“Ardal-Mur,” the man smiled. “Originally from your city, though you were a child when I left for Ava-Grea. I agree with your analysis, Doyen. Surely, Guardian balks at the idea of a fifty-year exile.”
“Not only Guardian,” Kadan said. “Our tier guards, our warrens, all our guilds, and influencers, every Ellegean faces a choice.”
“Most of us would prefer life returned to how it was,” Olivan said with a glance at the other influencers. “As the Founders intended: the Cull Tarr in their ships, the warrens below the tiers, the Farlanders out of the south. Influencers returned to power without the abomination of a shield. Dalcoran was right to press for our rule.”
Kadan pushed away his unfinished drink. “Beware of invoking the Founders’ intentions unless you’ve read the Protocols. None of what you describe is Founder-sanctioned; half of it isn’t even mentioned.”
He hauled in a breath and calmed his irritation, stifling an urge to defend the doyen. Perhaps influencer rule had been Dalcoran’s plan all along, the reason he’d never accepted Catling and ultimately betrayed her. Kadan rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Influencers have made mistakes, the doyen included, and we share the blame for many of the ills plaguing our realm. We possess too much power to rule.”
Moira’s eyes tightened. “Forgive me, Kadan-Mur, but that makes no sense. Power is exactly what’s required to rule. The queen died because she acted without power.”
“She’s dead because the Cull Tarr killed her. And they can kill us just as easily and with far less spectacle. The realm isn’t going backward no matter how hard you wish it. The poor aren’t returning to the warrens, the Farlanders rightly claim their home in the south, and influencers aren’t going to rule Ellegeance. All is changing. This isn’t about our power. We have few choices if we plan to save the realm and our own lives. Go home; make wise choices for Ellegeance, because we only have so much time.”
The door slid aside. Cull Tarr jacks with iron tipped spears burst into the room and fanned out along the walls. Kadan shoved a wave of pain against them that had the power of a mirage. Tier Master Naut sauntered in, her hair in a tight braid that further thinned her narrow face. “A secret conclave, Kadan? And I thought we could trust each other.” Before he could speak, she circled her finger in the air. “Arrest them all.”
Catling rose like a wraith behind the tier master, grabbed her braid, and wrapped a hand on her shoulder, fingers pressed against the skin of her neck. “Surrender and I’ll spare your life.”
***
The Cull Tarr jacks spun. The tier master jabbed with an elbow, punching the air from Catling’s lungs. Catling bore down on the woman’s flesh, gasping, holding up her own weight as she dilated and inflamed the blood vessels coursing through the tier master’s brain. Dalon Naut might be immune to influence, but not the manipulation of a mercy’s touch. And Catling didn’t feel merciful.
The woman cried out, knees crumpling. Under Catling’s command, Naut’s blood surged against her skull and radiated across her head in pounding pain. Catling folded an arm around the thin woman’s waist, holding her close. “Drop your weapons,” she shouted and shoved a wave of authority against them.
The jacks held tight, waiting for orders. Kadan and the other influencers froze where they stood, pinned by the spears, all sway useless for want of a touch. Catling dug into the tier master’s flesh, sensitizing the nerves that spread down her neck into her shoulders and chest. The woman gritted her teeth and snarled to her jacks, “Do it. Now.”
Kadan cried out, his body rigid, then contorting. He tumbled from his seat to writhe and gasp on the floor. A woman shrieked and dropped. Then Vincen twisted and thrashed between the chairs. Pain flared, leaping from body to body like a wildfire.
In a panic, Catling shifted her shield to protect them, leaving herself vulnerable. An influencer betrayed them. She needed to escalate, to coerce words of surrender from the tier master’s lips. She began fracturing the woman’s fingers, influence snapping the small bones. The woman screamed, hands curling into crooked claws.
“Drop your weapons!” Catling demanded.
“Kill her!” The woman shrieked.
Flames ignited on Catling’s skin. She gasped and staggered, held Naut in front of her as the jacks’ spears took aim. Without a choice, she whipped her shield back, protecting herself. She closed her ears to the screaming of her peers and locked her heart to their torment. Her gaze swept the chaos and fixed on the man crawling across the floor in feigned agony. His voice silent, eyes riveted on the influencer suffering before him, he reached out, and with a touch, killed his own.
A tumult of fury shot through her. She pulled her power back from the tier master, the damage done, and slammed the full force of pure, untainted fear and pain into the traitor’s body. His influence snapped, and if a man could explode from the horror of perception, she witnessed it then. His body, though physically unharmed, spasmed. Eyes bulging, throat open and howling like a trapped animal, he tore at his skin. Something inside him shattered, his mind in the throes of madness. Kadan touched his arm and killed him.
At Catling’s back, men and women in their greens shouted orders from the hallway. She spun aside, dropped the tier master, and escaped into the corridor where she collapsed against the wall, depleted. Guardians charged by her, spears poised and bows drawn.
Whitt squatted in front of her, took one look, and gathered up the broken pieces of her soul.
Chapter Thirty-One
Whitt scooped Catling up, shocked by her pallid face, the trembling in her limbs and glaze in her eyes. She leaned her head against his chest, eyelids shuttered, not seeming to care where he carried her. He rapped panels until he found an unlocked room, slid inside and closed it with a tap of his elbow. The modest chamber was unoccupied, prepared for guests with a simple bed, table, chair, and hinged stand for a trunk or bag. He lowered her onto her wobbly legs, and she sank to the bed’s edge, her brow wrinkled. “Is this your room?”
‘I doubt it,” he said and swung a chair around, placing it before her. He sat and grasped her hands, rubbing warmth into her icy fingers. “We heard the screaming. It sounded like a good time to fire up this war.”
“It’s begun.” Her words carried such weight he wondered if she could bear them.
Boots and voices pounded through the hallway outside the door, guardians wresting control of the inn. Outside the window, the clamor rose in stridency, panic and mayhem entrenching for a long night. “Four hundred of us are here, Catling, another two hundred a couple hours away. Thanks to you, we captured the tier master.”
“I tortured her,” Catling breathed the words. “Not simply the impression of pain; I snapped her fingers. I let them suffer, and I was so angry, I broke a man’s mind.”
He squeezed her hands, neither understanding nor caring. “You did what you must.”
“Must I?” She met his eyes. “I’ve sought revenge since I was a little girl, and it’s transformed me into a monster, every cruelty and murder justified, the innocent swept up with the guilty. There was always a goal, an end, a time when I could stop, but it rolls on and on.”
“This war will end.” He leaned forward, his forehead resting on hers, his voice both firm and gentle with conviction. “Then you’ll be done. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Only my death will end this.”
“No.” He shook his head against hers. “A choice will. Love will.”
“Those words sound sweet,” she whispered, her eyes gleaming. “But they dangle in the distance like the moons, Whitt, beautiful, constant, and always so far away.”
“Ah,” he smiled. “Closer. More like flowers we can pluck.”
“Rose?” She jerked upright. “Where’s Rose?”
“Safe,” he said. “Perfectly safe. I left her with—”
“Don’t tell me.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “It’s better I don’t know.”
He brushed her hair from her face and kissed her, a light taste of her
lips, more than a brother, less than a lover. He’d loved her since the start but couldn’t reel in the years or surrender Sim, not yet. “Stay here and rest. I’ll come back for you.”
“I should help.”
“No need.” He rose and swung the chair back to the table. “The Cull Tarr can’t influence. This is plain old ordinary war, Catling. Let Guardian win it this time.”
She curled on the bed, head on the pillow. Satisfied, he slipped out to join the war.
Outside the room of Cull Tarr prisoners, a guardian melted a gap in the surface of the Founder-made door. He held a spoon in the hole as the surface closed and sealed, preventing the door from sliding open. Kadan leaned against the wall near the guard, his face drawn. “Algar’s old trick for securing prisoners.”
“You don’t look well,” Whitt said.
“I’m not. Influenced pain has no lasting physical effects, but it exacts a toll.” Kadan angled his head toward the four bodies lined up against the corridor walls. “Three dead influencers killed by our traitor.”
Whitt glanced at the faces, one familiar. “Which one’s our murderer?”
“Olivan-Bes, of Tor.”
“I’m not surprised.” Whitt had encountered the influencer in High Ward Antoris’s hall and disliked him almost as much as he loathed Ardal-Mur. The place bred treachery. “His death is no loss.”
Whitt led the way downstairs to the inn’s tavern. Captain Nordin commanded an impromptu headquarters, barking orders to companies of guardians who jogged off with their assignments.
“East lifts are secure,” Nordin informed a bearded sergeant. “Staircases are killing fields. No one up or down without orders. Spread the word and then help get the west lifts under control.” The sergeant whistled for his men and headed out.
Whitt joined Nordin as he looked up and shouted to the room, “Where are we stowing prisoners?”
“Barracks, Sir.”
Kadan wormed his way closer. “Captain, I’ve been a guest of the barracks, and they won’t hold all your Cull Tarr. We can secure them in rooms when we find them.”
“It works.” The guardian who’d sealed the door upstairs brandished a fistful of utensils.
“Demonstrate.” Nordin waved the man to the task and glanced at Kadan. “We’re sending influencers to the twelfth tier when I find them. I can’t tolerate any interference, even if they think they’re helping. My guardians are wary to begin with, and you have traitors among you. I’d appreciate it if you headed up there and kept heads cool. The tier’s secure. Use the east lifts.”
“I’ll see to it.” Kadan patted Whitt’s arm and strode out.
“Whitt!” Nordin barked.
“Here, Sir.”
Nordin startled to find him standing at his shoulder. “I’m assigning you to the docks. Jagur’s securing the tiers, and he pulled half of the warriors we had stationed by the river. See what you can do to prevent our enemies from escaping by boat. We need to keep Elan-Sia and the Shiplord ignorant as long as we can. In fact, let’s shut down the docks altogether.” The Captain eyed him. “By the way, I heard about the fog.”
“I’ll do my best.” Whitt glanced at the stairs. “Captain, I left Catling up there. If it—”
“She’ll be safe,” Nordin assured him. “Get moving.”
Whitt left the inn and jogged down the ramp, ignoring the sounds of battle above and the random body in his path. Men in greens sprinted past him, another vessel full of warriors berthed. Two ferries plied the waters off the ends of the piers. He grabbed a guardian before the man flew by and pointed. “Ours or theirs?”
“Ours,” the man said. “Jagur ordered them to block any escape to Elan-Sia.”
Whitt loped down the arc of the dock, scanning the water for Cull Tarr vessels with a head start. Above him, Sogul grinned, a thin crescent, Clio and Misanda shying into their first quarters. Lonesome stars glittered in the desolate night, black as pitch if not for the luminescent river. Liquid light swirled in an array of rainbows, blending, separating, coiling, alive. Dark creatures undulated beneath the purling water, paralleling him as he ran. A pall of fog rose in the north at the edge of his vision, an army of wraiths in gray armor awaiting his intentions.
He spotted the silhouettes of three carvirs, oar blades gliding below the surface to hinder any splashing. The ferries wouldn’t catch them.
Would the kari kill for him? The planet sought balance, sentient but not sympathetic. The whole world lived, transformed, and died, much of it through the predictability of seasons and lifespans, much of it random and out of time. The kari bore no interest in the twenty or so men and women whose muscles strained while working those boats. To the planet’s life, they were nothing, fish or insects, leaves on the elbrin, a twig of witchwood. There were no Farlanders here, no encroachment on the land. Why save Ellegeance from the Shiplord? Why help now? Unless there was a price to pay.
And he was willing to pay it.
The carvirs sliced the light. Waterdragons dove. The river trembled and recoiled as if hauled back to the sea by a Darkest Night tide. The oars stopped, and voices murmured across the distance until the thunder of moving water overpowered them. The host of fog advanced, rushing forward with spectral speed before it lifted from a wall of water. The wave curled over the boats, a line of white foam crashing, flowing, and dissipating. The two Guardian ferries scarcely rocked on the final ripple. Heads bobbed to the surface, Cull Tarr shouting as the current swept them north. Waterdragons breached the luminescence, wings throwing droplet of light to the air, flukes slapping up sharp splashes. They dove, and one by one, the Cull Tarr disappeared, and the voices fell silent.
A solitary raft traveled the water. The fog drifted off and vanished into the silhouette of caliph trees, all but a waft of pearl mist trailing the lone man. Raker paddled across the gleaming river.
For a few moments, the ferries blocked Whitt’s view. He wandered to the end of a pier, and as the vessels moved on, the raft drew close. Raker tossed a rope, and Whitt lashed the craft to a piling. “Catling told me you planned to join us for the trip to Elan-Sia. If that’s your intention, you have good timing.”
“Not by choice.” The rafter shouldered his staff and scooped up a satchel of gear.
“What do you want out of this?”
Raker narrowed his eye. The fog clinging to the raft swirled and unfurled above the water. “To be left alone.”
Whitt rephrased the question. “What does she want?”
The rafter chuckled, green gaze sliding from Whitt to the wisps of gathering mist. “What do you think?”
“Balance,” Whitt said. “But what does that mean to Ellegeance?”
Raker walked by him and climbed to the pier. He looked up at the tier city, listening to the storm of battle. “She says you already know.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Gannon sidestepped the dagger. The tip caught on his jacket. He grabbed the man’s wrist, spun into him and broke the arm extending over his knee. That put the failed assassin’s head in the perfect spot for a face-first into the wall. Gannon turned in time to see Tiler knock an entire set of teeth out the gaping mouth of a blond man who’d taken a similar pounding to his gut.
Mostin hadn’t fared as well. His wrist had yet to heal, and now a wound to his arm bled a river. “Bloody piff tried to cut my arm off.” The piff in question lay on the floor with two of Mostin’s knives sprouting from his chest. “Who are they?”
Leaning over, Gannon checked their hands and wrists for guild markings. “Nothing. Warrens most likely. Probably guild hires.”
“Damn.” Mostin sucked in a lungful of air. “I don’t like this job.”
“Got two turd-jerkers alive.” Tiler nudged one with a boot. “Go get stitched up. I’ll mind the future squealers until someone mops up.”
Gannon escorted Mostin to a decent healer for suturing, wishing they had an influencer handy since wounds took forever to heal the old way. He poured a cup of spike down the high ward’
s throat for the pain and dragged him off to the council meeting to see if anyone was surprised to see them for the wrong reason.
Every council member looked shocked, which told him nothing. Mostin sank into his chair and winced at Gannon. “Help yourself.”
Facing the council, Gannon placed his dagger on the table. “Two of them are alive.”
“Guild markings?” The portly councilor of the Merchants’ Guild stared at him over his wine goblet.
“Likely from the warrens,” Gannon replied, eliciting numerous breathy exhales.
The pair representing the warrens frowned, the older woman huffing her annoyance. “I hope Parrie intends to interrogate.”
“That will tell us little,” the merchant dismissed her with a wave. “They’ll implicate anyone to distribute the blame.”
The woman glanced at her cohort from the warrens and bowed to Mostin. “Should you need our assistance, we have methods—”
The bell pealed. Gannon counted, drew in a breath, and shoved his dagger in its sheath. An off-hour bell, ringing without pause, meant one thing, a Cull Tarr attack. The faces around the table blanched, and chairs scraped back.
Parrie slid open the door. “Cull Tarr from the north and west. On foot. We might have until mid-day.”
“How many?” Mostin struggled to his feet, neither arm terribly useful.
“First glance? Probably two thousand.”
Gannon added up bodies in his head. “We can match that, probably beat it.”
“Not if they’re all trained.” Parrie grimaced. “But there’s a chance they have slaves and men impressed from the warrens.”
“I wish we had an influencer,” Gannon muttered, an appalling possibility occurring to him as the words left his mouth. “They might have influencers!”
“Only one way to find out,” Mostin said. “You all know what to do.”
Fierce determination crowded out fear as the room cleared, and Gannon marveled at the advantage of having a common enemy. He raised an eyebrow at Mostin’s bandages. “Convenient.”
Kari's Reckoning (The Rose Shield Book 4) Page 20
