The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [96]
Adam eased the door open and Vienh slipped in, rain dripping from her oilcloak.
“The Yhan Ti is leaving port,” she said, “bound for Assar. Izzy’s ready to slip dock, and your friend Bashari is waiting on the Dog. Come on.”
Isyllt stumbled up, groping for her still-damp clothes while Adam tugged on his boots. It took her three tries to pick up her shirt and her hands shook as she fastened the buttons. If the saints were merciful, she could sleep on the ship.
The hall was dark, only one lamp by the staircase left burning. Isyllt dropped to the back of the line, pulling out her mirror. Zhirin was probably asleep. She whispered the girl’s name as they started down the stairs. An instant later, she heard a loud crack in the common room, followed by a heavy metallic clang. Adam paused and Isyllt nearly ran into him.
“What was that?”
A thunderclap shook the room, shivering the stairs and throwing them against the wall. She lost the spell and her grip on the mirror. Isyllt grabbed for the rail, gasped as she hit it with her bad hand, and fell. The rush of pain drove away the last fatigue-fog. Smoke billowed, reeking of gunpowder.
“Bombs!” Vienh shouted; her voice was distant and hollow through the ringing in Isyllt’s ears. “Out the back.”
Doors opened along the hall as they scrambled back, wary faces peering out. Another explosion echoed and someone screamed. Down the narrow stairs to the door behind the storerooms, but when Adam unbarred the door and flung it open a bullet shattered the wood inches from his shoulder.
Through the gloom of the rain-soaked alley, Isyllt saw a red handprint on the opposite wall. Vienh swore as they retreated from the door.
“Dai Tranh! It’s an ambush.”
Smoke eddied from the front of the bar, and orange light flickered at the end of the hall. Through the fire, or into the bullets.
“They’ll be waiting in front too,” Adam said, checking his pistol.
A shot cracked before she could answer. Isyllt ducked—in truth more a startled stumble—and saw a masked man crouching on the other side of the door. He fired again and Vienh slammed into her, knocking her down. Isyllt landed on hip and elbow, eyes blurring from the pain. Adam fired back and the man vanished.
They ducked into a storeroom and Isyllt called witchlight. Vienh gasped as she slouched against the wall. Red spooled down her right arm, feathering across her linen sleeve.
“Not bad,” she hissed as Isyllt reached for her. “Just grazed.”
Isyllt touched her arm anyway to be sure and promptly jerked her hand away with a curse.
“Lead bullets. Bastards.” Isyllt shook her head. “They’re not Dai Tranh.”
Adam pulled out his mirror, used it to glance around the doorframe before he leaned out to shoot. “How do you know?”
“The Dai Tranh used copper bullets at the execution, even though they were shooting at mages. And they used rubies to blow up the other buildings, not powder grenades.”
“Can we solve this somewhere else?” Vienh snapped as she pressed a fold of sleeve against her wound.
Another blast shook the front of the bar; a lamp fell from its hook and shattered, splattering the floor with oil. The building would collapse on their heads soon. More shots sounded in the hall and someone screamed. Adam took another look through the mirror.
“They’re shooting anyone who comes down.”
Isyllt crept closer to the door. The air tasted of blood and smoke and approaching death. She risked a glance outside, saw a man’s sandaled foot and a thread of blood leaking across the floor. A bullet splintered the doorframe above her head and she jerked back inside. A moment later her ring chilled as the wounded man died.
“We’re going to make a break for it soon,” she said to Adam and Vienh, “but I’ll be distracted, so cover me.”
She reached into her ring, letting the cold wash away her fatigue and pain. Her magic crept out in icy tendrils, licking toward the corpse, oozing into his cooling flesh. It wasn’t something she