Silence fell. Alain spoke into the quiet as he sheathed his long Mage’s knife under his coat. “All on this side are dead.”
“Here, too,” Mari gasped. “Are we safe?”
“For the moment.”
“Good.” With trembling hands she ejected the clip in her pistol, loaded a new one, set the safety, returned the pistol to its holster, then went to her knees and got sick, losing everything she had eaten that morning and what felt like some of last night’s meal in the bargain. Once that was done she knelt there, shaking like a leaf, until she felt Alain’s hand on her shoulder.
“It is hard,” he said. “These are the first you have killed?”
“Y-yes.” She was trying not to think about what had happened, to keep her mind blank, but revulsion still roiled through her.
“It is hard,” Alain repeated, his voice carrying compassion she could hear. “I have never forgotten the first time I had to kill others, and then I believed them to be but shadows.”
“We didn’t have any choice,” Mari muttered, wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her coat. “They didn’t give us any choice. Why didn’t they give us any choice?”
“That is right,” Alain said, his voice soft. “We had no choice. We did not seek the fight and we tried to avoid it.”
She clenched her teeth, then stood up, Alain steadying her. Mari’s mouth and throat were sour with her vomit but right now she felt like hurting, letting the pain distract her a little from the sight of the bodies about her, the memories of bodies falling as she fired her pistol. “We—we need to move. Get away from here before more of them come. The sound of this fight must’ve been heard all over the city.”
He didn’t argue, and had probably already reached the same conclusion, Mari thought, but had given her a few moments to cope with her reactions to the first time she had been forced to use the pistol to shoot other humans. “Stupid. Stupid people,” she gasped, half sobbing. “Maybe they didn’t have any reason to fear dying. But they didn’t have to make us kill them.” Fighting down another tremor in her arms and legs, Mari followed Alain, glancing back once to see the bodies sprawled on the rubble, a few small fires set in the ancient wood by Alain’s spells sending up thin columns of smoke.
A voice in her head nagged at Mari as she scrambled over the next pile of debris. She realized it was her old friend Alli, who had taught her to shoot and sprinkled the lessons with lots of advice. “Always reload any time you get a chance, Mari. You don’t want to get caught with an empty weapon.”
Alli, back then it was just fun, blowing holes in a paper target. It’s no fun at all when the target is another person. It’s just awful and frightening and terrible. But thank the stars above that you taught me how to use a pistol. I don’t even want to think about what those creatures would have done to me.
Mari tried to focus on the rubble they were climbing over to help block out the horror filling her, but took advantage of a level stretch to reload the clip she had ejected from the pistol, wondering whether the barbarians would be sensibly discouraged by the killing of their comrades, or would keep coming after her and Alain. “The legionaries must have heard those shots, too. They’ll report them. They won’t come inside the city, though.”
“No, they will not enter the city.” Alain thought, then shook his head. “Perhaps there will be no report, either. Declaring that they had heard the sounds of your weapon would mean admitting someone had gotten into the city past them. I would not be surprised if the legionaries find another explanation for the noise, one which they would not be required to report to their superiors.”
“Something big collapsing, maybe? Beams of wood snapping?”
“Yes. Whatever illusion they need to convince themselves of in order to avoid placing themselves in serious trouble with their superiors. Mages are not the only ones who try to make the world illusion into a different form. Sometimes it is necessary for everyone.” Alain looked back at her for a moment. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll survive, Alain. Thanks for asking.” Mari drew in a long trembling breath as they crested the latest pile of wreckage and headed down the other side. “Let’s not talk unless we have to. More of those savages might hear. I’ll be all right. Because I have to be.”
They moved as quickly as possible for a while, not worrying much about the noise, trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the place where they had fought. Alain seemed wearier than he should have given their pace, causing Mari to worry until she mentally kicked herself for forgetting that his spells tired him out. Another battle might leave him too exhausted to move for a while. That was something else to worry about.
Once Alain stopped in his tracks and gestured off to the side. Mari followed without question, assuming his foresight had this time warned of some danger ahead.
Because of the ruins blocking their view, they stumbled onto the banks of the Ospren River without warning and stood, trying to catch their breaths. Mari walked to the cracked edge of the river wall, looking each way down the river. “All of the bridges have collapsed. No surprise there, unfortunately.”
Alain nodded, gazing watchfully back the way they had come. “They were probably badly damaged during the fighting. Is your Guild Hall on the other side of the river?”
She pulled out her far-seer and studied the far bank of the river, checking out each ruined building in turn. She scanned past one a short ways downriver from them, then turned the far-seer back to take another look. “That’s a hydroelectric generator if I’ve ever seen one. It’s beat to junk and corroded like there’s no tomorrow, but I’m sure of it. The Guild Hall did get blown to blazes if one of the generators is out in the open.” Mari pointed. “That’s the place we want.”
Alain blew out a long breath. “Getting there may be difficult. Especially since I fear our trail can be easily followed by the inhabitants of Marandur. We may not have much time before more of them arrive.”
Mari studied the river. The water flowed clear, impeded only by the broken stubs of bridge supports, marching in ragged columns toward the opposite shore, and the remains of the fallen bridges themselves, which in some places poked above the surface. Aside from that, the only things visible in the water were the decaying stumps of masts from boats and ships sunk long ago. From what she could tell from the wrecks, the river hadn’t silted up in the long time since the Imperials had last dredged it, remaining deep enough that small ships could probably still navigate it. As far as Mari could see, the Ospren River spread widely between its banks, its waters running with a steady current that carried occasional pieces of driftwood past at a decent clip. Swimming obviously wasn’t an option even without taking into account the weight of her pack. “Deep, wide, and fast, and we’re on the wrong side of it. We need a boat.”
“I cannot create one, if that is what you are asking,” Alain advised.
“Maybe I was hoping for that.” Mari stared around at the ruins of the waterfront. “Most of these places seem to have been burnt out as well as blown apart. But if we can find a warehouse door that wasn’t burnt and hasn’t decayed into uselessness, maybe it’ll serve as a raft.” She started walking along the edge of the water, peering at the battered buildings and rubble for large pieces of wood. Fortunately, the very edge of the river wall near the water was almost clear of junk, probably having been swept clean occasionally when the river flooded in the Spring.
Alain followed, his own eyes going back frequently to check on their trail. “They are not in sight yet, but they will see us crossing,” he observed.
“Fine. As long as they don’t have boats to follow us with,” Mari snapped. “Hey.” She darted toward a gaping opening, tugging at some large pieces of wood still fastened together. “It’s part of an old warehouse door.”