Solitaire POV: Day 78

  Current Wealth: 229 gold 37 silver 6 copper

  I’d gotten used to carriage rides since coming to Redacle, in fact I’d actually come to regard them as something of a luxury. That was what hours of constant walking would do to a person, I supposed. Still, it came as quite a surprise how comfortable Velaharo’s vehicle actually was. Apparently the working class’ tears made for quite effective wheel lubricant, because the journey was smooth sailing from start to finish, and found only one hitch.

  We were about halfway to the manor, or so I was told, when I heard something outside. Turning to look at it, I found a woman sprinting down the street, something clutched tightly to her chest and a frantic look on her face. She was short, brown-haired and slender as a whip, but the wind under her legs was a thing and a half.

  The pair of guards chasing after her, red-faced and empty-lunged, barely managed to snatch my focus away from her. Neither one was close to catching the woman, and the distance between them and her was only growing. It wasn’t that that caught my focus, though. Instead I found myself noting the way she wove between obstacles, always choosing the ones perfectly sized, shaped and placed to impede her as little as possible, while doing the opposite with her pursuers.

  As I turned to Beam, I found he was already eying the scene as well, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “You want to recruit her?” I guessed.

  He glanced at me, as if surprised I was even there, then nodded.

  “She’s fast.” He noted.

  “And smart.” I concurred, looking back to see her rapidly disappearing from sight. No time for a prolonged think, then.

  She could be trouble, with what looked like a stolen object, but given the sheer fear of the men chasing her I could only guess that it was a valuable stolen object, too. Possibly that meant we could profit by seizing it ourselves, but at worst it was very strong cause to believe that this one had permeated quite a strong security setup to snatch it.

  In the end, there wasn’t really much doubting where my decision would land.

  “Go after her.” I sighed to Beam. “Helena, Argar and I can take the stuff from the carriage, though…Do keep a low profile.”

  I didn’t like the idea of him getting murdered by the Dead Edge just because I’d sent him off alone, but Beam only grinned and dove out of the window. He took off faster than either of our fighters could have managed, armour or no, and…Yes, I saw, almost as fast as the sprinter.

  With luck, he’d be fast enough to escape a killing.

  The carriage carried on, rolling away and soon pulling in to stop before a sprawling mansion. Velaharo stepped daintily out from her door, and I trudged down from mine. Argar and Helena, stored on the back, were already beginning the tedious process of hauling their gear towards the house.

  “Where’s Shango?” I asked Velaharo. She eyed me impassively.

  “He should be inside, somewhere, looking through the place. Said he had a study to make, or something to that effect.”

  If it were me, I’d be making sure the mansion was a nice, defensible position. Located on the city’s edge, it was unpleasantly vulnerable to assault from anything that bypassed the outer wall, and painfully exposed. Remote. A lot could happen in this part of the city with nobody noticing elsewhere. A lot could be gotten away with.

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  Knowing Shango, though, he was doing something stupid, like appraising its worth or calculating storage capacity. Some people just had no appreciation for basic safety.

  The long, tedious process of hauling gear had only just begun, Velaharo eying it as it panned out with a thoughtful look, when the sound of hard footfalls caught my ear and turned me.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to see, a messenger perhaps. Maybe my very own noble to offer a proposal of marriage- that would’ve been brilliant, I’d have loved to see the look on her cunt face when I turned her down. But instead it was a man, then another, then another. All big, all hardened by and for violence, spears in some hands, axes and clubs in others. Weapons, proper weapons, made for war and killing, not just improvised in some ally .

  At their head was a tall fellow clutching a cocked crossbow, handling it with the gesticulations of a man who knew what he was doing. Everything seemed to slow at the sight of him, and I noticed a few things all at once.

  These people were staring right at me, obviously here for me and with no pleasant purpose. They were also attacking now, not when some of us were already inside unloading, or when we were on the road, now. After we’d disembarked, after we’d travelled the farthest possible distance. There weren’t enough of them that our remote location would provide any cover a suitably dark ally wouldn’t, which meant…

  Velaharo, they were worried about her. About hurting her with an attack on the carriage, or trespassing on her property by heading into her grounds. That made sense, noble blood was sacrosanct after all, in fact Shango managing to gain his own nobility was probably why these animals were here. They’d heard the Belahonts were becoming aristocrats, and realised that taking us out and wringing us for knowledge was now or never.

  Which made my next action very, very clear. I turned, hurrying at a sprint to Velaharo’s side while the enemy was still fifty feet away. Close enough for a crossbow to hit, I thought, but with any luck my sprint would be surprising and fast enough that I’d cross my five paces before catching a bolt.

  I wasn’t wearing my armour, which meant that it really was fortunate when I reached Velaharo in time, shocking the woman by grabbing her and violently dragging her body in front of mine, keeping it between myself and the now stunned men still approaching. I’d drawn my knife somewhere along the motion, and now held it pressed against Velaharo’s throat.

  “Try to shoot me, and you’ll hit her!” I roared, keeping my gaze flitting from one man to another. “Shoot my subordinates, and I’ll cut her throat, good luck explaining the dead noble to your bosses!”

  Silence followed, and I used it promptly.

  “Argar, Helena, take the carriage inside.”

  I heard a fortunately hasty scraping of boots on ground behind me, knowing my bodyguards were scrambling to do just that. Good. My charade here wouldn’t keep the bastards delayed for very long.

  Velaharo twitched in my arms, body moving against mine, a wrathful gasp escaping her.

  “Let go of me, you pig!” She snarled, speaking with that vehemence that women always seemed to have. “How dare you, how dare you use me as some fucking shield!”

  I tightened my grip on her, and said nothing as I glanced up at the men. Surprisingly, Mr. Crossbow was already levelling his weapon my way.

  Human shields were a fairly bad idea back on earth, plenty of guns could pierce right through a homosapien’s torso and still have a fair amount of wounding- if not killing- power when they hit something behind them. In fact, humans made for such shit shields, that we were forced quite early in our history to invent actual shields.

  But there were no guns here, just a crossbow, and by the looks of it, it wasn’t one of those fancy arbalest types with a five hundred kilo draw weight and the power to punch clean through steel. Which meant if it hit Velaharo, it probably wouldn’t be blasting out her back to injure me.

  That, I realised, might well have been the only reason I was still free of a fight. Because the crossbowman clearly wasn’t held back by the thought of killing a noble anymore, subtly trying to move around Velaharo for a clearer shot, subtly growing more annoyed as I manoeuvred her to deny it to him.

  Seconds passed, then more, and things were closing in on a minute before the situation finally boiled over.

  “Just get him.” The crossbowman- the lead man, I now realised- said with a snarl. His fellows started moving in, five of them, marching swift and determined. The decision was forced on me. If I let go of Velaharo, I’d be shot. If I kept hold of her, I’d have my arms busy when the others fell on us, and die. If I tried to back away with her, she’d slow me, we’d be caught, and I’d die.

  My options were slim, and the only one remaining was fairly obvious. I waited until the men were close, then violently shoved Velaharo into the nearest of them.

  Reflexively, he caught her, seeming just as surprised as she was as the screaming, thrashing, swearing woman almost bowled him over.

  I was already moving by then.