"Sure thing, Ischade." Strat found himself squatting down, digging in the sod with his brush-cutting knife. "I'll be right here."
He must have blinked, or looked away, or something- the next he knew, she was gone, and a hawk's baby-cry resounded overhead, and men set their fires and ran for their horses.
Vaulting up on his bay, he wondered if Ischade was right-if he didn't need to risk all this manpower, if magic- hers and Randal's-alone could win the day.
He didn't like to think that way; he was used to letting Crit do his tactical thinking for him; in times like this, a man who was half a Sacred Band pair sorely missed his partner.
And so, thinking more about who was absent than who was present, he urged his horse into a lope and sought the firegate, not realizing until a shape hovered in midair beside him that Randal, on a cloud-effigy of a horse, had drawn alongside.
"In her witching room, he is!" Randal shouted, his face white beneath its blanket of freckles. "And he's yet salvageable, if we can get him out. But it won't be easy- he's totally entranced. I couldn't rouse him in my mongoose form. I'll seek my power globe now and do my best. Fare well, Straton! May the Writ protect us all!"
And his nonhorse thundered away on unhooves.
Craziest damn way to run a war! Strat had come back to Sanctuary to get away from just this sort of thing.
The firewall, around him hot and snapping, gave matters the immediacy of battle, the plain-and-simple truth of life and death.
The fire was just a little out of control, and his horse had to leap hot flames. Within, sod was beginning to smoke and combust, sparks flew, men yelled and squirted water on themselves and their mounts as they let fly with flaming arrows and urged skittish horses toward Roxane's front door.
Strat's plan was to ride roughshod right into Roxane's house, snatch Sync, and get out before she could bewitch them.
It wasn't a plan such as his partner might have made, and he was aware that he might rescue one soldier only to lose another-or others-to Roxane, but he had to do something.
Just as he'd finally convinced his horse of this, and was ready to lead his reformed group up her smoking stairs, an apparition appeared in the doorway: Ischade stood there, with Sync, his arm over her shoulder, and they walked calmly out onto the veranda and down the steps, onto a lawn spurting sparks and young flames.
Men whooped and raced toward her. Sync, beside her, looked around calmly, his brow knitted as if a slightly amusing problem had him distracted.
Strat, wondering if he was dreaming-if it could really be this easy-got there fast, and with Ischade's help pulled Sync up behind him on the horse.
The fire was loud, and hot, and the horses and men milling around them made talk nearly impossible. But Strat bellowed to the man next to him: "Put her up before you. Let's get out of here!"
The Stepson's mouth formed the word: "Who?"
Strat looked back down, and Ischade was gone. So he gave the signal to end the sack, and with Sync holding tight to his waist, aimed his sweating horse at a narrowing portal in the flames.
In the thick of Downwind, it was nearly dusk, but the flames from the southeast made a second sunset which wouldn't die.
Zip was in a twilight all his own, stumbling from sewer to alley to dungheap, one hand against his bleeding side, nearly doubled over from the pain.
He'd been stabbed before, beaten often, starved and fevered in the course of life, but never so close to death as this.
He'd pulled the barbed missile out; he didn't understand why it hurt worse now, not less.
He was sick to his stomach and only intermittently did he recall his determination to get home. Home to his own safe haven, or home to Mama Becho's, where someone would tend him, home to... anywhere where he could lie down, where the Beysibs or the Stepsons or the 3rd Commando or the army wouldn't find him.
He was sweating and he was thirsty and he was nauseated. There was a red film before his eyes that made it hard to tell which comer he was on.
If he was lost in Downwind, he was nearly dead: he knew those streets like he knew the tunnels, the sewers... the sewers. If he could find a rat-hole, he could curl up in one; he didn't want to die in public. That thought, and that alone, kept him on his feet just long enough for him to stumble into Ratfall, where people knew him.
He heard his name called, but he was down on his knees by then, with his head between them. The only thing he could do was curl up before he passed out.
When he woke he was under blankets; there was a cool cloth on his head.
When he could he reached up and grabbed the hand there, held tight to someone's wrist.
He opened his eyes, and a face swam, unrecognizable above him. A voice from that direction said, "Don't try to talk. The worst is over. You'll be all right if you just drink this."
Something was pushed between his lips-hard like clay or metal; it grated on his teeth. Then his head was raised by another's will and liquid spilled down his throat.
He choked, sputtered, then remembered how to swallow. When he couldn't swallow more, someone wiped his lips and then his chin.
"Good, good boy," he heard. Then he slept a sleep in which his side burned and flamed and he kept trying to put the fire out, but it kept starting up from ashes, and his body walked away from him, leaving him invisible and lonely on a deserted Downwind street.
When he woke again, he smelled something: chicken.
He opened his eyes, and the room didn't spin. He tried to sit up, and then it did.
Voices mumbled just beyond earshot, and then a form bent over him. Long black hair brushed his cheek.
"That's a good one; here you go, drink this," said a blurry face.
He did, and well-being surged through him. Then his vision cleared, and he saw whose face it was: the lady fighter, Kama of the 3rd Commando, was tending him. Behind her, the soldier-mage Randal craned his swanlike neck and rubbed his hands.
"Better, you're right, Kama," said the mage judiciously, and then: "I'll leave you. If you need me, I'll be right outside."
As the door closed and he was alone with his enemy, Zip tried to push himself up on his arms. He didn't have the strength. He wanted to run, but he couldn't even raise his head. He'd heard all about Straton's skill at interrogation. He'd have been better off dead in the street than being alive and at the mercy of such as these.
She sat on the bed next to him and took his hand.
He tensed, thinking: Now it will begin. Torture. Drugs. They've saved me one death to offer me another.
She said, "I've wanted to do this ever since I first saw you." Leaning close, she kissed him on the lips.
When she sat up straight, she smiled.
He didn't have the energy to ask her what she had in mind for him, or what the kiss was meant to mean; he couldn't find his voice.
But she said: "It was a mistake. Gayle didn't understand what you were trying to do. We're all sorry. You just relax and get better. We'll take care of you. I'll take care of you. If you can hear me, blink."
He blinked. If Kama of the 3rd Commando wanted to take care of him, he wasn't in any condition to argue.
DAUGHTER OF THE SUN by Robin W. Bailey
"Did you miss me?"
Kadakithis whirled away from his window at the sound of that voice and stared in mute disbelief at the young woman in his doorway. She moved through his apartment toward him, aswirl in a summer cloud of dazzling white silks and shimmering sun-drenched hair. Smiling, she reached out to embrace him.
"Cousin!" They squeezed each other until they were breathless, then the Prince held her back at arm's length and laughed. "Gods, how yor've changed!" He made her turn while he rubbed his chin with mock-seriousness. "Chenaya, favorite of favorites, you were lovely even before I left Ranke, but you've grown positively exquisite." His fingers traced a thin, pale scar barely noticeable against the deep bronze of her left forearm. "Still playing rough, I see."