Aeryn stopped cold in the street on the other side.
“Bloody blasted flaming pile of—“
“Shut up,” Aeryn hissed. Jynx had sprung ahead and was pacing back and forth, sniffing the ground. Someone or something—Aeryn shuttered at the thought of facing a Shade or Shadow head on—had passed this way recently.
“No, I will not bloody shut up. Do you know how much coin is back there? It’s just bloody sitting there. Anyone could walk up and grab it. Just like that.” He snapped and made as if to pick a bag from the ground. “I’m not paying you for—”
“Shut. Up.” Aeryn grabbed Will’s jaw and pointed at Jynx, who now prowled about sniffing at the air. Oh yes, something was out there all right.
Will’s face drained of color. “Maybe it’ll still be there tomorrow night,” he whispered to himself then finally, blissfully, quieted.
They made it all of twenty paces in silence.
“Ow!”
About ready to gag him, Aeryn spun and found Will hopping on one foot, hand holding the other in a tight grip.
“What?” Aeryn asked.
“I stubbed my toe.”
Aeryn shook her head and took off once more, trying to stick to the darker shadows, away from prying eyes.
“Slow down,” he said at her back, feet scuffing against stone. “I can’t see a foot in front of me.”
No time to wonder if he had looked too long into the house’s lighted interior, brained himself with a rock, or had simply gone insane over the idea of leaving so much loot behind, Aeryn grabbed his arm and pulled him along. She had their makeshift walkway propped up against the Lord’s Wall when a cry from a passing patrol sounded.
Jynx snarled and cut it off with a pounce before it had echoed off the nearest building. The lantern held aloft by the lead man crashed to the ground. Oily red flames licked at boots and buildings alike. Screams cut through the night.
“Don’t just stare, go!” Will said and pushed Aeryn up the ladder.
Sure, now that Jynx was in trouble he found his spine. Aeryn followed after. The moment she hit the top of the wall, she let out a shrill whistle. She turned and extended her hand. Will took it and scrambled up. Still no Jynx.
Aeryn whistled again.
A growl and a quickly cut off scream answered. Will began to pull up the plank.
“No! He might need it,” Aeryn said. Jynx had just saved him yet again—something he would conveniently forget by tomorrow—and this was how he wanted to repay the draven? By abandoning him?
“I have to. They’ll follow us.”
“Jynx!” Aeryn shouted. She held Will’s hand firmly in place and whistled again. “Jynx!”
“Hey you!” The heavy boots of armed and armored soldiers clanked toward them from either side of the wall. “Stop!”
“Shadows!” came a chorus of shouts from the ground. Outstretched arms silhouetted by the moon, many holding swords, pointed their direction.
“Forget this,” Will said. Shaking free, he hauled the ladder up and rolled it to the other side. “We’re out of time.” He pulled Aeryn over the four pace drop with him. They landed hard.
Shock lanced up Aeryn’s legs and into her spine. It took effort to rise. Effort made all the more difficult by her stomach gnawing itself to pieces trying to recoup some of the energy expended during their flight.
The screams behind died down just enough for a few coherent shouts to carry over the wall.
“Go after it!”
“Are you bloody crazy? It’s a blasted Shadow.”
“Send a runner to the Voices. We need Shades. Now!”
“And Voices!”
Aeryn breathed the smallest sigh of relief. Those shouts had clearly been directed at Jynx. That meant he had escaped. If he had escaped, he was alive and well enough to walk. If he could walk, he could elude a couple of soldiers who were night-blinded by the fire now beginning to rage from the spilled lantern.
“There,” shouted the soldiers atop the wall. More arms holding bare steel rose and thrust in their direction.
Aeryn limped after Will with all the speed she could muster. She wanted to go back for Jynx, but what was the use if it cost her her life? Jynx could see just as well in the dark as everyone else could at high noon. If anyone could get away, it was him. Only. . .
Aeryn began to worry about how much strength Jynx had to flee and hide. He had not had much more food than she had, and one of the soldiers could have wounded him.
Between each step, each raised shout, and each passing moment, her worry grew. She did not know what she would do if she lost the draven she had raised from an abandoned pup.
Aeryn stopped cold. She ducked into a side alley as quickly and silently as she could. She let her mind wander, willing herself to be one with the darkness. With her throbbing legs and burning stomach it was easier said than done.
“Aeryn?” Will called out when he realized she was no longer trailing. “Aeryn? Where are you?” His voice seesawed in and out as buildings came between them. “Aeryn!”
She stayed silent, working to calm her breathing while tracing her way back to the Lord’s Wall. Jynx needed her help, Will did not. Besides, the street urchin that fancied himself a kingly merchant of filched goods would only get in the way.
As she faded from one darkened alley to another, sticking to the shadows the entire way, Aeryn searched for Jynx. Though the night had never looked clearer and brighter, and all the colors flashed to their inverse, she only had eyes for her missing draven. Threading through the streets was easy, if oddly unnerving; if she had not known better, she would have thought the sun had risen. Not that she complained. She had her best friend to find.
“My lord,” Reeve asked, “are you sure it’s safe?”
Safe? No. Necessary? Absolutely. “Show me what you’ve found so far,” Merek said, shuttering the window after hearing the dull thunk of the package he had dropped to the ground a moment ago.
“But, my lord,” Reeve’s mouth dropped open in an over-zealous display of protest, “with your generous tithes, surely the Voices will take a personal interest. This is a job for their Shades. Shadows are lurking about. It would be best for you to stay inside where it’s safe. I’ll send for—”
“Reeve?” Merek interrupted the chamberlain’s diatribe.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Stop talking and show me what you’ve found.”
Reeve bobbed his head. “Yes, my lord. If my lord will follow me?”
Motioning Reeve on, Merek followed as the chamberlain scurried away. He hated to use too firm a hand—servants were happiest, and thus worked the fastest and with the fewest complaints, when handled gently. Sometimes however, there was simply no other option. Right now, time was of the essence. Even if Merek believed a tenth of his servants’ stories, a Shadow had been in his house tonight. A Shadow! At least, it obviously had not been a Shade; his head would not be connected to his shoulders in that case. Although there was still a very real chance of him meeting the headsman if he did not find the Shadow quickly.
“. . .footsteps lead over the wall there,” Reeve said, pointing with a boney finger. “But the real find was in the shrubs where they stashed—“
“Leave me.”
“My lord?”
Merek turned his head. Though Reeve was unfazed by the growing blood-red inferno a few blocks down, and the steadily increasing buzz of soldiers visible in the light of the moon, the man jumped to obey at the look in Merek’s eyes.
As soon as the exterior servants’ door clicked shut, Merek walked briskly to ground beneath his bedroom window and picked up the small bundle he had tossed out a minute earlier. Stuffing it under his armpit, he made his way to the shrubs. He did not bother with the stashed loot except to check and see if his dagger was there. It was not.
Concealed behind a wall of green, he shrugged off his heavily embroidered cloak and dropped it to the ground. His rings went on top, followed by his boots, tunic, shirt and breech
es. Rolling up the contents, he stuffed it into a small hole beneath a tree and kicked dirt over it. It would not stay hidden with the rising sun, but he planned to be back long before then. Drifting in daylight was suicide.
Unfurling the bundle under his arm, he donned the plain wool tunic and breeches and stepped into the leather slippers.
He concentrated and Drifted. Melding with the darkness, the world gradually brightened until he could see every bit as clearly as at high noon. Colors went with it. Fading first to gray, they eventually popped back, only this time the inverse of what they were normally.
Hopping the wall, he strode down the center of the street beneath a black moon toward the roaring blue-green flames.
“Spread out. Check every nook and cranny. The Voices want them found.”
“Yes, sir,” came a chorus of responses, followed a moment later by the sounds of heavy boots on cobbles.
Merek jumped back, out of the way of the invisible men. He cursed his carelessness. If he stopped thinking, he might as well go hand himself over to the Shades, Voices, or—he shuddered at the thought—Nameless himself.
He Drifted back, dimming the world by slivers until the soldiers materialized into ghostly gray apparitions, barely opaque enough to make out their torsos.
This time when he started walking, making his way to the outer wall where the fighting had occurred, he kept tightly against the far side of the street. However the soldiers appeared to him would be exactly how he would look to them. That was the balance with Drifting. Light became dark; dark became light. So too did things once seen become invisible and vice versa.
The sight of the dead soldier, charred now, his throat ripped out and hanging in ragged strings of flesh, sinew and meat, all pooled in dried blood, spurred Merek to a trot. Weaponless or not, he had to find the Shadow that had broken into his house.
A ghostly gray form strode confidently down the middle of the street. Dressed as his twin, this man had a pair of long daggers at his belt.
Merek skittered to a stop. He ducked into an alley fast as he could without making a sound.
A slow, anxious count to a hundred and he peeked out. The Shade was nowhere in sight. He did not breathe a sigh of relief at escaping unseen. Rather, he quickened his pace to a run at the thought of what would happen should the Voices—the Shades’ superiors, or God forbid, Nameless himself—learn what he stored in the cubby next to his bedroom.
2
Celebration
Aeryn.” The voice was distant. “Aeryn.” Closer. “Aeryn, get up.” A hand accompanied it this time, lightly shaking her shoulders.
Reality crashed home. Aeryn snapped her eyes open. She looked around frantically, bits of hay flying from her hair. “Did you find him? Is he here?”
Rickon shook his head. “No. He never came in. Oh, Aeryn. I’m so sorry.” Pulling her to her feet, he enfolded her in a choking hug. “I know how much Jynx meant to you.”
She pushed away. “He’s not dead. And I’m not giving up on him.”
Casting one last glance in either direction, hoping against hope that Jynx would saunter into view, Aeryn walked outside and began to brush herself off. Mostly to keep her mind busy. After searching all night and most of the morning with nothing to show for it but aching feet, she had finally collapsed in exhaustion in the barn Rickon stabled only a few hours ago.
She had been sure Jynx would be sleeping at her side in the morning. First and foremost, it was situated at the base of the Lord’s Wall, a stone’s throw from where she had seen him last. A close second, Jynx, with his superior sense of smell, should have been able to locate her crisscrossed trail with ease. Of course, his sense would be less useful the closer he got to the stable and the overpowering stench of horse and mule that emanated from within, but he had been here enough times for it to be familiar. In any case, it was a far cry easier for him to hobble here than to drag himself to the rickety shack by the Slum’s Wall they called home.
“Did you really get past God’s Gate and into Nameless’ castle like Will said?” Rickon asked. His eyes glazed over as he continued. “Was it like in the stories? Did you see any Shades? What about Voices? Did you hear any? Or Nameless?” His eyes lighted like a street urchin who, digging through refuse, found a gold coin. “I’ve always wanted to serve Nameless and his disciples. It would be a dream come true.”
Aeryn scoffed. He of all people should know that no one—no man at least—walked through God’s Gate. He should also know better than to trust a word of Will’s wild stories. “If Jynx is not here, then why did you wake me?” she asked, all the while pulling hay from places it had no right to be.
“Nameless,” Rickon said as though it explained everything.
Aeryn gave him a blank stare. “Um, ok?” What did the God that ruled Maerilin have to go with anything?
“Shades, Voices, and. . . Oh come on, Aeryn! It’s the week-long anniversary celebration of Nameless’ rule!” The cask uncorked, he began to pick up steam. “Can you believe it? Only one more year until the thousand year anniversary! It’s incredible. A thousand years!”
“Right. . .” Aeryn said. “Sorry, my head’s a little fuzzy from the lack of sleep.”
“Come on.” Rickon positively bounced with energy. “The celebrations start in an hour. We need to get moving if we’re to get a good spot.”
Aeryn’s stomach rumbled. “Rickon, I can’t go.”
He looked at her as though she had just committed sacrilege. “Why not?”
Her stomach rumbled again, this time loud enough for him to hear over the neighing horses and mewing foals. “That’s why,” Aeryn said. Though her insides burned from the lack of food, she had grown somewhat accustomed to it—well, at least as much as any starving street urchin could. That was only half the reason. The other half, and something she was not accustomed to, was the idea of Jynx out there, curled up and bleeding out, alone.
“Oh.” Rickon thought for a moment. “Well I’ve saved a little bit of coin. I’ll buy you a meat pie along the way. But we have to get moving—“
Aeryn stomped her foot down. “I’m not abandoning Jynx.” Especially not to see some soldiers, a Shade or two, and hear a Voice speak. She had not done so since she was a child and was not about to start now. Besides, it was not as if Nameless’ disciples would be helping her anytime soon; she had not paid her tithes in years.
“Fine,” Rickon said. “I’ll help you look for Jynx along the way. But that means we really must be moving. With an hour to go, and stopping along the way to. . .” he worked backwards, counting off the time on his fingers. He reached zero and his eyes widened. “Come on! We have to go! There will be barely enough time to get there and get a good spot. If I’m late and don’t get to hear the Voice speak. . .” By the look on his face, missing that was tantamount to treason. Rickon grabbed Aeryn’s arm and pulled her along.
Aeryn stumbled after, knees weak from hunger, eyes glazed from exhaustion of staying up the entire night. Once Rickon got in this mood, there was no stopping the pudgy boy. Especially not when it came to Nameless or the God’s disciples; he worshipped them as though an army of Shadows stood poised to invade Maerilin at any second. Aeryn had planned to spend all day looking for Jynx, but if she could not think straight because of her grumbling stomach, or see straight because of her sagging eyelids, perhaps a break to listen to the Voice’s speak would be best in the long run. A short break, that was.
Along the way, Aeryn shook out the dust that had filtered through her sparse clothing. She got some of it out at any rate. She would need to bathe to get the rest, but she could not even remember the last time she had done so. Her leaky “roof” usually took care of bathing for her, like it or not.
A quick bite, a search that barely counted as such, and Rickon was pushing through the crowded streets, Aeryn’s forearm firmly in his grasp. Belittling his size, Rickon bounded onto stoops, jumping up and down to peer beyond the backs of heads. “Argh,” he exclaimed after hopping off the sp
oke of a wagon wheel. “The whole square is filled. There is nowhere close left.”
“That’s too bad,” Aeryn said. “I guess we’ll have to search for Jynx instead.” Not that she expected to find the draven in broad daylight—Jynx vastly preferred the cloaking darkness of night—but two sets of eyes were better than one. At least until night fell; once that happened, Rickon would then be every bit as blind as Will. She would be better off searching on her own.
“Wait— I think— Yes! Come on.” Rickon pulled Aeryn along. “There’s a small spot at the back by the chandler’s place. It’ll be hard to see, but it’s leagues better than where we are now.”
It would be hard to see? The square was five blocks by three and flat as an anvil’s face. Seeing anything past ten paces would be impossible. More than that. . . “Rickon, what do you expect to see? You said yourself that it’ll be a Voice speaking. It’s not as if you can see them. Not unless you have somehow become a Shadow in the last few days. . .”
“A Shadow? Never.” Rickon glared.
“Fine. A Shade, whatever,” Aeryn said with a smirk.
“Me? I’m not holy enough. There’s the opening. Let’s go,” He conveniently ignored the contradiction of seeing a Voice. As he squeezed into the spot, the crowd began rumbling, then rapidly changed to the buzzing of whispers.
“What is it?” Rickon asked everyone within earshot.
“The Voice is here,” said one man to the right.
“Surrounded by a trio of Shades,” added a woman on the left.
“And with an entire company of soldiers,” finished another.
Shaking his hands as if a hot coal had flown up his sleeve, Rickon turned circles, jumping as he did. “There!” He pulled Aeryn further back and up onto the bed of a wagon. Stuck in the crowd, its driver had completely given up on the never-ending task of keeping people away.
From the new vantage point, Aeryn could see clear across the square. At the far end, on a raised dais set against the wall aside Lord’s Gate, a knot of soldiers in gleaming steel surrounded a patch of human-shaped dark gray mist. Shades. The Voice moved to the front. The only reason she could tell was by the slight parting of the mist as they moved to make way. A voice boomed out from that opening.
Shadowborn Page 3