“Because,” Silence said, “it will at least give us a chance to escape.”
It would dilute the poison and give them cover. Scavenger nodded.
“You’re going for Jewel?”
Silence patted Scavenger on the shoulder. “Someone has to.” He stood. “Good luck.”
“To you too,” Scavenger said.
But Silence didn’t appear to hear him. He walked past Scavenger, his gait rolling and slow, not at all like the lithe and agile Silence. He stepped into the street as the horses, bearing more Black Robes, were stopped by the other Black Robes. Scavenger held his breath. The Robes waved Silence over. He swaggered toward them. Scavenger bit his lower lip. They would kill Silence. But instead they laughed and patted him on the back.
Silence shot one quick glance over his shoulder at the alley. Scavenger ducked in and away. Back alleys and side streets. He had to make it to the river.
If he made it to the river, he might survive.
TWENTY-TWO
They were going to die. All of them. He knew it.
Lord Powell huddled near the broken gate, his hair hanging over his face in a tangled mass, his shirt ripped and his arms covered with blood. He had barely got out of the palace alive. Then he had peered into the street and seen more of them, those evil creatures that were torturing everyone he knew. The screams and cries, the scent of blood and piss and fear, were enough to drive him insane.
He had found a safe corner behind shattered wood, held a sword tightly in his right hand, and waited. If any of them came toward him, he would kill them. He would kill at least one of them before they killed him.
But no matter what the King had said, they were all going to die. The King had known it; they all could see it on his face. He wanted them to die fighting for Blue Isle when they knew nothing about the conquerors. Perhaps living under the new rule was better than dying. There was only one way to find out.
He would surrender—that was what he would do. Nicholas was already in their clutches. Powell had seen that as he’d sneaked through the kitchen. Caught by a woman. The servants had made it clear who Nicholas was. Powell had got out of the kitchen before they could identify him. He didn’t want to be a pawn. He wanted to live and not be tortured, not die. He had seen too many people go down.
The wood of the wall dug into his back. A man screamed and fell in front of him, landing faceup. A Fey put a booted foot on the man’s chest and shoved a sword through the man’s throat. Powell suppressed a gasp as the man’s blood spattered his leg. But he didn’t move. He would die if he moved.
The Fey didn’t notice him. He pulled the sword free and returned to the fray.
Outside the gate, horses neighed. Powell peered through a hole in the wood. Danites. What were they doing there? Was the Tabernacle gone already? His grip tightened on his sword. Damn, he wished he’d learned to use the thing.
The Danites were holding bottles and talking excitedly to one of the quartermasters. A Danite held out a bottle and the quartermaster shook his head, laughing. “I’m a guard,” the quartermaster said, his voice rising above the din. “Not a priest.”
The quartermaster crossed the yard, his sword out but at his side. Powell turned away from the gate. Around him people were screaming, crying. He wiped his face with the back of his arm, wincing as the drying blood stuck to the damp skin of his forehead.
They had been laughing.
The Danites had been laughing.
He frowned, peered through the gate again. The Danites were gone. Only the quartermaster remained, an odd expression on his fleshy face. Powell bit his lower lip. How could they laugh at a time like this? Had they planned this? They were, after all, the ones who had notified the King. They were the ones who weren’t following procedure, who acted as if there had been no warning at all. What if they had done this in some misguided attempt at a coup?
No. He shook his head slightly as a bloodcurdling scream was cut off behind him. The quartermaster caught Powell’s movement and turned. Their gazes met. There was something cold in the guard’s smile. Powell nodded to him. Ingrate. He had no concept of how to behave toward his betters. The quartermaster probably thought it funny that one of the lords was hiding near the gate, ready to make his getaway.
Powell would stop him. He would find out what made that self-important soldier laugh. Powell gripped his sword tighter, turned away from the opening, and held the sword in front of himself like a shield. There were no Fey close to him. They were crowded near the doors to the palace.
Powell took a step forward, then another, reluctant to leave the small safety afforded by the shattered wood. Then the quartermaster appeared in front of him, huge body more muscle than fat, a block against the destruction before them. The quartermaster’s grin was warm. Powell wondered how he ever thought it cold.
“Waiting for me?” the quartermaster’s voice boomed across the courtyard. Powell glanced around in panic, then placed his left forefinger over his lip to indicate silence.
“Right.” The quartermaster crouched in front of the newly dead man. Powell glanced down at the body. The head was nearly severed from the neck, and blood collected in a small puddle near his feet. “A present?” the quartermaster asked.
Powell frowned. The heat, the noise, the sunlight, something was getting to him. He wasn’t hearing correctly. “What?”
The quartermaster laughed and stuck his hands into the blood. Then he smeared it all over his body. A shiver ran through Powell. Something was wrong; something was very, very wrong. He eased himself away from the quartermaster, but the quartermaster grabbed his arm.
“Not so fast,” the man said, and that cold look was back in his eyes. “I need you, Lord Powell.”
The quartermaster’s grip was strong. Powell tried to shake himself free, but couldn’t. The quartermaster stared at him while using his remaining hand to pull off his clothes and cover the rest of his body in blood.
Powell glanced around. Everyone he saw was fighting a Fey, except the Fey still ringing the door. No one to help him. No one even noticing. He had no choice.
He brought up his sword and slammed it onto the quartermaster’s wrist. The sword cut into the flesh and shuddered when it hit bone. The quartermaster screamed, his grip loosening. Powell yanked himself free and ran, his legs betraying him as he stumbled his way across the yard, back toward the palace. Anything to free himself from that crazy, crazy man.
A body slammed into his back and knocked him into the mud. The wind left him. Powell tried to roll, but the thing on him was too heavy. He peered over his shoulder and saw the quartermaster’s face, chin digging into Powell’s back. The quartermaster’s hands and feet slid around front, and Powell was pinned.
He struggled, but something was pulling at him, yanking him away from his own skin. There was no pain. He couldn’t grab on to anything. For a moment he broke free and hovered over his own body.
The quartermaster wasn’t on him. Instead, a long, skinny Fey held him, its naked body covered with muck and blood. Its face had a rapt, almost feral expression. Then it looked up, saw Powell, and took a deep breath.
Powell tried to grab something, anything, but he was being sucked toward that feral being. He was surrounded by air—he was nothing but air himself—and then—
—he was Quartermaster Grundy, nothing more than sensuous appetites and pomp, eating breakfast and talking to his men when this thing, this—
—Silence, Fey, a Doppelgänger, nothing more than half a being himself, wounded in Nye, nearly died, taking a ship to a new island for an easy fight—
I’m drowning in them, Powell thought, and then he did.
TWENTY-THREE
The pounding hooves faded. Rugar kept his eyes closed for another long few minutes for good measure. His right cheek was stuck in the mud, and he was breathing shallowly. The stench of the bodies caught in his throat.
A disaster. It was all a disaster. They had greater magicks than he ever thought possible. He had a
real war on his hands now.
The mud was cold against his skin. The chill had worked its way through his body. He needed to think, and there was no time. He had called off the troops, but he would have to do something with them while he decided how to meet this new threat.
He opened his eyes. The body beside him was huddled in a mock fetal position, arms above the melted head. The face was completely featureless. Rugar shuddered. He knew what it was like to die like that, to feel his entire body change, his nostrils close, his mouth seal. He swallowed, but the stench of death remained in his throat like a piece of bread that had gone down the wrong pipe.
Far away the screams and slap of metal against metal rose and fell like a counterpoint to his own breathing. His heart pounded against his rib cage. He was alive. Many of his own people weren’t.
He swallowed again and sat up, slowly pulling his hands out of the muck. He wiped the goo on his clothes. His fingernails had turned blue, his fingers white with cold. Around him bodies stretched for what seemed like miles. The sun glinted off the river, the light adding a clarity to the scene.
Dead. He had not seen a massacre like this in all his years as a soldier, although stories of early battles told of such fights, days when the Fey realized that their magicks did not always protect them.
The Fey had ridden down the Eccrasian Mountains, leaving death in their wake. But when they encountered the swords of the Ghitlus, the Fey learned how to die at someone else’s hand. They retreated up the mountains, fashioned their own swords, and thus the Infantry was born. The Infantry, and the Fey’s ability to absorb its enemies’ power and use it for good.
Rugar had brought a full contingent. It would take little to see how the liquid would work. All he had to do was find the time.
The Fey had retreated before. They could again.
The mud was drying on his hands. He scouted for Solanda, but couldn’t see her. He needed that bottle she had stolen. That bottle and time. Caseo had sent the Warders to the Shadowlands. It would take little to send the entire force there. Rugar had already made the Shadowlands big enough to hold the ships, and the ships had enough supplies to help them return. The Islanders would be confused about where the Fey had gone, and the Fey, when they learned the secret of the bottles, would once again have the element of surprise.
Anything. Anything to get them out of this mess.
He took a deep, shuddering breath to get control of himself. Then he reached across the destroyed body to Strongfist. Strongfist had burrowed his left side into the mud, his nose and right eye visible only to the most careful viewer. Rugar’s filthy hand hovered over Strongfist’s shoulder, but didn’t touch.
“They’re gone,” he said quietly.
Strongfist didn’t move.
“Strongfist,” Rugar said. “They’re gone.”
Then he did lower his hand and touch Strongfist, relieved to feel the warmth of a living man beneath the cloth of his jerkin. Strongfist opened his eye, his gaze as cold as the ground.
Rugar flinched. They would blame him, just as his father would blame him. But he had to be strong to turn this defeat into a victory. And the best way to do that was to keep the troops on his side.
“I have a plan,” he said. “But first we need to assemble our people in the Shadowlands.”
Strongfist sat up. Mud dripped off his hair onto his side. He made no attempt to wipe himself clean. “Retreat?”
“Until we learn the secret of their magick,” Rugar said. “And then we will kill them all.”
Strongfist snorted and looked away.
Rugar grabbed Strongfist’s chin and held it tightly, squeezing the jawbone. “You can die here if you want,” Rugar said. “But I shall note that you gave in after one battle and died a coward. And your name shall be evoked whenever Fey speak of dishonor.”
“None of us will live that long,” Strongfist said.
Rugar stared at Strongfist. The man’s mud-covered face was empty. He had served Rugar for years, faithful in all but this. And who could blame him? They sat in a field of death. If Rugar killed all who had lost faith on this day, he would destroy most of his remaining troop.
“We will live. And we will win.” He let go of Strongfist’s chin. “We need to call a retreat into the Shadowlands. I need your help spreading the word.”
“Fey do not retreat,” Strongfist said.
“Fey do not die meaningless deaths.” Rugar stood. The bodies spread before him in all directions. “We shall go to the Shadowlands and perfect our revenge.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Another knife poked his back. The Fey woman’s knife was against his throat. She held him, hard, her hand clutching the back of his head as a lover’s hand would. Nicholas stood at the base of the stairs. Around him swords flashed, people yelled, and blood spurted. Sweat ran down the side of his face like tears.
Nicholas waited to die.
The woman’s dark eyes held an odd kind of hurt. The fight went on around them, as if they were encased in glass.
Something smashed in the pantry, and a handful of Fey ran up the stairs. More Fey surged through the open door. A maid was passing torches made from sticks of wood and pieces of her skirt to any Islanders that passed her.
The unseen knife poked harder at the small of his back. Another hand gripped his shoulder—not her hand, one less friendly, one with more power. A male voice shouted above the melee, and Nicholas recognized the voice of the angry Fey male who held him.
The woman shook her head once.
The knife dug in deeper. The woman shouted, clearly an order, although Nicholas didn’t recognize the tongue. The knife’s point moved away from his back, although the pain remained, changing from a sharp, immediate threat to a dull ache.
His hands were tied, but if he got away, someone could cut him free. She hadn’t moved, her knife point still a heartbeat away from killing him.
“Get it over with,” he said in Nye.
Blades flashed. Someone screamed. The servants behind her were fighting with pots and knives. Most of the Fey were using swords.
Still she didn’t move. The male Fey’s grip on Nicholas’s shoulder grew tighter. He too spoke, and as he did, Nicholas felt his body shift. He was going to stick his knife through Nicholas’s back.
Nicholas brought his arms up as high as he could, catching the man behind him in the stomach. The blow wasn’t hard, just surprising, and the man let out a grunt of pain. Nicholas took one step back, ducked and twisted away, then tripped over a body lying on the floor. He stumbled, caught his balance, and backed into the chef.
“Cut me free,” Nicholas said in Islander.
The woman bent down and picked up Nicholas’s sword. She held it in her left hand, the knife in her right, the balance perfect, her legs apart, ready to fight. Other Fey had formed a half circle around her, fighting to keep the Islanders away. Nicholas glanced to his side. The Islanders beside him had done the same for him.
The pressure on Nicholas’s wrists suddenly eased. A man shoved a sword into Nicholas’s hand. The grip was slippery with sweat and blood. Nicholas held out his free hand, the sword before him like a shield. His shoulders ached, his arms tingled, and his hands hurt with the effort of movement.
“You should have killed me,” he said in Nye to the woman, “for I have no qualms about killing you.”
He swung as he spoke, seeing too late the threat from the side. The angry Fey shoved his knife in the opening left by Nicholas’s movement. The knife grazed his rib cage. Nicholas brought the sword back and slapped the Fey with the flat side of the blade.
“No, Burden!” she cried in Nye. “He is mine.”
“Then kill him,” Burden, the Fey, said in the same language, his breath coming in huge gasps. “Before he kills you.”
“He won’t kill me,” she said.
And as Nicholas glanced at her, standing tall and proud, her face glistening with sweat and her eyes sparkling with power, he knew it was true. He couldn’t kill
her any more than she could kill him.
But she didn’t have to know she was right. And he didn’t have to kill her. It was clear that she was in charge of this group. She was as valuable to them as he was to his own people.
He thrust, and as he did, the Fey beside him screamed. The chef had shoved a knife into the Fey’s side. The woman parried Nicholas’s thrust, her gaze not on him, but on the boy.
The Fey sliced at the chef, cutting through the skin on his lower arm. Blood spurted on Nicholas, hot and searing, coating him. He stepped away, his feet slipping on the wet. The Fey man staggered, swinging wildly.
The woman swung again, and Nicholas caught her sword in a clang, keeping out of the range of her knife. The chef fell to his knees, ripping at his shirt and struggling to bandage his arm with one shaking hand.
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey Page 17