by K. F. Breene
Shanti slowed and flattened, sliding up to the edge. A quick look told her it was a patrolling Graygual. He had the lantern, but no Gift.
A blast came from Mela this time. She was going to take knife duty.
Kallon and Sayas ran across the street, taking cover on the other side. A shout came from down the way, the Graygual having noticed the moving shadows. He didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into until he’d turned the corner. His chest smacked into Kallon.
Faster than thought, Kallon had his hands on the sides of the man’s face and twisted. The loud crack signaled the end of that Graygual.
Mela punched Kallon in the arm and flashed him a “what gives?” hand movement. Kallon shrugged in a “what was I supposed to do?” kind of way. She shook her head and helped hide the body.
Sayas held up two fingers to Shanti. They were taking Sonson’s bet seriously.
Shanti rolled her eyes but kept on, disposing of two more Inkna before they reached their destination. Once there, she moved around the base of the building and continued down the street, calling up a mental map in her head and trying to pinpoint where they were.
She felt a tap on her shoulder. Rohnan pointed down the street where another guard was moving, still outside her tight circle of Gift. He stopped where he was, staring off to the right.
Hope flooded through her. She started moving that direction. Before she could take two steps, however, something jetted out. The altercation was over in a moment. The enemy’s feet slid into the shadow.
Sayas put his hands on his hips. “They’re good, I’ll give them that.”
“We’re better,” Mela said, glancing up.
Shanti felt it. A presence above them, hardly detectable. Someone was on the rooftops.
Confusion taking over her, she jogged to a decorative stone outcropping on the building and quickly scaled the side. A figure walked along the roof, holding its stomach. Almost as though it was a whiff of scent, Shanti could detect the maleness of the person.
“What Gift is this?” Rohnan asked quietly, standing up next to her.
The figure stopped suddenly and turned their way. For a moment, each party stared at each other. Then the man fled.
“Hurry!” Shanti yelled, running after him. She tried to clutch his mind, but it was like grasping a fish in freezing waters. She couldn’t quite lock it down. Instead, she tried a light stab, hoping to knock him down so she could catch up.
Her power hit him and deflected, nothing more than a glancing blow. She tried again, but with more power. This deflect had the man staggering. Whatever was protecting him wasn’t good enough.
She threw another shot at him, making him fall to his knees. She was on him a moment later, tackling him. They rolled, body over body, stopping on a steeper grade before sliding toward the edge. Shanti let go of him and pushed him away, not wanting to go over with him. The roof tore at her fingers as she clutched at it, sliding to a painful stop. The man flailed and pitched over the edge.
Rohnan was there just in time, lying down on the corner and grabbing downward. He grunted, pulled.
“Help, Chulan!”
She was with him a moment later, ready to cut the man’s hand off to save her brother. It wasn’t necessary. The man was as still as a stone, looking up at them with an imploring look on his face.
Shanti reached down with an open hand. The man put his knife between his teeth and swung his hand up, clutching Shanti’s. Together, they pulled him up over the ledge and then dropped him, gasping, on the roof.
“What language?” Shanti asked in the traders’ dialect.
“This will work. Who are you?”
“What is over your mind that I can’t use my Gift on you?” Shanti asked.
“He is afraid and curious,” Rohnan said in a low tone. “I can barely feel it.”
Shanti couldn’t feel it at all.
“I recognize…are you a Shumas?” the man asked, this time with wonder in his voice.
Shanti sat back quickly, out of the reach of his knife.
“I do not recognize you… I have met your brethren.” Excitement rang in the man’s voice. “They are to the southwest. They were trying to make their way north, but the Graygual watch for them. Even coloring their hair, their mind power is easy for the Inkna to detect. They stay where they are, waiting for word of the Chosen. Of…the… Are you…?”
A thrill rang through Shanti, blocking out everything else. Rohnan grabbed her arm with a claw-like fingers, his desperation to see more of their people showing in his grip.
“Why are you here if they are there?” Shanti asked with a wispy voice.
“I am sticking to a central location. I wait for the Wanderer. The violet-eyed girl. She’s…one of them. One of… Are you…?”
He wouldn’t finish the sentence. He wouldn’t come out and ask. The reason behind that had Shanti hesitating.
“What is on your mind that prevents my power from reaching you?” Shanti tried again.
His face closed down and his lips tightened.
“He is distrustful. We have not identified ourselves. This city is divided.” Rohnan rose and backtracked a couple steps, picking up the knife where he had dropped it to dive for the man.
“This city is crushed under Graygual, Rohnan. Of course it’s divided. But until I know what we’re dealing with, I don’t want to show our hand.” To the man she said, “I am looking for two boys—young men. One is large, with big shoulders and well-defined muscle. The other is shorter, though not by much, and thin. Lanky, almost. Have you seen these boys—young men?”
An intense flare of terror rose from her light mental touch on Maggie.
“Flak!” Shanti swore, rising.
“I know where they are!” the man said in excitement.
Fear for the girls and elation both coursed through Shanti. “Rohnan, go with him. I will go to Maggie.”
“We shouldn’t split up, Chulan.”
The man rose and motioned them on. He started jogging across the rooftops.
“Flak,” Shanti swore again, looking down off the roof. Kallon waited just below. Down the street, around the corner from the Shadow’s kill, a pair of feet disappeared into a doorway.
“Kallon,” Shanti whispered down. “Kallon!”
He turned and backed up, looking at her. “The girls are in trouble and a man up here knows where the boys are. We must go. He takes the roof.”
Kallon glanced down the street to where their people were jogging back. She felt his mental equivalent of a sigh. Rooftops meant they’d be out of the contest. A moment later Sayas appeared over the edge, then Mela. The rest followed, one by one, until they all gathered.
“You are the Shumas, aren’t you?” the man said, having stopped when he realized the others weren’t following.
“Yes. Lead on. Some of us will follow. Some will go look for two girls that came with us.” Shanti motioned him to go.
“Oh, the ones with Tauneya? They’ll probably be in the same place.”
A wash of cold went through Shanti as she recognized that name, followed by another blare of terror from Maggie and Ruisa. “Hurry!”
22
Shanti climbed down the ladder and stopped beside a worn door with peeling paint. Litter rattled as the breeze caught it, making little flapping movements down the alleyway. The nondescript building was situated in what Shanti assumed was a bad part of town. She’d had to watch her step along the roofs to keep from falling through in some places.
“This way.” The man opened the door and stepped through. Light spilled into the alleyway, pushing the Shumas back against the wall.
Shanti pulled her sword as a flare of expectation came from Ruisa. She peered inside. A large room opened up before her. Worn and tattered couches and chairs lined the sides. Rugs, splotched with stains, covered the floor in layers, dotted with sleeping furs and bodies. Maggie and Ruisa sat next to each other near the door, still wearing their revealing clothes. Toward the back, each occ
upying a chair, sat Leilius and Xavier.
“What the bloody hell?” Shanti marched in the door, ignoring everyone else as she made her way to the two boys. Leilius flashed a grin that quickly melted away.
“S’am?” he asked, fear working into his expression as she got closer. “Are you—”
Shanti attacked him with a fierce hug, squeezing his bony frame as tightly as she could. She accosted Xavier next, unable to fit her arms around his upper body. She took a step back and then punched him in the chest.
“Ow, S’am.” Xavier rubbed his pec. “Why?”
“I thought you’d died! What happened?” Shanti demanded.
“We can’t have them in here,” someone said near the door. “They’ll find us.”
“So we meet again, eh?” A larger woman sauntered into the room with half her large bust hanging out of her top. She planted her fists firmly on her hips. “I tell you I be ready, no? Well now, here we are. You tell me the plan, and I tell you a better plan. Go.”
“Tauneya…how…?” Shanti shook her head, mystified that the prostitute from the Hunter’s camp so long ago would be in that city. “Did you save them?”
Tauneya glanced at Xavier and Leilius. “One of us found them. They running around like idiots. Inkna no need eyes to see.”
“Is this the Wanderer?” the man who had led them to the building asked. “I thought so, but she wouldn’t say. Yes, look! The violet eyes! I feel so lucky.”
“How are they doing it?” Shanti asked, ignoring the man.
“Here.” The man ran into another room.
“They fed us something, S’am,” Leilius said. “Inkna patrol. They must’ve felt us like you do sometimes, and then they tried to kill us, I’m sure of it. We didn’t get to see the gate. I tried to go out again, but they wouldn’t let me.”
“Tauneya knows about the guards around here,” Xavier said as the man ran back into the room holding a long black stick in his hand. “They’re all mapped out. And Ruisa is trying to poison them. Still, S’am…there are a lot of Graygual. At least five times as many as we have. If the Shadow don’t show up…”
Shanti took what looked like a black root from the man. “This disguises the mind?”
“Yes,” Tauneya said as she took a seat. She said something in another language. A man at the door ran out.
“They send lookout,” Tanna translated.
“That is cooked weed.” Tauneya pointed at the thing in Shanti’s hand. “Nasty weed. Call it ghost weed. Now know why, eh? It grow wild around this city—probably others, too. You have to cook a special way, then Inkna can’t find you. Can’t kill, eh?”
“She got me, though.” The man rubbed his temple. “That hurt.”
“She powerful. More so than stinky Inkna.” Tauneya nodded once.
“Can those with mind power use it?” Rohnan asked.
Everyone looked between each other. Finally it was Tauneya that answered. “We never try. How could we?”
“I doubt it,” Kallon said from beside the door. “If it disguises the mind, it must hinder the Gift.”
“We can use it on the enemy,” Sayas said.
“And they can use it on us.” Shanti didn’t need access to her Gift to be bred. Xandre getting his hands on that weed would be devastating in the wrong circumstances. “Who else knows about that weed?”
“The weed? Everybody.” Tauneya shrugged. “It be a weed, eh? But to cook the weed, now that is secret. We guard that with life. Have to. If Inkna knew, we would no longer have sliver of freedom.”
“It makes you feel really sick, though, S’am.” Leilius rubbed his belly.
“Better than dead.” Shanti’s mind raced. “Do the Inkna gather in one area? Can we get that weed into tea or food?”
All eyes went to Tauneya. She ran a finger across her chin. “Best I do is morning tea. It be too late for sex calls tonight. You won’t get all, just some.”
“I’ll take some. Maggie, Ruisa, learn how to make that tea.” Shanti looked at the gathered Shumas. “Who is going to volunteer to take the tea and see if they can still use their Gift?”
The three weakest raised their hands, then looked at each other, figuring out who would be best for it. It was Rohnan that took the stick from the man. “My Gift is not as useful in battle.”
Shanti stayed his hand. “Your Gift keeps you alive in battle.”
It was Rohnan’s turn to slap her hand away, putting in more sting than he needed. “I am good enough now, Chulan, that I only need my Gift with you. Or the Captain, if I ever fight him.”
“You haven’t fought the Captain?” Kallon asked without expression.
“I do not care for being punched.” Rohnan gave Shanti a level stare that spoke volumes. She didn’t comment while he put the weed into his mouth. His face pinched together. “Bitter. And it burns.”
“How much does he need to eat?” Shanti asked.
“Without tolerance to it, two big bites should do.” The man watched Rohnan with interest.
Rohnan huffed out a painful breath and put a hand on his chest.
“It feels better than the Inkna mind power,” Leilius said with a solemn expression. A few people around the room nodded.
“Okay.” Rohnan waited for a minute.
Almost immediately, Shanti’s ability to feel his mind faded. She mentally reached out, but touching his mind was like sand running through her fingers.
“What do you feel?” Shanti asked with a strange surge of fear. She reached out to touch him physically.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just…myself. My own feelings, no one else’s.” Bliss transformed his face. “This is…nice. Although I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“That doesn’t go away,” Leilius said with his hand on his belly again.
“How long does it last?” Shanti asked.
“About four hours is average,” Tauneya said. “That is, if you no take anti-drug.”
Shanti turned toward Tauneya slowly. “This anti-drug…it works?”
“Mostly. Not completely. You still protected from Inkna, but they can feel. Judging by Inkna expression when they see us, something is off. But they have no pushed.”
Shanti grabbed the weed from Rohnan and took a big bite.
“What are you doing?” Kallon said, rushing forward.
Her mouth started to burn. “Ugh. This is gross.” She took another bite. “I’m going to beat Sonson.”
“What does it mean, sir?”
Weary and saddlesore, Cayan flung his leg over the saddle of the horse. Men staggered around him. They had pushed hard these last few days, but now their bodies were starting to give out.
Sanders stood straight and tall beside an expensive coach, refusing to accept his brain and body’s plea to shut down. The man was a rock.
Cayan noticed the horses off to the side, tied to a tree and shifting in the night. He opened the door of the coach and found a note lying on the velvet bench seat. “Bring me some light.”
Light bobbed as a lantern was thrust closer.
The note was written in Shanti’s hand, instructions for how to proceed with the coach.
“Damn it, woman.” Cayan handed the note to Daniels. He pushed away the fuzzy tiredness of his mind and focused on their Joining. All was quiet. As in, he couldn’t read her at all. He could feel her, but even that was muffled, as if she was speaking through a sock. He didn’t know much more other than she was alive and not in pain or danger.
“This…changes things, sir.” Daniels held up the note.
“What is it?” Sanders asked, sparing a glance for the men tying up the horses. “Rachie, that horse—you’re going to get kicked one day, son. You’d best watch yourself.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Idiot,” Sanders muttered.
“Shanti has found a way to hand-deliver me to the officer in charge of this city. Sanders, you’ll be leading the men in the charge through the gate. Daniels—work it out.”
“Yes,
sir,” Daniels said, only a sliver of tiredness entering his voice.
“Just you, sir?” Sanders asked, following Cayan through the men setting up a makeshift camp.
“No. Three non-Gifted men, the very best warriors we have. I’d take you but I need someone to lead the charge.”
“No problem, sir. Who are you choosing?”
Cayan stopped and looked out at the night, flicking through countless options. The Graygual officers would be trained to the level of the Hunter, Cayan bet. They’d be quick and precise, with no emotion, and able to endure pain. He needed someone that wanted it with a passion. Someone good and fast, but that also wanted vengeance.
He blew out a breath. To Sanders he said, “I’ll think on it. In the meantime, get everyone fed and settled down. They should get a couple of hours’ sleep while they can.”
“Yes, sir. What about the Shadow?”
“They should be here by dawn. If they’re not, we go without them.”
The first rays of the sun crawled up the roof closest to the front gate and over Shanti’s boot. The creak of leather indicated soft shifts in position, of bowstrings being rubbed against hands or gloves. A fine coach trundled down the path toward the city led by a pair of exquisitely bred horses. The speed of the coach was much faster than when it had left the city the day before. The guards would think something was wrong.
The guards, roused out of their half-asleep stupor by the commotion, straightened up and stared for a moment. Recognizing the coach, one rushed out of the area, probably going to tell a higher-up. The two left behind rushed forward, ready to grab the horses and check in on the lady inside. If someone needed medical assistance, they’d want to direct her.
Everything was exactly as Tauneya had said. From the Inkna they’d overtaken, to the changing of the guards that was about to take place. The officer in this city wasn’t like the Hunter. He didn’t constantly change schedules and rotations. He had found what worked, and stuck with it. Every officer had their downfall. This officer was thinking he was smarter than the citizens of the town.
“Hold,” Shanti said quietly. She checked in with Kallon at the back gate, the root having worn off by now. There would be no Inkna in the area to intercept. Shanti and Sonson’s teams had made sure of that last night before they settled down for a few hours’ rest. Soon they would be missed. Soon. Not yet.
