“Somehow I don’t think your grandmother had corpses in mind,” Miss Kindler murmured into her empty teacup.
Her frown deepened as the drive’s fortress-like gate whined on its hinges.
At the opposite end of the white stone trail, a bald figure peeked toward the house, then took a cautious step on the grounds.
Miss Kindler’s look ground into Rarentz. “This is why we always keep the gate locked.”
“But I’m sure …” he said, mostly to himself. With his next breath, he snapped a brisk “Yes, ma’am” and was walking toward the intruder, his crossbow cradled in his arm. At least he wasn’t pointing it at Tashan.
“This happen often?” I asked the old woman. Rarentz had just shouted some intimidating greeting.
Her head rocked noncommittally. “Doing favors eventually earns you a reputation.” She was keeping a close eye on the intruder, who had clearly noticed the armed young man marching toward him. “People always want something, and never like to hear that you’ve retired from the favor-doing business.”
The stranger stepped into the yard. He was a rough-looking sort, with a grease-smeared fur coat and mismatched boots. He was carrying a frayed burlap bag, choking it with one hand. Shapeless bulges dangled beneath his grip.
He wasn’t alone. A woman with short-shorn hair and a bent chin cautiously followed. Her clothes bore enough mismatched patches to awe a harlequin. She openly carried a carpenter’s hammer.
“Whoa now,” came Rarentz’s call.
“We’re going inside.” Miss Kindler clearly wasn’t making a suggestion. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but started with her back toward the porch, watching the strangers. Rarentz had stopped several steps from the gate, his weapon no longer pointed down.
Tashan didn’t budge from Considine’s side. “I’m not leaving him like this.”
The old woman neither slowed nor looked back. “Do what you will.”
The gate whined louder, opening much more than a crack. Ratty-looking men were pushing the door wide. There were more behind them.
“Hey! Who are you?” Rarentz’s bow followed the first intruder.
“Who are they?” I asked Miss Kindler’s back, fighting the urge to dart around the cautiously strolling old woman.
“No friends of mine. And friends of friends knock.”
The stranger in the patched coat raised her arm and let her hammer fly. It skidded into the gravel just past Rarentz.
“Whoa!” he shouted again. “Turn around now or I’ll shoot.”
As if the woman’s throw had been the signal, the other men streamed into the yard. They were rangy and tough, but their mismatched weapons made them look truly threatening. With brown glass shivs, chains, and clubs, they charged Rarentz.
He shouted again, gave a step or two, but finally loosed. Instantly one of the door-pushers fell, a bolt further tearing savaged breeches. He skidded into the gravel without so much as a yelp.
His fall did nothing to deter his fellow trespassers.
Rarentz was already reloading. The man with the sack was on him. Whatever the vagabond carried was heavy and the bag swung like a giant sap. Rarentz pulled the trigger again as he fell back farther, having to abandon the luxury of deliberate aim. The bagman dropped, a quarrel passing through most of his neck.
More grim-faced strangers appeared at the gate. Seeing Rarentz about to be overwhelmed, they charged to join the crush.
“Can you make it on your own?” I shouted ahead to Miss Kindler.
“I think I can navigate my own yard.”
Eventually, I thought. I rushed toward Rarentz, the silver crescent of my dagger hissing as it slipped from its sheath. The elder priests said the blade’s shape suggested the curve of Pharasma’s holy spiral. Mine always looked more like a snake’s fang to me, but countless nights of polishing and sharpening guaranteed it was far sharper than any tiny tooth. Pharasma wasn’t just the goddess of death, but every member of her clergy was well trained in how to take life to defend life.
Rarentz swung his crossbow in a broad arc, only half successfully keeping five or six of the patchwork invaders at bay. A man desperately in need of an eye patch heaved a dismembered table leg over his head, his half-gaze intent on Rarentz’s skull.
My dagger swept behind Rarentz’s attacker, making the motion called the Rise from the Cliffs. Meant to sever the spine and send a body toppling forward, it was a favored death of many coast-dwelling Ulfen sailors. Swiping faster than was ritually advised, I judged about an eighty percent chance of the man experiencing a painless death.
The stranger’s body tensed and collapsed forward rigidly. If there had been open air before him his plummet would have been a final moment of beauty. As it was, his club and nose crunched noisily as he toppled headlong into the gravel.
Rarentz swept his bow around, glimpsing the falling man’s motion far too late to have saved himself. He was obviously shocked to see me, but his look lingered longer on the thin line of red glistening on my blade.
“May the River of Souls flow straight and swift, and carry you safe to the goddess’s spire.” Looking over Rarentz’s shoulder, I dropped my solemn tone. “Watch yourself! The goddess doesn’t play favorites!”
The flat of his crossbow caught a man wearing chalky makeup in the mouth, sending his head around too far and scattering his teeth even farther. Another thug lashed his chain at me like a whip. It was a drunkard’s clumsy flailing and I easily skipped out of the way, then back as momentum twisted him around.
Although the positioning wasn’t perfect, my dagger made the Poison Breach funerary incision—the first step in the somewhat dated Thuvian practice of replacing a corpse’s bowels with packets of incense. I’d never preformed it before, but the stroke proved clean enough. A wet slurry splashed upon the ground and the man kept spinning. He looked surprised when his face came around to me, then he crumpled. Regrettably, his chances of experiencing a painless death seemed relatively low.
I approximated the Thuvian blessing. “Smoke to carry you into the heavens. Light to show you the way beyond the stars.”
I wished I knew where to get some bukhoor.
“More friends of yours?” Rarentz shouted between curses.
“Mine? No. I thought they were fans of Miss Kindler’s!”
“Heh! They do sound like bookworms.”
It took a moment to understand what he meant. Makeshift weapons jangled and gravel crunched around us. Wounded men and women lay on the ground, struggling against smashed limbs to regain their feet. But Rarentz and I were the only ones speaking. No one else, not even the men I’d felled, had made a sound.
The woman with the dented jaw, one of the first trespassers through the gate, closed in. I could have slashed her forearm, driving my dagger up the pale path of her wrist like the most accomplished suicides.
“Hey!” I shouted into her face.
She didn’t flinch or so much as look up. Her eyes were fixed on me, but it didn’t seem like she was actually seeing me.
“Damn!”
“What?” Rarentz grunted through a pickaxe-like swing of his bow.
“These people aren’t here. They’re—”
The woman swung her hammer for my face. I pulled back just barely in time. The rusty head scraped across my collar, frighteningly close. Remembering my trainers’ words, I didn’t recoil. Lunging in, I perforated the arm of her patchy coat, making more incisions and pushing far deeper than I would if I were performing a simple bloodletting. The shallow cuts welled with blood and the hammer dropped from her hand.
She tried to slap me with her other hand. I met it with my dagger, the blade biting awkwardly and without design, but effectively nonetheless.
“They’re not all here. I don’t think they’re doing this of their own will.”
My opponent stared blankly at her bloody hand.
“So how’s that make them less dangerous?” Rarentz walloped the woman over the back of her head. She fell slowly, lik
e a sheet unclipped from a drying line.
“Just try not to kill them! This isn’t their fault!”
“I’m sorry but—” he kicked a fat man who’d wrapped nine blunt fingers around his splintered bow, “I don’t think they’re going to give us that choice.” He looked up. “Shit!”
Beyond the crowd pressing in on us, two youngsters in almost matching, grubby school uniforms ran across the yard. Her back to them, Miss Kindler was just now climbing the porch stairs.
“You got this?” Rarentz asked, slamming the butt of his crossbow into a doughy face with a crack, then abandoning the hunk of splinters.
“What? No.” I fell back a step, but he was already running.
With a pack of empty-eyed killers facing me, the choice was easy. I sprinted after Rarentz.
The young nobleman crossed the patchy grass yard in a matter of seconds, tackling the faster of the two boys, smashing him to the ground. It was enough to catch one, but the second charged past, a sharp rock in his hand.
I was nowhere close enough to catch him. My dagger came up, ready to throw. But I couldn’t. Even with Miss Kindler only a few steps ahead of the intruder, I couldn’t do it.
“Ailson!” I tried to warn her. She didn’t look back.
A round white rock struck the back of the boy’s head with a crack, sending him reeling into the dirt. He skidded into the porch’s stone stairs and didn’t move.
Tashan was already halfway across the yard, not showing any signs of slowing. “Faster, please,” he urged as he passed.
We helped Rarentz to his feet, and rushed after Tashan, who took the steps two at a time. At the top he turned, his sword glimmering golden.
We vaulted up the steps, aware of the voiceless noises closing in from behind.
Miss Kindler was frowning down at the youngster bleeding on her yard.
Flames roared over my shoulder. Shocked by the sudden light and heat, I pitched sidelong, sprawling across the porch.
Tashan was screaming before I could even twist to see why.
The jet of flame poured into him. It spread like water, defying gravity, drowning him in fire. When the flames reached his face, they did nothing to muffle his screams.
I think I screamed his name, but if I did, even I couldn’t hear it.
The fiery jet’s final pulse knocked him off his feet, sending him reeling. He collapsed against the doorframe, smoldering. Where he’d been struck, his shirt and chest were a single molten scar. His scarf was no longer yellow, reduced to a collar of ash around his neck. I forced myself to look higher.
His face, so sleek and proud only seconds earlier, made me want to cry.
He was alive, though. Despite the terrible scars, he was still alive. With a weak, confused hand he was trying to push himself upright.
“Pharasma, please.” I was on my feet, already praying. I clutched at my chest for the goddess’s symbol. My hand came back empty, forgetting I’d hidden it beneath my shirt so I wouldn’t have to look, wouldn’t have to feel that sick pain. With every second being vital, my discomfort felt unforgivably selfish.
It took more than a moment to fish out the twisted carving. That moment saved my life, but doomed Tashan.
The second jet of flame came lower, streaking across the wooden floorboards, sizzling dirt and old paint. Mercilessly, it struck Tashan, spreading faster and stiking harder this time. His outline blurred in the heat, each pulse of the burning jet causing him to convulse, as though relentless fiery fists beat him. His second scream was weaker, resigned.
Over it I could hear my own sobs. I reached out helplessly.
When the fire passed, Tashan lay still. My prayers turned bitter in my mouth. No words I could say, no plea I could make, would bring life back to the body lying amid its own ashes.
A blessing for the departed came reflexively to mind, but self-preservation forced it back. The yard had gone silent.
More than twenty desperate-looking men and women trampled Miss Kindler’s grass. All were sad stories, their bottle knives and trash swords weapons of directionless revenge. They formed a semicircle around their leader, as if even in their stupors none dared come close.
She was a graveyard shadow, thin and macabre. Her dark veil and gown of black sashes couldn’t disguise her gaunt figure. She might have been dressed like a mourner, but nothing about her suggested sympathy. Gold jewelry studded every one of her dress’s tightly wound wraps, each a morbid collector’s piece. The most gruesome, though, she held like a fencer’s foil: a length of red metal, its tip red hot and faintly smoking.
“Miss Kindler, please come with me.” She spoke slowly, in an accent that I didn’t recognize, but that sounded cold and wet.
“The hell she—” Rarentz started. A touch from Miss Kindler cut him off.
“I assume we’re going to be out late.” Her voice was obscenely calm. “If that’s the case, you should know I don’t go out at night without my shawl.”
She looked at Rarentz and gestured at the door. “If you’d be so kind. It’s the blue one on the rack.”
Rarentz nodded. He seemed calmer all of a sudden, sparing me a quick look as he and took a step toward the door.
My wordless warning came too late. He turned only enough to make things worse. Spinning end over end, a bottle struck his temple. Mossy glass exploded and rained across peeling paint and ashes. Rarentz followed with a shudder that shook the porch’s old timbers.
Cursing, I knelt as quickly as the cheap glass allowed. Shards and blood matted his hair, a series of fresh gashes pouring red across his eye.
“That was uncalled for,” Miss Kindler said as I picked away the sharpest green shards.
“You’ll come now. No tricks.” The woman in black’s tone left no room for debate.
The old woman didn’t relent. “You’ve proven you have the upper hand. I could have asked for any of a hundred magical trinkets, but I don’t wish to see anyone else harmed. However, none of that changes the fact that I’m old and get cold easily. You can, of course, take me by force, but I’m clearly more fragile than I once was. So if you want to risk my going to pieces in your mob’s gentle hands, by all means, send them. Otherwise, I’ll have my shawl.”
I worked while Miss Kindler spoke. Rarentz’s wounds weren’t deep, but they were still bleeding. I worried for his eye. His lids were cinched shut, as though, even unconscious, he was squinting through the pain. Tiny bits of glass glinted at the corner. I worried there might be more inside.
This time, when I reached for my holy symbol, it was there. As soon as I grasped it, a wave of nausea poured over me. My own eye, the one the inquisitor had left his scar upon, filled with cold light beneath its bandage, the eerie blue of Pharasma’s power. My lips, parting to speak a healing prayer, snapped closed, just barely holding back an acidic surge of stomach juices.
Damn it. I’d hoped this would pass. Twice now I’d silently prayed that the sick feeling had been a reaction to what happened in Kavapesta. That Brother Abelard’s death was too fresh in my mind, that it was compounding the doubts I was already having. Maybe it was. Or maybe the goddess was denying me. Was I suddenly sickened by the goddess’s touch? Or was she sickened by mine?
My amulet dropped from my hands. It bounced on my chest. Rarentz still bled.
“Priestess.” The dark woman’s voice sounded like she’d whispered in my ear. “Get the old woman’s shawl. You have ten seconds.”
My surprised look darted from the shadow in the yard to Kindler’s expressionless face. I scrambled up, forcing myself not to look down at Tashan, and struggled with the door. I was in and out as fast as I could manage, emerging back onto the porch with a gaudy thing of robin’s-egg silk and sky-blue beads. It didn’t look very warm at all.
“Thank you, dear.” Miss Kindler accepted it and wrapped it around her shoulders. She spared a soft glance at Rarentz. “I trust you’ll look after him. Good help and all.”
Not waiting for my reply, she turned to the mob. The shawl
was longer in the back than I’d thought, falling down her back like a short cape. It fluttered lightly as she started down the steps, taking them even more slowly than before.
“Lead on, miss,” Miss Kindler said as she descended. “Though I do hope you’ve brought a coach. I’m afraid I don’t go anywhere especially fast these days.”
I could feel the frown beneath the stranger’s veil.
A long finger in mourner’s lace extended toward me. “Her as well.”
I started. Immediately, my knife was back in my hand. At least one part of my faith hadn’t abandoned me.
The army of beggars moved as one, their cacophony of jangles and clomping starting anew. Over the noise I could hear Miss Kindler. “You surely didn’t come for her. Take me and leave the girl be.”
“Our lord has a taste for the ironic. He will certainly have a use for a death priestess.”
The mob reached the bottom of the weathered stairs.
“Get back!” I shouted, rising to my feet with a wide slash, knowing the worthlessness of both warnings.
“Call them off, or your master will be terribly disappointed.” Over the press of stained hoods and matted hair I could see Miss Kindler arguing with the shadow. The woman in black was clearly ignoring her, her eyeless gaze on me.
My blade worked fast, using my higher ground to the best advantage I could. It worked the incisions of a Nidalese Eye Darkening, taking one pair of eyes, than another—as, in Nidal, the honored dead are granted the gift of eternal darkness. Hands clamped on my arms and I shrugged them off. One more swipe almost claimed another eye, but clammy palms prevented me from completing the ritual cuts. My struggling began with shouts to the goddess, but gave way to desperate kicking and curses.
Through the quiet throng I could still make out Miss Kindler bargaining with their leader for my life.
“Well, if you won’t be civil about this, then when you see your master, do tell him that I said to piss off.” With that, Miss Kindler laid a finger on the clasp of her shawl and popped like a soap bubble.
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