the blade. Gio’s grip became slippery on the freely running blood. He hid his sword hand with his dagger, so Wrenn couldn’t see to predict the direction of the next blow.
Their motions were wide; their heads ducked to avoid being cut in the eyes, watching with the faster speed of their peripheral vision. Their flexed sword arms were close to the body for strength. They hacked at the nearest enemies whenever they had a chance and the melee backed away from them, leaving them in a clear space. The fighting was spreading up and down the street and fragmenting. Tussling groups of men dispersed down the side alleys. The densest part of the fighting eddied around Ata’s bodyguard; spearmen behind, rebels ahead. Five sailors linked arms, trying to preserve a space around her so she could breathe.
I’m doing no good here, entranced by the duel. I need a firebrand to drop on Gio.
I flew back to find Lightning. It was easy, because he was the only person in Fourlands clothes walking down the middle of the broad street. Behind him, the road rose up the hillside backed by the incredible blaze. He was oblivious to the Capharnai around him, with their crying children, bucket chains and packs of belongings. He sniped unerringly at the small groups of rebels-turned-pirates who were all busy with different intents. Some scavenged like wolves; a man pulled down a gold street-lamp bracket; two lechers were held at bay by a Trisian man defending his daughter.
Lightning limped on his left side, moving slowly. Conserving his energy, he held his mighty bow horizontally with the arrow on top, drawing back the heel of his hand to fit in the hollow of his cheek. He used short-distance arrows, color-coded with white flights, and let fly at the looters. Anyone who touched a shop shutter or ran from a house with an armful of gold was sent reeling with an arrow through bicep or thigh.
I glided over and called. I landed and ran to a halt beside him. “Gio and Wrenn are dueling! Ata’s caught in the crush-we have to help her.”
I drew my sword and we continued downhill toward the rotunda at the road’s midpoint. Lightning never missed a shot, counting under his breath, “Fifty-five. Fifty-four. Three…Two…”
I scanned the windows for any movement that might end with a knife in my back. Beyond the forum we passed a precinct of narrow streets. We looked down the nearest and saw a gang of rebels heaving at a solid door. The first was a weasly man with baggy, low-crotched jeans. He had his shoulder to the cracking panels and the others all added their weight. They noticed Lightning and me but renewed their assault on the building. Inside, women were screaming in Trisian so rapid and full of dialect I couldn’t understand. From the first-floor window an elegant lady with ringleted hair, a white chiton dress and red nails hurled terracotta dishes down on the besiegers. They angled their arms over their heads and kept pushing.
“Hey!” yelled Lightning. “Away from that door! Jant, what are they shouting? What is this place?”
I read a tiny inscription on a stone block set into the wall:
“It’s an imbroglio; in Trisian, I mean. A brothel.”
The Archer raised his eyebrows. “I see. Then we must save the honor of these ladies-regardless of whether they have any honor or no.” He loosed at the thin-faced Awian. The arrow rammed straight through the man’s leg and into the wood. Its shaft made a high-pitched crunch of gristle, dimpling his jeans’ fabric into his knee, locking it out straight. He tried to step forward but was fastened to the door. He screamed and hammered his fists and free leg against it.
“Are you all right?” said his friend, being slow on the uptake.
He screamed, “Pull it out!”
“You can’t, it’s barbed.” Lightning spanned his bow. “And if you try, I’ll kill you both.”
The gang sloped off, then broke up and ran toward the forum. Lightning called to the whores, “I promise you’ll come to no harm.”
“I’m sorry,” the would-be rapist pleaded, leaning forward with both hands over his knee.
“You will be,” Lightning commented, without moving the arrow trained on him.
“Saker, what are you doing?” I said, disturbed by this change.
The rapist’s eyes bulged. His left leg kicked, shoe sole scraping the step. He stuttered, “No, no! I’ll-”
“You’ll do what, exactly?” Lightning said, driven to fury by the man’s Donaise accent. He loosed the arrow; it pinned the rapist’s left leg to a panel. It met some resistance at the kneecap but drove easily between the articulated surfaces of the joint behind and split the wood. Its arrowhead was a shiny stud in his flattened and mushy knee.
Lightning selected another arrow. “My card. Seeing as you need reminding who we are.” He shot again, pinning the man’s right elbow to the door. A wedge of broken bone clicked away from the metal point pushing past it.
The rapist howled and sobbed, “Why? Oh god, help…WhataveI
“You know who we are!” Lightning shouted. “But still you have to plead, you have to ask! You think Tris is beyond the reach of the Castle! You take advantage of this gentle town!”
Before I could stop Lightning he whipped out a fourth arrow. He couldn’t be enjoying this. I dashed in front of him. “Stop! Are you mad?”
Stony-faced, he aimed over my shoulder. “The lout has an elbow left…”
“Leave him!” I shouted.
“Rape is the worst of crimes,” Lightning muttered. He shook himself and looked up to where the beautiful whores were leaning out watching, some timidly, some brazenly. “Interpret for me, Jant,” he said, and called, “All right, girls. Do with him what you will.”
We walked away from the man’s beast noise. With his whole shocking strength he made every breath a scream.
The Capharnai watched in horror from their doorways. They couldn’t distinguish Lightning and me from the rebels. A young lad, his trousers spattered with somebody else’s blood, ran from the piazza and confronted us. He glared and brandished one of our broadswords, holding it like a tennis racquet. Lightning hesitated. I flicked my dreadlocks back, spread my double-jointed hands and wings and roared, “Raaaah!”
The boy yelled and fled. Lightning looked impressed.
At the next intersection stood one of the unidentifiable poles topped by a right-angled black and white bar. A man stood beside it, manipulating levers that pulled wires to make the plank swing in well-defined motions, somewhat like a flag. He looked up the street to another pole at the foot of the smoke-obscured Amarot and operated the levers to follow its movements. A third device distant at the edge of the town replicated his signals a second later. I realized these were not standards at all; it was a system of communication, and quicker than anything I could provide. Even in the midst of the chaos I thought, I’ll make this innovation my own. I’ll put this system on the Lowespass peel towers instead of the beacons to monitor Insect advances lest someone else beats me to it.
We reached the rotunda that stood over the main crossroads, a domed folly no bigger than a room. It had round columns supporting arches taking in the boulevard and the north-south road. Someone had hacked great chunks of plaster off the interior walls surfaced with blue gems.
A woman wearing a fyrd greatcoat with the collar up was energetically prizing squares of sapphire out of the mosaic. Seeing Lightning’s arrowhead leveled at her, she shrank back, tossed up her knife and caught it by the point, made as if to throw it at him.
Lightning swung slightly left and shot at the edge of the nearest pillar. The arrow hit it obliquely, glanced off into the shade inside and she felt the breeze as it zipped past her face. She burst from the northern arch, away between the empty pavement tea shops, her coat streaming behind her. Lightning bowed-he could even bow sarcastically.
The rear of Gio’s column was two hundred meters below us on the road. We could see the backs of heads, sallet points or bandanna knots at the napes of their necks. Two men in the last line noticed us, nudged their friends and the motion rippled out until everyone at the rear turned around. They were only inclined to watch us until one man, with a look of hatred, pulled a bolt from his bandolier, cocked his crossbow and raised it to his shoulder. Nine or ten others followed suit; I dodged inside the rotunda but Lightning stood still, in disbelief. I urged, “Come on!”
Lightning shook his head as the men pulled their triggers and a barrage of bolts flew at us. Out of range, they
