Zane Halloway: Omnibus Edition

by P. T. Hylton

  The key, Zane knew, was to get in and out quickly. He was confident he could defeat the two guards, but he would not be able to defeat the legions of reinforcements that would arrive if they raised the alarm. So, get in, kill the guards, grab the ruby, and be gone. His goal would be to do the whole operation in under a minute. If he could accomplish that, he could be out of the palace and back in the underneath in less than five minutes. Speed was his friend.

  It was time to show Lily, to show himself, that he still had it. That he was still the best at what he did. That he still had the fire inside.

  He took a deep breath, rounded the corner, and stepped through the nobles’ door. And he froze, his eyes wide.

  There weren’t two guards. There were a dozen.

  No, that wasn’t correct. They weren’t all guards. At least five of them were. But six of the others wore long, flowing green robes and looked a bit smaller than most of the Cragsmen he’d met. One wore spectacles.

  The twelfth man was dressed in the finest clothes, purple fabric trimmed in gold, and he wore a thin crown. There was only one person that could be. And only one reason he and eleven others would be waiting here in the sitting room, all standing and facing the door, in the middle of the night.

  Zane glanced at the mantle to confirm his suspicions. There was no ruby there. The ruby probably didn’t exist at all. He’d been set up.

  He spun on his heels, ready to sprint out of the room. He probably wouldn’t make it far, but he had to try. He now knew for certain that Lily was wrong in her assessment of his motives. He wanted to live, and he wanted it very badly indeed. That wouldn’t happen if he stayed in this room.

  At the end of the hallway, there was another man in a green cloak. He looked older than the others. He raised his hand, and a burst of wind hit Zane in the face like a brick wall, knocking him back into the room and off his feet. He landed flat on his back on the stone floor.

  Abditus. The men in the green cloaks were abditus.

  If only he’d brought Lily along. She might be able to combat their magics. On the other hand, she’d be in this mess, too. He’d made the right decision.

  The guards and abditus stood motionless, watching him with blank faces. The man in purple, High Prince Gullins, rubbed his chin, looking impatient.

  Zane wasn’t sure what they were all waiting for, but if they were going to give him another opportunity, he was going to take it. He rolled to his feet and drew his sword in one smooth motion. There was still only one abditus in that hallway. He was closer now, walking slowly forward. Zane might be able to reach him before—

  The abditus raised his hand again, and another blast of air slammed into Zane, this time hitting him in the hand, knocking the sword from his grasp. Zane had owned that sword for thirteen years, but he wasn’t about to die for it. He left the sword where it lay and again began sprinting down the hallway. Maybe there was a recharge time on whatever thorn that abditus was using, and Zane could charge past him before he was able to use it again.

  A moment later, that question was answered as another blast of wind hit him in the face. This was the strongest attack yet, and it lifted him off his feet and back into the sitting room. He landed on his back, and his head ricocheted off the floor.

  He may have lost consciousness for a moment. It was difficult to tell. He lay at the Prince’s feet, and everyone in the room was still watching him. What were they waiting for? Clearly, the abditus weren’t going to let him leave. So what did they want?

  He got to his feet, a bit more slowly this time.

  When he’d stood up and was certain he wasn’t going to topple over again, he turned to Gullins. “High Prince, you certainly know how to make a guest feel welcome. If you wanted me to stay, all you had to do was—”

  Suddenly Gullins was in motion. His hand snaked out, and he grabbed Zane by the throat. He lifted him into the air and slammed him onto the ground.

  The ringing in Zane’s ears had increased exponentially, and the room seemed to be spinning. He clutched at the hand gripping his throat and cutting off his air supply, trying to get free of it, but made no progress. The High Prince of the Crags was strong, stronger than anyone Zane had ever faced.

  Gullins was crouched down next to him. “You dare? An assassin comes into my home? An Opelean assassin, no less?”

  Zane couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. He struggled, flailing wildly against the man above him. They weren’t his usual, strategic blows; he was a man fighting for breath, and his body was reacting with animalistic panic.

  Gullins didn’t seem to notice he was being hit.

  Zane’s lungs were on fire now. He looked around the room, his wide, watering eyes searching for anything or anyone that might help him. All he saw were the passive stares of guards and abditus. They didn’t look angry or excited. They looked bored. They were men doing a job.

  Gullins, on the other hand, was clearly enjoying himself. “Zane Halloway. The famed ferox. Killer of the pirate Longstrain. I must admit, I’m disappointed. I could squeeze the life out of you right now.”

  Zane might have answered that Gullins was doing a fine job of that already, but his only thought was of air.

  “You won’t get off that easy,” Gullins said. He loosened his grip, and Zane gasped. He gulped at the sweet, precious air, frantically pulling it into his lungs.

  Gullins stood up and turned to his guards. “Take him to a holding cell. In the morning, he’s to be pressed.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The servants woke Lily to tell her the news; a ferox had been caught attempting to enter High Prince Gullins’s chambers. An Opelean ferox.

  Lily’s heart nearly stopped when she heard.

  She spent the next two hours trying to get in to see Prince Christopher. Finally, she was shown into a small sitting room.

  She walked into the room and saw the prince sitting in his chair. He looked as tired as she felt. Lily was fairly certain she’d never before seen him slouch. As she approached, he looked up, and his eyes flashed with anger at the sight of her.

  “Did you know he was here?” he asked.

  She’d expected the question, of course, and she’d spent much of the last two hours considering the best way to answer it. To a certain extent, it felt selfish putting so much energy into protecting herself when Zane was sitting in a cell. On the other hand, she wouldn’t be able to help if she was in the cell next to him. For just the next couple minutes, she had to worry about protecting herself. Then she could protect Zane.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Damn it. It’s him, isn’t it?”

  When she opened her eyes, she saw a surprised look on Prince Christopher’s face. He’d probably expected denial.

  “Who do you mean?” he asked.

  “You know very well who I mean,” Lily said. She’d never snapped at a member of the royal family, but she was trying to convey shock and surprise. And, truth be told, it felt pretty good. She quickly added, “Sorry. So sorry, my Prince. What I meant to say is…they told me an Opelean ferox was caught trying to kill the High Prince Gullins. Was it Zane Halloway?”

  The prince was giving her a strange look. He clearly wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation. After a moment, he nodded.

  “Damn it,” she said again, this time nearly shouting. “I suspected. More than suspected, maybe. Who else would be so stupid? But I’d hoped—”

  “So you didn’t know he was in the Crags?”

  Lily rubbed her eyes. “No. But…the thing is, Ferox Halloway is my former mentor, and he has a…well, he’s rather obsessed with me.”

  Prince Christopher grimaced. “Yes. Von Ridden told me as much. He said Halloway is constantly asking the ferox stationed in Langton for updates on your progress.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Lily said, honestly.

  Prince Christopher held up a hand, waving off her response. “That aside, we need to figure out who hired him to assassinate the High Prince.”

  Lily frowned.
“He won’t talk. I know him well, and he’ll never reveal who hired him. It’s against his code.”

  The Prince smiled thinly. “He already has.”

  Lily was momentarily unable to think of any response to that. She’d expected Zane to clam up, to face hours, maybe days, of torture before he revealed anything. Instead, he’d confessed to a crime he wasn’t even trying to commit. “Who hired him?”

  “He told the High Prince, but the Craggish aren’t willing to share that information.”

  “Was it an Opelean?”

  He shrugged. “It hardly matters. If Halloway named an Opelean, our negotiations are over. If he named a Taveller, we’ll be suspected of framing Tavel for the crime in order to better position ourselves in the negotiations. Either way, we are in serious trouble.” He fell into a brooding silence.

  Lily badly wanted to ask what was going to happen to Zane and what they could do to help him, but she knew Prince Christopher well enough to know she’d better not speak until he’d finished thinking.

  After a few moments, he said, “Do you have any idea how frustrating this is? The first war since the elves, the thing I’ve been training for my whole life, and does my brother put me in charge of the Army? No. He sends me on a thankless diplomatic mission. One that was almost certain to fail. And you know what? I was actually making progress! There was a chance this would all work out. That I’d go home having succeeded, having delivered the troops that would help us win the war. But then…this.” He sighed loudly. “I’m sorry, Lily. I shouldn’t speak ill of the King. I’m just tired.”

  Lily decided it was time to make her move. “My Prince, have you considered asking for Ferox Halloway? He is a citizen of Opel, after all. He should be tried and punished under our laws.”

  He looked at her strangely, then let out a high-pitched laugh. “Oh, Lily, you beautiful, naive darling, we are far beyond that. Zane’s to be executed. Tomorrow. Eleven in the morning.”

  Lily felt her blood run cold. “He’s to be hanged?”

  Prince Christopher shook his head. “I imagine this will be difficult, but you need to consider the greater good. The alternative…is much worse. We have to play this extremely carefully, or else Opel could find itself fighting a two-front war.”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  The Prince nodded. “There’s a form of execution here called pressing. Ever heard of it?”

  “No.”

  He put a hand on her arm. “Remember, we are guests here, and their ways are not our ways. He attempted to kill their High Prince, and he must pay their price.”

  She fought the urge to brush his hand away from her arm. “Tell me.”

  “All right. He’ll be forced to lie on his back in a pit. The people of Sicar will file past, each dropping a stone on him. None larger than a man’s fist. Over time, when enough people pass—”

  “Stop,” she said, looking away. “I understand.”

  “There’s more.” The Prince cleared his throat. “Look, you know we have to do anything we can to distance ourselves from this. To show our absolute condemnation of Halloway’s crime.”

  Lily felt the blood drain from her face. “No.”

  “We have no choice. We have to participate. All of us.” He paused for a moment. “I’ve asked High Prince Gullins if we could have the honor of going first, and he agreed. I told him we want to show Halloway that he is no longer one of us before the rocks cover him. In truth…”

  “You don’t want to drop the stone that crushes him.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

  “Nor do you, I’d imagine.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “There are still a few hours until morning. See if you can get some sleep.”

  She nodded and thanked him, though she knew there was no chance of her sleeping tonight, maybe not any night for a while. In eight short hours, she’d be participating the execution of Zane Halloway.

  ***

  She had to tap Charles Danum on the shoulder to wake him. Some ferox he was. A better ferox, Zane Halloway, for example, would have been awake the moment his door opened and would have had a sword in his hand three seconds later.

  To his credit, Danum did seem to be fully alert when his eyes opened. There wasn’t a hint of confusion at seeing an uninvited guest standing over him in middle of the night.

  “What is it?” he asked in a voice that was all business.

  She replied in kind. “It’s Zane. They’ve captured him. He’ll be executed in the morning.”

  The old ferox rubbed at his eyes for a moment, then sat up. He reached for the robe hanging on a hook next to the bed and slipped it on.

  When he had the robe securely fastened, he said, “I’m truly sorry. I take it you weren’t implicated?”

  Lily blinked hard. “No, not that it matters.”

  He looked up at her. “And the underneath? Nicholas? We ferox? How much does the High Prince know?”

  Lily resisted the urge to slap the man. Zane had said Danum had changed since his days as a bureaucrat in the Ferox Society, but Lily was beginning to wonder whether that was accurate.

  She decided against telling him that Zane had identified the man who’d hired him.

  “You’re asking the wrong questions,” she said. “He’s to be crushed to death in seven hours. We can sort out the political ramifications later.”

  Danum’s eyes widened. “Lily, if you didn’t come here to warn me, why did you come?”

  “You don’t know? I came to ask for your help in saving him.”

  A sad smile grew across his face. “And how exactly are we to do that?”

  Lily’s face felt hot. Why was everyone so condescending tonight? Why did everyone seem to think her an idiot who needed to be handled gently? She leaned over him and snarled, “You broke three ferox out of prison in Tavel, did you not? I would think you would be the one telling me how we do this.”

  Danum laughed—actually laughed!—and said, “You really think this is possible, don’t you? You think we can pull together a plan and break him out of jail. You’re insane.”

  “You did it once. You can do it—”

  “That took three months of planning. Even then, I’m lucky we all got out alive. What you’re talking about? Seven hours? Impossible.”

  “You’re a coward,” she said. She barely recognized the sound of her own voice. There was something animalistic about it. “Do you know what I risked sneaking out of the palace? If they find me gone on tonight of all nights, they will assume I’m Zane’s accomplice.”

  Danum’s eyes were ice as he looked up at her. “I’m sorry. You wasted your time.”

  “I’m not asking you to succeed. I’m asking you to try.”

  “Lily, you have my answer. It’s suicide. Even to try.”

  Logically, Lily knew him to be right. But there had to be another way. There had to be something. “What about Nicholas? Let’s talk to him. He’s from a wealthy family, right? I know he’s disgraced, but he still knows people.”

  Danum shook his head. “I haven’t seen Nicholas since he left with Zane yesterday morning.”

  “There has to be something we can do.”

  “There isn’t.” The old ferox’s voice softened. “I’m sorry, Lily, but you have to accept it. There are some things even ferox and abditus can’t change. For all practical purposes, Zane is already dead. At this point, the execution is just a technicality.”

  ***

  Lily found Calond sitting among a group of abditus in a study near Gullins’s chambers. His eyes went wide when he saw her.

  “Can we talk?” she asked him.

  His eyes were troubled. “Lily, now is not a good time. What happened tonight—”

  “Please,” Lily said. To her surprise, her voice cracked with emotion. “It’s important.”

  He paused for a moment, then nodded.

  He led her to a small room down the hall. “I don’t have long.”

  “I understand. I’m so sorry about what happened tonight.”


  Calond opened his mouth, as if he wanted to speak but wasn’t sure how. Finally, he said, “This man who attempted to take the High Prince’s life. They say you knew him.”

  Lily squeezed her eyes shut, then nodded. “Yes. I knew him. He was my mentor.”

  “I see.” Calond’s voice was a bit colder now.

  Lily looked at him, her eyes pleading. “Listen, I once studied to be a ferox. I was placed in the ferox academy after taking my Tens exam. Students are assigned to academies—”

  “I know how it works.”

  “Then you know I had no choice. Not in my assignment and certainly not in who my mentor would be. I studied with him for two years. When I learned who he really was, what kind of man he was and what he was capable of, I rescinded my position. I couldn’t study under him. Thankfully, I found a mentor to recommend me to the Abditus Academy. If he hadn’t been a man of influence, I don’t know what would have become of me. Either way, I had to leave the Ferox Society. I simply couldn’t stomach studying with Zane Halloway any longer.”

  Calond was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “In the Crags, we have no Ferox Society. We believe if something is stolen and a man wants it returned, he should retrieve it himself. If a woman wants people dead, she should kill them with her own hands. A man who chooses to carry out these deeds on behalf of others, who accepts that as his vocation, is a dark thing indeed.”

  Lily said nothing in response. She couldn’t. It was a dark thing. Zane freely admitted as much.

  “Calond, I know it’s not a good time, but I need to ask a favor.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I must say, I would very much like to know what favor you would dare to ask on this night.”

  Tears welled up in Lily’s eyes. She didn’t force them. With everything that was going on, she didn’t need to. But she didn’t stop them, either. Calond had responded to her earlier show of emotion—the crack in her voice—with great discomfort. People in the Crags did not show emotion in public. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage.

  “When I left Ferox Halloway’s tutelage, I was a broken woman. The things he’d made me do changed me. It wasn’t until I joined the Abditus Society and built my first glide that I felt whole again. I thought I was over my time with Halloway, but tonight it’s all coming back to me. I was wondering if…” she choked back a sob. “I was wondering if you might have somewhere I could work. Somewhere with tools and materials.”