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  The catwalk dead-ended, and for a moment Pouncer wondered where they were to go next. T’suuz climbed the railing, gathered herself and jumped. Involuntarily Pouncer reached out to grab her back but she was already gone. But when he looked to find her body shattered on the floor below he saw her just two leaps away and a leap down, balancing on a conduit barely large enough to stand on. She turned to beckon him on but he had already seen what he had to do and was climbing onto the teetering rail. He paused for a moment to gather himself, but he was twice her weight. The railing swayed and he overbalanced, falling forward. He grabbed wildly at nothing and then he was falling. Instinctively he turned the plunge into a leap, pushing out hard with his legs in a desperate attempt to save himself. The floor was a blur far below and he seemed to hang in midair. All of a sudden the conduit was in front of him and he twisted to grab at it.

  His leap was far from perfect, and the conduit was too small for him. He landed heavily, sliding forward over the curved surface. The conduit rang like a gong when his armor hit it, the noise echoing from the rock walls of the chamber, and his variable sword fell to smash on the floor far below. For an endless time he dangled while the Tzaatz below snarled back and forth, alerted by the sudden noise. Spotbeams stabbed the darkness, came up to sweep the catwalk, but somehow missed him as he dangled there. The beams moved on and he breathed deep, then, paw by paw, he struggled back to the top. T’suuz watched him, unable to help from her precarious perch, her eyes shining green in the darkness. When she saw he was safe she turned silently and loped down the conduit. Pouncer followed, still shaking from his near miss. Their route took them along the conduit to another, then down the length of the power hall, where another dizzying, dangerous leap took them to a second catwalk and through another hatch.

  She has done this before. The route was too complex and her movements too certain for her to be running blindly. Kzinretti could be clever escape artists, he knew, but this spoke of planning, and kzinretti were not supposed to be able to plan. Time to worry about that later.

  He closed the hatch behind him, grateful to leave the searching Tzaatz warriors behind. They were in another corridor, more of a tunnel, made of old and crumbling bricks. It stank of damp and mildew, and clearly hadn’t been used in a long time. Tritium glowlamps were set in the walls, but glowed so feebly as to barely illuminate themselves. How many half-lives had passed since they were installed?

  He sniffed the stagnant air cautiously and recognition dawned. “I know this place. This is the Quickwater defense tunnel. It leads from the House of Victory to the old emplacements across the river.”

  “It leads to freedom. We must hurry.” T’suuz started to lead him along the tunnel, then suddenly froze. A sound echoed, scurrying footfalls in the darkness behind them, fast and light. Pouncer froze, ears swiveling up and forward. Beside him his sister activated her variable sword. Something was coming, several somethings. The cadence was too rapid to be a kzin, and padded paws would be quieter. Rapsar seekers perhaps, sent to clear the tunnel. Weaponless, Pouncer dropped to attack crouch. When they came, he would be ready.

  Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

  —Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome

  It seemed like hours had gone by, but by Cherenkova’s beltcomp it was just thirty minutes before Yiao-Rrit bounded back into the room, his lips pulled back over his fangs. “The battle is not decided, and it may yet be lost. My duty is now to your defense and safe return. We are leaving the Citadel for the spaceport. Follow me. If I am attacked do not hesitate to use your weapons. The sigil of the Patriarch will not protect you.”

  He waved them into single file behind him and led them to a narrow side corridor. They moved out, Tskombe first behind the kzin, Cherenkova bringing up the rear. Instinctively she looked behind to cover their backs. The Patriarch’s brother was not running but she found she had to trot to keep up to him. Brasseur was soon panting, but Yiao-Rrit did not slack his pace. The sounds of battle were far away, and Ayla began to believe that they were going to get away with it. That hope vanished as they rounded a corner to enter a courtyard through an arched gateway. There were two dozen enemy warriors in there, deployed in battle formation. Surprised and angry snarls greeted their appearance, and the enemy leapt to attack. Instinctively Ayla raised the beamer and opened fire. Her first shot caught a warrior in midleap, overloading the superconductors in his magnetic armor. The silver surface turned copper and she fired again, the second shot exploding the thin metal plate and vaporizing his chest cavity behind it. She dodged sideways and his body landed where she had been standing. If she hadn’t been fast and accurate she would already be dead. There was no time to dwell on that now. She picked the next closest attacker, already launching himself at her, and again fired twice. Her shots went wide and she looked death in the face as his fangs came for her throat. His weight slammed into her, throwing her backward hard against wall, but his body slid lifeless to the floor, the decapitated head rolling away from her feet. She looked up and saw Yiao-Rrit, variable sword in midswing. Their eyes met for a split second in understanding: The humans would engage distant targets, the kzin would deal with any who got close. She picked another target and fired. To her left Tskombe was flat on the ground behind the heavy magrifle, pumping rounds into the massed attackers. The Tzaatz were brave, and even with only hand weapons they would have slaughtered the humans, but the few in the first wave who survived Tskombe’s withering fire were cut down by Yiao-Rrit.

  “Go, I’ll cover.” Tskombe had slowed his rate of fire, now sending carefully aimed shots into potential Tzaatz hiding places. The heavy slugs tore through stonewood and stone with indifferent ease, making it clear to the enemy that exposure was suicidal. Yiao-Rrit went first, covering the length of the courtyard in three long bounds. Cherenkova ran after him and Brasseur, panting, followed. She arrived to find the kzin standing over two freshly dead creatures, reptilian predators like half-scale tyrannosaurs with heavy forelimbs. The beasts were plated in mag armor, and blood splattered red on Yiao-Rrit’s muzzle. More blood seeped from the armor articulation near his waist, and she could see from the way he moved that he was badly wounded. No time for that now. She turned and fired into one of the opposite archways, spalling stone with her beam. Brasseur joined her and started firing too.

  “What are those?” She gestured at the reptiles between shots.

  Yiao-Rrit growled. “Rapsari, specialized genetic constructs. Tzaatz Pride holds Jotok.” She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she recognized the contempt in the kzin’s words.

  “Will there be more of them?”

  “They have trackers, assaulters, raiders, sniffers, assassins. There will be more.”

  Across the courtyard Tskombe picked up his heavy weapon and ran. A Tzaatz warrior stood up leveling a huge crossbow. Cherenkova fired, her beam going wide, but close enough to spoil the enemy’s aim. The crystal iron bolt embedded itself in the stone wall a handspan behind Tskombe. He turned around in the archway and sprayed rounds to slow the pursuit, and then Yiao-Rrit was bounding down the hall, the humans sprinting after him. Even with his wound he was faster than they were. Behind them snarled shouts rose as the Tzaatz regrouped to follow. On the run Cherenkova checked her weapon’s charge: more than half gone. If there was much more fighting to be done they’d be in trouble.

  Yiao-Rrit led them into a large room, thick wood beams arching up to the vaulted ceiling, heavy pelts hanging from the wall, dozens of huge swords and battle-axes arranged into elaborate rosettes and serpentines. The kzin went to the vast cut stone fireplace that occupied one end of the room. He stood there staring at it long enough that Cherenkova began to wonder if he’d snapped under the pressure, then he reached out and pulled on a carved projection. A lever cleverly built into the elaborate mantelwork moved, and the back of the fireplace slid open, revealing a dark square a meter on a side. Yiao-Rrit gestured them forward.

  “Here—go in, go down. This will take you outsid
e the Citadel. Avoid armed warriors and follow the trail to the west, toward the sunset. It will take you to the Hero’s Square. There will be grav-service there. The sigil of the Patriarch will give you strakh enough to get to the Sea-of-Stars spaceport. Show the sigil to Chuut-Portmaster, and he will get you aboard a scout ship that can take you to Crusader at the edge of the singularity.”

  “What about you?”

  “We haven’t got room to run enough to break your scent trail. It will not take the Tzaatz long to find this passage. I will gain you as much time as I can here.”

  “But—” Brasseur seemed prepared to argue.

  Sounds of pursuit rose behind them. “Go!” Yiao-Rrit grabbed the ambassador and tossed him through the dark opening as though he were a rag doll. Ayla knew a zero choice option when she saw it, and she dived through before the kzin could grab her. She found herself sprawled on uneven bricks, and Tskombe came piling in on top of her, whether thrown by Yiao-Rrit or simply motivated by the oncoming enemy was unknowable. For a moment they lay there, and she was suddenly acutely aware of his hard-muscled body against hers. The sudden scent of his sweat spoke directly to her hindbrain, triggering reactions that were entirely inappropriate under the circumstances. She swallowed hard and breathed deep to refocus her thinking, with little success. She was suddenly aware of the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. The room they had been in was reduced to a square of light. Yiao-Rrit threw the lever back and the plate began to close again. She yanked her hands back instinctively, although they were nowhere near its path. She saw the huge kzin turn and draw his variable sword. Snarls rose in the air, and then the light was gone.

  Tskombe picked himself up and she followed. They were at the top of an ancient and musty stairway made of eroded brick. The way down was dimly lit by faintly glowing green globes.

  “Let’s go.” He was already moving down the stairs, picking his way carefully in the barely adequate light. She followed him wordlessly. In other circumstances his summary adoption of command would have rankled. Right here, right now, he was the one who had the ground combat experience, and she wasn’t about to argue. Brasseur came behind them. The heavy kzin beamer was an awkward burden on the narrow, uneven stairs, and she tripped twice, twisting an ankle the second time. Pain shot through it every time she put her foot down, but this wasn’t the time to stop to nurse it. She gritted her teeth and carried on. The stairs led to a tunnel of the same crumbling brick, the footing still uneven and the damp, musty smell of long abandonment strong in their nostrils. Fortunately their pace down the tunnel was slow enough that her sprain wasn’t a factor.

  Fortunate so long as there was no pursuit. But the Tzaatz would track them; if kzin noses weren’t up to the task, the rapsar sniffers would be, and she had no doubt both could move in the dark faster than humans could. How long was the tunnel? If they weren’t out of it before the pursuit resumed…She didn’t finish the thought.

  Blood is the price of victory, brothers. Now let us make the enemy pay high.

  —Second-Commander at the siege of the Last Fortress

  Kdar-Leader stood at the front of his formation, more than three quarters gone now, but they stood shoulder to shoulder, five abreast in the tunnels before the Command Lair, six leaps behind a sealed battlesteel blast door. He breathed deep. It would be their last stand. The enemy would be stopped here or not at all. They had fallen back as the Tzaatz swept through the breaches in the Citadel walls that their beasts had dissolved for them. Their losses had been heavy, but not a single zitalyi had turned tail and run; each fallback was controlled, each new position defended until it was no longer tenable, and then abandoned under cover from those who had already taken up the next one. The surface of the Citadel was already in Tzaatz hands, but the tunnels were deep and there were stores there for seasons. If they could hold out, keep the Tzaatz at bay, then help might arrive; one of the other Great Prides would honor their oath of fealty to the Rrit.

  If they could hold out. It shouldn’t have been a question. The blast doors were designed to shrug off heavy energy weapons, but the Tzaatz had come prepared. Those things, rapsari Guardmaster had called them…

  The battlesteel started to blacken and smoke in the center. In heartbeats the corridor was full of blinding acrid fumes, and the now familiar snouts of the rotund reptilian breachers appeared, oozing a thick, corrosive ichor that ate cerametal like water ate salt. It was imperative to hold fire until the beasts exposed a target…

  “Crossbows now!” The front rank fired and knelt, the second rank fired over their heads and knelt, then the third and fourth ranks—and that was all the crossbows he had. With rigid self-discipline they turned and filed through the single space left for them between the sword ranks behind, to re-form and reload behind them. The lead swords braced for what they knew was to come. At the door the beast had suffered grievously. It was armored with some kind of plastic, not mag-armored cerametal like the others, lest it dissolve its own protection, and that material was unequal to the impact of thrice-eight crystal iron penetrators fired at point blank range. Its armor hung in tatters from its snout and foreparts, and the bolts had struck deeply. Ichor mixed with blood oozed from the wounds and ate holes in the stone of the corridor, but it was still alive when its handler, invisible behind it, drew it back from the breach it had created. Through the gaps came something small and fast, razor teeth snapping like a sherrek: the fast and vicious harrier rapsar. More poured through the gap after it, and they launched themselves at the defenders without hesitation. Rrit variable swords flashed and slicewires bit home, but the attackers were hard targets and some got through to the first, the second, even the third rank, and where the razor teeth clamped onto Rrit flesh they did not let go, not even when the creature’s body was cut from its head. Defenders fell, and ahead of them Tzaatz crossbows advanced into the gap, their bolts killing those who had not been taken to the ground by the beasts.

  Kdar-Leader waited, watching as the Tzaatz advanced, then keyed his com. “Ambush parties, move now, move now.” He waited another four heartbeats to give his element leaders time to start moving, then “Zitalyi, next position, fall back!”

  The lead sword ranks, those who had survived the onslaught, knelt in place and the crossbows fired over their heads, four successive salvos that stopped the Tzaatz in their tracks. Again with commendable discipline the front swords fell back through the empty file in the crossbow ranks, and then the whole formation turned to run back to the next blast door. Behind them a Tzaatz screamed in triumph, rallying his Heroes to pursue, but the voice was cut off in gurgle and attack screams filled the corridor. Kdar-Leader’s ambush parties were dropping from ventilator shafts overhead, wreaking havoc and buying him the time he needed to consolidate his defenses for the next engagement. It would cost them their lives, but their deaths would be honorable ones.

  How many of the breaching rapsari did the Tzaatz possess? He had seen three killed that he was sure of, and this fourth one was surely too badly wounded to continue. It would take them time to bring forward another, but time was something the Tzaatz now had in abundance, and something the Rrit were rapidly running out of. If something drastic didn’t happen soon, Kdar-Leader’s own death of honor wasn’t far away.

  Kill them all and take what you want.

  —Zirrow-Graff at Kdat

  Sword-Sergeant loped efficiently down a high vaulted hall full of transparent display cases holding antique armor and weapons. He could not help mentally adding up the value and dividing out the booty that would fall to him. Kchula-Tzaatz would not fail to be generous in return for the great victory he was gaining here. Sword-Sergeant’s share was not large, but this was Kzinhome, this was the Citadel of the Patriarch; the wealth here was beyond his wildest imaginings. He would gain a holding and females at least for this, and his home would be full of trophies from this vast storehouse of wealth. Behind him Third-Sword was evidently thinking the same thing, running his fingers over a silver-threaded tapestry of more
strakh than he could ever hope to display.

  “Watch your arc, clear that corner,” Sword-Sergeant snarled. He didn’t have to repeat himself. All of his warriors knew he would follow the command with his claws if he had to. Third-Sword moved, checking behind the display cases for refugees. Finding none, he raised his tail and rocked the tip back and forth, no threats. The other kzinti of his blade moved past him toward the far end of the hall, where an arched gateway led into a courtyard. Sword-Sergeant watched, alert for any sign of danger. The farthest one reached the wall, gave the no-threats signal.

  “Seventh area secure,” Sword-Sergeant snarled into his comlink. “Proceeding west.”

  “Confirmed.” Even before the voice crackled in his ears he was giving tail signals to his warriors. Hind-Blade, cover the exit. Fore-Blade, prepare to clear-and-secure forward. The eight kzinti of his unit moved as one, half deploying to defend the archway, the other half lined up behind a pillar, out of the line of sight of the opening. Sword-Sergeant took the lead of Fore-Blade and glanced back to ensure everyone was in position. Crossbow trained on the entrance from behind a display table, Hind-Blade-Leader touched his paw to his forehead—ready.