“Run!” I said to Clay’s remaining men. They dropped their crossbows and fled into the street.
Power flooded into my body, strengthening muscles and quickening reactions beyond human limits. My senses were pin-sharp, mind reaching ahead, Dissever finding its way into my hand. Weakening spurts of blood spattered my boots as I took the steps three at a time up to the landing and launched myself into the Harbourmaster’s room faster than anybody could possibly react.
The room was cluttered with ledgers and shelves groaned with sheaves of parchment. In the corner lay a pile of smuggled Escharric artefacts, a fortune in pottery and statuettes, coins and inscribed tablets. The room was as empty of life as the Escharric desert itself. Clay lay crumpled at the feet of an older man, dead on his chair, a single puncture wound gaping between skull and spine. The assassin had killed them both. If Clay hadn’t had the bad luck to go upstairs at that exact moment then he’d still be alive and the assassin would have slipped away without anybody noticing. I cursed, scanning the room. A breeze set loose window boards creaking, boards with nails torn free of the sill. I peered out and up. Specks of dust drifted down from the roof.
I stepped out and swung myself up. Steel flicked out at my face before I found my footing. Dissever came up, shearing through the twisted steel hilt of a grey-clad assassin’s knife. Taking advantage of the momentary surprise, I grabbed a hold of their suddenly weaponless hand with my left and rammed my knee into their belly. It was a woman, eyes widening in shock behind a black leather mask as she crashed down in a clatter of tiles.
“Didn’t expect that, did you?” I snarled, leaping on her. “Who sent you?” I crushed her against the roof with brutal strength.
Her own knee snapped up into my belly like a kick from a horse – far too strong for a normal woman. I gasped in pain as her blow launched me backwards off the roof. The ground rushed to meet me but an outflung hand caught the window sill and I jerked to a stop, arm nearly wrenched from the socket, broken glass gouging skin. If I hadn’t had magic reinforcing my body I’d be a broken mess on the street below.
I hauled myself back up. The assassin was already two rooftops away, steps flowing with unnatural grace and speed. I had badly underestimated her. She was a mageborn with magic-enhanced physical abilities.
I leapt over the gap to the next rooftop. It was daylight and sniffers weren’t likely to loiter this far from the city walls. To the pyre with subtlety – she’d just offed our best lead. In the same manner I’d killed the warehouse guard, I gathered my power and struck at her mind, hoping her stunted Gift would allow her to survive it.
She stumbled, fell, but was back on her feet in seconds; seconds too late: I had already closed the distance. I leapt onto her rooftop, fist lashing out. She spun, leaned to one side, and casually deflected my blow with one hand while the other smashed into my stomach. Air exploded from my lungs and I doubled over. Her elbow cracked into my skull as I fell. She stamped on my hand while I was down, heel grinding, forcing me to let go of Dissever. I grabbed for her leg and she pulled back, cloth tearing. My fingers brushed dark skin. I had her!
Magic roared into her, throwing her body into spasm. We rolled across the roof struggling mentally, coming to a rest with me on top. Her will was stone, but I hacked my way in, exposing layer after layer of rocky strata. Her fingers clawed at my eyes. I blocked, tried to push her arm down and pin it to the roof. Her arm didn’t move. Instead she shoved me aside and started to beat me like a fishwife beating a dirty rug. She was stronger than me, faster, better, and she hadn’t spent the last ten years lost in ale cups. The heel of her hand thudded up into my jaw. I saw stars and made a feeble attempt to bring my hands up to ward off the inevitable deathblow. To my surprise, instead she made a run for it.
That was a mistake. I’d been in her head already, and that made it easy to get back in. She should have pressed her advantage in hand to hand. I gathered my will and speared deep into her. Her legs stopped working and she fell. I approached as she groggily tried to rise, and failed.
“It’s over,” I said.
“Think so?” she rasped. A length of fine chain flicked out from her wrist, weighted hooks embedding themselves in my coat. She gave a mighty pull and I lurched towards her. She seized my leg in one hand, the other going for my crotch.
Panicked, I forced my will through the last of her mental defences.
I heard a creak of gutstring and wood off to one side of the roof. Charra had climbed up a ladder and was aiming a crossbow at the assassin. Her finger squeezed. I sensed the assassin’s instinctive urge to spin around and use me as a shield – immediately discarded – then her utter horror. In that moment I knew her thoughts. I knew her. Terror iced my spine.
“No!” I screamed, blocking the shot, far too late to stop it.
String thunked against crossbar. The bolt flashed past my leg, taking a chunk of cloth with it. I sagged in relief. Charra had been able to force the shot wide at the last moment.
“Have you gone horseshit mad?” Charra said, dropping the crossbow and clambering onto the roof with a knife in her hand.
I swallowed, then carefully removed the immobilized assassin’s mask.
Layla.
Chapter 17
Charra’s jaw dropped, as did her knife. Her stomach heaved as if she was about to be sick.
I stepped back to give them space, rubbing my many new bruises. “Want me to release her?”
Charra’s glare could have melted steel, torched entire villages and boiled oceans. I slunk out of the girl’s mind with utmost care, like she was on fire and I was driest tinder. Layla shuddered once, and then rose to her feet, face composed.
“Explain yourself, daughter,” Charra said through clenched teeth.
Layla edged away from her mother. “I disposed of an alchemic-peddling piece of filth. What of it?”
She had a fair point. As damned inconvenient as the timing was.
Charra glanced at the leather mask in my hand, hissed, plucking at Layla’s clothes. “These are not your own. You murder people for coin now? Is this how I raised you?”
“I…”
“I gave you everything I never had: hot food, a soft bed, love, security, education. A chance for a good life. And this is how you repay me? You know what I went through w–” She cut off, glaring furiously in my direction. The view of the distant Old Town suddenly demanded my attention.
“Mother, you cannot–”
Charra lifted her hand, palm up. “Shut your mouth, you stupid little girl. Pretty words won’t cover up what you are.”
Layla’s face froze. “And you haven’t killed people, mother? How can you claim this is any different?”
The crack of hand on skin made me glance back. Layla’s cheek bloomed an ugly red. “Don’t you dare,” Charra said, angrier than I had ever seen her. “I killed because I had to. You think I had any choice?” She caught me looking and cut off what she was about to say next. My eyes fixed on the gods’ towers wreathed in cloud.
“And as for the alchemic dealers,” Charra continued, “they all know my rules. The first time, you get warned not to deal alchemics on my streets, then you get your legs broken. If it happens again, you die. You rape, murder or enslave? Then the Smilers cut you up. Simple rules. Good rules. I don’t go off murdering people in their own homes. Nor do I take coin for ending a life.” Her hands shook with fury. “People’s lives are not commodities to be bought and sold!”
Oh gods, I thought. No wonder this was hitting Charra hard: she had been property.