“Come in,” he said, stepping aside as she ducked sideways under the lip of the doorway.
“Any change?” She put a hand on the foot post of the bed. Next to her it looked like a child’s bed or a toy.
“No.” The two stood side by side, a river of unspoken words crossing between them, until Selweh cleared his throat. “I need some fresh air. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She nodded. “Of course. Take as long as you need.” Sapphire pulled up the armless chair from the corner of the room and set her weight on the edge, legs wide to support some of her weight. I’ll see if Mehgi has a stronger chair—something Rova can actually use without having to squat.
Selweh waited at the door and watched his father for just a second more, then descended the stairs two at a time and walked out to the front stoop.
Out on the street, traffic was light, even at two before the academies let out. Mothers or fathers strolled up and down the street with small children; merchants pushed rickety carts along cobblestones and barked their fresh wares; there were few buggies and motor-trikes. The air was sticky, an unseasonable rash of heat that had carried on for three days.
It wasn’t the welcome heat of a warm spring, but the sticky heat of deep summer, the kind that made people shower three times a day and go running for the shade. His father would call it a symbol of the Shields’ imminent victory, the coming summer after the long winter of the tyrants’ rule, but that poetic idea was hard to swallow just right then.
Selweh fanned himself with a hand and took a seat on the stoop. His feet dangled over the edge like he’d done since he was a little boy. He watched the people pass him as just another Ikanollo, distinguishable only by the threads that bound him. Wonlar had given him a brass ring with inlaid emerald that provided the same thread-masking as the amulets the others used. It used to be Aria’s, he said.
He sat there for several minutes, enjoying the slow flow of traffic and the slightly-more-fresh air. He hopped off the stoop to street level and started a circuit around the block. Selweh lost himself for a while in the rhythm of his steps, the heel of his shoes on the street. He listened to the sounds of the merchants’ calls and babies’ gurgling cries, the pedi-cabs whirring by, and took in the smell of smoke from the belching motor-trikes.
In these simple moments, he could nearly trick himself into thinking that all was right with the world, that he lived in the version of the city that his father told him about, the city he’d fought to restore, instead of a city enslaved. He saw the city the way he dreamed it would be once the war was over and justice restored.
As usual, the vision lasted only a moment. A half-dozen red-clad neighborhood guards walked around a corner, clubs in hands, scanning the street. Coppery threads of malice flailed about them, searching for an outlet. A baker saw the group and turned his cart to cross the street. His axle threw a wheel and the cart toppled, spilling loaves of bread in the middle of the street. That’s going to be a situation in about three seconds.
He counted in his mind as he walked toward the cart, nonchalant.
Just after he reached three, one of the guards blew her whistle. “You there! You’re blocking traffic.” The goons were Nevri’s, at the bottom of the heap in her corporation. Take a vacuum of power above them and conflicting orders from all sides and you have a great recipe for uncontrolled aggression. Simmer with heat until boiling. Selweh bet they were just spoiling for a chance to lash out.
Thank you, City Mother. Something I can actually do something about.
The guards encircled the baker and his cart. Selweh didn’t have his raiment, or the Aegis. I won’t need much to send these cowards running. They’re as scared as the baker. Just better armed and more poorly mannered.
“Let me help you pick up, sir,” Selweh said to the baker, ignoring the guards. He picked up the wooden wheel and walked towards the group, coming up behind two of the red-clad thugs.
“Stay out of this,” said an Ikanollo guard, tapping his club in hand.
Selweh raised his hands to his shoulders as she approached. “I’m just trying to help.”
“We’ve got it taken care of,” the Ikanollo said, swallowing the ends of his words, vein in his neck pulsing.
Aegis walked past the guard and lifted the cart enough to re-fit the wheel. Without the Aegis in hand, he had only a fraction of his strength, but it was close enough for this small feat.
“How’d you…?” the female guard asked, trailing off as she watched Selweh’s Goddess-blessed strength. That’s right, I’m not just another Ikanollo. Why don’t you leave? he thought, half-wishing they had a Qava to get the clue.
Selweh knelt again to pick up a loaf with a hard crust, never taking his eyes from the crowd. Behind him, the baker quaked with fear. “I can help with the spill, officers. I’m sure you’re very busy.” If you take the easy way out, I don’t have to get my hands dirty or endanger the civilians. Or you can be dumb and start something. Your choice.
They decided on option two. The guard who’d called out the baker took an overhand swing at Selweh. He sidestepped and pulled the guard over his waiting foot, sending her to the street. Two more guards rushed him.
Selweh slid between one and the cart, pushing the first guard into the other. He kept going, pressing the next guard. They outnumbered him and had weapons, so they were able to land a few glancing blows. But in less than a minute, the thugs were splayed out on the cobblestones around the baker’s cart, clutching nerve clusters and cracked bones. Selweh finished helping the man gather his wares. The guards had the sense to leave rather than trying again. He bet that they’d be back in minutes with backup, but he’d be far gone by then, and the baker too, if he took Selweh’s advice.
* * *
Selweh walked back to the apartment building holding a bag of still-warm loaves of bread. The baker had insisted on giving Selweh a reward, and they’d spent more time arguing the point than it’d taken Selweh to down the guards.
He knocked his code at the door, and after a moment, Sapphire let him in.
“Bread?” he asked, shaking a loaf beside his head, a smile on his face.
“What happened out there? I felt your adrenaline rush,” she took the loaf and broke it. Sweet-smelling steam licked out of the loaf, and Selweh reached out to tear off a piece for himself.
“It was nothing. I met a very kind baker by the name of Bau. He runs Bau’s Breads, two veins over.” Rova chuckled as she took a bite from her half of the loaf. Selweh set the bag down at the foot of the bed. “Any change?”
Rova’s silence was answer enough.
Wake up, Father. We need you.
“When is Dr. Acci coming back?” Rova asked a minute later, breaking Selweh from his repeated entreaties. “Tomorrow. If he doesn’t wake up in the next day and a half, Acci says he may not wake at all.” Acci had survived Nevri’s purge, one of the few Shield-bearers who hadn’t been targeted, which made him the Shield’s last and only doctor.
Her heartbeat jumped. “I’ll have Bira come by again. Maybe she can reach him this time…”
They were all grasping for hope, but if they give up on Wonlar … they might as well give up entirely.
Selweh lied. “That’s a good idea.”
The air was thick with silence and sweat for another minute, and Selweh went back to the door.
“I’m going to get something to go with this bread.”
Rova waved him out of the room. “You’ve been cooped up here too long. Go take a real break, at least an hour. You’re wound tighter than a grapple gun.” She tapped the bracelet on her left arm. “And this time, call if you decide to make some new friends.” She sent him off with a smile, showing that she didn’t take it too seriously. Selweh picked up a bag from the corner, containing his raiment, and more important, the Aegis.
“And leave that here,” she called after him. He didn’t listen to her. The shield helped him think. His mind worked better with it in his grip. He couldn’t say if it was the voice
s of the past bearers or just the comfort of habit, but it worked.
* * *
Most of an hour after leaving the safehouse, Selweh was very happy he’d insisted on bringing the Aegis. At the north end of collar’s crook, he heard the sounds of someone trying to batter down a door.
“Open in the name of the executor!” someone shouted in a booming basso voice.
And which Executor do they mean? Selweh asked himself as he ducked into the nearest alley. He was met by a fifteen-foot-wide pool of still, sewage-covered concrete. Selweh took three dashing steps and vaulted over the pool, then hid behind a pile of trash. He set the groceries aside and pulled out his raiment. He donned the mask and exchanged his everyday tan shirt and worn black pants for the warded green-and-white tunic and leggings. Lastly, he drew the shining Aegis and ran his left arm into the loops, grabbing the polished handle. Aegis felt the shield’s power wrap around him like the memories of his mother’s embrace. Now let’s see what you’re up to.
Aegis took two steps back towards the street and leapt over the pool. He turned the corner and bellowed with the titan’s voice, “leave these people be!”
He heard his father’s voice in his mind again, an old lesson from when he was still Second Sentinel. Draw the public’s attention, make it known that we are here for them, that we accept the responsibility and will not stand by while they are terrorized.
Part of the crowd was arranged on the stairs leading up to the greystone, the rest milled about on the street. They’d already taken down the door, so he couldn’t tell how many were already inside.
Aegis activated his bracelet, hoping that Rova would be happy, or at least satisfied. Emergency alarms didn’t tend to make anyone happy. Except maybe father when he’s grumpy.
Long strides carried him down the block as the former Plutocrat’s thugs squared off. There were twenty of them all together, ten at the base of the two sets of stairs leading up to greystone apartments, the rest trailing up the stairs and into the buildings. Aegis raised his shield and barreled in to the crowd, sending guards tumbling like pins of some game from someone else’s childhood. This is more like it.
Selweh’s games as a boy had been “I spy a clue” and “tail the grocer.” Aegis had gotten in many fights as a boy, standing up for the Shields, so he knew well how to fight a crowd. Even so, twenty was a lot. If they actually knew how to use their numbers, this would go poorly for him.
Aegis swung the shield left and kicked out to the right, catching the chest of a surprised Ikanollo guard. The guard flew up and back into the stairs. Aegis heard bones crack as he spun the shield in a horizontal swipe, catching another guard across the temple. He leaned into the swing of a club and grabbed the offending arm, stripping the club and breaking it across the guard’s knee. He took the opening and barreled out of the crowd, getting himself space again, never letting the group envelop him.
Aegis spent twenty seconds clearing them out, dancing between half-trained guards, grappling and throwing them around like rag dolls. When half their number lay on the street, the group broke and scattered, deserting their comrades inside the building. He didn’t know what was happening in the rest of Nevri’s district, but if it was as chaotic as what he was facing here, there would be far worse things happening that night than a simple break-in.
Aegis bound up the stairs into one of the greystones. He heard his father’s voice in his head, saying, Bad move, son. Unfamiliar territory, quite possibly a trap. Don’t go charging in. Check the doors; always keep an eye on the exits.
Aegis grabbed the doorway and slowed himself just inside the landing. What did they want in here? he wondered. Random chaos, some vandalism, and intimidation, or were they sent by someone?
The old wood under his feet creaked as he looked down the hall. Nothing. He took a breath, listened to his senses and his intuition. The doorknob to the first floor apartment was overturned—probably being held by one guard, another two flanking with close-range weapons. He didn’t see any other entrances to the first-floor apartment.
There was no way to be sure how many had gotten inside. Nevri’s guards didn’t operate in groups that large, but everything was off-program, off-pattern. None of the thugs below were leading, which means he or she was in there somewhere. Or maybe they didn’t even have a leader.
Well, you have to start somewhere. Aegis kicked down the door and dove inside end-over-end, coming up to face the guards he was satisfied but not pleased to see. There were three of them, all Ikanollo. Two men held foot-long daggers toward Aegis as a female guard in the middle reached up to draw a longsword from a back-slung scabbard. Why did people insist on back scabbards? They were uselessly awkward unless you had time to spare.
Aegis smiled. “I’ll let you surrender if you tell me Nevri’s latest orders.” The information they had was worth more than the satisfaction he’d get by leaving three thugs sprawled on the floor.
They did not oblige. The woman brought the broadsword forward in a powerful cut, her whole body moving with the blade. Good form, he thought, raising the shield at an angle. Her strike deflected and slid off to his left, lodging in the wooden floor. Too much follow-through, though.
He lashed out with a right cross to the face, and the woman dodged back to take it on the chin instead of the temple. He pressed again and slammed her into the door as the other two closed.
He spun, putting his back to the door and faced the two men. Aegis took in the room behind them.
Bare walls and three rough-carved chairs around a wrought iron table, no sign of the inhabitants. Absent or hostage? Aegis reminded himself to check once he was done with the trio.
The two with knives had enough sense to come at him at once, but not near enough skill to capitalize on their advantage. Aegis side-stepped to the left, out of the arc of one knife. He knocked aside the other with his shield.
Aegis pivoted back towards the guards, lunging to hit one with a shield-strike between the ribs. Then he pulled that guard off balance and sent them tumbling into the knife of the other, spilling orange blood across the bare floor.
Aegis backhanded the unimpaled guard with the shield and dropped the two to the ground. The swordswoman had picked up one of the knives and came at him again. But she held the knife like a sword, tried to cut him at distance.
“You can still yield and talk,” he said, covering himself with the shield as she circled.
The guard remembered herself and lowered the blade, then came in with a brutal underhand stab. Aegis tucked the shield down, leading her blow to slide off the side. He entered behind the shield and hit her with a body blow, then grabbed her dagger arm and tossed her over his shoulder, laying her out on the floor. He stripped the knife and made sure she stayed down. She obliged.
With the guards all dispatched, Aegis paced through the bare rooms, looking for inhabitants.
The washroom and bedroom were equally empty, painting a picture of an office worker—or other single soul fortunate enough to occupy Audec-Hal’s ever-shrinking middle class—with a narrow unmade bed, a half-full bookshelf, and the bedroom dusted in a coat of dirty laundry.
Out of the thoroughness instilled by his father, he walked over to check to the bedroom closet, and was rewarded by muffled whimpers from inside. There you are. Aegis threw open the lock and door to reveal a middle aged Pronai in a rumpled suit. The man dropped to the floor, hands and feet bound.
He squirmed on the floor at a panicked, comedic pace as Aegis took a knee. “Calm down. I’m going to untie you.”
Aegis pulled the sock from out of the man’s mouth, which let loose a flood of speech.
“By the city mother you’re Aegis never thought I’d meet you thank you wow.”
Aegis continued untying the man’s bindings. “Hello.”
The Pronai sat up, wringing his wrists in a quick pattern as he continued. “They said they were looking for the Shield-bearers and I said I didn’t know and—and then they tossed me in here and how long has it b
een, it feels like forever.”
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Farenkaonali,” the man said as one syllable.
“Mister Farenkaonali, I need you to calm down. Talk slowly if you can.”
The Pronai took a breath, and narrowed his eyes in focus. “Have they found him yet? First Sentinel? They kept on talking about First Sentinel, finding him, getting him.” Oh no. “what?”
“They said he was injured. They found out, wanted to get revenge for Nevri.”
Please don’t let them have found the safehouse. Or at least let Rova have fended them off. Now they’re going to hear I’m in the neighborhood and send more.
Sapphire’s alarm gem was flashing along with his. He toggled his alarm off so the others wouldn’t split up. “I’m sorry, sir, I have to go. Are you hurt?”
The man shook his head. “Just banged up a bit. I’ll be fine.” Aegis scanned the apartment quickly to make sure he didn’t miss anything, and then raced for the door. He called back to the Pronai man. “Thank you for the information. City Mother be with you.”
Please let me be in time.
* * *
The door to Mehgi’s building hung ajar, holding on by splinters to the doorway.
Sapphire, I hope you heard them coming.
Selweh scaled the stairs three at a time, solid rhythm betraying his arrival to anyone with half an ear to listen, but he didn’t care.
At the top of the three flights, he saw through an open door into the small room. A body was splayed across the threshold, one limp hand trailing over the lip of the stairs.
“Hello?” he called, holding the Aegis high without obscuring his vision.
“In here,” Sapphire said as she crossed into sight. Aegis breathed out, relieved, stepping over the body to check on his father. Wonlar was still in bed, unmoving and undisturbed, Sapphire standing above him. The floor was covered by a half-dozen bodies of the Plutocrat’s guard, broken and mangled.
“How did they find us?” she asked. “Did they follow me?”
Aegis shook his head. “It was probably me. We need to move him, immediately,” Aegis said, gathering up the bags, one eye on the door.
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