As he’d left the examination, Bray received word that Cal and Shale had escaped. He ordered immediate search parties and summoned Pallor DaNeel. Pallor was no place to be found, which was not unusual, but gave Bray an odd feeling he was missing something. A couple hours later, Pallor had returned with the rising sun.
Bray turned to Pallor, who stood quietly by. As filthy and disheveled as the man appeared, Pallor had developed into an unequaled servant. He led Bray’s intelligence efforts. The wild hair, the unkempt beard, and the mouth full of broken teeth might exclude him from the gatherings of the wealthy and noble, but the underworld held a pipeline of dirty secrets. Pallor knew them all. And he was fiercely loyal to Hideon Bray.
NEST’s current structure had Bray with three men directly reporting to him. Aubrey Narrows ran the dragon riders, Clay Duren had the soldiers, and Pallor led intelligence. Bray outsourced all the politics, bribing the locals like Miles Gerben to take care of things for him. Bray had increasingly entrusted tasks to his three direct reports as the organization grew. They had enabled him to move past day-to-day affairs, giving him time to grow and tend to the dragon army, his true passion. He no longer knew all the dragon riders by sight, even the high ranking ones. Bray trusted Clay and Aubrey as much as most men, which was not much.
Pallor was more complicated. Loyal to a fault, but Bray knew there was more going on below the surface of the twisted man’s mind. Pallor longed to be a proper second to Bray, above Clay and Aubrey, but he was too weak. Too different. Not the strong companion Bray wanted. Bray missed Yeld Coren, someone to drink and conquest with. It was probably foolish to imagine Cal Mast in that role. Bray was trying to resurrect a dead man.
“I need Mast,” Bray said. “Unless you’ve found some other source of intelligence on the Corvale defenses. On the Deathbowl.”
Pallor gave no sign. He would never disagree with Bray but the lack of an enthusiastic nod spoke volumes.
Bray felt a sudden wave of hatred for his servant. It would have been easy enough for Pallor to clue Bray in on the escape attempt. Instead he’d let it happen, either to reap the benefits of discovering Lorne’s nest or for some unknown purpose. Bray had lost ten good men. And two of them were riders. Pallor didn’t care. He only cared about Bray, trying to please him.
“Where are they?”
“Gestlin Gardens. In an apartment belonging to Representative Muller.”
“Go at sundown. Gather enough troops to do it right, but keep it as quiet as possible. Bring me Mast back alive. Kill all the others.”
Bray watched him go. Bray hadn’t gotten where he was by being a fool. Pallor wanted Mast dead. He probably viewed him as a threat to Pallor’s position, someone to come between him and Bray. If Mast died, so be it. He knew too much already.
Bray stood, raising both arms. The dawn sun shone on his bronze tattoos. The nearest dragons roused themselves, recognizing the signs of a call to hunt. Bray walked out into the center of the largest group of dragons, slowly revolving with his arms outstretched. The dragons shook in eagerness. Some began trotting along the ground, making circles around Bray as he revolved. Others took to wing, sharp flaps lifting them off the ground. With each turn, the dragon cloud grew thicker around Bray, the bronze flashing, mixed with the black of the dragon scales, whirling around in an ever faster circle. Abruptly the entire pack took wing, breaking off the pattern to fly out between the sheets of glass which roofed the palace. Bray was gone too, somewhere in the pack, hopping from dragon to dragon, reconnecting with his loyal companions. While his men hunted prey in the city, Hideon Bray would head into the wilderness north of Ellis to join the dragons in a real hunt.
Chapter 26. Dragons in the Streets
Trevor’s day had been long. There were too many things to do with Mario and no chance to catch up on sleep. Aaron had ordered messages sent within and outside of Ellis. Mario refused to put his hand to pen which left Trevor licking a quill all afternoon, trapped in Mario’s claustrophobic apartment.
Mario lived with his mother in an unglamorous garden level place near the neighborhood of Washburn. He was a chronic shut-in who rarely if ever saw the light of day. He spent his days seated at a thick wooden desk in the center of an otherwise empty room. Every ten minutes or so, he rose and went to one of the small windows high on the wall that peeked up onto the streets. There he collected a note from one of the hundreds of runners under his employ. There was never any sign of when the notes were expected, or from whom, but Mario always rose at exactly the right time to take a folded piece of paper from a swiftly thrust hand. Trevor had never seen the stream of information diverted, never seen it misfire. Somehow Mario had made himself into a peerless information clearinghouse. His primary focus was employment. Some might be tempted to call him a criminal or a spy, but his networks were structured and optimized for economy. Other purposes were secondary. Mario was a merchant. He sold services. He sold relationships, connecting parties in need of work with parties equipped to deliver. Crimes were arranged in the room, throats were all but cut, but Mario’s criminal share of the pie was minor compared to his commercial clients. He’d once told Trevor he made more money off housing construction supplies in a month than he did off a year of crime.
Mario had brought Trevor and Jardere in to support the easterners under a rich but dangerous deal. Trevor had worked eight days before Aaron Lorne had arrived and the three days since. Trevor was eager to see his share. He’d pressed Mario for his pay. Mario had put him off, saying he was light at the moment. Trevor could tell Mario was nervous. Mario rarely sweated. Today, though the heat was tolerable and Mario’s place had a decent breeze for a garden level, Mario sweated profusely. Mario let slip that some of his contacts were missing. Fewer and fewer people were answering Mario’s notes. NEST’s enemies were being disappeared at an accelerating rate.
When the last note was finished, and the sun was sliding down the sky, Mario followed Trevor all the way to the door of his apartment, something he rarely did. He looked outside almost longingly, then closed the door behind Trevor.
Trevor hurried back to Gestlin Gardens, crunching numbers in his head the whole way. He’d earned three hundred thirty gold from the easterners through Mario, but it was cut to two hundred eighty given the fifty he’d previously owed. It was ridiculous to be working on a daily contract. He should be paid by the job. A raid on the Shields? Freeing high priority NEST prisoners? Working with EU? All worth a lot more than he was getting. Now there was news of a NEST gathering at the Shields tonight. Knowing his new friends, Trevor would probably be asked to go punch Bray in the nose during the party. There was never enough gold.
As he entered Gestlin, Trevor slowed. The streets were quiet. The setting sun cast deep shadows. His boots rang on the cobblestones. He was long overdue back at the Gestlin Gardens apartment. A slow moving cart labored down the street ahead of him. It clattered fiercely on the stones. Trevor got a strange feeling. It was large, a two-horse cart, hauling a payload massive and heavy, covered in a thick white sheet. The two men who escorted it looked like monks, old straw-colored robes thrown over their slumped shoulders. Trevor swallowed his doubts and moved to overtake them. They were the only two parties on the streets. Far too quiet for this time of day.
As he neared, Trevor had a sudden irrational fear that the cart would be full of corpses, the same he’d escorted to nowhere so many years ago. When the sheet moved, Trevor fought a gasp, convinced for a moment that the dead had risen. No, what was under the sheet wasn’t dead. It was worse. It was a dragon. One might think a dragon crammed in a cart, hidden under a blanket, might look foolish. It didn’t. Even in the small ripple of the sheet Trevor saw terrifying power and grace within the beast.
He kept walking, pretending he hadn’t seen anything, hoping he could bluff his way past the cart. When he had drawn nearly even with it, one of the men raised his head, looked at Trevor. Trevor could see that the rough woolen robe was draped over the blue of a NEST uniform. “Best to mov
e along,” the soldier said to Trevor. “No, not that way,” he said, seeing Trevor continue forward. The other soldier reached for his sword. Trevor nodded and retreated back the way he’d come.
NEST was closing in on the apartment. Aaron needed to be warned. Trevor needed another path. There were dragons in the streets, maneuvering close enough to cut off any chance of escape. Trevor looked up to the skies. Nothing yet. He hurried back down the street, needing another way to get to the apartment.
He ducked into an alley, too narrow to hold a cart, and traversed the dark, dingy corridor until he came to the next street. He peered out around the corner. Another cart. Another slow, solemn vigil as another dragon was delivered to the ambush. Trevor had a chilling vision of twenty or more carts, one for every street, slowly converging on the safehouse which held the easterners.
He pulled at his face in worry. He didn’t know Gestlin Gardens as well as some other neighborhoods. He’d have to swing wide if he was going to get around to the back of the apartment without NEST interference. There was a small courtyard he could maybe find his way into. It would mean a climb, and he’d have to hope NEST was only approaching the front. Or could he get a signal to Aaron from outside?
The knife slid cleanly into Trevor’s back. There was a sudden shock and a seizing cold gripped his chest. He grasped towards the sharp pain where the knife had entered him. The knife was pulled from him, leaving a sensation of emptiness which his blood rushed to fill. Trevor staggered and fell to the ground.
From the dirt of the alley, Trevor could just see the dim red sun retreat below the Ellis rooftops. The dirty feet of a barefooted beggar scuffled the bloody ground in front of his face. His killer. Trevor’s last thought was of the gold he’d never get a chance to spend. This is what came of working on credit. He tried to turn over when the ground abruptly fell away and he was left spinning in the darkness, over and over, a wagon wheel on an endless journey to an unknown place.
Chapter 27. Not the Right Knock
The crew at the Gestlin Gardens apartment waited. Ash remained on the roof, but the others had gathered in the living room. Matt James and Shale stared out the window, impatient to get their evening activities started. Cal yawned and rubbed at his hurt ribs. Jardere still watched the door. Aaron sat in the center of the room, rubbing his pixie eye, deep in thought. They were stuck waiting for Trevor, who would bring news from Mario. When he’d returned and the sun had set, they could finally move.
A knock at the door split the silence. Thud, thud, thud. Jardere grunted, tossed his book to the floor, and rose. He looked through the eyeglass on the door. “It’s Trevor,” he said. He threw the bolt and began opening the door.
“Wait!” Aaron whispered, running to the door. He pushed Jardere aside and threw himself at the opening door, managing to get the bolt back in place. Jardere looked at Aaron in confusion. “Not the right knock,” Aaron said.
The knock came again, the same deliberate beat. Thud, thud, thud. The sound was intrusive, arrogant. Unbothered by the door being slammed in the face of whoever was outside. Aaron looked through the eyeglass. Trevor was there, his expression slack, eyes closed. Dead, being held up in front of the door. As Aaron watched, a filthy man with a matted beard slowly raised his head up from behind Trevor’s body. He gave a big smile, exposing a mouth full of broken teeth. He dropped Trevor’s body to the ground and reached out to knock again, unhurried.
“It’s the beggar. NEST knows we’re here.” Aaron looked around the room, thinking. “Check the windows.”
Matt James and Shale were already there. “Blues on the streets. Every direction. Looks like a dragon too,” Shale said, her voice calm.
There were footsteps running down the interior stairs. Aaron drew his sword and stepped in front of the group, but it was only Ash who appeared. “NEST dragons coming this way, fast.” There was a loud crunch from the wooden ceiling, the sound of the first landing.
More footsteps, this time coming up the stairs in the hall. The door might hold them for a little while, but if they held the streets and the roofs, where was there to go? The knocking came again. Thud, thud, thud. The beggar toying with them.
“The balcony,” Aaron said. He threw open the balcony doors. It was about four feet wide, waist-high railing separating them from the ground four floors below. The building next to them was taller by a couple stories but a similar layout. Spacing between the buildings was tight so the next building’s balcony was only about six feet from this one.
“Jardere, how many more buildings before the end of the block? They all look like these?”
“I don’t know. I think so. Maybe five.”
If the balconies all had the same layout they could keep going from building to building, maybe lose NEST in the confusion. “Cal, see if you can get three buildings north, clear the path. We go down on the third. If you have to change floors or directions, leave a sign. We’ll be right behind you.”
Cal nodded, tight, then raised a leg and balanced his foot on the railing. He took a second to gather himself and then he was vaulting through the air. The whole group held their breath, but he easily cleared the gap and the second railing, where he fell into a roll. He popped back up and broke the window on the balcony door with the butt of his half-drawn sword. He reached in, opened the lock and was gone inside. Shouts came from the street. Their actions hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Go,” Aaron said. “Jardere, Ash, Shale, Matt. Quickly. They’ll have crossbows ready in a minute. Follow Cal’s path. If I fall behind don’t wait.” He turned back into the apartment. The door still held but it wouldn’t be long. They’d come through, or else they’d get tired of sitting atop their dragons on the roof and come down the stairs. Either way, he’d rather not be here when they got in.
…
The first building was simple. A single apartment ran all the way across the floor. Cal raced through it. Nobody home, no locked doors. He reached the other balcony, opened the doors, hearing Ash crash into the apartment behind him. Cal made a similar leap to reach the third building. He tried to land quietly but heard noise from the street. When he looked out over the balcony a single NEST guard was looking up, surprised. He dropped his cigarette and starting calling out for the others. Cal sighed. This wasn’t going to be that easy.
The narrow alleys at least cut off the angles, forcing NEST to spread out. There were no good sightlines. “They’re headed west!” Cal yelled as loudly as he could. Every little bit of confusion helped.
The doors behind him were unlocked, but as he entered a man and woman rose angrily from the sitting area. “Get out of here!” the man shouted, approaching Cal and waving a wad of papers clutched in his hand like a weapon. Cal raised his hands innocently, then smoothly knocked the man out with a right to the jaw. He went down hard, papers scattering through the room.
“Show me to the other balcony and I’m out of here,” Cal said to the woman. She screamed and ran away from him, headed in the wrong direction. Cal looked back to see Jardere readying himself to jump the gap behind him. Cal ran forward through the building. Past the sitting room was a library. Cal ducked through another door, using his knife to slash the frame, marking his trail. Next was some sort of hall. He kicked open a door. A greenhouse or atrium filled with lush plants. Cal could see the open balcony in front of him, another manageable jump to the building across the way.
There was a skylight in the atrium roof. The roof itself slanted down towards the balcony, all glass and wrought iron. As Cal ran into the space, he heard a shout from above him. Seconds later a dragon crashed into the skylight, sending shards of broken glass clattering behind Cal. He turned to see a dragon’s claw come through the opening, clutching at air. It was a clumsy move though, and dangerous. The dragon had been brought down too hard by its rider. There was no lift under its wings and the sound of breaking glass caused it to rear up wildly. Cal kept running forward, determined to clear the gap to the next and hopefully last building, ignoring the ugly so
unds of glass and pain behind him as the dragon began to roll across the greenhouse roof. Cal managed to get his foot up on the railing and hurl himself over the street just ahead of the falling dragon.
Cal hit the opposite balcony hard, clinging to the railing he’d failed to clear. He turned to watch the dragon, its rider tossed and headed towards the cobblestones below, hit the balcony behind him in a shower of broken glass. The balcony didn’t hold. It ripped clear of the building, pulling out bolts to join the dragon plummeting towards the street. Cal stared down at the falling pile of metal railings, glass, and scales for a moment. He was brought back to his own troubles by a crossbow bolt clattering into the bottom of the balcony he clung to.
Cal pulled himself up and kicked open the balcony doors. No shouts of alarm from inside. He turned back and saw Jardere in the doorway to the greenhouse. Jardere stopped hard at the sight of all the broken glass and the now too-wide gap. With the balcony gone, there was no chance on making the leap. Ash slammed into Jardere from behind, but Jardere held him back, looked across at Cal. Cal waved for them to run back the way they’d come. Scatter, something. Their path forward was gone. Jardere was doing the same for him, waving him on. Cal hissed in disappointment and turned to run. The group was splintered, just like the glass still falling to the street below.
…
“Up or down?” Jardere asked Ash. Both men were breathing heavily. Ash had done something to his knee on one of the jumps and was limping. Jardere reached up to take his snakeskin hat off so he could pull his hair out of his face, then realized he wasn’t wearing it. No wonder they were having such bad luck. Ash hadn’t answered, so Jardere turned to head back towards the last balcony, see what Aaron wanted.
Rise of the Falsemarked (Spies of Dragon and Chalk Book 2) Page 19