Page 18 of Warrior’s Mate

"Wasaytu post, Daratu. South pumping station failure. Dispatch rescue and engineering."

No response. He tried again. Nothing. Maelis was already heading for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Pumping station."

"No."

She stopped. It was the first wrong thing he said after recognizing her, and he knew it as soon as the word left his mouth. Her face closed with impressive speed.

"Excuse me?"

"We don't know what's happening outside."

"Which is why the person who knows what the pump controls feed should be there."

"Engineers know the system."

"The station engineers are the ones calling for help."

"Maelis—"

"Did recognition damage your hearing?"

Kaiven clenched his jaw.

Every instinct in him had shifted orientation. A few minutes ago Maelis had been a civilian specialist in a dangerous situation; now his body treated every unknown outside the tower as a threat to something essential. He could feel how easily that instinct might turn command into control, and he hated that she had identified the danger before he had.

"You're right," he said.

That stopped her.

"I am?"

"Don't enjoy it."

"Impossible."

He grabbed a field medical kit and his sidearm from the emergency locker.

"You're not going alone."

"That I can accept."

Pel looked between them. "You two just found out you're solmatu and you're going to argue your way through a pump failure?" Maelis reached the door first.

"Apparently."

Kaiven followed. They descended the stairs at a run.

Outside, Wasaytu no longer looked entirely peaceful. People had begun gathering in the street, looking toward the southern district. The public information boards flashed contradictory notices—LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE EVENT, then NO EVACUATION REQUIRED, then nothing at all.

A distant column of dark vapor climbed beyond the roofs. Kaiven stopped for half a second. Whatever had produced that column, it was not a pump failure. Maelis saw it too.

"What is that?"

"I don't know."