Shadows, стр. 29

Instinct told him soldiers would be better shots than militiamen, and he managed to dodge left an instant before he heard the crack of a gun. He went right, followed by another left, and then he was into the tunnel. His burning lungs begged for oxygen but he didn’t slow down until he passed two of Subitorni’s J’Stull guards. Normally, an unadorned man would not be allowed into the tunnel without a challenge, since it was the realm of the powerful and wealthy. With Offworlders assaulting the city, though, one man with no standing and no weapon represented no threat.

Few people were abroad now. The wealthy had shut their doors, and the militia and J’Stull soldiers were caught up defending the city. The few people he saw weren’t walking, and desperation drove him to shout about the archive as they ran past. Nobody responded. He kept moving forward.

Echoing gunfire caused him to turn back to the tunnel mouth, now several hundred yards behind him. Several figures ran past, dark against the blinding light, but the gunfire didn’t come from them. Then he heard it again and realized it was coming from further inside the plateau, near the cross-tunnel leading to the cache site. That could only mean the Offworlders were attacking from the site itself, and that they’d already seized the medicinals.

Logically, the archive was highly likely to be somewhere near the entrance they’d brought him through: secret entrance, secret archive. If it wasn’t there, it could be anywhere, and he didn’t know the city well enough for a blind search. Now, though, if the Offworlders fought through to the main tunnel before he could get past it, he’d be taken prisoner with nothing to trade. They might even ransom him back to the satrap or the Kulsians.

Nearby voices rose above the sounds of battle. He looked up and saw a knot of figures near the tunnel. Winded, he paused. A series of muzzle flashes suddenly lit the faces and uniforms of Subitorni’s J’Stull forces, followed by the hollow echoes of their reports. Single shots followed: the distinctive sound of a pistol to make sure the victims were dead. Subitorni and his men ran into the passage leading to the underground parking area, the same place Yukannak was headed.

Yukannak redoubled his effort and ran after Subitorni. There was enough light to see the bodies were those of an entire family: four children, a mother, and the heavy-set father. All wore well-made garments and shoes, but none wore paint; the attack had come too early for masks to have been applied for the day. That made it easy for Yukannak to see the black patch on the man’s left cheek, the telltale disfigurement of the Bleeding Black.

The dead man was the F’ahdn.

He fought the impulse to turn down the tunnel toward the cache site and surrender to the Offworlders. With bullets filling the passageway in both directions, simply running past the opening was dangerous enough. Instead, he put his head down and ran so fast that he stumbled, hoping no bullets would find him.

* * *

Cutter called for a short rest, and his squad deployed around a small plaza centered on a well. Under Sergeant Riidono’s eye, they formed a perimeter defense. After half an hour of moving through the Outer City, Cutter had stopped worrying whether Riidono could handle being a combat sergeant. Some men were natural non-coms, and he was one of them.

Like the rest of the Outer City, shattered pottery crunched underfoot in the plaza, particularly near the well itself. Discarded clothing and bodies—already bloating in the heat—lay scattered in irregular heaps. The unmistakable reek of a nearby sewer hung heavy in the air, and Cutter pitied the people who smelled that every day of their lives.

The angle of the sun had shifted enough that a small patch of shade was created by the buildings near the square’s northern side. Cutter knelt there trying to avoid gulping the hot air, not only because it hurt to breathe too deeply, but also to keep his men from seeing the extent of the mental strain with which he was already dealing. Draining the last drops from his canteen, Cutter nodded at the well.

“Think the water’s potable?” he asked the radioman.

“Sir?”

“Is it safe to drink?”

“I’ll find out.”

“No—”

The young man, Suukamanu, was the second youngest in the whole platoon. He set his radio aside and sprang toward the well. Everybody else was under cover. They’d cleared the area, but Cutter’s brain rejected that reassurance. Instead, it offered images from a tiny French village where a German sniper hit two of his men long after they thought the village had been cleared. Unable to stop Suukamanu, he brought his Thompson up to the ready position and scanned their surroundings.

He sensed movement in the periphery of his left eye. The corpse of a shriveled old woman, her throat sliced open so deeply it had nearly decapitated her, inched upward. Cutter squinted against the glare and caught a brief glint of sunlight off dark metal. Some part of his brain identified it as a rifle barrel even before the thought was fully formed. He swung the Thompson around but the hidden gunman fired at the same instant he did.

Suukamanu staggered under the impact of the big slug, and his legs locked in place for almost two seconds before he collapsed like a sack.

Cutter’s initial three-round burst ripped into the body of the old woman the gunman was using for cover, and at least one penetrated enough to hit him. The man rolled over, howling. Cutter pushed to his feet and covered the twenty feet between them in four strides. Behind a dirty face wrap, the man’s eyes met Cutter’s as he tried to bring his rifle to bear. Cutter kicked it away, then slammed the toe of his boot into