“There,” she said, as if finishing a household chore and moving onto the next one. She didn’t even whisper, though her voice was low.
“As fine as these horses are, I doubt any of them can carry us through the courtyard, the locked gates, and a row of servii,” Draken said.
“We aren’t going that way.” She moved past him to start untying a rope that hung diagonal from a beam to a post. It swung down. “We’re going up. There’s a hole.”
“In my stable roof?”
“Not all the time. They patch it and I have to keep breaking it open. Very tiresome. But the weather has been fine until a few sevennight ago and I doubt the Akrasians have had time or inclination.” She grinned.
She’s enjoying this.
Aye, and I could kiss her for it. Bruche’s return grin reached Draken’s lips before he could shove the spirit back down. The thought left a faintly sick feeling in Draken’s gut, as did the strong reek of horse urine. The Akrasians hadn’t been managing the stable to Brînian standards.
Aarinnaie didn’t appear to notice any of it, though; she was too busy shimmying up the rope ladder before it had quit swinging. At the top she slung a leg over a crossbeam and crawled along it. Draken followed along on the ground, shoulders tight, wanting to work out where he had to go before climbing up. Time was he’d shine up ship rigging without a thought to untangle a line, take down a torn sail, or shoot his bow at pirates from the swaying lookout platform. Time was he’d been a young man once, and eager to please. Now he just felt sore and old and wondered if all the fighting and pain and effort would ever really help Brîn or Akrasia or if he was just deluding himself.
A sharp bang against the courtyard door to the stable startled him and made the crowded horses shift against each other. It shifted on its rollers, but less than a handspan. Aarinnaie had barred it as well. Good girl.
A shout followed, and then another, as the Akrasians sorted out what a stable barred from the inside might mean. Overhead Aarinnaie grunted and he heard a creaking tear of wood.
“Climb up, Dra—Damn!”
He strode back to the ladder and put his bare foot on the bottom rung. It was wooden. So were the next three, but they were broken. “What?”
She crawled back along the beam and opened her mouth but before she could answer, a blinding orange light flashed across the moonlit hole she’d been so diligently enlarging. Then another, and a horse kicked and neighed. Similar racket started on the paddock door.
“Come, Draken! Wife! The search is over.”
Ilumat, shouting. He sounded gleeful, more than a little mad. In a breath Draken knew why. A faint whiff of smoke drifted down to him. He swore, not bothering to keep his voice down. The Akrasians knew they were there and were willing to risk their finest horses to burn them out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Come down, Aarin.” Draken didn’t bother keeping his voice low. Sparks fluttered through the hole in the roof she’d been working on, pinprick stings against his eyes. She crawled along the beam toward him, but not all the way. “No. You come up. We have to get out of here.”
The doors rattled. Voices shouted, now with purpose. Strategizing how to get inside. Horses neighed and jostled and kicked their stalls as they scented smoke.
“We’re trapped here. They’ll be climbing the walls to get in. We can’t ride out. They are too many.” Damn her, all things she knew. All obvious to a whipped dolt. He shifted from foot to foot. His free hand clenched and unclenched. He could open a door and at least die with his sword in his hand. It would be fast and ugly. Honorable.
Bruche chilled his legs, holding him in place.
Before Draken could chide him, or snatch back control, Aarinnaie hissed and scrambled back to the hole. Gods, a hand, a shoulder, a face. She snarled and stretched up to pull the servii down. He bounced off the beam and slammed to the aisle floor. The dirt-packed impact stunned him. Draken stared, then Bruche was moving him there. Draken lifted his sword and killed him, neat, quick, a body moving from breathing to not in a flash of steel piercing flesh unresisting to death. There wasn’t even much blood, but the horses neighed in terror from this fresh spill. Fire and shouting and blood in their safe space was too much for even trained warhorses to bear. Panic spread through them. One of the stall doors swung out a little from a kick, snapping back on its terrified prisoner.
“Draken, damn you, son of a pig-sucking—” A shout interrupted Aarinnaie’s curse. She swore again. “Korde take you, Draken, get up here!”
Korde very well might. She knew nothing about the gods come to earth.
“Why, only to climb back down?” Or get shot down.
“Come on!” She scurried like a rat back to the hole, grasped a strut between the beam, and swung up to cautiously poke her head up through the hole she’d made. Someone shouted. She snarled something unintelligible, ducked down, and her knife caught the firelight. Draken blinked. It was brighter, much. All in the span of a few breaths.
She must know something. Go.
Bruche sounded adamant, and more than a little impatient. Draken sighed, grasped the ladder, and started to climb. He had to muscle his way up past the broken rungs, arms straining. Bruche, annoyed, didn’t rush to soothe the pain in his bad shoulder. The joint felt slippery inside his skin, like it could pop out with one more reach. He grimaced and grasped the rope with his opposite hand.
“What are we doing on the roo—”
“Sh! Do you want to announce what we’re doing?”
They couldn’t hear anyway. Too much shouting, too much terror. He could hear Ilumat, voice at a high, angry pitch. He climbed the rest of the way, feeling old and stiff as he held onto the beam with one arm. She gestured to him. The fire was hot here, sparking against his vision, filtering through cracks in the roof. It clogged his lungs, achingly familiar. They’ll burn the whole city maybe … he climbed along the beam. It was a little wider than he had judged from the ground, but splinters prickled his palms and his knuckles where his fingers curled around his sword. Tiny tremors ran through the beam up through his knees as the skin closed tight around them.
When he reached Aarinnaie, she was standing, head and shoulders and chest out the hole in the roof. She moved, set her feet, body twisting just so, and the familiar thrup of a bow—maybe he imagined it through the screams of the horses.
“Where’d the bow come from?”
She ran out of arrows and threw it down. It skipped along the roof tiles to disappear over the edge.
There was no way but up and he didn’t want her to stop shooting servii, so he nudged her supple boot. After a slight hesitation she leveraged herself through with her elbows on the roof, sliding from sight. Standing was a dangerous balancing act. He tried not to think of the broken body on the dirt floor far below as he rose and grasped the edge of the roof. The hole tugged on the skin of his sides as he pulled through, splintered wood scraping.
He emerged into billowing smoke. It made him cough, but hopefully it provided cover. Aarin crouched low on the roof, moving back, toward the middle. He followed. Be nice if she mentioned where they were going, but he was pretty sure she didn’t know either, just putting maximum distance between them and the men on the ground. The whole barn rumbled and there were shouts below. Draken wasn’t sure if it was from his self-healing or a dozen men trying to break through the heavy wooden doors.
“Did you pull up the ladder?”
He gave her a blank look.
“Bloody Seven, Draken!”
“Where are we going?” They were birds on a rail sitting up here.
She jerked her chin toward the wall. Toward the street. Out. He shook his head. Spikes topped the wall, and it was piled with rotting trophies. The stench was another reason to be glad of the smoke.
“It’s the only way. We have to. Hurry!” She started to crawl down the roof, feet first, her fingers gripping the tiles. A few broken pieces from the hole she’d enlarged tumbled past her as Draken slid over them.
She shifted, slipped a little more. His heart lurched, but she grasped his fingers, then strengthened her grip on his hand. She was so light, he nearly sent himself over the wall pulling her toward him. She caught another free spike and balanced there. Her jaw set in a stubborn tilt. “Go.”
It wasn’t a far drop, but high enough he hoped he didn’t break his foot or something on the way down. Even magical healing might take time he didn’t have. He dropped his sword down. It clattered into the bit of dirt and weeds growing at the base. Then he eased one leg over, groaned at his stiffness, and let the other leg fall. Reasonably, he knew his feet weren’t too far from the ground. But he had to grip the rail beneath a swollen, slack-jawed head, and blood had dripped down. The constant damp and bloodstains made the metal tacky. Bile rose. He chided himself. All the blood he’d seen and shed and spilled, and a little sticky metal could make his stomach twist like a writhing snake. Bruche rumbled soothing words and chilled his hand so he didn’t feel it, but too late; the sensation would last a lifetime. His legs dangled sickeningly for a moment and then he dropped.
He stumbled back but managed not fall entirely back onto his arse. Aarinnaie was already scrambling over. He reached up and grasped her legs to steady her, lowering her to the ground. They were on the open street, mostly unguarded but for a couple of distracted servii because there were no gates in this section of wall, and someone would have to do exactly what Draken and Aarinnaie had done, crossed a spiked wall flush with rotting heads. The guards were just pointless bravado anyway. No one in their right minds would try to get into the Citadel with an Akrasian in residence.
Without a word, Draken snatched up his sword and they raced off, toward the center of Brîn. Draken wasn’t quite sure why he took that route, except he hoped for more cover of people, of buildings. Also, it led any pursuers away from Khisson’s strongholds and his own bolt-hole where Osias would hopefully leave the coin. He heard shouts behind them and threw his dwindling energy into a burst of speed. Aarinnaie ran as if she were born to it, drawing ahead and leading him around the bend in a road. He followed. She always knew where she was going.
He hoped.
* * *
They snuck into Khisson’s house through a back shuttered window, shivering cold, dripping with icy rain, stinking of death and sweat. The stench was probably what alerted Khisson’s guards they were there. Two swords appeared in the darkened sitting room, close enough to nick skin.
Bruche snorted at the threat. Draken pushed one away with Seaborn. The two swords made a gentle clink. “T-tell K-Khisson I’m here.”
It took some time for the bloodlord to appear, but in the meantime someone brought them warmed wine and blankets and stoked up the fire. Draken ignored the wine and kept as close to the fire as he could without standing in it, sword gripped tight in one hand, the ends of the blanket clenched around his shoulders. He squinted tightly against the light. The servant kindly lit some candles, which Aarinnaie snuffed as soon as he left.
“You’re singeing the blanket.” Aarinnaie finished her wine in a couple of gulps and pulled him back from the flames a half step.
“I can’t stay here. I need clothes, a horse—”
“A bath first,” Khisson said. He dipped his chin to Draken. “Khel Szi.”
“The Akrasians are going after my daughter. I have little time to waste on pleasantries.”
“Through the back gates to Eidola?”
Draken’s eyes narrowed. How did he know where Sikyra was? But Khisson waved a hand. “I am not a stupid man. I also can send men to stop them.”
“I don’t know how much head start they’ve got.” A dagger of fear caught him in the chest. What if Khisson took his daughter captive? Killed her. Bruche held him steady and Draken cleared his throat. “Aye, send them.”
“Come this way. There’re warming a bath for you in the kitchen. Clothes. Food. We’ll plan after you’re more comfortable, with your leave.”
Fair enough. Even inscrutable Aarinnaie was wrinkling her nose and he didn’t favor traipsing outside in his soaked rags. The kitchen was warm from the cooking hearth and steamy from the water. He stripped off his things, tossing them into the hearth.
Alone for the first time since the dungeon, he gripped the side of the metal tub with both hands and bent over, staggered by all he’d done, all that had happened. His friends, his people … his slaves. It had been slaves’ heads they’d climbed over; that was a side wall, less trafficked than the front entrance to the Citadel. But his people, nonetheless. He could still feel the brush of dead flesh, smell the rot and smoke … he looked down at himself. He was stained with black patches of ash. Dried blood flecked off his skin.. He’d never be shed of it. Never.
He forced himself to step into the stinging hot water and sank down so that it covered the top of his head, blocking all sound and sight. Bruche let him sit in peace for a bit before easing him back up. Nasty bits of dirt and worse skimmed the top of the water. He ignored it and scrubbed all over with the bar of caustic soap and rough cloth until his whole skin felt raw and tight. Someone, a slave impressed with their guest perhaps, had left out a bowl of thatchnut oil. He stared at it for a moment before rubbing it into his skin. The clothes provided were warm and fine and fit well—even the boots served once he wound his feet in tight cloth strips and stuck them in. A long cloak topped it all, sized to his height. Must be Khisson’s. He missed the weight of Elena’s pendant and his own scabbard and belt, though. No scabbard was provided so he carried the sword back in his hand.
“I’ve been thinking on that.” Khisson had a few sheaths laid out for him to inspect.
Draken found one that would suit and strapped it to his hip, saying, “I owe you more debt than I’ve means repay at the moment.”
Khisson had left the room dark. The flames cast odd shifting shadows up his face, but Draken could see the dangerous glimmer of his gaze, the thick strands of grey infiltrating his locks now that the ashdye had worn off for the day. “Szirin has been telling me what went on at the Citadel.”
Aarinnaie wrapped her opposite hand around the marriage bracelet and stared at the fire. An empty wine cup dangled from her fingers.
“This man Ilumat has offended House Khel and your patron god. I will see him put down.” He glanced at Aarinnaie. “When I kill him, you will be free.”
Draken didn’t much like that look. Ilumat was what he was, and Khisson did nothing without gain. He was probably thinking Aarinnaie would make a fine wife for one of his sons, if a bit used.
“Ilumat is my kill,” she said.
Khisson’s brows raised, but he bowed his head to her.
“Aye, well,” Draken said. “Ilumat is a slippery one. At the moment I’m more concerned with stopping them taking Sikyra hostage. First things first.”
“I have a proposal for you, regarding your debt,” Khisson said.
Well, you did bring it up. Both he and Bruche had been waiting t
o find out what Khisson wanted from all this risk and hard work.
“It’s imperative we take back Brîn. You know as well as I do we’re a bargaining stone with the Ashen.”
Draken was quiet for a bit, considering the big bloodlord. “You’re awfully well informed, Khisson.”
“Aye, that I am, and I can wager with the best of them. I have connections among the other families … the ones Ilumat bought off. Each thinks they’ve got a chance at the … your throne.”
Nice slip, that. Telling.
Sh. I want to hear what he has to say. “So you propose what?”
“I haven’t told you it all yet.” Khisson reached for a pipe. Draken shifted on his feet. But he was stuck here, barring fighting his way out and stealing a horse, and he wasn’t ready to burn bridges with the bloodlord yet.
“I think Khel Szi said he hasn’t much time,” Aarinnaie said, her tone icy.
“He’ll have time for this. Ilumat bargained away the lives of our people. The men and boys are to be enslaved to the Ashen, or as good as.”
“To what end?”
“To rebuild Brîn in some other image.” Khisson paused as he lit his pipe, letting his words sink in. He was smoking fine Gadye leaf, moist and pungent. Draken couldn’t help taking a deep breath of it. It soothed his rough throat. Someday maybe he’d take up the pipe himself, if … Don’t even think it, Bruche growled.
“The Ashen plan to dismantle it stone by stone and rebuild a new city, centered on a Moonminster temple the likes this world has never seen. They reckon this land is fertile for it, and with Blood Bay—”
“Fertile? Strange word.”
“They use words like it all the time. Just off a bit, like they worship ruddy Agrian.” No city dweller did. No soldier did. Agrian was left to the provincial farmers and herders. “But it’s working. To hear the bloodlords talk, they’re half believing these Ashen hail the gods’ own coming.”
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