The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [120]
Ten yards off the bridge, and twenty yards to the surrounding tree line, we heaped up a pile of whatever belongings still remained to us. Those who had nothing to give removed curtains from the few rooms that had not been visited yet by the moth. Within this hill of things, we planted the bomb, and then ran the long fuse over to the tree line where we took up positions, hiding in the shadows at the edge of the woods.
There were more than twenty of us in the group. Because I was nervous that Ingess might discover our treachery or that we might fail, I didn't notice that the countess was among the conspirators until we stood beneath the trees. She had somewhere gotten a set of men's clothing and her hair was tied back.
"Frouch," I whispered, "I didn't know you were part of this."
"I hope that bomb blows the damned bug to tatters, the same way it did my life," she said. There was an edge to her voice I had never heard before.
I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and lit a cigarette. I meant to ask her what I had done to make her cross with me, but just then the Philosopher General whispered a duet of, "Behold, the floating hunger."
It flew slowly out past the open gates of Reparata, its wings quietly beating the air. The powder it threw off caught the moonlight and created a misty aura around it. Its antennae twitched at the scent of curtain silk, gown muslin, old shoes, strings of pearls, and the deadly loaf at their center. When it landed with the lightness of a dream feather and began to dine, Saint-Geedon turned to Frouch and nodded. She flicked the ash off her cigarette, puffed it hard three times and then put the burning end to the tip of the fuse. The tiny spark was away in an instant, eating the treated string faster than even the creature could.
Frouch licked her lips, Ringlat rubbed his hands together, and the Chancellor of Waste wheezed excitedly as that dot of fizzling orange raced toward explosion. When it was exactly halfway to the heap where the moth was busy vanishing an old topcoat, who should appear at the palace gates but Ingess dressed in full battle armor and mounted on Drith, his nag of a warhorse. The moment we saw him there, it was obvious he had finally come to his senses and decided to slay the creature as his subjects had begged him. He drew his long sword, pointed it at the moth and then spurred the old horse in the flanks.
As His Royal reached the middle of the drawbridge, the spark reached the loaf. We braced ourselves for apocalypse but all that followed was a miserable little pop, weaker than a champagne cork, and the issuance of a slight stream of smoke. The moth flapped upward in a panic, unharmed, but this sudden motion frightened Drith and he reared on his hind legs, throwing Ingess from his back and into the deep waters of the moat.
The ridiculous course of events left me standing with my mouth open wide. Everyone was stunned by the misadventure.
Then Frouch yelled, "He'll drown in that armor!"
She took two steps past me, but I saw that someone else had already begun sprinting toward the moat. It was Durst, and I had never seen his lumpen form move with such speed in all the years I had known him. He did not hesitate at the edge, but awkwardly formed his hands together into an arrowhead in front of him, kicked up his heels in the back, and dove into the water. At the sight of this, we all started running.
I don't know how he found him in the dark at the bottom of that moat, nor do I know how he lifted him to the surface and brought him to the bank. Ringlat and I reached down and pulled His Royal up onto dry land. Pester and Chin Mokes did the same with Durst. In seconds we had Ingess's helmet off, and much to my relief found that he was still faintly breathing.
"He's alive," yelled Ringlat, and the assembled company shouted.
Frouch helped us remove the rest of the armor as the others gathered round Durst, patting his head and slapping him on the back. I stole a look at him in the middle