“That won’t be a problem,” she said. “Just give me that big goddamn crossbow.” He handed it over, and she slung it across her back. “I just point and shoot like a normal espringal, right?”
“Essentially. The cords will wrap around their target, and then they should start amplifying their densities—the more the target moves, of course.”
“Terrific.” She pulled two small, black balls out of a pocket on her side. “You ready?”
He climbed up to the open window, looked down, and nodded.
“Here we go.” She took one of the balls in her hand and pressed a small plate on its side. Then she threw one of the balls out the window, waited a beat, and then threw the other. The instant the streets lit up with that incredible, bright flashing light, Gregor leapt out of the carriage and made a run for it.
Despite the fact that he’d witnessed this phenomenon before, the flash and sound of the stun bombs was no less stupefying for Gregor. He caught the barest glimpse of the Foundryside street, and then it was all wiped away in a flash of illumination brighter than a lightning strike, followed by a tooth-rattling bang. He staggered blindly for the alley ahead, hands outstretched. He tripped on a porch, crashed into the wooden slats, and crawled forward until he felt a corner of wood.
He crawled around the corner, shakily stood, and pressed his back to the wall. There. I’m there.
He stood up and began to wobble down the alley, one hand on the wall, the other outstretched before him, the sounds of the stun bombs still ringing in his ears.
Eventually the world took shape around him. He was stumbling down a dark, decrepit alley, lined with refuse and rags. He looked over his shoulder and saw the lights of the stun bombs were fading. Then six silhouettes emerged in between the building faces of the alley—and, bizarrely, began bounding back and forth among the shop fronts like leaves on the wind.
Gregor stepped into a shadowed doorway. Remarkably odd to see, he thought, watching them drift gracefully through the air like acrobats on wires. After a moment, a seventh man joined them.
That’s two of them unaccounted for, thought Gregor. Then he took Whip out. Still. Time to test the limits of gravity.
He watched their progression, calculated their arcs, and flicked Whip forward.
His shot was true. The truncheon’s head caught the man directly in the chest—and, since the man’s reality had apparently been rearranged to believe he was as light as a feather, he went hurtling off into the sky like he’d been fired out of a cannon.
His comrades paused on a linen shop’s roof to watch him sail off into the night sky. Then they raised their espringals and fired.
Gregor leapt back into the doorway as the bolts thudded around him. Whip came zipping back to its shaft. He waited a beat, then dashed out and started running.
One down, he thought. Eight to go.
* * *
Sancia waited quietly underneath the carriage, the big espringal on her back. She tried to ignore her rapid heartbeat and the trembling in her hands. When the stun bombs had gone off, she’d leapt out and hidden in the gap between the carriage and the base of the building. She could hear one of the assassins standing on the top of the carriage, peering down into the empty vehicle. Then she watched, relieved, as he joined his comrades in chasing Gregor down the side alley.
<You think he’s gonna make it?> asked Clef.
There was a thud, a cry of pain, and then one of the men came rocketing out of the alley, tumbling ass-over-head.
<I think he’ll be fine,> said Sancia. <Any more of those rigs nearby?>
<Not that I can tell. I think you’re clear.>
She wormed her way out from underneath the carriage, pulled Clef off her neck, and stuck him in the side door to the Zorzi Building. There was the usual click, and Sancia darted inside.
The place reeked of sulfur and whatever other chemicals they’d used to make paper back in the day—as well as a variety of other, more human smells, because the bottom floor appeared to have been totally taken over by vagrants. Piles of rags and straw and refuse were everywhere. A few of the occupants cried out at the sight of her, a huge espringal slung over her shoulder.
Sancia knelt, touched a bare finger to the ground, and let the layout of the building unscroll in her mind. Once she felt the stairs, she popped up, leapt over one of the shrieking vagrants, and darted over to the hallway that led to the stairs. <I hope I make it up in time,> she thought.
* * *
Gregor turned the corner on the fairway, then turned again, until he was headed toward the other side of the Zorzi Building—but hopefully his attackers didn’t realize that. He looked ahead and saw a welcome sight: there were dozens of clotheslines strung up over the narrow fairway beside the old paper mill, running about four stories up, old dresses and gray undergarments and bedsheets drifting in the night breeze.
Ah, he thought. Cover. That should do nicely.
He ran to the left, finding shelter under a thick set of off-white bedsheets, and looked up. With the clotheslines above, he was much less exposed.
And hopefully, he thought, glancing up, the girl will be getting into position sometime soon…
He saw an iron baluster on a balcony across the street, which gave him an idea. He took Whip out, aimed carefully, and flicked it at the baluster…
With a loud clang, Whip’s head caught on the iron railing. Gregor pulled the cable taut, hid in a doorway, and waited.
He couldn’t see them coming through the clothes above. He could only hear the soft scrape of their boots on the building fronts, echoing all around him. He imagined them dancing from rooftop to rooftop, weaving through the hanging clothes, drifting like dust motes on a gentle breeze. But then, as if he were fishing, his line suddenly gave a great leap…
There was a gagging sound, and a cough. Gregor peeked around the corner and saw one of their attackers spinning wildly through the air, having apparently been caught on Whip’s cable. The man sailed through the clotheslines, flying end-over-end, the lines and clothes wrapping around his form as he coughed. Finally he crashed into the street below, trailing tangles of clothing like some kind of bizarre kite, and was still.
Gregor nodded, pleased. That worked nicely. He hit the switch to retract Whip’s head from the baluster. It took a jerk or two from him, but soon the truncheon’s head came zipping down—and accidentally pulled a string of clothes with it.
Which, he realized, told his attackers exactly where he was.
He looked up as a black-clad man did a flip over the clotheslines, tumbling like an acrobat. Then the man adjusted something on his stomach, which caused him to fall rapidly back toward the building face opposite Gregor. Once the man’s feet were steady, he looked up at Gregor, and raised his espringal.
Gregor started to flick Whip forward, but he knew it was too late. He could see it happening, see the bolt whipping down at him, see its black tip glinting in the moonlight. He tried to withdraw farther into the doorway, but then his arm lit up with pain.
He cried out and looked at his left arm. He immediately saw that he’d been lucky: the bolt had caught him on the inside bottom of his forearm, slashing it open. The unnatural momentum of the bolt meant it’d shredded his flesh as it passed directly through, but it had not speared his arm, or hit the bone. Scrived bolts did tremendous damage to the human body.
Cursing, Gregor looked up just in time to see a second assassin join the one who’d just fired—and this one, he suspected, would not miss.
Gregor fumbled to get Whip ready.
The attacker raised his espringal…
But then a silvery, strange rope came hurtling from above to wrap itself around the second man’s legs.
The second attacker staggered as the ropes struck him—at least, he staggered as much as anyone could while defying gravity and standing on a wall.
Praise God, thought Gregor. The girl came through. He looked up, but the windows above were lost in the fluttering storm of laundry. Presumably she was somewhere up there, firing away.
The bound man tried to leap off the building front—but this quickly proved to have been a bad idea: the density cords wrapped around the man’s shins believed that, as long as the target they were bound to was not at rest, they would keep increasing their density until it was.
However, the man’s gravity rig—whatever it was—allowed him to circumnavigate gravity itself: the one force that allowed objects to come to a resting state.
So, because of his rig, he could not be at rest. And because he could not be at rest, the bonds got denser, and denser…
The man started shrieking in surprise and pain, and he slapped at something on his chest, some kind of control mechanism for his gravity rig, probably. This caused him to just float in the middle of the air over the street—but that did not amend his situation, it seemed.
His shrieking got higher-pitched, and louder…
There was a sound like a tree root cracking in half, or fabric being torn. Then came a horrific spray of blood—and then the man’s legs separated from the rest of his body at the knees.
* * *