by Julia Knight
“Here we are.” Sabates strode past two guards, who straightened up when he came into view, and pushed back the flap of a tent only slightly less impressive than Licio’s.
She tried to think as he fussed around, lighting a few small lamps, before he turned to her, unnervingly close so that she could feel the heat of his skin.
“You’ve dangled me on your thread for long enough with your promises of tomorrow,” he said, all soft and smooth with implied threat. “It’s time to come good on them. After all it is, very nearly, tomorrow.”
She raised her fan, but he batted her hand away and gripped her other wrist, pinching the skin and squeezing the bones. She wasn’t going to be able to fob him off as she had the others, not this time.
“As you wish.” She let her body go loose, smiled up at him full of promises and let him pull her inside the circle of his arms. She caught sight of the pallet behind him covered in furs and silks and most certainly made for two.
Sabates was breathing hard, making her neck shiver with it. His hand crept around and deftly filched the vials of blood from her cloak and the little pocket on her bodice, the scraps of paper from her sleeve. He slid them out of every hiding place one by one, and threw them onto a small brazier in the corner. The glass smashed, the blood evaporated. The papers with their stored spells burned with a green flame. He took the Ikaran knife from her waist and threw it into a far corner.
“Just in case. I know you,” he murmured. “And I’d like to live long enough to enjoy the experience.”
He leaned in to kiss her, and she strove not to recoil or turn aside, but instead slid her arms around him so that both hands grasped the fan.
“Sabates, you think yourself so clever. More fool you. I wonder, how much blood do you have?”
He jerked back, and the thin blade she’d slipped from the fan slid between his ribs.
Quite a lot of blood, as it turned out. Quite a lot.
Chapter Sixteen
From the tumbled rocks of a high ridge Vocho looked down over a deep hollow full of fires in the dark. He was screwed and he knew it. No matter what he said to Kass, there was no going back because the dark behind them was as full of fires as the front. And what was there for him back in Ikaras anyway? Nothing except the prospect of being hanged for a spy, and he’d worked hard to keep his neck rope free.
That and Esti and more of her jollop, but he knew that for a bad idea even as he found his hand reaching for it. Kass kept looking at him strangely, and not just because of their row earlier, he was pretty sure. More at the way he couldn’t keep his hands still, or how sometimes his mouth trembled.
Concentrate. Easier said than done when all he could think about was the fire in his back, the ache in every joint and how another slug of jollop would make it all fade away, for a time.
“How many, do you think?” Kass said now.
“Too bloody many,” he snapped. “So what’s your grand plan, Kass? You have got one, I suppose?”
“Not as such.”
She kept glancing over her shoulder. Vocho didn’t blame her. Whoever he’d been last night, he was still around, Vocho was sure of it. Oh the horses were calm enough, even Kass’s nightmare, no stamping or snorting or clacking of teeth, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched, and by someone who had given every indication he could beat the pair of them without breaking a sweat.
“Not as such,” Vocho repeated. “Well, that’s helpful.”
He kept looking though. There had to be a way.
Right in the centre of the hollow was a fire ten times the size of the others, and by its flickering light he could make out two great tents, one white and ghostly, the other darker and more substantial. No one seemed to be moving, which wasn’t surprising given it was the middle of the night, though he was sure they’d have patrols or watchmen at the least. Still, night seemed to be the best bet, when they’d not stand out too much. Although…
“Kass, you see those tents over there? To the left of the big fire?”
She peered down. “What about them?”
“Well, looks to me that the tents on this side aren’t familiar but those ones are. Very familiar.”
She looked more closely then swore under her breath. “Guildsmen? What the hells are they doing here?”
“Don’t know, but I do know that if they’re here, we won’t stand out so much. How many Ikarans are going to worry about two guildsmen if they’ve already got some in camp?”
“It doesn’t make sense. The last Ikarans were ready to hang us for spies, and now here they are all cosy with a bunch of Reyens.”
“A bunch of Reyens surrounded on all sides, Kass. And, let’s face it, probably under the influence of magic.”
“And guarded very well, even if they are being subtle about it,” a new voice said. Kass leaped to her feet, sword already out, and Vocho struggled to follow. Dom was the last person Vocho expected to saunter out from behind their horses, looking dapper as ever.
“Of course this is the kings’ camp, both of them, rather than the rabble, who haven’t a clue what’s going on. Licio isn’t so flush with allies he’ll turn friends away, and Orgull, well, he’s got enough trained men here to take Licio’s out if he needs to, I don’t doubt. I don’t rate the Reyens’ chances myself, but I don’t think they had a lot of choice. Not with Sabates around.”
Kass’s sword sagged, and Vocho managed a weak laugh at the mention of the magician’s name in the hope it might ward off the shaft of dread that had just turned his stomach over. “God’s cogs, Dom, you almost gave me a conniption. What are you doing here?”
“Same as you, I rather suspect. Trying to get home. Maybe thwart a war. Not making it easy, are they?”
Vocho was about to make some smart-arsed reply when a noise from the camp stopped him–a man’s drawn-out scream of rage and pain which tapered off into the night. As Vocho watched, people scrambled out of tents, running in front of fires so that he could track their shadows as they struggled into clothes and armour. More torches were lit and gathered off to one side of the camp, by a tent almost as impressive as the main two. In moments the whole camp was alive with people, most of whom were only paying attention to one thing–what had caused that scream.
“But that might help,” Dom said. “Nothing like a good distraction. Come on.”
The way down was steep but not impossible, if they led the horses. Dom went ahead while Vocho took the reins of his horse as well as his own. He was glad of his horse because his legs felt rubbery, and he had to hold on to its patient neck more than once to make it to the bottom.
They found Dom spying out the way. The camp was pandemonium. Men clotted around campfires, whispering; others ran to and fro; still more buckled on armour and tested the edges of their weapons. They spoke in Ikaran, and Vocho couldn’t follow what they said.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“Can’t say for sure, but it sounds like someone important just got a knife in the back.” Dom nodded in the direction of the most impressive tents and handed over a small telescope, something Vocho had rarely seen before as they were both expensive and easily broken. “Someone is just waking Licio up, by the look of it. Ah, there he is. He doesn’t look happy, does he?”
Cospel snickered evilly. “He’s walking like someone just shoved a stick up his arse.”
Vocho fiddled with the telescope and got it focused. Licio looked like a man who’d just heard the worst news imaginable–pale and staring as his guards went ahead and pushed people out of his way. The man behind him, an Ikaran in the most sumptuous silks Vocho had ever seen, seemed likely to be Orgull. He followed Licio with a grave face, but there was a hint of smugness about him. He was followed closely by a pair of life-warriors–those scars, the way they mirrored each others’ actions. Just like their attacker in the woods. They moved with the same sort of fluid threat too, as though they took it for granted that anyone who stood against them would die.
“Someth
ing is most definitely amiss,” Dom said, taking the telescope back, folding it up impossibly small and sliding it into a pocket. “Which is all to our advantage. Let’s go.”
They moved off, not drawing as much as a glance from soldiers bent on looking to see what was causing such an uproar. Vocho thought he could probably have killed half of them before they even knew he was there. One or two had kept their wits, but they were easy to spot and dodge in the chaos. Even so, it took them some time to work their way around the edge of the camp. They made a brief stop by the guildsmen’s tents at Dom’s insistence. Most seemed abandoned.
“I’m hoping they’ve taken the same advantage we have, and got away,” he said. “But if they have, they’ve left a lot behind.”
They took a look, Kass and Cospel ducking in and out of tents and finding armour and weapons, food and clothes strewn about in a haphazard manner.
“Not one,” Cospel said, and Kass nodded her agreement.
Vocho stared at the tents, at all the men and women had left. No guildsman would do that, not unless… Vocho felt sick. Not unless they had no choice. Not unless they weren’t coming back for them.
A figure stirred at the end of the row of tents, and Vocho moved back into the shadows with Dom by his side. No guildsman this, nor soldier unless they’d started wearing dresses, and he relaxed. Until the ice-fair hair came into view, and the ice-fair face. Alicia.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he turned to Dom to say something–let’s get the fuck out of here was favourite–and stopped dead. Dom was staring at her like she was an apparition, his own face as pale as hers.
“Dom?” Vocho whispered.
No response. Alicia came closer, and now Vocho could see what Dom apparently had: the blood down her dress, coating her arms, the odd faraway look to her eyes. With anyone else he would have thought they’d witnessed some terrible thing and were now shocked to the core. Not Alicia though. He’d bet a large amount of money she was the cause of all that blood.
Kass swore softly behind him, but Dom seemed utterly stricken by the sight of her.
“Dom, we really need to—”
Dom took not a shred of notice and stepped forward into the faint light from a fire. “Cee?”
Alicia jerked as though stuck with a pin and whirled to face him.
“Cee?” he said again.
“Dom,” Kass whispered from back in the shadows, “what the fuck are you doing? She’s got enough blood to kill half an army there. She’s a magician, Dom.”
Dom stood as though struck dumb, ignoring Kass, ignoring Vocho, the only movement his hands opening and closing helplessly. Vocho’s consolation was Alicia seemed almost as shocked as Dom, though she recovered quicker.
“Finally,” she purred. “I’ve spent a lot of effort trying to get you to show yourself.”
Vocho had seen Dom in several different guises–the bumbling idiot, smooth and sophisticated, graceful killing machine. He’d never seen him like this, like a teenage boy struggling to ask a girl to dance, and failing. All that came out of his mouth was a stutter that went nowhere.
Alicia stepped up to him and raised a bloodied hand, though she stopped short of touching him. “It’s been a very long time. Too long.”
“I thought…” Dom seemed to be speaking in a dream. “I thought…”
Alicia stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and what Dom thought was lost. Kass looked away, Cospel coughed, but Vocho, while he wanted to do both of those, wanted more to make sure this witch wasn’t going to stab Dom in the back. Even so he felt helpless as the moment dragged on until he thought one or the other must surely pass out for lack of air.
Not so helpless he didn’t spot the knife in her hand. He dived forward, barging into the pair of them and knocking the knife from her surprised grasp. Dom took a second to look bewildered, but Alicia never even paused–she was reaching for a scrap of paper even as the knife fell.
“What…” Dom said, but Vocho didn’t stop to answer. Kass was beside him on the instant, sword drawn, and Alicia backed away with a hiss and a wicked grin. Her thumb smeared blood on the paper.
Vocho led with a thrust that almost made him pass out with pain. Dom gasped and tried to grab his arm, but didn’t do more than send the move awry as Kass moved around to Alicia’s back.
“Voch, what are you—” Dom said.
“She’s a magician,” he replied, shaking Dom off and advancing on Alicia. “And I’m trying to save your life.”
“No. No, she’s not.”
Alicia herself proved that wrong when she threw her scrap of paper. The flash blinded Vocho for a second and left strange purple marks in his eyes; the bang almost knocked him on his arse. All he could make out were vague shadows. Three shadows, and Kass he could tell with his eyes shut just by the way she moved. He shifted so they could protect each other’s flank, and peered into the darkness as Kass muttered under her breath next to him.
Things gained clarity, slowly, as his night vision came back. Too slowly. Two shadows, and the taller one had to be Dom, only he was… What was he doing? Never mind, because the shorter one was doing something complicated which he suspected involved blood and he tried a stab in that direction.
His sword met another, Dom’s. What the hells? It didn’t matter, because Alicia said something, the smell of cooking blood filled the air and he, Dom and Kass were thrown backwards into the wall of a tent.
The horses went berserk behind them, and he recognised the sound of Kass’s bastard kicking everything within reach, sending Cospel diving for cover. Which was helpful because the noise had brought a couple of Ikaran soldiers running, and the horse caught one right in the gut and the other in a knee so that they added their screams to the rest of the hubbub. Cospel took the opportunity of relieving them of a few oddments while they were distracted and then made sure they weren’t getting back up for a while.
Sadly there were more soldiers behind them. Alicia shouted something to them in Ikaran. Vocho didn’t catch all of it, but enough to know they were in serious shit. They killed Sabates.
The air around him was suddenly full of Ikarans and swords. Kass was already heading for the horses and the clanging sound of Cospel thumping someone with the heavy and by now rather dented tankard he’d taken to hanging from his belt. Someone swung at Vocho’s head, but he managed to duck the blow and wind them with a shoulder to the gut that almost blinded him with pain. He dived for the horses but hesitated when he realised Dom wasn’t behind him. A man came for Vocho, but the hilt of his sword to the man’s mouth put a stop to that as teeth and blood flew around the scream.
Dom hadn’t moved. Despite the noise, the soldiers, the everything, he was standing as still as the Clockwork God when he’d been dead, staring at Alicia. She stared back with a gloating kind of look like a cat that had swallowed the whole dairy. The knife was still in one hand, dripping with blood and looking thirsty for more.
If they didn’t go now, there would be no going at all. Kass manhandled her prancing horse past, leading Vocho’s more placid beast. She threw him the reins and let her mount do what he lived for–terrorising as many people as possible. In mere seconds every soldier in the vicinity had gained a healthy respect for the beast and had backed off, leaving them a small but significant path.
Unfortunately these were proper soldiers not farmhands, and they were drawing clockwork guns. The weapons looked like the cheap knock-offs that had flooded the streets of Reyes a few months back, but some of them might work, and the soldiers hadn’t drawn off far enough that distance was going to be a problem.
Kass kicked forward into the gap, ducking low over the saddle, leaning so far to one side she almost slid off the horse, but she was a smaller target that way. Vocho’s started to follow, and he got a foot in a stirrup just in time, swung himself up and landed in the saddle with a jolt that shot a rod of pain up his back and made his eyes cross.
Still Dom just stood there, hands opening and closing, opening and clo
sing. A shot whizzed past him with an inch to spare, and he didn’t even flinch, nor when Alicia smeared a bloody thumb across another piece of paper.
Vocho dug his heels in, and his usually indolent horse, unused to such measures, sprang forward with a startled snort. Kass had cleared a space, but there was no telling how long it would last or whether the guns would do for them anyway. No telling, so time to just do. Vocho made a grab for Dom on the way past, missed the back of his tunic but got the powdered pigtail that lay curled over one shoulder. That woke him up. Dom yelped like a kicked dog but took in the situation in the instant it took Vocho to let go and grab something less painful–his arm. Vocho slipped his foot from the stirrup and Dom grabbed the saddle and got his boot in. The horse staggered with the extra, unbalanced weight, but plunged on, knowing his place–behind Kass’s horse. Cospel followed on his pony, leading Dom’s own horse and dinging anyone who got too close with his tankard.
The path Kass had cleared didn’t last long–soldiers flowed towards them like water. One made a grab for Vocho’s reins, and it was all Vocho could do to keep the beast going. To stop now would be to die, that was clear. Vocho risked one hand free to punch the man in the face, but he was stubborn and leaned back, trying to overbalance the horse, which stumbled, maybe from the weight or maybe from a guy rope as they passed a tent. Didn’t matter which, because the stumble lost Vocho a stirrup and almost bounced him from the saddle. A hand grabbed for him and flailed for his knife–a sword was no good at such close quarters–and then the saddle was slipping under him, his back was fire, his blood was ice, and all he could think of was the rushing ground below the horse’s hooves and Esti’s jollop in his pack–that if he lost the horse he’d lose that too…
A thud sounded; the Ikaran fell away with a cry and the horse staggered on, doing its best to reach Kass, who’d reined in and turned to see if he was there. Dom, fresh from thumping the Ikaran off the horse, grabbed hold of Vocho’s arm and dragged him back into the saddle before lunging for his own mount as Cospel galloped it into range. He vaulted across into the saddle; the poor beast staggered, and then they were off, trailing Ikarans and badly aimed bullets behind them.