Mazigh called Kenan and the Eranian called Shifrah were on this train.”
Qhora felt a strange emptiness in her breast. All the rage, all the heat, all the focus was draining away and leaving her with only a single cold, hollow question.
Where is he?
She was about to turn and ask Salvator something, perhaps to ask if he had seen anything, perhaps even to ask his advice as to what she should do next. But a voice drew her attention to the train, and there, on the far side of the tracks, with the cars obscuring all but their boots, were three people. She heard their voices.
She heard his voice.
“There they are!” The rage returned into a single titanic wave of fire and blood in her mind as she ran off the edge of the platform, leaping between two cars to land on the far side just behind the three figures.
All three turned to look at her and the Mazigh gunman’s eyes widened. He raised one open hand as he said, “Dona Qhora! My name is Kenan Agyeman. We met once at-”
She shrieked as she lunged at him, at his filthy mouth making noises and excuses and lies, standing between her and her prey. The young man stumbled back, his hand clawing at the holster on his leg. She saw the fear in his eyes. And dimly she felt the one-eyed woman coming toward her.
But then Mirari was there, suddenly, as if from nowhere, as Mirari always appeared, running and leaping from the shadows. The mountain girl flew out from between two passenger cars and tackled the Eranian woman to the ground and the two rolled across the dirt and gravel in a storm of blades and dusty clothes.
Qhora smashed her fist into Kenan’s jaw, her knife just grazing his neck. His foot caught a rock and he fell back hard. Just as he yanked his gun free, she stomped on his wrist and shot her knife toward his throat. His eyes went wide and he screamed, “Oh-God-please-no!”
And she stopped. This isn’t him. Isn’t the one. Isn’t right.
Qhora dashed away from the fallen Mazigh after the figure in green sprinting away down the side of the train.
That’s the one. The one who did it. That’s the one I need. I need to catch him, to wrap my fingers around his throat, to hear him beg for his life, and then to take it from him.
Just as the man in green reached the end of the train, Salvator Fabris stepped out from beyond the nose of the locomotive with his rapier drawn and raised.
“No! He’s mine!” Qhora screamed.
A blaze of orange light slashed through the shadows, and Qhora saw the man in green wielding his strange burning sword, hacking viciously at the Italian. But there was no clash of steel, no ringing blades. Salvator darted back and back again, twisting and turning, stabbing and needling at his opponent, but never letting the fiery short sword touch his shining rapier.
Qhora felt her legs burning and her lungs burning and her heart pounding as she raced down the last few yards toward the two men. But before she could reach them, the Aegyptian dodged around the front of the train and disappeared, and Salvator did not follow. He merely slipped his rapier away, tugged a small handkerchief from his sleeve, and dabbed at the perspiration on his forehead.
Qhora slid around the front of the train. The platform was empty. “Where is he? Where did he go?”
Salvator shrugged and she heard him breathing heavily. “Through the gate, I suppose. Into the city.”
“Why did you let him go?”
The Italian blinked and arched one eyebrow. “You told me not to kill him, and I told you I wasn’t interested in him to begin with. Besides, he was quite good with that little sword of his. Unique design. Nipponese, if I’m not mistaken. I think it’s called a seireiken. Hot, too. Too hot to cross blades with. And even if I had been willing to let it touch my steel, it would have been a close match. I can see why he was able to best Don Lorenzo.”
Qhora paused to catch her breath. “What? He’s an oaf! An idiot! He did more damage to the hotel than to Enzo. He only killed him because that damn sword of his melted through…Enzo’s espada…” She felt clawing hands of grief at her throat, choking off her words. She covered her eyes, trying to forget the image of the burning sword piercing Enzo’s chest.
“Really? Then he’s improved over night. Literally. But my business lies there.” Salvator pointed behind her.
Qhora glanced back to see Mirari still locked arm in arm with the one-eyed woman on the ground, while the Mazigh man stood over them with his gun pointed at the sky, yelling at them. “We have to help her!” And she was off running again.
Mirari!
Mirari existed in a strange place in Qhora’s life, somewhere between sister and friend and servant. Enzo had found her in the mountains, deformed and half-mad, but Alonso had brought her back, her mind quite at peace behind the beauty of her new Italian mask, and she had simply become part of their household in Madrid. Sometimes Enzo’s student, sometimes her confidante, and sometimes a household servant working to earn her keep. And of course, always Alonso’s lover. But whatever else she was or wasn’t, Mirari was family now.
The Mazigh gunman saw Qhora running toward them, and for a moment he moved as though to point his gun at her, but he shouted at his one-eyed friend again, and the woman managed to disentangle herself from the masked girl. The Mazigh and the Eranian clambered between the passenger cars and out of sight and Qhora heard them running across the platform, and then they were gone.
She reached Mirari just as the girl was standing up. She was moving stiffly, but there was no stain of blood on her or the ground, and for a moment Qhora felt something other than rage and confusion. Relief. “Are you all right?”
Mirari nodded. “I’m sorry, my lady. She was surprisingly skilled with her hands, and I had to keep her between me and the Mazigh. I couldn’t reach my knife.”
Excuses. She’s making excuses. The cool relief vanished beneath another wave of hate. “You let them go!”
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
“We’ll have to start over again!”
Why did I bring this broken girl at all? Alonso wouldn’t have lost them. He’s taller, stronger. Or Atoq, my beautiful Atoq, he would have torn their throats out and right now I could be staring down at their lifeless bodies instead of my own empty hands.
“Come on,” Qhora snapped. “We have to find them!”
With Salvator trailing a few paces behind, they jogged out the gates of the station and into the streets of Carthage. The early morning sun shone down on a few dozen people striding this way and that way, talking in low stern voices, gesturing sharply, and striding on to somewhere else. A few craftsmen sat behind tables of their wares beneath striped awnings as they wove their baskets, or painted their glassware, or assembled their toys. The real markets were elsewhere, Qhora realized, and these were only the poorest people trying to catch a bit of business from the train’s travelers.
They came to the first intersection and stared down the long dusty roads in each direction. Qhora felt her entire body tightening up, her hand squeezing her knife, her teeth grinding together.
Salvator glided around her and spoke without looking at her in the eye. “You may want to put the knife away. You look ready to use it on the first thing that moves, which may not be your enemy. It wouldn’t do to run afoul of the local constabulary. They aren’t as reasonable here as they are in Marrakesh.”
With a trembling hand, she slipped the knife back into the narrow sheathe up her sleeve. “Where do we go now?”
“Well, we can’t possibly search all of these houses or shops. We need information, we need eyes. So let’s find someplace crowded.” Fabris took the lead, striding smoothly through the thickening crowds of caravan merchants, Kanemi workers, Hellan traders, Songhai pilgrims, and other peoples from farther east that Qhora had never seen before. They reached a bustling square ringed with small cafes and shrines, and around the dry fountain in the center of the space were hundreds of kiosks, a maze of rickety tables shaded by tattered awnings on crooked poles all lashed together in a patchwork shantytown in the middle of the square. The murmuring voices rose like the babble of white water pouring over a fall, and dust filled the air with a brown haze that stung Qhora’s nose and eyes.
Ahead of her, she saw Salvator ducking his head into the market stalls and kiosks, speaking softly to the merchants, sometimes gesturing toward his eye or miming the appearance of a gun or a sword. The merchants
