by K. F. Breene
Sanders snorted. “His mate, huh? This Sonson is a bit mixed up. Is this a city-wide mandate, or will you be wandering out of the city limits?”
The guard glanced across the alleyway to the guard opposite, a woman by her stature, her face also lost to the shadows. She said, “I would not advise leaving the city.”
“Neither would I, but it has to be done.”
“Then we will go with you. I am Denessa.” She didn’t offer the names of the men with her.
“Sanders.” He didn’t offer any other names, either. There was no time for introductions.
He started forward, his men at his back. They stuck to the shadows and side streets, moving quietly. Graygual loitered around the city, some watching crowds with alert eyes, some staggering from drink, others playing dice against the walls.
“With you here, are we forbidden to kill Graygual within city walls?” Sanders asked in a low voice as he edged around a spill of light from a window. Ahead a group of Graygual were crouched down and playing their games. A woman was among them, breasts mostly hanging out of her top, a dopey smile on her face but with a sharpness in her eyes. She was playing a part, and she’d make off with all their money before the end of the night, Sanders was sure of it. The foreign women in this city that chose to be here were smart and cunning. They knew their game, and they knew what they could get away with.
Sanders applauded them for their business sense. There was more than one dirty job in the land, and he’d slogged through his fair share of shit to know better than to judge.
“There are many women of the night,” the Shadow woman in charge said quietly as they approached. “They’ve been arriving in large quantities over the last few days. We have reason to believe many enemy have died by their hand. I want these women left alive.”
“No argument there.” Sanders took out his knife and was surprised when the Shadow woman did the same. “Since when do you people pick sides?” he asked.
“Since they broke the laws of our land. They will all die, it is just a matter of when.”
Sanders felt a shiver from her impassive voice. She showed no anger toward the Graygual. Instead, her people had been wronged, and she would right that wrong with cold calculation. He couldn’t say it wasn’t justified, but her even tone gave him the creeps. He had a feeling these Shadow could be a very brutal people when pushed, and the Graygual were certainly pushing.
They approached the group of jeering men at a fast walk, sticking to the shadows. Someone yelled in an unfamiliar language and scooped up money off the ground. Jeering, he picked up the dice to throw. Sanders ducked in, slapped his hand over the man’s mouth, and stabbed him under the arm. He then struck out to the side, stabbing the neighbor in the side of the neck before sliding his knife across the throat of the man now struggling in his grasp.
The whore didn’t scream once, but she took off at a jog. She knew better than to stick around.
Denessa dispatched two other Graygual in the same amount of time as Sanders, knife work quick and precise. Rohnan hooked a man with his staff, ripping his neck as Tobias took out the last with his sword. The dying men gave a scream or groan before sinking down to the ground. Silence filtered into the scene while everyone caught their breath.
“Take the money,” the Shadow woman said, wiping her blade on one of the Graygual uniforms. “Spend it on one of the poorest merchants in the square.”
Sanders was refusing as she finished her statement. He paused before he nodded, grabbing what lay on the ground and passing it off to Burson. The older man pocketed it and said, “Our window is closing. We must hurry.”
Sanders started off at a jog, taking the route Leilius had planned with the least amount of eyes or Graygual. When they neared the front, crowds of Graygual loitered around the gate, watched by Shadow. There would no doubt also be a few Inkna within the crowd.
“The crowd has grown way bigger,” Leilius called up in an apologetic voice.
Sanders slowed to a walk, analyzing. There really was nothing they could do. All the exits would be guarded. He half-turned to tell his men to spread out when Denessa put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Side gate,” she said.
Without delay, Sanders let her lead. They backtracked before jogging to a small wooden building set against the city walls, with stairs leading up to a ledge where an archer would stand during a siege. The woman flicked up a piece of wood at waist height and reached into the hole created. The area where the wood met the stone wall popped. A crack formed along the wall, and then across the top. When the woman pried it open, Sanders saw that it was actually an extremely well hidden door.
She stood to the side, opening the door as she did so. “Through here.”
“This exit would’ve been handy a few times,” Sanders growled as he stepped through.
“Be glad you can use it now,” Denessa answered, following him in.
She directed him for the first few steps through the pitch black with a hand on his shoulder. He stopped when she did, before feeling her brush past him. Even though she was probably nearly touching him, he couldn’t even see her outline.
Somewhere close by, stone squealed. Something crunched. Then another squeal before the soft moonlight fell into a small chamber.
“We do not use this door often,” she said. “Only for occasional training. The outside is masked with moss and scrapes in the stone. There are a few of these, just in case. We hoped they’d never have to be used.”
“Keep hoping. War hasn’t broken out yet.” Sanders jogged through. His men came out after him, silent and serious apart from Marc, who looked terrified.
Denessa left the door open no more than a crack since there were no handles on the outside.
Sanders waited, glancing around the wood. He had no idea where they were in relation to where they were headed.
“Where to?” Denessa asked, rejoining him.
“The nearest water intake for the Trespasser Village,” Rohnan replied softly.
The soft moonlight fell over Denessa’s straight face, as impassive as her voice had been as she regarded Rohnan. She turned to Sanders. “There are innocents in the Trespasser Village. I cannot allow—”
“Not anymore,” Leilius piped up. “Most left in a boat this morning—”
“Ship, idiot,” Rachie muttered.
“—and the rest were murdered earlier this evening to make more room for the Graygual that arrived today. Why you guys are allowing more of those Graygual into—”
“Thank you, Leilius,” Tobias said, putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“How do you know this?” Denessa asked Leilius.
He withered down to a hunch within her gaze, whether out of fear that she might kill him, or because she was beautiful and had breasts. Sanders reckoned it could’ve been either.
The boy stuttered, “I sn-sneak around. That’s my job, Miss. They stomped on me pretty g-good, but Marc fixed me. Just a crack in the back, Miss. Right as rain. I just stay away from that area, now. They’ll kill me if they see me again. And they’d see me, they would. I don’t think—”
Tobias put his hand on Leilius’ shoulder again to stop the blathering.
“See? Clear conscience. C’mon, we gotta go,” Sanders said urgently, noticing Burson’s gaze going skyward with tight eyes. Sanders had learned that a smile to the sky was a good sign, and this was not. They were running out of time.
Sanders took up a fast jog. He heard the soft footfall of a couple of the boys, still not great at stealth, and the hard breath of Burson, the oldest among them and not as able to keep up. They couldn’t slow, though. Burson, more than anyone, knew that, since he was the one advocating haste.
They weaved in and out of trees, Denessa taking the lead and going a different route than Leilius had originally identified. Only a fool would argue with a woman, let alone this woman—she’d win the argument and then kill the man for her troubles.
The canopy of leaves overhead closed out the sky,
blocking out most of the moonlight. Without breaking her stride, Denessa veered right. Sanders was about to tell her to slow down as his men didn’t know this land as well as she did, but then his feet hit smooth, packed dirt. She’d led them to a road through a deep cluster of trees. Smart.
They picked up speed as more moonlight broke through the canopy, splattering the road. Men started panting, but the woman was still breathing easily. She had to be in great shape.
They rounded a bend before she slowed.
Up ahead, lighting the road in flickering orange, was the light of a fire. Shadows danced along the ground, thrown by the light. Hushed voices with an occasional burst of laughter hit Sanders. The dull clinking of dinnerware permeated the night.
Sanders motioned behind him for everyone to stay put. He quickly and silently crept closer, realizing belatedly that Denessa was still behind him. Clearly his command didn’t apply to her.
As he neared the flickering light, Sanders braced his hand on the rough bark of a large tree and waited for Denessa to take her place by the tree next to him. He peered around.
Three men sat at a small fire about ten paces beyond a large, metal circle. Nearly as tall as Sanders, the sides of the circle flared toward the top, creating a larger area to catch rain. Trees, overhang and all debris had been cleared away, leaving only open sky between the heavens and the water collector. Still, it was open. Bird poop, bugs, dead things—things could still get in. An open water source had the potential to cause sickness.
“That doesn’t exactly look safe—anything could get in that water…” Sanders said quietly.
“It is mostly clean, but those in the Trespasser Village all know to boil the water to clean it,” she whispered.
Sanders’ heart sank. Why hadn’t someone told him this before they’d trekked all the way out here? Boiling the water would kill any poison they used.
Sanders backed away carefully. Once back on the road with his men, he stared at Leilius. “They boil the water.”
“So?” Ruisa said, stepping forward. She held a large vial filled with clear liquid.
“So, that’ll make the poison useless…”
Ruisa shook her head in impatience. “You’re thinking of bacteria. Boiling water gets rid of most bacteria. This poison was made from boiling various elements, it’ll survive just fine.”
“But they don’t boil it,” Leilius said quickly and a little too loud. He looked back and forth between Ruisa and Sanders.
“Shhhh,” Xavier said, elbowing him.
“They don’t,” Leilius repeated in a breathy whisper. “I’ve been around the Village, and I’ve been around the water place a lot, and I’ve been around the camp—I’ve only seen people boil stew. But to drink, they just drink out of their canisters, which they fill from the water bucket. I’ve seen them drink directly from the tap, too. I’ve never seen anyone boil water without food stuff in it.”
“It is mostly clean,” Denessa nodded. “With so many humans here, and their stink, the animals probably find elsewhere to get water.”
Ruisa looked at Sanders. “Moot point, anyway. The next question is, how do we get the poison into the water supply? If we kill those guys, someone’s going to make the connection as to why. At least, with the first death they will. They’ll suspect the water right away.”
“You’ve accounted for the rain?” another Shadow person said, a man with dark, fuzzy hair. “It rains a lot. It will dilute your formula.”
“Oh, good, everyone’s an expert at underhand killing,” Sanders said under his breath. Marc shifted, hunched and nodded all at the same time—clearly he was thinking along the same lines.
“I did, yes,” Ruisa answered the man, her gaze lingering on his a little too long. Sanders was about to say something when she shifted her gaze to look at her feet. Apparently she had no plans to lose her head over a pretty face, unlike the boys. Sanders was liking her more and more every day.
“It’s made to take effect immediately, and kill within half a day,” Ruisa continued, looking everywhere but at the man. “I didn’t know how long we had. I could’ve made the kill immediate, but Leilius said that they often hang around the tap and drink while there, so a bunch of dead Graygual around the water supply…”
“Good thinking,” the man said, still staring at her.
She shrugged, not meeting his gaze.
“We need a distraction,” Sanders said. “What’s our timing like, Burson?”
Burson stared toward the flame. “We can wait, and we will get a helping hand. That will lead to death for the Graygual as a whole, which will help us in the days to come. That is the best option for the future, but the worst option for this night.”
“What happens tonight if we wait?” Sanders pushed, shifting in impatience.
“We will need to fight our way back. There are three possible outcomes, and two of those will mean a loss. One will mean a narrow escape. I cannot tell what decisions will lead to which. It is all muddled.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” Sanders growled, staring at the flickering light up ahead, and the shadows dancing around it. Thinking.
If they didn’t reduce the Graygual this way, they’d probably lose a lot more than one in whatever was coming. They might lose everyone. The journey could be at an end here, on this wet, miserable island.
Making the decision to stay meant he was cutting off someone’s head. It meant he would be sacrificing one of his own. The greater good didn’t matter. What might be made no difference. He was sending someone to the chopping block if he chose to stay.
Sanders shook his head and stared at the ground, purposely not looking at anyone else. This was his decision, and the consequences would rest on his shoulders, no matter what happened.
He sighed, refocusing on that flickering light. He felt a hollowness inside of him, a sickening twisting of his gut, as he said quietly, “We should wait.”
Shuffling feet interrupted the silence that followed, but he couldn’t look back at his men. He couldn’t see their faces without wondering which one he was throwing into the fires. Even if he tried to sacrifice himself, there was no guarantee that’s how it would play out.
And so they waited, the sickening weight hanging on Sanders’ shoulders. No one spoke. No one condemned him out loud.
The Shadow people stood still and quiet, waiting with them. For all Sanders knew, it could be one of them that would meet their end. They were in just as much danger as his own men. Yet, they stayed.
After half an hour or so, a grueling, guilt-filled half hour, Marc said in a harried whisper, “Someone’s coming!”
Sanders turned around then, noticing two figures walking up the road. Their outlines suggested females with a heftiness in the bust and through the hip. As though suddenly realizing they were the subject of scrutiny, both woman slunk down as they walked, swaying their hips from side to side as if walking on the deck of a boat deck in the middle of a raging storm.
“Women of the night,” Denessa muttered. “It is a strange place for them to be.”
The women walked up to Sanders’ men and glanced around. The moonlight sprinkled the first, showing a heart-shaped face and a lot of cleavage. The other remained mostly in shadow, but Sanders could see her sleek smile and half-closed, bedroom eyes.
Xavier stepped away. He’d learned his lesson.
The first woman opened her mouth to speak, but Marc reached over Tobias to slap his palm on her mouth. “Shhh!” he said, using his other hand to press air repeatedly toward the ground. “Quietly. Eh?”
Marc yanked his hand away and wiped it on his jeans. “She licked me.”
“Do you boys need a little entertainment?” she said in a quiet purr filled with sex. All the boys but Xavier and Marc stood up straighter. A lazy smile drifted up Rachie’s face.
Her eyes told a different story. From what Sanders could see in the dim moonlight, those eyes had a dangerous gleam. A deadly gleam. And suddenly, he remembered where he had seen a whole b
unch of eyes like that.
Tomous reached out and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We’ve come to kill the Graygual. We could use your help.”
The woman’s gaze slid from Tomous’ hand, up his arm, and finally rested on his face. The other woman looked over, eyeing him too. Their gazes drifted around the group, noticing the Shadow people, hesitating on Ruisa and then sticking to Rohnan.
“You are with the violet-eyed girl?” the woman with the heart-shaped face asked quietly.
“Yes. You are suspicious, but I do not know how to prove it to you,” Rohnan responded.
“Who are you, then?” the woman pushed.
Sanders’ brow furrowed. She obviously knew who he was—or at least, she’d guessed he was with Shanti. What more could he say?
“The Ghost,” came Rohnan’s reply.
The second woman elbowed the first and pointed at Burson, who was smiling at them. He nodded to their scrutiny, “I am the Guide to the Wanderer, and was freed from the Hunter by her hand. She is claiming her right as Chosen, and we need your help.”
“I’ve heard about you. The Ghost and the Madman,” the woman with the heart-shaped face said, straightening up. The sex act melted from her demeanor. In its place stood a curvy woman with a scowl and determined, scarred eyes. “You are the reason we are here. Helping you means we help the violet-eyed girl. She is in grave peril here. The old gypsy woman said women like us, like Rosy and me, needed to help. So here we came.”
“And you marched into a camp infested with Graygual, into danger, because a gypsy told you to?” Sanders asked with disbelief.
“They are speaking the truth,” Rohnan said. “And you are in time. We need those three men distracted. We need to get at the water supply.”
A merciless smile drifted up both girls’ faces. “Then we are your girls. I hope whatever you have planned makes them shit blood like the last little surprise you left.”
“Word’s out. They know it’s you,” Marc muttered to Ruisa.