Free Stands a Shadow by Col Buchanan

through the side grille, groping for Ash’s hood.
    Ash dropped a whole marvel into the slot, hardly surprised that it was accepted, and broke free from his grasp as he pushed through the stile into the Serpentine beyond.
    As far as the eye could see, the thoroughfare was filled with snaking processions of red-robed pilgrims. On the opposite side of the road stood the old quarter of the district, with its winding alleyways and its tilting, top-heavy buildings of stone. Ash dived headlong into the procession, weaving through the pilgrims as he tried to get across. He glimpsed men and woman whipping their bloody backs and breasts in frenzy; others chanting as they sported skewered cheeks, their faces held aloft and ecstatic.
    Then he was through them, trotting into the mouth of a narrow alley with the two bodyguards emerging close behind.
    ‘Clear away!’ he bellowed as he picked up speed. He dashed headlong past folk and pilgrim tourists bartering over trinkets and whores, trying to lose himself in the maze of passageways and small plazas that were the guts of the old district.
    They were fast, these boys. Even in their boots and their leather armour they were keeping pace with him, pounding along the flagstones of the passageway in single file with their shoulders brushing the walls, whooshing air from their lungs in a manner suggesting they could keep this up all day.
    Ash was wondering if he shouldn’t pick up his pace a little more, but then he saw the passageway open out ahead of him, and a less taxing option presented itself.
    He reached for his sword from beneath his cloak, drew it the instant he was clear of the alley.
    In his next two steps he had stopped himself and was spinning around on the ball of his foot, his other leg stretching out so that he was low, extended, his sword pointing in front of him.
    In the last instant he adjusted the aim of the tip a fraction, and then the first guard ran straight into the blade, shoving Ash back a pace with the force of his impact. They both grunted, and then the second guard ran into the first one, right into the blade sticking out of his back.
    Ash straightened from his stance, the hilt of the sword still in his grip. The two men grimaced and sweated and tried to pull themselves free while Ash inspected their wounds. The first guard looked at him; looked back down at the blade in his side.
    ‘I’ve avoided you organs,’ he told them both. ‘Keep the wounds clean and you should live.’
    Without warning he jerked the blade free. They sagged to their knees, hands reaching for their sides. People nearby were staring in wonder.
    Ash cleaned the blood from his blade on one of their backs, then picked up his bag of bread and trotted away.
    Ché strolled home feeling light and loose-gaited, the taste of the Royal Milk still lingering on his tongue, his body trembling with the energy of a coiled spring.
    His new and exclusive apartment was located in the southern side of the Temple District, that area which surrounded the Temple of Whispers, where lesser skysteeples rose above priestly mansions and apartment blocks and ornamented buildings of entertainment. He walked back through the steady rain listening to the birds singing from the parks and the rooftop gardens, wondering in his elevated mood if they were celebrating the return of life to the city streets, for there was an atmosphere of excitement in the air today, this first day of the Augere. In the streets, children watched the red-robed pilgrims march by in chanting processions, goggling at the numerous races of the Empire, drawn here in record numbers for the fiftieth anniversary of the Mannians’ seizure of power.
    In his apartment, Whiskers was there already, tidying the large empty rooms in her meticulous way. Ché felt a moment of affection when he saw the woman; after only a few weeks, she had become a welcome detail of stability in his scattered life.
    ‘I leave in the morning,’ he announced to the