“Mages can be very patient,” Alain said.
That made her laugh briefly. “I should know that by now. They’ll wait, you think?”
“Perhaps for several days. If they believe I am in the city,” Alain added, “they may search for me inside it as well. Do you think we should take watches tonight?”
Mari gave another worried glance out the dirty window. “Yeah, I do. I can’t sleep right now, so you go ahead. I’ll wake you about midnight.” Mari didn’t bother lighting the candle on the room’s small, rickety table. She sat near the grimy window, staring out at the night sky barely visible between other buildings. For a while, there were lights outside, torches illuminating the fronts of a few taverns, but as the evening wore on those were extinguished and the night grew darker. Early in the night, too, there was constant traffic on the hostel’s stairs, the creaking and clattering easy to hear as courtesans and their customers went to and from rooms. Mari tried not to listen to the sounds coming from the rooms next to hers and Alains, and eventually those quieted along with the dwindling of the noise from the stairs.
She wondered what the next day would bring. Some danger, if the past was any guide.
Despite her nerves, the long day after many long hard days wore on her, and Mari began to get drowsy as the hostel and the streets outside grew silent. Her head kept sagging, her eyes closing, mind fuzzy with fatigue.
The headache came out of nowhere, dispelling sleep as Mari winced at a sudden stab of pain. She came to full alertness as another stab, more painful than the first, made her head throb. Mari pressed her hands against the sides of her head, trying to guess the cause of the pain. She rarely had headaches, making this one even more bizarre. A third stab hit, more intense yet.
Mari bent over, screwing her eyes shut against the last blast of pain. She waited, bracing herself for another shock.
But no more stabs came. Mari cautiously straightened up again, trying to find any trace of unusual pain in her head and finding none. She looked around, judging from the silence outside and inside the hostel that it must be close to midnight.
Wood creaked somewhere, a tiny sound that she probably wouldn’t have noticed when drowsy. Now, fully alert, Mari perceived it clearly in the stillness that otherwise enveloped the hostel. Mari held her breath, listening as intently as she could. Leather mattress supports squeaked in one of the adjacent rooms. Someone in that room muttered something that could barely be heard through the thin walls.
Wood creaked again. The staircase. Who would be so careful coming up it? Those who had used it earlier in the night had clumped up or down without caring who they bothered. But now someone was trying not to make any noise.
Trying to sneak up stairs.
Trying to get up here without anyone hearing them.
She got up, trembling with the need to move both as quickly and as quietly as possible. Reaching for Alain, she shook him awake. Alain stared at her as Mari held a finger to her lips to signify the need for silence, then pantomimed danger. Alain rolled out of the bed, the rustling of the sheet sounding huge in the night. He pulled on his boots and reached for his pack. Mari did the same, blessing their habit of sleeping fully clothed in case of emergency.
Another soft sound, from the short hallway outside of their room. A footstep, perhaps. Someone was approaching very cautiously.
Mari edged to the window to peer out and down. Imperial building regulations called for a fire escape ladder out there, but there was no telling what shape that ladder was in. She gestured to Alain that they should go through the window. He nodded.
The door to their room exploded.
Chapter Five
Fragments of wood pelted the bed where Alain had been lying, then incredibly bright strands of lightning ripped through the doorway and into the bed, flaying the mattress and igniting everything that could burn.
Mari kicked out at the window frame, popping it straight out of the wall while after-images of the lightning danced in her eyes. She heard a sharp explosion and looked back to see the area just beyond the shattered doorway erupt into flames. Alain turned away from the destruction. “My fire spell may slow them down. Go, Mari!”
She hesitated. “You’re coming too, right?”
“When I can—”
“Now! Or I stay, too!”
Alain looked ready to argue, then nodded. Mari pulled herself through the small window opening and out onto a tiny landing, which swayed precariously under her. She grabbed at the ladder fastened to the side of the building while Alain came through after her. As Alain left the room, lightning flared again, filling the place where they had been and almost knocking Alain off the landing. Mari got a hand on his arm and held him until he could grab the ladder, then started clambering down as fast as she dared.
She let go to drop the last several feet into the alley their room had overlooked, rolling to break the fall and coming up with her pistol in her hand. A robed figure appeared nearby and raised one hand, a long Mage knife gleaming in the dim light. Mari, knowing the Mage wasn’t Asha because he or she was too short, aimed for the center of the figure and fired, her shot illuminating the alley with a flash of light. In that momentary brightness she could see that the robed figure was also heavier than Asha. The Mage grunted with pain and was knocked to the ground by her shot, the knife falling to one side. Mari took three quick steps to stand over the fallen Mage, who was writhing on the ground. Mari pointed her pistol at the Mage’s head, seeing expressionless eyes looking back at her from the rounded face of an older man.
Kill him! her nerves screamed. He’s a Mage! He could still be very dangerous!
But the wounded Mage did not move, did not betray any of the signs she was familiar with in Alain of preparing to cast a spell. Mari lowered her pistol, then yanked a cloth from one of her pockets and knelt to jam it over the Mage’s wound, where blood was welling out to soak the Mage’s robes. “Hold that tight over the wound until a healer can see you and you may all right,” Mari whispered, then jumped back and to her feet, looking for Alain.
Instead of Alain, Mari stared at another figure which had appeared at the opening to the alley. It looked vaguely human-shaped, but was taller and much broader than any human Mari could imagine.
The noise of feet hitting the surface of the alley sounded close by, and Mari spun as she brought up her weapon, finding her pistol pointed at Alain’s nose.
He looked at the pistol and shook his head. “You keep doing that,” Alain said, then reached out and pulled her back as more lightning rippled down from above, lashing the alley and blowing apart some nearby crates of trash.
Mari looked up, seeing a robed figure on the landing of their former room, his or her shape outlined by the fires burning behind. Aiming carefully almost straight up, using both hands to steady the pistol, she fired twice. The sound of the shots filled the night, sounding huge after the silence which had once enveloped this part of the city.
At least one of the shots apparently hit, as the lightning Mage fell backwards and out of sight into the room. “I think I got him. Or her.”
A guttural roar sounded from the head of the alley. Mari twisted to look that way. The thing there was now lumbering down the alley toward her, its weight making the ground shake.
Alain spoke with what Mari considered remarkable calmness. “It is a troll.”
She fired at it, the light from her shot this time revealing a crude being which looked like a half-formed attempt to make a creature in the form of a human, but one that towered over her and was so wide it almost filled the alley. The creature didn’t even react to Mari’s shot, nor from the next two bullets she carefully aimed and fired directly into it. Once again the sound of her shots echoed thunderously through the once-sleeping city, streets now stirring around them as the din of Mechanic and Mage weaponry filled the air and fire spread in the hostel above.