by Tara Janzen
He needed to get to a tavern and a comstation. The mechanics hadn’t been merely huddling, they’d been watching the morning news broadcast on the Class S’s comstation, and as Stoell had been going on about the price of parts, Morgan’s attention had wandered to the back of the bay. He’d seen a woman’s face—Ferrar’s face—flash onto the comstation screen, just before a horrifying darkness had swirled down out of the sky and the screen had gone black. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding since.
Something terrible had happened in Pan-shei, something that was straight out of his dreams.
He’d paid the old man, grabbed the parts, and gotten the hell out of there.
“Stay close to me,” he said to Avallyn when they were within a few yards of the tavern door.
“How close?” she asked warily.
The question stopped him in his tracks. How close?
With one move, he took her by the arm and pulled her off the street, into the band of shadows darkening the alley.
“Close enough for me to touch,” he ground out between his teeth, grasping her other arm as well and almost shaking her. “When I reach out my hand, I want you there.”
Her eyes widened, perhaps in fear, perhaps in surprise. He couldn’t tell. For certes he was awash in fear, and he couldn’t keep the intensity of it out of his voice. It was running like ice water through his veins, chilling him to the core despite the searing heat of the sun. He felt cold everywhere except where he was touching her.
“Close enough for me to hear you breathe.” His voice softened to a menacing whisper even as he pulled her nearer. “Close enough for me to feel your pulse.”
And even that wouldn’t be close enough if the darkness came for them. They would be torn apart by the black storm—unless her father had a binding spell more powerful than the tracking bracelets. Aja had unlocked the one on Morgan’s wrist with a strange ease, surprising even himself.
“Close enough...” he started again, but staring down at her upturned face and suddenly solemn eyes, words failed him. What could he tell her? And what did he dare not? That Dharkkum was here and no longer part of the past? That whatever battle they had been meant to face in a bygone age was upon them now?
A fleeting shift of shadows at the mouth of the alley caught his eye. He jerked his head up, stiffening in alarm and reaching over his shoulder for his sword.
Avallyn turned quickly as well, but there was nothing, only dust motes filtering down through the band of sunshine cutting through the shade. Morgan lowered his hand even as he wondered what he’d been about, going for his sword instead of his far deadlier lasgun. Christe, he could wipe out half a dozen soldiers with one well-aimed blast off his lasgun. He couldn’t begin to touch those kinds of odds with a sword, not even with Scyld. Still, he’d seen the shadows move and instinctively gone for the sword.
“Come on, then,” he said, pulling Avallyn toward the door. “Let’s get inside.” And God save him if he was going to be suffering from any more atavistic tendencies. The future was a place of carbines and lasguns, not swords.
“Oy, Lannikan, and there they be,” a chirpy voice said from behind them. “I told ye we’d find ‘em.”
Morgan spun around, pulling Avallyn close and drawing his lasgun before the boy half finished saying “Lannikan.” There were eight of them, all wild boys dressed in sun-faded tatters with looping turbans draped over their heads and around their faces. Most of them were armed with lasguns. All of them had quirts and quarrel slings, a digitized shortbow used to shoot razor-ridged arrows. Unlike a lasgun, quarrel slings couldn’t be detected with a power scan. The wild boys used them for ambushes out in the dunes, ambushes that weren’t always directed against the Warmonger’s soldiers. Legitimate trade caravans were known to attract their attention now and again. Priestess allies or not, they were still wild boys.
The tallest stepped forward, a shock of dirty blond hair falling across his forehead, his eyes a piercing blue above a pug nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once. All the boys were burnt brown by the sun, their skin dusty and parched-looking.
“Commander.” He addressed Avallyn with a formal bow. “I’m Lannikan of Sept Rhymer, and aye, ye’d be safer inside.”
Morgan felt Avallyn relax beside him, but he didn’t lower his guard or his lasgun. Commander? She was quick for a princess and damn good with a weapon, but a commander? ’Twas a rank reserved for only the most seasoned warriors, the true leaders of the Waste.
As interesting as this new information about Avallyn was, Morgan was more concerned about the boy facing them. Lannikan looked no different from the hundreds of other ragged wild boys he’d seen in Rabin-19 or Pan-shei, but this wild boy had been looking for them. Not a good sign in Morgan’s book. Only the Night Watchers could have set the boys on their trail, and only somebody who knew her would have recognized Avallyn so easily.
“Sept Rhymer was valiant in their defense of Holy Well,” she said to the boy, confirming Morgan’s suspicion. “ ’Tis good to see you again, Lannikan.”
“Prince.” The boy made a short bow to Morgan before meeting his gaze. “We’ve been charged with your safety.”
“By whom?” Morgan asked, further unnerved by the boy calling him prince. He knew Lannikan meant the Prince of Time, what Avallyn had called him that morn, not his true title as a prince of Wales.
A noise behind him and a brief shift of Lannikan’s gaze warned him there were more wild boys coming down the alley, and he felt his first bit of relief. It had been boys in the shadows that had caught his eye a minute earlier, not just black, moving shadows.
“Dray of Deseillign,” Lannikan said in answer to his question. “We can talk more inside.”
Morgan swore to himself and glanced over his shoulder, quickly noting the newcomers. There were four, and despite his misgivings, he nodded in agreement with Lannikan’s suggestion. The wild boys posed no immediate threat, and the odds were against him twelve to two—or more likely, thirteen to one, with Avallyn bound to side with Lannikan. Even more important, he still needed a comstation. He needed to know what had happened in Pan-shei, and if it truly had been Ferrar he’d seen.
A narrow door opened onto the alley near where the Rhymer boys stood, and another boy stuck his head out. “Nain’t here, Lannikan, but the pubby’s gone and made a loovely chip-butty and shamp mash.”
“We’ve found them, Sakip. Go on now.” Lannikan jerked his head toward the door and the other boys started piling in.
Sakip turned to stare at Morgan and Avallyn and let out a low whistle, and for the first time Morgan realized that not all the wild boys were boys. Little could be seen of Sakip’s figure beneath her layers of rags, but her face was decidedly feminine, framed by a curve of sable hair that had escaped her turban.
“Commander?” Lannikan said, looking back at Avallyn and gesturing toward the door.
Keeping a firm grip on Avallyn’s arm, Morgan led the way through the opening. The tavern was dimly lit, and the faintest breeze of cool air wafted out of its floor vents. He chose an isolated table with a comstation built into the wall next to it, and punched in a number sequence to give him a repeat of the broadcast out of the Old Dominion.
The announcer started with the weather forecast.
“How did you find us?” he asked Lannikan when the boy—who truly was not a boy, but a young man of no less than twenty, by Morgan’s reckoning—sat down across from him at the table.
“We were alerted by the Night Watchers to look for you.” Lannikan glanced over his shoulder and made a hand signal. Four other boys responded, taking up positions at the doors and windows.
Morgan was uncomfortably reminded of Stoell’s nervous glancing about. He took a quick look himself around the tavern. Pieces of masute tack hung from a line of hooks on one wall, and beneath each narrow saddle lay a pack of gear. A few patrons were scattered here and there, enough to start a ruckus if he decided it was time for him and Avallyn to make a run for their rover. Wi
th or without the new short-shank meridians, the tender couldn’t outrun a sandskiff, but he might be able to outmaneuver one or two.
“Dray is farther north in Cere,” Lannikan went on “He thought it more likely that you’d taken a northern route and would show up there. We knew the rover had been damaged and that you’d need parts. He sent three Night Watchers to Rabin-19 just in case. They arrived at dawn. One is wounded. We have her in our tents. The other two are searching the streets even as we were, until Samm here picked up the lady’s scent and spotted you coming out of Stoell’s.”
A grinning boy popped up by Lannikan’s side, the same one who had announced their presence in the alley. “She smells like grass, she does, new blade grass.”
’Twas true, but Morgan was amazed the boy had discerned the subtle scent from a distance, and he was damned grateful it had been the wild boys and not the Night Watchers who had found them.
“Who was wounded?” Avallyn asked, leaning forward, concern knitting her brow. She’d sat down next to him—close enough to touch—and Morgan felt a mild, probably misplaced, encouragement.
“Mepps,” Lannikan answered. “They ran into a skraelpack working off the Second Guard last night. We’re preparing a sandskiff to take her to Claerwen.” At another hand signal from him, the boys began clearing out the other patrons, even the bartender, and taking over the tavern.
Now what? Morgan wondered.
“And us?” Avallyn asked.
“I don’t know.” Lannikan kept his voice low, his gaze constantly alert and moving. “Plans have changed. Sakip is contacting Dray now, but there isn’t much time, and it might not be safe to wait for him here.”
“Where was the skraelpack?” Morgan asked, not liking that the girl was disclosing their location to the Night Watcher captain. After what he’d seen in Stoell’s, he’d already rethought his original idea of negotiating with the Warmonger’s spies for the sale of the dragon. His new plan was to attain as much information at Rabin-19 as he could and to get the hell out before anybody else caught up with them.
“Forty miles north,” Lannikan answered. “The whole Second Guard is swarming into Craig Tagen along the main routes, and they’re sending out skraelings to herd in the Rift dogs, preparing for a bloodbath. It don’t look good. You must have come in from a lot farther south to have missed them.”
They had purposely avoided the main routes for just that reason, but Morgan was surprised to learn that the whole Second Guard was after them.
“We saw the dogs, a half-dozen packs,” Avallyn said.
“What do they want?” Morgan asked the boy. If it truly was the dragon, he was ready to just give it to them, leave it on a rock somewhere and let them have it.
“Dray says there is only one thing that would bring the Second Guard out in such force. He fears the Lady Avallyn was recognized in Racht, and without the protection of Claerwen about her, she’s as near to capture as she’s ever been. As for the rest of it... what happened last night in Pan-shei...” The boy’s voice trailed off. He shook his head and lowered his gaze.
“What?” Avallyn asked. “What happ—”
Morgan silenced her by putting his hand on her arm. His attention was focused on the comstation and the sudden warning bulletin flashing at the bottom of the screen. The dateline showed that the report had first come in the previous night, about the time they’d reached Craig Tagen. All the wild boys had grown silent, except for Lannikan.
“We been watchin’ this thing go around the comstations all morning, and like I said, it don’t look good.”
The Warmonger’s warship took up most of the screen, with the background filled in by line upon line of skraelings and soldiers wearing the Third Guard’s insignia. The audio was being broadcast in fifteen languages, one of which was supposed to be dominant, with the others relegated to a droning hum. Three languages were coming over the tavern’s comstation, fading in and out, jumbling the news. One of the boys leaned across the table and thumped the screen, and for a few seconds they heard the rising panic of the news reporter’s voice: “—arrived not an hour past. The City Guard has fled to the eastern provinces, and no Overlord has been seen since midday, when Ference Lieq announced the closure of all Old Dominion banks, an unprecedented move which resulted in widespread rioting throughout the quarters. The remaining force has taken over Pan-Shei, blocking all roads out of the market. An earlier explosion on the East-West Ninety shut down...” The reporter’s voice faded out, but was not missed. The pictures flickering across the screen spoke for themselves: a pile of crashed scant-ton chassis lying off the Ninety; the Lyran stalking through the ranks of soldiers and then devouring her meal in front of the demolished Quonset; long shots of the steely black warship with its battlements and gun ports, spiked rams and strafing lasers; and Corvus Gei standing on the ship’s viewing platform, flanked by his captain and two guardsmen holding the chains of two prisoners: Ferrar and Jons.
A sick dread washed through Morgan. He had not been mistaken in Stoell’s.
“Mother,” Avallyn whispered beside him, her gaze riveted to the screen.
The camera slid away to follow the entrance of another batch of prisoners, denizens of Pan-shei, recognizable by their dress. Morgan instantly thought of Klary, but as the prisoners filed by, he could see that no children had been rounded up. Still, it was impossible to feel any relief with Ferrar and Jons in chains and the Quonset demolished.
The camera panned back to the Warmonger.
“This is it,” Lannikan whispered. “This is what we’ll be fighting, just like when we faced the fiend at the Holy Well in Claerwen.”
“No,” Avallyn breathed out. “Corvus has never debased himself except in the Northern Waste. The price he pays is too high. I saw what it cost him to destroy the well at Claerwen.”
“As did I, lady,” the boy said solemnly.
The camera pulled in tight on Ferrar’s face, and Morgan saw the fear in her eyes. The sick dread in his gut churned and tightened. Whatever debasement the Warmonger had planned, Ferrar didn’t expect to survive it.
That’s when he saw what he hadn’t seen in Stoell’s: the Warmonger’s blackened hand and the wisp of smoke rising from his fingertips.
“Sweet Jesu,” he whispered. He’d heard of the left hand of the Warmonger, but the tales had not prepared him for the abomination he saw on the comstation screen.
“Aye,” Lannikan agreed. “If Sweet Jesu be your god, now is the time to pray.”
“No,” Avallyn said again, her face ashen. “He cannot.”
But he did. The wisp of smoke spiraled up into the sky, quickly growing huge. Screams arose from the crowds of prisoners corralled below the warship. The camera filming the scene jerked upward to capture the swart, swirling cloud. For the briefest moment, Morgan saw flesh-colored ribbons winding up into the cloud, the bodies of the doomed getting thinner and thinner, then all went black. Long seconds passed, but nothing came back on the screen.
“Crikey,” Samm choked out.
Morgan turned to Lannikan and grabbed the boy’s arm. “The two prisoners on deck with Corvus. Do you know what happened to them?”
“Nay,” the boy replied, remaining calm despite the tension Morgan felt tightening his muscles. “We ain’t been to Pan-shei for months, and now most of it’s gone.”
Morgan released the boy and slumped back in his chair, his thoughts whirling. He needed to think, and all he could see was Ferrar’s fear-filled eyes and the ghastly flesh-colored ribbons. He’d offered her a chance, a chance she hadn’t taken. Sweet Mary. Ferrar and Jons had been riding time since the twenty-second century. Of all the people he’d met in the future, she understood more than any what he’d gone through, and her advice had always been the same: Take care with your life, take care not to overestimate your power.
It was easy to fall into a false sense of immortality after having survived the weir and traveled ten thousand years—and indeed, a certain power was conferred by the journey. He’d
been skirting the edge of danger for ten years, falling off more than once, and yet always coming out in one piece.
Had Ferrar miscalculated this time?
“If they was friends of yours, I’m sorry,” Lannikan said, “but there ain’t any goin’ back—not for any of us.”
“Aye,” Morgan agreed softly. If Ferrar and Jons were gone, there was naught he could do to bring them back, and if they’d survived, he had a feeling he’d know soon enough. The Warmonger hadn’t put them with the other prisoners, and ’twas unlikely he’d destroyed the deck of his own warship. So there was reason to hope, and reason to dread. If he’d kept Ferrar and Jons alive, it could only be because of their connection to him, and through him, their connection to Avallyn.
He slanted his gaze in the princess’s direction and found her watching him, her eyes dark with distress. Lannikan was right. She was the true prize in all this, not him and his golden dragon.
“I’m sorry, Morgan,” she said quietly, shakily, and he realized that the mere sound of her voice was a balm.
Her turban had slipped back off her head, revealing the faerie curve of her ears, and he wondered if it was possible to truly fall in love in a night and a day.
He wanted to kiss her and had to restrain himself from reaching for her—because he knew she would kiss him back. She would melt into him, sweetening his mouth with her own, and then he would be lost, truly lost.
Chapter 13
A door was flung open on the far side of the tavern, and Morgan turned at the sound, his hand going to his lasgun. Sakip raced into the room, breathless, her face flushed beneath a coating of dust. He relaxed his grip on the trigger.