Shadow Blade, page 17
“We start right there,” he said.
They got within twenty paces before the slavers even knew they were coming, and by then it was too late. The Pushtanis died in heartbeats, and Pachat gathered the slaves.
“One of you take this one through the tunnel to our home,” he said, pointing to the whipped man. The skin on the man’s back hung in strips while blood oozed from the cuts. “He needs a healer. The rest, go get your armor and weapons.”
When they were gone, Pachat turned and looked at the tents fifty or so paces away, listened to the raucous laughter of their captors streaming from the fort, and the tormented cries of the Nishi’itis they punished. He let it all fan the flames in his heart.
“You know what to do from here,” he told the slaves. “Stay in groups of at least five and kill all the masters. No one escapes. If they do, they’ll bring the Army and we’ll be dead.”
The men gave grim nods.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Pachat said. “Leave Cargil to me.”
Cargil’s tent sat in the middle of the fort, a large, circular canvas with slivers of light coming from the seams and the space around the flap. An iron stovepipe stuck up from the peak, smoke lifting to the night sky like a flock of birds escaping a predator. Jingsho and three other men followed Pachat as he marched through the tents, their faces as dark as the night and twice as cold.
They encountered only one soldier on their way, since most of the slavers were busy with whores or liquor or both. Even the soldier they ran into had stepped outside his tent to piss, wavering on his feet, and squinting to see the approaching slaves better. His eyes opened wide when he saw them.
“Hey, you—”
Jingsho slashed his throat with a sweep of his curved sword, nearly severing the man’s head. The soldier toppled to the ground.
When they came to Cargil’s tent, Jingsho stood aside and motioned for Pachat to enter.
“This one is all yours,” he whispered. “For Kendshi.”
Pachat hesitated, sword in hand. Then cries broke out from the other tents, as his army of slaves attacked their masters. Inside Cargil’s tent, a commotion told Pachat the Slave Master had heard the fighting.
“Damn them all!” came Cargil’s voice. “What now?”
“Hurry,” Jingsho urged. “Before he can arm himself.”
Pachat tossed aside the tent flap, shielding his eyes from the light of the interior as he stepped inside. Cargil froze beside a large, crudely built bed, his breeches down around his ankles, his member pitifully small and wrinkled under the hairy bulge of his stomach.
On the bed lay a Nishi’iti girl, no more than fourteen, gagged and naked. Pachat didn’t recognize her, but her face was swollen and bleeding, and her ankles and wrists had been lashed to the corners of the bed frame.
Cargil watched as Pachat stalked closer, and he eyed a sword leaning against a nearby chair.
“How did you get a weapon, Nishi’iti pig? I’ll have you flogged for this!”
He lunged for the sword, but Pachat was faster, leaping forward and slashing with the short sword. The blade bit into the flesh and bone of Cargil’s arm, blood spattering the floor. He jerked back his hand and fell on his backside.
“Guards!” he yelled.
Pachat kicked him in the face, reveling in the sick crunch of bone and cartilage, then pulled back his foot and kicked him in the groin, too. Cargil doubled over, clutching at his man parts. He made a strangled noise in his throat.
Outside, the chaos had risen to a new level, and the sound of fighting barged into the tent. Men screamed in pain. Steel clashed with steel, and Nishi’s name rang through the night.
Pachat kicked Cargil’s sword across the floor, out of reach, and kneeled on the master’s chest. He jammed the tip of his short sword up under Cargil’s chin until it drew a tiny droplet of blood.
Cargil whimpered, his eyes wide now, but Pachat held his finger to his lips and cupped an ear with the other hand.
“Hear that?” he growled. “That’s the sound of Nishi bringing his justice to your thugs. Listen to them die, Cargil. Listen and know that your fate is the same as theirs.”
Cargil swallowed hard. “Please, don’t. I can help you. I’ll make sure the Army doesn’t know what happened here. You and your people can flee home and I’ll stall for you. I’ll—”
Pachat drove the pommel of his sword into Cargil’s jaw, snapping Cargil’s head to the side and spraying more blood.
“The only thing you’re going to do, you miserable sack of dung, is die.”
He raised the short sword over his head with both hands and stared at a spot between Cargil’s hair-covered breasts. Before he could bring it down, the girl on the bed mumbled through her gag. Pachat glanced at her and she shook her head, thrashing at the ropes with a fury.
The tent flap opened and Jingsho poked his head inside.
“Hurry, Pachat,” he said. “We need you out here.”
Pachat nodded and moved to the bed. He pulled a sheet over the girl’s nakedness and tugged the gag from her mouth. She looked him in the eye, mouth twisting as she spoke.
“Let me kill him.”
“What’s your name?”
“I am Fooshi,” she answered. “And he has raped me every night for ten days now. I want Nishi’s revenge.”
Making sure Cargil didn’t move, Pachat nodded and sliced through the bonds on her left hand and ankle. In a flash, she had her other bonds undone and sprang from the bed. She dropped a knee onto Cargil’s throat. The man tried to roll away, but Pachat pinned his wrist with a foot, and handed the girl a dagger from his belt.
“Be quick,” he told her. “Nishi frowns on cruelty.”
Her brown eyes sizzled with hatred. “He also frowns on rape.”
Sliding down to Cargil’s knees, she lowered the blade to his groin. Cargil started to thrash, but Pachat jammed the sword point against his throat and straddled his chest, standing now on both of Cargil’s wrists.
Cargil’s scream told him Fooshi had started to slice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ashai pulled Makari down to crouch behind a trash heap, wrapping them both in a shroud of magic so they would appear to the passing soldiers as two street people, huddled against the night. He didn’t know exactly what they looked like—the magic chose appropriate faces from deep in his memories, and he saw Makari’s real face through the spell—but it must have worked, since the two Royal Guardsmen passed them by.
When they disappeared around a corner, Makari pushed Ashai back and stood.
“How did they not recognize us? The big one looked right at me like I wasn’t even there!”
Ashai stood and stepped off down the alley, the princess’ footsteps falling in behind him.
“That’s because they couldn’t see you,” he told her. “At least not the you they sought.”
She caught up to him, eyes smoldering with blue fire, and marched along at his side.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Shush now,” he said. “I can’t disguise your voice like I can your face, and you sound very much like, well, a princess.”
“Of course I sound—”
Ashai spun on her, clamping one hand over her mouth and the other behind her head. He put his face close to hers and hissed out his words like a serpent.
“Listen to me, Makari, if you want to live long enough to rule Pushtan. The assassin looking for you is Denari Lai. He uses magic and can see through these thin disguises if he has reason to look close enough. Don’t give him that reason. Walk, talk, and act like an old beggar woman or old age is something you’ll never see.
“I promise to explain when we get where we’re going, but right now my main goal is keeping both of us alive. I cannot do that if Princess Makari Abadas is roaming the streets at my side instead an old hag. Do you understand?”
Her blue eyes lost some of their fire, replaced with fear as she nodded.
He removed his hands and led her down the alley.
He twisted and turned them through alleys and streets, making numerous unneeded turns to make sure no one followed. As they went, the buildings became older and squatter, as if time had worn them down. About thirty minutes later, they stood in front of a run-down tavern, blinded by light spilling from doors and windows, deaf from the raucous laughter and music dancing out into the street.
The place’s sign dangled by one of its two chains, listing to one side. It bore no words—most of its patrons could not read—only a picture of a duck swimming in a keg of ale.
“The Drunken Duck,” Ashai announced. “I keep a room upstairs, hidden from all but the barkeeper. A safe house if you will. No one would think to look here. We’ll be safe for a few hours while we rest and change clothes.”
“Why would you need a safe house?” Makari asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “You’re a merchant and a minister.”
Ashai winked at her, hoping to assuage some of the vitriol he knew would come out in the room, when he told her everything.
“Like I said, I’ll explain inside. After you.”
She rolled her eyes and started for the door. He stopped her with a gentle touch of her elbow.
“Don’t forget. You’re not a princess here. Just look … poor.”
“I’ve been a princess all my life. I don’t know how to look poor because I’ve never been poor.”
“But you’ve been among the poor,” he reminded her. “Every week for years. Think about the people you helped. Remember how they carried themselves, how they talked, then mimic it until we’re safe.”
She thought a moment, then nodded. “The boy,” she whispered. “The one who robbed me. The one Bauti killed. I remember his eyes. They were … hopeless. He’d given up. On himself.”
Ashai nodded, smiling, as she shifted her stance, slouching and looking at the cobblestones. The changes were subtle, but with his remaining magic, they would be enough.
He led her up the sagging stairs and through the door.
Inside, he took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the brightness and motion, taking in the crowd. More than a few pairs of eyes noticed them as they shuffled across the wood-planked floor, but all looked away, uninterested. Even a young thief—barely more than a boy—in the back corner disregarded them as too poor to make good marks.
The place was larger inside than it looked from the street, with a high ceiling and pillars separating the dozen or so tables. Two serving wenches moved among the unsavory crowd, jumping when pinched or groped, and not always by men. Behind a crudely built bar against the back wall, the bartender watched them come in as he dried a pewter tankard. He was a bear of a man, both broad-shouldered and hairy, but Ashai had known him for years.
He led Makari to the bar and laid down a single copper.
“The hag and I will take your smallest room,” he said, giving Daggit the first pass phrase.
“You might not want it,” Daggit replied. “Rough crowd tonight. Like to be blood soon.”
Ashai tensed. Royal Guard had been here looking for him.
“Is the room warm?”
Daggit shook his ponderous head. “Cold and drafty.”
At least they hadn’t discovered his hideaway. “Then we’ll take our chances.”
Daggit nodded and pointed to the stairs to their right.
“You can’t miss it,” he said. “Plain as a cow in a ballroom.”
Ashai wasn’t sure what to make of that. It wasn’t one of their pre-arranged signals. But Daggit winked, so he decided to trust him.
He took Makari by the hand and led her up the rickety stairs. They opened into a short hallway, with two doors on the left and only one on the right. Where the second door should have been hung a tapestry with a picture of a cow standing in the middle of a ballroom, shattered glass everywhere, guests distraught.
Ashai chuckled, drew the tapestry aside, and found a door with the word “storage” painted on it. Smiling, he opened the door and found exactly what he’d expected: a storage room. Crates lined the right wall, and shelves the left, bottles and linens and boxes of silverware piled high on all of them. The back wall was lined with pegs, on which hung aprons and smocks and tunics, most in need of repair or cleaning. A single window allowed the light of the moon to enter.
Makari wrinkled her nose, and Ashai grinned again. Jars of pickles filled one shelf, pungent enough to keep even the most inquisitive soldier or constable from exploring too deeply.
Footsteps on the stairs made him usher Makari inside and slide the door closed behind them, letting the tapestry fall back into place. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim moonlight, but when it did, he moved to the back wall, brushing aside a grease-covered apron. He pulled on the lone empty peg and with an audible click, the wall below the pegs slid inward. Pushing the tiny portal open the rest of the way, he stood aside and motioned for Makari to go through.
“Daggit’s made some improvements since I was here last. We should be safe here for a few hours. The assassin will find us, though. It won’t take him long to scour the seedier bars in Dar Tallus and find this one.”
Makari’s expression said she was not convinced, but she stepped through the portal into his room. Ashai followed her, clicking the door closed behind him.
This room had no windows for prying eyes to peek in, so when the door closed, it plunged them into total darkness. He felt around the wall to his right and found an oil lamp on a hook. A minute later, he’d lit the room with dancing golden light. He kept the flame low, to avoid letting light through the door crack, though he had no doubt Daggit had seen to that possibility.
The room was sparse, even by Denari Lai standards. A bedroll spread out on the floor against one wall, a simple pile of thick blankets and scraps of material from his old business, with two pillows. A single chest sat in a corner, and several dark cloaks hung on pegs in the walls. A bench had been built into the closest wall.
He held the lamp up to Makari’s face only to find her glaring at him through the darkness.
“Start explaining,” she whispered. “Start with why a simple cloth merchant needs a safe house hidden in a storage room, but don’t forget to explain how you disguised us. How you learned to fight that way. Oh, and who you really are.”
Ashai sighed and motioned for her to sit on the bench.
“I’ll stand,” she said. “So I can kick you if needed.”
He studied her face, knowing she meant every word, and dropped onto the hard seat of the bench. As he set the oil lamp down, his hand trembled and he felt the muscles in his neck starting to bunch. He needed to renew his link to Nishi’s power, and soon. He’d seen what happened to men who let their links go cold, and he’d do Makari no good in that condition.
“Perhaps it will help you understand if you see me pray,” he told her. “I need to rebuild my strength soon or … bad things will happen.”
Makari opened her mouth to ask a question, but he silenced her with a wave of his hand.
“Just watch, my Princess,” he told her. “All will be clear soon.”
He stood, letting her sit on the bench, and moved to the center of the floor. He kneeled there, face upturned to the sky, and started to pray to Nishi. He didn’t disguise it this time, did not try to make it look like a Pushtani prayer. He used his native tongue, something he hadn’t done in months, and yet still felt so natural that it rolled off his tongue like water from a pitcher.
The prayer strengthened his link to his God, and rebuilt the power of his magic inside him. He felt Nishi’s hands on his shoulders, felt his God lifting him and renewing his faith. Power coursed through his veins, and a tingling, almost lightning-like feeling, that made him think he could do anything.
His prayer turned to song, chanting the praises of his God, the volume low enough that no one outside the room would hear. He felt the power of his prayer crescendo, his heart beating faster, his senses heightening and peaking.
Then, just before his prayer ended, he felt it. Someone far away was watching him, looking through the power of his link to his magic, and seeing deep into his soul. A dark figure, wrapped in shadow and cloaked in night.
The figure rushed toward him, streaking over mountains and plains, through the trees and fields, only to flash out of existence at the last second. But it had been enough. Ashai recognized who’d been watching him.
He recognized the Chargh Lai. And the Chargh Lai recognized him.
Ashai panicked and broke the link, cutting off his prayer and jumping to his feet. Sweat poured down his forehead and back, and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed a box of needles. Instinctively, he reached for the dagger in the small of his back, but then he saw Makari.
His princess stood before the bench, arms crossed under her breasts, feet apart, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her blue eyes were cold as the winter sky.
Ashai dropped his disguises, letting his features and his eye color return to normal. Brown. Nishi’iti.
“You’re one of them.” He’d expected her to yell, but the calm, cold tone of her voice chilled him. “You’re Nishi’iti. An assassin. That’s how you know so much about them, how you hid us. You’re one of them.”
He dropped back to his knees and buried his face in his hands.
“I am Denari Lai,” he cried. “I was sent here to kill you and your father, but I couldn’t do the job, so they used another. I was trying to find and stop the other, but I was too late. I managed to save only you.
“So I did the best I could, and got you out of there as soon as … as soon as your father went down.”
“You could have warned us,” she growled, towering over him. “My father might still be alive if you had. Bauti. My father. Me, Ashai! You could have told me, but you chose to lie instead.”
He looked up to see her glaring down at him, fists on hips, face red.
“I couldn’t,” he told her, unable to meet her gaze. “I knew if I told anyone, you would be taken from me. Our wedding would be called off and I’d lose you, if not my head, too.”
