Enemy (On the Bones of Gods Book 1)

by K. Eason

  Shop fire, hell.

  She paused in front of the steel-and-wood door to gather her temper and her wits. Pulled the bell cord gently and fisted her hands at her side. One of Aneki’s boys opened up. Little scrap of an Alvir, eyes blue as summer sky, which rounded when he saw her and Istel.

  “Domina,” he choked out, “Dominus, it is a—” before she cut him quiet.

  “Snowdenaelikk.”

  His throat moved, nervous gulp beneath the collar. “No.”

  “No?”

  He blinked. Accent thick as paint, made no clearer by nerves. “She is not here. Domina. I am sorry.”

  Dekklis stared at him. Traded a look with Istel.

  She’s flipped on us.

  Something happened.

  Going to kill her.

  Wait, Dek.

  Istel said, more gently: “Veiko, then.”

  “Dominus.” The boy had no orders against it. That, plain as daylight on his face. But he didn’t want to. Hesitated while Dekklis drew off her gloves and slapped them into her palms. One, two. He flinched both times.

  “Now?” she suggested.

  “Domina. He is—” He glanced over his shoulder.

  “In the baths?” One thing for her to strip and sit with Snow in the hot water and whisper through the steam. Quite another to imagine herself that near Veiko. He wouldn’t appreciate it. She wouldn’t. Istel would laugh at them both.

  “No,” said the boy. He pointed. “Upstairs.”

  “Take us to him,” Dek said. “You understand?”

  “Yes, Domina.” Turned and scuttled, that was the only word for it, head ducked and fast glances over his shoulder.

  The stairs were steep things, smooth wood and dubious railings. Dekklis stopped. Peered up into the shadows and thought about traps and traitors.

  “No. This isn’t the right way.”

  “Yes.” The boy gestured up. Bowed. Wouldn’t look at her, no, kept his eyes fixed on the flagstones. “Up.”

  There were other people on the second floor, open doors and voices raised and people propped on the railing. Collared, all of them, mix of male and female. Laughter that she had no reason to think was at her, but she couldn’t tell. She spoke an academic Alviri. This was local dialect, fast and impossible.

  A cream-skinned woman leaned out over the railing. Fox-colored hair spilled over her shoulders, collected in the valley between her breasts. She smiled wide recognition.

  “Istel!”

  Embarrassment rolled off Istel like steam from a boiling pot. “Fridis.”

  “I didn’t expect you today.” Fridis’s Dvergiri was flawless. She came down the stairs now as the remaining pale faces turned toward them. “Let me get my—”

  “We’re here for Veiko,” Dekklis snapped. “Both of us.”

  “Both?” Fridis paused partway down the steps. Frowned. Bounced a look between the boy and Istel and settled a hard-eyed stare on Dekklis. “On what business?”

  “Ours and his.”

  Hell and damn. Dek counted a half dozen unarmed, collared Alviri arranged on the landing, all gone silent and staring.

  “No harm, yeah?” Quiet, as only Istel could be. “You know me, Fridis.”

  “Your coin’s good. I know that. Illhari.” Fridis drew her lips together. “We will be waiting right here. All of us. And the walls are thin.”

  “Come on,” Dekklis muttered. “You think we’re here to hurt him?”

  Fridis’s face said that was exactly what she thought.

  Dekklis followed the boy up through the cloud of perfume, and the more oppressive weight of Fridis’s anger. Dekklis was not gentle, carving out space for herself on the steps. Soft-bodied Fridis grunted when Dekklis put an elbow into her ribs, and still would not yield a fingerspan.

  Snow hadn’t been stupid, choosing this place. Collared or not, Aneki’s people weren’t cowards. Ask if she and Istel would walk out of here when they’d finished. Ask if Aneki’s slaves might not trap her up here and—

  What, kill you?

  Not likely. That was one of Snow’s skills. But Snow wouldn’t bother with stairs and ambush and other hands doing her work. From her it would be a knife in the dark and the whisper of svartjagr wings. Or bad fish.

  Doors open all along the hall, glimpses of rumpled beds and scattered clothes and people’s lives. Dekklis tried not to look. Tried to ignore the whispers that sprang up in her wake. She should’ve waited in the baths. Made Veiko come to her. Except he might not have, being Veiko, and unlikely to answer her summons.

  The bondie boy stopped in front of the very last door in the corridor, solidly shut. Shadows clustered around it like cobwebs. Snow’s doing, damn sure. Ask what other conjuring she’d done, what spells she might’ve laid on lock and latch.

  Dekklis flexed her hands. Hesitated, with her knuckles a hairsbreadth from the wood. “You’re certain he’s inside.”

  “Yes, Domina.” Earnest blue eyes. Oh, this one was pretty. Being trained, wasn’t he, by those women. By collared Fridis and freed Aneki, who made their lives flattering soldiers. Ask if he didn’t know how to lie.

  “You can go,” she told him. Waited until he’d slunk back to the stairs before she rapped hard on the door. Once. Twice. Veiko’s dog snarled on the second knock, from close on the other side.

  “Logi,” in Veiko’s low tones, and then louder, “I do not require any help. I told you.”

  “It’s Dekklis. And Istel.”

  Feel that silence, bowstring tight. Dek jerked her hand off the latch as it moved. Made a guilty fist of it as Veiko opened the door just wide enough for his face. Steam puffed through the open gap, the smell of hot water and herbs. Blame skraeling custom, or skraeling prudery, which would ask for water and a tub brought upstairs with the hot springs below. She’d’ve guessed Veiko a eunuch, or disfigured, if she hadn’t seen otherwise. Not an ugly man, well made, if you didn’t mind skin pale as a cave-toad.

  “Snowdenaelikk is not here.”

  “Yeah. The kid said as much. You’ll do for what I need.”

  Tall man. Broad shoulders. Solid in the door gap. He looked down at her. His braids slithered against each other. Water beaded and dripped off the ends. “And what is that?”

  Wish for her armor and the rest of her kit. Wish for a legion sword. Just a knife in her belt, not even as long as Snow’s black seax. Effort to keep her arms loose, her voice steady. “You want to discuss that in the hallway? No? Then let us in.”

  He grunted. Showed her a bare shoulder, and then a naked back. He wore trousers, at least, loose Illhari silk that stuck and clung to still-damp skin and gave Dekklis a fine idea what lay beneath.

  Not exactly a welcome, no, but she’d take it. Stepped into the narrow entry with Istel behind her. A fringe of beads hung between it and the rest of the room. They clicked and swung as Veiko pushed through them. One big room beyond the beads, a dining couch and a table stacked with scrolls, jars, bowls. A rumpled bed on one side of the wide hearth, a pallet on the other, neatly arranged with Veiko’s pack and gear beside it. Pots lined the hearth, stacked by size. A copper tub, big enough for two Dvergiri or one tall skraeling, steamed in front of the firedog, with a shirt and a pair of breeches draped over the edge. The afternoon spilled through the open shutter, panels of light and a breeze just on the wrong side of cool. The dog sat near the hearth, triangle ears up. A lingering smell of jenja clung to everything.

  Veiko lowered himself carefully to the edge of the hearth, between axe and dog. Straightened his leg and kneaded his thigh. The silk was darker there, and not with water. He pulled a slow breath through his nose. Let it out the same way. “What do you want?”

  She eyed the dark patch of silk. “You’re bleeding.”

  He cut her a look of pure exasperation. “Yes.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  The laugh came out like a man kicked in the belly, gust and grunt. “Witchery. Ehkla is here.”

  “What? In Cardik? Now?” Dek’s prioriti
es heaved and shifted. “How the hell do you know that? Snow been back here?”

  “No.” Flash of a blue eye in the sunlight’s reflection, the other half of his face thrown shadow-black as any Dvergir. “I bleed because of Ehkla’s witchery. Tsabrak has Snowdenaelikk. He is taking her to Ehkla.”

  She knew the name, having dragged it out of Snow—

  You tell Rurik that name, Szanys, deal’s off.

  —as a gesture of good faith. Heretic, godsworn, head and heart of whatever illegal business ran in Cardik.

  Runs the gangs, yeah? The whole Warren.

  Trouble, oh yes, this Tsabrak.

  “Shit,” said Istel. “She’s all right?”

  “If Tsabrak’s made her, she’s dead,” Dekklis said before Veiko could draw a whole breath. “What matters now is how much she spills before—”

  “She is not dead.”

  “She’s mortal. She bleeds. And if he takes her to Ehkla—”

  “Briel knows she’s alive.”

  “Briel—” Dekklis began, and then Veiko turned the full weight of that glare on her. Didn’t look like a grief-stricken partner, no. Cold as midwinter moonrise.

  “Svartjagr hunt in packs.”

  “I know that. I grew up in Illharek.”

  “Then you know that they send to each other. We are her pack, Snow and Logi and me.” She could hear Snow’s Illhari lilt behind the skraeling’s words. “Snow is not dead, or Briel would know it, and so would I.”

  Unease scrabbled in her belly. “Sure. Whatever you want to believe. Istel, we’ve—”

  “Where is she? Does Briel know?” Istel said, like some credulous Alvir who still left gifts in the old temple ruins.

  Veiko’s eyes slid out of focus, reminding her of his fever, and what she’d thought was a dying man’s stare. Paler. Greyer. His voice thinned to smoke and gravel. “Briel shows.” Veiko planed his hand. Tilted it. “Up. Near the walls. Old buildings.”

  “The Warren.” Istel’s eyes gleamed as madly as Veiko’s. “That’s where she is. That’s where we go, Dek.”

  “What? No. We go back to the garrison. Report to Rurik.”

  “And what, tell Rurik his brother’s killer is up in the Warren? What will that do?”

  “Rurik,” she repeated. “Figure that fire’s no accident. You smell a trap? Because I do. You looked at the mountain? See those clouds? There’s a storm coming tonight. I think the Taliri will walk right up to the walls under its cover. Rurik’s got to keep the legion out of the Warren, down near the walls, for when that happens.”

  “The praefecta will order troops to Market Bridge if there’s a serious fire. We can’t stop that. Rurik can’t, no matter what we tell him. And if there are troops on Market, we won’t get across, either. We got to go now, Dek.” Istel yielded a half step, put the long bar of sunlight between them. “I remember my oath. Snow dead won’t make Illharek safer. Ehkla dead will. Put her head on the gates. See if the Taliri stop then.”

  Sense to that, a bloody-minded Illhari logic. Dekklis hesitated. Imagined the Sixth arrayed on the Bridge, lines of armor and javelins and crossbows. Hold Market. Keep the Warren contained on the far side of the river while the Taliri—how many did Ehkla have with her?—came at the outer gates.

  The sunlight smeared to water, then to heatless grey. The clouds had arrived and taken the warmth with them. Istel’s face bleached back into focus as the brightness bled out.

  “We’d both be dead now, except for Snow. We owe her. It’s honor, Dek.”

  Honor was something that governed Illharek, that ran in highborn veins. Grow up breathing it in a House with busts of all the foremothers lining the halls. Soak in it, like silk in a dyepot. Warren-born, Cardik-bred Istel. He didn’t have a House sigil inked in his skin. Only the citizen’s mark, and the jagged glyph that meant legion under that. His honor was simpler than hers.

  Or maybe yours is too complicated.

  “Listen, Dek.” This was an Istel she didn’t recognize, chin up and arms crossed. “Do what you want, but I’m—”

  She pinned him quiet with a fingertip. “Not going to say anything stupid. You mutiny on me, I’ll kill you right here. I’m thinking, rot your guts.”

  “While you argue,” said Veiko, “Snowdenaelikk gets farther away.”

  She rounded on him. “So what are you doing, then? Taking a bath? Doing a little laundry?”

  “Bleeding,” he said shortly. “I could not walk that far. And if I did, I would do her no good when I arrived.”

  “You could.” Try, she almost said, and gulped it back when she crossed Veiko’s stare. Rage in those pale eyes, and frustration, and the first hint of something that might have been fear.

  That shook her. Dried her voice up in her mouth and left her tasting dust. Snowdenaelikk in Ehkla’s hands, think about that. About what Ehkla did to her captives. Poles and carving, yeah, and long, slow death. Veiko knew it. He had a partner now. Likely wouldn’t by sunrise, whether or not she and Istel went looking.

  Dekklis made fists. Ground her knuckles into her thighs. Snow was hardly helpless. But she was only one woman, at day’s end, against—

  “How many others up there, Veiko? Briel tell you that?”

  His mouth quirked. “Many.”

  “You noticed there’s only two of us?” She clawed for eyelock with Istel again and dragged another breath. “We need better than she’s up near the walls if we’re going to find her. You got more than that?”

  “I do not. Briel does.”

  “And Briel is where?” Knew the answer, guessed it, even before Veiko’s head turned. Leather flap and rattle of claws on the window ledge. The svartjagr looked at Dekklis and flexed her wings and draped that barbed tail over the sill.

  Dekklis made her hands relax. Hoped her voice sounded steadier than it felt, creeping and hitching out of her throat.

  “Dramatic. You plan that entrance? Circling around out there, waiting for your cue? Veiko call you in?”

  “I did not have to,” said Veiko. “She saw you arrive.”

  There was a thought to make skin creep. Dek glared at the svartjagr, who stretched her neck toward Dekklis and opened her mouth. Needle white teeth in plum-colored gums, a tongue more blue than black. A hiss that Dekklis felt more than heard.

  “She says hurry. She says the fire is spreading, and soon you will not get across the Bridge. She says the legion are moving down from the Hill.”

  “She say who set the fire? No? Pity.” Shallow breath that tasted like smoke, which Dekklis held until her throat hurt. She let it out and made herself look at the svartjagr. Disconcerting to look into those hot coal eyes and imagine Snow on the far side. “Big risk you’re taking, yeah? Trusting me.”

  The svartjagr’s head dipped. “Chrrip.”

  Imagine an echo of Snow’s barbed grin, and her dry maybe I’m just that desperate.

  Oh yes, bet she was. And bet she had some plan, too. Believe that she did.

  The wind picked that moment to change direction. Straight out of the north now, whistling over the sill, dragging flat grey and chill with it. Smelled like dead things, which only meant it was coming over the butchers’ quarter first. Didn’t mean ghosts, or the sudden horrible certainty K’Hess Kenjak was in the room, in the shadows behind Veiko’s naked shoulder.

  “That storm that’s coming. Yours, or Ehkla’s?”

  “It is not mine.”

  “Too bad. Be nice to have a little help up there.”

  Veiko cocked his head. Poured a grim smile into the corner of his mouth that did not reassure her at all.

  “You will.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The storm started as rain. Fat drops from fatter clouds that had already swallowed the sun. It would turn to a thick spring snow later, slick the streets foul. Make it hard to run, yeah, harder still if she got herself lost. Snowdenaelikk counted the alleys, left and right. They were up near the walls, a long way from Market Bridge. The overcast meant no convenient shadows, eith
er. Everything flat and grey and smeared on the edges, and half an afternoon before sunset.

  “Maybe you should put this toadshit off another day, yeah? Try to burn Market Bridge again tomorrow?”

  Tsabrak ignored her. Hooded and hunched up like a wet crow, he took point. She came second. One man behind her, and one on each side. The rest, she reckoned, trailed out behind them, like a hem unraveling. Might figure to stop her if she ran. Might figure to hack her to pieces, too. Too many hands too close on their hilts for her liking.

  She leaned sideways. Controlled the smirk as her left-side escort veered away. Afraid of her. Very flattering. She tried on her brightest smile.

  “I’m not your enemy, yeah?” Spread her hands as far as the ropes would permit. “See? Not even dangerous. Got no weapons.”

  Tsabrak had seen to that. Picks and daggers, all collected in a none-too-gentle search of her person. He’d bound her hands after. Mere rope, which she figured for arrogance, so certain he was that he’d got all her metal. He’d handed one end of the rope to her right-side escort and the other to Left Side, who wrapped it once round his wrist and kept his other hand on his blade. Who eyed her now, well out of strike range, as if she were a dragon on the other end of a leash.

  The rain picked up. Pelting now, like tiny hailstones. Beading on her hair and soaking through, so that it ran cold down her scalp and into her collar.

  She dipped her shoulder and reached for her hood, hands bound and awkward, fingers waving like baby birds after worms.

  “If you could just grab that, yeah? Help me out,” she said, peering under the crook of her arm.

  Left Side said nothing. Right Side, however, snapped, “Shut up and move, bitch.”

  “Bitch. Bitch. That’s such an Alvir insult.” She succeeded, finally, in catching the edge of her hood. Straightened and turned all the way round to face him, with her hood clutched in her fists. “We Illhari like to say motherless. Can you manage that one? Moth. Er. Less. Oh come on, the accent’s not hard—”

  She relaxed as he hit her hard and square between her breasts, mostly the broad heel of his palm. Pretended to stagger and checked her footing while she did it. Yeah, slick enough underfoot, even though it was only rain. Blame a lack of plumbing. At least the shit didn’t stink so much now. Not as much as Right Side’s breath, in a face close enough she could bite it. Features she wouldn’t forget