“Stop that! You don’t know any of those people, how can you say that about them?” Ru had never yelled at adults, but these weren’t people who deserved any respect. They were lowlifes who hid their identities like thieves. Ru had grown up with the knowledge that his family had enemies, but he’d always thought of the Mountain clan. Never had he imagined encountering random hatred from strangers.
Ru was a stone-eye boy, but he was from a Green Bone family and had been taught that offenses must always be answered. He drew his talon knife.
Niko seized him by the arm. “Don’t be stupid,” he said in a low voice.
Ru tugged against the grip, but his older brother was larger and stronger. Ru pointed the tip of his talon knife at the hoodlums, who’d stopped at the sight of a weapon and were watching the boys with incredulous menace. “We can’t let them keep doing that,” Ru insisted.
Niko began to walk away, pulling Ru with him.
Ru planted his heels and refused to be dragged. He was tall for his age and good with the knife, and Niko was an Academy-trained future Green Bone. Why should they run? “We’re not going to do anything about it?” he shouted at this brother. “What would Da think?”
“Da wouldn’t want us to be here in the first place,” Niko snapped.
People passing by on the street were pausing now. Most of them stared at the posters in disbelief and walked away, but the sight of Ru still brandishing his drawn talon knife was causing a stir, and murmurs of recognition began to rise.
One of the masked men jabbed an accusing finger at the Kaul brothers, then pointed at the wall of photographs. You belong on there with your family.
A black Roewolfe G8 pulled up to the curb and stopped with a squeal. The front doors flew open. Juen Nu and Lott Jin got out of the car. The Horn of No Peak strode onto the scene as if to kill everyone there. Ru had never seen the man so angry. The three masked vandals dropped everything and fled, pushing people out of the way as they sprinted away from the Green Bones in different directions. Juen took no notice of them. He seized Ru and Niko and shoved them toward the Roewolfe. “Get in the godsdamned car,” he ordered.
A silver Victor GS pulled up in front of the Roewolfe. Three Green Bones of the Mountain—a Fist and two Fingers—got out. The Fist took in the scene—Juen and Lott, Niko and Ru, the bystanders now hurriedly backing away.
“Juen-jen,” said the Fist warily. “You found what you were looking for.”
“Tell your Horn that we’re leaving and there’s no trouble,” Juen said calmly, although his grip tightened on the back of Ru’s shirt. “We’re all on the greener side here. We’re used to handling small, foolish problems that don’t require the attention of our Pillars, aren’t we?”
A tense moment that felt like an eternity passed before the Mountain Fist moved his chin a few degrees to glance at the freshly plastered posters on the wall. “Did you see which way those clanless dogs fled?”
“There were three of them, and they split up.” Lott Jin volunteered a description of the vandals and what they’d been wearing, then pointed out the directions they had escaped.
The Mountain Fist nodded cautiously and touched his forehead in salute. Lott opened the back door of the Roewolfe and Juen deposited Ru and Niko inside. The Horn and the First Fist got into the car. Lott pulled it into the street. Ru looked out the window to see the Mountain Green Bones watching them as they left.
Juen spun around. “What were the two of you thinking?” he demanded, so angrily that Ru shrank back into the seat. The Horn was the most fearsome position in any clan, but Ru had always viewed Juen as Ritto and Din’s father, who lived in the house on the other side of the garden on the Kaul estate. He was stern and sharpeyed but not frightening. Ru had heard other adults call Juen Nu a modern Horn, a manager Horn. It was said that he commanded the military side of No Peak not with the street charisma of Kaul Hilo or the stoic gravity of Maik Kehn, but with the organizational prowess of a man playing three games of circle chess at the same time. In that moment, however, Ru had no trouble believing that Juen Nu, like anyone who rises to a high level on the greener side of the clan, was a man capable of considerable violence. “Are you trying to cause a panic? Or a war?”
“We just wanted to see the duel,” Ru explained. “We were coming straight back.”
“Ayt Ato’s duel? You thought it was worth skipping school and sneaking into Mountain territory for that?” The car crossed from Little Hammer into Old Town, back into No Peak territory. Juen pointed to the nearest pay phone and Lott swerved sharply and pulled over. The First Fist jumped out and ran into the booth to place a phone call. Juen leaned over the gear shift and turned off the engine.