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She heard a faint, dull pop.
She took a deep breath. Acrid, shit-flavored smoke spilled over the parapets, thick and blinding.
“We’re in trouble,” said the Republican soldier at her left.
She squinted through the smoke at a column of Ram reinforcements approaching fast from the lefthand walkway.
She looked frantically about the wall for a way to get down. She saw a stairwell to her left, but too many soldiers stood crowded at the base. The only other way down was across the other side of the wall, but the walkway didn’t go all the way around—a ridge of wall no thicker than her heel stood between her and the other stairwell.
No time to think. She jumped onto the outer edge of the wall, dug her heels in, and began running before she could teeter to either side. Every few steps she felt her balance jerk horrifically to one side. Somehow she righted herself and kept going.
She heard the twangs of several bows. Rather than duck, she took a flying leap toward the stairwell. She landed painfully on her side and skidded to a halt. Her shoulder and hip screamed in protest, but her arms and legs still worked. She crawled frantically down the stairs, arrows whizzing over her head.
Behind the gates was a war zone.
She’d stumbled into a crush of bodies, a clamor of steel. Blue uniforms dotted the crowd. Republican soldiers. Relief washed over her. They weren’t dead after all, just late.
“About time!”
Two wonderfully familiar tornadoes of destruction appeared before her. Suni picked up a Ram soldier as if he were a doll, hoisted him over his head, and flung him into the crowd. Baji slammed his rake down into someone’s neck, yanked it up, and twirled it in a circle to knock an incoming arrow out of the air.
“Nice,” Rin said.
He helped her to her feet. “What took you so long?”
Rin opened her mouth to respond just as someone tried to grapple her from behind. She jammed her elbow back by instinct and felt the rewarding crunch of a shattering nose. Her assailant’s grip loosened. She struggled free. “We were waiting for your signal!”
“We gave a signal! Sent a flare up ten minutes ago! Where’s the fucking army?”
Rin pointed to the wall. “There.”
A thud shook Xiashang’s gates. The Shrike had landed its siege tower.
Republican soldiers funneled over the wall like a swarm of ants. Bodies hurtled to the ground like tumbling bricks, while grappling hooks flew into the sky and embedded themselves at regular intervals along the wall.
She saw almost as many blue uniforms as green ones now. Slowly the press of Republican soldiers expanded through the center square.
“Get to the gates,” Rin told Baji.
“Way ahead of you.” Baji scattered the throng of soldiers guarding one suspension wheel with a well-aimed swing of his rake. Suni took the other wheel. Together they dug their heels into the ground and pushed. Republican soldiers formed a protective circle around them, fending off the press of defenders.
“Push!” someone screamed.
Rin didn’t have the chance to look behind her to see what was happening. The wave of steel was too blinding. Something sliced open her left cheek. Blood splattered across her face. It was in her eyes—she wiped at them with her sleeve, but that only made them sting worse.
She lashed blindly out with her trident. Steel crunched into bone, and her attacker dropped to the ground. Lucky blow. Rin fell back behind the Republican line and blinked furiously until her vision cleared.
She heard a screeching grind from the suspension wheels. She hazarded a glance over her shoulder. With a massive groan, the gates of Xiashang swung open.
Behind them was the fleet.
The tide had turned. Republican soldiers flooded the square, a deluge of so many blue uniforms that for a moment Rin lost sight of the Ram defenders entirely. Somewhere a horn blew, followed by a series of gong strikes that rang so loudly they drowned out any other sound.
Distress signals. But signals to whom? Rin clambered up onto a crate, trying to see above the melee.
She spotted movement in the southwest corridor. She squinted. A new platoon of soldiers, armed and battle-fresh, ran toward the square. The local backup militia? No—they were wearing blue uniforms, not green.
But that wasn’t the ocean blue of the Republican uniforms.
Rin almost dropped her trident. Those weren’t Nikara soldiers.
Those were Federation troops.
For a moment she thought, panicking, that the Federation was still at large, that they had taken this chance to launch a simultaneous invasion on Xiashang. But that made no sense. The Federation had already been behind the city gates. And they weren’t attacking the Xiashang city guard, they were only attacking troops clearly marked in Republican uniforms.
Realization hit like a punch to the gut.
The Ram Warlord had allied with the Federation.
The ground tilted beneath her feet. She saw smoke and fire. She saw bodies eaten by gas. She saw Altan, walking backward away from her on a pier—
“Get down!” Baji shouted.
Rin flung herself to the ground just as a spear hit the wall where her head had been.
She struggled to her feet. She couldn’t see an end to the column of Federation soldiers. How many were there? Did they equal Republican numbers?
What had seemed like an easy victory was about to turn into a bloodbath.
She raced up the stairway to get a better look at the city’s layout. Just past the town square she saw a three-story residence embedded in a massive, sculpture-dotted garden. That had to be the Ram Warlord’s private quarters. It was the largest building in Xiashang.
She knew the best way to end this.
“Baji!” She waved her trident to get his attention. When he looked up, she pointed toward the Ram Warlord’s mansion. “Cover me.”
He understood immediately. Together they forced their bloody way through the throng until they broke out on the other side of the square. Then they ran for the gardens.
The mansion was guarded by two stone lions, mouths open in wide, greedy caverns. The doors were bolted shut.
Good. That meant someone was hiding inside.
Rin aimed a savage kick at the handle, but the doors didn’t budge.
“Please,” said Baji. She got out of his way. He took three steps back and slammed his shoulder into the doors. Wood splintered. The doors crashed open.
Baji picked himself up off the ground and pointed behind her. “We’ve got trouble.”
Rin turned around to see a fresh wave of Federation soldiers running toward the mansion. Baji planted himself in the doorway, rake raised.
“You good?” Rin asked.
“You go. I’ve got this.”
She ran indoors. The halls were brightly lit but appeared entirely empty—which would have been the worst of outcomes, because that would mean the Ram Warlord’s family had already evacuated to somewhere safe. Rin stood still in the center of the hall, heart pounding, straining to listen for any sound of inhabitants.
Seconds later she heard a baby’s shrill wail.
Yes. She concentrated, trying to track the noise. She heard it again. This time the baby’s cry was stifled, like someone had clamped a sleeve over its mouth, but in the empty house it rang clear as a bell.
The sound came from the chambers to her left. Rin crept forward, shoes moving silently across the marble floor. At the end of the hall she saw a single silkscreen door. The baby’s cries were getting louder. She placed a hand on the door and pulled. Locked. She took a step back and kicked it down. The flimsy bamboo frame gave way with no trouble.
