She took her hands away as her scar began to throb. She felt cold sweat prickling across her back and belly. She turned again to the windows, staring out at the streets. Still nothing.
<Uh. Kid?> said Clef. <You know how I could tell you had a scrived plate in your head? How I just sensed it?>
<Why?>
<Well…I figured I’d let you know that I’m sensing three scrived rigs upstairs.>
She felt faint. <What?>
<Yeah. Right above us. And they’re moving. Like someone’s carrying them and walking around. They just walked overhead.>
Sancia slowly lifted her eyes to stare at the ceiling. She took a deep breath, and slowed her thoughts.
It was obvious what was happening now. The question was what to do next.
What resources do I have? What tools are available?
Not much, she knew. All she had was a stiletto. But she looked around, thinking.
She silently crept along one trip wire, and found its espringal hidden in the corner—yet it was unloaded. Normally it would have had a fléchette pack sitting in its pocket, ready to be hurled forward—but now it was gone. Just a cocked espringal with nothing to shoot.
She grimaced. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She silently dismantled the trap and slung the espringal across her back.
<What are you doing?> Clef asked.
<Sark’s dead,> she said. She crept along a second trip wire and started disarming it, but she didn’t completely dismantle it.
<What?> said Clef, astonished.
<Sark is dead. And this is a trap.> She did the same to the third trip wire. Then she set them both up so they ran across the base of the stairs, and positioned the espringals so they were pointed right at the stairway.
<How do you know?>
<Because someone set off a trip wire, very recently,> she said. <There’s a fléchette stuck in the wood over there and a decent amount of fresh blood on the ground. That’s why there are three trip wires, not four. My guess is they followed Sark here, waited a bit too long to follow him in, and lost some flesh for it. But they must have got him, eventually.>
<Why are you so sure?>
<Because Sark doesn’t walk around with any scrived armaments—so that’s not him up there. They tried to clean up, to put everything just as he’d left it so I wouldn’t get spooked and bolt—though they weren’t stupid enough to leave me down here with loaded weapons. They’re upstairs, waiting for me.>
<Really?>
<Yeah.>
<Why didn’t they just shoot you as you approached?>
<Probably because there’s always a chance I didn’t have you, and then they’d have a dead girl and no answers. They wanted me to walk upstairs, right into their arms. Then they’d torture and kill me. All to find you.>
<Oh God! Now what the hell do we do?>
<We’re going to get out of this. Somehow.>
She looked around. I need a weapon, she thought. Or a distraction. Anything. But one stiletto and three espringals with no ammunition didn’t get her very far.
Then she had an idea. Grimacing—for she no longer had any idea how much she’d have to use her talents tonight—she touched her bare hands to the wooden beam above her.
Saltwater, rot, termites, and dust…but then she found it: the crackling old bones of the beams were shot through with iron spikes in a few places…and several of them were quite loose.
She quietly paced over to one loose nail, took out her stiletto, and waited for the breeze to rise. When it did, and the creaking and groaning of the old building rose with it, she gently pried the nail out of the soft wood.
She held it in her hands, letting it spill into her thoughts, iron and rust and slow corruption. It was big, about four or five inches long, and about a pound in weight.
Not aerodynamic, she thought. But it wouldn’t need to be, over short distances.
She pocketed it, then pried out two more nails and carefully, carefully placed them in the pockets of the two espringals pointed at the stairwell door.
Maybe this will kill, she thought. Or disable. Or something. I just need to slow them down.
Again, she looked at the street outside. Still no movement. But that didn’t necessarily mean much. These people were prepared.
<Clef?> she asked.
<Yeah?>
<Can you tell me where they are?>
<I can tell you where their rigs are—and if they’re carrying the rigs, that’s where they’ll be too. What are you going to do?>
<Try to survive. What are these rigs?> asked Sancia. <What do they do?>
<They…convince something that it’s been falling. Or they will, when a certain action is performed.>
<Huh?>
<It’s not like I can see the device,> said Clef. <I can only tell you what the scrivings do. And for these, someone does something that activates them. Pulls a lever or something. Then the scrivings convince, uh, some other thing that it’s been falling through the air for thousands and thousands of feet, even if it’s actually been sitting still. In other words, they make the thing go really, really, really fast, all of a sudden, in a perfectly straight line.>
Sancia listened to this closely. <Shit.>
<What?>
<Because it sounds like they’re carrying scrived espringals,> said Sancia. <They shoot bolts that go very far, very fast. Some of the more advanced ones can punch through stone walls.>
<Wow. I…don’t think these do that.>
<You don’t think? I’m going to need you to be more certain than that.>
<I’m, like…maybe eighty percent sure they don’t.>
She took her espringal and huddled at the window at the back, but did not exit yet. <What are they doing up there?>
<I think…patrolling, mostly,> said Clef. <Walking in circles from window to window.>
She did some quick thinking. She knew there was a window just above this one. <Is one of them right above me?>
<No. But he will be in a bit.>
<Tell me when he’s close.>
<All right.>
She’d reviewed her weapon. The espringal was a clunky, powerful weapon, one of the old models you had to crank four or five times. And a big, rusty iron nail was not the best ammunition to use. She’d have to be close.
<He’s coming this way,> said Clef. <He’s about ten feet to your left now, upstairs.>
She slipped the iron nail in her espringal’s pocket.
<He’s standing right above you now,> said Clef. <Looking out…>
She did her best to convince herself she was going to do what she needed to do.
It felt insane. She was no soldier, and she knew it. But she knew there were no other options.
Don’t miss, she thought.
Then she leapt out, raised the espringal at the window above her, and fired.
* * *
The espringal kicked far harder than she thought it would, and it responded so fast. She thought there’d be some delay when she squeezed the lever on the bottom, some moment before the gears would engage—but at the slightest pressure, the espringal’s cords snapped forward like a crocodile trying to snag a fish.
There was a dark blur as the iron nail hurtled up at the window, then a wet thud—and the dark window exploded with agonized screams.
<I think you got him!> said Clef, excited.
Sancia shrank back up against the wall. <Shut up, Clef!>
Someone upstairs cried, “She’s here! She’s downstairs!” Then there was the sound of rapid footfalls.
Sancia hugged the wall, heart beating like mad. The screaming above her kept going on and on. It was an awful sound, and she tried her best to ignore it.
<Where are they now?> she asked.
<One scriving is on the ground up there—the guy you shot must have dropped it. There’s a second rig at the window at the corner, facing the channel, and the third…I think they’re going downstairs.>
<Are they moving fast?>
<Yeah?>
<Good.>
She waited, not even breathing. The man above kept shrieking and howling in pain.
Then there was a harsh snap from somewhere inside the first floor, and the interior lit up with fresh screams—but these tapered off pretty quickly. Probably because those traps had delivered more of a direct hit, which was likely lethal.
One left—but it was dark. She’d have to risk it.
She dropped the espringal and ran, sprinting through the passageways back to the channel, dodging through all the crumbling buildings and rotting wood, her satchel of duvots bouncing on her back. Finally her feet hit soft mud and she picked up the pace, frantically running along the water’s edge.
A voice echoed out from behind her: “She’s loose! She’s gone, she’s gone!”
She glanced to her right, up the street, and saw a dozen men pouring out of two buildings and sprinting for the channel. It looked like they were fanning out, so maybe they didn’t know exactly where she was. Maybe.
They were waiting for me, she thought as she ran. It’s a whole damn army. They called out a whole damn army for m—
Then the bolt hit her square in the back, and she fell forward.
* * *
The first thing she knew was the taste of blood and earth in her mouth. The rest of the world was dark and smeared and indistinct, noise and screams and distant lights.