A Fray of Furies, page 37
part #2 of The Waking Worlds Series
On firmer foot, the astronomer righted his nightshirt.
“Young man, I am a stargazer of the highest order – no pun intended. My lot is to ponder the heavens and unravel the secrets of the firmament. I have long plotted the path of fallen stars and dreamt of unearthing their celestial bodies. Now, thanks to Jepta – and his enigmatic master – I finally have the means!”
Somewhere during the murmured translation, the admiral’s steely gaze had settled on the scholar.
“You mean,” her translator demanded, “to dig up a heavenly body?”
He felt a stir of disquiet.
“Exactly so!”
“To plunder a celestial’s tomb and desecrate its remains?”
“A rather colorful analogy,” the scholar smiled. “But, in layman’s terms, I suppose so?”
The admiral nodded, satisfied, for her aid to continue.
“Then that is both heresy and necromancy you have admitted to. By Imperial charter, and by the edict of Helia’s Temple, you are hereby placed under arrest and your vessel seized–”
The captain drew himself up, “Please, good master–!”
“Hold on,” the astronomer interjected, “the Heli themselves–!”
The functionary snapped his fingers. Above them, a bevy of bowmen stepped up to the rail, arrows nocked.
“Save your pleas for your trail,” the man raised his voice. “Your ship will be put to use in the Imperial navy, your goods will…”
A commotion had been brewing in the cabins below. Its escalation finally drowned out the functionary. All eyes turned to the hatch, which shook to the sounds of a scuffle. There were raised voices. Some dull clunks. Then silence.
The hatch exploded.
Soldiers spilled onto the deck, lying limp beneath bits of broken door and frame. Heavy footsteps drew every arrow toward the figure climbing into view.
The slayer had awoken. And he was in a mood.
Even with sword sheathed and hair disheveled, he was a sight to behold. Jepta couldn’t help but bask in the reflected glory.
The soldiers had a very different reaction. Steel was drawn. Orders shouted. Stances taken. At least one archer went weak in the knees and – importantly – the fingers.
There were stories, of course, of men snatching arrows from midair. None had ever done it like this…
Metal yelped and wood shivered. Silence held as the slayer inspected the projectile, its head pinched between his thumb and forefinger. His sleepy gaze rose along its trajectory.
“Oh, good,” he announced, “I needed a bigger boat.”
Apparently overcome, the functionary broke rank. The man rushed ahead, sword upraised and tablet trampled under heel.
The slayer flicked the arrow with casual force. It fell across the functionary’s nose like a bullwhip. The man screamed, bumbling about blindly. His compatriots advanced more cautiously.
The slayer turned toward them.
At a stentorian bellow, the soldiers halted, milling uncertainly. Atop the rail, baffled bowmen relaxed their strings.
Even he looked a question at the admiral…
Her streaked cheeks were at odds with her severe expression. Hands trembled as she drew her weapon and her steps were unsteady. She stopped before the slayer, searching his face.
She collapsed to her knees. Voice aquiver, but carrying still, she spoke in Heli. Her sword, she offered up on splayed palms.
On the deck around them, and at the rail above, weapons clattered as the Imperials fell reverently to their knees.
“Do you understand what’s going on?” he whispered to the astronomer.
“No,” the scholar admitted. “But I think she’s got him confused with someone she called ‘Arbiter’...?”
Chapter 13 – What Lies Beneath
She slid carefully down the dune.
Her quarry had set up camp early and squandered the night. Now, dawn’s thaw threatened the air.
A clandestine search of their saddlebags, back in that blasted cave, had failed to offer up her prize. Yet, intelligence had insisted the antique blade had left the Heli embassy.
Perhaps the odd group planned to pass through the Purlian cities and ferry it home from the port of Oaragh? It seemed a fraught and round-about route to her. Too risky to be real.
She’d resented her wrong-headed assignment.
At first.
Then she’d found a box of jewels, brimming with possibilities. It had taken all of her control to leave it where it lay.
She’d not chosen the covert corps. Her loyal father had volunteered her when she’d been freshly turned twelve. A dutiful daughter, she’d been quickly disillusioned. She somehow doubted other companies included flirting and fucking in their curriculum.
She was fed up with a life of service.
When Jiminy’s group announced they were breaking off from the caravan, she couldn’t believe her luck. Observe and report be damned. She’d already envisioned how she’d shed her boyish disguise – and then their life’s blood. She’d winnow whoever took her to bed first, then deal with the other two…
But they’d refused her company.
No matter. She’d managed to tie a string to them regardless.
The quickening cantrip had tasted foul on her tongue. (Yet another reason she’d be glad to be rid of the Renali Irregulars.) Balanced on her palm, the paltry knife had pointed the way to its sheath, which she’d secreted beneath the pickpocket’s saddle.
A good thing too. She’d almost lost them twice; their trail had been so chaotic. She’d seen why, from her vantage. How the empire recalled a rest-stop the caravans had forgotten, she didn’t know. But it would make an excellent spot for an ambush.
Careful to keep her telltale shadow behind her, she slunk around the dune. The horses knew her scent and didn’t start as she crouched, silently, among them.
Her eyes narrowed – something had changed.
The party had broken with their previous pattern. They showed no signs of turning in for the day. The herbalist sat, on her hemorrhaging case, watching the monk wear a worried furrow in the sand. The pickpocket was–
Fortune’s fetlocks! Where was he?!
Panic gripped her. She’d assumed him asleep but, by the light of day, she could see his blankets were empty.
Did they suspect? Was Jiminy ranging around them? Was he sitting sentinel atop one of these dunes? Fortune forbid – was he sneaking along her backtrail, even now?
She shook her head. No, she’d know. He wasn’t close.
The ruffian had impressive fleetness of foot. And nerve. No doubt he knew how to use those pig-stickers of his. But he had no ranged weapon. The sucking sand would steal his advantage. He’d be late to the battle. One-on-one, he wouldn’t pose a threat.
There was, of course, the possibility that one of the Imperials was a mage. She’d be sure to give them no time to work any spells.
She drew her close-work knives.
There was a freshness to the morning air, she reflected.
It tasted of freedom.
Neever paced to stay awake.
It had been bells since Master Jiminy went in the water. And there’d been not so much as a ripple since.
He’d half-feared the oasis would evaporate by daylight. Instead, the apparition had become more real. The dawn had picked out reeds and red rocks, as though they’d been there the entire time. He’d spotted a cloud of midges and even tracked a dragonfly.
Yoriana slumped nearby, eyes a-droop. Her lone concession to the rising heat had been to move beneath shelter. He’d half a mind to tell her to get some sleep but he left the words unspoken. She was as worried as he, though not for the same reason.
His thoughts turned to the last time he’d waited up for the thief…
Helia’s mercy! How had he allowed this to happen again?!
The boy had barely returned alive from Seven Deep, cut to pieces and poisoned to boot. True, there hadn’t been supposed to be a monster, waiting at the bottom of the Well. But there had been. They could claim no such ignorance this time.
And it was his doing. He’d intended to spare the boy. He’d told Sitter Cyrus the young thief was too wary to trust them again. The high-placed priest had seemed to accept this, with bad grace.
Then the call had come: Jiminy was gravely ill…
To his great shame, he now wondered whether that had been engineered as well. A potion, slipped into an unguarded drink perhaps…? He wanted to believe Cyrus incapable of such. But considering what had happened next, he could no longer be sure.
He’d seen the necessity, of course, even if he didn’t approve.
The success of the modernist movement demanded it.
Only… he’d have been happier if it had demanded something that was his to give. Instead, they’d resorted to lies and collusion.
The lure of confession was strong but frayed. Like a tongue, continually seeking out a sharp cavity.
No more, he decided, coming to an abrupt halt. Jiminy would return. And when he did, he’d tell the boy everyth–
A knife spun through where his next step would’ve set him.
It went, splashing, into the pool.
“Shit!” an unknown voice swore.
He moved without thinking. Their assailant had been clever, targeting him first. And positioning themselves within striking distance of Yoriana. Their near miss forced a moment’s recalculation. He capitalized on it.
An ungentle kick sent the priestess spinning out of harm’s way.
Had he been just a decade younger, he might also have avoided the knife he felt, biting deep below his ribs. He re-evaluated: their assailant was clever and quick.
The strike, winging towards his neck, was Renali military technique. Effective but inelegant. Heedless of injury, he slipped the blow and threw his attacker. He couldn’t help but cry out as the blade was wrenched from his side.
A slight figure rose amid rust-colored dust.
Clever and quick and conniving, he saw.
“Garm?”
He possessed only a mote of empathic ability himself. Yoriana, who’d ridden with Garm pressed to her back, had told him of the girl’s deceit. It had been enough to put his niggling doubts to rest. Now, it appeared, Garm had been perpetrating a far greater fraud.
He saw her next attack coming.
Injured and unarmed, he was too slow to take advantage. He gave ground before a furious front of feints and stabs, looking for an opportunity to grapple. She gave him none.
His ankle snagged on the unseen case of cures.
Gleefully, Garm lunged. He turned into it, hoping to feed the hungry steel a wound that wouldn’t be immediately fatal.
It was like falling, upwards, at incredible speed. The glowing globs sped past in a blur. Buoyed by the magic of the oasis – and his triumph over its mistress – Jiminy found it exhilarating.
Then the cold began to penetrate. He couldn’t remember it being cold on the way down...
Immense pressure built behind his heart and spiked behind his eyes. He felt himself, crushed, in the vengeful fist of the mehz. His ears popped. Bubbles screamed into his wake.
He trained his gaze upward, hoping for a hint of daylight.
Water – real water – scoured his eyeballs raw, raced up his nose and into his mouth. He convulsed with the effort of not breathing–
–and was launched from the pool, as though it hid a trebuchet.
For a heart-stopping moment, he hung, suspended in the spray. Muddled impressions assaulted him from below: Neever, down; Yoriana, wild-eyed; an unnamed figure aflame.
He frowned as an unfamiliar dagger tumbled by.
He came down with the rain, knife first. The burning one broke his fall. By the sound, he broke its neck. Then came enough water, more or less, to quench the flames. The impact would’ve knocked the air clean from his lungs. As it was, a second geyser fountained, right up his throat. He spewed heave after miserable heave over his downed victim, clutching at the dagger he’d planted in its clavicle. The ground drank down blood and water with equal abandon.
That first, unencumbered breath went down like a blue-veined cactus bulb. It was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
Coughing, he raised confused eyes from Garm’s corpse to confront the priestess. They’d revisit the jug of liquor she held later. For now, a more immediate question held precedence.
“Do you know you’re on fire?” he rasped.
Yoriana was meditating.
Or, at least, she was trying to.
She usually found the mental pursuit of new formulae and methodologies soothing. The Temple had long since disallowed the dissection of glow globes for study. The re-discovery of their manufacture was made all the more challenging for it.
Given some of the fantastical insights she’d already come to, though, it was very possible she was falling aslee–
“Shit!”
A terrific impact slammed her from her seat.
Red dust vied with blue sky as she tumbled.
“Yori! Run!”
Dazed, her analytical mind took over, tallying up the evidence: that diminutive, the desperate brevity, the tightly controlled pain…
She rolled gritty eyes to confirm. The monk was trading blows with an unknown knifeman – whose weapon was red to the hilt.
Oh, merciful Helia!
Urgency pulled her to her feet. ‘Run,’ he’d commanded.
But, her analytical self said, he hadn’t said where, or what for.
Clutching her side, she hobbled toward her saddlebags.
Fleeing afoot, as Brother Neever no doubt intended her to do, was folly. They were weeks from the nearest water, not counting the oasis. The horses were unsaddled and, more importantly, un-provisioned. She didn’t dare delay long enough to remedy either situation. Only death awaited her, out among the dunes.
Whereas (she was willing to infer) there was only one killer here right now. But her only protector was hampered by injury. She knew nothing of martial arts but enough of physiology to know his efficacy was impaired and decreasing.
Consider the variables.
She eyed his staff, sticking from the sand. But she had no way of delivering it to his overwrought hands. And, she calculated, he didn’t retain sufficient range of motion to use it.
She dismissed the thought of using it herself.
As she skidded to a stop by her bags, a pained grunt drew her eye. The monk had fallen in a spray blood.
She dragged the jug of alchemical spirits free by its ear and bit out its stopper – an uncouth practice she’d normally shun.
Air dilution would be required. She raised the jug. Past it, she eyed the approaching attacker and spared a moment to calculate time of arrival. Icy liquid scalded her soft palate and sharp fumes bit at her sinuses.
Their fire was long dead and she had no time for flint or tinder.
Spitting through clenched teeth, she misted her hand.
This was it, then.
Heart pounding, knees shaking, she bowed her head. There would be time, later, for guilt at circumventing the necessary prayers. The streaming trance overtook her, smooth and practiced.
There was a dull whump as her arm ignited.
The charging figure paused as her fingers flamed blue.
Stepping forward, she exhaled in a great gush.
The small mouthful of spirits burgeoned into a ball of retribution. The knifeman stumbled away, slapping at his clothes. She hefted the ceramic, hoping the soft sand could crack it–
The oasis erupted.
Startled, she stared as a dark figure arced through the deluge. And then the knifeman was down and being vomited on by Jiminy.
She gaped as the thief gulped and heaved desperately.
Wet, bedraggled and prone, he peered through bloodshot eyes.
“Do you know you’re on fire?”
Starting, she shook the feeble flames from her sleeve.
“And why,” he insisted hoarsely, “have we spit-roasted poor Garm?”
Garm?
“Neever!” she recalled, hurrying over.
The monk lay in a patch of black sand. He’d tried to staunch the wound in his side but had lost consciousness. He was no longer bleeding. That was a bad sign.
“Help me!” she demanded over her shoulder. Besides the elementary instruction, foisted on all initiates, her knowledge of the body was theoretical. Faced with a practical stabbing, she wished she’d waited longer to switch disciplines.
The wounds looked grave, though. The hesitation in the thief’s shadow, as it fell over them, said he saw it too.
“Cut his robes open,” she instructed, overriding whatever he’d been about to say, “then bear down on that gash…”
Obediently, he set a knife to Neever’s cassock.
“Are you going to magic him a’right?”
She shook her head, “Not in my power.”
His hands paused in their work, to probe beneath the monk’s jaw. The bloodied chest no longer rose and fell.
She refused to meet his eyes, “Fetch my saddlebags, quickly.”
“Yoriana–”
“Now!”
He loped, brokenly, to comply.
The stab to the gut had gone deep, she saw. She could clean it out and sew it up with little difficulty. But if the intestines had been holed, they’d fester. Bubbles had leaked from the chest wound. A punctured lung might be more fatal in the short term.
“Here.”
She snatched her bags and dug right down to the bottom.
“Shivering sands,” he breathed, staring at the hand-held contraption. “What is that?!”
The metal mosquito, sporting a cruel beak and a crystalline belly of clear liquid, looked more like a weapon than any form of aid.
“Medicine,” she answered tersely.
Unsanctioned Inquisitori innovation, she amended to herself.
“I don’t think he’s in a fit state to swallow that…”
“Not a problem,” she promised.
Then she stabbed the monk a third time. Through the heart.
The dead monk gasped, clawing at the air.
“Crap!” he jerked back, scrabbling for lost knives.
But the corpse had already subsided.
