Tamerlan took a deep breath, adjusting the safety rope that Etienne had helped him tie around his thighs and waist. It tied to the bigger rope already hanging down the wall. All he had to do was lean back, walk down the wall, and pull the knot of that safety rope down with him as he went, and he would be fine.
Yeah. All he had to do. No big deal.
The canal below swam in his vision as he took a deep breath, his belly lurching at another glance below him. This bridge was way too high for this kind of thing, and Tamerlan was way too queasy in high places. He was already sweating as the nerves took hold of him. But what choice did he have? It was his idea to look in the pier and if the Legends were wrong and the amulet really was there, then it was his duty to find it, collect it, and use it to bring down the dragon he’d let loose on the city. He took a deep breath and slipped over the rail.
“Don’t look down,” Etienne suggested casually. He was holding Tamerlan’s sword in his hands as if he expected to be attacked at any moment.
Why did advice always sound like someone drunk was giving it? How could Tamerlan afford not to look down? He couldn’t exactly do this safely with his eyes closed.
Gritting his teeth, he leaned back, back, back until he was perpendicular to the pier of the bridge, his rope creaking as his weight grew heavier against it. The ropes were secure on the rail. He knew that. He’d seen Etienne tie them, but now that his life depended on them, it felt like there weren’t enough, like the rope wasn’t strong enough, the knots not firm enough, the day not sunny enough.
Enough complaints! With a strangled sound he’d never intended, he took his first step backward – or down – or whatever. So far, still alive.
Another step.
He tried to focus on the traffic on the bridge. It was picking up now that mid-morning was upon them. Primarily foot traffic rather than carts or barrows like you would see in the working areas of the city. Were those clusters of people with drawn, hungry faces their fellow seekers of the amulet?
“Ho!” he heard one of them call to Etienne. “What are you doing with that rope?”
A cluster of well-dressed young people joined the first man, but now the breeze was picking up, catching their words and whipping them away as Tamerlan descended lower and lower. He was watching for that anomaly in the stonework – though what he’d do after that, he didn’t know. There hadn’t been any hints on how to open a secret room – if there was one.
His steps were growing shakier. Maybe he wasn’t as recovered as he thought he was. He didn’t want to look down to see if he was getting close to the patch of stonework. That would be a mistake. Any glance below would probably make his head spin right about now. Instead, he focused on one step at a time.
Etienne looked small, the crowd around him growing, when Tamerlan finally saw the stonework right below where his feet were planted.
Okay. Now what?
He took another step back, his foot on the strangely cut stone. It pressed in, and he stumbled slightly, the safety rope tightening as his feet slipped into the divot. The stones around the sunken one sunk with it until he was knee deep in the pier.
Wha-
There was probably enough room to crawl into that hole – if he dared.
You’ll have to. It’s the only way in.
Wow. A little warning would have been great, Lila.
With gritted teeth, he sunk into a crouch until he was waist deep in the stonework, twisting so that he could hang his legs into the pier, balancing on his belly instead of his back.
There is a ladder. But you’ll have to untie yourself.
No way. The rope was the only thing keeping him alive.
Don’t be such a kitten. Just do it.
With a sigh, he carefully loosened his safety rope until he could untie it and slip further into the hole.
Dragon’s spit in a cup! He eased his legs lower, seeking a rung with his feet. Lila had better be right about this!
His toe caught something, and he sank his weight onto it, grimacing while he did, his heart pounding in his chest. It was too dark to see if she had been right.
Carefully, he ducked his head, curling into the hole the rest of the way, his second foot looking for the next rung and finding it. He was slick with sweat now, forced to wipe his hands on his clothing so they wouldn’t slip.
Next time, Lord Mythos could do the climbing.
His eyes were adjusting to the dark. There were small openings in the stonework that lit the ladder he stood on, but his perch was so precarious that he couldn’t twist to look below him. He’d have to climb the rest of the way down. With a barely-suppressed moan, he climbed slowly down the ladder – it wasn’t a real ladder, just stones sticking out enough to make rungs. No side rails to hold with his hands. No security to keep him from slipping. Every step was a gamble.
By the time he reached the bottom, he was trembling. All his muscles felt like jelly.
The wooden floor felt – bouncy. Not a good sign. Water must seep in through the cracks in the stone that were his only light source, damaging the wood.
He turned carefully, trying not to move too quickly. He didn’t want the floor to fall out from under him.
Stone beams went from the walls to the center of the room in a sunburst pattern. Tamerlan hurriedly moved to the nearest one, stepping up onto it. That was better. Less chance of falling through a rotting floor.
With his heart in his chest, he balanced along it to the center of the room where a small platform stood with an iron chest at the center. This was it.
No matter what the Legends said, it felt like the amulet could be here. After all, what else would be in a hidden chest in a hidden room half-way down a massive bridge?
His pulse raced as he reached the platform, reaching to open the heavy iron lid of the chest. It fought him – the hinges rusted and seized. With a great heave, he wrenched it upward, looking into its velvet-lined depths.
There was something there! Something that glinted red!
He reached inside and pulled it out.
A mask, lacquered to look like a white face with red curls of hair around it and a winking eye, stared back.
Told you so, Lila said. Deathless Pirate says he’s the one who last touched the Eye. If he can be believed. I don’t ever trust pirates.
Defeat tasted bitter on his tongue.
20: In a Flurry of Wind and Dust
Marielle
Marielle wrapped her scarf around her nose a fifth time, surprised that Anglarok didn’t do the same as they strode through the city toward the river. If he had the same skill as she did, shouldn’t he be equally sensitive? The stink of Xin was becoming overpowering to Marielle. To anyone else, it probably felt fresh and clean. The streets were being mopped now that the sweeping was done and the even the tile roofs were doused with buckets of water by anyone not on the hunt for the amulet.
Tonight, all of Xin – and everyone else throughout the Dragonblood Plains – would celebrate the second night of Dawnfast. They would write their sins on paper balloons, light the candles at the base of the balloons and watch them float off into the sky to burn away and leave them clean. Already, she saw people in houses constructing their own balloons while street vendors laid them out with their other wares to be purchased for that night. Each one was white – a symbol of purity – though they would be gold when they were lit – a symbol of the burning justice of the heavens eating up the sins of the people.
Marielle had bought one of the balloons, using a small coin she’d had in her boot. She probably should have saved it for food along the journey, but her need for forgiveness was more pressing than her need for food.
Judging by the stink of guilt and rage – twin scents twisting through Xin in a garnet and cranberry fog – the rest of the population needed forgiveness, too.
Marielle choked as a fresh surge of fog hit her. A group of hard-eyed soldiers marched past with a long line of men and women chained together. The rage radiating off the captive
s and the guilt of the soldiers lit aflame her own rage and guilt. They ratcheted up higher with every whiff of it that she smelled.
“Xin will not stand by while the dragon is loose!” one of the soldiers called to her, but he didn’t stop. The glance he exchanged with the other soldiers told Marielle that he knew he didn’t have enough allies in a fight against her and the Harbingers.
That deep guilt worried Marielle. It was as deep as her own and she had the blood of thousands on her hands. She had the pain that went along with that, searing deep under her skin so that she felt like she was burning all the time. What had they done to match her guilt?
The intensity of the emotions around her spiraled upward, as out of control as a forest blaze, so that one person’s rage fed their guilt and spread to the next person sparking rage in him even as his own guilt pushed him to spark it in someone else. There was no end in sight, no fresh rains or dousing water to quell what was happening in Xin. Marielle’s only hope was that tonight when their sins went sailing upward, they would burn up with the lanterns and burn their rage and guilt up to nothing until forgiveness rained down on them like the ashes of the sky lanterns.
Her eyes teared up as she thought about it, following Anglarok with glassy vision. He escorted the Ki’squall, guiding Marielle with nods and looks to keep her in the right place in the formation. Around them, the nameless fanned out, weapons on display, grim faces and silence better deterrents than even the harpoons they held.
“You have no place here, outlander!” a man from the crowd called, stepping in front of them. He stank of drinking and desperation – a pulsing orange mixing with a dove-grey fog of dulled senses.
“Move on,” Liandari said with a tight voice. Her close-cropped hair shone in the noon sun and the expression on her dark face was deadly. “You don’t need trouble.”
“Maybe I want trouble,” the young man said. He twirled a barrel stave in his hand like a weapon. “Maybe I want that Scenter of yours for my hunt.”
Marielle pulled her new sword from her belt, but before it finished rasping from the sheath, Liandari had already leapt forward, her dark double-breasted coat swirling where it flared around her legs, her hands so fast that Marielle didn’t see her sword move until after the man’s head was already rolling along the street, his body slumping in slow motion to hit the cobblestones with a heavy thud. Anglarok kicked the head, flipping it into the nearby bucket of cleaning water where it bobbed in a grisly warning to anyone else who might want to pick a fight with them.
Marielle’s breath caught in her throat as Liandari flicked the blood from her blade.
“Anyone else?” she asked quietly.
The crowd backed up. No one else wanted to tangle with Liandari.
“I like this city,” Liandari said casually to Anglarok. “I get such little sword practice in the Isles. Live duels are always more effective than planned ones with practice blades, don’t you think?”
“Mmm,” Anglarok said, his gaze sweeping across the street before them as he hunted for threats. In all the violence and rage, Marielle didn’t know how he’d sniff anything specific out at all. She was having trouble scenting anything else, her nose overpowered by the scent of smoke, pitch, and cranberries.
She carefully sheathed the sword they’d acquired for her and looked down at the clothing – leather and wool, fashioned for someone of much more noble blood than the daughter of a red-door woman in the Trade District of Jingen.
Maybe she should have emphasized that the clothing should be practical. She’d thought that went without saying, but the elaborate woven-metal decorating her leather breastplate and carefully wrought clasp at the center of her chest was anything but practical. Sure, it would protect from attack, but she looked like a Legend with all the decoration – polished metal scrollwork and leaf decorations swirled in ways that emphasized her femininity while also looking foreboding enough that she was surprised anyone had tried to kidnap her. The greaves and gauntlets – also leather – had swirling feathers worked in metal decorating the fronts of her calves and forearms.
She felt over-dressed, like she drew the eye too much, but Liandari had smiled when she presented them to Marielle and right now, Marielle didn’t dare offend her benefactors.
She wished she’d had a chance to say goodbye to Tamerlan and Jhinn. She owed them that much. But this was her best chance at making things right – and at squirming out of the tight corner that Lord Mythos and Allegra had shoved her into. It would be hard to report on people if they were both in a different city than her.
In the distance, the canals were packed with gondolas, barges, and family boats. They worked their way through the busy streets toward the nearest canal and Marielle worried more with every step. If it was this crowded in the canals here, how bad would it be as they moved upriver toward Yan? Would there be refugees scattered across the countryside? Was her mother out there, perhaps, walking to safety one step at a time? Her breath caught in her throat as she thought of that.
“When we get to the barge that will take us upriver, we will talk more about what you can hear in the shell,” Anglarok murmured. “We must find where the voices are coming from, track them if we can to the place where the dragon has settled. It’s essential that we find him.”
“Of course,” Marielle agreed. She wanted to find the creature, too.
Someone jostled against her and she stumbled to the side, surprised to see a knot of young women carrying weapons and wearing eyepatches.
“What are you looking at?” one of them asked her. “We’re the Band of Abelmeyer and we’re the ones who are going to find the Eye!”
“Dragon-speed to you,” Marielle said politely, glad that her scarf hid her incredulous look. The whole city had gone mad.
They were coming up on the Xin City Smoke House, a tall tower billowing with spicy smoke. In Xin they did their meat smoking in the Spice District instead of the Trade District. It made sense. After all, the spices they needed were here, but she wasn’t the only one smelling delicious smoked meat during a time when the whole city was fasting, and she probably wasn’t the only one getting more and more irritable because of it. She could smell it even over the rage and guilt of the city and that was saying something! Her mouth was watering, and her eyes began to tear up, too. How long had it been since she had a decent meal? She’d had food on the boat with Jhinn, but she wouldn’t call that a meal.
Her mind drifted back to eating fried meat pies with Carnelian before Summernight. Was that her last hot meal? She felt a little faint as she remembered it, her memory of Carnelian – the betrayer – so strong that it brought back the smell of the dragon with it. Funny how memories evoked smells.
She could smell the cedar musk of a nearby dragon so strongly, it was as if the dragon was there. She shook her head. She needed to keep her mind focused on what she was doing, not drifting to the past.
A scream erupted from the crowd and Marielle froze, looking around her. Anglarok and Liandari were crouched, weapons already drawn. The harpoons of the nameless were out and ready as they spread out in a ring around their leaders.
But there was nothing else. No more screams. No clash of weapons.
Marielle began to relax as the crowd around them returned to motion. Just a false alarm made worse by her imagination. Fool! She should be keeping her mind on her task, not on useless memories.
A second scream ripped through the air and then the people on either side of her began to flee toward the alleys and doors of the buildings on either side of the street as a dark shadow blocked out the light.
Marielle looked up just in time to see the belly of a dragon overhead.
He was close – far too close – and on his wings and back and neck ruined buildings and roads were still crusted like a layer of barnacles he hadn’t been able to scrape off.
He let off a cry like a gull – but deeper, more guttural. It shook the earth under Marielle’s feet. No. Wait. It shook the dragon deep down under the road
under Marielle’s feet. Or at least, it seemed to her that was what was happening.
Her heart was in her throat. The seconds dragged out like years. She braced herself, her sword held high – as if that could do anything to a creature so large. How had she ever thought they could kill such a monstrous creature?
Each flap of its wings was so powerful that people tumbled down the street as if caught in a hurricane. Stalls selling wares, carts, oxen, and small buildings upended and somersaulted down the streets.
Marielle thought she might be screaming, but the sounds around her were so deafening that she couldn’t hear herself. Screams and shouts, the sound of wood shattering and stone crumbling created a cacophony so loud that words were lost in the torrent.
Terror filled the air – vinegar scented, burning the nose, tinting everything with raw red.
The dragon’s massive head dipped down, and he seized the towering Smoke House in his mouth, tearing it from its foundations like an uprooted plant. Stone and earth rained down from the tower.
Marielle scrambled backward, colliding with one of the harpooners. Her vision was blocked by whirling bodies, fleeing in terror. She saw a stone the size of a cart fall from the sky, crushing two of their harpooners at once. Saw Anglarok lean over them, shaking his head. A scream caught in her throat.
Liandari sprinted forward but a cart, hurtling down the street, smacked her in the back, sending her spinning through the air to land on the ground in a crumpled heap just inches from Marielle.
Marielle jammed her sword in the sheath. It was useless to her right now. She leaned down over Liandari. Was she still alive?
She heard a scream from behind her and she turned in her crouch just long enough to see a piece of masonry fly past. It was the size of a small house. It flew past inches from her head. A warbling ripple of insensible terror pulsed through her.
If she’d still been standing ...
She shook her head to clear the thought. Not time for that.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 34