Pyati spared him a glance. “Maybe so, but had you not saved him we might not be fighting here together.”
“Was that supposed to convince me I’d done the right thing? Never mind. I would do it again, for the same reasons I gave Domino.”
A flurry of discharges sounded down the hallway. “Bad aim,” said Pyati. “No hits here.”
“Maybe they shifted their strength to Greystroke or Matilda,” Gwillgi suggested. “Keep us pinned down while they overwhelm those two.”
“This fane had better be worth defending,” said Pyati.
“Donovan has not come back,” Gwillgi pointed out. “Nor Bridget ban. And where’s your Ravn? They could double our strength.”
“Then, bigger massacre,” said Pyati. “Nice. Lord Padaborn did not ‘bug out’ on me, so I stand where he told me to stand.”
One, listening, nodded. “We are not like Hounds. We can defend a hopeless position.”
“Braggart,” grunted Gwillgi. He pulled himself up to the barricade they had made of the office furniture. They had built such barricades in several offices on the approaches to the fane, at points that might interdict an attacking party, forcing Phoythaw and Aynia to pause and check each one, lest ambush lurk behind it. What normally lurked was an explosive device, but they had quickly learned to detonate those remotely.
“Someone’s coming!” said One.
They all heard it. A regular thumping from the west hallway, where Phoythaw’s force lurked. The snap of a teaser interrupted the thumping briefly, then it continued. A darker figure loomed in the dark hallway and struck the floor three times with a tall wooden staff. Taijis swarmed in the background.
“Cease and desist!” the Long Tall One said. “This pasdarm is suspended!”
Pyati groaned. “Is Ekadrina Sèanmazy with reinforcements.”
“More coming from the east,” said Gwillgi.
“Black horses,” said One. “And us caught in between.”
Ekadrina stepped aside and Tina Zhi passed through the ranks of taijis, bearing the body of Domino Tight on a gravity cart. “I would enter the fane as high priestess of the Seven Widows,” she said.
“What she means,” said Oschous Dee Karnatika, “is don’t shoot. The Riff of District Twenty-seven has declared a Peace. The Secret City is under martial law, and all are to lay down their arms. Where is Geshler Padaborn?”
A portion of the ceiling fell onto the mezzanine and two dozen guns—taijis, black horses, and Padaborn’s defenders—were instantly leveled at the spot. Ravn Olafsdottr’s face appeared in the gap.
“Peekaboo!” she said.
An Críoch
In the first place, they gathered in the fane on furniture scavenged from the nearby offices. Ekadrina Sèanmazy and Oschous Dee Karnatika sat side by side on float-chairs obviously intended to demonstrate their collegial rule. Their magpies, staged alternately, encircled the room. One of the black horses had proven to be Greystroke, who had used his anycloth to blend in with them up to point when they counted noses. Of Matilda of the Night there was no sign.
Three more chairs, ground propped, had been set facing the two senior Shadows, and in these sat Donovan buigh, Bridget ban, and Méarana Harper, still twitching a little from the penumbra of Gidula’s dazer. Méarana had been shielded from the worst of it by Donovan’s body. He lolled in the seat, but his open left eye showed that some part of him was active.
Gwillgi, Three, and the other wounded lay on pallets with medipacs or their Confederal equivalent, at least until they could be transported to an autoclinic. Two of Ekadrina’s magpies had brought in Little Hugh on a gravity cart. He was white from loss of blood but still clinging to the edge of life. On another pallet lay Graceful Bintsaif. A Riff’s magpie with the death’s-head brassard of a medic attended to them.
“So,” said Ekadrina, taking the lead. “What mess have we here? Hounds in da Secret City! Not just one, but fife, and I suspect udders left to guard your line of retreat. Dat is not good. A violation of de Treaty, I t’ink.”
Bridget ban tried to answer, but her tongue would not cooperate and all that emerged were “aws” and “ahs.” Ekadrina nodded and said, “Cogently argued.”
Greystroke spoke up. “We came to rescue her daughter—who had been kidnapped on the orders of your renegade Gidula.”
“Ack, he was not my renegade.” Ekadrina turned to Oschous. “Yours, I tink.”
The Fox smiled. “I have never seen a play of so many sides against so many others. Had I not been one of the sides being played, I would have admired the Old One’s balance. He played both you and me for fools, Tall One. We both wanted the same thing, but fought on different sides to achieve it.”
“Ya, I luff you, too. I fought from loyalty to da Names. It’s what we are: da Shadows of da Names. Don’t suppose de reforms of da Committee had anyt’ing to do widdit.” She turned to face the captives. “So dis is our problem. What do we do wid you? Normally, dose like Padaborn and his magpies and his allies would be moved, as traitors to da Names. Except none of you assassinated any Names tonight. But den, for consistency, I would need to move my pardner, too.” She tossed her head toward Oschous Dee. “And dat would be an inauspicious beginning of our pardnership. And if I moved you Peripheral dogs, dat might make problems wid de League, and as you might guess, we are not well positioned to deal wid de League just now. And you, poor lamb…” She addressed the harper. “You are da innocent caught up in madders beyond your ken. For people like you, we have da folk saying: ‘Too stupid to live,’ and normally we would accommodate dat, too. But nuttin’ today is normal.”
“We start today with a clean slate,” said Oschous Dee. “We’ll build a new world, more efficient than the old, better shepherds to the sheep. I own some responsibility for dragging the former agent Donovan buigh from his retirement and forcing him into the Shadow War. All that he did after was for his own survival, and I can’t blame a man for that.”
“So we are agreed,” said Ekadrina in a tone that indicated agreement ran not very deep. She, at least, her earlier glance had shown, was not about to build a new world. She intended to rebuild the old. But that meant restoring the surviving Committee to their offices, and so while their motives might differ, she and Oschous for the time shared a common purpose.
Donovan struggled toward the surface of his body. The Silky Voice sent soothing molecules to stroke his unhappy nerves, to calm his agitated muscles. “An easy comfort, no?” he said, and all eyes turned to him in surprise.
“I take no comfort in what lies outside dese walls,” said Ekadrina. “Nor in what lies inside.”
“You think the old system will collapse at last, and all the abuses, all the flouted traditions, all the small imperial impositions, they’ll all be swept away. You’ll build something new.”
Oschous Dee nodded—so did Pyati and the wounded Eglay Portion. Ekadrina sat still but said, “We will purge da corruptions. Dat was Gidula’s dream, too, before his fears seduced him.”