The Palace Job (4 page)

"It's, well, it's about the prisoner who got beaten in the dining hall yesterday." The guard stepped back at Orris's stare. "He was at the clinic when the wards were activated, but it appears that in all the excitement..."

"Where is he now?" Orris asked, biting off each word.

"He, er..." The guard winced. "He subdued the orderly treating his injuries and told the man that he intended to settle a score with the woman."

Orris laughed. "Well, now, that's not bad news at
all!"
he declared grandly, heading for the drop-hatches with a jaunty step. "I just hope I get to see him do it!"

"Done." Kail stepped back from the upper grid. They'd worked fast since Orris had activated the wards, and had gotten through most of the frame holding the Tooth in place. If not for the insulation slippers Kail had scrounged up, they'd likely have been dead already. "Want me to head down?"

Loch turned and nodded shortly, then jerked her head back to the eastern walkway where footsteps clanged in sharp contrast to the groans of shaken prisoners. Then came a roar of sheer hatred that could have been the war trumpet of Esa-jolar herself.
"LLLLLOCCCCH!"

Akus came around the corner, a massive figure of battered flesh and rippling muscle. His nose was broken, and one eye was swollen nearly shut. He wore no worksuit, only boots and a clinic blanket wrapped around his waist several times like a kilt. His broad chest was covered with hair, knife scars, and purple-green bruises. She threw a punch, but he ignored it in his rage, slamming her against the pipes and driving the breath from her lungs.

"Get off her!" Kail shouted, leaping at the enormous man. His punch glanced harmlessly off Akus's shoulder, and with a grunt, Akus grabbed hold of Kail's worksuit with thick, knotted hands and lifted Kail off the ground.

"No leg-chain, little Urujar?" Akus growled. "That's gonna cost you." As Kail struggled helplessly, Akus walked to the edge of the upper grid. Then, with a smile, he flung Kail off the edge, laughed harshly, and turned back to Loch. "Hope your friend has a nice—"

Her elbow caught him in the gut. Her kick caught him in the groin. The open palms of her shackled hands smashed into his already-broken nose. And as he howled and lashed out blindly, her shoulder, with the full power of her lunging body behind it, caught him in the midsection, knocking him back a full three steps.

He'd only been two steps from the edge.

He screamed as he fell, and Loch spun away, not wanting to see it.

Instead, she saw Warden Orris himself, standing at the edge of the walkway with his saber raised in a mocking salute.

"That poor dumb brute was never in your league, Loch," the warden said conversationally, "but then, I guess your little friend Kail was never in
his
league."

Loch spread her arms as far apart as they could go, shackled as they were, and set herself in an unarmed fighting stance.

"What, nothing?" Orris shook his head. "You stupid girl, you
know
you're not leaving the Cleaners alive. You thought you could play me, do something to my grid, but I caught you. And
still
you cling to that stubborn pride?" His face reddened at her silence, and sweat began to bead on the thick jowls of his neck. "Or maybe you're too
stupid
to talk. Is that it? You too stupid to spit out any last words,
you Uru?"

Loch walked forward, her padded feet nearly silent on the metal of the grid.

"Fine!" Orris shouted, raising his saber. "Die like the—"

Loch kicked Orris in the shin. As he howled and brought the saber down, she raised her shackled arms, caught the saber on the shackles, crossed her wrists to trap the blade, and spun away, yanking the sword from his grasp. With practiced ease, she flipped the blade free of the chains and caught it with one hand.

Then she turned away from Orris and walked to the edge of the upper grid, her new sword held high to keep it clear of the shackles.

"I'll see you scream before you die, you..." Orris stammered to a halt. "Where are you going?"

Loch tapped the sword twice on the edge of the grid, looked down for a moment, and then strode to one of the corners. From the lower grid below, Kail's voice clearly called up, "Ready when you are, Captain!"

Orris dashed to the edge and stared down at the lower grid in dumbfounded shock. He'd clearly seen Kail thrown from the upper grid by Akus, who had then been knocked off by Loch.

Kail and Akus were working side by side. Akus was naked except for his boots, and the large blanket Akus had worn wrapped around his waist was now wrapped around the Tooth, covering the vast majority of its lower surface like a massive stocking.

Blocking it from the light of the sun.

Orris was not a stupid man. The Tooth was so irregular and so large that it required a special frame to connect it to the grid. His gaping stare took in the missing screws and broken pins on that frame, both on the upper grid and the lower grid.

There was only one major support pipe still connected to the Tooth's harness, and it was creaking ominously, metal whining in protest as Loch approached it.

"You
can't!"
Orris blurted, then felt himself reddening as Loch turned and raised an eyebrow. "You'll be... That's... You're a madwoman!"

Loch smiled, and it was that more than anything that made him backpedal frantically. She raised the sword in her shackled arms, her whole body bending like a fully stretched bow, and then she brought the blade down on the last junction holding the entire Tooth and its frame in place.

There was a sharp metallic crack, followed an interminable moment later by a low creak that built rapidly in pitch and volume as the entire structure of the grid around the Tooth began to sink. Small pipes twisted, bent, and snapped under the weight of the great stone, and as Orris scrambled back, the entire section of scaffolding sheared away in a screaming crescendo of tearing metal.

The last thing Orris saw as the Tooth and the three prisoners fell away to freedom was Loch's smiling face. One shackled arm clung to the twisted wreckage of the grid around the stone, and the other held his grandfather's sword. Orris watched that face until he could no longer see it, and then, when his shaking legs would bear his weight again, he pulled himself back to his feet.

Behind him, the prisoners began cheering.

Kail had insisted that he had timed it exactly, but Loch was very near the end of her trust when, below her on the remains of the lower grid, Kail shouted,
"Three! Two! One! Now!"

As the ground raced toward them, green and brown and blue resolving into fields and rivers, farms and townships, Kail and Akus yanked hard on the sheet and pulled it free from the Tooth. The wind caught it, and in seconds, the blanket was far above them, floating gently on its lazy path to the ground.

As the Tooth caught the morning sunlight, its dull purple surface blossomed into violet and its ancient magic slowed their plummeting descent. The wind that threatened to tear Loch free from the grid fell from a scream to a throaty whisper, and the ground that had been hurtling toward them at breakneck speed slowed to the comparative crawl of a galloping horse.

Which, Loch noted as she hit the damp turf of a dazzling green meadow and rolled, taking the impact on her legs and shoulders and hips and back, was still faster than you wanted to be going when you hit the ground.

Loch found herself lying face-down in the damp grass. The sword stood embedded in the earth a few paces away, vibrating from the impact. She took in a deep breath, heard the ominous creak of metal, and rolled away instinctively. Sparks of light trailed dizzily across her eyes, but she still got a good look.

Its glow now rising to its normal dazzling violet brilliance, the Tooth rose from the shattered wreckage of the grid. It moved slowly at first, rocking and swaying in the air like a fisherman's hook. Then, picking up speed, it leapt into the heavens, straight back toward the glowing purple disk that hung high above them like a sullen sun, the only glimpse of Heaven's Spire most citizens ever saw. It would, Loch guessed, be going
quite
fast by the time it returned to the Cleaners.

"Damn!" Akus groaned as he pushed himself back to his feet. "I don't know who hits harder, Loch, you or the damn ground." He looked up at Heaven's Spire high above and laughed. "Still, worth a few beatings. Anybody seen my blanket?"

"I'm looking, believe me," Kail said shakily, leaning on the wreckage of the grid. "I don't need my first glimpse of freedom ruined by your sorry naked body."

"Hah!" Akus clapped Kail on the shoulder. "Almost wish I could see Orris's face when the Tooth gets back. Hope it hits him square in the ass."

"Given the size of his ass, you've got good odds," Kail said, and Akus laughed again.

"Damn straight! Hey, you ever got a job that needs some muscle, you let me know."

"Will do," said Kail. "Thanks again for coming to us when Orris made his offer. I had no idea how in Byn-kodar's hell we were going to smuggle a tarp out to the grid."

"Worked out for all of us." Akus looked to Loch, who was still staring upward. "Ma'am, I'm going to put some distance between me and this wreckage before the airships come looking. Pleasure working with you."

Loch smiled and raised a fist in a warrior's salute. He returned it, ducked his head, and walked off toward the woods to the east, naked and whistling off-key.

"So, Captain," Kail said, still swaying where he stood, "what now?"

Loch reached down and ran her hand along the damp grass, then licked the dew from the palm. She swallowed, tasting the sweet water as it loosened her throat. High overhead, she imagined she could see a sudden blossom of light across the underside of Heaven's Spire.

"Now," she said, "we pay back the son of a bitch who put us there."

Two

Justicar Pyvic strode into his office, looked at the board for a moment in silence, and then went to see Melich. He knocked on the office door, then walked in without waiting for an answer. "I heard the most interesting joke this morning, sir."

"Pyvic..." Melich wasn't much older than Pyvic, but he had a bad leg that had kept him out of the army during the war, so he'd had more time to rise through the ranks of the justicars. He was balding, carried a truly absurd cane so that the limp didn't show, and had a face prematurely lined from worry and laughter both.

"What's the difference between a justicar and a porter?"

"I was going to send word—"

"When a case gets taken from a
porter,
somebody
tips
him." Pyvic was tall, which had been a disadvantage in the war, and fast, which was an advantage almost anywhere. His dark eyes narrowed as he leaned over Melich's desk. "Where are my cases,
sir?"

"They're not yours. You're on special assignment." Melich didn't lose eye contact.

"What's the assignment?"

"Political."

"Use Derenky. He loves that crap. Why did you give my death-curse case to Tomlin?"

"It has to be you." Melich blinked this time. "And Tomlin has family history with the wizards. It might give him an in."