by Stacey Berg
She was sure there was more to the story, maybe much more. If the Bend was that worried about Loro, they could eventually find a way to deal with him. “What else aren’t you telling me, Exey?”
His eyes flicked away and back. “Nothing, of course.” He was a good talker, but not a great liar.
She let it go for now. “Fine. But I don’t understand why you think the Warder would listen to me and not to you.”
“Yes, well, that’s the thing, you see. We don’t want you to tell the Warder. We want you to tell the Church.”
Her mouth was suddenly parched. She took a deep drink of her own ferm, ignoring the sourness, until her throat loosened up enough for her to be sure of her voice. “What in the Saint’s name makes you think I’d go back to them?”
He tried to smile. “That’s a reasonable question. We debated even suggesting it, believe me. Me especially, since I was the lucky one who got to tell you.” When she just kept staring at him he took a deep breath, plunging ahead. “We tried to figure how we’d feel in your position. Thrown out of the Church, I mean—no offense. We’d be angry, sure. I’m not saying you are, mind, just that we would be. But we’d also figure the Church had only done what they thought was right, even if they were wrong. And we’d still want to do the right thing ourselves, even if we were angry. Once we had a chance to think about it.” Now it was his turn to leave a silence to be filled.
She drank again. “What would this right thing be?”
Now he looked straight at her, and he wasn’t smiling. “What Loro’s planning changes everything. He has to be stopped. This isn’t some little dust-up between the claves he’s talking about. What he’s planning—it threatens everything. Everything. Only the Church can save us.”
“Save you from what?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Don’t be a fool, Exey. Listen to what you just said. What is Loro planning?”
“I don’t know specifics. Only that it’s something big.”
She said roughly, “Even if what you say is true, you haven’t given me anything to go to the Church with. Saints, Exey. Are you telling me cityens are planning to rebel? That hasn’t happened in four hundred annuals. You think the Warder wouldn’t believe you. You can’t imagine what the Patri would say if I went back to him with nothing more than this.” Her voice had risen; she lowered it with an effort. “I need proof.”
“It’s coming.” It was something he didn’t like, something dangerous. His long, skilled fingers shook, spilling a little of the ferm onto his fancy shirt.
“What is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me now!”
“I don’t know. No, don’t do that, people will notice. We’re just two friends talking at the fest; you can’t strangle me here.” She let go of his shirt and he sighed gratefully. “I like you, Echo. You make Lia smile. But as I said, I’m just a messenger. My friends thought it would be safer if I couldn’t tell, no matter how, ah, tempting an offer you made.” His dark eyes shone liquid in the torchlight. “They told me if you asked, to just say this: be ready. The time will come, and you’ll know.”
The music droned on. Be ready. An echo of the Patri’s last charge to her. Hunter scanned the crowd, searching for Loro, but didn’t see him. The warehouse seemed an unlikely place for him to start trouble; despite Lia’s concerns, no hunters had appeared, and the drunken revelers would not make much of a militia, if that was what he had in mind. She didn’t want to confront him in the midst of all these cityens, either; better to deal with him later, someplace the damage would be easier to contain.
On the far side of the room she spotted the Warder, seated comfortably at one of the few tables, smiling and nodding amiably as cityens came by to pay their respects. There was no sign that he planned to do anything more than that. It was a night for dancing, not for speeches.
She wanted to do much more than be ready. Part of her wanted to do exactly as Exey’s friends suggested, run straight to the Patri with their story, beg his forgiveness and lead the hunters back to crush Loro’s rebellion herself.
The more rational part judged that urge with a disapproval very near to contempt. What she had told Exey was true: this wasn’t intelligence worth bringing. Perhaps the Patri didn’t know Loro by name, but he was already worried about restive cityens. So what if he had suspected the Warder instead; that was more than close enough. Besides, Brit and Ava would have reported on Loro’s actions in the square by now. There was nothing for Hunter to add. She had to have more, if there was more. She wondered uneasily what proof Exey meant. He might be lying about not knowing, but his fear had been genuine.
She wished she knew where Lia had gotten to; the floor had grown too crowded to see every dancer, and Hunter felt peculiarly uncomfortable letting the med out of sight. On the raised dais, the musicians, having taken a short break, settled back into their places with a metallic clatter. A new sound joined them, the twanging whine of metal wires stretched to various lengths across the top of a box. It reminded Hunter of the wind singing across the guy lines that steadied the transmission towers.
At that moment Lia reappeared, carrying a ferm. It might not be her first one; she was steady enough on her feet, but her face was flushed. Maybe it was just the dancing. “Whew,” she said, taking a sip. “I wasn’t sure Loro would ever let me go. Good thing the Warder got here. It distracted him just long enough.” She took another long swallow, and that mischievous look was back. “I looked for you out there. I thought you said you could dance.”
People trickled back to the center of the floor, making a disorderly line of pairs that had to double back on itself to fit the space as the music picked up. “I can.”
“Well, why haven’t you?”
What had Exey said? “No one asked me.”
Lia stared at her, expressions flitting across her face too fast for Hunter to track. Her laughter, when it came, was a little choked. “But of course. I should have known. All right then, I can fix that. Echo: will you dance with me?”
Hunter looked down at her, feeling an unfamiliar tightness low in her belly. “Yes. I will.”
Lia’s golden eyes glowed in the torchlight. She took Hunter’s ferm from her and set both glasses aside. Then she took Hunter by the elbow and guided her lightly to the floor, where they found their places in the twin rows of dancers, facing each other across an arm’s length of empty space.
The musicians struck their tune, drums counting out a smart rhythm while the pipers pitched in merrily. Wires jangled, and the drummer began to call instructions. Lia reached out, waiting. Hunter raised her palms to match, and Lia took them, fingers intertwining. Her grip was strong and gentle, like the med herself. Their eyes met, and this expression Hunter recognized. Hunter let her hands slide to rest gently on Lia’s waist, acutely aware of the flesh and bone beneath the soft spun fiber. Then they were skipping sideways down the line, under the raised arms of the other couples, until they got to the start, where they broke apart to clap the beat for the next pair coming. Simple, this cityens’ dance, compared with the endless patterns she had counted out so often in the Churchyard, and of no utility at all. Yet Hunter found herself in no hurry for the music to end, and she was glad when the line began to repeat itself, and Lia reached for her again.
They were halfway back to the Ward when it happened. “Let’s go home,” Lia had asked, though the dancing seemed likely to go on all night, and if anyone else had left, it had made no diminution of the crowd and noise inside. Hunter was oddly hesitant, but the med insisted, pleading fatigue, and together they slipped out a side door. “Careful,” Lia said. “If Loro sees us he’ll be angry.”
“Does that matter?” Hunter couldn’t hide the sharpness in her tone.
“Don’t you be angry, Echo, please.”
“All right, I won’t.” And she wasn’t, when Lia smiled. A strange contentment filled her as the m
ed took her arm, leaning into her against the night air’s chill, and she was warm where their bodies touched, and wished the walk were longer.
Then she heard the footsteps.
She knew immediately it wasn’t just other fest-goers heading home. It wasn’t friends of Exey’s come to meet her privately either: those were no honest footfalls, echoing off the stone; they had the peculiar muffled quality of men trying to walk silently and only barely not succeeding. Lia didn’t hear, but she felt the change in Hunter’s posture, and looked up to ask a question.
Hunter stopped her with a finger to her lips. Lia nodded, frightened now, but with enough presence of mind to follow her lead. Hunter kept them walking slowly down the middle of the way, obvious under the lightstrings, until they rounded a corner out of their pursuers’ sight. Then she hurried the med into the shadow of a doorway. It brought back another night in the city, another girl she had tried to protect, annuals ago. Hunter had saved her from the mob, that girl, only to deliver her to a different kind of death. For a moment she saw that other face instead of Lia’s. I’m sorry, she said again to the withered husk on the altar. I should have let you run.
“Echo, what is it?” Lia whispered.
“Shh. We’re being followed.” She pushed memory and the med deeper into the shadows, listening hard. Feet pounded down the street behind them, then paused. Her sensitive hearing picked up their pursuers’ indecision, a few steps forward, a few to the side. A tongue of light licked this way and that, trying to pick up some taste of their prey. Keep going, Hunter urged them silently. Don’t turn.
The light flickered this way. Two figures, features indistinguishable in the dark, worked their way cautiously down the alley. The one in front held something in one hand that he swung back and forth from doorway to doorway across the alley as his partner cast the light into each shadowy crevice. Some kind of weapon, from the way he moved. Hunter edged silently in front of Lia, one hand pressing the med’s shoulder to keep her crouched low, putting herself between Lia and their pursuers.
They were only a few doorways down. Hunter felt the med’s pulse pounding at the base of her neck. She gave a little squeeze, reassurance and warning. The med nodded silently against her hand.
Two doorways. One. The men paused again. That’s far enough. You must have missed us at the turn. Go back the way you came.
Whispered conversation that even she could not make out.
Go.
The men turned away. One step, and another, and another. Hunter eased to standing, pulling Lia up behind her. The Warder’s stronghold was only around the next corner. The med was fast, light on her feet. They only needed to outrun the men for a hundred paces. The length of the alley would be enough of a start. Hunter bounced a little on her toes, getting ready.
The chance never came. Hunter heard an unfamiliar metallic click, then the light swung back suddenly, pinning her squarely in the doorframe. Before she could move, there was a sharp pop, and the stone beside her exploded into splinters. Something hit her arm, hard enough to knock her sideways. Lia cried out, sounding more surprised than hurt.
The man holding the lantern must have jumped at the noise; the light lurched away, swung back to pick them out again. Hunter pushed herself out of the doorway with her good hand, running straight at the men. She was in arm’s reach before the man with the weapon could bring it to bear a second time. She grabbed the front of the weapon, pushing it down instinctively. There was another loud pop and metal jerked hotly under her hand. Her nose twitched at a harsh acrid smell. She wrenched the thing out of the man’s grip and swung it, still one-handed, in an arc that ended suddenly in a dull thud against his skull. The thing in her hand barked yet again, singeing her fingers. The man dropped without another sound. His companion cursed and swung the lantern at her, striking her injured arm. Stars exploded in her vision and she nearly fell. He snatched the weapon back, aimed it straight into her face. She heard a dull click. Nothing else happened. He cursed again, then unaccountably turned and ran.
She thrust herself upright, ready, but there was no further attack. Gingerly, she made her way back to the doorway. The med raised the piece of brick she had in her hand. Her face was flecked with dark spots in the starlight. Hunter caught her wrist as she began to swing the brick. “It’s me.”
“Echo?”
Hunter nodded, then realized the med couldn’t see her in the dim light. “Yes. Are you hurt?”
“N-no. I don’t think so.” Lia’s voice shook a little, now that the danger had passed. “No.” Already settling. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. Let’s get out of here.”
Her arm had begun to hurt in earnest by the time they made it back to the clinic. “Saints!” the med gasped, seeing Hunter’s sodden sleeve in the light. It was Hunter’s blood on her face. “Let me take a look at that.”
Hunter flexed the arm gently, craning her neck to see the crimson streak that scored the muscle, below the shoulder. The med probed gently, flinching harder than Hunter when her fingers felt the spot. “There’s something in there.”
“A splinter from the rock?”
“I don’t know. It feels strange.” Lia hesitated. “It needs to come out.”
Hunter nodded. “Go ahead.”
By the time Lia was done she was pale, and Hunter was glad she herself had lain down before they started. She took a deep breath and sat back up, slowly. Just a little dizzy, not too bad. She looked into the bloody basin. “What is that?”
The med poked at it with an equally bloody finger. “I don’t know.” She held it to the light, a slightly misshapen, roundish blob.
Hunter felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wound. She took the evil little thing and stared at it. “It’s a projectile.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That thing the man had”—Lia hadn’t seen it in the dark—“it was a projectile weapon.” Exey’s proof? Her head swam.
The Bender was right. This changed everything. Saints. If Loro had had this in the square . . .
The med stared at it in revulsion. “I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“There isn’t supposed to be,” Hunter said grimly, slipping the fragment into her pocket while the med affixed a bandage to her arm.
Lia’s hands shook the tiniest fraction. “Did you recognize them?”
“No. I didn’t get a good look, but I don’t think it was anyone I’ve seen before.”
Lia was thinking hard, despite the shock. “We were still in the edge; they must just have been troublemakers.”
“Maybe. It would be an awfully big coincidence.”
“You think they might have been after you? Who would dare? Besides—” Lia hesitated, then went on with a little grimace. “If they were after you, they would have known it was me with you. I can’t believe anyone would risk hurting a med, not from any clave. Not if they knew.”
Hunter tested her arm carefully; it throbbed with every motion and would be worse in the morning, but she could still use it. “A weapon like that changes everything.”
“It’s evil.” Lia’s voice shook again. Her fingertip moved from the arm to Hunter’s chest. “If that—projectile—had been this much further over, you’d be dead.”
Hunter couldn’t think of anything to say. That thought was nothing compared with the idea of cityens armed with such a thing. And it wouldn’t take many: a few of them, in the hands of cityens who didn’t scruple to use them, could do untold damage. Maybe just against each other in alleys now, but even if the Benders were wrong about Loro, it didn’t matter; it would not be long until it occurred to someone that the equation had changed, that the cityens were armed more powerfully than the Church. . . .
“You could be dead. Don’t you care?” Lia’s tone wavered between anger and despair. Her hand tightened on Hunter’s arm, hard enough t
o hurt. “Don’t you?”
Another wave of dizziness made it hard to put the words together. “It didn’t happen, Lia. It’s not worth thinking about.”
The med was trembling all over now. “You never think about what might have been? What could be?”
If the stunner’s wiring hadn’t failed, and Tana hadn’t died. If Ela hadn’t gone so close to the edge. Hunter raised her good hand to her eyes, pressed until the flashing lights burned away the vision of those alternate possibilities. They had not happened. They could never have been real. Only one thing was, now, and it was almost more than she could bear. She opened her eyes again. This room, plain, clean, except where her blood had spattered it. At least that could be washed away, the room reset to its original state. Would she get another chance then, or did it always end like this?
“Echo, stay with me tonight. Please.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Lia laughed, tears running from the corners of her eyes. “You’re such a fool.” She raised her hands to cradle Hunter’s face. The room tilted, wavering, resettled into lines almost the same, nothing at all as they had been. “I’m asking for me, not you.”
The injured arm hurt badly in the morning when she woke, and the other almost as much, where Lia’s weight had trapped it through what was left of the night. Hunter rolled up, ignoring a stab of pain. With a fingertip she traced the line of the med’s soft cheek, her lips, half smiling still, the strong and delicate column of her throat. Hunter did not want to move, ever again, wanted to lie there, looking at Lia’s face, content in sleep, as if the small weight of metal in Hunter’s arm had not tipped a balance that could never be restored.