“Little brother! At last! At last!” the Old Man said, with such a note of glee in his voice, that in any other situation it would have been comedic, but here and now it pulled the heat from her as effectively as any powers the Old Men possessed. But she did not fumble. She lifted her rifle and shot the Old Man neatly in the chest. The endothermic bullet clattered to the floor. The Old Man turned and motioned towards her, a sort of you’ll be next gesture, then shrugged, as though she was of such little account.
Her face reddened, though the Old Man didn’t see it, he was already facing David again, striding across the deck as though he owned it. “You did not think we would leave you so unharried, even in the sky?”
“Where are the others?” David asked, and she could see he was struggling to keep the fear and despair from his voice.
Kara was gone. We’ve lost so much, Margaret thought, surely we should be used to it now.
She fired again, a direct shot to the neck. The Old Man gestured towards her with a free hand, not even bothering to look. She felt her breath chill, felt the cold drive her back. She hadn't been ready for that.
“Rupert, where are they?” David asked.
The Old Man stopped, his eyes widened, lost a little of their heat. “So you haven’t forgotten?”
“How could I forget?”
“All too easily.” Rupert jabbed a long finger at David. “Look at you! Dressed in a boy. Who could guess what you know, what you remember?”
“I remember enough.”
“You remember nothing, or you wouldn't seek to do what you do.”
“Where are the others?” David repeated, his voice low, calm, but not with the abstracted calmness of a Carnival addict: this was more measured, calculated.
Rupert gestured vaguely in the air. “Near, I will not have to wait long with your corpse. Do not worry, Cadell. We will mourn you. There will be such a funeral pyre, perhaps the last great burning before the world ends. For we are the last great men, are we not?”
David nodded, seemed to seriously consider it, but there was something condescending in the movement.
Rupert frowned.
“We could stop this now,” David said. “You don’t need to die.”
“Death waits for every one of us,” Rupert said, and there was such a fever in his voice that he was utterly terrifying. “You most of all, it waits and it grinds its teeth waiting, isn’t it glorious?” The Old Man’s dark fingers slid towards his belt, grasped the cleaver that hung there and yanked it free. The blade looked familiar — was perhaps even the one which David had used to butcher Cadell's corpse. Rupert swung it square at David’s head.
But David had already moved another two or three paces backwards, swift as thought, stumbling further when the cleaver, hissing through the air, struck out at him again. Not used to the speed he possessed.
It wasn’t a graceful movement, but it was effective. Margaret fired again, hitting the Old Man in the face. He scarcely blinked. But this time, he turned, hefting the cleaver, as though it were no heavier than a butter knife. And she fired at his hand. The cleaver dropped away, and with it a couple of fingers.
He wasn't indestructible. Her lips pulled back from her teeth.
“You,” the Old Man said. “I have no argument with you. Typical of a Penn.”
David swung out at the Old Man with fists that looked to be sheathed in ruddy ice. Rupert let the first fist strike him, blinked again. He punched David in the throat. David scrambled backwards. His eyes widened, he tried to rise, and fell again.
The Roslyn Dawn lurched forward. Margaret found herself on the floor, the Old Man standing over her. “It does to be careful of one’s footing in such an environment, Miss Penn.”
It could have been Cadell talking! She struck out with a boot, made contact with a leg, and felt the Old Man’s ankle give way.
She said, “It does indeed.”
The Old Man grunted, bent, but he was already regaining his feet, face dark, eyes bright, almost twinkling.
“Take more than that,” Rupert said.
“How about this?” Kara Jade struck his back with an iron pipe. Margaret fired another shot. This time a lead shell. Short range. The Old Man’s right eye disappeared.
He shook his head, and blood sprayed: thick, cold and dark.
“I’m here, too,” David said quietly, and smacked his hand down against the Old Man’s neck; bone cracked, but the Old Man danced backwards, almost hitting Kara, though the pilot moved back too. They circled him. Margaret fired a pistol, struck the Old Man in the chest. And this time Rupert moaned.
David had picked up the cleaver. He took a step closer and Margaret unsheathed her rime blade. Didn’t bother activating it, she wanted its cutting edge.
“The head, you say?” Margaret said.
“Always the head,” David answered; he took a step forward, and the Old Man spat more blood.
“No matter,” the Old Man said. “No matter. There are more of mine to come, but there are still hurts that I can offer. I’m a wounding thing, if not the death, your hurting must be my satisfaction.”
“Enough of this,” David said.
“Enough, indeed.” The Old Man snatched out, grabbed Kara around the waist, and slammed his bulk against the window. It bulged, and he struck it again, bearing all his weight and Kara’s against it; the material cracked, and gave way, and the Old Man and Kara fell.
Margaret rushed to the edge of the window, looked down. The Old Man and Kara hung suspended by the Roslyn Dawn 's flagella. Even as Margaret watched, Kara was wrenched from the Old Man’s grip, but not before she gave him a good hard kick to the head.
The Dawn groaned, and the Old Man was torn in two; a burst of blood and bone, made almost graceful by the delicate motion of the Dawn 's limbs — as though there could be poetry in such brutality.
“The head or that,” David said.
The Dawn 's limbs twitched and released the broken body, and Kara Jade clambered up them and into the ship.
“No one does that to me,” she said, her lip split, one eye closed up and swollen. “Not here, not on the Dawn. No Old Man, nothing.” Kara looked over at Margaret, her gaze intense. “You excepted, of course. From you it's a compliment. Still kill you just as dead, though.”
She might have said something else, but the Dawn dropped a dozen feet at once. Margaret hit the roof before dropping to the floor. Kara bent down and helped her up. David had managed to keep on his feet, wrist bound in one of the straps that hung from the ceiling. He looked dazed.
“Get to a seat the both of you, and strap yourselves in,” Kara said. “The Dawn 's hurt, we're going to have to land.”
CHAPTER 33
Why were they punished so? The Mothers of the Sky were given their fastness in Drift, but the Old Men were buried, and drowned in hunger. What creation could be so cruel to punish its creators so?
THE ROSLYN DAWN 1501 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Wind howled through the broken window.
David let Margaret lead him to a seat. He could smell the Old Man's blood on his face. He wiped at it absently.
“Strap yourself in, David,” Kara said. Margaret had already moved to a nearby seat.
“Your eye,” he said to Kara.
