Free Iron Jaw and Hummingbird by Chris Roberson Page B

the discovery.”
    â€œThe Iberian Prisoner con,” Temujin said, unable to keep the hint of admiration from his voice. “You played your part perfectly, my dear, the damsel looking only to help her powerful friend.”
    â€œWasted on you,” the woman snapped. “Now look, we’re not unreasonable people”—Gamine couldn’t help but doubt that —“but we wasted three days because of you two, days in which we might have rolled that seed money into some serious coin, if we’d found an honest sucker to catch on the hook. But now I’ve got to report this to my boss as a loss of profit, and he hates to hear the words loss and profit in the same sentence. So you two need to come up with some serious coin in the next few minutes here, or we’re going to be taking it out of your hide. If I can’t bring my boss the money, I can at least bring him the scalps of the two jokers who loused it up for us.”
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    Gamine didn’t see that she had any choice. If she was to escape, she might have to run off and leave Temujin behind. She had a clear path to the doorway, with the woman and her four pale-skinned friends all farther inside the room. The only other way out was a wide window on the far side of the room, but to reach it Gamine would have to make it past the woman and her friends, which didn’t seem likely. So she’d have to run for it and hope for the best.
    As the woman finished her lengthy and colorful threat against their lives, Gamine slowly inched backward. Everyone was so intent on listening that they didn’t notice that Gamine was now almost all of the way out of the room. She was about to turn and run for her very life, when she heard a shout coming from farther down the hall.
    â€œThere she is!”
    Gamine looked over and froze.
    Six guardsmen, tall and broad shouldered, were barreling toward her, hands on the sheathed sabers at their sides.
    â€œStop!” one of them yelled.
    Gamine saw her chance and took it.
    â€œTemujin!” she shouted, rushing back into the room and heading straight for the window. “Follow me!”
    The woman and her four friends looked at Gamine as though she were insane. Any one of them was only a few steps away from reaching her, and she couldn’t possibly hope to reach the window without being stopped.
    â€œWhat’s this?” came an officious voice from the doorway, followed by the rattling of sabers.
    Gamine didn’t pause to look back but raced for the window.
    â€œIt’s Thompson Mary and her boys!” one of the guardsmen shouted.
    â€œGuys, whip the dung out of these pigs,” the woman ordered.
    Gamine reached the window and threw back the sash. Temujin was at her side by the time she’d climbed up on the windowsill.
    â€œOur friends appear to be a bit distracted by the hurly-burly,” Temujin said by way of explanation as he followed Gamine out onto the ledge. The room behind him had exploded into a violent melee as gang members and guardsmen plowed into one another, all shouts and fists, sabers and knives. Everyone had, for the moment, forgotten about them.
    â€œLet’s go.” Gamine dropped to the street below. Without waiting for Temujin, she pounded away down the back street as quickly as her feet would carry her.
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    That night, the lights of Fuchuan only a dim glow on the western horizon, Gamine and Temujin sat huddled together in the darkness. They had nothing with them: no coin, no provisions, no fire kit. They could not return to the city, not with both the authorities and a Parley gang out for their blood. To the south and east was nothing but sand and rock, interrupted on rare occasion by military outposts and refueling stations. The Grand Trunk lay far to the west. To the north, beyond the steep walls of the Tianfei Valley, stretched the northern plains, wide prairies dotted with little hamlets and agrarian villages, rice plantations,