City of Blades (51 page)

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Excellent. Now hop to it.”

Knordstrom, despite his ample bulk, hurries away through the piles of dirt.

“That was smartly done,” says Mulaghesh. “I hope like hells he gets Sigrud over here.”

“Me, too.” Signe clips through the last of the chain-link fence, and Mulaghesh kicks it open. The two crawl through, the bits of wire biting at their shoulders and backsides, then stand and sprint away.

The hill stops being a hill and starts being more like a cliff, with Rada's house sitting above. “Why are soldiers coming in the first place?” asks Signe as they begin to climb.

“Standard protocol,” says Mulaghesh, breathing hard. “First thing you do during a security threat as regional governor is secure the safety of all other Ministry officials. I just never thought that
I'd
be the threat to the polis governor.”

Signe looks up along the cliff. “It's a straight climb up the rest of the way,” she says. “Do you need any help?”

“I'll manage,” says Mulaghesh. Then, quieter: “Maybe.”

They climb, and climb, and climb. Mulaghesh doesn't say so, but it's extraordinarily difficult for her, trying to compensate for her left arm. More than once she's certain she's going to topple over and plummet down to the streets below. She's so focused on not falling that she's shocked when something soft strikes her shoulder. It takes her a moment to realize it's a rope.

She looks up and sees it dangling from Signe's dark form above. “Tie that to your belt,” she says. “I've got it tied to mine. I'll steady you.”

“So I can pull you to your death, too?”

“I'm bigger than you,” says Signe. “I'll be fine.”

Tying the rope to her belt on the side of a cliff one-handed is a tall order for Mulaghesh, but after a few minutes of fumbling around in her pants she manages it. She gives Signe a thumbs-up and the two of them start their ascent again. She has to hand it to her: Signe is bigger than her and much better at this than she thought.

Finally they get to the top of the cliff. Signe vaults over it, then turns, lies down, and reaches down to Mulaghesh. “Here. Give me your hand.”

Mulaghesh looks up to see a beam of light shoot through the air just above Signe.
They're close,
she thinks.
Too close. We were too damned slow!

She hurriedly begins untying her end of the rope. “Signe! Get away! Get down, they'll see you!”

“Just jump up and grab my hand!”

“Signe, you—”

“Just do it already!”

Mulaghesh jumps up. Her entire body fills with terror as she's suspended over a precipitous drop for one blistering moment.

Her fingers touch Signe's. At first she's convinced it won't work, that her grip will pass through and she'll go tumbling down the slope. But then Signe's fingers clutch together, seizing Mulaghesh's hand. She then leans down and hooks her elbow into Mulaghesh's left arm, above her false hand.

Then everything goes bright as a beam of light falls on them. “Halt!” cries a voice. “Freeze!”

Neither of them speaks. Signe pulls Mulaghesh up, though their progress feels agonizingly slow.

“I said freeze!” cries the voice. He sounds worried, agitated. Mulaghesh can see that Signe's rifling is very visibly strapped to her back.
That's bad,
thinks Mulaghesh.

Mulaghesh kicks at the cliffside and pushes herself up and over. She tumbles over the edge and rolls away from the light. Signe tries to follow her, but she's still recovering and moves just a little too slow.

A shot. Mulaghesh hears Signe cry out. Mulaghesh rises up onto a knee and draws her carousel.

Even in this moment, when she's being fired on and she's aware her comrade has been hit, she's still painfully aware that these are her own soldiers, her own colleagues and brothers and sisters—and, as an officer, her own responsibility. So she fires three shots up into the trees above them, high but not too high—just enough that they seek cover, fast.

It works: the beams of light go skittering through the trees, fleeing the shots. Mulaghesh hooks one arm around Signe and hauls her up, not bothering to look for where she's hit.

The two of them limp along through the trees, Mulaghesh stumbling and flailing and trying not to fall. Shots ring out, but none of them come close.

“Where did you catch it?” she says as they run.

“My calf,” says Signe. “It's…It's not too bad….” But she's talking through gritted teeth, suggesting it definitely feels quite bad.

Mulaghesh turns, takes cover behind a tree, and looks for motion. She spies three of them lurching up through the ferns and the bracken toward her. She takes careful aim at the tree above them, then fires. The bark erupts just above their heads, and they dive for cover again.

“They must not be the cream of the crop,” says Mulaghesh, hauling Signe up toward Rada's house. “Otherwise you'd be dead.”

“Put me down,” whispers Signe.

“What?”

“Put me down and leave me here,” she says. “I'm just slowing you down!”

“I'm not leaving you, damn it!”

“And you won't make it to Rada's house with me!” says Signe. “They'll catch up to you and either shoot us or arrest us both! Either way, we're dead. If we get arrested and the sentinels invade, we're dead, Turyin. You know that!”

Mulaghesh slows to a stop. She looks around and finds a large clump of bracken underneath one of the pines. “Do you think you can tend to your own wound if I give you the supplies?”

“I can deal with a wounded leg,” says Signe, though she's wincing. “Give me the rifling, and I'll give you more cover fire and buy you some time.”

“I won't have you killing a Saypuri soldier on account of my dumb ass. Don't use it unless you
have
to.” She sets Signe down and sees her face is twisted in pain. She takes a look at the wound and immediately assesses that it was almost a clean shoot, though it looks like it might have nicked the bone a little. She reaches around and pulls out her med kit. “I'd see to you myself if I could.”

“I know,” says Signe, taking the kit. “Now go! Get out of here and stop her!”

Mulaghesh turns and sprints up through the trees.

Mulaghesh darts up the hillside to the other side of the house, to Rada's living quarters entrance. She dives into the bracken and peers through the leaves, watching, waiting. She can hear the soldiers calling out to one another, signaling their positions as they comb the forest. None of them seem to be near her, and she doesn't think any of them can see her.

She starts creeping toward the house. It's dark, but not dark enough for her to feel safe. Finally she comes to the base of the house, where a large bay window spills golden light across the trees. She can see the door, but she'll be plainly visible if she moves toward it. She rises to a squat, reloads the carousel, watches the trees, and, seeing nothing, sprints for the door.

She makes it. There's no sound of a shot or a shout. But she can hear something coming from the base of the house: a soft
ping! ping!
sound, like metal on metal.

I know what that is,
she thinks grimly.

She reaches down and tests the knob. It's locked. She feels around for the door frame and confirms that the hinges are on the other side. Then she steps out from the cover of the wall, squares herself with the door, and delivers a powerful kick just beside the knob.

The door cracks open. One of the soldiers out front shouts, “What was that?” But Mulaghesh is already charging into the house, carousel ready.

The lights are on inside, but she doesn't hear movement. She shuts the door and shoves a cabinet in front of it, knowing it won't stop them. Then she quietly begins to move throughout the house, searching from room to room.

Rada Smolisk is not home, or so it seems: no one in the kitchen, the living room, or any of the clinic's quarters. Mulaghesh walks to the fireplace and feels the ashes there. They're quite cold, as are the stones. Yet she just saw smoke pouring out of the chimney, and heard that sound below….

Mulaghesh inspects the chimney and the fireplace. She knows that her time is limited, but Rada must be hiding around here somewhere. She doesn't see any cracks or paneling in the walls around the fireplace, but as she paces over the carpet she suddenly stops, thinks, and looks down.

One corner of the carpet is strangely askew, as if someone tried to pull it into place from an awkward angle.

She grabs a corner of the carpet and hauls it up.

Set in the wooden floor underneath is a wide trapdoor with a metal handle set in its side.

She holsters her carousel and lifts the trapdoor. Below is a set of winding, curving stairs down.

There's a pounding at the door she came in through. She can hear the cabinet she tipped in front of the door creaking and cracking. Mulaghesh glances around, grabs a fire poker from the fireplace, and enters the staircase. She shuts the trapdoor and slides the fire poker through the handle, locking it. She wipes sweat from her brow, draws her carousel, and continues down.

It should be dark here, one would imagine, but it isn't: though there are no lamps, the winding staircase is lit by a faint orange light that filters up through the cracks in the steps. As she descends Mulaghesh can hear that tinny
ping, ping, ping
—the sound of pieces of metal striking one another.

Or a hammer on an anvil,
she thinks.

It's only a few steps after that when she starts to hear the voices in her head, whispering and murmuring.

“…chased them down the shallow river, their arrows singing, and we leapt ashore with our blades and hearts glimmering gladly and struck them down like rag dolls, and how cheered we were by their shrieking flight….”

“…fought me day and night, for four days, my teacher and I there upon the hills, for she had said she'd show me the primal beast that lurks at the heart of the world, the pet of the Mother, and when I struck her arm from her body and plunged my sword into her throat she died smiling, for she knew she had taught me all there was to know….”

It's familiar, she realizes: this is like the chanting and muttering she heard from the sentinels in the City of Blades.

The stairs level out. She sees the wicked blaze of the forge beyond, and the swords in racks before it.

There are dozens of them. Maybe four dozen, maybe five. Only a few approach the terrible, beautiful weapon wielded by Zhurgut, most not half so large nor half so fine. They are perhaps the products of a prentice smith, one still learning the wend and weft of the metal, still grasping what heat and pliability will allow one to do. But they are still swords, still weapons, and though crude she can see there is a primitive utility to them.

And she can
hear
them. She can hear them talking, whispering. Inside these weapons, she realizes, are the memories and desires of an entire civilization.

A small figure toils before the forge, adorned in a thick leather apron and a wide, blank metal mask with a tinted glass plate. The sight would almost be comical if the person did not carry themselves with an air of such grimness, pumping the bellows with determination and familiarity, indifferent to the sting of the sparks. This creature knows the forge and knows their work, and intends to do it.

“Little Rada Smolisk,” whispers Mulaghesh. “What are you
doing
?”

She watches as Rada holds a blazing chunk of metal in the teeth of a pair of tongs. She sets it on the face of the anvil and gives it a mighty blow, turning it over and over, her movements assured. Mulaghesh can see that the forge is cunningly crafted: Rada has built her own hearth and firepot and tuyere and bellows, with a vent above that must feed into the chimney. It must have taken her months to construct. There are also air vents built into the corners of the basement in order to allow out the heat. There's even a draft in the room as the hot, active air circulates out, bringing the cool, wintry air in.

Mulaghesh glances around at the dozens of swords, and reflects that, not for the first time, Rada Smolisk is trapped down here in the dark with the dead.

Mulaghesh paces forward, mindful of the hammer in Rada's hand. “Stop, Rada.”

Rada pauses for a second, then continues hammering away on the lump of metal.

“I said stop it!”

Rada turns the lump over, examines it, then sets it back in the coals. Her voice is small and soft: “No.”

“Put the hammer down!”

“No.” She takes the piece of metal back out, lays it on the face of the anvil, and pounds away at it again.

“I will shoot you, Rada!”

“Then do so,” says Rada quietly. “Shoot me. Kill me.” Another ringing blow. “I am indifferent to it.”

“I know what you're doing! I've been to the City of Blades, Rada! I've seen it!”

The hammering slows. Then she remarks, “So? What difference does that make? How does that stop anything? So you know. So what?” She looks at the hammer, considering it. “This is the most alive I've ever felt in my life. Did you know that? All the burdens on my soul and on my tongue…With each blow of the hammer, they fade away.”

Mulaghesh watches as Rada lifts the hammer and begins pounding away again. “The hells with this,” mutters Mulaghesh. She holsters her weapon and strides forward. Rada turns, brandishing the hammer, but Mulaghesh can tell that she's not sure what she really wants to do with it: she didn't expect or even really want a confrontation. So Mulaghesh grabs Rada's wrist with her right hand, forcefully spins her around, and delivers a devastating stomp to the back of her right knee.

Something pops wetly in Rada's knee. She screams in agony and falls to the ground, her hammer clanging on the anvil. Mulaghesh ignores her. She walks to the swords and starts grabbing them and hurling them onto the coals.