Free The Guild by Jean Johnson

the narrow street, so she placed the key along the upper edge of the doorframe once the room was locked.
    With that taken care of, she hefted the pack so it sat more comfortably and headed down the stairs. Choosing a path that would get her out of the north gate of the city, she started walking. After three blocks, though, just as she passed the mouth of an alley, the sudden rumble of a motorhorse coming to life startled her. A quickglance to her right showed the leftenant on the machine, with no sign of the operator from earlier.
    Rexei glared at him. Releasing the stopper pedal briefly, he coasted up next to her, then stilled the rumbling mount. “This isn’t the way to the east.”
    “Any fool would head east right away. I know better when expecting pursuit,” she shot back.
    For a moment, his mouth twisted wryly. Leftenant Tallnose tipped his head at the street she stood on, then at the second saddle position on his motorhorse. “I had a feeling you’d bolt, so I sent the corporal back on foot and picked your most likely route in this maze of streets. Get on. We’ll head north, then swing around east.”
    For a second, she wanted to rest, to enspell him and run. But the Vortex was the safest place for her, and a motorhorse was considerably faster than a shank’s mare. Since she didn’t want to spend all night marching on foot in an inadequate coat while the temperatures dropped, she moved over to the side of his bike and awkwardly climbed aboard. Not because she was unfamiliar with motorhorses—no one reached journeyman status in the Messengers Guild without learning how to operate one of the machines—but because her belongings coupled with the greater height of the rear seat made climbing into place a bit awkward.
    She managed, though. Tucking her gloved hands into his belt for security, she tightened her legs on the machine’s flanks and held on, balancing with each turn and twist in their path as they got under way. The last light of the sun glowed peach where it touched the city walls by the time they rumbled out of the north gate. He continued north for a mile, too, but she wasn’t too alarmed; in fact, when he slowed the motorhorse at the crossroads and turned right, she relaxed, leaning gently into the curve with him so the wheeled, mechanical beast wouldn’t slip or skid.
    Once on the road that would connect with others headedeastward, he shifted a couple of levers and increased the fuel mix in the engine. Rexei wasn’t completely sure of how such things worked; the Engines Guild was one of many she had yet to apprentice in, never mind master. She did know just enough to be able to tell the engine sounded like it was in excellent shape. Good enough that the leftenant increased their speed once they were on the straightest stretch of the road, until she was grateful to huddle behind his leather-clad back, though the wind still whipped around him, chilling her where it blew through her felted outer clothes.
    The trip by motorhorse took only a fraction of the time it would have taken her to walk the five miles on foot. If it weren’t for the heat of the engine seeping through the metal flanks of the motorhorse, she would have been as cold from the wind caused by their speed as she would have been from the longer journey at a shank’s mare pace. Even the pack on her back helped somewhat, but her arms were stiff and numb by the time he carefully guided the vehicle up the winding road that mounted the side of the northern hill and turned it onto the crystal-lit curve that formed the top of the Heias Dam. By then, they were so close that the water cascading over the spillway was louder than the motorhorse engine.
    The dam was one of the few structures still extant that had been crafted in part by magic. Over three hundred years old—and rumored to be from a time before Mekha had turned rapacious—the runes that imbued it with the power to self-seal any developing cracks drew their power down from the