Emperor's Edge Republic (59 page)

Basilard lowered the person he had been carrying and went to help his friend, drawing a serrated knife and motioning for Maldynado to sit down.

Tikaya gaped at the burden Basilard had dropped. It wasn’t a survivor from the hotel fire, it was a woman, a
Nurian
woman, her almond-shaped eyes frozen open in death, her dark clothing saturated with blood that hadn’t yet dried.

Dak had pulled out a knife, looking like he intended to help cut Maldynado’s plant off, but he froze when he noticed the dead woman’s face. “Is that...?”

“The Nurian assassin and sometimes sniper?” Maldynado asked. “Yes, and how we got her is a fabulous story that I’d be delighted to tell once someone saws this off my leg.”

Quit moving
, Basilard signed.

“I’m sorry, but my leg
hurts
. The parts I can feel anyway.”

Now Dak looked like he wanted to throttle someone, but he started cutting into the vine on the opposite side of Maldynado’s leg from Basilard.

Maldynado watched the knife work with concerned eyes. The blades were slicing quite close to his skin. The couple of times Basilard looked away, gazing toward the hotel and searching the yard, Maldynado swatted him on the shoulder and pointed at his ankle for emphasis. The knives didn’t have much of an effect on the rubbery plant. Tikaya thought of Rias’s black dagger—it would slice through the vine more easily—but she hadn’t seen it when she had packed her bag. He must have taken it with him.

“Easy,” Maldynado said, “easy, please. You’re getting close to tender flesh. Colonel, are you sure you’re qualified for such a delicate procedure? I only ask because you’re in intelligence, and I imagine that involves using pencils as weapons rather than blades. And a man’s foot is at stake here. His favorite foot.”

“I didn’t think one typically had a favorite foot,” Tikaya said, hoping to take Maldynado’s mind off the procedure. The way he was squirming, it wouldn’t be either of the men’s fault if they
did
cut him.

“I didn’t, either,” Maldynado said, “until I was in danger of losing this one. Now I’m positive. It’s definitely my favorite.” He flinched when one of the blades brushed his trouser leg. “And it’s sensitive. Careful there... careful...”

“Does he always complain this much?” Dak asked Basilard.

Basilard nodded.
Usually more
.

“I’m not complaining, I’m advising.”

I haven’t noticed a difference.

Maldynado prodded him. “Don’t stop cutting to gab. What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault you can’t talk and cut a vine off a man’s leg at the same time.”

That earned him a glower, and Basilard kneeled back for a moment.
Professor Komitopis, do you know if my translator was in the hotel tonight? I had told her... that I didn’t need her with me, that she could have the evening off. But I don’t know if she would have left to explore the city with so much of it closed down or abandoned or...
His fingers faltered as his gaze raked the yard again. The fire brigade’s lorries were rolling into position around the smoking building, but Basilard probably didn’t see them, not when he was looking for a sole person.

Maldynado’s fingers twitched toward Basilard, as if he wanted to wring his friend’s neck to force him back to sawing, but Dak was getting close to breaking through. His blade kept brushing Maldynado’s clothing, something that transfixed his attention, though Dak had yet to slice so much as a thread.

“Dak,” Tikaya said, “do you know if Basilard’s translator was warned? The red-headed Mangdorian woman?”

“Everyone was warned.”

“I don’t suppose you know if she... heeded that warning promptly?”

“I don’t know.” Dak knelt back, raising his knife. “There.” He flicked the severed ends of the vine away from Maldynado’s leg.

“Oh, thank you, Colonel. Allow me to revoke all those nasty comments about the uselessness of intel officers.”

“You didn’t make any such comments.”

“Didn’t I? Oh good.”

“Though you were rather derogatory toward my pencil.” Dak stood, strode into the carriage house, and yelled, “If there’s not a lorry ready by now, I’m going to start throwing privates into the furnaces.”

“I’m beginning to suspect that man of having a sense of humor,” Tikaya said. “A coarse one.”

Maldynado was too busy unlacing his boot and frowning in concern at his foot to respond.

I’m going to help the fire fighters
, Basilard signed and trotted off.

A whistle sounded, releasing a screech of steam. Tikaya hoped that was the sign that a vehicle was ready and they could check on Rias now. She was about to run for the carriage house, but a large armored lorry rolled out first. With cannons mounted on the roof and harpoon launchers below the cab, nobody would mistake it for anything except a military conveyance. It braked with a squeal of steam, and a squad of soldiers piled into the back, men armed with rifles and swords. Dak was standing in the cab next to the driver, and Tikaya climbed in beside him, glad to finally get going.

“You too, Marblecrest,” Dak called.

Maldynado was holding his boot and a sock up with one hand and prodding his bare foot with the other. “Pardon?”

“I want that body explained.”

“Now?” Maldynado pointed at his poor foot. “I’ve been grievously injured, and I’m quite certain I’ve done my piece for the president tonight already.”

“
Now
, Marblecrest.”

Maldynado sighed dramatically, picked up the pole, and limped to the lorry, his sock and bootlaces dragging on the ground. Tikaya wondered if she was grinding her teeth as audibly as Dak at his plodding pace.

When Maldynado finally maneuvered himself inside, he said, “I’m disowned, you know. I’m just Maldynado now, not Maldynado Marblecrest. If you’ve a passion for surnames, you could use Montichelu. That’s what I’d like on my statue.” He stretched a hand out, as if stroking a plaque etched with his name. “Maldynado Montichelu. There’s really no reason to mention my father’s line at all. Dreadful people most of them.”

“Marblecrest,” Dak said. “The
body
.”

Tikaya fingered her bow as the lorry rolled out of the hotel’s courtyard, the dark city streets replacing the bright flames of the burning building. A part of her wondered if Dak would get the story out of Maldynado before they reached the warehouse. The other part was too concerned about Rias and Mahliki to care.

• • • • •

Mahliki clutched at her temples, trying to gather her wits, to find a way to fight the mental assault. It felt like mallets were slamming into the sides of her head, treating her like a gong. She squinted up and down the street, trying to pick out her attacker. She was aware of Sespian touching her back and asking what was wrong, but she couldn’t see anyone else on the street. He had to be out there somewhere. A good practitioner might be able to target someone out of sight and at a distance, but these Turgonians didn’t seem that adept.

“Adept enough to hurt you,” she grumbled, wincing.

“What?” Sespian asked. He was searching the street, too, that dagger clenched and ready.

Mahliki jerked her hand to dismiss the comment. It had been in Kyattese, and her head hurt too much to reformulate it into Turgonian. She tried to push herself to her feet. Maybe if she could put a few blocks between her and her assailant, she would escape his range.

Sespian’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “Stay here,” he whispered. “I see him. I’ll pretend I don’t.”

“Where?” Mahliki asked.

“Roof.” He squeezed her shoulder, then ran across the street and into an alley.

Mahliki hunkered down, slumping against a building. If she appeared more incapacitated than she was, maybe the person would come down to check. She would pretend she couldn’t move. It didn’t take much pretending. She had never had much interest in studying the mental sciences, but she had been regretting that choice this last couple of weeks. If she knew how to call lightning from the sky, her father wouldn’t have to be risking his life, trying to invent new machines while under fire—and
she
might know how to thrust this Turgonian bastard from her head. Even better, she could return the attack.

Well, maybe she could do that anyway.

She had dropped the electricity generator, but it wasn’t a long-range weapon anyway. She inched her hand to her belt and drew a dagger, careful to hide it from above with her body. Knife throwing wasn’t her specialty, but she and her siblings had sat around numerous campfires, tossing blades at driftwood stumps with Father while waiting for dinner to cook. At the least, she could distract a practitioner by hurling one close enough to worry him. For that, she had to locate him first.

With her head down, Mahliki couldn’t hear much. She listened, trying to pick out scuffing above that might indicate someone moving closer, but the shouts and rifle shots from the waterfront drowned out lesser sounds. Hoping the shadows would hide her, she risked a glance upward. A hooded figure knelt at the edge of the roof right above her. She winced, certain the person had seen her look up, but his attention seemed to be toward the alley Sespian had run down. He drew a short sword. Maybe he thought that, with Sespian gone, Mahliki would be helpless and he could finish her off.

“Try it,” she whispered.

Blackness pulsed at the edge of her vision, and she struggled to focus on the figure, but she did her best to push the pain aside. When the practitioner dropped off the edge of the roof, Mahliki jumped to her feet. The blackness almost swallowed her sight completely, and she had to grab the wall to keep from losing balance. She gave herself a half second to recover, then threw the dagger at the figure.

A clank sounded. She was sure she had missed and that the blade had struck the wall, but the mallets banging on her head disappeared. The resulting relief gave her a surge of energy, and she lunged for the man, ready to throw a punch. But he crumpled to the ground before she reached him.

Confused, she stood there for a long moment, her fist cocked. Had her knife struck after all? The darkness made it hard to tell, but she was certain she had missed. The way he had fallen against the wall made it seem more like...

Mahliki glanced toward the roof on the opposite side of the street. Sespian dropped his hand to the gutter and hopped down, landing lightly on his feet.

“That wasn’t quite how I imagined it,” he said, “but I guess it worked. Are you all right? Is he, erm, was my throw accurate?”

Mahliki checked the man’s throat, her hand brushing against the hilt of the black dagger—and a lot of warm blood. The blade was embedded in the man’s neck and must have severed his spinal column as well. “Very accurate,” she said, struggling for detachment. She wiped the blood off her hand, though she tried not to be obvious about it. She didn’t have the bloodthirstiness of her Turgonian ancestors and always preferred subduing a man without killing him. She reminded herself that this one had meant to kill her and had been using his craft to delay Father when he could have been helping the city instead.

Sespian sighed. “I don’t usually aim for throats, but I saw him over you with the sword, and was afraid to dither around.”

“Given the situation, I appreciate the non-dithering approach.” Mahliki tried to decide whether it would seem weak-kneed to ask him to retrieve the knife, since he had been the one to throw it. She didn’t care for the crunch of bone that came from pulling a spear out of a boar’s side when the family was hunting. The crunch of a human being’s bones was even less pleasant.

Sespian retrieved it before she had to ask, wiping the blade on the man’s robe. “Two more practitioners to go?” he asked.

“That have shown themselves so far, yes. I saw two separate ones throwing fireballs from the cabs of the lorries. I think they’re still there and that this was a third. He might have been placed on guard because he has—had—a different specialty.”

“Like attacking women’s minds?”

“Maybe so. There could be others back here like this.” Mahliki picked up the electricity generator and pointed up the street. “Let’s keep going, but keep an eye out.”

As she led the way, she realized she had given him another order. When he had asked that earlier question about where she had learned to order people around, she had worried it had been a criticism, or a hint that he didn’t care for following the commands of women who were younger than he. Especially when he had been groomed to be emperor all of his life. His tone hadn’t sounded irritated, but Sespian could be as hard to read as his father at times. His face was far more pleasant and his eyes much warmer, but that didn’t mean one knew his thoughts.

“You can lead if you want,” Mahliki said as they passed another alley, the front of one of the enemy lorries visible at the other end.

“And thus be the target for the next practitioner launching mental harpoons?” Sespian asked.

“No. I just meant... I wasn’t sure if... well, you have more experience giving orders. I’m just headstrong and used to bossing my younger siblings around and being fairly independent.”

“Yes, I gathered that.” He sounded... amused. Well, that was better than irritation.

“But if you think you would be a better leader or if you have a better plan—”

Mahliki halted, catching a hint of movement in a recessed doorway ahead. A tendril snaked out of the nook, and she spun toward it, throwing the switch on the generator. The vine moved unbelievably quickly for a plant, but the little streaks of electricity gave her enough light to see it and catch it with the forked tip. She pressed the vine against the wall. Fortunately, it wasn’t as big as some of the others. The scent of charred vegetation soon stung the air.

“I think you’re doing fine,” Sespian said, watching the street—and the roofs—as she finished toasting their botanical attacker.

“Leading or planning? Or mutilating plants? Did you see how fast that tendril shot out?”

“Yes to all.”

“Let’s see if we can sneak up on these practitioners and knock them out then.” Mahliki backed away from the alcove, leaving the smoldering vine for dead. “This plant is going to fight hard to stay alive. Even without the delays, I worry that we might already be too late.” What kind of jungle might have already grown up in the harbor in the days since she had collected that first root sample? Would the submarine be able to get close? What if the plant smothered it faster than Father could wield whatever weapon he was creating? What if the enzymes that broke down skin could also break down the hull of the submarine?