by K. F. Breene
Xavier pushed himself up somehow, his big shoulders bunching under Leilius’ arms. A knee came over the edge before the big kid was crawling up onto the roof.
“Wow.” Leilius backed up and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Good job.”
“Let’s go.” Xavier’s chest heaved from exertion.
Off they went again, covering a huge area before they hit another gap larger then they could easily jump or hop over. Panting from fatigue, Leilius put his hands on his hips before he stared down at a unique-looking ladder. At the end the rope was connected to a little anchor-like thing in the roof.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones who thought of getting around this way…” Leilius looked around the rooftops, but only saw chimneys and the encroaching night.
“Get down!”
Leilius’ shirt tugged him downward until Xavier let go. “What?”
Following Xavier’s pointed finger, he looked out over the edge of the building to the street. Walking down the middle were two men dressed in black. They were too far away to see if they were Inkna or Graygual.
“We’ll just wait until—” A light prod touched Leilius’ mind. It felt like a finger jabbing his brain. He barely had time for a shock of warning before a blast of needles tore through him. Spikes of hot metal pounded into his head while a meat cleaver chopped into his body. The pain made his jaw clench and body convulse. Blackness fizzled his thoughts, taking over him. He could barely breathe. He couldn’t feel his limbs.
He was going to die.
A new burning filled his mouth and coated his throat. He coughed and swallowed, barely feeling a hand on his face. Weakly, he batted at a palm covering his nose and mouth until the pain started to recede. His body slowly went numb. He’d let S’am down.
21
Shanti slowly dropped her hands, ignoring Rohnan’s thrust. Their gentle sparring to pass the time suddenly forgotten, she turned toward the distant city as her heart started to hammer. Leilius’ mind went blank. Xavier’s did the same a moment later.
Breath catching in her throat, she took two fast steps and put more power into her touch. Nothing. There was an emptiness where their minds should have been.
“No,” she breathed against the tears coming to her eyes. She felt the others, giving them a soft poke to make sure they were alive. Delight swirled up from Alena, cutting through her intense focus in the middle of the city, and relief came from the others who were making their way to the rear gate. Shanti didn’t know what Alena was doing, but she was sure it would help their cause. Alena didn’t do anything by halves. The others were right on target.
Trying to breathe through a tight chest, Shanti started pacing. She searched the area where they’d last been right before incredible pain took them. “I can’t feel Xavier and Leilius,” Shanti announced. “They’re gone. Their brain paths are black.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to her. Rohnan’s comforting hand on her shoulder was welcomed.
“You said they’d had some pain earlier,” Kallon said in a businesslike voice, purposefully showing no emotion, as was his job as her First Fighter. “Perhaps this is related and they have simply lost consciousness.”
Shanti thought back, shaking her head. “Xavier fought that enemy away, I’d bet my life on it. He got Leilius out of whatever they’d landed in. This was…different. A different kind of pain. This was Inkna.”
“The other wasn’t?” Sonson asked.
“No. That was physical. No Gift.” Tingles spread through Shanti’s body as adrenaline keyed up. Rage started to simmer, feeding on the fear that she had lost two people so dear to her heart that they were family.
She would not lose any more of her family. “I’m going after them.”
“No. Wait!” Rohnan’s hand turned into a hindrance. “We must wait. It is not time.”
“I don’t care what fucking time it is, Rohnan. I will not lose those boys, do you hear me? Not them.”
“Just to present all sides of the argument,” Sonson said with his hands out, “if they are already dead, going now might kill the rest of them, you, and this whole plan. If they are dead, there is no help you can give them.”
Shanti slapped Rohnan’s hand away and squared off with a straight-faced Sonson. “If they are dead, I will bring back their bodies so that we might give them a proper burial like they deserve. Alive or dead, I will not forsake them. I will not leave them in there to rot. I’ll go alone if I have to. I am not asking you to follow me.”
Sonson turned his palms toward the sky as a grin spread across his face. “Just making sure you thought this through. I’m ready.”
“You’re not alone, Chulan,” Kallon said. “I will follow.”
“If we wait a few hours, we will have nothing in our way,” Rohnan said in his annoyingly calm voice.
“If they aren’t dead, a few hours might be too late,” Sonson said, checking his weapons. “Besides, that is a huge city. We can drag people into the shadows for hours and kill them before anyone would have a clue. Wake everyone up.”
“This land is terrified of the Shadow.” Denessa tightened her sword belt. “Let’s show them why.”
“Chulan, you are thinking with your emotions, not your—”
Shanti slapped Rohnan’s hand off her shoulder again and smashed her fist into his jaw. “You try to hold me back one more time, Rohnan, and I will break your jaw the next time, got that? I’m going in. Those boys saved my life, and more importantly, they saved my soul. I am indebted to them more than I can ever repay. I will sacrifice everything for them. Do you understand me?”
“Just like old times,” Sayas said with a grin, standing by the road patiently.
Rohnan dropped his hand from his jaw and stared at her defiantly.
“Okay, then.” Shanti checked everything over and started jogging toward the city. She didn’t care who followed. She didn’t care if she was completely alone. She would either save those boys, or tear down that city in vengeance.
To her surprise, everyone filed in without a word. Expectation ran around their group and the occasional vicious grin crossed faces. Every member of this collection of people had lost someone at the Graygual hand. They’d suffered, they’d bled, and now they were finally hitting the Graygual where it would hurt the most. They were all ready. This had been a long time coming.
Another surge of tingles washed over her as they made their way through the sparse trees, using the pooling shadows to mask their movement. Silence reigned around them, their footsteps not making a sound to disturb the night. Every one of them was a master at their skill set and deadly with their steel. The Graygual wouldn’t know what hit them.
The girls were already near the gate when Shanti and the others moved into position. She could feel two other women with Ruisa and Maggie, along with three males.
“No Inkna at the gate, huh?” Sonson asked quietly, directly behind Shanti, masked only by a low cropping of bushes.
“They must be monitoring the guards,” Shanti reasoned. “With this level of defense, the Graygual wouldn’t get lax at the entrances to the city.”
“Then putting the guards down doesn’t seem like the best idea.”
“We’ll be through by the time someone comes to investigate.” Shanti moved through the night, fast and stealthy. At a jog, she ran across the open space and to the rear drawbridge. She let her Gift descend more heavily now, feeling for anyone that would see her. The guards were not close, but someone lingered at the top of the wall.
She glanced up in time to see a startled Graygual lean more heavily over the stone, trying to get a better look.
“I got this,” Sonson said with a rough voice.
With a shot of power, he drove a mental spike through the guard’s mind and then reversed somehow, quickly draining the man of energy until he was almost catatonic. The warning and pulse of anxiety from the guard diminished until he seemed dull. If she hadn’t known better, she would assume he was no more than bored and idle
.
“Fantastic trick,” Shanti whispered as they reached the open gateway. Another guard, probably seeing the fall of the first, ran toward them.
“I learned that from an Inkna. They are ingenious in warfare. Had they been warriors, we might’ve had difficulty.” Sonson took to the other guard, striking him down as quickly as the first.
“We haven’t met those guarding Xandre yet.” Shanti motioned the rest of the group toward them, bringing them at a dead run.
She slipped inside the walls and took in the battlements at a glance. Stairs led up to the walls on each side. Sonson waited for his people, and then motioned a couple up. “Make those guards look lazy, and keep anyone else away,” he instructed in the Shadow language.
“There are two leaders now, huh?” Shanti asked as she waited for the remainder of her people to pass through the gate and file around to the pools of black, out of sight.
Sonson turned to her. Shadows mostly masked his grin. “Forgive me, Chulan. But we need revenge. I do not trust that you can live up to the terror of the land.”
Shanti felt a zing through the connection as everyone, Rohnan included, made it through the gate and stood silent. Arousal and lust poured out of the guardhouse to the right. The urgency to find the boys called to her. “You are nothing but a tall tale. When they realize you are only men, you’ll just be the enemy again. But us? We are dead men and women walking. We are ghosts and phantoms. We are back from the dead. Way scarier. And we’ve always been better.”
“I accept that challenge. Go hunt for the boys, but kill as many as you can. We’ll check in on Alena and kill as we go. Give us plenty of room. Whoever gets caught automatically loses.”
“We’ll all lose if someone gets caught,” Shanti said as she stepped toward the guardhouse. Ruisa and Maggie were in there somewhere, disgusted.
“Not necessarily. Let’s just hope the Captain shows up with my people at the right time.”
Shanti touched her hand to her heart. “Stay alive.”
Sonson touched his heart as well, before stepping forward and embracing her. “I’ll see you take the city, or I’ll see you in the next life.” He kissed her cheek. “Happy hunting.”
“Captain!”
Cayan turned on his horse without stopping. Whoever it was would catch up to him. He could barely feel Shanti’s pulsing Gift, flaring and throbbing. If it hadn’t been for the Joining, they’d be much too far away to feel anything. She was up to something, which meant she was no longer waiting for him. That meant something had gone wrong.
“Captain, Daniels has a message.” Tomous pulled his horse out of the trot. “The prisoner claimed that Xandre would recover him. That it was only a matter of time.”
Cayan’s horse stumbled on an unseen rock in the road. If only the moon were a few more days into its cycle. Its light was meager and visibility was poor. “He is an incredible asset. We know that. Hopefully we’ll be behind large walls before they come.”
“Daniels also says that they should put him to sleep for the battle. Just in case.”
Cayan nodded, bracing a hand on his thigh. The man was almost delirious with lack of sleep. It hadn’t got him talking much, as they’d hoped. Right now, though, they couldn’t do anything about it. Once this city was in their possession, they’d have more time to plan. That was when they’d need the information in that man’s head.
“Anything else?” Cayan asked, without sparing another glance. A surge rose up from Shanti. He knew that collection of emotions, however faint they were. She’d just killed.
He sucked in a breath and leaned forward on his horse, wishing he could run the horse hard all the way to the battle. They wouldn’t have long to go, but they’d arrive in the dead of night. They’d have to wait for dawn, when another large force of the Shadow were supposed to meet them. That was if the Shadow showed up at all. Daniels had not received a message from them. They might have their own battles to fight.
“He thought we might stop soon to rest the men and horses,” Tomous said hesitantly. “Just half a night…”
Half a night might be too long for Shanti. “We continue.”
Shanti shoved the Graygual into a closet and leaned against the door so it would latch. “Oops.”
“Think anyone was monitoring that one?” Kallon asked, coming out of a room at the back.
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
Maggie followed Kallon with an annoyed expression. Ruisa stood next to the guard slumped at the table, adjusting the supplies in her pouch. A woman dressed like a prostitute swapped out the drugged whisky, making it look like the man had passed out. She undid his fly and tossed a pink undergarment on the ground.
It seemed Ruisa and Maggie had enlisted the help of professionals. How, Shanti did not know, but she couldn’t hide her pride.
“We’re good?” Shanti got a nod from both girls, and a blank stare from the helper. “What about the other girl?”
“She’s adjusting the man in there.” Maggie jerked her head back to the room. Her mouth twisted in an uncomfortable expression. “These girls…service the guards a lot, I guess. They get food and stuff.” Maggie shrugged. “Anyway, they’ll make their way back. The Inkna on patrol know to leave them be.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Shanti directed the girls out of the door ahead of her.
“Why are you here so early?” Maggie asked quietly as they stepped out into the stillness of the night.
A surge of pain bled through Shanti’s middle. Rohnan shifted to their right. “Xavier and Leilius lost consciousness. I need to find them.”
Maggie’s lips thinned. Ruisa’s eyes went wide. Sorrow radiated from both of them, but neither of them said a word. It was as if they were afraid to ask what that might mean.
“You won’t be able to understand our communication, so just keep on your toes,” Shanti said, once again feeling the pull of urgency. “We’ll tap, touch, push, or shove you to get you in position. We will rarely speak. Yes?”
“Yes, S’am,” they both whispered.
“Sonson is headed toward Alena. We will go to where I last felt Xavier and Leilius. Do you know anything about this city that might help us?”
Maggie hooked a thumb at the prostitute coming out of the guardhouse. “She would. Ruisa can somewhat speak to her.”
“She doesn’t know the traders’ language all that well,” Ruisa said.
Shanti glanced at Tanna. Unless she was completely mistaken, this was the same dialect as the city they’d just come from.
Tanna stepped forward and said a few words. The woman answered, proving Shanti’s theory correct.
“Chulan.” Rohnan’s tone said that he was still sullen that she’d punched him. Some things had not changed since their youth. “Maggie and Ruisa haven’t slept. They are both dead tired. We should give them at least a few hours.”
Shanti nodded, feeling her own fatigue pulling at her limbs. She’d forced herself to sleep for a few hours while they had waited, but it hadn’t been enough. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time for more.
“I can handle it,” Maggie said quickly.
“We’ll need you tomorrow,” Shanti said. “Can these women give you a place to rest?”
“We can go back with her, I guess. The Inkna didn’t bother us on the way here. We just got a few disapproving looks.”
Ruisa adjusted her top, trying to cover up a little more.
“Okay. Go. Let yourself be consumed with fear if something goes wrong. I’ll find you near dawn if not before.” Shanti touched Ruisa’s shoulder, and then Maggie’s. “I don’t want to lose you girls. Be smart. And good work.”
“Yes, S’am,” Ruisa said with a small smile. Maggie nodded in acknowledgment.
Tanna turned back to them. “Let’s get further into the city and I’ll fill you in. Their curfew is strict. We shouldn’t see anyone but the enemy, and if we do, they won’t notice us. They’ll have their own terrors to escape.”
Shanti didn’t bothe
r voicing her acknowledgment. Instead, she reduced the spread of her Gift to the immediate area. An empty space greeted her, devoid of Graygual, Inkna, or anyone that might be out for the night. In a city this large, she should at least feel a stray cat prowling the night. But there was nothing.
She took off at a fast jog, not wanting to push her luck. When they reached the first building, she slunk into a small pocket and waited for everyone to make it across, then gave the signal for the rest to fan out. Some crossed the street quickly so they would line both sides. Picking up her pace again, she made a path to where she thought she had last felt the boys. From the different vantage point, she couldn’t be absolutely sure, but she hoped that somewhere within the area there would be some clue.
Two blocks up and she felt someone coming. A sole figure with the Gift, moving slowly down the middle of the street. Inkna.
She blasted a small warning. They slinked off to the sides and folded into the darkest shadows to wait. The scuff of a boot echoed down the still and quiet street. A soft light glowed, getting brighter as the Inkna came closer. His crisp black shirt front ate away some of the radiance in front of him. His pale skin seemed to glow. Thankfully, he was an idiot, made obvious by such a bright light on a dark night. He wouldn’t be able to see beyond that light with anything but his Gift. Soon he would be blind.
A surge rose from Sayas, informing her that he would take down the enemy.
Shanti felt a light poke to her brain. She left her shields down, inviting him to take a good look at the biggest monster prowling this night.
His foot stubbed against the ground. His light swung up near his face, showing her his frightened look, but doing nothing to help him see.
Sayas ran out behind the Inkna. His arm wrapped around the man’s chest and his knife ripped across his throat. Mela arrived a moment later, grabbing the falling body and helping to drag it, still convulsing, into the deeper shadows.
Shanti was jogging before the feet disappeared from view.
Around a corner, another mind entered her awareness. This wasn’t Gifted.
