The Assassins of Altis Read Free

continue what I was trying to accomplish. If you love me you will want to finish what I was trying to do. Now promise.”
    He finally nodded. “I promise that should you die I will try to bring these texts to safety and contact your friends.”
    “Good. That applies if I’m captured, too. You’re not to try to rescue me.”
    Alain frowned at her, upset enough that the emotion showed. “I will not promise that. If you are captured, I will try to free you.”
    “ Alain… ”
    “ No. ” He had gotten good enough at putting emotion into his words that his feelings on this must have been clear.
    She gave him an aggravated glare, but must have been able to see that he would not bend on that. “Fine. Why did I get involved with a Mage?” Mari shifted her glare to the snow. “I know we’d agreed to go through the ruins because we’d be a lot harder for the barbarians to see than if we stuck to the relatively open ground along the river banks,” she said in an abrupt change of the subject. “Is that still a good idea? This snow is thickening fast.”
    Alain squinted up at the sky again. “I think we would still be best going through the city. If this storm continues to worsen, we would catch its full fury on the exposed river banks, but in among the ruins those walls and buildings still standing will help break the worst of it.”
    “Unless the storm breaks them first,” Mari observed acidly. As if on cue, a low rumble sounded somewhere in the distance, marking the collapse of one more long-abandoned building. “But you’re probably right. Once we start moving again, let’s not talk unless we absolutely have to so there’s less chance of those savages hearing us.”
    She exhaled heavily, then kissed him again quickly. “I’m still unhappy you won’t promise to leave me if I’m captured, but I don’t want to go into danger mad at you. Just use your head, no matter what happens. I love you, my Mage.”
    “I love you, my Mechanic,” Alain whispered in reply. It had taken a long time for him to be able say such a simple phrase, so alien was the concept of love to one taught the ways of Mages.
    Alain followed as Mari moved cautiously among the wreckage cluttering what had once been a street through the city. Piles of debris blocked streets and other open areas, some dating to the fighting between rebels and Imperial legions a hundred and fifty years ago and some more recent, the result of slow disintegration of the ruins. Vacant buildings stood on all sides, their windows gaping on emptiness within, their walls and roofs broken in places large and small. Scattered everywhere were the remnants of ancient battle: broken and badly corroded armor and weapons and the white fragments of shattered bones from countless unburied bodies left behind after the legions withdrew. Most of the weapons were the swords, spears and crossbows used by common folk, but once in a while they glimpsed a broken Mechanic weapon like those Mari called rifles or pistols. The bone fragments, though, offered no clues as to who their owners had once been in life, whether rebels, legionaries, or helpless citizens caught in the fighting.
    “I’d forgotten how very much I hate this place,” Mari mumbled just loudly enough for Alain to hear, unnerved enough to break her own rule.
    He was deciding whether or not to reply when a black cloud seemed to drift across the street in front of them, then vanished. Alain’s hand went out to seize her shoulder while he breathed out a soft warning for silence. Mari stopped instantly, waiting while Alain peered into the gray-lit street ahead. Alain studied the area ahead of them, wishing he knew how to bring his foresight to work instead of hoping it would. But foresight was unreliable at the best of times, and now it offered no further signs. He brought his mouth close to Mari’s ear. “I saw a warning of danger ahead,” he murmured in a low voice. “We should go to the left or right some