Shadowkill

MEMORY:

Kikun caught up a tree branch, knocked out the last fragments of glass in one of the windows, climbed through it. Shadith climbed through after him. The wind snatched at her skirts, threatened to whip her off the narrow, heavily-carved ledge. The stone around her had an eerie luminosity, faint but enough to give her the outlines of the building, the walls and towers…

She reached the end, clutched at the stone and waited for lightning; the tree was jerking desperately about, creaking groaning; a section of branch tore loose, came flying by her and slammed into the window beside her, then went clattering away along the wall.

Flash.

She jumped, landed sprawled across the limb, clutched at it as it bucked under her. She steadied herself and crawled cautiously inward, cursing as her dress snagged on a broken branch. She tore free and struggled on…

The thought made her want to vomit.

And it wouldn’t work.

He wouldn’t take her with him-not back to his home ground where people would see what he was fucking.

She smiled. It was comforting that inclination matched with circumstance. Not that she’d have done it anyway. She wasn’t backed into a corner here and there are some things that corrupt so deeply that whatever advantage they give is destroyed in the doing.

There has to be some way. At least 2000 kays. Fifteen days travel across land I don’t know. Fifteen days in a truck, not on horseback. We were attacked twice on the way here, followed, sniped at and we had a dozen guards, armored trucks and a gatlin. I need allies.

Brushies… I wonder… Tinoopa… I don’t think so. City woman.

Couldn’t sit a horse three days let alone the thirty or forty days it’d take.

Maybe longer. Don’t know if I

can. Who… Damn, it looked like a good thing having the

Mafia favor me… made life easier… would have been better if I was down with the rest… stuck up here, isolated as much as if I were in purdah… damn… have to get out more… talk the Matja into giving me a break…

I have to get out of here… somehow… get to Nirtajai… find a skipcom… like on Kiskai… wonder how they’re getting on with their reforms, if they’ve got the world they wanted or if it’s falling apart in their hands… Miowee’s probably back to singing in the streets if things went like most rebellions… Aste back in the swamps… well, that’s their business…

She heard noises below and leaned out the window. Something was happening in the court, but she couldn’t see anything from here. She pulled back in and ran for the door.