Sword and Pen (The Great Library #5)(93)

She waited for another pause and mapped what she’d seen before. The glint of metal in reflected light. She calculated that to be the targeting glass on a High Garda rifle, which put her actual target the length of her forearm behind it.

The firing paused.

She came up on her knees and sighted. She caught the glare of the glass, but only for an instant because it was swinging away from her.

And toward the knot of captains where Lord Commander Santi stood.

She took a careful, even breath, held it, gauged her distance, and fired three times. She spaced the shots so that even if she missed with one, she was likely to land two.

No more shots came from that position, though she waited, still holding that breath until it turned stale and urgent. She was presenting a plain and perfect target.

But the sniper didn’t take the bait.

She’d hit him.

Glain let the breath out and went back to her duties, firing at any Russian soldier who presented a target, until a sharp tap on her shoulder made her flinch. It was the lieutenant. “Sir?” she shouted. Her voice was too loud, but she was half-deaf from the din of battle.

“Take your squad to the streets behind the lines, Squad Leader. There’s word of rebels down there taking shots at us. Find them!”

“Yes, sir!” she snapped and pitched her voice to carry to her squad, even over the never-ending rattle of fire. “Blue Dogs! With me!”

They barked the response and followed. She automatically counted heads; two missing, but the rest were uninjured. They took the ramp as fast as they dared, but Glain stopped and held them in place while she looked over the rail at the street below. The Russians’ invading armored carrier had been caught on a row of angled steel caltrops the size of cattle; its treads still spun but it got no purchase. As she watched, a High Garda soldier scrambled up on the roof of the thing, found a hatch, and flung it open. He dropped a Greek fire grenade inside and leaped clear.

The screaming that erupted inside the metal monster was loud enough to be heard even over the thunder of battle.

Glain swallowed at the thought of the hell inside that vehicle, and led her squad the rest of the way down. Half the ballistas were in smoking ruins, thanks to the damage done by the carrier. The night air reeked of the stench of Greek fire and something new, a sharp and unpleasantly acrid smell she supposed was due to the new explosives the Russians had brought with them. She risked a glance at the gates.

There were no gates. Just a ragged hole in the wall where gates had been. A single iron hinge still hung limp from one surviving bolt. The only things that stood between Alexandria and the Russian forces were the High Garda, the Obscurists’ automata, and the good favor of the city’s gods. As many as they’d killed from the walls, it would not be enough. The Russians still had armored carriers and tens of thousands of soldiers to throw against these defenses, even if their new, deadly bomb throwers hadn’t withstood the dragon’s assault.

No help for that. She had a mission to carry out. The defense of the city was Lord Commander Santi’s responsibility, not hers.

She led the Blue Dogs away from that fight. They dodged the ruins of the first building that had been leveled by Russian explosives, and as they got free of the noise of battle, Glain slowed them down and took her bearings. The sniper had been on the roof half a block away, and the shooter had almost certainly been connected to the saboteurs; most likely the rest wouldn’t be far. This was what the Blue Dogs unit had been built to do: hunt down specific targets.

She turned the corner, setting the Blue Dogs on a standard fan formation, four going high and the rest staying low; their spotters would tell them where to turn, and she’d deploy the team to pick off their targets, one by one.

That was when she saw someone who seemed out of place peeping around a corner. A man she recognized, however vaguely; she never forgot a face, though it took her a few seconds to put him into place in her memory. She’d last seen him inside the Iron Tower. An Obscurist. He’d been one of those hanging back when Gregory and the Artifex had taken them all prisoner, and Wolfe’s mother had given her life to save theirs.

What was an Obscurist doing out here, in the middle of a pitched battle zone, wearing common street clothing?

Nothing good.

She started to give a command, but stopped as a gleaming automaton stalked around the other corner and came toward him. It was a big Roman-style lion, and it was unnaturally large, this one; it made the normal Alexandrian versions look like lapdogs. It moved so quietly, too.

She thought for a moment it was hunting him, but no. It was with him.

She couldn’t hear the commands the Obscurist gave the thing, but in seconds it responded. The lion let out a deep-throated growl and bounded off, running flat out toward the corner. Not toward them. Away.

Glain grabbed her second and said, “You have command. I need to follow the beast.”

“Sir, what are you doing? You can’t go alone!”

She didn’t wait to argue about it; there wasn’t time. She needed to stop whatever dire damage the lion had just been sent to inflict.

Though what she was going to do when she caught the thing, she had no idea.

Yet she had no choice.

She was no runner like Jess, but she was competent enough; she’d studied form and practiced hard, and though she got no joy in it, she could put on speed, if not his particular grace. The lion was moving fast, though. Too fast. Despite her best efforts, burning lungs and legs, she couldn’t catch it. Couldn’t even track it. Glain hated to admit defeat, but she knew she had to outsmart it, not outrun it.