Sky Joust- The Purple Onion vs The Pestilence Read online

  “Except the Church of the Knight Errant believes the Horsefolk will be restored to their former glory, when they ranged the Kolkhek mountains in dust-scuttling hordes, plundering and terrorizing the local population.”

  “Ah,” said Mori. “You fear that with indestructibly-armored horses, it may actually be possible.”

  “Thanks to Ladybird, I know it is. I’ve been watching them for weeks. Weapons upgrades, elite horsemanship, a state-of-the-art saddle-mounted stereo sound system.”

  “A what now, sir?”

  “The telescope hears the audio quality!”

  “Of course.”

  Across his desk, Victor reached for a framed photo of himself as a boy standing beside his mother, Rochelle Cumin. He held it against his chest as he gazed off into the distance.

  “The Brumfields weren’t the only family hurt in that gang war. But you don’t see me taking it out on the whole city.”

  “From a certain point of view, sir, that’s exactly what—”

  “I have to stop him, Mori.”

  The skiapod nodded. “Obviously, sir. He’ll buy out all the silk. The way you go through bodysuits.”

  Victor gazed up at the battle insignia of the Violet Storm upon the wall.

  “If there is any blessing in the rule of the Tchotchke Consortium,” he said, “it’s that Dodoville hasn’t endured a full-blown gang war in twenty years. But if with these new weapons, the CKE can pose a legitimate threat to the Consortium’s power . . .”

  “I don’t know the Knights Errant qualify as a gang, sir. They aren’t political. They just want to burn things and watch people suffer.”

  “Sounds like politics to me.”

  “What do I know, sir, I’m only a skiapod. We like to make people happy! That’s all politics means to us.”

  “And your kind is nearly extinct.”

  “Exactly, sir! Eradicating our foolishness from the face of the earth is the least we can do for others’ comfort.”

  Since before Victor was born, Mori had served in the Cumin household, saying things like that with the same smile on his face. Never once had he murdered everyone in their sleep. Someday Victor would have to figure out why.

  But someday would have to wait until a horde of barbarians wasn’t breaking down the gate.

  EPISODE TWO: The Bawling at Daggett Bend

  "JESUS, WE GOT ENOUGH COPS?”

  Officer Hammond had never seen this many faces in blue. Not even at his graduation from the academy last year.

  Riding shotgun in the squad car, he cradled the coffee in his hands and let the steam warm his face. The mountain air above Dodoville was brisk at four a.m. Worse, the sleep wouldn’t rub out of his eyes. He’d already put in three twelve-hour shifts this week and had been scheduled to work tomorrow when he got called up for this action.

  Out on the highway, a pair of gloved hands and a shrill whistle issued directions. In the driver’s seat, Clemens waved out the window and brought the squad car around to fill out the barricade onto the road’s shoulder.

  Even the traffic cops are here! Hammond thought.

  Up ahead he could see the domed helmets of officers in riot gear. He and Clemens had been assigned to hold the line behind them in case anything snuck through. Not bloody likely. Looked like enough to stop a tank. Let alone a few horses. Right?

  “Did you forget your history book, Hammond? Can’t have a repeat of last time, can we.”

  “That was in the 1920s. A lot has happened since then.”

  “Tell that to them,” answered Clemens. “These folks still living in the Middle Ages.”

  “The force has modernized, I mean. It’s not just a bunch of us riding sideboard on some truck anymore.”

  “And that’s why we’re here. Last time, they came in on a couple hundred horses, caterwauling like a merry band. ‘The British drove us out,’ they said, ‘but now we’re back.’ No welcome crew like this, and what happened? A few circuits of town, they start disrespecting old people. Breaking windows and overturning apple carts—”

  “Apple carts!”

  The phalanx was running drills to get the blood pumping. Instead of bludgeons, the officers were armed with four-meter anti-cavalry spears. They stood in loose formation, polycarbonate shields laid at their feet, spinning the heavy polearms above their heads in interlocking circles. Hand matched hand, boot matched boot as they executed forms with military precision. Thrusts and parries, uppercuts with the butt. A stuttered advance, striking as fast and precise as a sewing machine. Hup hup hup hup! Another spin, another flourish, and when the spears swung down into readiness at their sides, Hammond swore he heard the air shatter.

  “Do a lot of damage then? Ninety years ago?”

  “Would’ve. If they weren’t so drunk they fell out the saddles.”

  Hammond rolled down his window. The cold air might keep him awake. “I heard the CKE got twenty-thirty animals tops,” he said. “Maybe somebody should stay back in town keeping the peace.”

  “Rookie, in Dodoville we stay ready for horses. Maybe you heard grumbling this morning, but here’s the truth: half these guys you couldn’t pay time and a half to stay home. For four hundred years, this country had mad-hair hard-drinking maniacs riding bare-backed and breakneck, wineskin in one hand, jaw hammer in the other, razing houses and drinking the cream. In this town, you grow up meditating on those stories.”

  “You saying fellas want revenge?”

  He watched Clemens take a deep breath as if exasperated this was a thing he had to explain.

  “I’m saying is, most these boys? They feel they were born a couple centuries too late.”

  As dawn approached, Hammond saw headlights down below, coming up around Daggett Bend. Motorcycles. Off-duty cops who hadn’t gotten called up this morning. Dismounting, they clasped each other’s backs in greeting and lit each other’s cigarettes. Here to spectate.

  One of them had a paper horse mask on a stick. Eyeholes were cut out.

  “Hey, don’t shoot. Bronsky. Hey, Bronsky, over here. Look at me. Guess what am I? Don’t shoot.”

  Inspector Epifania Lu stood behind the barricade, watching the police helicopters patrol the airspace. For the last ten minutes, she had been trying to raise Chief Harrowfew on the comm. Worry had gnawed at her for days—something about this operation stunk. The Church of the Knight Errant had alerted them to where they’d be and when. They had promised “overwhelming force,” “shock and awe,” and “Dodoville come to kingdom.” To believe the Horselords could rise again you had to be delusional, sure. But fifteen years in uniform, she’d developed an instinct for who was overplaying their hand. This was different. The CKE seemed a little too precise in their disorganization. Someone wanted to be underestimated.

  And then a quarter hour ago, she’d gotten the email. An in-house address from a non-existent staff commandant named Orin Juglahd. Scrolling through the attachment on her tablet, everything seemed to fall into place.

  “Harrowfew here,” came a voice on the line, an impatient bluster. “Make it quick, Lu. This isn’t your department.”

  “With due respect, Chief, it is. Ear to the ground, Gangland Surveillance has been hearing some weird chatter the last few days. Tall tales of every sort. The only thing consistent is today’s offensive is important.”

  “CKE’s not a gang, they have no political arm.”

  “Not yet,” Lu admitted.

  “Inspector, we’ve been watching the CKE train for months now. The riders do handstands in the saddles. Hang by the mane under the belly. Honestly, it’s a good show. All sorts of circus tricks you wanna take your kid to see. But if I’ve got a problem, it’s that I’ve already assigned too many resources to this operation. Just to quiet the bellyaching of those who wouldn’t get to see the fireworks.”

  “Chief, I don’t think throwing men at the problem is wise. We need to shape our tactics to the intelligence we’ve been receiving.”

  “Or counterintelligence. You sure you wan
na trust what you’re hearing?”

  This was the part of the call Lu was dreading.

  “Not just rumors, Chief. I’ve just received blueprints of their equestrian equipment. This is next era tech. Nothing we’ve seen them train with inside their hippodrome.”

  “Blueprints?” On the other end, the chief leaned away to issue orders to someone else. “Blueprints from whom?”

  An informant who’s hacking himself into the police’s secret server.

  “Anonymous, Chief.”

  More chattering on the other end.

  “Maybe you’re looking at theoretical horsy flying machines designed by Leonardo da Vinci.”

  Lu took a deep breath. “No, this channel has been supplying reliable intel for the last—”

  “Because they’re not getting past our defenses unless they are able to fly. Are you saying these horses can fly, Inspector?”

  “I’ve had the specs less than a half hour, but . . . Thrust output versus the combined weight of animal, rider, and equipment . . .” She’d have to crunch the numbers to be sure. “From what I can tell, no.”

  “Good. But if these pretty pegasuses could fly, we have a squad of sharpshooters in the air.”

  “Hmh?”

  “And, strictly confidentially now, a couple rocket-propelled grenades. From Hendricks’ private stash.”

  Lu knew weapons left over from the Zahzian War were stockpiled all around town. But she was pretty sure police use of anti-tank explosives was still frowned upon. Even in Dodoville.

  “Listen,” she said, “I’m not suggesting we should stand down. But if this intel is reliable—and, as I said, this channel has been—” Who were they, though? Lu didn’t like faceless informants. “We should make adjustments to our preparations.”

  “Which adjustments?” Harrowfew spat back the question so fast, it felt like a threat.

  “The anti-cavalry unit is . . . vulnerable. I’d bring them behind the barricade. Also, thicken it by four or five cars.”

  “Why?”

  “They jump.”

  “Oh, they don’t fly but they jump!” The Chief did not conceal his amusement.

  “The horses, yes. That is correct.”

  That came out more aggressive than she intended.

  “All right, Inspector. Here’s another thing about horses. They bleed. And they die. However many the CKE bring today, the riot line can hold twice as many. And if by some miracle . . .”

  That instant when self-doubt surprises you. Lu could hear it in his silence.

  “Everyone has their orders. Understood?”

  “Yes, Chief.” She licked her lips. “Listen, our most ancient enemy. In light of this tip-off, I justed wanted to—”

  “Noted. Harrowfew out.”

  Official ass-covering complete, thought Lu.

  The more she looked at these blueprints, the crazier they seemed. Digitial post-its proposed questions like, “How much horsepower can a powered horse power?” Playful descriptions of what individual engine modules would sound like. “Like an asthmatic cat wheezing in a half-empty library after eating borscht too quickly.”

  As if whoever sent this wanted her and only her to have the benefit of the information.

  She raised her binocs and stared up at the pass where the assault was most likely to begin.

  If these damn marauders didn’t come down the mountain like rolling thunder, Epifania Lu was gonna feel plenty embarrassed.

  With the morning sun crowning on the mountains, Hammond had difficulty watching the road. An hour overdue and nothing but migrating cranes coming over the peaks. He wondered if maybe the return of the Horselords was just a distraction from some other mischief in the city.

  What a weird lot, them. Rumor is, once upon a time they worshiped fire. When the Order of Septic Monks brought them the gospel in the fifteenth century, the Horsefolk, despite being blood-thirsty savages, received the stories with childlike credulity. At least until they learned the savior rode an ass into glory: in indignant fury, they hunted the liarly monks nearly to extinction. The Septics, pragmatic to a fault, believed they might yet instill Christian virtue into the horseback barbarians by teaching them tales of chivalry. By some perfect storm of spite and stupidity, the Horsefolk conflated King Arthur with Jesus Christ, and the rest of this shitshow was history.

  Two hours late. Well, no rumor yet of them learning to tell time.

  It was felonious to bring a horse inside Dodoville city limits. Naturally: those beasts set fire to things if they stared at ‘em for too long. But Hammond was part Horsefolk on his mother’s side, brought up to admire their defiant free spirit. Part of him thought they deserved a chance to raze and murder in Dodoville one last time.

  “I see something,” he said. “Two riders. At a walk.”

  “How are they armed?”

  “They look like standard bearers, sir.”

  “Flags?” his superior chirped over the comm.

  “That’s affirmative. One the banner for the Church of the Knight Errant. The other . . . Just looks like a broom beating a cricket or something.”

  “A locust I’d guess.”

  “Like a pestilence? A biblical plague.”

  “The Horsefolk are a marauding horde,” someone interjected. “They don’t have colors.”

  “Yellow blue red and green.”

  “What?”

  “Their colors,” said Hammond. “Four more riders. Bright as Chutes and Ladders pieces. Just appeared on the road behind the standard bearers.”

  “Give me the binocs.” The voice of his sergeant on the comm. “Lancers! Well, I’ll be damned. Sons a’ bitches think it’s medieval times.”

  “Looks like they are wearing . . . I dunno, some kind of spandex.”

  “What kind of knight wears spandex.”

  “The horses, sir.”

  “What?”

  “That’s who’s wearing it. That’s what’s yellow blue red and green.”

  “How do you know they aren’t painted?”

  “Who paints a horse?”

  “Who spandexes a horse?”

  “Pinto,” a gravelly voice suggested. “That means painted.”

  “Pinto means patches in the fur. It’s not paint!”

  “Pinto’s a half-breed. White horse mated with a demon. The demon bits are red.”

  “They got some kind of weird tackle box on their rumps.”

  “That yellow one is huge!”

  “I think those tackle boxes are engines.”

  “Shut up, they’re going fishin’.”

  “Fish any closer, their heads will smart for it.”

  “Wish I was fishin’.”

  “Horses don’t wear spandex. Horses don’t have engines! They have scales like a dragon and their tails spin like a propeller. Don’t none of you fools know science?”

  “Listen, I was a machinist in the Zahzian War. I don’t know what kind but that is an engine.”

  “Yeah, so run out there and write ‘em a ticket, Murph.”

  Laughter.

  “Soon as they cross that city line, that horse will have a rope of tickets runnin’ through it teeth-to-tail.”

  “The color guard is breaking off and turning back. The four horsemen are speeding to a trot.”

  “Is that the gimmick? Biblical?”

  “The Four Plagues of Egypt,” said a voice with awe.

  An extremely loud clatter.

  “Ow! What the fuck!”

  “Oi! Language! I’ll have your badge, Novak!”

  The helicopters flew into range of the riders. “Attention. This is the police! You will not pass. Lay down your weapons.”

  “Such as they are,” said someone at the barricade.

  For a moment, they waited.

  “Sounds like they’re laying down some funky beats.”

  “They have a stereo system?”

  “Of course. Sir Mix-a-lot was a real dude.”

  “God damn, I feel the earth shake from here
.”

  “Motown. I think it’s the Pointer Sisters.”

  “Nah. Martha and the Vandellas.”

  “Attention people of Dodoville! This is Knight Commander Brum of the Pestilence.”

  “See? See? What did I tell you? One of the plagues of Egypt!”

  “Locusts were a plague of Egypt! Pestilence was . . .”

  “Come out into the streets and set fire to your houses! And we promise you shall not be harmed!”

  More silence on the comm.

  “Did you know the Pointer Sisters recorded a country album?”

  “You’d only have to burn a couple houses. The rest would catch on account of the wind.”

  “I dunno it was a whole album. Maybe just the one song.”

  “Especially with them old fire codes.”

  “How can they name their four horsemen after one of the four horsemen? It’s fuckin’ stupid!”

  “I swear to God, Novak! Language!”

  “Check out the helmet that Brum is wearing. It’s got bat wings on it!”

  “Salt peanuts, salt peanuts!”

  “Do you think Chief will let me keep that helmet?”

  “It’s evidence, jackass!”

  “Evidence of what? Bygone Teutonic artistry?”

  “Ooh, big-word Bonilla! What’d you do, go to college?”

  “I learned it from your mother, Lascaux.”

  “But that . . . Then how come I don’t know them big words, Bo?”

  “Captain! They’ve lowered their lances! They’re charging, sir!”

  “Kinda far out yet, aren’t they?”

  “Nah, five miles’ is just one Camptown race. That’s how they doodah.”

  “BO HOW COME I DON’T KNOW THEM BIG WORDS?”

  “Give me the megaphone. Attention! This is the police. Dismount your vehicles and place your hands . . . on the rumpus.”

  “Nice one, Captain.”

  “I could have worded it better, though?”

  “‘Put your hands under the hood.’”

  “See, I thought that, but the joke felt a little wide right.”

  “Right inside the butt.”

  “Hey. It says ‘Professionalism’ on the side of the squad car.”