Zane Halloway: Omnibus Edition

by P. T. Hylton

  Lily suddenly realized Zane hadn’t spoken in a while, and he seemed all too content to let her take the lead in this conversation. That wasn’t like him. He would usually be looking for any advantage, working his way into the conversation and trying to control it to their benefit. She looked down at him and saw he was even paler than he had been a few moment ago.

  “And what happened?” Ewrkind asked.

  “I fought him,” Gabel said. “He was very good, but he was no elf. His body is on top of Verate’s home. We’ll have to send someone to retrieve it at some point.”

  Ewrkind waved the idea away. “And the others? Did you see where they went?”

  Gabel gave his head the slightest of shakes. “I’m sorry. They got away.”

  Ewrkind slammed the broadsword down onto the table. “Damn it!” He spun and once again gripped the thorn in Lily’s stomach.

  “You are a trained ferox,” Ewrkind said. “You are able to find things, yes?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Can you track down these ferox who stole from me?”

  The truth sprang to her lips. “I believe I can. But I’m often over-confident, so it’s best to take my words with a grain of salt.”

  He grimaced. “Can you take the device from them and bring it back to me?”

  There was a pause, as if she were looking for the truth inside herself. “I do not know. But I think I have a fair shot at it.”

  Zane groaned. “Lily, don’t agree to anything.”

  Ewrkind ignored the comment. “Good enough. If I let you go and keep Zane as a hostage, will you find it and return it to me?”

  Again, the truth came to her lips. “I’ll need a show of good faith. Tend to his wounds. If you do that and swear an oath to free him when I return the device to you, I will do it.”

  The elf paused for a moment, then pulled the knife-shaped thorn out of Lily’s stomach. The cold sensation sent a shiver up her spine.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Gabel, please tend to Zane.”

  Gabel leapt into action, ignoring his own wounds. He left for a moment, then returned with a small bag and knelt next to Zane.

  “Don’t worry,” Ewrkind said, “he’s very good.” He turned back to Lily. “I need you to know I am very serious about this.” He took the knife-shaped thorn and jabbed it into his own stomach. “So you’ll know I’m telling the truth,” he said. “If you return within twenty-four hours with the device, I will let you and Ferox Halloway go. If you do not return in that time, or return empty-handed, I will kill him.”

  He pulled the thorn out of his stomach and set it on the table. He turned toward the other elf. “Gabel, are you confident Ferox Halloway will survive.”

  “He’ll survive,” Gabel said gruffly, not looking up from the wound.

  Lily’s hand snaked out and snatched the knife-shaped thorn off the table. She slipped it into the back of her waistband.

  “Good,” Ewrkind said. “Then, Miss Rhodes, I suggest you get started.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lily started on the rooftop where Gabel had lost the ferox. She took a moment to inspect the body of the man the elf had killed. From the angle of his head in relation to his torso, it looked like his neck had been broken. Had Gabel done it with his bare hands? In her time behind the Blue Wall, Lily had come to fear elves, but in a different way than she had before coming here. They weren’t scary in some mysterious, mystical way (well, maybe a little). She feared them as warriors. She shuddered to think what would happen if Ewrkind was successful in raising up an army of elves, not just here, but in ghettos across Opel. They might not be able to overthrow the kingdom, but they would certainly be able to get their hands very bloody in the attempt.

  She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the rooftop landscape. There were two possible directions the ferox could have gone from here, but only one of them made sense, at least to Lily. The rooftop to the east was a dead end. They could have climbed down and taken to the streets, but, if it were Lily in their place, she would have wanted to put as much distance between her and her pursuers before she put herself in the relatively compromising position of descending.

  And that was when it struck her. She was hunting ferox. Ferox who had received the same training she had. Who’d read the same textbooks. Zane had put his own spin on things for Lily, but the basic strategies would very likely be the same. If she considered what she would do, what all ferox were trained to do in similar situations, she might be able to figure out their destination.

  Once, she came to that realization, the next part was fairly easy. She made her way west along the rooftops for four more houses. She noted the plants that grew up here and the convenient cover they provided. It was nearly dark now, the merest sliver of sunlight was all that was visible over the horizon, but when Gabel had been pursuing the ferox, the sun would have been much higher. The ferox would have run straight toward it, giving up a bit of their own visibility for the benefit of putting the sun in the eyes of their pursuer.

  After four houses, she came to a place where the gap across to the next roof to the west was too wide. She would either have to turn north or descend. She didn’t have to think about it more than a moment. The ferox would have descended to street level at this point. They would have been able to see that Gabel wasn’t anywhere close to them, and this would have been the last chance to descend with a clear view of what was behind them.

  So, Lily followed in their supposed footsteps and climbed down to the street.

  Now came the difficult part, the part that gave her butterflies in her stomach when it involved a human, let alone elves. She was going to have to talk to people on the street, ask them if they’d seen anything. Her and her people skills. They’d be the death of her.

  The only thing that gave her comfort was the knife-shaped thorn in her waistband. She knew she could make anyone tell her the truth of what they saw.

  To her surprise, she didn’t need to use it. The first elf she approached, a wrinkled, elderly man sitting on his front porch, was beyond polite, keeping his head down while he talked to avoid looking her in the eye. His tone was so respectful, she felt a little bad about it. He was her elder after all, elf or not. He had indeed seen a group of ten or so humans dressed in black. They’d gone south.

  It made sense. South was the direction of the Blue Wall, which seemed to be the much busier part of town. It was easier to lose pursuers in a crowd. They might end up drawing more attention as humans in a crowd of elves, but Lily was willing to bet the ferox had fallen back on the standard strategy without thinking through how to best adapt it to the world behind the Blue Wall.

  And so it went. Lily asked strangers every few blocks what they’d seen. All were exceedingly respectful and she didn’t get the sense any of them were holding anything back. The only one who gave her any flack was a tall, young-looking elf. He had the fire of angry youth in his eyes, and he talked to Lily as if she were beneath him, until, in a stroke of inspiration, Lily mentioned she was the guest of Ewrkind that evening. The young elf quickly changed his attitude at that, and even offered to serve as her escort at dinner. She declined, but thanked him for telling her which way the humans had gone.

  As she followed the young elf’s instructions, she turned onto a familiar street, and a chill went up her spine. She suddenly knew where the ferox were, where they had to be. To be certain, she asked an elf doing yard work what he’d seen, and he confirmed the ten humans had gone into the house near the end of the block. She quietly cursed as her suspicion was confirmed.

  She slipped between houses, into the shadows, and climbed to the nearest roof. From there she made her way to the roof of the house the ferox had gone into. She was a little surprised they didn’t have anyone guarding it. They knew Zane and Lily would be after them, didn’t they?

  On the other hand, maybe they’d just grown overconfident. They had defeated Zane, Lily, and two elves, after all. If they were afraid of anything, it had to be Ewrkind
and the gang of angry elven youth he could bring down on them.

  She mentally went over the floor plan of the house, figuring out where the hallway with the purple walls would be, and which window belonged to the small bedroom at the end of that hall. When she had it, she climbed down to the windowsill and peered inside.

  Dursten appeared to be alone. And he was holding the Farns device, the one that controlled weather.

  She raised the window and slipped inside. Dursten was so focused on the device in his hand he didn’t even notice her enter.

  “Do not scream,” she said as the cold steel of her sword touched his neck.

  It was still surprising to Lily how many people responded to that order by screaming. She’d yet to figure out anything better to say, though.

  Dursten did an admirable job. He stiffened and let out a tiny yelp, but he didn’t scream.

  “Put down the device,” Lily said.

  He set it gently on the table.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “How’d you get mixed up with them?”

  He looked up at her for the first time, and she saw tears in his eyes.

  “They came shortly after you left today. They said they’d been sent by Beth Farns to retrieve her father’s device.”

  “They lie,” Lily said, but part of her wondered. The woman hated Zane, and with good reason. Would it be so unlikely she’d send a competing team of ferox after them? But fourteen ferox? Lord, Lily didn’t want to think of the cost of such a venture. She knew Beth Farns had some money, but she also knew the woman was concerned for the future. It seemed unlikely she’d spent a good chunk of her remaining fortune on this.

  There was anger in Dursten’s voice when he spoke. “They told me you were eating dinner with Ewrkind. After I told you he stole from me, you broke bread with him.”

  “We were getting information to better prepare ourselves to take it back from him.”

  The old man nodded sadly, as if he’d expected her to say nothing less. “You both tell me you’re working for Miss Farns. You both tell me you’ll take the device back to her. Who do I believe?”

  Lily grimaced. She didn’t have time for a debate. “It doesn’t matter. I’m the one with the sword to your throat.”

  Dursten sighed. “Fair enough. You’ll want to hurry, though. They only brought it back here because I promised them one of the other three Farns tangles I have left if they’d let me hold it for just five minutes. This device is the reason Farns came here, ergo it’s the reason I came here. My life is so different because he wanted to build this thing, and because he wanted to hide it away. If only he could have brought himself to destroy it, I would have been able to leave with him.”

  Lily thought for a long moment. She was afraid of what the ferox would do to Dursten when they found he’d lost the device, but she couldn’t fight all of them. All she could do was give him the best chance possible. Which, now that she thought of it, would also give her the best chance of plumbing a bit more information out of this debacle.

  “Listen close,” she said. “I’m going out the window. When I’m gone, count to thirty, then start screaming that the device has been stolen. Tell them I took it, tell them I threatened to kill you and you had no choice, understand?”

  He nodded.

  For all she knew, they might still take it out on him, but she had the feeling they would be too busy pursuing her. Besides, they were ferox. She had to believe they lived by the same code Zane had taught her.

  She climbed out the window, moving quickly up the onto roof and down the other side of the house, keeping her own thirty-count in head as she went. She looked in the first-floor window. There were five ferox in this room and they were all sitting, so she must have beat Dursten’s thirty-count. Despite their positions, she could see tension in their postures. She could hardly blame them. They’d stolen from a charismatic leader trying to start an uprising, one who they knew from personal experience wasn’t afraid of showing his enemies the pointy end of a broadsword, and now they were in the home of one of the only other humans behind the Blue Wall. It wouldn’t be long before Ewrkind came looking for them here.

  She slipped a slim knife out of her boot and used it to quickly unlock the window.

  A moment later, she heard a muffled shout, and all the ferox jumped to their feet.

  Lily took a deep breath. They’d be searching for her on the roof and around the perimeter of the house, but they wouldn’t expect to find her in room they’d just left. As soon as the last ferox was out of the room, she wriggled through the window and tucked herself away behind the open door to the hallway.

  She could see out the window from her vantage point, and, just as she’d hoped, over the next few minutes the ferox widened the perimeter, getting farther and farther from the house. She should go. She could slip past them now that they were spread out, and the Farns device seemed to weigh a ton in her satchel. It was foolish to risk everything by waiting here.

  But she had to know.

  It was only another minute until she heard approaching footsteps, moving fast and confidently through the hallway. Just as the steps passed her, she dashed through the doorway, grabbing the ferox around the neck from behind. He yelped in surprise and fear as she stabbed the knife-shaped thorn into his neck. She recognized the pale blond hair. It was Rayble.

  “Who are you working for?” she asked.

  The answer came quickly. “Jacob Von Ridden.”

  She froze. Of all the possible answers she had considered, that wasn’t one of them. What was really going on here?

  She gulped hard and spoke again. “How long have you been working for him?”

  “Since Charles Danum disappeared. He hired us to follow you and Halloway.”

  She pursed her lips. She could only risk another moment or two, so she had to make her next questions count. “You had people at Harrison Oliver’s house before I even got there. How did you know?”

  He chuckled. “Come on. You think Von Ridden and the Farns woman aren’t working together?”

  Lily’s blood went cold. “But why? What does Jacob want?”

  There was a slight pause before he answered. “I don’t know, not for sure, but whatever-the-hell you’re doing to me makes me feel compelled to speculate. Von Ridden says it’s to get the Farns device. But I think he wants to open communications with Ewrkind. You have any idea how many thrones there are to be made here? Control of the goods moving in and out of here would bring Von Ridden a lot of thrones. And with him, it’s usually about thrones.” Another pause. “But it’s never really about thrones, is it? It’s about what the thrones can bring. Power. Whether he wants the lightning or the thrones, at the end of the day, it’s about power. And revenge. Jacob Von Ridden really doesn’t like your man Halloway.”

  “Yes, I got that impression as well.” She twisted the knife-shaped thorn in his neck ever-so-slightly. It wouldn’t hurt, she knew, but it would send a strange coldness shooting through him. “If you follow me, I will kill you.” She whispered this last part in his ear. The threat wouldn’t stop him from following, she knew, but maybe it would give him pause and give her just enough of an edge to get away.

  She pulled out the knife and kicked him hard in the back of the knee. If the threat didn’t slow him down, that would. She turned and sprinted to the window, pulled it open, and slipped through.

  Lily made her way through the neighborhood quickly but carefully, weaving into and out of shadows, never exposing herself to view for more than a few seconds. It took her twice as long as it should have to reach Ewrkind’s home, and she cursed every step of the way. The ferox knew where she would be going, and it wouldn’t be long before they went there looking for another fight. Lily needed to get Zane and leave.

  When she arrived at Ewrkind’s, she realized she didn’t need to worry about ferox. A group of thirty elves, most of them young and all of them armed, stood in the streets around Ewrkind’s home.

  She approached slowly, hands
open and turned toward them in the least threatening manner possible. Still, as she reached them, rough hands grabbed her and shoved her toward the door.

  ***

  After Lily left, Zane sat on the floor for a long time, feeling the throbbing pain in his side and wondering what would become of him. Gabel worked on him silently and efficiently. Zane liked the pain, as it reminded him he was still alive. Slowly, the fog in his head started to lift, and he began to consider his position. A darkness came over his soul.

  Zane didn’t see any possible way this could end well. He was injured and at the mercy of captors who could physically best him in his current condition ten times out of ten. Lily was off trying to steal the Farns device from ten ferox, including the master swordsman Rayble. It wasn’t that the task was impossible; he knew if anyone could do it, it was her. It was just that she was prideful about her work in the blandest of circumstances. Now, with Zane’s life at stake, how far would she go? Zane knew the answer. She’d go as far as she needed to. Even if that meant going over the edge of sanity. Lily had many admirable traits, but restraint wasn’t one of them.

  At least she’d spit in their faces as she died, if it came to that.

  And what if she succeeded? They return the Farns device to Ewrkind and, what, he lets them go? Seemed unlikely. And even if he did, the only thing that awaited Zane outside the Blue Wall was prison when he failed to return the device to Beth Farns. At least Lily would go free. Her name wasn’t on the contract. She’d be allowed to speak her vows and start a new life as a ferox. Maybe the Ferox Society would even have her take his place in Barnes. He hoped not. She deserved a fresh start.

  At some point, Gabel finished stitching and bandaging Zane. More elves arrived, and some of them removed the bodies of the dead ferox. Elves gathered around Ewrkind and listened to his words as if they were spoken by the king himself. Ewrkind spoke of revenge. He spoke of the ferox repaying his hospitality with betrayal. Zane barely listened.