The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn

Book 2: Kingdom of Grit

by Tyler Whitesides

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Dragons & Mythical Creatures; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

"The enjoyable blend of intrigue, lighthearted escapades, and thrilling action brilliantly sets the stage for the series' conclusion. Readers will be thrilled." ( Publishers Weekly) The second in an action-packed epic fantasy series: In a world with dragon-fueled magic, master con artist Ardor Benn must infiltrate a centuries-old secret organization to find a missing royal heir. Ardor Benn saved civilization from imminent destruction, but his efforts brought war to the kingdom. It is believed that the rightful rulers have all been assassinated. However, a young heir might have survived. An ancient organization known as The Realm is behind the chaos, working from the shadows. Under the anonymity of masks, information is distributed sparingly. Ard's been hired to infiltrate them, but he's got competition from an old friend. One who's set to prove she's better than the self-proclaimed "Ruse Artist Extraordinaire." If Ard can't find the heir then his world may again approach ruin. Stopping the complete and utter collapse of civilization is quickly becoming Ard's specialty. Kingdom of Grit: The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

Release date: November 3, 2020

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 704

Sample

Ardor Benn tried very hard to lie still, but this coffin was blazing uncomfortable. It was about three inches too short, giving him a real crick in the neck. General Nelbet must have been a rather small man. Or perhaps the carpenter who made the coffin took into account the fact that the top four inches of the general’s head had been blown off by a cannonball.

Whichever the case, Ard’s head was wholly intact and now pressed awkwardly against the top of the hard oak casket. Oh, the things he was willing to do for a thousand Ashings. At least there was a pillow. Apparently, even the dead needed a luxurious place to lay half their skull.

“Citizens of Beripent, of the Archkingdom!”

About time this ceremony got started.

“On this, the sixth day of the Ninth Cycle …” The speaker had a powerful voice to reach the crowd standing on the palace grounds. He was likely wearing black, reading from a scroll. And he probably had a big nose.

“We gather to mourn the death of General Yul Nelbet.”

Yeah. Big nose. That kind of voice would belong to someone with hair sprouting from his ears, too.

“He fell to cannon fire aboard the warship Restrain, while engaging enemy vessels from the rebellious Sovereign States. General Nelbet died honorably, and his service to the crown will not be dimmed or forgotten in this savage war for reunification.”

Ard had practically forgotten him already. The particular naval battle that was the general’s demise hadn’t accomplished anything spectacular. In fact, Ard was pretty sure the Archkingdom had lost miserably. Regardless of how the war turned out, the history books weren’t likely to put a lot of emphasis on that little skirmish.

“General Nelbet is remembered alongside the twenty-one soldiers who lost their lives in the same confrontation.”

The speaker continued by reading down the list of names.

Sparks, war was ugly. And to think that just over a year and a half ago, the islands of the Greater Chain had been enjoying one of the longest spans of peace in recorded history. Of course, Ardor Benn had to go and blow it all.

For a moment, things had looked promising. The councils had selected a king who might have actually turned out to be a decent fellow. But all it took was a slit throat and suddenly Remium Agaul’s hotheaded cousin, Termain, was sitting in his place. Within a cycle, the island nations of Dronodan and Talumon had seceded, allying themselves with the banished Trothian nation and declaring themselves the independent Sovereign States.

Ard told himself that those were the kinds of things that started a war. Not stealing the royal regalia, disproving Wayfarist doctrine, becoming a Paladin Visitant, and feeding the beloved crusader monarch to a dragon.

The speaker finished reading the names of the fallen, and Ard figured it was time to get ready. Reaching his gloved hand alongside his face, he grabbed the hem of the carefully positioned cloth bag and pulled it down over his head.

Raek would say that the bag had greatly improved his looks, since Ard hadn’t had a decent shave or haircut in well over a year. The unkempt appearance certainly wasn’t an attempt to be fashionable. He was doing it solely for the benefit of anonymity. See, standing on the palace steps and calling out the king for his secret crimes tended to garner attention. And while Ardor Benn loved attention, he didn’t so much care for recognition. Especially by the Regulators.

He’d had to lie low in the weeks following Pethredote’s death, and he’d only felt good about emerging once his beard had grown in. Even then, he didn’t dare give his own name, what with all the rumors flying around the palace.

In essence, he had been forced to retire Ardor Benn for a spell. In his dealings with everyone but Raek, he was now Androt Penn, or one of a half dozen other aliases he had paperwork for.

“It is with great solemnity,” continued the speaker, “that King Termain Agaul bestows upon this body the highest of military honors— the Stalwart Heart.”

Ard quickly tied the head-bag securely around his neck, the strings slipping twice before he managed to get it snug around the collar of his general’s uniform. The gloves were ridiculously silky. No wonder the general had died. Poor guy was probably trying to pull the trigger on his Roller, but his finger just kept slipping off.

Outside the coffin, Ard heard a latch releasing. Quickly, he crossed his hands across his chest in the deadest of fashion, leveling his breathing and lying as still as the grave.

The casket’s lid swung open on silent hinges. Ard kept his eyes open, though he couldn’t see much through the bag on his head. It was a cold winter night, but the light that poured in had the steady glow of Light Grit detonations.

A shadow loomed over him. That would be King Termain, royal imbecile of the highest order.

“Homeland keep you, General.” He spoke softly enough that Ard was likely the only one in earshot. “You served well.”

And there it was.

King Termain slipped the Stalwart Heart medallion into Ard’s gloved hand, tucking it tightly against his uniformed breast. Ard’s client would be ecstatic about that little piece of metal. And that meant he and Raek would finally get paid.

Trumpets. Drums. A salute of six gunshots.

Then the casket’s lid swung shut and Ard relaxed, hearing the latch lock him securely into the darkness once more. It wasn’t far from the palace grounds to the cemetery, but the procession would need to cut through the upper end of the Central Quarter.

Under the head-bag, Ardor Benn grinned. His portion of the ruse had gone incredibly smoothly. Ard felt like he could list his portrayal of a dead general among his most flawless performances. Of course, the most complicated bit was yet to come, but that was up to Raekon Dorrel.

This way of traveling was actually much smoother than a typical carriage ride. Ard knew his coffin was set atop a palanquin, carried on the shoulders of eight strong Regulators. Almost made a fellow feel like dozing off with this fine pillow under his head.

The procession made another turn. Left this time. Ard was supposed to keep track of where they were in the route, but sparks, he had a hard enough time doing that when he wasn’t in a coffin with a bag over his head.

A typical Beripent funeral procession for a man of the general’s standing would be led by mounted Regulators, sent ahead to make sure the streets were properly cleared and prepared. Several blocks behind them was the carried casket. Another set of mounted Regulators would take up the rear, keeping the wake of citizens a respectful distance behind the coffin.

Tonight, Ard expected quite a significant following. General Nelbet was a war hero, after all. Every citizen of Espar and Strind knew someone fighting in the war. Honoring the fallen was a way for each person to thank the Homeland that it wasn’t their acquaintance in the coffin.

The procession came to a halt. Careful not to let his movement shake the coffin, Ard reached up and untied the drawstring at his neck. Pushing the head-bag up past his eyebrows, he drew in a breath of cool air, unfiltered by the lavender-scented fabric. He could hear better with the bag off his head, although everything was still muffled through the wooden casket.

“Blazing oxcart overturned in the street ahead,” said a woman’s voice.

Okay. Ard knew exactly where they were now.

“That’s your job to clear it out!” The man’s response was a touch on the whiny side for Ard’s liking. But then, a wrinkle in the routine often made people panic. Some people got whiny when they panicked.

“It was carrying Grit pots,” she hissed. “Road’s blocked from both ways with half a dozen Prolonged Barrier clouds spanning the intersection. By my estimate, they won’t burn out for another twelve minutes.”

Sixteen, Ard mentally corrected. Unless Gard and Sigg had overturned the cart early. A likely possibility, with those two. Ard didn’t like contracting those boorish thugs, but Raek couldn’t be in two places at once.

“We can’t backtrack the processional,” said the whiner. “Of all the unprofessional …”

“We’re dealing with it,” the woman cut in. “There’s an alleyway up ahead. Pello’s clearing it out as we speak.”

“This is General Yul Nelbet,” he replied. “We’re not parading his body down some Homeland-forsaken alley.”

“It cuts directly over to Key Street,” the woman explained. “The procession is turning there in half a block anyway.”

The whiner clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “If anything should go wrong …”

Ard heard the woman’s horse turn away, and the whole procession started forward again.

Nothing was going to go wrong in the narrow alleyway between Harson and Key. It was going to go exactly as Ard and Raek intended.

He felt the palanquin make the turn and counted twenty-two seconds before he heard the loud caw of a crow. At least, that’s what the sound was supposed to be. From here, Raek sounded more like a soprano getting punched in the throat. Still, it was better than that time Raek had insisted on the signal being a goat’s bleat. They had been in a pasture of sheep, for Homeland’s sake! How was he supposed to sort all that out?

Ardor Benn reached up and knocked on the coffin.

The palanquin came to a jolting halt. Good. He had their attention. Ard knocked again, five crisp raps on the sturdy wooden lid.

It took only a moment for the palanquin to come off the bearers’ shoulders. Ard felt himself lowered all the way down to the alley’s dirt floor. Murmured conversations sounded on all sides, but Ard was only listening to the release of the latch.

It was all up to his partner now. Their success would rest in that brief moment between the next two seconds.

Ard heard the shattering of clay Grit pots, followed by exclamations from the Regulators surrounding his casket. He threw open the lid of the coffin and sat up, the lavender-scented head-bag slipping down over his face again. He heard the clicking of Slagstone gun hammers, but gratefully, the whiny voice of their commander shrieked, “Don’t shoot!” The last thing they wanted to do was gun down General Nelbet if he had somehow made a miraculous recovery on his way to the cemetery.

Witnessing the rising dead had the potential to be quite traumatizing. But in a matter of minutes, these Regulators wouldn’t remember a thing about this experience. The shattering pot Ard had heard, launched from a window high above, had been full of Memory Grit. The detonation was expensive, but the narrow alleyway gave them a little extra coverage, as the buildings’ walls would push the Memory cloud to fill the space. To prevent outsiders from looking in, Raek had also detonated small pots of Shadow Grit at either end of the alley. And if anyone stepped through the dark clouds to investigate, they’d find themselves in the blast radius of the Memory Grit, soon to forget the whole ordeal.

Ard took advantage of the hesitation to smash his own clay pot against the side of the coffin. A small cloud of highly Compounded Light Grit sprang up next to him, but Ard was the only one prepared for the blinding brightness in the dark alleyway, his eyes squinted behind the cloth bag.

With all other eyes shut or diverted from the glaring orb, Ard leapt from the coffin, quickly scanning the narrow alleyway to see where to go. There was plenty of clutter along the walls, and clotheslines crisscrossed overhead like the beginnings of spiderwebs. But the spot he was looking for was a deep pocket of utter darkness just below that window.

It was another cloud of Shadow Grit, carefully placed by Raek to keep its contents concealed. The moment Ard entered it, he could see what was inside, finally pulling the head-bag completely off.

General Nelbet’s stiff corpse was propped awkwardly in a large wheelbarrow. His hands were crossed upon his uniformed chest, and an identical head-bag was tied securely around his neck.

Ard wasted no time, taking hold of the wheelbarrow’s handles. He gave it a good shove toward the coffin, letting go and watching it careen out of the Shadow cloud and topple, spilling the corpse onto the hardened dirt beside the palanquin.

By now, there was sufficient chaos in the alleyway, as some of the Reggies exclaimed that the casket was empty. Ard pushed open the window and hoisted himself out of the Shadow cloud and into the tenement building.

He paused in the empty room, suddenly wondering how he’d arrived here as his memories from the alleyway vanished. But he knew what the plan had been, and the fact that he wasn’t shot was a good sign. Glancing back into the disturbed alley, Ard saw that the general’s body was in place. Perfect.

Ard sprinted across the empty room and up two flights of stairs. The door at the top was unlocked and he quietly slipped inside, shutting it behind him.

Raekon Dorrel was seated in a chair at the third-story window, a crossbow in one hand and a bag of fried potatoes in the other. He turned as Ard entered the room.

“Oh, hey, General,” he said through a mouthful. “How was your afternoon?”

Ard pulled off the silky gloves and tossed them into the hearth, where Raek had a nice fire going to ward off the winter chill.

“Not bad. Luxurious ride. Lots of women and children weeping for me. And the king awarded me the Stalwart Heart for getting my skull knocked open.”

Ard took his first look at the medallion. It was about the size of an Ashing, but made entirely of gold. One side was smooth, but the other was stamped with the outline of Espar ringed about by the words BRAVE. INTREPID. STALWART.

That definitely wasn’t what they’d stamped on the fake medallion tucked into the general’s cold hand. Ard was still surprised that they’d been able to fit a word as long as nincompoop.

Raek pointed out the window. “You’re missing the show.”

Ard crossed quietly and squinted down into the alley. His bright cloud of Light Grit still beamed from the coffin, providing plenty of illumination to the scene below. Most of the Regulators were surrounding the general’s body, scratching their heads, their chins, and anything else that might release answers to their questions when scratched.

Everyone below was talking at once, and Ard could only hear bits of sentences floating up to the third-story window. It was a lane of confusion and upset. To Ard and Raek it seemed pure comedy.

After several moments of hysteria, the whiner regained control. “Obviously, we need to pick up the general and put him back in the casket.”

“How do we know he’s dead?” one of the bearers dared. “I saw him sit up.”

“Of course he’s dead, you idiot!” cried the whiner. “He’s missing half his head!”

“How do we know that’s really him?” asked another.

“He’s wearing the uniform,” reasoned the whiner. “He’s got the Stalwart Heart right there in his hand.” He pointed to the glint of metal.

“Something feels off,” said another bearer. “How did he ignite that Light Grit? And how did he get out of the coffin?”

“He didn’t!” the whiner cried. “You dropped the casket. He tumbled out … I don’t know!”

“And now to prove the obvious,” Raek narrated in a whispered voice, “the little man removes the head-bag.”

Sure enough, the Regulator stepped forward and untied the drawstring at the general’s neck. With one swift movement, he whisked off the bag.

Even from the third-story window, Ard had to look away from the gruesome sight. When he regained the stomach to look again, the whiner had tossed the empty head-bag to one of the bearers and was storming off, calling over his shoulder.

“No more questions! Just load the body back into the coffin and let’s forget this ever happened.”

“Literally,” Raek whispered, passing his partner the bag of fried potatoes. “In about two minutes.”

The bearer stuffed the bag over the mangled head of the general and tied it closed. The others positioned the palanquin nearer, moving the coffin away from the brightly glowing Light cloud.

Ard reached for a potato, only to find that Raek had eaten them all and had passed him an empty bag. He crumpled it up and tossed it into the fire, the greasy paper going up in a gush of flames.

Below, the general was finally in the casket and the lid was latched once more. Dazed and frightened faces returned to their positions and the palanquin was raised. Falling in to their familiar pace, the procession continued down the alley, the Memory cloud extinguishing as they exited onto the busy thoroughfare of Key Street.

“And now we can add ‘grave robbers’ to our list of dirty deeds.” Raek reached out and swiped the medallion from Ard’s grasp, turning it under his careful eye.

“That wasn’t grave robbing,” Ard said. “It was an intricate, complex ruse. We’ve been over this, Raek.”

“We stole from a dead guy.”

“Not true,” Ard rebutted. “General Nelbet was never awarded the Stalwart Heart. I was.”

Raek rolled his eyes. “You’re sure there wasn’t a misunderstanding?”

“Nope.” Ard unbuttoned his general’s coat. “I distinctly heard him say that— quote— ‘King Termain Agaul bestows upon this body the highest of military honors— the Stalwart Heart.’”

“Congratulations.” Raek’s voice was deadpan. “You’re a war hero.”

“And soon we’ll have spending money again.” Ard removed his boots and pants, tossing the latter into the crackling hearth to destroy the evidence of his disguise. Now that he stood in nothing but his undershorts, he wondered aloud. “Did you bring that bag I packed?”

Raek absently gestured to a duffel in the corner, his attention still on the medallion. The alley suddenly went dark below, Ard’s little Compounded cloud of Light Grit extinguishing without so much as a flicker.

“Anyone who knows Lord Stend will think he’s a crazy old coot when he starts showing this off.” Raek twirled the medallion between his fingers. “Pretending like he earned it more than forty years ago.”

“Anyone who knows Lord Stend already thinks he’s a crazy old coot,” Ard corrected, rummaging in the duffel bag. “But he’s a crazy old coot that’s going to pay us.”

“Those are my favorite kinds.” Raek stuffed the medallion into his pocket and began packing his array of crossbow Grit bolts.

“I can’t find my pants,” Ard muttered. “Did you take them out?”

“I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t think of that,” Raek answered. “I don’t know what load of slag you threw in there, but that bag was a lot heavier than a change of clothes.”

“Extra stuff,” Ard said. “You know, in case things went sideways.”

“What are you talking about? It never goes sideways.”

The door flew open, Gard and Sigg appearing with Rollers drawn. The hired thugs had sneers on their ugly faces as they strode into the room, full of self-importance and misplaced confidence.

“Hey, there, fellas.” Raek’s tone wavered. “Everything all right?”

“You told them where to find us?” Ard shrieked at his partner.

“An Ashing goes a long way with the street urchins,” said the bigger man. That was Gard. Not quite Raek’s height, but equally bald. “Little brat told us right where you was hiding out.”

“Sounds like the oxcart worked out,” Raek tried. “Diverted the whole funeral procession.”

“We’s here to collect.” Sigg spat on the wooden floor. He was stocky— nearly square, with pale skin and a royal mess of a tattoo on his forearm. Was that supposed to be a woman’s face or a pile of unfired dragon slag?

“And we’s decided we want double,” added Gard. “And we want it now, Fuse.”

Androt Penn and the Lit Fuse.

Raek had been the first to point out the obvious likeness to their original names. But that was the point! Confusion through similarity. If anyone suspected their true identities, Ard could quickly explain that they were often mistaken for those legendary ruse artists, Ardor Benn and the Short Fuse. And this way, when the real Ardor Benn was ready to return, he could retroactively claim any notable deeds done by his pseudonym.

“Hey, now,” Raek began. “You know that’s not how this works. We had an agreement.”

“Agreements change,” said Gard. “And you gots to— ”

Raek lunged for the crossbow and string of Grit bolts beside the chair. Sigg’s Roller cracked, a lead ball smashing into the floorboards beside the weaponry.

Raek jerked back sharply and Gard closed the distance, seizing him and leveling his Roller barrel against Raek’s temple.

“I knew we shouldn’t have hired these guys,” Ard said. During the brief skirmish, he had drawn both of his own Rollers from his duffel bag. Now he stood in the corner of the room, sorely underdressed for a gunfight, but appropriately armed.

“It was short notice,” Raek said. “We didn’t have a lot of options.”

“One more reason to move to the Sovereign States.” Ard took an aggressive step forward. “They say all the honest criminals have gone to Dronodan. Nothing but lowlifes left in Beripent.”

“Not another step!” Gard pressed the barrel tighter against Raek’s head. He had backed the two of them against the wall next to the window.

“If you shoot my partner, then I shoot yours,” Ard reasoned.

“Then I shoot you,” Gard said.

“Then you definitely won’t get paid,” Raek pointed out.

That seemed to puzzle them nicely. Ard took advantage of the stupor to take three swift steps across the room, stopping just arm’s length from Raek. Gard instantly shrank behind the bigger man, making himself completely unseen by gripping the back of Raek’s shirt and repositioning the Roller at the base of his skull.

Ard looked at his partner. They were pushing their luck. Sigg had a clear line of fire on Ard, and the goon was obviously itching to pull the trigger.

“Smoke in the chimney?” Ard asked.

Raek groaned. “Last time I ended up with two broken ribs.”

“Well, maybe this time I’ll only break one.” He cocked the Roller in his right hand.

“Hey!” Sigg shook his gun in Ard’s direction. “You put that down!”

But Ard was aiming his gun directly at Raekon Dorrel, the tip of the barrel hovering just inches from Raek’s chest. “Fourth button down?”

“Just a hair lower,” Raek replied.

Ard pulled the trigger.

The ball tore through Raek’s shirt just below the fourth button. There was a splatter of blood and Gard slumped against the wall, gasping his final breaths in silent pain.

Raek fell to his knees, gripping his chest, but Ard spun without hesitation, sending the shot from his other Roller through Sigg’s thigh. The injured man let out an earsplitting cry, dropping his gun to grip the wound.

“Consider that your payment,” Ard said as Sigg scooted across the floor and all but tumbled out of sight down the stairs.

“How’d it go?” Ard turned to check on Raek. The big man was on his feet once more, the grimace on his face actually less than what Ard had expected. Raek ripped open his shirt to expose the piece of pipe that ran through his torso and exited out the back.

“Oh, good.” Ard sighed. “You still only have one hole in your chest.”

The pipe was compliments of the palace healers, under the orders of King Pethredote himself. It had been embedded into Raek’s chest as an experimental means of reviving him from the brink of death. The front of the pipe had a slightly wider mouth, like a funnel, enabling carefully measured amounts of Health Grit to be poured directly into his torso.

When Ard had rescued Raek from the palace dungeon, the back of the pipe had been plugged, allowing the healer to adjust the exact location of the detonation’s center inside the patient.

The sides of the pipe were perforated with dozens of small holes, once allowing the Health cloud to make direct contact with Raek’s insides. Of course, the whole thing was now a mess of rigid scars, making the pipe impossible to safely extract.

Raek was perfectly healthy now, but the “chimney,” as Ard liked to call it, still had its uses. Like shooting someone hiding behind your friend. Or carrying snacks.

“Mostly a clean pass this time.” Wincing, Raek dropped into the chair by the window and rummaged through his sash of Grit bolts. “Just grazed the right side a bit.” He opened a pocket and withdrew a pair of corks and a small paper cartridge with the ends twisted closed.

“I was even a few inches away,” Ard said. On his first attempt at “smoke in the chimney” he had all but pressed the gun barrel into Raek’s chest.

“And this time you warned me.” Raek handed one of the corks to Ard and leaned forward, pulling up his shirt. “Flames, you’re a considerate guy.”

The hole was bleeding, and Raek grunted as Ard shoved the cork into the back of the pipe. Leaning in his chair, Raek untwisted the paper roll and poured a little Grit into the funneled front of the pipe before using the other cork to seal it off. He gave it a sharp rap, which must have detonated the Grit, and sighed in relief as the cloud formed, fully contained within his body.

“Where’d you get that Health Grit?” Ard asked.

Raek’s eyes were closed and he rolled his head back. “I brought it just in case things went sideways.” A little grin pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Movement in the dark alley below suddenly caught Ard’s attention. He maneuvered himself in front of Raek and peered straight down over the windowsill.

Sparks! There were three Reggies down there, weapons drawn as they positioned themselves against the wall of the building.

“Raek!” Ard hissed, ducking his head back inside. “We’ve got company.”

Raek’s eyes snapped open. He, too, leaned out the window only to draw back the moment he saw the Reggies. “Folks in this part of town must not be used to gunshots.”

“I’ve also heard that an Ashing goes a long way with the street urchins,” Ard said. It was likely that the same unfortunate orphans who’d spied for Gard and Sigg shared their knowledge with the local Regulators.

See, that was why no one could be trusted.

“It won’t take them long to find Sigg,” Raek surmised.

“Which leads them to us. Literally a trail of blood straight here,” said Ard. “So, what do we do?”

“Well, I think you should start by putting on some pants.” Raek was strapping on his sash of Grit bolts and winding his crossbow.

Ard staggered back to his duffel bag and upended the contents onto the wooden floor. Seriously, no trousers? Of all the things to forget …

Ard had just pulled his shirt over his head when a commotion sounded from the stairwell. Raek reached back and hurled a Grit pot through the doorway. Ard heard it bounce once before effectively shattering with enough force to spark the Slagstone fragment and ignite the Grit inside.

That was probably Barrier Grit to block the stairwell. But if the blast didn’t completely fill the space, the Reggies would still be able to shoot into the room.

Ard tugged on his vest and stomped into his comfortable pair of boots. Much better than those shiny things he’d had to wear as the decorated general. He grabbed his wide leather Grit belt and scampered over to the window to consult with Raek.

The big man was loading a bolt into his crossbow, the clay tip dyed green. He cast a reluctant sidelong glance at Ard’s attire.

“It’s a little brisk for winter,” Ard admitted. “But I’m trying to make a statement.”

“What about the general’s pants?” He took aim out the window.

“I threw those in the fire,” Ard said. “In retrospect, not my most brilliant decision.”

“We’ll have to Drift Jump across the alley to that window and escape through the other building.”

“Whoa! Have you seen me Drift Jump unaided?” Ard asked.

The window Raek was aiming at was even smaller than the one they’d be jumping from. And the face of the opposing building was flat and notably ledge-less. If Ard didn’t line up his jump perfectly, he’d splat into the bricks and fall three stories to the Reggies waiting below.

“Would you complain about jumping if Quarrah were here?” Raek took the shot, Grit bolt speeding across the alleyway and smashing open just above the far window.

“No!” Ard quickly retorted. At least Quarrah would have held his hand so he didn’t spiral out of control like a wounded pigeon.

The Drift cloud filled the space between the two buildings, but the shattering bolt surely would have attracted the attention of the Reggies positioned below. They needed to jump now!

Raek poked his head out the window, withdrawing it when a gunshot sounded from below.

“There’s a clothesline just overhead,” Raek reported. “It won’t have to bear our weight in the Drift cloud, and we can use it as a guide to get over to the other window.”

Okay. Not as good as Quarrah Khai holding his hand, but better than nothing.

Raek quickly reached out and snatched something off the line. “The Homeland is merciful today.” He threw the item in Ard’s face. Raek backed up, sprinted a few steps, and leapt from the window, catching hold of a towel draped over the clothesline.

His large figure sped across the alleyway, instantly drawing gunfire from below. The towel in his hands skimmed unnaturally across the clothesline, guiding Raek in a straight shot while scattering the few linens remaining on the line.

Ard saw him tuck his feet up and sail through the small ope