She pointed the gun ahead of her, watching for any hint of movement. She stumbled on a loose pile of rock, twisted her ankle, but didn’t go down. Coming up gun first, she pushed forward, ignoring the knife of pain driving up her leg.

The voices had stopped. She realized, just a hundred steps from her goal, that she had left her transceiver behind.

She saw a crumple of figures ahead. She raised her gun to her shoulder. Her arms burned.

Kage heard the sound of a gun being cocked. She dove for the ground. Rock bit at her elbows and knees.

“Nyx?” It was Ahmed’s voice.

“It’s Kage! Where are they?”

“One of them’s here. The other one got clipped and ran off.”

Kage shoved herself to her feet and limped the rest of the way to where Ahmed lay, tangled with a slender figure dressed all in deep umber brown. She hissed in a breath, expecting the worst, but the figure moved as she approached. Not dead.

Ahmed clutched at his arm. Kage saw blood beading between his fingers. The assassin wasn’t the only one she had clipped.

Kage dragged herself to the assassin. She pushed him over with the butt of her gun. This close, she wasn’t worried as much about weapons. They didn’t want to kill her. No Drucian wanted to kill another, no matter how bad things got.

The man was breathing heavily, but she saw no injury on him. His gaze found her, but, as was polite, he did not meet her eyes. Still, she recognized him.

“I did not think they would send you, Aya Haruto.”

“I should have expected you to act this way,” Haruto said, in Drucian.

“I did not aim to kill.”

He snorted. Blood bubbled from his nose. He was a young man, not even twenty. Where was his injury?

“We have a magician. She can help you.”

“Too late for that, I think.”

“That is fool talk. If you’re injured, you have to go home. You have to send someone else. Who was with you?”

Haruto showed his teeth. Bloody teeth. He was clutching at his chest now.

Kage knelt next to him without loosening her grip on her gun. “Where are you hurt?”

“You shot me in the back. One cannot expect anything better, from a baby-killer.”

She wanted to put the gun in his face this time, the way she had seen Nyx do it, but she still had some pride left, some sense of morality, even after all that had happened. Sadness and fear filled her. Sadness for this needless death, and fear that it was just one of many. She would never repay her debt at this rate. She could not stay long with these people.