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.