Ghost in the Storm (The Ghosts) (23 page)

“The emir does not tolerate failure,” said Caina, racking her brain for an answer. How could she possibly find Nicolai among this throng? “None of the captives were sorted?”

“No, sir,” said the second soldier. “At least, not by the emir's men.”

“The Kyracian witch's pet spook,” said the first soldier. “He took some.” 

“Pet spook?” said Caina. “You mean the fellow with the scarred face?”

“Aye,” said the second soldier. “He's worse than an Immortal, that one. He's calmer than an Immortal, but he looks at you like you're a piece of meat he wants to slice up.”

Remembering how Sicarion had stolen the hand from the dead man, Caina could not disagree. 

“He took some of the captives?” said Caina.

The first soldier nodded. “He did. Went into the spoils and plucked out the ones he wanted. One of our lads asked if the emir had given him permission. The spook just laughed.” A hint of fear showed in the soldier's eyes. “I'm no fool. If the spook wants slaves, let him have them.”

“The idiot took the emir's slaves,” said Caina. Had Sicarion taken Nicolai? If Sicarion knew about Nicolai's connection to Caina, he might well have taken the child as bait. “He was supposed to have taken them to the Plaza of the Tower. Where did he go?” 

“There,” said the first soldier, pointing at a tavern built of brick and timber a hundred yards away. "The spook took the slaves in there. Then a few minutes ago the Kyracian witch turned up and went inside.”

Caina blinked. Andromache was here? 

This smelled more and more like a trap.

Yet if Sicarion and Andromache had Nicolai...

“They took the emir's slaves,” said Caina. “I will get them back.”

The second soldier shook his head. “Don't be a fool. You saw what that woman did to the siege engines. She'll blast you down to cinders if you look at her the wrong way.”

The first soldier scoffed. “He wants to go, let him go! No skin off my nose if the witch cooks him like a goose. Or if the spook carves him up like a roast.”

“I am an emissary of the emir Rezir Shahan,” Caina informed them. “The Kyracians will not dare lift a hand against me. 

The two soldiers shared a dubious look.

Caina marched toward the tavern, mind racing. Why would Andromache and Sicarion gather up a band of slaves and secure them in a tavern? Andromache wanted whatever power lay in the Tomb of Scorikhon. If she merely wanted slaves, she could buy them in the markets of New Kyre.

Unless this was simply an elaborate trap to capture Caina.

She took a deep breath. If Andromache had Nicolai, Caina had no choice but to walk into that trap.

The tingle of sorcery washed over her as she approached the tavern. Andromache was near, and casting a spell.

Then Caina saw who stood guard at the tavern's entrance, and did her very best to keep her face calm. 

###

Kylon waited before the door, hand on the hilt of his sword. 

He looked over the sea of chained captives filling the Market. Their emotions washed over him, soaking into him like heat radiating from a furnace. He sensed a great deal of pain. Some of them had seen loved ones slain this day. Many would not live to see the auction blocks in Istarinmul.

Perhaps that was a mercy. 

And most of all, he felt their fear. The immediate terror of what their captors would do to them. The deep, molten fear the mothers felt for their children. The gnawing fear of the future, of the horrors that awaited them in the slave ships and in the distant lands of their new masters.

For a moment it was too much. The fear screamed in Kylon's head like a thousand agonized forces begging for mercy, weeping for succor.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

After a moment he regained control and opened his eyes, his arcane senses deliberately blunted for the moment. The captives had not moved. An Istarish soldier in a black cloak wandered past, looking at the slaves. No doubt he planned which spoils he would claim, which women he would take.

Vile fellow. Just like all the Istarish. 

And Kylon had helped them do it. 

This was wrong. He was a stormdancer, a warrior, a soldier of New Kyre. His purpose was to fight with valor and skill, to strike down the enemies of his city. To fight as his sister, the High Seat of House Kardamnos, directed him to do. Taking slaves was beneath him. 

Yet Andromache had commanded him to fight alongside the Istarish. As they took slaves. 

It had to be worth it. Andromache said it was. And she knew best. If she said the power in the Tomb of Scorikhon was worth all this death, it had to be.

Hadn't it?

He would find out soon enough. Once Andromache finished her meditations, she would go to the Citadel with Kylon and Sicarion's thugs. Then she would seize the Tomb's power and leave Marsis to the Istarish. 

The Istarish soldier in the black cloak saw Kylon. No trace of fear went over the soldier's bored expression, but the man veered away. 

Kylon suppressed a grim chuckle. Yes, the Istarish knew to fear him. They had seen him fight. Once Andromache claimed the Tomb, he would be glad to be rid of the Istarish and of Marsis.

Perhaps then these doubts would no longer trouble him.

The Istarish soldier in the black cloak wandered away, still looking over the slaves. 

###

Caina made sure not to look at Kylon.

If he saw past Caina's disguise, he would kill her on the spot. He knew she was too dangerous to keep alive. It took every ounce of control that Caina possessed to keep from running, to keep from staring at Kylon.

Yet she managed it. Theodosia would have been proud. 

She kept her pace idle, walking past Kylon, and risked a glance at him beneath the rim of her spiked helmet. His head was bowed, as if in thought, and his brown eyes narrow with emotion. The man looked confused, even troubled. 

All the better. If he was distracted, that made it easier for Caina to avoid notice. 

She passed the tavern, walked past a burned-out shop that had once sold barrels, and ducked into an alley. One quick glance around the corner confirmed that Kylon had not seen her. 

She took a deep breath and hurried toward the tavern's back door.

###

Kylon looked up, frowning.

Something was...amiss. He did not know what. Yet his instincts said something important had just happened, something that he had failed to notice. He chided himself for his lack of vigilance. He could deal with his doubts later, after the battle was won. After Andromache was no longer in danger.

He drew on the power of water sorcery and reached out, extending his senses.

Again the misery of the slaves washed over him, and Kylon set it aside. He sensed the bored wariness of the Istarish guards. With a burst of alarm he realized that he felt nothing from inside the tavern, but then he realized Andromache had sealed the building in a shell of wards. They would keep any surviving magi from detecting her presence as she meditated and recovered her powers. 

He felt nothing that indicated immediate danger. Certainly no one with the focused determination and suppressed fear that proceeded violence. 

Yet he had missed something. He was sure of it.

But what?

###

Caina approached the tavern's back door.

She felt the crawling tingle of sorcery. Andromache had warded the tavern. Only a ward against detection spells, Caina thought. Nothing stronger. Her shadow-cloak would allow her to bypass the wards with ease. 

She hoped.

She listened for a moment, took a deep breath, and then swung the door open. 

Beyond lay a deserted kitchen, the fireplace cold, pots and pans crusted with old food. Loaves of hard bread and some sausages lay on a table nearby. After a moment's consideration, Caina tucked a few sausages into her belt. She had not eaten anything since yesterday, and she would need to keep her strength up.

Assuming she lived long enough to need her strength.

A flash of green light caught her eyes, and Caina felt a crawling, nauseating tingle. 

Necromancy. 

The light came from the door to the common room, which stood half-open. Caina ducked and crawled through the door. She found herself behind the common room's bar, jars of wine stacked around her. Two men leaned against the bar, clad in chain mail and leather. Caina recognized them at once.

Sicarion's mercenaries.

Another green flash, another shuddering tingle against Caina's skin.

She slid forward, peered around the bar, and went very still.

Sicarion stood near the tavern's entrance. Five collared slaves, all women in their early twenties, knelt before him, guarded by more of his pet thugs. Another woman lay on a trestle table, blood streaming from a gaping wound in her chest.

Andromache stood over the dead woman, a dagger in her hand.

A black dagger, with a green bloodcrystal mounted in the pommel. The crystal flickered with ghostly light, and Caina felt the necromantic power of the thing. 

“She wasn't a virgin, Sicarion,” said Andromache, scowling. “The death of a virgin generates the most usable power.”

“I am sorry, mistress,” said Sicarion with a bow. “The virginity of a woman is rather difficult to determine. Still, you gained some power from her death, no?”

“Indeed,” said Andromache. “Continue.” 

Sicarion beckoned, and two of his men shoved the corpse to the floor and wrestled another slave onto the table. The woman fought and struggled, screaming into her gag, but the mercenaries held her fast.

Andromache lifted the dagger, whispering a spell. Caina understood what Andromache intended, and her stomach tightened with rage. She wanted to spring from concealment, to bury her dagger in Andromache's chest. But if she did that, Sicarion and his men would cut her down, and she would never find Nicolai.

So Caina remained motionless as Andromache plunged her dagger into the helpless woman.

The dagger flared with green flame, and Andromache shuddered, gasping. Caina had seen that spell before. Maglarion had used something similar to create his bloodcrystals. The spell slew its victims, and transferred their life force to the caster. Andromache would then use that stolen life force to fuel her spells. That explained how she had grown so powerful, how she had found the strength to blast the siege engines from the walls of the Citadel. 

Jadriga had taught her well.

“Another,” said Andromache, breathing hard, her brown eyes wide and glittering.

“That level of power,” said Sicarion, his mismatched eyes reflecting the crystal's glow, “may well prove dangerous.”

“It does not matter,” said Andromache. “I need that kind of power if I am to claim the Tomb. Bring me another. Now.”

Sicarion bowed, and his men wrestled another captive onto the table.

Caina crept back into the kitchen, trying to ignore the rage and guilt that warred inside her heart. She should have gone back. She should have found a way to save those women, to defeat Andromache.

But she could do nothing.

And Nicolai had not been among Sicarion's captives.  

Caina slipped into the alley, trying to decide what to do. She had to find Nicolai. Yet Andromache was as dangerous as Maglarion or Jadriga. How much more dangerous would she become once she claimed the power in the Tomb of Scorikhon? 

Caina did not want to find out.

One last walk through the Great Market, she decided. Then she would find Halfdan and tell him what she had learned. No doubt he had withdrawn to the northern gate, to keep it open for the return of Lord Commander Hiram Palaegus and the Legions. Once Caina spoke with Halfdan, he could decide what to do about Andromache.

And then Caina would return and find Nicolai, no matter what it took. 

She walked back into the Great Market.

###

Kylon blinked as the Istarish soldier in the black cloak returned.

And all at once he knew the source of his unease. 

When that soldier had walked by earlier, Kylon had seen him...but he had not felt the man's emotional presence. At the time, he had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he had not noticed. But his water sorcery meant he felt the emotional presence of anyone, often whether he wanted to or not. He should have felt the soldier's presence.

Unless the soldier was using a spell to block Kylon's senses.

He gathered his water sorcery and focused upon the black-cloaked Istarish soldier.

###

Caina took two steps into the Market and stopped, stunned.

Nicolai was there. 

The boy sat huddled behind the half-destroyed stall of a merchant. That explained why she had not seen him earlier. The ruined stall had blocked her view. Nicolai sat motionless with his forehead on his knees, his arms wrapped around his head. But he was alive.