She backed away from him, then walked off into the night.
Che was alone once more.
Guan’s sister stared open-mouthed at the firestorm before them, her eyes catching the flames within their glaze. She was swaying slightly, as though to some inner rhythm of music.
A rifle banged somewhere in the distance. An officer broke free from the line of soldiers to investigate.
‘Where is he?’ asked Guan impatiently, scanning the row of open markets that remained the only section they hadn’t set on fire.
‘Give it time. Our men will flush him out.’
‘If they’re not trapped somewhere in there with him. I tell you, we should have seen something by now.’
Guan was starting seriously to doubt this plan of theirs. It was too messy, more of a spectacle than anything practical. Better if they had just gone in alone to deal with Che. But, as so often happened, he’d allowed his sister to persuade him otherwise.
They were holding hands, as they sometimes did; as they had done since their childhoods. She squeezed as though to reassure him.
Along the street stood a thin line of soldiers, faces wrapped in scarves like their own, all of them staring through the empty markets at the banks of flames and smoke piling into the night sky. In the streets behind, a second ring of soldiers lay hidden and waiting.
‘You think he deserves any of this?’ he asked his sister.
‘And what’s deserving got to do with anything?’
‘Even so. He’s one of our own.’
Cold air against his palm as she released it.
‘You voice these concerns now? After he’s deserted? After he’s shown himself to be the traitor we practically accused him of being?’
Guan knew it was useless to argue with her. Besides, some truths were strong enough to stand on their own.
‘You’re thinking they’ll do the same to us, after all of this is over.’
‘Why wouldn’t they? We know as much he does.’
‘Yes, but by doing this we prove that we can be trusted. This is good for us, Guan, I can sense it. They need the likes of us for their dirty work. Whoever they are.’
‘Let us hope that you’re right.’
It was hard to see far with the grey haze filling the air.
Something raced from the stalls with a carpet of flames on its back. The nearest soldiers levelled their crossbows and fired.
It was a dog on fire, yelping and biting at the flames as it ran. It convulsed as the bolts struck it and rolled to the ground dead.
Swan swore under her breath. Sourly, she said, ‘These people. They just leave their dogs behind them to die.’
Not for the first time, Guan looked to his sister with something approaching wonder at how her mind worked. Twins they might be, sometimes able to finish each other’s sentences, or read each other’s thoughts, yet some kink was in her that he did not seem to share.
He was about to remind her gently that she should have no problem with burning dogs if she had no problem burning people, when his neck throbbed once, and then again more powerfully.
Guan clutched a finger to his neck as Swan did likewise.
‘Get ready,’ he told the soldiers in front of them. ‘He’s coming out.’
They aimed their crossbows while his sister drew her pistol. Minutes passed as smoke tumbled out from between the stalls. The pulse grew ever faster in his neck.
Still there was no sign of anything. The crossbows began to sway in the men’s hands.
‘He should be close enough to see by now,’ Swan said, raising her gun towards the markets.
Guan remained still. There was something wrong about this. Che should be almost on top of them now.
‘You don’t think-’
He spun around, and his sister did the same a moment later. They both looked along the street in both directions, at the houses that lined the opposite side and their darkened windows.
Guan drew his own pistol, stepping to one side as he did so.
‘Swan,’ he said, and together they retreated into the shadow of a wall as deeply as they could.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Art of Cali
They would never stop hunting him, Che knew. Not unless he dealt with them first. And so he stalked them from the rooftops, closing in on their position even as they withdrew along the shadows of a wall.
They had alerted the soldiers to his presence, so that the men scanned about them and pointed their weapons one way and then the other. Che stayed low, on the dark side of the sloping roofs, making sure not to skyline as he went. More soldiers were to the left of him, lurking in houses and garden plots; he saw the odd glint of steel, heard a cough. He could only hope that none of them spotted him.
Swan and Guan were retreating towards a temple at the end of the street, the lake visible just beyond it. Clearly, they didn’t like the prospect of being targets for sniper fire.
It was a shame he had no working gun.
The temple rose up at the end of the row of rooftops. A two-storey living annex lay dark and silent next to it. The twins stopped to speak with a squad of soldiers, and the men spread out along the houses. Che heard doors being kicked in beneath him, rough searches of the rooms.
He squatted down and watched the two Diplomats look back to scan the street, the windows, the rooftops, and then step inside the temple. They left the door open.
He hung from the edge of the roof and dropped down into the alley between the houses and the temple. A glance in both directions, and then he was skirting around the back of the building, where the annex spread out into a small garden, using a low wall for cover. A window flickered in the structure; a candle brightening inside.
He padded over to the far end of the annex with the lakeweed soft and slippery beneath his feet, leaving the noise of the soldiers behind him. The gunfire to the south had risen in pitch since he’d last paid any attention to it. Curl would be there somewhere now, or so he hoped, making her way to the rendezvous.
How strange, he thought. Being here in Khos, in Tume, on this simmering lake, trying to kill a pair of my own people; hoping, too, that one of the enemy makes it out in one piece.
He noticed how the word felt wrong to him now; enemy. Something childish to it.
Over the lake another flare went up. He closed his right eye to preserve his night vision and waited until the flare had fallen. There was a window up there, and a tree leaning towards it.
In the gathering darkness, Che took his knife out and clamped it between his teeth, then climbed up the rough bark of the tree until he dangled from a branch facing the window. He saw nothing but a dark room and an open door; a corridor beyond it bleeding soft light from where it turned a corner.
There was no time for subtleties, Che decided. Take them out and hard and fast, and hope he was the last one standing. His old sparring trainer in Q’os had been right, he reflected, as he reached out to open the window. The Roshun training of cali was in him whether he wanted it or not. Advance and attack was its creed. Boldness and speed and recklessness.
If only he had a sword with him, never mind a working gun. All he had was this simple knife.
Improvise, Che thought, and he swung in through the open window and landed with the ease of a cat.
He clasped the knife in his hand, saw a chair. He picked it up and swung it hard against the wall. The crash was loud enough to stir the dead.
Quickly, Che stepped through the scattered debris of the chair and snatched up a chair leg without stopping. The end of the leg had snapped off sharp and jagged. He improved the point with a swipe of his blade as he entered the hallway; shaved another slice off as he strode towards the corner.
