“You can lead if you want,” Mahliki said as they passed another alley, the front of one of the enemy lorries visible at the other end.
“And thus be the target for the next practitioner launching mental harpoons?” Sespian asked.
“No. I just meant... I wasn’t sure if... well, you have more experience giving orders. I’m just headstrong and used to bossing my younger siblings around and being fairly independent.”
“Yes, I gathered that.” He sounded... amused. Well, that was better than irritation.
“But if you think you would be a better leader or if you have a better plan—”
Mahliki halted, catching a hint of movement in a recessed doorway ahead. A tendril snaked out of the nook, and she spun toward it, throwing the switch on the generator. The vine moved unbelievably quickly for a plant, but the little streaks of electricity gave her enough light to see it and catch it with the forked tip. She pressed the vine against the wall. Fortunately, it wasn’t as big as some of the others. The scent of charred vegetation soon stung the air.
“I think you’re doing fine,” Sespian said, watching the street—and the roofs—as she finished toasting their botanical attacker.
“Leading or planning? Or mutilating plants? Did you see how fast that tendril shot out?”
“Yes to all.”
“Let’s see if we can sneak up on these practitioners and knock them out then.” Mahliki backed away from the alcove, leaving the smoldering vine for dead. “This plant is going to fight hard to stay alive. Even without the delays, I worry that we might already be too late.” What kind of jungle might have already grown up in the harbor in the days since she had collected that first root sample? Would the submarine be able to get close? What if the plant smothered it faster than Father could wield whatever weapon he was creating? What if the enzymes that broke down skin could also break down the hull of the submarine?
“We’ll succeed,” Sespian said. “Don’t underestimate your father. He’s won a lot of wars.”
“Against humans, yes. This is something new. Something... alien and inexplicable.”
“Then we better hurry up with our self-appointed mission, so he has more time to plan crafty things.”
Mahliki nodded, thankful for his optimism, and continued down the street. She would focus on their first problem—the human element. They passed two more alleys and stopped at the third, one so narrow that they would have trouble walking side by side. The sounds of the battle raged on, but there were no lights or fires burning at the other end.
“This should be far enough,” she whispered.
“I’ll go first.” Sespian stepped into the alley.
Mahliki started to object—leaders should lead, after all—but he raised the black dagger.
“I have the more logical weapon for dealing with people,” Sespian said. “If any plants wrap themselves around my neck, I’ll trust you to take care of that. Without dithering.”
“Understood.”
Though she let him lead, Mahliki followed no more than a step behind. When he stopped at the end, she stood on her tiptoes, trying to see past him and around the corner. They were about the same height, and she might have struggled—he was looking around the corner, too—but he crouched down a few inches.
Not far away, the two closest lorries idled side-by-side, blocking the street from any other vehicular traffic. Not that there was any traffic. Nobody knew Father and his team were down here except for Dak and maybe a couple of others. Unfortunately, that meant nobody knew they were under attack, either, unless one of the soldiers had slipped through enemy lines to deliver the message. On the rooftop of the building, Father’s men seemed to be holding their ground, but more of the structure was burning now, despite the soldiers’ efforts to quench the flames with buckets of water. With the agitated plants grasping at people with their thick tendrils, the men risked their lives every time they hopped down from the roof to fill those buckets.
“Four guards in the back,” Sespian murmured, nodding toward the backs of the lorries.
Two robed figures leaned against each one, rifles cradled in their arms as they alternated gazing up the street and out toward the plant-infested water. Darkness sheathed Mahliki and Sespian, so she doubted they could see them, but when their eyes shifted in her direction, it made her uneasy, nonetheless.
“The plants aren’t bugging them, I see,” she whispered. Those four weren’t the practitioners, but they would make it hard to reach the practitioners. It might be dark in the alley, but as soon as Mahliki and Sespian crept out and tried to sneak up on the men, they would be spotted. They could approach via the roofs, but Mahliki had a feeling they would find more lookouts up there. Someone might already be missing the practitioner.
Sespian pointed. “It looks like they scorched—or maybe electrified—the earth on the waterfront side of their vehicles. Warning the plants to keep back.”
“Father scorched some, too, and it only irritated them.”
“True. Maybe the plant senses he and the submarine are more of a threat than the priests.”
“Maybe,” Mahliki said.
“You don’t think the priests could have some sort of... alliance with the plant, do you? It almost seems... smart enough that one could reason with it, if one knew how.”
That notion filled Mahliki with dread, but when she shook her head, it was with confidence. “Given its origins and what I know of the race that made those seeds, I find it doubtful the plant would see humans as anything other than food. I think the priests are just opportunists.”
One of the guards turned his head and called to someone in the cab. Mahliki leaned out to peer down the street in the other direction. Her shoulders slumped. Another lorry was rolling down the street with a robed figure at the controls.
“Great, that’s all they need. Reinforcements.”
“Those aren’t reinforcements,” Sespian said, a curious note in his voice. Pleasure? “That’s our ride.”
Mahliki grasped the idea immediately. “Jump on the back so the guards don’t see us coming?”
“Or maybe underneath.” He glanced over his shoulder at the bulky generator. “You might want to leave that in the alley. Here, take the dagger. I have a knife and the rifle.”
Mahliki was reluctant to leave her father’s prototype where it might be captured or damaged, but she would have a hard time jumping on a moving vehicle with it weighing her down. And she would never fit under the lorry with it strapped to her back. “All right.”
By the time she wriggled out of it and leaned it against the wall, the lorry was already even with them.
“Get ready,” Sespian whispered. He waited until the cab passed and its bulk was blocking the alley from the guards’ views. “Now.”
Though Mahliki ran out right after him, he proved the faster runner and reached the back first. He leaped, catching the bed gate, and swung himself under the vehicle in one smooth motion, disappearing so quickly he almost seemed to vanish. The rifle on his back didn’t so much as clack against anything to alert someone. Mahliki leapt on—the lorry was slowing to stop behind the others—and hurried to scramble onto the framework beneath the vehicle. She smacked her knee against the axle and cracked her head on a bar, but she made it without scraping any skin off her back on the cement. The vials and tools she kept inside her jacket—why hadn’t she thought to leave those behind?—jangled with alarming vigor as she locked her legs around a bar. The noise shouldn’t be audible over the hissing of the steam brakes. She hoped.
Sespian had already climbed hand-over-hand to the wheels at the front end of the lorry. He might not want to admit to his relationship with his father, but he had definitely inherited that agility. Mahliki supposed she was lucky she had some of her father’s athleticism—her little sister had more of Mother’s accident-prone tendencies.
The vehicle slowed to a stop behind the two lorries in front. Boots came into view—men jumping down from the cab and others—those of
the guards—walking around to the bed to unload something. Mahliki twisted her head to watch Sespian. A dark lump between the front wheels, he wasn’t moving yet.
A flash of light and an explosion came from a few meters in front of the first truck—the vehicles blocked Mahliki’s view for the most part, but she knew the sound—and the earth-shaking feel—of a blasting stick going off by now. She almost lost her grip and fell on the ground.
Though the blasting stick hadn’t landed close enough to damage the vehicles, the nearby men cursed anyway, lurching and grabbing the lorry for support. Shards of broken cement pattered down on either side.
Sespian dropped to the ground and scurried out on the waterfront side of the vehicle—there was only one pair of boots on that side. Mahliki scrambled after him to help. He popped up behind the boots, but the man spun toward him immediately. The sounds of a scuffle reached her ear.
She crawled out beside the back tire, intending to help Sespian, but another man charged around the corner. He almost tripped over her. Mahliki reacted quickly, stabbing her dagger into a robed thigh before the man could pull out his pistol. The black blade dove in with alarming ease. He started to scream, but she leaped to her feet, using her upward momentum to slam the heel of her palm into the bottom of his jaw. Teeth cracked against teeth, cutting off the cry. She jammed her elbow into his gut to drop him to the ground.
A thud sounded—someone jumping out of the lorry bed—and a third man ran around the corner. Mahliki yanked her dagger free, prepared to defend herself, but the butt of Sespian’s rifle whizzed past her ear. It slammed into the priest’s head, and he dropped like a steel ingot. Sespian left him to jump around the corner and scurry up into the lorry bed. With the flap down, he couldn’t know how many men might be waiting inside, but he didn’t hesitate. Mahliki paused, torn between following him to make sure he wasn’t overwhelmed and wanting to rush straight for the practitioners in the lorries up front. If they figured out they had enemies in the rear, they would soon turn their attention in this direction.
A stirring of the hairs on her arms made her decision for her. Someone nearby was about to use the Science—and she might very well be the target.
Dagger in hand, she ducked low to check at how many sets of feet were visible on the other side of the lorry. She spotted one pair of boots and one pair of sandals walking back toward her. A fighter wouldn’t choose sandals. She waited in her low crouch, ready to spring up and attack, but from the way the men slowed down, they had to be expecting trouble. Better not to be where they were anticipating someone.
A thud, then a crack came from behind the flap. Sespian definitely wasn’t alone in there, but she would trust him to hold his own. Mahliki slithered under the lorry, thinking she might stab the sandaled man in the unprotected feet. If he was a practitioner, the pain would make it hard for him to concentrate on flinging fireballs at anyone.
But the men must have sensed something, for they halted abruptly before rounding the corner of the vehicle—or maybe they heard Sespian in there, thumping people around. Mahliki eased a little farther toward the front. The boots were facing her, but she didn’t think she had made a sound. Another crack came from up above her. Sespian.
“That doesn’t sound like our people,” one of the men said.
“No.”
They both turned for the corner. Mahliki rolled out from under the lorry behind them, springing to her feet as soon as she cleared the vehicle. The robed men’s backs were to her. One was already darting around the corner. She lunged after the second, slamming the hilt of her dagger into the back of his head. He staggered forward, but didn’t go down. He clawed for his pistol. Mahliki kicked it out of his belt before he could draw it. The weapon clanked to the street and skidded away.
“You dumb—”
Mahliki’s second kick, this time to the groin, distracted him from whatever he had meant to say. He pitched forward, one hand belatedly protecting himself and the other trying to grab her foot. She could have stabbed him with the dagger, but remembered how easily that blade slid into human flesh and hesitated. She hadn’t come out here to kill people.
The sandaled man stole her time to think about how to subdue his buddy. He appeared around the corner, a hand raised. The hairs that had been wavering on Mahliki’s arms stood to upright attention. She leaped back an instant before the practitioner unleashed his attack.
Fire swallowed her vision, the blast so close to her eyes that she thought she had been hit. The heat did pound her like a jackhammer, but it didn’t bring pain. She had scrambled backward in time. An ear-splitting scream erupted in front of her. Her stomach clenched in sympathy. Someone hadn’t backed away in time.
The flames were extinguished abruptly. Mahliki raised her dagger, ready to attack, but the light had blinded her, and the spots swirling through her vision offered poor targets. A hand clamped onto her upper arm. Assuming it was the practitioner, she swung her blade at him. Another hand caught her wrist though.
“It’s me,” Sespian whispered. “There are more coming. This way.”
Mahliki stumbled after him, blinking furiously, trying to regain her vision. She tripped over something—a body. Had Sespian killed the practitioner? Whimpers of pain came from the side, and the smell of scorched flesh tainted the air.
“That idiot hit his own man,” Sespian grumbled, his voice coming from an elevated position.
He was climbing back into the lorry bed. Mahliki groped her way after him, the flap hitting her in the face as she crawled over the gate. Her hand landed in something wet. Water? No, blood.
“All you all right?” Sespian whispered. “That didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped. They’re going to figure out someone’s attacking them back here soon, if they haven’t already.”
Mahliki wiped her hand on her trousers. Her eyes were finally adjusting to the darkness again, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was inside with them. Bodies, she suspected. When she had run from the warehouse, intending to help her father by knocking out the practitioners, she hadn’t considered how much fighting they would have to do to reach those practitioners. How could she tell Sespian that she had already had her fill of stabbing people with daggers and she wanted him to take over the leadership role? More than that, she wanted her Father to come out here and fix everything, so there was no more need for leading—or being led—into battle. She had seen combat before and death a few times as well, but she had never been in a position where she had to mow through so many men to reach such a dubious goal.
This is for Father, for the submarine, and for the city, Mahliki reminded herself. Staying in that building and hiding wouldn’t have accomplished anything. It was these priests’ fault she had to attack them, to hurt them.
“I’m uninjured,” Mahliki said, because Sespian had started patting her down, checking for wounds. “Just got stunned and blinded by that fireball.”
“Yes, that was close. I wasn’t expecting a wizard back here.”
“I think my sight is returning, or at least... there are fewer dots of white swimming through it.”
“There’s not much to see in here,” Sespian said. “It’s dark. Though you’ll want to note this.”
He took her hand and guided her a couple of steps, then laid her palm on something cold and metal. She couldn’t see anything except a dark shape against a dark interior, but she followed the smooth curved object, found a couple of wooden wheels, and soon guessed what it was. “A cannon?”
“Yes, a military one. These priests are stealing all sorts of equipment.”
Mahliki frowned, imagining their enemies firing cannonballs at the warehouse. The submarine might be sturdy, but she doubted it could withstand an attack of that magnitude. Not to mention that any of her father’s men who got in the way wouldn’t withstand cannonballs well, either.
“I’m beginning to loathe these people,” Mahliki said.
“Me too.” Sespian shifted his weight, and soft metallic chings sounded.
He was reloading the rifle. “Stay low. Like I said, I expect them to come back here any moment. They must have heard that scream, and I think I heard one of the men we downed in the beginning climb to his feet and run.” He shifted the flap aside. “I’m surprised they haven’t already... Oh.”
“What is it?”
Mahliki crawled over an inert body to the other side of the gate and peeped past the flap on that side. Two more vehicles were rumbling down the street, headlamps burning in the night like fiery eyes. She slumped. “Not more reinforcements.”
• • • • •
The pistol poked Amaranthe in the back again, guiding her toward the large tanks at the back of the cider mill. Deret walked at her side, being similarly nudged along with weapons. Several robed men followed behind those doing the nudging, and though Sauda had left, the line of zealots along the wall had not. Those people, too, remained armed with pistols.
Amaranthe doubted she was being taken anywhere longevity-promoting, so she was going to have to risk getting shot if she saw even the remotest chance to succeed at escaping. She tried to catch Deret’s eye, to give him a silent signal about her intent, but he was limping along, his gaze toward the cement floor. There was nothing down there more interesting than cracks, so she worried he had given up and wasn’t thinking of escape at all.
“You all have an evacuation plan?” Amaranthe asked, figuring she ought to try reasoning with someone before resorting to starting a brawl with the pack of people pointing pistols at her. She had gone out of her way not to mention her name and whom she knew—no one had tried that hard to get the information—but maybe that had been a mistake. When no one responded to her question, she said, “I only ask because my friend will track me down as soon as he realizes I’m missing, and if he finds me dead... well, I’d feel bad if all of you got killed because of some dubious plan your boss schemed up.”
The man behind her snorted.
Well, that was a start. At least she knew someone was listening. None of them was curious enough to ask her who her friend was.