NIghtbird (Empire of Masks Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

  Blindside was also where Midtown and Highborn dumped their trash. Those of the prosperous parts of the city probably thought they were doing the residents of Blindside a favor by giving them the things they no longer thought worthy of possessing. What irritated Wesley most was that there was more than a little truth to the sentiment. People who have nothing can always find a use for just about anything.

  Wesley’s bleakness only increased when he entered the patch of Blindside he, Russel, and Kiera claimed ownership of. It was literally a dump within a dump, and it was not even paid for. To make matters worse, it sounded as though he and Kiera had not made enough this month to so much as pay the interest on it.

  The only brightness in his otherwise dreary existence was the airship they all called home. It had been a complete wreck when they contracted the territory from Nimat three years ago, but Russel had come alive and done an amazing job of fixing it up. Sure, there was no way it would ever fly again, but he had patched the hull well enough to keep out the elements and even retrofitted the interior.

  Wesley liked their airship home well enough, but Russel loved it, and seeing him so happy and engaged for the first time in his life made it all worthwhile. Of course, Kiera hated it, but she would complain about a warm glass of water if she was dying of thirst.

  Kiera was correct in that they could have made a lot more money in a better part of Blindside or possibly even lower Midtown for what they paid for the dump, but there was more to life than money.

  The worst part of coming home was the trek up to where the airship lay atop the crumbled remains of what had once been a very large building. Always competing with the other cities, Velaroth liked to build big before the cataclysm, but as the old saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And they certainly fell hard.

  Even resting atop the forty-foot pile of rubble, they were still too close to The Wall to see anything other than sky on the rare occasion that the dust clouds cleared enough to grant them the view. Only Highborn City sat at an elevation where it was able to peer over its soaring parapet and gaze upon the land outside, not that there was much to see.

  Wesley, climbing sedately up the steps fashioned into the “hillside” so as not to work up a sweat, stepped onto the deck. He unconsciously adjusted his footing to compensate for the airship’s slight listing. Newcomers found the footing disconcerting, but he, Kiera, and Russel had adjusted to it and no longer even noticed the slant.

  He headed to the bow of the ship and navigated the short flight of stairs down into the forecastle where he and Kiera had their cabins. The entire aft, as well as a good portion of amidships, belonged to Russel, and he protected his territory like a mother dune drake in her den with a clutch of eggs.

  Russel also found several large chambers in the collapsed building beneath the ship where he set up his forge and other devices Kiera insisted were far too dangerous to have aboard a wooden vessel. He and Kiera called his expansive warren the Kingdom of Russel.

  Light streamed in through dozens of faceted glass “portholes” Russel had installed into the deck. The lenses were small, only about the size of a clenched fist, and two inches thick. They served to illuminate the cabins below decks during the day and were much more convenient and cheaper than using candles. Russel even had lengths of pipe with mirrors set at an angle to capture and direct the sunlight deep into his warren.

  Most people, their father included, thought Russel was feebleminded because he was so withdrawn and had a hard time speaking. Wesley wondered if perhaps he was in actuality a genius and everyone else was simply too stupid to understand him.

  Wesley had almost reached his room when he felt a hand grab the back of his coat, yank him into the small room across from Kiera’s cabin, and pull him to the floor. He instinctively brought his hands up to protect his face from the baton poised to strike.

  “Damn it, Kiera, these are my work clothes!”

  “Your attempt at stealth is terrible,” Kiera said as she lowered her baton and got off of his chest. “I don’t know why you even try to sneak up on me.”

  Wesley accepted the hand Kiera offered, stood, and dusted off his clothes as he scowled. “I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you, you paranoid twit, I was trying not to wake you.”

  “You failed, miserably, and caution is not the same as paranoia.”

  “I heard about your little tiff with Langdon.”

  “Already? How?”

  “Because of your run-in with Langdon, I also had a run-in with Langdon.”

  “Aw, crap. Don’t those idiots ever sleep?”

  “Not the night prior to Tribute Day, apparently.”

  “How bad was it?” Kiera asked.

  “It wasn’t good, although they were decent about it for the most part. I had to pay a poaching fine, for the both of us. Then there was the small matter of being held responsible for some lunatic with anger issues knocking Langdon in the knackers.”

  Kiera winced. “Sorry about that, but I had to distract them. Otherwise they would have taken everything.”

  “Bad run then?”

  “Really bad. Not only did I drop most of what I grabbed, I almost got shot…several times.”

  Wesley shook his head. “I told you it was too dangerous a run. You need to stick to smaller jobs where there are fewer muskets involved.”

  “You said the place was lightly guarded! You also failed to mention how many damn alarms the place had.”

  Wesley raised his hands palms up and shrugged. “When I was there, I didn’t see many guards.” He grinned lasciviously. “And I only rang the one bell.”

  “Gross. I suppose it’s not your fault. Your vision was probably limited by a pair of wrinkled old thighs.”

  “Hey, those wrinkled old thighs account for more than half our income.”

  “Yeah, and half of that half you spend on clothes, booze, and drugs!”

  “It’s called a quarter!” Wesley shouted back.

  “What?”

  “Half of a half is called a quarter. Read a book once in a while.”

  Kiera scowled and fought to restrain her violent impulses. “I don’t care if half of half is called a skitter lizard turd. You spend way too much on yourself.”

  “I need those clothes to do my job.”

  “And the drugs?”

  Wesley shook his head as if to clear away some of the more haunting memories. “Probably even more crucial.”

  Kiera narrowed her eyes. “How much did you spend today?”

  “What? Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Wesley.”

  “I’m not lying!”

  “Liar, you always lie.”

  She rushed forward and started jamming her hands into Wesley’s pockets and inside his clothes. Tripping him to the ground, she yanked off his boots and searched inside them before casting them aside.

  Kiera scowled at the paltry number of coins she found and the small pouch of aether weed. “You didn’t spend anything, did you?”

  Wesley climbed back to his feet and reached for his drugs. “That bag is old, and I didn’t buy it. It was leftovers from a previous customer.”

  “Liar!”

  “Illiterate!”

  “I am not illiterate.”

  “And I’m not lying…about this…this time.”

  Kiera simply glared, knowing that she could beat him black and blue and never get the truth from him. Wesley would lie about the weather, claiming it was raining despite standing in the glaring sun.

  Wesley broke the uncomfortable silence. “Did you manage to hold out on Langdon?”

  “I did. It’s not a lot, but with what you earned last night, we should be okay. It’s just lucky Nimat seems to like me, otherwise we could be in trouble.”

  Kiera stepped into her room, stopped, and stared at the nightstand next to her bed. Instead of the few bits of jewelry she had left there the night before there were two brown-speckled chicken eggs in a nest made from a pair of shimmersilk underwear.


  Kiera’s face burned with rage as she scooped up the eggs and stormed toward the metal door barring access to the Kingdom of Russel. “Russel, you shiny bauble-stealing little skitter lizard, get out here!”

  Two plates in the door slid open, one up high revealing Russel’s face and another midway down through which he thrust his hands. “No, you’re angry,” he signed.

  “You’re damn right I’m angry! It’s Tribute Day. We owe Nimat a lot of money for this stupid boat because you refuse to live anywhere else. What am I supposed to do with two eggs and a pair of freaking knickers?” Kiera screeched, and hurled the underwear at the door.

  Russel’s hands retracted and his face disappeared. A third slot opened at the bottom of the door. Kiera lunged but she was too slow to prevent the shimmersilk knickers from disappearing through the hole.

  She kicked the door and stifled the wince of pain it elicited. “Damn it, Russel, get back here!”

  Russel’s clenched hand reappeared and deposited a third chicken egg near Kiera’s feet. Chickens were rare and their eggs considered a delicacy. Even Duke Rastus only ate an actual chicken for special occasions, and only the prosperous middle class and higher could afford to buy eggs.

  “I don’t want more damn eggs,” she insisted as she picked it up off the floor. “Give me back my jewelry!”

  Russel deposited the gems he had pried out of their facets near Kiera’s feet.

  Kiera bent back down and scooped them up as well. “I need the gold too.”

  Russel’s hands reappeared through the slot in the door. “I can’t. I used it.”

  “On what?”

  “Something you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Why wouldn’t I understand?”

  Russel’s hands flailed and his fingers twitched as he tried to force his brain to convey his words through them. “Blind brain. Can’t see. Deaf brain. Can’t hear. Too much noise. Too much talking. Too much yelling.”

  “What are you talking about? My brain isn’t blind or deaf. I can see and hear just fine. What I can’t do is talk to you through this stupid door, so get out here and face me like a normal person!”

  “I am normal! You’re just dumb! Dumb brain. Blind brain.”

  “I’m dumb? You are the only person I have ever heard of who signs—with—a—stutter!” Kiera pounded on the door with the fist clenching the gems to punctuate each word.

  The top slot framed Russel’s gaping mouth. His hand shot out of the center slot and made a gesture so rude it defied verbal translation before he slammed the metal plates shut and disappeared into his sanctuary.

  Wesley sighed. “Well, that was pretty clear. Great, now we won’t see him for a week. Why would you say that? You know how sensitive he is about it.”

  “Because I am eventually going to fall out of Nimat’s good graces, and his thieving is going to get me killed!”

  “Most likely your anger is going to get you killed.”

  “We have a quota to make, and we cannot meet that if Russel steals every bit of gold and thread of shimmersilk I bring back. Don’t even get me started on how many pieces of mage glass he’s filched from me.”

  “You know how obsessive he is about those things. Why don’t you do a better job of locking them up?”

  “I did! I got a lockbox bolted to my cabin floor, but it didn’t do a bit of good. I still don’t know how he got into it.”

  Wesley nodded and stroked his chin. “Tell me, where did you get a lockbox?”

  “I had…Russel make it,” Kiera groaned, and slapped her forehead.

  “He’s right. You’re kind of dumb.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I just hope your tantrum doesn’t—”

  A metal clang echoed through the airship.

  “—get us barred from the privy. Great, now we’re doing our business outside.”

  “Do you think I care? We lived here for almost six months before Russel installed that thing.”

  “We’ll see if you hold the same opinion when a skitter lizard bites you on your shiny backside.”

  Kiera pursed her lips and scowled. “I do not have a shiny backside.”

  “You could almost read by it.”

  “Not.”

  “Well, maybe not you…”

  “Shut up, I can read—” Kiera crossed her arms and looked away “—a little.” She darted to the stout door and banged on it with her fists and feet. “Russel, you better unblock the privy or so help me I will find a way in there and choke your chicken with my bare hands!”

  Wesley cleared his throat. “Uh, phrasing.”

  “Strangle your chicken!” She glanced back at Wesley. “Better?”

  “Marginally.”

  “He knows what I mean. Do you hear me, Russel? I will wring your chicken’s neck, and then I’m going to eat it,” Kiera said in a rant.

  Another bang reverberated through their home in response.

  “And there goes the well,” Wesley said. “You get to cart the water from the public pump.”

  “You’re going to help.”

  “Nope. This is your fault, and I don’t engage in activities that can result in callous buildup.”

  Kiera snorted and shook her head. “You are more of a lady than I will ever be.”

  Wesley laid a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know if it’s endearing or just sad that you think your comment was more insulting for me than it was you.”

  Kiera slapped Wesley’s hand away and stomped to her exercise room. “You just earned yourself pedal duty.”

  “Aw, come on, I just got off work!”

  “Pfft, what you do is not work.”

  “Like you would know.”

  “Shut up and get in here. Russel padded the seat so you won’t get callouses on your ass.”

  Wesley began fumbling with his buttons. “Fine, but I need to change my clothes first.”

  Wesley went to his room, doffed his fine apparel, and hung it in the small wardrobe. He tossed the shimmersilk shirt he had taken for Russel onto the bed. He would give that to him later. With any luck, he could buy his way back into his good graces, at least enough to earn him privy rights once more despite none of this being his fault. Like a sandstorm, Kiera’s tirades often caught up everyone around her.

  Wesley found Kiera standing near a pair of posts with several “arms” poking out of them at various heights. He sat in a seat between multiple levers and began pedaling. The fighting dummies were another of Russel’s brilliant creations. A network of gears, pulleys, and rods lay beneath the floor. The pedals powered the dummies and the levers controlled the movements of each post’s three sections.

  “Start high for a few seconds and then randomize it,” Kiera ordered.

  Wesley nodded as he pedaled and shoved one of the levers forward. The top section of the left dummy began to spin around with the speed of a half-hearted punch. Kiera used her baton to parry it. The sudden resistance tripped a release lever inside and allowed the arm to spin back in the opposite direction before reengaging and taking another swipe at her head.

  “Faster,” Kiera insisted.

  Wesley pumped his legs and scowled when he felt the first trickle of sweat run down his face.

  “Random!”

  He began engaging levers in an alternating patter so the mid and bottom sections lashed out at irregular intervals and occasionally in conjunction. Kiera ducked the high arm and deflected the middle one. Wesley shoved the lever forward to make the dummy “kick.” Kiera hopped up to avoid it and parried the strike at her head at the same time.

  “Both!” Kiera ordered.

  Wesley engaged the second dummy and attacked Kiera from two sides. Kiera leapt, ducked, and parried, occasionally having to roll out of range before leaping back into the fray. Although her victories outnumbered her defeats, the dummies’ unflagging assault landed a fair number of hits, occasionally eliciting a yelp or curse from their fleshy foe.

  A long, low horn sounded from somewhere ato
p the great wall nearby. Kiera instinctively looked toward the deck over her head and received several blows from both dummies as punishment for her distraction.

  “Ow, damn it!” she cursed, and leapt out of their reach. “What the heck is that?”

  Wesley stopped pedaling and looked toward the overhead as well. “I don’t know. It’s coming from the walls.”

  Kiera raced out of the room with Wesley close behind and ran onto the deck. She found dozens of men scrambling across the top of the wall and running toward the section towering over their dump. The pair looked away from the wall to each other with wide eyes as the airship began to tremble beneath their feet.

  Kiera stomped her foot hard against the deck several times. “Russel, is that you? What the heck are you doing down there?”

  “I don’t think it’s him, Kiera. That horn…I think it’s a worm!”

  “This close to the city?” she asked, her voice high and tight with fear.

  Worms could grow two hundred feet long and had mouths big enough to drive a wagon through without fear of touching the sides. They spent almost the entirety of their lives underground, but the humans had developed a machine that could cause them to breach in order to try and kill them. If left unchecked this close to the city, they could burrow beneath the wall and wreak untold destruction.

  Bells added their clangor to the clamor upon the walls. Men rolled cannons into position and prepared for battle, for what little good it would do them if they had to use the weapons. Worms had several feet of dense muscle beneath impossibly tough, thick skin. The best they could hope for would be to turn it away and drive it off. It was far more likely that the worm would seek out the source of its pain and destroy it.

  Thankfully, the cannons were not the primary means with which to deal with a worm. That job belonged to the worm ships. Worm ships were specialized airships equipped with several cannon-launched harpoons with shimmersilk lines attached to them. Arcanists would then channel incredible amounts of power from the arcanstones through the lines and harpoons and into the worm in hopes of killing it.

  Kiera and Wesley jumped when a pair of double doors banged open on the aftcastle and startled them. A globe of patchwork shimmersilk began to expand out of the cavity like a great bloating belly. The balloon continued to inflate until it lifted out of the ship’s hold and into the sky with Russel dangling below it in a small wicker basket. The balloon drifted upward until it reached the end of its tether a hundred feet above the airship.