Dak snorted, but he did lean back in the sofa again.
I’ll see what I can do in regard to a ship, Yanko, Tynlee said telepathically. Just in case I’m able to work my magic more quickly than I think, gather your belongings and be prepared to leave tomorrow.
A surge of hope filled Yanko, and he barely resisted the urge to gape at Tynlee.
She was sipping from her cup and watching Dak, so she wouldn’t have noticed. Dak might have noticed. Even though Yanko appreciated that Dak had brought over the robe and sword, he didn’t want Dak to learn about the possibility of Yanko returning to Nuria soon. Dak might try to hold him up. Yanko suspected Dak had come to like him, at least a little, but he would still consider it his duty to delay Yanko and the Nurians’ efforts to get people down to that continent.
“Your rooms are ready,” the servant said, stopping between Arayevo and Lakeo, and also nodding toward Yanko.
“Oh.” Arayevo sounded disappointed. She probably wanted to see a woman attempt to woo Dak.
Yanko stood up, other plans for the night on his mind. He also wasn’t sure if lingering out here was an option. The servant wore a stern expression as he pointed them toward the hall. Maybe Yanko would find a broom and mop waiting in his room. He picked up the sword and pack, nodding a farewell to Dak, and let the servant usher him away.
They didn’t go far. The servant pointed him to a small room before leading the women farther down the hall. Yanko leaned his back against the door and waited a couple of minutes for Arayevo and Lakeo to get into their rooms before reaching out telepathically to Lakeo.
Don’t get undressed, he told her.
No? she replied promptly. How are you going to imagine me naked if I don’t shed some clothes?
I’m going to commandeer some paperwork from a courier heading to a train. I could use some help.
Commandeer?
It means to officially take possession of something, especially for military purposes, Yanko said. And, uhm, it can also mean to do it without authority.
He couldn’t pretend he had authority. Since he hadn’t spoken to Zirabo for months, he couldn’t pretend he truly knew what the prince might want from him at this point. The fact that the Great Chief and his family weren’t in the Great City any longer worried Yanko—especially if Zirabo was with them—but he believed he would be able to find them once he returned to Nuria. The Great Chief wouldn’t have given up his position and disappeared completely. From some safe harbor, he had to be fighting to retain his rule, and he would have his kin with him.
Oh, so you’re going to steal it. While using a fancy word to pretend you’re not stealing it.
Basically, Yanko admitted. Are you going to help?
I suppose. What else was I going to do tonight? Sleep? How boring. But you don’t have any idea what the courier looks like or which of the dozens of trains he or she is getting on, do you?
He’s getting on the one going to the capital. And the Turgonian military is all male, so I’m assuming it’s a he.
Maybe the Turgonians keep some women around to confuse Nurian spies, Lakeo thought. How will you know which train is going to the capital when you can’t speak or read Turgonian?
After I’m done talking to you, I’m going to ask Arayevo to keep her clothes on.
Yanko, you’re very backward when it comes to women.
He sighed and sent his senses farther down the hall. He found Arayevo in the next room and told her he wanted to sneak out in an hour and hoped she would come with him.
An adventure in Turgonia? she replied, and he could imagine the brightness in her eyes. I’ll help!
Good. Yanko yawned and went to sit on the edge of the bunk. He wouldn’t allow himself to grow more comfortable, because if he fell asleep and missed the courier, he wouldn’t get another chance. The Turgonian president would learn of the continent before his people, send forces to claim it first, and all of Yanko’s work thus far would have been for nothing.
“Just hope I’m not doing something foolish.” Yanko rubbed the back of his neck. “Really foolish,” he amended.
5
It was closer to dawn than to midnight by the time everyone in the consulate fell asleep. Tynlee, the one most likely to notice Yanko leaving, had stayed up scribbling notes in a book long after Dak had left.
Hoping he wasn’t too late to catch the courier, Yanko slipped out of his room and knocked lightly on Lakeo’s and Arayevo’s doors. He kept his senses outstretched and glanced repeatedly up and down the hall. Nobody had forbidden him to leave, but he also hadn’t asked. He had a feeling the answer would have been a firm no.
Lakeo and Arayevo were both dressed, but Lakeo’s hair was back to sticking out in numerous directions, suggesting she had been napping. She wore a knife at her belt but had lost her bow long ago.
Feeling guilty since he had his mother’s robe and Sun Dragon’s magical scimitar again, Yanko wished he had a few coins so he could outfit her with weapons. She was a good archer, and even though he didn’t want to pick a fight, it would be good to have her at his back with some arrows. Arayevo had also lost all of her weapons—rude of that Turgonian admiral not to have returned their belongings when they’d left his brig—but she had the prettiest face of the three of them, so maybe he could send her in as a distraction, to divert the male courier with a warm smile.
“You sure you’re just going to steal some papers?” Lakeo yawned and pointed at Yanko’s clothes.
In addition to belting on the scimitar, he had donned the crimson robe. The ambassador would surely point out that it was a crime in Nuria, one punishable by death, to impersonate a warrior mage by wearing one of their robes. But they were a long way from Nuria, and Yanko had learned that the magical robe enhanced his stamina when he drew upon his power. It was worth the risk.
“The person carrying the papers might object to them being stolen,” Yanko whispered, then held a finger to his lips and nodded toward the foyer.
They could talk once they slipped out of the compound. As long as Turgonians weren’t waiting outside for Yanko. Just because Dak had an office and paperwork in the Headquarters building now did not mean the soldiers had stopped trying to recapture him.
Padding quietly in the new sandals the servant had provided him, Yanko led the way toward the exit. The foyer and the receiving room they had used earlier lay dark.
“Aren’t we taking your secret weapon?” Lakeo whispered.
“What?” Yanko touched Sun Dragon’s scimitar.
“I meant the parrot. Who would be better at stealing something from someone’s bag?”
“Almost anyone.” Yanko rubbed the back of his head in memory of all the times Kei had clubbed him with a wing. The bird was particularly rough with his nighttime landings. “He’s not nocturnal. He’s sleeping on the back of a chair in the reception room and would likely prefer to remain so. I noticed one of the servants feeding him last night.”
“Because he demanded it with noisy cries of ‘seeds’?”
“He’s more inclined to demand crackers and biscuits now.”
“Exotic Turgonian foods, huh?” Lakeo asked.
Yanko touched the front-door latch, pausing only to examine the area inside and out with his mental senses. He did not detect any traps or alarms, and nothing pinged at his mind as he opened it and slipped out into the courtyard. He did, however, sense a familiar presence behind them in the foyer. Someone he didn’t want to deal with had walked out of a hallway.
Not sure whether to run or come up with an excuse for this early-morning outing to Jhali, he waved Arayevo and Lakeo into the courtyard and reached for the door. Maybe he could close it before Jhali noticed them.
“You’re leaving?” she asked from the shadows, as if she’d known they were there all along.
He wondered how her interview with Tynlee had gone. Had the mind mage slipped through her barriers and learned anything about her?
“Just going for a walk,” Yanko said.
&nbs
p; That sounded inane, but he wasn’t ready to think of her as one of his confidantes. He doubted she would run tattling to Tynlee or the ambassador that he was leaving, but one never knew.
“In a Turgonian city full of soldiers who wouldn’t mind killing you?” Jhali asked.
“That should make the walk highly stimulating.”
Behind him, Lakeo snorted.
“Have you come up with a way off this continent?” Jhali stepped into the foyer.
A couple of low-burning lamps revealed that she wore her usual white garb, now clean of dirt and detritus, and once again carried a dagger. She likely had throwing stars stashed in the folds of her clothing. The woman had a knack for reacquiring weapons that she lost.
“We’re going to the train station,” Yanko said, though he didn’t yet know where that was. He remembered seeing a locomotive blasting through town on tracks down near the waterfront, so he planned to start there and follow them, hopefully in the right direction.
“To stowaway on a train to the next port city, so you can get passage on a ship from there?”
Yanko paused. Of course that wasn’t his plan, but only because he hadn’t considered it. In another port, maybe there would be ships that weren’t Turgonian and that weren’t avoiding Nuria as if it were beset with the plague.
“We can check into that possibility while we’re at the station,” he said. “Do you want to come along?”
“Yanko,” Lakeo said. “You can’t invite her.”
“Why not?”
“Have you forgotten that she wants to kill you?”
“Well,” Yanko said, meeting Jhali’s eyes, “she hasn’t tried to do that for a while.”
“Because we were in the brig for a while.”
“She could be helpful on our mission.”
Jhali leaned her shoulder against the door frame and crossed her arms, as if she didn’t care whether or not she was invited to come along. She probably didn’t.
“This isn’t a mission,” Lakeo said. “It’s a scheme.”
“What’s the difference?” Yanko looked to Arayevo, wondering how she felt about a potential new companion, but she only spread her arms as if to say this was his mission. Or scheme.
“You gave it to yourself instead of receiving it from someone important,” Lakeo said, scowling.
Jhali lifted her eyebrows.
“Let’s go before anyone else notices us leaving,” Yanko said, turning toward the courtyard doors. “Anyone who wants to come along is welcome to do so.”
It wasn’t exactly a heartfelt invitation, but Jhali did follow after them, remaining several steps behind. At least until they reached the courtyard wall. Then she jogged past them and leaped into the air, catching the lip and pulling herself atop it. She crouched in the shadows between two lights and gazed out on the street.
“I could do that if I wanted to,” Lakeo muttered. She was half a foot taller than the mage hunter, so that was probably true.
Yanko, taking a cue from Jhali’s wariness, paused with his hand on the door. Before checking the street outside, he scanned the wood for magic—alarms or traps that might be designed to keep people in as well as keeping them out. And he detected them. Several alarms along with something that appeared more sinister. The magical booby traps had been subtly laid—someone with an intricate and skilled touch had created them—but he definitely saw them.
“Don’t jump down,” Yanko whispered up to Jhali. “You’re right on top of…”
He examined the various wards and alarms, and his mind hurt at the thought of trying to unravel the snarl. He decided to simply address the most menacing trap, one designed to deliver injury if someone climbed over the wall anywhere in the courtyard. After plucking at its magical strings for a few minutes, he sighed in frustration and imagined the trap being destroyed with a blast of wind. Air swept down from above, batting at his topknot, and flailing at the wall. He snorted, certain that wouldn’t do anything, but then had a stroke of inspiration. He channeled the wind into a pinpoint gust and threw it at the source of the trap.
A snap seemed to echo through the courtyard, but he knew it was only in his mind. And perhaps in the mind of the person who had created it. Tynlee? Someone less friendly?
“It’s disarmed,” Yanko said. “We’ll all go over the wall. It’s easier than nullifying the door alarms. But hurry.” He jumped up and caught the lip as Jhali had done. “Before someone comes out and gets mad that I broke their trap.”
He hauled himself astride the thick wall, lay on his stomach, and reached a hand down to help the others. Lakeo gave him a flat look, backed up a few steps, and took a running jump toward the lip. She grunted, not as agile as Jhali in hauling herself up, but she made it. Arayevo was athletic but not as tall as Lakeo. And perhaps she had less pride—or less of a need to prove herself—for she jumped and caught Yanko’s hand, letting him pull her up.
“You’re right,” he said. “You smell of tangerines.”
“It was the orange-colored soap if you want to try it next time.”
Assuming they made it back to the consulate and there was a next time.
“Do you have your nose in her armpit?” Lakeo asked, jumping down into the street. Jhali already waited against the wall down there.
“No, but—” Yanko caught movement across the street and sensed someone standing in a shadowy nook. “Look out,” he whispered.
Jhali must have noticed the movement too. Instead of “looking out,” she sprinted across the street toward the person.
Yanko jumped down, having no idea if that was someone who had been left to watch for him or an innocent civilian on the way back from a tavern.
Jhali dove into a roll in the middle of the street. A twang came from the other side, and something—a crossbow bolt?—clinked against the courtyard wall. Jhali leaped up, springing for her attacker.
Yanko lifted his hand, ready to batter the Turgonian with wind, but Jhali was already battering the man with her fists. Her attacker fought back, but she was fast, darting in and out before her larger opponent could grab her. Yanko also sensed that the man didn’t want to kill her—or anyone. Unlike Dak, he couldn’t hide any of his thoughts, and when he tried to aim the miniature crossbow to fire again at Jhali, Yanko sensed that the small bolts were tipped with a tranquilizer rather than anything deadly.
Yanko had no wish to be knocked out. He flung another pinpoint blast of wind, breaking the trigger.
The man cursed and dropped the crossbow as Jhali launched a kick at him, forcing him to defend himself again. Lakeo charged across the street to join the fight, but Jhali did not need any help. Her kick caught the Turgonian hard in the solar plexus, and he stumbled backward, momentarily stunned. She pressed the advantage, kicking twice more, then slamming a palm strike into his nose. His head whipped back, cracking against the wall, and his legs gave way. She yanked out a knife, as if she meant to finish him off with a cut to the throat.
“Don’t kill him,” Yanko blurted. He would have yelled it, but he sensed more people behind him, back in the consulate. Someone was turning up the lanterns and heading toward the front door.
Jhali paused, giving him a withering glare over her shoulder. “He is an enemy. He will report back that he has seen us.”
“The way you work, everyone is sure to be your enemy before you’re twenty-five.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, and he felt further withered. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t acquired numerous enemies of late.
Yanko made himself lift his chin and repeat, “Don’t kill him,” slowly and firmly. “This is my mission, and if you choose to come along, I’m in charge.”
“Technically, it’s his scheme,” Lakeo told Jhali.
Yanko frowned at her.
“What? That’s what we decided.”
Jhali made a disgusted noise but sheathed her knife. She bent to remove the Turgonian’s weapons.
The man groaned and looked like he might get up to continue the fight, but Jhal
i planted her boot and leaned her weight onto him.
“Do not continue fighting,” she growled at him, and she glared at Yanko again, as if to say they wouldn’t have to deal with this problem if he were dead.
The soldier grew still. He might have understood her, but he might also have seen the three other sets of legs gathering around him.
The front door of the consulate building creaked open. Yanko wanted to get away from the area before someone rushed out to stop them, but he paused because he detected some magic about the Turgonian. Another headband?
He bent and patted around the Turgonian. The man growled and glared at him, one of his eyes already swelling shut. He might have put up more of a fight if Yanko had delved into his pockets, but the item had fallen out and lay under his shoulder. A green disc smaller than a fist, it flashed rhythmically. Yanko examined it briefly with his senses, but he could already guess its purpose.
“He pressed that button, and it’s signaling someone,” Yanko said.
“Letting them know that you left the consulate?” Arayevo guessed.
“That’s my guess. Hurry. Let’s find a steam carriage and get down to the docks.”
Lakeo opened her mouth to question him, but Yanko held a finger to his lips. Their little group took off at a run, and Yanko veered into the first alley they reached, wanting to get out of the soldier’s line of sight.
“No,” he told Lakeo as they ran, “I’m not planning to steal a carriage. I thought it might get the soldiers looking in the wrong direction if that one was able to understand us.”
“Ah, you were trying to be clever.”
“Always trying,” he murmured, glancing back to make sure everyone on his team—could he consider Jhali a team member?—was following as he zigzagged through streets and alleys.
She remained several paces back but kept up with them.
The waterfront and the train tracks were a mile away. Yanko was glad it was still early enough that there was not much activity. Once, however, they had to pause to avoid a steam lorry dispensing uniformed men in an intersection. Soldiers? Or maybe that Captain Aiken had gotten the local law enforcers involved in the search.
Assassin's Bond (Chains of Honor, Book 3) Page 7
