Moments later, the others joined me, and we turned toward the back of the house. Daonok would lead us to the other exit, and then we’d part ways. After covering about ten paces, a gasp from behind brought me up straight. A shiver traveled my spine, and I whirled. Nyralit stood frozen with a knife at her throat. Behind her, Ashhi grinned, and moments later three guardsmen stomped in from the foyer. Steel rang. Men yelled.
“Run!” Daonok bellowed in a voice louder than I thought his small form could produce.
I ran.
Nyralit’s scream sent ice into my bones. As I crossed into the back room of the Ulstat home, I stopped and turned. One of the guards carried a lantern, and in the spill of light, I watched Nyralit attempt to fight the three men at once. With just her slender arms, her teeth, and her slipper-shod feet, she was a whirl of silk and long dark hair. Blow after blow landed on her attackers, none with enough power to damage, but keeping their blades at bay.
“Nyralit,” I whispered.
Her eyes met mine. “Go!” she yelled.
The break in her concentration was long enough that a guard slipped past her flurry of kicks. Nyralit’s silks offered no resistance to his blade, which slid into her belly like a diver into the sea. She doubled over, clutching at the weapon’s hilt. Blood spread from the wound, black in the low light.
Behind me, the outer doors banged against the walls as they flew open. “Fall back,” Daonok yelled into the quiet of the grounds. “Cover the retreat!”
I couldn’t move. One hundred paces away, Nyralit stumbled from the circle of guards, smacked the wall with her shoulder, and spun down to the floor. She landed in a heap, her silks looking like a pile of rags abandoned behind a cloth-seller’s. I couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.
Something smacked my shoulder, then another hand clapped over my other arm. My father shook me, giving heavily of his remaining strength. “You can’t help her, Lilik. Don’t let her actions mean nothing.”
As if in a dream, I stumbled backward. My heel caught on a corner of the rug, and I staggered, nearly losing my feet. In the hall, the guards seem to move in slow motion, though their legs rose and fell as if they were running. Da slapped me gently across the face, and finally, I shook free of my daze.
As I sprinted from the room, into the deceptive calm of the night, I coughed in horror. Nyralit, dead? It didn’t seem real. Had Ashhi been waiting? Had she guessed we were coming when her soldiers hadn’t returned? Or was it just ill fortune?
And what about Raav? Who would tell him what had happened?
As we drew near the entrance to the old stable, running with the sound of the booted feet behind us, a boom shook the grounds. Firelight spilled over the area, chased by the heat of the explosion. I tripped and smacked into one of the support pillars at the front of the stable. My head hit the wall with a crack, and light flashed behind my eyes. Staggering, I pawed the rough stonework while I attempted to catch my balance. No use. The outside of my foot caught on a stone, and I fell, crashing down hard.
Hands latched my arms, dragging me up and into the stable. Paddling at the ground with feet that felt like blocks of wool, I tried to run. “Just relax,” said the man on my right. One of the thieves who had come through the tunnel with us, he heaved me over his shoulder. They’d caused the explosion. The backup plan—we’d planned to create a diversion if things went wrong.
Inside the mine tunnel, a lamp guttered, casting thin light on the passage. We ran inside and shut the door, then stood and took a count of our numbers. Aside from Nyralit—I could scarcely think of that now—everyone who’d left the tunnel had arrived back here safely.
“They’ll follow us once they see it was just their own powder caches we blew,” a smuggler said.
Another dropped his rucksack to the floor, loosened the drawstring and pulled out a small cask. From his pocket, he extracted a long, precisely woven cord. “I spent plenty of time in the Ulstat mines before choosing another . . . path. I know how to set a charge, collapse the tunnel behind us.”
“If we do that, Ulstats will flush us from mine like rats from a sinking ship,” another said. “Search every cranny and post guards. We’ll never be able to return.”
Daonok shook his head. “It’s over anyway. For now, at least. Ashhi Ulstat knows. She saw us inside the house.”
Lips thinned, the other smuggler nodded. “Fair enough,” he said, addressing the thief who’d once been a miner. “Set the charge.”
With that, we carried on, into the mine. Minutes later a deep rumble shook the tunnel, sending dust filtering down.
Chapter Sixteen
WE MOVED THROUGH Ilaraok’s alleys in a small knot of people. Da rested an arm on my shoulders, staggering forward as best he could. My legs felt flimsy, inadequate. But I continued forward, toes dragging.
Numb.
Stone-block buildings crushed in from either side, ramshackle wooden awnings defending doorways from the sky. In the rafters of these small shelters, pigeons cooed. Dawn was creeping over the city, color emerging from shadow, sound from silence. From down at the harbor, I heard the calls of fishermen, the clang of bells aboard the fishing vessels.
In front of me, the baker still carried Jaret on her back. She’d declined every offer from the smugglers to share the load. Maybe she felt responsible for him after everything that had happened.
Daonok roved ahead, scouting. Twice, he’d waved us aside, down another alley just before a lantern-bearing sentry turned the corner and spotted us. Otherwise, we kept trudging forward, past the refinery district, smokestacks rising high into the dawn air, toward the crowded slum near the docks.
My eyes were on my feet, my heart an aching void in my chest. I didn’t know that Nyralit was dead. I hadn’t seen it confirmed. But still, I couldn’t stop reliving the sight of the blade sinking through the softness of her belly.
“Hold,” Daonok hissed, trotting back to us. Eyes darting, he jabbed his thumb at the dark entrance to some sort of warehouse. “Hurry!”
Shuffling through the door into the dim warehouse interior, I stubbed my toe. Something hard went skittering away into the darkness. A rock? I struggled to care.
A hand on my back nudged me to the side. As my eyes adjusted, I picked out details in the puddles of faint light where the predawn glow fell through gaps in the mortar. Enormous wooden bins held chunks of stone the size of my head. Smaller rocks were scattered across the warped-wood planks of the floor. Ore storage. I staggered to one of the bins, slumped against it, and closed my eyes.
Moments later, the sound of marching feet came from the narrow street outside the building. As they drew closer, the floor beneath me shook. Daonok sidestepped to the wall and peered through a gap in the masonry. He waved at us, urging us farther into the shadows.
A guard paused in the doorway, silhouetted by the light outside. He cocked his head as if listening. Beside me, someone moved. A small stone fell from the top of one of the bins, clattering to the floor.
A hiss when everyone inside the warehouse drew breath. Leather creaked as the smugglers reached for their blades. My fingers wrapped the gold threadwork on Tyrak’s hilt.
“What?” the guard called, whipping his head to the side.
From farther down the street, someone else yelled, too muffled to understand.
“Thought I heard something . . . yeah, coming.”
As the guard trotted off, Daonok’s shoulders slumped with relief. He turned, eyes flashing, and glared toward the source of the noise. After a moment, he peered outside and then motioned us forward.
“Not far now,” he whispered as I passed him. “No doubt Trader Ulstat sent that squad to the waterfront to stop us from escaping by sea. He won’t expect us to stay in the city.”
Ahead, the alley split, one branch falling toward the harbor and the other winding into the slum. Slipping along the fronts of buildings, we hurried into the shantytown, passing darkened windows and doors hanging crookedly on leather hinges. Laundry hung
on lines that crisscrossed the street, making progress slow as we dodged trousers and sheets. But the hanging clothes covered our retreat, and soon we moved with less caution. A few blocks in, Daonok stopped beside the back wall of a shed affixed to a boarding house. He tapped three times then twice more on a warped, wooden plank.
A door swung open where there’d been none. Looking more closely. I realized the seams and hinges had been hidden in the slipshod construction, looking like gaps between planks rather than the edge of a door. Caffari’s face appeared in the opening, her relief obvious when she saw Daonok before her. Without speaking, she motioned us inside.
A couple lanterns burned in the small space, casting a flickering glow over storage shelves and barrels. A handful of Caffari’s thieves sat against the back wall, looking tired.
“So . . . seems something went wrong,” she said as she shut the door behind us.
Daonok nodded. “The little Ulstat brat was waiting.”
“Ashhi,” Caffari said with a curl of her lip. “The damage?”
Daonok’s gaze flicked to me. “The strandmistress took a wound. We don’t know how serious. Had to leave her behind.”
Caffari’s face softened as she turned her eyes to me. “A difficult thing to see. We’ll put out word, ask whether any of the city’s healers have been called to the House grounds. From what Nyralit told me, Trader Ulstat wanted both of you alive to help with the . . . situation on Ioene.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to respond.
“Our men and women made it out safely,” Daonok continued. “Blew two of the powder sheds . . . But we had to collapse the tunnel. No doubt the Ulstats will know where the attack came from. The mine won’t be safe for months. If ever.”
Caffari’s jaw clenched, but when her eyes met mine, I saw no malice. “We knew there were risks,” she said. Her gaze turned to Da and the baker, still holding Jaret on her back. Though beyond exhaustion, Da managed to stand straight under her inspection. Caffari nodded.
“And you are?” she asked the baker, eyes narrowed.
“A friend,” I said. “We wouldn’t have made it out without her help.”
Caffari fiddled with the dagger at her belt. “Fair enough. And the boy’s your brother, I assume.” She gestured toward the far corner of the room. I hadn’t noticed the cot there. “Lay him down, we’ll get him nourishment.”
Nodding, the baker crossed the small room. Caffari followed, and once they’d settled Jaret on the bunk, they spoke in low tones. Caffari summoned two of her men with a wave.
“She’s got a little girl. Needs rescuing from her house before the Ulstats come looking. Take our friend here to the safe house in the trade district, and bring her daughter to her. We’ll see they’re taken care of.”
Before the baker left, she leaned over the cot and placed a kiss on Jaret’s brow.
“Thank you,” I said as she passed. The woman nodded at me and slipped out the door.
“Caffari,” I said. “I appreciate your help. I didn’t mean—”
She shook her head. “Not now. Rest. We’ll need you fresh soon enough. Seems my band of rogues is out of a home. And between you and the former strandmistress, you’ve managed to pique my interest about other opportunities. Riches for the sharing, I believe you said.”
As she spoke, the image of Nyralit falling, dagger in her belly, flashed to life. Darkness waits on all sides. I’d thought the slaughter in the mine was the end of it. Apparently not.
Too exhausted to respond to Caffari, I staggered to a pile of grain sacks, fell across them, and plummeted into sleep.
Caffari touched my shoulder in the middle of the morning, waking me from a dreamless sleep. I yawned, sat up and rubbed my eyes. When I started to talk she pressed a finger to my lips and pointed toward the corner of the room. Jaret still lay on the bunk, his face pale but not as waxen as it had been earlier. Da slept beside him, sitting upright with his back against the wall and his head and shoulders slumped onto the cot.
I nodded. Caffari motioned to a trapdoor which led into some sort of cellar. I shivered, remembering the dark hole where Trader Ulstat had kept my family. When she lifted the hatch, the smell of damp earth rose, along with the musty scent of burlap. Caffari snatched the lantern and descended the ladder.
My whole body ached, from the soles of my feet to the hollows of my eye sockets. My hip joints felt full of broken glass as I climbed down the ladder.
The earthen floor of the cellar was uneven, with a few jagged rocks poking through. Caffari gestured at a sack of potatoes, and I sat, grateful to get my weight off my feet. I rubbed my palms on the rough burlap sack while I waited for her to close the hatch.
“Nyralit?” I asked, my heart thumping.
Caffari shook her head and shrugged. “We haven’t heard anything, but that could be good news.”
Or it could mean that Nyralit was dead, and the services of a healer were not required. I pressed my lips together. I wouldn’t say something like that out loud, not while there was still hope.
“Let’s talk about Ioene,” Caffari said.
“We need ships and sailors who can handle a storm. Possibly the worst storms the Islands have ever seen.”
“And?”
“When I first returned to Istanik, I hoped to sail for Ioene with half a dozen ships. Two hundred fighters. Now I’ll take whoever is brave enough to come with me and can hold a sword. Because if we don’t stop Mieshk Ulstat, nothing else matters.”
“You said that, but what are we looking at? What are my men and women going to have to deal with?”
I ran my hands through my hair. “I wish I knew. Mieshk is powerful. I wouldn’t even call her human anymore. But to get to her, we’ll need to fight past her soldiers.”
“You didn’t mention these difficulties earlier . . .”
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything. There just wasn’t time. But here’s the truth: Honestly, I don’t know if we can succeed against Mieshk. And Trader Ulstat only complicates the situation. He wants to take Ioene for himself.”
And he wanted to do it with Raav’s help. What was Raav thinking now? He probably had no idea what had happened to me, and probably didn’t even know that Nyralit had been injured. Would he think I’d just abandoned him? Would Trader Ulstat and Ashhi concoct another lie to explain things?
“My friend Raav is still inside the Ulstat compound. Trader Ulstat is trying to pressure him into an alliance against Mieshk. If we can’t help Raav escape, he’ll have no other choice but to help Trader Ulstat overthrow his own daughter. Because the alternative is so much worse.”
Caffari paced the confines of the room, her head bowed to avoid scraping on the rafters. When she walked through a spider web, she absentmindedly wiped it off her face. The thief was probably used to sneaking through disused tunnels and hiding out in abandoned buildings.
“We must discuss terms if we’re going to work together,” Caffari said.
“If we can restore Ioene to the place she was when the Vanished lived there, there will be plenty of wealth to share.”
“The Vanished?”
“Our ancestors. Long story.”
Caffari accepted this with a nod. “The thing is, I’ve found that vague assurances don’t always work out for folks like me. For us to go forward, we must establish the ground rules right now. Say I retake Ioene for you—”
“Hold on—say you retake it for me. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person capable of defeating Mieshk once her followers are dealt with.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll be honest. If I tell my people that we’re going to follow some seventeen-year-old girl to Ioene and obey her commands, they’ll laugh me out of the band. It takes a particular sort of person to lead an affiliation of rogues. And you don’t have what it takes.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks. Did she not see what I’d done in the mine? How could she doubt my abilities?
Easy, Lilik, Tyrak said. Hear her out.
But she just in
sulted me.
Don’t be so quick to judge.
Caffari was looking at me with an amused smirk. “Your reaction right there is exactly what I mean. A thief will try to anger you. A smuggler will swindle you while making you believe they are your obedient servant. A rogue will betray you to anyone who offers a better deal for their loyalty. You are brave and clever and honorable. You inspire people. But you are not a leader of criminals. And I hope you never have to learn that ruthlessness.”
My blood was still seething, but Tyrak extended a tendril of calm. I blinked, took a deep breath, and nodded.
“All right,” I said. “So you want to be the one to lead us there. Let’s assume I agree.”
“Once we’re there, I’ll have an equal say in how the spoils are shared out.”
“This isn’t about spoils. This is about regaining our ancestral home, fighting tyranny, and saving the Islands.”
“For you,” she said. Caffari pulled a throwing dagger from a pocket on the side of her leather pants. Spinning it across her fingers, she took aim at the far wall and threw. The blade split a root that stuck out from the earthen wall, pinning it against the compacted soil. “My people aren’t going to be convinced by some idealist quest to regain a life we’ve never known. They’re unlikely to care whether the Kiriilt Islands sink beneath the sea, long as they have a chance to sail clear of the devastation. So unless you're offering something better than what they’ll find on another faraway shore, you’ll never earn their cooperation.”
“But they follow you, right? You see how important this is.”
“They follow me because I lead in the direction they want to go. It’s as simple as that.”
Duskwoven Page 13
