The captain had beached the flippercraft into a section of docklands, crashing through a few small ferryboats, riding up over a stone pier, and burying its nose onto the shore. Its stern still lay in the water, pulled by the currents. The river threatened to carry the craft back out again.
They did not have much time.
The captain shouted orders, attempting to rein in the growing chaos.
A jam of passengers blocked the exit from the captain’s deck. Passengers pushed forward from the sinking stern. Some carried baggage in their arms or atop their heads. Others simply clawed and cried their way forward, attempting to reach one of the two flank doors.
Behind them, water flooded in from the shattered rear window, climbing higher and higher, washing up the ship as the river pushed into all compartments. All that had kept them from drowning earlier had been the air trapped inside the flippercraft. And now smoke choked the air, thicker since their landing in the Tigre. River water had doused the flames in the lower holds, but smoke still rose from the smolders and flaming oil slicks.
Kathryn hugged Tylar to her breast, his head hung back, neck exposed. So pale, so pale…
She needed to get him to safety. There was no time even to bandage his wrists.
Eylan came to Kathryn’s aid. Using the haft of her ax like a cudgel, she forged a brutal path out the captain’s cabin and into the hallway. Rogger fell in tow. Gerrod already stood at the hold’s doorway, gripped fast with the strength of his mekanicals, a boulder in a river. Once Kathryn reached him, he joined Eylan in wading through the crowd, aiming for the starboard hatch. Sunlight blazed there.
“We must reach the streets as swiftly as possible,” Gerrod said. “The entire garrison will be down here to investigate.”
Kathryn followed in the pair’s wake. Rogger came behind her.
But still the crowds resisted. The water grew deeper, climbing to midthigh. Kathryn did not know when she started crying. But the tears were hot against her cold cheeks. Don’t die… not now…
Tylar still breathed, but raspy and coarse, too shallow.
They needed to hurry.
The ship rolled, pushed by the current. Wood ground on stone. Water sloshed, folk fell, some going under, trod on by others. Gerrod helped a little girl, pulling her out of the water by the scruff of her collar. Her father gratefully accepted her back, eyes wide with the panic they all felt. None wanted to be aboard the flippercraft if it should be dragged back and under the river.
The doorway was packed tight with the press of bodies.
It seemed they would never get through.
Then men appeared to either side of Kathryn. They were the ship’s crew, armed with staves and poles. She recognized the leader of the men who had guarded the captain’s deck.
“Stay with us,” he hissed at her.
With barked yells and much poking and striking, the crowd was beaten aside. The crew reached the starboard door and set up a post there. They forced order upon the point of their staves. The way opened. Kathryn and the others were waved through. With some semblance of calm established, the flow of escaping passengers quickened.
Kathryn glanced to the leader of the crewmen.
He met her eyes. “We’re in your debt. All of you.” His eyes settled to the slack form of Tylar. When he looked back up, there was only sorrow there. He, like Kathryn, knew death.
But Kathryn didn’t have to believe it or accept it. She jumped into the river. Waist-deep in its current, she trudged toward shore. By now, half the city seemed to have gathered along the levy.
Off to the left, a glint of armor shone through the rambling crowd.
A troop of castillion guards.
Gerrod led their party away, drifting down the river to the right. They reached shore and climbed out. “Quickly. This way,” he said and set off at a fast pace, heading into the dark and narrows of the wharfs.
Eylan stepped to Kathryn’s side. “I can take him,” she said in a soft voice, very unlike her usual brusqueness.
Still Kathryn shook her head. “I can’t…” She continued with Tylar, held up by shadow and sorrow.
“We need to find an alchemist,” Rogger said. The thief, soaked from crown to heel, looked like a drowned river rat. “Firebalm will heal his wounds in a heartbeat.”
“Where?” Kathryn gasped. She did not know the city well.
“No,” Gerrod said, stopping in the shadows of an alley. “We’ve no time.” He reached up and pulled down a shirt drying from a window line. His mekanical fingers ripped strips. “Bind his wounds. That will hold for now. And we don’t want to leave a blood trail for any hunters to track.”
As they packed and cinched the wounds, Gerrod’s caution proved warranted. A troop of castillion guards swept down the neighboring street. Kathryn used the alley’s shadows and cast her cloak over their huddled party.
“Something has the city stirred up,” Gerrod said after the guards passed. “The response to the crash was too swift. All the city’s garrisons must have already been on the street.”
“Why the activity?” Rogger asked.
Gerrod gained his feet. “Word of the godslayer’s arrival must have reached the wrong ears.”
Kathryn agreed. They had no way of knowing how things had fared back at Tashijan. Once she was found to be missing, it would take Argent ser Fields only a short time to discern they had fled by the dawn flippercraft.
With Tylar’s wounds bound, they set off again.
“Where now?” Rogger asked.
“To where we were originally headed,” Gerrod answered. He pointed upward, to a pair of towers a quarter reach away. It was the Conclave of Chrismferry. “We came to question a healer… now we need him even more.”
Dart crowded the window with Laurelle. They stared off toward the castillion and the Tigre River. A trail of smoke rose from the near shore. Moments ago, all had heard a deep low boom, thunder in sunlight. Dart had been nearest the window. A quick glance out revealed a geyser of water exploding up from the Tigre, not far from where the river disappeared under Chrism’s castillion.
A distant crash of stone echoed.
From their height and position, Dart watched something massive shoot out from under the main keep, a huge boat, nothing like she had ever seen, a wooden whale. It trailed fire and smoke, rocketing forth. Then it vanished behind the dockworks on this side of the river. The subsequent crash could not be mistaken, billowing up with fresh smoke. The strange craft had struck the wharf area.
“A flippercraft,” Yaellin had said dourly.
Dart scrunched her brow. A flippercraft? What was one of the air ships doing in the river? Had it fallen out of the skies?
Laurelle stayed close to Dart. For too long, both had been jangled by the terror and hopelessness of their plight. Holing up here offered no comfort. Now stopped, tensions grew as their reality sunk home. They were outcasts, fugitives. A life of easy luxury and respect had been shattered in one night.
Dart pushed open the window, needing fresh air. Laurelle leaned against her. Her fingers found Dart’s.
Across the short way to the river, shouts reached them, along with the shrill whistles of the water wagons. A pair of mekanical flutterseats whisked out from under the castillion and sped over the water. They bore the gold and crimson of Chrism’s guard.
“What do you think happened?” Laurelle asked.
“A crash,” Yaellin said behind them. His voice had hardened.
Laurelle glanced to him, hearing his worry. “What… do you think it concerns us?”
Yaellin answered with a darkened countenance. He kept his sword upon Paltry, even though the man’s hands had been bound behind his back and tied to the bed’s head rails.
Dart kept her vigil at the window. It was as if now the very skies were falling.
Paltry stirred on the bed, working his shoulders. “It was the flippercraft bearing the contingent from Tashijan, wasn’t it?” he said with thick disdain. “Your friends. Your allies. T
hose who came to help you.”
Dart glanced back at Yaellin, praying he would discount Paltry’s words. Instead, Yaellin remained silent.
Paltry laughed, but with no humor, only satisfaction. He took strength from their despair and glanced to Dart. “The abomination will be slain. I failed once in my duty. But now the great weight and wheel of Chrismferry will crush you.”
As his words sank home, Dart’s heart stopped beating. I failed once in my duty. She pictured kindly Master Willym falling atop her, his blood washing hotly over her. Murdered. A bolt meant for her.
Laurelle realized the same. Fire entered her voice. “ You! You hired the assassin.”
“And it was gold poorly spent. I took great care to hire the best blackfoot, to get him placed in the shadows, to arrange his flight afterward. And what did I get for my efforts? The abomination still lives.” His gaze poisoned upon Dart.
“You killed Master Willym,” Dart said coldly.
“An unfortunate consequence. But the old man had been burned by Grace for so long, he didn’t have long to live.”
Dart remembered the former Hand’s last word.
Beware…
Had Willym known about Chrism, suspected something? Had he tried to warn her? She remembered, as she struggled from beneath him, a last glimpse into the dying man’s eyes. A sudden clarity and horror. She had thought it was the sight of his own death-but now she knew what it was. It was the break of some charm, a curse lifted, a yoke shattered. Willym had been ensorcelled, his will and memories bent. Such black alchemies were not beyond the corrupted. Only his death had set him free.
Had the same been intended for her? She pictured Chrism and Mistress Naff sneaking from her room and shuddered.
“You’ll never escape,” Paltry continued, drawing back Dart’s gaze. “There’s nowhere you can hide for long.”
A sudden knocking proved his words, firm and hard, shaking the door.
“Open the way!” a voice commanded, ringing with authority.
Laurelle clutched Dart.
Paltry smiled. “It’s already too late.”
Yaellin crossed to the door. He pulled up his hood and hooked his masklin back in place, completing his disguise as a Shadowknight. “One word,” he spat at Paltry, “and it will be the last to fall from your lips.” Yaellin bared a throwing dagger. He held it with deadly competence.
The pounding repeated. “Open for the injured! A great mishap has struck the river!”
Dart glanced to the open window and back to the barred door. Of all the times for broken men and women to fall at the Conclave’s door. They couldn’t refuse care. But how could they untie Paltry to ministrate?
They were trapped.
Paltry’s grin widened.
Yaellin reached the door and slid back a tiny spy hole to peer out into the hall. Dart saw him stiffen in surprise. Shadows, quiet a moment ago, billowed out anew about his form in agitation. Yaellin turned his masked face back to Paltry. His eyes narrowed. The blade was lifted higher, the threat plain.
Not a word.
Yaellin nodded to Dart. “Help me with the bar.”
Dart hesitated, legs locked in terror. Then she hurried forward. Laurelle hung back, a fist clutched to her throat. Dart lifted the stoutoak bar with both hands, then stepped aside at Yaellin’s urging.
She crept back, still holding the bar. She would use it if necessary as a club.
Yaellin slipped the latch, then pulled the door open a short space. He spent a moment searching the hall, blocking the way.
Dart heard Matron Grannice’s voice.
“Healer Paltry will take good care of your man,” the matron promised.
“Thank you most kindly,” a woman answered, sounding strained.
“It is an honor, Castellan Vail.”
Yaellin opened the door wider, plainly having waited for Matron Grannice to step away and return below. A motley group pushed into the room.
Dart fell back.
In the lead, a man of solid bronze entered the room. A soft purring accompanied his every step. The torchlight ran over his form like liquid fire. He led another Shadowknight, cloaked and masked, but obviously a woman. She wore a diadem at her throat, bright as a star in the night sky.
But Dart’s attention fell more upon the man whom she carried in her arms like a babe. He wore a simple brown servant’s robe, the hood thrown back. Blood soaked both arms. His wrists were tied with soiled red rags. His face, pale as soap-stone, looked like that of a porcelain doll: fragile, drained. The only assurance that he still lived was the ragged, wet rattle of his breath.
Yaellin followed her. “Kathryn… what happened?”
Dart noted the last two figures to enter the room. Opposites in the extreme. A young woman and a bearded older man, one tall, one slight, one fierce and stolid in countenance, the other hiding an edge of wry amusement.
The bearded stranger closed the door. His eyes fell on Dart. He held out a hand.
She didn’t know what he wanted.
“The door’s bar, little lass. We mustn’t let anyone wander in here.”
Dart jumped and passed him the length of stoutoak. He secured the door with a wink toward Dart. She found herself warming to the man, surprised at herself.
Voices drew their attention to the room’s center.
The woman lowered her charge to an empty bed. He sprawled boneless on the down mattress. “We need the healer’s attention,” she said. “He’s lost most of his blood.”
The woman stepped back and revealed a strange sight. The man’s robe had a blackened hole in the center, down to the bare skin. Centered in the hole, tattooed on the man’s chest, was a black handprint. A strange glow marked its edges. And if Dart stared long enough, she could almost see the surface of the print stirring, as if something rippled past, under the dark surface, disturbing the black well there.
Dart found it hard to look away. Her feet drew her closer. One of her hands even reached out.
“Who is he?” Yaellin asked.
The woman’s answer stayed Dart’s hand.
“He’s the godslayer.”
“Firebalm won’t stop the bleeding from a slash this deep,” the healer said darkly, plainly reluctant to touch a man with such a dreaded reputation.
Kathryn shoved the man. “Do it.” She’d already heard a threadbare account of Healer Paltry’s crimes and duplicity and had no time for his hesitation or tongue.
He stumbled to Tylar’s bedside. He bore a pot of firebalm in one hand. Yaellin kept a sword to the man’s back. Rogger had cut away Tylar’s old bandages, exposing the raw wounds. Blood again flowed from them, but pumping weaker than before. Tylar’s heart had fallen to a fluttering beat.
Paltry scooped a dab of balm.
“More,” Rogger said from across the bed. “Like you said, this is no scratch.”
The healer glowered, then dug a more generous amount. He cradled Tylar’s gaping wrist in one hand, then smeared the balm with the other. With its touch, a fierce glow erupted, shining with familiar Grace.
Paltry jerked his hands away in surprise. A soft moan escaped Tylar, sounding more pleasurable than the usual reaction to the sting of firebalm.
The glow quickly faded, vanishing away as the peeled edges of skin, muscle, and tendon drew together like so much molded clay. In a moment, the wrist had closed without even a scar.
“The other,” Kathryn said.
Paltry grabbed more balm, no longer reluctant. His eyes shone with natural curiosity. Monster or not, he was still a healer.
“Impressive, is it not?” Rogger said as the other wrist mended. “The gifted Grace in his blood does much to protect him. But it can’t replace what he left behind at the flippercraft.”
“Blessed bloodroot,” Gerrod said, straightening after studying the miraculous healing with keen eyes. “Its curative Grace will flush the bone’s marrow and encourage new humour to fill his heart and veins.”
Paltry nodded. “But it will onl
y-”
Yaellin silenced him with a poke of his sword point. The healer needed no other encouragement. He crossed to the apothecary cabinet mounted along one wall of the circular healing chamber. He lifted the crystal lid and shook free a few dried stalks into a glass crucible.
“Where did you obtain this bloodroot?” Yaellin asked.
Paltry set about grinding the root with a glass pestle. A faint bluish glow rose along with a scent of copper and mint. “It comes from the Eldergarden. I harvested it myself.”
“Where?”
“From the healer’s garden. In the shadow of the sacred myrrwood.”
Yaellin knocked aside the crucible with the back of his hand. It shattered against the wall.
Kathryn frowned. “What?”
“It might be corrupted, like the tree in the garden. I don’t think it would be wise to expose the godslayer to it.”
Yaellin had already given an abbreviated account of his escape with the girls… and of Lord Chrism’s corruption. The world seemed to grow darker with each breath. Kathryn waved the healer away.
“Fine,” Paltry said. “I have some older vine from the Ninth Land. Is that far enough away from the Eldergarden?”
“Fetch it,” Yaellin commanded. “And be quick about it.”
As the healer set to work again, using a smaller set of wan-looking vines, Yaellin explained. “The corruption in Myrillia is more deeply rooted than any suspected, even my own father.”
Gerrod joined them. “Maybe we’d all best discover what each knows. It seems multiple threads are woven to this same spot. But where to begin?”
Kathryn nodded to Yaellin. “I think your story is the oldest, the closest to the beginning.”
He sighed. “Yes, my story may be the oldest… with threads that stretch even farther, back to before any of us. But what I know personally started twelve years ago.”
“What?”
“An emissary arrived in Tashijan, sent to my father in secret. Sent from the hinterlands. A call for help.”
“From whom?” Gerrod asked.
“From one of the rogue gods that roam that unsettled land.”
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