Twenty-Two
Star!
[Assessment: ow.]
A knot inside me relaxes. I know his foundation sigil is indestructible, but I still feel a jolt of worry every time I watch him get mangled. The relief doesn’t last, though, because our other problems are rapidly closing in.
“Unbelievable!” Venci says. Her voice sounds shaky. “After seventeen consecutive wins, the champion has fallen! Vripiai is the new king of the pit!”
“As if I would lower myself,” Quech cuts in. “Go back to your little games.”
The snake opens its mouth, letting Star’s crushed remains fall to the arena floor.
The crowd boos. Up on the top floor, where the snake’s tail punched a hole in the fence, someone hurls a glass bottle through.
It tumbles down, catching the lights, and shatters into glittering shards on the pit floor.
“We have to go,” Ky says, but her voice sounds dead.
“I have to get Star.” I move to the ramp, now raised and blocking access to the pit. It shudders when I give it a shove.
“You want to scavenge? Now?” She shakes her head, then hisses and puts a hand against her scalp. “They’re coming to kill us, Taj! Let’s go.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“He’s just a runic! You built him once, you can build him again!”
“You don’t understand.”
“Taj!”
Venci’s echoing voice is trying to convince the spectators to leave, but they’re not happy about it.
Some of them are shaking the fences, adding a rhythmic creak and groan of metal to the roar of many voices.
In the gallery the knots of thugs are moving toward us, pushing their way through the angry crowd.
I catch a glimpse of a tall, thin man in a coat that looks too fine for Malkuth—Gestian?
Ky is frantic, tears at the corners of her eyes, grabbing my arm.
Down in the arena Quech has his arms out, drinking in the hate of the crowd with a broad smile. Vripiai remains coiled over Star’s body, its head swaying gently to and fro as if to invisible music.
“I’m getting Star!” I shout, barely audible above the bedlam. At the same time, I lean back and give the ramp a kick with all my weight behind it. The mechanism gives way and it rattles down to the pit floor. My boots echo on the metal as I pound toward Star.
[Apologies: I cannot see much. But this seems dangerous.]
I’m getting you and getting out of here.
[Agreement: an excellent course of action.]
Star’s body is mangled, a mess of shredded armor and smashed internal parts. The hatches that give access to his core are hopelessly bent and jammed, but I can see the fitful ruby gleam of his foundation sigil through the gaps. I jam my boot into the widest rent, trying to push it open farther.
It widens a couple of centimeters, but I still can’t see the ruby sigil.
Swearing violently, I kneel beside the wreck and jam my arm in.
I know Star’s internal architecture better than the back of my hand.
Even mangled, I can feel my way through.
Broken bits of metal and wire leave bloody scratches on my skin.
“Taj!” Ky grabs my shoulder. I glance back and see a mass of thugs on our platform, the tall man I spotted earlier out in front. They’re watching us from the top of the ramp, confident we have nowhere to go.
Nearly there. I worm my fingers through the shattered ring of sigils around the all-important ruby THINK. A busted spar digs into my forearm just as my fingers brush the prize. I can’t quite grab it. Another couple of centimeters. Deep breath.
I jam my arm in. The spar punches through my skin until it scrapes bone. I twist Star’s sigil free of the threading wire and start trying to extricate myself. Pain crashes in on me, and I have to grit my teeth not to scream.
I’ve got you.
[Query: are you all right?]
His mental voice sounds frantic. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him, blind and deaf without PERCEIVE sigils, no connection to the world but his fragile link with my mind.
I’ll be fine, I send, trying to project calm. But you owe me for this one.
I yank my arm back, gathering further cuts. Blood sheathes my hand in a crimson gauntlet and drips all over Star’s sigil. Ky has her sword in hand, breathing hard, her eyes wide and her pupils blown out. I stand up and grab her arm, and there’s a metallic rasp above us. Very slowly, I turn.
Vripiai is looking down at me.
It’s one thing to see a runic fighting another runic and think, Oh, that’s a big one.
To watch the blows they exchange, metal on metal, and follow the flow of a fight from a safe vantage point.
But here, with Vripiai’s head looming a half meter above me, I’m suddenly very aware of just how fragile flesh would be against steel.
The jaws that crushed Star’s reinforced armor would barely notice my bones breaking between them.
The snake’s head weaves back and forth, back and forth.
I glance at the other platform. Quech is watching me, too, and when I meet his eyes he raises one hand in a mocking salute. Vripiai turns away, its bulk hissing across the metal floor as it winds back up the ramp to its master.
The two platforms with their ramps are the only way to access the arena floor. Quech and his snake are blocking one way out. Gestian and the thugs occupy the other, and with Vripiai’s retreat they’re getting bolder, edging toward us. No hurry; we’re trapped.
But that can’t be right. There must be another entrance. Somebody has to clean up the mess, after all.
I look around frantically until I spot it.
Off to one side, concealed beneath the lip of the arena’s edge, there’s a tunnel big enough to crouch in.
A heavy iron grating covers it, probably controlled by sigwork construct.
One way out, and no choices. I yank on Ky’s arm, and she stumbles after me, blinking in confusion.
“Where—” she says.
“Just follow me!”
The thugs see what we’re doing and pile down the ramp.
I reach the grate; it’s too heavy to lift, but as I guessed there’s a mechanism up at the top.
It must be a simple MOVE and a few STRONGS, nothing complicated, but whatever controls it I can’t reach from this side.
I can reach the mechanism itself, though, snaking my hand—the one that isn’t currently drooling blood in a pitter-patter on the floor—through the grate and pressing a fingertip against one of the sigils.
I need it to work. It shouldn’t be hard. A MOVE wants to move. It just needs a little power…
Sigwork devices don’t work that way, just by effort of will, but somehow I nonetheless feel the familiar tug at my spirit. With a deep grind, the grate swings up and open.
The thugs are halfway across the arena. I pull Ky into the tunnel, then reach up and rip the MOVE out of the mechanism in a shower of red sparks. The grate falls back with a clang, and we run.
The tunnel lets out into a maze of back rooms. We push past a few of Venci’s startled staff, through a back door, and out into the streets.
Ky seems to come back to herself once we’re in the open air, breathing hard and clutching her head.
She runs beside me without prompting as we take turn after turn, losing ourselves as best we can.
When we’re out of breath—well, when I’m out of breath—we stop in the shadow of a broken stairwell. I lean against the wall, gasping, and Ky kicks the bricks beside me and swears.
“Fuck. Fuck!” She aims another kick and a piece flies away with a clatter. “We had it. We were almost there. How did they—fuck!”
My injured hand is still clutching Star’s sigil. Very shakily, I put him into the pocket of my coat, then press my other palm against the puncture wound.
“FUCK,” Ky screams, voice ragged.
“Can I get some help with this?” I manage. “Also maybe it would be better to stay quiet.”
“Shit,” she says, more quietly. Something seems to drain out of her. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve and turns back to me. “Right. Of course. Uh, hang on.”
She grabs the knife from my hip and starts hacking at the edge of her coat. The ragged strip of cloth makes a crude bandage, but for the moment it keeps the blood on the inside where it belongs.
“Thank you.” I flex my fingers experimentally. It hurts, but they all move. “We can’t stay here.”
“No shit,” Ky snaps, then softens slightly. “You really think we can hide in the undercity?”
I nod.
“Better than dying here,” she mutters. “Though my attempts to get back to Hod keep moving in the wrong direction.”
“We’ll… figure something out.” I have nothing to back that up, but one thing at a time. “Let’s get to the stair.”
“Gestian will be watching,” she warns. “He’s a patient fucker.”
“We’ll have to hope we see him first, then.”
It’s not a short walk, and I’ve lost plenty of blood.
I have to push myself to keep up with Ky, concussion or no.
It’s well after dark now, and the streets are lighting up with crimson sigwork lamps, as though the blood from my wound is spreading all around us.
When Ky pulls up short and grabs my arm, it’s all I can do not to fall over.
“Shit. They found us.”
I try to focus. Up ahead is a market, a bustle of people and flickering light, easy to get lost in. But between us and the promise of safety are a trio of Cavcante, identifiable by their expensive Yesod coats. One of them already has a long metal baton in hand.
“Can we get past them?” I mutter.
Ky shakes her head. “They’ll have friends coming. This way.”
She makes a quick right turn down a side street and breaks into a jog.
I follow, stumbling, around another corner and then back toward the market.
But this street has four of the bastards waiting, and a glance back shows another pair closing unhurriedly from the rear.
Ky turns again, then makes an abrupt left at the sight of yet another trio of bad guys.
“They’re herding us,” I mumble.
“No shit,” Ky says again. “Ideas?”
“Somewhere to hide?”