This bullet was identical to the one that nestled inside her jacketidentical save for the fact that it had never been fired.
She couldnt believe it. The bullet she carriedthat had sailed a thousand miles through the airs and clouds of Virga, avoiding cities and farms, adeptly swerving to avoid fish and rocks and oceanic balls of water, this bullet that had lined up on Slipstream and the city of Rush and the window in the admiralty where Venera stood so innocently; had smashed the glass in a split-second and buried itself in her jaw, spinning her around and nailing a sense of injured outrage to Venera foreverit had come from here. It had not been fired in combat. Not in spite. Not for any murderous purpose, but for tradition, and to celebrate the calmness of a morning like any other.
Venera had fantasized about this moment many times. She had rehearsed what she would say to the owner of the gun when she finally found him. It was a high, grand, and glorious speech that, in her imagination, always ended with her putting a bullet in the villain. Cradling this picture of revenge to herself had gotten her through many nights, many cocktail parties where out of the corner of her eye she could see the ladies of the admiralty pointing to her scar and murmuring to one another behind their fans.
Huh, she said.
Venera? Are you all right?
Venera shook her head violently. Powder. Quick! She held out the gun, and Eilen filled it. Then she jammed the clean new bullet into the breach and closed it. She lofted the gun and spun the wheel.
Everybody down! Nobody heard her, but luckily a gap opened in the line at the last second. The gun made a huge noise and nearly blew Venera off the roof. When the vast plume of smoke cleared she saw nearly everybody in sight recovering from having ducked.
It might not be powerful or accurate, but the thing was loud . That fact might just save them.
She ran toward the Lirisians. The cannons! Start shouting stuff about cannons! She breached the smoking weapon and handed it to Eilen. Reload.
But we lost the rest of the bullets.
Weve got one. She reached into her jacket pocket. There it was, its contours familiar from years of touching. She brought out her bullet. Her fingers trembled now as she held it up to the red flare light.
Damn you anyway, she whispered to it.
Eilen glanced up, said, Oh, and held up the gun. There was no time for ceremony; Venera slid the hated slug into the breach and it fit perfectly. She clicked it shut.
Out of my way! She crossed the roof in great bounding steps, dodging between fighting men to reach the battlement where the ladders jutted up. The gunfire from below had stopped; the snipers didnt want to hit their own men as they topped the wall. Venera hopped up onto a crenel and sighted nearly straight down. She saw the startled eyes of a Sacrus soldier between her feet, and half a dozen heads below his. She spun the spark wheel.
The explosion lifted her off her feet. Everything disappeared behind a ball of smoke. When she staggered to her feet some yards away, Venera found herself surrounded by cheering people. Several of Sacruss soldiers were being thrown off the roof, and for the moment no more were appearing. As the smoke cleared she saw that the top of the ladder shed fired down was missing.
Keep filling it, she said, thrusting the gun at Eilen. Bullets dont matteras long as its bright and loud.
Mosss grinning face emerged from the gloom. Theyre hesitating!
She nodded. Sacrus didnt have so many people that they could afford to sacrifice them in wave attacks. The darkness and confusion would help; and though they had probably heard it every day of their lives, the thunderous sound of the morning gun at this close range would give pause to the men holding the ladders.
Its not going to keep them at bay for long, though, she said. Where are the rest of our people?
Now Moss frowned. T-trapped, I fear. Guinevera l-led them into an ambush. Now they have their backs to the open air. He pointed toward the edge of the world and the night skies beyond.
Venera hopped up on the edge of the elevator platform and took a quick look around. Sacruss people were spread in a thin line around two of the approaches to Liris. On their third side, ragged girders and scoured metal jutted off the end of the world. And on the fourthbehind hera jumble of brambles, thorn-bushes, and broken masonry formed a natural barrier that Sacrus wasnt bothering to police.
In the darkness beyond, hundreds of torches lit the contours of an army small by Veneras standards, but huge for Spyre. There might be no more than a thousand men there, but that was all the forces that opposed Sacrus on this world.
Spreading away behind that army was the maze of estates that made up Greater Spyre. Somewhere out there was the long low building where the hollowed bomb hung, with its promise of escape.
She turned to Moss. You need to break through Sacruss lines. Otherwise, theyll overwhelm us, and then they can turn and face our army with a secure fortress behind them.