by Mason Thomas
Hunter’s throat constricted. He raked his hair back from his eyes and stared at the floor. When he spoke, the words were a husky whisper. “My whole life I never knew her to be happy. Truly happy. I hate that they took that from her, you know?”
Dax studied him a moment before replying. “I am struck at times by how your mannerisms are uncannily similar to hers. You gesture with your hands as she did, and the cadence of your voice is the same. But I see her in you in other ways as well. Queen Jenora had a unique power about her. She could command a room with a look, but there was never a question that she cared deeply for those around her. And she had a particular regard for the downtrodden or dispossessed. Appears you take after her in that respect as well.”
Dax’s words carried an uncharacteristic tenderness that caught Hunter off guard, and for a moment, all Hunter could do was stare back at him, his mouth slightly open. And before he could conjure up a response, Dax put a hand to his shoulder and Hunter’s muscles vibrated beneath the touch. “Come. There is much to prepare,” he said, and left him standing in the middle of the corridor alone.
22
DAX LEANED against the fractured plaster of the wall at the opening of the alley, arms folded, glaring out at the street, keeping watch. He looked like a sullen teen who had separated himself from the group.
Hunter ignored him. After they left the hideout and made their way to the meeting point, the brief and inexplicable warmth of earlier had steadily cooled back to the familiar icy indifference—to the point that Hunter wondered if he’d imagined the whole exchange in the corridor. Since they’d arrived in the alley, Dax hadn’t said two words to him. The reason for the shift in mood was obvious. Dax already made it clear he was sore about being left out of the mission, and now that Hunter was minutes away from leaving, he was going to be surly about it. Also, he likely believed Hunter would ultimately fuck it up and get everyone killed. But Hunter didn’t care what Dax thought. He wanted out of the hideout for good and wanted Uri out too. He’d get it done, one way or another.
He positioned himself between the two shafts that extended out from the front of the cart, assuming his role as the beast of burden. The cart was somewhat bigger than a rickshaw, with a longer, flat bed and comically sized wheels. He secured his hands around the leather grips and as Zinnuvial climbed up onto the back, the shafts pressed against his palms. She ducked inside a large crate turned on its side and pulled a tarp over the top, concealing herself.
Two others unfamiliar to Hunter loaded the back of the cart with an unruly pile of sacks and jugs, creating the illusion of a full load of supplies.
He drew in a long breath, which smelled of piss and decay. Like all shadowy back alleys, it was clearly used by a multitude of drunks as a convenient, out-of-the-way place to relieve themselves as they stumbled home. Still better than the dank of the caves, he thought. It felt like he was on furlough from a prison term. Despite the potential danger, he was unexpectedly eager to delve back into civilization. A twisted medieval version of it, but civilization nonetheless.
Dax left his post at the alley’s entrance to stand next to Hunter. “Stay to the route I showed you.”
“Of course,” Hunter replied.
“These streets are confusing to those unfamiliar—”
“So you’ve reminded me. Multiple times.”
“Your name is Maxence.”
Hunter gave him a long side-eye. “You know, it’s entirely possible I’m not the fuckup that you think I am.”
“However unlikely,” Dax replied dryly. The comment didn’t have the normal bite it usually had. If Hunter didn’t know better, he’d think Dax was concerned about him. “Speak little. Your strange tongue will give you away.”
Hunter closed his eyes and fought against the retort bubbling up to his tongue. “Are you ready, Zinn?” he said over his shoulder. He was answered with a double knock from within the crate.
“A sword’s in the cart. Last resort only. If anything appears wrong—” Dax added.
“Abort and return immediately.” Hunter was fairly certain that Dax had inserted that final bit of instructions himself. He doubted Quinnar would be keen that Dax was encouraging him to bail on the mission.
“Bring Yvenne back here. I’ll be waiting.”
Hunter adjusted his grip again on the shafts. Dax hated he wasn’t part of this. He wanted to be the one going in to bring her back. But Hunter knew him well enough already to know this wasn’t his type of mission. Dax worked alone.
And he likely wasn’t strong enough to pull the cart.
Dax grabbed Hunter’s forearm and looked at him directly. His jaw was tight, his lips pressed into a thin pale line, but Hunter caught a glimpse of something behind his eyes. When he spoke, he had a different edge to his voice. A note of unease. “No unnecessary risks.”
“Careful, Dax. You almost sound like you care.”
Dax’s expression hardened and he pulled his hand away. “I care about the mission.”
“Get me started,” Hunter said over his shoulder. The two behind the cart pushed to get it rolling. The wheels rolled with a squeak and a groan as they crunched over the cobblestones. Hunter leaned in and hauled the cart down the length of the alley.
The first leg of the journey followed the narrow gully made of buildings covered in pale yellow plaster. The street had a slight incline that Hunter could feel in his calves as he tugged the cart along. Cobblestones were missing everywhere, and the wheels dropped in the holes, forcing the cart to lurch and threatening to bring it to a halt. Hunter grunted and put his back into it to keep the cart moving—and imagined how sore his legs were going to be later. He’d suggest this to Coach Titan as part of his training regimen. If he ever made it back, he thought ruefully.
On his own, exposed in the open city and surrounded by people, Hunter had to admit it felt more strange and unnerving than he had anticipated. Curious eyes surveyed him as he lumbered past. He felt conspicuous, an obvious fake that stood out like a bad toupee. And every shadowy corner or alleyway seemed to mask a hidden, unknown danger. He wondered if he’d been too quick to agree to this. Maybe Dax had been right.
More unease needled him as his mind chewed over a new thought: Quinnar had an ulterior reason in selecting him. If the mission worked out like it was supposed to, great. But if it didn’t, Hunter was expendable. If something happened to him, it would put a neat end to one of Quinnar’s many headaches.
The narrow street entered a plaza, which was a frenzied knot of congestion. Everyone acted as if they had somewhere to be immediately, and people swarmed about without any discernable traffic flow. Hunter guided the cart across the confusion toward the landmark he was instructed to find—a statue of a woman with a golden orb resting in her palm and lifted toward the sun. Then, down a wider street toward the next landmark. Then a right turn toward the next.
The street leveled off, making progress easier on his legs and back. He rounded the corner and was thrust into the perimeter of a broad market square. Brightly colored tents piled around a towering red marble obelisk at the center. Merchandise spilled out from under each canopy—bolts of fabric, earthenware jugs, stacks of cast-iron pots—and midday shoppers strolled about like wayward sheep, scrutinizing the wares on display. A long bank of food stalls had taken position along one side of the square and a separate but more fervent crowd pressed in hard, demanding their lunch. The breeze shifted, and the smoke from their fires wafted in Hunter’s direction, carrying the smell of cooked meats and unfamiliar spices.
The city was alien and strange in so many ways. But at the same time, it had a deeply rooted familiarity that resonated in him. It had the same pulse every city seems to have. The same energy.
He pushed into the teeming square and the thick ambling crowd swarmed around him and the cart like flood waters and forced him to slow. People pushed against the cart as they flowed around him, rocking it. His unease spiked. Sweat cascaded down the center of his back. The crowd was too tight arou
nd him and felt turbulent and erratic. He picked up the pace, heedless of those in front of him. People shouted and cursed at him as they leapt aside.
From the corner of his eye, Hunter caught sight of a statue—a woman, standing on a massive black marble plinth. She was wrapped in flowing robes and gripped a sword in her right hand as if she was on a battlefield. Her chin jutted outward toward the sky in a haughty and contemptuous expression of power. Hunter involuntarily slowed.
The statue was splashed with bright red paint, and part of the side of the face had been cracked and broken off, but the resemblance was undeniable.
His mother.
His cheeks flushed with sudden rage. This was how she was viewed now. Detested and feared. She would forever be remembered as a villain. A monster. The unfairness of it, after how she was made to suffer, made his insides burn like a kiln.
People around him were shouting for him to move. Two guards threading through the crowd craned their necks to see what was causing the commotion. Heart thumping, Hunter ducked his chin to his breastbone and lurched into motion again. The cart creaked and rocked behind him.
Yvenne’s shop was at the far end of this chaos somewhere.
After he rounded the perimeter of tents, he fought the urge to look back over his shoulder to see if the guardsmen trailed him. But a bored patrol, maintaining a visual presence at a public event, was less a concern, he told himself. Agents of the palace, on the lookout for resistance members they recognized, were the real danger. And they wouldn’t be cloaked in black and lurking in shadows. Any one of these shoppers could be on the lookout for him. Every turn of a head in his direction made his chest constrict.
He caught his first clear view of the far side. The workshop was hard to miss. It was one of the largest on that side of the square, and vibrant lengths of silk hung from posts outside the building, flailing in the air with theatrical, almost comical, flourish. He half expected a drag queen to march out of the open barn-style door and start a fierce routine on the plaza.
He dragged in a full breath to shore up his nerves, the air tight in his lungs. He straightened his back and angled toward the shop. No one paid him any attention as he hauled the cart through the open doorway. With any luck he’d be in and out in under twenty minutes.
He lowered the front of the cart and let go of the shafts.
The sprawling workshop wasn’t as dark as he expected. Light streamed in from four skylights in the high ceiling. The warm sunlight illuminated a host of earthenware vats, each large enough to bathe in, all neatly arranged in a grid. The back wall was a row of heavy shelving that looked more like scaffolding, laden with stacked rolls of fabrics. As warm air rushed past him to escape out the door, it carried with it an odd fusion of odors. Somewhat floral. Somewhat acerbic. Somewhat chemical and identifiable.
“Hello?”
He circled around to the back of the cart and rolled the barn door closed, shutting out the din of the market. The room was thrust into a pregnant silence. No one was around, no one tending to the vats. What should have been an industrious workshop was abandoned and still.
Movement caught his eye. He looked up, past the cart and across the front line of the vats. A woman emerged from somewhere, shuffling along slowly as if sore from a marathon. She fit the description Dax had given him—thin, angular frame, dark-skinned like Zinnuvial. Her hair was longer than Zinnuvial’s, and streaked with gray. They didn’t look that much alike, but Hunter hoped it was enough to fool anyone long enough to get Yvenne away. She wore a nondescript linen dress with a tan leather apron over the front.
Hunter dropped the sacks onto the ground. “Yvenne?”
The woman stopped at the front line of vats and came no closer.
Hunter circled back around to the front of the cart. “Are you Yvenne?” he asked again.
“Bring the supplies to the back,” she said in voice that was too loud for the distance between them.
Hunter stepped closer, and Yvenne stiffened. Something was wrong. Her eyes were wide; her chest rose and fell in quick succession. She was afraid.
Her mouth formed silent words. Go now.
A trap. They knew they were coming extract her. They knew when and they knew how.
Behind him, he heard the tarp over the crate get thrown back and the cart creak as it shifted. Zinnuvial was leaping out of the back. She’d picked up on it too.
Hunter lunged forward and grabbed Yvenne by the wrist.
“No, no,” she yelped as Hunter flung her behind him.
More movement—dark hooded shapes rose from behind vats throughout the workshop, and more still appeared on the shelves in the back. The figures on the shelves army-crawled forward to the edge of the high stack, and Hunter caught the front curves of crossbows aiming down at him.
The twang of a bowstring came from his left. The arrow shot across the workshop and with astonishing precision, impaled one of the dark figures on the shelf. The figure spasmed and went limp. The weapon tumbled to the floor. The reaction from the others was immediate—they all shifted to get better cover.
Zinnuvial dropped again behind the cart, notching another arrow. She’d bought them a few seconds.
Still gripping Yvenne’s wrist, Hunter flung his arm over the side of the cart and fumbled around until his fingers touched the hilt of the sword. Right where Dax told him it would be. He slid it out and dragged Yvenne behind the cart with him.
“Stay low,” he told her. The downward angle of the bed should give them enough cover from the crossbows. At least until the other attackers came around and flanked them.
“I’m sorry,” she said as they ducked under. She was borderline calm—more angry than afraid. “There was no way to warn you.”
He considered pulling the door open again and dodging out with Yvenne in tow, but he knew it was pointless. The palace agents would already be moving in to block any escape. Hunter sprang up and threw a large iron latch that locked the door in place. It trapped them inside, but it would slow down others from storming into the warehouse.
A crossbow bolt slammed into the door with a sharp thud a foot to his left as he dipped back behind the cart. “We’ll get you out.” It was an empty platitude. He had no idea if there was any way out of this. “Is there another exit?”
“In the back.”
It would be watched too. Or blocked.
Another bolt ricocheted off the wooden spoke of the wheel. A splinter of wood slammed into his cheek.
Zinnuvial popped up and fired off another arrow. A moment later—a brief but satisfying cry.
“How many more archers?” he asked her.
“Now three,” Zinnuvial replied.
“And on the ground?”
“At least four.”
At least. That didn’t bode well.
His body and mind fell into a state of focused calm. Like they always did when the whistle blew at the start of a match. But this was no game. There was a solid chance he was going to end up captured or dead. The latter, most likely. But his brain was conditioned for conflict. It just hadn’t figured out yet the stakes were higher. Much higher.
“Keep them busy for me.” He couldn’t believe what he was about to do. But acting without thinking was his specialty. He hadn’t had enough training at this—he knew that—yet all his instincts told him to throw himself into the action. It was what he did.
Only this time he wasn’t chasing a swollen oblong ball.
Zinnuvial grabbed his arm as he started to move. “Do not stay your hand. Do what must be done.”
Hunter swallowed. She meant he would have to kill.
She sprang up to fire off two arrows in quick succession, and he dashed left along the wall, sword raised.
The first attacker rounded a vat and lunged for him. He was clad in the same thick black leather Hunter had seen before. The Black Brotherhood. Queen Jenora’s personal elite force. And Hunter faced him without any sort of armor protection. He might as well have been naked.
&nbs
p; The attacker came at him, sword high in an angle swipe. The blade was smaller than he used when he fought against Zinnuvial. A short sword. It cut the air faster. Responded quicker. Panic flooded his head like a gas leak. He had no idea how to defend against it.
But his body reacted as if it had been hacked.
His feet snapped into position. The blade seemed to pull his arms as it twisted up to meet the attack. Metal clashed and sang as the edges slid against each other, and the short sword was guided to the side. The attacker responded with a quick step inward and came at him again. Hunter pivoted back a step and met that one too.
The attacker was fast—but not as fast as Zinnuvial.
He’d thank her for that later.
A third attack drove him back farther. He was losing ground, and he’d run into a wall soon. Then what? He knew he couldn’t spend the entire afternoon deflecting attacks. From the corner of his eye, he could see more of the attackers moving in.
Zinnuvial had chastised him for not striking when there was an opening. He caught himself doing it now. He was keeping him at bay without taking the offensive when he had the chance. This wasn’t practice. The man would not stop until one of them was dead.
The attacker saw it coming and warped his trunk to avoid it—but not quite fast enough. Hunter’s sword ran across his flank. A lucky strike enabled by the man’s overconfidence. He hadn’t expected Hunter to be a challenge. Hunter felt the push against his hand—felt the cut—and he recoiled from the sensation. Involuntarily, he relaxed the pressure, and the blade sliced open the leather only. Not the skin.
Fear had held him back. Fear of killing. He had to get out of his head and stop pulling punches.
His opponent stiffened a moment, expecting pain. He should be dead, and he knew it. A grin split his face.
Something whizzed past Hunter’s head and thumped into the wall behind him. Another crossbow bolt. And the others were closing in.
