A Torch Against the Night (10 page)

Damn it.
The girl in the apothecary must have tipped him off.

“Now.” His smile is all teeth. “You’re going to lead me to your unfortunate friend, or I’ll stick a knife in your gut and drop you down a crevasse to die slowly.”

Behind us, the bounty hunters argue heatedly with Shikaat’s men.

“He knows where Elias Veturius is!” I shout at the hunters. They reach for their weapons, and other heads in the market swing up.

The Tribesman sighs, giving me an almost rueful look. The second he turns his attention from me to the bounty hunters, I kick his ankle and twist free.

I dart beneath tarps, upsetting a basket of goods and nearly knocking an old Mariner woman onto her back. For a moment, I’m out of Shikaat’s sight. A wall of rock rises ahead of me, and a row of tents sits to my right. To my left, a pyramid of crates leans precariously up against the side of a fur cart.

I rip a fur off the top of the stack and dive beneath the cart, covering myself and pulling my feet out of sight just before Shikaat bursts into the alley. Silence as he scans the area. Then footsteps coming closer … closer …

Disappear, Laia.
I shrink back into the darkness, grabbing hold of my armlet for strength.
You can’t see me. You see only shadows, only darkness.

Shikaat kicks aside the crates, letting in a sliver of light beneath the cart. I hear him bend, hear his breathing as he peers under it.

I’m nothing, nothing but a pile of furs, nothing important. You don’t see me. You don’t see anything.

“Jitan!” He shouts to his men. “Imir!”

The swift footsteps of two men approach, and a moment later, lamplight chases away the darkness beneath the cart. Shikaat rips the fur free, and I find myself staring into his triumphant face.

Except his triumph turns to bewilderment almost immediately. He gazes at the fur and then back at me. He holds up the lamp, illuminating me clearly
.

But he doesn’t look
at
me. Almost as if he can’t see me. As if I’m invisible.

Which is impossible.

The second I think it, he blinks and grabs me.

“You disappeared,” he whispers. “And now you’re here. Did you magick me?” He shakes me hard, rattling my teeth in my head. “How did you do it?”

“Piss off!” I claw at him, but he holds me at arm’s distance.

“You were gone!” he hisses. “And then you reappeared before my eyes.”

“You’re insane!” I bite at his hand, and he drags me close, forcing my face toward him, glaring down into my eyes. “You’ve been smoking too much ghas!”

“Say it again,” he says.

“You’re
insane
. I was there the whole time.”

He shakes his head, as if he can tell I’m not lying but still doesn’t believe me. When he releases my face, I try to twist away—to no avail.

“Enough,” he says as his henchmen bind my hands in front of me. “Take me to the Mask, or you die.”

“I want a cut.” An idea blossoms in my head. “Ten thousand marks. And we go alone—I don’t want your men following us.”

“No cut,” he says. “My men stay at my side.”

“Then find him yourself! Stick a knife in me like you promised, and go.”

I hold his eyes, the way Nan used to when Tribal traders offered too low a price for her jams and she threatened to walk away. My heart thunders like the hooves of a horse.

“Five hundred marks,” the Tribesman says. As I open my mouth to protest, he holds up a hand. “And safe passage to the Tribal lands. It’s a good deal, girl. Take it.”

“Your men?”

“They stay.” He considers me. “At a distance.”

The problem with greedy people
,
Pop once said to me,
is that they think everyone else is as greedy as they are
.
Shikaat is no different.

“Give me your word as a Tribesman that you won’t double-cross me.” Even I know how valuable such a vow is. “I don’t trust you otherwise.”

“You have my word.” He shoves me forward, and I stumble, just catching myself from falling.
Swine!
I bite my lip to keep from saying it.

Let him think he’s cowed me. Let him think he’s won. Soon, he’ll realize his mistake: He vowed to play fair.

But I didn’t.

T
he second that consciousness seeps into my mind, I know better than to open my eyes.

My hands and feet are bound with rope, and I lie on my side. My mouth tastes strange, like iron and herbs. Everything aches, but my mind feels more lucid than it has in days. Rain patters on rocks just a few feet away. I’m in a cave.

But the air feels wrong. I hear breathing, quick and nervous, and smell the wool robes and cured leather of Tribal traders.

“You can’t kill him!” Laia is in front of me, her knee pressing into my forehead, her voice so close that I can feel her breath on my face. “The Martials want him back alive. To—to face the Emperor.”

Someone kneeling at the crown of my head curses in Sadhese. Cold steel digs into my throat.

“Jitan—the message. Is the bounty only given if he’s brought back alive?”

“I don’t bleeding remember!” This voice comes from closer to my feet.

“If you’re going to kill him, then at least wait a few days.” Laia’s voice has a cold practicality to it, but the tension beneath is as taut as the string of an oud. “In this weather his body would decompose fast. It will take at least five days to get him back to Serra. If the Martials can’t identify him, then neither of us gets any money.”

“Kill him, Shikaat,” says a third Tribesman standing near my knees. “If he wakes up, we’re dead.”

“He’s not going to wake up,” the man they call Shikaat says. “Look at him—he’s got an arm and a leg in the grave already.”

Laia slowly eases her body over my head. I feel glass between my lips. Liquid dribbles out—liquid that tastes of iron and herbs.
Tellis extract.
A second later the glass is gone, shoved back to where Laia must be hiding it.

“Shikaat, listen—” she begins, but the raider shoves her back.

“That’s the second time you’ve leaned forward like that, girl. What are you up to?”

Time’s up, Veturius.

“Nothing!” Laia says. “I want the bounty as much as you do!”

One
:
I imagine the attack first—where I will strike, how I will move.

“Why did you lean forward?” Shikaat roars at Laia. “And don’t lie to me.”

Two
:
I flex the muscles of my left arm to prepare it, as the right is trapped beneath me. I inhale silently to get breath to every part of my body.

“Where’s the Tellis extract?” Shikaat hisses, suddenly remembering. “Give it to me!”

Three
:
Before Laia can respond to the Tribesman, I shove my right foot against the ground for leverage and spin backward on my hip, away from Shikaat’s blade, taking out the Tribesman at my feet with my bound legs and rolling up as he slams to the ground. I lunge for the Tribesman at my knees next, head butting him before he can lift his blade. He drops it, and I turn to catch it, thankful that he at least kept it sharp. With two saws, I’m through the ropes on my wrists, and with two more, the one on my ankles. The first Tribesman I knocked over scrambles up and bolts out of the cave—no doubt to get backup.

“Stop!”

I wheel toward the last Tribesman—Shikaat—who holds Laia against his chest. He has her wrists squeezed in one hand, a blade to her throat, and murder in his eyes.

“Drop the blade. Put your hands in the air. Or I kill her.”

“Go on then,” I say in perfect Sadhese. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t move. A man not easily surprised. I consider my words carefully. “A second after you kill her, I’ll kill you. Then you’ll be dead, and I’ll be free.”

“Try me.” He digs the blade into Laia’s neck, drawing blood. Her eyes dart around as she tries to spot something—anything—she can use against him. “I have a hundred men outside this cave—”

“If you had a hundred men outside”—I keep my attention on Shikaat—“you’d have called them in alre—”

I fly forward mid-word, one of Grandfather’s favorite tricks.
Fools pay attention to words in a fight
,
he said once.
Warriors take advantage of them.
I wrench the Tribesman’s right hand away from Laia while shoving her out of the way with my body.

Which, at that exact moment, turns traitor on me.

The adrenaline rush of the attack drains out of me like water down a sewer, and I stagger back, my vision doubling. Laia grabs something off the ground and spins round to the Tribesman, who grins at her nastily.

“Your hero still has poison running through him, girl,” he hisses. “He can’t help you now.”

He lunges at her, lashing out with the knife, aiming to kill her. Laia flings dirt into his eyes, and he roars, turning his face away. But he cannot stop the momentum of his body. Laia lifts her blade, and with a sickening squelch, the Tribesman impales himself upon it.

Laia gasps and releases the blade, backing away. Shikaat reaches out, grabbing her by the hair, and her mouth opens in a silent scream, her eyes fixed on the blade in the raider’s chest. She finds my face, terror in her own as with his last bit of life, Shikaat seeks to kill her.

Strength finally returns to my body, and I shove him away from her. He releases her, looking at his suddenly weak hand curiously, as if it doesn’t belong to him. Then he thuds to the ground, dead.

“Laia?” I call to her, but she stares at the body as if in a trance.
Her first kill.
My stomach twists in remembrance of my own first kill—a Barbarian boy. I recall his blue-painted face, the deep gash in his stomach. I know what Laia feels in this moment all too well. Disgust. Horror. Fear.

My energy comes back to me now. Everything is pain—my chest, my arms, my legs. But I am not seizing, I am not hallucinating. I call to Laia again, and this time she looks up.

“I didn’t want to do it,” she says. “He—he just came at me. And the knife—”

“I know,” I say gently. She won’t want to discuss it. Her mind is in survival mode—it won’t let her. “Tell me what happened in the Roost.” I can distract her, at least for a bit. “Tell me how you got the Tellis.”

She relates the tale swiftly, helping me bind the unconscious Tribesman as she does so. As I listen, I’m half in disbelief and half bursting with pride at her sheer nerve.

Outside the cave, I hear the hoot of an owl, a bird that has no business being out in weather like this. I edge to the entrance.

Nothing moves in the rocks beyond, but a gust of wind blows the stink of sweat and horse toward me. Apparently Shikaat
wasn’t
lying about having a hundred men waiting beyond the cave.

To the south, at our backs, is solid rock. Serra lies to the west. The cave faces north, opening out onto a narrow trail that winds down into the desert and toward the passes that would take us safely through the Serran Range. To the east, the trail plunges into the Jutts, a half mile of sheer fingers of rock that are death in the best of weather, let alone when it’s pissing rain. The eastern wall of the Serran Range rises beyond the Jutts. No trails, no passes, just wild mountains that eventually drop away into the Tribal desert.

Ten hells.

“Elias.” Laia is a nervous presence beside me. “We should get out of here. Before the Tribesman wakes up.”

“One problem.” I nod out to the darkness. “We’re surrounded.”

Five minutes later, I’ve roped Laia to me and moved Shikaat’s lackey, still bound, to the entrance of the cave. I secure Shikaat’s body to the horse, removing his cloak so his men will recognize him. Laia pointedly doesn’t look at the body.

“Goodbye, nag.” Laia rubs the horse between his ears. “Thank you for carrying me. I’m sad to lose you.”

“I’ll steal you another,” I say dryly. “Ready?”

She nods, and I move to the back of the cave, laying flint to tinder. I nurse a flame, feeding it the few pieces of brush and wood I could find, much of it wet. Thick white smoke billows up, filling the cave quickly.

“Now, Laia.”

Laia slaps the horse’s rump with all her might, sending him and Shikaat thundering out of the cave and toward the Tribesmen waiting to the north. The men hiding behind the freestanding rocks to the west emerge, bellowing at the sight of the smoke, at their dead leader.

Which means they’re not looking at Laia and me. We slip out of the cave, hoods pulled low, masked by smoke and rain and darkness. I pull Laia onto my back, check the rope I’ve tied to an unobtrusive and half-hidden finger of rock, and then swing down into the Jutts silently, going hand below hand until I’ve reached a rain-slicked rock ten feet below. Laia hops down from my back with a slight scrape that I hope the Tribesmen won’t hear. I tug on the rope to release it.

Above, the Tribesmen cough as they enter the smoky cave. I hear them curse as they pull their friend free.

Follow
,
I mouth to Laia. We move slowly, the sounds of our passage covered by the thudding boots and shouts of the Tribesmen. The rocks of the Jutts are sharp and slippery, the jagged edges digging into our boots, catching on our clothes.

My mind goes back six years, to when Helene and I camped out at the Roost for a season.

All Fivers come to the Roost to spy on the Raiders for a couple of months. The Raiders hated it; getting caught by them meant a long, slow death—one of the reasons the Commandant sent students here in the first place.

Helene and I were stationed together—the bastard and the girl, the two outcasts. The Commandant must have gloated at a pairing she thought would get one of us killed. But friendship made Hel and me stronger, not weaker.

We skipped over the Jutts as a game, light as gazelles, daring each other to make crazier and crazier jumps. She matched my leaps with such ease that you’d never guess she feared heights. Ten hells, we were stupid. So certain we wouldn’t fall. So sure death couldn’t find us.

Now I know better.

You’re dead. You just don’t know it yet.

The rain thins as we move across the rock field. Laia remains silent, her lips pressed together. She’s troubled. I feel it. Thinking of Shikaat, no doubt. Still, she keeps up with me, hesitating only once, when I leap across a gap five feet wide, with a two-hundred-foot chasm beneath.