The Assassins of Altis (34 page)

Mari looked around, seeing Alain propping himself up against the wall, ashen-faced with fatigue. She put one arm around him. “Lean on me!” Moving as fast as possible while supporting Alain, she staggered across the street. Shots rang out behind them and bullets went snapping past. Mari hit the corner of the next street and swung them behind it as another volley tore holes in the bricks and wood of the structure there. She leaned out and fired, sending Mechanics diving for cover, then waited despite the shots still coming her way and fired again to discourage pursuit for a few more seconds before swinging back and supporting Alain once more.

“Run, blast you!” she urged Alain, who was still having trouble getting his feet under him. Mari supported as much of his weight as she could. She would carry him if she had to, but she knew they had to move faster if they were to get away again. They reached the next street and Mari crossed immediately, then went down the next side street and took the next corner as another shot took a chunk out of a window frame near her.

She staggered with Alain down a short side street, her heart pounding with fear and fatigue, her legs wobbly with effort, and saw an open-top horse-drawn cab there, the driver looking with a puzzled and worried expression toward the sound of the gunshots growing closer. Seeing Mari, he shook his head. “I’m not taking any fares. I’m leaving.”

“Not without us.” Mari tossed Alain into the cab with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, then jumped in as well and stuck her pistol in the driver’s face. “Go!”

Mari wondered just how deadly her expression must have looked as the driver paled and whipped his horse into motion. The cab thundered down the street, scattering a few pedestrians who stopped to hurl insults their way. Mari rested her free hand on Alain, rising up enough to look back and see Mechanics running out onto the street, then leveling their rifles at the fleeing cab. More shots rang out and the pedestrians scattered again, this time not stopping in their flight.

“Turn, you idiot!” Mari yelled, pivoting to stick the muzzle of her pistol against the driver’s back. The cab swung wildly, tilting onto two wheels as it took the next corner going full out. The cab settled back onto four wheels with a jarring crash while Mari tried to figure out where to go next.

“Left,” Alain mumbled from the seat where Mari’s free hand was holding him in place.

“Turn left at the next corner!” Mari commanded the driver. “And slow down a little or I’ll blow your head off!”

They took the corner with less danger that time and the cab rumbled down a long straight stretch before Mari ordered it to turn left again. As it settled onto the new street, she saw a city park to the right and pulled back her weapon. “Stop the cab.” The driver reined in his foam-flecked horse. It was hard to tell which one was staring with wider eyes, the horse or the driver. Mari hopped out, pulling Alain with her. Before she could say a word, the driver whipped his tired horse back into motion. By the time Mari had dragged Alain into the cover of the park, the cab had vanished.

She kept going until they reached a bench well concealed by bushes from the street they had left, then dropped Alain onto it and collapsed beside him. Cursing her trembling hands, she pulled out some bullets and refilled the clip in her pistol, fumbling with the rounds as she tried to force them into place.

“Where are we?” Alain looked around wearily.

“I think we’re at the boundary of the industrial areas,” Mari guessed, angered by the way her voice wavered from stress. “That’s where the parks are. What happened back there? You told me you couldn’t get us through a wall because there wasn’t enough power.”

“There was not,” Alain confirmed, breathing deeply and staring upward. “There definitely was not. But then, while we were behind the bar, the power was suddenly there.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that could happen?” Mari asked crossly. It didn’t make sense to be angry at Alain, but her nerves were jumping crazily.

“It cannot happen. Power can be drawn down by the work of Mages, but then can be renewed only slowly. It cannot spike as the power did there. It came from somewhere, Mari.” Alain’s expression suddenly shifted and he stared at her. “It came from you.”

“What? Alain, that’s totally ridiculous.”

“But it happened. I do not understand it at all, but it came from you. With what you provided and my own strength, I was able to get us through the wall.”

Mari stared back at him, remembering the strange burst of tiredness she had felt. “No. It must’ve been something else. Not me.”

“Mari, I have been noticing this for a while. I am becoming more aware of a power that people carry, that strong emotions can create.”

“I didn’t give you power! Knock it off, Alain!” She didn’t know why, but the idea frightened her. On top of other events so far this night, it was simply too much to handle.

He seemed surprised by her reaction. “I will not speak of it again for a while then.”

“How about not speaking of it ever again?” Mari growled. She looked around them. “How did they find us at that bar? First the hostel, then the bar. What’s going on?”

“I have no idea.”

Mari stood up, offering Alain her hand. “Let’s go. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Alain stood up, nodding. “I can walk now.” Then he turned his head toward the street.

Mari did, too, hearing the sounds of horse hooves, of carriages rattling to a halt, then of boots hitting the pavement.
No. It’s impossible.
But she grabbed Alain’s hand and they both took off through the park, running as fast as Alain’s tiredness would permit. Mari heard a command shouted and saw the flash of light from a rifle shot, then heard the shot and its passage through nearby bushes. They dodged to one side, then dodged again, hitting a slope and almost falling down it before reaching another patch of shrubbery and racing through it.

They stumbled out onto a wide street which looked deserted, stretching off in both directions with no cover. On the other side of the street was a wall easily half again as tall as Alain. Mari spotted a gate in the wall and urged them that way. It was locked, of course, but with a big lock, easy to pick for someone skilled. Mari hurriedly pulled out a lock pick and quickly clicked the lock open. Pushing the gate ajar, Mari pulled Alain inside and pushed the gate closed again, relocking the gate as she did so, then leading them into a warren of large buildings that loomed high on all sides. “The warehouse compound,” Alain got out between breaths. “I remember it from the city maps.”

Mari nodded wordlessly. She was feeling more and more like a hunted animal, chased from place to place, running out of endurance and options while the hunters closed in relentlessly. High, narrow windows with heavy bars on them stared down at the fugitives as they raced down the alleys between warehouses. Finally they reached a dark corner and collapsed next to each other.
Please, please, don’t let them find us again. The other gates out must be locked, too, and they’re too easily guarded. Alain’s too tired to take us through another wall. This looked like a good place to hide but I’ve trapped us in here.

She heard boots running toward them and almost groaned with despair. It sounded like only one Mechanic, but even one Mechanic would force her to fire her weapon and bring the others down on her.

“Mari! Don’t shoot!”

She was swinging her pistol around to bear on the person who had called her name, her finger quivering on the trigger. Somehow Mari managed to control her overstressed nerves and kept from squeezing off a shot. “Alli?”

Alli came closer, her Mechanics jacket making it hard to see her clearly in the dark. “Yeah, it’s me.” A moment later Alli dropped down next to them, breathing heavily from her run. “Thank the stars I found you! They know you’re in here somewhere but I managed to get away from the others and sneak in ahead of them. Mari, listen, you’ve got—”

“What are you doing here?” Mari cried. “They’ll kill you, too.”

“Will you please shut up, Mari?” Alli demanded. “Listen. The Guild is tracking you.”

“What? How?”

Alli fumbled at Mari’s pack. “Your far-talker. You’ve got a far-talker with you.”

“Yeah. I thought I should hang on to it.” Mari hastily began aiding Alli, digging for the far-talker she had faithfully lugged across half the world despite the frequent temptation to drop the heavy object down a deep hole. “How did you—? What about—?”

Alli seized the far-talker. “We’ve got to rid of this! Fast!”

“Why?”

“A friend helped me plant a far-listener in the office of the Guild Hall supervisor so I could hear what they were saying. Yeah, I know how illegal it is to bug a supervisor’s office, and you’re in no position to be lecturing me about it anyway. I was worried about you and about me. And do you know what I heard them talking about? Portable far-talkers send out a low-powered signal even when they’re off, Mari. The Guild can use that signal to find you. That’s how they’re locating you. That’s how they knew you were on that ship when the
Queen of the Seas
captured you, and that’s how they realized you were in Caer Lyn and that you had come here.”

“A homing signal?” Mari stared at the far-talker. “But I know the Guild lost track of me at times.”

“I told you it’s low-powered, Mari, so no one would suspect their far-talker was operating even when supposedly powered down. They could only find you if you were close enough for them to pick up the signal. Whenever you got close enough to a Guild Hall with the far-talker, they could tell where you were. These killers they sent to get you have several portable devices that give them bearings on your signal, so they’re able to locate you pretty precisely and pretty fast no matter where you are.”

“Blast!” Mari pointed her pistol at the treacherous far-talker, feeling an irrational urge to execute the traitorous device, then restrained herself with an effort. “Alain, this is how they’ve been able to find us! When a far-talker is sending out a signal it isn’t directional, but by using different timed bearings or multiple intercept stations they can—”

“Mari,” Alain interrupted. “I appreciate your attempt to keep me informed, but since I am not understanding a single thing you are saying to me, is it really wise to spend time doing this?”

“I guess not. We can pull the battery…no, let’s use this to misdirect them. The blasted thing has betrayed me many times. I’ll let it betray the Guild for once.” Mari stared around, focusing on a window in one of the warehouses nearby. “Can you boost me up, Alain?”

She had to climb on his shoulders, balancing against the warehouse wall to keep from falling, but that was high enough to be able to look into the warehouse through the barred window. Mari shoved the far-talker between the bars, then one-handedly tossed it to fall down between several large crates. “Catch me,” she warned, then dropped into Alain’s arms.

Alli actually grinned at them. “That looked really romantic. You guys must have done this kind of thing a lot.”

“Alli! This isn’t the time! We need to—” Mari raised her pistol again as another figure appeared.

“Alli!” a new voice called.

“Here,” she answered, pushing down Mari’s gun hand. “It’s okay, Mari.”

The new person ran to them, his open Mechanics jacket flapping. “They’re localizing on the new location right now. We’ve got to move.”

“All right,” Alli agreed. “Mari, this is Dav. He helped me get in here, and he’s the guy who helped me bug the supervisor’s office. We can trust him.”

Mari returned the other Mechanic’s handshake, noting that he seemed to be in his mid-twenties. “Dav?”

“Yes. Dav of Midan.”

Mari stared at him, causing Alli to give her a worried look. “Mari, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Maybe I have. Dav, did one of your ancestors die in the siege of Marandur?”

“Yes. How did you know?” Dav asked, astounded by the question.

“I can’t tell you yet.” Mari turned to Alain. “I’ve made a lot of bad choices tonight. Where do you think we should go now?”

Alain pointed east and led the way toward one wall of the compound, the small group running across open spaces as they tried to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the telltale far-talker. But when they reached the warehouse nearest the east gate they ran up against a barrier of lights outside. Crouching in the shadows of the last warehouse, Mari tried to make out what was beyond the lights. “They’ve got to have people there.”

“Yes,” Dav agreed. “That’s the plan. They opened the gates to encourage you to try to run out, but they’ve got the lights set up to blind you as you come and sharpshooters with rifles behind the lights. I was hoping they hadn’t gotten things ready yet, but that’s why they’ve taken a little while to come in here after you. You kept getting away every time they had you, so this time they were going to have every exit covered before they went in. They’ve got orders to shoot on sight,” he added.

“We’ve noticed.” Mari sighed heavily. “How do we get past them? Anybody? Any ideas?”

Alain studied the lights. “I can muster enough power to blow one of the lights if placing a small fireball there would do it.”

“One light wouldn’t be enough,” Alli replied in a grim tone. “Besides, if they figure out we’re here they’ll come charging in and nail us all.” She gripped her rifle. “I could shoot out some lights here and hold them off while you guys run—”

“No, Alli!” Mari snapped. “Your chance of surviving would be zero.” She slumped against the warehouse wall. “Too bad we can’t just walk through walls until we get past them.”

The other two Mechanics exchanged puzzled glances as Alain shook his head. “One small hole, perhaps,” he said, “but then I would be unable to do another. There has been too much effort tonight.”

A new voice spoke then, one which Mari recognized instantly.

“Then perhaps a friend can help.”

Mari stared at the robed figure standing in the shadows nearby. “Asha?”