Swords of Waar (6 page)

CHAPTER SIX

CHASED!

W
e popped back out of the blackness into a stone room about the size of a walk-in freezer, only it wasn’t cold in there, it was broiling, and it stank like an outhouse in July. There was nothing in the room except the teleporter disk and a heavy door in one wall with a pull chain beside it.

I came up hacking and choking and hauled on the little priest’s ankle, pulling him away from the gem. “Where did you take us, you little fuck?”

He kicked at me with his other foot and cracked me on the jaw with the heel of his sandal. Sandal? Hey! He used a teleport gem and was still wearing clothes! What the fuck! He scrambled to the gem as I was staring and grabbing my mouth and, pop! He wasn’t there.

“Goddamn it!”

I looked around, wondering where the hell he’d left me, and saw the door again, and the chain. I groaned to my feet and reached for it, then heard a soft “fump” behind me and looked back.

An orange and white guard was standing on the disc. Fump. Another one. Fump fump. Two more. Fump. Mr. Turkey-Wattle.

“Seize her!”

I yanked on the chain and the heavy door edged open. I shoved it open, then ran through into a dark tunnel with brick walls and the worst smell I’d ever smelled in all my life. It was enough to buckle my knees, but I had to keep going. The guards and the priest were charging out after me.

Little knife blades of light sliced down from the roof of the tunnel as I ran on, and showed me that there was a wide gutter down the middle of it, with a thick, lumpy river running through it, and steam rising up off it. I was in a sewer, and I don’t think it had rained in a while. I gagged. There was a real danger that the Cheerios I’d eaten back on Earth were gonna come up again and mix in with the muck of wherever this was. Fuck. What if my breakfast combined with the local lunch to create some weird alien poop monster that destroyed the world?

“Catch her! Bring her back!” Turkey-Wattle’s voice echoed down the tunnel from behind me. “Duru-Vau will have our heads if we let her escape too!”

“Fat chance, pal.” I was skimming low so I wouldn’t crack my head on the ceiling, but I was still taking ten feet a stride. There was no way they’d catch me.

Then his words sank in. Too? Who else had they let escape? Did he mean Lhan? Did that mean Lhan was free? Did they know where he was? All of a sudden I wasn’t so interested in escaping. I had some questions to ask first, and I knew just who I wanted to ask.

There was an intersection up ahead, lit by a bigger shaft of light. I looked behind me. My eyes were tearing so bad from the smell I could hardly see a yard away, let alone fifty feet, but after blinking a couple of times I made out some shadows running through the blades of light.

If I could see them, then they could see me, so I made a big show of turning left at the intersection, and ran through the big shaft of light on purpose. As soon as I was around the corner, though, I stopped and looked around, searching for a way to separate Mr. Turkey-Wattle from his pals.

That’s when I noticed that the beam of light next to me was shining down on a ladder that looked like iron staples half-sunk into the walls. I jumped to it and looked up. It went up into a little brick chimney, and the shaft of light was shining through a little slot at the top.

“A manhole. Perfect.”

Quick as lightning, I zipped up the ladder until I was hidden in the chimney, then waited, staring down into the tunnel. I felt like a jungle cat, though I don’t think any jungle ever smelled as bad. I put one hand over my mouth and nose and tried not to breathe. Didn’t help even a little.

A couple seconds later I heard jogging footsteps and Mr. Turkey-Wattle’s voice.

“Where is she? She’s gotten too far ahead! Speed up!”

I readied myself as all the guards thudded by below me, then tensed as I waited for Turkey-Wattle to appear. Finally he staggered into view, winded and gasping. Like a naked ninja, I dropped down on him, knees first, and knocked him flat. His head hit the bricks, stunning him, and one of his arms went in the stew. I winced, but I couldn’t be finicky now. I grabbed him by the collar and zipped back up the ladder like a rat up a drainpipe.

I was hoping to get away clean, but one of the guards musta looked back, ’cause suddenly I heard, “She’s behind us! She has Brother Aln!”

I hauled the priest up the chimney to the manhole cover, which was more like an iron grate, but so caked with mud and crap that there was only one open hole. I shouldered it up and climbed out, dragging Turkey-Wattle behind me, and only then thought about what I might be dragging him into.

All around me was screaming and shrieking and people backing away. I blinked around in the blazing sunlight and saw I was in some kind of street market, with purple-skinned customers crowding around colorful little stalls and kids running around in rags. We’d come up in the middle of it all, and people were taking it big, gasping and pointing and calling for the cops.

“Demon!”

“It’s got a priest!”

“Fetch the guard!”

The guards were already coming. I could see ’em climbing up the chimney beneath my feet.

“Sorry, fellas. We’re closed.”

With my free hand I grabbed the grate by one edge and dropped it down the hole. Back on Earth I couldn’t have done that trick, because we’re civilized enough to make manhole covers round so they won’t fall down their own holes. These nimrods hadn’t figured that out yet, and they paid for it. The grate wiped them off the ladder like the hand of god and I started looking around for a place where me and Brother Aln could have a quiet little chat.

Unfortunately, somebody
had
fetched the guard. I could see a troop of guys in green cloaks pushing through the crowd with a bunch of ragged children waving them on and shouting.

“This way!”

“A demon! A demon!”

“Look there!”

I locked eyes with the guard captain as he came around some kind of shish-kabob stand, then saw that a couple of the guys behind him had crossbows. Time to go. And time to go up.

The buildings around the square were all two and three stories, but their fronts were covered with awnings and fancy stone work, so it wasn’t hard finding a way to climb one, but doing it with a stunned priest in one hand made it harder. I threw him up onto an awning, then vaulted up after him and slung him over my shoulder.

A crossbow bolt stuck in the plaster beside me as I climbed for a balcony, but then the guard captain shouted at his men not to fire in case they hit the priest, and they ran into the building instead.

I heaved Brother Aln onto the roof, climbed after him, and picked him up again, then stopped dead, staring out across the rooftops. Any doubts I’d had about what planet I was on were all washed away just like that, ’cause rising up out of the city like a giant white vibrator was the Temple of Ormolu, headquarters of the Church of the Seven, a windowless, spaceship skyscraper that looked as out of place on this medieval planet as a ray gun at a renaissance fair.

I blinked at it, a realization dawning. “That’s where I just was. Duh. The inside matches the outside. That must mean there’s local teleporters as well as long distance. Crazy.”

I turned around to make sure, and saw the Aldhanan’s palace, all red and orange sandstone up on its hill in the other direction. Yup, I was in Ormolu, the capital of the Oran Empire. I was back on Waar! Yay!

The sound of boots thudding on stairs inside the building snapped me out of my happy dance. The guards would be up there any second, and I didn’t want to be waiting for ’em. I clamped Brother Aln to my shoulder, jumped for the next roof, and kept jumping until I was a whole block away, and had put a few cupolas and chimneys in the way besides, then stopped in the middle of a triangle of laundry lines and dumped him on his back.

“Alright, pal. Tell me where Lhan is.”

He didn’t answer, just lay there with his mouth half open. Shit. Had I killed him? I knelt down and listened to his chest. His heart was thumping along just fine. I slapped him, then slapped him again. He came to with a yelp and curled up, covering his head. I rolled him back over and pinned his shoulders flat with my legs, then clamped a hand around his neck.

“Where is Lhan-Lar?”

He stared up at me, whites showing all around his eyes. “I—I know not the name.”

I slapped him again. “Liar! I heard you tell your guys you couldn’t let me escape
too
. That means you let somebody
else
escape, and I’m guessing it’s Lhan. Now where is he?”

He sneered up at me, my handprint turning his purple cheek maroon. “You may do your worst, demon. A priest does not give up the secrets of the—”

I reached behind me and clamped a hand on his junk. He squeaked like a dog toy.

“He has fled with the pirates!”

“What pirates?”

“The pirates with whom you defeated Kedac-Zir!”

My heart did a little dance in my chest. Lhan was alive? And he was with Kai-La and her gang of buckle swashers? This was the best news ever!

I gave his nuts another honk. “Where are they?”

“You will not save him. An airship went after them days ago. He will be dead with all the rest.”

I rolled my eyes. “Tell me another one. Kai-La got the personal thanks of the Aldhanan. The navy’s got no reason to go after them.”

He smiled, smug. “The Temple has its own airships. And its own warriors. Besides, it was discovered they had betrayed the Aldhanan’s trust.”

My heart stopped dancing. “You framed ’em. You set ’em up.”

“We did what was best for Ora, as we always have.”

I let go of his sack and stabbed my finger at him. “I don’t know what y’all are up to, but if Lhan is dead, I’m coming back here and burning your goddamned rocketship club-house to the ground. Now where is he? Where are the pirates?”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. “They are at Toaga, the pirate haven. Or they were. They are dead now, I assure you.”

I slapped him. “And where is that?”

He spit blood and tried to hide his head against his shoulder. I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me.

“Where?”

“To the south! Near the mountains!”

“Where
exactly
?”

“Do you think I have a map? It is to the south. I know no more.”

I wanted to shake him, but he was right. Him telling me wasn’t gonna do me any good. I needed to find a map, or somebody who could take me to this Toaga place personally. And how the fuck was I gonna manage that?

Through the flapping laundry I could hear the guards coming across the roofs. I stood up and grabbed a red blanket and a lime green sarong off the clothes line and started to cover myself.

“Thanks for the info. Remember my warning.”

Brother Aln raised up on his elbows. “I did not lie before, demon. The church will give you mercy. Come willingly and you will not be harmed.”

I sneered and backed for the edge of the roof. “Yeah, you’ll just send me back to a place I don’t wanna be no more. Thanks but no thanks, padre.”

I turned and jumped for the street.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HUNT!

A
bout eight hours later, looking like a color-blind babushka in my clashing blanket and wrap, I stared out from the branches of a purple tree at the ritzy country house of the guy Lhan and I had stayed with the night the priests had grabbed me and sent me back to Earth.

My first instinct had been to go to the Aldhanan’s palace and ask Sai for help, or maybe even the Aldhanan himself. I mean, Lhan and I had saved his country for him, right? Couldn’t he do us a solid and get the church off our backs? But then I remembered how many priests I’d seen in there, and how paranoid Lhan and Sai had been about them knowing what we were up to. They had ears everywhere, Sai had said, and even the Aldhanan watched his ass around them.

Then I remembered that Lhan and the guy who had put us up on our last night together had looked over a bunch of maps while we were trying to work out where we gonna go to escape the priests. If anybody knew where this Toaga place was, it was that guy. All I had to do was find him. I wish I’d had a map. It took me a while to work out where that was from the middle of Ormolu, but after a long day of sneaking and hiding and dragging my ass all over hell and back, and way too many wrong turns, rewinds and dead ends, I finally got to Lhan’s friend’s house about three hours past sunset. Now I was scouting the place like a spy in a movie. It looked like I remembered it, like a villa on some Greek island, with balconies and porches and wings, only all made out of hexagons the way all the buildings were on Waar, and I half expected to see it full of priests, all waiting to ambush me. Well, if they were, they were wearing some pretty good shrubbery disguises, so I made for the wall.

It isn’t easy being a ninja when you’re big and pink and dressed in red and green. You don’t exactly blend in with the scenery. Fortunately, the big and little moons were down, and the lights were off in the house and probably nobody was watching anyway. I took a running start and jumped the wall long and shallow, then tucked and rolled on the blue lawn inside the compound and came up near the bushes outside the dining room.

Nobody called out. Nobody shot at me. Nobody opened a window. I let out a breath and climbed to a balcony on the second level, then rolled through an open door—and found myself in the bedroom Lhan and I had shared before the priests had grabbed me. I swallowed hard as little movies of that night flashed through my head. There was a lot of porn in those flicks, I admit, a lot of bouncing and grinding and licking and biting, but there was more too—kisses, hugs, stories back and forth, tears—all the stuff that makes a roll in the hay more than just a one-night stand, even if it only lasted one night.

“Don’t be dead, Lhan. Please don’t be dead.”

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness—and to stop leaking—then crossed the room to the door and out into the hallway. If I remembered the layout right, our host’s room was two down to the left. The hall was darker than the rooms, so I made my way down by feel, and hoped my curses didn’t wake anybody as I banged my shins and elbows into things.