Taziri guessed the bullet had shattered the one-eyed woman’s collarbone, or something equally important and painful. The detective moved in front of his companion, raised his revolver, and whispered, “We open fire the moment they step into view.”
Taziri frowned. “I’m really not keen on a gunfight at point blank range. Get her into the Halcyon.” She pointed at Shifrah. “Those gunmen out there are carrying single-shot irons, so they are out of bullets for the moment. Let me deal with this.”
Kenan didn’t hesitate or argue. He scooped up Shifrah and jogged her back to the Halcyon ’s hatch, and began heaving her up into the cabin.
Bastet grabbed the pilot’s sleeve. “What are you going to do? I don’t want you to die.”
Taziri smiled. “That makes two of us. Come on. Time for a little science.” They dashed back to the Halcyon just as they heard the crunch of gravel rounding the end of the freight car. Taziri yanked on her heavy leather gloves and pulled her flight goggles down over her eyes. Then she grabbed her hose and nozzle and waved the girl up into the cockpit. “Just like I showed you. Engine on, throttle to one quarter. Go!”
Bastet leapt through the hatch as the man named Aker yelled out, “Looks like all your friends left you here alone to die!” He stepped into the narrow corridor between the long shining locomotive and the dirty old freight cars. His two associates hung behind him, blocking the path back into the rail yard. Aker drew out the seireiken, the blade rippling with fiery colors, bathing the sides of the cars in an angry orange light.
So that’s what we came all this way for. Impressive.
“I hope not.” Taziri glanced at the little revolver poking out of her arm brace, briefly wondered if she could handle both the hose and the gun at the same time, and decided that she probably couldn’t. “I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else!” She paused as the Halcyon ’s engine rumbled to life and the propeller began to roar inside the makeshift cowl. The hose flexed and shuddered in her hands and she felt the air blowing out the nozzle. “Well, that’s not true. You killed my friend. I want to hurt you a lot, actually. But I’ll settle for the sword. Put it down and walk away and no one gets hurt.” She glanced back at the open hatch behind her where she could just barely see the one-eyed woman’s slumped head. “No one else gets hurt.”
Aker swung his burning sword in quick vicious circles and demonstrated a short lunge. “I’ve killed women before. But I don’t think I’ve ever killed an engineer. I’m interested to see what I’ll be able to do after I’ve added your soul to my collection. Maybe I’ll be able to drive my own train.” He settled into a fencer’s stance. “I’ll try to make this quick and painless, but if you start fighting back, well, I can’t make any promises.”
Taziri placed her finger over the switch that would connect the current to the electrode on the nozzle, and she picked up the loose wire from the ground. “Bastet! Half throttle!”
The engine growl rose to a low droning and the hose jerked in her hands. She clutched it tightly, praying that the horse gut would hold together just a little longer. The tips of her fingers could feel the blast of air coming through the nozzle.
Now or never.
Taziri hurled the loose wire at the bright sword and she flipped her switch closed. A sharp sizzling hiss erupted from the electrode as a tiny snapping arc of energy appeared in the center of the air jet. The tiny bolt of lightning twisted and writhed along the wire, which had fallen across the seireiken and promptly melted onto it.
Aker grinned. “Stupid woman.” And he leapt forward, sword raised to strike.
“Full throttle!” Taziri shouted over the drone of the engine. The Halcyon roared louder and the hose yanked her to the left as it tried to straighten itself out with the increased air pressure, but she wrestled it down, falling to one knee to hold it steady. The jet of air shooting through the nozzle, through the electric arc, began to flash and woof as tiny fire balls formed in the compressed air stream. “Come on, come on! Now! Now!”
Aker winced at the blast of air in his face, but he took the last step toward her and swung his fiery blade at her neck.
The jet of compressed air fully ignited, transforming from an invisible wind into a jet of electric blue hellfire almost as long as the seireiken itself. The flash of light was so bright and hot that Taziri jerked back from it instinctively, falling back and to her side even as she pushed the blazing plasma torch up and away from her face. The scorching plasma stream blasted through the seireiken as easily as a knife through water, and the liquefied aetherium blade first bloated outward in soft metallic bubbles and then twisted apart as the end of the sword fell away from the hilt to drip and plop and splatter on the ground. Aker dropped the seireiken’s hilt as he threw up his hands to protect his face, and Taziri swung the plasma torch down to drench the entire sword in blue flame. The golden steel shriveled and faded to a dark gray puddle in a matter of seconds as a hot, foul cloud steamed up into the air.
For a moment, Taziri stared at the boiling puddle of aetherium on the ground and the roaring plume of scorching plasma in her hand, all dimmed and discolored through the thick lenses of her goggles. And then the Halcyon ’s engine sputtered and died.
The hose fell limp in her hands as the air jet whistled away to nothing.
Taziri released the switch and the hissing electric arc vanished. She dropped the melted nozzle and stood up, brushing the dust from her pants. Aker sat on the ground a few yards away, clutching his face and gasping for breath. His two men remained at the end of the train, frowning.
Bastet poked her head out the hatch. “What happened?”
“Get back inside!” Taziri pointed her brace-gun at the men. “And you two. You can go. Forget about your boss here and forget everything you just saw, too.”
The men didn’t move.
Bastet called out in Eranian to them.
Oh right. Wrong language. Taziri grimaced as the weight of her brace-gun began to ache in her shoulder.
Still the men didn’t move. One of them started to reload his pistol.
“No! I warned you!” Taziri yanked the trigger of her revolver. No bang. Not even a click. The trigger had jammed. Taziri stared at the useless lump of steel on her arm, and then she started banging her free hand on it as she pulled on the frozen trigger. “No, no, no! Dammit!”
The bounty hunter snapped his pistol shut and looked at her. Taziri blinked.
They’re both standing awfully close to the Halcyon. Maybe close enough.
“Bastet!” Taziri kept her eyes locked on the pistol rising to point at her heart. “Pull the big lever!”
“But you said-”
“Pull it now!”
A sharp clang echoed inside the locomotive and the outer wall of the Halcyon clicked and hissed and slammed outward on its hinges, right down onto the two bounty hunters. The unfolding wing smashed both of them in the heads and shoulders, sending them sprawling to the ground. They moaned and rolled over, crawled out from under the wing, and scrambled away across the rail yard.
Taziri blew out the breath she was holding. “Thank you! All clear. You can push the lever back into place now.”
As the Halcyon ’s wings slowly retracted to restore its train-like camouflage, Kenan jumped down from the hatch and walked over to her. He nudged the gray puddle on the ground with the toe of his boot, and the entire puddle shifted as a solid mass. “Already cold,” he said. “What does that mean?”
“It means the souls are all free,” Taziri said. She looked up, half expecting to see faces or heavenly lights all around them, but there was nothing but the freight cars and the clear blue sky. “Don Lorenzo is free.”
“If you say so.” Kenan paced over to the man in green and kicked him in the leg. “Hey you. Get up. You’re under arrest for the murder of Lorenzo Quesada.”
A deep thud shuddered through the earth and Taziri turned to see a tall slender man with jet black skin standing by the Halcyon ’s nose. He wore a simple white tunic belted w
ith gold, shining gold arm-bands, gold rings, gold hair-beads, and a small golden heart on a cord around his neck. His face was hidden behind a black mask sculpted like the face of a dog or jackal. The straight black staff in his hand rested on the ground. “I see you have all arrived safely,” he said. “My task is complete.”
“Anubis!” Bastet leapt from the hatch. “You idiot! You brought the wrong ones!”
But the young man thumped his staff on the earth and his entire body burst apart into a cloud of aether that vanished on the hot wind.
“Oh no you don’t!” Bastet glanced over her shoulder as she pulled her cat mask down over her face. “Good bye, captain! It was nice to meet you!” And she rippled apart into a sparkling white mist.
Taziri waved to the girl who was no longer there, but a cry of pain drew her attention back to the yard. She jogged to the end of the freight cars and looked out at the station. The Bantu and the Songhai were still trading punches, but had left a trail of bodies across the platform. Behind and around the station office she could still see the crowd of gawkers watching the morning’s entertainment.
Then a shout went up among the onlookers. They all turned to the east end of the street, some pointing, but most shuffling in the opposite direction. Then more and more of them began backing away from the east end of the street, moving faster and faster out of sight.
Taziri squinted where they were pointing and called over her shoulder. “Hey Kenan! You might want to reload your gun.” She pulled a screwdriver from her pocket and started fiddling with her brace-gun to unjam the trigger mechanism.
“Why?”
“It looks like your prisoner has some more friends.”
Chapter 28. Qhora
They hurried along the edge of the street, trailing Khai and his column of green-robed swordsmen. The Aegyptians broke into a sprint shortly after leaving the library, and now they all raced across the city, crashing through the early morning press of people and animals.
“My lady,” Mirari said, “should I run ahead to warn the captain? She may be in danger.”
“No. These men might follow you, or they might hear you once you arrive.” Qhora grimaced at the thought of Taziri alone in the rail yard, unprotected and unsuspecting. “If the captain sits still and remains quiet locked inside the Halcyon, she probably has a better chance of remaining hidden.”
I hope.
“And what exactly are we going to do when we arrive at the yard and find a company of Osirians, and the Bantu, and the Songhai, and God knows who else between us and the train?” Salvator asked. “There are only four of us.”
A high-pitched cry drew Qhora’s gaze up to the pale blue sky and she squinted at the tiny black shape wheeling high overhead. “Five.”
“We need a plan,” the Italian insisted.
“You’re welcome to make one,” Qhora said. “But we’re going to save the captain, one way or another. She and I are both going home to our children.”
They ran on, and Qhora found herself dashing through markets and past fountains that she had no memory of. On the night they arrived in the city, Salvator had led them to the docks to hire his thugs and to await the steamer from Carthage, and she had been in no mood for sight-seeing. But now she had no idea how far they were from their destination, nor what landmarks would announce their arrival.
In the distance a noise was growing. It was the noise of countless voices raised in wordless emotion. Fear. Anger. Hate. Excitement. Men and women shouted, stone clinked, steel clanged, and boots crackled as they slid across the dusty ground. Qhora gripped her lone stiletto as Salvator and Mirari drew their longer blades. The Osirians slowed their pace as they turned the last corner, and then they drew their swords. A dozen seireikens, some burning dark orange and others burning bright gold, hissed and sizzled in the dusty air.
Across the street a lone woman screamed, and then others screamed, and then the mass of pedestrians began to run, scrambling and clawing and running away from the fiery swords. Some men fell and were trampled by their panicking neighbors, but the streets were wide enough and the crowds were thin enough that most of the people escaped quickly, and the stragglers were able to rise and limp away as well.
Beyond the men in green Qhora could see an angry line of dirty, bloody brawlers. Some looked to be the darker men of the Bantu kingdoms and she recognized the others as the brown-clad soldiers of Songhai. Some of them still had their hands around each others’ throats and their knives dripping with each others’ blood. But when the Sons of Osiris drew their bright swords, the battle slowed and came to a full stop as every eye turned to look at the green men.
With equal slowness and care, the Bantu and Songhai men pulled apart, releasing each other from their death grips to stand in a ragged line, all bruised and bloodied, staring at the newcomers. Qhora put out her arms, motioning her comrades to stay back with her in the shadows behind the Sons of Osiris to wait and watch.
Khai stood in the center of his men with his searing white sword in his hand. He flicked the tip of his seireiken at the battered fighters across the street in front of the train station. “Kill them all. And bring me Aker.”
The Sons of Osiris dashed forward with grace and power, driving in straight lunges and whirling in fiery arcs to cut down their enemies. A few of the Bantu raised their pistols only to be hacked to pieces. The Songhai raised their rifles, but the seireiken blades sliced through the barrels and stocks as though the iron and wood were soft cheese and bread, leaving blacked stumps and smoldering embers in their wake. Common gray blades shattered like kindling before the aetherium swords.
After a mere ten seconds of brave yelling and charging, the Bantu and Songhai turned in a white-eyed frenzy and fled the street, leaving more than twenty of their brothers-in-arms lying dead in the dust. Cauterized limbs and stumps dotted the ground, but not a single drop of blood fell to the earth. The wounds smoked and the men’s clothing flickered with tiny tongues of fire.
Dear gods of heaven and earth. Qhora stared. How can I get past such warriors? How can I save the captain? How can I save myself?
“Aker!” Khai roared. He strode to the edge of the train platform to survey the rail yard below him. “Aker! If you wish to continue in my service, you will show yourself now!”
There was no answer.
Mirari leaned close to Qhora’s ear. “Now?”
“Not yet,” she whispered back.
“You and you.” Khai indicated two of his men. “Search the yard.”
The two men jumped down from the platform to the dusty ground but stopped short. Qhora saw a man step out from behind the row of old freight cars at the rear of the yard. She recognized Aker, but his features were obscured by a half-mask of red and black ruin down the side of his face. And extending from behind the safety of the freight cars there was a hand holding a matte black revolver.
“We have Aker!” a man shouted. “He’s wanted for murder and he’s going to stand trial in Marrakesh. Leave this place now.”
Khai grunted. He nodded at the Osirians assembled beside him and said, “Go get him, and kill whoever else is back there.”
“Now?” Mirari whispered. “It must be now!”
Qhora leapt up and ran across the street. “Stop! Stop! All of you!”
The Sons of Osiris, scattered across the yard, turned to peer up at her. Khai frowned over his shoulder at her. “You.”
Qhora dashed to the edge of the platform some fifteen yards down from the elderly man in green and stared back at him. “You can have Aker. There’s no need for more killing. No one will try to stop you.” She shouted across the yard, “Captain? It’s Qhora! Let Aker go! Do it now, please!”
The black revolver pulled back behind the freight car and Aker staggered forward, an angry glare twisting his bloody face.
“Very good,” Khai said. He glanced at her. “You see? Civilized people are so much more useful than barbarous ones.” He called out to his men, “Kill the foreigners and bring me their po
ssessions.”
“No!” Qhora shrieked as she drew her stiletto and ran toward Khai.
The older man merely shifted his weight and raised the tip of his searing white blade. Two of his men down in the yard paused to watch their master while the others proceeded toward the freight cars. “Hm.” Khai peered at her through tired eyes. “Will your soul teach me to speak your barbarian language? Or to ride on birds?” The corner of his mouth twisted up for a brief moment.
A single gunshot cracked across the train station, echoing off the pale blue sky. Khai’s head snapped to the side as the man twisted forward and tumbled off the platform into the rail yard.
Tycho strode out of the shadows, the smoking white revolver in his hand. He came to the edge of the platform and fired a second shot into the body below. “That’s for Constantia.” He picked up the blazing white seireiken. “And this is for Philo.”
Salvator and Mirari stepped out from the station office to stand beside the dwarf. The green men in the yard had stopped short when the first shot was fired and now they stood all over the space between their dead master and Aker exchanging confused and angry looks.
Qhora looked at the Hellan and then she looked out at the Sons of Osiris. “All of you, listen to me! Go now and we’ll let you live. Go home!”
The swordsmen formed ranks, six facing the platform and five facing Aker and the locomotive behind him.
Qhora eyed the nearest orange seireiken as she called out, “Captain! Look out! They’re coming for you!”
Taziri Ohana stepped out from behind the freight cars. She had her left arm raised with a silvery revolver mounted on her silvery brace. Beside her was the Mazigh detective with the black revolver. They leveled their guns at the green men.
“This is your last chance to leave!” Qhora shouted. “Go now!”
The six warriors facing the platform charged forward. Salvator whipped his rapier about in flashing circles and fell back as two of the fiery blades came at him. Mirari whirled away with her long knife and hatchet in hand as a third man came at her.
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