In the distance a noise was growing. It was the noise of countless voices raised in wordless emotion. Fear. Anger. Hate. Excitement. Men and women shouted, stone clinked, steel clanged, and boots crackled as they slid across the dusty ground. Qhora gripped her lone stiletto as Salvator and Mirari drew their longer blades. The Osirians slowed their pace as they turned the last corner, and then they drew their swords. A dozen seireikens, some burning dark orange and others burning bright gold, hissed and sizzled in the dusty air.
Across the street a lone woman screamed, and then others screamed, and then the mass of pedestrians began to run, scrambling and clawing and running away from the fiery swords. Some men fell and were trampled by their panicking neighbors, but the streets were wide enough and the crowds were thin enough that most of the people escaped quickly, and the stragglers were able to rise and limp away as well.
Beyond the men in green Qhora could see an angry line of dirty, bloody brawlers. Some looked to be the darker men of the Bantu kingdoms and she recognized the others as the brown-clad soldiers of Songhai. Some of them still had their hands around each others’ throats and their knives dripping with each others’ blood. But when the Sons of Osiris drew their bright swords, the battle slowed and came to a full stop as every eye turned to look at the green men.
With equal slowness and care, the Bantu and Songhai men pulled apart, releasing each other from their death grips to stand in a ragged line, all bruised and bloodied, staring at the newcomers. Qhora put out her arms, motioning her comrades to stay back with her in the shadows behind the Sons of Osiris to wait and watch.
Khai stood in the center of his men with his searing white sword in his hand. He flicked the tip of his seireiken at the battered fighters across the street in front of the train station. “Kill them all. And bring me Aker.”
The Sons of Osiris dashed forward with grace and power, driving in straight lunges and whirling in fiery arcs to cut down their enemies. A few of the Bantu raised their pistols only to be hacked to pieces. The Songhai raised their rifles, but the seireiken blades sliced through the barrels and stocks as though the iron and wood were soft cheese and bread, leaving blacked stumps and smoldering embers in their wake. Common gray blades shattered like kindling before the aetherium swords.
After a mere ten seconds of brave yelling and charging, the Bantu and Songhai turned in a white-eyed frenzy and fled the street, leaving more than twenty of their brothers-in-arms lying dead in the dust. Cauterized limbs and stumps dotted the ground, but not a single drop of blood fell to the earth. The wounds smoked and the men’s clothing flickered with tiny tongues of fire.
Dear gods of heaven and earth. Qhora stared. How can I get past such warriors? How can I save the captain? How can I save myself?
“Aker!” Khai roared. He strode to the edge of the train platform to survey the rail yard below him. “Aker! If you wish to continue in my service, you will show yourself now!”
There was no answer.
Mirari leaned close to Qhora’s ear. “Now?”
“Not yet,” she whispered back.
“You and you.” Khai indicated two of his men. “Search the yard.”
The two men jumped down from the platform to the dusty ground but stopped short. Qhora saw a man step out from behind the row of old freight cars at the rear of the yard. She recognized Aker, but his features were obscured by a half-mask of red and black ruin down the side of his face. And extending from behind the safety of the freight cars there was a hand holding a matte black revolver.
“We have Aker!” a man shouted. “He’s wanted for murder and he’s going to stand trial in Marrakesh. Leave this place now.”
Khai grunted. He nodded at the Osirians assembled beside him and said, “Go get him, and kill whoever else is back there.”
“Now?” Mirari whispered. “It must be now!”
Qhora leapt up and ran across the street. “Stop! Stop! All of you!”
The Sons of Osiris, scattered across the yard, turned to peer up at her. Khai frowned over his shoulder at her. “You.”
Qhora dashed to the edge of the platform some fifteen yards down from the elderly man in green and stared back at him. “You can have Aker. There’s no need for more killing. No one will try to stop you.” She shouted across the yard, “Captain? It’s Qhora! Let Aker go! Do it now, please!”
The black revolver pulled back behind the freight car and Aker staggered forward, an angry glare twisting his bloody face.
“Very good,” Khai said. He glanced at her. “You see? Civilized people are so much more useful than barbarous ones.” He called out to his men, “Kill the foreigners and bring me their possessions.”
“No!” Qhora shrieked as she drew her stiletto and ran toward Khai.
The older man merely shifted his weight and raised the tip of his searing white blade. Two of his men down in the yard paused to watch their master while the others proceeded toward the freight cars. “Hm.” Khai peered at her through tired eyes. “Will your soul teach me to speak your barbarian language? Or to ride on birds?” The corner of his mouth twisted up for a brief moment.
A single gunshot cracked across the train station, echoing off the pale blue sky. Khai’s head snapped to the side as the man twisted forward and tumbled off the platform into the rail yard.
Tycho strode out of the shadows, the smoking white revolver in his hand. He came to the edge of the platform and fired a second shot into the body below. “That’s for Constantia.” He picked up the blazing white seireiken. “And this is for Philo.”
Salvator and Mirari stepped out from the station office to stand beside the dwarf. The green men in the yard had stopped short when the first shot was fired and now they stood all over the space between their dead master and Aker exchanging confused and angry looks.
Qhora looked at the Hellan and then she looked out at the Sons of Osiris. “All of you, listen to me! Go now and we’ll let you live. Go home!”
The swordsmen formed ranks, six facing the platform and five facing Aker and the locomotive behind him.
Qhora eyed the nearest orange seireiken as she called out, “Captain! Look out! They’re coming for you!”
Taziri Ohana stepped out from behind the freight cars. She had her left arm raised with a silvery revolver mounted on her silvery brace. Beside her was the Mazigh detective with the black revolver. They leveled their guns at the green men.
“This is your last chance to leave!” Qhora shouted. “Go now!”
The six warriors facing the platform charged forward. Salvator whipped his rapier about in flashing circles and fell back as two of the fiery blades came at him. Mirari whirled away with her long knife and hatchet in hand as a third man came at her.
Qhora raised her stiletto to hurl at the fourth man in front of her, but then a gunshot rang out and the man dropped to the ground. Tycho fired again and again, killing the two closest to him, and then he turned and shot the man chasing Mirari across the street.
“You’re a very good shot,” Qhora said.
“I have good eyes,” the Hellan said with a weary little smile. He pointed his revolver at the last two men near Salvator.
Click. Click.
Tycho’s eyes went wide. The two swordsmen stopped, turned, and charged back toward the dwarf. The one on the left held his seireiken high in both hands as though ready to chop the Hellan in half from brain to bowels. The one on the right held his blade low and to the side, preparing to slice his target across the waist.
In that moment, Qhora saw the useless gun shake in Tycho’s hand, and she saw the gun fall to the ground. It thudded on the planks of the platform with a hollow wooden thump.