Rawk pointed to himself and said his name.
“Adonda Zid Har Weizu,” came the reply.
Rawk breathed. Maybe everyone was going to live. “Adonda?” He glanced back. Well, everyone except the dead guy.
The man eyed him up and down. “Zid,” he said.
Perhaps ‘Adonda’ was a title, or rank. Or perhaps ‘Zid’ was the rank and Rawk was being put in his place. Rawk wasn’t sure how to clarify, but knew it didn’t matter in the end.
Especially when Zid became alert and looked around. A moment later, Rawk heard it as well. The tramp of feet on the cobbles. Synchronized military feet. Zid wasn’t happy but Rawk held up a hand to try to calm him.
“You know Weaver is unlikely to just let these men go to wander around the city,” Fabi said, “no matter how friendly they appear.”
Rawk hadn’t thought of that. He should have, but for the last few minutes all he’d been thinking about was staying alive. Even if he could control the City Guard long enough to keep Zid and his companions alive, they were probably going to be locked up as a threat. “Path.” He held up his other hand as well. Keep them calm. Great. And then what?
Zid said something though it wasn’t immediately obvious if he was talking to Rawk or to his own men. But they still didn’t attack. The canvas flapped and the boots came closer. There were people watching from amidst the stalls and the buildings further away.
Rawk did the only thing he could think of. He picked up his sword and walked quickly away from the sound of the approaching feet. He paused once and looked back to beckon the strangers to follow. He hoped he looked desperate enough for them to get the message. Frew didn’t move, but Fabi came and stood by his side. The big man sheathed his sword, perhaps as a symbolic gesture, and Rawk decided to do the same. He gestured again then turned and walked, pushing between two of the braver spectators who were finally starting to get closer. If the exots didn’t follow, then there was nothing more he could do that wasn’t dangerous for someone— mainly himself. When he next looked back, Zid was looking towards the approaching footsteps, then gave an order in a surprisingly melodic language, and followed Rawk.
In the nearest alley, away from the prying eyes for a moment, Rawk sent Fabi ahead to look for trouble and paused amidst a stinking drift of rubbish— no spices here— to let everyone else catch up. He started moving again when Zid was a couple of yards away. Buildings leaned in, blocking out most of the sky. The world was reduced to just a sliver. But Rawk didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do. He couldn’t just wander around in the alleys; the Guard were sure to catch up sooner rather than later. He ducked and weaved down one narrow, cluttered alley and crossed a major road into another twisting backstreet beyond. Rawk was positive he’d never been down that particular narrow, ambush-waiting-to-happen in his life but a green roof brought him up short. He was sure he knew it. The building it crowned was tall and narrow. It looked like it might be a shop on the ground floor and a house above.
Fabi was calling softly from one side and it sounded as if the City Guard were still following the trail of curious people they’d left behind. A swell of sound suggested someone was not far behind.
As Rawk turned to continue on, he spotted an old book lying on the ground beneath the back stairs of the building, tattered leather cover green with mold. And he knew where he was. He raced up the creaking stairs and tried the door. Locked. So he knocked and waited. Knocked again. Eventually, after what seemed a lifetime, Juskin opened the door a crack and looked out.
“Rawk? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. You have to let me and my friends in.”
Juskin’s eyes narrowed.
“Quickly.” Rawk’s heart pounded. He looked back down the alley but there was nothing to see. The source of the tramping feet was hidden by a bend. It wouldn’t be long though so he pushed the door open, startling Juskin, and waved his followers in. A minute later the storeroom at the back of the bookshop was crowded with armored warriors. Someone upset a pile of books and the volumes thudded dully onto the floor.
“What is going on?” Juskin demanded.
Rawk shushed the old man and peeked out the small window at the back with Zid by his side. Everyone else waited silently while Juskin bustled around to move other precarious ziggurats further from the edge of benches and tables.
“Rawk, I don’t—”
Rawk glared at him and he stuttered into silence as well.
Paker came into sight. The captain stalked purposefully along the alley. His men came along behind, swords at the ready, looking like they wanted some action. Rawk knew most of the men and none of them were known for their intelligence or for their accepting ways. He swore under his breath and sat down on a pile of books. Paker? What were the odds of him just randomly walking around the streets with a troop of the Guard at his back?
A minute later, Zid let out a relieved sigh and sat down on the edge of a table covered with a autumn scatter of leather-bound books. He took off his bird helm, revealing a round, blue-tinged face with a long nose and a tussock of white hair. His left cheek and neck was covered by a luminous tattoo that seemed to shift and swirl in the dim light.
“Who are these men?” Juskin asked.
“I don’t know, Juskin. We can’t understand a word they say.”
“Then what is going on? Why are they hiding in my shop?”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I do. But these men...”
Another of the warriors took off their helm and she obviously wasn’t a man. Rawk didn’t know if he’d ever seen anyone so beautiful in his life, though it was an unsettling type of beauty he didn’t quite know how to deal with. The woman said something to Zid in the musical language.
Juskin replied haltingly before anyone could say anything.
Rawk blinked at the old man. “Excuse me?”
Zid started talking as well, rising to his feet. The words were on the edge of aggressive and Juskin backed away before Zid made a concerted, noticeable effort to calm down. And that last act confirmed for Rawk that he had made the right decision.
“What’s going on, Juskin?”
Juskin cleared his throat and glanced at Zid. “They are speaking Halote.”
“That’s a language?” Fabi asked from near the door. He had it open a crack and was looking down the alley after Paker. “I thought it was a city that was destroyed a few hundred years ago.”
“It is both. They spoke Halote in the city of Halote before the volcano buried them. Though it was more like a few thousand years ago.”
“Then how do you speak it?”
“Halote was the center of the world, long ago. There were schools and libraries where people from all around the world went to study. Many books were saved, so the language lives on. It is actually quite different from what your friends are speaking, but I think we would be able to understand each other enough to get by.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “How are they your friends if you cannot even speak to them?”
“Will you just ask Zid what’s going on?”
“Zid?”
“Their leader.”
Juskin nodded and turned to the other man. They spoke at length, but Rawk thought that most of the conversation was just the same thing repeated in different ways as they tried to understand each other.
“Well?”
“As far as I can tell, Zid and his... Jentre?— I’m not sure exactly what that is— were waiting to see the King, or something similar. The portal appeared and they were sucked into it.”
“Sucked into it? It pulled them in?”
“Yes. Perhaps. No. Maybe it was a metaphorical pulling. Then someone attacked them...”
“Frew did.”
Frew cleared his throat. “I didn’t attack them, as such. I just ran towards them, in a general sort of way, with my sword drawn. It was more a misunderstanding than anything else.”
“Of course. A Hero wouldn’t attack without first findi
ng out all the facts.”
“Hey, there were still people everywhere at that stage.”
Rawk held up a hand to stop Frew from going any further. “Right,” he said. “So, what do we do now?”
“You are asking me?” Juskin laughed. “Zid doesn’t seem the type to go around killing people for no reason, so... Did anyone see them with you?”
“Yes.”
“So they need to go into hiding for a couple of days? At the least.” Juskin cleaned his spectacles while he examined the warriors. “I suppose they could stay here.”
Rawk looked around. “Here?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Not exactly here; you know that I live up stairs. It would be cramped but...”
“Do you want to study them? Do some research?”
Juskin blushed.
“Anyway, no. Weaver will send someone here soon enough. He has to know that I visit your shop fairly regularly.”
“In that case, you should leave as soon as possible.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
Juskin spoke to Zid, a long laborious process that involved lots of pauses. Juskin spent so long staring at the ceiling between words that Rawk was beginning to wonder if there was a Halote dictionary painted there. Eventually, he got a nod in reply and the soldiers started removing their helms and their long butterfly-cloaks. They folded the latter and put them in the former and placed them in a pile beneath the table. With their dark armor and unsettling beauty they were still going to attract attention, though not as much as before.
“I don’t know where you want to go,” Juskin said eventually, “but Zid and his Jentre will follow.”
“Right. Good.” Where did he want to go? It probably didn’t matter at this stage, as long as it was away from Juskin’s shop, where the search would probably come as soon as Weaver worked out how close it was to the Mount Cheese markets. He looked around, trying to think. “This group is too big, too noticeable. Let’s split up. Frew and Fabi, each of you take four of our new friends and meet at the main Keeto Alata warehouse.”
“At the warehouse?”
“Yes, there’s a small door on the north side. This lot don’t look like the sort to go into the offices, but they might be workers.” He looked them up and down. “Or guards. Or something. Juskin, tell them what’s happening.”
A minute later, Rawk took a deep breath then led Zid and three others out into the front of the shop and from there out the door onto the street. His heart was racing but the locals were so used to exots now that it was almost as if they forgot about them after a few minutes of quiet; there was no screaming right now, so everyone carried on as if nothing had happened. And old lady tottered along with a basket of flowers. Three young men were trying to, alternatively, cajole and push and carry a reluctant goat down the street. A couple were wrangling a child in much the same way. Some passers by did pause to look, but the stranger’s tattoos didn’t glow as much in the sunlight, so they were just attractive foreigners. Rawk’s hand twitched but he took it away from the hilt of his sword and hurried down the street. At the corner he looked back and saw Fabi emerge from the shop. He continued quickly down the street and his heart didn’t slow at all.
The offices of Keeto Alata were back down towards the river. They weren’t that far away, but every step increased Rawk’s unease. Every corner was an opportunity to be surprised by Paker, or any of the City Guard. His back itched. He hurried on and tried project a mien of I’m not going to tell you a story. It seemed to work.
They came to the warehouse from a smelly, damp alley and Rawk went in through the small side door without pausing. There was a guard just inside. When he thought about it, it was obvious, but it still caught him by surprise.
“You can’t come in here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Howser.”
“Well, Howser, do you know who I am?”
Howser looked him up and down, as if it might be a trick question. “Rawk?”
“That’s right.”
“You still can’t come in here. You might be able to kill me, but I don’t really think you want to so it’s unlikely to happen. But if I let you in, Yardi will probably fire me. And then my wife will kill me; she’s pregnant.”
“Congratulations. Is it your first?”
“Yes. There’s less than a month to go.”
“Right. Well, I understand completely.” He looked back at his followers, who were still standing in the alley. “But you know Yardi is a friend of mine, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you really think she would mind letting me in?”
“I’m not paid to think, Rawk.” It looked like he would be very good at the ‘not thinking’ part of the job.
Rawk sighed. He kept his ownership of Keeto Alata secret for a reason but he was starting to wonder if it was more trouble than it was worth. “Look, Howser, I have some friends out here, and some more coming soon, and we really need to get out of the open.”
Howser leaned to the side slightly to look out the door.
“Do you really think I’m going to steal something?”
Howser gave it some thought and Rawk wondered if he was going to go to Yardi to request a pay rise.
“Let us in. I may not kill you, but I will knock you senseless and Yardi will still fire you for being incompetent.”
Still nothing.
“Your conscientiousness is wonderful, but get out of the way.”
Rawk pushed the man aside and made his way into the warehouse. Zid and his friends followed and they all crowed in a small clear space in the corner.
Fabi was not far behind. And a few minutes later, Frew led his small group in the door as well. The little man gave a sigh and loosened the muscles in his shoulders. “Well, that was uncomfortable.”
Fabi laughed softly. “Now what, Rawk?”
“I’ve got to go talk to Yardi, I guess.”
Up in the reception area, Hurno didn’t look happy. “Rawk,” he said. “Yardi is very busy at the moment.”
Rawk sighed. “Are you going to make me go through all this again? Every time?”
“I am trying to do my job. I—”
“For a long time, I was just trying to do my job as well, Hurno, but sometimes you have to actually think for yourself. The world isn’t black and white. And, in my experience, people are wrong as often as not, even if the rest of the world doesn’t realize.”
“Yardi told me...”
Rawk sighed and went across to Yardi’s office. And for the first time that he’d ever seen, Yardi was actually doing some work. She had a big pile of papers on her battleship-desk and was marking off items in ink as red as blood.
“Here we be go,” she said with the usual confusion of grammar and diction from all the languages she knew. “Who be you sleeping with this time?”
“Nobody.”
Yardi raised her eyebrows.
“No, really; nobody.” And he realized it was true. He gave a grunt.
She obviously didn’t believe him.
“I have a dozen men who need jobs. Well, men and women.” He paused and scratched his head. “Well...”
“They not be men or women?”
“They look like men and women, but I have no way of judging for sure.”
“You could ask.”
“They speak Halote. I don’t suppose you do?” It wouldn’t have surprised him.
“No. Not a lot of traders coming from Halote.”
“I didn’t say they came from there. They came through an ohoga portal.”
Yardi sucked air through her teeth. “Exots?”
Rawk ignored the word. “They can be guards or they can load some stuff into wagons. It will just be for a couple of days until Weaver gets bored.”
“Weaver is looking for them?”
“Maybe. Paker certainly was a little while ago.”
“I don’t have much in the way of work at the moment.”
“Look, just give them s
omewhere to hide. You don’t need to pay them or anything.”
“They only speak Halote?”
Rawk nodded and Yardi sighed. She threw down her pen and rose to her feet. “Take me to them.”
Yardi came up short, mouth open, when she saw the first of the strangers. He was bigger than the others and had a dragon design glittering on the shaven skin around his ear. His dark eyes were intense, his stillness mesmerizing, like a cobra ready to strike.
“Hello.” Yardi recovered quickly, stepping forward as if nothing had happened.
The man’s eyes narrowed and he glanced at Rawk, as if making sure the man in charge of the operation knew what was going on. After a moment, he gave a small nod and stepped aside so Zid could come forward.
But there wasn’t much to say, beyond brief, awkward introductions.
Eventually, when it was obvious communication of any sort wasn’t going to be easy, Yardi grunted. “There are a couple of empty workers rooms down back. There not be enough, but I’m sure if they warriors they be used to sharing. But we be having big shipment arriving in three days and workers be coming as well, already hired, so they will have to be gone by then.” Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know they speak Halote?”
“I have an interpreter.”
“You didn’t be thinking to mention this before?”
“No. You didn’t think to ask? Juskin owns a bookshop. He’s working now and not one for either fighting or sneaking around in alleyways. I’ll send him around when I can but until then you’ll just have to make do.”
“Me? You can take them down the back and explain to them. I have work to do.”
“Oh, all right.”
-O-
When Rawk made his way into the library, he felt like he was coming home after a month of campaigning. He was exhausted and his nerves were still jangling. Sylvia was already there, holding a cup while she examined the books on the shelf.
“You made a cup of tea?”
An Army of Heroes Page 6