Read Online Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise by Francis Knight - Free Book Online Page A

could really shift, fast enough that I began to wonder if she’d bypassed those cardinals’ flunkies and decided to leave me to the Storad herself. Probably helped that she wasn’t actually on the ground but propelled herself through the air. I’d have given my left bollock to be able to do the same. I very nearly did give it too, when a bullet grazed the top of my thigh, leaving a burn, a rush of juice and a quick thanks that it hadn’t been just that bit higher, thereby putting an end to my favourite hobby. I could have rearranged myself out of there, of course, but that took time and I had to sit down while I did it or I’d fall down. There was no way in the world I was sitting down while a bunch of Storad came for me with guns, so I ran with everyone else.
    Unfortunately, it’s quite hard to outrun a bullet. Pasha did his best to plant the idea in the shooters’ minds that they might want to aim somewhere else, but I reckon it wasn’t too easy while running away, plus the Storad language wasn’t ours. Bullets zipped about all over the place. One of the guards fell just as we came to the next twist, and had no hope of getting out of the field of fire. Pasha and I picked him up by the shoulders and half dragged, half carried him around the bend, but he was already dead.
    “Where in hell did they come from?” Pasha was wheezing like an old man and something, a bit of bullet or a scrap of shattered rock, had sliced a cut across one eyebrow. “One minute they weren’t there, the next they were.”
    “I was hoping you’d tell me. Best answer, Dench is a tricky bastard. Now what?”
    His eyes took on the dreamy look that meant he was listening in to people’s thoughts. “They’re slowing down. I can’t hear them properly for some reason – they sound far away even though they aren’t, and I don’t know much Storad, but I
think
they don’t want to come round that corner and find a bunch of guns in their faces.”
    “Can’t say I blame them. How about we use the time to get the fuck out and see if we can block the tunnel? At least jam the door.”
    “Good plan.”
    I suppose we could have left a couple of people to slow them down in a rearguard action, but the guards were all piss-scared – this wasn’t their usual kind of work. Now they were getting shot at, and while Pasha and I had grabbed their comrade and spent a few seconds deciding what to do, they’d been legging it as fast as they could.
    Being the brave and heroic kind of guy I am, I ran after them. We played cat-and-mouse with the Storad, running between twists in the tunnel, hoping they wouldn’t catch sight of us, or catch us with a bullet before we rounded another corner. Luck held out, mostly. One of the guards got a bullet in the arse, but he managed to stagger on out of sheer terror: mages weren’t the only things lied about in the news-sheets, the Storad had a pretty fearsome reputation as baby eaters and captured-person buggerers, and this time I had no idea how true any of it was. I didn’t want to stop to find out either.
    The Storad still weren’t far behind when we got within sight of the entrance, though I’m sure hearing their breathing was just my imagination. The guards were already running for their lives across the close, leaving Halina by the mechanism. She shouted a few choice words after them, but she didn’t run.
    I was almost having an apoplexy by the time I made it to the door, and that wasn’t helped by the thought of a score of guns coming round the last twist. Halina didn’t wait until we were fully through before she yanked on the door mechanism, but the damned thing wasn’t built for speed. It glided across the opening like it had all the time in the world.
    Too damned slow – the first bullets took a chunk of masonry out, scattering bits of shrapnel all over. More by luck than judgement a cloud of them took out the delicate mechanism, and the whole contraption ground to a halt.
    “Fuck,” Pasha