Rising and moving away from the wagon, Rafen glanced around. Nothing like New Isles’, Rusem’s marketplace was a compact rectangle adjoining the narrow city gateway. Surrounded by guarded walls and ramparts, it was perhaps the only open place in the city. A stone’s throw from Rafen, two open, oaken gates led into the terraces visible from outside Rusem. The winding, sloping road beginning at the double gateway appeared to lead higher and further into the city in a series of ascending squares. The uppermost buildings were elaborate and peaked, with wide arched windows and open balconies. The lower class’s houses remained closer to the ground.
Trying to remember all Sirius had taught him the previous night, Rafen drew Wilkins from the depths of Harmal’s jacket and placed him on top of the jester’s stick. The skull wagged knowingly.
Rafen looked around. Nobody paid any attention to him. The crowded stalls, misbehaving animals, and febrile, body-grinding exercise of shoving through the crowd effectively distracted everyone.
Holding the stick with one hand, Rafen put the panflute to his mouth. He hoped giving this signal would mean that any Tarhians who attempted attacking him would be stopped by Sirius’ hidden men in the city. Once he reached the top of Rusem, having caused enough trouble to ruin Frankston’s week, he would pen a letter to Sherwin, Francisco, and Etana. Awkwardly with one hand, he blew three eerily penetrating notes on the panflute. A group of Sartian merchants erecting a bookstall paused to stare at him and Wilkins.
Rafen carelessly moved forward, playing the same string of notes and holding Wilkins high. The effect was magic. Five swarthy-skinned Renegaldians moved their whole stand of kettles for him, and a farmer saluted him with a scythe. The crowd was even moving; women stepped back, tripping over dirty skirts to make way for him. Children clung to their mother’s legs in wonder, pointing shyly at the boy with the skull.
What had looked hopeless was now easy. Unhindered, Rafen passed through the crowd to the double gateway and then through that onto the sloping main road. Merchants were setting up along this street, hoping to attract the attention of Rusem’s traffic by doing so. Rafen continued his march, now playing the odd melody Sirius had taught him as he held the nodding skull aloft. When twelve men in an open wagon approached him, Rafen stepped to the side of the road, steadily ascending past the dingy, one-storied wrecks of the peasants’ abodes. The twelve men rode past, two waving at him before conferring among themselves. Six Tarhians motioned to each other and made to move toward Rafen. The twelve men in their wagon were abruptly in the way. Raised voices met Rafen’s ears as he moved on.
Rafen walked further up the sloping road, blowing the panflute, observing more and more evidence that this really was a signal. Occasionally, boys saw the skull, gazed open-mouthed, and then ran to tell an adult. Mostly men noticed, men dressed as philosophers, pontificating over books at the stalls, startled by his noise, and then winking at him as if they knew more than their robes suggested; farmers with axes at their belts, buying chickens, pausing at the sound of the panflute, and then glancing at one of their fellows wisely; innkeepers brushing crumbs and half-chewed food off their chairs, standing at their doorways, mesmerized by the skull, before turning to their grubby barmaids and laying fingers to their lips; young, handsome lords on their horses who unconcernedly sniffed salts from laced handkerchiefs, then stopped, ogled at the skull, and tapped their hands on their saddles with anticipating smiles on their faces. Every time Tarhians attempted to reach him, other men blocked them or even knocked them aside.
Rafen wondered how many pirates Sirius had in this city. Perhaps he had won it already, without a fight.
After an hour and a half, Rafen had climbed through a third of Rusem. The continuous ascent was wearying his legs; he figured the people of Rusem must have exceptional calves. The quality of the houses was noticeably better the higher he went. The well-kept, squatting homes with window flowers, which he passed now, belonged to middle class business owners: innkeepers, book-sellers, and book-binders. He gradually passed into more imposing areas. The city wound on and on, upward and upward.
At the upper corner of the stretch of road he was on, a middling temple stood – once grand, now in shambles. While its front three pillars still remained, the roof had caved in further on. The stairs were cracked and strewn with rubble.
Rafen trudged up to it and sat down on the lowermost step to eat his bread and cheese. He would have given the world for a drink; the wagon interior had brought on a powerful headache.
Unwrapping the package, Rafen stared at the piece of tan fabric. He picked out the cheese, and a dark brown stain caught his attention. Shaking, he lowered his head to smell it, even though the scent was unmistakable: blood.
They had wrapped his food in Marius’ shirt.
“Ugh!” Rafen said, hurling it down the portion of street he had recently climbed.
The bread and cheese bounced and settled. Instantly, two sparrows dropped out of the sky for a meal.
He snatched up the stick with the skull and leapt to his feet. He was in a better part of the city, and someone would be able to give him parchment. Someone might even take a message for him. Rafen prayed to Zion it would reach the others. At least if he sent one out, there was hope. For while he took his time trying to aggravate Frankston, he only made things easier for Sirius. The Pirate King did not deserve the city, and who knew how terrible his rule would be? Perhaps it was better Rafen stirred up some real trouble for the old man.
If Rafen actively rebelled against him, however, he would endanger Sherwin, Etana, and Francisco. The image of Marius sinking to the ground, red leaking out of him, returned with force.
Rafen closed his eyes. He should have listened to his misgivings about Sirius. How could he have been so stupid? Sirius had captured him, hit him in the head with kesmal like lightning. Yet Rafen had fallen for a supposed compromise that was really only an advancement of Sirius’ plans.
“You forgot this,” someone said in rough peasant brogue.
Rafen started, nearly dropping his stick. A man behind him stooped to retrieve the panflute from the steps. Rafen held out his free hand for it, and the brawny, smudge-faced blacksmith pressed it into his palm.
“You can’t throw away your food, boy,” the man said. “You’ll starve. You’ve got the whole city to get through. Right?”
He dug into his long, blackened apron and produced a package of dried meat wrapped in old parchment. Rafen accepted it silently and started chewing.
“Something to drink?” the man asked.
“Please,” Rafen said quickly.
The man ran with lazy grace down the road. In moments, he returned more slowly with a tankard. Rafen had finished the dried meat, and he accepted the tankard with a curt nod, draining half of it. It was bitter ale, but Rafen had grown used to this taste over the past month of travel. Finishing the drink, he passed the tankard back to the smith.
“Best get on then,” the man said, jerking his thumb toward the ascending road ahead. “You have got some climbing yet.”
He winked at Rafen slyly. “Tomorrow,” he said, moving away.
“Wait,” Rafen said abruptly.
The man froze.
“I need some parchment and a bird that will go to Smitton,” Rafen said.
The blacksmith looked thoughtful. “There’s a man up the road who will help you. He’s in the biggest house you’ll find there. Can’t miss it.”
“You mean the lord of the city?” Rafen asked, dread simmering in the pit of his stomach.
“Aye, his son,” the blacksmith said. “He keeps his eye on all the comings and goings of the birds. He won’t question your work, boy. You show him the skull, and he’ll let you do whatever you want.”
Rafen stared at the man’s back as he descended the road, sparrows scattering before him. Feeling warm with anxious hope, he looked ahead of himself and continued climbing, without playing the panflute. The small, neat houses were vanishing, and taller, sprawling places were becomin
g common. Spearheaded iron fences leapt up either side of him. Immense properties, with manicured gardens containing verdant grass and drooping willows, met his eye.
Still, there were chilling responses. Servants watched. Occasionally, a hostler peered out of an immaculate stable to nod at him. Two more hours brought Rafen close to the top of the city. With each turn, a spreading white mansion became more apparent. Its sharp roofs, glittering windows, and sphere-like bushes were a foreign depiction of affluence.
The merchants had vanished entirely, probably prohibited from this part of the city. Every time Rafen saw a Tarhian horseman, he hid in the shadows of a building or behind a gate. They probably flogged peddlers in this part of the city. They would do worse to Rafen, whom they had likely heard about from the authorities.
As Rafen approached the mansion, a hooded woman clad in a long, navy traveling coat walked toward him. Sighting the skull, she froze and stared. Rafen caught the gleam of her eyes and paused uncertainly.
It was only moment. The woman dropped her head and continued walking along the opposite side of the road to Rafen. Rafen kept up his march, trembling with fatigue.
The second he was about to pass the woman, an explosion rattled his teeth. A flare of black filled his vision. Rafen threw himself to the ground. Clutching the stick, he pulled himself up in the dust. Wilkins was nowhere to be seen. The panflute was still in his sweating hand; he stuffed it in his pocket as he leapt up and whirled around to run.
The woman was right before him now, her hood thrown back. Annette’s heart-shaped face leered at him, the nostrils flaring. Rafen staggered backward up the road, his legs feeling like they wouldn’t hold him.
Chapter Eleven
The Vision
It was going to be over very soon. There was only so much Alakil could stand of this flying around the countryside in hunt of a worm. It was not befitting the Lashki Mirah to spend all his time trying to find an ignorant child. The child should come to him, to him! Nazt had left him once, when Annette had chosen to trap Rafen with the Lashki’s own scheme. And now, more than ever, Alakil felt that a chase was not what Nazt wanted. If Rafen was to die, he had to want to face death… he had to want to die. The Lashki needed a plan that would mean Rafen would come to him of his own stubborn will, so that failure was impossible.
He had formed this conviction after almost having Rafen at the tavern in Smitton. He had thrown open the door just as Sirius – or Aronis, as he had once been called – had knocked the boy out with kesmal. Then they had looked at each other, but he, the Lashki Mirah, had lurched forward and swept the rod down while Nazt screamed its triumph. And then, horribly, it had happened again. Aronis had seized the boy’s arm and blinked into nothingness. The Lashki’s blast of blue had hit the floorboards with a deafening crash and exploded part of the room, and he stood in the smoking doorway, cheated yet again. The screaming of Nazt and the pain in his leg was such that it temporarily blinded him. He moved back, leaned against the doorframe, and remembered being a child, remembered the helplessness he had felt to sorrow. He had witnessed the Sartian conquerors of Siana slit his father’s throat, and the blood had rolled out, deep and dark and red.
Now, too, he was swallowed in sorrow as Nazt swelled in his temples. He clutched his aching head and felt sick and shriveled, like an eel that was drying up on a riverbank.
Nothing and no one should make him feel like this. Rafen would pay dearly.
A powerful warrior with kesmal, Aronis must have established a Connection with a place of refuge he had intended to go to, in case of discovery. The Connection, maintained by constant mental and kesmalic exertion, had enabled him to travel there in an instant.
The Lashki had turned in the doorway, and the people were seething in the debris, fleeing the tavern, shoving past each other, trampling each other. And that was when he had seen the small figure of a girl rush from the tavern with two boys ahead of her. Rafen had not been alone. In fact, Alakil had a dim recollection that the twin had been in the room only moments before. Nazt’s greed for Rafen had blinded him to all else temporarily, and Francisco had escaped.
The Lashki allowed the air to take him and rushed out into the street. The thrum of kesmal met his hovering spirit, and he touched it with smoky fingers, galled. Etana had, as she was able to on rare occasions, rendered herself and her companions invisible. He could break the enchantment, but it would take a little time, and the shrieking of Nazt in his head would not allow him to take a little time. He could scarcely control his own kesmal under its pressure.
All else must be forgotten: Rafen must die, so irrevocably that even his soul was shattered.
The Lashki had begun his airborne journey, his thoughts churning sickeningly within him as he flew. Aronis had come to Siana, to take what he could. His fleets had battled numerous Tarhian ships near the Sianian coastline already, bursting through their guard and spilling vagabonds into Siana. Yet the man was a fool to think he could beat the Lashki. He was a fool to think he could use Rafen to do it.
Once, the Lashki would have taken the time to crush Aronis, to hunt out his fleets, rout his men, and destroy them. It was all insignificant now; even when the Ashurite philosopher he met on the grasslands told him both the Pirate King and the Fledgling were at Rusem, the Lashki planned to hold firmly to his decision. No more chasing; ensnaring instead. Nazt wanted it.
The Lashki knew the importance of Rafen being willing to die. Nazt must not leave him again, as it had when Annette had understood who the Wolf was and had trapped Rafen first. Therefore, the most important thing was to trick Rafen into coming for his own murder, particularly before he could get the Sianian lords on his side.
Last year, the Lashki had trusted them unforgivingly, but he knew they could change like the wind if they wanted. He had used their expertise and understanding of Siana long enough. After Rafen’s death, he would establish new Ashurite lords, close to his heart, and he would turn his attention to the Pirate King of Nothing, and make him crawl like a dog. Aronis could not get far, particularly if he was trying to unite himself to Rafen.
Alakil had flown to the Woods and dropped out of the sky into a squatting position by the river. Directing his copper rod at the waters, he remembered drowning a child here, when he himself was little more than a child. It had been his first kill: a triumph.
The water swirled, bringing up muck, decay, and dead fish from its depths. The filth coagulated into one glistening, rotating mass. The Lashki narrowed his eyes, focused on the shaping of the body, the sculpting of the muscles. The water fell away, and a dripping, rock-like beast remained, matted with black hair over blue skin. It kneeled in the murmuring river, blind, and the Lashki leaned forward to pry open its eyes with his own moist fingers. The Naztwai’s pale green gaze met his, its breath rasping, and its nostrils flared.
There were many Naztwai in the Woods, but not nearly enough for what the Lashki planned. He knew a certain way to lure Rafen, and it would lead naturally into a victory over Sirius as well. He would create more Naztwai, breed more, strengthening them especially against flame. Rafen would be finished this time.
*
Rafen stared wildly at Annette, expecting her to whip out the copper rod. But in her right hand, she grasped a long thin dagger.
“Rafen,” she whispered. “Give me your heart, sweet.”
She drew her arm back and plunged forward, the dagger making straight for Rafen’s sternum. Rafen threw himself sideways, skidding on the street’s flags, dropping the stick and the panflute. A vague, bouncing blotch faraway down the street was Wilkins.
Rafen pelted past Annette and after the skull, glancing over his shoulder. Annette flew after him, her cloak billowing behind her, making her look like a bird of prey.
A black beam shot toward him, slashing the air. Rafen tripped and fell, his hands too slow to stop him. He landed face-forward on the flags and tasted blood. Kesmal stirred his hair as it passed. It hit one of the spearheaded fences with a clang and a dar
k stain spread on the bars, melting the metal it touched. A gray puddle formed on the flags outside the neat lawn the fence surrounded. It spread sluggishly, steaming.
“Seize him! Seize him!” Annette screamed in Tarhian. “The enemy of the Master – Talmon’s slave, Rafen!”
Rafen glanced behind himself. A band of Tarhians had appeared further up the hill. At Annette’s words, they goaded their horses into a gallop. Bullets exploded and smoked in the air. Flinging up a protective sheet of flame, Rafen sprang up and again started running furiously. Annette was catching up; her black hair flew behind her as her feet pounded the ground. A dark fan unfurled in the air, with a silent, tangible whoosh. It spread black fingers as it swept toward him, shattering the shield of flame he had just created.
Rafen threw himself sideways between two large houses. The black kesmal struck walls and fences and vanished. Seconds passed, and whatever it had touched cascaded into piles of dust. The face of a mansion disintegrated. A cloud of debris filled the air, and Rafen stumbled backward, coughing.
In a small alley between the two houses, he was now entirely blocked in by waist-high rubble. Footsteps clattered past, but Annette’s wild form reached the rubble and halted.
Her face loomed over the debris. “Rafen,” she said, raising her long knife.
Rafen backed away in desperation. Behind him, a thin, spearheaded iron railing separated him from a drop of three stories, past a third of the terraces he had climbed. Below, the main road he had traveled was beetled with tiny people.
Rafen’s mouth was dry. “I saved your life once,” he said, making to draw his sword. His fingers were now quite cold. To his horror, he discovered he couldn’t fight her, not with the power he needed to escape. He kept seeing her father in his mind. Yet did he really have a choice? She still knew the secret of the Hideout… she could tell the Lashki any moment.
Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3) Page 10