Tracer by Rob Boffard

Author:Rob Boffard [Boffard, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780356505145
Publisher: Redhook
Published: 2015-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

45

Riley

There are at least ten Lieren. They stand on either side of their leader, fingering blades and flexing fists. The light from the gallery makes them into silhouettes, turning their bodies into little more than dark apparitions.

Zhao gives a nasty smile, twisted by a small scar on the right corner of his mouth. The top of the scar meets the tip of one of his tattoos: a huge, slashing black mark, running up his cheek and around his head.

Amira steps in beside me, but I raise a hand, and she stops, puzzled. The people at the edge of the crowd have seen what’s happening, and have started to move away.

“Zhao, this really isn’t the time,” I say, but he just laughs.

“Tell that to Marco,” he replies. He indicates one of the Lieren, standing off to the side, glaring at me. It’s the one who led the ambush that started all this, the one I kicked in the head on the run to Gardens. His nose is a bulbous black mess. His blade twitches, gripped tight in his hand.

Hello, Tattoo. Apparently you have a name.

I look back at Zhao. “They jumped me, and they tried to take my cargo. Your boy here” – I gesture at Marco, and his eyes narrow in anger – “wanted to cut my ear off. I was just repaying the favour.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way,” Zhao replies. The smile stays etched on his face, but his eyes are cold. “You kind of – well – you insulted Marco. And that means you insulted me.”

His eyes pass over the bruised twins, the crippled Carver. They’re standing firm behind me, staring down the Lieren.

“I’ll offer you a way out,” he continues, leering. “Call it a debt of honour. We’ll leave, but we’re taking a body part of yours with us. I’ll let you pick which one.”

Amira steps forward, her teeth bared. “Not going to happen,” she says.

“I thought as much,” Zhao replies. And then he drives a fist deep into Amira’s stomach.

She cries out and collapses backwards, the air leaving her in one huge burst. Time slows to a crawl as she falls. I leap forwards, twisting my left elbow round in the direction of Zhao’s throat, and the corridor explodes.

Sometimes, the choice about whether to fight or to run gets made for you.

Every one of the Dancers attacks at once in a wave of fists and feet. My vision blurs at the edges; Zhao dodges out of range, laughing, but it dies on his lips as I bring the elbow round into the face of another Lieren. I feel his cheekbone crack under the strike, hear the howl of pain, but I’m already bringing my right hand up, balled into a fist and swinging at the man behind him. He’s short, scrawny, barely out of his teens, and for a bizarre moment I wonder how someone like him ever fell in with the Lieren. Then my fist slams into his side with a noise like a wet jacket thrown into a corner, and he doubles over, retching.

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