Foundryside (The Founders Trilogy #1) - Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,50

his throat, trying to pull it out, but then he turned a dull shade of green and toppled over.

Gregor’s savior put away the pipe and ran over to him. She looked at his Waterwatch sash, sighed, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him up. Even though his hearing was still scrambled, he could hear what she said: “Come on, asshole! Run! Run!”

* * *

Gregor staggered through the alleys of the Greens, one arm thrown on the shoulders of his small but surprisingly strong rescuer. If anyone saw them they’d have assumed it was a friend helping a drunk get home.

Once they were safe, she stopped and shoved him to the ground. Gregor tumbled over and crashed into the mud.

“You,” said the girl, “are scrumming lucky I happened to be watching! What the hell is the matter with you? You and those other fools practically blew up the whole building!”

Gregor blinked and rubbed the side of his head. “Whu…What’s going on? What was that back there?”

“It was a stun bomb,” said the girl. “And it was damned valuable. I’d barely had it for more than an hour too. And a fat lot of good it’s done for me, after you’ve scrummed everything up!” She began pacing around the alley. “Now where am I going to get money? Now how am I going to get out of the city? Now what do I do!”

“Who…Who are you?” asked Gregor. “Why did you save me?”

“I wasn’t even sure I was going to,” she said. “I saw those three bastards watching the room and decided to hold off. Then I see you come and jump from balcony to balcony like a damned fool and break in. And then they see you and try to blow you to smithereens! I think I mostly did it so that one mad bastard would stop shooting up the Greens!”

Gregor frowned. “Wait. What was it you said? Where are you going to get money? You…You mean you came to Sark’s for…”

He stared at the young woman in black, and slowly realized that this person, despite having saved him, was likely one of Sark’s thieves.

And, knowing it was Sark, it was suddenly likely that this young woman was the person who had robbed the Waterwatch and burned down the waterfront.

Without another word, Gregor rose and tried to dive at her—but between her stun bomb and the damage the shrieker had done to him, he could barely walk in a straight line.

The young woman danced aside and kicked his feet out from under him. Gregor tumbled down into the mud, cursing. He tried to stand up, but she put a boot in his back and shoved him down. Again, he was surprised at how strong she was—or maybe he was just that weakened.

“You burned down the waterfront!” he said.

“That was an accident,” she said.

“You robbed my damned safes!”

“Okay, well, that wasn’t. What did you find in Sark’s?”

Gregor said nothing.

“I saw you reading. I know you found something. What?”

He considered what to say—and then he considered her behavior: how she’d acted, and what she’d done, why she was here. And he started to develop an idea of her circumstances.

“What I found,” he said, “is that you have either stolen from, or stolen for, some of the most powerful, merciless people in the city of Tevanne. But I think you knew that. And I think your arrangement has gone quite wrong, and you are now desperate to escape. But you won’t. They will find you, and kill you.”

She pressed harder into his back and crouched down. He couldn’t see her face—yet he could smell her.

And strangely, her smell was…familiar.

I know that scent, he thought. How odd…

He felt something sharp being drawn along the side of his neck. She showed it to him—another dart. “Know what this is?” she asked.

He looked at it, then looked her in the eye. “I am not afraid to die,” he said. “If that is your intent, I suggest you hurry it along.”

She paused at that, clearly surprised. She tried to gather herself. “Goddamn it, tell me what you fo—”

“You are no killer,” said Gregor. “No soldier. That I can see. The wisest course of action here is to surrender now and come with me.”

“What, so you can have me harpered?” asked the girl. “This is some shit negotiation you’re trying.”

“If you surrender,” said Gregor, “I will plead mercy for you personally. And I will do everything I can to prevent your death.”

“You’re lying.”

He looked over