City of Blades (The Divine Cities #2)

“Take your shirt off! You obviously have that awful prosthetic strapped to your back using some kind of horrible rig. Get it off!”

Mulaghesh reluctantly obliges. Signe takes out a small knife, slices through the many straps, and rips the whole thing off her torso. Then she tsks. “It’s been beating you to pieces. I’m surprised you can bear it. Here.” She applies her new prosthetic to Mulaghesh’s arm, does a total of five clasps, and then stands back to admire her work. “There. Much simpler. Much sleeker. And it shouldn’t bruise you quite so badly.”

Mulaghesh looks at the prosthetic, then prods it with her free hand. It’s light but firm. She adjusts some of the fingers. “Damn, girl. You’re a fucking genius.”

Signe blows a thread of hair out of her face. “I know. I hope I survive to keep being one.”

“You listen. The second that train starts moving, you run, okay?”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me,” she says. “You just get out of the city, as fast as you can. And don’t look back. Now go. Get her started. You know what to do.”

Signe gives her a hesitant look, then starts backing away. “It was nice knowing you, General.”

“Likewise.” She watches Signe leave, then stands below the watchtower and pulls out her spyglass. It takes her a moment to find Saint Zhurgut—but he’s still there, of course, straddling the roof of the house like a monstrous rooster crowing at the dawn. She glasses slightly to the right and spies Sergeant Burdar getting into position in the window of a small, leaning cottage about two hundred yards beyond the saint.

Mulaghesh nods, checks her Ponja gun, and confirms it’s ready. She drags the radio box until it sits below the watchtower. Then she pulls out her carousel, draws a bead on one of the electric lights, and fires.

There’s a pop! and the light dies. Mulaghesh does the same for the remaining lights until the whole area is cloaked in darkness. She trots down the track about fifty yards and starts setting up the Ponja gun, unfolding its bipod. From this angle she has an excellent view down the seawall road running alongside the bay, but she has few other sightlines. Saint Zhurgut is perched atop a roof about two hundred yards north of the seawall road, so she can see him but nothing below him.

She runs back to the watchtower, where it’s dark. She faces the city, pulls out her lighter, holds it aloft, and flicks it on and off three times.

She puts the spyglass to her eye and sees Sergeant Burdar peering through a spyglass of his own at her. He takes out his own lighter, flicks it on, and kills it.

Mulaghesh’s breath is shaking now, but it has nothing to do with the run. Rather, she knows that if she doesn’t call up to the fortress in thirty minutes and tell them that Zhurgut’s been put down, those cannons up there are going to open fire and decimate the city—regardless of whether or not anyone in it happens to be alive.

Mulaghesh whispers, “Showtime.”

***

She watches as Burdar slowly draws a bead on Saint Zhurgut. She can’t see it, but she imagines the sweat running down his temple, the feel of his hand on the grip, his finger resting along the stock above the trigger.

The wind rises, falls.

The om fills the air, a low, dreadful howl as the blade returns from another lethal tour across the city.

Saint Zhurgut plucks his whirling sword out of the air once more and swivels on his perch, his face craning about as he finds a new target. Then he rears up, his massive shoulders twisting, and hurls the blade forward again.

She watches as the metal abomination dips forward on one foot like a dancer, putting his whole shoulder and body into the throw.

I sure hope Sigrud saw that.

The sword buzzes out over the city. Mulaghesh hears echoes of eruptions and screams. Saint Zhurgut stands back up, tall and straight, every inch the proud soldier, and holds his hand out, waiting for his sword to return like a faithful hound.

He stands still for one second. Which is when Sergeant Burdar fires.

The retort of the Ponja gun is a low, deep boom.

Her eye widens as she focuses on Saint Zhurgut.

There’s a loud, hollow crack! as the half-inch round strikes his head. It’s loud enough that it makes her bones hurt just hearing it, even from here.

The saint’s head abruptly tips to the side, like he’s been slapped. He stands up a little straighter, and he seems to hang in the air.

She hopes—really desperately hopes—that he’ll go limp, plummet off the rooftop, and crash to the street in a heap, dead and done with.

But he doesn’t. Instead he slowly, slowly turns to look at Sergeant Burdar’s nest in the cottage. She can see the light striking his helmet and, just slightly above his eye, a shallow dent.

“Fuck!” she says.

The sword comes whizzing back into Saint Zhurgut’s hand. He raises the blade, maybe a bit creakier and slower than he did previously. She knows Sergeant Burdar should have started scrambling away the second he fired the shot, not even looking to see if it worked. She knows that, ideally, he’s about one flight of stairs down in the cottage, maybe one and a half.

She also knows it won’t matter. She knows the saint’s sword will tear through the cottage like a bolt of lightning.

Saint Zhurgut reaches the apex of his windup. He twists his torso forward, ready to bring his wrist down to fling the sword across the city.

One metal boot lifts up from the rooftop…

…and Sigrud pops up just three rooftops away, mounts his Ponja gun on the lip of the roof, and shoots out the rooftop from under the saint’s foot with a single shot.

Saint Zhurgut topples forward and accidentally hurls the sword down through the very building he’s standing on. The building dissolves like it’s been expertly demolished. Tumbling awkwardly ass over head, the saint drops down into the rising cloud of dust.

She hopes that hurt him. Maybe twisted his ankle, at least. But if his helmet was able to deflect a half-inch round, she’s not holding her breath over it.

And from the way Sigrud reacts, it didn’t slow the saint down much: Sigrud throws the Ponja gun over one shoulder, sprints forward, and leaps onto the next rooftop. He scrabbles down the slope of the roof, his boots sliding on the slate tiles, then squats and jumps to the next building.

The om sound again, and the sword howls up, shredding the building behind Sigrud. He clatters to the next rooftop in a rain of tiles and debris and dust, briefly using one arm to cover his head. Then he vaults down to the street where she can’t see him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mulaghesh says. She runs down the track to where she set up the Ponja gun.

Time for Plan B.

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