“With reason,” interjects one of his men. “It’s just slavery by a prettier name.”
Liam nods in agreement. “Too right,” he says. “But they’re familiar with the place where Lady Bree’s friends are being held. Even had people inside, and it sounds like what this Tofer fellow told us is accurate. Our new comrades know the layout.” He paces, continuing. “The guard will be the easy part, I’m afraid. We can’t take everyone in. There’s simply not enough room and, as they say, too many tenders in the garden trounce the roses. What we need is minders. People to prevent prying eyes from running a report to the city magistrate. People to run interference should the report make it there anyway. Distractions in the nearby establishments to keep their eyes elsewhere.
“We will need some of you inside. The dogs we’re told of are worrisome, but I’ve faith that, with enough of us, even raving beasts can be felled.”
He turns to me. “Lady Bree, you’ll—”
“Oh no,” I say grimly. “You’ll not be leaving me behind to mind the drugged guard. I’m going.”
He regards me, amused. “I had no notion of saying otherwise. I only meant to suggest that you stand just a jot back until the dogs are dealt with.”
This is still farther back than I would have preferred, but I allow for the practicality of the plan. “Fine. And then?”
“We spring your friends, and anyone else we find, for that matter. This party has had a similar plan for some time, but they’re willing to put it into play tonight.”
The place isn’t far. As Liam disappears to make contact with our allies, I stay behind with the “minders” and the “watchers.” Our background support. There’s four of us on this rooftop. These folks are the ones meant to signal to counterparts on the grounds below should things go wrong.
And we have the first strike as well. The man beside me, a fellow with a large, expansive chest, lifts a blowpipe to hover beneath his lips. It would be too obvious and cumbersome to slip something into the guard’s drink. As the man is on duty alone, the troop had been of one mind that he’d keep a tight hold of his personal drink and food supply. The soldier beside me inhales deeply and releases his breath with a decisive huff into the pipe. A thin dart, no thicker than a sewing needle, streaks through the air and strikes home in the unprotected skin of the guard’s neck.
Surprised, he claps a hand to his skin as though to swat off a biting insect. When his fingers encounter the thin piece of carved wood buried in his flesh, he pulls it out to stare at it, alarmed.
“Go on,” the blowpipe-wielder whispers to me. “He’ll topple any moment now from the paralytic. You’ll all have a couple of hours before he’s up again. Make sure someone covers his eyes if you want to leave him alive and unable to identify any of us.”
I flee back the way we came. Foot after trembling foot on ladder rungs against the side of the building, then around the corner to the building we watched from above.
I find the guard blindfolded and rolled to the side, with bits of cotton stuffed in his ears. That had been good thinking. Not even a recognized voice in a crowd will be able to lead him back to us.
With blood and adrenaline surging through me, I’m ready to fight, to attack any other guards at their posts. They’d deserve it, keeping these people prisoner to be sold like goods for trade. I accept a torch from the building lookout with shaking hands. This is already taking too long.
“Think the dogs are dealt with by now?” I ask.
“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d think we’d see some of the furry beasts by now if they—hey!”
That was enough for me. Impatient, I run toward the door, open and foreboding. It creaks in the wind.
My footsteps echo in the dark hall. No one is kept this close to the entrance, it seems. At least, not anyone conscious. There are no telltale doors, nor the signs of life you’d expect to hear from people in captivity. I remember the moans and pleas of the prisoners when I’d visited Da, back in the capital. The hushed breathing of those who had given up and huddled in on themselves.
I swallow and move on.
Doubt gnaws at me the farther in I get, and I glance back toward the exit, uncertain. I should be have come across someone, by now, shouldn’t I? Or heard something. The shouts of Liam’s men as they start to locate the first crop of people, at the very least. I don’t think Tofer was lying, but what if they’ve already moved the prisoners?
Relief swells as I hear movement headed toward me. “Thank the Makers,” I say, turning. “What have you fou—”
A great, black shape leaps onto me, and I land flat on my chest, my torch flying from my hand and the wind smacked right out of me. My next breath sounds more like a wheeze.
I’d forgotten the dogs. The thing on top of me is a mass of pure muscle, and it wastes no time. I let out a bellowing cry of pain as its sharp teeth clamp onto my arm and wallop it in the head with my free hand.
Its huge skull is loosened, and blood runs hot and free down my arm, my sleeve shredded. I gasp for breath, but it’s cut off by another scream. I’d deterred the dog for only a moment, and its massive jaw locks around my hip instead.
Makers, it hurts. I choke back a sob, but can’t dam the tears that begin streaming down my face. Teeth gritted and with increasing desperation, I pummel it in its side, jostling my body in an attempt to throw it off.
Suddenly, something else joins my efforts. Liam utters a war cry as he slams into the animal’s side and pins it against the wall. I lay limp where it left me as he finishes the beast with a succession of brusque blows to its head with the aid of the unforgiving wall.
He turns to me. A sweat-soaked strand of hair drips into his eye. “I would swear,” he pants, “that I’d asked you to wait until we dealt with these.” He bends to extend me a hand, and I grasp it with my good arm, limping on one side at the pain in my hip.
“Thought I’d given you enough time to be getting on with it,” I say casually. I hiss when he prods at my wounds.
He frowns. “You’ve gone and ruined the whole affair for yourself now,” he says. “Your hip’s not bad—not as deep as it looks—but your arm’s a mess. It needs to be poulticed and bandaged immediately.”
Oh, no, it doesn’t. “It’ll wait.”
“Not if you—”
“I wasn’t asking,” I say, hobbling forward determinedly. I’ve left the others for this long. I won’t wait a moment longer than necessary. I won’t have them worrying that these people are only here to take them captive in a different way. Liam’s arms are crossed as he stares at me with an arched brow, and I shoot him a frustrated glare. “This would go faster if you’d help me, you know.”
He sighs and acquiesces, yanking his tunic overhead. “At least wrap this around your arm to staunch the blood flow. You’re lucky we chose stealth over armor tonight.”
I snatch it and glare. “Yes,” I bite out, winding it around my useless limb. “Lucky is exactly how I feel.”
Liam braces me along his side and slings my good arm around his torso. His skin is sticky with sweat. After far too long, we forge on. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re too damned stubborn for your own good?” he asks.
“With my sweet disposition? I’ve never heard such a thing.”
As we get deeper into the building, the signs of additional help are obvious. Liam’s troop is a small one, and there are people here I don’t recognize, crouched before locks with picks. Lanterns at their sides light the interior of the cells, and the sight of the people inside twists at my heart. Their expressions are bleak, some downright vacant, and their limbs are pinned to the walls as if for display.
“They’re not in here,” I say to Liam. Wordlessly, he helps me to the next room, with a similar scene.
“Tregle?” I whisper. “Aleta? Meddie?” No answer. I shake my head. On to the next. And the next. “Aleta? Tregle? Meddie?” Until their names run from my lips like a stream tripping over rocks.
Have they been sold to a wealthy house
hold already? Deflated, I’m about to leave another cell, leaning heavily against Liam, when I hear a disbelieving, “Breena?”
Aleta. Injuries all but forgotten, I push off of Liam and limp hurriedly inside, the slash of light from the hallway fading behind me, shoving aside the man undoing her locks.
It is her. Her hair hangs in rough hanks from her head, and her green eyes are dazed. She lets out a garbled sound, halfway to a laugh.
“How are you… You were… Makers, you look a sight. What hole did you crawl out of?”
“Lady Bree.” Liam nods at the lock-pick, and I step aside so he can resume his work.
“Sorry. I just…” The manacles fall from her wrists, and I seize her in a sloppy embrace.
“You smell horrid,” she says into my ear.
I grin. “I’m glad to see you, too,” I say, stepping back to concentrate on the knots at her hands. She’s still wearing those damned wet cloths. “You’re a hard lot to find,” I say. Liam gently removes my hands and undoes Aleta’s knots himself. “I was starting to think I had the wrong building.”
“All right in here?” A blonde head pokes into the room. I can’t quite see the woman—the lantern light isn’t strong at the doorway—but her voice is familiar somehow. I can’t place it.
“Think so,” Liam says. He mutters, “One of our Clavish friends,” and I nod.
“Could use you over here,” a lock-pick in the corner says. He’s still determinedly working at another man’s manacles without success. “The tumblers in this aren’t set right. I can’t get it open.”
She tuts and strides in, kneeling in the soft lantern’s glow. It falls across her features, and my blood freezes in my veins. No.
“Did you see…” I start to ask Aleta, transfixed, but the woman’s hair tumbles over her face, obstructing the blue eyes and upturned nose I thought I’d seen.
It can’t be, but…the height and stature are right. The voice is right.
She swears and stands. With a muttered oath, she twirls her fingers and stabs them toward the lock.
The whistle of wind reaches my ears as the man’s cuffs are forced open.
I seize Aleta’s forearm, terrified. “Aleta…” What are the chances that someone looks that much like Kat and has Air Rider abilities? Slim to none.
“I see her, too.”
“How… She’s dead.”
“There’s a bit of that going around.”
“This is different. I killed her myself.” I can still feel the rage that had fueled me, determinedly forcing the water into her body. If she’s alive, I’m even madder than I thought, seeing her spirit when it’s still tied to her body. I’m near to tears, panicking, but it washes away in a haze of hope for a moment. Da. If Kat’s not really dead, then maybe…
No. I banish the thought. Dead is dead. This isn’t some heretofore undiscovered Rider power. Riders pass on to the Great Beyond just as we all do.
But the woman turns to look at us, and there’s no mistaking her. She’s without the usual red gem at her neck and her intricate clothing, but the face is the same, the eyes and the hair are the same. It’s her.
Her expression registers surprise when she sees me, frozen. A statue beside Aleta and Liam. My heart throbs in my throat as I wait for her to make the first move.
“You’ll want to hurry up,” she says, turning smoothly back to the cloths over the prisoner’s hands. “Get them out of here. We’ve got a decent window, but we don’t have forever.”
I shake free of my shock. For some reason, she’s choosing not to attack us now, so I’ll free my friends and run like hell. With Kat here, I doubt King Langdon’s troops are much further behind. Aleta grasps my hand tightly.
“Do you know where the others are?” I ask. She nods, and I release a breath. “Good. Find them. Help get them loose.”
“What about you?”
“Oh, me?” I smile wanly and reach out an arm to steady myself on Liam, the world beginning to tilt a bit. “I’m dandy.”
He curses. “Done pushing yourself, then?”
Spots dance in my vision. “Just about, yeah.”
“I’ve got her,” he says to Aleta. “Locate the rest of your party. She’ll not go missing again, I swear it.”
She flies off, casting a last worried look at me and Kat, like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
“You’ll get me back to the inn?” I ask Liam. The edges of my eyesight are dimming, and I squint to bring him into focus.
He sighs and hoists me into his arms, starting out of the cell. “Yes, your ladyship.”
“Good.” I exhale and cast a look over his shoulder as we leave, feeling satisfied when I see no one else chained up. Kat still stands there. She tilts her head and regards me curiously. The longer my stare dwells, the more it seems that I see two of her. Her ghost is transfixed by her own image. Two Kats—one flesh, one spirit.
They look almost like twins.
I open my eyes, and Aleta, Tregle, Meddie, and Liam peer at me from various vantage points around the room.
I push to a sitting position. “I need to break this habit of waking to people staring at me.” My arm resists movement; it’s wrapped tightly in a sling. My body smells strongly of anise, and I fling the bedcovers aside to find a similar dressing about my hip. “How bad are my injuries?”
“Not bad at all for someone who came back from the dead,” Meddie says. The bed depresses beneath her weight as she settles near my feet.
“And you’re awfully alert for someone who I’d expected to find drugged.”
“We were dosed every other day, I think,” Tregle says softly. “We were due for our next draught, but never got it.” He nods at my bandages. “The healer said there wasn’t any lasting damage and that so long as you regularly apply the poultice he left, you’ll get well quickly.”
“Not as quickly as if you’d have listened to me,” Liam grouses.
“Don’t be petulant, Liam.” I focus on my friends. They don’t look terribly worse for the wear. Perhaps a bit on the thinner side and Meddie looks like she’s favoring an ankle, but they are remarkably whole. Emotion wells in me as I take them in and Liam slouches away from the wall.
“I’ll give you all a moment,” he says as he exits.
The door clicks shut, and we all gaze at each other, not sure where to start.
“How did you find—”
“I found Tofer,” I cut Tregle off. “He’s… Well, I hesitate to say ‘not that bad’ because he did try to kill me, but it was surprisingly easy to wrangle the information from him. And I ran into Liam back in Egria soon after we were parted. He’s—”
“Working for Caden’s cause,” Aleta says. Her voice sounds suspiciously thick. “Yes, we—we heard.”
He’s told them, then. That he thinks Caden is dead.
I can’t have that conversation right now. “Did he tell you anything else?”
“Yes.” Aleta frowns and somehow manages to look self-satisfied about it. “He said he’s made contact with someone who may have access to a ship that could get us to Nereidium.”
“I wonder about that,” Tregle adds. “It’s not as simple as getting access to a ship. The king’s not a stupid man, and we’ve seen very well that it’s not exactly political niceties that have prevented him from reaching Nereid shores. If it had been as easy as sneaking over in the guise of a Clavish ship, he’d have done it by now. Or Lady Kat would have.”
Kat. My eyes fly to Aleta’s as I say, “If Liam says he has a plan, then he has one.” But that’s not what I’m focused on. Aleta meets my gaze with one of perfect understanding. I hadn’t imagined it—we really had seen Kat.
“No, you didn’t.” Kat runs cold and ghostly fingers over my hair, and I gulp down the scream rising in my throat. I was so sure I saw her, alive and well during the rescue. And despite how happy I am to have my friends back, I can’t relax after that.
“You saw her, too, didn’t you?”
Aleta nods, but looks dubious.
“But it couldn’t possibly have been her. We saw her body. And even if we were wrong, even if she survived, she’d have had to heal with great haste to be able to not only make the journey here, but to be running about the way that she was. I don’t know…Was she perhaps Clavish somewhere in her bloodline?”
I shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“A distant relative—no, it’s not out of the question,” she snaps when I open my mouth to point out what I see as the flaws in this theory. “We were tired,” she says. “My mind has been addled, worn from… Well, you saw the state of the place. And you were buoyed by some excited vapors. Sir Liam tells us you fell unconscious immediately after I left you. Perhaps, it made you...not yourself? Mayhap it was only someone who resembled Lady Katerine. With the hair and the apparent Air Riding abilities, it’s no wonder our addled minds thought that was her.”
In spite of what I have to admit is a sound explanation, not even Aleta seems convinced.
At this, Tregle—and even Meddie, after all she’s heard about Kat—starts. A warning glance from Aleta lets them know she isn’t finished speaking.
“Adept Tregle?” she asks. “Did you see the woman we speak of?”
“No, Your Highness,” he says softly from where he leans against the wall. His eyes are bewildered but gentle on her, and she clears her throat.
“Mistress Meda—ah, but then you wouldn’t recognize Lady Katerine even if you had seen her.” She sighs. “I’m afraid, Breena, that this is all the time we can take on it.”
“Yes,” I agree. I’m willing to accept the flimsy explanation. After all, whether or not it makes me mad to think it, I have the rather hard-to-ignore evidence that Lady Kat is dead right beside me. She’s remained hushed while we argued over the other Rider, running a thumbnail along the point of her index finger.
“That wasn’t me,” she says, but it’s almost a distracted comment.
Riot of Storm and Smoke Page 17
