‘Yeah,’ said Sunny. ‘Gotta blow us all up.’
Jalor shrugged. ‘As I've said — I should have died a long time ago.’
Sunny grumbled under his breath, ‘Just do us a favour and do it tomorrow.’ Jalor grinned and offered Hurl a wink. He set off after Runty.
Hurl tried to take Sunny's arm but he shook her off. ‘Fine. Be that way.’
‘What do you think,’ he panted as he limped, his voice taut with pain, ‘a cracker?’
‘Yeah. That should overkill it nicely.’
The passage opened on to an open square of beaten earth that ended at a wide sliding door. Hurl held Sunny's arm to halt him. Silk had said the exits were sealed; what had he meant by that? ‘What are you waiting for?’ Sunny hissed.
‘Silk warned us off the doors.’
He pulled his arm free. ‘Just blast it and let's go!’
While Hurl watched, shadows on the panels shifted and stretched. They seemed to drip on to the ground then they snaked out like wet black ink reaching towards them.
Flinching back, Sunny almost knocked her down.
Light blazed across the square in a cutting curtain of blinding white. Blinking away the after-images Hurl saw the shadows on the door writhing as if in pain. In the darkness of an alley across the way she glimpsed the slim older woman who had stood with Orlat. She was examining the door as well. Then she turned her lazy gaze to them. ‘Your friend is good,’ she called, ‘but we'll corner him.’ She frowned. ‘Ule should've finished with you two already.’
Without aiming Hurl lifted the crossbow from under her arm and fired. It wasn't bang-on, but it was close. She was sure the blast caught the woman before she entered her Warren. As it was, she at least blew up two barrels damn good. Sunny offered her a reluctant nod. ‘Nice one.’
They ran to the wall as far from the loading dock as possible. ‘I'll take that,’ said Sunny, holding out a cracker. They exchanged. Sunny covered her while she studied the wall and kicked at its base: solid hand-shaved planks sunk far into beaten earth. Tricky. The cracker could obliterate any section above but it would need a solid foundation to direct the blast. She drew her shortest blade and started hacking at the dry packed earth. While she worked she saw Sunny set down the crossbow and unwrap a cussor. He caught her watching him. ‘I'm tired of playing around.’
‘Might as well chuck it against the wall now.’
‘That'd be a waste.’
Hurl had to agree. The cracker was bad enough, but a cussor used against a wall of timbers was enough to make any sapper cry. Used against any one particular enemy who has pissed you off mightily, well, that was pretty much a tradition in the corps started by Hedge. Sword-play and stamping feet echoed up the alley behind. She hurriedly set the cracker, kicked the earth down around it. ‘Have to do.’
‘Now,’ came Sunny's tight warning.
She risked a glance: Storo and Rell were shuffling in a fighting retreat against a pressing gang of swordsmen. She let two drops of undiluted acid fall on to the dirt packed over the cracker, then, jumping up, took Sunny's arm to help him run aside and yelled the standard sapper warning: ‘Munitions!’
They dived. The eruption was like twin hammers slamming into her head from either side. Shredded timber tumbled down all around. Though Sunny and she were insanely close they were still in one piece because the whole point behind crackers was to direct the main force of the blast in one direction — up the wall in this case. Lying there, shaking off the effect of the explosion, she found that instinctively she'd thrown herself on top of Sunny to protect what he carried, and that he was curled on to his side facing away from the impact, despite the quarrel sticking out of his leg. The risks they were taking with their ordnance appalled her.
An arm yanked her, marched her to the smoking gap — Rell. Somehow the Genabackan swordsman retained his grip of both weapons while hooking one arm around her. Wet gore covered both blades and splashed his leathers. None, she was sure, was his. He urged her on through the jagged hole.
The riverside wharf-front was dark. Watch torches lit the Idryn's far shore. Dirt gave way to the wood planks of the wharf and docks. Storo pushed Sunny through to Hurl then he and Rell covered the smoking gap in the warehouse wall. Planking from the roof fell all around. ‘Where to?’ she yelled.
‘The river!’ Storo answered.
Hurl staggered backwards with Sunny who fought to remain. ‘We'll cover them,’ she told him and he subsided. A shout sounded — a Seven Cities war challenge — and Jalor erupted from the blasted section at a dead run. Men poured out after him. Arrows nicked the ground all around, fired from the roof.
While Hurl hobbled with Sunny a familiar thump sounded from the docks and she grinned, tracing an imaginary path through the night sky to the roof behind and was rewarded by the crack of a sharper clearing the archers from one side of the roof. ‘Shaky has us covered!’ she laughed. Sunny's look told her she'd sounded a touch panicked.
Storo, Rell and Jalor fought a tight retreat. Pot-shots from Shaky cleared any group that pressed too close. Hurl found him crouched behind cover next to a moored river launch. ‘Get in,’ he snarled and reached for her crossbow. Hurl let Sunny down and raised the weapon herself.
From the wharf-walk Hurl saw that things were finally getting ugly. Some kind of summoning stepped out of a Warren. She imagined you'd call it a demon, or monster, all scales and jagged horns. In any case, it sure wasn't one of theirs. It turned on the Captain and closed ground. Rell actually looked ready to take it on but Storo pulled him back, bellowing, ‘Silk!’
Hurl held her breath, but nothing happened. Usually when the Captain called that loud for their cadre mage, smoke, flame and lightning and you name it came flying. But now nothing. A nagging thought surfaced; had the old gal and her buddy finally managed to corner him?
A whistle brought Hurl's attention around: Sunny on the launch. He held up a cussor then tossed it. She practically fired her crossbow in her panic to empty her hands. She let the cussor strike her chest and closed her arms around it then lay down to take the weight from her sagging knees.
Shaky was looking down at her. ‘They're too close anyway.’ Arrows pattered around like rain. A bestial roar rattled the dock, echoing from the wharf-walk. Hurl peered over the piled cargo.
The demon was sinking. At least that was how it looked. The beast was up to its scaled waist in dirt and flailing madly. Everyone had stopped to watch, fascinated, the way Hurl had seen the fighting on battlefields halt when a particularly impressive piece of magery was in the process of going horribly awry. It sank to its chest, its neck, then, roaring what sounded like panic, disappeared but for its spasming arms. Those arms remained standing from the streaming dirt like two malformed plants, jerking and clawing.
‘Hood's bones!’ Shaky breathed. ‘What a way to go.’
‘Shoot, dammit!’ Sunny called from the launch. ‘Shoot!’
Hurl took aim and fired at the firmer parts of the warehouse roof where the archers had edged forward once more. Shaky dropped one into the closest knot of Orlat's men. That broke the spell. Men dived for cover. The rest of the squad made the dock. Hurl and Shaky fired last warning shots as the launch unmoored then everyone jumped for it. The archers peppered the boat as they drifted away into the dark. Rell and Sunny rowed while everyone else ducked for cover.
Shaky relieved Sunny who eased himself down next to Jalor who lay, eyes shut, breathing wetly. He looked to have taken a beating. The launch rocked alarmingly, dipping at the bow, and there was Silk, his trademark dark silks smoking and tattered. His long blond hair plastered his head, soaked in sweat. He let himself slump on to a thwart and leaned back, breathing in deep lungfuls of the cool river air.
So, they'd all made it. But what now? Hurl eyed the Captain. He was looking ahead, downriver, his gaze thoughtful. Would he send Silk by Warren to Fist Rheena? Surely now he had to let her know that a gang of pirates were in the city recruiting. She cleared her throat. The Captain nodded, grimacing. ‘Yes, Hurl… What now?’
‘Tell Rheena. She's been square.’
He rubbed an unshaven cheek, wincing at Hurl's words. ‘Yeah. Well, that's the problem. That just makes this all the harder.’
‘What?’
‘She's dead,’ said Silk.
