The woman was screaming, her blackened arms clawing at the wall that had collapsed over her legs. Her shrieks were almost inaudible against the crackle of the flames and the shouting of the firefighters. Smoke burned my eyes and the battering heat of the fire in the next building over had nearly dried the wet rag I’d tied over my nose and mouth. I stepped over the rubble and squatted next to her. Something cracked overhead and people began shouting, so I reached out and snapped her neck. As I stood, a fresh wave of heat billowed over the ruins. Arson had never been my preferred tactic, but at times like this, I could appreciate why Lorencz found it so attractive.
I climbed back out as new flames leaped up, letting strangers haul me out into the street to safety. Several firefighters beat at the sparks that smouldered on my thick leather coat and hood. I coughed and pulled down my facecloth. Someone pressed a cup of water into my gloved hands. I gulped it down and handed the cup back.
If I’d missed anyone trapped in the building, they were gone now. The tenement next to it was falling, as well, and flames had spread to the buildings on either side. Firefighters desperately pumped seawater over the untouched buildings, hoping to keep them from igniting, and Vigilance sentinels stood next to them, calling balewalls to suffocate the flying sparks.
I worked my way over to the barrels of seawater lined up across the street and soaked my face-rag again, tying it back into place. Salt stung my heat-cracked lips.
“I need your help,” someone said, grabbing my arm. The constable’s face was hidden by the leather hood and facecloth everyone was wearing, but his tin badge reflected the flames. Northgate division. This was a Dockside fire, but the whole city was fighting it. “We need to move the wounded.”
“I’m busy.” The last thing I wanted to do was stand close to a group of screaming fire victims. The constable kept tugging on my scorched sleeve and I grabbed his hand, grip tightening. He flinched.
No. I pushed the temptation aside as Might stirred in its scabbard across my back. Not the place; not the time. I released him.
“Please!” he pleaded. “Follow me!”
With a snarl, I followed, figuring at least I might be able to kill a few more of the wounded before they brought the whole damn Line down around our ears. Everyone else was being foolishly merciful — it was as though they’d never been in a disaster before.
Smoke filled the air and the streets were crowded with onlookers and firefighters, sentinels and medics, evacuation wagons and family members looking for their lost relatives. I was shoved and jostled as we pushed through the crowd, and I’d gotten so used to it that I at first I didn’t realize that the blow that knocked me into a brick wall was a threat.
Then I saw the flash of metal.
It’s about fucking time, I thought with delight, twisting out of the way. My would-be assassin’s sword struck my firefighter’s coat and slid, cutting through the first layer of heavy leather but failing to pierce the second.
I kept turning and pulled out my belt knife. I was carrying two swords, but I didn’t have the room or the time to draw either of them, and the daggers up my sleeves and under my shirt were all blocked by the bulk of my firefighter’s coat. I was at a disadvantage, and I loved it. Points to my assassin for timing.
My attacker swung again. His blade buried itself in the loose leather under my arm as I jerked away. I slashed at his eyes, making him jerk back. While he was distracted, I passed the dagger from my right hand to my left. I couldn’t see the fake constable’s face, and the smoke and ash made it hard to follow his gaze. He stepped back to get a better swing. My back was still pressed against the wall.
I hurled the dagger at the assassin’s head and threw myself forward as he flinched. Might’s scabbard dug into my back and my Watch sword ground into my hip as I rolled past his legs. The constable turned and slashed, driving everyone else away from us. The diversion bought me the time I needed to get back to my feet and draw my mundane longsword. Might squirmed eagerly in my head as I tightened my grip on the normal weapon.
“General Tegeus Droit,” the constable hissed, facing me across the rapidly emptying street.
“Where are you from?” I shook off my hood to increase my peripheral vision. The smoke made my eyes burn.
“Red Banks.” He pulled down his scarf with his free hand. Dramatic. Stupid. But I recognized my freedom brand on his cheek, which is undoubtedly why he’d done it.
“Red Banks. Where was that, again?” I had a vague memory of a minor battle, a bridge taken, a village put to the torch. Nothing unusual. Could have happened anywhere.
He lunged. I swept his sword aside and stepped to my left to keep us apart. His attack had been a student’s move, well-signaled in advance. He’d taken a few lessons in swordsmanship, but it wouldn’t be enough to kill me. I felt let down after such a promising beginning.
“What’s your name?” I asked, just to be polite.
“You don’t remember?” he retorted.
“Not really. There were a lot of you.”
“I’m Aidan. Aidan Miller.”
Aidan Miller of Red Banks. Had Red Banks been in Arquian or Geronfrey? Maybe as far back as the Rharihu Plains? No, probably not; he looked too young to be a Rharihu Plains survivor.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s not ringing a bell.”
He howled, enraged, and lunged at me again.
They always hate it when I don’t remember. For most of them, I’d been the most significant moment in their lives — my orders, my actions, my decisions had deeply and irrevocably scarred them, and for some reason they assumed it worked both ways. That’d I’d be just as affected as they were. But I wasn’t, and there’d been so many. How was I supposed to remember one name and face and out of thousands?
Aidan’s violent flurry of swings and thrusts and feints had come straight out of a textbook. Someone nearby was shouting, and I heard my name, but I was too busy parrying and waiting for an opening to answer. And then my sword skidded uselessly across a grey-white wall of bale.
I jerked back, looking for the barrier’s source.
“Droit! What the hell are you doing?” Lorencz demanded, storming forward.
“Defending myself from an assassin,” I snapped. “Now drop the damn wall before I kill you as a consolation prize.”
Most days, it isn’t hard to find Capain Arcady Lorencz in a crowd — she regularly dyed her short hair in stripes of garish red, green, and orange out of some pathetic nostalgia for her childhood in an Ankham gang. But today her head was hidden by the same heavy firefighter’s coat, hood, and face-cloth the rest of us were wearing. Only her brass badge, silver sentinel’s pin, and rasping voice revealed her identity.
And, of course, her inopportune meddling.
Lorencz looked past me and the balewall melted into nothingness. Aidan, of course, had fled. I stalked forward and grabbed the nearest onlooker by the collar.
“Where’d he go?”
She pointed down the street, hand soot-streaked and trembling.
“Kill him later, Droit,” Lorencz snapped. “I need your help now.”
I took a moment to weigh my options before I resheathed my sword. Aidan Miller of Red Banks would be back, and the expectation of a second attack would give me something to look forward to.
Lorencz picked up my dagger from the street and handed it back.
“Was he really an assassin?”
“Yes.” I tucked the dagger away. “I saved him from slaughter a long time ago, and this is how he decided to repay me.”
“Ungrateful bastard.” Lorencz’s voice was unsympathetic.
“He chose a good time to attack, at least,” I mused as we walked through the smoke and crowds. “I let myself get distracted.” If he’d been any sort of professional, he might have killed me. He could have sneaked up with the other firefighters and stabbed me as he pretended to beat out the flames on my coat, or he could have poisoned that cup of water I’d so foolishly accepted from a stranger. I was losing my edge, I decided.
“Well, good for him.” Lorencz gave me a sidelong look. “So, did I just save your life? Are you grateful? Do you owe me one?”
I laughed, then coughed as smoke grated my raw throat.
“Why?” I asked, after the fit passed. “Do you want me to demonstrate my gratitude in the time-honored fashion?”
She made a face.
“All I want from you is an end to your perverted jokes. Go chase one of your pretty boys.”
“If you want to earn my gratitude,” I said, “stop the assassin I don’t see.”
The last assassin I hadn’t seen had left a round scar in the center of my hand as a memento. There’s a matching scar on my chest. The bullet would have drilled straight through my heart if I hadn’t lifted my hand to gesture at just the right moment. Sheer luck, not skill — after penetrating a window, my hand, my coat, my shirt, and my chest, it hadn’t had enough momentum left to kill me. I’d survived long enough to stagger home to Might, which had healed the wound in a matter of minutes.
“Kyrchye, you’re an ungrateful bastard.” Lorencz rolled her eyes. “Look, we gotta escort the wounded back to Blackstone. I need a break from calling, and you ain’t no good to anybody right now unless you feel like manning a pump.”
“I don’t mind manning a pump. I abhor hospitals.”
“You like assassins better?”
“Yes.”
“Tough. We’re going to Blackstone.”
“I would have thought you’d prefer to watch Dockside burn.”
She flipped me off and walked away, assuming that I’d follow. My partner has an annoying tendency to take me for granted. Working with her is a constant test of my self-control — which is one of the reasons I’d volunteered to do it. I’d let myself be controlled by something else for far too long.