He was clearly chosen for his speed. While the others were strong and slow, he was strong and fast. Worst choice I could have made, attacking this guy. Just add it to the list. He dodged my attack and put the flat of his hammer between my shoulder blades. Only thing that saved me was the fact that I tripped, so the blow skipped off my back like a stone on water. Hurt like hell, though.
Down on my hands and knees, I decided that maybe this guy warranted a bullet. I rolled onto my hip and brought the revolver up, flipping it around so that the barrel was pointing in the right direction. He had a similar idea, or at least recognized the possibility. Hadn't even gotten my finger properly inside the trigger guard before his boot came up, slapping the revolver off target. I didn't drop it, but it was a close thing. He followed through, stomping on my gun hand, crushing it between the revolver and the iron crosswalk. I screamed, in pain and frustration, the animal rage of the Mother in my veins. The Wright smiled.
'Enough out of you, Jacob Burn,' he growled. Wrapped both meaty hands around his hammer and raised it up. The others crowded eagerly in. 'Enough trouble out of you.'
I leaned back, then brought my forehead into his crotch. Good news, that works on the cog-dead, too. Wasn't sure if it would. He winced and stumbled, enough that I could work the revolver out from under his foot. I drove the elbow of that arm into his inner thigh, then, standing and putting the full force of my legs and back into it, I smashed the grip of the revolver under his chin. He crumpled.
His friends looked briefly disappointed, then murderous. This wasn't going to last much longer. Had to find a linchpin, or they were just going to butcher me here and let my blood feed the trees.
I shot the first one, then the second. That was enough of a gap for me to push through, even before their bodies hit the grating. Still had the hammer in my other hand, and I brought it down on the lock that held Crane in. It shattered with a satisfying flower of sparks, and Crane fell out of the cage. His arms were still bound, so he hung awkwardly by his shoulders, face down, like a man waiting for the ax. I provided the ax. A quick blow on the lock freed him from the iron box holding his head, and then I put the barrel behind his ear and held my other hand up.
'Crane is your conduit,' I yelled as loud as I could. 'Stop, or you're all dead.'
They stopped, more from uncertainty than any kind of fear. All I could ask for.
'The Elder said that Crane was serving as Camilla's conduit,' I said as loudly as I could. My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and my arms were shaking. The Mother was burning out of me. 'Stands to reason that if he dies, the tap dies with him. And whatever power he's using to keep you alive goes with it. Camilla loses her loyal little army. So, back off.'
'You're out of bullets,' the nearest Wright sneered.
'I can count, buddy. Four shots. Two left. I could miss and still end him. But really,' I shoved the barrel against Crane's skull. 'Do you think I'm going to miss?'
They didn't move. Thinking it out. This was working. It was going to work. All I needed to do was get Crane out of here and then kill him at my leisure. It was working.
A cold hand closed around my wrist. I looked down. Crane had slipped his bonds and was straightening up. Shocked, I pulled the trigger. The gun crumbled into rust in my hand, the flakes gritty between my fingers. Crane patted me on the shoulder.
'Wasn't sure I had that in me. Off-the-cuff transmutations can be tricky, but you gave me just enough time with your tough talk. Good work, Jacob. Such a good lad.'
Chapter Twenty
I swung the hammer at his face. He caught my wrist in his other hand and, with a twist of his shoulders, threw me to the floor at the feet of the Wrights. They reached for me.
'Now, now. You can kill him when I'm done. Shouldn't be long, now.' He waved a hand dismissively, and they fell back as if a wave of force had bowled them over. They lay lifeless on the ground. One was left hanging limply over the edge of the walkway; slowly, he slid over the edge and hit the dirt with a dull thud. I scrambled to my feet and switched the hammer to my right hand.
'You may put up a fight, Jacob. I admire that kind of energy. Speaks well for the Fehn, too, don't you think?'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said through my tight grin. 'This is me killing you, Crane. No one else.'
'Oh, no. I know better. I can smell her in you. By the way, I like what you did with the masts, down there in the river. I wasn't sure how you were going to figure that out, but if there's one thing I've learned about you, Jacob, it's that you can be trusted to work your way out of difficult situations. You're almost as adept at that as you are at getting into those situations. Marvelous talent.'
I like it when they talk. Keeps them from paying attention to me. While Crane was picking bits of rust off his palms, I slid forward and came at him with the hammer. The first two swings bounced off his forearms, quick blocks that overbalanced me, then he drove a fist into my gut, just below my bellybutton. My bladder voided and I sat down. Inglorious.
'For example, I wasn't sure if you'd take Valentine up on his offer. He can be persuasive, but you can be stubborn. See, I was running out of time. The Mother was never going to give me what I needed. Could see right through me, that one. Awfully clever for a memetic library.' He picked up a hammer from one of the fallen Wrights and twirled it in his hands, curiously. 'But I knew that if I could get you in there, convince her that you sincerely wanted me dead. Well. I was sure she'd give you what I needed, if only to help you kill me. Bitch never liked me.'
I stood, still bent over in pain. Still had the hammer, though.
'I don't know what you're talking about,' I said.
'No, you probably don't. Because if you knew, you wouldn't risk coming here. Wouldn't come within a thousand miles of me, or Camilla either, for that matter. You see, Jacob, the Mother is very old. Older than Veridon. Older than Camilla, or the Algorithm, or that curious city downfalls that your Council discovered. The one on the map, that the angels refer to as 'home.' And she knows a lot of things. More than even she realizes, I think.'
I pulled myself upright and came at him. He casually knocked me aside, took the hammer, then laid it heavily across my face. I crumpled. He kicked me down and leaned over me.
'This is what she did, whether she realized it or not. She wanted you to kill me. Wanted to help you do that. Which was nice of her. And she knew enough about my plans up here to know that no mere mortal could face me. So she rebuilt you, at a very fundamental level. It helps that there was already some pattern there, traces left over from the heart Camilla gave you, and from your encounters with the Destroyer two years ago. Yes, you were an ideal vessel. She would have seen that, and the pattern she gave you would have been quite impressive.'
I rolled onto my face and pushed up onto my hands and knees. Blood drooled from my busted lips. I coughed, and deep things moved wetly in my chest.
'Not impressive enough,' I gasped. He laughed.
'No, not quite. But the Mother couldn't have had the full scope of it.' He straightened and raised his arms. 'What did the Elder say? My power seems to derive from cogwork. Well, yes and no. Mostly no.'
I looked up at him, and things fell into place. This room, the trees. Living things.
'Yes, you see it. The Artificer is like the cogworker, except he realizes that what you refer to as foetal metal is actually the distillation of something that seems to flow through all living things. Maker beetles, my crows. Your flesh. And, most important to our current situation, trees.' His smile was startlingly bright in the gloom. He seemed to grow larger. 'I think it's a leftover from the time of the Celesteans. They were people, you know. Just people, with a very fundamentally different way of viewing the world. It's like they could see to the heart of a thing, and change it. Amazing people. I like to think that what I'm doing is just an extension of their empire. Interrupted by a period of barbarism, of course.'
'You're full of shit,' I spat.
