by Jaine Fenn
“Yet here we are. If the boy won’t speak I’ll ask you. Is he Etyan?”
“He is, damn you,” said the woman. “And if you want him you’ll have to come through me.”
“That’s an option.”
The fallen man coughed; blood sprayed from his mouth. Jeg’s blow must have damaged something inside. Cal frowned at him then said, “I don’t think you’ll make it home, my friend. You’ve got a long slow death ahead of you, I fear. Let us help.” He looked up and murmured, “Dej, finish him.”
Dej stared, shocked and unsure. The masked woman gasped. The boy huddled close to her; Dej had never seen anyone look so scared.
Beside her Jeg growled, “You deaf, girl?”
Jeg said she was too reluctant to commit in a fight, that she was squeamish. Now she had to prove otherwise.
Dej knelt. The man on the floor was muttering under his breath, blowing bubbles of blood. Coward: he was begging for mercy. She couldn’t afford to show mercy. No, this was mercy, as Cal had said. And to survive, she must do what Cal said. For now.
She knew where the heart was. She brought her knife round to his chest. Then she pushed it in, hard.
The knife, lacking a point, caught. She hammered the pommel, driving it in. The blade broke skin, sawed past bone, buried itself in softness. Blood welled. The man’s muttering become loud enough for Dej to make out the words “…in the hands of the First….” before his breath hitched and stuttered, making a hard huh-huh-huh sound, then wheezing away. He’d been praying, not begging. His body went slack, and a last surge of red rose around the knife. She smelled blood and shit and a nameless absence.
Cal and the woman were still talking, but she couldn’t look away from the man she’d just killed. It had been easy. He hadn’t fought back. He’d been defenceless.
Overhead Cal said, “As you wish. You’ll be the guarantee.” Then to Vas, “Bring them both.”
Beside her Jeg muttered, “Come on, girl,” and kicked her, just hard enough to break the spell. Dej began to struggle to her feet. “Your knife!”
Cal and his captives moved past her – the woman was coming as well, it appeared. None of them looked at her. Dej tugged the knife. It came free with a gush of dark blood. There being nothing else to clean it on she wiped the knife on the dead man’s clothing.
She stood on legs suddenly too long for her. The two shadowkin had been bundled up in cloaks and were being pushed out the wagon door. Dej followed, the last to leave. As she emerged from between the rhinobeasts, she tried to sheathe her knife. But her hands trembled, and the handle was sticky with blood. She leant over, bracing her free hand on her thigh, and threw up.
Chapter 47
I’m dreaming. This is a nightmare. Any moment now I’ll wake up.
But Rhia knew better.
Even through the cloak – made of supple leather, unlike the caravan skykin’s woven ones – the air burned. She squinted out from under the hood as they emerged onto the road. The world was unbelievably bright, fine details seared to vague white – and that was with an overcast sky.
The rogue skykin filed up the road, taking her and Etyan with them; the caravan skykin hung back, letting them go.
Any moment now Yrif would order her people to attack, and mount a rescue.
Again, Rhia knew better. The rogues outnumbered Yrif’s people, and the seer had to put the safety of the caravan first. If saving it meant sacrificing some of the travellers, she would. The duke’s logic: the few suffer so the majority may thrive.
As they left the caravan behind, Etyan dodged out of the line and began to run back down the road.
“Etyan! No!” What was he thinking?
A hand clamped round Rhia’s arm. Something whistled off to one side and Etyan went down with a shriek. He had managed less than a dozen steps.
Someone grasped Rhia’s other arm. She turned to say they could stop that, as she had no intention of trying anything, and found herself facing the bandit who had killed Lekem. Female, by the look of her chest, and with something about her eyes that made Rhia think she was young.
The rogues retrieved Etyan. They’d brought him down with a string between weighted gourds – bolas; she had read of such weapons.
The rogue’s leader, a male, came over and addressed Etyan, “I didn’t realize you were an idiot.” He drew his dagger. “Perhaps we need to be clearer, spell things out.” He stepped up to Rhia and brought his knifepoint up to her neck. Rhia stiffened but didn’t flinch. “If you misbehave, she suffers.” This man was a bully. She hated bullies.
He stepped back, sheathing his knife. To the rest of the group he said, “Just in case these two are as dumb as they seem, let’s keep a tighter rein on them.”
A skykin came forward with a coil of dark fibrous rope, and tied Rhia’s hands together in front of her with one end, then did the same to Etyan, who stood like all hope, all fight, had gone out of him. The skykin girl took the middle of the rope, leaving Etyan and her to be dragged along like the helpless baggage they had become.
As they set off again Rhia heard the caravan moving away behind them. She refused to despair.
When they came up to the head of the pass they left the road, skirting the plateau’s edge. They were heading east, or perhaps northeast. Rhia watched her footing, aware of how the life out here could hurt her. Etyan reeled and stumbled. He fell twice, once with a yelp, once in silence, and had to be helped up by their captors.
Why was this happening? These rogues, these bandits were a poor-looking lot; one of them, who was walking up front with the leader, appeared half dead. Someone must be offering them a reward for Etyan’s capture. Had whoever hired the men in the priory also hired these skykin? It had to be someone with influence. And she still had no idea why. What made her brother so valuable?
They carried on when darkness fell, leaving the plateau to head along a rocky gorge. Although the rain had thinned to a light drizzle, the ground was soaked, the rocks slippery. Rhia feared for her ability to get through such terrain in the dark with her hands tied, and was relieved when the bandits stopped and made camp. Bizarrely, the first stage of this involved rummaging around amongst tumbled rocks for half-buried baskets, one for each bandit. How far had they come, to need to leave so many supplies? Could they not live off the land, as the caravan skykin did? The ripe, meaty smell from the baskets added further mystery.
The skykin girl handed the rope to another bandit and went to retrieve her basket. This second bandit told Rhia and Etyan to sit. Rhia was glad to, and even gladder when the younger skykin returned with a waterskin, which she offered round.
The girl pointed to her satchel. “What’s in there?” She sounded as young as Rhia had thought, though also like she was trying to be fierce.
“Just papers.”
“Papers?” From her tone this girl had even less respect for learning than Etyan did.
“Yes. And when you ransom me I’ll be a lot more valuable if I still have them.”
The skykin sounded dubious. “Let me see.”
Rhia was in no position to object. The young rogue knelt next to her and rummaged around in her satchel; even if this skykin could read, in this darkness she would not be able to see what the papers said. When the girl pulled out the sightglass, Rhia bit her lip.
“What’s this, then?”
“Just a toy. A trinket.”
The skykin shook the sightglass, held it up to look at – though not through – and finally said, “Looks pointless.”
Rhia was not going to argue. The skykin glanced across to where their leader was directing the building of a fire, a task made harder by the persistent damp. Then she strode over to where her basket was propped against a rock and put the sightglass in it, placing it with unexpected care. “It’s safe with me,” she assured Rhia. Rhia doubted that, but bit her tongue.
Once the fire was lit, cloth-wrapped meat was taken from backpacks and rolled into the flames. The smell of cooking made Rhia’s stomach grumb
le. Their guard stayed close. When she was called over to fetch food Rhia hissed to Etyan, “We’ll get out of this, I promise.”
“I can’t see how.” His tone was desolate.
“Do you have any idea who hired these bandits?”
“No. Wish I did.”
Their young guard returned with a roll of meat which she was already tearing into. As she finished her meal she looked over and shrugged, which was not a gesture Rhia had seen any other skykin make. “We don’t have any shadowkin food.”
This struck Rhia as bad planning, though she said nothing.
Another of the rogues called the girl called over. The two of them came back shortly afterwards and re-tied her and Etyan’s hands behind their backs. Then they bound them together back-to-back, wrapped in a single cloak.
Etyan held himself tense during the process but when their captors moved off she felt his shoulders, pressed into hers, begin to shake. She reached for his hands, and managed to catch hold of his bound fingers; he grasped at her hand so hard she winced.
“It’s a nightmare, Ree.” His voice was a tearful whisper.
Having thought the same earlier, she decided not to point out that nightmares ended in thankful waking. Instead, she searched for hope. “The duke will hear of this, and act.”
“Hear of it how?”
“Mella and Preut – the, ah, lady of the night and her brother – they’re his agents. They’ll report to the duke as soon as the caravan reaches Shen. We’re in Shenese jurisdiction on this side of the mountains.”
“Even this far from home?”
“Yes.” Rhia answered with more certainty than she felt; the extension of a shadowland’s influence into the skyland nearby was a nebulous arrangement the skykin barely acknowledged, and Rhia did not recall it ever being tested. But they needed all the comfort they could get.
“And how will anyone find us out here?”
Rhia had been thinking the same. And she was not going to share Sorne’s admission that the duke would rather his relatives were dead than used against him as political hostages. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “but he will come for us. Until he does we have to stay alert, act smart and not lose hope.”
“I’ll try.”
Unless she wanted to give him unrealistic reassurances there was nothing more to say. She kept hold of his hand until his breathing evened out and he released her fingers.
Rhia thought she would be too uncomfortable to sleep, but finally she fell into an uneasy dream-haunted doze.
Chapter 48
Whenever she closed her eyes, Dej saw blood, welling up round her knife. Cal would’ve noticed how she hesitated today. At the time she’d only cared about proving herself, but now she wondered if he’d set her up. The order to kill had been quiet; she doubted the shadowkin had heard it. But they’d seen who stabbed the defenceless man. That they were probably doing him a mercy wasn’t what the shadowkin would remember. They’d remember what she did, not why. And if the shadowkin came looking for the clanless who’d struck the lethal blow, she had no doubt Cal and Mar would give her up.
Assuming she didn’t fuck up again before then. Looking after the prisoners was humiliating work, but it was work she had to do right. She probably shouldn’t have taken the shadowkin woman’s wooden tube, but it was some small thing for herself, and no one would challenge her taking it.
The next day the rain was back, harder than ever. According to campfire chatter last night, it didn’t usually rain here, at least not like this.
After the rope was nearly jerked out of her hand when the boy prisoner stumbled yesterday, and knowing the sort of country ahead, Dej decided to re-tie the pair along the rope rather than at the ends, leaving them a free hand to reduce the chance of falling over. Lih had made it clear that Dej had to get approval for any decision, no matter how trivial, so she discussed it with her hut-mate first, gritting her teeth at Lih’s insistence that she double-check the knots.
The shadowkin had to be helped to their feet, and the woman had a rash on her chin where she’d got stung or bitten overnight. She watched Dej re-tie the rope in silence. The boy barely noticed what was going on. He looked so miserable. Pretty though, better looking than any of the boys in the crèche, though with that oddness about him. Seen side-by-side, the two shadowkin looked similar; crèche tattle said that was the case with relatives, so maybe they were related. Mother and son? No, the woman wasn’t that old. Brother and sister, then? Whoever the woman was, she cared about the boy enough to risk her life for him.
Dej quashed that line of thought. She couldn’t afford to think of these shadowkin as people. They were booty, and a test she had to pass.
Rhia lowered her hand from scratching her itchy chin, then rubbed at her other wrist where the rope chafed. The backs of her hands were sore and hot to the touch.
“Leave the rope alone!” Their guard turned. She must have felt the rope jerk. Rhia held her free hand up to show she wasn’t trying to escape. Where would they go, out here? She glanced behind, where Etyan staggered along, eyes on the ground.
At least the Sun was still behind clouds, though the rain was so persistent that the leather cloak had soaked through, leaving her sweltering in warm dampness. At one point, straightening from hauling herself up between two boulders, she almost threw her hood back, just to get some air. Fortunately, common sense cut in.
The land here was barren but not lifeless. Knobbly hand-sized patches of something like lichen spattered the grey rocks with mauve and dark green. Touching one in passing she noted how it gave then sprang back; she was reminded of the bath sponge she had bought from a merchant who claimed to have got it from the skyland. Perhaps he had. And as she heaved herself across a tilted slab, she saw movement in a crack in the rock, something as long as her arm, turning sinuously.
Whatever else, she was seeing the skyland by day. Few shadowkin did that and lived.
The gorge widened, allowing for the growing stream running down its centre. The skykin veered up the slope, until they were walking along the valley’s side, halfway between stream and skyline.
The land opened out further, and then the valley floor dropped away. The stream tumbled over a rocky lip to disappear into a dark ravine. The distant thunder of water came from below, along with puffs of fine mist.
The valley side was covered in low vegetation, a saffron-coloured grasslike plant with patches of dark orange. It smelled a bit like wild thyme and was thin and springy enough to step on, though slippery in the damp. The slope was made more treacherous by rocky outcrops varying in size from a person’s head to a small house.
The bandits leaned left, into the slope, as they traversed it. Rhia followed suit, careful to step where their jailer did. Even so, several times her feet slipped, and she had to catch herself on the slope, grabbing at the sort-of grass for purchase.
The rope jerked again. Dej looked back to see the shadowkin woman making heavy weather of the slope. Dej looped the rope tighter around her wrist. If the stupid cow fell there’d be trouble. She should have used two separate ropes, one for the boy and one for the woman, and made the boy go ahead rather than dragging along at the back. That way if the woman fell, she could let her go without risking the main prize. Too late now.
Not that they’d be her problem much longer. Once they were through this valley Cal, together with half a dozen hunters and the outcast guide, would cut northwest to drop the captives off at the eastern edge of Zekt, from where they’d return loaded down with food. Mar hadn’t been lying when she said they didn’t steal food from the shadowkin; they got paid in it by shadowkin who needed agents out in the skyland. To hear the clanless talk, this job was the most important for years.
Dej would head northeast with the bulk of the clanless. Gel had been one of the dozen or so clanless who’d stayed at the settlement, so Dej hoped she’d get to pathfind the way back, though if the clanless had raided the caravan before they probably knew the route. She realized she’d already adju
sted to Kir’s death. Forgiving herself was another matter.
The mountains enfolded her, and while her feet found their way she took comfort in the land’s stable, uncritical endurance. Soil over rock; plants binding soil. Stable, fixed, safe.
And then it wasn’t.
Far upslope, a tiny movement at first, sodden roots and earth easing free of the bedrock below. Easing became slipping became ripping, the movement slow as a falling leaf, inevitable as a dropped stone.
She stopped dead.
Between one breath and the next, the weight of sodden soil and plants pulled a huge slab of ground away from the mountain.
Landslide! Dej threw herself down flat.
The roar of tearing earth drowned out the thunder of water from below. Someone shouted. Everything slid away. Dej began to slide with it, fingers digging into the treacherous ground even as it shifted under her. Soil and small stones pelted her. But she had a grip on the land. She could ride this out.
Or so she thought.
Something pulled at her wrist, tugging her free of the slope. She fell faster, no longer moving with the land but half falling, half tumbling, grasping at the stupid scrap of rope tied round her wrist just for something to grab onto.
She was heading for the ravine. She was going to die. No! I got this far, I can’t die like this!
She hit something. Bounced off. A moment later her wrist jerked upwards. She cried out and got a mouthful of mud.
Debris rained over her. But she was no longer falling.
I’m falling, I’m going to die!
Rhia flailed for purchase. There was none. She was turning even as she hurtled down the slope.
Falling!
This is it, I’m–
Not falling.
Breath exploded out of her. She’d landed on something soft and damp over something hard and unyielding. Something safe. She inhaled and pressed herself into mud while the mountain washed past her.
