Restlyn looked down at her hands, folded neatly on top of the book, and Ashlyn felt a tug on her heart. Darn Skye. "What about Tall, Dark and Angsty? He doesn't exactly seem like the type to get all worked up about vanishing trade routes." Ashlyn glowered at a lonely potato sitting on the counter, as if it were somehow responsible for her mixed emotions regarding Drake.
Restlyn smiled. "Drake owns the weapons shop next to my tavern, believe it or not. He's changed, Ash. You'd hardly know him now. You need to give him a chance."
"Yeah, right. I'm sure he's changed a whole heck of a lot since he got with Trace. That is so gross. But you know what, I tried to talk to him this morning, and I found out that he hadn't even named his horse. How can I trust a man who doesn't even name his own horse? I mean, come on, there's anti-social, there's enigmatic and then there's just plain stupid."
Restlyn shook her head. “Drake’s not with Trace, as far as I know. He’s still hung up on Loritta.”
Ashlyn’s mind chose that moment to conveniently replay the scene from North Camp Inn a year ago: Drake ducking through a doorway and throwing a brilliant smile at Trace, who waved and stood up from the bench where she was sitting. Ashlyn had shrunk back behind the coat rack, too startled to greet either of them. Of course, at that point she hadn’t known that FLD was on speaking terms with the Spartans, either, so she’d been concerned. Regardless, if Drake wanted to keep his relationship with Trace a secret, that was his business.
Ashlyn shook her head and changed the subject. "Catch me up here. When did this whole war start? And how did you guys manage to keep the Toryn army contained on the island before they did any damage? Did they send you a memo or something?"
"No...they actually did some significant damage before we could stop them," Restlyn answered slowly, meeting Ashlyn's gaze. "They attacked January Harbor, but luckily Jackson's soldiers managed to hold them off. I don't know if any Toryn survived, but after that Jackson sent an ambassador to Toryn to ascertain their intentions. The ambassador returned in a box. That was when the war started - Toryn never officially declared it, but…" Restlyn trailed off.
"At that point you knew they weren’t playing around," Ashlyn said glumly. "I can't believe this is happening."
"Me neither. I can't believe I'm a part of it," Restlyn answered. “I never thought I’d have anything to do with Toryn again.”
Ashlyn had never agreed with her father Scorning Restlyn. The older girl had fought against the conversion of the sacred city into a tourist attraction, and Lord Li- Ashlyn’s father- hadn’t been in the mood for any kind of dissention from a half-breed commoner, even a commoner he’d adopted into his own family.
"When we saved the world from Lord Angelo and destroyed his regime - or at least reconfigured it so Jackson could take over - I figured that was it,” Restlyn continued. “I thought I could head to Storim and try to make some sort of normal life for myself." She shook her head, sighing. "I should have figured that it wouldn't happen. Some people aren't meant to lead normal lives."
"Oh, come on. If you led a normal life then you would never have seen me again after my father flipped out on you," Ashlyn said with a grin.
"Yes, that revelation inspires such gratitude," Restlyn said dryly.
A loud crash startled them out of their conversation, and Ashlyn half-turned to see a pile of tin plates scattered across the floor behind them. There was a shuffling sound behind the other counter, and a tin cup rolled out into view.
Ashlyn's eyes narrowed.
"What was that?" Restlyn asked, leaning over the cutting board to peer around the other girl.
"I don't...LOOK OUT!" Ashlyn cried. She leaped over the counter, dragging Restlyn down to the floor with her, hearing and feeling the loud clang and vibration of several throwing knives colliding with the opposite side of the heavy metal divider.
"What the hell is that?" Restlyn whispered to Ashlyn as they both struggled into a crouching position.
Shapes, clothes and movements began to register in Ashlyn's mind. Gray-clad, faces covered with dark green masks bearing a familiar symbol. "I saw two of them. Toryn ninjas," she whispered back. "It just figures that they'd be here now!"
She automatically reached to yank her sword off her back, and realized with a sinking feeling that she had left both the sword and the shuriken with Skye.
She scanned the shelf in front of them, looking for something that could be used as a weapon. Soup spoons, a few tin saucers, and a bag of flour that looked suspiciously out of place. The last item, a heavy cast-iron skillet, would be good for bludgeoning someone into oblivion, but Ashlyn was reasonably sure that she couldn't lift the thing.
She grabbed the flour before she could rethink, and then snatched up a spoon for good measure.
Restlyn looked at her like she was crazy. "What are you doing?"
"Would you stop asking stupid questions and find something to fight with?" Ashlyn said furiously, her voice low enough that even she had to strain to hear herself. "If those are Devlyn's spies and they get back to him with word that I'm with you, then we are so screwed! We have to stop them!"
"With a spoon and a sack of flour?" Restlyn shot back. "The odds aren’t exactly in our favor!"
"Look, they're not going to wait around for us to finish arguing. You're supposed to be some big hoity-toity martial artist, you figure something out!" Ashlyn edged around to the corner of the counter. She moved to peer around the end of it, and quickly jerked her head back as another throwing knife sailed by.
She looked down at the flour bag in her hands, and sighed. She hadn't killed Lord Angelo, saved the sun, survived three years traversing the continents and single-handedly fended off two attacks from a pack of dogs to get dusted by some stupid ninja wannabes in an airship's kitchen, for crying out loud.
Hopping onto her toes, Ashlyn pressed her back against the cool metal side of the counter, counting slowly in her mind. One, two...she really hoped that this would work and she wouldn't end up lying on the floor like a stuck pig...five, six, seven...she used the end of the spoon to gouge three holes in the bag of flour...eight...she braced herself, tensing her muscles...nine, ten.
Grabbing onto the flour sack with both hands, Ashlyn hefted it up and over her head, flinging it as hard as she could in the general direction of the two ninjas. Almost in the same instant, she scooted out to the side of the counter, landing nimbly in a crouch and pushing off with her toes.
There was an explosion of white as the flour hit, like a snow-filled volcano erupting before her eyes. Ashlyn ignored it, grabbed onto the edge of the second counter and swung herself around, her instep connecting solidly with the side of the first ninja's head. He stumbled backwards and sputtered something that Ashlyn was grateful to not quite understand, but she allowed him no recovery time as she shot her left hand forward, striking him flat against the chest. He gasped and doubled over, choking.
The second ninja slid his arm around her neck, but Ashlyn pinned her chin to her chest and ducked out of it, her elbow coming back to strike him in the stomach. He sidestepped awkwardly and she caught a corner of his ribs instead. There was a loud crack.
He yelped and cursed her in Toryn before leaping over the counter and backing away - still running his mouth, ironically, even as Restlyn stood and hit him hard in the head with the skillet. His eyes bulged and he crumpled to the floor instantly.
Ashlyn froze, realizing that her friend had probably just killed one of their two most likely information sources. "Rest-lyn!" she exclaimed. "Grossness! How could you just-"
Her tirade was cut short as the first ninja bolted by her, slamming painfully into her right arm before he beat a rather ungraceful exit (particularly for a ninja; Ashlyn felt insulted), slipping and sliding as he threw himself out the door.
Ashlyn scrambled in the flour for only a second before running after him. There wasn’t really anywhere he could go, considering they were on an airship, but she knew that he was still dangerous, regardless of how comicall
y flour-caked he was.
Puffs of white powder flew up from his feet with every step. Ashlyn's heart began to thump as she realized he was heading for the exit to the top deck. How long had he been on this ship to know his way around?
"Stop him!" she yelled at the top of her lungs as she came barreling through the doorway to the control room.
The masked ninja vaulted over one of the panels and came face-to-face with Vargo. The red-haired Spartan smirked as he twirled an electric baton in his hands.
The ninja, of course, wasted no time with intimidation games, and promptly kneed Vargo in a rather sensitive part of his anatomy. The baton clattered to the floor and the Spartan doubled over, gasping.
As tempting as it was to point and laugh, Ashlyn couldn't afford to. She tackled the ninja from behind, slamming him sideways into one of the control panels, and hooked her legs around his shins, jerking him off his feet and onto the floor. They rolled around for several moments, each grappling with the other and trying to gain the upper hand, until one of his punches connected with the side of Ashlyn's face, and she slid across the floor.
The sleeve that she had been clutching in one fist ripped completely off, exposing his entire left arm, which was tattooed in a snaking pattern along his veins from his forearm down. Ashlyn jumped up and struck her usual fighting stance, shifting her weight from the balls of her feet to her toes and back again as she waited for him to attack.
He did, in the traditional ninja way, with no forewarning and no particular elegance about his style. It was simply jab, kick, spin, duck, as Ashlyn went through the movements of fighting without actually knowing what was coming next. It had been years since she'd battled with another ninja, and she was losing ground quickly.
She abandoned the blocking and fought him furiously, spinning on one foot in a kick that only half-missed its mark before flipping forward in another offensive attack. The back of her sneaker connected soundly with the ninja's shoulder.
He grunted in pain, but managed to catch her foot anyway. He danced away from her flailing fists, and Ashlyn hopped once before losing her balance and falling backwards. She used the heels of her hands to break her fall, but it hurt just as much as falling on her head probably would have. The ninja stomped once on her stomach, hard, before leaping over her and throwing open the door to the deck.
Ashlyn couldn't breathe, but she knew she had to stop him- you didn't go to the deck without a purpose. Clambering to her feet, she staggered out the door after him. Her lungs were bursting with the lack of oxygen. She struggled to focus.
He was at the end of the deck, throwing back a tarp which the wind quickly dragged over the edge, hefting the straps of a backpack over his shoulders. The emergency parachutes!
Ashlyn gritted her teeth and skittered towards him, barely able to keep her feet on the deck in the fierce wind. He climbed up onto the railing and prepared to leap, but she grabbed the backpack, cackling in delight and then suddenly screaming in fear as he took her with him over the edge.
Something latched onto her foot and Ashlyn jerked to a stop, screeching her head off in absolute terror but still maintaining her grasp on the ninja's backpack. She peered over her shoulder, blanching when she saw Vargo struggling to hold onto her. His fingers dug into the super-thick socks that she wore bunched up around her ankles, trying to find a better grip but unable to steady her.
"I've got him!" she yelled, clinging determinedly to the writhing ninja. "Pull me up!"
"I can't!" he returned. "You're too heavy!"
"Too heavy?" Ashlyn screeched, insulted. "Suck it up and pull us up, you wuss!"
"Let him go, Ash! I can't save you both!"
"What the hell kind of Spartan are you?" she demanded, the wind ripping the words from her lips.
Suddenly one of the straps broke on the ninja's parachute, and he let out a startled yelp as his other arm slid out of its strap and he plummeted downward, disappearing into the clouds beneath them.
There was a shocked silence as Ashlyn stared down at the backpack in her hands, struggling frantically to determine what just happened.
Vargo hauled her up, grasping her around the waist and pulling her over the railing before collapsing next to her. His hair was whipping violently in the wind, but he grinned at Ashlyn, oblivious to her wrath. "Guess the decision wasn't yours to make," he said, pulling the wobbling cigarette from behind his ear and clamping it between his teeth. "Poor guy."
Chapter 4
Choosing Sides
"Ouch," Ashlyn said loudly, glaring at Vargo as he swabbed her scraped hand with peroxide.
"Don't act like such a baby," he replied. "Geez, you'd think I was amputating a limb or something."
Ashlyn clamped her mouth shut, trying to ignore the pain that flared in her palms as the liquid fizzled against her wounds. She wasn't about to let Vargo, of all people, lecture her about being a wimp.
Her wounds had been nowhere near as bad as she'd expected - the pain when she'd fallen on her hands had led her to believe that she'd scraped off more than a few inches of skin, but her injuries were minimal. It was just the healing that was getting to be a pain in the butt.
Three years ago- or even three days ago, she would have just used a heal stane and been done with it. But Jackson had the Conservation Act in effect now. The idea of the Act was to preserve as much of Kresmir’s natural energy as possible, so stanes were only supposed to be used in life or death situations.
Truthfully, if she’d been on her own she would have healed her hand, Conservation Act or no, but with the rest of FLD hanging over her shoulder, Ashlyn didn’t have much choice in the situation.
She'd torn a scab off of one hand just trying to hand Drake his revolver. Naturally, Vargo was the first who had jumped to her aid, but now she was beginning to regret accepting his offer to help. She blinked hard and focused on his hairline to distract her, gritting her teeth and ignoring his hands as they caressed her wrist lightly.
Funny that she'd never noticed how...symmetrical the Spartan's features were. The trim lines of his sideburns continued up above his brows, meeting at the center in a perfect widow's peak. His head was bent over her hand, his thick, spiky hair mussed, his green eyes narrowed slightly.
As she was studying him, Vargo suddenly looked up and smiled knowingly at her. "Something on your mind?"
Horrified, Ashlyn yanked her hand from his grasp. "Of course not!" she blurted out before she could stop herself, sliding off the table and tripping over her own feet in her haste. "You know, as much as I'm sure you enjoy pawing me, I'd really rather just do this myself."
"Suit yourself," he said, leaning back against the table and folding his arms across his chest.
Skye walked into the room then, Restlyn trailing behind him. Both of them looked exhausted.
"Hey," Vargo said lightly. He tossed the peroxide-soaked gauze into a wastebasket and looked keenly at the tired pair. "I'm guessing no luck with Restlyn's prisoner?"
Restlyn had done some significant damage to the ninja she had fought the day before. The poor ninja had been conked out all night, and had regained consciousness less than an hour before.
"We had less than no luck," Restlyn said miserably. "He doesn't know a thing."
"Or if he does, he won't tell us," Skye added. He pulled out a chair and sat down, propping his feet up on the table and lacing his fingers across his stomach.
Ashlyn curled her shuriken into her palm and maneuvered it back and forth, measuring her tolerance for the pain. "Did you push him or did you just ask politely?"
"We asked...a little less than politely." Skye frowned at her. "This isn't like the battle with Lord Angelo, Ash. These are actual people- your people, as a matter of fact- and we have to maintain some civility or we'll lose sight of what we're fighting for."
She wasn't anxious to see a fellow Toryn interrogated, but Ashlyn knew how stubborn her people could be. "You're being silly," she told Skye. "I trained to be Lady of Toryn practically since birth
, and the first thing I learned is that wars must be won at any cost, whether you have to lie, torture, cheat or steal to do it. That's the way ninjas are- it's the way they always have been. Nobility and graciousness totally can't do you any good if you're too dead to- "
"You seem awfully eager for bloodshed," Skye cut her off, his tone edgy. "He's a Toryn, just like you. For all you know he could be fighting the good fight and we could be the bad guys. And you're trying to convince me to torture him on the off-chance that he might know something useful?"
Ashlyn's eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth to protest and say she didn’t mean torture, exactly- but something stopped her.
He was right.
She had blindly accepted her friends’ explanation for the war without even pausing to consider that the Toryn army might actually be fighting for the right thing. Even three years ago she hadn't agreed with Skye and Restlyn blowing up all of Lord Angelo‘s power plants - it put people on the streets, made them both homeless and jobless overnight.
But the bigger picture had been Lord Angelo, and that was something she had been willing to fight for.
But Devlyn…?
If her father had chosen Devlyn as the next leader, then why wouldn't he be an appropriate Lord of Toryn? Lord Li was nothing if not a decent judge of character- heck, he'd seen right through Skye when the DEMON soldier had first stepped foot in Toryn, had warned Ashlyn about the blond man with the dark glasses. He’s not what he seems, Lord Li had said to Ashlyn. He wants something from you.
That something had turned out to be Ashlyn joining FLD, and she’d done it, only because Restlyn had sent Skye to ask. Ashlyn would do almost anything for her adoptive sister.
She realized that Vargo, Restlyn and Skye were all still staring at her, waiting for her response. Her throat tightened uncomfortably. "I have to go," she murmured, brushing past Skye and hurrying out the door.
She hadn't made it ten steps towards the holding cells before Vargo was next to her. "Hey, wait up a sec," he said, grabbing her elbow. "Skye's just being...Skye. Don't worry about it."
The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) Page 4