NIghtbird (Empire of Masks Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

Langdon splayed his fingers and drew his hands apart. “Foundation!” He turned back to Russel who stood patiently by. “Russel, you little genius, I have a deal I’d like to propose. I could use a man with your talents, and I’m certain there are times when you could use good men like us. I suggest a trade of services. You make me a nice piece of techno gear or weapon like that shit stick you used on Iggy, and me and the boys are at your disposal for all of your heavy-lifting needs. What do you say?”

  Russel stared up at Langdon for several moments before nodding.

  “Fantastic! Where are you off to? We are yours to command.”

  Russel shook his head and started walking away.

  “You don’t need us right now? Are you sure?”

  The young techno-arcanist waggled his fingers over his shoulder and kept walking.

  “Weird little bugger,” Langdon said under his breath.

  Micah looked down at his brother. “What about Iggy?”

  “I’m OK. Just so very thirsty now,” he mewled.

  Russel left the trio to manage their own problems. He had work to do. He considered taking them along. The two brothers would have been particularly useful to his needs, but he preferred to work alone. He also did not want to share any of his secrets with others. It was bad enough that Langdon now knew what he was. He just hoped the thief continued to find it more valuable to keep the information to himself.

  He made his way through Blindside to the home of a man who owned a pair of rammox and a cart. Russel harnessed the two beasts to the cart, left four chicken eggs in a small bucket near the door, and drove the wagon toward the nearest gates leading out of the city. Russel and the man had an ongoing trade agreement for the use of his rammox, one that he employed whenever his projects required him to transport heavy materials.

  Russel stared up at the enormous walls looming over him as he halted the cart before the gates. A member of the gendarme approached his cart, made a cursory inspection of the inside, and spoke.

  “You going out to the dig by yourself?”

  Russel nodded.

  “Not a smart thing to do. We got men at the site, but once you go in the hole you’re on your own.” He paused for the boy to answer but Russel only stared and blinked at him. “All right, it’s on your head if you get eaten.”

  The man waved his hand toward the gates, and the massive iron portcullis creaked upward into the arched opening in the wall. Russel urged his rammox forward, passed through the gate, and entered the wasteland. It was pure luck that the worm had surfaced on this side of the city, otherwise it would have added hours to his travel time, and he needed to have the man’s rammox back by morning.

  As it was, it took just over an hour to reach the site. Several lanterns lit the area around the massive tunnel entrance. Men in uniform lounged about, playing cards, some sleeping, but all with muskets close at hand. A few others were around. Some people had set up stands selling odds and ends, food, and drinks, but most of these were not doing business at this hour, the proprietors sleeping on bedrolls behind their stands.

  A few eyes flicked Russel’s way as he drove his cart into the tunnel, which was at least as large as the gate leading out of the city. A few like-minded men and women were inside scooping soil from the floor or carving it from the walls and loading the earth into wagons similar to Russel’s. Some were farmers who needed the rich soil churned up from the worm’s burrowing to grow their meager crops so they did not have to rely on food shipped in from Nibbenar.

  Others sought bits of mage glass left behind or missed by those who worked for the government to maintain their monopoly on the precious stones and had first rights to them. Any gems they found that qualified as arcanstones had to be turned over to the proper authorities. Not doing so was an offense punishable by death. Of course, those who did find gems whose size and purity were worthy of being cut into arcanstones were well compensated, but not for nearly as much as they were worth on the black market.

  The diggers glanced at Russel as he drove by, no one saying anything until he reached the group who had ventured about as far into the tunnel as any dared. It was an older man and woman who scratched at the walls with pick and shovel, running the loose soil through a screen to pluck out any bits of mage glass as it poured into the wagon bed.

  “Honey, you don’t want to go any farther,” the woman said.

  Russel just smiled and waved as he urged the rammox forward, their low, nervous bellows agreeing with the woman. She was wrong. He did want to go deeper—much deeper. What he sought would not be found near the entrance, and he did not want anyone to disturb him while he hunted it.

  A suitable place to begin his digging presented itself about a mile beyond the old couple. Russel drove a stake into the ground and harnessed the rammox, hobbling them with a stout length of rope for good measure. The last thing he wanted was for them to panic and bolt.

  Russel opened the large backpack he had brought and stowed in the wagon along with the tools belonging to the owner and retrieved a metal, techno-scribed spike with several pieces of faceted mage glass set along its length. He jammed the spike into the wall and touched a glyph. The mage glass lit up and added its blue light to that of the two lanterns hanging from the wagon.

  That task complete, he dropped one of the lenses attached to his hat in front of his eye. Several tiny bits of mage glass set in the lens’ frame glowed to life. Russel cast his gaze around the cavern until the lens revealed a glittering patch of soil on the floor and along one section of the wall. He began digging, tossing shovelfuls of dirt into the wagon without bothering to run them through a screen as most people did. He had a much more efficient method of separating the valuable components from the worthless.

  ***

  Miles away, a clutch of daggerwings opened their eyes, swiveling their sharklike heads on long necks, and hissed at the challenge reverberating along the tunnel walls. Something had invaded their cavern, and it had to die.

  The daggerwings lifted into the air, their twenty-foot wingspans in no danger of touching the cavern’s sides as they raced to find the source of aggravation…the source of food. The confining space forced the creatures to fly in a single-file formation, their ire and hunger urging the ones behind to press forward against those in the lead while being wary of the bone spurs jutting from the wingtips that gave them their name. Those obsidian-hard and razor-sharp daggers could slice through the tough hide of a horned devil and required caution.

  ***

  Russel ceased his digging. His head came up and he cocked an ear toward a low whumping sound issuing from deeper in the tunnel. It sounded like several bedsheets hung out to dry, flapping in a strong breeze, or perhaps the sails of an airship repeatedly filling with wind.

  He edged toward the sound, keeping close to the cavern wall as he held his shovel in a tight grip. Russel willed his eyes to pierce the darkness beyond his lamplight. When that failed, he twisted one of the lenses on his cap and touched a nub. Different flecks of mage glass lit up while others went dark. Peering through the lens with one eye, he waited for the blackness to reveal its secrets. He did not have to wait long.

  Less than a hundred yards away, dark shapes appeared, hurtling toward him. Daggerwings had no need of contraptions for their sharp eyes to pierce the gloom, and they hissed at the sight of the intruder. Tooth-filled maws opened wide at the promise of fresh meat.

  Russel stood and watched as death flew at him, borne upon leathery wings. In seconds, the daggerwings had devoured the few score of yards separating hunter from prey. Russel reached up to the spike he had set into the cave wall and touched a small nub of mage glass adorning the haft. The gem flared to life and the spike’s humming changed pitch.

  The two nearest daggerwings fell to the cavern floor as if their wings had snapped. The others screeched in protest and flailed about in midair before turning themselves around and fleeing the horrible sound. The flock leader ambled toward Russel, pushing itself by its legs and wings like a grou
nded bat. It halted just a few feet away, unable to pass beyond the intangible wall of sound. It snapped its jaws and hissed its fury just inches from the human’s face.

  Russel tilted his head, opened his mouth, and mimicked the creature’s vicious posturing. Knowing it was best not to waste time taunting a creature that could tear him into bite-size chunks and devour him, Russel reeled back and struck the daggerwing just behind its head with his shovel.

  The monster shrieked and flailed its wings and tried to flee, but the human bludgeoned it again, repeatedly bashing it with his shovel until it lay still. Once Russel was certain it was subdued, he hustled after the second one, which was trying to escape down the tunnel, and repeated his violent assault.

  The spike’s tone changed again, and Russel understood he had no more time to waste. The device’s charge was failing, as he knew it would. The sonic disruptor required a lot of energy, and it could only hold the creatures at bay for a short time. He had to finish his work quickly. The moment the device ceased sending out its agonizing signal, the rest of the flock would return seeking revenge.

  Using a small but sharp knife, Russel slit the leathery hide covering the first daggerwing’s abdomen all the way up to its neck. He made a second incision across its chest from shoulder joint to shoulder joint. His head snapped up when the sonic device fell silent. As he had expected, the dead daggerwing’s flock mates had not fled far. Their cries echoed through the cavern, announcing their return.

  Russel pushed his hand into the warm flesh of the creature’s “armpit” and felt around. He glanced down the passage as the cries grew louder and spotted the first killer to appear out of the darkness. His fingers found the nodule he was looking for. With no time for delicacy, Russel grabbed the gland, ripped it from the corpse, and crushed it like a grape.

  His eyes watered at the pungent oil dribbling down his bloody hand. The effect on the daggerwings was more pronounced. At the scent of their flock leader’s chemical warning, the surviving flock wheeled about and fled back up the cavern.

  Now that he had time, Russel bent to the true purpose of his slaughter. Daggerwings were like chickens—huge, vicious, man-eating chickens—in that they possessed large gizzards to aid in grinding up tough flesh and bone for easier digestion. While their gizzards contained mostly small stones, daggerwings seemed to have a preference for swallowing mage glass.

  Russel had the gizzard removed in moments. He slit it open and smiled as he examined the glittering contents. As he had expected, the flock leader possessed several impressive pieces, possibly a couple of arcanstone quality. The second daggerwing also had several bits of mage glass stored within the organ although none appeared to be of as high a quality as the leader’s. While the lesser stones would not be as powerful or hold as much of a charge, they would still come in handy for his work.

  Not wanting anything to go to waste, Russel removed the wing spurs and as much of the tough hide as he could before tossing the skins atop his load of dirt. Retrieving a small box from his pack, Russell deposited his new cache of mage glass inside, locked it securely, and buried it beneath the soil filling his cart.

  He waved to the older couple as he passed back by them, the skins draped over the top of his load drawing their stares. The moderately brighter darkness of outside filled the wormhole’s aperture before he finally found himself above ground once more, breathing in the cool, fresh air.

  Gendarmes stopped what they were doing and circled his wagon the moment he appeared. One stood next to his driver’s bench and asked, “Any mage glass to declare?”

  The man held up a metal wand set with an arcanstone when Russel shook his head to the negative. He passed the wand over the boy and waved it around the dirt as he circled the wagon. The blue stone pulsed faintly with light as it detected traces of gem dust. Russel had enough confidence in his box that the detector would not find his mage glass unless he touched it against its side, and probably not even then.

  Satisfied that Russel was not a smuggler, or at least that he had failed to find any mage glass, the gendarme waved him off. Russel returned to the city and drove his borrowed cart to his airship. He took several minutes to make sure no one was spying on him before pulling on a lever that looked like nothing more than one of innumerable pieces of trash poking out of the rubble.

  A mock wall of sand and broken bricks, indistinguishable from the enormous mound supporting his home, swung open to reveal a ramp leading down into his warren. It took a great deal of prodding to convince the rammox to go back into a dark passage once again, but by now they knew that a treat waited for them once they finished their duty, and complied.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kiera spent several hours doing nothing but hiding and slinking off to random boltholes where she concealed herself for a time, watching and listening for signs of pursuit before flitting from shadow to shadow in search of another hiding place. She hunkered down in her next refuge, a hollow space in a collapsed building not much bigger than a wagon. Any distress caused by her claustrophobia was overshadowed by the panic of her epic failure.

  Her mission had turned into a disaster. Not only had she failed, but both Fred and his assassin had seen her. Granted, her face had been covered, but she was not exactly the most generic or inconspicuous of thieves. It would not be a great feat for even Fred to narrow down a list of suspects and put her at the top.

  A chill ran down her spine and she shuddered. Fred might not be the brightest candle in the church, but he was not stupid, and what he lacked in intelligence he made up for in cruelty. Worse yet, he might give her to Top Hat, whose twisted imagination and savagery eclipsed that of his boss.

  Why had she not listened to Wesley? Because Wesley was a compulsive liar and coward. Kiera discarded the angry thought as soon as it formed. She knew the truth, that she had been desperate. Desperate to prove she could make it on her own, that she did not need help from anyone. Now, not only was she still in debt to Nimat, there was a good chance she had just made an enemy out of one of the most dangerous men in the city.

  When tears began to form in her eyes, Kiera punched herself in the leg until fear relented to her pain. She might be beaten, but she refused to break. She was not some simpering little highborn girl who cried and ran to her daddy whenever life got difficult. She did not have a father, and she could not hide her face behind a pretty mask that protected her from life’s unpleasantness.

  Kiera shifted her position as something hard dug into her side. Her hand found the object she had stolen from Fred still nestled in the pocket in her pack. She pulled it out, praying it was a huge arcanstone that would resolve all of her problems. It was not.

  She studied the sand globe in her hands by the moonlight streaming through a hole in her hiding place. The glass orb was the size of both her fists put together. An airship floated inside its liquid-filled interior. Red sand swirled around the vessel when she shook it, making it appear as if the airship were sailing through a dust storm.

  It was a pretty bauble that would fetch a bit of coin, but not nearly enough to pay off Nimat. Russel would like it. Maybe she could trade it for the return of her water privileges. She was not afraid of a little hard work, but she detested hauling skins of water from the public well. She needed to have a long talk with Russel regarding his authoritarian view when it came to anything to do with his airship.

  Kiera chuckled under her breath, not just at the futility of having a real conversation with Russel, but at how easily her mind referred to the airship as his. There was a certain balance of power in their little gang, and while she considered herself its leader, that balance did not tip her way when it came to their home.

  Deciding that hiding out much longer was not likely to yield any improvement to her situation, Kiera crawled from her bolthole and made her way home. She had been steadily working her way through Blindside since fleeing the counting house, and her final respite was less than a mile from the derelict airship.

  It had been a long an
d circuitous route she had chosen, and the sky had shifted from black to dark blue. The western horizon was a belt of orange by the time she clomped up the gangway and pounded on Russel’s door.

  “Russel, come out here. I have a present for you.”

  She waited, her limited patience especially frayed at the moment. She knew he was home; he never left. Kiera pounded on the metal portal twice more before she heard the bolts retract and the door opened. Russel stepped through and looked at Kiera without a trace of curiosity. She sighed and held up the sand globe.

  Russel simply stared and blinked at it.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

  Russel’s hands came up and he signed, “It’s not a fritter.”

  It was Kiera’s turn to stare, her eyelids fluttering in bewilderment. “No, it’s not. It’s a sand globe. See the little airship floating inside? You love airships.”

  “But it’s Forgeday. I get a fritter on Forgeday. Fritter Forgeday, not sand globe Forgeday. I don’t have a sand globe day. Maybe sand globe Swordsday or sand globe Spearsday. ‘S’ for Swordsday. ‘S’ for sand globe.”

  Kiera’s face flushed with anger. “I gave you a damn fritter a few days ago and you threw it to the skitter lizards!”

  “Wasn’t Forgeday. Fritters are on Forgeday.” A grin spread across Russel’s face.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t you even dare,” she said with a deep scowl.

  “Fritter lizards.”

  Kiera’s fury reached its limit. She lunged at Russel, grabbed his wrist, and forced the globe into his hand. “I almost died getting this, and you will damn well take it and like i—”

  Russel’s free hand came up and he tapped his index finger between Kiera’s eyes. A short, sharp cracking sound split the air as a tiny arc of electricity leapt from the metal stud at the end of his gloved finger. Every muscle in Kiera’s body locked up so tightly she could not so much as utter a sound as her legs collapsed and she fell to the deck.