by Col Buchanan
‘Of course. I’m not an idiot.’
‘Then go,’ he told her softly.
Curl stood there, out of her depth and trembling. He drew a finger down her cheek, and when it reached her chin he tilted her head up so that their eyes met.
She grasped the finger and held it before her. ‘You look after yourself, Ché, do you hear me?’
He liked the sound of her speaking his name.
‘I will.’
Their kiss was a brief one, something awkward about it; two strangers parting ways.
She backed away from him, then walked off into the night.
Ché 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 Ché. 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. Ché 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, Ché 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. Ché 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. Ché 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, Ché 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, Ché 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 Rōshun 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, Ché 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, Ché 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.
They were waiting for him as he ducked his head around it, two figures with pistols aimed from the cover of opposite doorways.
Ché ducked back as a bullet ricocheted off the wall. He cut a final slice from the chair leg to finish its point, then stepped partly out and launched it with all his strength at the figure still aiming its gun at him.
The gun ignited and a sudden pain punched into his thigh. Ché tottered on his other leg, slumped against the wall for balance as the figure toppled out into the corridor. It was Guan, with the chair leg poking from his left cheek. His feet was scrabbling against the floor for purchase.
He saw a shadow flicker across the fan of light on the floor, and he tossed his knife into his right hand.
He launched it even as Swan came out of the doorway again and fired her pistol.
Ché fell backwards with his head ringing and a pain searing along the side of his skull. Swan was down too, holding the hilt of the knife sunk deep into her hip. The woman was crawling to her brother.
‘Oh no,’ she was gasping.
Since Ché was still breathing, he ignored the scalp wound and clutched his leg instead to probe it with his trembling fingers. The bullet had passed cleanly through the flesh on the side of his thigh. It had missed the bone, and blood flowed slickly from the ragged hole. He could barely move the numbed limb itself.
It was the first time Ché had ever been shot. He’d been expecting it to be much more of an agony.
He tugged at the sleeve of his tunic until it tore free, and used it to tie a tourniquet at the top of his thigh. He tried to stand. Ché hissed with the sudden shooting pain of it. Tried to see through the rising waves of nausea.
The Diplomat Swan was dragging her brother back into the room she’d emerged from. She paused as she strained to reach the empty gun lying on the floor. Ché managed a single step towards them, and Swan gave up on the gun and pulled Guan inside.
Ché stopped short, sucking air for a moment as Swan kicked the door closed behind her.
With grim determination he staggered to the door and tried to bend down to retrieve his bloody knife lying there. His head spun as warm blood dribbled down his face. His boot was filling up too. He tore off his other sleeve and used it to tie a wad of cloth against the wound itself, cinching it tight. For a moment he thought he might pass out.
‘Come out!’ he hollered, the knife heavy in his grip.
Grunts and muttering from within.
Ché steadied himself. Pushed a sticky hand against the door to swing it open.
The room was deserted, though a candle sputtered on the mantel piece above a hearth. Ché leaned further out. Another door lay open in the room. A trail of blood shone across the floor and through it. He limped inside and pressed his back to the wall, then slid around it towards the other doorway. A quick glance inside revealed a bedroom. Guan lay dead on the floor, his legs and arms spread-eagled. The stick of wood stood tall and unnatural from his face.
A creak behind him.
Ché was quick enough to get a hand up to the garrotte as it slipped around his throat. It bit deep into the edge of his palm, and he pushed back as hard as he could, hopping on his good leg as he shoved Swan backwards across the room. Swan crashed into something, a heavy wardrobe that clattered with hangers and open doors while they both struggled in its wooden embrace.
The woman’s hot breaths hissed next to his ear, charged with fury.
Ché tossed the knife once to turn it around in his grasp, then struck it into the Diplomat’s side. Once, twice, until Swan shifted and threw him sideways. Ché fell, and together they crashed through a table.
Swan managed to grip his knife hand as they rolled across the floor. With her other hand she maintained the pressure of the garrotte. The wire dug into his hand and the sides of his neck, blood spilling everywhere. ‘Is this what you want?’ Swan hissed in her hatred for him. ‘Is this what you wanted, you kush?’
Ché’s hand was a lifeless thing shoved between his ragged breathing and the garrotte’s worsening constrictions. He could barely see, barely breathe.
He reached his free hand back, felt his fingers press against her face. He hooked his thumb and scooped it viciously into her eye. The woman’s grip loosened a fraction.
Ché roared and pushed against the white-hot pain from his hand as he forced the garrotte off him.
He staggered to his feet as Swan did likewise, grasping a spilled chair for support and then the mantelpiece above the hearth. He turned just as she lashed out with the garrotte. The end of it wrapped around the hilt of his knife and she jerked it from his grasp. It was hard to stand now. Swan was doing little better. Her eye was a black mess running with blood.
A blow struck his cheek, stunning him. Ché shook it off as he blocked another punch, then another. He came out of his stance seeking a target, only to find her straightening with the knife in her hand.
Back he staggered, hopping again on his good leg as she dragged her own wounded limb across the floor after him. The knife was poised in her hand. It was a sliver of steel shining in the candlelight just beyond the range of his stomach. He shook his head to clear his dulling vision. Sweat scattered off him.
Ché backed through the door of the bedroom with Swan slowly closing the distance. She lunged at him suddenly. He was only just quick enough to sweep the blade aside. His foot caught against the prone body of Guan and he tripped backwards, shoving Swan to the side as he fell.
Gasping, he pushed himself off the floor again as Swan did the same. He managed to get a knee under his weight, then flailed his good hand around until it grasped the bed. Up, onto his feet, grunting and straining from the effort, seeing Guan’s body lying there. His balance lurched around a spinning point. His vision receded until he teetered in the darkness of his own head. He bore down on it, applying focus, seeing a crack of light appear like a doorway.
He came through it, and saw Swan coming at him with the knife.
A desperate sidestep, a slippery grip of an arm and a foot out-thrust to trip her. They fell hollering towards the floor with Ché riding her down with all his weight.
The stick of wood shot through the back of the woman’s neck with a crunch of teeth and bone. She quivered once, as though in a delayed shock, then lay there perfectly still.
A soft whine of air escaped her lungs as her body deflated.
Ché gasped for a breath and rolled himself clear. He lay for some moments with his remaining energy flooding out of him, his mind beyond thought or reason.
He had the shakes when he finally regained his feet. He looked down at the two dead Diplomats. Swan was sprawled with her face pressed against his brother’s, their bodies extended in opposite directions. They looked as though they were two lovers kissing.
‘Here I am!’ Ché spat at them with a hard slap to his chest.
In the shadows by the side of a minor canal, Ash finished his preparations and listened to the sounds of revelry in the distance. He observed the tall mansions on the opposite side of the canal, where priests walked past lit windows in suites they had made their own. Above the rooftops of the fine buildings, the rock of the citadel rose into the night air. Sasheen’s flag was still flying up there.
A window opened, and a woman threw the contents of a chamber pot out into the water. Someone was singing in the room behind her. Ash maintained his stillness, confident that he was hidden by the shadows, until she withdrew again and closed the window, cutting the song off in mid chorus.
Quickly, he removed his clothes and placed them in a neat pile beside his weaponry. Next to them sat a small wooden keg filled with blackpowder; a mine he’d appropriated from a Mannian munitions cart.
Goosebumps rose on Ash’s skin
from the caress of cold air, and he rubbed his arms and legs to generate some warmth. His breath was visible in the shimmer of lantern light cast across the black surface of the canal.
The lakeweed had been shorn here to create the vertical sides of the waterway. Beams of wood shored them up further. He sat on the boardwalk at its edge then gently eased himself into the lukewarm water. It felt good against the tensions of his muscles, the abrasions on his skin, so he simply rested there for a while, near delirious with the relief of it. Beneath his feet, down in the depths of the clear water, he could see the distant glimmer of lights. He kicked to stay afloat, watching the brilliance of them between his toes.
When he felt ready, he rose up and grabbed the mine and pulled it into the water with a splash. He shook his face clear and checked the line of fuse that hung from a tarred hole in the bobbing keg; it floated out across the surface and up to the boardwalk above him, where it was tied around his Acolyte body armour, and then to a heavy portable reel fixed to boardwalk by a knifeblade, where the rest of the fuse line was tightly coiled.
He pulled on the line of fuse until the armour toppled into the water with another noisy splash. It sank instantly, and a moment later pulled the mine down with it. Ash looped a portion of the fuse around his wrist while he breathed hard and fast. He felt the tug of the line against his hand, and dived beneath the surface, letting himself be pulled into the silent depths while the reel of fuse played out above him.
His eyes stung, and he blinked and forced them to stay open. His chest tightened as he dived deeper, drawing nearer to the rock all the time. The lights were bleeding from windows of thick glass far below, carved from the steep flanks of the rock the citadel stood upon. Ash kicked towards them as he dropped, pulling the line with him even as it pulled him. He knew he had one good chance at this.
He scattered a shoal of fish from his path, and then at last he felt the weight slacken in his hand as the armour settled on the ledge of one of the windows. The mine spun slowly close to the glass. Ash uncoiled the line from his wrist and swam down. He chanced a look inside, saw a brilliantly lit chamber of couches and chandeliers; a priest talking to another; a pair of Acolytes next to a doorway.