Hearts & Minds: Book Six in the Crown of Blood series

by White, Gwynn

  He turned away before Amaryth could argue and walked to Janeth, the lieutenant in charge. “The doctors will let you know which of our guests are to be moved to Dark Cave. Make sure they are guarded from the time they leave here until they get to Gallen.”

  A crisp salute. “Yes, Warlord.”

  “And make sure that none of our Blades are part of this operation.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No one will argue with that order, Warlord.”

  “I’m glad you understand the problem.” He saluted her and walked to the hospital’s main doors. He looked back over the enemy Blades wishing that he felt more comfortable about this misadventure.

  It didn’t help that he hadn’t yet spoken with Lynx.

  He called her up on his informa.

  Twenty-Two

  Not On My Watch

  Hidden in the fourth dimension, Tao followed Meka, Grigor, and young String as they stumbled through the dark towards the Hive. Although String was doing his best to help, Meka bore most of Grigor’s weight. If it hadn’t been for Meka’s help, Grigor would have collapsed. It made for slow progress. It didn’t help that they were without light to guide them.

  Grigor stank from his ride in the palace crapchute, and then from wading through the raw sewage. None of it was helping his lacerated back. Grigor’s breath rasped and his flesh burned with fever. Tao felt Grigor’s pain in every shuffling footstep. The sooner Grigor got back to the Hive, the better.

  It would have been so simple to step in and take String’s place. How String would cope with the arrival of a dead person, he didn’t know. The boy couldn’t have been older than ten. Eleven at a stretch. He was rake thin, and his mop of dark hair looked like it had never been washed. Face pinched and calculating, it hinted of experience way beyond String’s years. All that suggested resilience, a minimum requirement for survival in Urchinville. He decided that String would cope with seeing him.

  He stepped out of the fourth dimension and filled the tunnel with light.

  String yelped. He almost let go of Grigor but burrowed back under Grigor’s arm.

  Whether he was helping or hiding, Tao wasn’t sure. It made him smile. He bowed as he always did when coming into the presence of the living, in the hope that it was disarming. “Good day, young String. My name is Tao Avanov, and I’m Meka and Grigor’s father. I’m here to help.”

  String’s brown eyes grew wider and wider. For a moment, Tao imagined the boy was about to scamper away. Instead, String said, “I know them Avanovs are a ferocious lot, but I didn’t know they shone, too!” He looked at Meka and Grigor, “Do you shine?”

  Meka chortled. “Hardly. Our father is dead.”

  String’s eyes again threatened to pop out of his skull. “Dragon’s Curses! How’s that even possible? Why isn’t he rotting?”

  Tao laughed. “Maybe one day, when you die, you will discover how it all works.” He didn’t doubt that String had a good heart. Had circumstances been different, perhaps he wouldn’t have been an urchin fighting on the streets for survival.

  “So what you here for?” String asked.

  “As I said, I’m here to help get Grigor into the Hive. Perhaps String, if you would like to move aside, I can take Grigor’s arm.”

  String hesitated. “You’re not thinking of cutting me out, are you? I’m part of this. I—I’m the one who’s gonna have to talk to Dip.”

  “And I’m sure you’ll do a very good job of it,” Tao said gently. “But we could slot three of you into me and still have room for lunch. I think I would be better served helping Grigor.”

  String grinned. “I like that.” He looked up at Grigor. “You want him?”

  Grigor smiled wanly down at String. “Thank you so much for all that you have done, but I think my father will be able to help a little better.”

  String relinquished Grigor’s arm and he slipped into his place. String moved around to Meka’s side. With the light glowing off his body and with him supporting Grigor, they moved more quickly toward the Hive.

  “Where’s Dip?” String asked. “And all them other boys.”

  Tao knew but didn’t say anything.

  “And Shale,” Meka added. “I hope nothing went wrong.”

  Still, Tao kept quiet. They’d discover soon enough.

  They reached the dripping pipe.

  “Is that water fresh?” Grigor almost croaked. His throat burned. It complemented the burning of his skin.

  “Yes,” Tao said. “Perfectly fine.”

  He and Meka walked with Grigor until he was under the drip. Tao studied the pipe while Grigor drank. The volume of water hadn’t changed since they had been there last. He took it as a good sign that the pipe was going to hold.

  “Grigs, why don’t you have a bit of a shower?” Meka suggested. “There’s no water in the Hive other than in Felix’s apartment. And, well, we’ve jammed a hundred guardsmen and a whole pile of programmers and other Hive staff in there. I don’t think there’ll be room to move.”

  Grigor shuffled under the water. He held his face up to it, letting the water pour down his face and chest. He turned and rinsed his back.

  After a few minutes, Tao said, “Let’s get moving into the Hive. We can always send out for more water.”

  Grigor didn’t argue as he and Meka took his arms. It wasn’t long before they reached the steel door to the Hive.

  Meka swore, “I gave my informa to Dip. It’s got Oleg’s retina on it. How the hell are we going to get through this door?”

  He grinned. “That’s what I’m here for. String, come over here and help with Grigor. I’m going to get this door open.”

  String slipped into his place, and Tao walked to the door. If this didn’t upset String, nothing would. He turned back to face them. “Give me a moment.” And then he stepped through the solid door. From inside the Hive, he heard String yelp. He touched the retina scanner, shifted the atoms, and the door swung open.

  “Dragon’s butt, that was fantastic!” String exclaimed.

  Even Meka smiled.

  Grigor’s head hung with his chin resting on his chest. His eyes were fiery with fever.

  “Bring him in, quickly,” Tao said.

  As soon as Grigor was through the door, Meka said, “Kai Lin has locked all of the medical staff in Felix’s apartment. I’ll have to go and find her to bring one of them out.”

  “She’s in the room with all the informas,” Tao said. “With Shale and the other boys.”

  “Am I going to need my rifle?” Meka asked. He must have recognized the warning in his tone. “I’m certainly not taking Grigor in there if there’s going to be trouble.”

  “I think there will be less trouble if Grigor comes with us.”

  Meka gave him a quizzical look but said nothing. The four of them walked in silence until they arrived at the programming room.

  Meka grabbed String’s shoulder. “Come, take my place.”

  Without argument, the boy wriggled between Grigor and Meka. He draped Grigor’s arm around his shoulder. Meka took his rifle off his shoulder and held it in his hands.

  “You won’t be needing that,” Tao said. “Not on my watch.”

  Meka looked doubtfully at Grigor. “That happened on your watch. Can I really trust that it’s okay to walk in there?”

  Meka’s words cut him to the core. He understood why Meka had said it—he had felt the same way when Dmitri had refused to allow him to attend to Grigor. He put his hand on Meka’s shoulder. “I give you my word. You do not need to go in with a rifle.”

  A thousand emotions tumbled across Meka’s face. Finally, he nodded, “I’ll take your word for it.” He tossed the rifle strap back over his shoulder and let it hang down his torso and leg. A pause, and then he stared into the retina scanner. The door slid open. Meka stepped in first.

  He gasped, “What the heck is going on in here?”

  Tao knew exactly what he was seeing. Dip and his urchins were crowded in one corner, under the watchful eye of Shal
e and his rifle. The cans of food from the tunnel had also been brought in. They were piled up against one wall.

  “Shale?” Meka asked. “How did this happen?”

  Shale didn’t turn to look at them. He growled. “Dip thought it would be a good idea to take a rifle off me. He jabbed me with the stupid spear.” He held up his arm, showing off a bloody bandage.

  Dip stared defiantly at Shale, Grigor, and String. Then he saw Tao.

  Tao let more light glow from his body.

  Dip’s eyes widened, and he yelled, “A Dreaded! A Dreaded! Why’ve you brought in a Dreaded?”

  String darted out from under Grigor’s arm and dashed across the room to Dip. “He’s not a Dreaded. Honest. He’s real. I mean he’s—he’s dead, but he’s real. Touch him. You’ll see. He’s real.” Dip didn’t look convinced. String looked over his shoulder at Tao, Meka, and Grigor. “Someone tell him that he’s real.”

  Dip’s lip turned down. “What are you talking about String? We’re prisoners here and all you can—”

  “You’re not prisoners,” Shale interrupted. “But we’re not having you scampering around the place, stabbing people with broken bottles and spears.”

  Although Dip’s boys shuffled uncomfortably, his hands settled on his hips. “How many times must I tell you people? Axel said that when he comes back to Cian he wants to see us using broken bottles to attack people!”

  “Enough, Dip,” Shale said.

  “Where’s Kai Lin?” Meka asked. He helped Tao carry Grigor to Felix’s comfortable wing-backed chair. Grigor perched on the end of it.

  Meka shouted out again, “Shale, where’s…”

  “I’m here. I’m here. I was just checking something on the informas.” Kai Lin moved across the room from her station. She saw Grigor. “Who’s that?”

  “My brother,” Meka said in a voice that brooked no argument. “Lukan had him whipped. We need to get one of the doctors out of Felix’s apartment to treat him.”

  Kai Lin nodded. “Perhaps it would be best to take him through to the hospital wing?”

  Tao agreed. “Meka? Come and give me a hand.”

  They lifted Grigor out of the chair and draped his arm around their shoulders.

  They were halfway across the room when Dip called out, “Wait up. I was told that when you came back, Meka, that we wouldn’t be held under this rifle.”

  “My brother comes first,” Meka said sharply. “You’ve known that since you met me. You can wait there until I get back.”

  “Ready to go?” Meka said to Tao.

  “Not a moment to lose,” he replied.

  But once at the door, Meka stopped. He turned to Dip and the boys. “If anything happens to my brother, anything at all, understand that I will make you pay.”

  Dip’s scowl widened.

  Tao sighed. He understood why Meka felt the way he did, but it was also a little upsetting that Meka didn’t seem to trust that he would protect Grigor. But he said nothing as they shuffled out of the room and headed for the medical wing.

  “I hope you know where we’re going,” Meka said. “Because I can’t remember where it is.”

  “It’s off the main thoroughfare.”

  The reached a grey door as nondescript as any of the other grey doors in Felix’s Hive, only this one didn’t require a retinal scan. Tao pushed the door open with his shoulder. The three of them shuffled into a bleak, sterile room. It had half a dozen cots running the length of one wall. They laid Grigor on his stomach on the first one. Tao looked around for a pair of scissors. He found one in a tray of instruments on a bench running the length of the opposite wall. He used it to cut Grigor’s clothing off his body. Meka helped by pulling the filthy cloth away.

  Once Grigor’s back was exposed, Meka’s jaw clenched. “Lukan is going to pay for this.”

  “That’s Nicholas’s job. Not yours. Not mine. So put all thoughts of it out of your head.”

  “How can you say that?” Meka demanded. “After everything that’s happened to us. We’ve got every right to want—”

  “You do, but it is not your job to exact it.”.

  “I know that.” Meka sounded irritated. “But I can still say that I hope Nicholas cuts Lukan’s balls off.”

  The door swung open.

  Tao slipped back into the fourth dimension.

  Kai Lin entered with a man dressed in white. From his skin coloring and dark hair, Tao guessed that he was a Chenayan. His eyes were as dead as everyone else’s in Felix’s Hive.

  “How can I help?”

  “My brother was whipped, and I think he’s running a fever.”

  The doctor’s nose curled at the smell. “Where has he been?”

  “Oh, out and about,” Meka said noncommittally. “Can you help him?”

  The doctor picked up a thermometer and pushed it under Grigor’s tongue. Next, he read Grigor’s pulse. A minute or so later, he pulled the thermometer from Grigor’s mouth and whistled at it. “Prince Meka, your brother is seriously ill. I will use what I have to help him but our beloved Count Felix didn’t provide medication for such an infection.”

  That made sense. Where would anyone in the Hive pick up an infection this bad? He doubted Dmitri would be happy with his choice, but he spoke into Meka’s head. Tell him to clean the wound. I’ll take care of the rest.

  “Can you clean it?” Meka asked the doctor.

  “That I can do.” The doctor crossed to a tap above a large, white sink. He turned it, but no water came out. He scratched his head, then walked to a cupboard, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of antiseptic, some bandages, and a cloth to swab Grigor’s back.

  “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?” Meka asked.

  The doctor looked puzzled. “Hurt? What do you mean, Prince Meka?”

  Ice crystals, Meka thought.

  Tao nodded. Although trained in the healing arts, thanks to his ice crystal, the doctor had no knowledge of the pain his patients suffered. Not wanting rough hands on Grigor’s back, Tao bent the light around the bed and spoke into the doctor’s head.

  “You can’t remember why you came here. You can’t remember why you’re holding bandages, antiseptic, and a swab cloth. You’re going to put them down now, and you’re going to go back to the apartment. That’s what you’re going to do.”

  The doctor frowned down at the antiseptic, swabbing cloth, and bandages in his hands. He ambled to the door, stopped, looked at his hands again, turned to the closest bed, and dropped the materials. He walked out of the medical wing.

  Tao stepped back into the third dimension. “Quick, get that door closed.”

  Meka obeyed.

  Tao swept his arm across Grigor’s back. The skin healed, and Grigor’s breathing eased. Grigor would carry the scars of this to his death. He touched the side of Grigor’s face. It was cool, pleasantly so.

  Meka stood at the edge of the bed. He, too, ran his hand across Grigor’s face and up into his hair. “He’s going to be all right now, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now we have to—” He broke off to hear Cricket say, “There’s a group of soldiers at the end of the entrance to 24th street.”

  “Why the news flash?” he asked her. “Guardsmen had been trying to find the Hive for days.”

  “Not ones with red hair.”

  It had to be Axel’s people from Treven. With soldiers assembling in Cian from all around the empire, no one would think a red-headed guardsman strange. “Then let them in. Meka and I will go up and meet them.” To Meka, he said, “Come, the programmers have arrived.”

  Meka whooped, then turned to Grigor. “What if Dip or—”

  “Your brother is sleeping,” Tao interrupted. “He will be safe. Have some faith, Meka.”

  “Will you be watching over him?”

  “No one will come through this door.”

  “Then why was he so badly hurt?”

  “Dmitri gives the orders, and I obey.” He smiled ruefully. “Some of the time, at leas
t. That’s why he blocked my access to Grigor.”

  Tension rolled visibly off Meka’s body. No longer as stiff as a board, he said, “Fine, he’s sleeping. We can lock the door and…”

  Tao grabbed his arm. “We’ve got more important things to worry about than locking doors to rooms nobody will enter.” He pulled Meka along with him to the Hive’s exterior door. It opened into an underground parking area for Felix’s vehicles. Someone rapped on it. Also retina controlled, Tao again shifted the atoms and the door swung open.

  Ten guardsmen waited on the threshold. Axel’s people had arrived.

  Twenty-Three

  The Slide Into Madness

  A knock sounded on Nahom’s office door. The moment of truth. Lukan was almost too scared to open it. Had he been thwarted by Dmitri? Or would he have the opportunity to interrogate Stefan Zarot? He sat frozen in his chair.

  “A grown man, and you’re too frightened to open a door. Your father was right ab—”

  “Come in,” Lukan shouted to shut the voices up.

  The door swung open. Zarot was with Nahom. Lukan sighed with relief.

  Nahom bowed crisply.

  Zarot’s torso merely buckled. Even that simple movement almost toppled Zarot over. His shirt was gone, and his trousers filthy. Scabs from Morass’s whip lashings curled around his sides. Lukan grimaced at the saliva drooling down his chin. He’d never considered Zarot to be a handsome man, but now he looked vile. He’d make this interview quick.

  He gestured to the chair opposite him across the desk. “Zarot. Sit.”

  Zarot’s legs wobbled and his bare feet fell over each other as he lumbered across the room. He flopped down into the chair. That left Nahom standing, but at least he didn’t look as if he was about to collapse.

  Eyes vacant, Zarot stared past Lukan.

  “Zarot, look at me,” he snapped.

  Zarot’s eyes instantly shifted to catch his. It seemed that his ice crystal was working, but Lukan wasn’t convinced. It wouldn’t harm to run a few tests.