and as she barreled past the astonished coach drivers, a burst of white hot pain in her backside told her at least one of them was a halfway decent shot.
She stumbled, falling with a curse and grating her palms and knees like cheese on the flagstones. Hissing in pain, she scrambled back to her feet, clutching the crossbow bolt protruding from her backside.
“Maw’s teeth, did they just shoot you in th—”
“Just shoot them back, you fucking nonce!”
Dove fired again, dropping another guard with a quarrel in his throat. The boy ducked to reload, and a flurry of quarrels flew over Mia’s head, perforating two of the panicking drivers and one particularly annoyed stallion. Sadly, as Dove rose with his own bows reloaded, one of the bolts caught him in the chest, toppling him back into the carriage roof in a spray of blood. Mia watched her Hand try to rise, lips painted blood, but the boy finally collapsed with a bubbling moan.
“… I DID WARN YOU HE WAS AN IDIOT …”
“… for once, we are in complete agreement …”
Mia was on her feet, seeking cover amid the milling horses and panicked drivers. But with her arm cut to ribbons, there was no way she could steer a carriage and work the whip at the same time, and Aurelius’s guards were closing fast.
Her gravebone dagger flashed, severing leather straps and couplings about a tall white stallion. Wincing at the pain, she dragged herself onto the stallion’s back.
“… have you forgotten how much horses hate you …?”
“Apparently so.”
“… RIDE …!”
Mia kicked the horse’s flanks, the stallion bolted, hooves kicking up the packed gravel of the senator’s yard as the guards roared at her to halt.fn1 Crossbow bolts flew past her head, grazing her horse’s flank, one bolt thudding into its hindquarters. The beast screamed, tried to throw her, but Mia clung on like a shadow to its owner’s feet. The stallion put on a burst of speed, dashing past the front gate and out into the broad thoroughfares of the city of Galante. Bells tolled in the distance, echoing from dozens of different cathedrals, domes and minarets. The streets were crowded for Firemass, revelers shouting curses as Mia galloped past on her bleeding stallion.
The Blade glanced behind, saw half a dozen guards riding in pursuit. The blood pouring from her shoulder was sticky across her back, her sodden dress clinging to her skin. She was starting to feel light-headed from the loss. With a colorful curse, she snapped off the crossbow bolt in her backside, head swimming with agony. She needed to get off the streets, somewhere dark, hide until the noise died down.
Galante’s streets were packed even here in the marrowborn district—too crowded to run a high-speed chase through much farther. Her stallion’s burst of terrified speed was coming to an end, the horse now limping from the quarrel in its own hindparts. Mia slid off the hobbling beast, down into a crowd of drunken revelers, the cries of the pursuing guards ringing in her ears. She limped down an alley between one of the city’s countless cathedrals and a looming administratii building, twisting into the warren of the Galante backstreets. Gasping for breath, vision swimming, blood loss making her hands shake. Her left arm was entirely numb, Mister Kindly’s voice in her ear urging her on. Finally, she found a wroughtiron fence, a crowded sea of headstones and tombs beyond it, run through with dark weeds and bright flowers.
Galante’s necropolis.
She limped through the gate, stumbled down the tightly packed rows of marble and mossy granite, looming mausoleums, packed with generations of marrowborn dead. Finally, she ducked beneath the eave of a tomb belonging to some rich bastard, long ago forgotten. And reaching out to the shadows, Mia plucked them with clever fingers, weaving them about her shoulders.
As it always did, all the world fell to black beneath Mia’s cloak. But she still heard Aurelius’s guards as they entered the necropolis, boots tromping on the flagstones. Their captain barked an order and the group split up, weaving into the overcrowded labyrinth of crypts and vaults and tombs, cries of “Assassin!” ringing on the pale stone.
But one guard remained.
Mia could only dimly see him through her veil of shadows, but she could tell from his vague silhouette the man was huge. His boots crunched on the gravel as he slowly prowled the mausoleums, muttering softly. Mia held her breath as he walked closer to her hiding place, head moving side to side. She felt a warm trickle down her back, her flash of dread swallowed by her passengers as she realized that, despite her shadowcloak, her blood would have left a trail, and would now be pooling at her feet.
The guard prowled toward Mia’s crypt. And rather than pray he’ d pass her by, the girl simply threw aside her cloak and lunged, stiletto in hand.
The guard was wearing mail beneath his finery, but her gravebone blade pierced the steel rings as if they were butter. Her blow sank to the hilt, but striking blind, she’ d landed shy of the fellow’s heart. The big man cried aloud as she struck again, this time slicing his jugular. A spray of red hit her face, warm and wet, the guard seizing her wrist and delivering a crushing hook to her jaw. Mia was flung back against the tomb wall, lashing out at the hand that held her, the pair of them going down in a tumble.
His windpipe was still intact, and the guard was bellowing, the girl snarling, stabbing again and again. They rolled about on the flagstones, Eclipse and Mister Kindly both whispering warning that the other guards were returning. But her foe was huge, and for all her training, Mia was wounded, bleeding, and anyone who believes there’s no advantage in being twice as big as your opponent has never fought a foe half their size.
She heard thundering boots, face twisted as the guard grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her blade finally found his neck again, sending him back onto the cobbles in a frothing red spray. Mia scrambled upright, saw another four guards approaching.
“… run …!”
“How?” she gasped.
“… HIDE …!”
“Where?”
“Halt!”
The guards fanned out around her, four clad in Senator Aurelius’s finery. She could hear whistles in the distant street, the tromp tromp of legionaries’ boots. Fearless, even staring into the eyes of death, she glared at the tallest guard and twirled her stiletto through her fingers. She thought of Consul Scaeva and Cardinal Duomo. Her familia unavenged. But regret came ultimately from fear, and even there at the finish, she could find none inside her. Only rage that it could end like this.
“Who dies first?” she asked, glaring at the assembled men.
The most sensible of the guards aimed a loaded crossbow at her chest.
“That’d be you, bitch,” he spat.
A chill stole over her, dark and hollow. Goosebumps rippling on her bloodied skin. The suns burned high overhead, but here in the necropolis, the shadows were dark, almost black.
