Free Storm Thief by Chris Wooding

bounding lope that propelled him at great speed down the street. Screams and exclamations followed him as he lunged through the crowds, slipping between the slow, wheezing vehicles, cringing from the sight of the people that surrounded him. Everywhere he looked he saw faces twisted in distaste or fear, people pointing or scrambling out of his way. He wanted to hide from their eyes, but they were everywhere.
    Into the alleys. That was the answer. Into the alleys, get off the street.
    A clamour had arisen somewhere nearby now. A shrill, pulsing whistle, joined by another and yet another. He had heard that sound from high up in his tower before. It was the alarm call of the Protectorate soldiers.
    He leaped over a cowering boy and plummeted down a set of steps, his wings tucked in close. He landed lightly on his fingertips and toes when he struck the walkway below. Stone buildings, shops of some kind, reared up on either side of him. Between them was a narrow throughway. He took it.
    The buildings closed him in, screening him from the crowd on the street. He felt a desperate relief at being away from them. His skin crawled with reflected loathing. The throughway was empty. As he reached the end of it he slowed and looked back, like a kicked dog that wasn’t sure whether to return to its master.
    â€œIt’s here!” someone cried in the distance. Vago tensed. If he ran, where would he run to? He was afraid of the city, and it was all around him.
    Two figures appeared at the end of the alley. They were armoured in pale green, their eyes hidden behind wraparound visors that glowed faintly with the same colour. Both were shaved bald, and they carried with them some kind of devices affixed to their right forearm. Sleek metal shapes, with stubby muzzles that projected past their wrists.
    â€œThere it is!”
    A sudden memory. Vago recognized these people. Protectorate soldiers. And the things on their arms, that they were now pointing at him. . .
    Aether cannons.
    He moved an instant before they fired. The cannons spat squealing globs of burning green energy, a moist slither of pure aether that fizzed and spat as it cut through the air. They struck the wall where Vago had stood a split-second before, spraying across it before disappearing with an angry hiss, leaving the stone unmarked. Aether cannons didn’t damage inorganic matter like stone. Nor did they affect organic material like flesh. Nobody knew how they worked, but everyone knew what they did. One hit from an aether cannon would blow your soul apart.
    Vago was around the corner and into another alleyway before the soldiers had even realized they had missed. He heard the whistle of their alarms as they gave chase. They were answered by others. The soldiers were closing in fast.
    This alleyway was cobbled, and a thin stream of dirty water ran down a gutter at its side. It was dense with rickety shopfronts selling strings of animal hooves and spices, cheap ornaments and medicinal concoctions. There was a heavy scent of cooking patties, aromatic smoke and sweat. Shaggy buta chewed handfuls of weeds: dim beasts of burden with dirty white pelts that hung over their eyes. Their curling horns were brightly painted and tinkled with little gold charms. They watched Vago pass without interest.
    He bounded between the sellers and the buyers, scaring them as he passed. People cursed and fell out of the way, only realizing afterward that it wasn’t an animal but something else that had blurred by. He could hear the whistles of the soldiers, knew that they were ahead of him as well as behind. But he had to run. There was nothing else he could do.
    Then the buildings on either side peeled back and let the sky in, and there before him was a long, curving bridge that arched over a massive canal. The canal was the West Artery, one of the main waterways of the city. It ran from the great pump atop a mountain near the centre of Orokos. There, seawater was sucked up