This is what he drew on when he spoke, so that the strength of the memories suffused his awkward words with a purity born of earnestness.
She appeared before him. A distance of a few yards felt like a gulf, but at least she showed her face.
"I never meant to lie to you."
He closed his eyes at her words. Thank the Great Eye. She was talking, and with each word the gulf between them shrank and shrank.
"I was trying to protect everyone, myself and you. It was a mistake."
Renat shook his head. "No, no, you did what you thought was right—"
"Well, I never should have—"
"I regret—"
Then, finally, they were closing the distance with small steps. They came close to each other, meeting somewhat uncertainly in the middle.
Renat reached up a hand, paused, then brushed her face. She threw her arms around him. He responded in kind, his arms like a vise around her ribcage.
"Dammit, Renat, I swear I have no secrets left from you."
"Then we can call this our first fight of many in the years to come, my Moon."
"Gladly," she replied with a laugh. He felt his future, which had narrowed to a pinpoint, bloom wide in front of him again, rolling onward for years to come.
"Loviva played us like fiddles," she mumbled into his shoulder.
This was embarrassingly true, he realized. Loviva might not have the means to endanger him at all, but she did not need them. All she needed was for Moon to believe it. A bit of cargo lost on the few runs Moon had given up was nothing compared to the loss of his partner. It would have meant the end of the Arrowheads.
Moon put her chin on his shoulder and spoke more clearly. "I don't know if she can kill you, but with those magical artefacts, she'll be too much of a threat. I had to try to stop her."
Renat drew back. "There are no artefacts."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It's a weapon. Something for the tower to use against the Hji. I came to stop you from stealing it. It's too dangerous, and Carnate may need it."
"But we don't know what it is?"
Renat shrugged. "I'm not sure. Xavier didn't know. And that means Loviva probably doesn't know either."
"She likely doesn't. Her intel is bad. She thinks there's a safe house, but it's a decoy. I think the guard will move the shipment in today and go straight to the tower."
"Is today even the right day?"
"They wouldn't pull people from the wall just to waste time. I think the date's the only thing we have right."
Renat wasn't too worried about the details. "It doesn't matter. Now that I have you, we can leave the guard to worry about Demon's Breath."
"Renat!" she said in surprise. "We cannot let Loviva have a weapon that could bring down the walls of Carnate. She will turn it on us—"
"I have a plan in motion for that," he started to say.
"And if the sorcerers do not have it, what will stop the Hji from destroying us?"
And reclaiming their Fade, he thought, if they get half a chance.
He drew a breath. "You want us to fight on the same side as the guard?"
She laughed. Each time he heard her laugh, the sound warmed him. “I’m afraid so.”
They were interrupted by a bone-shaking explosion. He and Moon whirled toward the sound. A gout of flame raged from the top of a building. Black smoke billowed into a sky that was only just beginning to lighten with the dawn.
Renat stared blankly at the flames. "Is that—"
"Loviva's attacking the safe house!" Moon cried.
"But the shipment isn't there?" Renat asked. She hadn't had time to clarify her previous assertion that the shipment would never pass through the safe house.
"Renat!" called one of the crew.
He and Moon ran for the edge of the building they stood on. While they'd been distracted, the Demon's Breath had begun their battle. The street below had been blockaded. It swarmed with the crew, and dimly Renat thought that Loviva had brought her whole crew, which would mean easy work for Gawin when he raided the manor.
"Are you sure she doesn't know what's in that shipment?" Renat asked. She had prepared for the battle with all the forethought of a general on the wall.
Moon gaped. "I thought I saw them all, all of her crew. There must have been twenty more in the buildings."
The guard had burst out of the safe house and onto the street.
"That's only seven or so," Faruq said. He was craned far over the side of the building, and Viveka had a hand on his belt to keep him from spilling over.
"Did you say they had increased numbers?" Renat asked Moon.
"They were worried about a Fade," she said without elaborating. "I'm not sure they were expecting to be besieged by one of the Carnate gangs."
The guards from the safe house were already engaged in battle as the Demon's Breath stormed the building. Meanwhile, the Arrowhead crew watched like it was an Alveas Festival play in full production.
"Look!" shouted Faruq, pointing to the ground.
A moment later they could all see it, a carriage pulled by two horses and with four guards on the outside of it burst onto the main road and charged forward.
The carriage evidently hadn't seen the barricade, or hadn't had another choice. The horses drew up at the crossed wooden poles and three guard jumped from the carriage to fight off the Demon's Breath guard and clear a passage.
They were hopelessly outnumbered. Even when backup arrived, there was no way to warn them of the numbers. Every one of those guard would be killed, and the weapon could be gone before any backup could arrive. And worst of all, he still hadn't seen hide nor hair of Loviva.
"Get down there!" Renat roared even as he pulled away from the ledge. "Our plan remains the same. Take down Loviva's crew, and let the guard take their weapon."
His crew sent up an answering animal roar as they raced to join the fight.
~*~
Moon couldn't keep up with the shifted crew. They bounded ahead in great leaps while she made a run for the High Road, and then the stairs down.
When she emerged on the street, all was chaos. She recognized many of her crew, but without the powerful scenting capabilities of the djinn-bloods, one panther often looked much like the next.
She stayed visible for the moment. Battle was a dangerous time to be both visible and invisible, but she preferred for her people to be able to see her, just in case.
Knowing human leverage would be best for moving the barricades, she ran toward them.
Now that she was up close, Moon remembered she’d seen the two huge wooden pillars in her sweep of the neighborhood. She'd thought nothing of them, seeing them stacked in an alley, and of course that had been Loviva's intention. Around the crossed poles, debris had been piled. Cement blocks and bricks, along with sticks and anything else that might catch and trip the wheels of the carriage even if they managed to roll the pillars out of the way.
Up close, the carriage no longer looked like a standard coach. It was a rectangular vehicle, not made for comfort. It was drab, first of all, not projecting any hint of wealth. There was no sign it was owned by the guard, either, except that the door had three locks across it, and hints of iron poked out from places where the black paint had grown thin. There were no windows. She guessed it was one of the secure carriages used for prisoners, and private guard business. At the bench was not a regular driver but another guard, a young man with pale skin and feathery black hair cut short. He paid her no mind, for he was rigorously defending the carriage from a Demon's Breath who had lunged for the reins. The horses tossed their heads in consternation.
Moon arrived at the pillars. She let the cats fight each other as she began scooping bricks and debris away from the pillar. Her fingernails scraped against the bricks and grew raw. When the debris was clear, she grabbed the cement blocks and slung them, one by one, off to the side of the road.
She wasn't confident it would be enough, but they would run out
of time if someone did not start rolling the pillars away. Arrowheads kept the Demon's Breath at bay, giving the guard time to regroup. The guard on the carriage had managed to dislodge his attacker with a swift boot to the chest.
She hopped over the pillar. The moment her boots hit the ground she was forced to dive out of the way of a swipe of a Demon's Breath claw.
A tiger bellowed at her. She threw up a hand to defend herself. Pulling the other hand out of from under her body, she planted it and twisted her legs out of the way of the tiger.
A whippet of a cheetah pounced on the tiger. Its body crashed the air out of the tiger, though it did not fell the best. The cheetah – Viveka – tangled with the tiger again as it turned to snarl at her.
Moon could not afford to back up any further. This pillar was crossed on top of the other, and she needed to push it down to roll it off the road.
She threw her whole weight against it. The pillar did not budge.
Grunting in exasperation, she planted her feet and pushed again, feeling the pillar rock.
A lion bounded up, shifting as he landed into the form of Faruq. His momentum carried him forward and he slammed his body into the pillar as she shoved. The pillar rolled off the other and crashed to the ground.
Now Moon saw a new problem. The horses were too close to the barricade, and she could not continue to roll the pillar. A look across to the other pillar told her it was not an option, as the bulk of the fighting took place on that side of the road.
As she was considering her options, the horses began to back up, slowly and with protests. Between the tack and harness, she made eye contact with the young guard. He was guiding the horses back.
Faruq had returned to cat form, and was distracting anyone who tried to come near her. She set herself to the pillar again. She only needed to move it enough to get the carriage through.
A push at the end got the thing moving again, crunching over the debris she hadn't scattered. One end stayed in place while she rolled the other end open, like one in a set of double doors swinging open. It rolled with agonizing slowness, and she strangely thought the words "Open Sesame" as it went.
It reached a point the carriage could pass through, and the young guard wasted no time. The angle forced the horses to move slowly into a better position to pass through. Moon watched from the side of the carriage while the guards shouted orders or positions back and forth. The young guard stayed silent, either with concentration, or maybe he hoped to sneak a coach and two horses away while the fighting reached a fever pitch.
He had eased through the opening and the Arrowhead crew was stopping the Demon's Breath from breaking through. Moon was about to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw movement.
As the carriage pulled forward, she saw Loviva balanced precariously on the back of the carriage. She clung to the carriage back and when she saw Moon's face she grinned with her dagger-sharp teeth.
"No!" called Moon, but her cry was lost amidst the roars of the fight.
In any second the guard would urge the carriage forward. If he got away, Loviva would slit his throat before he was even aware of the danger.
Loviva put a foot to the side of the carriage and hoisted herself up to the top.
Moon charged forward. She did not have a plan, or even an idea, until she'd leaped at the back of the carriage. Her fingers gripped the handle of the door and edge of the roof, while her feet jumped onto the back step.
Just then, the young guard must have given the signal, for the carriage burst forward. Moon was yanked back by the momentum, and barely managed to keep her grip. The carriage put on speed until they were racing up the street, and toward the tower.
~*~
Renat felt the surge of the fight rush through his veins. He shifted into panther form, and the human nerves mixed with the animal thrill of the hunt. He bounded to the street.
Three Demon's Breath forced a guard against a wall. Renat came from behind them, tackling one in a powerful push of his back legs. One of his crew followed. Renat registered the guard's look of surprise before he and the crewmember he'd attacked rolled away. The lion swiped at him, but Renat still had the upper paw, and he slashed at the lion's throat.
The lion barely escaped a slit throat, and it leaped out of Renat's range.
The Demon's Breath were busy disarming the guard, but a few already dared to approach the carriage.
Three guards jumped down from where they had ridden on the sides of the carriage. They can handle that, he decided, and turned to the battle raging around the carriage.
The rest of his crew, those who had been stationed on neighboring buildings, arrived as well, and between them and the guard they were a match for Loviva's crew.
He cast about for the spots of Loviva's jaguar. He saw more than one jaguar, but none looked or smelled right. He'd never seen Loviva's shifted form though.
A cry to his right brought him back to the present.
One of the Demon's Breath had shifted back to human form to draw a saber against a guard in snow leopard form. The snow leopard was surrounded by four other crew and not perturbed in the least. It roared a challenge.
The crewmember with the saber thrust her weapon at the snow leopard.
The snow leopard had been waiting for one of them to make a mistake. It dodged the strike easily and was on the human before she had a moment to recover. The weight of the snow leopard crashed down, sending the human to the road in a heap.
Then the snow leopard was outside the circle that had surrounded it. It did not flee. Instead, it turned and attacked again, scattering the crew of shifted Demon's Breath who had tried to contain it.
Suitably impressed, Renat joined the fight, and he and the snow leopard made short work of the crew in that area.
He made to join the fight happening further up the road, but the snow leopard shifted into a human woman, perhaps ten years younger than him.
"Who are you?" she demanded, more confused than anything. "I can tell you aren't guard."
He felt no need to be a masked hero, and communicating might help them better handle Loviva and her crew. He shifted into human form.
"Renat Defour."
She looked even more confused. "The smuggler?"
"We heard Demon's Breath had a plan to steal a weapon meant to defend the wall. We couldn't let it fall into Loviva's hands."
Her eyebrows arched. "Honor among thieves."
He felt no need to justify himself, and said sharply, "Stay sharp, cadet. Is there anything my crew needs to know?"
"Help me find Stavros. He's the only one with a flare that will signal both reinforcements and the sorcerers. And another thing, it's not a weapon. It's a—"
A roar of pain distracted them both. They both turned, to see the battle had made it up to the barricade made of two wooden pillars. Moon was there—dammit, he wished she'd stayed behind. Humans were not meant to enter a shifted battlefield, not when a single swipe could open them as easily as a human finger broke a wax seal.
But he couldn't stay glued to her side, not when others had greater need.
The guard did not wait for him. At the sound of the call for help, she'd bounded away, shifting mid-stride and returning to the fray.
She hadn't said how exactly he could help her find this Stavros, and so he decided to help by not letting her get killed.
He shouted to two nearby crew. "Bring the guard together! They can signal the sorcerers!"
He directed four more to the barricade and the carriage, and then he made himself the snow leopard's personal bodyguard. Any who tried to converge on her were dispatched with a slash of claws or the crushing strength of his panther jaws.
The damn problem was the snow leopard kept getting distracted by helping her fellows. Each time Renat thought she had found her comrade Stavros, it turned out she was only rescuing some hapless guard. Truly, it was impressive to witness, for she flowed from snow leopard to warrior as each form suited her, wielding a pair of daggers and her own c
laws with a vicious efficiency.
Abruptly, she fell to her knees by a downed human man. Renat could not see if he lived or not, but the woman wasted no time, pulling something from his belt and casting it with a word of power on the ground.
A column of vibrant purple smoke shot into the air, unnaturally straight. The woman watched it blast upward.
At the same time, a sound rippled from the column, deafening him with its intensity. He and the woman stepped back. She lifted her hands to her ears while he crouched and snarled, flattening his ears back to his skull.
The sound and the strange purple light cast by the column halted the fighting in their immediate vicinity. He wanted ask how long before help arrived, but his first thought was to get away from the noise.
He pounced into the center of the road, away from the column. The snow leopard followed. As his hearing returned to normal, he almost missed the call of alarm from behind them.
He turned and looked up the street in time to see the carriage speeding away from the battle—Loviva on top of it, and his wife clinging to the back.
~*~
The carriage was able to reach an impressive speed on the packed dirt road, but the real problem were the bumps and jolts that threatened to send Moon flying off.
Clinging to the face wasn't ideal, and so she melted into invisibility before copying the movement she'd seen Loviva make, and scrambling on top of the carriage.
Loviva crouched on the far side of the flat top of the carriage. Her limbs were spread to keep her balance, while one hand reached for the dagger in her belt.
Moon lunged forward. She drew her own dagger, careful not to lose her balance and fall on it.
She came forward and wrapped an arm around Loviva's neck.
The other woman could not see her or the blade, but she froze all the same as the steel touched her exposed neck.
"Boy!" Moon called over the clattering of horse hooves and a strange siren ringing out from the battle behind them.
The young guard turned with a start. Moon flickered into visibility. He cursed.
Moon risked a glance up. The tower raced toward them at what felt a madcap speed.
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