by Alex Raizman
“We can’t sneak out then,” Tellias said, his voice muffled by the helmet as Tythel placed it on his head. It normally took three people working for ten minutes to get arcplate in place. Tythel and Tellias had managed it in just under five. He was now the tallest of the three of them, nearly seven spans tall, and the red and orange lines of arcplate cut a striking figure. The arcplate, due to the somewhat roughshod nature of Armin’s modifications, was bulkier than the sleek black and unlight design of the Alohym’s imperiplate, with glowing canisters sticking out of the shoulder plates and down the spine. In some ways, it was more imposing than imperiplate – it made Tellias look like one of the holy warriors of old.
“Main room isn’t an option either,” Tythel said, grabbing her own hammer and shield. She regretted not finding the time for Armin to retrofit them to work with arclight, but she’d hated the idea of leaving them aside for too long. They’d been added to her meager list of possessions. Plus, they belonged to Thomah, and therefore represented her only remaining link to Nicandros. Do not think about him right now, Tythel chided herself. “If we go through the main room, this Inn will be destroyed the moment I use my flame. That would be a poor way to repay the innkeeper for his hospitality.”
“What about ghostflame?” Eupheme asked. “It can pass through barriers without harming them, right? The Innkeeper’s room is above us, the Writ Hunters are below. No other patrons downstairs either.”
Tythel considered for an instant. It was very tempting. Just let Eupheme point where she should breath and let loose the wispy blue flame to empty the common room without exposing any of them to danger. It was a nice thought, and if she had mastered ghostflame properly, she’d be able to do it in a heartbeat. Regretfully, she shook her head. “I still have to start with dragonflame and transition through. By the time I got to ghostflame, I’ll have set the building on fire.”
“Flath,” Eupheme said. “Can you at least still hear them?” She walked over to the window and glanced out, as if half expecting to see snipers waiting for them across the window. Tythel didn’t think that was likely, but her hand still twitched with a desire to tackle Eupheme to the ground just in case.
Instead, she took a deep breath and focused on what she was hearing. After a moment, she nodded. “They’re arguing right now about how to handle who gets the spoils of the kill. Someone, a woman, is suggesting that they stop fighting over it now and make it a race – whoever gets proof to the Alohym first gets the prize. There’s some contention over it. We still have a bit of time.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Tellias said, although he didn’t sound like he believed his own words, “and they’ll turn on each other before even coming up here.”
Tythel snorted at the thought. Writ hunters were a fiercely competitive lot, if half the stories she’d read were true, but they’d rarely fight each other. There wasn’t any profit in it. “Do we ever get that lucky?” she asked.
She could hear Tellias shaking his head inside the helm, although it didn’t move with the motion. Tythel pulled over a chair to see why it wasn’t and found a loose connector strap near the shoulder. If we had missed that…Tythel pushed the thought aside as she secured the strap, then began to check over Tellias another time.
“We could go through the window,” Tellias said. “It’ll mean less damage to the Inn than a fight in here would, and all of us can survive the drop. At least, assuming the arcplate’s charge hold.”
“It’s a brand new arccell. If it doesn’t hold, I’m tracking down Eliert and skinning him, starting with his flathing ears,” Eupheme said in a low growl. “Window is a gamble, and one I’m not keen to take. If we get hurt in the landing, or draw too much attention, we’ll have the Alohym down on us.”
Tellias turned to glare at Eupheme, and Tythel was relieved the helm moved with the motion. “We’re running low on options!” Tellias said, his voice full of frustration. “If you have a better idea-”
At that moment, an idea crystalized in Tythel’s mind. She took a moment to turn it over, although with Eupheme already giving an angry retort, it was hard to focus. “Quiet, both of you! I think I do,” Tythel said before the argument could get really heated. She hadn’t intended for her voice to come out in that harsh a snap, but light their argument was grating on her nerves. “It’s a crazy plan, but it could work.”
“Well, spit it out then,” Eupheme said.
Tythel nodded. “First of all, Eupheme, you’re going to need to wear my eyepatch, and I’m going to need your dagger…
***
Leora Dimici was ready to slit the throat of every one of these stupid flaths. “I’m telling you,” she snarled, gesturing with her unlight blade directly in the face of a fellow writ-hunter, a grizzled man with a scar that ran from chin to forehead, crossing directly through the ruined remains of his nose, “we don’t know what we’re dealing with. We get the kill. We each get a piece. First one back to the Alohym gets to claim the prize.”
“There hasn’t been a Writ issued in nearly a decade,” the man responded in a low growl. “I’d rather not risk you hopping in some pretty little Skitter you have stashed somewhere and get the Writ back before us.”
Leora pinched the bridge of her nose to contain the frustration. She had been a professional Writ Hunter for five years before the Alohym arrived. While she’d never scored a Kings Writ – no one scored a Kings Writ and kept Hunting – she’d managed several Baron’s Writs and one Ducal Writ. She’d lived comfortably enough. Ten years without Writs had left her with little to do and rapidly dwindling money. She’d been offered a job with the Alohym Guard. She’d turned that down as politely as she could.
The Alohym would at least employ mercenaries now and then if they wanted something, they didn’t want their Guard attached to. But a Writ, a proper Writ, had been impossible for her to resist. Her, and every other flathing Writ Hunter on the continent. “There hasn’t been a Writ issued in nearly a decade,” she explained as slowly as she could manage without being as condescending as she desperately wanted to be. “Where do you think I have the money for a flathing Skitter?”
The large man shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t care. You’re pushing for this option because it favors you, and you flathing know it.”
Of course, he was right. Not about the Skitter – she didn’t own one and didn’t have one stashed anywhere. None of the people in this room could afford one. What she could, and had barely managed to afford, was one of those new mounts the Alohym’s magi were breeding. A fulocae. It was a combination of a horse and some slender creature from the Southern continent. They looked like hornless gazelles that had done twenty years of intense strength training. They couldn’t outrun a Skitter, but they could outrun any shadow-damned horse that had ever lived. “I don’t have a Skitter,” Leora repeated, “and may the Shadow swallow me if I lie.”
A hush fell over the room. Such oaths were not made lightly, even in this age of Alohym dominance. After the shadows did not lengthen, the general murmur resumed.
“Fine,” the man said. “But you have some trick up your sleeve.”
“I just don’t want to-”
Leora cut herself off at the sound of footsteps coming from the upstairs. Big, heavy footsteps. Immediately, the tension between the Writ Hunters vanished, and they turned to face the source of those footsteps. It sounded like an Alohym Guard in Imperiplate, only larger. Clunkier.
A man stepped into view, wearing plate that was Imperiplate, but larger and clunkier. The lines of the armor glowed with red and orange instead of the usual unlight. Leora gaped at him with an open mouth.
Over his shoulder was the target. She wasn’t breathing. Blood caked her face, clothes, and hair. Leora’s best guess was she’d been stabbed through the chest, based on the concentration of blood there, but she couldn’t see a tear in that fine silk. Must have stabbed her in the face.
“Damnit!” Leora swore. “You moved without us?”
“I didn’t know there was a plan.�
�� The man’s armor made his voice deeper and resonant, like how imperiplate soldiers sounded. “Is there a problem with that?”
The Writ Hunters bristled but didn’t move. The target was dead. This man had proof of death. They could try to fight him for it, but…but that’s not how we do things, Leora thought bitterly. There was a reason the Hunters had been sitting down here, arguing, before approaching the target. “You’re young,” she guessed.
The man in the armor nodded.
“Then you should know that there’s rules. There’s a way we do things. You don’t move on the mark when other Hunters are in place.”
“I’ve been hiding in the room next to hers all flathing day,” the man in the armor objected. “How long have you been here?”
Immediately, the tension began to seep out of the Writ Hunters, Leora included. If he’d been here first… “We only got word she was here today,” Leora said. “Care to share your source?”
“That would be me,” said a voice, stepping out from behind the armor. A young woman with an eyepatch. “As soon as I heard I…” her single eyed gaze crossed over to Leora.
At the same moment it widened in surprise, Leora recognized the girl. No. That’s impossible. But it wasn’t. Here she was, standing directly in front of her.
Eupheme.
Last time Leora had seen her, Eupheme had been full of ideals and running off to fight the Alohym, spouting nonsense about honor and nobility. Now here she was, standing in front of her, having helped kill the princess of the resistance.
And if anyone who knew Eupheme believed that, Leora had a Lumwell to sell them.
“…I contacted my partner,” Eupheme finished, not taking her eye of Leora. “Sorry for not spreading the word, but I don’t know any of you.”
Leora heard the slightly pleading note on that ‘any.’ She gave Eupheme the faintest of nods, and Eupheme started to relax.
“Let them go, boys,” Leora said with a sigh. “They beat us, fair and square.”
There were grumbles around the room, but no one really objected. Most Writ Hunters lived and died by the codes. The few that were going to break them would tail the successful ones and strike when they thought they were distracted.
Leora walked out with the rest of them but didn’t go far. Instead, as soon as she could, she stepped into an alley.
Normally, Leora would never break the codes. Normally. This was anything but normal, however. Eupheme was still here. Eupheme was alive. And that meant the target was alive. That meant Leora still had a chance to claim the Writ.
Grinning to herself, Leora stepped into the shadows – and vanished in an instant.
***
Dawn was cresting over the horizon as they broke off the road and prepared to make camp. The rest of the trip out of the town had been conducted in silence. Every muscle in Tythel’s body ached from being carried over Tellias’ shoulder for hours, and she’d had to fight the urge throughout to try and shift and make herself comfortable. You’re pretending to be a corpse; she reminded herself, a mantra that was repeated over and over again.
Leaving the Inn had been easier than Tythel had expected. Far too easy. There were bound to be Writ Hunters trailing them, looking to claim the ‘prize.’ Eupheme has whispered that, so low that only Tythel could hear her, and the entire time they’d traveled from town, Tythel had been able to confirm that with the distant sound of footsteps dogging their heels. No more than five of them, as far as Tythel could tell.
A far more manageable number than what they’d had in the inn, but still too many for Tythel’s liking.
Tellias dumped her unceremoniously onto the ground, muttering an apology as she hit the forest floor. There was no reason for him to treat her as anything other than a dead body, after all. She was valuable, but it wouldn’t make sense for him to keep her in pristine condition.
Knowing that didn’t help her desire to kick Tellias in the back for tossing her.
Tellias and Eupheme dragged some downed branches to cover Tythel, then they got to work setting up camp. Tythel took advantage of the time and cover to surreptitiously work out the kinks in her arms and legs. She couldn’t resist anything that might cause rustling, but flexing her toes and fingers wouldn’t show from above. Once feeling had returned to her hands and feet, she started rhythmically tensing and untensing her arms and legs, as well as her stomach and neck.
I’d kill for the chance to stretch properly, Tythel thought. The little bit of flexing was helping with some of the tension from being carried like a sack of potatoes over an armored shoulder for four or five leagues, but she desperately wanted a chance to get up and move about properly.
Also, her bad eye itched. Her eye had itched for the last hour. Tythel swore that as soon as she could move, she’d rub the thing out of its shadow-damned socket, so it would never bother her again. It was maddening to have an itch like that, one where her very survival depended on refusing to scratch.
Patience, Tythel, she reminded herself. Their pursuers had stopped as soon as they’d diverged from the path, making their own camp further down the forest. They were far enough away that without Tythel’s ears, they could have remained completely unheard. She didn’t know how they were remaining unseen – or, more concerning, how they were doing their observation.
“You think we’re being followed?” Tellias asked Eupheme. His voice was still echoing in the helmet, but underneath it, Tythel could hear a measure of strain.
“I think we’d know if we weren’t,” Eupheme said. “I think someone would make it very clear if that was the case.”
Tythel didn’t need to think too hard to read the subtext there. Fortunately, it seemed that was true for Tellias as well, who grunted in acknowledgment of the point. If Eupheme hadn’t been right, Tythel would have seized the opportunity to inform them. If just to get the chance to move.
“We can’t sleep,” Tellias said, his voice low. “Or at least, one of us can’t.”
Again, a veiled meaning, one Tythel didn’t have too much trouble following. She was capable of remaining motionless and breathing shallowly so long as she was awake. Asleep-
“Yes. One of us snores quite loudly.” There was a joking edge to Eupheme’s voice, and Tellias snorted in amusement.
Tythel had to frown. This was a veiled meaning, but she was absolutely lost. Tellias and Eupheme both didn’t snore in their sleep, so it couldn’t be they were talking about either of them. Was snore perhaps a coded phrase of some kind? Tythel turned it over in her mind. It could refer to a roar, although that didn’t quite add up. That could be about the difficulty of getting Tellias out of his armor without her aid…although Tythel had no idea how that would be a snore. Perhaps they meant…
Or, just perhaps, they mean you snore, Tythel thought, suddenly flushing with indignation. Which is absolute rubbish. They’re just taking advantage of the fact that you can’t retort, light forsake them!
If they knew Tythel was fuming under the pile of leaves and branches, they gave no indication.
The fact was, Tythel realized, they were at an impasse. Right now Tythel had no way to alert them to how many possible foes waited nearby, nor did she have a way to strategize with them. They could strategize all they wanted, but they lacked any information as to what the nature of the threat was, and any strategy would give away that Tythel was alive. For all they knew, an Alohym was trailing them with a small army, just out of their earshot. The moment their aggressors realized that she was alive, they would…
…either flee in fright or charge and attack. Either of which would be better than this interminable waiting.
Tythel sat up so suddenly Tellias let out a startled, strangled sound, and even Eupheme jumped. “Yes, yes, I have arisen from the grave,” Tythel said, adopting the same annoyed tone Karjon had used whenever startling her. “We’ve got five of them, about a mile away. Don’t know how they’re watching us, but they have been since we left town. They’re going to know I’m awake any minute now,
I’m sure of it.”
