The innkeeper shut up. The door banged. Shoka hauled the gear up to his horse and saddled with economy, no haste, no nonsense either. Taizu's horse had the stall next.
"You keep to our center," he said. "Taizu, hear me? Don't get reckless."
"I've done all right," the faint, feminine voice came back to him. "Haven't I?"
"We got a damn bunch of —" —rabble, he almost said. Old ways, old thinking. "—bunch of fools can't tell sides out there, for gods' sakes, just stay close. We're going across that bridge, we're going the smart way, we don't need any damn heroics."
His hands were sweating on the girth. He had the shin-guards on and the gauntlets and the helmet with him, they had picked that cumbersome gear up in the room upstairs, along with their other two bows and the several quivers. The owner of the Peony had that to his credit at least—no pilferage: an anxious man, a worried man—
Damn, he has a right to be, who am I to blame him?
He backed the horse out, climbed up into the saddle and walked it circles while Taizu and Wengadi and Nui got their horses saddled. "Be careful out there," he told the men. "Citizens don't know who the hell we are. Remember that. We just get out of here, cross the bridge if we can, or if you get cut off, dismount, lie low till it's over; if that doesn't look good, remember the east gate and run like hell. We've done our part. Just get out alive. Hear?"
Chun got up to the saddle. Taizu did, and Nui, while Wengadi led his over to the gate and opened it.
The smell of smoke was on the wind. The Peony's lanterns overwhelmed any glow of fire from the south.
Wengadi held the gate for the last of them and they pulled up to wait on the street while Wengadi mounted up, leaving the Peony's gate to bang against the post.
Black figures showed in the lantern-light up and down tannery row, small groups who did not stay to the walks, but who gave a group of horsemen an uncomfortably apparent attention.
"Let's get out of here," Shoka said, and sent his horse off for the corner and up the cobbled street, which was deserted beneath the light of infrequent lanterns and a ruddy sky. Dark buildings, shutters open to the night and not a light showing above. Just the lanterns that made anyone on the streets a target, and, south of tannery row, torn-up cobbles and a body lying on the pavement.
He put the group to all the speed he dared on the uneven ground. The racket of shod hooves came back at them from the walls on either side, drowning thin shouts from the distance. More horsemen came their way and cut off ahead of them, down a side-street.
Patrols. Flying squads. Deserters or looters. Gods knew. He took the chance for a look back to make sure of his own group. They were riding close, all of them, keeping with him, not down the middle of the street, but over to the side, where they at least had occasional shadow and where they made a less convenient target for half the street at least.
Two blocks to go to the esplanade and the bridge. A shadow showed on a balcony across the street. The echoes came back crazily from them and from somewhere else. More bodies on the street, paving stones and rocks littering the cobbles. One of the horses caught-step and stumbled, sending a bit of brick skittering across the arch of the street into the gutter.
Suddenly rocks were landing around them and a lamp plummeted from the balcony and shattered, oil-fire spreading around the cobbles, throwing light, shying the horses. "Come on!" he yelled, and kicked his and kept going. Something hit his back. The gelding jumped under him, lost its footing on the oil and skidded while rocks hailed around him, hitting him, hitting the horse as it scrambled for balance and skidded again.
"Dammit!" he yelled as it tried to bolt, as missiles kept coming, crashing around them. One horse was down—Eidi's. He tried to get in the saddle as it scrambled up, and just held on as the horse fled the barrage in panic.
Then more horsemen came charging in from the riverside, right into the middle of it, more horses skidding. Eidi had his horse stopped, Chun was through, with Wengadi and Jian. Taizu came out of the confusion, with Liang and Waichen. Nui, then, and Yandai, with Panji clinging to his saddle-leather and running along beside.
"Get to cover!" he yelled at Panji. "You can't go double, get to cover!"
More riders were coming, men on foot now, a tide hemming them about as the street filled with soldiers trying to tear up shutters for a barricade.
"What in hell're you doing?" Shoka yelled, reining into the middle of it.
"They're crossing the bridge!" an officer yelled back.
"You're stopping our own troops, fool! Order from headquarters! Keep this street open!"
"The hell—"
Shoka whipped the sword out and across, and the officer went staggering back, screaming.
"Get that down!" Shoka yelled, and pushed his horse into the press. "You're cutting off our own men, you damn fools, get it down!"
He was not alone now. Chun was with him, Eidi on his horse and pressing up close to lend their weight to the deliberate push into the soldiers trying to establish the barricade, with men still pouring in from the other side, knocking the panels aside, shouldering and shoving the horses, until the barricade-makers dropped their effort and let the shutters fall to be trampled, joining the retreat down the street.
Shoka kicked his horse ahead, gaining ground as he could. "Run for it!" he yelled at the retreating soldiers till his voice cracked. "East gate, go, go!"
He could not see where the others were. He looked behind him. He saw Liang. He saw Taizu still ahorse, coming through the press.
To the corner, then, into the flare of fire on riverside, the roll of smoke from burning boats, fire outlining the timbers of the bridge as riders poured off it by the hundreds.
He reined back, pulled his horse against the screens of a restaurant, wood cracking as the horse edged back. Eidi came up beside him, and Chun. Liang. He saw Waichen across the heads of rushing soldiers, saw Yandai and Nui take off across the riverfront toward the bridge.
"Where's Taizu, dammit?"
As he heard the roll of drums and saw the banners on the bridge, the red and white of Feiyan, the white and black lotus of Hoishi in the glare of fire.
"M'lord!" Chun cried, spurring off. "Stay there!"
"The hell!" He kicked his horse and shouldered past Eidi's grab at stopping him, back around the corner into the street, into the press of retreating soldiery.
No sign of her. None of Panji or Wengadi either. He had hope. Wengadi might have gone off down the side street, Taizu with him, if they had gotten pushed aside. Might just have gone with the flow that had become a rout, become a riot, horses skidding on the street, men falling to be ridden down. . . .
"My lord!" Eidi yelled, forcing his way through. "Get back, get back, for the gods' sake we can't lose you!"
He reined about and came back to the shelter of the doorway, held there while the tide rolled past and became the vanguard of Feiyan cavalry, fluttering with the red and white banners—
Gods, go to ground, girl, get somewhere and get off that horse and hide!
Gods, where is she?
"M'lord Saukendar!" Chun shouted.
Riders came up on them, lotus banners of Hoishi, lord Reidi's men—lord Reidi himself, white hair flying in the smoky wind.
"M'lord Saukendar," Reidi said, as men of his climbed out of their saddles and came around him, "we saw your signal from the hills. We rode down through Lungan south-shore with more speed than I would have thought possible—The mercenary units . . . they broke and scattered, m'lord—at the bridge, the barricades were virtually unmanned—"