Her focus on the musicians had distracted her. At least Lindy had not been so distracted.
The lead man leered at her, his eyes sweeping lazily over first her and then Lindy. “Looks like we found ourselves some entertainment for the evening,” the man said.
He had a slight slur to his words, but Carth couldn’t smell the stink of liquor on his breath. She wondered whether he really had been drinking or if he had taken another substance. Guya had warned that there were intoxicants besides ale popular in Asador.
Carth shook her head. She pressed out with a hint of shadows, pushing the men away with the power of the shadows. “I don’t think you want to make that mistake.” She glanced toward the alley. Were the musicians still there? Could they reach the singer in time?
The lead man grinned. “A feisty one. That’s exactly the kind of entertainment I want tonight. I always enjoy it more when the woman fights.”
She looked along the alley. She couldn’t get distracted, not if the singer needed her help.
It was empty.
The men had taken her.
Carth doubted she would be straightforward to find. It would be easy for three people to hide in a city the size of Asador.
The heat of anger surged in her. Carth knew that she could leave, that she didn’t need to fight, but it was men like these who turned into men like the blood priests. If she left them, would they harm someone else?
Men like this were like the musicians.
“Cloak yourself,” she told Lindy in a hushed whisper.
She felt the shadows shifting and knew that Lindy had done as she had asked.
Carth took a step forward. “I think you’re mistaken, but if you think that you could have some entertainment tonight, I’m also afraid that you’ve found the wrong kind of entertainment.”
She unsheathed her sword in a rapid movement and spun, sweeping it towards the man. She didn’t intend to strike him, wanting only to scare him, and used the edge of her blade so that even were she to catch him, she wouldn’t harm him too much. She had little qualms about subduing him.
The lead man acted slowly, but the other two with him were not quite as slow.
With a flash, Carth detected the glint of metal. Both men unsheathed swords and formed two points on either side of her, but they did not appear accustomed to fighting together.
The lead man grinned. “See? I told you I would have my entertainment.”
Carth considered using A’ras magic, or even reaching towards the shadows, but she hadn’t had a good spar in months. When she had trained with the A’ras, they had sparred regularly. After losing the singer, she wanted to make these men suffer.
She decided to face these men unpowered. If nothing else, she could be the one to have some entertainment for the evening.
She slashed, feinting towards the first man before withdrawing and spinning, coming around and catching the second with a quick attack.
The second man seemed to have expected her and he blocked, their blades clashing together. Carth spun away, turning towards the first again, sweeping her sword in a short arc, controlling it as she did, and the sword was caught by the other man.
They were good.
These were well-trained swordsmen, though not accustomed to fighting together. She was alone, with only her sword, with which she was not as skilled as she was with the knives, and she did not want to risk Lindy.
As much as she didn’t want to, she pulled on the shadows, sliding towards the first man and wrapping bands of shadow around him. The slight tension around the corners of his eyes told her that he struggled. She struck him on the top of his head with the hilt of her sword, and he crumpled.
Carth began to spin, a sharp pain burning through her back. She almost dropped her sword, but managed to complete the movement and lashed out with shadows, striking the other man. He fell as well and his sword clattered to the stones. The third man, the one who had wanted nothing more than entertainment, turned and ran.
Carth staggered forward. Pain burned through her.
The sword had been poisoned.
She reached through her mother’s ring that she still wore and pulled on the power of the flame. With that, she sent a surge of heat and flame through her.
The flame magic allowed her to burn off most toxins and had healed her on more than one occasion. She used that power and felt it fill her. As she took a deep breath, the pain receded, replaced by the pain from using the power of the flame. When she stood, the other two had both recovered enough and looked up at her. Carth lashed out, kicking at both of them in a swift movement, each on the side of their head, and they fell unconscious.
Lindy released her connection to the shadows, becoming visible once more. “Well… that was interesting.”
7
“Maybe it’s time we return to the healer,” Carth said. The street carried the stink of the city, and a hint of blood from their attackers. She looked along the alley and didn’t see any sign of the singers—or of the musicians. They had used the distraction to get away from her. “I think it’s time we see if Dara is any better.”
“We’ve only been gone a little while.”
“Long enough,” Carth said. Leaving Dara alone any longer made her uncomfortable, especially after what they had seen.
It was late, which meant it was early in the morning, and Carth wondered how much longer it would be until the sun started rising above the horizon, casting away the shadows of the night. Lindy glanced to the sky at the same time, likely having some of the same questions.
They wandered through streets that were much emptier than they had been before, making their way towards the healer. By the time they reached the yellow door, the sun had begun to rise.
They should’ve long since been asleep, and had they still been aboard the Goth Spald, they would have been asleep long ago. If not for Dara, they should have spent the night looking for Guya.
The door was once again locked, and this time when they knocked, no one answered. Carth was unsurprised given the early-morning hour. She unsheathed one of her knives and pressed this into the lock, twisting it back and forth until the lock popped open.
“Is that really necessary?” Lindy asked.
“Necessary or not, I want to see if Dara is any better. We can pay for any damage done.”
“That’s not the issue,” Lindy said as they entered, but she went silent as they reached the inside of the healer’s shop.
Both noted that it was different than the last time they’d been here, and the time before. Dark scorch marks marred the floor. The contents of shelves were spilled, and the scent of medicines, that of spices and herbs and fresh cuttings, hung in the air.
“What happened?” Lindy asked.
Carth made her way back towards the cot but found it empty. As she pressed through her mother’s ring, reaching for the flame magic, she probed for others with the same power. The scorch marks suggested that S’al magic had been used, but why?
As she feared, she detected a faint power in the air. The S’al magic had been used here, and dangerously so. That meant Dara had awakened. Had Dara used her power?
If so, why? What would have made her need to use her power, and expose herself to the healers? And why would there have been such a struggle?
“Where is she?” Lindy asked.
Carth breathed out, surveying the entirety of the healer’s shop. “I don’t know. Missing.”
How was it that both Guya and Dara were now missing?
The sun was fully up by the time they returned to the Goth Spald. Carth stalked toward the ship and didn’t hide her abilities as she jumped on board, not waiting for Lindy to follow. Frustration and anger mixed together as she returned to the ship.
A part of her hoped she would find Guya here, and that he would answer why he’d disappeared, but she knew better than to think he had returned, just as she knew better than to think Dara might have returned.
As she feared, the ship was still emp
ty.
Nothing had changed about the ship since they had left, and in the daylight, the trail of blood left by Dara was even more pronounced. How could she have missed it so easily at nighttime?
Carth went below deck and noted the pile of vomit outside Dara’s door. There was probably something she could discover by sifting through it, but she had no interest in studying the vomit. She entered Guya’s room once more and grabbed the pile of books, thumbing through them, but no answers were to be found there. The room was otherwise empty.
Lindy had followed Carth down and gripped her dress in a clenched fist. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know, but it’s time we find answers.”
Worse, she didn’t know what had happened to Dara. She should have been safe at the healer’s shop. Carth would return there and find answers, but first she needed to make sure she was fully armed.
Carth checked her knives and the rest of her supplies. Lindy did the same. Fatigue was threatening to catch up to her, and her eyes were heavy and tired, but now wasn’t a time she could sleep. Now was the time she needed to search.
But where to start? Carth knew so little about the city, she didn’t even know where to begin looking for answers. And maybe there were no answers. In a city the size of Asador, people could disappear and never resurface. She had seen it happen time and again in Nyaesh. Men would come off ships, disappear into the city, and never be heard from again. The only way others knew was because they looked for them, searching for answers as to what had happened to them.
Like what had happened to the singer.
Carth vowed not to let that be Dara’s fate.
8
Carth moved along the street, keeping quiet as she went, remaining draped in shadows. Days had passed since losing both Dara and Guya, precious time that made it increasingly unlikely that they would find them. It frustrated her that she couldn’t find Dara, and that she had lost Guya, essentially leaving her struggling to discover what else she needed to do. She didn’t know enough about the city to find her friends, but it wasn’t the first time she’d visited unknown cities.
So far, her experience in Asador had led her to believe that there was an undercurrent of violence here. It was similar to what she’d experienced in other places, but this made her uncomfortable. She had the ability to use her shadows, and she had the ability to draw upon the flame, but she didn’t have the control necessary to use her talents and discover where her friends had gone.
She made her way along the shore, listening to the sound of the waves crashing. Lindy had gone off on her own, searching for other information, thinking that one of the two of them would discover answers. In the city the size of Asador, there were always people willing to provide answers. The challenge was always in discovering who knew them.
She and Lindy had already explored the taverns, looking for something that might be hidden there, but so far, they had not discovered anything useful. There were rumblings, an undercurrent of something taking place, but she knew nothing more than that.
Dara was bad enough, but losing Guya seemed surprising to her. He wouldn’t have simply abandoned his ship. The Goth Spald was more important to him than anything else, especially as he had already nearly lost it once before when his second-in-command had betrayed him. Carth suspected there was a connection between Guya’s disappearance and the healer, but the shop had been empty each time she had gone there for answers. She decided that it was possible the woman had abandoned it.
Without the taverns for assistance, she decided to look in other places, searching for a hint of the underground. In cities like Asador, there was always a connection to the underground. She wasn’t certain how to reach it—not yet—but she was determined to find it. Then she could get answers to what happened to both Dara and Guya.
One thing that Carth had was the ability to observe. She could shield herself in the shadows and watch and listen, and with that connection, she thought she could find the answers she needed.
The docks were always a good place to observe. In Nyaesh, that had been the best location for her to collect scraps, thieving from men coming off the ships, but there were others there who were even more deceptive and traded in things other than scraps. There had been the Thevers, men who were part of a dangerous cabal, and they had access to information that others did not.
Would there be something similar to the Thevers here?
She suspected there would, especially as they were known to smuggle across the sea.
A man pushing a cart appeared along the shore, and she followed him. It was late to be moving goods, probably too late to be anything other than someone doing so illegally. The man turned off the road heading along the shoreline and made his way toward a more run-down section of the city.
That surprised her. She expected that he would have disappeared to the north, where there were large warehouses, but he didn’t. Along this road, there were smaller shops, and eventually it changed over to homes. Carth could see those buildings from the Goth Spald.
Another man joined him.
Carth remained hidden in the shadows, staying quiet. The two men didn’t speak for a while until the newcomer whispered, “You shouldn’t move so openly.”
“What’s open about this, Cason? All we’re doing is walking.”
Cason grunted. “If the guild finds out—”
“And how would the guild find out?” The other man smiled at him. “I’m not going to say anything. Besides, I doubt you have much of value.”
“Enough to get their attention.”
“What are you moving?”
“Ceramics.”
The other man laughed. “Ceramics? What kind of market do you think that has?”
“There’s a market for all these things. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on the ship.”
“Sometimes your captain just gets too caught up in what he thinks might work without thinking about what he can actually move.”
“Has it ever not worked?” Cason asked.
The other man fell silent, and they continued along the street. Carth debated whether she should continue following him. This was a smuggler, which wasn’t what she needed. She needed answers and doubted that she would get them from some low-level smuggler. What she needed was somebody deeper in the underground.
Maybe what she really needed was to return to the taverns and see what secrets she could hear there. Men always talked in the tavern, and if there was anything going on, she would discover it there.
She sunk into the shadows and turned away, leaving the two men walking along the street.
There came the sound of a distant scream, and Carth hesitated.
As she often did, she felt compelled to react, but that wasn’t what she needed to do now, was it?
There came another scream; this time it was silenced quickly.
It was close. Close enough that she might be able to react.
Wasn’t that the other reason she needed to be in the city? She couldn’t abandon someone else who might need her, not if there was something she could do to help.
Sighing to herself, she turned down the street and raced toward the sound. There weren’t many people out at this time of night, and those who were never saw her passing as she remained hidden within the shadows. She raced onward but didn’t hear any additional sounds, nothing that drew her as the last scream had.
Had she missed the opportunity?
Shrouded as she was, she heard the sound of hushed voices whispering.
There was a sense of urgency to them, one she had recognized before.
Carth ran toward that sound and found two men dragging someone between them.
Grabbing her knife, she leapt forward, surging on the power of the shadows.
When she reached them, she kicked one of the men, and he spun around to face her. He had a plain face, but hard, dark eyes. He reacted quickly, unsheathing a sword.
The other man didn’t hesitate and dragged the other person of
f, flipping them over his shoulder before racing along the street. Carth couldn’t give chase, not until she dealt with the man holding the sword in front of her.
“You might do nicely as well,” he said. “They’ve asked for those with spirit.”
“Who are they?”
The man sneered at her and slashed with his sword. She danced back, deflecting it with her knife, but she was at a disadvantage with the shorter blade. She needed to react differently, so she jumped, surging with the power of the shadows to slip up and behind him, and then she kicked, catching him in the back. He stumbled forward but righted himself quickly.
He swung his sword, forcing her back again.
He had reasonable skill with a weapon, though nothing quite like she had learned during her training in A’ras. If she had her sword, she would be able to more easily counter him, but she had only her knives.
Carth danced back, away from his blade, avoiding his attack. All she needed was one solid blow, and she could catch him, and hopefully slow him.
She slipped her knife around, slashing, but missed, and his sword cut deeply into her shoulder. Carth cried out softly and nearly dropped her knife. The man gave a satisfied smirk and lunged forward, attempting to strike at her more closely.
She jumped and surged the power of her flame through the injury and her shoulder, letting that magic lead her healing as she had in the past. It wasted strength and required much of her, possibly too much.
She had to stop him, and needed to find out what they had done to the person they’d carried off.
Drawing on the power of the shadows, Carth jumped, surging into the air and spinning as she did.
As she twisted, she jabbed down with her knife, catching the man in his shoulder and pinning him to the ground. He twisted, burying the knife more deeply into his shoulder.
Shadow Cross (The Shadow Accords Book 5) Page 5