by Janice Hardy
“Always a pleasure.”
Fieso’s hands clenched. “You trying to cheat me?”
“You stole my property and accuse me of cheating you?” Vyand tsked. “I’ll take my Shifter now.”
“I want my money first.”
“Sorry, it’s my money.”
Fieso dived at her, a knife suddenly in his hand. He sank it up to the hilt in her side and she cried out, fingers pressed against her stomach. Blood seeped through the cloth.
The driver drew his sword as Vyand’s men drew theirs. All except…
One of the armored men dropped to a knee, placing one hand over Vyand’s wound and the other on her forehead. His eyes narrowed, his cheek twitched, then the color returned to her cheeks. He pressed his bloody hand against his armor.
His blue armor. Pynvium blue.
SEVEN
Saints and sinners, a healer-soldier in pynvium armor! This is what the Duke was doing with his Healers? Training them to kill?
It was awful. It was…I shuddered. Terrifying. How could you kill soldiers who could heal their own wounds and push the injuries into their armor? They’d be unstoppable.
Fieso and the driver were clearly the better fighters, but it didn’t seem to matter. Fieso’s knife slipped between the armor plates, drew blood, and had to have pierced organs, but the healer-soldiers just pushed the pain into the pynvium and kept fighting. They neither dodged nor danced, weren’t light on their feet like Fieso. They didn’t have to be.
The other men helped Vyand to her feet. She was pale but steady. All three stood back and watched the healer-soldiers, as did a few of the gate soldiers. Why were they fighting for Vyand? She couldn’t have hired them. The Duke would never give weapons like that to anyone. Was he helping Vyand? But why? Wasn’t paying her enough?
The driver screamed and went down. The healer-soldier ran him through, then smiled like he’d enjoyed doing it.
No one could stand against the Duke with an army like this. No one.
I wiggled my wrists harder, faster, trying to get out of there before the healer-soldiers killed Fieso. Skin ripped, but the ropes stayed tight. I ground them against the stone floor, the edge of my sandal, anything that even looked like it might cut.
Fieso put up a good fight, but he wasn’t going to win. He tried to run, but the soldiers caught him and shoved him down. Vyand smiled, looking impressed, and whispered to the man next to her. He made notes in a small book I hadn’t seen before.
I gasped. Was this a test? Was the Duke letting Vyand borrow the soldiers to see how they’d do in a real fight? What kind of power did she have?
The healer-soldiers advanced and finished Fieso off. He didn’t scream, just grunted in pain and collapsed. Vyand nodded, seemingly very pleased with the soldiers’ performance.
This was worse than the rows of pain-stuffed Takers in the Healers’ League. Worse than the riots, the fighting, even the random beatings. If the Duke turned those soldiers loose on Geveg, we wouldn’t survive. It wouldn’t be like Sorille. We would die not in fire but by the hands of those who should have been keeping us alive.
Vyand snapped her fingers and her men dragged the bodies away, behind the carriages where I couldn’t see. She walked over to me, plucking at her bloody uniform.
“Look at this. Ruined. Blood never comes out.” Not as flippant as she probably intended, and I caught the strain in her voice. Getting stabbed like that took time to get over, even if you were healed right away.
“Guess you’ll have to burn it.”
“You’re probably right.” She frowned and wiped her fingers on her pants. “Now then, do we just pick up where we left off?”
“Where’s my sister?”
“Thinking over the most important decision of her life. A waste of time if she’s anything like you.”
“Where is she?”
“Do you really expect me to tell you?” She sighed. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Well, what about my friends? Did you capture them? Can you tell me that?”
She patted her glossy hair into place. “I really have no idea who you’re friends with. If they were part of that sloppy rescue attempt, then yes, I did.”
“Are they here?”
“Enough questions. Come now, out.” Vyand waved at the gate soldier, who unlocked the cage. The healer-soldiers followed, keeping their hard gazes on me as if they’d welcome another fight. Saea willing, they’d be like every other Baseeri soldier I’d ever met and they’d want to intimidate me, shove me around a bit, get their pretty blue armor close enough to touch.
How much pain did it hold now? Fieso had fought hard, landed a lot of hits. The bigger one had Vyand’s stomach wound as well, and those hurt something awful. I rose to my feet, swaying as the ground tipped under me. I banged into the bars but stayed upright.
“I see dinner is in order,” Vyand mused. “Did they feed you at all?”
“No. They locked me in a trunk.” I made a show of taking deep breaths, gauging the distance between me and the big healer-soldier. I could probably get both him and Vyand, maybe even her drivers and one gate soldier.
Vyand huffed. “Amateurs.”
I took a hesitant step, then let my knees buckle. I stumbled forward, hands outstretched as if to catch my fall. They slapped against the pynvium armor. I pictured dandelions blowing in the wind.
Whoomp!
Pain flashed. Men screamed. Vyand screeched in pain and frustration as the men around her collapsed. She fell a breath later. I ran into the crowd, legs shaking but keeping me up for now. They wouldn’t for much longer, so I needed a place to hide—fast.
I didn’t hear the gate soldiers coming after me yet, but they would. So would Vyand as soon as the pain faded and she could move again.
I had no idea where to go. The street was narrow, with vendor carts shoved up against tall buildings made of the same golden stone as the wall. Bright tiles of every color and pattern were pressed into the stone, making it impossible to tell where one building ended and another began. Windowsills and shutters were painted in equally bright colors, no two in a row the same hue, painful to even look at. I tugged on one, hoping to slip inside, but it was just decorative, not a real window at all. Only wood nailed to the wall.
I kept moving deeper into the noise and mess. The buildings were five—no, six—stories tall. The top floors had short balconies, but the lower floors didn’t—not that I had the strength to climb onto one anyway. I saw no alleys. Buildings butted up against each other and the street seemed to go on for miles.
It felt like the entire city was crashing down on top of me.
Quick gasps and sudden movement ran through the crowd behind me—the familiar warning that soldiers were on the way.
A boy dashed by, running into the thick crowd. Three other boys chased him. They vanished in a heartbeat, swallowed by the mob.
Street kids. They always knew where to hide.
I followed them, weaving between women intricately wrapped in patterned cloth and men with beaded vests and no shirts. Past children with braided bands tied around their heads. One man had a snake thick as my leg draped across his shoulders. People shoved me and I shoved back. No one said excuse me, but they didn’t yell either. Not one seemed to care about the ropes around my wrists.
The street boys darted between garish vendor stalls, ducking under piles of rugs woven in dizzying patterns. I pushed a rug aside and crawled through.
It was some kind of hidey-hole, maybe an abandoned stall. Dark and scented with cinnamon, the tiny space butted up against a building and probably wasn’t even noticeable from the outside. I spotted another child-size hole in the wall a few feet ahead. The sound of faint footsteps and laughter floated out. My fear urged me to crawl into the tunnel, but who knew what I’d find on the other side.
Shouts and cries came from the street. Heavy boots on stone. Orders yelled.
“I don’t care—find her now!” Vyand said, sounding angry as
a wasp. “Bribe the guards to seal the gates. Hire more men and sweep every street in the quarter—just get her back.”
I pressed against the wall, then turned and ran my fingers along the broken bricks around the tunnel. Not as good as a knife, but better than nothing. I rubbed the ropes up and down along the edges, sawing through the fibers until my arms ached. I was halfway through the first loop when scuffling echoed in the tunnel. I froze for a moment, then scooted away from the hole. No room to hide in the small area, but if I was quiet enough, and the boy was in enough of a hurry, maybe he’d race right by.
The scuffling grew closer and I reconsidered my plan. He couldn’t miss me. A blind cat would see me huddled here. I grabbed a chunk of brick and raised my hands.
A dark head popped out. “Ahh!” He flinched away.
“I’m sorry.” I dropped the brick. “I won’t hurt you.”
He didn’t move, just lay there with one hand blocking his face, gasping.
“I needed a place to hide. I’ll go soon, promise.”
The hand dropped. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry. You scared me too.”
“Really?” He grinned. “Nobody’s got scared of me before.”
“Well, you got me good.”
He nodded, looking quite pleased with himself. He wasn’t the street boy I’d followed—much younger, maybe eight or nine. “Who tied you?”
I hesitated. “Soldiers.”
“They do that. Was you stealing?”
“No, I’m the one who was stolen.”
He laughed. “Never met somebody that got stolen before. Need those cut?” A knife appeared and glinted in the shadows.
I held out my hands. “Yes, thank you.”
“You talk funny,” he said as he cut through the ropes.
“So do you.”
He giggled at that too. The ropes fell away.
“Thank—”
“Shhh!” He thumped a finger against my lips and leaned toward the rugs, his head cocked. Steady footsteps echoed. Wood cracked and a man swore, then started yelling.
“You can’t paw through my wares!”
“We can search whatever we want. Stand back.”
“Put that down!”
Metal scraped against metal. “We can always add another to tomorrow’s hangings.”
Silence, then the ransacking noises began again.
“It’s the Undying,” the boy whispered.
“The soldiers in pynvium armor?”
He nodded. “Come thisaway.” He headed into the tunnel, quiet as fog. I followed.
Blackness swallowed us a few feet down, and only the boy’s breathing let me know he was in front of me. After a while light shimmered ahead, and the tunnel finally opened into a storeroom of some kind, one that was old and forgotten, with mildew growing on the walls.
“Better we go out here,” he said, pulling a key from around his neck and unlocking a door in the far side. “Extra better for you.”
“Where does this lead?”
“Fountain Plaza. It’s past the Eket Street gates, so the hunt won’t find you.” He cracked the door and peeked out. “Go now, fast, before night comes.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go.”
He frowned and shook his head. “Can’t stay with us—Iesta won’t like it. Moraat Street has the most unlocked windows. Crews are gone come dark.”
I stepped out into the sunset. “Which way?”
“Down there. Third block to the right.” He pointed at a wide street lined with warehouses. The cross street looked the same as the one we’d just left. Vendor carts, too many people, and no clear places to hide.
“Thank you.”
“Saints hold and keep you.” He locked the door and ran off, vanishing into the crowd within a few strides. I was afraid to move.
I’d never seen so many people in my life! It was as if all of Baseer were on this one street. And it wasn’t just people. Baskets of chickens, guinea fowl, and marsh ducks clucked, chirped, and squawked alongside crates of animals. Cages of bright birds hung above boxes of colorful lizards. Women walked with dogs on leashes, cats in beaded bags, and even monkeys on their shoulders.
I couldn’t see any patrols, but Saints knew how they’d squeeze between all these people anyway. Maybe they were all on the other side of the gate the boy was talking about. He couldn’t have meant the main gate, but hadn’t Vyand said something about quarters? Maybe the city was sectioned off by gates like the canals broke up Geveg.
My stomach fluttered, and not just from hunger. If there were gates, then soldiers probably checked who came through them. I could be trapped here.
Trapped in Baseer.
I hugged myself, chilled despite the heat. A few people glanced my way, and the longer I stood there, the more turned to stare. I stepped into the crowd. I guess here people noticed you only when you weren’t moving.
A tall man with pictures drawn on his arms elbowed me as he passed. I ducked away, bumping into a woman with a basket balanced on her shoulder. The lid popped open and some pears dropped out. I caught them and hid them behind my back, but she didn’t turn around.
I wove through the crowd to a bright red building and sat behind some boxes. I ate, the pear crisp and sweet in my mouth. A brown and gold cat watched me from under a cart, his striped tail flicking. He was the only one who seemed interested in me. I bit off a bit and tossed it to him. He sniffed it, grabbed it in his teeth, and slipped back under the cart.
I felt instantly better after eating, though not well enough for any more escapes. I needed more food, something to drink, and a place to sleep until my strength returned. I’d try the warehouses soon as it got dark. The fountain offered water, but food I’d have to steal.
Plenty of vendors around, and none were paying much attention to their wares. All were focused on calling customers over. I crossed the street, lingering beside a smoked-meat vendor who promised his rabbit would make you younger. When he turned around to hand an old woman a basket of food, I snatched a handful of meat strips and scurried into the crowd. I did it again at the bread vendor’s, plucking three small rolls off the end of his cart.
No Gevegian vendor would be so careless.
I chewed as I walked, delighted to find the bread stuffed with a cheese-and-fruit filling. Three blocks down I reached the fountain that gave the plaza its name. A stone bench circled the fountain, but the plaza was quiet. A few people were sitting on the street side, so I took a seat opposite, my legs and feet grateful for the rest.
I scooped my hand through the water and gulped it down. Bleh. At least it was wet. I drank my fill and ate the rest of my bread. The meat strips I saved for breakfast. My knees still shook, but I wouldn’t fall over if I had to run.
Shadows cut across the street as the last of the sun faded. People hurried off, packages clutched to their chests. I scanned for soldiers and saw nothing but a lamplighter starting his rounds. He was the only one not rushing, and by the time night fell, soft orange glows lit the street like a string of pearls. Finally I was alone.
I didn’t like it. I’d gotten used to having Tali and Aylin with me, and a town house full of others. Used to walks with Danello along the canals. I lifted my chin and stared at the empty streets and tall buildings that lined them. Tali was out there somewhere, and so were Aylin and Danello. Someone had to know where the Duke hid his Takers—and where the trackers took their prisoners.
Wait, the boy might know. If I could find my way back to the storeroom door, I could wait for him. If he didn’t know, his street pack might. I’d known packs like that in Geveg. Tali and I had joined one briefly when I was ten, right after Baseeri soldiers had thrown us out of our home.
I left the fountain, my footsteps loud on the stone street. It was so quiet. No waves, no lake birds, no music from the show house. It was just…creepy. Every step echoed as if someone were walking next to me.
I bent and slipped off my sandals. I heard more echoey footsteps coming up
behind me.
My heart raced. There was nowhere to go. Nothing but buildings and walls and fake shutters that should have been windows. The closest bushes were too low and thin to hide behind. I dashed to the fountain and scooted under the stone bench on the far side.
Someone was running my way, breathing fast. Maybe more than one. The echoes made it impossible to tell how many. Hard steps hit the ground close to me, then a splash and whooping laughter.
“You shouldn’t have run, girl!”
EIGHT
All my instincts said move, run, shift, anything, but the warning wasn’t for me. I heard a smack as flesh hit flesh and a girl cried out, then a breathless thud. Laughter followed.
“You know it’s worse when you run,” a boy said. Probably a street pack, and he sounded like the leader. “You could have just handed over your bag, but now we’ll have to hurt you.”
A grunt, a thump, and a whimper.
Stay still. Don’t move.
I put my hands over my ears, but I’d suffered too many beatings not to recognize the sounds now. The girl cried, sharp sobs from fear and pain. I inched along the ground under the bench until I could see. Three of them, two boys, one girl. All looked about sixteen. Another girl the same age was lying on the street, a bag next to her.
The pack leader bent toward the bag.
“Don’t, please. I need those,” the girl said, reaching for it.
“We need them more.” He kicked her and she curled into a ball.
“They won’t do you any good!”
“Everything sells to somebody.” He stomped on her leg. She screamed as something snapped. “Maybe even you.”
I rolled out from under the bench and got to my feet. They had their backs to me, kicking the sobbing girl. Killing her.
She’s Baseeri. She wouldn’t help you.
Probably not, but wrong was the same in any city.
I got to the first one before he even knew I was there. Kicked him behind the knee. He went down, clutching his leg and yelling. I barely heard him with so many other voices yelling in my head.
Tali: Help the girl and run.
