Col Buchanan - Stands a Shadow

The Art of Cali

They would never stop hunting him, Che knew. Not unless he dealt with them first. And so he stalked them from the rooftops, closing in on their position even as they withdrew along the shadows of a wall.

They had alerted the soldiers to his presence, so that the men scanned about them and pointed their weapons one way and then the other. Che stayed low, on the dark side of the sloping roofs, making sure not to skyline as he went. More soldiers were to the left of him, lurking in houses and garden plots; he saw the odd glint of steel, heard a cough. He could only hope that none of them spotted him.

Swan and Guan were retreating towards a temple at the end of the street, the lake visible just beyond it. Clearly, they didn’t like the prospect of being targets for sniper fire.

It was a shame he had no working gun.

The temple rose up at the end of the row of rooftops. A two-storey living annex lay dark and silent next to it. The twins stopped to speak with a squad of soldiers, and the men spread out along the houses. Che heard doors being kicked in beneath him, rough searches of the rooms.

He squatted down and watched the two Diplomats look back to scan the street, the windows, the rooftops, and then step inside the temple. They left the door open.

He hung from the edge of the roof and dropped down into the alley between the houses and the temple. A glance in both directions, and then he was skirting around the back of the building, where the annex spread out into a small garden, using a low wall for cover. A window flickered in the structure; a candle brightening inside.

He padded over to the far end of the annex with the lakeweed soft and slippery beneath his feet, leaving the noise of the soldiers behind him. The gunfire to the south had risen in pitch since he’d last paid any attention to it. Curl would be there somewhere now, or so he hoped, making her way to the rendezvous.

How strange, he thought. Being here in Khos, in Tume, on this simmering lake, trying to kill a pair of my own people; hoping, too, that one of the enemy makes it out in one piece.

He noticed how the word felt wrong to him now; enemy. Something childish to it.

Over the lake another flare went up. He closed his right eye to preserve his night vision and waited until the flare had fallen. There was a window up there, and a tree leaning towards it.

In the gathering darkness, Che took his knife out and clamped it between his teeth, then climbed up the rough bark of the tree until he dangled from a branch facing the window. He saw nothing but a dark room and an open door; a corridor beyond it bleeding soft light from where it turned a corner.

There was no time for subtleties, Che decided. Take them out and hard and fast, and hope he was the last one standing. His old sparring trainer in Q’os had been right, he reflected, as he reached out to open the window. The Roshun training of cali was in him whether he wanted it or not. Advance and attack was its creed. Boldness and speed and recklessness.

If only he had a sword with him, never mind a working gun. All he had was this simple knife.

Improvise, Che thought, and he swung in through the open window and landed with the ease of a cat.

He clasped the knife in his hand, saw a chair. He picked it up and swung it hard against the wall. The crash was loud enough to stir the dead.

Quickly, Che stepped through the scattered debris of the chair and snatched up a chair leg without stopping. The end of the leg had snapped off sharp and jagged. He improved the point with a swipe of his blade as he entered the hallway; shaved another slice off as he strode towards the corner.

They were waiting for him as he ducked his head around it, two figures with pistols aimed from the cover of opposite doorways.

Che ducked back as a bullet ricocheted off the wall. He cut a final slice from the chair leg to finish its point, then stepped partly out and launched it with all his strength at the figure still aiming its gun at him.

The gun ignited and a sudden pain punched into his thigh. Che tottered on his other leg, slumped against the wall for balance as the figure toppled out into the corridor. It was Guan, with the chair leg poking from his left cheek. His feet was scrabbling against the floor for purchase.

He saw a shadow flicker across the fan of light on the floor, and he tossed his knife into his right hand.

He launched it even as Swan came out of the doorway again and fired her pistol.

Che fell backwards with his head ringing and a pain searing along the side of his skull. Swan was down too, holding the hilt of the knife sunk deep into her hip. The woman was crawling to her brother.

‘Oh no,’ she was gasping.

Since Che was still breathing, he ignored the scalp wound and clutched his leg instead to probe it with his trembling fingers. The bullet had passed cleanly through the flesh on the side of his thigh. It had missed the bone, and blood flowed slickly from the ragged hole. He could barely move the numbed limb itself.

It was the first time Che had ever been shot. He’d been expecting it to be much more of an agony.

He tugged at the sleeve of his tunic until it tore free, and used it to tie a tourniquet at the top of his thigh. He tried to stand. Che hissed with the sudden shooting pain of it. Tried to see through the rising waves of nausea.

The Diplomat Swan was dragging her brother back into the room she’d emerged from. She paused as she strained to reach the empty gun lying on the floor. Che managed a single step towards them, and Swan gave up on the gun and pulled Guan inside.

Che stopped short, sucking air for a moment as Swan kicked the door closed behind her.

With grim determination he staggered to the door and tried to bend down to retrieve his bloody knife lying there. His head spun as warm blood dribbled down his face. His boot was filling up too. He tore off his other sleeve and used it to tie a wad of cloth against the wound itself, cinching it tight. For a moment he thought he might pass out.

‘Come out!’ he hollered, the knife heavy in his grip.

Grunts and muttering from within.

Che steadied himself. Pushed a sticky hand against the door to swing it open.

The room was deserted, though a candle sputtered on the mantel piece above a hearth. Che leaned further out. Another door lay open in the room. A trail of blood shone across the floor and through it. He limped inside and pressed his back to the wall, then slid around it towards the other doorway. A quick glance inside revealed a bedroom. Guan lay dead on the floor, his legs and arms spread-eagled. The stick of wood stood tall and unnatural from his face.

A creak behind him.

Che was quick enough to get a hand up to the garrotte as it slipped around his throat. It bit deep into the edge of his palm, and he pushed back as hard as he could, hopping on his good leg as he shoved Swan backwards across the room. Swan crashed into something, a heavy wardrobe that clattered with hangers and open doors while they both struggled in its wooden embrace.

The woman’s hot breaths hissed next to his ear, charged with fury.

Che tossed the knife once to turn it around in his grasp, then struck it into the Diplomat’s side. Once, twice, until Swan shifted and threw him sideways. Che fell, and together they crashed through a table.

Swan managed to grip his knife hand as they rolled across the floor. With her other hand she maintained the pressure of the garrotte. The wire dug into his hand and the sides of his neck, blood spilling everywhere. ‘ Is this what you want?’ Swan hissed in her hatred for him. ‘ Is this what you wanted, you kush?’

Che’s hand was a lifeless thing shoved between his ragged breathing and the garrotte’s worsening constrictions. He could barely see, barely breathe.