Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (24 page)

“We don’t have to stop them,” Silence said. He gazed over Scavenger’s head at the fighting beyond. “We have to save the future Black Queen.”

Scavenger swallowed. That meant crossing the road, going into the fray. He wouldn’t do that. “We’ll die in there.”

Silence shook his head. “I won’t. They won’t kill a quartermaster.”

“But if you get splashed—”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Or one of our own could attack you.”

“They won’t,” he said with a confidence that Scavenger didn’t believe. He had seen Doppelgängers killed by Fey before.

The pounding hooves were growing closer. Scavenger’s mouth was dry. “I can’t let you go alone.”

“As if you’ll make it, all bloody, your little face smeared with death?”

Scavenger wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but it did no good. The blood was caked on. “They’ll get me anyway.”

Silence shook his head. Grundy’s head. Sweat dripped off the chin. “Oh, no. You’re going to hug the back alleys and the side streets. You’re going to avoid any and all Islanders, like a good Red Cap, and you’re going back to the ships.”

“The ships?” Scavenger said, feeling a brief second of hope. The ships were safe. No Islander could get to the ships. “But they’re in Shadowlands.”

Silence nodded. He crouched so that he was face-to-face with Scavenger. Now Scavenger could see the gold flecks in the eyes; the slightly imperfect formation of the lids. “Look,” he said, his voice thrumming with accents that were Silence’s even though the pitch was not. “You have to go to the Weather Sprites and ask for rain.”

“That’s Rugar’s job.”

“Rugar might be dead by now.”

A chill ran down Scavenger’s back. They could all die. The horses were close; he could feel the vibration of the hooves beneath his feet. The Fey had never lost like this. Never, in all his experience, in all history. Rugar dead? On this afternoon, anything was possible.

“Why rain?” he asked, just in case the Sprites asked him. He was the lowliest of the low. He had no right to demand anything, even if Rugar was dead.

“Because,” Silence said, “it will at least give us a chance to escape.”

It would dilute the poison and give them cover. Scavenger nodded.

“You’re going for Jewel?”

Silence patted Scavenger on the shoulder. “Someone has to.” He stood. “Good luck.”

“To you too,” Scavenger said.

But Silence didn’t appear to hear him. He walked past Scavenger, his gait rolling and slow, not at all like the lithe and agile Silence. He stepped into the street as the horses, bearing more Black Robes, were stopped by the other Black Robes. Scavenger held his breath. The Robes waved Silence over. He swaggered toward them. Scavenger bit his lower lip. They would kill Silence. But instead they laughed and patted him on the back.

Silence shot one quick glance over his shoulder at the alley. Scavenger ducked in and away. Back alleys and side streets. He had to make it to the river.

If he made it to the river, he might survive.

TWENTY-TWO

They were going to die. All of them. He knew it.

Lord Powell huddled near the broken gate, his hair hanging over his face in a tangled mass, his shirt ripped and his arms covered with blood. He had barely got out of the palace alive. Then he had peered into the street and seen more of them, those evil creatures that were torturing everyone he knew. The screams and cries, the scent of blood and piss and fear, were enough to drive him insane.

He had found a safe corner behind shattered wood, held a sword tightly in his right hand, and waited. If any of them came toward him, he would kill them. He would kill at least one of them before they killed him.

But no matter what the King had said, they were all going to die. The King had known it; they all could see it on his face. He wanted them to die fighting for Blue Isle when they knew nothing about the conquerors. Perhaps living under the new rule was better than dying. There was only one way to find out.

He would surrender—that was what he would do. Nicholas was already in their clutches. Powell had seen that as he’d sneaked through the kitchen. Caught by a woman. The servants had made it clear who Nicholas was. Powell had got out of the kitchen before they could identify him. He didn’t want to be a pawn. He wanted to live and not be tortured, not die. He had seen too many people go down.

The wood of the wall dug into his back. A man screamed and fell in front of him, landing faceup. A Fey put a booted foot on the man’s chest and shoved a sword through the man’s throat. Powell suppressed a gasp as the man’s blood spattered his leg. But he didn’t move. He would die if he moved.

The Fey didn’t notice him. He pulled the sword free and returned to the fray.

Outside the gate, horses neighed. Powell peered through a hole in the wood. Danites. What were they doing there? Was the Tabernacle gone already? His grip tightened on his sword. Damn, he wished he’d learned to use the thing.

The Danites were holding bottles and talking excitedly to one of the quartermasters. A Danite held out a bottle and the quartermaster shook his head, laughing. “I’m a guard,” the quartermaster said, his voice rising above the din. “Not a priest.”

The quartermaster crossed the yard, his sword out but at his side. Powell turned away from the gate. Around him people were screaming, crying. He wiped his face with the back of his arm, wincing as the drying blood stuck to the damp skin of his forehead.

They had been laughing.

The Danites had been
laughing.

He frowned, peered through the gate again. The Danites were gone. Only the quartermaster remained, an odd expression on his fleshy face. Powell bit his lower lip. How could they laugh at a time like this? Had they planned this? They were, after all, the ones who had notified the King. They were the ones who weren’t following procedure, who acted as if there had been no warning at all. What if they had done this in some misguided attempt at a coup?

No. He shook his head slightly as a bloodcurdling scream was cut off behind him. The quartermaster caught Powell’s movement and turned. Their gazes met. There was something cold in the guard’s smile. Powell nodded to him. Ingrate. He had no concept of how to behave toward his betters. The quartermaster probably thought it funny that one of the lords was hiding near the gate, ready to make his getaway.

Powell would stop him. He would find out what made that self-important soldier laugh. Powell gripped his sword tighter, turned away from the opening, and held the sword in front of himself like a shield. There were no Fey close to him. They were crowded near the doors to the palace.

Powell took a step forward, then another, reluctant to leave the small safety afforded by the shattered wood. Then the quartermaster appeared in front of him, huge body more muscle than fat, a block against the destruction before them. The quartermaster’s grin was warm. Powell wondered how he ever thought it cold.

“Waiting for me?” the quartermaster’s voice boomed across the courtyard. Powell glanced around in panic, then placed his left forefinger over his lip to indicate silence.

“Right.” The quartermaster crouched in front of the newly dead man. Powell glanced down at the body. The head was nearly severed from the neck, and blood collected in a small puddle near his feet. “A present?” the quartermaster asked.

Powell frowned. The heat, the noise, the sunlight, something was getting to him. He wasn’t hearing correctly. “What?”

The quartermaster laughed and stuck his hands into the blood. Then he smeared it all over his body. A shiver ran through Powell. Something was wrong; something was very, very wrong. He eased himself away from the quartermaster, but the quartermaster grabbed his arm.

“Not so fast,” the man said, and that cold look was back in his eyes. “I need you,
Lord
Powell.”

The quartermaster’s grip was strong. Powell tried to shake himself free, but couldn’t. The quartermaster stared at him while using his remaining hand to pull off his clothes and cover the rest of his body in blood.

Powell glanced around. Everyone he saw was fighting a Fey, except the Fey still ringing the door. No one to help him. No one even noticing. He had no choice.

He brought up his sword and slammed it onto the quartermaster’s wrist. The sword cut into the flesh and shuddered when it hit bone. The quartermaster screamed, his grip loosening. Powell yanked himself free and ran, his legs betraying him as he stumbled his way across the yard, back toward the palace. Anything to free himself from that crazy, crazy man.

A body slammed into his back and knocked him into the mud. The wind left him. Powell tried to roll, but the thing on him was too heavy. He peered over his shoulder and saw the quartermaster’s face, chin digging into Powell’s back. The quartermaster’s hands and feet slid around front, and Powell was pinned.

He struggled, but something was pulling at him, yanking him away from his own skin. There was no pain. He couldn’t grab on to anything. For a moment he broke free and hovered over his own body.

The quartermaster wasn’t on him. Instead, a long, skinny Fey held him, its naked body covered with muck and blood. Its face had a rapt, almost feral expression. Then it looked up, saw Powell, and took a deep breath.

Powell tried to grab something, anything, but he was being sucked toward that feral being. He was surrounded by air—he was nothing but air himself—and then—

—he was Quartermaster Grundy, nothing more than sensuous appetites and pomp, eating breakfast and talking to his men when this thing, this—

—Silence, Fey, a Doppelgänger, nothing more than half a being himself, wounded in Nye, nearly died, taking a ship to a new island for an easy fight—

I’m drowning in them,
Powell thought, and then he did.

TWENTY-THREE

The pounding hooves faded. Rugar kept his eyes closed for another long few minutes for good measure. His right cheek was stuck in the mud, and he was breathing shallowly. The stench of the bodies caught in his throat.

A disaster. It was all a disaster. They had greater magicks than he ever thought possible. He had a real war on his hands now.

The mud was cold against his skin. The chill had worked its way through his body. He needed to think, and there was no time. He had called off the troops, but he would have to do something with them while he decided how to meet this new threat.

He opened his eyes. The body beside him was huddled in a mock fetal position, arms above the melted head. The face was completely featureless. Rugar shuddered. He knew what it was like to die like that, to feel his entire body change, his nostrils close, his mouth seal. He swallowed, but the stench of death remained in his throat like a piece of bread that had gone down the wrong pipe.

Far away the screams and slap of metal against metal rose and fell like a counterpoint to his own breathing. His heart pounded against his rib cage. He was alive. Many of his own people weren’t.

He swallowed again and sat up, slowly pulling his hands out of the muck. He wiped the goo on his clothes. His fingernails had turned blue, his fingers white with cold. Around him bodies stretched for what seemed like miles. The sun glinted off the river, the light adding a clarity to the scene.