Chapter 363: The Cost She Wouldn’t Choose

The first mercenary entered Cassandra’s side passage before the dust finished settling. She released Nightglass Longbow at barely half draw, and the arrow struck him high in the chest hard enough to knock him backward into the man behind him. Neither died, but their collision clogged the narrow entrance and bought Cassandra enough time to retreat several steps toward the four Sairren trapped with her.

"Move farther back."

The three uninjured Sairren did not obey.

One held a dropped spear with both hands. Another remained crouched beside the wounded route-keeper, pressing cloth against the torn edge of his wing. The third watched Cassandra instead of the enemies gathering beyond the dust, and his attention kept drifting toward the marker above her.

[Condemned.]

Cassandra did not need to ask what he thought of it.

More shadows shifted inside the passage, so she nocked another arrow and glanced over her shoulder. "Did you hear me?"

"We heard." The Sairren carrying the spear was older than the others, broad across the shoulders, with one wing wrapped tightly against his side from an injury that had healed long ago. "And if we move farther back, you cover the whole passage alone."

"That was the idea."

"Poor idea."

Cassandra almost told him she was perfectly capable of deciding that herself. The answer reached the tip of her tongue before she caught it.

Old habit.

Another mercenary appeared around the corner and threw a capture net. Cassandra released before it opened, clipping the mechanism and sending the weighted cloth sideways into the wall. The attacker disappeared into cover before she could loose a second shot.

She shifted away from the center of the corridor. Patient Draw was nearly useless here. The passage offered no stable firing lane, and anyone who had watched Cassandra earlier knew that allowing her to remain planted was a mistake. They kept testing her from different angles, never exposing themselves long enough for the skill to build properly.

The wounded route-keeper coughed behind her. "We can fight."

Cassandra glanced back. "You can barely sit."

"I did not say I could fight well."

Despite everything, she almost smiled.

The older Sairren with the spear did not. He looked toward the passage, then toward his injured companion as though weighing something unpleasant.

"We should use him."

Cassandra turned fully. "What?"

"They want route-keepers. Put him where they can see him. They rush us, and we kill them before they can drag him away."

The wounded Sairren did not protest.

That bothered Cassandra more than the suggestion itself.

Everyone understood the situation well enough for the tactic to make sense. They were isolated, the bridge behind them had collapsed, and the enemy specifically wanted living Sairren with authority over the Belfry’s routes.

A wounded route-keeper was obvious bait.

There had been a time when Cassandra would have accepted the idea before the sentence finished. Maybe not happily and certainly not cruelly, but efficiently. The enemy wanted something, so give them what looked like an opportunity, force them into a narrow kill zone, then recover the bait afterward if possible.

She had spent years making decisions where the cost looked acceptable because she believed she could control what happened afterward. Numbers, contracts, people, organizations. Everything could become another part of a calculation if she let herself think that way long enough.

She looked at the wounded route-keeper.

"No."

The older Sairren’s ears angled backward. "You have a better idea?"

"Not yet."

"They will come through that passage, and he cannot run."

"I know."

"Then you are refusing the only advantage we have because you dislike how it looks."

Cassandra’s fingers tightened around Nightglass Longbow. "No. I’m refusing to turn him into equipment."

The Sairren stared at her.

So did the injured route-keeper.

Nobody had time to answer before metal scraped against stone and a hooked pole shot around the corner.

Cassandra knocked it aside with the body of her bow. When the mercenary holding it pulled, she stepped forward instead of resisting. He expected to drag her off balance.

Instead, Cassandra used his own pull to close the distance and drove the reinforced lower limb of Nightglass Longbow into his face.

The man fell backward, and the older Sairren lunged past Cassandra before she could stop him. His spear buried itself in the mercenary’s shoulder.

A second attacker was already bringing down a short axe.

"Back!"

Cassandra grabbed the Sairren by the collar and hauled him away. The axe struck stone where his head had been, showering both of them with fragments.

Cassandra fired from nearly point-blank range. Her arrow punched into the attacker’s thigh and sent him stumbling around the corner.

The passage went quiet again.

Cassandra checked Nightglass Longbow for damage while the older Sairren glared at her.

"You pulled me away."

"You were about to get your head opened."

"I nearly had him."

"You nearly had half of him."

His mouth tightened. Behind them, the wounded route-keeper made a sound suspiciously close to laughter.

The older Sairren turned. "Do you find this amusing?"

"A little."

"Your wing is bleeding."

"It can bleed and be amused at the same time."

Cassandra returned her attention to the passage, though the exchange had somehow made the situation feel slightly less suffocating.

She activated Hungerline.

Two black directions appeared somewhere beyond the side passage. Neither pointed toward her group, which meant the hunger of the Dark Force monsters being manipulated through the Belfry was still directed elsewhere.

For now.

The older Sairren stepped beside her. "What can your skill see?"

"Only imposed Dark Force hunger. It tells me which direction something is forcing a monster’s hunger to follow."

"Toward us?"

"No."

"Then tell me if that changes."

Cassandra glanced at him. "You believe me?"

"I believe you know your own skill."

Fair enough.

A deeper bell rang somewhere across the broken city. The note reached them distorted, and the wounded route-keeper jerked upright before a second note followed.

"No."

Cassandra turned. "What?"

"That was the western relay."

"You can tell from here?"

"I can tell what it tried to be."

The route-keeper struggled to his feet while another Sairren tried to push him back down. "If they anchor the western relay, this passage becomes exposed."

"To monsters?"

"To everything."

That was considerably worse.

The route-keeper pointed toward a narrow bronze door behind them. "There is a maintenance road. It was sealed generations ago, but if the old release still works, it may lead us behind the western bells."

The older Sairren frowned. "May?"

The wounded route-keeper bared his teeth. "I am injured, not omniscient."

Cassandra stepped toward the door. There was no visible handle, only three narrow grooves and a recessed bronze plate.

"Can you open it without ringing anything?"

The route-keeper hesitated.

Cassandra stopped. "Say it."

"It requires a local route-note."

The older Sairren looked toward the passage. "If he rings anything, they hear us."

"And if we stay here, they eventually push through."

Another hook appeared briefly around the corner before vanishing again. The mercenaries were testing distance and preparing their next attempt.

Cassandra looked at the wounded route-keeper. "Can you make the note quietly?"

"If the western relay keeps screaming like that, probably."

"Probably."

"I remain injured and not omniscient."

This time Cassandra actually breathed out something close to a laugh.

Then she looked from the sealed maintenance door to the passage behind them.

"Open it."

The route-keeper started crawling toward the bronze plate. Cassandra immediately moved to him, lowered Nightglass Longbow, and helped him stand.

"What do you need?"

"My hand on the plate."

His weight shifted heavily against her for a moment before they reached the door. He pressed one claw against the bronze, and a faint vibration traveled through the wall.

Behind them, several boots struck stone at once.

The older Sairren raised his spear. "They’re coming."

Three mercenaries rushed through the dust. One carried a shield, another held a capture net, and the third already had a black seal glowing in his hand.

Cassandra stepped away from the wounded route-keeper and planted her feet.

There was no bridge behind her now, no Martin, no Katherine, and nobody coming to make the decision for her. Only four Sairren who had every reason to look at the word Condemned above her head and wonder whether trusting her would become their final mistake.

Nightglass Longbow came to full draw.

"Keep opening the door."