Ahead, Alendor and his group turned into another alley, this one half the width of the street we were already on. I waited to see if they would double back, one hand resting on the wooden wall of the warehouse to my left.
After twenty slow breaths, I sidled forward in a crouch, shifted around a rain barrel and glanced down into the alley.
Nothing but a stack of broken crates. They’d already moved out the far side. Or entered the building through a door I couldn’t see.
I ran into the alley, already searching for Alendor ’s scent.
The Fire surged, burned down my arms to my fingers. I kept moving, thinking the sudden blaze was a reaction to Alendor ’s disappearance. I didn’t realize it was something else until someone stepped out from behind the stack of crates into my path.
I slowed to a halt, the figure five paces away. I didn’t recognize him, his face shadowed, dark with a trimmed beard and mustache, shaved head. A few scars marred his cheeks.
The Fire flared even higher as I plunged myself deeper, drawing my dagger, and I suddenly felt more men.
I spun, slipping into a crouch, as three more stepped out of the darkness into the end of the alley. Without turning, I felt more behind me, stepping up to join the man with the beard.
The Fire churned in my chest, and my stomach tightened, a different sour taste flooding my mouth: fear and despair, dark and wet and acidic.
It tasted of the Dredge.
My gaze flicked to the alley walls, looking for an alcove, a niche, a hole, a darkness. But this wasn’t the Dredge. The buildings weren’t crumbling to ruin, full of empty doorways and shattered walls.
The desperation clawed at my throat and I shifted my attention back to the three men before me, face hardening. My nostrils flared.
Then someone behind me laughed.
My head snapped back to the bearded man, to the two men who’d joined him. I thought it was the bearded man laughing, but it wasn’t. Someone else stepped into the alley, wearing a cloak.
Cristoph.
I felt a sliver of surprise course through me. I’d expected it to be Alendor.
“It’s not just me and a friend this time,” Cristoph said. His voice shivered through me. I remembered it from the alley on the wharf so long ago, from that first kill in the real Amenkor.
The men began to shift forward, and Cristoph removed his cloak as he said, “Careful. She knows how to use that dagger.”
I blew out a harsh breath through my nose and then dove deeper.
They came all at once, crowding into the narrow alley, laughing, bodies rushing. I felt them surge around me, felt their movements, tasted their blades, but there were too many of them. It became a mad rush and I spun, slicing out with short arcs, dagger gripped loosely because I had no real target, only a shifting, startling world of reds.
The dagger cut deep as hands grappled me and I cried out. The river was suddenly flooded with the stench of blood. And then even that was overwhelmed with sweat, with raw grunts and curses and shouts. I flailed, felt my dagger connect again, a shallow cut, heard someone bellow and felt emptiness as they pulled back, but then someone shifted and closed in and the river broke, became nothing but a wild current of sound and scent and rough skin.
The first punch caught me on the cheek and I gasped, growled low like an animal, and dug my dagger down and into someone’s side. A scream and more copper-tasting blood, hot and fluid, and then a fist connected with my side, my shoulder, another to my back, low, and pain shot up through my spine. I cried out again, felt hands grappling with my arms, felt wetness against my side—someone else’s blood—and then there was only weight, pressing me down, hard.
I hit the cobbles of the alley with a grunt, on my stomach, my face to one side, bodies crushing my legs, my chest, a hand splayed over my head. It gripped and lifted and thrust my face into stone, pain shooting down into my neck as my lip cracked and split, blood flooding down into my throat, coating my tongue. Someone laughed and then the weight shifted off my body.
I bucked, but there were too many on my legs, too many holding my arms, and then any thought of movement halted as a foot connected with my stomach from the side.
I gasped, sprayed blood and spit onto the cobbles from my lip, and couldn’t catch my breath, my chest seizing. A sheet of white pain spiked into my skull, blinded me, and after a horrifying moment something in my lungs tore and I heaved in air.
A foot stomped down onto my back, flattened me to the cobbles, and I lost my breath again, coughed it out with a hacking wheeze.
A pause, but the hands on my arms tightened and the weight on my legs didn’t move. I heard footsteps approach, realized I still held my dagger in one hand in a death grip.
Someone leaned down close, breath against my neck.
I strained, struggled to move, neck straining with effort. Someone chuckled and I spat out blood in frustration.
“This is for Bellin,” Cristoph whispered into my ear. “And for Charls.”
He shifted away, but not far.
A hand closed around my neck, tightened as I gasped and tried to pull away, then held me still.
Cold metal touched my throat.
In the chaotic roil of the river I tasted the blade, gasped in the sharp scent of lantern oil and straw: Cristoph’s scent.
He hadn’t had one before, but he did now.
I sobbed, the sound thick and distorted.
The blade began to press down, and then I scented something else.
Oranges.
“Let her go,” someone said, voice calm and cold and dangerous, like the Dredge. And I felt a blade slip through the currents, swift and smooth, another dagger, distant—
And someone screamed, a gargled, bloody sound.
The knife at my throat jerked back suddenly, and Cristoph roared, “Kill him!”
And suddenly the weight holding me down released, pulled back sharply with the sounds of scuffling feet and grunts and the focused intensity shifted away from me, one step, two, down the alley.
I tried to roll onto one arm, felt pain sear through my chest from where the men had kicked me, and choked on my own blood. Pushing the pain away, I drew the river close, pulled it in tight, and concentrated on the struggle only three paces away.
Cristoph and his men had surrounded Erick. One man lay slumped to one side, his throat cut, but there were still six men left.
Too many for Erick to handle. Too many.
I rolled onto my side and gasped at the renewed pain but dragged myself up onto one arm, to one knee.
I still held my dagger.
I pulled myself into a crouch, turned toward the fight. The men were closing in.
And then Erick saw me. “Run!” he barked. His voice cracked with command, the voice he’d used to train me, to drill me, more a growl than a shout. His eyes flashed and he shouted again, “Run!”
One of the men turned—Cristoph—and I spun, stumbled, caught myself, and ran. I obeyed without thought. It had been drilled into me.
Behind, I heard a clatter of blades, heard Erick cry out in pain, heard someone roar in triumph.
And then I was in the street, fleeing down narrows and alleys I didn’t recognize, running without a place to run to. Pain flared at every step, in my stomach, in my chest, across one shoulder. My face throbbed, and blood trailed down from my lip, down my neck.
I stumbled to a halt, gasping, in a narrow a hundred paces out when I realized no one was following me, leaned over near a wall, one arm out for support, and coughed. My eyes burned and my hair was tangled and matted. My lip throbbed with a pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and there was a thin sliver of cold pain up along my neck from Cristoph’s blade, but the pain in my chest receded as my coughing fit ended, each breath no longer so piercing. I didn’t think anything was broken inside, just bruised.
I drew myself upright, suddenly fourteen, back on the Dredge all over again.
And then I heard William’s voice: You have a choice now.
My breath caught and I stared out into the black street. I choked, coughed hoarsely, and spat more blood, winced at the bruising in my chest, and thought about Erick, about Alendor, about Cristoph.
Suddenly, the pain in my chest didn’t seem so harsh. Because I wasn’t fourteen anymore, waiting for the next kick, the next shouted “whore!” Because I didn’t have to listen to Borund . . . or Erick.
I shoved myself away from the wall, staggered back toward the alley. By the time I’d reached its entrance, I’d let the writhing snake of anger inside me uncoil and drawn the river and the Fire up around me like a cloak. It subdued the pain, pushed it into the background. But it was going to cost me. I could feel the nausea rising even now, a nausea I hadn’t felt in over a year, since Bloodmark. But I’d never pushed myself this deep for this long into the river ’s depths since then.
And it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Erick.
I rounded the corner, moving with the quick, quiet stealth I’d learned from the Dredge, as fluid as a cat. At the far end of the alley, I could see the men that surrounded Erick’s body where it lay, laughing as they kicked him, muttering to each other, goading each other on. Cristoph stood back from the group. Only four men left, besides Cristoph. Two other bodies lay scattered through the alley.
Erick had little time. He’d be dead in the next twenty breaths if I didn’t act. Cristoph would kill him. Even as I watched, Cristoph smiled. The same slow, cruel smile I’d seen on Garrell Cart as he gazed down at the little girl with the green ribbon.
I pushed away from the wall, the last vestiges of the pain smothered. Everything became focused, became clear.
Twenty breaths.
The first man died two breaths later, my dagger slipping up and in and out. He jerked forward, arched back, began to fall, but I was already moving. I felt Cristoph see me, heard his drawn breath like a gasp in my ear. But he was the farthest away, and not close enough to harm Erick.
The others first.
The second man heard the first one’s startled gasp, but he wasn’t fast enough. My dagger punched into his neck even as the muscles there contracted and his head began to turn. He staggered back, hands shooting to the spray of blood, struck the wall to the left of Erick’s crumpled body, slid down its side. His pulse thrummed through my head, a dark ripple, and I tasted the heat in the air, the sweat.
Eight breaths.
“ ’Ware!” Cristoph shouted, sharp and brittle with tension, anger, and terror.
I spun, caught his eyes.
He saw something there, deep inside me. The harshness tinged with annoyance in his gaze vanished like a burst bubble, replaced solely with fear.
He stepped back.
At the same moment, the third man snarled and lunged for me.
Almost without thought my blade sliced up and into his side. I caught his weight as he fell into me, felt his last gasp of breath against my shoulder and neck. It smelled of garlic and potatoes.
He was heavier than I’d thought and I staggered, sliding to one side, out from underneath him as he fell. His blood coated my hand, slick and coppery.
Twelve breaths.
And then the river echoed with running feet. Slipping my blade free of the man’s side, I rolled his body away from me, turned to see Cristoph and the last man dodging around the corner of the alley.
My nostrils flared and I drew in the deep scent of lantern oil and straw.
I smiled and turned away from the fleeing men, kneeling down at Erick’s side.
His face was a bloody mess, cuts and gashes and dirt and pebbles mired across the scars he already had. The whites of his eyes were startling, his breath coming in short gasps. Blood dripped from his nose to the cobblestones, and his arms were hunched protectively about his body. Every breath he drew sent a shudder through his chest, his legs twitching.
“I told you to run,” he wheezed.
I leaned in close and smiled. “And I told you you couldn’t protect me anymore.”
He stilled for a moment, regarding me, and then he chuckled, the sound wet and thick. The chuckle edged into a moan and he rolled onto his back, straightening slightly. “The Mistress’ tits, it hurts,” he gasped, then winced as he moved his arm.
I dove deeper, focused as I laid a hand on his chest to keep him from moving. Nausea bubbled up, but I thrust it aside. I still had work to do tonight. The scent of oil and straw pulled me.
I could see that Erick wasn’t as hurt as he looked, beaten but not broken. Cristoph had been the real threat. Erick would survive if he’d stay in the alley and wait for me. No one would disturb him here.
I relaxed and leaned in toward him. “Don’t move. Stay here and wait for me. I’ll be back to get you.”
He looked at me a long moment, surprised, but then nodded. “I’ll stay,” he muttered.
I pushed away, but he halted me before I’d moved two steps with a barked, “Varis!”
I turned back, face creased with annoyance. The scent of oil and straw was strong, almost overwhelming.
“He’s a mark now,” Erick gasped, so intent on what he said that he’d risen slightly, his upper torso wavering a few inches off the ground.
I smiled and nodded. “I know.”
He collapsed back to the cobbles with a groan.
I’d reached the end of the alley and turned before I realized that I’d spoken to him with the same harsh crack of command he’d used to train me.
Lantern oil and straw.
I drew in a deep breath, glanced upward toward the roiling clouds. The pressure of rain weighed down on me, heavy and cold. I was barely keeping the nausea at bay now, drawing more and more on the protective Fire to keep it back.
I had to find Cristoph. I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.
I dodged across a main thoroughfare, ducked through an alley and sped down the street on the far side. Cristoph was moving deeper into the warehouse district, traveling fast. The other man was still with him, his scent warm, like stagnant water, and not as strong. But Cristoph’s scent intensified as I ran, seemed to be gathering like a pool of water not far away.
Another street, down the edge of a long warehouse, through another alley—
A warning pulse in the Fire and I slowed, felt a shudder as the scent of stagnant water suddenly sharpened. I tasted metal.
The man that had fled with Cristoph was quick. His blade flashed out from behind a stack of empty crates and caught me in the arm before I could jerk back. I felt the tug as it sliced through my shirt, through skin, tasted my own blood, but the silvery jolt of pain was smothered almost instantly by the Fire.
I stepped back from the crates as the man moved out of hiding. He growled, a low, dark sound, and his eyes flared with hate. But I could smell his fear in his sweat, thick and putrid. It was the bearded man, the one who had first stepped from hiding in the alley where I’d been caught.
He circled me and I turned slowly, followed him. In the darkness, he could barely see me, was listening more than he was seeing. I could see it in the turn of his head. His breathing was harsh, drowning out most sound.
“Where are you, little bitch?” he hissed, almost too low to hear.
I grinned.
He lunged forward, knife striking. I parried, ducked to one side, sliced up and out toward his chest, but he was already moving, grunting with the effort, pulling back.
My blade caught his shirt but nothing else and then we were circling again. My grin was gone. He was breathing harder, but there was a change in his stance. He wasn’t trying to see me anymore. He’d given up, was relying on his other senses.
His nostrils flared and I suddenly wondered what I smelled like, but then he dove, moving in tight and close.
My blade grated across his and I felt his breath on my face, the stench of stagnant water overpowering. His free arm snaked around my back, jerked me in tight, our blade arms caught between us. Just as I began to twist out of the hold, his foot caught the back of mine. He turned, spun me in
the direction I’d been about to twist, and I tripped over his foot.
I landed hard on my shoulder, gasped as numbness sank into my flesh, my arm going dead for a moment, then tingling along its entire length. I felt my dagger slipping from my numbed fingers, heard it clatter to the cobbles of the street, but I didn’t hesitate. I rolled onto my back, reached up with my other arm and caught his wrist as he struck downward, dug my fingers into tendon and muscle. He hissed and dropped down onto my chest, knees to either side, but he didn’t lose the knife. My grip was too tenuous, my fingers in the wrong place.
He leaned forward, arm trembling, and forced his knife closer. His other hand clamped onto my arm, tried to wrench it free, but I held tight. He snarled in frustration, his knees tightening about my sides. Sensation began returning to my useless arm, a horrible burning fire, but I fought it back and began scrabbling for my lost dagger. Giving up on wresting my hand free, he pulled back and punched me.
The sheeting white pain from my already split lip almost wrenched me from the river. The Fire wavered and I spasmed, bile rising to the back of my throat. I choked it down, seized the river again, the protective Fire returning just in time for me to halt his knife a few inches from my chest.
He shifted, laid his hand on my chest, and put his entire weight behind his knife.
It was too much. I couldn’t hold it. My arm was trembling already, weakening. I could see the strength flowing out of it in tendrils. I could smell my own sweat, tainted with terror.
The knife lowered, touched my shirt, pricked my skin. Blood began to stain the cloth, and the man smiled, a wicked, vicious smile. I strained harder, the muscles in my arm burning, but the knife sank lower, digging in. The tip of the knife scraped bone.
The scent of blood intensified. White-hot pain began to flare through my chest, so hot the Fire couldn’t hold it back. I gasped, my eyes going wide—
And I pulled the river close, formed it into a hard, solid ball between me and the grinning face of the bearded man, and punched it forward.
The man jerked back with a gasp, the knife tip sliding free of my chest as his arm went weak and I thrust him away. My other hand found my dagger and with a heave I pulled myself up off the ground and into a crouch, weight in my heels.
The Skewed Throne Page 26