Grudgebearer (55 page)

“How many guards?” he whispered again. The Aern blinked the number to him, in slow, natural-looking blinks, and Tyree was suddenly glad he hadn't eaten any breakfast. Twenty guards. In what could only be recognition of his dismay, the Aern laughed.

“It offends me that you think twenty of you are enough to guard an Aern, lizard,” she spat at the nearest guard.

“Silence or I will get the acid,” one of the guards warned.

“If I had my warpick you wouldn't be able to make such a threat!”

“Last chance,” the guard said.

She snapped her mouth closed, then bared her doubled canines at him but remained silent. Tyree winked at her before continuing down the tunnel. Once clear of the impromptu detention cell, Tyree straightened up, walking with confidence and purpose. No matter what culture he was dealing with, Tyree adhered to an old adage: look like you're supposed to be doing what you're doing, and fewer people will question it. A single Zaur stood watch in front of the armory, pacing on all fours. “How many guards do you need in the middle of an underground fortress?” Tyree murmured.

“What was that?” the guard asked. Tyree walked directly up to him, a little too close, hands clasped behind his back. The daggers in his left and rights hands were the only weapons he'd managed to slip by the Zaur; long, thin, and needle-like, they had been a gift from Captain Hananka. When not in use, they curled around his wrist, looking for all the world like two innocuous metal bracelets.

“Hey, listen, I'm all turned around here, pal. Could you tell me which way back to the main mess?” Tyree watched for it, the momentary relaxation.
That's right, lizard. I'm just a stupid mammal, lost in the tunnels. No threat here.

Raising his foreleg to point out directions, the guard was completely unprepared for human treachery. Diving over the outstretched limb, Tyree plunged one dagger into the base of the reptile's spine to paralyze the tail. A second blow, lightning quick and precise as a jeweler cutting a diamond, drove the other dagger into the Zaur sentry's neck. “Sorry about this,” Tyree told the dying Zaur, “but your boss should have paid me on delivery as agreed and let me go.”

Tyree knelt over the guard, removing the armory key from around its neck, quite pleased with himself. The key fit nicely in the lock and turned without protest. Well-oiled and maintained, the hinges didn't even creak as the door swung toward him to reveal another guard, larger than the first, with blue scales bearing a pattern of concentric amber rings.

“Get a healer, quick!” Tyree called out.

Nictating membranes flicked over the Sri'Zaur's black eyes. “Human scum!”

“I'm not an idiot!” Tyree spat. “I knew that you'd be in here. That's why I opened the door. I found him this way and you were the closest Zaur that could help . . .”

The Sri'Zaur drew its Skreel blade, dropping to all fours. “You killed him, human! Now I'm going to kill you.”

“Can't win every hand,” Tyree said amicably. He darted backwards into the hall, dropping his daggers so that he would have both hands free. As the Sri'Zaur charged, Tyree slammed him in the metal door: once, twice, three times until the Sri'Zaur went limp. “See? I told you . . . you can
't win every hand.”

“While I, on the other hand . . .” Stepping over his second victim and retrieving his daggers, Tyree entered the room. He spied the Aern's weapon immediately. It was the only warpick, along with one saddlebag containing a pair of strange-looking tubular weapons, a small bag of round metal balls, an Aernese Hearth Stone, a Dwarven canteen, and a small leather horn with stopper.

Spying the horn together with the round balls, he realized what he'd found and made the sign of the Foursquare in front of himself, just in case.

He'd only once seen them fired, when Hananka was captured by the Dwarves, but they were powerful and loud, spewing bits of metal propelled by a Dwarven concoction—a powder that exploded when lit. Tyree grabbed the small leather horn with the curious nozzle. He tipped a tiny amount of the contents out onto the table and smiled at the mysterious purple-gray powder. Yep, Dwarven junpowder.

“I'm not stealing the juns and junpowder,” he said aloud, “just taking them back to the Aern. I assume they're hers.”

A proclamation, Tyree thought certain to be unnecessary, but one could never be too careful when it came to Dwarves . . . or gods. You never knew when they might be watching. The contents of the other saddlebag lay scattered about the floor of the armory as if the Zaur had been rifling through it. Quickly shoving things back into the bag, he grabbed cloths, a sharp knife, and an odd assortment of traveling gear. He grabbed the chain shirt resting with the plate armor and dumped it in as well.

For moment he could have sworn he saw a ring on a chain, but when he reached for it, his mind went fuzzy.

I'm not carrying that or the plate mail
, he thought to himself. Had someone else said that first?

Warpick. The Aern would want her warpick. He snatched it up. Wasting little time, the captain threw both reptilian bodies into the crate and secured the warpick and the saddlebags.

In his mind, the Hearth Stone and the junpowder swirled together to form a plan. It was crazy, dangerous, and likely overkill. Maybe that was why he liked the idea so much.

“Old Dwarven saying: If it wants loving, send Vael. If it wants killing, send Aern.” Tyree surveyed the armory with a critical eye, looking for anything else, but he had everything he needed. His plan might even work. “But if it wants deceiving, send humans.”

CHAPTER 50

ILL MET BY BOOMLIGHT

Rae'en pretended to stretch, using the movement to apply an incremental increase in pressure to the shackles binding her arms. Placing her palms flat against the wall behind her, the Aern used the leverage to force her waist against the restraint about her middle.

“Be still, scarback,” snapped one of her reptilian captors.

“I'm stretching,” she objected.

“Stop stretching or I get the acid.”

“I don't believe it will work.”

Zaur fangs flashed as scattered chuckles erupted from the guards. “Hear that, scale brothers? She doesn't think it will work.”

Wylant made an obscene noise.

She looks horrible
, Rae'en thought at Kazan.
At least that rash around her mouth seems to be going away and her eyes look a little less puffy. Did they spit venom in her eyes or something?

If the man who had gestured from the hallway came back, they would need as much of a distraction as they could get. As if in answer to her unspoken wish, the human appeared in the entryway, sweat beading on his brow. As he propped her weapon against the wall nearest him, Testament called to her, so close. He held a bulging leather gunpowder pouch against his cheek, concentrating on it. Large coarse threads marked the upper seam of the pouch as if it had been slit open, had an object inserted, and then been sewn shut.

Holding up four fingers, the human met her gaze, folding the fingers down one by one, counting down. The last finger bent inward, making a fist, and he stepped into the room. Rae'en screamed as loudly as she could, a wild, piercing thing tearing at her throat: the best distraction she could manage. The human, as yet unnoticed by the guards, hurled the powder bag into the rear of the pack.

He snatched up Testament with both hands and heaved it in her direction. Grabbing for their weapons, the guards did not seem to know which threat required the more immediate response.

Rae'en would have laughed if she had not been busy breaking her bonds. She pulled hard on her right hand manacle, loosened by her constant straining, ripping the bolt out of the wall entirely. She caught Testament awkwardly by the head of the warpick, then jerked her left hand free as well.

Four guards rushed toward the human, who responded by dropping to his knees and covering his ears.

“I surrender,” he shouted. “Cover your ears, ladies!” No sooner had the words left his lips than the loudest explosion Rae'en had ever heard tore through the mass of guards. The force of the blast ripped Testament from her grip and snapped her head back against the stone wall. For the Zaur, the results were even more dramatic. Six Zaur were on fire, the rest charred, battered, or knocked down, and one had a Hearth Stone embedded in his shoulder.

Rae'en watched dumbly as the human made a snapping motion with his wrists. The steel bracelets he wore unrolled into long, thin daggers with which he dispatched the closest surviving Zaur.

“I'm Captain Randall Tyree,” the human said. “You don't mind escaping a little early, do you?” Rae'en could hear nothing but a loud ringing in her ears and was forced to read his lips.

“You're a maniac!” Rae'en shouted. “Wylant and I had it sorted. What kind of a rescue do you call that?”

“A successful one,” Tyree said cheerfully. “After all, any rescue you can walk away from . . .” He stabbed a Zaur that was beginning to rise.

Several of them scrabbled to their feet, clutching their Skreel blades. Rae'en cleared her head and concentrated on pulling herself free. The long yet inadequate bolts pulled out of the wall one by one, the final bolt clattering to the floor next to her warpick. Rae'en's dilated eyes took in the entire scene, the dead, the living, and her fellow prisoners. Tossing Testament and catching it in a better grip, she whirled madly, plunging the warpick into one Zaur after another, accepting their slashing cuts without thought or pain. This is what the Aern had been made for, to fight Zaur.

Having previously fought them only while also trying to fight against the Arvash'ae, Rae'en experienced for the first time was it meant to be doing what she had been born to do. Unlike any fighting she'd experienced before, this was pure joy, meaning, purpose—fulfillment. The ringing in her ears faded, replaced by the sound of combat. A single Zaur slipped past her guard, pretending to be dead until she stepped over him, then sank its fangs into the exposed flesh of her ankle, stabbing its Skreel blade toward her inner thigh.

When the blade did not strike home, Rae'en was surprised. A mottled blue spear, thrown by Wylant, had pierced the attacking Zaur with such force the tip penetrated the thick, bony ridge above the Zaur's eyes and continued through its lower jaw into the floor beneath.

Captain Tyree removed his shirt, revealing a muscular chest, well defined and bearing its own share of scars. He draped the fabric around her shoulders, hands gliding along her breasts as he fastened the middle button. Had he done that on purpose? “Can you get the Eldrennai loose?” His words were soft, his cheek next to Rae'en's.

“I can,” Rae'en answered.

Crossing to the Aiannai, she ripped the bit free.

“
Jallek
root,” Wylant coughed as soon as her bit was removed. Her allergies hadn't come back, but they were sure to do so soon.

“I found some of the Aern's things in the armory,” the human said, “but I don't know if there's any of that.”

“My saddlebags? Where?” asked Rae'en.

“In the hall.”

Rae'en dashed out to grab them; when she came back, she was wearing her chain-mail shirt, and her saddlebags were belted back into place.

“We'd better get moving before all the Zaur in this wretched hole come barreling . . . in . . .”

Her voice trailed away as she fixated on the spear Wylant had thrown, now slithering rapidly across the room like a snake. It coiled itself around Wylant's leg and climbed up to her hands, where the weapon transformed into a pair of thick shears, the metal remaining the same mottled blue.

“Meet Vax.” Smiling at Rae'en's confusion, Wylant watched as Vax, curled around her forearm for leverage, begin to cut through her chains. As the last bolt parted, the Eldrennai dropped to the floor in a defensive crouch, the shears shifting yet again, this time into a sword. “Shall we go?”

Tyree patted Rae'en's shoulder. “Let's get stepping, sugar bosom.”

“Sugar bosom?” Rae'en's brain disconnected. “You . . . I . . . Wha?”

“I know the way out.” Tyree smiled broadly. “Even though you could have both freed yourselves, you've got to admit that last part is handy.”

Echoes of Zaur voices raised in shouts of dismay, anger, and alarm found their way to Rae'en's ears. “You know the way?” she asked.

“Trust me.” The human winked at her. “How are we ever going to be married if I don't get you out of here?”

“Married?”

“I like him.” Wylant moved past them to check the hall. “And the good thing about humans is if you decide you don't like being married to one, they only live a hundred years or so, and then you can find a new one.”

Rae'en dug through her saddlebags, looking for the ring her father had given her, but it wasn't there.

“Did you see a ring?”

“No.” Tyree shook his head. “But the Zaur were packing things up to send to their warlord. Something that small . . . maybe they sent it on ahead?”