Smoke and Iron (The Great Library #4)(108)

The cutter acted quickly at the fence, opening a section with judiciously applied Greek fire wide enough to allow five to pour through at a time. They’d timed it between the loops of the automata sphinxes, but even so, they’d be spotted in seconds, and from then on, it would be a real fight.

Tadalesh was sliding over the edge of the roof, and Jess followed. He found hand-and footholds and jumped the last ten feet to land in a roll and come up running, and he was halfway to the fence when the first automaton sphinx spotted the breach and let out a harsh metallic cry. It flapped metal wings and glided toward Anit’s people, claws unsheathed and ready to rip into flesh.

Brendan slid into its path, and it dropped onto him, pinned him to the ground, and opened its needle-toothed mouth to bite. Brendan twisted, reached, and jammed his rifle between the jaws, forced the head up, and found the switch.

The sphinx froze in place, and Anit pulled him free as two others tipped the statue over with a crash. Brendan got to his feet and yanked his rifle free, and Jess shoved through the thieves’ army to make it to his brother’s side.

“Stupid!” he shouted. Brendan was hurt. He could see the blood soaking into his shirt.

“Effective!” Brendan shouted back, and grinned. “It’s nothing. Get us in—more are coming!”

The workshop entrance was locked, but Jess and the cutter got it open in seconds, and Jess took the lead, grabbing a glow from the wall and calling up the path that he’d taken to the Archivist’s workshop. Another pair of doors, these thicker. Behind them, the sphinxes would be swarming and killing as many as they could reach. Getting trapped here in the corridor was deadly.

It took a costly half minute, but the doors finally slammed open, and Jess was one of the first onto the balcony where he and the Archivist had last stood. The railing had been newly repaired, and the metal was still shining. The workshop below was well lit but empty of any workers or guards. Just the silent, still forms of automata under construction.

Jess wrapped a rope around the rail and slid down, and more ropes joined his. Anit was still on the balcony and ordering men to hold the door; that wouldn’t hold for long against automata, but maybe long enough.

And then the doors flew open, knocking Anit’s people back, and High Garda poured through. Jess raised his rifle and aimed, then realized who was in the lead. “Don’t fire! Don’t fire!” He shouted it as loudly as he could, and Anit echoed him up on the balcony.

It was Niccolo Santi, and Scholar Wolfe beside him, and Jess saw Thomas’s golden head towering above the crowd.

The two factions faced off, a neutral space between them, and Jess grabbed the rope he’d slid down and climbed, vaulted over the rail, and pushed into the empty center where Anit and Brendan were already standing.

“Captain,” Jess said. “Good to see you.”

Santi nodded. “Same.”

“You followed us.”

“We thought we’d let you lead the way.”

“How many with you?”

“Fifty now. The rest coming,” Santi said. “We’ll have cover fire from high points nearby, but this will be a ground fight. You understand.” He looked at Anit. “Why are you here?”

“To get our people back,” she said. “Same as you.”

“Common cause?”

“For now,” Anit said. “Until it isn’t. I think we’ll know that moment.”

It wasn’t perfect, but they didn’t have time for perfect. Just movement. The High Garda moved forward, and a team sealed the door behind them with fast, effective welders. Jess left his brother with Anit and joined his friends.

Naturally opposing sides, but for now, Santi was right: common cause.

They coursed through the workshop, moving past the tables, the dead automata, the curtain-covered, half-finished machines. Jess ripped down the curtain at the back of the room and found another dragon lying dormant on the ground. It looked ready to fly. We should destroy that, he thought, but the truth was they didn’t have time. Up on the balcony, the doors were shaking under a relentless assault.

The back of the workshop was an enormous rolling door, and as they shoved it away on its rails, they were standing on a wide, up-slanting ramp. Jess ran toward the top of it and found another door, large enough to easily accommodate that dragon, or a horde of elephants, or a full-scale ship. There were controls on the wall. A simple push of a button, and they would be in the amphitheater.

Santi and Wolfe paused next to him. Anit, flanked by a hard crowd of her lieutenants. Khalila, Thomas, and Glain.

And his twin, who nodded and said, “Go.”

No going back.

Jess hit the button, and the door opened into the Feast of Greater Burning.

There was no one to rescue. No one on the floor of the amphitheater. No automata, no prisoners, no one. They rushed out, and slowed, and Jess turned in place to look at what they’d just done.

The stands were full of Scholars. Librarians. In the gilded central box sat the Curia of the Great Library, all dressed in their formal robes, and standing at the railing were two people. The Archivist, dressed in heavy, jeweled robes, with a crown with the eye of Horus towering on his head.

And the Artifex, his closest ally and friend, wearing the robes of his office. He held a golden whistle in his hand, and he was smiling.

“Back!” Jess shouted, but it was too late. The doors were sliding shut, trapping half of their people in the tunnels. A hundred of them had made it through—a mix of Anit’s thieves and Santi’s High Garda. Instinctively, the thieves spread out, and the High Garda bunched together in a cohesive, protective formation.