Free City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market)) by Laurence Yep Page A

the stars, but they’ll do more damage when they hit.”
    He nodded patronizingly. “Not a bad idea.”
    Koko followed Leech over there and watched as his friend reached carefully through the window and took out six of the small gleaming axes, the rubies and diamonds on the shafts gleaming as they caught the light momentarily.
    “Okay, okay,” Koko said desperately, “I’m sorry about Primo,too, but this won’t bring him back. Let’s just take the axes and get out of here.” He seemed disappointed when Leech stuck them in his belt and headed back for the rug. “There’s nothing you can do against that monster.”
    “We can try,” the girl said grimly as she took a pair of axes and slung them in her belt.
    Leech stared at Koko challengingly. “We’ve always had one rule: No one hurts one of us. If they do, we get even. Well, Primo was our friend.”
    Koko looked yearningly at the exit but his eyes came back to his friend. “I knew you were trouble when I saw you in that alley just after you ran away from the orphanage. I should have left you there.”
    “Why didn’t you?” Leech asked.
    “Because I felt sorry for you. You were shivering and scared of your own shadow. So I broke my own rule about thinking of my own skin first.” Koko tugged at his hair. “And now I’m going to do it again.” Disgusted with himself, Koko picked up an axe, too. “Argh, I’m such a moron.”

Bayang
     
    Bayang trembled with rage and frustration as she watched her enemy escape. Her hatred for Badik was so deep, she felt it in the very marrow of her bones.
    Get a hold of yourself, she scolded herself fiercely. Mindless fury won’t help your people. Badik is gone so think about what to do about the remaining target
.
    She took several deep breaths, rejecting all emotion and focusing on the hard facts as she had trained herself to do.
    Her prey had saved her, a complete stranger, and later had been so heartbroken when his bodyguard had died. These were not the actions of a heartless monster who murdered brutally and wrecked so many innocent lives. Instead, he had shown a hatchlinglike trust when he had turned his back on her. She found it touchingthat, despite all his hardships, he still had the same kind of faith of the young: simple but deep.
    Many believed that a person could improve with each new lifetime. She found herself hoping that was what had happened to her prey—the cycle of deaths and rebirths slowly washing away the callous murderer from his soul like dirt stains from a shirt. If that was true and she killed him, who would be the real monster then?
    As she wound the discarded chain around her waist, she looked about the wreckage, searching for her prey. She saw him sitting on the floor with his friend and the bossy little Kushan hatchling. They were all looking very scared but also very determined about something.
    The bossy little Kushan noticed Bayang at the same time. “When my mother wakes up,” she called to Bayang, “please tell her that I’ve gone after the dragon.”
    The dragon?
Bayang stared at the hatchlings skeptically.
Had they all taken knocks to their heads during the battle?
Then she noticed the rug for the first time. Its edges were rippling, curling, and then straightening out as if it were alive. The Kushan hatchling must be of the Old Blood and either she or her griffin could read the Old Tongue.
    Bayang had thought there was only one flying carpet left in the world and she had flown on it several times while on a mission in disguise in the New Persian Empire. The secret of their creation had been lost centuries in the past, and since then no one had been able to figure out the complicated process of simultaneously casting the complex spells as the threads were woven.
    This one might have flown when it was new, but slashed from its golden frame and lying on the floor, the threadbare rug looked more like trash than a valuable antique. She was sure that it would fall apart at the first