'Ya gonna help us or scamper like yer totem?' She struggled ineffectually in Kham's grip. 'Ya got a better chance if we're along wit ya.'
She stopped struggling and stared sullenly at him. 'You could be right.'
'lam.'
'Put me down.'
He did. She made a show of dusting herself off and making ineffectual passes through her snarled hair. Worthless preening, and a waste of time as well, but Kham knew she was only trying to impress her importance and dignity on him. Let her try; nothing she did could give her dignity in his eyes. Importance? Well, important was as important did. Rationally, he knew that there was another purpose in what she did; a magician needed to be calm and collected to do her magic. Not so calm as to think she could double-cross them, though. He showed his tusks and said, 'Dere are enough of us ta get ya if ya try ta frag wit us. And even if we don't get ya, ya still gotta get past da guards. Ain't gonna be nobody ta shoot de Andies on yer tail if ya dump us. Dey got a mage, remember?'
'There is no need to threaten me. I have accepted your evaluation of the situation.' She stuck her runny nose up in the air. 'Now, be silent! I must speak with the spirits.'
Scatter raised her arms above her head and rattled her collection of charms and talismans. Swaying, she danced a few steps and hummed. The dance speeded up and she began to chant.
'Oh mighty Donsedantay, hear me. Come, oh mighty spirit. Walk with us and shield us with your cloak. Guide us out from this place, guard us from those who would do us harm. Donsedantay, dweller in this place, hear me. Donsedantay, come to my call.' The old woman chanted on while Kham sweated. This was taking time, too much time. Why couldn't she just wave her hands and do the magic? That was the way Sally Tsung worked. Fragging shamans always had to make a show out of the thing. Besides, while this rat shaman was doing her song and dance, the Andalusian guards might be closing in on them this very minute. Certainly the Andies were sealing off the entrances to the complex.
There would be no getting out the way they got in. With a full alert on, the bribes Kham had paid wouldn't keep the guards bought. He couldn't afford to pay them not to see the people huddled in the back of their bogus Gaeatronics Telecommunications repair van. There would be fighting, and the van was just a van; he and the guys would never make it past the front gate without armor. They'd have to drop back to plan B: head for the wire, blow their way through, and disperse. And pray they got away.
'We have the protection of the mighty Donsedan-tay,' Scatter announced.
For whatever that's worth, Kham thought. Yet something had changed; the air around them seemed charged with electricity. This wasn't like Sally's magic and that made Kham uncomfortable. Still, somehow, in some indefinable way, he felt safer. 'Dis better work.'
'Have faith, boy. The spirits are strong and they heed my call. I shall lead you to safety.' Ryan, Rat-stomper, and The Weeze looked relieved as she stepped into their midst. Even Rabo perked up. Scatter pointed to the door. 'We leave that way.'
The guys starting moving, Scatter leading from within their group. Neko gave Kham a shrug and a bemused smile before also falling into step. Kham noted the catboy held his little SCK submachine gun ready. Kham checked his AK and followed. They left the building by a side door, after making
sure no Andalusian guards were in sight. Keeping to the shadows, they moved through the complex, avoiding the main thoroughfares, where occasionally they could see security vehicles prowling. Several times squads of Andies passed at various crossroads, often hesitating, but never turning toward them. Scatter's magic seemed to be holding. But Kham knew that somewhere out there was a mage, and he wasn't sure the rat shaman's magic would be enough to hide them from a magician's sight.
The sounds of combat tore his thoughts away from magic and mages. Kham heard first an explosion, then gunfire, coming from no more than a hundred meters away. From the sound, the firefight was going on ahead of them, probably somewhere on the next thoroughfare. Neko stole ahead to scout. He signaled for a cautious approach, so Kham joined him to see what was going on.
The Andies had engaged and injured one of the metal men. The wounded rough boy was crawling away from a crater in the pavement, trailing an oily black sludge from gaps in his shredded chrome leg. Sprawled in the middle of the road was an Andie clutching a rifle-mounted grenade launcher; he'd paid for the shot that had gotten the cyberguy. The Andies buddies were peppering the cripple with light-weapons fire, but they obviously didn't have any more heavy stuff. And none of them was taking the chance of running out to recover their downed chummer's weapon. Too bad, Kham thought. That was the only way they were going to be able to dust this guy. But then, the Andies would probably have reinforcements soon, and those newcomers would doubtless be loaded for bear. Metal glittered in the darkness across the way, spooking Kham. He brought up the AK, but held fire when he saw what was coming toward him: the other two metal men. Instead of charging the runners, however, the two guys took the corner and raced down the thoroughfare with unnatural speed. Their tribarrels moaned in short, sobbing bursts and an Andie dropped with each burst. One of the metal men stopped by his fallen companion and helped the guy up while the other stood over them, placing bursts that kept the Andalu-sian guards under cover. Despite all the confusion of the weapons fire, Kham realized that these rough boys no longer had the crystal.
Drek! All that fuss and the bastards had lost the rock. Now that the elf was alerted that someone knew where he was keeping it, they'd never have another chance to get at it again. At least not one that Kham could mount. Every bullet being fired was another hole in the balloon of Kham's dream; they'd lost the gamble. The only good thing was that those fragging piles of walking hardware were attracting all the Andalu-sians' attention, giving him and the guys a chance to get away.
But before he could get his guys organized enough to take advantage of the Andies' preoccupation, screeching brakes announced a new arrival. A vehicle had arrived somewhere out of sight behind the guards' position. The reinforcements, no doubt. Moments later, a woman stepped around the corner of the building. Glowing with arcane energy, she gave off enough light for Kham to see the grim determination on her face. The Andie wagemage had finally made her appearance.
The metal man on overwatch gave her a burst, but the bullets howled away in whining ricochets. Smiling tightly, the mage waved her hands in a conjuring gesture, then straightened one arm in a casting motion. Lambent energy streamed from her fingers, coiling into a brilliant beam that shot through the air like a laser. The air around the trio of cyberguys began to glow, lighting them up as if they stood in the glare of a hundred arclights. The edges of the sphere of light wavered like pavement on a hot summer day; the forms of the metal men within the light were just flickering shadows. The wounded cyberguy howled as his injured leg started sparking, the flashes of light even brighter than the flaring magic around them. So hellishly intense was the light that Kham expected the rough boys to start smoldering and then wither away to ashes. For a moment nothing happened, as everyone watched the cyberguys engulfed in the wage mage's spell. Time seemed frozen. Then the glow surrounding the metal men faded some, then a bit more. Continuing to dwindle away, the light dissolved into the ruddy glow of dying embers, then winked out. Seemingly untouched, the cyberguys remained standing where they had been. The mage looked worried.
As one. the metal men raised their tribarrels and opened up on the mage in a triple stream of fire. The tracers burned lines in the night no less brilliant than the mage's spell. The wage mage staggered back, her magic still shielding her, but Kham could tell that wouldn't last long. Turning, the mage tried to run for cover, but it was too late. A small rocket launched by the cyberguy leader impacted at the mage's feet, tossing her into the air. Her arcane shield faltered and three streams of tracers intersected in her, ripping her apart.
Under renewed fire from the Andalusian guards, the metal men started a slow retreat back toward the runners, indicating that the rough boys weren't planning to stay and finish off this batch of Andies. Kham and his guys couldn't afford to wait any longer. There was no telling where the cyberguys would head. Drek, they might even decide to take up residence in the alley the orks currently occupied. It was time to go now and make the best of it.
Kham led his guys out of the alley, urging them to run like hell across the road. To his surprise, they were not instantly riddled with bullets. One slug did strike the pavement near him, but Kham concluded that it was a stray or a ricochet when no others followed. Once everyone was safely under cover and sheltered from fire by the building, they stopped for a second to confirm that no one had been hit. Fortunately, all was well.
Looking around, Kham hoped desperately that he might discover some other option than running straight down the alley; the cyberguys might come this way just as easily as they might have stumbled into the place where the
