Роберт Беннет - Foundryside

she asked.

asked Sancia.

said Clef. really fast, all of a sudden, in a perfectly straight line.>

Sancia listened to this closely.

said Sancia.

think these do that.>

She took her espringal and huddled at the window at the back, but did not exit yet.

said Clef.

She did some quick thinking. She knew there was a window just above this one.

She’d reviewed her weapon. The espringal was a clunky, powerful weapon, one of the old models you had to crank four or five times. And a big, rusty iron nail was not the best ammunition to use. She’d have to be close.

said Clef.

She slipped the iron nail in her espringal’s pocket.

said Clef.

She did her best to convince herself she was going to do what she needed to do.

It felt insane. She was no soldier, and she knew it. But she knew there were no other options.

Don’t miss , she thought.

Then she leapt out, raised the espringal at the window above her, and fired.

The espringal kicked far harder than she thought it would, and it responded so fast. She thought there’d be some delay when she squeezed the lever on the bottom, some moment before the gears would engage — but at the slightest pressure, the espringal’s cords snapped forward like a crocodile trying to snag a fish.

There was a dark blur as the iron nail hurtled up at the window, then a wet thud —and the dark window exploded with agonized screams.

said Clef, excited.

Sancia shrank back up against the wall.

Someone upstairs cried, “ She’s here! She’s downstairs! ” Then there was the sound of rapid footfalls.

Sancia hugged the wall, heart beating like mad. The screaming above her kept going on and on. It was an awful sound, and she tried her best to ignore it.

she asked.

She waited, not even breathing. The man above kept shrieking and howling in pain.

Then there was a harsh snap from somewhere inside the first floor, and the interior lit up with fresh screams — but these tapered off pretty quickly. Probably because those traps had delivered more of a direct hit, which was likely lethal.

One left — but it was dark. She’d have to risk it.

She dropped the espringal and ran, sprinting through the passageways back to the channel, dodging through all the crumbling buildings and rotting wood, her satchel of duvots bouncing on her back. Finally her feet hit soft mud and she picked up the pace, frantically running along the water’s edge.

A voice echoed out from behind her: “ She’s loose! She’s gone, she’s gone! ”

She glanced to her right, up the street, and saw a dozen men pouring out of two buildings and sprinting for the channel. It looked like they were fanning out, so maybe they didn’t know exactly where she was. Maybe.

They were waiting for me , she thought as she ran. It’s a whole damn army. They called out a whole damn army for m—

Then the bolt hit her square in the back, and she fell forward.

The first thing she knew was the taste of blood and earth in her mouth. The rest of the world was dark and smeared and indistinct, noise and screams and distant lights.

Clef’s voice cut through the blur:

Sancia groaned. Her back hurt like it’d been kicked by a horse. Her mouth was thick with blood — she must have bitten her lip as she fell. She stirred, pulled her face from the mud, and sat up, faintly aware of a tinkling sound.

She looked at her back, and saw her satchel of duvots was now little more than a rag. The mud around her was covered in shiny coins. She stared at this, trying to understand what had happened.

said Clef.

But it didn’t feel like a miracle to Sancia. This glittering metal in the channel mud represented the whole of her life’s savings.

asked Clef.

she said wearily.

She looked back and saw a dark figure running along the channel toward her — the third man from the fishery building, probably. He must have been the one to fire the shot. He cried, “ She’s over there, over there! ”

“Damn it all,” said Sancia. She staggered to her feet and sprinted up the hill and off into the Greens.

Sancia ran blindly, thoughtlessly, drunkenly, hurtling through the muddy lanes, her head still spinning from the scrived bolt. Clef chattered madly in her ear as she ran, spitting out directions:

She dodged and turned to avoid them, running deeper and deeper into the Greens, her chest and legs aching with the effort. She knew she couldn’t run much farther. Eventually she’d stumble, or collapse, or they’d catch up to her. she thought. She was close to Foundryside by now, but that didn’t mean much. Foundryside Commoners would sell her out in a heartbeat.

cried Clef.

She realized what he meant. She glanced ahead, picked a building that looked secure and commercial — so hopefully it’d be empty in the middle of the night — ran up to a side door, and stuck Clef into the lock.

There was a click . She shoved the door open, darted inside, and locked it behind her.

She glanced around. It was dark in the building, but it seemed to be some kind of clothier’s warehouse, full of musty rolls of cloth and flittering moths. It also appeared to be empty, thankfully.

asked Sancia.

said Sancia.

She knelt, touched a hand to the floor, and shut her eyes, letting the building tell her the layout. This was pushing her abilities — her head felt like it was full of molten iron — but she didn’t have a choice.

She found the stairs and started climbing until she came to the top window. She opened it, felt the wall outside, let it bleed into her thoughts. Then she slipped out the window and climbed up until she rolled onto the roof. The roof was rickety, old, and not well built — but it was the safest place she’d been yet. It might as well have been paradise.

She lay on the roof, chest heaving, and slowly pulled her gloves on. Every part of her hurt. The scrived bolt might not have penetrated her flesh, but it’d hit her so hard it felt like she’d strained muscles she didn’t even know she had. Still, she knew she couldn’t relax now.

She crawled to the edge and peered out. She was about three floors up, she saw — and the streets were crawling with heavily armed men, all waving and signaling to one another as they scoured the neighborhoods. It was the sort of thing professional soldiers did, which didn’t reassure her.

She tried to count their number. Twelve? Twenty? A lot more than three, and she’d barely escaped three.

Some of the men were being followed by a curious type of rig she’d heard about, but never seen: floating paper lanterns, which had been scrived so they levitated about ten feet off the ground, glowing softly. They were scrived so they knew to follow specific markers, like a sachet — you put one in your pocket and the lantern would follow you around like a puppy. She’d heard they used them as streetlights in the inner enclaves of the campos.