Empire in Black and Gold

Bolwyn got them off the street fairly quickly, heading down a narrow alley that was backed onto on either side by a row of small shops. Nobody else had much reason to go there, and only very few were out to watch them pass: an old Beetle sitting at a window, smoking a clay pipe cupped in his hands; a limping Fly in old rags scavenging through newer rags. There was a sour, rotting smell here over and above Helleron’s customary reek.

Their guide kept glancing back at them, stopping and then starting again. Che thought that he could not look more suspicious if he tried, but then she was beginning to think that her breed was definitely not made for espionage. That led her to wonder just what her uncle had ever experienced that had led him into the trade. Or Bolwyn either, for that matter. What course had ended up in him turning down this alley on this day, with four amateurs in tow?

‘Wait up, Bolwyn,’ Salma snapped. ‘Who’s that up ahead?’

Che had not even noticed anyone, but she was beginning to realize that Salma’s eyes were far keener than her own. Ahead, she saw, were a handful of figures, muffled in cloaks.

‘Don’t you worry about them,’ Bolwyn’s voice came back to them. ‘They’re mine, to make sure nobody comes after us.’

They hurried towards the waiting men, who looked tough and mean: an Ant, a Beetle and some kind of halfbreed. Their eyes, passing across Bolwyn’s four young followers, remained devoid of emotion.

Is this the sort of person I’ll be dealing with, from now on? Che wondered. She was beginning to feel homesick for Collegium, where unpleasant things, when they happened, were at least the exception.

Salma almost punched her in the mouth, and she had a second of utter confused hurt before she realized he had merely flung out an arm to halt her.

‘Run!’ he shouted, and she had a sudden sense of motion. She lost vital seconds trying to understand whilst the others were already reacting. Tynisa, her rapier clear of its scabbard, was skittering back down the alleyway. Totho had already turned, running off back the way they had come and trusting that the others were following him. His artificer’s bag jostled and bounced awkwardly on his back.

There were men now coming at them from a side alley, and as the first one’s cloak twitched aside she caught a flash of black and gold.

‘Bolwyn!’ she cried, seeing even as she did that his three men were starting to move forward. They were not coming to her rescue, though. They were coming to join in the ambush.

Bolwyn turned, and for a moment his face was just an expressionless mask, without any life or feeling. . and it seemed to blur even as she looked, a smearing of the features in some way that knotted her insides with horror. Then the Beetle’s face was as before, but she still felt that something else was watching her through those mild eyes.

‘Run!’ Salma yelled to her again. He had his punch-sword now in hand, lunging forward as the first Wasp soldier cleared the alley’s mouth. The man deflected the thrust but Salma pushed close, whipping his elbow up to crack into his opponent’s jaw.

Che stumbled back, hands still groping for her own blade.

‘Run!’ Salma bellowed once more, and she ran.

Ten

Tynisa pelted down the alleyway, seeing the street at the far end, with all its life and its busy throng. There was a figure appearing in the way, though, then two of them: nondescript men who could have simply been out- of-work labourers, save for the shortswords they were now drawing from within their jerkins. She saw Totho, ahead of them, skid to a halt, about to turn and help.

‘Go!’ she shouted at him. ‘Go! I can take them!’ And he went, and she was running full pelt with her rapier extended, and there were still only two of them.

They were not skilled. Even as she was almost on them something in her read them, the way they stood, the way they held their swords. These were cheap hoods, and she was better than that.

She feigned left, went right at the very last moment. The man to her right had gone along with her first indication. Now he was in the way of his fellow. She buried the rapier in him, through the leather of his jerkin, his shirt, under his ribs. She held firm to the hilt and ran on, letting the force of her charge drag him around by the wound, letting it pull her around to face him, and slide the blood-slick rapier clean of him even as he fell. He got in the way of his fellow even then, the wretched man helplessly stumbling over the convulsing body. She could see herself as though she was watching an actor in some awful, mock-tragic opera. She watched as she put the blade effortlessly into the back of the man’s neck as he tripped past her, ramming it home with brutal efficiency and then whipping it out again.

She felt a keen and terrible sense of her own prowess, some possessing force that guided her hand, that hissed triumph in her ear. Her face, unknown to her, was smiling.

Totho was gone and she looked back for the others. Instead she spotted two Wasp soldiers coming for her. Their swords were sheathed but they had open hands outstretched to unleash the fire of their Art. She heard Salma shouting for her to run.

She skipped backwards into the crowded street. The people eddied about her, some staring at her reddened sword, some into the alley at what she had done with it. There were now screams, shouting. She watched the Wasps coming.

Then there were more than Wasps coming. From further down the street a half-dozen guardsmen were pushing. They had shields, armour. She cast a desperate look back down the alley. There was a lot going on there, and she could not see how her friends were faring.

The guard were almost here and she decided that she had no wish to answer questions. She would find somewhere to hole up, come back as soon as things allowed. Without putting her blade away, she ran for cover.

Che had her sword out and, when the Wasp grabbed her other wrist, the decision to slash at him was taken entirely on reflex, following her training at the Prowess Forum. The Wasp flinched back from it but she still laid open the back of his hand. Somewhere behind her Salma was fighting, steel ringing on steel amid the curses of his opponents.

The Wasp reached for her again, sword up now to deflect her own. She retreated from him, knees bent and stance textbook-perfect. ‘Salma!’ she called.

‘Run!’ she heard him urge her once again.

‘Can’t!’ She watched the Wasp as she spoke and knew, before he moved, that he would take advantage of the word. He came in, weapon high but still trying to grab her with his wounded hand. Her blade darted forwards at his chest, and then under his parry, sliding along his side. It cut only armour, though, scoring along the metal beneath his cloak. He snagged the collar of her tunic and she brought the pommel of her blade down across the raw wound on his hand.

He snarled and his control snapped. He hit her clumsily across the face, which must have hurt him more than her, and then he was no longer trying to catch her, but to kill her.

His sword stabbed forward and she rolled with it, sensing the blade pass her by. The hilt jarred into her shoulder. He was too close for her to stab, but she punched him in the side of the head with her own hilt as hard as she could. He reeled half into her, and she cast him past her, slashing him across the back. Again her sword rang on armour, but the force of the blow sent him to the ground.

‘Onto the roof! Che!’ She heard Salma’s voice, but from overhead now. He was hovering above her holding out a hand.

Part of her was already saying I’ll never make it, but there was a new part, a part that was fighting for her life and was not about to give up now. She took a great run at the nearest shop-back. There was a barrel there that she sprang onto, feeling it topple and give way even as she did so, but she was jumping again, in a great ungainly extended stumble. She caught a window ledge with her other foot and pushed off into space. And there was nowhere else for her to go.