Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (22 page)

When Solanda reached the warehouse, she did not go up the ramp. Instead she crept along the building’s side, keeping to the shadow. Her grip remained tight on Rugar’s hand. It was cold in the shadows—the sun had given the day its only warmth. A chill ran down his back. At least there were no dying there to grab for him, no one reaching for his unguarded flesh.

“Hurry,” Solanda said, and it wasn’t until that moment that he realized he had slowed in the safety of the shade. Everything had reduced itself to small points and images: the chill; Solanda’s dry hand in his own; a single voice, rising above the rest in a wail that mimicked the Fey victory cry; Strongfist huddled like a child against the destruction before him; the sunlight on the river reflecting joyfully into the fetid air. Taken as a whole, it was too much. Taken as a single image, it merely overwhelmed.

Solanda stopped at the other end of the warehouse. The ground was muddy there, but the only prints belonged to a woman and a small cat. This was where she hid, then, and where she chose to protect her find.

She released his hand and bent over. He rubbed his fingers. Her nails had left tiny indentations in his skin. She moved gingerly, with a delicacy and grace only the Fey Shape-Shifters possessed. She braced one hand on the side of the wooden building and, balancing precariously, reached with her other hand into the darkness under the stairs.

The wail had stopped abruptly, making the underlying layer of moans suddenly audible. Rugar leaned against the warehouse, then pulled away when he realized that the wooden slats were swollen with water.

Solanda stood. She held a pouch between two fingers of her left hand. With her other hand she carefully pried the top open, holding the fabric apart so that Rugar could peer inside.

A vial sat in the center. It had an ornamental shape, with a narrow neck and a wide bottom. The glass had been carefully cut into fake diamonds that looked like the reflections off the lake. Even through the odd triangular shapes, he could see liquid sloshing within. The bottle was stopped with a cork that looked no different from any other cork Rugar had seen.

“How did you get this?” he asked. His skin crawled at being so close to a foreign agent of death, and yet he gazed at it with fascination.

She closed the pouch, pulling the leather thong tight, then slipped the thong around her wrist. “I watched them hide a small stash. When they appeared to be gone, I checked it. There are still a dozen or more bottles there, but I slipped the pouch over this one, careful not to touch it. I believe the Warders can use it to see what kind of magick we’re fighting.”

He let out a small breath of air. He would not have thought of risking his life for a single vial of poison. Yet she had done so. He was sorry he had ever thought her dispassionate or cold. She might have found the source of their salvation.

Only he didn’t know how to reach the Warders. He had sent Caseo to the palace. If Caseo had come to find him, then Caseo had sent the other Warders away. Rugar glanced at the warehouse, a shiver running through him. Was there more death waiting inside?

“Do you know where the rest of the Warders are?” he asked Solanda.

She clutched the leather thong as if it could protect her from all the horrors around them. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Caseo sent them to the Shadowlands.”

Rugar straightened. Only he had the authority to send Fey to Shadowlands. Yet the order made sense. “Did they make it?”

Slowly she lifted her head. She had the deliberate, unshakable calm of a cat. “I don’t know. He asked me to wait in the warehouse while he went for you.”

Rugar frowned. The order made no sense. Shape-Shifters were rare enough, and Solanda was the only one they had brought with them across the Infrin. But Shape-Shifters could hide in plain sight, as Solanda had done. Which meant there was something in the warehouse to protect.

“The Red Cap pouches,” he asked, “are they—?”

“In the warehouse? Yes.” She took a deep breath, as if she was expecting his censure. “But none of the Islanders have gone inside.”

Rugar nodded. No excuse for her to leave her post in a normal situation, but this was not a normal situation. The moaning and the shifting, dying bodies were evidence of that.

But the Shadowlands. That was an idea. It would give him time, give them time, to determine what kind of weapon the Islanders were using against them.

“Take that into the Shadowlands. Tell the Warders to begin work at once and warn them how deadly this stuff is. If you see a Red Cap on the way in, make him start hauling pouches. We’ll keep everything in Shadowlands until we have this problem solved.”

She glanced at the vial, and something like fear crossed her face. She would not be able to change while carrying it. She would have to find a way in without using her feline form.

“Go quickly,” he said, letting her know he understood her dilemma.

She started around the building, then froze. He came up behind her, feeling the rigid spring in her stance. The sound hadn’t been evident behind the warehouse: the building itself must have blocked it. But on the side, the clop-clop of horses’ hooves rose above the moans and whimpers of the sufferers. He glanced around the building. The riders wore black robes. Dozens of horses and riders, all, he presumed, carrying more vials to the Islander fighters.

Solanda let out her breath in a hiss. She could return to her hiding place under the stairs, but Rugar and Strongfist were trapped. They couldn’t hide in the warehouse: eventually the warehouse would be searched.

“Put that back in its hiding place,” Rugar said to her, “and hide with it.”

“Where will you go?” she asked.

“I’m going to get Strongfist. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be all right.” He turned his back on her without watching her change, a process that had always made him nervous. Instead, he launched into the field of the dead, stepping over bodies, wincing as hands brushed him, as voices pleaded for mercy, as Fey writhed in final agony. The pounding of the hooves grew stronger, and he wondered if the Islander soldiers could see him from the bridge.

Strongfist sat in the center of the bodies, his knees up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them as if he could isolate his heart from the sight of all his dead comrades. He looked up when he saw Rugar, but Strongfist’s eyes were glazed.

The hooves were closer, echoing on the wooden bridge. Rugar crouched beside his bodyguard, feeling the man’s terror. They had nowhere to hide.

Except right there.

“Play dead,” Rugar said.

Strongfist looked at him as if he were crazy. Rugar put his arm around Strongfist’s shoulder and pushed him onto his side. Rugar flopped beside him, facedown in the mud. The mud was thick and goopy there. He shoved his hands in it to the wrist, making it look, he hoped, as if they had dissolved.

The stench this close to the bodies made his eyes water. He prayed he was right, that the disfiguring was not catching, for if it was, both he and Strongfist were now infected.

He felt the pounding hooves more than he heard them. The horses had to be almost on top of them. He hoped that Solanda was well hidden.

His heart beat in time to the horses’ hooves. He closed his eyes and waited for the death in his Vision to come to pass.

TWENTY

Eleanora stopped at the fork in the path. She was deep in the forest, where the trees grew tall and thick. No sunlight filtered through the branches, but even there the leaves dripped with the remains of the rain. A large and twisted oak had grown into the intersection. She used the oak’s gnarled roots as a chair, not caring about the damp wood pressing against the only dry portion of her skirt. Her stomach was growling, and she was dizzy from too much exertion. The baby was heavy. She made a cocoon of his blankets and cradled him on her lap.

His little forehead was wrinkled, his pale-blue eyes staring up at her as if he had a thousand questions but didn’t know how to frame them. Since they left the house, he had made almost no noise, and she had been frightened that she had hurt him. Yet he seemed fine.

He was only a few months old. She had nothing to give him, no way of keeping him fed. Helter’s house was farther away than she had thought, or perhaps her exhaustion combined with her panic made it seem farther. The fork was the halfway mark. She was so tired that she wondered if she could go on.

She leaned her head against the trunk, feeling the dampness against her scalp. Maybe a moment to catch her breath. She had heard nothing behind her on the road, no sign that those evil creatures were following her. If she hadn’t been carrying the baby, she would have thought she’d made it all up.

A little food might revive her. She took the bread out of her pocket and ripped off a large hunk, eating it so quickly she barely tasted the doughy freshness. Her mouth watered at the unexpected treat, and she had to stop herself from eating the entire loaf. If she did, she would waste it. Her stomach wouldn’t be able to hold that much food that quickly.

She shoved the rest of the loaf into her pocket, then set about tending the baby. She couldn’t change him, although he needed it, and she had no milk. He wasn’t ready for hard food, and she didn’t want to risk choking him. Finally she settled on giving him drops of water from nearby leaves. He balked at the lack of a nipple, but when she put the water on her fingertips, he sucked greedily.

“Poor little one,” she whispered. How quickly his life had changed. She ran a hand over his soft head, feeling the silky strands of hair against her palm. His lower lip trembled, but he didn’t cry.

Her hands shook as she wrapped the baby in his blankets. Then she placed him against her right shoulder, cradling his head with her right hand and supporting his bottom with her left. She had tried carrying him a variety of ways, and each made her arms ache. Odd to have lived as long as she had and to have gained no experience with babies.

Ah, Drew, she thought. I never believed I’d need it.

She slowly got to her feet and walked around the tree so that she left no footprints on the trail. She took the right fork, which led to Daisy Stream, but she didn’t use the path. Instead she walked parallel, behind the first row of trees. Branches hit her in the sides, and water ran down her face. She was able to protect the child from the worst of it, but when his little back got whacked with a twig, he began to whimper. By the time she could no longer see the gnarled oak, the baby’s whimpers had turned into sobs.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please shush.”

His crying grew louder. He was responding not to her words, but to the fear that was rising within her. She was merely an old woman. She had no special strengths. She didn’t know why she had gained this burden when this morning all she had to look forward to was a slow death.

When she had gone around several corners, she crossed through the trees to the path. No matter how magickal those creatures were, they wouldn’t be able to see her prints from the fork. She adjusted the baby so that his face rested against her chest, muffling his cries as best she could without smothering him. The trees were thinning, and she could hear the gurgle of a stream. Perhaps the fork was not halfway. Perhaps she had misremembered it. Perhaps she was closer than she thought.

She stumbled against a root, pain shooting up her leg. Her grip on the baby loosened, and for a moment she thought she was going to drop him, then land on him, killing him. But she caught him, then regained her balance, stopping as the pain waved through her.

The baby’s cries had become shrill screams. She put him back in his position against her shoulder, then patted gently between his shoulder blades, trying to soothe him. But he would have none of it. It was as if he suddenly knew that he was orphaned and that he might not live through the day. But he couldn’t know that. He was probably tired and cold and hungry and wet.