In the Lion's Mouth

by Michael Flynn

  At the crunch, Domino did not hesitate, but leapt high and to the side. But Pendragon did not fire at the sound. Instead, he squinted about—and fixed on Domino. “There you are,” he said with a touch of petulance, “and about time. Yes, yes, I can see the quiver in the air. I told you those things weren’t perfect. Your darling Epri is pinned down on that rooftop…” He pointed to the edge of the warehouse extension. “The Trident preplaced submunitions and booby traps up there. If Epri can reach the main roof, he can drop cluster bombs through the ventilation shafts into the warehouse where the rest are cowering.”

  Domino Tight did not think that anyone was cowering. The return fire was too crafty, too focused. He followed the pointing arm. Yes, there was Epri on the rooftop, sheltering behind an air regenerator with three of his own magpies. A remote-controlled fire center had him neatly interdicted. He could neither advance nor withdraw.

  “I entreat you, Lady,” said Pendragon, more politely if a bit peremptorily, “to act posthaste.”

  Domino Tight stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and Pendragon. When he was within arm’s reach, he pulled the Cloak away and pressed the nub of his knife against the man’s belly. “So I shall,” he said, and extended the blade to maximum.

  Dispersal armor was well and good against energy weapons, and its thixotropic properties made it useful against moderate velocity projectiles. But for bladed weapons, the Shadows liked to say, you may as well wear cotton.

  The blade squeezed between the threads of the armor and shot through Pendragon. He spasmed, arched backward. The blade exited high from his back, and Domino saw the incredulity in his eyes. “But … you’re dead,” he heard the dead man say. Then he nubbed the blade and Pendragon Jones crumpled to the ground.

  “Those reports,” Domino told the corpse, “were greatly exaggerated.”

  He had seized the man’s link from his hand as he fell and now spoke into it, modulating his speaker to imitate Pendragon’s voice. “Mums! Fall back!” he said. “We are betrayed!”

  At this, the right flank of the assault began to dissolve, as the magpies there in swift obedience to their master’s voice began to withdraw. But Domino Tight saw one of the fighters with Ravn fall and he aimed a bolt at Epri on the roof. Epri, caught from an unguarded quarter, spun and fell.

  Domino Tight saw a shimmering in the air on the rooftop, like a heat ghost.

  Ah, that is what Pendragon had meant! He blinked his eyes as Tina Zhi had taught him and the whole vista faded to gray scale in which one solitary figure stood out. It was the woman that Tina had shown him, Jimjim Shot, and she was bending to tend to the wound that Epri had sustained. With her left hand, she maintained an inaccurate harassing fire on Olafsdottr’s squad.

  The woman was bilateral, then, but not a trained fighter. The Mayshot Bo, Tina had told him, dealt with control of the arts, as the Gayshot Bo dealt with the control of technology. He took aim at her.

  He did not fool himself. He knew he was about to fire on a Name. But then, what was this rebellion about if not overthrowing the Names? Why quail at this? Was it only long conditioning that held Those persons sacrosanct?

  No, it was a sin to mar such perfect beauty. The lenses by which he saw through her Cloak revealed all. There was not a blemish upon her.

  Automatically, he calculated distance and adjusted the power on his dazer so that it would burn, but not kill.

  “Do it,” he heard Tina Zhi’s voice say. Disconcertingly, that voice came through his own lips. “Before she can take the quondam route.”

  Domino Tight sucked in his breath. His arm wavered, then steadied.

  And then Jimjim Shot stood up and away from Epri and stared directly at him, and her eyes were the red of flame. She saw him and saw his lust and saw his hesitation, and her lip curled in contempt, and she raised a weapon that Domino Tight did not recognize.

  And Domino Tight shot her in the face.

  * * *

  The scream unnerved the battlefield, for it seemed to come from nowhere. It was a scream of surprise and anger and pain; and both sides in the firefight hesitated, creating for a moment a simulacrum of truce.

  Inside the warehouse, where Oschous Dee Karnatika directed the defense, the fox-faced Shadow took a report from Ravn, who was outside and under desperate straits. “Oschous,” she said, “the mums are withdrawing. There is confusion on their right. I thought I saw someone fall from behind the guardhouse. Could have been Pendragon. And three or four of his boys that I had marked, they haven’t moved in a while.”

  “That might be tactical,” Oschous warned her.

  “Might be, but I think one of ours is out there behind their lines. Someone took a couple shots at Epri up on the roof, and it wasn’t us. Do you think one of the boys in the sniper’s nest survived?”

  “I don’t think,” Oschous told her. “I count the dead. But … The iron’s hot, however the fire was blown.” He switched links to Big Jacques’s channel. “Jacques? It’s time.”

  * * *

  Domino Tight watched the Beautiful Name scream and clutch at her face, and he wept that her beauty had been destroyed, for it was more a desecration than an honorable blow. Over the mum link, he heard Magpie Two Pendragon rallying the remainder of his flock. They would learn the deception soon enough. Number One Pendragon was undoubtedly making his way to the guardhouse to verify in person the order to withdraw from the fight. That made this a place not to be.

  Below the rooftop where Epri had crouched, some taijis had noticed the disruption and had glimpsed Domino Tight when he had opened his Cloak to stab Pendragon. Two were directing speculative fire at his position, so he shifted to the other side of the guardhouse and went to ground. If he played it right, he might get the taijis to fire on Chrysanthemum One when he arrived.

  Domino Tight was still using the special lenses, and so saw a second cloaked figure appear on the rooftop, one who in appearance might have been a male version of Jimjim Shot. Perhaps a fraternal twin; or an identical twin altered in the womb. He rushed to aid the Beautiful Name, and Epri himself scrambled back from the rage in his eyes. Yes, thought Domino Tight. Take her away from this. It is not mete that she should be here.

  The newcomer seemed altogether more accustomed to a battle and bore the instruments of valor on his belt. He knelt by Jimjim, touched her gently, and then glared across the battle space with the pitiless gaze of a raptor.

  And his eyes found Domino Tight. His mouth set into a grim line and he spoke into his balled fist. Then with calm deliberation, he lifted a hand weapon of unfamiliar design. Death was no more than Domino Tight deserved for marring the perfect beauty of Jimjim Shot, but long years of training in the Abattoir had given his body a will of its own and he raised his own dazer and fired first.

  Perhaps it was surprise that he saw in the face of the man of golden bronze, as if he had not expected so defiant an act. If so, it was followed closely by the rage it had momentarily displaced. Domino’s bolt had no apparent effect on him, and he continued to aim.

  Domino Tight cloaked himself and ran in a random direction, knowing that he was surely visible to the man of the roof. He changed directions like a rabbit, using the random number generator in his shenmat. Then something hit him hard and he flew aside as if swatted by a great open hand.

  It might have been a fatal swat, had his gyros not stabilized his flight and brought him down on crouching feet directly beside Ravn Olafsdottr and three of Oschous’s magpies. He staggered, blocking two of their shots and taking a third on his dispersal armor before he could identify himself.

  “Well, well,” said the Ravn, who alone had not fired. “You are quite spry, Domino Tight, for a dead man.”

  * * *

  Big Jacques and most of his magpies had waited in his main headquarters until he had been certain that Sèanmazy had committed herself to attacking the decoy. As soon as he had learned that Pendragon had taken down Domino Tight and most of his boys in one fell swoop, he had sent tw
o more magpies to the decoy site with orders to simulate greater activity, had shut down the link to the main site, and had folded up shop.

  Oschous Dee Karnatika had discovered the fighting and had rallied his own flock to its support, attacking the mums in the rear. Big Jacques had not planned on that, but it added a greater touch of authenticity to the defense of the decoy and not incidentally had saved Big Jacques’s considerable butt. Sèanmazy had waited for likely rescuers before closing in with her taijis. Had Oschous Dee not triggered the trap, it would have been Jacques caught in the pincer.

  Now, Jacques would add a final touch of irony to the entire engagement, ambushing Ekadrina in turn. Unless there were still another Shadow on-world to attack him in turn. He laughed.

  “Ever play jenga?” he asked his team. A few nodded; the rest looked puzzled. “It’s a game where you stack a bunch of wooden blocks, and the players take turns pulling out one block at a time—until the tower collapses. Whoever collapses the tower loses the game.”

  “All shut down, chief,” said Number One, as he buckled his weapons harness. “Best we be a-getting over there.” His accent revealed roots on Broad South Continent, on Brannon’s World.

  Jacques sighed and pushed to his feet. “Twenty, you shepherd the jennies to the spaceport. Don’t balk, kid. You ain’t got the seasoning yet. Contact Seven and tell him to bring the ship down from Elfour and be ready for a full catch. Make sure our boat’s prepped and ready.”

  He sent outriders ahead on scooters and the rest of his flock followed in a ground-bus they had commandeered earlier. A mile from the battle space, his tridents disembarked and made their way on foot through a wooded park across the roadway from the battle space. There, they waited Oschous’s call. Jacques dispatched Three and Nine to reconnoiter the loyalist positions, and they vanished without a sound. Then he unrolled a holomap on the ground and a glowing miniature of the surrounding terrain rose from its surface. His flock clustered about. “Second Section,” he told them, pointing. “The black horses chewed up the mums pretty good in the original ambush before the taijis drove them into the warehouse. But don’t discount them. Suss ’em out, locate them, then strike hard and fast on my click. First section. Ekadrina is mine, but her flock is tough and ain’t been through the grinder like Pendragon’s boys. Oschous Dee tells me she’s reinforced by Epri Gunjinshow and a couple of lilies. We’ll get support from the black horses and the rest of our boys what took refuge inside the warehouse. So don’t shoot long if you can help it. There’s a white comet over there, too. A free lance named Olafsdottr who took Gidula’s service. And, boys, Padaborn’s with them.”

  The name ran like fire across the lips of his magpies. Padaborn. Padaborn’s back.

  Big Jacques, and his senior magpies, said nothing. Twenty-four years ago, Geshler Padaborn had been a traitor, an experiment gone bad. And Jacques himself had been in the team that assaulted the Education Ministry. They had killed Issa Dzhwanson, the actress who had been the voice of the Rising during that mad, tumultuous week. Her last words, broadcast to all Dao Chetty, had been: They shall not silence us. But of course they had. On the rooftop, he had found a mixed squad of magpies and commoners who could not even be dignified as walking wounded, left behind as a rear-guard. The magpies had died fighting, of course; but Padaborn himself had somehow escaped the net.

  “Yeah, Padaborn is directing the defense,” he told his flock. He doubted it was true. Any direction was Oschous’s doing. Way he heard it, Padaborn was not up to snuff. But if it fired up the boys, the lie would serve.

  Nine slipped back into the caucus. “Mums in confusion. Some withdrawing. Mum Two trying to rally. Pendragon out of link. Saw three, maybe four mums throats cut. Fresh kills. Nice precision close-in work. Black horse sortie?”

  “No. They’re bottled up pretty tight. Prick your spots on the map here.”

  While Nine was detailing the mum positions and movements, Three slipped back with the intel on the taijis. “I saw a couple take pots at the mums. Someone over there was firing into Ekadrina’s people, and wounded Epri up on the roof, so some of them think the mums flipped. Something happened on the roof, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Didn’t want to get closer and risk blowing the play, so I folded up my parabolic and came back.”

  Big Jacques considered that, and the positions pricked on the map. “Okay, change of plan. One, you take half of Second Section—even numbers—against the mums. Someone out there done half your work already. Don’t let ’im show you up. Odd numbers, you’re with me and First Section against the taijis. Upload the map, boys and girls. Same rules as before. Locate, mark—two apiece, I think—click when ready and in position. When you hear my click, strike hard and fast. That should give us near simultaneous kills and take out at half the loyalists before they even know we’re behind them. Understood?” He gathered their nods. “Great plan, right? Expect it to go wrong. Remember, an estimate of what the enemy will probably do is important, but don’t be surprised when he does something else. Combat is always complicated by the presence of the other side.”

  That earned him some chuckles. Nineteen swallowed hard and looked to One for assurance. The kid had promise, and Jacques hoped he would last the night. He touched his earwig. “Right. Just got the word from Oschous. Shift.”

  And hardly did the words leave his lips than the clearing was empty. A fern trembled where Nineteen had inadvertently brushed against it. Then it was still. Jacques smiled. They were good boys. Then, he too, stepped into the woods and vanished.

  * * *

  Ravn Olafsdottr had never seen a man as rattled as Domino Tight. Even for one so recently resurrected, he seemed unnerved. He crouched behind the old shippers and rasped, “They’ve come. They’re here.” But who had come and who was here he did not clarify.

  “That was good work you did behind their lines,” she told him. “I assume it was you that scattered the mums and got the taijis potting them.”

  One of the defenders behind the shipper was a lyre. “Good to see you quick, boss,” he said, but the Shadow hardly reacted.

  This was not the Domino Tight that Ravn remembered from the disaster relief work on Nanq’ress. That had been a man quick-witted and cool.

  So why not assume he remained quick-witted? “Who is here?” she asked him. “Has another Shadow joined the play? The Riff? Surely not Gidula! He is too oold to play at these games.”

  His answer, if any answer had been forthcoming, was forestalled by Ekadrina Sèanmazy, who tossed an incendiary onto the rooftop of the south extension. The fire nests failed to interdict it and the resulting explosion wiped out four of the remote guns that Ravn had planted up there. The screens went dark and she could no longer see through their eyes or fire their weapons. The others nests, being farther back, had escaped, and she switched rapport to them, expecting Epri to launch an assault behind the explosion. “He better be right quick aboot it,” she murmured, “for the roof is to catch fire.” Then she toggled Oschous. “Black Horse, two taijis have entered the south annex ground floor at the far end. That zone is no longer interdicted.”

  “So noted,” said the Fox.

  “Has our mutual friend decided yet whether the fight is his to wage?”

  “He is a remarkably stubborn man.”

  Ravn made a face. What game was Donovan playing? It seemed sheer lunacy to her. If they lost this fight, no one would pause to ask him if he were neutral. Perhaps Gidula had been right all along …

  At that point, the trident struck the attackers from the rear. It seemed to Ravn that a third or more of the attacking force fell silent, and the mums ceased to exist as a coherent force. Epri’s boys on the roof had begun aiming fire to their rear; and Ekadrina, on the verge of following her magpies into the annex, whirled about.

  “Oh, well struck, Jacques!” cried Oschous over the link. “Let’s close the trap.”

  Ravn acknowledged and told her task force to move forward, enfilading to the left to take advant
age of the mums’ collapse. There were trenches—employed perhaps by mechanics to work on the undercarriage impellers of old ground trucks—and the magpies slipped into them, one by one. Ravn switched her fire nests to remote so she could work them while she shifted location. She shook Domino Tight. “Let’s finish this.”

  “He—he’s on the roof!”

  A glance showed Epri being evacuated by his boys and the roof of the annex beginning to smolder with thick black billows. “There’s no one on the roof.” Ravn switched her fire nests to automatic so they would take down anyone who moved toward them. Unlikely, now that the roof was igniting, but other fights won had been lost at the last because something unlikely had been tried.

  “No! He is on the roof.”

  Ekadrina Sèanmazy was at the far end of the annex, firing toward her rear. Ravn swung a long arm strapped to her back and aimed through the scope. A long shot, but not impossible. Her finger trembled on the trigger, stroking it, then withdrawing. Big Jacques had claimed Ekadrina for his own, and honor required that she refrain; yet, honor was not all that kept her finger from the trigger. She rather liked the Long Tall One and she grieved over the state to which the Lion’s Mouth had fallen. It was one thing to play the game by maneuver, shifting the sheep, seizing positions and offices. Quite another to betray one another. After the issue was settled, would Prime ever be able to reassemble the Lion’s Mouth? Would there be a Purge, as in the far old days? Would there be years of ambush and murder by die-hards of the losing side?

  If the Revolution succeeded, there might not even be a Lion’s Mouth afterward. And what would it be like to be an orphan?

  Ekadrina Sèanmazy spun three-quarters about and fell to the ground. But in the fall, she rolled, and moved into a shadow—and was gone. Moments later, Big Jacques appeared; but he was not so foolish as to appear completely. Ravn saw him only because she expected to see him and knew where to look.