Gor grunted. “For how long?”
“For as long you live,” Kroll said. “Which we all hope will be a good, long time.”
“I’m sure,” the man whispered. His ears had perked up, however, which meant that despite the sarcasm in his voice, his interest had been piqued. “So what is this ‘clean task’ you wish me to perform?”
“All I require is information. I need to know exactly where a certain individual is sleeping this evening and how many people are there with him. The more details you provide, the more bricks you earn.”
“And what makes you think I possess this information?”
“Because I know who you are, and I know who accompanied you into this city,” Kroll told him. “I also know that your people are smart enough to recognize an opportunity when they see one.”
“Perhaps,” Gor whispered. “And what exactly is preventing you from double-crossing me if I choose to aid you?”
“The fact I don’t care about you,” Kroll replied flatly. “You are not my interest here, and your future is none of my concern. I am here for one man, and one way or another, I will find him. You can either profit from his capture…or you can join him in chains.”
The chagari’s whiskers twitched as he tore off another hunk of me. “Tell me more,” he said, “and then I will give you my price.”
***
Tevek rubbed at his eyes in hopes of scratching away the fatigue holding them shut. It was times like this when he really started to feel old. Twenty years ago he had been able to stay up for several days straight, but now after just one he could barely keep his eyes open. The battle earlier today certainly hadn’t helped any, nor had his multi-hour lovemaking session with Selvhara. As a practical matter, he had no business staying up all night patrolling the rebel compound.
But then, paladins had never been big on practicality.
“You should lie down,” Selvhara whispered from behind him. She slipped soundlessly into the room, and he would have hopped up in surprise if he’d still had the energy.
“You know I can’t,” he told her with a thin smile. “Not for another few hours. Once dawn hits I’ll feel a lot better.”
She grabbed his arm, though he could barely feel her squeeze through his armor. “I’m sure everyone will.”
Adar walked back in through the front door, looking as nervous and unkempt as ever. Considering he had been leading the rebels for so long, Tevek had assumed his old friend would be more poised by now.
“Still no word from Gor’s escorts,” he reported gravely. “The second team didn’t find any of them in the tavern. Patrons reported they left hours ago.”
Tevek nodded. The chagari’s disappearance was certainly a cause for concern, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could do about it other than stay vigilant. Jason was still safe—Elade reassured him of that periodically. Even if Gor and his escorts had been captured, they didn’t know anything about the safe house or the fact that Jason had been moved in the first place. At worse, the Zarul would learn the location of this compound, and that was the whole point of their plan.
“I hate this,” Adar muttered, shaking his head. “Sending a runner to fetch reports from patrols…it’s like living in the Dark Ages before the Godswar.”
“I assumed you would be used to it by now,” Tevek said, frowning. “You’ve managed to survive an entire year without a single Bound at your beck and call.”
“I suppose, but we’re not used to being on the defensive,” the younger man replied just a hair too quickly. “To be honest, the Crell have mostly just ignored us recently.”
“I imagine the Zarul are also far more intimidating than the city watch,” Selvhara pointed out.
“Yes,” Adar whispered. “Yes, that’s probably it.”
There was obviously more to it, but Tevek decided not to press the matter. Adar was probably tired, too—they all were. Besides, it had been a hectic day, and Adar was assuredly feeling the pressure from the others to do something about the cube. The longer it stayed within his reach, the more tempting it would become.
Tomorrow, perhaps, Tevek would finally sit down with Jason and talk with the man about his intentions for the spark. If he agreed to take it to Solaria, then they would probably have to slip out of Lyebel without telling Adar or any of the others about—
A loud thump banged into the far wall, and Tevek leapt across the room, sword drawn, within the span of a single heartbeat. Reaching out to the Aether, he sheathed himself inside an invisible barrier of protective energy before inspecting the wall more closely. Nothing seemed out of place. This particular section jutted out about ten feet ahead of the other walls, completing the southwestern portion of the H-shaped compound. Beyond this plank of wood was a narrow alleyway Adar’s people had sealed off.
Biting down on his lip, Tevek signaled for one of the other rebel soldiers to go and check one of the front windows. He then crept over to the other one and peeked outside himself.
The first sign of battle didn’t come from a bolt shattering through the window or a squad of sword-wielding attackers crashing in through the front door. Instead a massive explosion shook the entire foundation of the building, and the cries and screams of combat echoed down the hall from the northeastern wing behind them.
“Hold this position!”
Before the others could even respond, Tevek was already halfway across the compound.
***
Sarina sucked in a deep breath and allowed her eyes to focus down the sight of her crossbow. A hundred feet away, a man in dark clothing slinked between alleyways, peering into window after window in search of the rebels. He had been at this ever since Sarina had first spotted him ten minutes ago, but before she’d been able to engage him, he had abruptly veered off towards this specific alley. At a glance, there was nothing to distinguish it from a thousand other streets in the docks, but the tavern at the end—the Riptide Reprieve—was a favorite of many of the rebels. Was this Crell here to meet with their illusive mole and learn all about Jason and their base?
If so, she couldn’t afford to let him walk through that door. If not…well, there was no pressing reason to let him walk through that door anyway.
Sarina pulled the trigger. The bolt pierced the side of the man’s neck, choking off his voice before he could even scream. His body bounced off the closest wall and then flopped to the ground, motionless. She counted to thirty just in case he had a friend lurking nearby somewhere, but when the alley remained still she finally released her breath and lowered her weapon.
It was really a shame that she couldn’t have just crippled this man in order to question him and see what he knew. But doing so would have been too risky. For one, if he had a chance to look at her, he might have been able to rummage through her mind and pluck out all sorts of secrets about the Resistance. For two, extending his life by even a few seconds would mean that every other Bound in this city would know what had happened. He would communicate his situation to his comrades and to his Sovereign, and she obviously couldn’t allow that to happen. No, killing them silently was the safest option…and it had the benefit of potentially intimidating the other Imperators as their fellows mysteriously winked out one by one.
Clipping her crossbow back onto her belt, Sarina leapt over to the adjacent rooftop and hoped her footfalls were silent enough not to cause too much of a ruckus in the buildings below. Since most of the roofs in the city were made of stone, the inhabitants probably couldn’t even hear her, but a couple of the pre-war residences were still made almost entirely out of wood. She did her best to avoid those whenever possible.
Less than a minute later, she had found a new perch overlooking the Riptide’s entrance, and she once again unclasped her crossbow and took aim. As tempting as it was to bust open the door and see if she recognized anyone, she knew that would be far too risky. Judging from the noise, there were probably over a hundred people inside, and some of them could have easily been Crell spies. No, for the moment it was
far safer to sit here and see who emerged on their own. With luck, their mole would see the corpse in the back alley and come rushing out the front instead…
The door abruptly opened, and a handful of drunken louts she didn’t recognize stumbled outside. But behind them followed an enormous, orange-furred chagari…and Sarina felt her mouth drop open.
“So that’s where you went,” she whispered, biting down on her lip. She and Gor had never really gotten along—the Asgardians and the chagari had a tumultuous history, to say the least—but she had always found his stubborn streak particularly irritating. Probably because it reminded her so much of herself.
When he strode away from the tavern and his rebel escorts didn’t follow behind him, Sarina became wary. When she realized he was heading deeper into the docks and not back to the compound, she became downright suspicious.
“What are you up to this time?”
Biting down on her lip, she hopped up from her crouch and started shadowing his movements along the rooftops. If Gor had been inside the Riptide for a while, there was no reason why his escorts would have lost track of him—unless, of course, the ‘Coats had already gotten to them. And if they hadn’t gone after Gor…well, she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But it probably wasn’t good.
Sarina managed to keep pace with him easily enough, but eventually she was forced to drop off the rooftops and back down to street level. Gor appeared to be heading for a particular dock, and the few people remaining on the street at this hour gave him a wide berth. After a few minutes he was well out of the compound’s patrol radius, which Adar had explicitly warned him against. Something was definitely wrong.
A minute later, she realized she had been spotted.
Not by Gor, thankfully—chagari could track almost anything by scent, but she had made certain to stay upwind. There was someone else, a dark figure she had felt more than seen prowling the streets adjacent to her. He wasn’t trying to kill her—at least not yet—or he would have tried already. He was stalking her, trying to read her intentions and perhaps figure out why she was following Gor in the first place.
He needed to be dealt with…which meant that she needed to flush him out of hiding. Sarina flit from dark alley to dark alley until she finally came to a three-story brick structure overlooking four of the nearby docks. Spinning around the corner, she dropped into a combat crouch.
She was no channeler, obviously, but she was a huntress by trade and by blood, and she could sense things others could not. While Tam might catch wind of a stray thought or Gor a loose scent, Sarina could hear the beating of the man’s heart as he approached. She knew what her quarry was thinking, and she knew exactly how he would react. Instincts could be just as powerful as the Aether, she liked to think. And so she waited, her own pulse catching in her ears as she fingered the grip of one of the axes at her waist.
Her only warning was the softest crunch of stone from above her. Sarina instantly rolled to the side, glancing upwards—and just as she did, a crossbow bolt bounced off the street in the space she had just left. A dark figure rested ten feet above, leaning just a hair over the ledge, his head snapping up in surprise at her movement. In a single smooth motion, Sarina pulled free her axe and threw it at the man’s head.
She missed. The axe pierced his left shoulder instead, and he cried out in pain even as he tumbled forward. To his credit, he managed to briefly catch himself on the ledge and slow his fall, but he still hit the ground with a loud thump. His crossbow skittered across the cobblestone and out of reach.
Sarina pounced on him before he could recover, pinning his throat with her forearm and his body with her legs. He was strong and sturdy; he bucked against her assault and almost managed to throw her off. But in the end he was no match for her strength, and with a final choked off gasp, he fell silent.
Closing her eyes, Sarina took a few seconds to catch her breath before rummaging through his belongings. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t carrying anything that would identify him as a Zarul agent or even a Crell citizen, and she quickly hoisted up the corpse and tossed it deeper into the alley. Spinning on a heel, she dashed back out to the main street…and then swore under her breath.
Gor was already gone.
***
Garin Kroll waited patiently atop the rebel compound’s roof even as the sounds of crossbows, explosions, and clattering blades greeted his ears. He didn’t need the ringing of battle to track his men inside, of course. He could coordinate the battle perfectly well right here. They were all linked through their telepathic bond with Sovereign Damir, and at the very back of his consciousness Kroll could feel his mistress’s power flowing through all of her agents inside. He didn’t need her charity, of course; he could see and touch the Aether on his own. And right now it told him that his moment of glory was nearly at hand.
The second wave of Zarul soldiers had just forced their way into the compound and flanked the rebel defenders from the opposite side. They couldn’t win, of course, not against a score of veteran fighters led by a paladin and supported by an elysian druid. But victory was not their goal here—their only purpose was to herd the enemy Bound into their commander’s waiting arms. And as another explosion rattled the foundation below him, Kroll knew his time had come.
Channeling the Aether into his body, he slammed his fist into the floor beneath his feet. The wood splintered apart as easily as if he had dropped a boulder on top of it, and he leapt down through the opening and landed at the center of the room below. The battle inside was already over; the corpses of soldiers from both sides lie strewn across the floor, many charred beyond recognition. Two of Kroll’s men were still alive, however: one had taken cover behind an overturned bed on the southern wall, and the other had flipped behind a dresser on the western side. The only other living person in the room was a slender woman in an ice-blue robe, sparks of Aetheric lightning crackling around her body as if she were a vengeful goddess standing at the eye of a furious tempest.
“The elf witch of Geriskhad,” Kroll said. “How I have long wished to break you.”
Thrusting his arm forward, Kroll unleashed a thundering wave of raw force. The opposite wall splintered and buckled beneath the assault, and several of the corpses even lifted off the ground and hurled across the room...but somehow the witch herself stood her ground. With a twirl of her fingers, she focused the energy sparking around her into a single bolt of lightning and directed it squarely at her attacker’s chest. A blinding flash lit up the room, and Kroll narrowly erected his own Aetheric barrier before his torso was burned into cinders. Even still, the blast was strong enough that a few stray strands of energy singed the flesh on his arms and his chin. One of his soldiers wasn’t so lucky—the man leaned out to take a quick shot at the druid, but her lightning bolt arced off of Kroll’s barrier and zapped him directly in the head. His corpse collapsed to the ground, twitching uncontrollably as stray sparks of electricity continued coursing through it.
When the assault finally relented, Kroll couldn’t help but smile. Sovereign Damir had warned him that General Moore’s elf witch was powerful, and he was happy to learn that she hadn’t been exaggerating. Ever since he had been chosen to serve the Zarul, Kroll had yearned to test his skills against a truly powerful channeler, especially one as rare and skilled as an elysian elder. Because no matter how much energy she could muster, no matter how easily she could summon the Aether to her fingertips, in the end she was still just a Bound.
And that meant Kroll could break her.
The witch took a step backwards and channeled another surge of lightning to her fingertips, but this time he was ready. Reaching out with his own powers, he crushed her in an iron grip—not her physical body, but the invisible Aetheric tethers linking her to her distant goddess. The strands were almost imperceptible, even for a trained channeler, but the mistress had taught him how to peel away the misty veil of the Aether and identify the thin, vaporous tethers linking Bound to their Ascendants like the strings of a puppet.
Kroll mentally reached out and grabbed onto hers…and then swiftly ripped them apart.
With an ear-splitting shriek, the witch collapsed to her knees. The lightning crackling around her body dissipated, and the Aether flowing through her body swiftly bled away. She glanced up, her eyes wide in horror.
“Tell me where the cube is,” Kroll said, unsheathing his blade and striding towards her, “and I promise to end your life quickly.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You run because you’re unwilling to make a sacrifice for something greater than yourself. You run because you’re a coward.”
—Ethan Moore to his son before he left the Resistance
Jason’s eyes popped open much more quickly the second time Elade woke him up during the night. His nerves hadn’t made it easy to sleep much anyway, so it only took him a moment to wipe the fatigue from his eyes and prop himself up on an arm.
“Trouble?”
“The compound is under attack,” she told him. “Get your things in case we have to move again.”
He nodded and hopped out of bed. He had slept wearing his light leather armor, and he had kept the cube’s satchel tucked neatly in his arms the entire time. The only light in the house came from a single old-fashioned candle, and Ria and Elade were the only two others in here with him. Everyone else was outside on patrol.
Elade took up her position at one of the windows again, her glowing blue eyes scanning the streets. Apparently the vaeyn could see nearly as well in darkness as in broad daylight, which made him feel better about their chances.
“Can you tell how the fight is going?”
“Not precisely,” she explained, her voice strained. “Tevek sends me thoughts and impressions, but he doesn’t really have time to go into specific details.”
“Kyle was right,” Ria said. She sat atop a crate on the other side of the room looking out the other window, a crossbow resting on her lap. “The ‘Coats have no idea that the cube isn’t at the compound. We should be safe here.”
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 37
