Seven
I let the momentum of the blow carry me forward, stumbling a few steps before I try to turn.
Unfortunately my attacker follows close; when I spin, their forearm connects with my eye and I see sparks.
I take another step back, nearly up against the bed now, and swing a wild punch that doesn’t make contact.
My opponent is a ghostly shape, white clothes and white hair, about my size.
They duck away from the blow and deliver another short kick to my ribs.
Star, get the fuck up here! But that’s going to take time and this fucker is right on top of me.
I reach behind my back for my long knife.
It’s always a last resort—the last thing I want to do in Yesod is fight anyone—but I’m running out of options.
I whip the blade wildly back and forth, trying to make my attacker back off.
That works, sort of. The white shape steps away.
Then something unfolds between us, an arc of gleaming steel whose curved pieces click-click-click into place to form a long, unbroken ribbon of metal.
It looks too thin to be a real sword, blade barely wider than my pinky, but I’m willing to bet it has sigwork to make it as deadly as any full-sized blade.
If I could take that home, I wonder how much Ekkeban would give me for it.
Not my main concern right now. My knife suddenly looks puny.
The curved sword jabs at my face, and I jerk backward.
My opponent kicks me in the wrist, sending my own blade spinning away, then plants a foot on my chest and shoves.
The bed takes me out at the knees and I sprawl backward.
The silver sword point hovers between my eyes, too close to focus on, like a fly trying to land on my nose.
“If you tell me who you work for, I might let you off with a few scars,” a young woman’s voice says. “Is it Gestian? The du Freis? It can’t be Dreikin, they’d never have sent an assassin so incompetent.”
“What?” I struggle to raise my head and see her, but that brings the sword point even closer. “I’m not— I didn’t even know you were here!”
“Bullshit.” She gestures with the sword, point whipping past my eyes, and I hastily lie flat again. “Don’t lie to me. You fuckers haven’t done enough to my family already?”
“I swear to the stars!” I manage to scoot back a little and push myself up on my elbows. “I was just—”
“I am going to cut your fingers off one by one until you tell me what I want to know,” she says, punctuating each word with a flick of the sword. “Then your toes. Then your cock, if you still won’t talk. And then I’ll figure out something even worse.”
“Worse than cutting my cock off?”
“I am very inventive,” she growls. Unfortunately she gestures again as she does this, and I feel a sudden stinging pain. We both stare as a shallow line of red appears on my bicep, a drop of blood growing at one end. She seems momentarily as startled as I am, but she rallies first.
“And that is just a taste—” she begins, then whips around at the sound of scuttling feet.
Her sword cuts through the air in an arc that would have severely inconvenienced anyone trying to come up from behind, but unfortunately (for her) Star is only about a half meter high, and her blade zips right over him.
He scrambles up her leg and onto her back, and she gives a yelp and reaches for him with her free hand.
Then she stops, eyes very wide, because Star has one of his manipulator arms out with the sharp side pressed to her throat. Those blades aren’t big, but they’re wickedly sharp. I can see a tiny line of blood form on her skin as she swallows.
Don’t hurt her. The last thing I need is to leave bodies behind me. The Arbiters wouldn’t let that lie.
[Agreement: unless she moves.]
“Fuck,” she whispers. “Fuck fuck fuck.”
“Drop the sword, please,” I say, sitting up and rubbing my arm. The cut isn’t bad, but it stings.
“No.”
“Sorry?” Looking at her big, scared eyes, I find making threats a little awkward. But she was threatening to chop bits off me a minute ago. “Do you want your throat slit?”
“Maybe I fucking do,” she says, voice rising. “Do it. Kill me. It’s what you came for, isn’t it?”
“It’s not—”
“Kill me. Kill me.” She’s practically screaming now. “Just fucking do it, I can’t stand waiting anymore—”
“I’m not going to kill you,” I shout back, temper rising. I clamber up from the bed. “Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are or what you’re so worried about, but I’m not it, okay? I don’t go around killing people!”
We stare at each other from a few centimeters apart, both panting, tears smudging her cheeks and sweat prickling on my forehead. It occurs to me, belatedly, that she could stab me quite easily from this position if she really doesn’t mind getting her throat slit afterward.
She blinks. Her eyes are very blue, so dark they’re nearly black.
“You mean it,” she says.
“Of course I mean it,” I snap. “If I was here to kill you I would have done it already, wouldn’t I?”
She cocks her head, considering this. “Probably.”
“So…” I let out a breath. “Now what?”
Her lips purse. “If I put down my sword, will you tell your runic to let go?”
“That seems like a good start.”
She bends her knees, very carefully, and lays her sigwork sword on the floor, then looks up at me.
[Query: is this wise?]
No idea. But I’m not sure what else to do except kill her. Let go, but stay close. Even barehanded I’m pretty sure this girl could break me in half.
[Agreement: you may need further rescuing. Addendum: you’re welcome.]
Can we do this later? I give a sort of embarrassed mental cough. Thanks, though.
Star pulls his blade away and hops off the girl’s back to the floor. She lets out a sigh of relief and sits down heavily on the bed, rubbing her throat.
There’s a long silence.
“Um. So.” Because what do you say in this situation? “Are you… okay?”
“Hmm?” She fumbles on the side of the bed for something. I tense, but it’s only a sigwork hand-lamp, which comes alive at her touch and throws a soft white light. “Yeah. Why?”
“You were screaming at me to slit your throat a minute ago.”
“Oh. I was just trying to forestall any rape and torture plans you might be cooking up.” She narrows her eyes. “That’s not why you’re here, is it? Because I could still rip your cock off.”
“No. Fucking stars, really?”
“Then why are you here? There aren’t a lot of good reasons for breaking into a girl’s bedroom in the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t think anybody was living here.” I pat the half-full pack on my back, feeling oddly embarrassed. “I’m just robbing the place.”
She opens her mouth in a soundless ah. It doesn’t seem to particularly upset her. “I wouldn’t have thought there was much worth taking.”
“There’s a few things.” I indicate the little lamp. “That, for one.”
“This?” She holds it up. “Really? This is just from the shop.”
I want to reply that we don’t have that kind of shop where I come from, but I pause, because the lamp illuminates her and I get a good look for the first time.
She’s about my age and pretty in a narrow-faced, hawklike way, with a sharp nose and big, expressive eyes.
Her hair is startlingly white, her eyebrows nearly invisible against her pale skin.
Her bun has come loose in the fight, and long silver locks coil on the bed behind her.
She’s wearing a long white nightgown that, while not at all revealing, reminds me that I have in fact invaded her privacy here; I feel a faint blush coming on, and try to fight it off.
What kind of thief gets embarrassed at breaking into a girl’s room?
She’s staring back at me, presumably performing a similar evaluation, because the next thing she says is “Where’d you get the runic? I don’t recognize the design.”
I stiffen. “Doesn’t matter.”
“How’d you tell it to grab me? Hand signals? Or—”
“Look, you’re the one at sword point here,” I tell her. “Why are you asking the questions?”
Star advances on her and raises his blades. She bends down to stare at him.
“It’s cute,” she says. “I’ve never seen a fighting runic so small.” She pokes at his manipulator blade and stares in fascination as a small bead of blood forms on the tip of her finger.
[Assessment: the female is mad.]
I’m getting that impression. Her earlier wild emotions are completely gone, and now she seems utterly unfazed by my presence.
“It looks handmade,” she says, licking her fingertip like a cat. “But if you could afford custom sigwork, you wouldn’t be robbing me. So—”
“I built him, all right?” I manage.
“You built… him?”
Somehow her doubtful look makes me bristle. “What? Surprised that a Heaper has half a brain?”
“You’re from the undercity,” she says with the air of someone fitting a piece into place.
“So fucking what?”
“And you built your own runic.” She shakes her head. “Where’d you get the sigils?”
“There’s plenty of sigils in the junk that rains down from the Asshole.”
She gives a startled laugh, which makes me flush a little more.
“What?” I demand again.
“Nothing.” She wipes her eyes. “I’ve just never heard anyone call it that. It’s very apt.”
“I think that’s enough questions.” I shouldn’t have talked to her this long. It’s not like me to go stupid over a pretty face. “Get back on the bed and stay there, and I’ll be out of your way in a minute.”
Start gathering what you can, I tell Star. We need to get out of here.
[Agreement: taken too long already.]
“Wait,” she says. “Wait, wait, wait. What’s your name?”
“Why the fuck would I possibly tell you that?”
“True,” she says, head cocked as though she’d just considered that. “Listen. I’m Ky. Kycilea. I have an idea.”
“I don’t care.”
“Your runic. Do you think you could make it bigger? And… fightier?” She raises her arms, mimicking a monster. “It’s so fast. And the way it climbed me—I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
“What part of I don’t care do you not understand?”
“Just listen. I have an idea.” She jumps up from the bed and grabs my arm. “A crazy stupid idea that could make us both a lot of money.”
With a skitter of tiny legs, Star is between us, blades out. The girl takes a step back, but her eyes are gleaming wildly and her hand is still outstretched.
“Come on,” she says. “Think of it as… as a job offer. It’ll pay better than robbing this place, I promise, and I won’t have to—” She cuts off abruptly and shakes her head. “At least hear me out?”
For a moment I’m tempted. Stupid, I know, but I don’t get a lot of pretty girls offering me money. It’s a new experience. Then reality reasserts itself. I need to get out of here, and this girl is at least half-mad. Whatever her scheme is, it’s more likely to get me locked up than paid off.
“I’m here to rob you, remember?” I tell her, and pluck the sigwork lamp from her hand. “Not looking for work.”
“But—”
My gaze falls on the sword lying at our feet. It’s sigwork, too, and in the light I can see the blade is delicately engraved and chased with gold. It might be worth more than everything I’ve stuffed in my bag put together.
She follows my gaze, and her face pales.
“My father gave me that,” she says quietly. “When I was twelve years old.”
I snatch it up. “I’m sure he’ll buy you another one.”
“Wait.” She grabs for me again, but Star intercepts her. I move to the window. “Please.”
“Kycilea, was it?”
She nods eagerly, long hair rustling. “You can call me Ky.”
“Well, Ky.” I smile and bow with a theatrical flourish. “I’m sorry about your sword. And your window.”
I hit the latter with the former, and it breaks in a shower of glass.
I jump through, one hand slapping against the side of the house before I can fall.
The BIND gloves stick me in place. Star follows at an easy scuttle as I edge sideways.
Ky leans out, looking straight down into the darkened alley, and misses us entirely.
“You could have just opened it, you know,” she calls after me. “They don’t lock.”