…staring at him.
He didn't know how he knew, but the thing was staring straight at him. It sees me! The beast paused at the base of the stairs. Xanthippus dared not move. He blinked hard, thinking it must be a trick of shadows, a waking dream of crocodile-inspired demons…
When he opened his eyes, the bull-man had been replaced by… He peered closely, squinting into the gloom. By an old woman. The horns were now a wild tousle of white hair, the gnashing teeth a grimace of withered lips, strong muscle-bulging legs frail blue-veined sticks miraculously supporting her weight. Nothing was left of the bull but the eyes, the pale, sightless stone eyes that Xanthippus glimpsed for only an instant before the crone covered them with clawed fingers. When she brought her hands down, her cheeks were streaked with black--
He heard a cry from the shaft. It was Nydeon. Someone had grasped his leg from below. Xanthippus saw a flickering torchlight--
--and then the old woman began shrieking, staring directly at Xanthippus with black non-eyes, the round black hole of her mouth emitting an ear-splitting scream…
"We've been betrayed!" Nydeon shouted from the shaft.
Xanthippus drew his dagger and plunged backward down the shaft, his feet barely touching the rungs. He hung for a moment and then dropped to the tunnel floor, landing on the man from whose throat Nydeon was just withdrawing his dagger. Another lunged at them and Xanthippus sprang at him, aiming low, and took his legs out from under him. He sprawled face down on the damp tunnel floor. Nydeon plunged his still dripping dagger into his kidney. They could hear shouts from one of the branching tunnels. In another moment, they saw torchlight flickering on the wall, footfalls rapidly approaching them.
"We have been betrayed," Nydeon said again, looking up from the dead man.
"Back to the river," Xanthippus cried.
Hunched over, they ran as fast as they could toward the starlit mouth of the tunnel.
"Who are they?" Xanthippus asked as they ran. "Blue Men?"
"I couldn't tell," Nydeon replied.
"Kerraunus," Xanthippus said, clenching his teeth. He had forgotten all about the bull man. It was the snake Xanthippus wanted now.
"We should have abandoned this enterprise at the Crossing," Nydeon said.
They could hear footsteps behind them, voices calling. Ahead, someone pushed the weeds aside and a torch appeared in the mouth of the tunnel.
"I will not be taken," Xanthippus vowed. He firmed his grip on his dagger. He saw the black shadow of the man holding the torch. In his other hand, he clutched a sword and Xanthippus reckoned on arming himself with it. He would need something more than a dagger. Who knew how many men awaited them?
Then the man leapt back out of the tunnel and their exit was clear once again. Xanthippus could hear nothing but the voices calling behind them. The sound had actually begun to recede; the footfalls quickly lost their urgency. Their pursuers were giving up the chase. They're handing us off to their fellows. No doubt, the killers waited for them on the riverbank just outside the tunnel, probably lurking on either side of the mouth. Xanthippus decided he would plunge out of the tunnel and dive straight into the water. They would not be expecting that. That could buy him a crucial moment or two…
He ran to the opening and leapt out through the weeds. He had decided not to plunge into the river and instead launched himself into a shoulder roll down to the water's edge. Nydeon followed him, and they both crouched there in the sandy mud, awaiting their attackers.
But there was not a movement. Not a sound. Both men looked around and saw nothing. The riverbank was just as they had left it. Xanthippus caught a glimpse of some movement out of the corner of his eye. In the water. He started, supposing it to be a crocodile. But it wasn't. It was a man. He was floating face down, drifting placidly downstream.
Nydeon tugged on his shirtsleeve and pointed along the weedy bank. There, laying among the reeds and rushes, were five more men. They had all been ripped and hacked to pieces, missing parts of arms and legs, their torsos covered with black blood, glistening wetly in the starlight. Their unbloodied blades and extinguished torches lay all around them.
"Blue Men, do you think?" Xanthippus asked.
Nydeon shook his head. Who could tell now?
"Let's get off this riverbank before we find we're next," Xanthippus said.
*
In his bedchamber, Hurrus heard the scream and woke with a start.
"What was that?" Antona asked. Hurrus saw the fear in her eyes. It had been a hideous cry, full of terror and pain and…
...and rage.
"Sounded like Nadia," he said, though he didn't quite believe it. He had recognized her voice in it, but the cry itself was almost inhuman. "Where is Katra?" he asked, as he threw on a robe. Whatever the meaning of the cry, it could not be good.
He ran to Nadia's bedchamber. A scene of violence greeted him. A brazier containing Katra's noxious brew had been overturned. The thick stink of the stuff assaulted his nostrils, causing his breath to catch. The cooling potion lay congealing on the floor, its smooth surface marred only by a set of perfectly preserved Nadia-sized footprints pointing toward the door. Surely belonging to an intruder, Hurrus thought. A small, barefoot intruder. It didn't make any sense. There was no sign of Nadia. Her little bell stood untouched at her bedside.
Other members of the household rushed by as Hurrus bolted out of the room.
"Nadia!" he cried, running.
"What is it?" Antona asked. She was standing in the hallway now, cinched tightly in her dressing gown.
"Something has happened to Nadia," Hurrus said.
He started down the stairs, but stopped short when he saw a group of servants gathered over a prone form in the courtyard. Had she fallen? But how? She can't even walk… He ran down the remainder of the stairs, fearing what he would find. The servants parted for him. The healer Katra was kneeling over the body.
She looked up. "It's Nadia."
Hurrus shoved her aside and knelt beside the old woman. He recoiled at what he saw. "By the gods! What has happened here?"
Katra spoke hesitantly, as if describing a shameful act. "She has clawed her own eyes out," she said.
Where Nadia's eyes had been, black, puckered holes stared up at Hurrus. Blood smeared her cheeks. Katra lifted one of her hands. Her limp fingers were drenched in blood. Under the long fingernails, Hurrus detected ragged chunks of a fleshy substance. He looked away.
Holding a torch, Xandros emerged from the shaft in the midst of the garden. Another man came up after him. "There are dead men down below," Xandros said. There was anger in his voice. Hurrus looked up, scarcely able to understand what was happening. Dead men? "And this--" Xandros kicked at the loose grating, "--this has been unbolted -- from the inside." He began barking out orders. He pointed and armed men scurried in every direction. He approached Hurrus and pulled him aside.
"I suspect an assassination attempt," he said. "They came in through the tunnel from the river. There are more dead men on the riverbank."
"An assassination attempt?" Hurrus was puzzled. It was too much to assimilate. "Who would assassinate Nadia?"
"Not Nadia," Xandros said. "You. Nadia just got in the way. Nadia, and those men in the tunnel."
"Men in the tunnel? What men?"
"Mejadym, from the looks of them, but it's hard to tell. They're pretty butchered up."
"But, Xandros… Look at her. How could an assassin have done this?"
Xandros shook his head sadly. "Surely, it is the work of demons," he said.
*
Xanthippus and Nydeon rode at top speed all the way to Kerraunus' mansion. There would be no creeping in the bushes this time, no secret grappling hooks up back balconies. This time he would enter by the front door and whether or not he ever came out again did not concern him.
The guard at the front gate called the men to a halt. He was an angry looking man in a gold-trimmed white cloak. Before his horse had come to a full stop, Xanthippus dismou
nted. The guard leveled his spear and began jabbering at him in Tygetian. Xanthippus decided to communicate with an unmistakable universality, something he should have done from the beginning. He had been too soft. Far too soft. Without a word, he strode up to the guard and grabbed the leveled spear just behind the point. He twisted and at the same time drove the flat of his foot straight into the guard's locked knee. He heard a pop, and the spear came away easily into Xanthippus' hands. The guard fell to the ground, writhing in agony. He issues threats in Tygetian, but screams in the Common Tongue. His caterwauling was better than a bell. Kerraunus, your Gyriece are here!
Xanthippus heard the second guard before he saw him. His footfalls crunched on the gravel track as he rushed forward out of the shadows. He crouched in a fighting position, wearing a defiant and angry expression, but a look of uncertainty passed over his face when he saw his partner writhing on the ground. His eyes darted from his stricken companion to the man dressed all in black who loomed over him. They stared at one another for an instant. Then Xanthippus squared on him and pointed his spear at the level of the guard's heart. The guard dropped his weapon and ran. Xanthippus leapt onto his horse.
"Let him go," Nydeon said. "We should ride away from here. Make for Alaun and board a ship back to Gyriece."
Xanthippus glanced at the guard scurrying away across the wide yard toward the house. As he ran, his form vanished and reappeared out of the shadows that dappled the expansive grounds. Xanthippus felt a fire to follow, but looked back at his friend.
"We would never make it," he said. "The whole country is no doubt looking for us now. We were betrayed and these bastards tried to kill us to save their precious prince. Who knows what we'd find in Alaun? Probably worse."
Nydeon scowled and his dark eyes glistened in the shadow of his darker brow. Xanthippus knew the look. "Then let's put an end to it. Yah!" He kicked and snapped his reins. Xanthippus wheeled and both men galloped hard on the heels of the fleeing guard. There was no hope for them in Alaun. If they were not to leave Tygetia, they would not go down alone. They would retrace their steps. Xanthippus saw it all clearly. They would merely start with Kerraunus. Then he envisioned Sotheb floating like a rudderless river barge -- a hideously fat, rudderless river barge -- facedown in his own bath; and Seus' sandrunners feasting on the meat of their master; and pursuing blue men littering their path. He remembered the bearded man with the yellowwood staff. Ah, the yellowwood… It would almost be a pleasure.
They caught up with the guard just as he reached the front door. Xanthippus leapt from his horse and pinned the man face-first against the wall, his forearm across the back of his neck. The man grimaced in pain.
"Open the door," Xanthippus commanded. The man nodded rapidly, his eyes wide. Xanthippus released him and the terrified man reached under his cloak and produced a ring of keys from his belt. As he put a key in the lock, Xanthippus warned him, "Utter a sound and I'll have your tongue."
The man turned the key and stepped aside without a sound. Xanthippus flung the door open and burst inside. The door slammed against the wall and shuddered on its hinges.
"Kerraunus!" Xanthippus roared into the empty room. Nothing about the place surprised him, except perhaps that there was not a pair of wriggling legs projecting from the mouth of the rearing stone cobra. A little guttering flame burned in the brazier under its looming face, casting a faint orange glow. "Kerraunus!" he yelled again.
He heard a bell begin to clang in the yard at the same time that Kerraunus emerged from a dim hallway.
"Ah, I see you're using the front door now like civilized men," he said. He spoke in a tone that suggested they were old friends making a chance meeting at some festival outing. He strolled out from the shadows, smiling. "Have you changed your mind about my offer?"
"You have betrayed us," Xanthippus growled. Several armed men appeared on the opposite side of the courtyard. Kerraunus looked at them and held up a hand. They stood back.
"Betrayed you? But it was I who made your job possible. I would have thought you'd be halfway to Alaun by now. What do you mean 'betrayed you'?"
"The men in the tunnel who tried to kill us--"
"Men in the tunnel? What men? Who tried to kill you?"
"Tygetian bastard!" Xanthippus began to rush forward, but Nydeon grasped him and held him back. It was plain to see now that it was suicide. The armed men came out of the hallway. Xanthippus would not have gotten within ten feet of the prince. Kerraunus obviously knew it and could not have felt less threatened by Xanthippus' spear.
"Look here," Kerraunus said in a conciliatory tone. "I don't control everything that happens in Tygetia, no matter what your Mejadym man told you. These men in the tunnel… Surely you didn't expect to kill a prince of Tygetia and then just walk away, did you?"
Xanthippus stopped struggling. Nydeon released him. Xanthippus eyed Kerraunus carefully. He glanced at the armed men. The bell continued to clang.
Those men were not trying to prevent us killing the prince, but only from escaping. The realization struck him like a thunderbolt. They thought the deed was done.
"But we didn't kill anybody," Xanthippus said.
Kerraunus blinked. "Hurrus still lives?"
We were meant to die from the beginning.
Xanthippus turned. "Let's get out of here," he said to Nydeon.
"You failed?" Kerraunus' tone was stern and angry.
"Quickly!" Xanthippus shouted. He pulled Nydeon with him as he began sprinting for the door.
Chapter 9
Xanthippus found himself staring at Ledios' head. A sheen of sweat covered his brow and his smoothly shaved cranium flickered orange in the torchlight. Whatever it was that caused these people to shave their heads, Xanthippus thought, this one observed it zealously even while he neglected his beard. His cheeks sprouted a stubbly growth of several days. For some reason, the incongruity made Xanthippus vaguely uneasy. The fact that the man was calling himself Ledios when he was clearly Tygetian was easier to understand. Who wouldn't have used an alias in the man's place?
Smiling, Ledios folded his hands on the table in front of him. His teeth were crooked and brown. A bright swath of scarred flesh made a streak down one side of his face, cutting a path through eyebrow, eyelid and cheekbone. He could scarcely open that eye. The other twinkled with a kind of evil humor Xanthippus found irritating.
"Why should we help you?" Ledios asked.
His partner was more than irritating. Xanthippus hated him on sight. He was a shorter man than Ledios, stocky and strong-looking, with thickly veined arms. He wore a contemptuous expression and had since the moment Xanthippus and Nydeon sat down. He looked as if he smelled something. Xanthippus would have said that the stink emanated from the men themselves. The partner had no name and did not say a word; he just sat there with that foul odor in his nose. He wore a dark cowl over his head that left his eyes in shadow.
Xanthippus gritted his teeth. He was in no position to complain about any of it.
He slid a leather pouch across the table. It was all they had left, a few silvers. Xanthippus and Nydeon had no more use for money. The alternative to their every decision was now death or captivity. Death didn't appeal to him, and he had a feeling he wouldn't like Mejadym captivity at all. A few silvers were all they had, but it was probably more than Ledios had seen in a year.
When he opened the bag and peered inside, Ledios tried to hide his enthusiasm. Xanthippus glanced around. There were plenty of men in the crowded wine house who would not try to hide their interest in a bag of silver and Xanthippus would have liked Ledios to be a little more discreet. He was in Ledios' world now, however. He had to assume the man knew his own business.
Seeing the coins, his upper lip curled in what passed for a smile. It did his looks no good at all. "Yes, we can help you," he hissed in Tygetian-accented Common Tongue.
The offer gave Xanthippus little comfort.
The fact that this wine house reminded him of the one in Reeking Town did not
help, either. Indeed, after Archentethe, Alaun, with its mainly Tygetian population, recalled Reeking Town generally, only here the air reeked not of raw lye but of fish and sea salt and was filled with the cries of hovering gulls.
The other difference was that now, of course, he knew who pursued them. He should. He had seen enough of them since the previous night.
It had seemed that every time they turned, another gang of blue men rode by. They were so thick on the Royal Road between Archentethe and Alaun that the Prathians had had to take a wide detour through the backcountry. Even so, all night and into the next day, they found themselves peering over the lips of ditches or laying flat across their horses' necks as they watched yet another troop of Mejadym ride by, oblivious that their quarry lay concealed just yards away.
As they lay there peering through the damp grasses, Xanthippus had found the feeling depressingly familiar. It recalled other long nights of his life, the longest nights, fifteen years ago on the island of Isala. Orphaned at an early age, he had been taken in by the man he would forever think of as his father, a nobleman and member of the king's own council, a man given to exotic carnal appetites. He had collected other orphans from the refuse of the island as well and all had suffered years of torment under the old man's attention, torments Xanthippus could not speak aloud even to this day. He had to bite his lip whenever he thought of his sisters, and he remembered fondly his little brother Angyos. They had all been bound, if not by blood then by their suffering, and the love they felt for one another could never be taken from them.
One day, Angyos had been called into his father's bath. It was the dreadful call, one they all knew. Angyos had already confided to Xanthippus that he was not going to bend to the old man's wishes anymore. He would run away. He would kill the old man. He would-- Xanthippus nodded sadly at his brave little brother. Every one of them had said the same thing at one time or another. Where do you run from a king's councilman? They all knew the answer: you don't.
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