They resumed hurrying through the night, following a circuitous path that in time led them to a new hideout at General Procopio's City house. The general had insisted. He wanted to be in the middle of things, and the Protector himself had proofed the house against sorcerous espionage. He said. Where better to stake out the goat and wait for the lion? he asked.
There were fragile indications to convince Chaz that they were being followed. He allowed himself one merry grin.
Good times and bad, chaos or disorder, there were comings and goings at the Citadel Gate. Day, night, the hour made no matter.
A curtained coach departed twenty minutes after Chaz and Preacher and their charge. Within were Spud, Procopio, and a stack of reports from the sergeant of the guard, who had not permitted a little thing like a raid to cancel his report-taking.
The coach hurried through the night, straight to Procopio's back gate, and so arrived there long before the others did afoot. They were in the darkened study, watching, to confirm the presence or absence of trackers when Chaz and Preacher arrived.
Those two burst in with their burden. "Well?" Chaz boomed as Su-Cha surrendered the Caracene shape and collapsed with a feeble plea for food.
"Two of the bloody beggars," Procopio replied. "One ran away to tell tales. One stayed."
"We ought to sneak out the back way and follow him home to Daddy," Chaz growled.
Spud, trying to spoon-feed Su-Cha in the dark, said, "We already know where to find Daddy."
"What? How?"
"All those reports the sergeant gave me? While you guys were loafing I was reading. There's wheat in amongst all that chaff, and it adds up to another waterfront warehouse. While we were killing time giving you guys a head start, the general called in some favors. As soon as Shai Khe's gang heads out, wherever, they'll hit the place and get Soup, Greystone, the girl, and whoever is guarding them. Then they'll lay for Shai Khe in case he gets lucky or gets away out here."
Chax grunted. It was an eloquent grunt, replete with sarcasm and cynicism. "And it all depends on Rider being somewhere handy, looping snares and nets into the web for when Shai Khe cuts loose, eh? Ingenious."
Preacher quoted something scriptural; predictably cryptic and confused; fierce, fiery, and deifically vengeful. He added, "It's falling together. We have that rat in the middle, between two terriers, and we'll choke him on his own arrogant overconfidence."
Perhaps the word choke occurred to him because of the strangling noises issuing from Su-Cha because Spud kept jabbing too-rapid spoonsful of food into the imp's mouth. Su-Cha finally got his message through. He was recovering. He was ready for the next stage.
They began their wait for the mad enemy.
XXX
When the alarms went off there was a tinge of grey in the night beyond the nose of the pirate airship. Men bolted to their weapons. There was panic in the air. The airshipmen's morale was low.
It was not about to improve.
A man appeared outside, hands raised, yelling at them to restrain themselves, that he was on their side, that he had a message, that they were to let him come inside.
They let him in. Not because he insisted but because some of the crew recognized him. Immediately he began chattering in a clicky tongue Rider recognized but could not follow. His message was received with groans and outrage.
A sleepy crewman leaned out of the airship gondola and demanded, in a language Rider could follow, "What's all the racket?"
One of the others replied, "The Celestial Lord wishes us to put our guests back on the boat and take them back to the city. Right now."
Puzzled, Rider watched preparations being made. When the airshipmen brought their "guests" forth he began to get a glimmer. Whatever had happened in the City, some of his associates had survived to counterattack. Through guile.
Caracene had arrived under loose, indulgent restraint, like a wayward child being shepherded home. She was departing in bonds, hung about with every piece of silver the airshipmen could muster. She went silently, aware that protest was useless and time the sole cure for this indignity.
Rider permitted himself a rare grin. Somehow, Su-Cha had convinced Shai Khe that Caracene might in fact be a certain nimble-witted shape-shifting imp.
The airshipmen hustled their prisoners out of the cave. Before they disappeared, Rider was at work preparing his own unnoticed departure.
A spell of minor scale—the one he had employed to escape the treasury vaults—blinded the stay-behinds to his presence. He then turned to Shai Khe's network of protective and detective spells. He saw instantly that slipping through would be easy. All the hectic in and out of airshipmen, prisoners, and messenger had left the magical artifact in a state of vibrant dissonance. It was a moment's work to confuse his own passage with that of those ahead of him.
A narrow, steep pathway descended the face of Shroud's Head. From a ship on the Bridge it looked like the thin scar that appeared on the faces of all the old king's statues and busts.
Rider reached the head of the path only minutes behind the others. They were just two hundred yards ahead. But he was stumped.
The pathway slanted down to a wooden jetty that would be invisible from the shipping lanes. Tied up to it was a small smuggler's ship with mast unstepped. From the Bridge it might look like a rock.
Rider's immediate concern was the fact that the pathway appeared to be the only way to reach the ship.
Or was it?
He set his mystic senses roaming.
There were handholds enough for a descent, but that way would be slow. And, shadow spell or no, he would be seen if exposed to enemy eyes that long. However ...
The alternative appeared mad even for a man as remarkable as Rider.
He cast his senses again.
And hesitated not an instant.
He retreated into the cave as far as he dared, took several quick, deep breaths, sprinted forward—right out into the nothing of a two-hundred-thirty-foot drop to the waters of the Bridge.
Shadow flickered around him. His plunge went unremarked—till he hit water a dozen feet from the jetty.
The airshipmen halted and gabbled at one another about the tremendous splash. Several of the more daring hurried ahead.
Rider's collision with the face of the sea left him stunned for a few seconds. Then he realized he was going deeper than he wanted, dragged down by the mass of gewgaws he carried. He swam upward with powerful kicks and armstrokes, slanting so as to surface beneath the jetty. He rose, gulped air, clung to a float just long enough to dispose of such devices as would have been ruined by the water. Then he went under again, stroking under the smuggling craft.
The ship was long and narrow and had a very low freeboard. Rider grasped the gunwale amid-ships, levered himself aboard. The spell of shadows guarded him from the eyes of the forerunner airshipmen, who were approaching the foot of the path. He slipped into shadows beneath a raised foredeck. Before concealing himself within a pile of old tackle and sailcloth he flung a small spell across the deck and gunwale. The dampness there evaporated.
The three leading airshipmen clumped aboard the smuggler, grumbling. They had decided the splash had been caused by a rock falling off the face of Shroud's Head.
Within minutes the entire complement had boarded. The ship got under way.
XXXI
With Chaz and General Procopio more or less running the show, the welcome planned for Shai Khe was about as subtle and gentle as a sledge hammer.
Chaz was not a man to use a rapier where a battleaxe would do.
But it seemed the battleaxe would not get taken in hand.
It was not that long a wait before shadows began flitting about outside. There was even a moment when one of those solidified into the devil shape of Shai Khe, calmly assessing the house. But the easterner was not to be taken easily. Whether or not he believed Rider dead, he would not abandon caution.
Nothing else happened.
When dawn came the watchers retre
ated. There was never any doubt of their nearby presence, though. Each few hours Su-Cha assumed Caracene's form and showed himself at a window, casting longing looks toward liberty.
"I wish he'd do something!" Chaz growled.
"He is," Preacher rejoined. "He's working on your mind. In a little while he'll have you charging out where he can bang your head all day long."
Chaz scowled but refused the bait. "We're the guys laying in the weeds. What's he waiting for?"
"He smells a rat," the general said. "The man has a nose for danger. The gods alone know how many times he slipped my snares out east."
Su-Cha guessed, "He's waiting for the real Caracene, I'll bet. I'll bet he sent her out of the City, then had to have her brought back to make sure she isn't me."
"So we didn't accomplish anything."
"Sure we did. We bought time for Rider to finish whatever he's doing and get back into the lists here. While we've had Shai Khe tied down accomplishing nothing himself. We got rid of all but a handful of his thugs. If the General's pals have held up their end, we've grabbed off his hideout behind him. When he goes running back ... "
"Yeah? You're forgetting something, runt. If he figures Rider is croaked, the only thing keeping him from popping the cork on Shasesserre is the chance we've still got the woman. Whatever she means to him."
"Yes," Preacher said, peeping out the corner of the window. "We've got some action coming."
They all crowded the window. Below, an oriental horseman galloped toward the house. A pair of City Guardsmen pursued him, bellowing. Their words could not be distinguished, but it seemed they wanted the oriental to desist from his reckless behavior.
All three passed without slowing.
A minute went by.
Men began to appear as if from nowhere. One was Shai Khe himself. They departed at a brisk pace.
"One watcher each, front and back, I would guess," Chaz said. "Get out there and do your stuff, little buddy."
Su-Cha grinned. "Ever notice how I get to be his buddy when he wants me to stick my neck out?" But already he was shifting form, as they had made it up ahead.
They had no trouble with Shai Khe's men, who had not foreseen danger in the guise of a cute little boy. Besides the immediate watchers, the easterner left two sentries along his backtrail. His path led straight to the warehouse Preacher had identified as Shai Khe's current headquarters.
After the last fell, Chaz said, "I've got a feeling Shai Khe isn't going to be surprised we're hot after him."
The General said, "No doubt. But, then, the surprise is at the other end, isn't it?"
At that point they entered the street of Shai Khe's headquarters. And at that moment all hell broke loose inside the warehouse.
They charged the door by which Shai Khe had entered their trap.
XXXII
Rider felt the smuggling craft nudge gently against a wharf. Sounds and odors told him they had docked along Tannery Row on Henchelside. The airshipmen, though tired, quickly made fast and left the ship. Moments later Rider heard the creak of oarlocks.
He popped out of hiding, surprised. And that was a mistake, for a guard had been left aboard. He was turning, drawing breath for a shout. Rider snagged the broken corpse of a single reeve stay block and hurled it. It thunked off the airshipman's forehead. The man went over backward.
Rider crept forth. He peered over the gunwale. Wonder of wonders. The spot of action had gone unnoticed, though the oarsmen in the two boats faced the ship.
Rider slithered to the wharf side and, when he was sure he would not be noticed, left the ship.
A group of urchins audience to everything gave him a hand—then scattered when he scowled.
He loped into the stench of Tannery Row, headed for King's Bridge, which lay a mile away. Thirty minutes later he was in hiding on the east bank, watching the airshipmen unload their prisoners and make their boats ready for a quick getaway.
They left one guard again.
When the main party was out of sight he moved in. In moments he had the sentry trussed up and the boats adrift. He resumed his shadowing of the airshipmen. He caught up as they entered a warehouse.
He reached into the web and extended his senses, searching for signs of Shai Khe. There were none.
But someone was there. And that someone was not friendly toward the easterner's men. A fight broke out. It was over in seconds, a successful ambush. Rider did not go investigate.
He suspected it would be wiser, tactically, to remain on the outside of events, unseen and unknown.
A wagon rolled up to the door Rider watched. Men from the warehouse loaded it with bound airshipmen, covered them with a tarp. Away the wagon went. A brisk, efficient piece of work.
The tough look of those men gave them away. They were air marines in mufti.
So. The next step was obvious. Wait for Shai Khe to come meet his people in a headquarters he believed to be secure.
There had been some busyness while he was off to Shroud's Head, that was certain. Despite his absence, his associates seemed to have Shai Khe on the run. But Rider had no great confidence in that appearance.
How long before the eastern devil showed himself?
Not long at all.
It started like the row with the airshipmen. But that lasted only fifteen seconds. Then a brilliant flash illuminated the backs of the warehouse's few windows. The tenor of the uproar changed.
Rider was watching through the web.
Shai Khe had used a powerful spell to neutralize and incapacitate the marines, but before he could finish them off, Chaz, Su-Cha, and their gang broke in. The easterner had some bad moments with them. In fact, Chaz and General Procopio got in blows that nearly incapacitated Shai Khe.
Su-Cha used the sorcerer's moments of distraction and disorientation to shove Caracene into hiding and take her place.
Rider nudged the web and added to the confusion by undoing the spells binding the marines. Those gentlemen jumped up with blood in their eyes.
Shai Khe was not whipped yet. Not by a mile and a year. But he was rattled. The unexpected recuperation of the marines decided him to retreat and regroup.
He grabbed Su-Cha/Caracene's hand and took off.
Rider tugged the web just enough to make sure everyone in the warehouse was free and conscious. Them he withdrew and waited.
Shai Khe burst out the warehouse door. Fifty yards down the street he halted, whirled, hurled a vicious spell that undermined the warehouse's foundations. That whole nearer face of the building came down. Shai Khe headed for the river at a brisk walk.
The collapse should have killed all of the easterner's enemies. But Rider aborted that.
He had reached through the web and jammed an interior door. Chaz, the general, the marines and the others had gone galloping toward the far exit before the collapse began.
Rider jogged to a parallel street, then raced to the river. He was sure Shai Khe meant to rendezvous with the airshipmen's boats. Shai Khe did things meticulously, calculatedly. He would know where the boats and ships made landings, for those points would have been pre-selected for his convenience.
Rider was in hiding not twenty yards away from the man he had left bound when the easterner loped into view, casting angry glances behind him. His enemies were closing in again.
He cursed once, softly, when he reached the river's edge and found his man unconscious and his boats gone.
He let go Caracene's hand, used both of his in a complicated series of gestures. The airshipman's bonds fell away. But he would not arise from his dreams.
Shai Khe faced his pursuers.
He seemed to swell in stature, in presence. An aura of great dread grew around him. The bowl of his uplifted left hand began to glow turquoise.
Chaz and the crowd were just thirty yards away. In almost ridiculous unison they stopped, flung themselves around, and scattered.
Shai Khe arced the blue fire after them. It floated through the air, trailing turquoise mists, cr
ackling, leaving a rent in the web that was almost painful to Rider. The easterner either thought Rider out of the game or no longer worried about attracting his attention.
The blue fireball hit the street with an impact that rattled buildings for half a mile. It shattered. Pieces flew about, landing with their own thunderous impacts, fragmented, impacted, fragmented. Some chunks knocked holes in nearby walls. The smaller the chunk, the faster it moved and more dangerous it was. But the smaller pieces turned into mist more quickly, so remained dangerous for only a few seconds.
While the blue show ran, Shai Khe gathered his fallen henchman under one arm and Caracene under the other. With effortless ease. He raced toward the river, each step a longer one than the last. He did not stop because water lay in his way.
Water flew as if from huge hammerblows each time one of his feet hit. Rider was reminded of a skipping stone flying in reverse. Shai Khe's last bound to Henchelside was fifty yards long.
The easterner headed for the smuggler. And that pushed Rider into a tight moral bind.
The man he had left unconscious could ruin everything. He had but to tell his story. If Shai Khe was not totally suspicious already, finding his bridges burned before him.
Rider considered alternatives and discarded them. Each was self-defeating, requiring the expenditure of so much sorcerous energy that Shai Khe would be alerted anyway. The choices were two. Let Shai Khe be warned. Or work a small magic and close a man's mouth forever.
There was no choice, really. Shai Khe was a shadow intent on poisoning millions of lives. He could not be allowed to escape just to avoid taking the life of his minion.
Necessity made the thing no more pleasant.
Rider reached through the web and, as Shai Khe bounded aboard the smuggler, snapped a blood vessel in the airshipman's brain, behind the bruise left by the thrown block.