“. . . your ‘clips.’”
And that was the other big difference between this gate crossing and the last one. Lily turned to First Fist Fang Ye Lì, who stood with one of the squads he would lead into Dis. His dragon-scale armor gleamed. His mustaches all but quivered with suppressed excitement. Fang was deeply, deplorably thrilled by the chance to enter a hellgate and battle some of the scariest demons in the realm. “Excuse me, First Fist. I was deep in thought and didn’t hear.”
“One of my men has found the ‘clips’ you were eager to regain. He brings them now.”
That perked Lily up. “Good! Where—”
Fang nodded at the man sprinting toward them. “I’m very interested in seeing what that ‘gun’ of yours does.” He used the English word for “gun,” as he had with “clips.” His language lacked words for either item.
“You may be disappointed,” she said wryly. “This one’s not all that effective against demons. I had a better one, but lost it in the battle. Still,” she said, accepting the clips from the Fist, who’d arrived, “this is better than nothing.”
Fang and his Fists had been part of Kongqi’s plan all along. The seven squads with him had been chosen for their expertise at fighting the demons who sometimes fell through into Dragonhome. They were all skilled swordsmen, and four had strong Water Gifts. Demons were resistant to magic, but the nature of that resistance varied. Experience had taught the residents of Dragonhome that many demons were susceptible to strong Water magic.
The rest of their bennies from the deal resided in a vial tucked into a pouch Lily wore around her neck. That, and the glove on her left hand. She’d insisted on the glove. The one she ended up with was a worn leather archer’s glove. It didn’t fit worth a damn, which was why she wore only the one.
Alice had assured them the gate could transit this many people. It was a small gate physically, but she said that by other metrics, it could be called massive. This made it possible to keep it open longer than many gates and to accommodate the various types of mass involved in moving so many people through it.
The one thing Kongqi wanted in return was his brother. Rule hadn’t liked that. He wanted Tom Weng dead. Lily understood why—Weng had been responsible for a lot of deaths—but she’d been relieved. She was a cop, not an executioner, and this was what she did: capture the bad guys and turn them over to the system to deal with. In this case the system meant their mother, but Lily didn’t think this meant Weng would get off lightly. Dragons gave the idea of “tough love” real teeth.
After dickering briefly over phrasing, Rule had agreed. Fang and his men would greatly improve their odds without forcing him to make major changes in his plan. The Fists’ job would be to deal with the lesser threats—the hyena/centaur demons Lily called red-eyes, and the eight-foot monsters Gan called Claws. Claws and red-eyes would not be considered lesser threats under anything resembling normal circumstances.
Rule’s plan made the most of their two advantages: planning and surprise. Rule had had time to map out almost everyone’s position at the critical moment. The exception was Max. None of them knew exactly where Max had been/would be, but he’d last been seen not far from Xitil. Rule had used that knowledge to choreograph a fast, two-pronged strike.
For Weng, however, events would be happening at battle speed, wrapped in smoke and chaos. He could only react, not plan. And he wouldn’t know where his enemies were. Oh, he might have seen Lily vanish—he’d been close when Gan grabbed her. He might even suspect that meant that she’d crossed to some other realm. But visibility had been crap, with all the smoke. It was unlikely he knew/would know that Cynna had vanished, too. And Grandmother. And Rule. He wouldn’t have time to figure out what had happened. He would not, could not, be expecting them to come through the gate from Dragonhome.
The addition of Fang’s men had caused some discussion. Fang thought he and at least one squad should go through the gate first. According to Kongqi, Weng would be aware the second the gate opened. Weng wouldn’t be expecting a squad from the home team, but he’d assume—he’d know—the Fists he saw coming through the gate were on his side, so he wouldn’t react with instant lethality.
Rule was not a lead-from-behind kind of guy, but he’d ended up agreeing to this, too. Lily wasn’t sure how much that had to do with Fang’s argument. Where Rule went, Toby would go. Rule couldn’t protect his son the way he desperately wanted to, not where they were going. But he could keep him from being one of the first through the gate.
Rule’s voice rang out clear and firm. “Take your places. We’ll be moving fast.”
Lily’s heart jumped into double time, each beat pounding out of time, out of time, out of time. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Grandmother privately, and she desperately needed to. She needed another word with Rule. She needed . . . to get the vial out. She shifted to stand directly behind Grandmother, who would be going through right after Rule and Toby. Cynna was now behind Lily, and the other four squads of Fists behind her. Behind them were the last two who would enter hell. They were civilians, two of the Kanas: Ah Hai, the healer, and a wrinkled old man named Ah Cheng, who could quench mage fire.
Lily fumbled with the pouch—damned stupid glove—and pulled out the stoppered ceramic vial, gripping it tightly in her gloved hand. She tossed the pouch down. No need for it now.
The dragon soaring high above their heads began to sing.
THIRTY-NINE
DRAGONSONG could work magic. This song didn’t, except on the heart. Reno sang of grief and irredeemable loss, loss that would persist until the suns died and the universe drifted to an end. His song didn’t have words, but that’s what it meant as it reached inside Lily, gripping her by the throat and the gut as she ran through the gate.
She had never been through a permanent gate, but it didn’t feel any different from the temporary kind. There was that instant when every cell in her body shimmied in an indescribably strange way, then her foot landed on the rock of a different world. She left dragonsong behind, racing into smoke and heat and the mad cackling of a demon prince.