There was movement and Pony was beside them, shields up and face set to cold hardness. Tinker wanted to hug him tight and reassure herself that he was safe. She contented herself with leaning lightly against him. He kissed her on the temple.
Stormsong signed “no shields” in blade talk. Pony glanced at Tinker’s arm and nodded. In the flickering light from the burning Rolls, he made a motion and Cloudwalker appeared beside him.
“Attack?” Cloudwalker asked in blade talk.
Pony shook his head, and signed back, “Retreat.”
Cloudwalker frowned and signed a question that Tinker couldn’t follow.
Pony shook his head again and repeated firmly, “Retreat.”
Obviously if she weren’t there, helpless, they would have engaged the oni, but Pony was putting her safety first. She put out her left hand to Pony to get his attention, held up all her fingers, and folded over all but the last two and ended with a question. She wasn’t going to leave if the other two were hurt.
He nodded first right and then left, indicating that Rainlily and Little Egret were flanking them.
She nodded her understanding. If her Hand was safe, then she was all for retreating. Cloudwalker sheathed his sword and scooped her up.
She was trying to remember the sign that meant she could walk when they took off running. Stormsong was in the lead, picking the path.
The ambush had hit them in the middle span of Mckees Rocks Bridge. A hundred feet over the Ohio River and no way down except toward one of the banks, over a half-mile away. The smoke masked their escape the first few minutes, and then they were out in the open, only the night to hide them. Gunfire cracked and bullets ricocheted off the pavement at their feet.
“Under!” Stormsong yelled and leaped off the bridge.
Pony followed without a pause, and a second later Cloudwalker leapt, still carrying Tinker. She gasped, trying not to scream as they fell down toward the river, hundreds of feet below, and then Stormsong and Pony yanked Cloudwalker into the underbracing of the bridge. Something hit hard overhead, exploding in a great thunder of noise, and the steel under them jumped and rattled.
“This way,” Stormsong whispered in the darkness.
And they were running again, weaving through the huge girders of the understructure. The others raced forward again and took turns acting as Cloudwalker’s hands so he didn’t have to shift his hold on Tinker. Years of working as a team let them move silently through the steelwork as if they were a circus act.
She tried to get her bearings in the darkness. They had left an entire Hand of Wyverns at the funeral home. She realized that they were on the wrong side of the bridge in more ways than one. To connect with any of the elf forces, they had to cross a river. They hit the far bank and scrambled up to the road, ironically just feet from where Nathan had died.
False dawn was graying the sky. The streets were empty and still as the sekasha ran fast and silent downhill toward the North Shore. Downtown Pittsburgh appeared around the hillside, pale towers in the mist, seeming impossibly far. She wasn’t the one running, but she couldn’t get her breath.
“She’s going into shock,” Cloudwalker said.
They stopped in the shelter of an overpass, and Pony pressed his hand to her forehead. It felt like a warm blanket against her skin.
“We need to get her to the hospice quickly,” Pony said.
Rainlily swore softly. “That’s nearly five miles and on the other side of the river.”
“Take me to Lain’s,” Tinker said. “It’s closer.”
Stormsong glanced back the way they had come. “No. We have to move, and we have to head into the city.”
Dawn was a blur light and motion, inexplicable starts and stops, and the sound of gunfire growing loud and more frequent.
There was a sudden crack of rifles, and silence fell.
“Tinker!” Riki’s voice came from up high. A moment later he came winging down. “Domi! Tinker!”
Pony blocked the tengu male short of Tinker.
“She’s hurt?” Riki cried.
“How did you know to come?” Pony growled.
“We have lookouts all over the city. The one in McKees Rocks saw the Rolls go up. How badly is she hurt?”
Pony didn’t move out of the way. “We need to get her to the hospice.”
“I have a van close by.” Riki pointed in the direction of the car.
Pony glared at Riki without answering.
“Pony, trust him,” Tinker said.
“Yes, domi.”
Despite being Wind Clan healers, the hospice staff had always fallen into the “outsiders” range of the sekasha trust. The night had just shoved everyone down a couple of notches. Unfortunately, the healers didn’t realize the change until they tried to use a pair of scissors on Tinker.
The poor scissor-wielder suddenly found himself facedown on the floor. The following discussion was conducted in loud, fast and ultra-polite High Elvish that Tinker had no hope of following.
“Oh gods, not High Elvish!” Tinker cried. Everything was confusing enough without adding a language she wasn’t fluent in. “What happened? Did someone hit him? Why?”
“They want to remove your shirt.” Riki seemed to be the only person paying attention to her, even though he was giving the sekasha plenty of space. He looked horribly out of place among the elves. He had dismissed his wings, but he was a head shorter than everyone else and the only scruffy-looking one.
It took her a minute to process, but when she realized that they intended to cut her Team Tinker T-shirt off, she objected. Loudly.
“It is just a shirt,” Stormsong said.
“It’s a very cool, limited-edition shirt.”
“No belonging lasts forever.” Stormsong took the scissors from the healers. “And technically it’s my shirt, so it goes.”
It was gone before Tinker could form an alternate plan of dealing with getting it off.
Tinker had gotten to know all the healers at the hospice through one painful misadventure after another. Soothing Breeze of Wind was head of their household. She always seemed amused by how often Tinker managed to hurt herself. As Tinker gained sekasha, however, the healer kept her amusement more and more to herself.
At least, Tinker hoped that was why there wasn’t even laughter in the female’s eyes as she examined Tinker’s arm.
“I am so sorry, but it is broken much worse than before.” Soothing Breeze used High Elvish but spoke slowly, so Tinker could follow it. “I’m afraid that it will be very painful to treat, ze domi.” And obviously afraid of the sekasha’s reaction to her pain. “It would be best if you let us give you saijin.”
“No,” Tinker growled. “Don’t you have something else for pain?”
Soothing Breeze glanced at Pony. Tinker couldn’t tell the healer was afraid that Pony would start lopping off heads or hoping that he’d just pin Tinker down and dose her himself. “Saijin is by far the safest we can give you. We need to set the bones, brace them straight, and then ink the healing spell into place. It will be long and painful. If you take the saijin, you’ll sleep through all of it.”