Michael Flynn - In the Lion’s Mouth

Oschous Dee Karnatika had discovered the fighting and had rallied his own flock to its support, attacking the mums in the rear. Big Jacques had not planned on that, but it added a greater touch of authenticity to the defense of the decoy and not incidentally had saved Big Jacques’s considerable butt. Sèanmazy had waited for likely rescuers before closing in with her taijis. Had Oschous Dee not triggered the trap, it would have been Jacques caught in the pincer.

Now, Jacques would add a final touch of irony to the entire engagement, ambushing Ekadrina in turn. Unless there were still another Shadow on-world to attack him in turn. He laughed.

“Ever play jenga?” he asked his team. A few nodded; the rest looked puzzled. “It’s a game where you stack a bunch of wooden blocks, and the players take turns pulling out one block at a time—until the tower collapses. Whoever collapses the tower loses the game.”

“All shut down, chief,” said Number One, as he buckled his weapons harness. “Best we be a-getting over there.” His accent revealed roots on Broad South Continent, on Brannon’s World.

Jacques sighed and pushed to his feet. “Twenty, you shepherd the jennies to the spaceport. Don’t balk, kid. You ain’t got the seasoning yet. Contact Seven and tell him to bring the ship down from Elfour and be ready for a full catch. Make sure our boat’s prepped and ready.”

He sent outriders ahead on scooters and the rest of his flock followed in a ground-bus they had commandeered earlier. A mile from the battle space, his tridents disembarked and made their way on foot through a wooded park across the roadway from the battle space. There, they waited Oschous’s call. Jacques dispatched Three and Nine to reconnoiter the loyalist positions, and they vanished without a sound. Then he unrolled a holomap on the ground and a glowing miniature of the surrounding terrain rose from its surface. His flock clustered about. “Second Section,” he told them, pointing. “The black horses chewed up the mums pretty good in the original ambush before the taijis drove them into the warehouse. But don’t discount them. Suss ’em out, locate them, then strike hard and fast on my click. First section. Ekadrina is mine, but her flock is tough and ain’t been through the grinder like Pendragon’s boys. Oschous Dee tells me she’s reinforced by Epri Gunjinshow and a couple of lilies. We’ll get support from the black horses and the rest of our boys what took refuge inside the warehouse. So don’t shoot long if you can help it. There’s a white comet over there, too. A free lance named Olafsdottr who took Gidula’s service. And, boys, Padaborn’s with them.”

The name ran like fire across the lips of his magpies. Padaborn. Padaborn’s back.

Big Jacques, and his senior magpies, said nothing. Twenty-four years ago, Geshler Padaborn had been a traitor, an experiment gone bad. And Jacques himself had been in the team that assaulted the Education Ministry. They had killed Issa Dzhwanson, the actress who had been the voice of the Rising during that mad, tumultuous week. Her last words, broadcast to all Dao Chetty, had been: They shall not silence us . But of course they had. On the rooftop, he had found a mixed squad of magpies and commoners who could not even be dignified as walking wounded, left behind as a rear-guard. The magpies had died fighting, of course; but Padaborn himself had somehow escaped the net.

“Yeah, Padaborn is directing the defense,” he told his flock. He doubted it was true. Any direction was Oschous’s doing. Way he heard it, Padaborn was not up to snuff. But if it fired up the boys, the lie would serve.

Nine slipped back into the caucus. “Mums in confusion. Some withdrawing. Mum Two trying to rally. Pendragon out of link. Saw three, maybe four mums throats cut. Fresh kills. Nice precision close-in work. Black horse sortie?”

“No. They’re bottled up pretty tight. Prick your spots on the map here.”

While Nine was detailing the mum positions and movements, Three slipped back with the intel on the taijis. “I saw a couple take pots at the mums. Someone over there was firing into Ekadrina’s people, and wounded Epri up on the roof, so some of them think the mums flipped. Something happened on the roof, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Didn’t want to get closer and risk blowing the play, so I folded up my parabolic and came back.”

Big Jacques considered that, and the positions pricked on the map. “Okay, change of plan. One, you take half of Second Section—even numbers—against the mums. Someone out there done half your work already. Don’t let ’im show you up. Odd numbers, you’re with me and First Section against the taijis. Upload the map, boys and girls. Same rules as before. Locate, mark—two apiece, I think—click when ready and in position. When you hear my click, strike hard and fast. That should give us near simultaneous kills and take out at half the loyalists before they even know we’re behind them. Understood?” He gathered their nods. “Great plan, right? Expect it to go wrong. Remember, an estimate of what the enemy will probably do is important, but don’t be surprised when he does something else. Combat is always complicated by the presence of the other side.”

That earned him some chuckles. Nineteen swallowed hard and looked to One for assurance. The kid had promise, and Jacques hoped he would last the night. He touched his earwig. “Right. Just got the word from Oschous. Shift.”

And hardly did the words leave his lips than the clearing was empty. A fern trembled where Nineteen had inadvertently brushed against it. Then it was still. Jacques smiled. They were good boys. Then, he too, stepped into the woods and vanished.

Ravn Olafsdottr had never seen a man as rattled as Domino Tight. Even for one so recently resurrected, he seemed unnerved. He crouched behind the old shippers and rasped, “They’ve come. They’re here.” But who had come and who was here he did not clarify.

“That was good work you did behind their lines,” she told him. “I assume it was you that scattered the mums and got the taijis potting them.”

One of the defenders behind the shipper was a lyre. “Good to see you quick, boss,” he said, but the Shadow hardly reacted.

This was not the Domino Tight that Ravn remembered from the disaster relief work on Nanq’ress. That had been a man quick-witted and cool.

So why not assume he remained quick-witted? “Who is here?” she asked him. “Has another Shadow joined the play? The Riff? Surely not Gidula! He is too oold to play at these games.”

His answer, if any answer had been forthcoming, was forestalled by Ekadrina Sèanmazy, who tossed an incendiary onto the rooftop of the south extension. The fire nests failed to interdict it and the resulting explosion wiped out four of the remote guns that Ravn had planted up there. The screens went dark and she could no longer see through their eyes or fire their weapons. The others nests, being farther back, had escaped, and she switched rapport to them, expecting Epri to launch an assault behind the explosion. “He better be right quick aboot it,” she murmured, “for the roof is to catch fire.” Then she toggled Oschous. “Black Horse, two taijis have entered the south annex ground floor at the far end. That zone is no longer interdicted.”

“So noted,” said the Fox.

“Has our mutual friend decided yet whether the fight is his to wage?”

“He is a remarkably stubborn man.”

Ravn made a face. What game was Donovan playing? It seemed sheer lunacy to her. If they lost this fight, no one would pause to ask him if he were neutral. Perhaps Gidula had been right all along …