“You had better,” he said solemnly. “I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen if even one of the Realm Keepers is lost.”
I barked a harsh, emotionless laugh. “Haven’t you heard, old man? One of us is going to die.”
Greystone didn’t have anything to say to that.
So we slipped from building to building, trying to keep away from main roads while at the same time looking like we didn’t have a care in the world which way we were going. I kept my face passive, walking with a normal, steady pace. Calvin’s movements were nervous, twitchy. Raven may have genuinely not cared where we were going, she looked so nonchalant as she walked along. Darren, Barius and Samuel seemed made of stone for all the emotion that showed on their faces.
I was looking for something circular. That was the only thing the two tombs had had in common: a big, wide circle of stone with a door, hatch or passageway that led into the actual tomb. I figured if we could find something like that, the tomb might be underneath it.
But after an hour of walking through the city’s narrow streets, I hadn’t seen anything of the sort. And I was growing more and more tense, which was making my temper drift closer and closer to the surface. Every time we saw a Shadow, my whole body went rigid. I couldn’t believe that no one had noticed my reaction yet, but then again in the presence of Shadows everyone tended to keep their eyes on the ground.
But it was starting to wear on me. I almost considered just unleashing on one of the things, so at least I could have a fight instead of all this sneaking around.
“Where are we going?” asked Raven. Apparently the tension wasn’t wearing on her; she sounded as bored as ever.
“We’re looking,” I grumbled. “If you think you know where the tomb is, I’m open to suggestions.”
“One thing’s sure,” Barius said gruffly. “I don’t think it’ll be sitting out in the open. If it were, Chaos would have already found it.”
“We don’t know that they haven’t,” Darren pointed out.
“I’d rather be an optimist,” said Barius. “My mother had a saying: the high road may be longer, but it means your travels will have a nicer view.”
I stopped dead in the street, and Samuel ran into me from behind.
“Oof!” he grunted. “What’s wrong?”
I grinned at Barius. “The high road, huh? Why didn’t I think of that?”
He blinked. “What are you on about, boy?”
I looked up. Looming above us was Faya’s keep, a tall, imposing building that loomed over the south end of the city. It had five walls and five corners, each of them marked with a sizable tower that provided a view for miles.
I pointed up at it. “I’m thinking we need a nicer view.”
BLADE
“THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.”
I grinned at Samuel. “If you’d rather, I can bring Darren instead,” I told him. “I’m sure he’s not afraid.” Darren’s face blanched.
Samuel’s jaw clenched, and I thought he might take a good-natured swing at me that would only accidentally dislodge one of my teeth. “No, you can’t,” he said. “He’s bound to Calvin just like I’m bound to you — something, by the way, I come to regret more and more every second.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “The feeling’s mutual. Now, are we going to do this or not?”
Samuel sighed and nodded.
I turned to Calvin. “And you’re sure you can do this?”
Calvin was staring at me with wide eyes. “No, I’m not sure I can do this,” he said immediately. “I am not sure at all. This is your idea. I don’t even want to try this. Samuel’s right, it’s a terrible idea.”
“But you think you can maybe do this, right?” I pressed.
Calvin threw his hands up. “It’s possible. I did something almost like it once. Once.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Attaboy. Okay. Wait until Barius and Raven give us the signal.”
I moved my eyes past him to the mouth of the alleyway, where Barius and Raven were leaning against the buildings to either side. Their glances out at the street were casual, nonchalant, as though they didn’t have a care in the world.
The sides of the alley, however, were formed on one side by Faya’s town wall, and on the other side by the keep. I’d led the others to the tiny gap, the only place I thought my plan could be carried out without being spotted.
Finally my searching eyes saw Barius’ hand wave up and down distractedly, as though he were batting at a fly.
“That’s the signal!” I whispered. “Okay, man, do your thing.”
Calvin gave a final, desperate glance at Darren, who shrugged. Then he reached out. I felt a slight breeze stir my cloak as the air around me shifted.
Then I felt myself lift up off the ground. It was an odd sensation. As far as I was concerned, there was still something hard beneath my feet. I could feel it beneath my boot heels. I wanted to try kicking at it to see how strong it was, but considering what we were attempting, that was a terrible idea.
We lifted a foot off the ground, then three, Calvin looking up at us with intense concentration on his face.
“Sweet, bro,” I said. “Now, can you get us to the top?”
Suddenly the invisible floor beneath our feet disappeared. Caught by surprise, I felt my legs buckle beneath me and I went down hard on the cobblestones.
“Um, ow,” I said.
“Sorry!” Calvin said, panicked. “I lost my concentration when you talked to me!”
Samuel pushed himself to his feet. “Well, I’m glad that happened down here, not halfway up the wall,” he said. “So, what other ideas do we have?”
Calvin hung his head.
“Same plan,” I told Samuel. “Come on, Calvin, do your thing.”
Calvin looked up miserably. “If I dropped you here, what makes you think I can get you all the way up the wall?”
I gave him my best uncaring grin. “You got this, man. Don’t worry. We won’t talk to you while you work. You can do it.”
Calvin shook his head. “No. No way. If something happened…”
I grabbed his shoulder and shook him gently. “Hey, nothing’s going to happen. And how else do you think we’re going to get up there? You want to walk up to the front door and ask if we can go sightseeing from the top?”
Calvin’s mouth twisted in a smirk that looked eerily familiar.
“There we go,” I said. “Don’t worry. Worry doesn’t help. Remember what Greystone taught you. Clear your mind, and all that crud.”
Calvin chuckled. “Wow. Someone’s been paying attention.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, stepping back to stand beside Samuel. “All right, whiz kid. Do your thing.”
Calvin reached out again. This time I made a point of looking away from him, not tempting him to make eye contact or speak, letting him pour all of his concentration into maintaining the plate of air beneath our feet.
Slowly we began to raise up again. I felt Samuel tense up beside me, but I refused to look at him.
Three feet up. Six. Ten.
Slowly we rose above the lip of the city wall. No guards patrolled its length — the only ones we’d seen were the pairs posted at each corner tower. All of them were looking outward, watching the landscape for any approaching enemy. I kept my eye on the west tower, while Samuel watched the east. The guards I was watching were involved in a game of cards, neither of them so much as glancing up.
“So far so good,” I said quietly as we continued to rise.
“Don’t count your chickens,” Samuel muttered.
“Before they’re hatched?”
Samuel glanced at me. “What?”
I thought about explaining, but decided not to.
We were thirty feet up, only ten feet below the lip of the keep’s wall, when I felt the invisible platform start to waver.
“No,” I muttered, my stomach lurching. I began to get a sense of vertigo and fought the urge to look down.
The plat
form shook harder, its ascent slowing to a near stop.
“Quick!” hissed Samuel urgently. He cupped his fingers together. Understanding, I put my foot on them and placed my hands on his shoulders.
“One,” he whispered. “Two. Three.”
I lunged, but Samuel didn’t boost me. I almost fell over his back.
“What is wrong with you?” I said, barely keeping my voice from rising.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said. “Why did you go early?”
“You said three!”
“You were supposed to jump on four! Everyone jumps on four!”
“I hate this stupid place!” I hissed. “All right, go again. I’ll go on four.”
“One, two, three, four!”
Samuel heaved. I lunged. Fortunately, he was strong and I wasn’t some geeky weakling either. I came head and shoulders above the edge of the wall, grabbed at the ramparts and hauled myself up. Immediately I turned and reached for him. He was wavering. I imagined I could see the air beneath him shimmering, struggling to maintain its shape.
“Jump!” I said.
He leapt up and snatched my hand. I grabbed his forearm and pulled as hard as I could. He swung inward, slamming into the wall, and we both grunted.
I sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, gathering the strength to pull him the rest of the way up.
“Take your time,” Samuel grumbled.
I chuckled and heaved. He came slowly over the edge of the wall. We collapsed against the ramparts, fighting to catch our breath.
I took stock of our surroundings, whispering a silent prayer of thanks as I saw that the wall was empty. We were square in the middle of its length, which ran thirty feet in either direction to two wooden doors leading to the guard towers. I crept cautiously to the other side of the wall, aware of the keep’s watchful windows above me. I peered over the edge to see the ward.
Milling about below us were dozens of the keep’s inhabitants. I saw soldiers and Shadows, but also plenty of people who looked like they just worked there: ladies in plain garb that were clearly maids, men in unassuming livery that must have been manservants, even a woman in a white apron and hat who I guessed was a chef, dumping a bucketful of red something into a gutter.
I turned back to Samuel. “Okay, well, no circle of stone within the walls. Unless it’s in the keep itself, we’re not going to find it here. So let’s make our way along and check out the town.”
Samuel nodded his agreement, and we got to our feet. We were careful to remain hunched over so that no one could see us from the ground on either side of the wall. We crept along until we were at the corner of the west tower. There was a wooden door leading inside, which I ignored. Instead, I followed the thin lip of wall that ran around the outside of the tower to the other side.
From there, we had a perfect view over the southwest quarter of the city. Well, as “perfect” as any view in Faya could be; dark smoke still roiled up from what looked like every building, filling the air with grime and occasionally drifting into my eyes to make them sting. But after a few minutes of careful looking, we didn’t see anything that could lead us to the tomb.
I tapped Samuel and motioned him on to the next tower. We snuck toward it, reaching it without incident.
Then, creeping around the wall to reach the other side, I heard a gruff voice say, “Hey, who are you?”
I whirled to find a guard standing behind us. His thick, pudgy face peered at us from an open-faced helmet. His mail hauberk and surcoat were grimy and thick with dust. His face was full of shock and confusion, but no anger.
I drew my sword, but Samuel was faster. He leapt forward, pulling a dagger. His hand covered the man’s mouth, and the dagger disappeared into his heart. The man gave a startled gasp, muffled by the hand, and collapsed.
Samuel half-cushioned the body as it fell, lowering it silently to the stone. Then he grabbed the arms, looking up at me. “We have to move him,” he whispered. “The outer wall rim will be less traveled. If we move him to the other side, it will take longer for them to find him.”
I didn’t move.
He cocked his head. “Are you all right, Lord Blade?”
I looked down. My hands were shaking, and they were stark white. I realized with horror that I was still holding my sword. It fell from my limp grip, landing on the guard’s leg with a soft thump.
Instantly Samuel was up, standing before me with a hand on each shoulder. He guided me to the guard tower’s wall and slowly, gently pushed me to sit where I could lean against it.
“Take deep breaths,” he said. “Calm yourself. I’ll take care of him.”
He crept over to the guard, then hefted him across his shoulders. He disappeared around the corner of the tower, reappearing a moment later with no sign of the guard.
He crouched before me, looking into my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Have you never seen a man killed before?”
I shook my head, my breath coming ragged. “Sure I have,” I said. “The Battle of the Circle, remember? But there it was Shadows doing the killing. It’s…it’s just a little different, that’s all. I’ll be fine.”
Samuel cast a wary glance along the wall in both directions. “I would tell you to take your time, but we don’t have much. I’m sorry. I forget most people your age are still considered children on True Earth.”
I looked up at him uneasily. “How old were you when you first…first did that?”
His eyes were grim. “Fourteen. I wasn’t Runegard yet. I was traveling with my family in a caravan. Bandits attacked, and one of them knocked my father to the ground. He would have killed him if I hadn’t struck first. Still, I saw his face in my dreams for the next week.”
I nodded. I thought I knew what he meant. I couldn’t forget the sudden change in the guard’s expression as the light left his eyes. “Yeah. I get that.”
Samuel gave another nervous look around. “Lord Blade…”
“Yeah. Okay. Come on.”
I forced myself to my feet. A wave of dizziness gripped me, and I grabbed the wall and my stomach at the same time.
“Do you need to be sick?” Samuel asked helpfully. “It can help. It helped me.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll be okay. Let’s just go.”
We crept to the third tower. I made doubly sure to check behind us as we crept around its wide girth. No more surprises. Then we scanned the town below the wall.
It was less than a minute before we spotted it. A large, round building with black walls and smoke pouring from its high windows. The streets around it were littered and filthy.
I pointed. “There. That looks about the right size, doesn’t it?”
Samuel scowled. “You’re right. Curse it. I didn’t think of that.”
I glanced at him. “You know it?”
Samuel nodded. “It’s the oldest smithy in Faya. No idea how long it’s been there, but it’s some hundreds of years. It’s owned by a family called Betten, but most folk know it as the Slave’s Smithy. Their workers are, to put it delicately, unenthusiastic about their employment.”
“Got it,” I said. “So you think it’s a possibility? Beneath the place?”
“I don’t see anywhere else it could be,” Samuel said in agreement. “That’s good enough for me.”
I nodded. “All right. Now to get back down. Let’s go find Calvin and — ”
Samuel gripped my arm hard. His face went white, his eyes wide. “No. Let’s find another way.”
I shrugged. “Okay, scaredy cat.”
“You can stay on the platform next time and toss me up.”
At the fifth wall we found a marketplace just below the keep’s walls. It had a high, canvas awning that stretched twenty feet up the wall. Waiting until no one was watching below, we jumped and landed painlessly, if awkwardly, on the roof, then slid to the ground using one of the tent’s poles. The shopkeeper stared at us agape as we made our escape around the corner.
Calvin was a mass of apology
when we found him. He was wringing his hands and hunching his shoulders. He looked for all the world like a kid at school who was afraid I was going to put the beat down on him.
“Dude, I’m so sorry!” he cried. “I tried to hold it as long as I could. I just couldn’t push any higher without risking losing it.”
“Don’t worry about it, man,” I said, waving him off. “We made it, didn’t we?”
“What a pity,” said Raven. But through her mask of boredom, I could see she was relieved.
Their spirits dropped further when they saw the slave’s smithy. I couldn’t blame them. It was huge, looming over all the buildings around it like a great, hulking vulture. The smoke that poured from it looked like the burning of a forest fire.
“So, our plan is to go in there?” asked Raven.
“That’s the plan,” I confirmed.
“Should we get the others?” asked Calvin.
“No.” I shook my head. “I just want to get this done and get out of here. We go in, find the tomb, get whatever the artifact is, and we get out.”
Still, we all just stood there looking for a few minutes. Nobody wanted to take the first step forward, a feeling I fully understood.
“Well,” I finally said. “Let’s go.”
I led the way. The smithy had huge iron front doors. Obviously, I wanted to avoid those. Fortunately there were all kinds of side doors, both of wood and metal. Then at the back I found two huge wide bay doors. They looked like the doors to the loading dock of a warehouse. Two wagons were pulled into the doors, and people were rushing in and out, loading and unloading carts and generally bustling about busily.
That’s when I noticed the men inside — the ones loading the wagons. They were wearing great big collars of iron, with locks holding them closed in the back. They had chains running from their wrists to their ankles. They were just loose enough to let the men do their work, but if they tried to run, the chains would trip them up.
They had to be the slaves who ran the smithy. Big, burly men behind them watched the proceedings with wary eyes. It made my face flush with anger. I had to remind myself that we weren’t here to help them. Like it or not, we had bigger fish to fry.
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