should have waited.
The Drouj had almost caught up to her when she remembered the Flange 350. She fumbled for it, yanked it from her pocket, released the safety as Deladion Inch had instructed her, wheeled as the Troll flung itself at her, and fired six times as fast as she could. She heard the sound of the metal projectiles striking her attacker and threw herself aside as it lurched past her, tumbling head-over-heels into the corridor wall.
She came back to her feet at once, swinging her weapon about, searching the gloom.
The Drouj lay folded over in a motionless heap, blood running from the wounds to its body. She looked away quickly, fighting not to vomit. She’d never killed anyone, she realized—as if it were a revelation. Only animals for food and once a wolf that tried to attack her. She didn’t like how it made her feel. Even though it was a Drouj intent on doing her harm. Even so. She looked back, forcing herself to make certain of it. She stared at it for a long moment, but it didn’t move.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she slid down against the wall. A shiver passed through her slender body, and she closed her eyes. She tried to think of what she needed to do. She must retrace her steps quickly and close and lock the door. She could not chance going out again now. She was too frightened, too unsure of herself. She would wait, as she should have done in the first place. If Pan were here, he would approve. He would tell her she was doing the right thing.
She stared at the body of the dead Troll a final time and realized suddenly that she was crying.
THE HOURS PASSED and dusk approached in a webbing of shadows and ground mist crawling down off the heights. In the vast expanse of the wastelands surrounding the complex, the Trolls were still at work, searching for a way in, trying to find a weak spot in the mix of stone and steel. The ragpicker counted five of them—big, hulking brutes with tree-bark skin and hunched shoulders. He didn’t like Trolls much. They were all the same, using their size and their strength to intimidate and, if need be, to overpower.
Reasoning with Trolls was of little value. Trolls had a different mind-set about creatures like himself. Why reason with things so much smaller and weaker, they asked themselves, when you could simply crush them like eggs?
His ragged, scrawny figure was hidden by the glare of the fading sunlight as he approached them, barely more than a blurred image. The Trolls hadn’t noticed him at all, even though he had gotten to within a quarter mile of them and was traveling over ground that was mostly flat and bare. He had no wish to engage them, and so he was moving away, heading north toward the darkness, when he sensed the magic.
He stopped where he was, surprised.
Where was magic coming from in a place like this? Not from those Trolls, surely.
From someone else, then? Someone inside the buildings that the Trolls were trying to penetrate?
He considered the possibility that it might be the man with the black staff, but couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he was that lucky. For one thing, the magic he sensed did not appear strong enough. Nor did it appear to be of the right type. The ragpicker could parse degrees of magic; he could intuit their shapes. Over time, during his travels, he had encountered it often enough that he recognized its differences. This magic that he was sensing now was not that of a talisman, but of a living creature—a magic that was personal and innate.
Still, one thing usually led to another. A source here could lead to a source elsewhere and eventually to the one he was seeking. Baby steps, he reminded himself. Small successes.
He sighed. Pursuing this would mean confronting the Trolls. He would have to walk over there to determine what it was they were trying so hard to reach. He was not fond of the idea, but what was he to do? He couldn’t walk away if there was a chance that the origin of the magic he was sensing was one of the missing black staffs.
He stood looking at the Trolls, debating. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of shadows moving like quicksilver on the air, so thin they were virtually transparent. He didn’t bother looking at them. He didn’t need to; he knew what they were. He knew, as well, that trying to look directly at them wouldn’t work. You couldn’t see them that way. You could only glimpse them as bits of motion.
Feeders.