Way Walkers: Tangled Paths (The Tazu Saga)

by Leigh, J.

  One morning, Ass’shiri said, “We need to decide what to do.”

  “I have family in the market district,” Ishane suggested. “But it’s a far walk with all this”—she waved a hand—“madness.”

  Jathen looked up. “The Tazu Embassy.”

  Ishane blinked either in surprise over the suggestion or at his first words in days. “That’s all the way in the national capital, Jathen. The trains are down. We could be walking for weeks.”

  Jathen shook his head. “My mother will send half an army to give aid and look for me.”

  “He’s got a point,” Ass’shiri said. Dark, purple shadows lay under his lavender eyes.

  He can’t be Feeding enough, Jathen guessed, but said nothing.

  “Then the best course would be to head for the capitol building here and declare yourself,” Ishane said. She bit her lip. “But you will have to prove you are the Monortith prince. I’m not sure how many Republic humans understand what a moot is.”

  He slipped the Monortith ring and seal, still clean and shiny on its platinum chain, out from beneath his shirt. “This is all I need.” Reading her face, he said, “You aren’t coming with us, are you?”

  She hung her head. “No. There is a group heading over to the merchant district with supplies. They say it was hard hit, and I want to see if my relatives are well.” She put a hand on his arm. “I don’t want to leave you, but they may be all I have left in the Republic.”

  “We could go with you,” Jathen suggested.

  “No, Jathen, really. You said it yourself. There will be people looking for you, Tazu looking for you. There have already been several teleports in from the Great Gate. They may be searching even now. You have a responsibility to be found.”

  “She’s right, Jath.” Ass’shiri shot her a protective look, fast and accurate as his crossbow. “But you shouldn’t be wandering these streets alone, either, Ishane.”

  “I won’t be,” she said. “I’m heading down with the supply group, remember?”

  “Please,” Jathen said, his eyes threatening tears once again. “Be careful.”

  “I will.” She put on a brave face then handed him a slip of paper. “This is the address of the park where the shelter is. If I’m not there, I’ll be at my relatives’ home, which I’ve included as well. But I’ll check in with the shelter if I’m too long. Once you’ve been found, I’m sure you can recruit a few of your kinsmen to fly down there, and then we’ll be together again.”

  “Together?”

  “Of course.” She clasped his hands. “If it wasn’t for my family, I’d stay.”

  It hurt to watch her go, and Jathen had to exert a considerable amount of willpower to swallow it. The feeling settled hard in his stomach. If not for Ass’shiri, he may very well have gone mad.

  “Come on, Jath,” Ass’shiri said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve half a city of dangers to traverse, and I don’t want to be stuck without shelter when dusk comes.”

  As they walked, a crumbling Fauve surrounded them on all sides. A range of mortal kindness and cruelty was showcased across the avenues. On one corner, Daughters of Desmoulein had set up camp, treating long lines of the walking injured with dignity and care. Two streets over, men pulled rotting corpses from the rubble, only to line them up in a row so children could strip their valuables: jewelry, money, even shoes and clothes.

  They walked for several hours. Occasionally, they ran into people who needed help, but for the most part, they only directed them to where they knew Walkers were. But when they found two crying children wandering among the rubble, they escorted them to the nearest refugee camp.

  Three and a half blocks past the camp, Ass’shiri stopped. “Hey, Jathen, look.” He pointed down an alley. “Real Tazu!”

  Jathen caught a glimpse of scales at the opposite end of the narrow lane, and more importantly, the shiny purple and gold of Monortith military uniforms. “Thank Spirit. Come on. Let’s go say hello.” They walked toward the guards, mindful of the unstable buildings on either side of the alley.

  “Gladly.” Ass’shiri wiped some grime from his face. “I’ve had more than my fill of these streets.”

  Getting closer, Jathen recognized all too easily one of the three Tazu soldiers—copper scales and crimson markings. “Wonderful,” he muttered in Clan. “Good old Skaniss here to save the moot. This will be just lovely.”

  “Skaniss?” Ass’shiri asked, waving as they were spotted by the Tazu. “Isn’t he the one who hates you?”

  “Yeah,” Jathen said. “Not my favorite person to see right now, but he’s still captain of the guard. I’m sure he’ll never let me live it down, though.”

  “You know the guy with the scar? I don’t like his face.”

  Jathen looked at the Tazu Ass’shiri meant. The soldier followed closely behind Skaniss, keeping his head down. Jathen thought the man’s iron-black scales were familiar, but he couldn’t place him. “No, I don’t recognize him.”

  When the two groups met, Skaniss spoke first, using their native tongue. “Well, well, well.” He looked far too smug amid so much devastation. “Look what the Red went and dragged in! Disaster just seems to follow you, eh, Moot?”

  A rumble of laughter came from his cronies, but it stopped abruptly when Ass’shiri loaded his crossbow with an intimidating click.

  “You would take a national tragedy and turn it into a depraved joke at my expense, Skaniss,” Jathen said in Tar’cil for Ass’shiri’s benefit. “If you won’t have some respect for the Lu’shun and human dead, then have some for our kin who died thirty years ago. An employee of the crown should be able to spare that much.”

  A spark of surprise registered in the huge Tazu’s copper eyes. “Well, all the same.” He shot Ass’shiri a measuring and nervous glance then issued what sounded like a friendly order in Tar’cil. “You can be on your way. We got his majesty from here on out.”

  “I stay with Jath,” Ass’shiri declared, though he did pitch his crossbow at a slightly less threatening angle. “Until the end.”

  “Well, that’s going to be today,” Skaniss said. “Now!”

  The soldiers charged. Jathen was almost useless in the fight, as the steel-scaled Tazu immediately grabbed him and pulled his arms behind his back. Ass’shiri fought hard and nasty, despite losing his crossbow to Skaniss, but all his Clan-quick punching and clawing was useless once Jathen was seized.

  “Calm down, little Clansman,” Skaniss said, “or I’ll rip the Moot’s head off and shove it down your throat.”

  “Skaniss, what the ruddy hell do you think you are doing?” Jathen demanded.

  Skaniss twirled Ass’shiri’s crossbow as the other soldier restrained Ass’shiri. “What I should have done years ago—disposing of some gutter-dwelling, low-blood, corrupted trash.”

  “Are you mad?” Jathen sputtered. Skaniss hated him, had threatened him, and was a general menace, but to actually kill him? He couldn’t quite fathom it, and yet, somewhere in the back of his mind, he chided himself for being so surprised. “You will never get away with this. People will know!”

  The steel-scaled Tazu grabbed Jathen’s hair and yanked his head back. “Did you forget about me?”

  Jathen looked up at him—green-blue eyes and a large white scar. A cold feeling of dread washed over him.

  “Yeah, you remember,” Scarface snarled. “This is repayment for that bit of humiliation, moot.” He punched Jathen hard in the stomach, making him stagger. “And the chair over my head.”

  Skaniss smirked. “See, Moot? I’m not the only pure-blood who’s had to suffer under your inferior status. No one’s going to know. No one’s going to confess to anything other than never finding you. We did search so hard and long, after all.” He gestured at Jathen’s arm. “Get the ward off of him.” Scarface ripped Jath
en’s watch from his wrist. “Besides,” Skaniss continued, “we’ll need some extra proof that he’s dead, as I don’t intend for his Moot face to be very recognizable when I’m done.”

  With a flourish, Scarface dropped the watch on the ground and drove his booted heel into the face until it shattered. “Don’t look so sad, prince,” he taunted. “You’ll be joining it soon enough.”

  Deep within his pit of numbing sorrow, some part of Jathen broke like the watch, shattering the self-pity and pain. The ember in his chest sparked, burning off the numbness of grief and replacing it with an old friend—rage. Also came the razor’s edge of clarity, events and circumstances all ticking away in his head, finding pattern and meaning. He leveled his gaze on Skaniss. “Was it you?”

  Blinking , Skaniss asked, “Was what me?”

  “The fire, you son of a slaga!” Jathen hissed. “I saw a dark shape run from the building before the rafters fell. Was it you?”

  “Ha!” Skaniss looked genuinely confused. “Some rubble fall on your head, Moot?”

  “Did Kyanith order this?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Skaniss grinned. “Spirit knows he’s going to benefit from my little vendetta, though I know I would relish the chance to tell my father I was the one to dispatch his little pink-skinned nuisance.”

  “Father?” Jathen gaped at him and started to back up, but he ran into the wall of Scarface’s chest. “Kyanith is your father?”

  Skaniss shook his head. “You never did see past your stubby little nose, did you, Moot? It shall be my utmost pleasure to stare into your father’s eyes and tell him you’re dead. I might be forbidden to touch him, but by Spirit, I will break him with this.”

  My father? How does this ruddy slaga dung eater know who my father is? Rage and shock collided in Jathen’s chest. He squelched the desire to spit into Skaniss’s face. Instead, Setsuken’s pressure point lessons ticked across Jathen’s mind: jugular, elbow, shin nerve, solar plexus.

  Bracing his back against Scarface, Jathen brought both legs up and kicked Skaniss in the solar plexus. Skaniss let out a loud huff as the air left his chest, and he flew backward into the wall. The huge Tazu was too much for the crumbling pink brick. A creak then a rumbling crash was followed by the clattering of Ass’shiri’s crossbow skidding across the cobblestones.

  Jathen strained with all his might to get away from Scarface. He felt as though the Tazu might shatter both his arms. He heard a click and a yell, then another click, click. The pressure on his arms vanished as Scarface collapsed. Turning, Jathen saw a single bolt implanted in the scarred eye, almost as if Ass’shiri had chosen to finish what another foe had started.

  Ass’shiri grabbed Jathen’s arm. “I only killed the one. Come on!”

  They ran out of the alley and cut sideways to head down another narrow street.

  “Don’t shift! Don’t shift!” Skaniss yelled. “It’s too conspicuous, but for the love of your life, catch them!”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to stop and shoot them?” Jathen asked when he heard the soldiers stumbling behind them.

  “I dropped the damn bolts!” Ass’shiri said. “And I had already lost most of them when the shop went up!”

  “You are completely out of crossbow bolts?”

  “No. I’ve got one more clip, but it’s in my boot, and I’m not stopping long enough to fish it out! So run!”

  The chase took up the better part of an hour, but they eventually lost their pursuers by ducking into an open sewer grate. It was wet and reeked of refuse, but it was safe.

  “Well, so much for getting found.” Ass’shiri sighed and sat on a chunk of dislodged cement. “And just when I didn’t think we could have any more problems.”

  Jathen perched on another piece of slimy cement. “Yeah, well, if there’s one thing Skaniss is good for, it’s causing problems.”

  “Did you understand what he was talking about? That stuff about him and your father? I mean, I thought you didn’t know your father.”

  “I don’t know who his is. But the idea that Skaniss, of all people, would…” Jathen shook his head. “I could take a few good guesses, but in the end, I’m more concerned about whether my dear uncle Kyanith ordered that little attempt on my life or not.”

  “Understood.” Heat flashed in Ass’shiri’s lavender eyes. “Do you really think Skaniss killed Hatori and Jeph?”

  Past the moment of passion, Jathen gave a little shrug. “I don’t know, Ass’shiri. I feel like a hatchling chasing its tail. There have been too many oddities, too many things I can’t explain. And Hatori, right before everything…” He lowered his head, dejected. “He told me there was something he wanted to tell me, something he’d been suspecting for a while now. I swear I saw a figure in the flames, running, but it might have been in my head. I just… I don’t know what to think.”

  “I think that you’ve been unsettled since we set foot in this ruddy country. And there’ve been a lot of thieves. And fires. And just because Hatori was paranoid as hell, it doesn’t mean someone wasn’t out to get him. Or you, apparently.”

  Jathen straightened, a horrified thought coming to him. “Ishane. We need to get to her.”

  “I think it would be better to go to Nosalia,” Ass’shiri said. “If Hatori trusted her, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say she’ll take us in. Besides, this city is not safe right now.”

  “Even so, the trains are still down, and the roads are a mess. Do you really want to roam the countryside when things that can fly could swoop down and get you? I know Tazu. I’ve spent my life ducking them. At least Ishane is here, in this city, where we can conceal ourselves under rubble and down narrow alleys. And after Skaniss, I’m afraid someone might go after her to get at me.”

  “All right,” Ass’shiri said, looking reluctant as he stood. “We’ll go see your girlfriend first. Though I really don’t think that the earthquake was part of a plot to get you.” He chuckled.

  A quaking paranoia began to stir in Jathen’s mind as he and Ass’shiri prowled the streets. Staring into the faces of each Tazu-appearing Lu’shun they came upon, he wondered if he may have missed one of his own kinsmen, fooled by the false masks. It was a sobering idea that some agent of Skaniss could have always been nearby, watching and waiting to strike.

  Too tired to walk any longer, they stopped for the night inside the remnants of a fallen temple. The empty skylights provided a way to watch the sky for Tazu.

  Jathen noticed Ass’shiri’s hands shaking a little. “You need to Feed, don’t you?”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “No, you won’t.” Jathen rolled up what was left of his shirt’s dirty sleeve. Jephue had bought it for him, and the memory saddened him, the fine silk in tatters.

  “I don’t want you to get sick,” Ass’shiri said.

  “And I don’t want you going on a blood-bender,” Jathen retorted. “I know what happens if you don’t Feed, so stop being stupid. Your reflexes are already showing signs of slowing, or am I wrong in saying you should have been able to put bolts in all three of them before they ever got to us today?”

  Ass’shiri sighed and took the proffered hand in his. He traced the blood-brother mark. “You know, I’ve never actually Fed from a person. Only animals and life wine all my life. I’m not even certain how best to go about it.”

  “You’ve got teeth and a mouth. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Jath.”

  “Then use my knife. But let’s do it before you’re too far gone, and I remember to be a soft-shell.”

  It was a civilized but messy affair. Ass’shiri lapped up only a few handfuls of blood before cutting his own palm to heal the wound.

  “You sure it’s enough?” Jathen asked.

  “It will have to be,” Ass’shiri said
firmly, licking his fingers and lips with a savoring air.

  After a restless and not very satisfying night, morning dawned dreary. The crowds of hungry and lost were thicker closer to the market district. Ass’shiri seemed considerably more at ease in the crowd than Jathen. “It makes the sniper in me more comfy, all these taller heads bobbing about.”

  Locating the refugee camp in the center of the park was easy enough, as it was by far the largest one they’d come across. Finding someone who’d seen Ishane, however, turned out to be resoundingly difficult, since Jathen and Ass’shiri had two vastly different physical descriptions of her to offer to a populace who had yet another. After two hours, they decided to get some food from the soup line, but another hour passed before they got any.

  “At least it’s food and it’s warm,” Ass’shiri commented, downing it with gusto.

  “This is hopeless.” Jathen dug out the piece of paper Ishane had given him. “Why don’t we try her relatives’ house?”

  “If it’s still there,” the kasior stated grimly, gazing at the wide pit running parallel to the park.

  Jathen shivered, praying Ishane was well. “We have to try.”

  Gathering his crossbow, Ass’shiri got up. “Let’s go.”

  Jathen was elated and relieved to find the row of lower-class townhouses still standing. They found the matching house number on the fourth building. Jathen jumped onto the porch and knocked. The door opened, swinging inward to an empty hallway.

  Ass’shiri grabbed Jathen by his collar and pulled him back. “I’m going first.”