched, peeling off then disappearing around a corner. In the distance, the sounds of combat continued.
They followed Artemisia as she went after them, preparing to launch herself into the fighting, and found line upon line of soldiers getting mown down as they pushed forward.
Randur could see the enemy for the first time, the Okun and red-skinned rumel, about seventy of them ranged ahead. Every one of them now turned in uniform motion to face Artemisia. There was a brief exchange between them in an alien language, after which there was a profound silence.
Then a deep explosion sounded in the distance, and everyone looked upwards as if seeking an explanation, And then, a few moments later, they felt a back-draught of warm air.
Suddenly the precise coordination of the enemy was visibly reduced to confusion. Their uniform thinking had been disrupted, and in frustration, red-skinned rumel in elaborate uniforms paraded up and down the lines, shouting orders, livid at this new state of play.
Artemisia smiled, the first time Randur had noticed a change of expression on her face.
And why is it suddenly getting warmer?
Artemisia darted forward into the thick of the enemy and soon she was engulfed in their mass. Soon he couldn't see much, merely heard grunts and metal connecting with metal, and now and then a piece of severed flesh would flip out from the scrum of bodies.
Eir glanced at him questioningly, but he merely shrugged. Rika stood aloof and watched with a neutral expression – as if she, too, had been infected with Artemisia's impassivity.
Finally, the entire street was littered with dismembered corpses. Artemisia came towards them, glistening with fresh blood. 'Now would be a good time for the Jamur troops to mount a surge,' she declared. 'How many of your soldiers are left?'
'Eight thousand, approximately.' An officer shuffled towards her, a sudden respect evident in his manner.
She loomed over him. 'How many did you begin with?'
'About sixty-five thousand in military service. Civilian casualties are as yet unaccounted for.'
'So be it,' she replied nonchalantly. 'You will find that your enemy has now been disabled significantly. Purge as many as you can, and I shall assist in finishing them off. Meanwhile, someone will take us to your commander.'
FIFTY-THREE
This was the first time in years there had been gang unification, of sorts. Beneath the official war had meanwhile run another. Turf brawls had become all-out combat to splice districts into enclaves of unofficial rule. Autonomous zones had been raided by others, new front lines coming and going by the hour, and it was only this morning that some kind of weird law had been laid down. Verbal treaties exchanged, confirmed with a sly handshake and a nod of the head. Things were made clear.
Malum went looking for the BanHe, but he was dead. Someone accused Malum of killing the creature – it wasn't true. They found what was left of Dannan's body in one of the underground strongholds. The room reeked. It seemed he had exploded from his throat and chest, and men gaped from behind their masks at the mess splattered on the surrounding walls. Someone pointed out that Dannan had died a few days ago, when the death count within the city reached a level where the scream-impotent BanHe had vomited bile for hours at a time, coughing and retching as the body count mounted up. He had crawled down here to try to avoid the escalating pain, and died alone.
Something had now happened that changed everything in the city.
Dark shapes in the sky, out of the sky, then a change in temperature. It was suggested that the enemy were suddenly weakened, that there were now few of them left, and that those remaining were unable to fight as efficiently as before. Malum didn't understand what these specific changes were all about, but he realized the final hunt was on.
Malum marched somewhere near the front of the mob. The Bloods had now aggregated with the other gangs again in a quest for all-out slaughter. They spread rapidly across Villiren like a virus. Somewhere on the way he'd succumbed to his primal instincts, and allowed his fangs to breach permanently. He had become utterly savage, and so had the others. Even battle-hardened soldiers looked upon their work with disgust.
Joining in behind the citizen militia, which in turn merged with several Dragoon regiments, more of a vicious mob than a disciplined army, they pushed westwards across the city, thousands of men and hundreds of women scooping up any kind of weapon out of the melting snow. Sunlight peeled back from behind clouds till the slick city glimmered.
Confident and violent, this mob-army came across small clusters of remaining Okun. Cornered in twos or threes, with nowhere to flee, the now seemingly confused invaders burst into the crowd of their assailants only to be hacked down with axe and mace and sword. Citizens took out their frustrations by ripping apart the shells and leaving little but pulp soon mashed into the snow. With confidence that the invasion was being reduced to nothing, and no more ships appearing on the horizon, the gangs took a manic pleasure in their work. They were in the grip of a death fetish.
Surprisingly, the red-skinned rumels were the more difficult to kill – they seemed more skilful in these embers of combat, more cunning in their methods of escape. Some even offered surrender, but no such bargaining was accepted. Tails were ripped off and stuffed into their screaming mouths; they were beaten into a bloody pulp or then stoned to death with rubble. Such savage methods appealed to Malum for some reason, and violence bred
