Shadow Dance

by A. E. Pennymaker

  "What are you doing?!"

  He was shouting at me, but I didn't move as he scaled the ladder and squeezed through the opening between the trapdoor and the roof, his shoulders almost too big to fit. He swore at me and crab-walked backwards, hauling his long legs out with him, then stood up quickly and jumped on top of the trap door, slamming it into its frame just as someone tried to push it open from below.

  "You should have run!" Arramy yelled, his eyes flashing as he glared at me and jumped on the door again, driving it down on the man beneath it.

  I blinked and looked down, a hot blush scorching my face. He was right. Too much hung on getting this binder out of Nimkoruguithu. People's lives were in the balance. I should have weighed all of that over one stubborn Northlander, closed that trapdoor, and gotten away. Now I might have just signed a whole bunch of death warrants for nothing. The Coventry would eventually find another way up.

  They hadn't yet, though.

  Jaw tight, I pushed myself to my feet, and went to the edge of the roof overlooking the yard, thinking maybe we could make it down into the alley. Instead, I discovered a small army of clothbadges swarming behind the meatery. There was a shout, and several of them raised their weapons, taking aim at me as I dove for the cover of a nearby chimney.

  I scuttled back toward the trapdoor and the front end of the building. The Coventry agents had come in from the boardwalk, so maybe they were all behind the shop, now, and there wouldn't be as many on the street side.

  I didn't even get all the way to the edge before a bullet zinged past my head like an angry bee. A half-centimeter to the left and there would have been an extra hole in my face.

  Arramy's hoarse, "Get down!" wasn't necessary. I was flat on the roof, trying not to be sick.

  "You'll have to drop to the next building," Arramy called.

  I turned to look at him. "What about you?"

  He was sitting on the trapdoor, his heels wedged under the lip of the frame, the strength of his legs the only thing keeping the men on the landing from pushing the door up. His hands were free, though, and he lifted them in a haphazard shrug. "I'm officially out of ideas, kid."

  A ragged, breathless laugh burst out before I could stop it. I shook my head. This couldn't be it. This could not be the last time I saw that blasted, grumpy, irritating man.

  "There's a lock between my feet but the bolt is missing," he observed, his voice incredulous and a little high, almost like he was going to start crazy-laughing too.

  I stared at him, a mad thought popping into my head. It was risky. I doubted it would actually work... but if it did... I didn't let myself consider any other option. I wriggled around and started crawling back toward the trapdoor.

  Arramy glanced up, then did a double take. "No," he said, shaking his head. "That is not – that is the opposite of what I said." Then he had to grab at the hatch, hanging on and slamming it back down as the men beneath it tried again. "There's no lock. You need to leave. Not come back."

  "Oh shush," I muttered, scooting into a crouch next to him, working on the assumption that since Arramy hadn't been shot yet, whoever had shot at me wasn't able to see Arramy. I untied my boots and yanked the leather laces out. Then I started threading the thong through the holes that were meant for the bolt in the lock on the trapdoor. It wasn't perfect, but it would take some serious effort to rip it open.

  Arramy watched me, his face impassive. "You're wasting time. You should be gone."

  "I am not leaving you here," I said curtly, still threading.

  "Stop it."

  "No."

  "Fine. Give it to me," he commanded. "I'll do that, you start running."

  I tied the thong into a self-tightening knot, silently thanking Raggan for teaching me how. "Too late, already done," I rasped, rising into a crouch and hobbling the few yards to the side wall of the meatery.

  Arramy took a deep breath, then another, and then he lunged up off the trapdoor and came ducking along after me, vaulting over the parapet and landing on the next roof with an athletic bounce while I was still in the process of lowering myself down the wall feet-first.

  He didn't ask permission. He just grabbed me by the waist and peeled me off the parapet, carrying me for several paces before I slapped his shoulders and demanded to be put down.

  Then we were running again.

  I lost my loosened boots in the first couple of strides and kept going in my stocking feet.

  The building was a traditional Continental style split-gable, with a dining area under a pergola and a decorative garden of potted trees and plants, but it was little more than a blur in my peripheral as we raced across the patio, clambered over another parapet, and started across the ridgepole of a Tetton sallet-grasse, hopping over, under and between the backs of wrought iron dragons and gargoyles while trying to avoid a fall down the steeply inclined slate roof.

  There was a shout below us as the clothbadges realized what we were doing and started following us in the alley.

  The next building was vaguely triangular, widening toward the far end. Which was a good thing. We could put diagonal distance between us and the men pursuing us on the ground. That didn't do much good when there were men staying parallel with us on the rooves across the street, taking shots at us whenever we popped up to go over a wall.

  Two parapets later, we started taking fire at our backs – the trapdoor had come loose.

  9. Through the Damsels' Den

  27th of Nima, Continued

  An incendiary round hit the parapet I was scrambling over, sending mortar and brick dust flying into my face. I wiped it off, spat grit out of my mouth, and kept going, losing my stockings to hot tar, tearing a gaping hole in my new skirt while scooting over a metal-clad parapet, cutting my hands when I fell on a broken roofing tile.

  Every muscle in my legs had set itself on fire and my chest felt like I had torn my lungs out with a hot bristle-brush, but Arramy wouldn't let me stop. There was no resting, no pausing for breath, only running through ripples of heat, slowly cooking ourselves under the unforgiving sun.

  After the sixth building, I had seriously begun to wonder if getting shot might not be a relief when we jogged through someone's rooftop paradiza, and the sound of heavy drums and festival music began drifting on the wind, coming in bits and snatches but growing steadily louder with every step we took.

  "Is there a parade?" I gasped, following Arramy between lines of laundry, weakly batting damp sheets out of my way in his wake.

  Arramy didn't answer. He just lifted me onto the top of the four-foot parapet bordering the paradiza, swung himself up and over, dropped the extra meter to the roof on the other side, and reached up to help me down.

  I had stopped yelling at him for doing that. My feet were burnt and blistered by tar, and any moment spent not stepping on them felt like heaven.

  That wasn't what had me hesitating.

  "Get down here!" Arramy growled.

  I shoved off, trusting him to catch me like he already had several times.

  "We're running out of roof," I gasped as he lowered me to my feet. I shook a thumb at the very obvious end of the buildings ahead of us. Beyond the next rowhouse there was empty space and a five-story plummet to what had to be North-South Street. "It's gone..." I got out between my ragged attempts to breathe. The height of the parapet we had just come over gave us a short break from being shot at, and I sagged forward, bending double to brace my hands on my shaking knees.

  "What did you think was going to happen?" Arramy muttered. Then, instead of setting off across yet another scorching expanse of tar-and-tile, he headed for the roof access – a funny little shack with a rickety wooden door.

  Hating and envying how he didn't seem winded at all, I made a face at his back. Then I bade my aching feet to start shuffling and stumbled after him like a little bobble-toy on a string.

  Arramy kicked the access door open, and then we were in a dark stairwell, spiraling downward as fast as we could, skipping steps, tryi
ng to reach the bottom before the Coventry men behind us reached the shack.

  We didn't. A gunshot rang out, ricocheting off the railing just ahead of us before we had even gotten to the next floor down. There were three more floors to go.

  Arramy swore, grabbed my arm, shoved me closer to the outside curve of the stairwell, then half-carried me along beside him when my knees buckled beneath me.

  "You might as well surrender now," a male voice sang above us. "There's no way out. This place is already surrounded."

  I faltered, but Arramy just gripped my arm tighter and moved faster.

  We reached the fourth-floor landing and discovered a door. Arramy paused to try the doorpull, found it locked, and kept going, thundering around the next curve, dragging me with him until we hit the third-floor landing. That door was unlocked, and Arramy instantly pushed me through and slammed it shut behind us. He locked it.

  I glanced down. The floor was made of smooth, cool marble. It felt lovely on my ruined feet. I was actually sad to leave it when Arramy grabbed my hand and set off again.

  We were in some sort of salon, with gaudy velvet round couches arranged down the center of the room, and tasteless artwork on the walls. A man in a silk high-brim hat and a bright green dinner jacket came walking in as we went rushing out, and his startled, "Aye, watch where yer goin!" followed us out into a ridiculously over-gilded red-lacquered hallway.

  We passed a couple locked in feverish embrace against the wall, and then a trio of underdressed women who all gave Arramy a lingering once-over, and it finally dawned on me what sort of an establishment we were running through.

  I might have blushed, but there was something about the three girls that caught my eye. One of them had bright, iridescent pink hair. No one could have natural hair that perfect or that color. It had to be a wig. Where there was one wig in a place like this, there were probably more. Perhaps we could find some and disguise ourselves.

  Arramy must have been thinking the same thing, because when he reached the end of the hallway, he didn't keep going down the stairs that led to the second floor. He turned left, and headed for another, smaller hallway at the end of a stretch of balcony. We rounded the corner, and he began checking doors. The first two had a little red tab in the turn-dial above the latch. He skipped those. The third had a white tab, and he went inside, dragging me in with him.

  The room obviously belonged to one of the damsels. There was a bed in the corner with fluffy satin pillows all over it, and a few rather skimpy outfits on forms in the wardrobe. She must have been out finding a customer, though, because she wasn't there to defend her things as Arramy began pulling drawers out of her dressing table, pawing through her belongings, searching for anything useful.

  I bit my lip. I knew how it felt to lose something I needed and couldn't easily replace, but we had to get out of this mess. Maybe I could repay her somehow. I clung grimly to that thought and started looking for a pair of shoes. Instead I found what seemed to be her only everyday skirt – which made me hate myself as I stepped behind her dressing screen and stripped off the grey striped sateen NaVarre had given me. The girl's skirt was a bit too big, and an odd orange color, with deep flounces that needed a sponging and sagged even with a petticoat, but it would have to do. I stole her lounging slippers next. They were slightly better than nothing, and they hid my tar-splotched toes.

  The Coventry had just spent the better part of an hour taking aim at my cloak. I undid the togs that held the hood to the cape, then tied the hood – and its hidden contents – around my waist beneath the borrowed skirt. I left the cape on the bed, along with some of the money NaVarre had put in my reticule. Maybe that would help ease the loss of her clothes.

  Arramy found a silky red wig on a stand in the wardrobe and handed it to me, then nodded toward the dressing table. He had set out the girl's scant collection of cosmetics. "Fix your hair and change your face," he said gruffly, moving to stand by the door, cracking it open and peering out into the hallway.

  I sighed. Take, take, take. I sat down and started working. I wrapped my hair into a tight knot at the back of my head and pinned on the wig. Then I changed the size and shape of my mouth with the girl's lip color, used her kohl stick to angle my brows and fill them in, then lined my lashes and dabbed on some of her rouge. When I was done I looked like a desperate cry for help, but at least I didn't look so much like me.

  Arramy glanced at me and raised an eyebrow, a ghost of a grin teasing his face as I stood up. Then he turned back to check the hallway.

  My gaze was drawn to his head. Of the two of us, he was actually the more recognizable, with his height and that striking hair. Maybe there was something we could use —

  There was no warning. One moment we were about to walk out of the room like normal people, and the next Arramy yanked the door open and threw himself into the hallway, slamming his weight into the low center of a man who had been standing directly outside, his momentum carrying them both across the width of the corridor and up against the opposite wall.

  The Coventry man wasn't small by any means, but Arramy had surprise on his side, and he fought dirty. He didn't let the agent gather himself and return blows, he hit fast and hard, plowing his fists into the man's ribs over and over until something audibly snapped. Then he came up and grabbed the man's thick thatch of hair, using it as a handhold as he smashed the man's skull into the wall. Once. Twice. Three times

  I clapped my hands over my mouth as Arramy let go and the man's limp bulk slid down the wall, leaving a bright smear of scarlet on the flowery wallpaper. He hadn't even had a chance to get in a single punch.

  Arramy took a step back, his chest heaving.

  No one came out to see what was going on. All the doors along the hallway remained firmly shut. In fact, everything had gone absolutely quiet, as if whoever was in those occupied rooms was holding their breath, hoping they could avoid getting involved if they stayed still and hid. There would be no help. We were on our own, and we had to leave. It wouldn't be long before the other agents figured out one was missing.

  "Wait," I blurted into the silence. "His hat. He had a hat." I looked around, spying the man's drab-brown round-top a few feet from where Arramy had tackled him. I bent and picked it up, dusting it off and pushing out a dent in the crown.

  Arramy went still, his gaze following the hat as I held it out. Slowly, he took it, his jaw tensing slightly as his eyes flew to mine. His throat bobbed, a flicker of some unreadable emotion ghosting across his face. Then he dipped his head and put the thing on, pulling the brim down low.

  Several pairs of footsteps sounded on the floor below, male voices getting louder, fists pounding on doors. Our weird little reprieve was officially over. Arramy opened the nearest unoccupied room, muscled the unconscious Coventry man inside for some unfortunate damsel to find, flipped the tab to red, shut the door, and held out his hand.

  I linked my arm through his, and then we strolled around the corner like we were just another couple on our way to the card tables.

  I had no idea where that came from. Some other person was using my body, some girl who stole things and acted like she hadn't watched a man beat another person senseless in five seconds. A girl who strode right past a bunch of men who were actively hunting for her and smiled right at one of them. I even gave him a wink. I wasn't that girl. I didn't even recognize her, but she did it. She pulled off. She had to, so she just... did.

  We almost made it all the way through the front doors, too.

  Arramy was reaching for the door handle, and like an idiot I was beginning to actually believe that maybe, maybe, we might be able to walk out alive, when a shout echoed through the room, bouncing eerily off the polished marble walls of the lobby and running through my veins like molten lead: "'Ey! That's Imson's hat! Ey! I've got 'em! I've got 'em!"

  10. Escape by Broom Closet

  27th of Nima, Continued

  Arramy kept me in front of him as gunshots erupted above us. The windows in the
front doors shattered and splinters flew from the frame as Arramy hauled one of them open. He grunted and stiffened, but then pushed me out onto the boardwalk, his grip tightening on my left arm as he maneuvered us into the heavy foot traffic headed for the street festival.

  Behind us, there was a stir, and a gap opened up as the crowds began bunching, trying to get out of the way as Coventry men came pouring out of the hotel, brandishing their weapons.

  Arramy hissed out a curse through his teeth as a group of clothbadges came around the corner of North-South ahead of us, and for what felt like the thousandth time in a single day, I thought I was about to die like a cornered rat. I choked on a sob. This was it. This was the end. There wasn't any way out. We had put up a good fight, but I had failed. I had failed my father, and all those women, and Obyrron, and NaVarre... and Arramy. Arramy was going to die because of me —

  Arramy glanced around, then pulled me with him down a loading ramp and across the street, somehow managing to keep us both from being run over by heavy drays and horseless delivery vans. On the other side, he took a set of access stairs back up to the boardwalk and ducked into an open-front Lodesian bazaar set up in the space between two buildings where a row-house used to stand.

  We didn't have a chance to blend in. A shot rang out in the street and Arramy started moving faster, shoving his way through groups of people haggling over the items the Lodesian salvagers were selling, his grip bruising my wrist as he yanked me along behind him. We rushed past piles of junked metal and mismatched chairs, faux Meirsadduan rugs, fresh fish in cold-boxes full of ice, mounds of spices and pyramids of fruit on tarps, angry shouts following on our heels as Arramy started deliberately overturning baskets and knocking over crates, wreaking havoc, creating chaos.

  The shouting turned to screaming as another gunshot tore through the air behind us, the bullet dinging off a kettle hanging from the roof of a pan man's stall just ahead of me.