Chapter 14
She packed her bag two days before the new moon; she couldn’t take luggage to the ambush, but she’d hardly be able to come back for her things after everyone had seen where her loyalties really lay. She considered trusting it to the safekeeping of the Old Barrel Yard, but Ade still suspected her of being some kind of Imperial lackey and she didn’t want to imagine what he’d make of her array of weaponry and spare Shadow Corps uniforms. In the end, she settled for lashing the bag to a high chimney in the Market Quarter. It wasn’t likely that anyone would be bothering to creep over rooftops in this part of town, and anyone who did would probably have other things on their mind.
On the night of the ambush, she sent Greg to the old market square for the first stage of the meeting. Eleanor crouched between the trees with a group of the younger Shadows, watching as snow drifted down into the clearing and hoping it wouldn’t cover the ground enough to highlight their tracks. Despite the agreement that the Association’s negotiator would come alone, no-one expected that arrangement to be honoured. She doubted that anyone on either side was naïve enough to assume this could pass off without some degree of betrayal and double-dealing, and she could only hope she’d been right in her assessment of their relative strengths. At least the Association knew that Eleanor was working for them within the Shadow Corps.
As for the Shadows, tonight they were backed up by soldiers from the Military Special Corps but they didn’t have much experience of directing a military operation, and as a unit they were still very new. Even those who knew each other well from their Association days were having to learn to adapt to their new militaristic structure, and so far they simply didn’t have a proper training programme in place for the younger recruits they’d been assigned.
Eleanor studied the faces of the kids who knelt beside her, and she almost felt sorry for what they were about to witness. So far they’d seen only gate duty, and unlike the Association’s defectors they had no idea what they were getting into. Their only crime had been to accept their assignments; if she’d been given the Special Corps position she’d dreamed of, she could be on the other side of the fence right now.
She realised with a start that this was it, though it would be a footnote – if it even merited that – in the annals of history. This was the first small battle in the war they all knew was coming. And wars didn’t stop to care about whether the soldiers had been fully conscious in choosing their sides.
Nicholas walked out into the clearing, brushed the dead leaves from a tree stump, and sat down to wait. He glanced up towards where Eleanor and the others were hiding and winked. She hoped he was just acting from what he knew of the plans, and where he expected her to be hiding; he shouldn’t be able to see them from down there, though they could look down on him from between the branches.
As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, Eleanor wondered whether the Association would have sent their own man to the old market square, or whether the young rebel was still running their errands for them. She hoped they’d understood the importance of sending more than a sacrificial messenger along to this meeting – but she trusted her colleagues to spot the opportunity she’d engineered for them.
It grew gradually colder as they waited, and the flurries of snow became steadily more frequent. Eleanor was still wearing her Shadow Corps uniform but she knew she couldn’t fight in a long cloak, so she was having to make do with what little warmth her jacket afforded.
Eventually, Don stepped out from between the trees. As per the instructions, he’d come this far alone, but Eleanor wondered who else was creeping through the woods. There was certainly no way a man of his standing would have come here unprotected: if the Association had been intending a sacrifice, they would have sent someone less important.
Don and Nicholas regarded one another across a distance of a few yards, not even stepping forwards to shake hands, two men with a long and not entirely happy history.
“I was surprised to get this message,” Don said. “We weren’t expecting you to be interested in a trade.”
“Everyone has his price,” Nicholas said. “And by all accounts there’s money in this for the Association, so we’re only splitting the profits. It’d be a shame for it all to go to waste.”
“I thought the Empire would have seen to your needs. You’ve a good position in the new organisation, haven’t you?”
“I have my Imperial stipend, of course, but I miss our old lifestyle. I need a little private money.”
“Well, this should certainly make you more than comfortable.” Don reached inside his cloak and pulled out a small purse. “Eight hundred dollars in diamonds and firestones, as our representatives agreed.”
Nicholas nodded, and Eleanor reacted instantly to the signal. She spun on her heel and slashed with twin daggers, sending the bodies of the two nearest Shadows falling to the ground. She sheathed the knives and flung a pair of stars at the other two as they turned in surprise.
“Sorry,” she whispered as they crumpled. “It’s nothing personal.”
They died silently, and she had a moment to consider her position as she cleaned the blood from her weapons. She crawled to the overhang and looked down to where several of the others were fighting. Dozens of Shadows and Association men had emerged, and it looked like an even match.
She hesitated. If she could keep out of the fight there was a chance of maintaining her position in the Shadows; she’d come to realise that being in the heart of Ivan’s operations was a valuable position. This one catastrophe could probably be forgiven so long as the Association left a handful of survivors. It wasn’t as if she’d actually colluded with her colleagues; everything she’d arranged had been agreed with Ivan and Nick. She looked back at the bodies – admittedly the sudden death of the four young Shadows hadn’t been part of the plan they’d agreed. But given how easily they’d gone down, it didn’t look like they would have contributed a great deal to the battle – if she hadn’t killed them, it would only have been someone else’s job.
As she watched, though, a number of the Special Corps soldiers appeared from between the trees. That changed the balance; suddenly the Association were fighting for their lives, and she knew she had to join them. There wouldn’t be much point surviving as a spy for an organisation that was about to be decimated.
She slid down the slope and flung herself into the fray, hoping her Shadow Corps uniform would be enough to protect her from the Imperial forces – for a moment, at least – without confusing her Association allies too much.
As she attacked a pair of Specials she caught sight of Nicholas from the corner of her eye. He was duelling with Mikhail, towering over his shorter opponent and gradually gaining ground as they exchanged blows. Then a knife sailed in from the side, and Nicholas dropped. Mikhail moved towards the body but he was kept occupied first by a girl from the Specials, and then by Jorge who was clearly relishing the opportunity to fight his old rivals for real. Eleanor brought down one of her opponents, blocked another thrust from the other, and wished she could get across to the key. She stepped back and sideways, turning so that Nicholas’s body was more clearly in her sights as she fought. At least she’d see if anyone else got to him first.
As her stiletto slashed the throat of her opponent, Eleanor saw Mikhail from the corner of her eye, falling to the ground as Jorge bludgeoned him. She leapt over bodies and pushed her way past a couple of fights to get a clear shot, and pulled four stars from her belt. The first tore into Jorge’s throat, leaving the others somewhat redundant, but she was furious enough to just keep throwing. She’d felt a pang of guilt for steering Nicholas into a death trap, but part of her thought that Jorge had had this coming for a long time. She felt no remorse as she turned from his crumpled body.
Once the remaining Shadows and Specials were either routed or killed, she ran to Nicholas’s corpse and bent over to snap the chain from around his neck. She pulled the key gently out from beneath his shirt.
“Got it,”
she said, holding her arm aloft in triumph. The others were busy searching the field, looting whatever cash and weapons they found. One or two even stripped Shadow Corps uniforms from the bodies: each suit was potentially a valuable disguise, if the tears could be sewn up neatly and the blood stains washed out. In any case, they were too preoccupied to notice Eleanor’s jubilant announcement.
As she tucked the key safely inside the pouch at her waist, Nathaniel’s words echoed in her memory. She was a key-holder now. She had responsibilities – and she wished she hadn’t unthinkingly broken the chain when she could have used it herself. She got to her feet, brushing the dirt and leaves and blood from her knees. It hadn’t been an easy victory and they had a few Association bodies to gather, but her role was to get home as fast as possible. The others were more than capable of clearing up by themselves.