“Lemme go! I din’ do nothing.”

The Enforcer made a series of clicking and whirring sounds, a sort of machine speech, maybe.

“He’s just trash,” the Inspector replied with a shrug.

The Enforcer loosened its tentacle and the man was able to clamber to his feet.

Karigan’s apprehension eased. It looked like they were merely going to arrest the man, or maybe even let him go, but before she could finish that thought, the tentacle coils constricted. The man screamed until the tentacles silenced him, followed by the snapping of bones.

She barely contained a scream of her own and looked away feeling like she could vomit. She’d seen horrible things before—gore, death, plenty of blood—but nothing like this.

A glance at Cade showed he’d gone pale and looked likely to be sick himself. His grip on her wrist would leave bruise marks.

Beneath the dimming light of the streetlamp, the Enforcer unraveled its tentacle, dropping the crushed body that flopped like a rag doll in the middle of the street. The Inspector and his mechanical left it behind, discarded, just like the trash the Inspector had proclaimed the man to be.

When they were well away, Karigan said, “Cade—”

“Shhh,” he said, and pointed.

Gray forms in rags crept out of the shadows and emerged from rotten doorways.

“Dregs?” Karigan whispered.

“Ghouls.”

The Ghouls surrounded the body, picked it up, and carried it away into the night.

“Someone at the university will pay them for that body,” Cade said with disgust.

Karigan shuddered. It had all happened so fast.

“I am sorry,” Cade said.

“For—for what?”

“We could’ve helped that man, but I feared the risk to us and the opposition. And I didn’t know . . .” He took a moment to collect himself. He licked his lips. “I didn’t know they would do that to him. I thought they were just going to arrest him.”

As they rode on, moving carefully from their concealment and onto the dark streets, Karigan remembered the professor saying that the Enforcers were incapable of compassion, of mercy. They were, after all, inhuman mechanicals. What was, she wondered, the Inspector’s excuse? Then she asked herself: Which was worse? The actions of an unthinking machine, or the inaction of a man devoid of mercy?

The latter, she thought. By far. She now appreciated, on a deeper level, why Cade and the professor dared oppose the empire.

They encountered no more Inspectors. Cade led her to a brick building that stood apart from the others. He looked around carefully, then dismounted and signaled for her to do the same. He opened a door on the front, large enough for him to lead the mule inside. She followed behind with Raven who blew through his nose and chewed on his bit.

Cade hastily drew the door closed behind her, and she heard chains rattling.

“You are locking us in?” The echoing of her voice startled her.

“Yes,” Cade replied. “It’ll keep out unwanted visitors.”

From what Karigan could tell, the building was cavernous and empty. Dim light from streetlamps filtered in through windows up high, silhouetting bars across them and lending a menacing atmosphere to the place. The mule’s hooves clopped on the stone floor as Cade led him down the center of the room toward the far end. Karigan followed, her boots crunching on broken glass. Between the barred shadows on the floor she saw other debris scattered about—papers, an old shoe, scraps of wood, bird droppings. When they reached the far end, she made out a railing that stood before a raised stage, and Cade tying the mule to the railing.

Karigan followed his example with Raven, wishing she’d brought some water to offer him. And herself. Cade, who was better prepared, shared some from his canteen. She took a swig for herself, then poured some into her cupped hand for Raven. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Here,” she said, returning the canteen to Cade.

“Shhh, I heard something.”

Karigan listened, but all she could hear was horse and mule shifting and settling. Then, in an interlude of silence, she heard the distinct crunching of someone stepping on broken glass just as she had done. It was followed by more silence.

She espied the gleam of a blade as Cade unsheathed a knife. He did not draw one of his guns, perhaps fearing its use would attract too much unwanted attention. She remembered all too well the noise they could make.

In one direction, she heard a stealthy noise, the rustling of cloth. In another, the pad of feet. Karigan and Cade had locked themselves in the building with at least two others. Not Inspectors, she thought. She neither heard nor saw evidence of Enforcers, and she did not think it was their way to skulk in the dark.

Ruffians or vagrants, then.

Raven whickered nervously and Karigan sensed someone creeping toward her from the left. A flurry of movement came from the opposite direction and Cade grappled with an assailant, followed by a shout and grunts, then the thud of two bodies slamming to the hard floor.

Karigan extended her bonewood to staff length, and when the attack came, she was ready.

PENNED IN

Arms Master Drent had devoted some training time to sessions on the art of fighting with one’s senses dulled. He’d made his trainees stuff cotton in their ears to muffle their hearing. He’d made them wear helms that blocked their vision in different ways. Karigan had not fared well in those sessions, especially when her opponents were able to fight unhindered.

Here, in the dark building, she and her foes were on even footing. Each possessed all their senses and were submerged in the same murk. How keen was the night vision of her opponents? She couldn’t know, but hers had been attuned to a lack of light by a night of rambling about the countryside and keeping to the shadows.