“Why are they trying so hard to get you, Yanko?” Arayevo asked after they diverted around the group.
“Yeah,” Lakeo said, “you’re not that important, especially now that the rock is on the bottom of the ocean.”
“Actually, it’s in a keyhole in a volcano that’s well above sea level by now.” They reached a wide boulevard, and Yanko turned to follow the train tracks running down the middle of it, looking for signs that might confirm they were heading toward the station.
“That doesn’t answer our question,” Lakeo said.
“I don’t know why they want me so much,” Yanko said, “especially since Dak didn’t seem that perturbed by my escape. Of course, he also seemed certain that I was going to be stuck in the consulate for a while. This could all just be because they don’t want me to get home and report in about the continent. But the ambassador should have already spoken of it to someone on the mainland when he used his communications orb, so I don’t know why the Turgonians are that worried about me.”
“Are we sure he reported to someone?” Arayevo asked. “Nobody saw him chatting into an orb, did they?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t be stationed here unless it was to help our people.”
“But which people?” Lakeo asked. “Aren’t there lots of different factions over there now? Not that I particularly care if he’s loyal to the Great Chief or someone else, but it might be good to know, since our fate is in his hands right now.”
“Our fate is ours to choose,” Yanko said, though her words troubled him. The Nurian embassy on Kyatt had worked with Sun Dragon instead of for the good of the nation. What if they had chanced upon another ambassador with sketchy loyalties?
Yanko turned his focus to the route ahead. This main boulevard was busier than the side streets had been. Lorries and carriages clanked along on either side of the train tracks, clouds of smoke rising from their stacks. More than one driver looked out his or her window at Yanko’s group. Or maybe just at him. His crimson robe would have been conspicuous back home in Nuria, and it was even more so here.
“Hold on, please.” He slipped into a deep alcove and tugged it off over his head. He’d thought he might need the extra magical stamina it granted him, but there were more people around than he’d expected at night. Fortunately, he had worn the tunic and trousers he had been given underneath it.
Jhali continued ahead as he folded the robe and slipped it into his pack. Yanko left the scimitar belted to his waist. It wasn’t glowing now, and the scabbard would hide most of that even if it did get uppity.
As Yanko, Arayevo, and Lakeo hurried to catch Jhali, a train came through town, a huge lamp on the front highlighting the tracks ahead of it. It made a chugging noise as the metal wheels clacked along the tracks, and Yanko looked at it with awe as countless freight cars rolled past.
He’d seen the Turgonian ironclads and steam carriages, but they were not quite so awe-inspiring, perhaps because there were magic-powered Nurian equivalents. His people had nothing like this. He could only guess how many lizard-pulled carts it would take to transport an equivalent load.
“That may be the station,” Jhali said over her shoulder.
She pointed toward a yard that seemed to provide storage for the massive vehicles, or were those all trains waiting to depart? Numerous sets of tracks converged in the area, some running north and south along the coast, with others veering inland. The street expanded and parted around a couple of buildings adjacent to the tracks. People waited outside of them on boardwalk platforms, yawning or reading newspapers under lamplights.
Yanko eyed the bored Turgonians with concern. The morning trains had to be departing soon. Had some already left?
He had assumed he would arrive before the courier and would have plenty of time to figure out which train he would leave on. There were four trains fired up, the smoke from their stacks blotting out the stars. Which one would head to the capital?
“I wonder if anyone would notice if we climbed up on one of those buildings,” Yanko murmured, thinking it might be helpful to look down from above. But his senses told him that forty Turgonians were inside the closest building in addition to the people waiting on the platforms.
“It would be easier if we could read the signs around here,” Lakeo said, waving to one marking a street they were passing. “Arayevo, can you read any Turgonian?”
“No. I can just understand some of the spoken language.”
“I suppose this is why good spies know other countries’ languages.”
Yanko headed for a wide ramp that led up to the platform and what he assumed was the ticketing building. “Does anyone have any money? We could buy a ticket and see which train they point us to.”
“This is your mission. Shouldn’t you have funds for it?” Lakeo asked.
“I thought we decided it was his scheme,” Arayevo said. “Not his mission.”
“Then he should definitely have funds.”
“Here,” Jhali said, surprising Yanko by handing him a couple of paper bills. Turgonian currency.
Everything back home was coin-based, so the flimsy paper did not seem like real money, and he had no idea how much she had handed him.
“Where did you get money?” Lakeo asked her.
Jhali gave her a cool look and did not answer.
If she had stolen it, Yanko hated the idea of using it, but the alternative would be trying to sneak onto a train, and that might be difficult. He spotted four uniformed security people striding along the platforms, each armed with heavy batons and pistols.
“Is it enough for a ticket?” Yanko asked Jhali.
“Maybe for one.”
“Well, some sleight of hand may be called for then.” Yanko could do illusions. He’d had plenty of practice creating them for Lakeo back in the mines when she had been carving murals into the salt walls for Uncle Mishnal.
A twinge of sorrow touched him at the memory, and he found himself again wishing to be back home with his family, and that everything could be as it had once been. He felt an overwhelming urge to abandon this foolish mission—scheme—and go hunt for his family. He had done all that Zirabo asked and more. What more must he do to satisfy duty and honor?
“Yanko?” Arayevo prompted.
He had been frozen halfway up the ramp as his thoughts spun through his head. He took a bracing breath and continued up, striding toward a barred window in the side of the closest building. A man stood in front of it, sliding money underneath the bars. A woman inside pushed a slip of paper back out to him. The man yawned and trundled toward a group waiting on one of the platforms. Yanko could read the first ten Turgonian numbers, and he recognized the one for 3 hanging on a sign there.
A few of the Turgonians frowned over at Yanko’s group. Even without his robe on, he felt conspicuous. Unlike the Kyattese port, where people of all nationalities had mingled without drawing attention, he and the women were the only Nurians in the area. Turgonia had never been welcoming to foreigners, and when outsiders did come to Port Morgrant, they probably stayed near the docks.
“I’m going to see if I can create an illusion to make us look more Turgonian,” Yanko murmured. “I’ll only be able to hold it as long as we stay together and as long as I don’t have to use my concentration for something else.”
“Like talking to a ticket person in a language you don’t understand?” Lakeo asked.
“That might qualify. Here.” He handed her the money and nodded for her to do the talking. “I think women are more likely to handle currency here, anyway. Their men are the fighters, their women the business people and accountants.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Jhali frowned when her money went from Yanko’s hand to Lakeo’s, but she did not object out loud.
“Say you want a ticket to Stumps,” Yanko said. “Yagar, in their language. That’s what they call their capital city. Something to do with a preponderance of headless statues all over, if I remember my history books correctly.”<
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“I bet the name encourages lots of tourism.” Lakeo walked up to the ticket window.
Yanko stayed close and waved for the others to do the same as he concentrated on creating an illusion. He didn’t change their sexes or try to make them taller or broader of shoulder. That would have added an unnecessary challenge. He only changed how their faces appeared to others, making the eyes rounder and the noses bigger and more hawk-like.
“Yagar,” Lakeo said, smacking the bills down on the counter.
The tired-looking lady inside said something.
“She says it’s only enough for one ticket,” Arayevo whispered.
“He’s the only one going,” Lakeo said, jerking her thumb at Yanko.
He winced because she said it in Nurian. Why couldn’t she have nodded agreement and pushed the bills over to the woman?
The woman’s eyebrows drifted upward, either because of the Nurian coming from what appeared to be a Turgonian mouth or because the four of them had come up to buy one ticket.
“We’re just seeing him off,” Lakeo added, oblivious to Yanko’s distress. “We’re his lovers.”
Arayevo coughed—or maybe that was a sputter. Jhali glared at Lakeo. Yanko smacked his hand to his face.
The woman took the money and pushed a ticket toward them. “He must come much wealthy family,” she said in accented Nurian.
“Here you are, Sweets.” Lakeo handed Yanko the ticket.
He lowered his hand to take it, though he would have preferred to hide behind it. Alas, the beige slip of paper was too small for that.
“Better move along,” Jhali muttered, nodding toward the road. A group of soldiers in black uniforms was striding toward the ramp.
“Platform One,” the woman said. “Train go half hour.”
“Thank you,” Arayevo said in Turgonian.
Yanko held back a groan at their mishmash of languages. If the soldiers asked if the woman had seen them, there was no way she would forget their group, illusion notwithstanding. Still, he did his best to keep it up as they hustled away from the window. He turned around the corner of the building, putting the structure between them and the soldiers as he peered down the long platform, looking for the right sign. There it was. At the far end.
The train was already there.
At first, he thought people were already boarding it, and he almost groaned as he headed in that direction. But he realized the previous passengers were getting off while those under the sign waited. People arriving from the capital or some other city? For some reason, he had never considered that trains would travel through the night, but he supposed they were like ships and had no reason to stop between destinations.
Yanko slowed his pace, noticing the number of uniformed men in the group under the sign. His stomach sank, and this time he did groan. There had to be ten soldiers among the civilians.
“Did Dak say the orders were being taken back by a courier or by a platoon?” Arayevo whispered.
“A courier.” Yanko wanted to linger in the shadow of the building until all those soldiers boarded, but Jhali had stayed back to watch the soldiers coming from the street, and she waved for Yanko to keep going.
“Those men are going to the ticket window,” she said, jogging up to them.
Yanko reinforced their illusion and walked toward the sign. “No speaking in Nurian,” he whispered.
A squawk came from behind them, and Yanko jumped.
“Puntak, puntak,” Kei said as he landed on Yanko’s shoulder, a wing batting him in the back of the head.
“Is speaking in Kyattese allowed?” Lakeo asked mildly.
The bird’s head swiveled, piercing eyes regarding Yanko with reproof. Apparently, parrots had no trouble seeing through illusions.
“We aren’t really leaving,” Yanko whispered to Kei, wondering if the bird believed they had been abandoning him.
“That attracted some attention,” Arayevo murmured.
Several people standing under the sign looked at Yanko and his feathered friend. He supposed it was too late to hide Kei with an illusion.
“Turgonians with parrots that call them slurs for Nurians probably aren’t that common,” Lakeo said.
Yanko eyed the belongings of the soldiers waiting under the sign, suspecting he would have to act soon, no matter how many witnesses there were. He assumed that a courier would hand-carry Ravencrest’s packet rather than stowing it in a luggage area, so he sought a promising satchel or briefcase.
Most of the soldiers carried duffle bags over their soldiers. Maybe they were being reassigned to duty stations in Stumps. If so, they wouldn’t necessarily be looking for him, but that didn’t make him feel much better. He had hoped to steal the letters in a subtle way, so that the courier didn’t know they were missing until he was all the way to his destination, thus ensuring a long delay before someone here knew to send another report.
Two passengers stepped off the train, a dark-haired woman in plain clothing and a blond man dressed all in black. Nobody came off behind them, and Yanko realized he’d run out of time. If they were the last of the arriving passengers, those at the sign would be invited to board soon.
He spotted a lone soldier toward the back carrying a leather satchel with a lock securing the flap. Yanko’s breath caught. That had to be their man.
“Are we actually getting on the train?” Arayevo murmured as Yanko headed casually toward the figure, examining that lock with his senses.
“Hopefully not.”
“Because if we do and we don’t get off soon enough, that train is going to the capital,” Lakeo said. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Yanko, but that’s in the opposite direction of Nuria. Thousands of miles in the opposite direction.”
“Thanks for the geography lesson.”
“It’s important that your lovers keep you educated.”
Yanko waved away the joke. “You three break off from me and do something distracting to one side of the group, please. This won’t take long. Don’t speak in Nurian.”
“Be distracting without speaking?” Lakeo asked. “What are we supposed to do? Groom each other like monkeys?”
Yanko shook his head, not wanting to delay further. The people in the group had also noticed that nobody else was coming off the train, and a few shuffled toward the open door.
As Yanko strolled closer, Lakeo and Arayevo veering away from him, he called upon his least favorite branch of magic. Fire. Conjuring a fireball now would have seemed easy compared to the precision needed to melt a lock, especially to melt a lock without the person holding it noticing.
“Biscuits?” Kei plucked at his hair.
“Later,” Yanko whispered, hoping the parrot wouldn’t draw attention while he attempted this. He tried to telepathically share the idea of parrots snoozing with their heads under their wings, hoping Kei would realize the sun hadn’t come up yet.
Yanko was aware of Jhali stopping several paces from the group and letting Arayevo and Lakeo advance on their own. They put on a skit of some kind, with Lakeo pointing at Arayevo’s back and Arayevo turning and turning to try to see it.
Yanko melted the lock. Before the warped metal could clunk to the boardwalk and alert the courier, he willed the air to grow compact underneath it and hold it aloft. He created a pinpoint breeze to whisk it over to his own hand as he manipulated the air again to unfasten the strap. He was careful not to look at the man while he did his work, not wanting him to notice Yanko at all. Fortunately, the courier was facing the train.
A conductor leaned out of the door and said something, and the group headed toward her. Yanko fought down panic as the satchel moved away from him. He used air to ease open the flap just enough that papers could slip out. There weren’t many inside, and only one was in a sealed envelope.
The flap brushed the soldier’s hand as Yanko levitated the envelope out, and he winced, certain the touch would be noticed. The courier started to glance down, but Arayevo rushed up to him and said something
while pointing toward the door. Asking if this was the right train?
Yanko took advantage of her distraction and swept the envelope away from the courier as he closed the flap and threaded the strap through the buckle again. He thought about attempting to fix the lock, but as the envelope landed in his grip, a shadow moved at his side.
A man lunged in and caught his wrist. Kei squawked and launched into the air, wings flapping crazily.
Yanko jumped back, twisting his wrist to break away. But it didn’t work. The newcomer had a grip like steel, and Yanko almost stumbled to the ground when that hand didn’t give.
The man barked something, and the courier whirled around. Yanko expected a uniformed soldier, but he’d been caught by the blond man in black who’d stepped off the train earlier.
As that grip tightened painfully and his bones were in danger of breaking, Yanko reacted on instinct. Using his powers, he threw an image of fire into the man’s mind, as he’d done several times to scare assailants into leaving him alone.
Not only did the man not react but his grip tightened, and he stepped closer. Another strong hand came up to grasp the back of Yanko’s neck, fingers digging in like daggers.
Arayevo shouted, and Yanko glimpsed her and Lakeo running toward him, but a woman and several soldiers lunged into their path, intercepting them. The clash of steel rang in Yanko’s ears. Once again, he tried to launch a magical attack at his assailant, buffeting him with a harsh wind. It ruffled the man’s short blond hair and clothing, but he didn’t loosen his grip. Instead, his fingers tightened even more, and pain blasted into Yanko’s concentration. He couldn’t focus to try another magical attack, so he resorted to the physical, jerking his knee up toward his attacker’s groin.
Not only did he not connect, but before he grasped what was happening, his legs were kicked out from under him. He landed hard on his back, the man dropping a knee on his chest and shifting his hand so he could keep his grip on Yanko’s throat. That grip tightened, this time cutting off his air supply. The man ripped the envelope from his hand and looked at it. His face was cold and utterly impassive, as if he were waiting for a train rather than choking someone to death.
Assassin’s Bond: Chains of Honor, Book 3 Page 8
