Another Shadow crouched to her left on the same beam as she, panting heavily with excitement and peering with bright eyes at the commotion on the shop floor, where Dawshoo and Manlius argued with Ekadrina and Shadow Prime. She heard Dawshoo call on Prime to honor their bargain.
A distraction.
She suddenly knew that the argument on the floor was a distraction, intended to fix everyone’s attention. She looked across, up, down, right, left.
And the Shadow on her left was not panting from excitement, but from exertion. It was Epri. After escaping Manlius’s death-stroke (somehow!) he had hidden himself the only way possible: by making himself more visible. He had turned on his running lights and joined the spectators, trusting to darkness and unexamined assumptions for his concealment.
Down below, Oschous Dee Karnatika scanned the galleries. He seemed to be counting spectators.
Epri specialized in the long shot. At this distance, his marksmanship was deadly and three quick shots would pot Manlius, Dawshoo, and Oschous and virtually decapitate the rebellion.
Peace at last within the Lion’s Mouth, after twenty years of Shadow War.
Epri held a dazer double-handed, crouched to fire from the kneeling position. Ravn’s hand dropped to her belt and came away with a stiletto. She threw it side-wristed and impaled Epri’s right hand just as he fired into the press on the floor.
Cries broke out below. Manlius! Manlius is down! Treachery! No, a legitimate play! Ambush! No, Manlius quit too soon; the pasdarm was still on!
It was not, Ravn knew. The chapters of the pasdarm gave the players wide latitude; but hiding oneself among the spectators was not one of them. Epri had been forfeit the moment he had climbed into the girders, but if Manlius were slain, the technicality would hardly matter.
Epri had meanwhile yanked the stiletto from his hand and backhanded it at Ravn. But she had expected the move and had already ducked aside, snatching the knife from the air as it passed and dousing her running lights with the other hand.
Epri might be second-best, but Ravn knew he was far above her own class. The prudent thing to do was flee and link up with Gidula or Oschous. She was clambering up the strut before the thought was formed and Epri, firing at her left-handed, missed. Someone else in the galleries fired back, perhaps on general principles.
Fighting had broken out on the floor and in the galleries. Oschous and other rebellious Shadows had returned fire to the locus from which the treacherous shot had come. Then some loyalists, perhaps thinking that the rebels were attacking the gallery, had joined in. The rebels were now pinned down near the middle of the kill space, taking fire from all sides, but protected by their own magpies and allied Shadows among the spectators. One was a former neutral, pushed to take sides by the treachery. Ekadrina and Prime had withdrawn to cover, but both were holding fire and Ekadrina was arguing with Prime. Dawshoo crouched over Manlius, shielding him while he fired at loyalists pinned down behind a conveyor head. A magpie fell from the rafters to strike one of the milling machines and then roll bonelessly over its side. Oschous had Dawshoo’s back, snapping orders over his link, and directing a counterattack. Coherent light flashed here and there among the girders, made visible by the dust raised by the tumult. Projectiles whined and snapped off girders.
Ravn fired her tzan-wire at an overhead beam and even as it fastened itself she swung across the cavernous open space to land beside the Riff of Ashbanal, who had taken refuge with his magpies behind a stack of corroded drums. He had his teaser out, but had yet to fire it.
The Riff had not achieved his position through mere politics. A fell fighter in any league, he swung his staff left-handed and nearly knocked Ravn off her footing. But she danced a little away from him, holding both hands to the side weaponless, and blurted, “Appeal the Truce, master! You are neutral and this is your bailiwick. They will listen to you.”
“Will they? Small weight my word has had ’fore now.”
“Habits die hard. Your brassard yet commands respect. Call on Oschous and Ekadrina to act as your deputies. There has been dishonor on our House.” She told him of Epri’s foul.
Stoop studied Ravn for a long moment, during which two more magpies died.
“Quickly,” Ravn urged him, “before there are too many bodies for a Truce to overlook.”
The Riff nodded and opened his link. “Deadly Ones!” And his voice echoed across the ruined factory. “There is a Truce in play! That Truce was violated most foully, and charges will be laid at the Courts d’Umbrae on Dao Chetty. Ekadrina Sèanmazy! Oschous Dee Karnatika! I demand an’ require you to enforce the Peace!” He turned and gave Ravn a twisted smile. “Now let’s see how much respect this ol’ badge still commands,” he said quietly. He stepped from concealment, banging the floor of the kill space three times with his staff.
Silence spread in a pool around him and one by one the combatants stilled. Oschous came to stand beside the Riff and a moment later Ekadrina joined him. Poder holstered his weapon, and took a breath.
“Metataxis?” he said.
“A wound,” Oschous replied. “The shot went wild.”
“Den it was not my brudder who fired,” said Ekadrina. “Epri does not miss.”
“He does if my stiletto impales his hand,” Ravn said. “He hid himself among the spectators, on the beam beside me. I fouled his aim.”
“I don’t believe dat!”
“It was a foul, Sèanmazy,” said the Riff. “The bolt came from the rafters. A violation of the chapters and of the agreement reached beforehand between Dawshoo and our Prime.”
“Compared to foul deeds already done,” the Long Tall One said, “what matters such a peccadillo?”
“Manlius is the winner,” Oschous said. “By our agreement…”
“Da fight was ‘to da blood and to da bone,’” Ekadrina shot back. “I demand habeas corpus. Where is Epri’s body? Widdout it, where is da victory?”
Oschous bristled, but the Riff held up his hand. “I’m the Judge of the Kill.” Then, in a louder voice, over the links, “Deadly Ones! Hear my rulin’. Manlius Metataxis does not win the pasdarm because he took no bone from Epri Gunjinshow. But neither does Epri win, for though he took blood of Manlius, he took no bone; and the blood was taken by foul. I declare this-here pasdarm null an’ void!” He banged the floor with his staff. “I demand an’ require all concerned to leave this place in peace, the Peace to extend from here to the coopers.” That meant no fighting anywhere in the Ashbanal system.
“Brave words, Riff!” shouted a voice from the darkness. “But how will you enforce it?”
The Riff’s own magpies had gathered around him, and exchanged the uneasy glances of neutrals. Then Oschous spoke up. “I will.”
Ekadrina was less than a beat behind. “And I!” And she held up her own staff horizontal above her head.
Poder Stoop cocked an eyebrow at Ravn Olafsdottr, and the Ravn shrugged. “They are enemies,” she said for no other ear, “but honorable.”
The Riff closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “That’s the worst of it, ain’t it? Right there. That men of honor find honor has driven them to opposin’ sides. If they were corrupt, we could settle all this with a well-cut deal.”
Later, as the friends and enemies of the slain and injured carried out their useful duties, Ravn Olafsdottr and two of Oschous’s magpies turned over a teardrop body that had fallen from the rafters when a “mourning star” had found his throat. The Ravn noted that the cruelty of the Fates had handed her the corpse of Magpie Three Sèanmazy. She paused in her labor and stared at his contorted face. So surprised he seemed. He could not credit what had happened to him even as it happened. She bent and closed his eyes for him.