Empire of Ruins by Arthur Slade Page A

clicked open the portmanteau and a blur of flashing metal shot toward Modo’s face. He threw up his arms, bashing at the spread wings, but the talons ripped through his clothing and into his flesh. The poisoned talons! How long before the poison took effect? The falcon’s razor-sharp beak went for his eyes as it let go an ear-shattering screech.
    He clamped onto its neck and threw the bird to the floor, so hard that pieces flew off and it lay still. Modo was bleeding, but he didn’t feel woozy. Perhaps he hadn’t been poisoned.
    “Admirable,” the man said as he finished winding up the remaining falcons with a key. He snapped his fingers and they attacked.

 

Flushing Out the Enemy
     
    O ctavia saw Modo leave the ball and guilt overtook her. But she was in the middle of a long quadrille, and propriety demanded that she stay on the dance floor. Lieutenant Boddle, her dance partner, spun her around, and as she turned she glimpsed Modo halfway down the deck. He appeared to be listening at a cabin door. Then the lieutenant took her hand and spun her again. The next time they danced within sight of the walkway, Modo was gone.
    The lieutenant demanded one more dance and, because she couldn’t think of an excuse, she was forced to endure another polka. The man had two lead feet. No, steel, she decided after he had twice stomped on her left foot.
    When the polka was done she pressed her hand to her forehead and said, “You’ve twirled me so quickly and with such strength that I’m feeling light-headed.” He seemed totake this as a compliment. “I’m sorry, I must return to my cabin.”
    She declined his offer of accompaniment and hurried down the deck. Where had Modo been standing exactly? A metallic screech released a wave of fear inside her. She knew that sound! It was coming from a cabin a few doors away. She ran to it and heard the struggle going on inside.
    Yanking open the cabin door, she found a man dodging two metal falcons; the third bird was on the floor. The man’s face was unfamiliar, but he was wearing the same suit that Modo had worn. Modo had changed his face again!
    A man with the same face—the real face, Octavia assumed—was on the opposite side of the cabin, waving his arms about. The falconer!
    She spied a pistol on the floor. She scooped it up: a Galand. She leveled it at the falconer and shouted, “Stop your birds!”
    The man regarded her calmly. He made a clicking noise in the back of his throat and one of the falcons turned in midair and darted in Octavia’s direction. She swung the pistol over and pulled the trigger, and the bullet struck the bird’s head and glanced off, sparks flying. The falcon shot past her, smacking her with a metal wing.
    By the time she had her wits about her again, Modo was throwing one of the falcons through the porthole and the man was rushing at her. She raised the pistol, but he knocked her over before she could get a shot off. She rolled on the deck and aimed the gun again, just in time to see the man jump over the railing.
    She ran and looked over the side of the ship, but he had disappeared into the ocean. It was too dark to see him in the water. The falconer was gone.
    Turning, she saw Modo in the doorway of the cabin, his sleeves bloody and tattered—but he was alive. The orchestra was still playing and people continued to dance. No one had noticed the battle.
    Modo stumbled to her, trying to fasten the button on a shredded shirtsleeve.
    “You’re wounded!” she said, taking his arm. “Good Lord, you might be poisoned.”
    “If I were I’d be dead now,” he said, finally getting the button to work. “Assuming it was the same poison he used on Fred Land. Did I really see him jump ship?”
    “Yes. He’s in the water, soon to be shark food, I hope. How did you flush him out?”
    “With whiskey,” Modo said with a laugh. It was so odd to hear his voice coming out of a stranger’s mouth. Despite his flippancy, he was leaning over and obviously