by Tia Reed
Her guard drew her attention with a yelp. Prahak had sliced his arm.
“A promise already made and broken,” Prahak said.
Of all the incompetent defences! If she was not going to have to get out of this herself! What was keeping Druce? She ignored the crude gropes and squinted down the narrow street. The master magus was standing too straight and tall. His eyes were not focused but neither did they sport the peculiar glaze of porrin. Shock then. His mouth moved. She blinked. Her dagger was tugging out of her hand. She let it go. It turned and rammed into Long face’s neck. Blood splattered over her as he dropped. She spun to face Druce. The mage swayed, his knees buckled, and he collapsed. Arrows were raining down around him. A guard slid across the square to cover him with a shield. Jordayne ran towards him.
Maya screamed again. The third lowlife’s opponent had knocked him to the ground, was standing on top of him, one boot at his throat pressing, crushing until his arms jerked and he lay still. Her blood turned cold. The zombie lurched forwards, arms outstretched, guts trailing, the greenish hue of its decomposing skin too lurid in daylight. The unnatural creature came level with Maya and Timak. It turned towards them.
“Stay against the wall. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound,” Jordayne said. Timak had his eyes closed, his hands clapped over his ears and his face screwed tight. Jordayne picked up the dead guard’s sword, dragging the tip. The zombie turned towards the sound.
At the entrance to the street, the third lowlife’s sword scraped along the cobbles. The zombie reacted to the noise. The sword flew up and careened down the street. Just their luck it missed the Zombie. In the square, Drucilamere was still down, the fighting raging around him. Jordayne lunged towards Timak. The boy was cowering, unaware of what went on. The sword whirled towards her. She ducked. It thumped into a wall. The zombie staggered towards the sound, past Maya and Timak. A volley of arrows shot down from the roofs. Some stuck in its torso, others near its feet. They forced it off a straight course but still it came on. Seeing it pass, Maya pulled Timak along the wall. Jordayne picked up the sword and hurried to where the weakening guard was listing with each strike against Prahak. Two hands on the hilt, she struck at the drug dealer. Her footsteps warned him. The fiend managed to both parry and block the guard’s next strike. She tried again, but she had little training in the heavy weapon and Prahak was fighting like a master. As the guard swiped and missed, lurching after the sword, Prahak lunged inside her reach. He grabbed her right wrist with his left hand and applied pressure to her tendons that forced her to drop the sword. He pulled her close so that their lips almost touched.
“Have you no honour?” she asked him.
“None.” He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her with him, away from the zombie which had picked up the second lowlife’s sword and marked them. “A demon from the darkest pits of the deepest hell.”
“It is coming for you.”
“Release her,” the guard said, circling.
Prahak laughed low and cold. “Give up. I might spare her life.” He whipped her around, a human shield. The cautious guard held off a strike but had the sense to try to manoeuvre Prahak towards the zombie. The felon would have none of it. He positioned his back against the wall.
News of the monster had spread. The terrified guard was recoiling. If her life had not been in peril, she would have excused him. Would have run herself if the idiot tyrant who thought she was any sort of defence against a zombie gave her half a chance. As it was, she would have him flayed. If she got out of this alive and unmolested.
The putrid, rotting zombie punched at her face. She dropped her head, hoping her crown was more solid than her nose. Prahak twisted and the fist slammed a hole in the wall. Rallying, the guard charged and rammed the zombie through with his sword. Jordayne sucked in her trim belly as the point came to rest on her navel. His flaying might just turn to a kiss for not abandoning her after all. In front of Drucilamere, of course. If he got out of this alive.
The zombie turned, no heed to the sword skewering it. Scrambling for a free sword, the guard tripped over the corpse of Long Face. Prahak was already dragging her down the street. A helpless beauty she was not. Jordayne struggled, slowing their progress. He slapped her, stunning her into stillness, of which he took full advantage by hauling her on.
In the opposite direction, Maya and Timak left the cover of the wall to avoid the corpse. Four lassos dropped down, two from each side of the street, snaring them around the waist. On the roofs, two men reeled them in while archers kept up an endless assault and swordsmen clashed with the few guards who had found their way up. One mercenary fell to his death, screaming before his bones snapped on the cobbles. Maya struggled, pulling down on the rope, her eyes fixed on the dagger in Long Face’s neck. It was too far. Timak, small and light, was hauled against the wall and up. He wriggled, lifted his hands and squirmed, but the ropes held fast. For the briefest instant, Maya’s rope slackened. It was enough. She lunged and grabbed Timak’s legs. The men on the opposite roof pulled on the ropes around her, and he jerked to a stop. One of their captors overbalanced and fell, but dragged himself out of the tumult. His companions shouted. The men opposite let out Maya’s rope. Timak jolted up. Maya squeezed. She was left holding his boots as he jerked out of her reach. The dear boy grabbed at the eaves. Two hands clapped over his wrists and yanked him onto the roof and out of sight.
“You fiends,” Jordayne yelled. She lashed out at Prahak but the villain dragged her on. She dug in her heels until the stomping zombie convinced her to pick them up and run alongside.
Thank the Vae Matisse rushed into the street, a single guard behind him. He slashed through Maya’s rope on the run, grabbing her and pulling her on with him, pushing her into a doorway with a shout to stay there as he dodged arrows and caught up. With a grunt of effort, he hacked off the zombie’s head. The body turned and he was forced to leap aside to avoid the tip of the sword poking through its middle. His fighting instincts made him turn and lift his shield just in time to stop an arrow pierce him. And again to catch an arrow on the other side. To slam the shield down on the hands of the zombie, which was reaching for his neck. The manoeuvre left Matisse exposed and unbalanced but he hacked off both drooping hands.
At the corner of the next intersection, Prahak pinned her against him and stopped to watch. Jordayne reached a hand behind her and adjusted her stance. Expecting her constant struggle, Prahak warned her by pressing the sword under her breast. More fool him. Sliding a hand between his legs, she grabbed his masculine jewels and twisted, pushing down on the sword with her other hand.
He yelped. She fled, her hand sliced and bleeding. He thundered after her, his feet pounding an awkward rhythm. In front of her, the zombie head was rolling towards the body. Its hands were creeping towards Matisse. She hurdled over them, regretting her long skirts, and ran straight into her brother.
“Quick, there’s a way out of this,” she said.
An arrow flew into his sword arm. Biting off a cry, he pushed her against the wall where Maya yet cowered and passed her his shield.
Scums would smell sweet before she gave Prahak a possible escape. She strode right out to Matisse, ignoring the arrow that whizzed past her ear. “Get against the wall and keep still. It’s after Prahak.” She tugged at his tabard until he complied, keeping the zombie, which was reattaching its head, in sight. The strain on his face as he kept his sword at the ready was a worry.
“Please don’t tell me your superb skills are limited to your right hand.”
He grunted as he dug out the arrow and nodded at her hand. Her bleeding hand, with which still gripped his tabard. “Sister, I am more worried about what Uncle will say about the tabard.”
The blood-splattered garment was a ruin. “Perhaps we should not mention this to either Uncle or Rochelle.”
The zombie honed in on the sound of their voices, its hands worming their way after it. They both clamped their jaws shut. Standing between Prahak and her, the zomb
ie paused.
“Your fate at my hands is sealed,” Prahak said.
The zombie staggered towards Prahak. As hard as it was, she swallowed her retort. She would not want to confuse it. Above, rope whooshed in a circle before another two lassos sailed over the zombie. The rope tightened. The zombie pulled. A man cried and fell from the roof, splitting his head on the cobbles. Prahak looked at the stew of blood and brains, no cracks in his impassive face. His emotionless, grey eyes bored right into her.
“We will meet again.”
Grunting and groaning, his men struggled to keep the walking dead man in check. One saw the severed hands creeping up its torso and fled. Unhurried, Prahak walked to the corner.
“Give us the boy. You have no quarrel with him,” Jordayne called.
Hands deep in pockets, Prahak turned. Lips tight, he smiled. “The woman for the boy,” he said to Matisse. “Either one of them.”
Arrows flew in all directions, some leading with tail feathers, others by the shaft, tossed by some imperceptible breeze, not fired. They all ducked.
“Unacceptable. Name a price in gold,” her brother replied.
Prahak’s cold gaze arced across the roofs before settling on Matisse. “Some matters neither gold nor gems may resolve. There is a score to settle, my employees and clients to educate, my enemies to warn. Those who do not cooperate may count themselves among the last. The boy is the price of your resistance.”
Matisse lifted his sword. “Fight for him.”
“I have told that harlot I have no honour. Why should I fight for what is already mine?”
Matisse stormed towards Prahak.
“Wait,” Maya said. Trembling, she tiptoed from the doorway. “I will go with you.”
Dear, honourable Matisse stopped and took her arm. “You will not.”
Later she would have to question him about that. True, the woman was as innocent as the boy in all this but, with his magic, Timak was the more valuable of the two.
Prahak pointed right at Maya. “You are part of your husband’s score and so you may count on it.” He rounded the corner and was gone. With a yell, his men released the zombie. Whole again, it staggered after him. Matisse charged after them both. At the corner he stopped. No doubt the fiend had disappeared.
The mercenaries slipped into the tangle of streets. The guards were shocked into stillness. The street assumed death’s silence beneath a pall of smoke. Shaking, Maya looked about to collapse. Jordayne swept her eyes over the carnage.
A movement caught her attention. At the square end of the street, Drucilamere was stumbling towards her. As she let out a sigh of relief, a piece of hessian drifted down and settled on the body of a guard. On it was embroidered a red porrin leaf.
Chapter 36
IN HER CLOSET of a cabin, Kordahla sat on the edge of the narrow bed, fretting as she gripped the mattress. The smooth passage heightened her sense of confinement. She sat there well after Mariano came inside, looked in on her and, without a word, settled on his bed; long after the whoosh of oars through the water and the thuds of working sailors stopped. It was soon after that a regular creak began. Heavy grunts followed, heating until they drowned the whimpers of discomfort. Hugging the jars of salve Arun had given her yesterday, she buried her head beneath the pillow, quivering until she could no longer bear the shame.
With a stifled cry, she fled past her sleeping brother and onto the deck. Without heed for her safety, she gripped the gunwale, rocked over the bulwark and wretched.
“Kordahla.” She spun. “Princess,” Arun corrected himself, and lowered his hood. From aloft, green Dindarin and yellow Daesoa cast a soft light. Half shadowed, his face held the serene beauty of a djinntale prince. “Come away from the edge. It is not safe.”
A lone sailor climbed the rigging. No soldiers stirred from the hold below. Her eyes glued to his face, she took that step. On the lake, a gentle splosh, a quiet splish broke the silence. A faint but sure cry of release shot through the still air. She covered her mouth, in embarrassment, in humiliation, in despair, and pressed into the bulwark, trembling with shame, with loathing, with rage until a sob broke free.
“Princess.” Arun was gliding towards her. His arms came around her, drawing her beyond hearing. When he stepped away, her traitorous hand interlaced with his, keeping him near. The forbidden touch sent a thrill through her heart. The effort it cost her to take a deep breath and pull away from the one man who understood how dishonourable her union with Ahkdul was! A man in whose face she glimpsed a forbidden longing, a mirror of her own misguided desires not two weeks past. She swallowed, looked away.
“Vinsant.”
“Will be asleep. If he senses your distress, nothing will stop that young man from risking Djinn’s Rage itself to rescue you.”
And so her intended redirection was blocked, and with it her last defence crumbled. “Help me.” The selfish words were out, his kindness and Vinsant’s laugh rekindling her desire to live, to do more than exist as the hollow shell she would become as Ahkdul’s prize.
“Kordahla.” The pity in his face filled her with shame. In his eyes she could only be the cosseted prize he must protect, for he was her father’s man, Mariano’s here and now, sworn to serve Terlaan, as she must, whatever the personal cost. She stifled a sob. He hushed her, let her rest her head on his shoulder, soothed her with strokes of her hair.
Air whizzed by their shoulders. A dagger pierced the minoria’s cloak and twanged into the bulwark. Jewelled as it was, she recognised it at once. Her heart beat in several directions as she turned to the shadows. Had her hand been in Arun’s all this time?
Mariano stepped into Dindarin’s light. His jaw and fists were hard clenched. Arun’s reassuring hands ran down her arms before he took them away, leaving her cold, alone, exposed. Her brother’s eyes cut between them. Dear Vae’oenka, he could not have heard, please let him not have heard. But the Vae were not inclined to grant the frivolous wishes of ordinary women, and might even delight in their misery, for Ahkdul was storming her way.
Arun drew the dagger from his cloak and presented it hilt first to Mariano.
“Kneel.” Mariano took the dagger and pressed it to the hollow of Arun’s throat as he complied. Knees weakening, she gasped.
“This man has broken his trust and I demand his life,” Ahkdul said. He was intent on her, had not spared a glance for Arun. Caught in his jealous gaze she could not think, could scarce breathe.
“Well, mahktashaan?” Mariano demanded.
“There was no dishonour,” Arun said, even though there was.
“That was not what I heard. Nor was it what I saw.”
“You fondle my betrothed, who appears before you face uncovered like a harlot, flaunting her beauty to bend you to her will.” So close she could feel his heat, smell the stinking sweat of his shameful night though Ahkdul took care their bodies did not touch.
“It was the touch of a mahktashaan.”
He had dared to touch her as a man.
Sailors were stirring, some pretending to tasks, others blatant in their curiosity. Mariano’s men were climbing onto deck. Three drew swords and flanked Arun, quivering in delight with their power over one of the fabled mahktashaan.
“Do you swallow this tripe?” Ahkdul said. “Do you dishonour me in my own land?”
“He speaks truth,” she said, forcing the words past the constriction in her throat.
Now Mariano was upon her, gripping her forearm, holding it up and using it to drive her back. “Will you debase yourself further with lies?”
The blade of his dagger was flat along her arm. Its cold penetrated her bone but not her soul. Her eyes locked on the back of Arun’s head, imprinting every wave of light brown hair on her memory. His subtle spice seeped through the rot, and it felt like it was calling to her. The man who had shown her most kindness was about to pay with his life. The guilt would drive her to the jaws of the jabberweis.
“It is no lie,” she said, studying the streng
th in Arun’s neck until Ahkdul interposed himself between her and Mariano, fist curled in threat because, though his skin must contact hers, a beating held no dishonour. “Through the minoria I speak to Vinsant. In all that you heard, you must have heard that. His touch was the touch of a mahktashaan.”
Mariano’s free hand closed over Ahkdul’s fist.
“She has lied to us once before,” Ahkdul said.
“So she has.” Mariano dragged her from Ahkdul and pushed her to her knees beside Arun, there in front of all the men, Terlaani and Verdaani alike. He looked down at them, his power absolute, his sense of honour unbending. “Is it so?”
“The princess speaks true.”
Mariano threw the dagger into the deck in front of Arun. “Show me.”
Arun rose with the grace and confidence of the righteous. He held out a hand to her. She placed hers in his and let him help her rise, his firm hand steadying her. “Such courtesy is permitted the mahktashaan,” he said, looking into her eyes with gratitude, and sympathy, and the slight nod that suggested he would put everything to rights.
“Vinsant,” Mariano said.
Only then did Arun turn to him. “I will need to wake him.”
“Do it.” Dindarin’s green light accentuated her brother’s bleak condemnation.
“A caution, Highness. You are not trained to hide your feelings. Your brother will sense something is amiss.”
Ahkdul crooked a finger. Kahlmed drew his sword and approached. “The mahktashaan stalls.”
“With your permission, Highness.”
Mariano nodded. Arun placed his fingers on her brother’s temples. For seconds they were still. She could imagine sleepy Vinsant dragging himself awake for the novelty of a secret exchange, his shock when he discovered Mariano, domineering and cross, waiting across the link. Her tension grew as Mariano clenched his fists.