Coldmarch
Page 28
‘Then let’s go steal their most prized possession,’ Cam said, rubbing his hands together.
I cocked my head, looking him over. Beneath the Khatberries, my friend’s skin was no longer the smooth, pampered texture of his kin. He was hardened, weary. There were more lines crinkling his eyes. Something was missing.
‘I mean Shilah of course,’ Cam said.
I paused. ‘Damn.’
‘What?’ he asked.
I forced a smile, even though everything inside me was nails and stingers. ‘You’re different from when I met you, too.’
‘How could I not be?’ Cam ruffled my hair. ‘Isn’t that what saviours do? Change things?’
‘I don’t know.’
Cam set his hand on the back of my neck, gently cupping it. ‘You will. And just wait until we get you some more Frosts. Not that you need them.’
‘I don’t like how I feel,’ I said softly.
Cam gave my injured hand a concerned look, still wrapped in boilweed. ‘Is it getting worse?’
‘Not that,’ I said, hiding my hand behind my back. Indeed, the pain was getting worse, but I wasn’t going to admit that at the moment. ‘I’m just so angry. I want to hurt people.’
Cam gave a resolute nod. ‘Good. Do it. They deserve it.’
Split’s knuckles went white around his crossbow. ‘Looks like me and you finally have something in common, Spout.’
Dunes let his head sag, his crossbow rattling.
I paused. The secret I was so desperately clutching kept trying to escape. ‘Do you think they have more Frosts inside?’
‘That Ka’in bastard seems the type,’ Cam said. ‘Smug enough to have one at least.’
Dunes’s face shot up, eagerness returning. ‘Is that what you wish, Meshua? I will deliver you more Frosts.’
I shook my head. ‘Deliver me Shilah.’
Cam put a hand on my shoulder. ‘We’re going to get her back, Spout. I’ve never felt more confident about anything in my life. Except for when I felt confident that you’d be a good assistant for Leroi.’ Cam tapped his lip, smirking. ‘But I guess I was wrong about that.’
I finally looked at him, brow furrowed. ‘Why would you say that?’
Cam drew out one of the Abbs and rolled it in his palm. ‘Because I think he was more a good assistant for you.’ He loaded the Abb behind the special ridge I’d built into the crossbow’s shaft, which held the bead tight until the trigger was pressed.
‘You’re a good friend, Cam,’ I said.
He swallowed hard. ‘Let’s just hope I’m as good a warrior. I’ve been a good friend for a while. But I’ve never been in a fight before.’
‘What is your command, Meshua?’ Dunes asked, glancing up towards the dark sky.
I understood this moment was going to come. Years of nightly plundering the boilweed piles had left me adept at sneaking around, but I’d never led a whole group of people before. I prayed I wasn’t going to get any of them killed. If I had the Decoy Boxes that I’d made back in the Tavor tinkershop we could at least have caused a bit of a diversion. I thought about the Domestics from the slave cart who’d escaped, knowing there had to be some secret entrance to the Sanctuary. We needed to get in now. I preferred tact, careful thought, and tinkering to anything rash, but Shilah might not have much time.
I wiped a hand across my forehead. Beads of sweat greased my fingers. ‘We sneak around the perimeter and find an entrance on the side, out of sight from the towers, and hopefully a guard there will tell us what we need to know and let us in.’
Dunes licked the last bit of Khatberry juice from his blade. ‘I’m sure he will.’
And he did.
Even Split looked begrudgingly impressed.
‘If you are lying to me,’ Dunes said calmly to the guard, ‘I will not kill you. I will find you wherever you may be – Hookmen are the best at finding runaways, which I believe you must know – and take you back to a very dark, very isolated place. And there I will practise on you. And I will tell you this, Noble guard, I am very good at the everyday sort of torture.’ He thrust the tip of his hooked blade back into the man’s palm and the guard broke with pain. ‘As you can clearly see. What I need practice on is the darker things, the experimental things. So I will ask you one time. Is everything you told me true? You scream again and I remove your tongue. Another thing I am quite practised at.’
The proficiency of the torture reminded me of the Vicaress, and normally I would have buckled with sympathy. Now a part of me wanted to learn from Dunes. This guard was part of Shilah’s abduction, even if he wasn’t the one who took her. My blood was burning with indignation, I had a sick desire for the hooked blade to scrape bone. I wanted this Noble to scream.
The boilweed strip came away from the guard’s mouth and he kept relatively composed, most of his whimpering happening in his eyes.
‘I’m not lying, Hamman,’ the guard babbled. ‘I promise you that they would have taken her—’
The handle of the blade went swinging, and before I knew it, the guard was unconscious. Dunes pinned him gently against the door so the body could slowly crumple to the ground.
‘He said your name. He knew who you were,’ Split said, fingers furiously scratching his thigh.
Dunes shook his head, rifling through the guard’s pockets. ‘He most certainly did not.’
Cam and I exchanged a look. I couldn’t blame my friend for his grimace. Not only was Dunes’s method of torture rather severe, but what the guard had said about Shilah sounded foreboding.
I repeated his words under my breath. ‘She’s probably in the Beauty Room.’
‘Maybe it’s like it sounds?’ Cam’s face showed a weak twinge of hope. ‘And it’s not so bad, and they’re just putting perfumes and nice dresses on her.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, squeezing the crossbow with all the might in my fingers. ‘But let’s hope.’
Dunes lifted out a ring of keys from the guard’s pocket and handed them to me.
Then he stepped to the side and vomited profusely, emptying his rations of figs and water. His retching was loud and violent, able to be heard in the nearest tower.
‘Apologies,’ Dunes said, wiping his mouth after every spurt. ‘Apologies.’
‘What’s happening?’ Cam asked, frantically looking around. ‘You okay, Dunes?’
‘Apologies,’ Dunes said after a particularly violent spew.
Split gave me a fearful look as something sounded in the watchtower above.
‘Big baby’s gonna get us all killed,’ Split muttered.
‘Inside,’ Dunes said after a dry heave, wiping the back of his mouth. ‘I’ll be okay once we’re inside.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘I’ve never tortured anyone for information before,’ Dunes said, his head sagging. ‘I still have to get used to it, Meshua. But for you, I will.’
Split looked as if he was ready to explode, but I could see that his red face refused to look at the fallen guard. ‘Are you Sun-damned kidding me? What about all those scars? You must have tortured hundreds of people before.’
‘No,’ Dunes said. ‘Hamm—’
‘Hamman is gone,’ I said simply, so Dunes didn’t have to. ‘I understand.’
Dunes gave me a most appreciative look.
I tried the keys one by one, frowning after each one, failing and starting back at the beginning of the ring. I hurried as best I could. I didn’t have a waterskin, so I couldn’t do the Ice trick with the lock again. There was a cough and a soft rustle of cloth from far above: it was obvious that the guard was coming to see about the retching sound. The tower door was out of our line of sight if we pressed against the wall, but seeing nothing would only heighten the guard’s curiosity. A steep staircase led down to the ground not too far from where we stood, and I loaded my crossbow and aimed it at the top of the flight. Split did the same, his hand unsteady.
Then a tense pause and the distant sound of footsteps.
A pit should have formed in my stomach, but I was ready for whoever was up there to try to stop us. Anger bubbled at my core, and I was ready to take out my fury on the first Noble who dared get in my way.
Split’s finger twitched over his trigger, and he almost let an Abb fly. I gave Dunes a silent plea, gesturing for him to load up his crossbow.
‘Gabe?’ the voice called down again.
Another tense pause.
All of our weapons were now pointed upwards.
‘I was just thinking about the kind of women you like!’ Cam burst out, in a decent approximation of the guard’s voice. ‘Made me hurl!’
Then silence for an uncomfortable length of time.
‘Why you always gotta be so mean, Gabe?’
The curled fingers retreated from the wall, and I heard footsteps headed back towards the tower. We waited until it was all silent, and then I gave Cam a pat on the shoulder.
‘Looks like you’re a good warrior,’ I whispered.
‘That’s not being a warrior,’ Cam said, although his face flushed with pride.
‘Then surround me with bad warriors.’ I kneeled down and reached under the fallen guard’s shirt. Out came a necklace with a single key at the end.
Dunes had the unconscious guard over his shoulder before I could so much as blink. Limp arms flopped down, brushing against Dunes’s scarred cheek. ‘By your command, Meshua.’
I opened the door with this new key and peered inside at the empty hallway. ‘Bring him in here.’
We all filtered in. Dunes had to hunch and turn at an odd angle to fit himself and the guard through the threshold. I kept my crossbow raised, pointed towards the end of the long hallway in case any backup came. The passage was dimly lit with something else that made my knees weak with memory.
‘Those look like the lanterns Leroi used in his tinkershop,’ Cam said.
‘They’re called Sinai,’ I said.
Split nodded. ‘I’ve seen one from another Pedlar before. Came to my shack trying to sell me one for practically nothing. High Noble bastard reeked of desperation, so I turned him away.’
‘Remember to aim at the floor if they’re not wearing armour,’ I said, running on fury now. I was ready for these Nobles to feel the Coldmaker’s wrath.
We’d discovered that the Abbs didn’t explode against soft, fleshy things like boilweed. We couldn’t actually test against skin, only soggy melon, so we had to assume it would act the same. Our quest might end abruptly and painfully if any of the Abbs flew back in our direction. It had happened twice back in the cave, and one of the golden beads had nearly frozen the sacred pool.
‘Shall I use my blade first?’ Dunes asked, gently dumping the limp man into a pile of shadows. ‘Less conspicuous.’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘We still need to find out where this Beauty Room is.’
‘Just don’t toss up your figs again, Hookman,’ Split grumbled.
Cam tried to skirt in front of me again, as he’d done in the first stretch of the Coldmarch, but I shook my head and waved him back.
‘Dunes,’ I said. ‘You go first. The rest of us will hide behind you so we might take them by surprise.’
Dunes flashed to the front of the group, his blade ready.
We crept onwards, my ears tense and ready. The first few hallways were silent except for the subtle buzz of the Sinai. Other than the expensive lights, however, this place was full of a rather odd set of decorations. From the stained-glass windows out front, I expected the whole place to be done up in Closed Eyes and reproductions of the ‘The Cause’ by Armus Josiah – the most famous depiction of our unworthiness.
But the pictures here displayed the very opposite.
‘They’re Jadans,’ Cam said, his face going slack with shock. ‘Beautiful Jadans.’
Hanging on the walls were dozens of portraits of Jadan women, all done from the neck up. Mostly the artwork depicted younger Jadans about Shilah’s age, but some frames captured faces with a smattering of grey hair and wrinkles. Indeed these paintings had some of the most beautiful features: the smoothest skin, and the most startling eyes I’d ever seen in my kin. The subjects were all unique, and there was a date etched into a plaque hanging below each face.
Cam stopped to examine the nearest one, running his fingers over the etched-in numbers. ‘This one is from last year.’
‘It’s probably when they were painted,’ Split said, waving us onwards. ‘Let’s not lose focus, children. We have a battle to wage.’
I noticed Dunes had gone suspiciously quiet, keeping focused on the middle of the hallway.
‘Do you recognize any of them?’ Cam asked me, tapping my shoulder.
I shook my head, staring at Dunes’s broad back. The big man was breathing faster now, every pull shallower than the last.
‘Not every Jadan knows each other, Tavor,’ Split said with a snort.
Cam blushed. ‘I meant, like, are these well-known Jadans or something?’
Split smirked. ‘Why would Jadans be well known?’
Cam’s blush deepened as he stepped away from the plaque. ‘I don’t know, never mind.’ His lips parted as if he was going to say something, and then he reeled it back in. ‘Spout’s going to be well known.’
‘It’s okay, Cam, I know what you meant,’ I said. ‘But no. I don’t see anyone that I know.’
We followed Dunes further down the hall, more paintings and Sinai turning up at every corner. The girls in the paintings were getting even more striking the deeper inside we went. There were round-faced girls with thick, frizzled hair, toting lusty expressions. Others had faces shaped like tears, their eyes haunting. I was reminded of Leah’s pouty lower lip that she had offered in the caravan cart. But her beauty would stand out even on these walls.
Then I noticed something strange tying all the paintings together.
‘They’re all dated the first Khatday of every month,’ I said, confirming my suspicions on another plaque.
Split checked the few nearest paintings, giving an appreciative stroke of his cheek stubble. ‘Well sand in my figs, you’re right.’
Cam chimed in eagerly. ‘I told you something was off about the date.’
‘Did you?’ Split asked with a smirk.
Cam frowned. ‘Didn’t I?’
‘And that’s coming up,’ I said, staring at the likeness of the Jadan girl. Her eyes were as green and vibrant and lovely as the Adaam Grass. ‘Only a few days from now.’
‘You think that’s why he abducted Shilah and took her to the Beauty Room?’ Cam asked. ‘To dress her up and then have her picture painted?’
‘Dunes, do you know anything about this?’ I asked.
The large man was still facing forwards, the pace of his breathing frantic now.
‘Dunes,’ I said gently.
He shook his head, not turning around.
I paused. ‘Can you guess for me, Dunes?’
‘Yeah, do that,’ Split snarled. ‘And while you’re at it, guess why that guard back there knew your name.’
I shot Split a warning look.
Dunes turned to me, a hard lump having formed in his throat. Worry sat at the corners of his eyes, his wide nostrils flaring. ‘I guess the first Khatday of the month is always a very bad day for the Jadans here.’
‘Like a Procession?’ I asked, remembering what the Vicaress did to us every first Khatday of the month back in Paphos.
‘Worse,’ Dunes said, looking at his blade. ‘Probably.’
I nodded, not needing to press him any further to understand the severity of the situation. I lifted my crossbow, plucking the rubber bowstring with my unwrapped thumb, appreciating how the weapon was as ready as I was.
‘We are going to find this Beauty Room,’ I said. ‘As fast as possible.’
‘By your command.’
D
unes hurled himself down the hallway.
I was surprised at how stealthily our little group moved in his wake, everyone’s feet falling lightly. Split had to stop a few times, looking woozy, but no one accidentally discharged a blast of Cold. We made our way along the deserted corridors, which ended in two different offshoots and a thick door, soft light spilling between its cracks.
As we got closer, the Sanctuary offered its first real signs of life, all of our ears pricking up as we huddled against the fine wood.
I expected to hear whips and screams of pain and cries for mercy.
But there was none of that.
There was laughter.
And music.
And beautiful floral scents trickling through as well.
None of it made any sense. The Domestics in the slave cart had seemed petrified of this place, eager to escape, and dreading their return.
Quickly I closed my eyes and prayed, trying to summon some courage from above. The Crier had trusted in me enough to destroy two of my fingers as a sign, and I hoped that he was still here with our group, waiting to show us the way.
Dunes had his blade at the ready. He nodded, stepping aside so I could pass, drooping into his submissive stance.
‘Don’t stand like that,’ I said, giving his broad back a gentle pat as I passed. ‘You’re my sword, not my slave.’
He jerked up straight, prouder than I’d ever seen. He pressed a hand over the scar on his cheek.
I crept up and opened the door a crack, just enough for me to peek through. A massive courtyard waited beyond. It took me a few moments to process what I was seeing.
I nearly dropped my weapon.
‘What is it?’ Cam whispered at my back. ‘Do you see Shilah?’
‘It’s, it’s—’
I swallowed hard, not able to articulate.
‘What’s happening?’ Cam asked.
‘It’s a banquet,’ I said, steeling myself to say the next part. Admitting it made my head swoon with confusion, replacing all my readiness for battle. ‘A banquet, for the Jadans.’
Gorgeous Domestics were everywhere amongst the lush gardens, at least fifty strong, dressed up in gowns and holding plates piled high with the most decadent foods I’d seen in quite some time. Cheeses, orangefruit, dates, and even some cured meats, all being devoured without the slightest bit of desperation, as if these Domestics ate in such abundance every night. Groups milled about, chatting with one another, smiling, and some even dancing. Many held chalices filled with dark red liquid that might have even been wine. One short-haired beauty plucked a Wisp off a pile of hundreds and dropped it in her drink, smiling as she swirled the Cold around. Almost all of them had colour smeared above their eyelids like Noblewomen, and some even had flowers woven into their hair. A small gathering of Domestics was lounging by a large pool, carelessly tossing Wisps into waters teeming with small fish.