Outlaw: A Dark Fantasy Novel (On the Bones of Gods Book 2)
Page 27
She couldn’t say you had no choice to this man. He’d had one, and he’d chosen his troops over his charges. Chosen Illharek over Cardik. “How many dragons?”
He frowned. “I don’t know. One that I saw. Why does that matter?”
She had no idea how many avatars a goddess could have at one time. Snow had always acted like one was the limit. But Snow might not know everything. Maybe the God was limited to one avatar but Tal’Shik could manage a dozen. If Snow’d killed Ehkla and she hadn’t come back as the avatar, then that dragon must be one of the other Taliri.
“First Scout?”
“Curious, sir, that’s—” all, she started to say, and changed her mind. “No. That’s not true. I was asking because I think the dragon’s an avatar, not godmagic.”
Anger flickered like distant lightning. Rurik’s response to confusion, predictable as sunrise. She hadn’t expected to be glad to see it.
“What are you talking about?”
“If it’s godmagic, that’s like conjuring. Bad, but nothing Illharek can’t handle. We’ve got Adepts. We’ve got godsworn, too. Most of the new senators. They might not be as good as the Taliri are yet, but I don’t know how much it’ll matter. Tal’Shik doesn’t seem to reward skill as much as fanaticism. But if it’s an avatar out there, a dragon, that might mean Tal’Shik’s taken sides with the Taliri and Illharek’s in real trouble.”
“As opposed to the false trouble we’re in now?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “The city’s rotten with Tal’Shik’s people. In the Suburba, in the Tiers—they’re everywhere. We suspected the ones in the Suburba. But we—I—had no idea how far it’d spread until—” She stopped. Shook her head hard enough that her ears rang. “Your brother told me. Soren. He knows who the godsworn are in the Houses. They’ve taken the Senate, or at least a good part of it. They hear there’s a dragon coming, they might think we need one. Or that we need to make more sacrifices to prove how loyal we are.”
“You’ve seen Soren?” Rurik’s face locked down. “I thought he’d be dead by now.”
“No, sir. He was hostage for your mother’s silence in the Senate, but he’s safe now. I got him out of Stratka and into the Suburba.”
“That’s safe?”
“Got friends down there. A friend. She can hide him. She will.”
“You have strange friends, Szanys.”
“Not so many, sir. I brought this one with me.”
His eyes widened. “The one from the Warren.”
“She’s from the Suburba originally. A half-blood. And.” Dek hesitated. Closed her eyes and sifted through Snow’s secrets. “She’s got ties to the Laughing God.”
“That doesn’t really surprise me. So why go after my brother, Szanys?”
“My mother needed K’Hess’s support to vote to send a cohort north. Your mother wouldn’t leave her own walls after your eldest brother went missing.”
“Ivar,” Rurik said stiffly. “So he’s dead?”
“Likely. I’m sorry, Rurik.”
He shook his head. “Go on.”
“Your mother thought you were dead, too. Soren was all she had left, and Stratka held him as hostage. All the highborn men are hostages now. It’s like it was before the Purge.”
“I’ve noticed. And somehow you still got Soren out.” That might be a sullen respect in Rurik’s eyes, underneath the more honest surprise.
“I reckoned if I did, and she knew he was safe, your mother would help, throw her vote behind sending aid to Cardik. Except I never got the chance to tell her. I don’t know if she even attended the last session. If she did, she could’ve died in the curia with my mother.”
“I didn’t see her there. I came to the Senate, straight off, to report. Toadlicking senator told me I was speaking out of turn. I told her piss off and listen, and next thing.” Rurik launched to his feet. Stalked to the window slit. He bunched both hands into fists. Dekklis watched the play of muscles across his shoulders. Wasn’t entirely surprised when he uncoiled and punched the stone.
“Breaking bones won’t help.”
“I know that.” He curled his fist against his chest. “They brought me here after that. I thought they’d kill me right there. So I’m guessing I’m leverage.” He curled his lip. “They’ll be sorry for that if they think my mother will shift policy for me. Unless they think they’ll spike me, like they did Kenjak. In which case they will be very sorry.” He turned, stared out the window. “Look out there. It’s already started.”
Dekklis went and stood beside him. The window looked out over the Arch, past it, toward the Jokki and the Riverwalk. Fire danced along the water’s edge. No—danced on the water. That was a barge burning down to the waterline.
Rurik heaved the words out as if they were stones. “They were trying to leave Illharek. I watched it from here. The people on the boat, they were just scared. Bunch of Alviri. I watched from this fucking window while Illhari troopers shot arrows onto the deck.” Anguish washed through his voice. “Our troopers, Dekklis. Firing on our people.”
She’d fought with Rurik a hundred times, never seen him give in or slow down. This hollow-faced man, hell, she didn’t know him.
Just like a man to crack when there wasn’t time for it.
Istel wouldn’t. Neither would Veiko.
Istel and Veiko weren’t here, either. Just Rurik, whom she’d once called First Spear, and hell if rank mattered now.
She took a fistful of sleeve. Jerked and made him look at her. “The Senate’s giving the orders. Her orders. Savvy that? The legion’s not rotten, and we haven’t lost Illharek yet. Hear me, Rurik?”
That got his attention. Just like Veiko’s dog, wasn’t he, to respond to his name. Or, more likely: he didn’t like hearing Rurik where he should hear First Spear. Fine. Let him act like a First Spear, maybe she’d grant him the title again.
Until then, she seized on his irritation. Seized him. Took his hand, spread the fingers wide: split skin, knuckles already swelling. She wiped the blood aside with her sleeve. “You break your hand, you’re no good in a fight.”
“What fight? We’re up here. Any fight happens, it’ll be down there, without us. And when it’s over, either the Taliri will kill us, or the traitors will.”
“No. Told you, I’ve got a friend here. She’ll get us out.”
“Your heretic. In the Suburba.”
“My heretic, who’s also a conjuror. She will come.”
“She’d better hurry. Can you tell her that, Dekklis?”
“She knows.”
Please, foremothers, that was true.
No one came for him.
Muffled voices leaked in through the seams between wall and door. Thumps and vibrations. The occasional bleed of light under the doorway as a lantern or candle accompanied someone up the corridor.
Veiko wondered if they’d forgotten him. He spent his time testing the chain, link by link. Testing the locks and the stretch of his limbs. He knew he could stand up and take exactly four short strides and still lift his arms over his head. He knew that at five strides, his arms would not swing past his hips.
He knew that no matter how he twisted and pulled on the shackles, no matter how much bloodslick wrist and metal, he would not get them over his hands without breaking bone.
It was not worth the damage. Not if the first person he met in the corridor could best him with two working hands. Not if the door was locked, which it surely was.
He wondered if he dared cross back to the ghost roads and leave his body unattended. Wondered if he dared ask Taru for assistance. Wondered if she was all right, having been left alone with Tsabrak. Which led to wondering about Logi’s welfare, then Istel’s and Briel’s, and then, finally, Snowdenaelikk’s. Which in turn prompted him to test chains and limits again and pace like a tethered takin.
At least Tsabrak had not come to him again. He did not know whether to be pleased or annoyed. The godling owed him favors. Now would be the time to repay them. But perh
aps he should be relieved that he would not be faced with a costly bargain that he would almost certainly take, since a debt to Tsabrak would be better than dying here.
He sat down finally, his back to the wall, and waited. A hunter was good at waiting. A hunter did not think of himself as prey.
A key rattled in the lock. He sat, staring and startled, and weighed the wisdom of meeting his captors awake and upright, defiant, as a warrior might.
You’re a hunter, yeah?
Veiko curled up against the wall. Tugged the sack back over his head, with the edge peeled up so that he could just see the door as it squeaked open and dirty light spilled across the floor. Rotten as that intruder light was, it blinded eyes used to darkness. He squinted through his lashes and counted feet. Two remained at the door. Four more crossed the room toward him. One in boots that had seen recent mud, one pair city-clean. Muddy Boots stopped just past the range of his chain. Shifted one foot to the other, nervous. Clean Boots strode over to him and stopped. Squatted so that he saw knees and thighs doubled over.
Woman’s curves, woman’s sweat, woman’s skin. A woman’s voice breaking over his head.
“He’s awake. —Aren’t you, skraeling?” Clean Boots’s hands dangled between her knees. Veiko noted, without surprise, Tal’Shik’s mark inked onto her palm.
She continued after a breath’s beat, as if he’d answered her. “You took a good hit back there. But.” She tilted onto her toes. Time enough to close his eyes and smooth his mouth to level before she plucked the sack from his head. “Enough pretending, yeah?”
This was the godsworn from the woods, the one he’d meant to shoot in the eye. She was less menacing now, in the plain honest light. Bones too small for her features, Dvergiri dark hair and eyes and skin. She was even missing a tooth, there—a gap in a smile meant to intimidate.
Veiko hitched up the corner of his own mouth. He could reach her neck from here if he tried. Get both hands around it, yes, and wring it like a chicken’s. The woman behind her—Muddy Boots, a woman he’d seen with Rata—would probably kill him for it. She carried one of the Illhari seaxes, like Snow’s. A little smaller than a legion sword, lighter, slimmer. Fast, Veiko knew, and sharp.
The godsworn wore no knives at all. Nothing edged.
She saw him looking. Laughed out loud. “Not stupid, yeah? I won’t get close to you with metal. You’re a wild one. She says.”
“What does she say about my aim with a bow?”
The smile hardened. Must be imagination, or poor light, that made her teeth look sharp. “That you got lucky.”
“It was not luck.”
Veiko sat up. It wasn’t easy, with his hands bound in front of him. He’d practiced in the dark, had had nothing better to do. Smooth fold and roll from hip to knees to feet pressed flat. He squatted there, ignoring the ache in his thigh, with his hands thrown casually across his knees. He turned his wrists in the shackles. Watched with detached interest as the metal scraped across raw meat. Twist and flex, knot the fingers into a fist. Squeeze. Fresh blood dripped onto the stones.
There were dead whose names he knew. He breathed those syllables now, as he had a dozen times already.
K’Hess Kenjak. Teslin. Barkett.
No chill drafts, no creeping fog, no skin-scraping whispers. No answer. Of course there was not. He was tired. Hurt. Had sent his own spirit walking too many times recently. There were a hundred reasons the dead did not answer.
K’Hess Kenjak. Teslin. Barkett.
The godsworn’s shadow bled across him. “I know about you. Some kind of skraeling bloodmagic you do, yeah? It won’t work here.”
Veiko raised both brows and said nothing. It was, Snow had assured him, one of his most maddening habits.
The godsworn peeled her lips off her teeth. “Or maybe you think the half-blood’s coming for you. Maybe you’re waiting for her, yeah? Well, we’re waiting, too.”
He cocked his head. “If she comes for me, you will not survive it.”
“Such faith. She is one woman, Veiko Nyrikki. A conjuror of unremarkable talent who serves a broken god. We’re ready for her.”
A man could laugh at that. No one was ready for Snowdenaelikk.
But then, she might not come. Or she might be late. Or it was possible they really were prepared. Veiko might’ve wished Briel no and stay away then if Briel was listening. But she wasn’t. Cool little spot of awareness, her focus somewhere else.
On Snowdenaelikk, and bringing her here, into what was surely a trap. But Snow would know that. Expect it. Nor was she a martyr or a fool. She would come for him, yes, but she would not die with him out of solidarity. That was what the godsworn did not understand. Snow would not let him die like K’Hess Kenjak had, no.
She would kill him first, and everyone with him, and apologize on the ghost roads.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lightning flash behind her eyes, bad as it had ever been before Veiko, blinding and painful and fuck. Snow paused and leaned against the wall. Ducked her chin and cursed Briel—
Stop that, rot you.
—and squinted through the sparks.
It was like seeing double. The alley in front of her, narrow and familiar, and Soren’s face peering into hers. His “Snowdenaelikk?” came from a very long way and snagged on the wool in her ears.
That was one layer.
And over it, under it—like the smeared features on the far side of a dark window that you realize after a moment isn’t your reflection at all, but someone else outside, looking in—was plain flames against real darkness, and a sense of
panic
close-pressed stone. A collection of aches, of which
my
the right thigh was a throbbing jewel. An unmistakable steel weight on both wrists, hard pulling that meant someone on the far end of a chain who didn’t care toadshit about raw flesh and bruises. And so
my
the jaw ached, too, locked against words
I
learned from her
me
and gone.
The sending ended. And now she knew they were moving Veiko someplace. Fuck and damn.
Logi whined. Pushed his nose against her chest, which made her wonder when exactly she’d slid down the wall. Explained the look Soren was giving her, anyway, snagged between fear and worry.
“Are you—?”
“No,” she snapped. “Shut up and let me think.”
Soren was a good highborn, obedient and patient as a cow. He waited while Logi—who was not patient, who was hurting and worried and determined not to get more than a fingerwidth away from her—licked her chin and pressed all his not inconsiderable weight against her. She smoothed her hand over his spine. Skirted the edges of the long, raw furrow on his ribs. That had been a damn lucky miss, no real damage, a little blood. It didn’t even need stitches.
Logi had fared better than Istel. And Istel was better off than Veiko would be. Godsworn would drive a sharpened pole through him and carve runes into him and feed him to Tal’Shik. Or maybe they’d carve him open, like they had with Stig. Either way, they would finish what Ehkla had started. They hadn’t started anything yet, of that Briel was certain. But once they’d put a stake through him, or slit him open, it wouldn’t matter whether Snow got there or not. She might save his spirit, but she’d lose his body, and she wasn’t noidghe enough to count that any kind of victory.
She patted Logi a final time. Dragged herself up the wall with a forearm. Rested there and looked down at her right palm. The God’s mark was damn near invisible in this light, a line darker than black on her skin. She braced both feet. Traced the sigil with her left hand.
Her skin tingled when she finished. That was godmagic. That was something she could not have done two candlemarks ago, before her bargain. “You hear me?”
Soren glanced at her. Did not ask who are you talking to?, no; rolled his eyes at a madwoman instead and kept his well-mannered mouth shut.
Wise man.
He could still twist her heart, even now, even dead.
Soren yelped. He fumbled the knife out of its sheath. Wrapped both hands round the hilt and pointed it at Tsabrak.
Snow started to reach for him, to push the knife down. Reconsidered the wisdom of it. Man saw a ghost the first time, he might get slashy. She didn’t need a new cut, and it wasn’t as if he could hurt Tsabrak.
Who laughed, very softly. Brave man. Maybe I’ll keep you when this is all over.
“Leave him alone. And why are you here? I called the God, not you.”
I am the Laughing God.
“I look like I’m interested in your delusions?”
Oh, it’s true. Ask your partner how that happened.
“My partner.” Veiko had said she should talk to Tsabrak, that he couldn’t find the God, and now here was Tsabrak, claiming power he couldn’t have. Unless Veiko had made his own bargains. Unless he’d talked to Tsabrak after all.
“My partner,” and this time it was almost a curse. Her heart twisted into new shapes. “Did he send you?”
No. Tsabrak cocked his head. I don’t think it occurred to him. He’s busy calling on ghosts. Someone named Teslin? Barkett? They’re trying to answer him. They just can’t. I can’t, either. I need my own people to walk through the wards on that place. I need my right hand.
“I didn’t bargain with you. I bargained with him.”
The old God’s bargains are mine now. And his debts. That means I owe you, Snowdenaelikk. Veiko, too.
“Snow.” Soren edged into her periphery. He held the knife outthrust, an amateur’s grip, like he meant to skewer something. Fuck and damn, she had to keep him out of a real fight. He’d end up joining his youngest brother in the black river. “Who is this?”