Footsteps echoed down the hallway. She stood and ran across the floor for the stairs. More bodies were sprawled along it, most of them Fey. A few were slaughtered Islanders. They were blood covered, but their bodies were still intact. No Foot Soldiers had made it into the palace, no Red Caps had followed. At least, not obviously.
All the carnage. She hoped her father had returned to Shadowlands. She would have no way of telling if he was among the dead.
She hurried down the steps, rounded the corner, and found herself in a Great Hall. More bodies littered the passageway, most of these Islanders. The Fey had made it far before the poison carriers had found them. Her father had been right: if the Islanders hadn’t produced this secret potion, the Fey would have owned Blue Isle by now.
Whoever had been coming down the hall had not followed her. She stopped next to one of the Islander bodies. This one was slender and male. It also wore a pale-tan robe which, if she could remove it, might give her just enough cover to make it back to the docks.
Silence had kept his stiletto, and she saw no other weapons on the ground. At least this floor was dry. She wouldn’t have attempted touching anything on the floor above with her bare hands.
The man’s throat had been cut. The neck and shoulders of the robe were crusty with blood. She untied the string around the collar, then discovered that the string was merely ornamental. She would have to lift the robe off the man. A dirty job, fit for a Red Cap. But she had no choice.
She stood and placed the torch in a holder on the wall. Then she went back to the body. She pushed the edges of the robe until it gathered around the body’s waist; then she lifted the legs and pushed the back as well. Her breath was coming hard, so hard she was afraid anyone passing would hear her.
The thought made her move quickly. She set the legs down as quietly as she could; then she pulled the torso up by its arms. Its skin was barely warm and clammy. It felt dead. The thought sent a shudder through her. She put one hand behind the back, and with the other yanked the robe upward. This Islander wore nothing under his robe, and she averted her eyes from its pale, withered flesh. The robe caught on the back of the skull, and she had to work it free before pulling it all the way off.
Then she slipped the robe over her own head, wincing at the strong, fetid odor of blood. The robe had a hood, also blood encrusted, but which might prove useful as she made her way through the streets.
She was taller than the dead man. The robe came only to the middle of her calves, revealing her delicate boots. The Islanders did not have boots like hers—at least, not any she had observed. For a moment she paused, looking at the man’s feet, but his shoes were made of a thin leather, obviously untreated. She would risk being seen before she would risk placing her feet in that unreal water.
Voices echoed from the floor above. They were speaking Islander, its odd, flowing tones almost familiar to her now. She grabbed her torch out of its peg and, stepping over bodies, followed the trail down the Great Hall.
The windows were filled with glass—an expensive thing, but then, Blue Isle was known for its riches. In the courtyard she saw movement: Islanders collecting weapons off the dead Fey. She followed the hall into the pantry, wincing at the stench of rotted bodies. These comrades she knew. She refused to look at them. The hearth fire still burned, and some of the smell came from there. Part of a corpse lay on the flagstones, partially burned. Someone had pulled it from the hearth fire.
She stepped around it, past the brick ovens, which were now cool, and through the open door. Moaning came from one corner of the courtyard. With her free hand she pulled up the robe’s hood. A young Islander boy sat near the closed stable doors, his arms wrapped around the body of a dead man. The boy was sobbing.
A woman saw Jewel and called out in Islander. Jewel shook her head, hoping the movement was universal, and kept walking. The woman followed. Jewel ducked her head deeper into her hood and resisted the urge to run. If the woman stopped her, she would see that Jewel was Fey. If the woman had that poison, then Jewel was doomed.
She stepped over more bodies and pushed through the destroyed gate. The woman called out one more time, but Jewel shook her head again, wishing for only a few phrases of Islander besides the one her Vision and the Prince had taught her. Are you all right? would start a conversation, not prevent one.
Jewel hurried down the street. That morning the street had been so full of promise. Now it was littered with the disfigured bodies of her friends. She gave the palace one last glance. Silence was still in there, fighting for his life, or perhaps even dead.
Because of her.
And Burden, and Shima, and the others. She didn’t know how many of her friends lay at her feet. How many could she have helped if she hadn’t allowed that Islander boy to take her away?
The streets were eerily quiet. She seemed to be one of the few people moving about. The Islanders were probably hiding, holding their silly water weapons and figuring a way to destroy the Fey. The only Fey she saw were dead.
Dead.
She picked her way over body after body, the stench a live thing in her nostrils. Now that she was away from the palace, she knew she would make it to Shadowlands. No one was out to stop her. And once inside Shadowlands, she would find her father. If she couldn’t find him, she would take over.
She would make certain the Warders found a counter-spell against the poison.
Then she would make these Islanders pay.
THIRTY-FOUR
The torch was warm in Matthias’s hand. He held it out in front of him, using the other hand for balance. He kept close to the wall as he made his way down the stairs. No one had lit the torches on the lower levels of the Tabernacle, and the darkness unnerved him. The bodies were gray lumps; the overturned tables and chairs provided a maze that he had to step gingerly through. A faint odor of burned flesh lingered in the stairwell. The floors were sticky, and he didn’t want to think about what he was walking in—or on.
His throat was dry. As the stairs leveled out onto the first floor, he repressed the urge to run to the door. So many dead in this holy place. It offended sensibilities he didn’t think he had. The bodies, contorted and gray, also brought superstitions he thought he was clear of to the surface. He had never believed the dead could walk until now: until he saw motionless limbs seem to move under the torch’s shadows, sightless eyes reflecting firelight, mouths open as if to speak. Perhaps, if he pinched himself hard enough, the nightmare would end and morning would come.
He put his hand down to his side as he left the protection of the stairs. Only a few more feet and he would be outside. The closeness of the bodies there made the hair on the back of his neck rise. He tripped on a chair leg and nearly dropped the torch. For a moment he wrestled with holding the torch or catching himself. An image of his body falling with all the others made him gasp in panic. Finally he reached out and grabbed a hunk of clothing, catching his balance. When he realized what he had done, he bit back a scream.
The smell of the dead was almost more than he could bear. When he got back, he would have to order some of the remaining Auds to begin cleanup. But before that he would have to figure out what to do with the bodies. They couldn’t just go into the Cardidas.
He stood slowly, his grip on the torch so tight that his hand ached. When he had volunteered to go to the docks, he hadn’t thought it through. All the dead. All the reminders of the horrors of the day.
Finally he reached the doors. They were propped open by fallen bodies, but someone had cleared a pathway between them. As he stepped into the moonlit grounds, he let out a breath of relief. He felt safer without the walls of the Tabernacle around him.
The bodies were scattered there, not bunched together as they had been inside. The light from the moon augmented the light from his torch, and stars twinkled in the sky. If he looked up, the world was the same world he had grown up in. He could almost hear the sounds of the city at night: the street women calling, the occasional drunken fight. But
those sounds were absent now. An odd quiet had fallen on Jahn. Except for splashes near the river, and the lapping of the water against the shore, the city was silent.
The breeze off the river had a slight, damp chill. Matthias brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. The exhaustion he had felt earlier had left him. It surprised him to note that his body, so bitterly overused this day, had reserves of strength within it.
He brought his torch down to his side, wondering if it made him obvious. Probably, and he didn’t know who or what was marauding this night. He turned and pulled the unlit torch from beside the door, letting the stick fall to the ground, and stuck his own torch into the slot. The flame reflected off the open doors. As the breeze moved it, the light occasionally revealed the interior of the Tabernacle.
Matthias shuddered. He didn’t want to go inside again.
He wiped his hands on his already filthy robe and picked his way across the inlay tiles, keeping to the small paths left between the fallen bodies. This tile had been one of his favorites, depicting the Second Rocaan carrying the Words Written to worshipers outside of Jahn. The joy on the Rocaan’s face as he gazed at the Words reflected Matthias’s own joy when he studied. Now he wondered if he would ever be able to look at the tiles in the same way again.
Small losses. He could focus on the small losses without thinking of the larger ones. The larger ones would make him crazy.
The walls surrounding the Tabernacle grounds prevented him from seeing the Cardidas. For a second he thought he heard voices carrying over the water. He held his breath and listened as intently as he could, but he couldn’t tell if he was hearing actual words.
Little shivers ran up his back. The whisper of the river sounded like the whisper of the dead. He gripped the tiny sword around his neck and ran his fingers over its dull edge. If he ever needed to believe in God, in Roca, it was this day. The belief of cowards, the Words Written and Unwritten said, is assured.
He did not like to think of himself that way. But before now he had never known the truth behind that aphorism.
He should have sent an Aud to do this. Someone expendable. But he didn’t know the Auds well enough to choose one who wouldn’t embellish his tale, and he didn’t know how many were still alive. The Rocaan wanted the lights investigated, and Matthias had promised he would do so. He couldn’t go back on his word now.
Young trees stood near the gate, their leaves rustling in the breeze. Matthias let go of the tiny sword and pushed the gate open, thanking the Holy One that someone had had the presence of mind to close it, at least. Except for the occasional body, the road was clear. The mud was rutted from wagon wheels and horses’ hooves, and hundreds of footprints. It seeped under the wood of his sandals, soiling the bottoms of his feet. The cold ooze squished between his toes, and he closed his eyes, willing impressions from the day—the melting faces of the Fey, the blood spilling across pristine floors—away from the sensation.
He had a clear view of the river from there. The lights continued to flicker at irregular intervals, almost like a door opening and closing. Voices rose again from the river, speaking in a language he did not understand.
He crept as silently as he could along the edge of the road, wincing whenever his feet squished in the muck. If only he had more information about the Fey. Could they become invisible? Were they around him now? He resisted the urge to put his hands out in front of him like a blind man, to push away unseen forces.
The only voices he heard came from the river. And the ships were gone. Perhaps they made the ships invisible. But if they had done that, then he would still be able to hear the water lapping against the wooden hulls, and he did not. Only the voices, low and conspiratorial, and the odd lights.
When he reached the bridge, he paused. He could either go back for holy water and then cross the bridge to see what was going on, or slide down the bank and get as close as he could on this side of the river.
If he needed to risk a life, he could send an Aud. The Rocaan needed Matthias. He clearly did not want Matthias dead. If he had wanted that, he would not have shown Matthias how to make the holy water, a process as startling as any Matthias had seen within the Church.
He clung to the wood railing that led up the footpath side of the bridge. The river was almost a mile across, not counting the harbor’s mouth on the other side. In the daylight, things would look far away. At night they had an even eerier cast.
Still, he would follow his plan. He took the muddy footpath down the side of the bridge to the water’s edge. He had to keep one hand against the wet ground for balance. Weeds grew tall there, brushing against the sides of his robe, tickling his bare arms. He rustled as he moved, a sound he feared would carry over the water. Finally he crouched beneath a tree that had grown crossways over the river, providing welcome shade in the daylight, and the illusion of cover now.
The voices on the other side had stilled. One light appeared and disappeared over the wide dock that led into the warehouses. The ships had originally been moored there. He sat, breathing quietly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight over the river, and the odd darkness that he was in.
After some time—he wasn’t sure how much, but long enough for his body to stiffen—he thought he saw tiny lights flickering in a small, perfect circle. Even though he couldn’t judge exactly, based on the distance, the circle could have been no bigger than his head. It floated above the pier like a tiny beacon.
Slowly he shifted position, careful not to make any noise. He brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. The larger lights disappeared as he rustled his way to this position. He hoped that the Fey hadn’t heard him, that they weren’t around him now. Invisible presences had been hard for him to grasp in his religious studies, but there, faced with a magickal enemy, he had no trouble at all. He didn’t move again for a while, trying to be another body in the darkness.
When he was about to give up, he heard footsteps and voices carry across the water. He squinted as if that would make his vision penetrate the darkness. Four figures moved on the pier—no, five. One of them had an arm around another, who appeared to be having trouble walking.
They were tall, all of them taller than he was, and rail thin. Not Islanders. Islanders were stocky and short. They had thought him demon-spawn when he was a boy because he shot up so quickly and so high in his fifteenth year. He caught his breath and watched.
The Fey moved into a single-file line. The figure in the front paused and gestured at the ones behind. A voice carried across the water, deep and low, speaking again in that guttural language Matthias did not understand. Then the first put his hand through the small circle of lights.
The light grew until it covered the dock. Now Matthias could see the remaining four more clearly. They were blood covered, and the one being held up by the others appeared to be unconscious. Wounded.
The light appeared to be coming from nowhere. It was as if an edge of the night sky had ripped, letting out trapped daylight. He could see the effect of the light shining on the pier, but not the source of the light itself, as if a building blocked his view inside an open door. But there was no building, and no sound of water against a ship’s hull. The fear that had haunted him all night returned, raising goose bumps on his skin.
They pushed the wounded Fey into the light, and he disappeared. Then, one by one, the others followed. Once they were gone, the light remained for only a moment before disappearing too. He blinked against the darkness. The world was as it should have been again.
Except for the tiny circle of light remaining above the pier.
If he were a courageous man, he would return to the Tabernacle, grab all the holy water he could, and toss it inside that circle of light. But he was not. He was not a true child of Roca. He did not believe in self-sacrifice for the good of others.
“Forgive me,” he whispered to the Holy One.
He rested his forehead on his knees. The breeze ruffled his hair and caressed the ba
ck of his scalp. He sat there until the implications of what he had seen became clear to him.
The Fey had not evacuated. They were regrouping. They would try again. The battle fought today in Jahn was not a definitive defeat. Instead it was the beginning of something long and terrible.
THE SIEGE
(One Year Later)
THIRTY-FIVE
Emaque crouched on the deck of the ship. The Uehe was one of the smaller ships, chosen for its ability to navigate difficult passages. The Weather Sprites had ordered a heavy rain. The icy drops coated him, seeping into his skin. He had not had the wealth to order protected garments, and since he had lived in the Shadowlands, he had not had the need. Still, the rain with its bluster and chill was better than that gray, empty place. Rugar had done what he could to get the Fey to make it home, but home was not a fog-drenched place with opaque walls and no sky. No one was made to live in the Shadowlands this long. Emaque was amazed that they all had.
Some of the water dribbled into his mouth, and he licked the cold wetness off his lips. He leaned against the wooden railing and waited for the call. When he’d first got aboard, he had needed the railing to keep his balance. It had been a year since he had been on a ship—since that awful day when they had lost the First Battle for Jahn. He had not been chosen for the later excursions to the Infrin Sea, for which he was thankful. Too many Fey had died in the skirmishes and battles during the past year. No one had cited any figures, but he guessed their force had gone down by half. After the First and Second Battles for Jahn, Rugar had stopped attempting complete attacks. Still, the guerrilla fights and surprise tactics weren’t working that well either. And the Warders had yet to find any way to counteract the Islander poison.
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (The Fey Series) Page 22