The Hellan fixed her with an angry squint. “What are you doing?”
“Giving that woman a taste of early retirement.” Taziri carefully counted the seconds passing as she calculated the volumes of the canisters. At the right moment, she whipped the canisters away and capped them. Then she dipped a pair of rags in engine grease and tied them to the little handles near the neck of each canister. “A match, I need a match! I don’t have a match, where…no, there won’t be any in here. Doctor, I need a light, a light!”
Evander gave his immediate surroundings a glance, and shrugged. Taziri dashed back into the shelves and crates at the back of the shed and emerged a moment later with the rusting remains of a small windmill. She tossed the thing onto the workbench and yanked out the wires from its base, pulled the utility knife from her pocket, and quickly split and stripped the wires.
“Now what are you doing?”
“Making fire in the absolutely least convenient way imaginable.” She held the two exposed wires in one hand, their tips hovering only a hair apart and just above one of the greasy rags. With her other hand, Taziri grabbed the sturdiest looking blade of the windmill and began spinning it as fast as she could. A moment later, a spark flickered between the wires. A moment after that, a shower of sparks fell onto the rag, and then another. Taziri spun the blade until her shoulder ached and the wires went on spitting sparks onto the rags until angry little flames suddenly unfurled across them. Taziri shoved the windmill away and grabbed the two canisters, using the one burning rag to light the other one. Then she kicked her blockade away from the door and the door swung open on its crooked hinges.
Taziri ran across the field. The other pilot and the ground crew had barricaded themselves inside the older airship, and the woman in white was slowly but surely smashing through the tempered glass with her long knives. “Hey you!” Taziri stopped in the middle of the field, still some distance away from the woman. “Hey! Leave them alone!”
The woman continued shattering the airship windows.
Taziri grimaced and hurled one her flaming canisters so that it fell just behind the woman. When it struck the ground, it split open length-wise along the seal and the released gas exploded with a deafening thunderclap followed by the woof of a fire ball. It was a very small explosion, and all trace of it vanished in an instant, but the woman was thrown face first into the broken window. She stumbled away from the airship with one hand pressed to the side of her face where bright red blood was streaming across her skin and running down the front of her white coat. She dashed across the field with the stiletto in hand. “You think I’m scared of a little fire?”
Taziri jogged backwards. “Stay back! I have another one!”
The woman in white leapt at her.
In that instant, Taziri only saw the knife tip flying at her chest and a cold terror raced down her arms. She threw the canister with a clumsy gesture as she twisted away to protect herself. Through narrowed eyes, she saw the canister crack open against the woman’s shin, saw the brilliant gold and crimson blossom of flames swallow her lower body, saw her thrown into the air as her legs were blasted out from under her. She spun a tight and violent rotation in empty space and fell like a sack of bricks in the muddy grass, right on top of the broken canister.
For two deep breaths, Taziri could only stare and swallow. Then she shivered and straightened up, and she jogged over to the woman and kicked the knife out of her hand. The woman’s eyes were closed but she was breathing in thin, painful wheezes. Taziri stood over her and winced at the sight of her face. The fresh cut on her forehead was shallow but bloody. The burns were minor but ugly. Her sunglasses were gone, revealing an empty eye socket. The sight of the gaping hole brought a mouthful of bile up against her teeth and Taziri leaned away to spit it out and cough.
As she backed away, the other pilot and ground crew came running over. They thanked her and praised her makeshift flash-bangs with awkward smiles. The men grabbed the woman and bound her hands and someone ran off to find the police. Taziri stood and watched it happen, watched them buzz with nervous excitement and weary relief. Evander came up, glanced about the scene, and wandered off toward the gate, muttering only the briefest of thanks.
The police came, asked their questions, and took the woman away. At that moment, Taziri didn’t want to go back into the city, back in search of the Espani doctor. She wanted to leave. She wanted to go home. So she paced back to the Halcyon and slipped into the pilot’s seat and watched as the green grass faded to black and silver as day became night. Above the dark walls around the field, she thought she saw a dull orange glow to the west and a column of smoke rising above it. She closed her eyes, but more images and sounds from the last two days crowded her head, and for the longest time she tried to focus on home, on Isoke and her ship, on Yuba and their daughter. But it was all too much and she was too tired. She was just about to get up and leave when she heard the soft shushing of people walking on grass and she turned to see Ghanima and Evander in the shadows a few yards away. They entered the cabin.
“What’s going on?” Taziri asked. “I thought you were going home.”
“I was,” Ghanima said. “But I missed the morning train and then I had all day to think about, well, everything. I sent a telegram. My sister will be okay for another day or two. I guess I need a little more time. I need to get the Crake out of my head, you know? I just need a little bit of normal right now, before I go back to her.” Ghanima leaned against the pilot’s chair. “So. Do you feel like a little night flying?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I ran into the doc at the inn and it seems he still needs a ride to Orossa.” She grinned. “So how about we run him up there right now, turn around, and fly all night back to Tingis? We could be home by dawn if the wind plays nice.”
“Well, that sounds like a plan. But what about Kenan?”
There was a sharp rap on the hatch rim and the weary face of the one of the ground crew men poked in. “We’ve got a bit of an emergency. How fast can you folks get out of here?”
“Why? What emergency?” Ghanima asked.
“Fire, a big one in the third district, completely out of control. It just came in over the wire, emergency regs are in effect. All airships need to be out of the city immediately.”
Ghanima tossed the man a quick salute. “Acknowledged.” And the man was gone.
“Well, it looks like we’re heading out.” Taziri was too tired to think very hard about Ghanima’s proposal, but there were no glaring problems with it. Most importantly, it ended with home. Home, and soon. “Shut the hatch. Wheels up in ten minutes. Next stop, Orossa.”
Chapter 35. Syfax
The major scanned the platform at Arafez Central Station, taking in all the variations of travelers. Mostly well-dressed businesswomen and their escorts and assistants, but also a few families. His thoughts strayed to the families hiding in the woods and he wondered if they had made it to the city yet.
Syfax glanced at his aide and saw the young man picking at his lip. “Spit it out, Kenan.”
“Spit what out?”
“Whatever’s got you all wound up.”
“It’s nothing.” He paused. “I just think we should have told the other marshals what was really going on. They’re holding our only witness and prisoner with no evidence and just our word to go on. What if Medina talks them into letting her go? What if Hamuy dies and they bury him in some unmarked grave?”
“And what if someone in the marshals’ office is working for Sade?”
“All the more reason to tell those officers everything we know.” Kenan frowned. “If they knew there was a conspiracy, they could start looking for traitors. It would make things a lot harder for the bad guys if the good guys were actually looking for them. As it stands now, these conspirators are still running around unchecked.”
“Maybe.” Syfax scanned the platform again, noting the handful of new arrivals scattered around them, all waiting patiently for permission to board the waiting train. “Or maybe the fact that we’ve got Medina has them scared and they plan to lay low for a while.”
“If that’s the case, how do we catch them? Aside from Lady Sade and the ambassador, we don’t have any suspects.” Kenan frowned at the train for a moment, but his gaze wandered around to the wider cityscape of dark
