I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd . . . .—William Wordsworth, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
Ice water chilledmy lungs as I drew a shuddering breath and jumped off the top of the World Trade Center.
The building dropped below me. The street was a five-second, screaming fall away. The skyscrapers pointed away from me, their angle of tilt increasing with their distance, as though I looked at the city through a fish-eye lens.
The wind caught the kite above my head as I stepped off into the dizzying height. It threatened to lift the sail's nose, to carry me backward over the roof where the vortex winds whirled unseen, which would slam me back onto my starting point. I pulled the bar, moving my body forward six inches and picking up speed by increasing the angle of attack.
* * *
The journey to New York had been uneventful, made mostly in silence, only the uneven drumbeat of the horses' hooves pounding in time to the steady clinking of our swords in their slings. When we passed those who had left on foot before us they cheered, and for those few minutes I felt good.
We reached Manhattan before nightfall the next day, abandoning the horses at the Holland Tunnel. After freeing them, we walked the rest of the way to the World Trade Center. The front doors were open. We walked into the huge, blue-toned main floor and began climbing.
* * *
I went straight toward the Empire State Building for twenty seconds, then began a gentle turn to the right. If I turned more than about thirty degrees I would be losing more height than I'd be able to make up. I made sure it was more gradual than that, inching to the right side of the kite. After a second it responded: the right wing spar dipped slightly, and there was the city, spread out in high relief, wheeling ever so slowly almost two thousand feet below. Ice cubes formed in my stomach as I looked down at it. I tried to relax in my prone position, resisting the irrational impulse to kick my feet as though swimming. The wind blew into my face. I felt as if my shoes were going to fall of.
Stall speed increases on a turn—that is, it's easier for the kite to lose lift while banking. I compensated by pulling forward on the trapeze bar to gain speed. The kite lost altitude, but I'd gain that back when I passed over the western edge of the tower I'd jumped from; the air rushing up the sides would provide lift. If I did it right, I'd gain more than I had lost. I continued the gentle curve until I saw the rear of a yellow kite with a red V in the center. A G.I. Joe figure in a warm-up suit dangled beneath: Malachi Lee. He was climbing at a good angle as he passed over the World Trade Center, playing it smart by keeping the nose up slightly and letting the wind do the work. Far ahead of him, just beginning his second right-hand curve toward the eastern side of the opposite tower, was an even smaller figure beneath a white paper airplane with a diagonal blue slash: Tom Pert.
The top of the building was now above me by a few stories; I'd lost the height in the turn. Each of us was launching as the one before him began his first half-turn of the circle, and as I steadily approached the building another delta shape glided from the edge. A rainbow-arced kite with a ball of gold at one end of the colorful crescent: Mac.
* * *
We'd managed to climb up the first forty-four flights before Tom decided it was too dark to go on and we set up "camp." Exhausted, we set our long, thin burdens on the floor and slept in a hallway. We hadn't seen another human being since passing the ground forces the day before.
* * *
An upsurge of wind lifted the sail. I raised the nose just a tad, climbing. In only a few seconds I was back at rooftop level, fifteen hundred feet from the street. Another of the kites swooped, bat-like, from the top. Red, green, and blue stripes: Hank. Behind me, Mac should be midway through his first turn. I was too busy to watch; the air gusted unpredictably and the glider required my constant control. I couldn't afford to let my grip relax on the control bar.
I climbed until I was about two hundred feet over the top of the tower before the upsurge died down. Malachi and Tom had been right: the updrafts more than compensated for the altitude we lost during turns. By the time we came over the eastern edge of the other tower, straightened out, and caught the convection current from that side, we should have gained at least three or four hundred feet from rooftop level. Possibly more, if we could keep our turns gentle.
My speed had put me a little ahead of the game. Tom was just reaching the opposite edge of our lift-off tower's twin. He should have been just leaving the influence of the updraft, but the difference shouldn't prove crucial, as long as I didn't overtake him. Or run into him.
I leveled off and flew straight. Ahead of me Malachi Lee completed his second one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and straightened.
* * *
I'd got up early next morning, having slept little, and what sleep I'd had was troubled. Everyone else seemed edgy also. Except for Malachi Lee, who looked like a relaxed cat. Drew seemed the most nervous. He was defensive and easily agitated. We left him alone.
We picked up our zippered nylon bags and took the stairwell again. The climbing was dreary and mindless, which was bad—not because of the drudgery but because it left your mind free to roam. Fear played volleyball in my imagination. Ironically, I was relieved when we finally reached the top.
The final door was locked. We took it off its hinges. It opened onto a small area that, as with the Empire State Building, had been a concession counter selling souvenirs. We walked on through double glass doors and blinked in the sunlight glaring from the roof. We set the kites side by side. Each of us walked to the edge and looked down silently, alone with his thoughts.
On a clear day, you can see . . . .
The Empire State Building. No more pollution to mar the scenery; the Change had provided a grand view. Funny—it seemed even smaller from here, though it dwarfed the buildings around it.
We still had five hours to go before we jumped. Rather than sit around and become even more jittery—Drew had developed a pronounced twitch in his right eye—we unzipped the long bags and began assembling the rigs.
* * *
I banked into the second turn. Drew ought to be launching about now. I risked a glance toward the farther of the twin towers. His kite—green on the wingtips and along the keel—rested on the roof beside Walt's, nose-down, two Technicolor moths.
Goddammit—he's chickened out.
I shouldn't have been so disdainful, but I was. I could understand the reluctance to take that first and irretrievably committed step, but not the lack of fortitude in being unable to overcome it.
Hell, Garey—he doesn't have as much at stake as you do.
Now the green and white kite was moving, being lifted up and carried to the sheer drop of the edge.
Drew jumped, only a little behind schedule. I completed my turn and straightened out just as his feet left the roof.
* * *
It was small talk only as we lay out our respective A-frames, making them rigid by affixing nose plates and crosstubes, tightening nuts, running rigging wire, securing the sail, attaching the trapeze bar. We took our time and did it right, then went over it again, tightening a wing nut here, tautening a wire across a turnbuckle there, and then we inspected each other's kites as we had before. I excused myself once and went to the other side so they couldn't see me vomit.
Soon it was time to jump.
* * *
I approached the eastern of the two towers a good seventy-five feet above rooftop level, higher than either Tom or Malachi had been. The wind was favoring this side and the convection currents pushed a bit stronger, helped by the additional flow of air from below. I kept the nose high and climbed. Ahead to the right, on the opposite tower, the last of the kites jumped away. Blue and red stripes radiated in a sunburst from the nose: Walt.
By the time the strong updraft began to lessen I was four hundred feet above the rooftop of the World Trade Center, almost two thousand feet from the ground. I kept the nose up a little while longer to gain as much height as I could. It would decrease my speed, but I would end up ahead—the higher you are, the farther you go. I was thankful for the haircut McGee had given me as I looked forward, the wind rushing across my face, pushing the hair sticking out from the crash helmet toward my eyes. I was higher than Tom or Malachi. I decided to keep it that way; I might need all the height I could get. It was easier to lose than gain, and I could always lower myself later, when we were closer and I could better estimate how I'd have to come in.
I glanced at Fred for reassurance, and to see that it was still secure against the left side of the triangular bar, held tight by four bands of masking tape. I hoped I would be able to remove it easily when it came time to land on the eighty-sixth floor observation deck and ditch the kite.
* * *
As I buckled myself onto the kite just before jumping, I noticed on the wing a small decal that I'd managed to miss before:
WARNING: Hang gliding is a dangerous activity and can result in serious injury or death even when engaged in under ideal circumstances. This equipment is manufactured in accordance with the safety, material, construction, and flight standards established by the Hang Glider Manufacturer's Association, Inc. This equipment should he used only under proper conditions after proper instruction and practice supervised by an experienced hang gliding instructor. The manufacturer has no control over the use and maintenance of this equipment and all persons using this equipment assume all risks for damage or injury. The manufacturer and the HGMA, Inc., disclaim any liability or responsibility for damages or injury resulting from the use of this equipment.
I felt I should make a joke, but it didn't seem very funny, really.
* * *
The rigging wires hummed beehive tunes as they cut through the air. The trailing edge of the Dacron sail flapped rapidly, like a drum roll at a circus. Manhattan was a three-dimensional grid beneath me. I felt as if I were some huge kite flown on an invisible string held by a child on the streets a third of a mile below. A backward glance revealed the four remaining hang gliders, pop-art candleflies at various heights, spaced more or less at five-hundred-foot intervals. My own kite was sky blue, but with a bright yellow V along the leading edge.
The East River was to my right, the Hudson on my left. It was quiet down there. Quiet and gray. Washington Square slid silently beneath my feet: the halfway mark.
I patted the Aero-mag at my thigh to be sure it was still in place, then felt the pouch to be sure it was securely closed. The blowgun and the sword: my weapons. They would have to do.
The mammoth dart of the Empire State Building neared steadily. A few men were visible on the eighty-sixth floor. A good sign. There would have been more had they noticed us.
From below I thought I heard noise. Somewhere down there, two "armies" fought. Shaughnessy. McGee.
Tom, leading us, looked to be just a little low. Immediately ahead of me, Malachi looked to be just where he needed to be. Of course. Behind me, in order of proximity, were Mac, Walt, Drew, and Hank. Drew looked a little low, but it was hard to tell because I was higher than any of them and relative altitude was hard for me to gauge from above.
Those four were going to have it roughest. Tom and Malachi would probably land before any alarm was efficiently sounded. I figured I might squeeze by before any sort of organized resistance could be massed. But Mac, Hank, Drew, and Walt would almost certainly have to avoid archers. A hang glider is maneuverable, but hardly evasive. Especially when you're in a hurry.
I was the only one of us without a bow. The rest carried light hunting bows with thigh or bow quivers, which made the arrows much easier to get to. Tom carried an extremely short bow. It required strong arms to pull it to full draw, but Tom could yank it to his ear without batting an eye. Hank Rysetter carried his tournament target bow taped on his trapeze bar. Pulleys at the ends made it a compound bow; peep sight, levels, a distance/elevation gauge, and a bow quiver made it look like a damned machine, as if it ought to be able to load and fire itself. I thought all the gizmos were cheats, but whatever works, I guess.
Tom was close now. My arm muscles tightened and my hands clenched harder on the bar. I shivered.
The white wing with the diagonal blue slash was now even with the eighty-first floor. Tom raised his nose and began listing in a narrow angle curve. He began to lift. I was close enough—no more than a thousand feet—to see that he'd been spotted: two people stared out a window above his climbing kite. They disappeared.
I concentrated on the scene ahead just long enough to realize that Tom and Malachi were going to land at about the same time, if neither one was shot from the air, and then I had to think about how the hell I was going to descend. Maybe I could spiral down tight . . . . I pulled the bar toward me. The nose dipped and I picked up speed. I was still fifty feet higher than I needed to be when the building's updrafts caught me and lifted me still higher—shit! I'd overshot—the building was nowhere near as wide as the World Trade Center. I could have stalled and parachuted straight in, but I'd have been a flashing neon sign: HIT ME! HIT ME!
No choice: straighten out, circle to lose height, and try again.
I was being lifted still higher. The wind here was strong. I flew straight for five hundred feet and began to turn. As I came back around I saw Malachi's kite spiraling down the side of the building. It was empty. Tom was quickly dumping his, and the battle was joined.
I was too busy concentrating on what I was doing to get more than fleeting impressions: Malachi pulled his bow and a man dropped; Tom pulling his bow, and the same; Mac's rainbow kite skimming over the edge and him kicking someone in the head even as he somehow unbuckled himself and shucked his kite, dropping onto the deck; Malachi now swinging his hunting bow at someone's head, dropping it, and his sword magically appearing in his hands.
I was still too high, and the goddamn upsurge lifted me again. I pushed the bar away in a deliberate stall, holding it stiffly with one hand while the other ripped the broken-down Aero-mag away from my left thigh. I had fitted a dart before I jumped, and it was held in by a rubber stopper.
Somebody down there saw me and began to raise his bow. I yanked out the stopper and puffed hard. The vortex winds spilling over the sides of the huge building grabbed me and shook me like a kitten in its mother's mouth. I pitched forward just as something ripped through the fabric of my sail. I had to grab something, and quick, or else I was going to be slammed into God's own hypodermic syringe: the tower. I scraped down its length, hands flailing. Something rammed against my right arm and slowed my fall. I shot my left arm over to it and grabbed for my life.
I was clinging to one of the slanting, T-shaped, black metal guards around the perimeter of the top floor, the one hundred second floor observation deck. The gusting wind tugged at the sail on my back and threatened to pull me off. I locked my legs around the guard and let go with my hands, hanging upside down. I reached up and strained the kite toward me to slacken the strap I was buckled to, and managed to get my harness clip off. I put the Aero-mag in my mouth and held onto the kite's control bar just long enough to remove Fred. With the sword loose and held tight in my right hand, I let go of the kite. It descended in a slow spiral toward the ground, over twelve hundred feet below. I made the mistake of following it with my eyes.
Picture hanging upside down, at almost the tip of one of the largest buildings in the world, and raising your head—looking up to the far away ground to watch a giant kite spiraling away. Every survival instinct I had screamed for me not to move, not to twitch a muscle, not even to breathe. I hung motionless for what seemed like minutes, listening to shouts from below.
I forced myself to move. I tightened my grip with my ankles and leaned forward. My stomach muscles clenched. I grabbed with my left hand. The right was busy trying to hold onto Fred. All this with a blowgun in my mouth. Saliva dripped from the corner of my lip and flowed across one cheek. I hoisted myself upright slowly, worming my legs. The black metal guard I'd latched onto was square, and the corners dug into the insides of my thighs.
Upright and straddling the slanted T of the bar, I saw the developments on the eighty-sixth floor, two hundred feet below. Walt had sped up, obviously having to lose height, and was coming in just as Hank dropped in midair from his glider and landed atop a man who was trying to draw a bead on Tom Pert's back. At least a dozen bodies were already down. There was no sign of Drew.
Hank's kite sailed on until it dropped on top of two men. I quickly tucked Fred under my arm and brought my hand down to the dart pouch—and discovered that it had come open and was almost empty. A few left, though, so don't waste time. I slapped one into the Aero-mag, raised it to my mouth, and puffed just as the two men moved Hank's kite aside. One of them slammed to the concrete as if he'd been hit by a baseball bat. If the shot had been true I'd got him just above the left ear. I rammed another dart home and fired as the second one looked from his fallen comrade to me, and he pitched backward onto the other still form, grabbing at his chest.
The bar I sat on was just beneath a circular observation window about a yard wide. Praying it was breakable, I returned the Aero-mag to my mouth and drew Fred. I brought the handle up and began pounding it against the glass. It spiderwebbed at first, and then started falling inward in jagged fragments. I cleared the shards away from the edges. It was going to take both hands to climb in. I saw no one in the small room, so I dumped the blowgun and sword inside. I grabbed with both hands, feeling glass cut into the left one, and hoisted myself up, in, and through. Glass crunched beneath my feet.
The room was thirty feet in diameter, circular, and painted an ugly shade of blue, into which graffiti had been etched everywhere. The floor was metal. The room was featureless except for the viewing ports around the perimeter, the graffiti, and the very top of an elevator shaft. Beside it was an iron stairwell.
I held out the lip of the dart pouch and looked in. Six left. Better make 'em count.
I removed the hang-gliding harness and tucked Fred in at my left side. I'd grabbed a wide leather belt from a Western clothing store and it was buckled tightly around my waist. A belt loop would no longer serve.
Footsteps clanged on the metal staircase. I looked around. Between the elevator shaft and the wall was a narrow space where I could stand. I hurried to it, keeping my footsteps quiet. I fumbled within the pouch until I came up with a dart pinched between thumb and forefinger, and I carefully inserted it into the Aero-mag. I kept my back to the wall and waited to see which side they'd come from. Both, probably. The shattered observation window would give me away, so they'd be prepared. I tried to hold my breath, waiting. Eyes straight ahead; don't favor any one side or you're dead. I concentrated on my peripheral vision—and saw the harness on the floor where I'd shed it. Shit. I hurried to pick it up.
Movement from the corner of my eye: my head jerked right, and there he was, spear in hand, in the midst of drawing back for a thrust. Blowgun up and puhh!
He spun, hands covering the space between his nose and upper lip where a four-inch piano-wire dart was wedged, and crumpled to his knees with a cry of pain.
I didn't waste time fitting another dart, but dropped the blowgun and pulled Fred from my belt. Holding it in my left hand, I leaned back and began inching the sword forward as if I were walking forward and carelessly keeping the blade in front of me, not realizing it could be seen before I was. When most of the length of the blade was exposed, it was batted aside by an axe. Its wielder stepped out from around the corner and swung at where my chest ought to have been. The axe thumped into the side of the elevator and I stepped out and swung the hang-gliding harness with all my strength. The heavy buckle hit him on the head. He brought his arms up to ward it off, rendering his axe ineffective. I brought the blade back and pushed. The point went into his chest. Something popped as the steel slid in, and there was a second quick jolt as the point came out the other side. He opened his mouth and blood bubbled out. I felt his weight in my forearms as his knees buckled, and when I was sure he was dead I pulled the blade out and finished off his writhing comrade.
I dropped the harness, retrieved the blowgun, and tucked it at my right hip. I ran down the stairs with Fred in both hands and cursed myself for not pulling the dart from the first man. Five left now. At least the one hadn't been wasted. How wonderful. Oh, the economy we learn in battle.
Someone was heading up the stairs, making so much noise that he couldn't have heard me coming down. I was ready for him as, spear cradled in one arm, he rounded the corner onto the level space where the staircase turned. His head was down so he could watch his footing. I gripped the rail with one hand and said, "Hey!"
He looked up and I caught him full in the face with the sole of my boot. I thrust hard, trying to straighten my knee as I made contact. His head snapped back with a bone-cracking sound and his body tumbled the way it had come, stopping hard against the wall. I ran past it and kept going until I reached the door with "86" stenciled on it in white. Fred in left hand, I held my breath and pulled the knob with my right. A silver blur almost cut me in two. It wheeted past as I jumped back. I slammed the door. "Malachi, it's me!"
"Pete." His voice was muffled. "Wait."
Leaning against the door, I heard the clash of steel from the other side, then two grunts. Malachi's, a controlled exhalation, and another, punched-in-the-kidney sound.
"Tom!" Malachi's voice. "This way."
The door jerked open. I flinched. Malachi stood with his back to me, fresh red staining his sword. Tom was next to him, one-handed broadsword at ready, also stained. Past them I saw Hank and Walt fighting their way into the metal-and-glass souvenir counter that was the indoor section of the eighty-sixth floor. Walt engaged like a classic fencer, incongruous with his heavy Scottish sword: block, parry, block, and leap nimbly in, pushing the blade into his opponent's sternum almost to the hilt. Walt pushed him off the blade with a foot, turned, and ran inside, shirt snagging on the shattered glass door.
Hank hadn't even drawn his blade yet; he was still picking them off with his target bow. He was all fast, fluid motion, deftly pulling an arrow from the thigh quiver, sliding up the length of the bowstring with two fingers to notch the arrow, and barely taking time to draw, aim, and release. His latest aggressor had been running for him full-out; he jerked backward on invisible strings not three feet from Hank, landing on his butt and staring stupidly at the arrow that had sprouted from his solar plexus. He started to reach for it, then his eyes rolled up in his head and he pitched sideways. Hank pulled, fitted, drew, sighted, and released again without even glancing at the man he'd just killed. Another fell with a hunting arrow lodged in his throat up to the feathers. Hank turned a complete circle, sweeping the bow, but no more opponents were to be seen. Only then did he walk calmly toward the stairwell door where we waited.
I kept glancing backward into the stairwell, waiting for reinforcements to arrive any second now—their reinforcements. "Malachi," I began, "where's Mac? Shouldn't he . . .?" I stopped. Through the shattered remains of the glass door I saw Mac.
Malachi looked at me without expression.
Hank joined us. "Any sign of Drew?"
"He didn't make it," said Walt. "He panicked and stalled. I saw it just before I came in. Last I saw of him, he was cartwheeling down the side of the building."
Tom, Malachi, and Hank merely nodded. Now we are five, I thought.
"One floor down," said Malachi. I stared beyond him at the red-soaked figure neatly framed by the glass door, as if he were posing for a picture and would wipe off the fake red and get up, laughing, once it was taken.
"We'd better hurry," said Hank.
They turned and began descending slowly and quietly down the steps. I trailed after them, after taking one more look through the block of light that narrowed as I closed the door.
The shaft was dim, but there was still enough light to see by. I'd taken no more than a half dozen steps when the other four came running back up.
"What's going on?" I asked. "What happened?"
"Ran into two people coming up," said Tom. "They saw us and ran back down to eighty-five. Hank got a shot off, but we don't think he hit either one of them. Doesn't matter—they know we're coming."
"That door'll be guarded like a harem," added Hank.
"There're two stairwells in the building," I said. "Starting on the eighty-fifth floor. One in each corner. We could go down a few floors, take our chances getting to the opposite stairwell, and come back out on eighty-five."
"No," said Malachi. "By then they'll have both doors guarded too well." Suddenly a six-inch-wide stripe illuminated his face. I whirled around—I was the closest to the door that had just opened. A silhouette was framed by the doorway. He took a half-step in and jumped back when he saw us. "Shit," he said.
I jumped out after him, Fred readied. He held a long black spear and fumbled to gain distance and bring the point up level with my chest. He waited until I was four feet from him, and the point darted forward. I almost impaled myself, just managing to twist out of the way in time. I was off balance and realized there was no way I'd regain my footing before he ran me through, so I went with the motion and rolled on the floor, holding Fred at arm's length above my head so I wouldn't complete his job for him. He jabbed again, but I was already out of range. He jumped forward and tried once more. I was in the midst of getting back on my feet and used my momentum for a rising block that deflected his spear over my head. I stepped in and slashed at his ribs, missing by a foot. His spear gave him too much range. I danced out of the way and we squared off.
He twitched the spear at me, trying to make me react and then check myself. It would freeze me just long enough to be shish-kebabbed. Instead I stood my ground, ready to block and try to create another opening.
A black arrowhead and six inches of shaft sprang from his chest like an ineptly rigged knife-throwing act at a circus. He didn't seem conscious of it and twitched his spear at me one more time. Then his breath caught and the spear clattered from his hands. He closed both hands around the bright yellow shaft and tugged half-heartedly. He stared at me, eyes widening.
"Pete." Hank, from the stairwell door, target bow lowered. He'd fitted another arrow. "Pete, we need a hand taking the door off. We're going to try something." Reluctantly I took my gaze from the dying man. Hank's face was impassive as ever. He'd just saved my life and I should have felt grateful.
The man pitched forward onto his face, gurgling. I walked past him.
* * *
I saw nothing but the door Walt and I held before us. It was a heavy, metal-lined fire door; we'd removed it from its hinges and toted it downstairs to the eighty-fifth floor. I held onto my side of it with both hands. It pressed heavily against my right shoulder. Walt held the other side. We had it angled just enough to let us through. Though I couldn't see it, I knew Tom's hand was on the bar of the door ahead of us. "Now!" he hissed, and pulled it open. Walt and I chop-stepped through, using the door as a shield. Arrows thumped against it, a lead-rain sound I felt in my hands. They'd been waiting, all right. Oh, had they.
I had no idea how many of them were in front of us, and was given little time to worry about it—there was one near me, swinging an axe as we cleared the doorway. I shrugged in and it glanced off the door. He pulled back to try again. I decided he didn't deserve a second chance and dropped my end of the door. It thudded onto the floor and fell forward, given an added boost by Walt. No time to draw Fred before the axe came down. I rushed him and took the impact of the handle on the shoulder. It wasn't too painful, as it caught me just above where his right hand held it, where the power in the swing was least. I grabbed his arm so he couldn't choke up on the axe and kill me, then pulled Fred straight out. The metal-capped handle caught him in the side. I hit him again, in the same spot, and ribs cracked. Once more and he bellowed and tried to club straight down with his axe handle. I kneed him in the crotch, stepped back quickly, and drew Fred, slicing his carotid artery in the same motion. I'd meant to take off his head.
I turned. An archer had managed to get enough distance to draw again and sight; his bow was leveling at Hank. He saw me running at him and tried to shift aim. He was too late. I jabbed with Fred and jerked right, severing his bowstring. I pulled both hands in and thrust.
I glanced at Hank as the archer fell. Debt paid.
A low, soft breath as Malachi made a final slash, and all was quiet. They had been ten. We were still five. Walt had a bad cut along one biceps. Hank pressed his palm over it while Tom used his sword to cut a strip from a dead man's shirt to make a bandage.
"Just a graze," Tom said. "You'll live."
Walt winced, teeth gritting as Tom secured the bandage.
Footsteps heading up the stairwell. A lot of them.
I looked at Malachi. Stand and fight?
They were getting close. No time to deliberate. Angry voices, pounding footsteps, and clanking metal echoed in the stairwell.
I turned when Malachi did, facing the open door. The floor was slick. The sprawled bodies would be easy to trip over. The door we'd removed lay on the floor at an angle, a dead archer beneath.
Malachi glanced through the doorway. He jumped back. "Too many—run."
We ran. I ran down the corridor to the right. They ran down the corridor to the left. I stopped and looked back. Thirty feet away, our opposition had reached the stairwell door. Malachi, Tom, Hank, and Walt had turned a corner and were out of sight. I couldn't double back, and I had to get out of there now.
I ran.
They were going the wrong direction, dammit! The necromancer was this way, the way I was headed—but who'd had a chance to get his bearings?
I turned left at the first opportunity, hoping I wasn't being followed. Running down the corridor with Fred clenched in my left hand, I had a chance to wonder why we weren't running into more opposition than we'd had. Were they spread that thin?
No time to think—find Ariel.
I came around a corner and almost ran into three feet of swinging steel. I ducked at the last possible instant and the blade rang as it hit the edge of the wall two inches above my head. Reflexively I brought Fred up in a diagonal upward slash, but my assailant had regained his balance and sprung out of range.
Fast! The impression washed over me in a cold wave. I stepped back to gain time and brought swordpoint level with his throat.
He grinned past the unwavering point of his own katana and my knees gelatined as I recognized him: muscular, black-bearded—
The one who'd wanted my sword, beneath the overpass in Richmond. The one who'd equaled Malachi's skill after the fight that had killed Faust.
He recognized me, too. He relaxed, but the blade never wavered. "Well, well, well. You. Ever name that blade I touched?"
I didn't want to talk to him; conversation during a fight is just another strategy, another way of getting mind-fucked. But I couldn't hold my tongue. "It was named well before that. And you'll regret ever touching it." I was glad my voice stayed even.
His voice rose. "You'd better hope your technique's as quick as your mouth, boy."
I had decided to clam up after my last words. He decided to rush me after his. I stepped back, barely stopping his overhead strike with a rising block. My body jolted with the force of it, wrists threatening to bend so far that I would no longer be able to control my blade. His speed was only a touch greater than mine, really, but he was far more powerful.
I tried a quick inside cut to the arm but he'd anticipated it and deflected my blade with the slightest turn of his wrist, as though he were brushing away butterflies. He countered immediately, and the bright tip arrowed for my throat. I hit overdrive and everything slowed down. My arms were almost at full extension; I didn't have time to bring them back for an effective block. Options snapped into my head so incredibly fast I didn't know they had been there until later. I could try to block anyhow and sacrifice an arm to save my neck, literally; I could dodge, leaving me off balance and an easy kill; or I could duck, which might get me in the clear. It would also restrict my movement so that a slight change in his direction of thrust would finish me.
I chose the latter and ducked anyhow—
—and kicked him on the kneecap as his sword brushed over my head. Close.
He leapt back with amazing agility. The knee I'd kicked buckled as he stopped, and I jumped in with an all-out lunge.
I tried too hard. Every nerve in my body screamed for me to kill him. My muscles tightened with the effort and with anticipation. As a result the thrust was slow and poorly timed, and he blocked it easily, off balance as he was.
I made an animal sound when our blades met, a snarling, mindless noise.
(Malachi Lee's voice hissed in my head: "Control!")
We stood three feet apart, blades and eyes locked, muscling each other with subtle motions, playing mind games. Who goes first? Who thinks he's faster? Both of us knew that, from this position, the initiator would have to leave some area of his body open no matter what the sword position. We stood in "closed" stance: right foot near right foot, blades crossed and leveled at each other's throat.
The razor tip of his blade wasn't six inches from my Adam's apple. Mine was the same distance from his.
He tried to spit on my face. Stupid—his mouth worked, his throat muscles tensed, and as his head went forward to spit I turned my right wrist inward to parry his blade. It was like trying to move an iron pillar. He stopped in the act of spitting, expecting my counterstrike. I leaned forward slightly and twitched my blade toward his head. His sword flashed across to block the slash that never came; instead I leapt backward and slashed down.
I opened up the top of his right foot.
He looked surprised. His eyes were on me intently, and I knew he was waiting for me to look down to see what damage I'd done him. I kept my eyes on his, drew in a long breath, deepened my stance, and dropped Fred into low guard position.
He responded in kind: a deep breath to clear the mind, then setting his stance. He set most of his weight on his back leg, bending that knee, and drew his blade back in a guard I had never seen before, a sort of awkward batting stance with the blade held vertically. His left elbow pointed away from me, right arm reaching across his body to grasp the hilt firmly just beneath the guard. The fingers of his right hand straightened, then wrapped around the twined handle slowly, almost caressingly. The muscles bunched in his right arm. As he exhaled his eyes seemed to unfocus, as if he could see through me. Malachi Lee's eyes had done that.
I took advantage of the chance to flick my gaze down to his foot; if I had hit him well enough, I'd be able to wait him out while he bled to death. But it was only a nick: blood seeped from a cut on top of his boot, not nearly fast enough.
I took in a long breath to bide for time—both to play his mind game along with him and in the hope that the blood welling from his foot might make him slip on the floor—and found to my surprise that things actually did become clearer in my mind. The pieces fell into place. My grip relaxed against the twine. The swordpoint steadied, leveled at his throat. My katana had become an extension of my arms. Without actually looking at him, because it was more than just looking, I noticed that his stance left his entire right side completely open—which was probably what he wanted me to think. Yeah. And his stance, though defensive, would also afford him a hell of a lot of momentum when he did swing. You had to be fast to use it—and apparently he thought he was.
All right, then. Fake left, draw his guard, and go for the open right side. I was about to try it when something stopped me.
Behind him was an open door, and through it I saw Ariel. Pure white, shimmering mane, silver hooves, head high . . . . She couldn't see me from where she stood; she faced someone hidden beyond the doorframe.
My hands worked by themselves; what I did I felt as a puppet master feels through his marionette. I swung for his right side, not even trying to hit it, just waiting for his power block—and power block it was. Edge caught edge; unhesitatingly I turned my wrist, pushed his blade away, stepped in, brought Fred back, and slashed—block, parry, and slash.
He opened his mouth, not yet knowing he was dead. His knees gave, his body fell, and his head followed, both gushing blood. I hardly noticed.
Ariel.
She was speaking to someone. Her voice broke over me in silver waves. "No one," she breathed, "no one commands me!"
I stopped short, eyes filling as she drew in a proud breastful of air. Her voice gained strength. "I am a unicorn! I am of those named by Adam before all others were named. We didn't need your puny Ark; we don't need you to know what we are. I am the theme of all Nature; her Truth and her Light. No one shall take what is mine!" Her head lowered until the gleaming spire of her horn rested at human throat level. "You aren't fit to touch me." The last was spoken with a feral intensity I wouldn't have thought her capable of.
The necromancer. You won't take her horn. I tightened my grip on Fred and stepped forward.
"Pete, no!"
The shout brought me around, sword poised.
Malachi Lee. Red covered the length of his sword. His navy blue warm-up was torn and cut. A cut below his right eye had bled down to his chin and dried. Both his hands were bloody, but I don't think it was his own. I took it all in in a quick, grateful glance. "I've found her—come on!" I turned away, reassured that he would be behind me.
"Pete, don't go in there."
The very calmness of his voice, the sureness, stopped me. I wanted with all my being to go to Ariel, to face whoever she spoke to, but a doubt formed about Malachi, a lump of suspicion that was just enough to keep me from turning my back on him and his sword.
I looked at him. Waiting. Very much aware of the feel of the rough handle of my sword, of the front-heavy weight of the blade. Of the body of the swordsman I'd just killed, lying in a red pool between him and me. "Why not?" I asked, matching his calmness. I heard the threat in my tone.
He heard it, too, and was careful not to move. "Pete, I wouldn't keep you from her. You know that. Just listen to me. Back away from the door and listen to me. It's a trap."
I tried to interrupt but he shook his head and went on without pause. "A trap," he repeated. "Think. Think, you goddamned idiot, and get away from that door."
I stayed where I was.
"Think about the last time you saw her. What did she look like? She's been a captive more than two weeks now, Pete—what would she look like?"
I remembered the last time I'd seen her. Limp mane, dulled coat, the red-brown and dried blood staining her spiral horn. Pained eyes, slow reactions. And after over two weeks of captivity, what then?"
I stepped away from the door and joined Malachi Lee. We watched the proud white image of Ariel waver uncertainly and then melt into the floor.
A lithe man stepped into the doorway, gloating.
Malachi's hand went beneath the waistband of his warmup jacket and snapped out in a blur. A whirring sound descended rapidly as something sped toward the necromancer. He caught it in his hands. A small, flat, metal star with six points. A shuriken.
He spoke an ugly word and the six steel blades wilted in his palm. He wiped away a few drops of blood where the tips had scratched him. He dropped it to the floor. Ting ting! He smiled coldly.
Malachi returned the smile. "We'll see how strong you are now," he said. "I smeared garlic on the edges of the star; you have garlic poisoning in your bloodstream. There's no cure, and it takes a long time."
The necromancer brought his hand before his face. He turned it. He blinked once. He stepped back into the doorway and looked to the side. "They're all yours," he said. And he retreated.
* * *
They'd been in the room with him, waiting for me to come after the illusion of Ariel he'd created. Now they poured from the doorway. Had we been right there, on just this side of the door, they would never have got out. We could have killed them easily as they tried to emerge. Now it was too late to try to get that close, and we had to thank our good fortune that they were at least bottlenecked in the doorway.
Malachi got the first two with throwing stars. One in the mouth, one in the sternum. I pulled the Aero-mag and used my remaining five darts. I made all but one count and then had nothing left but Fred, and I had to stand there while Malachi hurled his remaining stars: one, two, reach for the hip, three—that one missed, slamming into the edge of the door.
The adjacent door opened and we had to run for it.
We headed the way I had come, running side by side. We dashed ten paces and Malachi darted left around a marble corner. I hadn't expected it and swung wide, having to push off the far wall to avoid colliding with it. Something wheeted past my shoulder as I rounded the corner.
I followed Malachi as he turned right, then left. He cut a man down without breaking stride, reached the stairwell door, and held it open for me while I sped past him and started up, taking the stairs three at a time.
"Down!" he said, shutting the door behind him.
I turned and headed down, intending to descend two flights and come up the other staircase. I stopped when I saw people coming up, turned back around, and ran up the stairs to eighty-four. I opened the door, ducked in case somebody was waiting there to hack whoever came through, ran out—
Nobody in sight.
Malachi was right behind me, and we sped away. We reached the opposite stairwell, went in, and climbed back up to eighty-five. We went out the door the same way, Malachi first this time. Someone was waiting there; he turned when Malachi barreled through and I cut him down as I emerged.
Our run became a brisk trot. I was growing short of breath. Much more of this and I wouldn't be able to fight anything.
Turn, straight, turn, turn, straight—I couldn't have traced our route if I'd had a map; it was totally random.
"What happened," I gasped as we hurried past doors I kept expecting to fly open as we went by, "to the others?"
"Split up when we met more opposition," he said between breaths. "I don't know who's where." He slowed. "Start trying doors. But be careful."
"You don't have to tell me twice." I tried a door. It was locked. He tried a door across the hall and it opened. He peeked in quickly, looked back, and beckoned to me. We locked the door behind us and turned around.
Oh, man. The low, round table of heavy wood, with the pentagram in the center, was still there. Behind it was the office desk. Behind that was the large, black swivel chair, and behind that a picture window with a dizzying view of the East River and beyond. "Malachi," I whispered. "This is it. This is the necromancer's . . . where he was, where I was, before."
He raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?" He walked around, surveying the room. He ended up staring at the desk interestedly. "Good."
"Good! Christ, we're—"
"Guard the door. Let me know if you hear anyone coming. And keep quiet."
He reached beneath his warm-up suit top and drew forth a length of wire resembling a packaged guitar string. He straightened it and inserted an index finger into a loop at each end, then got behind the office desk and turned the swivel chair sideways.
"What are you—"
"Quiet, I said."
I shut up and kept my ear to the door. He began sawing at something—metal, from the rasping sound. What I'd thought was some type of garrote must have been a loop saw, and a damned good one, too, if it could cut through metal. I wondered what else he had tucked away.
I cleared my throat. The rasping stopped. "What's garlic poisoning?" I asked.
"Garlic juice in the bloodstream," he said from behind the desk. The sawing resumed.
"But . . . . That means . . . ."
"No, it doesn't. It was a lie. If I'd thought of it, I would have rubbed garlic on the shuriken, but it didn't occur to me until we were about two thousand feet over New York." His head popped up from behind the desk, lips smiling thinly. "But it ought to keep him occupied."
I leaned closer to the door. "Someone's coming."
The smile vanished. I listened as the voices and hurried footfalls of two men went past. I waited to be sure, then told him they had gone. "They're looking for us, though. They think about thirty of us came in from above."
The sawing resumed. "Good," he muttered. "Let them keep thinking that."
Half an hour later—during which I'd had to stop him once more—he stood and carefully set the chair back upright once more behind the desk.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I made a nasty. Come look, but don't touch."
I joined him behind the desk and knelt to see what he was pointing at. I swallowed. Yeah—nasty.
"Let's go," he said.
"Malachi—" I hesitated. "What are we looking for—the necromancer, or Ariel?"
"We'll have our hands full enough without having to look for anything, especially. Come on."
We made sure the hallway was clear. I looked back once before closing the door. The upper half of the black chair was outlined against the picture window.
I followed Malachi.
* * *
We came upon the bodies of the ten men we'd fought at the stairwell entrance. "I don't get it," I said. "Where's everyone else?"
"They must have scattered. Searching for us, probably. Tom's strategy must have worked; I get the feeling most of their men left for the lower levels when the fighting started earlier."
"So what now?"
"I guess now we look for trouble. Start opening doors again. Sooner or later we're bound to run across something."
He opened a door. Empty office.
I shook my head and opened a door on the other side of the hall. I was halfway through closing it when I realized there were men in there. Armed men. They got up when they saw me. I slammed the door.
It opened again quickly and a man started out. On the side of the doorway across from me, Malachi crosscut and the head rolled. Blood emptied into the corridor. Voices came from inside the room.
The door behind me opened and three of them came out. Fuck—adjoining rooms. I backed up to have more fighting space, I saw motion in the corner of my eye just before I engaged, and a wordless shout came from the end of the hall. Tom Pert's voice.
Then Malachi and I were busy as hell and I didn't have time to look. A spear thrust for my chest. I pivoted, blocked with Fred, and drove the spear to the floor. The end snapped off. Now a quarterstaff, the stick came back and struck me in the waist. A little lower and it would have struck bone. It knocked the wind from me as it was. I forced myself to breathe as I slid my blade down the length of the stick and cut off his fingers. I stopped his scream quickly as I swung again.
The rest was like some demented Laurel and Hardy parody. Turning to face the next man, my feet slid out from under me as I fell to the floor in the blood. Above me I watched a thrust aimed at my back, coming from a man I didn't even know had been there, slide into the ribcage of the man I'd been turning to face. I swung blindly at the one who'd accidentally killed his comrade, opening him up across the stomach. He dropped his weapon and clutched at himself. The ends of his intestines poked through flaps of skin. A swordpoint appeared from his chest, lengthened, and shot back in. He dropped. I looked up foolishly at Tom Pert. The blood on the floor had seeped through the seat of my pants and I could feel it on my skin. It was warm. More had spattered my thigh as the man above me was pierced.
I got up. Hank and Walt had arrived with Tom. Hank was covered with blood—I realized I was, too—but didn't seem hurt himself. Walt was pale. The bandage around his biceps had turned crimson. It dripped from one of the tied ends.
The noise of our fight had brought more opposition. They crowded at us from all directions and all the swordplay and scrambling and vying and killing and blood blended into one continuous swing of metal. There were fifteen of them, I think, and like Hercules and the Hydra it seemed two replaced each one that dropped. There were still only five of us.
I remember little of it. I could only react. I had to stay alive, so I maimed and killed.
At one point I was fighting back to back with Walt. At another I managed to catch a glimpse of Malachi Lee. A ring of bodies surrounded him. Hank fought calmly and methodically, guarding himself at all angles. Tom snarled bear-like at his opponents as he fought. The sound of battle brought more of them, two and three at a time, from wherever they had been looking for us.
It became hard to move because of the bodies.
We were at the intersection of two hallways and they came from all sides. The man running toward me skidded as he tried to stop to engage me, and I ran him through almost without a thought. I was granted a brief respite from the carnage and looked toward Malachi Lee. He'd become separated from us by the bodies and the tide of opponents. Tom, Hank, and Walt fought with me at one end, and Malachi fought alone at the other. Five men were trying to get at him, but all were hesitant. They'd seen him dispatch others as quickly as they approached. But I could see how tired he was and that some of the blood on his clothes was his own.
Behind them stood a man: tall, Germanic, one-eyed. The griffin rider. He looked annoyed.
Malachi batted aside a blade, sheared off the wielder's wrist, and arced smoothly through his throat, all in less than a second. One of the remaining four, the nearest, attempted to seize his opportunity and move in. Malachi blocked and swept down, just missing the man's shin. He was slowing.
Tom, Hank, and Walt were still engaged with their opponents. No more were coming. We stood in the midst of a buzzard's feast; some of the bodies still twitched like Galvani's frogs.
I deserted my comrades-in-arms, heading for Malachi. I slipped on the slick floor and moved Fred out of the way quickly so I wouldn't land on the blade. I got up from the twisted limbs and spreading organs. The air was thick, sour-sweet.
The number of men in front of Malachi had grown to eight. One of them reeled backward suddenly, a spear embedded in his chest. To my right, Hank's arm completed a follow-through arc.
And the rest descended on Malachi. He rolled backward, swinging his sword wildly to ward them off, and ended up on his knees, bleeding from a half dozen new wounds. The men he fought paused uncertainly as he held his sword out to the griffin rider, turning it so that the handle pointed away from himself.
The griffin rider nodded, smiling, and stepped forward.
Malachi thrust. The point disappeared into his warm-up jacket. Narrowing his eyes at the rider, he worked the blade to the left across his stomach. He brought it around in a half circle, pulled it out, and thrust again, lower this time. He yanked the blade up and his insides spilled out onto his thighs. He shuddered. His head lowered, his jaw went slack, and he fell to one side among those he had killed.
I brought my blade up, seeing Malachi beyond the reddened edge.
He didn't have a kaishaku-nin, a second—the one who assists, who cuts off the head before the pain becomes too great. The rider had taken that from him.
I headed for him. Hands tugged at my shoulders, stopping me—We have to get out of here pete there's nothing we can do come on walt give me a hand with him he's—
I twisted away from them and faced the men who'd killed Malachi. The rider looked gleeful. He taunted me with his broadsword. "Get through them," he said. "Get through them and you can have me. Otherwise you aren't worth it." He nudged Malachi's body with a boot. "He didn't make it." He laughed.
The men attacked.
Tom, Walt, and Hank formed a flattened diamond with me at the head. There wasn't room in the corridor for us to fight side by side.
The first man to reach me died before he completed his initial swing. The second had a sword and shield. I raised my blade high for a downstroke and he covered up. When the blow didn't come he looked over the edge of his shield and I killed him.
They kept coming, gradually forcing us back. A stumble over a corpse would have meant death for any of us and we were bitterly tired. In less than thirty seconds I found myself with my back to a door, three attackers trying to press in on me. Before they reached me, I found the knob and pushed open the door, jumped in, slammed it, and locked it behind me. They pounded a few times, then stopped.
I turned around. Adjoining rooms to either side. Which meant more doors leading into the corridor. I hurried to the room on the left, leaving bloody footprints on the carpet. I opened the door.
Ariel.
No illusion this time. No mistake. Her horn was rust-brown with caked blood. There was no glow like a moonlit snowfield in her coat, no light in her eyes. She held her right front leg up the way a dog holds its leg when it is injured.
And for the first time in all the times I ever saw her, she looked, not like a unicorn, but like a horse with a horn.
Chains lay on the floor behind her where she'd been shackled, but she had apparently grown too weak for even those restraints to be necessary.
"Ariel." A whisper.
Her head was lowered almost to the floor. Slowly it rose. She looked at me. A touch of the old light returned to her midnight eyes. She spoke with the trembling voice of a little girl, afraid and alone. "Peeete."
I ran to her. My sword clinked to the carpet in front of her dulled mirror hooves, and suddenly my cheek was against her and my hands clasped across her limp mane. I left blood smears where I touched her. I hugged her and said her name over and over. My eyes burned.
I drew back and looked into her eyes. There was something uncomprehending there, a puzzlement. "It's all right," I said. "Everything's going to be all right."
She blinked. "Peete?"
"It's me, it's me," I soothed. Something swelled inside my chest. She was startled when I touched her muzzle. Her head turned away and she looked at some point beyond the wall. I moved toward her. Her eyes didn't follow me.
"Ariel?"
She looked back at the sound of my voice, but not quite at me. I reached for her. She didn't register the movement.
She was blind.
She'd grown weak enough for his powers to work, and he'd blinded her. He'd had her shackles removed, and he'd blinded her.
I screamed. It broke into a long sob and she tentatively stepped forward and lowered her head, brushing the side of her face against mine.
The door to the corridor burst open and men poured in. I grabbed my sword from the floor and turned to face them, holding it high. They avoided me, fanning out to line two of the walls, weapons readied. Behind them came the necromancer. I heard fighting in the corridor beyond. The necromancer walked calmly into the room, unable to keep a certain arrogance from his stride, until he had walked around me and stood, eyeing me, with his back to Ariel. "My friend and his Familiar have flown down to help with the battle below. As for you and yours . . . ." He glanced at Ariel. Her head was cocked curiously, listening. "I see you've found out she's blind. We tried to make it real, but none of us could touch her. It's amazing to watch; we couldn't even hit her with arrows. I ended up using a spell, a simple one, really, but the result's the same."
I launched myself at him, swinging Fred. He spoke a short syllable and my fingers went lax. The sword dropped to the carpet. I tried to move my fingers but the muscles wouldn't respond.
He shook his head. "You shouldn't be so predictable. You tried that last time you were here. All I have to do is say something that enrages you, and you react." He turned to Ariel, who was silent and still, head turned to the side as she listened. "She's weak now," he said. "I don't need to wait for her to die to get her horn. She can't defend herself anymore." He stepped forward until his face almost touched mine. "You had your chance. We could have arranged for me to take the horn and let the two of you go on your way. It's your own fault. Now I'm going to take it anyway, and you're going to watch."
I strained to move. He sneered and turned back to Ariel.
Her head had lowered, horn brushing the carpet. It rose as the necromancer spoke a harsh, two-syllable word. His hands wove an invisible cat's cradle. Something began to form between them. It was visible only because it disturbed the air around it, seemed to bend and compress it into a grid. A cage, the length of Ariel's horn. It shimmered and hummed between his palms, not quite touching them.
Ariel's head cocked to the other side as the hum grew louder. The necromancer stepped forward. Ariel shifted back, keeping her weight off her right foreleg.
He brought the thing up until it was parallel with her born. Between his hands the length of air sparkled. He spoke another word in a guttural tongue and the shaft grew brighter. Internal harmonies grew within the humming. The cage thing glowed white-hot. Ariel backed up another pace as he advanced, carefully extending his hands toward her.
If I could move—
Another pace and she was against the wall. Another word, long and ugly with clicking sounds, and she shivered. Her head lowered unwillingly until the point was level with the floor. The necromancer brought the glowing space between his hands to her head. His body blocked my view as he stepped in front of her.
"No-o-o . . . ." Her voice was fragile crystal.
There was a rending sound. As the necromancer's arms extended fully, his body jackknifed forward, bending at the waist, and a foot of spiral horn came out of his back. He gasped feebly. The glowing space disappeared from between his palms as his fingers curved into claws. He grabbed her head. She lifted her horn and he came up from the floor. His body slid farther down the spiral length.
I fell to the floor as movement returned, stopping my fall with my hands. I stayed there, unable to take my eyes away. Ariel tossed her head from side to side. The necromancer flailed like a broken puppet. "No-o-o-o-o!" she screamed.
His eyes were clenched as he held the top of her mane. His mouth was drawn back and his teeth showed in a skull-like grin. She dipped her head and he slid from her horn. He landed on the carpet, half-rolled, and was still.
She raised her head and looked at me—looked at me—the spell of blindness broken. Red traced a glistening path down the bottom third of her horn. I seized my sword and stood.
The necromancer's men were as transfixed as I had been. Now they looked from his spread-eagled body to us. One of them raised his bow.
Walt ran into the room. He saw Ariel and stopped abruptly, looking from her to me and then to the necromancer's body. The bowman by the wall shifted his aim and let fly as Hank and Tom appeared through the door. The arrow struck Walt in the stomach. He clutched at it and doubled over. He hit face-forward on the floor, and his weight pushed the arrow in all the way.
Hank had apparently picked up another bow from one of the bodies outside. He retraced the arrow's path, lifted his bow, drew, and released. The arrow struck the bowman in the right eye.
The rest of the enemy converged. Hank had only one arrow remaining in his thigh quiver. He fitted it swiftly and fired. Another man fell. He threw the bow at someone and drew his sword.
From outside the building came Shai-tan's screech. The rider was returning.
Tom swung his broadsword in wide, powerful arcs. I took out one man before he had a chance to attack. At the side of the room I saw Ariel limp forward. She worked her way to the door, batted two men aside with her bloody horn, and hobbled out the door. I yelled after her as I fought, but she seemed not to hear.
I stabbed one of Tom's opponents in the back and ran toward the door. One man saw me and intercepted my path, a delighted grin on his face. I stopped in front of him, twitched my blade toward his head, and cut him through the midsection as he went for the fake. He was still falling as I went around him and into the corridor after Ariel.
She wasn't there. Only bodies and blood.
I ran down the corridor yelling her name, leaving Tom and Hank battling in the room behind me.
I couldn't find her on the floor. I poked my head recklessly into open doorways but there was no sign of her. Why had she run?
"Ariel!" I shouted, not caring that I was broadcasting my presence to all who might want to come after me.
Perhaps she needed to be free of this building as quickly as she could because her imprisonment was killing her. I headed for the stairwell.
"Hello, there," he said mildly, rounding the corner and stopping between me and the stairwell door. "I was hoping I'd run into you." He swung his ornate broadsword casually, then brought it down so that the point rested against the floor. He leaned against it, resting the handle on his right buttock. He rubbed at the ruin of his left eye with an index finger.
Pausing to play his game might lose it for me. I rushed forward, swinging, not at him, but at the broadsword propping him up. If I knocked it away he wouldn't have a chance.
He kicked his right foot against the flat of the blade, knocking the point up, and jumped backward as it rose. I checked my low slash immediately; I'd have been an easy target on the follow-through. "Malachi Lee always did know I was better," he said, taunting me with his blade. "No wonder he killed himself." He began circling to my left, his body deceptively casual, relaxed. He feinted a jab toward my chest. I started to block, stopped before my blade moved more than an inch. He smiled. "If I wanted to I could say three words, and your sword would go limp as a banana peel."
"But you won't."
His smile broadened. "No, I won't. There's a certain eloquence to a blade." He jabbed and I dodged. "And I like the feeling you get," he said, "when you beat a man at his own game."
I struck. He blocked it easily, retreating a step as he did. I struck again, and again, crosscutting, jabbing, feinting, using every trick I could. He blocked it all with equal ease, countering only when my desperate attacks left me wide open. Each time he blocked, he retreated a step, and we fought our way down the length of the hall.
He was playing with me. He wasn't breathing hard, wasn't even sweating. The amused look stayed on his face the whole time, changing only when he counterattacked. Then his upper lip would slide up, baring his teeth, and a greedy look flashed into his eyes.
His eye . . . . He had a huge blind spot on his left. If I swung broadly, it might not even register with him. It would also open my front up to attack as my blade swung way out to the side.
I tried it. He took two rapid steps backward but didn't block. My sword cut air across the level of his neck.
Had that been intentional? Or did he freeze up when something ran in on his blind side?
I tried it again to find out, and this time he was waiting for it. He met the swing solidly, twisted his arms to bat it aside, and came in over the top. I leaned back. The point grazed my chin, the barest razor's cut. Blood dripped onto my forearm. I had a flash of memory, picturing myself staring at the point of his sword when we'd been captured, mesmerized by it as it poised before my eyes.
I sprang forward and renewed my efforts, pounding at him with one technique after another, backing him up as he blocked each one. And still I felt that he hadn't even begun to exert himself.
I pressed on, letting rage direct my blade. You killed Russ. You tried to take Ariel, you motherfucker; you gloated while Malachi Lee committed suicide in front of you . . . . It built and built until raw sounds tore from my throat with every strike. I'll back you up, all right, you bastard. I'll back you until you're against a wall and can't back up any more, and then we'll see where you go when you have to block.
He backed into an open doorway and I forced him inside. He retreated well out of range and lowered his blade, waiting for me. I recognized the room, as he no doubt wanted me to. Behind him I saw half of the round wooden table with the pentagram, the picture window looking out on the East River at the far end of the room. I'd been played along.
Then let it end here, I thought, heart pounding, head throbbing. Let it all come together here, as it had before.
I aimed Fred at his throat and rushed in. As I came through the doorway a foot shot up from the right side, hitting me just below the right wrist. Fred flew from my grip, and as I turned toward my hidden assailant I was struck from behind and wrestled to the floor.
The rider just shook his head contemptuously as I struggled beneath the two men holding me down. He set his broadsword on the desk top and leaned against the edge. "You know," he said conversationally, "you really aren't very smart."
The two men let me stand up, but still held my arms pinned behind me. It was only the two of them and the griffin rider, but they'd been enough. I'd fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. "'I like the feeling you get,'" I said bitterly, "&lsquowhen you beat a man at his own game.'"
He laughed. "But I wasn't playing your game. You were playing mine. And in my game there aren't any rules. Except to use whatever counts." He reached behind him and picked up the broadsword. "Shai-tan hasn't had fresh meat in quite some time," he said.
I stopped struggling. He drew the edge of his sword across one finger and raised it to his right eye to examine the blood.
Struggling harder would do no good. The one holding my arms was at least six-two and all muscle. The other one stood to my left, spear readied.
The rider walked to me with his broadsword aimed at my stomach. He wiped his finger across my cheek. I tried to work up spit but my mouth was dry. "Your master's dead," I said. "Ariel killed him."
He snorted and turned away. Walking behind the desk, he gestured expansively at the room, taking in the arcane talismans, the incongruous office trappings. "You think I care? He wasn't my master; I worked for him. You think I want all this? A group of loners who don't take orders very well, a useless building, an office?" He stepped behind the desk. I tried to keep my eyes on his face. "Take him to the observation deck," he ordered. "Get some help if you need it." He pulled the swivel chair back from the desk, smiling. "Shai-tan's waiting."
I returned his smile. "'Whatever counts,'" I said as he sat down in the well-padded swivel chair—
—and kept going.
* * *
"What did you do?" I asked Malachi Lee.
"I made a nasty. Come look . . . ."
Take a piece of pipe. Cut it at a sharp angle. It now has a point: a funnel knife.
A swivel chair turns on a three-inch-wide pipe. Remove the hard bottom of the seat, but leave the stuffing in, so that the chair rests on the pipe, waiting . . . .
* * *
He took a long, wheezing breath as his own weight pushed the pointed length of metal pipe into his bowels, spearing organs as it slid deep inside him. His mouth stretched open grotesquely. His eyes bulged.
A screech from outside filled the air as he died. I turned my head aside as the griffin burst in through the huge picture window. Glass fragments exploded inward. Something stung the back of my neck and left shoulder. My arms were freed as the man holding me pressed his hands to his bleeding face. The other writhed on the floor, a shard of glass in his chest and blood streaming from one ear.
The griffin screamed. It hurled the desk aside with a sweep of its huge talon. It struck the wall and splintered. Shai-tan looked at the body of its master, impaled as it reclined horribly in the office chair. It turned to me with those glowing gold eyes, and the hot brass of its screech warmed the room. I backed up as it lashed out at me and it struck the man hunched on the floor with his hands over his face, blood dripping from between his fingers. He slammed into the wall and fell to the floor broken and dead.
I picked up my fallen blade as the enraged beast advanced on me, hissing from far back in its throat.
I turned and ran from the room. The griffin's screams dwindled as I fled.