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“Remind me again who’s good at spotting undercovers, Lek?” Kirima snarled.
In a moment of panic Kyoshi thought the officers had come for her on behalf of Jianzhu, but that couldn’t have been the case. If he’d sent out messengers immediately, they still wouldn’t have beaten a bison.
No, she thought with a grimace. They were here for the girl who’d walked into an outlaw hideout and started making demands with outlaw codes. She’d incriminated herself in public, like a fool.
“In the name of Governor Deng, you are under arrest!” the captain said. Instead of a sword, he pointed a ceremonial truncheon topped with the Earth King’s seal at them, but it looked heavy enough to break bones regardless. “Put down your weapons!”
Deng. The name brought more terror to Kyoshi’s heart than a charging saber-tooth moose lion. Stout, red-nosed Governor Deng was a frequent visitor to Jianzhu’s house and one of his closest allies. Kyoshi glanced at Rangi. The Firebender’s worried headshake confirmed her fear. If they got caught here, tonight, the whole operation was over. They’d be back in Jianzhu’s grasp before his breakfast got cold.
The captain did not like the eye contact between her and Rangi. “I said put down your weapons!” he shouted, bristling for a fight.
The daofei looked at their empty hands in confusion. Kyoshi realized that unless the man felt particularly threatened by Lao Ge’s bottles, the only armed one was she. The glinting war fan was still in her hand, its mate stuck in her belt. She stood up so that she could have room to yank the other fan out.
The captain took a step back in astonishment. He’d interpreted her unfurling to her full height as a hostile act. He wasn’t the first. “Take them!” he shouted to his men.
There were so many of them. Crammed in the dark confines of the teahouse, the police force seemed larger in number than Tagaka’s marauders. Five of the officers made a beeline for Kyoshi, the obvious target.
They were knocked down by a blast of fire. Kyoshi glanced back at Rangi again. She had her fist extended, her skin smoking. Her face was upset but unrepentant. If they were in, they were in full-measure. Rangi didn’t do things by halves.
Inspired by her decisiveness, Wong picked up Lao Ge and threw the drunkard bodily at the captain like a rag doll. Lao Ge’s warlike screech as he flew through the air was the only sign that he’d agreed to the act. The two of them must have done it before. The element of surprise worked strongly in their favor as Lao Ge’s wiry arms wrapped around the captain’s neck and his legs scissored around the waist of his subordinate, becoming a human net.
Another blast from Rangi sizzled past Kyoshi’s ear. She no longer knew what was going on. Men closed in on her with swords drawn. She picked up the nearest, heaviest object, the Pai Sho board, by one of its legs and swung it in an arc.
The policemen were bowled over like wheatstalks by the dense wooden bludgeon. The ones who tried to block her wild
strikes with their dao had their swords bent and crushed against their torsos for their trouble.
Fresh officers ran in through the door only to slip on a sheet of ice that Kirima laid down using nothing but the remaining wine from Lao Ge’s stash. Kyoshi jolted in surprise at the reserved, minimalist twirl of her wrists and fingers. For a moment it looked like Tagaka of the Fifth Nation was fighting on her side.
“Girl!” Lao Ge said, clamping swords inside their scabbards wherever his bony fingers and toes could reach. “Bump the table!”
She didn’t have the same previous working relationship with him as Wong, but Kyoshi caught his drift. She raised her foot high and stomped the floor.
The teahouse jumped into the air again, this time tilted higher from the back. Lao Ge and several of the policemen fell through the door. The others were knocked prone, scrambling on the straw and frozen wine.
Kyoshi’s new compatriots managed to stay upright, having seen the trick before. “Out the other side!” Lek yelled.
“What about Lao Ge?” She hadn’t meant to dump him into the thick of the enemy.
“He can handle himself! Move!”
She flung the Pai Sho board at the nearest officers and followed the others through the kitchen. It was empty, just a little room with a clay stove that smoldered from the one attempt Lek had made at tea. Another door gave way, and they were in the town square behind the building.
The passage had been disguised, painted over without a frame, and there were no windows, so it was the side of the house that was least well-guarded by the police. Only two men held positions there. Kyoshi heard a zzip-zzip noise, and they crumpled to the ground before they could wave their swords.
Lek tucked something back into his pocket. “Where’s your ride?”
Rangi answered, which was good because Kyoshi had lost her bearings and had no idea. “Southwest corner of town,” she said. “If everyone follows me, I can get us there.”
There was a harsh scrape of clay from above. A whole section of roof tiles sloughed off and came crashing down at their heels as they ran. Reaching Pengpeng meant running along the edge of the square, seeking one outlet from the many cramped alleyways branching and forking in different directions like the veins of a leaf.
Kyoshi caught sight of the reason why they hadn’t been swarmed by more lawmen. Lao Ge was tangling with a whole platoon of them by the main entrance. They slashed wildly at the air he occupied only to come up empty every time. He folded and rolled his body like the wine still fogged his mind, dodging and flipping, his movements seemingly designed to taunt and frustrate them. Kyoshi saw him leaning over at impossible angles nearly parallel to the ground and realized he was subtly earthbending supports underneath his torso, changing his center of gravity to confound his opponents.
“We can’t leave him!” she shouted to the others.
Apparently they could, because no one else gave Lao Ge a second thought. “This one!” Rangi said, darting down a passage into the darkness. But before anyone had a chance to follow, a thick stone wall shot up from the ground, reaching the height of the neighboring roofs, closing the exit off. The police force had brought Earthbenders of their own.
Lek kept running after her as if he were oblivious to the obstacle in his path. Kyoshi though he was going to dash his brains out against the wall. And then he did one of the most amazing things she had ever seen.
