A nun of some kind, probably, dressed like that. Or a madwoman who suspected she might be a Star. Whatever the case, Raz wanted nothing to do with it.
________________________
Syrah was feeling much better.
Then again, she’d expected it. This was almost always how it was with Talo’s teachings. At first she would be hit with the blunt end of his lesson, and for a while the blow would throb. Then, once she’d calmed down, what Talo had actually been saying would come to the forefront.
Do you see the relation? he had asked her. The difference?
No. She hadn’t.
But now, her eyes on the ground as she headed back to the Ovana after nearly two hours out on her own, exploring the sprawling market street, she was starting to.
It didn’t matter what she could have been if things were different. They could have been. Maybe that was the relation. How Syrah felt now, in the present and in the eyes of her own conscience, that was what mattered. How she hated the fact that she couldn’t do more. That she prayed every night for the ability to give these starving people what they needed. These were the thoughts that counted, not the false greed of some daydream.
The difference was she was not, in reality, that twisted version of herself.
Smiling slightly, her mind clear again, she lifted her head.
And stopped dead.
Talo had told her more than once not to stare, but this time there was no helping it. Syrah gaped openly at the back of the tall reptilian figure that had passed her with barely a curious glance at her shrouded face. He—for she could only imagine it was a he—moved on without looking back, but Syrah stood her ground, turning to watch him pass. His blunt, tapered snout gleamed in the bright sun, several needlelike teeth protruding randomly from beneath his upper and lower lips. His skin was scaly, black with a hinted tinge of mottled green, and his webbed, spined ears were clear blue with just the faintest suggestion of fiery orange along the base. Some kind of loose crest hung against the back of his head and neck, shining the same color as his ears, as did the leathery membranes of the great wings tucked tight to his back. He wore merchant’s clothes, dressed almost like some of the traveling traders that frequently bartered with the city folk along the road, and a long cape of similar white silk as her own robes hung to the heels of his feet. Not only did Syrah see with a shock that he walked on the ball of his clawed feet, but when the mantle shifted she realized that a tail extended from the base of the lizard-man’s loose trousers, held above the dirt, swaying like a thick snake with each step. He walked with a staff in one hand, the tall piece of white wood looking much shorter than it was in his grasp, and when he stopped to speak to a woman selling all kinds of food from her stall, Syrah saw the simple iron chain that hung from his right ear to right nostril.
So he was a nomad?
“Miss? Misses?”
Syrah jumped, turning around. A man was standing behind her, bent over and cowering, seemingly afraid to come any closer. One of his eyes was bandaged and bloody, and he held his right hand close to his chest as though it were hurt.
“Y-yes?” Syrah gasped. Her mind wasn’t completely off the fact that a giant walking—and apparently talking—lizard was standing not twenty paces down the road.
What other surprises did these southern lands hold?
“You’re the one who’s been helpin’ all the slum folk, ain’t ya’?” the man asked hopefully, looking sideways at her with his one good eye. “Miss, please, please help. My wife and me—we got jumped by some a’ them streeters! She ain’t doin’ too well, miss. Please help!”
“Oh,” Syrah breathed, suddenly concerned. “My Priest-Mentor would be better. I don’t know much about healing just yet, I’m only—”
“Tell me where he is and I’ll go get him!” the injured man squeaked pleadingly, taking a step forward. “But please! Please come see her! She needs help!”
Syrah was torn. Talo would be mad enough when she got back, since he had undoubtedly realized by now that she wasn’t at the inn anymore…
Still, he would probably be madder if she risked a life by running to him first.
“Where is she?” she asked, making up her mind and bending down so she could get a better look at the man through her cowl.
His face brightened. “Follow me!” he positively squealed, turning and hurriedly limping along the edge of the throng, back up the road. Syrah followed, hiking her robes and jogging to keep up, dodging around a lady juggler and the half-dozen spectators that were watching her. They kept to the side of the crowds, people giving them coy glances when they brushed past. It wasn’t long before they stopped in front of a decrepit old hut right along the side of the market. Dodging into a narrow alley, the man tugged aside the shredded old rags that served to cover the entrance, holding them open for her. Syrah ducked her head and slipped in, happy to be in the shade and looking around. The house was made up of two small rooms separated by a single wall, with little more than a large hole in it to pass as a door. It was dusty and stale, with the dead air of a place that hadn’t been used in years. At once Syrah got the feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Too late.
She only had time to realize that there was no sign of an injured woman on the dirt floor that she could see when a thick arm clamped around her waist and a hand covered her mouth over her shroud. She screamed, the sound muffled, kicking out. In response she was lifted clear off the ground. Several men appeared from the other room, all smiling and a few laughing quietly. The man she’d followed stepped out from behind whoever it was that was holding her captive, no longer stooped. Grinning, he pulled off the bandages to reveal a perfectly healthy second eye.
“You’ll be proud to know, no doubt,” he said, stepping forward while Syrah continued to struggle, his eyes raking her body, “tha’ you’re the first fish ta’ bite on that bait in a good long while. Most people just give me the boot. Or a copper, if’n I’m real lucky.”
Syrah kicked out, trying to catch him in the face and screaming again into the hand that covered her mouth. The man laughed, jumping back out of reach. Then he darted forward and slammed a fist into her gut.
Hard.
All the air whooshed out of Syrah’s lungs, and she gagged, almost throwing up. She was struggling to inhale when the silk veil was ripped from her face, revealing it, but before she could take a breath to scream again the hand was back, clamping her jaw shut. Her eyes watered. She struggled to breathe, fighting the arm around her waist.
“Well would’ya look at that, Jerd?” one of the other men asked. “We done gone and caught ourselves a rose, ain’t we?”
Even through her tears she could tell that they were still all staring at her, and Syrah fought harder, attempting to open her mouth and bite. The man’s fingers were too strong, though, and she only won herself a tighter grip by the arm that pinned her hands to her sides.
“You ever seen a rose, Blith? ‘Cause I ain’t,” the man called Jerd snapped. “This one’s got ta’ be prettier than a rose, though.”
He stepped forward, clearly under the impression that she was subdued because he reached out to touch her face. He wasn’t happy, therefore, when she kicked again, catching him in the arm.
He yelped and clutched his forearm with his free hand. “Whore!” he hissed, stepping to the side and backhanding her so hard she saw stars. Then he reached up and ripped at her robes, tearing the seam of her sleeve. “Try that again and I’ll strip ya’ to skin and drag ya’ out of here by yer hair to let the Sun eat ya’ alive!”
Syrah glared at him, her pinkish eyes blazing. She felt emotions she’d only ever rarely experienced. Hatred, vengefulness, desperation. She struggled, and the man holding her chuckled.
“Hit ‘er again, Jerd. Don’t think she’s gettin’ yer message.”
________________________
Abruptl
y Raz stood straight, ears extended, interrupting the friendly bartering over the price of a bag of wheat.
“Raz, what—?” Jillia began, surprised, but he cut her off with a finger to his lips.
He was sure he was the only one on the road who could hear the scuffling. Even he could barely make it out over the thrum of the crowd. Still, his ears pricked when what could only have been a woman’s muffled scream wound its way through the market sounds. On instinct he turned, looking for the standout, the most likely to be in trouble.
The white robes had disappeared.
Raz wasn’t sure what he felt as he looked over the heads that surrounded him on all sides with false calm, listening harder. The girl was a stranger to him, and her face had been masked. Not to mention she’d been wandering so close to the slums on her own.
And yet… which of those facts meant he didn’t have to do something?
Another muffled shout, and Raz’s eyes latched on to an old abandoned hutch of a house a ways down the opposite side of the street.
“I’m sorry, Jillia,” he said, not looking away from the building, placing the bag of nopales he’d already bought down on the table. “I’ll be back for these later.”
He stepped into the crowd, breaking a narrow line through the swarming bodies. Jarden’s staff gripped tightly in his hand, he didn’t make right for the building. Instead he crossed perpendicular, cutting pedestrians and carts off alike, ignoring the smattering of angry shouts and insults thrown his way. He could still discern it, still hear the struggle. That was a good sign. Stepping off the other side of the road, he darted through a group of street lyrists and ducked into the shadow of the alleys.
Then, as soon as he was out of sight of the market, he leapt atop an upturned water barrel and vaulted onto the lowest nearby roof.
His nighttime excursions served him well for once. Ducking low, Raz flitted from building to building, making a small loop over the flat rooftops, not wanting to catch the attention of anyone in the bustle of the bazaar. Within a minute he was where he wanted to be, and with a puff of dried dust he landed catlike and low on the abandoned house.
Sure enough he could hear movement inside, and what sounded like someone gagged and struggling to get loose. The noise was clearer now, floating up through a poorly repaired hole to his right. The opening was about the size of a small person, like some child had fallen through the weak mortar, and had been carelessly patched with thatched straw. Loose bricks were still visible, clinging sadly to the sides of the hole.
“Shut it, bitch!” someone hissed from inside the house, and there was a sharp smack followed by a momentary lapse in the sounds of scuffling. “Ain’t nothin’ to do but sit still and stop tryin’ to hit us! Garrot, keep a hold on her. Roe, pass me some of yer rope and start tyin’ up her legs. I’ll get her hands.”
If Raz’s scales could have stood up on end, they would have. The silver bangles around his wrist clinked and shifted as he stiffened. There were two possibilities: either the men were rapists…
… or they were slavers.
It was a moment’s decision, and without a second thought Raz darted forward, leaping high. He crashed through the brittle roof of the hut, wings spread, falling in a shower of shattered brick. The remainders of the tattered straw thatching floated downward as he landed on all fours on the dirt floor. The kidnappers caught only a moment’s glimpse of white teeth and reptilian eyes before he was on them like a whirlwind, Jarden’s staff twisting and slashing through the air expertly in his hands, bruising flesh and breaking bones. The girl, one eye blackened and already swelling, took the opportunity to drive her heel into the crotch of the man holding her by the waist, doubling him over and forcing him to drop her.
Raz’s clawed fingers found the collar of his tunic, heaved, and threw him straight through the flimsy mud-brick wall that divided the house.
The explosion of reddish dust as a section of the room collapsed blew in the faces of the three men left standing, and their reflexes cost them their lives. The instant their hands went up to protect their eyes, Raz, unhindered by the dirt, moved with all the speed of his kind, slipping in between them and drawing his knife from his belt. The narrow blade found the exposed back of one, his staff crushed the skull of another, and the last went down with a scream when a sweeping tail knocked his feet out from under him.
Well past the point of self-control, Raz dropped his weapons and fell on him like a starved hound, bare-handed. His jaws found the man’s throat in moments, lifting him in the air. There was the sound of tearing flesh, and the slaver jerked once, hitting the ground as Raz dropped the body. Blood pooled around the man’s head from his shredded neck, and he twitched only long enough to stare disbelievingly at the atherian towering over him.
Raz watched him die, unblinking.
Slowly the sounds of the surrounding city returned. There were panicked shouts approaching outside, shoppers attracted by the noises, and somewhere close a male voice yelled for the guards.
Raz was struggling with himself, will battling instinct. His nose and ears told him that there were two people left alive in the room apart from him. The man he had thrown through the wall was stirring, groaning, his broken bones protesting every motion. Raz felt himself slide down the incline that was the fight to regain control of himself. He turned, folding his wings and bending to retrieve the staff and his knife from the ground. In the emptiness of his slipping conscience he found himself standing over the battered figure, cocking his head to the side and sizing the man up.
He could taste the blood on the air.
It would be so easy. It would be nothing. To cave his chest with a kick, or break his neck—it would take no effort. Maybe even bite, going for the vulnerable arteries about his throat. Raz liked that, didn’t he? He enjoyed it. He could still taste the metallic tartness in his mouth, feel the blood drying on his snout, tongue flicking in and out.
It would be nothing…
So what made him stop?
Because there was certainly something holding him back, something pushing him to turn away and let the man go. He might survive. He might not. Raz could care less. But there was no need to kill him, helpless as he was.
But still… so, so easy…
Raz felt himself slip again, and he fought tenfold not to give in to savage instinct. He was losing, though. His control was fading, and he could sense something in the back of his mind being pulled from the deepest parts of his thoughts. It felt like an emptiness, a dark hole into which he could tumble so easily, giving in to the animal part of his soul.
Raz felt himself take a step forward, watching as though through a blurry window a clawed hand—his hand—reach down toward the defeated man’s battered and bleeding face.
“Don’t.”
Raz’s reality shifted with a snap. He found himself standing in the center of the wrecked hut, coincidently almost directly beneath the wide hole he’d ripped through the brick roof. Above him the desert sky was a clean blue, outlined with the barest hints of wispy cloud. Beneath his clawed feet the earth was packed and solid and sticky with blood.
And behind him the girl stood a mere arm-length away.
Raz stood straight and half turned to look at her. Her thin white robes were dirty and torn, one sleeve hanging by only a few threads, revealing the palest skin he had ever seen. She was flushed from the heat and the struggle, but her pallor was unmistakable. Her one good eye, the other dark and swollen shut now, was a pale, colorless pink, returning Raz’s stare evenly.
Albino? That took Raz by surprise. Albinos were rare as it was, but in the heat of the South they rarely survived more than a few years past birth, if they were lucky. This girl, whoever she was, was definitely foreign, likely a Northerner.
Well, that explains the clothes…
“Don’t,” she said again. “He’s had enough.”
Raz blinked
, looking back at the slaver. The man seemed to have passed out from the pain, the struggle to free himself from the remnants of the wall taxing his broken body to its limits.
“You realize he’s liable to come after you again?” Raz asked without looking away. “You could have been raped or killed. And those are the most optimistic of your options.”
The girl nodded without saying a word. Raz looked around again, sizing her up. She wasn’t the least bit frightened by him, that was certain. He found it almost amusing. Of all the things she could have been worried about in that moment, it was the life of the man who’d had her pinned and gagged.
Then he shrugged, leaning down to wipe his dirty blade clean on the slaver’s trousers before sheathing the long knife on his hip and throwing the staff over one shoulder.
“It’s your mistake to make, I guess. But I’m not helping him up.”
And with that, the girl’s composure broke
“No—” she said quickly. “Y-you don’t have to—” She slumped, as though letting the weight of the events that had just taken place catch hold of her for the first time. Now that she knew Raz wasn’t going to kill the man, she paused, taking a deep breath.
“Thank you.”
The last bits of the stern, authoritative bearing she’d held herself with seemed to drain away, and she staggered. Raz was just quick enough to catch her arm gently, helping her stand. The voices outside were getting more insistent, and he thought he could hear horses’ hooves nearby. The Karthian guard was on its way.
“We have to leave,” he said hurriedly, pulling the wide hood of his white mantle back up over his head. “Can you walk?”
She nodded and took a step closer as she, too, heard the horses. The throng outside was growing, shouting and debating whether to brave an entrance now that the fighting inside seemed to have come to an end.
“This way,” Raz told her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her along to the back of the hut. One of the windows, boarded up with wooden planks and nails, led to the back alleys. He couldn’t hear anything on the other side, and so with his free hand he tore the boards away, scattering more dirt and splinters over the dusty floor.
Child of the Daystar (The Wings of War Book 1) Page 15