pretence to secrecy now. He smiled a tight predatory grin and kept advancing. What made the assassin so cocky?
Raising his arms up higher than his head, as if he could just walk up and throttle her, he stepped over Oleg’s corpse. Or rather, stepped through it. His foot disappeared. She snapped up the crossbow and fired, but the bolt shot right through what was just an image evaporating into shadows.
A self-damning ‘Shit’ was all she managed before wire closed around her neck from behind. Ice-cold pain knifed though her flesh. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to scream, plead, cry, anything. But nothing could escape her throat.
The assassin leaned close, his chin on her shoulder. ‘I was going to pass you by,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘But you persisted. None of this concerns you. You were mere clutter. Now I send you to my master.’
She felt the fists to either side of her neck tense for a final yank. She arched her back, flailed her arms, kicked, but nothing shook him.
Then something swam into view before her like a fish rising from lightless depths. A body and face took form – Oleg. The shade pointed past her shoulder and its lips moved. The wind sighed words in a guttural language. A cry and an eruption burst beside her. She spun in darkness, limbs flying wildly. From close by screaming filled the air, and Kiska felt herself slammed into the wet loamy ground.
She opened her eyes slowly. Her clothes felt hot and damp. She was sick with dizziness; her ears rang and throbbed. Had she passed out? No, the roaring echo of thunder still reverberated while steam rose from her cloak. She lay in the north planting bed of the E’Karial estate, alive, unhurt even, or so it appeared. Raising herself onto all fours, she hoisted herself upright, wobbled, groggy, then pushed her way through the brittle stalks and grasses onto the patio.
The marble bench lay on its side. Beside it a hole in the tiles steamed in the misty rain. A true lightning stroke? Or magery? The corpse lay where it had. Of the assassin nothing could be seen.
She cursed, or tried to. A cross between a cough and a croak was all she could manage. She slapped at the heated fabric of her cloak. How could she have survived that? Pushing back her hair, she staggered to the overturned bench. It was too heavy for her to lift so she simply slumped onto one carved marble leg. Her fingers traced the gash across her throat. Hissing a breath, she yanked her hand away and studied the glove. Blood showed dark, wet and glistening in the moonlight. Maybe she hadn’t survived.
That struck her as hilarious. She laughed, then gasped at the pain. Hood’s breath! It hurt just to swallow. Perhaps that was a good sign. After all, did shades feel pain?
She took a long slow breath, felt the air scrape like a wire brush down the raw flesh of her throat. This was definitely news to take to Agayla. The cover of the Shadow Moon was being used to settle old scores. She’d have to get going. Someone was bound to investigate. This was an aristocratic district, after all.
Slowly, her hearing returned. She thought she caught distant sounds: the baying of a hound. Yes, fierce bellowing. And, from far away, shrill cries that could have been screams. Her own hurts faded as it occurred to her: perhaps this night everyone might be too busy to care.
After Faro spoke Sergeant Ash glanced to Temper’s booth. His gaze, hooded, merely flicked to one of his men, then returned to the parchment he was studying with Corinn and a few others. That man, another Bridgeburner veteran Temper figured, pushed himself up from his table and strode across the common room, his tread loud in the silence.
‘Shut the old man up.’
He wore a hauberk of iron lozenges riveted into boiled leather, and a bare pot helm of blackened steel. The tip of his nose had long ago been sheared off. A thin moustache hung down past his chin. He appeared bored, as if he didn’t care much either way, and in this case Temper could tell that appearances weren’t deceiving. He would slit Faro’s throat if he spoke again. Beside him, Coop gaped up, mute with shock. Trenech stared blankly. The man’s hand closed on the horn grip of a dagger shoved into his belt.
‘We’ll keep him quiet,’ Temper said, quickly.
The man hesitated, looked