“Sig?” Adam’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Come on, neshama. Stay with me. Focus.”
Her eyes snapped open. “We need an exit strategy,” she said, simply, as the guards, very much alerted now, walked up and down the halls of the cells. “But even if we get out of the cells . . . he’ll track us.”
“One thing at a time,” Adam told her, his dark eyes on the guards. “Be distracting, mami.”
“You mean, I should be rude?” A brief quirk of humor, as she began to regain her mental equilibrium. No, this god wasn’t Tlaloc. But he also wasn’t Tyr. That much, too, was true. In spite of the overwhelming aura that he possessed . . . he didn’t have Tyr’s presence.
“Yes, Sig. Be very, very rude.” Adam’s lips quirked up.
Sigrun called her power to her. Let light well out of her rune-marks, head down, as if meditating, and let the blinding white light grow and spread. The other prisoners in the cells began to shout in alarm, covered their eyes once more, and backed away from the bars. And the guards, equally alarmed, moved towards her, pointing their muskets, shouting orders at her in their native language, as they squinted into the brilliance. A good thing I have so many scars, Sigrun thought, distantly. Else I could not make so bright a light.
Behind the guards, Adam had slipped his own feet over his manacles’ chain . . . and now moved, fast, sliding his bound hands between the bars of the door, snapping the chain around the throat of the closest guard. Yanking the man back into the bars and strangling him. The musket went off with a cacophonous bang, and the ball slammed into the wall of Sigrun’s cell, sending stone chips into her skin. The second guard, stunned, whipped his head back and forth, indecisive for an instant, and then turned away to raise his gun at Adam . . . who kept the body of the other guard between him and the second, even as the man kicked and fought, his face turning purple from loss of air. The free guard spun back, trying to aim at Sigrun . . . who had already brought her hands to her feet and stepped directly on the chain of the manacles. She might not be able to snap the chain behind her with the power of her arms alone—the leverage points weren’t quite right, even for a bear-warrior—but with her leg and arm strength together? More than adequate. She tried to call her spear to her. It was blood-bound to her, and she was used to it coming at her call. It took her a disgruntled moment to realize she wasn’t in a line of sight of the weapon, followed by a brief instant in which she thought, Wait, didn’t it come directly to my hand in Judea in spite of walls . . . ? No time for the thoughts, however, With an irritated shake of her head, Sigrun reached for the bars of her cell door, and pulled, just as the man fired on her.
She twitched aside, somehow, the bullet only skimming along her left shoulder. Blood welled, but she knew that it would heal. Wrought iron in her hands, cold and brittle, for a metal. She hauled back on it, and it snapped in half at the center of the door. Sigrun evaluated the piece of metal in her hand for an instant, even as the guard began to back away, shouting for help . . . and threw it, like a javelin. Her makeshift spear went through the man’s throat, and he fell to the ground, clutching at the improvised weapon. Sigrun realized, at that moment, that this had been the man who’d made eye-contact with her, before, when she’d commented that this wasn’t a tour. She knew that in his heart, he was guilty of nothing more than a little moral cowardice and human frailty. He’d followed orders, rather than die, and maybe see his family die, too. Hardly worth a man’s life. But she for damned sure wasn’t going to give hers for him. His death; her choice. But she could at least meet his eyes as the light left them. Silent apology.
Then she wrestled with the door, pulling the bars apart, and wiggled though the space she’d created, even as Adam let the deadweight of his own guard drop to the floor. Sigrun allowed the light in her flesh fade, as she dropped to her knees and found key at the belt of one of the dead guards. Fumbled them into the door of Adam’s cell, and finally got it open, before finding a smaller key for their respective manacles. Then she turned and tossed the keys to one of the other prisoners in the cells, who caught the ring with a dumbfounded expression on his face, as if he could not quite believe in the possibility of hope. People began to stream out of the cells, dazed, confused, and unsure of what to do with freedom. Reprieve.
“Where are we going?” Adam asked, picking up one of the muskets with distaste, and loading it with the supplies at the guard’s belt. Powder, shot . . . no ramrod, so he just tapped the butt against the floor. Quick, expert motions. “What I wouldn’t give for my own weapons,” he added in a terse mutter as he loaded the second, and handed it to her, even as she yanked another piece of wrought iron free. It wouldn’t make a good spear. It wouldn’t even make a good staff, to be honest. But it was a weapon.
“I do not know. Asha . . .” Sigrun paused, looked around vaguely for a moment, and then pointed. “Her presence came from that direction. I think.”
“As good a way to go as any,” Adam agreed, and grabbed a knife from the waist of one of the dead guards. “Let’s go. Let me go ahead. I can manage a little more stealth than you can.”
Sigrun darted a glance at him. “I thought, after the alu-demons, that you weren’t going to complain about my light anymore.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m observing.” Adam caught her hand and kissed the back. “We might be up against a mad emperor, his cronies, and a god, Sig. But we’re fighting in pretty good company.” He wasn’t disregarding the enormity. Far from it. “We’re going to get through the night. We’re going to get out of here. And we’re going to do that, and get Minori and Lassair back, too.”
Assurance in his voice. Sigrun squeezed his fingers, and accepted the morale boost for what it was. Adam was a damned fine leader. He could make the impossible seem doable, with just a few words, and his personal guarantee that he’d be right there beside you. To the end.
Just as they headed for the door, two more guards, alerted by the noises, entered the prison area, and the other prisoners all tackled them, wrestling their muskets away before they could be fired. In the confusion, Adam and Sigrun left . . . and realized that they were inside a massive stone structure. Halls and doorways everywhere. Ley-lamps hung on the walls from brackets once intended for torches. Hide rugs on the floor, in place of more luxurious, woven carpets. “Sky,” Sigrun muttered. “I need the sky, Adam. I can fly us to Lassair, if we can just get out of this building without being caught.”
“Sky is what you want, sky is what you get. This way. I think.” Adam’s eyes were devoid of expression now, and he moved ahead of her into every room. Killing guards from behind, snapping necks, slashing throats. Sigrun followed behind him, noisy musket unfired in her hands. Behind them, turmoil. Alarms, as guards ran towards the prison, only to have Adam and Sigrun emerge from doorways and put them down. The escaping prisoners were a wonderful distraction, but Sigrun wanted to give those people as much of a real chance at freedom as she could.
And then, solely by chance, they actually found a door that led outside.
It was night past that door, a testament to how long the flight from Cuzco, and the fight to get out of the building had been. Black sky, bereft of stars; a thick pall of cloud-cover, marked solely by a lighter patch, through which the full moon tried to peer. Behind them, light and pandemonium. Bells ringing, voices shouting, as the whole facility looked inwards towards the prison that they’d just left. No trees outside, but downhill of them, dozens—no, hundreds of lights. A small city, a maze of huddled stone buildings.
“Need cover,” Adam said, tersely as they moved out of the arch of the doorway, into the darkness. Light snow on the ground, crunching under their feet.
“Someplace to hide while we figure out our next move,” Sigrun agreed, her breath forming in a white cloud ahead of her. “There.” She pointed up the face of the mountain, to the next ridge, and the building there. Lassair’s presence came from more or less their left, but was distant. This building was . . . perhaps north of them. Hard to tell, without s
tars for a reference.
Adam stared at the building. Three-tiered, each tier far longer than it was wide. “Sig?”
“Yes?”
“That’s an ushnu. A libation and offerings place.”
“Yes. But usually not a sacrifice place, if Tren was right.” Sigrun swallowed. “This should be the last place they’ll look. And less risky than the town. And then we decide on a course of action that . . . takes us to our people.” I hope.
Adam paused. “Sig? Asha has no problem seeing us a mile away, most days. How do we know that that entity isn’t watching us? Toying with us?”
Sigrun closed her eyes for a moment. She wished he hadn’t said that. “We don’t.”
Adam exhaled. “Yes . . . I was afraid you’d say that. All right. Let’s move, then.”
___________________
Trennus and Kanmi had had a busy afternoon. Once they’d secured all of their prisoners, Trennus had watched, his mind dull and incurious at first, as Kanmi questioned them. He didn’t trust himself to be the one asking the questions. That being said, after the first two, he wasn’t sure if Kanmi were fully in control of himself, either. The technomancer had worked his way up through the ranks of the tower guards, starting with no more than a couple of broken fingers to get the various guards to point out their supervisor. And with the supervisor, Kanmi was far less gentle. There was no enjoyment in Kanmi’s face. Just grim purpose and black anger, as he asked the tower supervisor, “Did you have orders to kill us, or take us captive?”
“Standing orders were . . . to capture anyone who tried to get into the tower . . . .”
“Where would prisoners have been taken? Which of the towers connected to this one is the main complex?” Kanmi was biting off the words. He had the man by the throat, had him pinned to the wall with loops of metal over wrists and ankles.
“Don’t . . . don’t know . . . .”
Trennus didn’t need Sigrun’s truthsense to know that one was a lie. Just then, Lassair’s frantic voice reached him, and he swayed. “A mountain! Esh, she says they’re on a mountain. She can feel the dormant fires underneath it . . . volcano. She says the name is—” The words, which had been tumbling out of his mouth, stopped, as Trennus blinked, rapidly. He could still feel Lassair. Dimly. But he couldn’t hear her at all.
“Well?” Kanmi asked, impatiently.
“I can’t hear her. She’s been cut off somehow. Maybe sealed in a jar for all I know.” Trennus’ hands began to shake again, and a growl of frustration escaped him. “I can feel her. She’s . . . southeast of here. I could follow that line like a hound, Esh, but we have to go.”
“And get there how? On foot? Commandeer a bus? When we get there, what are the defenses?” Kanmi rapped out. “What’s waiting for us? How many men? Matru, think.” The dark eyes glittered. “What’s the name of that volcano that had a tower on it? Corona-something?”
“Coropuna,” Trennus replied, automatically. He’d spent hours analyzing the geology of the area, the ley-grid, everything, since arriving.
Cocohuay, sitting on the desk, watching the proceedings, chimed in, unexpectedly, “There are two temple complexes on Coropuna. Maucallacta and Achaymarca. Achaymarca has two hundred buildings around the temple, and a long trail leading up to the glaciers, to the ancient sacrifice site, where capacocha was carried out.” This meant, of course, the rite in which children had been sacrificed to the mountain gods, left to the elements, or struck with a stone club. Her lined face was infinitely tired. “A hundred children a year were sacrificed to Supay, the death god, and still he hungered for more. Till Rome came.”
Kanmi swore under his breath. “My ancestors did much the same,” he admitted, grimly. “So, that would be an ancient place of power. Fits with the usual blood-binding and sacrifice we’ve seen before.” He looked over at Trennus. “But I remember you saying the other name. Mau . . . whatever.”
“Maucallacta,” Trennus said, emptily. “It’s the place that has the ushnu. It’s considered a place of power, where oracles have dwelled for centuries. The tower’s built closer to it, than to the other site. But both are within about five miles of each other. But rugged terrain.”
“Thirteen thousand feet up the side of a volcano that is over five hundred miles away,” Cocohuay acknowledged, her lids low over her eyes. “We will not be climbing that path easily.”
“And we still don’t know which location,” Kanmi said, that black rage simmering behind his eyes again. Trennus watched him, blankly, as the Carthaginian turned and looked at the supervisor. “You have one more chance to answer. Which complex would prisoners be taken to? Which one is the main facility associated with this tower system?”
The prisoner shook his head, an expression of terror crossing his face. Kanmi exhaled, and raised his right hand. “You’re not giving me much choice here,” he said, grimly. “I hope you weren’t too fond of your face. You’re about to lose it.” He incanted, and the air began to freeze in a mask over the man’s face. Kanmi delicately avoided the nostrils, but even the eyes were entombed under the growing mask of nitrogen ice.
The screams were no less terrible for being muffled. Trennus stared at Kanmi. He’d never seen this side of his friend before, and, at any other time, he might have been disquieted. At the moment? Trennus didn’t care what Kanmi did, so long as it got results.
After thirty seconds—enough time to kill a wart on human skin, Kanmi let the mask dissipate into smoke. The man’s face was almost dead white underneath; the first and second layers of skin were, quite probably, dead tissue now. Kanmi caught the man’s jaw in iron fingers, and said, grimly, “I’m done being gentle. Which facility would prisoners be taken to? What are the defenses like? What can we expect there?”
The man hesitated. Kanmi clenched his fingers. “Answer me, or the next batch of liquid air goes down your windpipe and dry-cleans your lungs.”
“Maucallacta! Maucallacta is the main facility! Oh, gods, please, stop him!” The man was imploring Cocohuay, who folded her arms across her chest and looked stern and saddened at the same time, like a disappointed grandmother. “You don’t know what they’ll do to me!”
“Kill you?” Kanmi said, his voice disinterested.
“Worse! They’ll give me to the supay and let them dine on my flesh while I live!”
Trennus looked up at that. He knew that the word supay meant both the god of death, and a group of demonic spirits that made their home in caves and mines in the region. They were subject to Supay himself, according to lore. He shook his head. “Is the entire area warded? Is the whole area a giant spirit-trap, like the Lines?” His voice sounded flat to his own ears.
“I . . . I don’t know. I was only there once. They took me before the high priest of Supay. He’s was marked out for the god since birth, they say, and the god has taken him. I was . . . sealed to the god.” The man’s voice was frantic. “They said the god would see through my eyes. Would know if I betrayed them and their secrets.”
Kanmi glanced at Trennus, who shrugged. “Did they take blood from you?” Trennus asked, remotely. He didn’t actually care. The only thing that mattered was getting out of here, and he couldn’t do that without Kanmi. He chafed at it, but Kanmi was right. They did need more information.
“Yes. They used needles in the penis, like the blood sacrifices of old.”
A muscle twitched in Kanmi’s face. Trennus shrugged again. “He’s probably blood-bound. That’ll let a spirit keep track of him. A normal spirit couldn’t see through his eyes. I don’t know about a god, though.”
“Either way, we’ve got confirmation. We need to figure out how to get there. The only one of us who can fly a damned ornithopter is ben Maor, and guess who’s not here?” Kanmi grimaced, and turned back to their captive. “This Supay. He’s there? Is he bound to anything besides his god-born?”
A frightened, uncomprehending look. “I . . . I don’t understand—”
“Answer the question! Does he wander around like he o
wns the place? Does he fly around in the sky in a gods-be-damned chariot? Is he free or is he bound?”
Kanmi’s voice had become a snarl, and Trennus caught his arm and dragged Eshmunazar away for a moment. “I know why I’m angry,” Trennus said, and again, it was as if he were watching himself, from a distance. Observing his body go through the motions. “You’re supposed to be the calm one right now.” And Kanmi had been, in the main. He’d been stable and calm enough to let Trennus ground himself, but it was like children playing on a teeter-totter. One went up, the other went down. “What’s the problem?”
A glare, and at first, Kanmi wouldn’t answer. After a moment, a tight grimace. “I gave her my word, Matrugena. I swore we’d keep her safe. That I’d keep her safe. First time I turn my back? Baal’s teeth, Trennus. I gave her my word, and I let her down. This is my—” He cut himself off, but Trennus knew what the last word would have been. Fault.
No more yours than mine, he thought, but couldn’t say the words out loud. He just nodded. “Keep it together. We’ve got a location.”
“Next step, transport. Think any of these guys can fly an ornithopter?”
“Find a volunteer. I have work to do here. And when I’m ready, we’re probably going to have to release these men from the tower.”
“Release them? What the fuck for?” Kanmi’s voice was furious. “They’re all part of this, Trennus. They might be pawns, but they’re all in on it. Let them hang here for a day. Let them rot.”
Trennus had been staring into the mid-distance, at the ley-lines and energies that he alone could see. “Because I don’t think the tower’s going to be standing when I’m done,” he said, grimly. “This tower is the hub of the wheel. It’s the stable center around which all else turns. Breaking it won’t break the whole wheel. But it’ll start destabilizing the whole system. So . . . yes. I’m going to break this tower. I’m going to free every damned one of the spirits in the Lines. Good, bad, ugly, indifferent. I’m going to learn their Names. And the backlash from their confinement being broken is probably going to weaken the containment at the towers.”
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 109
