Before Qhora could lift herself to all fours, Mirari had surged up beneath her, half carrying her away across the roof top with the Hellan running close behind. Over the far side of the roof they saw a pile of trash in the next alley. “Here, my lady. I’ll go down first.” The masked woman slipped over the side and lowered herself as far as her arms would reach and then dropped to the top of the trash heap. “It’s safe. Hurry!”
Qhora knelt at the edge beside Tycho and exchange another brief look of uncertainty before they both lowered themselves down and dropped to the alley below.
Qhora landed hard, her foot slipped on something wet, and she fell on her backside. She gasped. The pain in her arm had blossomed ten-fold when she hung from the lip of the roof and now it was throbbing and pulsing between hot and cold flashes. She heard men shouting, their voices echoing and distorted by the empty streets and the high rooftops. Mirari reached down and hauled Qhora up to her feet, but her right ankle refused to take her weight. Her foot wobbled and she gasped again as she fell to her knee.
“My lady!”
“Go on, run, both of you,” Qhora said. “Leave me here. They won’t find me. I can hide in the trash and you can lead them away. It’ll be safer that way. I can’t run and you can’t carry me. So go, now!” She sat back and started to pull a rough splintered board up over her legs.
The masked woman hesitated and glanced at Tycho, who had run to the end of the alley to survey the street. The Hellan waved back at them. “We have to go now!”
“Go!” Qhora hissed as she pulled a filthy old tarp over her head. “Go!”
Mirari nodded. “Yes, my lady.” She ran to the end of the alley in a flourish of blue Espani skirts, and then she disappeared with Tycho around the corner. The sounds of the men shouting continued to bounce up and down the streets, but faded quickly.
Qhora counted to fifty and hoped that would be enough time. She shoved off the filthy tarp and the splintery board and stood up on her weak ankle. With one hand clutching the bloody wound in her shoulder and her teeth grinding against the pain in her leg, she limped out to the mouth of the alley and into the street. She shouted, “I’m right here! Take me to your boss. Now!”
And she prayed they understood Espani.
After a moment, a man stepped out of the shadows at the end of the street. She could see the gun in his hand. Qhora raised her arms at her sides to display her empty hands. “I surrender!”
The man started toward her but stopped abruptly as a high-pitched scream split the cool night air.
What on earth?
Qhora looked up just as the harpy eagle crashed down onto her extended arm and sank his massive talons into her unprotected flesh. She grunted both at the pain and the weight of the bird on her arm.
Damn it, Turi! Not now!
The man started toward her again and as he came closer she could see the smirk on his face. He waggled his gun at her and said something in Eranian that she took to mean she should go with him and she started walking back up the street toward the restaurant with Turi perched proudly on her aching arm.
When she reached the intersection there were two other armed men and the stern-faced woman in black waiting for her. Qhora managed to smile at the woman while the men roughly searched her and took her knives. “A pleasure to see you again, madam.”
“It won’t be for long,” she replied. “My mistress wishes to speak to you.”
As the men shuffled her inside, Qhora had to wrap her free arm around Turi to keep him from shifting his talons and flapping his wings. “Your mistress? And the man, Aker?”
“He isn’t here.” The woman raised an eyebrow. “That was a lie. I lied to you.”
“Yes, thank you, I see.” Qhora felt the earth fall out from under her heart.
He isn’t here? I gambled and lost. There’s nothing for me here. If they shoot me now, I’ve left Javier an orphan. And if they kill me with a seireiken, even my soul will be denied to my poor son. I’ll be imprisoned with the souls of whatever trash these people kill on a regular basis.
She was led to a table in the large dining room and shoved into a chair. She laid her forearm on the table to give her shoulder a rest, but her other arm was still bleeding. She could feel the warmth trickling down her skin, plastering her sleeve to her arm.
After a few minutes of waiting in silence, another woman joined them. This one was younger than the grim lady in black and she carried a small lamp, which she sat on the table in front of her. “Who are you?”
Qhora paused. For over five years she had grown accustomed to being recognized on sight throughout Espana and parts of Marrakesh. In some corner of her mind she had assumed that here too the people of influence and means would know her.
Is there a benefit to lying? Who should I claim to be?
“I said, who are you?” The woman produced a small Italian pistol from her sleeve and set it on the table in front of her.
“I am Dona Qhora Yupanqui Quesada, wife of Don Lorenzo Quesada de Gadir, first cousin of Manco Inca, Emperor of Jisquntin Suyu, and exile from the land you call the New World.” She rattled off the answer almost without thinking. A lifetime in one court or another had accustomed her to certain titles and pronouncements and introductions, and the answer produced itself unbidden and on instinct.
“Inca?” The woman frowned and nodded. “That explains the bird. I’ve heard some interesting things about your people, but the fact remains that they’re simply too far away to enter into our affairs here in the real world.”
“That’s probably just as well. Most visitors from the east don’t fare well in the empire. Only a tiny percentage of you Old Worlders tend to survive the Golden Death.”
“Ah, yes. The plague. One more reason your empire has no importance to the rest of the world. It’s contaminated.” The lady gestured to her woman in black, who left the room. “You came to kill Aker.”
“He killed my husband.”
“Did he now?” The lady shrugged. “And you want revenge.”
I want to go home to my baby boy.
Qhora nodded. “But I would settle for his sword and my husband’s soul.”
“Hm. Tell me, you said you were the cousin of the Incan Emperor just now. Why would an imperial princess leave her empire to live in Espana? Don’t tell me it was because you fell in love, because I will kill you for an answer so trite and pathetic.” The lady held up her hand just as the woman in black returned to place a wine glass in her raised fingers.
“No, I had to leave. Enzo was…At the time, Lorenzo was simply my best chance to survive. We fell in love afterward.” Not so very long afterward. Qhora said, “When the Espani invasion began, we had no idea how easily it would be defeated by the plague. We assumed there would be much bloodshed. So the emperor, my cousin, invoked the articles of war. Summoning the militias, conscripts, rations, taxes, and so on. And to ensure our victory, he chose me to serve as the goddess of war.”
“Is that a political post?”
“No. A sacrificial one.” Qhora blinked and focused on keeping her voice calm and level. Will this story buy me any sympathy from a person like her? “The chosen woman is sealed in a stone chamber with a small ape infected with the pure strain of the plague, the strain that not even my people are immune to. After three days, the woman is taken from the room and bound in golden shackles and collar and chains and mounted on a war eagle. And then a small honor guard parades the goddess throughout the country. This doesn’t harm our people. The woman is a host to the plague, but is not contagious. She is slowly consumed as the sickness progresses. Her skin erupts with leaves and blood-red blossoms as the plague spores take root. Her skin grows hard and rough, like bark. Eventually she dies, but the blossoms continue to grow. From the mouth. From the eyes. By then, the body is completely rigid, like wood, like a tree, covered in leaves and flowers, but still in the shape of a woman with her head erect and hands raised, because of the collar and shackles. Then she is brought back to the palace in Cusco and placed on display for all to see. To inspire our people. To terrify the enemy. To demonstrate our devotion to the gods.”
The woman sighed. “And you declined this honor?”
“I did.”
“Fascinating.” The lady sipped her wine. After a moment, she lowered her glass and spoke in rapid Eranian to the woman in black and the armed guards. The men grabbed Qhora and lifted her roughly from her chair.
“What’s happening? Where are we going?” Qhora gasped as one of the men grabbed her arm too close to the
