“Hence the reason I’m not attacking him.”
“No, you’re ignoring him—to your peril. Which is not what Tala had in mind when she risked her life for the truth.”
My voice rang with surprising authority. And then silence. The Al’kah stared at me with needling eyes. The tension hovered. The room was growing hot, tickling my parched throat. My head. Pounding and pounding.
At last the Al’kah lowered himself back onto his stool.
“Thank you for your advice, Elder. You may go.”
I groaned. It was over. I wasn’t going to win my point. I wasn’t going to stop Anuai.
A knock echoed against the heavy door.
“What is it?” the Al’kah snapped, waving his hand at me to go.
I stung at the dismissal. I backed out the door, but not before a snippet drifted after me.
“The water train has returned from Anuai, sal’ah Al’kah. It’s him. He’s back.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Arrest him!”
“We’ve already—”
The door swallowed any further remarks.
I hovered for a moment in dismay. Arrest him? Who? Ishvandu? Yl’avah’s might, maybe they already guessed his involvement with Shatayeth, and maybe I’d given them the last hint they needed . . .
No.
I hurried down the stairs to the tower sentries.
“Elder.” They nodded their respect.
“Guardians.” I hesitated. “It’s a blasted furnace out there, and I’m afraid I’m a bit lightheaded. The Al’kah gave me permission to use a camel. Can you direct me?”
The Guardians exchanged looks, then shrugged. “With me,” said the older of the two.
“Most grateful.” I followed the woman through the back passages to the camel yard. We emerged onto a scene. Camels were being unloaded, bags unpacked, Guardians moving here and there with crisp efficiency.
Even swathed alike in outrider’s robes, Ishvandu stuck out of a crowd. He wasn’t here.
We’ve already . . . the man had said. What? Already arrested him?
I marched over to one of the Guardians, the youngest from Ishvandu’s kiyah.
“Wait, Elder ab’Ethanir!” my Guardian escort hurried after me. “You can’t—”
I ignored her.
“Where’s Ishvandu?” I asked the young Guardian.
It was the man next to him who answered. I recognized Adar ab’Dara. “Why, what’s wrong?”
The young outrider shot him a look. “I am Benajin ab’Ibatu, Guardian of the third. I don’t believe you’re supposed to be here, Elder. Can I assist you?”
“You both can. I’m looking for Ishvandu. I need to see him at once.”
“Why?”
“There might be a problem. If he was with you . . .” I trailed off. No. If someone had just been arrested, the whole camel yard would be abuzz with it. Which meant Ishvandu was probably still in Anuai, which meant someone else was in danger . . .
My escort caught up to me and intervened. “Outriders must report to the Circle first, Elder, before speaking with anyone else,” she said.
“Of course. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
I backed off, but there was a suspicious glint in Benajin’s eye. “Wait a moment,” he said. “I want to know the problem. What’s the problem? What about Ishvandu—I have a right to know!”
“Just gathering . . . information about Sumadi.” I noticed Adar had moved calmly back to his camel. But he was scanning the yard, and I noticed that sudden, furtive glance of the guilty and cornered. I kept talking, even as my mind pieced together what I was seeing. “For one of our patients. It’s . . . urgent. Besides, I haven’t heard from Ishvandu in a long time. Months actually. I should check in with his health too . . .”
Adar began to lead the camel away.
I hesitated. My eye caught movement from the other end of the yard. No. There were Guardians here, more of them. Guardians from the first.
Adar didn’t quicken his pace, but he was heading for the rear gate.
My stomach tightened. Benajin followed my gaze, and the hatred that flared in his expression was shocking in its intensity. “Stop!” he cried, pointing.
Guardians swarmed across the camel yard. Adar was nearly to the gate. He hesitated. I could see the agony of his decision. A few more steps and he might have slipped out the back, unnoticed. But to run now was a blaring admission of guilt.
He didn’t run. His glanced over his shoulder, face blank in confusion. “What . . . ?”
Guardians bristled around him, two cutting off his exit, two on either side.
“Watch him!” Benajin’s voice was shrill with excitement. “He was trying to get away. I saw him! I saw—”
“Yes, thank you, Benajin,” said a new voice. “We’re well aware of this man.”
I turned to see Neraia sai’Kalysa enter the yard. The outriders fell back, and my Guardian escort tugged my arm, hissing as if she thought I could fade into the background with the others.
There was no hope of that. Neraia saw me and her eyes darkened before turning away.
“Adar ab’Dara,” she declared. “You are under arrest for suspicion of rebellious action in Shyandar.”
“Me?” Adar laughed incredulously. “Guardian Lord, I’ve barely been in Shyandar—”
“Baraaba ab’Dolanu,” she said.
Adar flinched. “The chief mason? What . . . ?”
“Did you speak to him? Last time you were in Shyandar?”
“Well, yes. He was involved in the original building of the well and I was trying to get his input on a suitable Crafter who could accompany us.”
“Suitable.”
“Yes, Guardian Lord.”
“For your secret plots and meetings?”
Adar’s face hardened. “Do I even get a defence? Is this it? One man speaks against me and you’ve formed your judgments? What of justice, my Guardian Lord?”
Neraia nodded over his shoulder, unbothered by his rebuke. “Search his saddle bags.”
Benajin leapt to the task with a special fervour. He ripped the packs open, first one, then the other, spilling the contents across the sand. There were bedrolls and blankets and water skins. There were some crude tools. Benajin’s hand shook as he grabbed one of the bedrolls. It was bound with a strip of cloth. He tore it off.
Out fell a small bundle, also wrapped.
Adar’s jaw tightened.
“Bring it here,” Neraia commanded.
Benajin did so. “I thought as much, sal’ah,” he said, teeth flashing in triumph. “I was going to search his bags before he tried to sneak off. Ishvandu told me to keep an eye on him.”
“Did he?” Neraia’s brow went up.
“That’s ridiculous,” Adar growled. “Ishvandu ab’Admundi trusts me.”
“Does he?” Neraia accepted the bundle and opened it, a steady presence next to Benajin’s eagerness.
Into her outstretched hand fell three knife blades, each sharpened to a wicked edge. Not keshu, but the next best thing in Shyandar, made strictly for Guardians and healers, and none else.
The yard went quiet. Adar took a long breath, and for an instant, he looked old. Old and weary.
“Are these yours?” Neraia asked.
Adar shook his head. “I’ve never seen them before, my Guardian Lord. That’s the truth. You have no reason to believe me, but—”
“No. I don’t.”
Adar’s shoulders sagged. He was beaten, and he knew it.
“Take him away for questioning. We will brook no disorder in Shyandar.”
“And what about Anuai?” Benajin said. “This man brought recruits into the desert, just a few days ago.”
“Did he?”
“Yes! Four of them. How do we know they’re not in league with him? Anuai could be in danger as we speak! There’s been some suspicious behaviour around this man.”
“Such as?”
“Nighttime meetings—him and his crew, up at
strange hours with a light burning in their tent.”
“Sands, is there a law against talking?” Adar snapped.
A Guardian struck him, and I gasped.
Neraia turned to one of her Guardians. “I think this calls for a full investigation. Send the first to Anuai at once.”
“Yes, sal’ah. And who shall I summon?”
Abruptly, I felt the steel of the Guardian Lord’s gaze on me.
“All of them,” she said. “We will question all who’ve been at Anuai. Starting here, Kulnethar ab’Ethanir, with you.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Magellen Yourk
Brit Garden was sitting on an old stump, elbow to knee, while he tipped back a flask. Glee was dancing in his ice-grey eyes.
Mag’s leg throbbed. He could feel the bullet lodged in his bone. They’d cleaned and bandaged his wounds the night before, even gave him a sling for his arm, but nothing for the pain. And no food or water, either. Then they’d tied him to a tree and left him.
Now his stomach twisted and cramped, and his mouth was dried up too tight to spit. The blood was seeping through his bandages, stiff and stinking.
Gods be, let Aunt Tan be alive! Garden had shot her dead—and yet she’d vanished, body gone. Could be she’d used the Contessa’s stone. Maybe even now, she’d come for him. Even now.
It was a dim and desperate hope.
Just cooperate. Do whatever he says. Anything. Anything at all.
Garden took another swig, eyeing Mag up, he thought, like a butcher eyes up a slab of meat.
“Want a taste?” He lifted the flask.
Mag’s eyes had been following the stupid thing the whole time. Take it easy. He’s just messing with you.
He had to lick his lips to get anything out, voice rasping. “If you’re offering.”
Garden laughed and tossed it at him. Mag flailed at it with one hand, barely trapping it against his chest. He fumbled until he could grip it properly, then tilted it back.
Not water, he realized. It trailed fire down his parched throat. He swallowed, then spluttered and coughed.
Garden chuckled. “A little fire to loosen things up, aye?”
He stuck out his hand to take it back.
Before Mag could think better of it, he took another swig. Already a warm, heady feeling was rushing into his brain. A dangerous feeling.
Garden’s mouth twitched and someone snatched the flask away. Idiot. He was going to pay for that small act of defiance.
Garden capped the flask, set it by the stump, and looked back up, every movement slow and deliberate. He rested a hand on the butt of his pistol. He tilted his head.
“Maybe you’re trying to bore me into talking,” Mag said—and regretted it. Damn those gulps of whiskey, but Garden’s silence was starting to unnerve him.
“Eager, are we, little turnie?” His smile never touched his eyes. “Very well. Let’s start simple. Who sent you to Terryn Dal?”
Simple. And enough to damn him in itself.
“The Duke, of course.”
“Marrentry’s pig?”
“Who else?”
Garden tilted his head. “Why do a fool-thing as that, I wanna know.”
“To get a spy in.”
Garden scratched one of his stubbly cheeks. He sighed.
“Well now, we already knew that bit, Yourk. The question I asked you was why. What does the pig want?”
“Just investigating the foul stench drifting across the water,” Mag grinned.
One of the Terryns struck his shattered elbow. Sheets of pain stabbed up and down his arm. He almost fell, gripping the arm with white knuckles, as if he could mercifully cut off feeling with his other hand.
When his vision cleared and the pain faded to a vicious throb, Mag saw the same cold grey eyes staring back at him.
“Shit,” Mag spat. “It was a joke.”
“Very amusing,” Garden said. “So why aren’t you laughing, turnie? You want to make another?”
“It’s not some secret, anyhow. The Contessa’s eyes—she always knows what’s what, but no one can get close to her. How, he wants to know. What’s her big secret? That’s all, and a fool’s errand to make me dead.”
Garden stood up. Why this particular act filled him with a squirming terror, Mag couldn’t say, but he stepped back. Right into the thick-set man behind him. He swallowed. His leg was throbbing too, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand.
“That’s that. I’m telling you.”
Garden nodded. “You’re tellin’ me, aye? Then tell me, turnie—how bad of a traitorous whelp are you? You loyal to the Duke?”
“I’d piss on him.”
“Would you now? Then why’d you scuffle your dainty ass off to Terryn Dal in the first place? You must have something to lose. Paying your debts? Paying someone else’s debts?” Garden chuckled at the look on Mag’s face. “Oh, aye. The heroic type, I’ll bet, leastwise you thought. Thought we’d let you scuttle off back home with what don’t belong to you and your problems be solved. Well. Sorry to say, sweetheart, but this here’s a different story. You’re not going back to Marrentry. Not ever. Ready for that?”
Mag nodded.
“Ready to turn your colours again?”
Mag nodded.
“Ready to swear loyalty to my mistress, forsaking all other ties and bonds?”
He nodded again.
“And are you ready to take whatever consequences I deem proper for your duplicitous and criminal actions?”
Mag swallowed, half-opening his mouth to object, but nothing came out.
“I wanna hear the words, turnie.”
“I’m ready,” he said, trying not to choke on them.
“Ready for what?”
“To swear loyalty to the Contessa of Terryn Dal, and . . . and to beg her mercy.”
“Good. Then hand it back over, what you stole from her, and maybe there’ll be something left of you time we sail into Temprin.”
Krunyn’s eye, this was the part where things went bad. Mag took a deep breath.
“Don’t got it,” he said.
There was a twitch in the corner of Garden’s eye, but his face stayed just as it was. “Really, now?”
“Really. I . . . I lost it.”
Now Garden smiled. A great, wide smile that showed his teeth. “Shoo, ain’t that a pity! Tell me, dandy, is that the best song you got? Because my dead grandpap spins a better yarn than that.”
“No, I . . . I mean it. Search me, see? I had it, then I didn’t. Some man made off with it, I’m sure, stole it from under my nose. A madman. He was dark, like a Lendahyn, but called himself Kyr’amanu, and—”
Garden’s hand came up. “Stop your caterwauling. Jens, search him.” Mag’s stomach dropped a little. Sea and Stone, the trouble with his ludicrous story was the truth of it.
One of the Terryns flipped out a knife. Mag’s heart jumped, but the blade just sliced through his shirt, going from collar to navel. They stripped him down, searched every part of him, searched his clothes, turned them inside out, took off his boots and popped open the heel with a knife.
Mag just stood there, ass-naked and vulnerable. All the heat from the liquor had gone out of him, and he was starting to feel faint again. His head clunked like a drum. His elbow and thigh whimpered with pain. Still no water. Not one drop, and the whiskey had probably done more harm than good. Any moment, he thought. Any moment, I’m just going to fall over.
He kept opening his mouth to ask for water, but then he’d meet Garden’s eye and shut it again.
“Nothing,” the man finally announced. “No stone.”
“Nothing,” Garden echoed, looking at Mag. He took a casual step towards him, drawing a slender knife, polished to a shine. Mag’s eyes followed it. The knife paused for a moment, as if thinking, then slapped him under the chin. Mag swallowed.
“You know, my dandy, this ain’t no game of two-clues, and my mistress don’t care to be played a fool. So I’ll give i
t to you straight. We don’t need much of you but your mouth, so you tell us where we can find the stone, or we’ll start taking bits off ‘til you sing. Clear?”
Mag felt a tremor run through him. “No . . . no you don’t—damn it, Garden, you don’t get it. I already told you, I don’t know. I was running after him, trying to get it back when you found me. It’s him you should be after, not me!”
“Who?”
“The man who stole it from me, he . . . I don’t know who he was.”
“Well, ain’t that a shame. Shall we start with your right or your left?”
“What?” Mag felt a lump slip into his gut and stay there.
“Well, seeing as your left’s already banged up.” Garden nodded over Mag’s shoulder. A boot hammered into the back of his leg. His knees crumpled. They dragged him to the stump, and someone seized his right hand, smashing it onto the wood, fingers splayed out. Arms gripped him, holding him fast. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead as Garden crouched across from him, slow and smooth, a half-wild creature.
“What . . . what are you doing? Garden, there ain’t no need for this, I’m telling you, I—”
The point of Garden’s knife began tapping Mag’s fingers in turn. “Iminee Jiminee Jabbery Joe,” he singsonged the child’s nursery rhyme. “Went to the ocean and stuck in a toe. Snap went the fish, and it never let go. Iminee Jiminee Jabbery . . .” Garden had a wicked glint in his eye. Mag wagged his head. His mouth flapped for a moment as the knife prodded his long, white index finger, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t—
Garden leaned in. “Joe.”
“No, wait—”
Garden thrust down, slicing through skin and bone. Mag screeched and tried to jerk away, but he was held fast. The knife snapped clean through to the stump. Blood gushed out of his hand. He stared, then jerked wildly, flailing back and forth.
“See here, Yourk,” Garden went on. “I don’t enjoy games much myself, but as long as you insist on toying with me, I’ll follow suit. Now let’s play again.” The cold edge tapped his thumb, and Mag blinked away the pain, trying to find Garden’s eye, desperate for something to say.
“Iminee Jiminee Jabbery Joe,” Garden began.
“No!” Mag gasped. “I’m telling you the truth, I swear . . .”
Shadows of Blood Page 67