City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [206]
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