“Move!” she yelled.
Below her on the stair, a dreadman soaked with seafire looked up at her. He snarled, the thick liquid clinging to his face, and charged. Sugar threw the burning blanket at him. He batted it away, and the blanket fell to the stairs behind him into the seafire spill.
A beat passed. Then a blue flame raced over the stairs and up the dreadman’s body. The next moment it all ignited.
The dreadman roared and charged up the stairs, his seafire-soaked clothing aflame. Sugar reached for her long knife and realized it was back in the room. She set herself, planning to turn away from his charge and throw him past her, knowing she probably didn’t have enough room, but as he reached the top, Soddam charged into him, thrusting him through the side with the javelin that had killed the first of the firelancers, and pinned the dreadman to the wall.
Pain and hate twisted the dreadman’s face. He tried to pull himself off the javelin, but the wind-whipped flames spread and grew and he burst into a pillar of fire. He thrashed and screamed, and succeeded in pulling himself free from the javelin, only to fall to the floor in a burning, sizzling heap.
Down on the stairs the seafire flames raged, sending up billows of choking smoke.
“Out the back window,” Soddam yelled over the wind and turned to Lamborn who was on his hands and knees. Sugar raced into the room and snatched up her long knife, then raced past Soddam who was lifting Lamborn up onto his shoulders.
They fled down the hall and flung open the door to the largest of the two backrooms. Outside the pitch of the wind lessened, then began to fall off. She threw open the shutters and looked down at the street below. Sodden debris lay everywhere.
“I’ll hand him down,” Soddam said.
Sugar stepped up to the ledge and hopped out the window. Multiplied as she was, it was no great distance, but she didn’t want to break anything, so she rolled as she’d been taught by Ke and Argoth. By the time she came up, Soddam was already letting Lamborn down.
Sugar grabbed his legs and took him from Soddam as best she could. As she stumbled back, trying to bring him down easy, two large drops splattered on her face and mouth. She licked her lips and realized it was Lamborn’s blood.
Soddam leapt out the window to the street, then turned and took Lamborn from her. Above them the back end of the squall passed over the houses. The rain diminished.
“What about Urban and the others?” she asked.
“Who knows where they are?” Soddam said. “Can’t worry about them now.”
A shimmering thing the size of a man’s hand fell from the sky next to her and bounced off the cobbles. It was followed by another, then another. They were yellow barred surfperch. Sugar looked up and saw hundreds of the small bodies flashing in the sun, speeding down toward them.
“Into the doorway!” Soddam said. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her with him across the alley. The striped fish rained down, striking her painfully on the head and back, bouncing off the stones about them. Mixed in were a few crabs and seabirds. Then she and Soddam were in the doorway pressing themselves back under the lintel. The rain of fish continued, Lamborn taking a couple of blows, and then as quickly as it had come, the rain of fish fell away. The sun shone down on an alley glistening with fish and crab and seaweed. The few fish that hadn’t died on impact flipped about. A number of crabs flailed their spider legs and tried to right themselves.
“Come on,” Soddam said. “Now’s our chance.”
They raced out of the doorway, trying to pick their way through the fish and crabs, slipping on those they trod upon. She wished she wasn’t so fond of bare feet and had brought some boots.
She led, and Soddam followed, for it was she who had led Urban and the others into city. She, out of all of them, knew best the way out.
Behind them, around a corner, someone shouted something in a language she’d never heard before. It was followed by the awful bark of a number of maulers.
“Lords,” Soddam said.
“This way!” Sugar said and turned down another lane. The barking grew, and she decided at that moment she really didn’t like dogs.
36
Ke
BEROSUS ROSE FROM the cranny on the roof where he’d taken shelter from the squall and surveyed the scene below. Out in the street, the charred carriages, men, and horses lay in a jumbled mess. Here and there, a few small slicks of seafire still burned in the drenched street.
The three remaining Kains were well away from the attack site. He’d almost been too late. The blackened bodies of two of his Kains and their servants slumped in the middle carriage. The Mother would not be pleased. He shook his head. These sleth had now killed five Divines. It was unheard of. Which was why he needed to know what was really going on—now, before he launched his full attack.
One street over, the dogmen and maulers howled and barked, chasing those that had been in the house. Shouts rose a few streets away in the other direction. He ran along the rooftops toward the second commotion, leaping narrow alleys and streets. In a few short minutes he leapt to a row of roofs and looked down.
Below him Ke and a number of Shim’s men ran down the street. They were moving fast. The hammer of Mokaddian dreadmen chasing them hadn’t yet turned the corner. Under normal circumstances, with their knowledge of the area, Ke and Shim’s men would probably escape. But not today.
He saw where Ke was heading, then leapt across the alley, over their heads, to the next row of houses. He climbed over to the other side, ran down the roofs almost to the end, then dropped to street just before Ke and the others turned the corner.
Ke startled in surprise.
“Goh!” said Berosus. “I found you!”
Ke slowed to a stop. “What are you doing here?” The men behind him were panting.
“I was watching the parade, buttering up a fine Fir-Noy lass who had access to people we need. And suddenly Regret’s torture pits open up with fire and smoke. I saw you. What just happened?”
“There’s no time,” said Ke. “We need to get out of here.”
“Well, you’re not going to get far the way you’re running,” said Berosus. “Mokad’s whole army is set up in that direction. And running will attract the attention of the kitemen anyway. Follow me; I know a way out.”
Ke glanced up at the skies, then back at Berosus. “We need to get to Loon Point. That’s the arranged meet.”
“I don’t know any Loon’s Point. You might get there, you might not. But at least you’ll get out alive. Now, come.” He hurried away at a brisk walk. Ke and the others followed.
“There’s a hammer of dreadmen on our heels,” Ke said urgently.
Berosus held up his hand to say he had it all covered and led them off the road into a thin alley no wider than a man that connected to a lane that ran behind two rows of houses. They walked a bit, exited the lane down another thin alley. The shouts of the dreadmen passed by behind them. Berosus led Ke and his men across another street and slipped down a lane between two houses that led to a barn. “We’ll smuggle you out in a wagon,” he said. He motioned at their clothes. “A wagon will be far safer than a Koramite and eight Shoka running around in broad daylight with blood and soot drawing everyone’s eyes.”
He opened the barn door and motioned them in. Ke slipped in first followed by the others. Some of them were wounded—a little blood around the knuckles or caking an ear, but nothing that would worry a man hardened to battle. These were all powerful soldiers. Glorious works of flesh. And by Regret’s rotted stones, they’d just helped murder three Kains! They would have matured into fine dreadmen, maybe become something more.
He stepped in behind them and shut the door. Light streamed in through an open shutter illuminating dust motes. Berosus slid the bar in the barn door home.
“There’s no wagon,” Ke said.
“No,” Berosus replied. He drew his knif
e and slit the throats of three of the men. The others turned. They were fast and strong, but he was as far above them as a man is a babe. His Fire filled him, turning his sinews and muscles into iron, giving him unnatural reflexes.
He killed the next one by slamming his head into the edge of a workbench.
A fifth lunged forward. Berosus struck him a glancing blow, whipping his face to the side and breaking his neck.
The other two Shimsmen hesitated. Ke reached for his knife and found it missing.
“Looking for this?” Berosus asked. Then he threw it, burying it deep into one man’s throat. The man tried to breathe, his face full of shock and dismay, and fell back.
The last Shimsman drew his sword. He thrust at Berosus, blinding quick, but Berosus was quicker. He sidestepped it, grabbed the man by the head, brought up a knee, and smashed the man’s face into it. The man fell to the floor, his sword clattering on the stones. Berosus brought his foot down and staved in three ribs with his heel. He turned to Ke.
“So Eresh was right,” Ke said with disgust. He wore an axe, but did not draw it. A wise decision in these close quarters.
“Eresh is a fool.” Berosus said, then stepped over a dead man and skirted around a work table.
“Who paid you off?” Ke asked, finding his own good ground.
Berosus laughed. “Paid? There is no treasure that can compare to the Mother’s sublime approbation.”
Ke narrowed his eyes. “You’re not of the Hand.”
“Oh, I am. I am the soul of the Hand.”
Disgust filled Ke’s face. “So the Hand is run by a lapdog, a thrall.”
“I am whatever the Mother wants me to be.”
Ke attacked, rushing him. Berosus tried to sidestep the charge, but Ke caught him by the jaw and hurled him back. Berosus banged into the wall, surprised. Ke followed with blow that would have crushed his throat, but Berosus caught it. He grabbed Ke by the arm and tried to twist his wrist, but found it much harder than he expected. Then Ke spun himself free of Berosus’s grip and stepped back to a workbench.
“You are quite the specimen,” Berosus said. He was going to need more power for this one and increased his Fire. “Back in Mokad you’d make a great breeding stud, I think.”
Ke snatched a hammer off the workbench.
Berosus stepped toward him. “I need to know what’s going on,” he said. “Who really defeated the Sublime down in her cave?”
“Truth defeated that creature,” Ke said. He swung with the hammer.
Berosus was forced to take a step back to avoid the blow and almost stepped on a dead man. “You will tell me. Everyone talks, eventually.”
“You will have nothing from me. Tell that vile thing you call your master we are coming.” Ke pulled back the hammer for another blow, and Berosus lunged.
But Ke blocked him.
Incredible. Berosus struck again, and, again, Ke blocked it.
“Lords, you are wonderful. An excellent mix of Koramite and Mokaddian blood. You are going to Mokad. The Mother is going to want to crossbreed you with some fine ladies. I think you’ll like that.”
Ke growled and hurled the hammer.
Berosus flinched to the side and the hammer kissed his cheek with cold iron as it sailed past his face and banged loudly into the wall behind him.
Ke picked up an iron pry bar and lunged at Berosus’s throat. But Berosus’s full vigor was now upon him. He swatted Ke’s hand aside, slammed his fist into Ke’s gut. Ke struggled for breath. It was a momentary pause, but enough for Berosus to move behind him and put him in a head lock.
Ke thrashed—his power spectacular—and the two of them fell to the floor, crashing into one of the dead men at their feet. They rolled over the man, into his blood, banged into a table. Berosus held on, squeezing the blood flow to Ke’s brain with an arm hold of iron. Moments later Ke’s thrashing lessened. The he mustered his strength, heaved both himself and Berosus up. Berosus hung on. Ke pulled at his arm. Struck at him, but Berosus squeezed tighter. Ke went down to a knee, fought, but Berosus was not going to be dislodged. After some ineffectual flailing, Ke slumped in Berosus’s arms.
Berosus held on for another second, then quickly drew a king’s collar out of his purse and clasped it around Ke’s neck.
By the Mother’s eyes, that had been lovely. He took a satisfied breath of relief.How long had it been since he’d been in a true fight? He’d almost forgotten the thrill.
He cradled the boy in his arms and felt for a pulse. Blood beat steady and strong in Ke’s thick neck. He was a veritable bull. The Mother was going to be pleased indeed, but first Berosus needed to extract this Grove’s secrets. The weave he’d used on Legs wasn’t going to work here; this was going to require a true seeking.
He found some cord and bound Ke’s wrists and ankles. Then he opened the barn door and dragged Ke away from the dead men and out into the sun.
37
Black Harvest
SUGAR AND SODDAM ran down the lane between the houses and workshops of cobblers and tailors, Lamborn still on Soddam’s shoulder. The barking of maulers followed a few turns behind.
Sugar barreled with multiplied speed past a man pushing a cart of beets, almost bowled over a group of dumbfounded children. Above them, people, who were leaning out of windows to watch the receding skir squall, pointed and exclaimed as they ran past. Soddam knocked over a man with sausage links for sale, careened off a boy holding two dead pheasants. On his shoulder, Lamborn groaned.
Then the maulers entered the lane a number of houses back. A man shouted in panic. A mother screamed for her children to get off the road.
The maulers snarled, vicious and low, and the people on the lane began to shout and scream.
Fear surged through Sugar.
“We’ve got to lose them,” Soddam said.
Sugar’s mind raced. She didn’t know if they could outrun the beasts, even multiplied. There was no canal nearby where the water would sink the beasts in their armor. If she and Soddam took to the roofs, the maulers would just pace them. Furthermore, the kitemen would easily direct the Skir Master to them. Where could they go? Where!
She remembered a row of sail and net makers’ workshops in this area, and an idea began to form. “This way!” she called and raced down the lane, the people scattering before her. She turned the corner into a blind end. This was it. There were only five buildings here. The end was dominated by a sail maker’s workshop.
The double doors at the front and back of the workshop stood so she could see through the workshop to a ship builder’s scaffolding down by the water. A lone woman knelt in the workshop, stitching a sail with a whalebone needle. Two kittens played with the thread at her feet.
Sugar raced toward the workshop. “Out, Good-Wife!” she cried. “Out!”
The woman looked up, alarm on her face.
“Out!” Sugar yelled.
The woman stood, backed away, then fled when Sugar and Soddam raced through the front doors.
The shape of a large sail had been chalked on the tight wooden floor of the workshop. Wide strips of linen sail cloth were laid out to fit. The woman had been stitching together two wide strips of linen about twenty feet long.
Sugar looked about and saw what she wanted. “Take Lamborn out the back way,” she said. “Bar those doors.”
“What are you doing?” Soddam asked.
“Just go!” she said. “When the dogs come in, you come around and bar those front doors.”
“You’re not staying in here with those animals.”
“I’m not planning to. Get!”
Just at that moment the maulers barreled around the corner.
“Go!” she said.
Soddam ran out the back the way the woman had gone. He shut and barred the doors behind him.
Sugar backed up, looked at the maulers and
felt her heart just might fail her. They were monsters. They spotted her and charged full speed toward the workshop, baring their teeth. One bite, and they’d rip her in half.
The workshop was a large space, big enough for a sail maker to chalk out sails for medium-sized boats. Big enough to give her the room she needed. When the maulers were only a few yards away, and she was sure they were coming in, she ran to the ladder leading up to the loft. She was halfway up when the dogs entered the workshop.
They leapt for her, crashing into the ladder. She jumped, grabbed onto the banister, and swung herself onto the loft. Below, the dogs and ladder crashed to the ground.
The maulers rose and snarled at her with such volume it felt as if the bark had bite. One of the monsters jumped and almost reached the loft. She raced for the small window in the roof. At the front of the workshop, Soddam swung the double doors behind the maulers shut. Sugar shouted, hoping to keep their attention away from the doors, then opened the shutter and slipped out onto the roof.
She dropped to the ground, ran around the corner, and found Lamborn on the ground, Soddam straining with all his might to hold the doors shut against the maulers. “The bar!” he said.
She grabbed it, slammed into the door with her shoulder to knock it back just a bit, then slammed the bar down in its braces. The maulers barked. One of the animals charged into the doors. The doors shuddered, but the stout bar held. The maulers’ barks became more violent and angry. They were so loud it felt as if the sound itself would tear the doors to pieces.
“Holy Creators,” Soddam said and stepped back. “You’re as mad as your mother.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said.
“Let’s get out of here,” Soddam said.
They turned and found the maulers’ dogman standing in the lane, watching them. A grin spread across his face. He held a big poleax in a two-handed grip. He threw his head back and howled. A moment later howls from his brethren a number of streets away answered him back.
Curse: The Dark God Book 2 Page 35