ShadowSong [Book 1 & 2: Complete] [NaNoWriMo16/17]

Chapter 46 - When the Scales Tip

Banshee ran for the door.

Yellow blasts of energy fired from twelve different directions all tried to stop her. Instinct kicked in as she dodged shots by the millimetre. She couldn't see them until they were fired, there was barely one of her racing heartbeats between two shots from the same gun, yet she ducked under one and rolled away from the next before jumping over the next three that chased it down, her eyes never leaving the door.

"Don't let her escape!"

Four of them immediately turned their fire on the door and forced her retreat to avoid them. She readied herself for the anticipated gap, still dodging the other eight, but the four kept their guns trained on the door.

"Keep firing! All squads, report to the central hall with starstone weapons! The Shadow is here, take her down!"

One hit. One hit was all they needed to incapacitate her.

The thought pounded through her head as she swung Grief and destroyed the blast about to hit her shoulder. She couldn't risk the door--but maybe she could jump through a wall? Through the floor? There were no windows, no hint of the outside world. It was a huge risk. She was just as likely to jump into another room of starstone guns or trap herself in a space with limited air. Cryo might have been oriented enough to make the risk calculated. She wasn't, and there were more of them coming.

With her options so limited, Banshee reversed her grip on Grief, sliced yet another blast of starstone she hadn't been able to dodge, and attacked.

She pushed off her right foot and launched herself at one of the furthest attackers. Even at over ten metres away, she covered the distance easily. She grabbed the guy's shoulder to swing herself around and, weightless in her shadow shift, the guy didn't even stumble as Banshee perched on his back. He did, however, stumble a whole lot as Banshee suddenly dropped her shadow shift, reached over, and slammed Grief's hilt into the side of his head.

The guy went down. In the seconds she had before the others started shooting at her again, Banshee swiped the starstone gun he'd been holding and flicked the setting from kill to stun.

She crouched low and aimed. Her first two shots took down an attacker to her right, the first one to recover from her sudden change in tactics. Her third caught another in the shoulder and her fourth hit a knee while her fifth went a few centimetres wide when she was forced to dodge again.

Every time she squeezed that trigger and unleashed another burst of brilliant yellow auroralight, Banshee's conscious mind wasn't in charge. It lurked in the background, behind a deeper, far older part of herself that knew this body, that knew these weapons and how they would handle. The starstone hummed in her hands, over and over and over, each bar of its song finding a new mark, every piece of the ever-rising melody flooding through her hands and taking out her enemies, one by one by one.

Ten became nine. Nine became eight.

She picked up a second gun from one of her fallen targets and those guns she didn't pick up, she kicked away from their owners. Eight became seven to six to five to four to eight once more as reinforcements arrived. She managed to get their numbers back down to six before her guns ran out of charge.

With a curse, Banshee threw the empty guns at the two nearest people and ducked into one of the side rooms for cover. Let them come to her. When they were outside the door, she'd leap back through the wall and take them down from behind.

Given a moment's respite, Banshee allowed herself a long, slow exhale and glanced around, looking for anything she could use.

The 'side room' she'd ducked into wasn't really a side room at all, but another, albeit slightly narrower, still bare corridor. The walls here were the same, grey stone walls, scorched and scarred far worse than those in the previous room. Scorched, like they'd been on the receiving end of a starstone blast. Scarred, like they'd been marked, over and over by a thousand strikes from one of Banshee's daggers, only the marks were too thin for even Grief or Joy's fine edges. It seemed strange, almost like paper had cut into the walls, or--