Ryle fumbled around. Stupid, grasping, but there it was, at the edge of consciousness. He reached for it, tried to pull it in but it was like climbing hand over hand up a slippery rope.
The footsteps were closer. Lastrahn’s breathing deepened. “Ryle!”
He grabbed hold of his center and dove in. The fear cut off as if severed by a knife. His brain reconnected to his body. He gasped against pain and nausea. “Yes, Sir.”
“Get back to the inn. Get Exequor.”
“Which way?” He took a step to the side and risked a glimpse past Lastrahn’s back.
Abaal strode forward through the screaming, babbling crowd. People fell and scrambled to get out of the way, then lay huddling on the street. The Praeter’s right hand emerged from his pocket. Along the back of that hand lay a white bar. Ryle had seen that mark only once before. Then he saw the long silver blade slide into view. It winked in the lantern light.
Oh, muck.
“Three blocks ahead. One to the left. A doorway marked by a red hand.”
Black completely filled Abaal’s eyes. Not from shadows, but somehow from within. It was the same sight that woke Ryle screaming night after night
A man sobbed on his knees before the Praeter. Abaal’s upper lip twisted in disgust. His sword flashed. The man fell to one side. His head fell to the other. Blood jetted from the stump of his neck.
Ryle’s center quivered beneath the pressure of the malevolence rolling off the Praeter.
Two screaming women clutched each other beside Abaal. He speared them both through the chest with a single thrust. They collapsed and gurgled into silence. A man lying in the gutter unleashed a hoarse scream and began clawing at his own face.
“What about you?” Ryle asked, trying to focus.
A young man crawled across the street, seeking escape. Abaal speared him through the neck as he stepped over him.
“I’ll buy you time. Now go. And watch your back. They never travel alone.”
The Praeter flicked the blood from his blade.
“Run!” Lastrahn screamed and turned to face the Praeter.
One frozen moment full of cold rage passed between the champion and the Praeter. Then they leapt toward each other at the same instant.
With that motion the crowd shattered into a screaming, bolting herd.
Ryle sprinted across the street. In the corner of his vision Lastrahn and Abaal collided in a tangle of coat tails, blurring limbs, and flashing steel. Then he was dodging through screaming revelers while the sounds of furious combat pursued him into the dark.
CHAPTER 40
Three blocks ahead and one over.
Lastrahn’s instructions had been clear enough, but that didn’t count for much in the chaff blasted morass that was the tangle of choked alleys beneath Del’atre.
Had Ryle crossed over one block? Two? Had that crooked gap between buildings been a street or just another alley crammed between crumbling ruins?
He cursed and looked one way, then another. Shadows and the remnants of a hundred celebrations spilled across the cobblestones. Neither provided any clues as to which direction he should turn. A sweaty, fat man wearing only a loincloth, shoved past Ryle and ran off to his left. Ryle turned right.
The noises of the fleeing crowd now smothered any sounds of Lastrahn’s fight with the Praeter. His boots splashed through an oily puddle. His chest heaved. His hands and legs shook, and his hip burned. Praeters aside, he didn’t know if he’d make it back to the inn. Adrenaline was no longer carrying him along. He was simply too hurt and spent to push his body any further. Sooner rather than later it was going to give out.
What he needed was some sleep, or at least . . . Ryle slapped at his pockets, searching for the vial Glad had given him. He was most definitely in a bad way. As he seized the vial, his nose filled with the scent of hot metal. Only instinct threw him forward into a roll.
Something whip-cracked off the paving stones where he’d stood, throwing echoes against the walls. People farther up the street screamed.
Ryle tumbled over again and landed in a crouch. He spun.
A lean woman dressed in close fitting black clothes, like strips of cloth wound tight around her body, arms, and legs, sauntered from an alley to Ryle’s left. Her bare feet didn’t make a sound on the cobblestones. As she emerged from the shadows, Ryle cursed.
A black veil concealed most of her face, but black lips quirked below it. Familiar black lips.
Blast it! If they’d infiltrated Hartvau’s ranks, just how closely were these Praeters riding them?
Ryle didn’t have any time to consider it. A long length of thin chain dangled from around her neck to her bare fists. Each hand held several loops of chain links, with more descending from between her fingers. She twirled one end of the chain as she approached. Its sound was a high pitched whine.
“I still can’t believe you’re Lastrahn’s new squire. You’re as pathetic as I remember.”
Ryle’s brain snagged on her words, on her voice.
Her hand twitched.
He flung himself to the side. The chain struck the cobblestones so close it sounded like a swarm of bees hurtling past his ear.
He came back up in a crouch.
The chain jerked away in a steel blur, and was coiled and spinning again in the blink of an eye. Her lips pursed. “Did I mention how much I’ve been looking forward to this?”
Another whining strike. He rolled away across the paving stones while his mind screamed warnings in the background.
“I was so happy when Abaal told me you weren’t dead.”
Her chain rebounded and lashed out again, viper quick. Ryle threw himself to the ground as it whistled past over his head.
She stood over him, chest heaving, and not from exertion. Anger heated her words to boiling. “I almost didn’t believe my eyes in Taggerloft. But sure as ash, there you were. Drunk and stupid. I guess like father like son.”
Oh, muck.
She pulled her veil away. Eyes, dark like a night sky, glittered with rage. A ragged scar bisected her pale forehead. Above it her bald head was coated blue. Like she’d dipped her head in indigo dye.
Memories collided and shattered in Ryle’s mind. A disturbing figure in white seated beside Hartvau. A seductive drunk woman in Taggerloft. The vicious killer who’d struck down his mother’s crew on a cold night. But he’d put a knife through her skull. He’d seen her die. How the hex had they brought her back? Nausea boiled his stomach.
Ryle scrambled to his feet as she spun her chain.
“I wanted to kill you so badly in Taggerloft after you revealed your destination, but Abaal had said you were still valuable. Off limits. I even had to save your pathetic master’s life that same night when you couldn’t.”
It wasn’t possible, the Praeters couldn’t be everywhere at once. How the hex had they beaten he and Lastrahn back to Del’atre . . . Except they didn’t have to detour through Xaviel lands to avoid pursuit because someone revealed their plans. Muck.
Her chain whipped out, sparking off the cobblestones. He leapt back, but he saw the attack for what it was, an intimidation tactic. She was having a little fun at his expense.
Scared as he was, tight heat surged in his chest. She was going to pay if she thought she’d handle him that easily.
He took a firm grip on his center and slowly backed away, considering the situation, trying to find an opening.
“How long have you been working with Hartvau?”
She sneered. “We don’t work with Directorate lackeys. We use them. Just like we used your father.”
Anger boiled up beneath his kenten, he did his best to ignore it and keep thinking. Del’atre was a ball of paranoia. He bet that extended to Hartvau. Why else would the Praeters need Lastrahn’s help?
He forced a smile. “You couldn’t have used Hartvau very well if you needed Lastrahn to reach the prisoner right under your nose. That is, if you even knew Hartvau held him.”
Her chain struck ou
t. He dodged aside. That blow hadn’t been for show. Anger hardened her features. He was right then. However close she’d gotten to Hartvau, it hadn’t been close enough. They needed the information Mirkther held as much as Lastrahn.
“I was in the cell with Mirkther. I heard everything he said.”
The spinning chain slowed.
“Nice try, squirebrat. No, Abaal will beat that out of Lastrahn. You’re road ends here, tonight. With me.”
Her chain cracked off the street again, then the wall to Ryle’s left. More screams and running filled the street behind him. Regardless of what she said, if she was going to straight up kill him, she would’ve done it already. It was clear she wanted to torture him first, to make him suffer.
That he could use. “You have a name?” Ryle asked, eyes darting along the street, searching for anything he could use against her.
“What’s it matter when you’re about to die?”
“I already killed you once, so that would make us even. Figured that counted for something.”
Her eye twitched. Her fingers shifted on the chain, but she didn’t throw it. “Foriix.”
Ryle’s heel clinked off an empty bottle.
“Speaking of death, how’s the forehead? I bet that hurts as much as your failure on this mission.”
Her chain struck. He rolled, and snatched the bottle. As he came back to his feet, he flung it, hard.
The green bottle spun end over end toward her skull. It never got close. Her chain whipped out like a living thing and shattered the bottle in mid-flight. He’d expected nothing less, but it did buy him a couple seconds, and he didn’t waste them. He bolted down the street while bits of glass showered across the paving stones.
An alley opened onto the street ahead. If he could find some cover he might have a chance. A whine filled his ear. Ryle threw himself into the mouth of the alley. Steel sparked off bricks over his head, showering him with mortar and stone. He scrambled up, kept running, his boots splashing through hex knew what. The dark alley walls flicked past on either side. His breaths roared in his ears. He hurdled a mound of refuse and burst out into the next street.
“Squirebrat,” Foriix said, behind him.
Ryle spun and her feet connected with his chest. He was gasping on his back in the street before he knew what had happened.
Foriix landed lightly at the mouth of the alley. Her chain stretched up behind her to some anchor point on one of the buildings. She released it with a snap of her wrist and it fell to the street with a metallic rattle.
Shrieking partiers scattered away from her.
Ryle wanted to clutch his screaming chest and get his bearings. Instead his hand found a loose chunk of stone. He flung it for her head, and rolled back to his feet.
Her chain swatted the projectile away.
A bottle rested against the foundation of the building at his back. He snatched it up and hurled it toward her. Foriix obliterated the bottle with a flick of steel, but this bottle wasn’t empty. A shower of amber liquid exploded across her.
Sure, it might’ve been a good distraction, but Ryle’s abused lungs hadn’t recovered enough to run. And when she looked up from her dripping chest and arms, he didn’t want to turn his back on her.
Foriix’s lips peeled back in a silent snarl.
“Hey! See now, what’s going on here?” A pair of men emerged from the building behind Ryle. Both wore white and gray Directorate uniforms. Sheathed short swords dangled from both of their belts.
Ryle hadn’t seen any useful guards in hours, and these two had to show up now. He tried to gasp a warning but he couldn’t catch his breath.
The shorter of the two guards, a man with curly brown hair stooped to examine the length of chain trailing behind Foriix. His partner, a taller, thinner, sandy-haired man approached the Praeter. At least he was smart enough to keep one hand on his belt near his sword.
Her chain rattled as the first guard picked it up. “What’s this? Some new costume?”
Foriix’s cheek twitched. “Let me show you.” As the words left her lips, her eyes flashed. Not with anger, but with pure blue light.
The hairs on Ryle’s arms all stood up on end. Oh, muck no.
The chain between her fingers crackled. Ryle smelled hot metal. The short guard screamed as his body stiffened. The chain in his hand rattled, adding a macabre tune to the sight.
Foriix’s eyes blazed brighter. Her lips curled.
To his credit, the other guard didn’t panic. He reached for Foriix’s shoulder and his sword at the same time. “What the hell is this?”
To his detriment, he was facing both a Praeter, and an ongine.
With a casual flick of her hand, she tossed the other end of the chain back over her shoulder. Ryle hadn’t seen it before but the chain was tipped with a solid steel shaft that tapered to a point, like a deadly carpenter’s plummet.
The guard didn’t have time to scream. She drove the metal into his eye socket. His head snapped back and blood sprayed into the air, all before his body had time to spasm.
For a long, terrible moment, Foriix considered Ryle, and gave him the same look Abaal had on the rooftop above Del’atre. As if she wondered why a small bug would be so foolish as to attempt to bite her. Only her eyes blazed with blue light. “I suppose I should thank you for this, little Squirebrat.” She nodded her head, indicating the scar on her forehead. “When I healed, I wasn’t quite the same as before.”
Ryle found it impossible to do anything but pant and push back on the fear pressing through against his kenten.
The crackling cut-off off and the shorter guard joined his partner in a heap on the ground. As if only now interested, Foriix glanced back.
Ryle scrambled into the door the guards had come through and slammed it behind him. Outside, Foriix barked a laugh.
Ryle found himself in a rundown bar. The room was empty, save for the bartender, a thin balding man, with a strip of gray hair over each ear. The man raised both eyebrows.
A second door stood at the end of the bar. Ryle sure as chaff hoped it led to an exit.
“Get the hex down!” Ryle shouted as a rough hole punched through the door over his head. Foriix’s chain stretched through to the far wall where it was sunk into the plaster. It hung there for a moment before snapping back outside, taking more of the door with it.
The old man slunk down out of sight. Ryle took off across the room.
The far door led to a store room. Ryle cursed, then he saw the small door tucked into the far corner. He slammed it open, stumbled through and careened into a brick wall. Another alley, but not a dead end.
Behind him, wood shattered with an enormous crack. Ryle did the only thing he was apparently good for at the moment, and sprinted down the alley.
Two more people dead. Two guards who’d been doing their jobs, trying to maintain order and save lives. Another failure, how fitting. Ryle ignored his father’s rough voice and swallowed his guilt. A dozen paces later the narrow passage emptied into another street. Ryle charged out of the alley, gasping and hurting and fumbling with his pockets.
Where was that blasted vial?
If he wasn’t completely lost the spot Lastrahn had ordered him to find lay nearby. That was great, but in his current state he doubted that he’d survive any kind of climb back toward the surface. He’d only made it this far by clinging desperately to his center, and that was becoming more difficult with every step.
He cursed then his fingers brushed something hard in his jacket pocket. Aha! He seized the vial, jerking it free as he rounded the corner. This street was darker, lit by only a single lantern. Another group of people clustered there, shuffling about and mumbling to themselves.
They’d clearly been partying too hard.
“Get back!” he shouted as he struggled to remove the cap from the vial without looking or breaking stride. He didn’t hear anything behind him, and figured that an excellent indication that Foriix was about to pounce again.
He fou
nd the stopper, but it felt like wax, not metal as he’d expected. At that same moment, the smell hit him. Odors wafting off the group ahead. Pungent, familiar, sickening.
A figure stepped from the cluster and looked right at him.
Ryle’s stomach sucked up against his spine as a scraped and scabbed Chel spread his stained lips in an ugly smile. Blood encrusted half his face. “You!”
Ryle skidded to a stop as the Skivers turned as one, blocking off the narrow street.
Facing them would be suicide, but turning back wouldn’t be any better. He thought hard as the Skivers slid knives free and began to advance.
What the hex did he have to use? A vial of brew wouldn’t do him a dry acre of good now. He felt the slim bottle in his hand, frowned again and glanced down. Glass, not metal gleamed in the lantern light.
Well wasn’t that a hex of a thing.
Footsteps whispered in the alley behind him.
Ryle spun from the Skivers, and ran. With a cry of fury they leapt to the pursuit. This was stupid. This was muck raking stupid.
Ryle gripped the vial as lightly as he could, though it was much too late to be gentle with the container of sauce. He’d been charging hex bent all over Del’atre for an entire day with the blasted in thing in his pocket. Chaff knew how it hadn’t broken.
The alley came up beside him. The Skivers beat the paving stones at a furious pace.
Foriix burst around the corner, her chain spinning. The instant her eyes met his, she struck.
Ryle threw himself down and slid along the damp street. Her chain rushed past over his skull, and he chucked the vial at her chest. Glass shattered and that putrid, burning-hair smell filled the street. Foriix gagged and staggered back. Ryle bounded back up to his feet.
“What in the seven—” Foriix started, but the Skivers’ howl blotted out her words.
“Foriix, meet the Skivers,” Ryle said, and dove past her back up the alley.
He heard her gasp once, followed by too many screams and wet tearing sounds to count. His stomach roiled.
Ryle told himself he’d had no other options. Whether or not that was true did nothing to still the dark whispers from the past that congratulated him for a job well done.
Gearspire: Advent Page 35
