“Well played!” Five exclaimed, and without turning from her vigilance Graceful Bintsaif said, “How now?”
“Big Jacques is down. Pyati ambushed him. Oh, he was the best they had. He was good. And Aynia Farer is wounded. I wonder that Gidula does not back off. Over half his force is down.”
“He can’t back down,” Méarana said. “This isn’t one of your duels. He has bet everything on this one throw. If he backs down, there is no second chance.”
“Wait one. Padaborn!” Five spoke urgently into the comm. “Gidula has hung back from the fighting and has peeled off with two of his comets. Ravn, Eglay, and, uh, Greystroke, you are facing Aynia, five lions, and one comet. But Pyati is falling back from the west wing, followed by Phoythaw and four double-crows. No, I don’t track Matilda Hound. She doesn’t show anywhere on my screens. But there were five double-crows two minutes ago, so I assume she is…” He paused and listened. “Gidula is going up the three-four corridor toward the rear of the building. Yes, he is knocking out as many eyes as he and his two wingmen identify. So are the others. They know we’re watching now.”
There was only one way into the control center from the front side of the building and it was likely booby-trapped, so Gidula did as he often did and created another way. Explosive packs blew holes in the walls on either side of the entrance Graceful Bintsaif guarded, one on the west wall, one on the south. The eyes had been blinded across that whole row of offices and Five had no indication beforehand.
Both he and Graceful Bintsaif had fine reflexes, and it was just bad luck that they both turned to the same breach. That was bad luck for the comet who leapt through the west wall, as he was thus slain twice; but it gave the comet coming through the south wall a clear shot. She cut down Five where he stood behind the console, and Graceful Bintsaif spun about in time to see Méarana’s thrown dagger embed itself in the comet’s throat. Graceful Bintsaif’s grace shot was superfluous and put her back to the west wall, and it was through this crumpled breach that Gidula stepped to stab her in the back.
Graceful Bintsaif collapsed and Méarana hurled her second knife straight toward Gidula, but the Old One merely grabbed it from the air by the handle and would have flung it back on the instant had he not seen that it was Méarana who had thrown it.
“You!” he cried. “How…?” Then his eyes dropped once more to the body at his feet. In the flick of that eye, the harper fled down the back hallway. Gidula pursed his lips, but before pursuing he leaned over Graceful Bintsaif. “Does it hurt?” he asked.
“No,” said the junior Hound through clenched teeth.
Gidula reached down and adjusted the knife. “How about now?”
Satisfied, Gidula set off in a brisk but unhurried pursuit of the harper.
The fane was a wide oval room encircled by seven statues of women in various poses: one in a grand jeté, another holding a caduceus on high, still others holding a sheaf of wheat, wearing stars over her naked body, and so forth. Green and white drapes dressed the walls, and a red-stained altar squatted in the center. The absence of benches or knee pads meant the initiates stood during their ceremonies. There seemed no separate adytum, though an iconostasis inlaid with emeralds and pearls stood folded against the wall. Below the altar was a drain hole for the blood and offal of the sacrifices. Bridget ban decided it was too narrow and too obvious to be the hidden entrance to the floor below. The walls and doors were not blast proof, and there were no firing ports.
Ravn Olafsdottr laughed. “And why should there be, Red Hound? This is a temple, a place of ritual. Who among the builders expected that one day it must be defended?”
Bridget ban snorted. “Have they even the slightest inkling of what they worship?”
“Of course not, Hound. More inkling, less worship.”
“One set of doors,” Gwillgi said. “They open on the mezzanine. That means we cannot see from inside what the Gidulans are about on the other three sides.”
“Other five sides, Bristly Hound,” Ravn told him.
“Four,” said Donovan. “To attack the fane from below, they must enter the Cache, and if they can do that, they need not capture the fane. We can’t defend from the inside. Limited field of fire through the doors, and a death trap if they lob explosives inside.”
“So we interdict the corridors leading here. Spread mighty thin, Donovan.”
“Defenders have an advantage.”
Gwillgi barked. “Not that much an advantage.”
“The others will converge here; and if they can’t, they’ll be a worry up our attackers’ butts.”
We can do this, said the girl in the chiton.
I was thinking, said the Pedant, raising groans from half of Donovan’s mind. The best defense of a good offense.
“We’ll throw the defense forward. Along the mezzanine there and there. The crows are likely to come from the west side; the lions from the east. But some might come along the hallway behind the fane. And they may as easily travel through the ducts or even straight through the offices. If they have enough poppers they can open doors where there are no doors. Go forward, find likely spots for improvised devices, then plant the devices a little past them. Gwillgi, take the west mezzanine; Ravn, the east. Bridget, the back hallway, east. I’ll prepare the back hall, west.”
Ravn hissed—stealthy footfalls from the east—and the four of them folded to the floor, blending in with the décor, weapons pulled and aimed. A moment of quiet descended during which Donovan could wonder how badly he had miscalculated.
A voice whispered the password: kuwatnim, which meant “liberty” in the old Taņţamiž lingua franca. But passwords could be learned and voices imitated. And so the voice added, “When the banner snaps, the fight begins.”
“It’s Eglay,” Donovan told the others, and he told the Shadow to come forth.
Eglay Portion had brought Greystroke and Three Padaborn. “That Technical Name,” said Three, “she wouldn’t leave Domino Tight.”
Shortly, Pyati came in from the other direction with One and Two. “Where is Matilda?” asked Bridget ban.
“Didn’t see her,” Pyati answered.
“That is what you may expect to see in my case,” said Matilda of the Night. “Your man, Pyati, took out Big Jacques. But the crows were nipping hard at his heels.”
“Rinty should have reached my position, coming up behind Big Jacques,” said Three. “But Jacques twigged to the trap and they reversed direction. I think they caught your Pup coming up behind them.”
Greystroke, if it was possible, became a little grayer. And the Fudir remembered old days in Amir Naith’s Gulli. On to the Hadramoo! Och, Hugh! he thought, and the rest of him left him momentarily in peace. But there was little time for peace in a time of war, and the Silky Voice embraced the sorrow and sequestered it.
The Sleuth calculated from the intelligence the Pedant had tabulated from Five that they faced fourteen magpies, three Shadows—one wounded—and a Name. Seven bogies were approaching along the mezzanine from each direction, but Gidula, the Secret Name, and two of Gidula’s comets were missing. Uncounted casualties?