"Kaya, bring the kitskew." Miowee pushed off the bench, crawled rapidly toward the front of the Bubble, humping over the stunned sacerdOtes scattered about the planks, ignoring them, wriggling through the jointed warbot legs, ignoring them. At the outer edge of the stage, she settled herself on the back of a recumbent Na-priest, took the Paleka Kitskew from her daughter, tuned it, and began playing. Improbably, the sound cut through the noise. She'd collected a lug-ike sometime during her crawl; Shadith hadn't seen her do it but was amused, it was so like the woman, practical and outrageous at once.
"Harrowee darrowee yarrowee HOO!" she sang. "Hear ye oh heed ye oh dearie my LOO! I am Miowee, you know me, you DO!"
At first it seemed absurd, singing a song (and a nonsense-song at that) to a war-in-progress, but one, then another, another, and another called out: Miowee. Miowee. Miowee. It's Miowee. Listen. The name went, skittering across and across the crater and those who could did stop to listen.
"The landlords are coming, be ready, my dears. The landlords are swarming in flits to this place." She stopped her chant and played the kitskew for a moment to give them a chance to absorb her warning. "You on the glass, get down for a while, we'll break open the oyset and you pluck the pearl."
Almost before she was finished the men on the portable Palace were jumping down, clearing a space around it. There were no Royal Guards left alive outside the glass, only bodies kicked to jelly. The glass was still intact though opaque from cracks and smears of blood and other body fluids, the people inside invisible.
Aleytys hesitated. "This is what you want, Shadow?"
"It's what I want. You don't know, Lee, you just don't know."
"All right." She tapped a sensor, spoke quietly into the warbot's 'ear'. A second later one of the clones was spitting a cutter at the dome, slicing neatly through the glass, opening an oval hole near the bottom of the dome.
There was a roar from the spectators as the remnant of the Guard came charging through the hole, laying down a hail of pellets as they tried to get the Nistam and the court out and into the housecavern behind.
The Maka and the Tanak died and fell, fell and died, but the mantide rolled irresistibly over the Pliciks and the Guards.
Aleytys moved her shoulders and looked grim. Shadith felt sick, but she wasn't sorry she'd asked. Miowee was lying flat behind a pile of Na-priests, Kayataki hugged against her.
Rohant sat on his bench, Sassa perched uneasily beside him.
Kikun was leaning against a warbot leg, sunk in one of his enigmatic reveries, mostly not-there.
"Lee, how close are the flits?"
"Ten minutes at most."
"Don't you think we better get out of here?"
"No. There are enough people dying. I don't want to have to kill more."
"Yeh, well, nice. But tell you true, I'd rather them than me."
"Tigatri's on her way back. In a hurry. She'll lay down a stunfield, flatten everyone, we walk out taking our time."
"I thought you said an hour."
"It's almost that now, Shadow."
"Already?"
"Already. You were too tied up to notice." Aleytys patted her arm, chuckled. "Tell you something, my girl, this time I'm delivering you myself to University, make sure you get there."
"No, Lee. I don't think so. I think we've got unfinished business. The three of us." She straightened. "Rohant. Kikun. Come over here."
"It's a practical matter," she said. She eased her throbbing leg. Her foot moved in the blood in her boot; it was a sticky gel now, disgusting but she ignored that. Wouldn't be long before she could take the boot off. "Get him before he gets us."
Rohant bared his teeth. "It's personal. Very personal."
"Personal, practical, a difference with no difference. We go after him."
"Yes." Rohant held his hands out, palms up, claws showing. "What I have, I give. Blood, body, and gold."
"Yes." Kikun straightened. "His dead want him. So be it."
"So be it."