Smoke swallowed the makarovi, and an undulation ran along the rope stretched between the buildings. Suan squealed. Her legs had been crossed over it, but they slipped free. Starcrest hastened toward her, dropping a hand to steady her. The makarovi was no more, but shrapnel rained down all around Starcrest and Suan-broken metal pipes flying free from the trap Starcrest had been making. The trap had lost the top and part of one side, but the section holding the rope remained stable. Sicarius let out a soft exhalation of relief.
“They’re everywhere,” came a cry from one of the soldiers defending the warehouse roof. “Why are they so slagging eager to get up here?”
“Wizard, wizard,” continued the chant from the street.
“And where are the slagging enforcers?” another of Starcrest’s men yelled.
At the Imperial Barracks, Sicarius thought, and grabbed another blasting stick, this one for the mob. The first had kept people away from the intersection, but they were encroaching again.
“Get those people up there,” someone in the street shouted. “They’re going to help the wizard. And the assassin!”
Sicarius thrust the fuse into the flame. Nobody was getting “those people.”
Mahliki rushed to the edge, gripping the low wall. “Hurry up, Father!”
Starcrest had righted Suan, and her ankles were locked over the rope again. They’d reached the halfway point. He gave a smile that was probably meant to be encouraging, but bleakness edged it.
“Stay back,” Sicarius told Mahliki and lobbed the blasting stick.
A second before it landed, a musket boomed from the street corner. Starcrest’s body jerked, his hands flying from the rope.
No. Sicarius grabbed a rifle, not even sure who had shot, but wanting to put a bullet in his eye.
“Rias!” Komitopis screamed.
Suan screamed as well and finally got her hands moving faster. Sicarius was tempted to shoot her.
Rias hadn’t dropped entirely-he hung from the rope by his ankles. One arm dangled below him, and the other was tucked to his chest. Shoulder shot? Sicarius couldn’t tell.
As Rias swayed, his face grew visible for a moment, along with the rictus of pain that contorted his mouth. Definitely shot. He flexed his abdomen and curled up, his good arm reaching for the rope. He almost had it when the blasting stick Sicarius had thrown chose that moment to explode.
Shouts of fear and shrieks of pain erupted from the street. The blast was close enough to set the rope to swaying and buffet Suan and Starcrest again. Starcrest’s grasping fingers missed the rope, and he dropped again. One of his boots slipped, but he made a quick adjustment and caught himself.
Komitopis cursed a stream of Kyattese, the words spewing forth so quickly Sicarius could only make out one in three. They weren’t flattering. She slammed a palm into his shoulder, the blow harder than he would have expected from her, and shouted, “Stop throwing those things. Let them cross!”
Sicarius didn’t point out that he’d thrown it before Starcrest had been in trouble. Suan had made it to the roof. When Sicarius didn’t move to help her, others did. Deret and Amaranthe. She gave him a look he couldn’t read.
Out on the line, Starcrest swung himself up again. This time he caught the rope. His head dropped and he stared at his destination upside down. He couldn’t get his other arm up to help himself along. Would he be able to complete the crawl with one hand? He twisted his neck, eyeing the street below.
Sicarius read the look. Starcrest was considering how much trouble he’d be in if he dropped.
Sicarius handed his rifle to someone, ordering, “Cover us,” to no one in particular. He slipped out onto the rope and skimmed along it until he reached Starcrest.
“I hope you brought the painkillers,” Starcrest said.
“Grab me, sir.”
“You can’t carry me.”
“I will,” Sicarius said.
“Look out,” someone below cried.
“Nah, it’s more stupid magic.”
With Suan no longer on their rooftop, the makarovi, the real makarovi, were running out of the factory.
This was taking too long. Their chance to collapse the building on the monsters was gone, if they’d ever had a chance to start with. This whole night-what chaos and stupidity. Sicarius vowed that if he lived, Ravido Marblecrest wouldn’t.
Sicarius grabbed Starcrest, wrestling with limbs and gravity to find a position they could use. Starcrest refused to climb onto Sicarius’s back and put all of his weight on him, and ended up grabbing Sicarius’s belt with his good hand. Starcrest left his ankles wrapped around the rope, and they managed an awkward upside down crab walk toward the warehouse.
The first scream of pain came from below as the mob learned that these makarovi were not illusions. Sicarius wondered if the gangs would stay and fight. With those numbers, they might wear down the remaining beasts by attrition, but there was no money promised for slaying them.
“That’s the assassin,” someone shouted. “Get him-a million ranmyas.”
“You shouldn’t have come out here,” Rias said.
Sicarius picked up his speed-another ten meters and they’d reach the building.
A shot fired, not from below but from the roof. Amaranthe stood on the low wall, smoke wafting from her rifle. She’d taken the idiot yelling about assassins in the center of his chest.
The makarovi tore into the mob, distracting anyone else from the men on the rope. Sicarius reached the roof and shifted about so Mancrest and Akstyr could grab Starcrest first. After the admiral was safe, Sicarius pulled himself over and collapsed on the roof. For a weary moment, he considered not getting up. What was the point? Let the makarovi destroy those people down there. And vice versa.
He looked at the spot where he’d left Books. He hadn’t been moved, and seeing his body there, alone on the roof, filled Sicarius with remorse he hadn’t expected. There had to be a point, he thought. Or what had his death been for? He looked to Amaranthe, for some reason thinking she might have an answer for him, one that made sense.
She stood, her face more grim and determined than ever, holding a blasting stick in each hand. The last two, Sicarius realized.
“I had an idea while you two were out there,” she announced. “I don’t know if there’s any molasses left in those tanks, but I’m figuring there might be. The business left all their equipment in the building, so maybe some of their product is still here too.”
“You think you can blow them up?” Akstyr asked.
“We only have two sticks left,” Amaranthe said, “and throwing them at the mob isn’t doing much. Maybe we can at least get the makarovi too sticky to attack people.” Her mouth twisted. A joke? If so, a bleak one. There wasn’t a hint of humor in her eyes.
Komitopis was trying to make Starcrest sit down so she could tend to his shoulder, but he stepped back to the side of the roof and gazed at the sizable tanks. Each one rose three stories high, and Sicarius didn’t know if even a blasting stick would rupture the metal walls.
Someone fired below, and Komitopis pulled Starcrest back.
“Rias,” she hissed. “Stop trying to get yourself killed.”
“I’m going to throw it,” Amaranthe said, “before the makarovi get too far away for it to matter.”
She knelt to thrust the fuses into the flame, but Starcrest dropped down beside her and blocked the lantern with his hand.
“What?” she asked.