Sugar wondered if Ke had been taken. If so, he might be in the fortress as well. She would keep her eyes out for him, but didn’t have much hope he’d be with the Skir Master.
The first step in tonight’s plan was to get up to Lord Hash’s room in the tower. “I’m going to look above,” she whispered.
“Don’t we need to open the door?” asked Argoth.
“We’ll see,” she said.
Up to this point, she’d been merely peering out into the yellow world. Now she walked out of herself. As she did so, she felt a great tearing, a pain more intense than what she normally felt. It took her breath away, and she had to pause for a few moments. She wondered if she wasn’t wounding herself every time she walked, and if there would come a time when the wound wouldn’t heal. But she couldn’t worry about that now. They had a job to do.
She unpacked the skenning and put it on. The skenning felt good, better than naked soul, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to wear it at all times on tonight’s mission. She could not take the skenning with her back into her body, and she suspected there would be times when she would need to beat a hasty retreat, and it took time to take the garment off and stow it. Still, she didn’t want to walk through a door unprotected.
With the skenning snug about her, she tested the wood of the door above. Even though it was thick and banded with iron, this old wood gave like sand, just as the wood of the trees did. In fact, it was easier to push through than living wood, and she soon pulled herself up through the door and into the end of a narrow and dark passage built inside the outer wall of the fortress. The passage ran forward for a few yards to a staircase. Out on the slope, it was twilight in the yellow world. In here, it was darker. However, there was still enough light to see by. It certainly wasn’t the rays of light from the moon and stars illuminating the stone walls of the passageway. It seemed the rocks themselves produced the illumination. She walked over to the low spiral staircase and looked up. It was clear as far as she could see.
She reported it all with the mouth of her flesh, and then Argoth asked about the door at her feet.
She explained the door was barred with a stout piece of wood. Argoth called for the saw and two-handed carpenter’s auger he’d had his men bring. He carefully bored a hole through the wood, then inserted the saw to finish the job. When the hole was big enough, he reached through, unbarred the door, and pushed it open.
Sugar went back to her body, then climbed through the opening in the flesh. The passage was black as pitch, but they dared not use any flame for fear of revealing their presence. So she peered out of her body again as she’d done on the slope. Behind her, each man held the hem of the tunic of the man in front of him. In this way, she led them up the stairs.
None of them were wearing heavy armor. Mail would clink with each movement. Plate was out of the question. So each man wore a thick padded tunic as well as leather gloves and a boiled leather cap. What they needed was silence and speed. Each of them carried a knife and a short sword or war axe, weapons suited for the close spaces of hallways and rooms.
Up the stairs they climbed, past what she estimated was the ground floor of the tower to the second level where the stairs exited onto a short landing that could accommodate no more than Sugar and three other men.
The wooden door she faced was about chest high. Lord Hash, soldiers, Divines—anyone could be on the other side. This was where the real mission began. Whoever was in this room would need to be silenced and the door leading from the room to the rest of the tower barred from the inside. Then Argoth could find the second door that opened to the secret passage to the apartments.
Sugar braced herself. Skir masters lost the ability to see with the eyes of their flesh, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see the world of flesh. It only meant they looked with the eyes of the soul. And, in fact, Withers had said that was exactly why their eyes turned black. But Withers said it was possible to lose the ability to see with the eyes of the soul as well. They could be gouged out or burned, just as someone who looked into the sun could burn the sight of his normal eyes. Or they could dim with age. Skir masters spent most of their waking hours in that world, and so it was no surprise when some went blind. Withers himself had been partially blinded by a great mysterious flash in the soul world. But the Skir Master here was not old, nor reported to have a guide, which meant she needed to be careful.
She leaned out of herself until her head and torso were free. Then she slowly pushed through the door. When her face emerged on the other side, she stopped and looked around. The door to the wide tower room was shut. No candles or lamps burned; however, a large window did let in some of the starlight. More importantly, a fire burned low on the hearth. There would be enough light in there to see by. A woman slept on her side in the large bed. A medium-sized dog lay on floor beside her. The dog was awake, alert, looking in her direction. It must have heard them as they ascended the stairs.
Sugar whispered with her body, “There’s a woman in bed and a dog on the floor to the right of us. No more.”
Argoth whispered for her to move back.
She pulled herself back in, then whispered into Argoth’s ear and explained how the door worked and guided his hand to the locking mechanism.
Inside the room, the dog woofed.
Sugar then moved back onto the stairs to make room for those that would go in first. Argoth whispered his command, which was whispered down the line. Then he knelt and gently felt for the lever that would open the door. The plan was six men in, followed by Sugar and the rest.
Argoth gently pulled the lever and swung the door inward. The dog woofed tentatively, but Argoth shot through the gap with multiplied speed. The next five men followed. The dog had time to bark once, loud and clear, before it was Sugar’s turn to go through. But by the time she was into the room and moving away to give those behind her space, Argoth had already silenced the dog. Two of the dreadmen had taken care of the woman. One held a pillow to her face, the second was pulling his knife from her chest.
Sugar’s stomach lurched. She tried to tell herself the sleeping woman was nothing more than a Fir-Noy, but she couldn’t help but feel the horror of it—what had that woman done to them? Another dreadman rushed to the shut door that opened to hallway and carefully lowered the bar into place.
Then all of the fist stood still and listened. The fire in the large hearth popped. The murmur of men’s voices could be heard outside the door, but they were very distant, as if they were down a hallway or stair. Sugar and the others had rehearsed this. A guard was likely to be posted in the hallway outside the door. Even though the bar would prevent them from coming in, a man outside could hear and rouse the castle. And so they waited for a few minutes more to let anyone who might be there assume whatever noise had been heard was nothing.
The room had a high ceiling. The walls had been covered with a thick plaster above and dark wood paneling below. The plaster had been painted with a brightly colored landscape mural and festooned with the heads and horns of various animals. The dark wooden paneling ran around the bottom. The secret door had been disguised as part of that paneling.
Argoth signaled to his men, then walked to the section of the paneling the woman had told him about and searched for the entrance to the other passage. Sugar looked at the dead woman lying in her blankets and cringed at the murder. The woman in the bed could have been another abused servant just like the woman who had escaped.
Argoth found the other door and clicked it open. He motioned for Sugar to come. Again, they walked without light, for who was to say Lord Hash himself wasn’t in the passageway, spying on his guests?
The men followed Sugar into the narrow passage in the tower wall, leaving one person behind to watch the room and alert them should anything happen. She pressed her face out of her body to see. The walls here showed raw stone and mortar that ran along the back of the apartments. However, B
lue Towers was not shaped in a perfect rectangle. It was forced to follow the rocky ledge it was built upon. So the passage ran straight for a number of yards, then turned. The grand apartment was behind the bend up ahead.
She and the others crept along the narrow passage, each man holding the shoulder of the man in front. A few mice scurried away at their coming, and she caught a strand of spider web on her face, but the passage was clear of anything larger. The grand apartment was preceded by a number of smaller apartments for clerks, guards, and other ranking officials. They passed by these, some with peep holes, others with hidden doors. She wondered if Ke was being held in any of these, but knew finding him wasn’t their mission.
Before they reached the bend in the passage, they came upon a spiral staircase descending to a lower level. Sugar paused. She couldn’t imagine anyone patrolling these passageways, but if Lord Hash or someone else were down there, she needed to know it. It wouldn’t do to be surprised. So she walked out of her flesh and quickly descended the spiral stairs.
A group of the amber knuckle skir clung to the stair wall and scurried into the rock at her coming. When she reached the bottom, she found a passageway stretching left and right, shining in the dim stone light, but it too was empty. She walked down the passageway to her right and peeked around the bend. The way was clear as far as she could see, so she climbed back up the stairway where Argoth and the others waited. She was about to move forward when she heard a grunt with the ears of her soul. The sound came from around the corner of the passageway ahead. She reached out to feel with her hair, but could only sense the people in the rooms about her.
Sugar carefully moved forward, peered around the bend, but found nothing. Had the grunt come from one of the apartments? Ahead on her left stood a secret door to the grand apartment. She could feel people there, but her sense wasn’t exact. Stone blocked it to a great degree. So she moved forward and found a peephole, which she ever so slowly opened. Behind it lay a room lit with lamps. The fat Skir Master and another man sat in chairs before the hearth. Two guards flanked the inside of the door. Another man sat at a table. All three wore dreadmen weaves.
She moved to the side to see if there were others in the room, but there were only five here at the moment. Other dreadmen probably stood guard outside the main door to the apartment. She scanned the large room once again, then slowly closed the peephole. She moved her mouth to Argoth’s ear and whispered the layout of the room. He in turn whispered her report to the man behind him, who whispered it down the line. When they were ready, Sugar guided Argoth’s hand to the latch, then stepped past the door. A moment later she sensed something farther down the secret passage approaching.
Argoth drew his long knife with one hand, then gently pulled the lever and swung the hidden door into the secret passage, but found the opening was blocked. Argoth put his hand forward and felt. It looked like the back of a chest or wardrobe, but Sugar couldn’t tell because she was focused on the passageway. She could feel something coming. Something large.
And then two howlers, the creatures that looked like whippets with thorns and spikes for hair, came around the bend followed by something in the rough shape of a man. It was jagged and horned all over. Its head was a slash of spikes. Its hide was a mottled red that ran to ochre and bone at the points of the horns and spikes.
It turned its head and revealed its face, and Sugar took a step back—it was the face of a nightmare, like something had eaten the soul of a man and was wearing it about. But then she perceived that the horned hide was not part of the body. The rough exterior was armor, fashioned like plate or scale, but instead of being smooth, this armor was jagged like the skin of a horned toad or the exterior of a rough crab. The spikes on its head were simply part of some kind of helmet. The man in the armor carried a weapon in his hand—a smoky red blade. This was one of the Mokaddian Walkers!
“We’ve been spotted,” Sugar hissed.
Someone shouted a warning in the grand apartment.
Argoth threw himself against the obstruction. It scraped a few inches across the floor. Two of the other dreadmen men joined him, pushing whatever it was out of the way.
The Walker yelled and the black angular howlers shot forward, growling.
Sugar pulled her soul back into her body and slammed her doors shut. The passage was suddenly dark, lit only by the lamplight spilling in from the secret doorway. Moments later she felt a chill run through her.
Argoth charged through the door followed by three of his dreadmen. Sugar’s job was not to fight. They needed her eyes, and so she waited as the others poured into the room. Then she felt the chill of the howlers again as they pressed about her and tried to bite through to get to her soul. She squeezed her doors as tightly as they would go.
Inside the room, one of the Skir Master’s guards raced forward to meet the attack. The other flung open the door to the fortress hallway and shouted for help. The Skir Master turned and backed up, his black eyes glittering in the lamplight. Three more guards rushed into the room.
The guard sitting slumped at the table suddenly raised his head and looked straight at Sugar.
The Walker, she thought. That’s his body.
Shouts rose in the hallway outside the grand apartment. Right now it was Argoth and his nine against the Skir Master and his seven. But most of Argoth’s men, although battle-hardened, were new dreadmen, which meant that if someone didn’t bar the door to the hallway, more of Mokad’s dreadmen would pour into the room, and this fight would turn ugly very quickly.
One of the red clad Mokaddian guards swung a short sword, cutting one of Shim’s men across the face. Shim’s man fell to the floor. Argoth swung his axe at the man who’d been sitting at the fire with the Skir Master. The man parried with a fire poker. Another of the Skir Master’s guards chopped down spider-quick with his sword and sliced the gloved fingers off the hand of one of Shim’s men. The man cried out and fell back, but another Shimsman pressed the attack in his place.
The battle in the room surged to one side, clearing a path to the door. Sugar shot into the room and ran straight for it.
The guard who was the Walker stood and charged her. Like all of the Skir Master’s men, the Walker wore mail, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. The Walker moved lightning quick, thrusting at her with the point of his axe.
She twisted away and dodged past him.
He turned, cocked his arm.
Sugar grabbed the door, saw half a dozen men round the corner at the far end of the lamplit hallway, then slammed the door shut.
The Walker hurled his axe.
Sugar lunged to the side, and the axe buried itself in the wood where her head had been. She wrenched it out, grabbed the crossbar, and shoved it down tight. When she turned, the Walker smashed her in the face with a fist that felt like a stone. Her nose broke. Pain shot across the bridge of her brow. She reeled to the side, dazed.
He struck her in the gut, knocking the breath out of her, and took her axe.
The Walker raised the axe to brain her.
Sugar kicked his knee, blood pouring out of her nose, and turned him so the blow missed.
He swung again to finish her, but Oaks slammed into the red-clad Walker from the side, grabbing his weapon hand, and knocking him up against the door. He slammed the guard’s hand hard against the wood.
The man lost his grip on the axe, and it fell to the floor. But he struck Oaks in the face with a forearm, pulled a knife and slashed at him, forcing him back.
Outside, men shouted and pounded on the door.
Sugar was dizzy, her hearing muffled. At her feet lay the Walker’s axe. She snatched it up and turned.
Across the room, Argoth fought with the Skir Master’s guard. In front of her, Oaks took another step back, blood running down a wound along his ear, and stumbled over a chair.
The Walker rushed forward and fell upon Oaks, but Sugar
charged him. She took two steps, raised the axe high, then brought it down with all her multiplied might upon his back. It bit partway through the mail. The Walker jerked, faltered, turned to meet the new attack.
Oaks, who was one of the more mature dreadmen, struck him like an anvil on the jaw. He struck him again, and the Walker’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he slumped to the floor.
Another guard charged Oaks from behind, but Sugar stepped forward and swung the axe, stopping his blow. Then one of Argoth’s men stabbed this new attacker with a short sword.
Sugar turned. Another red-clad guard fell, and suddenly the only fight in the room was with the Skir Master’s personal guard by the doors to a balcony. The Skir Master stood behind the man, looking on with anger and disdain.
Two of Argoth’s dreadmen closed on the last guard. One of them threw a chair. When the guard tried to bat it away, the second dreadman lunged. The guard was exceedingly quick, parrying the strike, but he could not parry the blow from the first Shimsman to his head and fell to his knees.
Argoth turned on the Skir Master.
Blood poured out of Sugar’s nose, over her lips to her chin. She plugged her nose, trying to stop the bleeding. Outside the room, the door thudded under the cut of an axe.
The Skir Master said, “You will be disemboweled. I will see to that personally.”
Outside a wind gusted and whistled along the eaves. The pitch of the wind rose until it sounded like a faint scream. The fire in the hearth flared. The Skir Master sneered. “You are worms,” he said with disdain.
Argoth lunged with his long knife, but the Skir Master batted it away, then slapped Argoth open-handed to the ground.
“Pathetic,” he said. Outside, the wind surged, full of fury. The balcony doors behind the Skir Master suddenly flew inward banging against the walls on either side, tearing from their hinges. On the balcony, half the wooden railing ripped away and was thrown to the open bailey below. The wind howled into the room, guttering the lamps, whipping the tapestries.
Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Page 10
