Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

Ravn Olafsdottr danced into the room. “Doonoovan, my sweet! How perfect to see you once more! How is your heads holding up?” She crossed to the window, peered out from a corner. “Enemy reach Spring Garden Street,” she said in Manjrin. “Best prepare welcome. Helloo, Doominoo! I kiss you later.” She turned to Bridget ban. “And might I suggest,” she added, “we bury hatchets for time being? Time enough afterward, we bury each other.”

“Who is coming?” the Hound asked.

“Gidula,” said the Fudir, earning Bridget ban’s attention at last. “He has been playing factions against one another. Shadow against Shadow, Shadows against Names. He has a mad dream of restoring the ancient aristocracy of the Lion’s Mouth.”

“Is it so mad as all that?” asked Eglay Portion with a gesture toward the flames. “Better dreams past than nightmares present.”

“How many with him?” the Fudir asked Ravn. “Did you get a count?”

“Did I not tale you that we would be great friends soomday? Today is that happy day! We celebrate later. Gidula has three Shadows with him: Big Jacques, who was with the rebels, and Aynia Farer, and Phoythaw Bhatvik, who was Ekadrina’s adviser. A score of magpies escort them: comets, tridents, lions, and crows. Oh, and they have a Name.”

Donovan looked up. “Which?”

“Secret Name. He who give you bad haircut.”

Despite nine resolutions to the contrary, the Fudir’s hand went to his scalp. “You recognized him?”

“I recognize his golden masque: the all-concealing Sun. He alone is never seen, even by other Names, so he is recognized by not being recognized.” She leaned toward Donovan and added in a stage whisper, “Is why they call him ‘Secret’.”

Donovan turned to the Technical Name. “Could he leap directly into the building?”

Tina Zhi vanished, startling some of the Hounds. An unlooked-for answer, but the Sleuth understood immediately her purpose.

Meanwhile, Donovan had been revising their defensive strategy. Certain things problematical with nine became more achievable with eighteen. “Can we count on you?” he asked Bridget ban. “They will think the building abandoned. The staff minions have fled out through the Red Gate into the Lower City, and the building’s Protectors have been drawn into the fighting. We can take them unaware when they enter.”

“Our orders are to avoid involvement.”

“Yes, but involvement has not avoided you. To stay out of it, you must withdraw; and if you withdraw, you get no glimpse of the Vestiges.”

Bridget ban drew a great breath. “Lackaday. I came for my daughter, an’ I’ll nae place her in danger for the sake of a few prehuman geegaws and baubles. Come wi’ me, Méarana. I’ll summon Grimpen down to the rooftop. He is masqued as an Information Ministry skycar. No one has fired upon them yet, but I’ll nae wait until they do so. Tilly, Greystroke, we’re pulling out.”

The other Hounds hesitated. The harper put on her stubborn look. “I came to rescue Father. I’ll not run off and leave him.”

“The way he ran off and left you on Terra? Show some sense, lassie.”

“Listen to your mother,” Donovan told her. “It’s unlikely all of us will emerge from this fight; less so if the Hounds won’t help.”

Méarana stuck her chin out. “I’m not inexperienced in a fight,” she reminded him.

“This is not a mob of ’Loons or tribesmen from the boonies of Enjrun.”

But the harper crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “Then you come with me.”

The silence of the Shadows and magpies filled the room. The Fudir glanced at his followers and shrugged. “I have my own duties.” Behind him, Pyati brushed a tear from his cheek.

“Well,” said Matilda of the Night. “Come to that, I came for the geegaws, which is how Black Shuck secured our Kennel authorization. So I ought to stay and hazard the chance.”

Gwillgi shrugged. “And my posted duty is to observe the Shadow War. This seems as reasonable an observation post as any.”

Little Hugh said, “The Fudir an’ I, we started out together, on the hunt for January’s Dancer. I don’t see why we shouldn’t end it together.”

Greystroke rolled his eyes, said nothing, but did not move toward the door.

“Graceful Bintsaif?” said Bridget ban.

“Aye, Cu?”

“An’ I gave the order, would ye be throwin’ my thickheaded bairn o’er yer shoulder an’ cart her tae the roof?”

“Aye, Cu. If you gave the order.”

Bridget ban turned to the door just as Tina Zhi returned, entering in the normal fashion from the hallway. “I have damped the field,” the Technical Name said. “Even those with tokens can no longer leap.”

“Oh. Well,” said Bridget ban, “that makes all the difference in the world.”

Eglay and Domino had shut down their game and the Fudir used the play deck to project an image of the kill space. “I’ve highlighted the Cache, where the Vestiges are kept,” he said. “We have to assume that Gidula and the Secret Name know the location, and will go straight there. We don’t know which entry they will take—”

“They will take each entry,” said Ravn. “They will come as water comes, through every channel.”

Donovan studied the building plan, though he and the Sleuth and Inner Child had been considering options ever since the Child had spotted the approaching party. He pointed. “Three, Four, and Five, disable the drop-wells, force them onto the stairs. Plant traps to rake the stairwells, but with the triggers near the top so we catch as many as possible. Greystroke, take Little Hugh, and Matilda. You three are the most accomplished at camouflage. Wait near the main entrance, allow the enemy to pass, then follow behind, picking off stragglers. Matilda, salt the lobby and stairwells with fear. Shadows and Names will not run, but they might advance less boldly.”

“What of me?” asked Pyati.

“The enemy will gather at these two points,” the Fudir said, “and converge on the Cache from both ends of the building. Eglay, you take the east wing; Pyati, take the west. Domino, you take this choke point, where the main stairs come up. Take one magpie apiece. Pluck some fruit, then withdraw to this line. Draw them in as far as possible before pruning. Once they trigger the stairwell traps, they will know the building is defended and will act accordingly. Keep them complacent as long as you can. Our advantage is that we know their destination.”

“Little good will it do them,” said the Technical Name. “The Cache is unbreakable.”

The Fudir shook his head. “They will not have come all this way under these circumstances without some plan to effect entrance.”

“Likely, the Secret Name intended to leap into the Cache; but that way is now blocked, thanks to my timely technical action.”

“Gidula leaves no contingency unplanned. Is there a hidden way into the Cache?”

“If there were,” said Tina Zhi, “neither Gidula nor the Secret Name would know of it.”

In other words, said the young man in the chlamys, there is a hidden way. Right, agreed the Sleuth. If the Cache is sealed and she went in to deactivate the leaping tokens, how did she get out? So: If Gidula knows the way, he must have learned of it from one of the College. The Virgins were sworn to secrecy. And two years ago he began to urge the attack on the Secret City and—perhaps, plan the decimation of Names and Shadows alike.

“Gidula kidnapped one of your Virgins about two years ago,” Donovan said, “and tortured her into revealing the hidden entrance.” Once again, Tina Zhi’s body language was louder than her denial.