The Dark Volume Part 53

Vandaariff lay on his side in a black pool on the planking. Chang glared darkly at the man, and glanced around him for a weapon.

"He must be killed..."

But then Chang spun and abruptly seized Miss Temple, bundling her desperately away just as the surging mob burst-red-faced and roaring-onto the factory's top floor. Mrs. Marchmoor's minions swept into the crawling soldiers that remained and into the b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle of her destruction. Even as they struggled, the men, confused by the sudden loss of the gla.s.s woman's summons, shouted to one another in terror and surprise, their collection of topcoats and silk cravats utterly out of place in the slaughterhouse the Parchfeldt factory had become. Chang dove with Miss Temple for the doorway. She looked back over her shoulder. Through the churning crowd she saw the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza groping like a blind beggar, feeling for the pockets of Fochtmann's topcoat.

THE PITCH-BLACK stairwell echoed with shouts and gunshots. Chang tightened his grip around her and forced a path down. The doorway to the cannons had been split open-there were still screams and fighting inside-but they did not pause until the ground, the steps h.e.l.lishly strewn with bodies. Many machines had been disabled- the light of the factory had dimmed, and its harsh song reduced to the hacking clatter of a carriage with one broken wheel. Their way to the front was barred by smoking wreckage and struggling men. Chang pulled her the other way, to the ruins, and they burst into the darkness, gasping in the cold night air, soldiers in green and red sprawled in death across the gra.s.s.

"Where are the others?" she whispered, looking around them at the empty yard.

"They have run on," replied Chang, releasing her to pick up a fallen dragoon's bloodied saber. He pointed with the blade to a ladder set against the rough stone wall. "We must follow."

"But where?" asked Miss Temple, running ahead of him, one hand on the ladder and the other gathering her dress so her feet might find the rungs. She gasped again as Chang's hands found her waist, lifting her up-which was not strictly necessary, her legs simply kicked in the air-and setting her down at a higher rung. As long as he did not meet her gaze the man seemed perfectly able to touch her body in the most presumptuous of ways.

"What will happen to the Comte?" she cried. "Or the Contessa?"

"They will be destroyed." She felt Chang's weight behind her on the ladder.

"But if this mob knows them-if this factory becomes theirs-"

"Without their mistress these minions will not stand up to the soldiers, if enough soldiers survive to face them down."

"Is that why you would not kill her yourself?" snapped Miss Temple, angrily. She reached the top of the wall and looked back over her shoulder. "You will not be enc.u.mbered with me, but are perfectly happy to protect a pestilent monstrosity!"

Chang looked up as if she had spoken French and, for the first time in her memory, stammered. "If-if I had taken her head-her power balanced the others'-without her to stop the soldiers-or the Contessa-we all would have-"

Miss Temple snorted, this being no response at all, and threw a leg over the wall, clambering down an unstable slope of tumbled stone into the darkening shadows of the wood. She reached the bottom in a rush, staggering into the undergrowth. Chang descended more carefully behind her.

"Celeste-" he began, but she did not bother to listen.

"Doctor Svenson!" she shouted into the woods. "Doctor Svenson! Where are you?"

Chang seized her shoulder and hissed, "Do not call out! We do not know who is here!"

"Do not be ridiculous," she cried, "and let me go!"

She pulled her arm free and stalked away, stumbling on a thicket of vines before locating a path.

"Celeste," Chang whispered, following. "There is still Aspiche- and Phelps-who knows who else-"

"Then I suppose you will have to kill them. Unless you prefer I do that as well. I'm sure I have no idea of your preferences in anything."

"Celeste-"

Miss Temple wheeled where she was and struck out with her right hand, slapping Cardinal Chang's chest. Chang caught her hand, and so she struck him with the other, this time a fist across his jaw, dislodging his gla.s.ses. Chang stabbed the cavalry saber into the ground and caught that hand as well. Miss Temple kicked his leg. He shook her.

"Celeste!"

Miss Temple looked at him, her hands held tight, and saw with a piercing despair the beauty of his jaw, the broad grace of his shoulders, and his especially elegant throat, bound as it was by a filthy neck cloth. Then with a swallow she looked into Chang's eyes, visible past the skewed black lenses... squinting and damaged... confused and hideous... and she realized that this man was the exact image of everything that had gone so horribly wrong, of so much she had lost and could never recover.

Like a striking snake Miss Temple stabbed her face up to his, her lips finding the rough stubble of his cheek and then his mouth, which was so much softer than she ever expected.

CHANG ARCHED his back with a cry and then, his eyes finding hers once more, shoved Miss Temple away from him with all his strength. She caught her foot on another vine and tumbled to her back, watching helplessly as Chang tried to turn, groping for the saber, only to collapse facedown on the forest floor. Behind him stood the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza. In one hand she held her recovered spike, and in the other Lydia Vandaariff's leather case... but had not the book been destroyed by the sh.e.l.l? Could it have been protected inside its bra.s.s casing? Without pausing to cut Chang's throat-a sure sign of haste and anger-the Contessa lurched straight for Miss Temple, her face grim and cold. Miss Temple screamed aloud and kicked herself backwards through the leaves, finally rolling to her feet just as the Contessa was s.n.a.t.c.hing at her dress.

Miss Temple tore away and broke into a run, careening blindly through the darkness, heart thudding in her chest, eyes streaming with tears.

She could not think at all but sobbed aloud each time she gasped for breath. Patches of moonlight pierced the treetops, but the heart of the forest remained dark. Miss Temple dodged unthinkingly between ruins and thin saplings, the branches whipping her face and limbs. She glanced behind, but saw no one-with the gash on her leg the Contessa must not be able to run.

Miss Temple knew she should go back, go die next to him-even as she kept running. What had she done? What had she lost? She sobbed again and then stumbled suddenly to a stop, blinking without comprehension.

The forest around her was flooded with light.

"LOOK WHO it is," sneered an easy, careless voice from beyond the boxed lantern, whose gate had been flung open in a stroke to blind her. "Little Miss Stearne. Or should I say Temple?"

Miss Temple looked over her shoulder, terrified that the Contessa would appear, and wheeled back to the clearing, crying aloud at what she had not seen. On the ground lay Colonel Aspiche, curled around a pooling wound in his chest, matched by a smaller stain on his back where a blade had run him full through.

"Didn't see him in the dark," explained Captain Tackham. "Terrible thing, he being my commanding officer. Still, mistakes happen in wartime-awful, awful mistakes."

The men to either side of him, two dragoons, chuckled at his words.

"Are you alone?" asked Tackham, lifting his b.l.o.o.d.y saber blade toward her with a frank brutality. "We heard you call for that doctor ... then you screamed."

"One... one of the factory soldiers," she said breathlessly. "I killed him... with a rock."

"A rock?"

Miss Temple nodded and swallowed.

"Poor fellow. Was he alone?"

"I don't know. I didn't see."

"It seems you are pursued."

"I don't know-I-I am afraid-"

Tackham snorted, and nodded to his soldiers. "Make sure, be careful, then come back."

The troopers pushed past Miss Temple and vanished into the darkness. Tackham pointed with his blade just past the circle of lantern light, to where Mr. Phelps huddled on his knees, utterly cowed.

"I have been told what happened inside," explained Tackham.

"My considered strategy is to safely wait, and then partake of what spoils remain."

"There are no spoils!" cried Miss Temple.

Tackham laughed in her face.

"Darling, I am looking at one top-shelf spoil this very instant."

TACKHAM SPUN at a rustle in the leaves behind him, sweeping his saber to the figure who emerged... but when he saw who it was, the Captain laughed. Doctor Svenson advanced warily with a scavenged saber of his own, looking extremely tattered and worn. He met Tackham's gaze with contempt and then called to Miss Temple.

"Celeste... you've not been harmed?"

She shook her head, unable to say a thing about Chang, her throat closed tight against the words.

"Where...?" Mr. Phelps' voice was a croak. He gestured behind Svenson. "Where is...?"

"Mrs. Dujong?" Doctor Svenson gestured vaguely behind him. "I do not know. At the ca.n.a.l."

"And the child?" asked Phelps.

"No longer your concern," said Svenson.

"Put down your blade or die," Tackham said coldly.

"Well, one of us will die," said the Doctor. "I heard your comment about spoils, you see-and if other men lack the courage to stop you, I do not."

"How excellent!" Tackham hefted his blade with a wolfish smile. "You know how to use a cavalry saber, then?"

"As much as any surgeon of the Macklenburg Navy," answered Svenson.

Tackham laughed aloud.

"Doctor-no, no-you must not-"

"Tush, my dear. What the Captain does not understand is that, like any German university man, I have done my share of dueling..."

The Doctor snapped, to Miss Temple's eyes, into an extremely dubious en garde stance, at his full height with his legs together like a dancer, and his sword arm straight out above him, the blade upside down with its tip floating directly at the level of Captain Tackham's eyes. Tackham snorted and settled into a low crouch, his left hand tucked behind his back and his right hand bouncing with antic.i.p.ation, as if debating just where to land his blow.

"Not the most flexible of stances," Tackham observed.

"It does not need to be. The mistake you have made, young man, is in thinking that I give one bra.s.s farthing for my life." Svenson's voice was both icy and forlorn. "It is all well to fight a man whose intention is not to be killed. Fear makes defense his priority-it is the bedrock of every sane strategy. But since I do not care for my life at all, I tell you quite clearly that you are doomed. Strike me anywhere you can. My counter-stroke will land. From this inflexible stance it takes but one turn of my wrist to open your skull like a melon."

"You're a liar," sneered Tackham.

"You will find out, won't you?" said the Doctor. "Attack me anywhere ... and die."

"Doctor-"

"Hush now. I must concentrate."

THE TWO men edged slowly into the center of the clearing, eyes locked on each other. Miss Temple trembled to see, up close, how vicious the saber blades truly were-the wide bright steel, the indented curve of the blood gutter, the hatchetlike chop at the tip, wide and sharp as a cleaver. It seemed the Doctor had no chance at all, yet Tackham moved with extreme care, as if the Doctor's words were at least possibly serious.

"Advancement by a.s.sa.s.sination?"

The Doctor nodded at the Colonel's corpse, childlike and bereft, on the ground. From the factory behind them came a spattering of gunshots. Tackham frowned and glanced over his shoulder.

"It barely matters," said Svenson. "You will not live to see your new rank. They will arrive in minutes to kill us all."

"I beg to differ," said Tackham.

"Celeste," said Svenson carefully, "please be ready to flee."

At this Tackham feinted a cut at Svenson's head, but the Doctor either saw through the move or was simply too slow to respond and did not counterattack as he'd promised. Tackham chuckled. Was the Doctor's threat just bl.u.s.ter after all? Tackham feinted again. Svenson slipped in the dirt and Tackham swept a vicious cut at the Doctor's side that Svenson stopped-quite barely-with a parry that rang through the trees like a s.h.i.+p's bell.

"Counter-stroke indeed," sneered Tackham. "You're a lying coward."

Behind came more gunshots, closer, within the woods.

"Your men have been killed," gasped Svenson, the tip of his blade once more floating in front of Tackham's eyes. "You are next. Throw down your sword."

"To h.e.l.l with you," snarled Tackham, and he lunged.

His saber slapped Svenson's blade to the side and shot forward unopposed, slicing a b.l.o.o.d.y dark trough across the Doctor's chest. The Doctor reeled back. Tackham snapped upright, all his training at the fore, ready to launch a second blow.

But then Tackham wavered. A jet of blood spat from the side of his throat, and then, the gash primed, sprayed out like a fountain, for the Doctor had indeed taken his own desperate cut while opening himself to death.

Tackham toppled into the dirt. Svenson dropped the saber and slipped to his knees. Miss Temple screamed and ran to him, easing his body to the ground. The Doctor's voice was already a shuddering whisper.

"No, no! Run! Escape!"

Miss Temple was shoved aside by Mr. Phelps, who had taken off his coat and balled it up to staunch Svenson's seething wound. More gunfire rang through the trees.

"Go! He has given his life for yours! Don't be a fool!"

Doctor Svenson arched in agony as Phelps tried to peel free his tunic. Miss Temple held her hand to her mouth, sobbing, and wheeled away half-blind with tears.

SHE KNEW she was a coward, but she could not stop. She tripped headlong more than once, scuffing her hands, scratching her face and her arms, each time hauling herself up and running on. She cried for Chang, for the Doctor, and for herself-for every instant when she had failed-so very many of them-for how she had misplaced every part of her life that mattered.

When she fell the last time she lay in the dirt, overtaken with sobs. She did not know how far she had run-a hundred yards or a mile- nor did she care. The sky blazed with stars. She lay in an open s.p.a.ce ringed with ivy-covered stones... more ruins.

Miss Temple pushed herself to her knees, brus.h.i.+ng the hair from her face and the tears from her eyes. Something lay on the ground, catching the light... a ring of orange metal. She felt the weight in her bodice and knew Chang had placed the rings there to protect her.

"Celeste," came a hesitant whisper. "What has happened?"

In the shadows crouched Eloise Dujong and, clasping her hand tightly, Francesca Trapping. Miss Temple spat in the dirt, weeping again, all of her bitterness and regret suddenly finding their vent.

"They are dead, Eloise! They are both dead!"

Eloise gasped, her hand over her mouth, and began to sob as well. Miss Temple rose to her feet and staggered toward the woman. As soon as she was in reach she struck her across the face with all her waning strength, knocking Eloise to the ground. Francesca leapt away with a whimper of fear.

"Get up!" Miss Temple snarled at Eloise. "They are both dead, and you killed them as much as anyone-your foolish, prideful, reckless, selfish-"

Eloise lay on her side sobbing. Miss Temple kicked her as hard as she could and nearly fell over. She kicked Eloise again and dropped awkwardly to her knees.

"He would not come with us!" Eloise whimpered. "He would not come!"

Tears streamed down Miss Temple's face.