“I’m not your prisoner then?” Nicci asked.
Cora was startled. “Not at all. We tried to keep you safe, not hold you captive! You are a powerful sorceress. If you wanted to fight your way free, we could not stop you.”
“No, you could not. It is good that you won’t try.”
Backlit by the hall torches, Cora adjusted her gray garments. “We hope you understand the danger now. The sun is down, the city is dark, and the zhiss have returned to their lair. You can go where you wish. If you decide you must leave Orogang, make sure you are far from the city by dawn, or the zhiss will find you.”
Nicci had crossed a continent with Nathan and Bannon, and long before that, when she had kidnapped Richard, the two of them traveled from Westland all the way to Altur’Rang. She had seen the sculpted map in the speaking chamber and knew generally how she could travel south out of the mountains back to Ildakar. Such a trek would take planning, though, and Nicci reconsidered. “I’m not ready for that yet. I must try another means of travel first.” Maybe she could get the sliph to listen.…
She followed Cora through the winding corridors of the imposing palace to where the main wooden doors swung wide to the night. Nicci breathed deeply, letting the cool air bathe her face. A faint breeze ruffled her ragged blond hair. Trellises held sweet-smelling vine flowers, and fluttering moths swooped around, drinking nectar from the white blossoms.
Outside, the Hidden People scoured the nearby hills. Some were already returning with cartloads of wood, while others moved supplies from isolated storage buildings. Silent men and women worked in garden plots or tended orchards. Except for the constant danger of the zhiss, this city seemed almost peaceful.
While Cora joined a team harvesting vegetables from gardens, Nicci walked through the streets of Orogang, always aware that she had to get back to shelter by sunrise. She remembered how the black cloud had swarmed around the two hapless deer and drained them dry.
She explored, walking among the fallen columns, collapsed archways, and the huge sunken amphitheater. She passed the towering statue of General Utros, where the dour Cyrus bowed reverently to his long-lost military hero. Others of his faction had draped offerings of night-blooming lilies around the granite base. The delicate pale flowers would shrivel in the next day’s sunlight, but the Hidden People who revered the ancient general would add fresh flowers, night after night. Though she didn’t accept the deluded prophecy that their great hero would return, Nicci did not disturb them. She had other business. She made her way to the empty sliph well.
The toppled statue of Emperor Kurgan sprawled in the square, the head broken off, the stone arm snapped just above the elbow. The emperor’s face retained a haughty expression. Even if she had known nothing about Iron Fang’s violent history, she would have disliked him just from the stone sneer.
Nicci had little interest in a forgotten tyrant, though. Right now the sliph was the most important thing … the sliph who had served Emperor Sulachan and despised anyone who did not follow that evil man’s cause.
During the great war three millennia ago, this sliph had been created with terrible magic, a zealous volunteer transformed into a liquid-metal creature. That fiercely dedicated young woman had given up her life to become an inhuman being with the power to transport clients through a secret network. Nicci did not know the woman’s original name, only that she considered her duty to Emperor Sulachan to be greater than her own happiness, her own family, her own loves, her own life.
Now, Nicci stepped up to the waist-high wall that encircled a bottomless pit. The stones had been mortared together, fitted so well that she could barely see the cracks. A dank smell wafted up from the depths.
She had traveled by sliph many times before, engulfed in the amorphous silvery substance and hurtled along the unseen passageways. The sliph had brought her here to Orogang because she said Ildakar was gone. They had both been damaged by the unexpected deflection from their goal.
Worse, Nicci had unwittingly revealed to the sliph the failure of Sulachan’s cause, telling her that the ancient emperor was long dead. The petulant creature had fled, vowing never to help her.
Leaning over the low wall, Nicci felt the resounding silence in that deep well. “Sliph! I wish to travel.”
Her words echoed in the well, bouncing down like dropped stones that never hit bottom. Not expecting an immediate answer, she listened but did not hear the frothy sound of the approaching creature. Nicci peered into the depths and thought of the blackness she had held in her own heart. She was stronger than that now, better than that.
“Sliph!” she called again. “I command you. I wish to travel. You were made to carry passengers, and you have carried me before. Take me back to Serrimundi.” She raised her voice. “Take me back! Now!”
Her words were just hollow ricochets down into the emptiness. She gripped the edge of the low wall, pressing her hands hard into the cool stone. She reached out with magic, shouting with more than just words. She touched the Subtractive side of her gift, the darkness that had once served the Keeper, and she also pulled with Additive Magic, stretching out to summon the sliph with the full spectrum of her abilities. Only those with both sides of the gift could summon a sliph, and now Nicci beseeched her.
The silvery woman ignored her.
If she could not persuade the sliph to grant her passage to one of the great cities, Nicci would have to set off on foot. But if Ildakar had disappeared, that journey across the continent might take months or longer. Where would she go? All the way back to Serrimundi?
“Sliph!” she shouted with greater desperation. Nicci had no way to force the creature, no means to bribe her, if she could even guess what the sliph might want.
Then Nicci realized that she did have something to offer! She had made the sliph distraught by telling her that Sulachan was gone, but she had explained nothing more. This woman had surrendered her humanity because she was so dedicated to an ancient cause. The sliph would want to know the answers about her sacred leader, and Nicci was her only possible source for information.
It was a gamble, but she thought it might work, the most tantalizing carrot she could dangle before the sliph. Nicci leaned over the well. “If you take me back to Serrimundi, then I will tell you what happened to Sulachan. All of it. Every detail. I’ll reveal the history of how he was defeated in his original war, but Sulachan came back from the dead to lead his armies again—and that was only a year ago. Can you exist without knowing? I will tell you about your cause.” After a pause, she spoke louder. “After three thousand years Sulachan returned as the spirit king and almost conquered the world again—while you slept. I will tell you how you could have helped him. Don’t you want to know?”
She hunched over the well and waited, listening. Surely the temptation would be great? She heard nothing but the Hidden People stirring in the dark city.
Nicci called down even louder. “This is your cause, sliph, and I am the only one who has the answers! I can tell you. If we cannot go to Ildakar, then take me back to Serrimundi. I have much to reveal to you. Don’t you want to know?” She felt certain that the sliph had heard her, but no response came. “Don’t you need to know?”
Throughout the night, the moon moved overhead in a slow arc across the heavens. Nicci remained there for hours, cajoling the sliph, enticing her, but to no effect. As the night ended, the Hidden People moved back toward their shadowy sanctuaries. Nicci was sure she had failed. She was stuck in the heart of an empire that no longer existed.
CHAPTER 17
The swamp dragon’s jaws were as strong as the winches on the main gates of Ildakar. Lila strained against the monster in the midafternoon sunlight. She could feel sharp teeth against her skin as the monster tried to bite off her arm. The smell of decaying meat in the uneven rows of teeth made her gag.
She pitted her muscles against the creature. The underbrush crashed as the scaly beast dug its clawed feet into the mud to find purchase, but Lila pushed it back. The
armored tail thrashed. They were matched in strength, but the swamp dragon was a primitive, stupid brute, and she was a morazeth.
Lila shoved with an extra burst of energy, yanked her arm free of its jaws, and spun as it recoiled in surprise. She lunged with her dagger when the beast opened its jaws wide. She drove her arm into the open mouth, and the dagger pierced the pink flesh of its gullet. She thrust into the back of its throat until she severed its spine from the inside.
The swamp dragon continued to twitch and snap, already dead but still deadly as its wild nerves kept firing. Panting and exhausted, Lila dragged herself out of the fang-filled mouth and rolled on her back into the muddy sawgrass. The swamp dragon let out a belching exhalation as it quivered in death. Lila got to her feet again, covered in blood, slime, and mud. She kicked the armored body with the hard sole of her sandal, shoving the large beast into the muck.
Tributaries and side currents curled like snakes through the vegetation. The dead reptile floated along in the shallow water, drifting as the current tugged it. Already, Lila could hear splashes and ripples as more swamp dragons prowled toward the disturbance. Though eager to feast on human flesh, the scaly predators were just as happy to devour the carcass of one of their own. Meat was meat in the deadly Killraven swamps.
Lila would have preferred to rest and eat her own meal, but she couldn’t afford the time. The swamp dragon had already delayed her enough. She sprinted off through the grasses, splashing in the shallow mud and ducking under dangling vines and mosses. Her struggle had made a great deal of noise, and Lila didn’t want any Norukai scouts to investigate, though she was confident she could kill them all. And she would, when the time was right.
Lila kept moving at a steady pace, jogging downriver. The three serpent ships had already sailed out of sight, and Lila had to keep up with them. Fortunately, the raiders dropped anchor at night, so as not to crash into river hazards in the dark. She didn’t fear the swamp predators as much as she feared losing Bannon.
For years she had fought combat beasts in the arena. As a young woman, when she first trained as a morazeth, Lila had defeated any opponent, honed her skills, and received the protective runes that her trainers burned into her smooth skin. Combat came to her as instinctively as breathing and eating. She had single-handedly killed spiny wolves and a razor-tusked boar with nothing more than a short knife. Her back still bore long scars from when a combat bear had mauled her, but although her skin hung in tatters, Lila had killed it.
When she’d become a full morazeth, Lila began to train combat slaves, some of whom accepted their chance to achieve glory while others resented her for it. Lila had no sympathy for any of them. Her job was to turn the trainees into skilled warriors, whether or not they liked it. She was proud of what she had achieved.
Bannon had been one of the most difficult trainees, and she was especially pleased with him. That was why she protected the young man, why she rewarded him with her body, and why she felt affection for him against her better judgment. Bannon was earnest and dedicated, unlike any other slave she had seen in Ildakar. His eagerness gave him a naiveté that seemed absurd, yet his optimistic façade covered a deep darkness inside, scars from unspeakable pain in his life. Lila had helped him find balance so that he could become the best fighter, the best killer.
At one time, her job had been to create arena fighters merely for the entertainment of the Ildakaran nobles, but now she realized there were so many more important things she and Bannon could do together. First, though, she had to free him.
She still had his sword, which was a sufficient weapon for what she needed to do. Bannon had used Sturdy to fight against her in the training pits, so she knew the blade was solid and sharp. She used it to hack a thorny vine out of her way.
She ran into a marshy clearing at a bend in the river. On the wide channel ahead, she saw the Norukai ships as specks in the distance, but she knew where they were going. Lila just kept running. Biting gnats flew around her face, attracted to her sweat, smelling her blood, and she swatted them away.
The perils of the swamp were merely an inconvenience. She had to catch the serpent ships, and she refused to lose hope. They would not get away from her.
* * *
King Grieve and his raiding ships sailed down the river, and the small riverside village was in their path. Lila knew the Norukai could not resist fresh victims and spoils.
She ran through the afternoon and into the sunset. Ahead in the deepening darkness, she could see burning huts, smashed piers, a scatter of bodies. Even above the buzz of the swamp, she heard faint shouts and screams. She put on a burst of speed, but by the time she arrived at the village, there were few of them left alive.
The three serpent ships had dropped anchor in the channel, and the ugly raiders rowed to shore in landing boats to fall upon the fishing settlement. As she ran closer, sure she was too late, Lila looked at the aftermath, inhaled the bitter, smoky air. Twenty reed-and-willow huts had been built along the bank, with rickety docks extending out into the water. Other homes were farther from the river, in the trees. Several of their canoes had been smashed, sunk, or set adrift. Storehouses stood on higher ground above the bank. All were burning. The Norukai had been pillaging the place for hours already.
Lila approached stealthily, keeping to the underbrush. She could hear guttural shouts from the raiders, groaning and whimpering from captives. Several outlying homes were ablaze, and she could hear the screams of people trapped inside. Sprinting past the flickering fires, she came upon sprawled corpses, villagers hacked to pieces—old women and children who would have been considered useless, while the stronger men and women must have been dragged back to the serpent ships to be sold as slaves.
Set back from the riverbank, a shack had been set on fire, and she heard the wails of children inside. An overturned cart had been jammed up against the door by the cruel Norukai, intentionally preventing anyone from escaping. A man with a splintered boat hook still clenched in his hand lay dead outside the door, gutted. Lila understood the story with just a glance. A father had tried to defend his children, his home, but the Norukai had killed him, then locked the young victims inside and set the walls on fire. She imagined the raiders laughing as they did so.
The screams grew more urgent, more despairing. Terrified screams continued from deeper in the village, but Lila couldn’t save them all. In her mind, though, Lila could hear Bannon’s voice, insisting that she try to help people however she could, that she save as many as possible. Without thinking, she bounded to the overturned cart that barricaded the shack. She kicked the side of the cart, shoved it away, then yanked the rickety door open.
Inside, three red-faced girls were covered with soot, fallen to their knees, coughing. Waves of smoke curled out with the gush of fresh air. The oldest girl emerged to stare at the sprawled body of her father lying facedown in front of the shack, but Lila grabbed her arm, swung her in the other direction, and pushed her and her two sisters away from the burning home. “To the forest!” she hissed. “Run and hide in the trees.” She had caught glimpses of other figures who had fled the village. “You’ll find others out there. Stay with them.”
Before the three girls could run, a big Norukai emerged from one of the nearby storage sheds. He spotted the girls, saw Lila, and his scarred face twisted in a hungry grin.
“Go!” she urged the girls, and they bolted, running for the trees. She remained to face the thug. Lila pulled Sturdy free, gripped the leather-wrapped hilt, and sprang forward, surprising the raider. His slashed mouth dropped open in a roar of challenge, but before he knew what had happened, Lila had hacked sideways to slit open his belly. The Norukai man gurgled as his intestines squirmed out like a basket of escaped snakes.
Lila would have liked to let him die slowly from the awful wound, but he was making too much noise. Impatient, she struck off his head and prowled forward, glad she had saved the three girls, but wanting to do more.
She saw four landing boats rowi
ng back to the anchored vessels. Some of them carried huddled prisoners, while others were loaded with sacks of grain, stacks of smoked river fish, casks of supplies stolen from the town. Lila squeezed the sword’s hilt, wanting to kill more of the Norukai.
Fortunately for her, a few raiders were still ransacking homes, starting more fires. They were stragglers simply having fun, and so she would have fun, too. One male taunted a growling dog tied to a post before he finally lost patience and lopped off the dog’s head. Two other scarred men held down and raped a sobbing middle-aged woman. With a flare of fury, Lila threw caution aside and ran toward them.
As one Norukai man finished with the woman, he grunted with displeasure because she had gone limp. Petulant, he stabbed the naked woman in the heart and yanked his knife free before readjusting his sharkskin girdle. Her dying sigh sounded like a blessing.
It all happened before Lila could get there. She did not scream a challenge, because that would be wasted breath. Instead, she bounded ahead with Bannon’s sword raised. She could not let the man live after what he had done. As the rapist turned his hideous face toward her, showing off his lips cut all the way back to the hinge of his jaw, Lila slashed his throat so viciously she nearly severed his head. He dropped gurgling on top of his victim.
The second raider holding down the now-dead woman let out a surprised shout. He lurched backward, grabbed his battle hatchet, and drew back his arm, but his waist girdle had been undone so he could take his turn, and it tangled around his legs. He stumbled.
Lila didn’t let emotion color her need. She stabbed him in the gut and slashed sideways, as she had done with the man at the burning shack. As he fell, the man reached out for her with one hand. She kicked him down in a tangle of his own entrails. “I will let you die at your own speed.”
The shacks continued to burn, and Lila heard moans and panicked cries from another barricaded home. She tore loose the barrier, freeing the people inside. She kept running, letting the people stagger out, gasping and choking.
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