“Wait,” one said, but he shoved through and into the stench of burning and the
tumble of chaos in the room.
Tempus was there. Ischade. Molin. And a couple of priests. Molin and the priests
he ignored; he ignored the stink of fire, the ashes, the strewn papers and
tumbled books.
“They shot Strat,” he said. “Riddler, your damned daughter’s friends’ve shot
Strat, they got him in Peres, someone in Peres pulled him in and we’re trying to
pick the snipers off the street so we can get in there. They’ve got it ringed,
only thing they can’t hit is that damned horse, they got Dolon in the arm and
Ephis got two in the leg-“
“Damn, who?” Tempus grabbed him by the arm. “What in hell’s happened?”
“The Front, the damned piffles! They made one try on him, this time they shot
him. News is all over town, we got barricades going back up, we got every
precinct flaring up, we haven’t got the men to cover the whole damn city and
fight a sniper action: they got that whole damn street and I had to come way
wide and around to get in here.”
“My house,” Ischade said. “Strat’s there?”
“The Peres house. They got him in. We don’t know whether he’s alive or not-“
“Gods blast it!” Tempus shouted. “What’s your intelligence doing?”
Crit sucked in his breath. Walking rings around your daughter, was the thing
that leaped up behind his teeth, but he stopped it before it got out. “We fouled
up,” he said. That was all there was to say.
“Tempus.” Molin thrust out a hand to stop him on his way out. “Niko. Niko’s at
risk, you understand me.”