City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(144)

Everything pushes on her, pushes and pushes and pushes, floodwaters piling up against a dam. …

I will die as countless Saypuris died, she thinks.

A thousand Divine soldiers push upon her invisible walls.

Crushed under the machinery of the Divine.

Then one of the soldiers beside her screams, “Look! In the sky! Ships! There are ships sailing in the sky!”

Shara feels the pressure immediately release. She falls to the ground, gasping and half-dead.

She looks over the wall and sees Kolkan staring up: apparently this turn of events is a surprise even to him.

Shara, choking and coughing, thinks, No, no! Have they already destroyed Ghaladesh? After all this, is everything already lost?

She tries to peer through the tears in her eyes … and sees, to her confusion, that there is only one ship in the sky.

Then she hears another soldier’s voice: “Is that a Dreyling flag that ship is flying?”

Mulaghesh says, “I know that. That’s the flag of King Harkvald. What the hells is going on?”

Shara says, “Sigrud.”

*

The good ship Mornvieva, once occupied by twenty-three souls, now occupied by one sole stowaway, cuts through the clouds and the wind like a dream. Sigrud stands at the wheel, puffing at his pipe, and makes a slight adjustment south-southwest.

Sigrud laughs. He can’t remember the last time he laughed. Ship-borne for the first time in years and smoking his pipe. … It is a blessing he never thought he’d have again.

There is no greater pleasure, he thinks, than to sail once more.

On the mast before him is a large steel plate sporting a very large ring; and once, twenty-three cables were tied to this ring, anchoring all the crew to the ship. However, now there are only twenty-three severed ends of cables hanging from the ring, and they click and clack in the brutal winds.

To be frank, it might be the easiest time Sigrud has ever had taking a ship: if you just aim a cannon at every other ship in the armada, fire once (in retrospect, Sigrud reflects that this ship was not designed to fire that many guns at once, so he is lucky the thing didn’t fall apart under the stress), run up to the deck in the confusion, cut all the cables, and grab the wheel and tip the ship over ever so slightly …

Sigrud grins wickedly as he remembers all the little black figures tumbling through the clouds, rushing down to the embrace of the world.

The Restorationists bet everything on Saypur never expecting air-to-ground combat; but they, similarly, never considered air-to-air.

Sigrud sees the embassy below, and the river of silver soldiers before it, and the giant robed figure standing at its back.

He sets the course and trots belowdecks. He had no idea what to expect—certainly not this—but he had all the cannons ready, though some require minor adjustments.

Straight ahead, he reminds himself. Start at the beginning of that stripe of silver, and work down.

“Fire,” says Sigrud.

*

The retort of the first six-incher is like hearing a whole mountain cave in.

“Down!” screams Mulaghesh, but Shara does not listen.

Shara turns to the street and pulls up a thick, thick wall of soft snow, and she tells it to hang in space.

The first block of armored soldiers explodes. Evidently, though Divine armor was designed to protect many things, the Divinities never expected six-inch cannons.

Shara and everyone else on the fortifications are blown backward. Metal goes clanging off of building fronts. Shrapnel flies into the veil of snow, slows, and tumbles softly to the ground. The sky is black with starlings.

The next retort sounds in the skies, and another, and another, as if an immense thunderstorm is breaking open above them. Huge explosions march down the street toward Kolkan, who stands with his head at an angle, as if thinking, This is very unusual. This is all very unusual.

*

Sigrud watches, pleased, as the Divine army is progressively decimated by the cannon fire. He adjusts the Mornvieva and aims her bow at the robed figure. Couple hundred shells going off, he thinks, should make quite a pop.

He spots a white structure with a crystal roof from Old Bulikov—What are all these white buildings doing here? he wonders—walks to the side of the ship, and readies himself.

“Probably won’t survive this,” he says aloud. Then he shrugs. Ah, well. I always thought I would die sailing.

Sigrud jumps; the crystal roof flies at him much too quickly; he sees the sky in its glittering reflection.

My hand, he realizes. It no longer aches.

The sky breaks apart.

*

Shara sits up just in time to see the belly of the steel ship part the smoke above them. A tiny dark shape flies from its side and plummets into one of the white buildings.

Kolkan watches, curious, as the metal ship sails down, down, speeding toward him, the wings cutting through the street facades and raining stone on the sidewalks.

Shara realizes what is about to happen. She throws up another layer of snow, then a second, then a third, and screams, “Off the wall! Everyone off the wall!”

Kolkan watches with a slight air of disbelief as the bow of the ship flies at him, crumples on his brow …

The world is turned to fire.

*

Shara is deaf, dumb, blind. … The world is clanging, ringing, smashing, crashing, cheeping, fluttering, and she is sure the massive amount of psychedelics she took is not helping. She hears Mulaghesh groan from nearby: “My arm, my arm. My f*cking arm …”