I told the guards everything—to protect the people.
And then they came.
I remembered the ruby blood more than anything else. I’d stared at the splatters of vibrant red on the white-painted walls. And I’d known… I’d known I had done the right thing.
Watching Shaianna dance inside the light showed me exactly how wrong I had been. I squeezed my eyes closed, not wanting to see, and let the tears fall. Fingernails digging into the bark, I gritted my teeth and willed the sickening guilt away. Magic is poison. But it was the Inner Circle’s lies that were poison.
A gunshot cracked through the quiet. Shaianna fell at the same time as a burning pain scorched my side, stealing my strength and dropping me to my knees. I looked for the rifleman as the green light fled, soaking into the earth and exposing dark figures moving toward where Shaianna lay.
Breathless, I grasped at the wound in my side, but the pain shied away. I had been shot before and knew exactly what this was. Yanking my shirt up revealed no wound—only smooth skin.
The wound I could feel wasn’t mine.
The bond. I hadn’t been shot. Shaianna had.
I was about to bolt from my crouch, when I saw the figures emerge from the other side of the tor. Four, no five of them, with two wargs. One of the men threw a net over Shaianna. Their laughter and lurid jeers echoed into the night. I couldn’t fight them.
I eased back into the tree cover, but I kept my eyes on the highwaymen. They gathered Shaianna in a motionless bundle and one by one disappeared over the rocks.
Facing down five men and two wargs would get me killed. But there was another way, a thief’s way. I checked my dagger, breathed through the phantom pain in my side, and set off after Shaianna.
Chapter Eight
The Draynes highwaymen had made camp at the mouth of the valley, where the steep moorland sides funneled into an area permanently drenched in darkness and dampness. Light rarely penetrated the heavy mist here.
A circle of caravans tucked into an old quarry left few vantage points. I’d taken up residence on a nearby jutting rock face, wedging my outline between two slabs of stone so as not to be seen. From my position, I had an excellent view of their camp, but no means of breaching it without them spotting me. A crescent of a dozen fires chased away any shadows I could have hidden in. Then there were the wargs, currently dozing beside the farthest caravan, bellies likely swollen with Boots’s and Ratsnest’s bodies.
I could make out a windowless caravan at the very back of the camp, tucked deep into the quarry face. The single door had been wedged shut with a timber brace. I could bet it was padlocked too. That had to be where they were keeping Shaianna. The lock wouldn’t be a problem, but getting past the men and their wargs would be.
I tucked the jeweled dagger between two rocks, hiding it from any wayward glint of rogue moonlight, and scuttled back, away from the edge and out of sight. At least I didn’t have to distress my clothing; I was already splattered with blood and filth—halfway to resembling a wild man of the moors. I ran my fingers across the lock-picking tools threaded into the seams of my coat and headed down into the valley.
The wargs noticed me first. Two of the three beasts sniffed at the air and then grumbled bowel-loosening growls. I lifted my hands and kept my shoulders low and chin dipped. “Ho there.”
Two men rushed through the campfire barricade. Their animal-hide cloaks bulked out their size, though they were still easily twice my weight. I dropped to my knees. “I mean no harm, sirs. No harm!”
Rough hands gripped my neck, another my arm, and they dragged me forward.
“I don’t wants no trouble. I’m hungry, is all. I be passing through. Can you spare some food for a wanderer? Or just let me warm me’self—”
A knee to the gut cut off my rambling. Hands did a quick search of my person—making me grateful I had left the dagger behind—and then they dropped me face first in the wet quarry gravel.
“Unarmed,” someone grunted.
They stomped back to their central fire pit and left me to pick myself up off the ground. I faced the five men who had taken Shaianna and one woman who eyed me with a healthy dose of suspicion. The woman wore furs and leather wrappings and had a weathered look about her. She reminded me of the stones we had passed, the ones leaning into the weather, surviving the worst the seasons had thrown at them.
“If he’s worthless,” she said, “might as well finish him off and feed him to the wargs.” She lifted an overcooked joint of meat to her lips and bit deep, tearing a mouthful off. My empty gut grumbled.
“I’s just passin’ through, m-ma’am,” I mumbled. “I got turned around in the mist. Don’t know which way is east. I won’t be no trouble. Just need a touch o’warmth in me bones.”
“You Brean?” she asked, sliding her shrewd stare over me, reading my clothes, my hair, my face, her appraisal like a slow, wet lick.
I gritted my teeth against an all-over shiver. “Was, once.” I ducked my head. “Not no more.”
She chewed noisily some more and then dangled the joint between her knees and sniffed. “What d’yah think, boys? Fresh meat?”
Someone howled a laugh, another grunted what sounded like a curse, and a third mumbled something about pretty boys and what he could do with them. I hoped I had heard wrong and kept my head down and stance meek.
She lapped up the hoots and jeers, nodding to herself, and then patted a stump beside her. “Come then. Tell us of your city, wanderer. We soon might be findin’ ourselves at their gates if the wargs have their way.”
A warg to my right grumbled as I inched forward. Having had one of these beasts recently chew on my shoulder, I was keen to keep as much distance between me and them as possible. Although the leering look from the woman seemed just as grotesquely hungry.
I settled myself on the stump and soaked up the fire’s warmth while I could. Their camp smelled like woodsmoke and a greasy odor that I hoped was nothing more ominous than sizzling animal fats.
Acting like a fearful wanderer was easy enough. A few quick glances here and there, and the rest of the time I kept my head down, but inside those quick glances, I counted the men, their weapons, the easiest exit route through the caravans. They had at least one rifle between them, the one they had used to shoot Shaianna. I could still feel the dull ache in my side, the pain reminding me of our bond. All the men wore hatchets at their hips. A few had short knives, but by the condition of the sheaths, I couldn’t imagine the blades were sharp. Still, a blade didn’t need to be sharp to kill.
“You’s people is low in the valleys …” I muttered, eyeing the rack of meat sizzling over the fire. I wet my lips and wiped them with the back of my hand.
“Where the wargs go, we go.”
“You don’t control thems?” I flinched when the wild woman reached out a hand, but she plucked a joint from the rack and handed it out to me.
“My name is Jodelle,” she said.
“Thanks to you and yours.” I took the joint and bit down, not needing to pretend I was starved.
“Few control the wild things of the moors,” she said. “I do my best, but the beasts are restless. Never seen ’em so before.”
My mouth watered around the meat, and I forgot my questions in my need to fill my belly.
“Do not trust the woman, thief.” I paused my chewing, startled to hear Shaianna’s voice inside my head.
“The woman and her words cannot be trusted. Her thoughts are black—” The mental conversation cut off so abruptly I was left blinking into the fire, thoughts vacant and quiet.
“Did you happenchance see a woman on the moors, traveler?” Jodelle asked, leaning in closer.
“A woman? No, only you,” I replied.
“Mm …” She tossed her bone into the fire and licked the juices from her fingers. “You’ll not long survive alone here, wanderer. These lands are restless. Our road takes us to Brea. You should move on, before the gods of the moor claim you. Or we do.” Jodelle’s sm
ile was like that of the wargs, sharp and hungry. A few of her men chuckled.
“There ain’t no gods here. Just mist and cold.” I concentrated on picking my joint clean and avoided eye contact.
“They watch, and they listen, traveler. Did you pay your fee to pass through the Draynes?”
“Aye,” I replied, remembering my little stone in the pile of hundreds.
“Then you believe.”
I wasn’t about to argue that my belief was based more on tradition than faith. “Do they protect you and your men, ma’am?”
She must have sensed something lacking in my words, because she smiled. “You Brean city folk inside your high walls, you forget your history. You bury it under your self-worth. They know, the Restless Ones. They always know. And one day soon, they will rest no more.”
“You believe it?”
“I know it. My mother was a moorswoman. There are few left who know the truth of the gods.”
“She has the rifle beside her and a pistol inside her coat. Take both now. They plan to molest and kill you once they are certain you are alone.”
I swallowed hard, forcing the suddenly dry bite of meat down, and casually noted how the men had stilled. Either they were engrossed in Jodelle’s tale, or they were readying to strike.
“Jodelle …” I began. “It’s not the restless gods you should be concerned with.”
Her eyes widened. She dropped her joint and reached inside her coat. I lunged, slipped my quick hands inside, and yanked a pistol free. I had it cocked and pointed at her forehead before any of her men could let fly their hatchets or reach for the rifle.
Silence descended, broken only by the crackling fire.
I glared into Jodelle’s rheumy eyes. I had planned to infiltrate the camp, sneak away once they were asleep, pick the caravan lock, and escape with Shaianna. That plan now looked unlikely. A hostage was the next best alternative. “You have a friend of mine. Set her free. Let us leave. Nobody need die.”
Jodelle’s smile broke into a grin, and then she cackled. “A friend, you say?” She rose to her feet, laughing harder. The wicked roll of it drifted across the camp. “You do not look like the killing type, wanderer.”
I got to my feet with her, keeping the pistol aimed between her eyes. “Many have made that their last thought.”
Her cackle died, and with it went the humorous glint in her eyes, darkening them. Her wrinkled lips twisted like slugs drying in the sun. “You can’t see it, can you? Blind, you are, like all men. Oh, you poor fool. She plays you. You’d do well to turn that pistol on yourself and end it here before more perish. There is no life without death.”
I licked my lips and glanced at the highwaymen creeping closer. The wargs stirred, roused out of their stupor, but made no move to attack. Jodelle’s rambling was no doubt designed to unsettle me. It had the same ring as what the old man from the plaza had said. It seemed I had a new talent for attracting the crazies.
“Come.” I gave the pistol a flick. “Unlock her wagon. We’ll leave you and your men be.”
Jodelle’s smile never truly left her lips as she moved around the tree stumps and strode ahead. I stayed beside her, keeping the pistol on her while my gaze flicked between her men and the caravan.
“Tell me what lies she has spun for you,” Jodelle crooned, bizarrely delighted by the fact I held a pistol to her head.
“Stop talking.”
“Did she speak of your destiny, perhaps?”
I smiled. “My destiny? A man like me has no destiny. Yours will end here if you fail to do as I say.”
“Mayhap she has lured you in close with the promise of riches?”
We reached the caravan. I kicked out the timber brace and urged her up the steps. “Unlock it.”
She sank her hand into her pocket and removed a key. “All men have weaknesses. She would have found yours the moment you met. She sees who you truly are, more so than you see yourself.”
“Woman, your twittering is not helping the itch in my finger. Unlock the door.”
She cupped the rusted padlock and pushed the key inside. “You will remember my words in your final moments, and you will make a choice. You will make the wrong choice, thief. Your kind always does.”
There was no time for me to consider how she knew I was a thief. The lock clicked open, and Shaianna burst from the wagon, springing at Jodelle. The old woman and the sorceress went down in a tumble, the fray punctured by the woman’s screams. A hatchet strummed into the wagon—too close to my head. I spun, aimed the pistol at the first oncoming brute, and fired. The weapon bucked, the impact jerked him back, and another took his place.
I pulled the trigger again. The pistol clicked. The hunter snarled and raised his hatchet. I tossed the pistol in the air, caught it barrel first, and smiled. A curious, not unpleasant thrill buzzed through me. I should have been afraid. The men were too many, the space too cramped, and we were backed against a quarry wall, but fear didn’t touch this sensation—if anything, it heightened it. My hand itched to pummel the man’s face in with the butt of the pistol. I could already see the action as he came forward. He would die alongside the others. They would all die. Burn them to dust—
Not my thoughts. The truth hit just as the highwayman was about to. I froze and heard Shaianna’s voice rise. A rush of warm wind tore past me. The wargs surged in, but not for me. One slammed into the highwayman, knocking him face down. It buried its muzzle in the man’s neck, cutting off his screams as quickly as they’d begun, and then it abandoned the body to dive back into the slaughter.
In the madness, the farthest wagon had caught fire, and flames devoured its contents. The fire leaped from one wagon to another. The wind gusted through the camp, swirling the flames higher and toying with the screams of dying men. Beside me, Shaianna appeared, standing tall and still—icy. Firelight glittered in her eyes. Jodelle’s body cooled at her feet. She had lost her cloak, shrinking her appearance, but there was nothing vulnerable about the way she had launched from the wagon, nor in the way she admired the chaos unfolding around us.
She turned her head to me. “Let death have them. It is all they deserve.”
Chapter Nine
After retrieving my dagger and hers, we trekked in silence through the mist for much of the following day, only speaking briefly to decide on the best route through the valley. I had queried Shaianna about the wargs and whether they would track us. She had smiled fondly and told me they had no intention of hunting us down. I hadn’t asked who they were hunting instead. It was probably best I didn’t know.
As we walked, I wondered again what I was doing with this woman. The lure of the Dragon’s Eye and the wretched bond prevented me from leaving her. Without those, I would have shrugged her off long ago, or so I told myself. Trapped as I was, I trudged beside her, thoughts shifting between the images of her embraced by magic and how she had smiled as the wargs had torn into the highwaymen. Now I had new memories of screams in the flames to join those I already harbored.
Jodelle’s words, and those of the old man in the plaza, haunted me, drifting through my mind like the mist settling on the ground around us. From the moment Shaianna appeared in the alley, my world had become a whirl of magic, truths, regrets, and lies. Mine, and maybe hers. I’d heard her voice in my mind and felt the elated rush as she killed. My gut told me none of this was right—and neither was she. But it didn’t have to be right. I just needed the valuable Eye.
As night approached, we set up camp beside a stream. The gurgling water against the silent sentinel trees soothed some of my frayed nerves.
“You are quiet, thief.” She sat at the edge of the stream, twirling her fingers in the water, and didn’t look up as she spoke.
“What is there to say?” I pulled my coat around me and stared at the water tripping over and around rocks.
“How much farther is Arach?”
“Another day. There’s a town near the ruins. We should stop there tomorrow, resupply, and find some fre
sh horses.” I needed some decent food in my belly, a wash, and a few tankards of ale to erase the trail of bodies in our wake.
She didn’t respond to that, just twirled her fingers in the water. “They deserved to die.”
“No doubt.” I had plenty of doubts, but I kept them to myself.
“You’re unhappy.”
I chuckled, kicked a few loose rocks aside from a patch of mossy earth and sat against a larger, lichen covered rock. “There is very little here to make me happy, princess.”
“You’re afraid.” She looked up, “Of me,” she added. A touch of sadness dwelled in her expression.
“I used to have a dream,” I said. “When I was very small. One of those dreams that comes night after night. I was falling, but not waking up. Falling through the dark, and it was quiet. So quiet I only heard my heart and something that sounded like fluttering wings or fire—I never did discover which. The fear grew, all around, closing in. Eventually, I would hit the ground and die. But that wasn’t what I feared the most.” I paused. After all this time, the memory of that dream still had the power to quicken my heart and dry my mouth.
She sat up and drew her knees against her chest, clutching them close. Her eyes were wide. I couldn’t remember seeing them so green.
“What did you fear more than dying?” she asked.
“I wasn’t alone while I fell. Someone else was always there. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their eyes on me. They were powerful. They controlled the air through which I fell. They could have helped me, but never did. They just watched, and that frightened me the most. What kind of person watches another die and does nothing?”
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 7