as they climbed.
Aircars circled, their loudspeakers ordering the combatants to climb down immediately.
“Dammit, dammit!”
He was terrified for Quin. Somehow he made his thoughts relax again, let the focal do his thinking for him as he studied the athame. Almost at once he understood which coordinates to use.
He set the dials, hit the athame against the lightning rod. Another jump There, another set of coordinates, and he’d done it. He emerged onto the pinnacle of Quin’s sail, one foot on either side of the peak.
Below him, a flap of canvas waved in the wind. Quin was trapped there, beneath some sort of shield. The boys were firing disruptors at her over and over, and the sparks bounced off in nearly constant flashes.
They’re going to disrupt her, or kill her, he thought, fighting off full-scale panic. How could he have left her alone so long?
The other half of his mind gave him a very different thought: Why do you care?
I care because it’s Quin!
And what is Quin? Only another Seeker. She isn’t valuable except as a tool against others.
That’s not what I believe.
In the future we have planned, we don’t need her, the new half of his mind said.
“We” haven’t planned anything, Shinobu thought angrily. These thoughts weren’t his. They lived inside the focal and pretended to speak with his own voice. I know who you are. You’re a killer. Of Seekers and of rats. I’m not listening to you.
You are me, half of his mind insisted, and she isn’t important.
Shinobu screamed as loudly as he could to drive the second voice out of his head.
Everything the focal had shown him, everything he’d learned from Briac—all of that was to help Quin. He channeled all of his thoughts toward her.
She’s what matters.
He could only hope that Briac had told him the truth, and he would be able to command those boys’ attention and send them away, leaving Quin unharmed. He reached into the pocket of the cloak and fingered the smooth oval stone that fit so perfectly into his own palm. Then half sliding, half running, he plummeted down the sail toward the melee below.
The Young Dread released the shield and watched it spin far up the canvas into John’s hands. The moment he and Quin were safely behind it, she drew her bow from her pack and let an arrow fly.
Her bolt pierced the shoulder of the dark-skinned young man wearing a disruptor, throwing him forward into the sail. He slid downward with arms and legs scrambling for purchase.
She was aware that she was involving herself in order to save John and Quin. While a Dread must stand apart from humanity, and from Seekers, John was her student now, in a fight that was not of his own making. He and Quin were being attacked by those boys, creatures of the Middle Dread who had, it seemed, been wreaking havoc in his name. A Dread must stand apart so that her mind was clear to judge, but the Young Dread’s mind was clear. A Dread had created those boys, and she felt no qualms about stopping them.
She nocked another arrow at once, but the boys had stopped. They were gazing upward at something higher on the canopy. Someone was there, sliding down from the peak of the sail toward the attackers.
Maud threw her sight and saw that it was Shinobu, using the point of his whipsword as a brake against the canvas to keep himself from careening out of control. A Seeker’s cloak billowed about his shoulders in the wind that buffeted up from the harbor below.
He was yelling something at the boys. She threw her hearing and caught two words: “Watchers! Away!”
The attacking boys moved toward him, turning their remaining disruptor in his direction.
Maud lifted her bow again, but the attackers stopped moving, and so did Shinobu. She couldn’t see him now, because the boys—Watchers?—were standing in her line of sight. As she traversed across the sail to get a better view, she heard Shinobu say to them, “I don’t want you here. Go. Go!”
When she could see him again, he was pointing down the sail and away.
And the Watchers were leaving. Even the one with Maud’s arrow through his shoulder had staggered to his feet and was following the others in a painful retreat.
Why would they suddenly retreat at the sight of Shinobu? she wondered.
John and Quin had lifted the shield and were watching their attackers flee. The Young Dread found herself relieved when John’s eyes immediately sought hers.