The Healing Wars: Book II: Blue Fire (4 page)

The tracker moved away from the launching ramp, narrowing the distance between her and the girl. Danello slipped behind the tracker, darting across the row. The brother had to be there, though
I didn’t see him. I hoped he didn’t do anything reckless to help his sister.

The tracker stiffened and turned as if she’d heard us.

I left Tali and moved closer, testing each footstep before settling my weight down on the bleached planks of the dock.

Movement under the cleaning table caught my eye. The sister leaned forward as if about to run, terror on her face. I shook my head and she sat back.

Creak.

I froze. The tracker snapped around and raised her pynvium weapon. She glanced at the traps and pulled a knife from her boot as well.

Creak.

The tracker followed the sound, her head cocked, her weapons ready.

The sister gasped, soft as a splash. I held up my hands and mouthed,
Stay.
She nodded.

The tracker was right on the other side of the traps from me. She took another cautious step in her shiny black boots and then stopped.

She narrowed her eyes. She cocked her head again and stepped closer to the wall of crab traps separating us.

Had she sensed me?

Jeatar had warned me about that before he’d left Geveg. “The Duke will hire the best trackers to come after you. The ones who can sense a Taker like a Taker senses pynvium. The good ones can sense a Taker just by walking by.”

If she’d sensed us from this distance, she was
really
good.

“Come out, come out, little girl,” she called louder.

I held my breath. Light drops of sweat dotted her brow and upper lip. Was she scared? If so, maybe I could catch her off guard, give the others time to move in and the sister time to move out.

“I know you’re here,” the tracker called. She held up one hand, inches away from the traps hiding me, as if she could feel me behind the wood. “Is that you, Shifter?”

I swallowed my gasp. She had to be guessing. She couldn’t possibly know it was me.

“I’ll leave the girl alone if you show yourself. You’re a much better prize for the Duke than she is.”

The dock creaked again. Aylin or Danello?

“You can’t evade me for long, Shifter,” the tracker said in that irritating singsong voice.

Maybe not, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.

“You can’t run,” she continued. “We have guards
on every bridge off every isle. Soldiers at all the pole-boat docks. If I don’t get you, one of my men will.”

Men? Since when did trackers hire others to help them?

I caught another glimpse of the tracker through the holes in the traps, then she was gone.

“Got you.”

I
gasped and spun. The tracker had a pynvium rod in her hand. She flicked her wrist and—

Whoomp.

Pain flashed from it, stinging my skin like blown sand. She gaped at me, shocked that I hadn’t collapsed to the ground screaming in pain. I guess they hadn’t figured out
everything
about me yet.

Something thumped against the traps around me. They clattered forward, spilling over the tracker like trash thrown from a window.

“Looks like I got
you
,” Aylin said, heaving an armful of nets at her.

“Vyand?” a man yelled.

“Her—” she began.

I dumped more nets over her and cawed three
times. Two more caws answered right away. The tracker was quiet for only a moment, then started screaming and thrashing about.

“Tangle her up,” I said.

Aylin helped me truss her up in the nets like a chicken on All Saints’ Day. The tracker’s screams turned to angry squeals and curses.

The boy ran to his sister and dragged her from the nook. Danello popped out from behind the traps. “More trackers are headed this way,” he said, pointing over his shoulder.

We left, staying low and moving as fast as we dared.

I slowed as we neared North-Dock Bridge, checking the crowded street for the guards the tracker claimed were on all the bridges. Dozens of haulers and day workers shuffled between the docks and the production district on the main isle, but none of them looked like guards.

We crossed the bridge slowly, moving with refugees and workers. On the other side of the bridge, I angled to the canal side of the street so we wouldn’t draw attention from some soldiers hassling a family of squatters.

“Danello, Aylin,” I said, “drop behind and check for anyone following.”

“Got it.”

Aylin vanished into the crowd, light on her feet as the wind, Danello less so, but he was getting better at it.

A refugee jostled me. I turned, glad for the excuse to look behind us. A block away, two men walked side by side. Their clothes said poor, but they didn’t glance at the soldiers or shy away when anyone walked close. Their dark hair was neatly trimmed and neither wore a beard. People that nondescript were usually the ones you had to watch out for. Danello and Aylin were about twenty feet behind them, walking on opposite sides of the street.

A burned smell drifted over the bridge as we crossed into what used to be a Baseeri-occupied neighborhood. Most of it had been burned in the riots a few months ago, right after the old Luminary had claimed Geveg’s Healers were all dead. Well, that and me proving the Luminary had been lying and was
really
trying to steal the League’s pynvium. No one had been happy about
that.

They’d gone mad, attacking the League, burning down Baseeri-owned shops and homes, giving the Governor-General an excuse to send in his soldiers and a legitimate reason to hurt us.

I looked at the Healers’ League rising above the
other buildings in the distance. The gaping hole where the Luminary’s office had been was a sharp reminder of why the trackers were after me.

What’s done is done and I can’t change it none.

“Nya?” Tali said, looking at me funny. “Why are we slowing down?”

“Sorry.” I picked up the pace again.

Three men rounded the corner in front of us, their gazes scanning the street. The tracker’s men? I turned around, heading back the way we’d come.

The tracker woman stepped out of an alley.

I froze. So did Aylin and Danello, now in front of me and on the other side of the tracker. Having her trapped between us didn’t make me feel any safer.

A plan, I need a plan.

The tracker smiled, but there was nothing friendly about her grin. She had a sword out this time and her knife in the other hand.

“Found you before lunch,” she said. “Stewwig owes me ten oppas.”

“You must have me confused with someone else,” I said, trying to hold her attention while Aylin and Danello crept up behind her.

“I don’t think so.”

Danello dived at the tracker, sending her flying
forward and into a pain merchant’s window. The glass cracked but didn’t break. Folks turned, their hands covering worried frowns.

“Run!” I yelled. Two of the three men closing on us blocked my way. Another was coming up behind them. Huge, with thick arms, his sleeves rolled up like those of a man who was there to do a hard day’s work.

I shoved Tali away from the approaching men. She stumbled a few steps then stopped, her expression waffling between fear and anger. The Taker and her brother fled for the canals.

“Tali, go,” I cried.

“Not without you!” She darted over and grabbed my hand, trying to pull me away. Aylin was running at us, her hand outstretched as if she planned to grab me too.

The tracker was on her feet again. She whipped out another pynvium rod and aimed it at Tali and Aylin.

Whoomp.

A strange tingle ran down my arm. Aylin screamed and collapsed to the street. Tali didn’t, but she
should
have.

We gaped at each other longer than was wise. She’d resisted the flash! She’d never done that
before. I’d seen flashed pain hurt her. She wasn’t immune like I was. How had she done it?

Two of the tracker’s men tackled us. I dropped and landed hard on the street next to an unconscious Aylin. I grabbed her ankles and
drew.

Tingling pain ran up my arm, not nearly as sharp as real pain would have been, and it wouldn’t last long. The tracker’s men grabbed me. I struggled to turn and grab their exposed flesh but couldn’t reach them.

Danello leaped onto the big man from behind. He spun and punched Danello in the face. Danello snapped back and went down.

I kicked the shins of one of the men holding me. He cried out and loosened his grip on my arm. I yanked hard, sliding my wrist out enough to get my hand on his skin.

I
pushed.

He hissed and let go, shaking his arm like something had stung him. I reached for the man holding Tali a heartbeat before thick arms wrapped around my shoulders. I reached up, barely able to get my fingers on his forearm. I
shifted
the last of what I’d taken from Aylin into him. He grunted softly but didn’t let go.

Tali’s arms were pinned now, and another man
was tying her hands. She tried to bite him and he slapped her.

“Hey!” I kicked out at him but missed.

A few fishermen scowled and started forward, but the tracker stepped up and held something out.

“This is a legal bounty warrant on the Duke’s orders.” She smiled briefly, satisfied as a cat. “Any interference in this claim is punishable by conscription.”

That stopped the fishermen. They might risk prison to help me, but no one wanted to fight for the Duke. The crowd that had gathered grumbled and moved away.

“You’ve given us quite the chase,” she said.

“Who are you?” I asked, shaking as a soldier bound my hands with rope. Danello lay on the street, softly moaning.

“Most call me Vyand.” She stepped forward and held the reward poster next to my face. “Good likeness, except for the hair. That was smart.” Vyand grinned at the big man. “Look at that, Stewwig, two Takers for the work of one. Not bad.”

“Let her go!” I said.

Vyand stayed just out of kicking distance. “Merlaina Oskov,” she said, using the name I’d given to so many who now wanted me captured. “On the order
of Duke Verraad, I herby bind you for the murder of Luminary Duis Steek.”

She leaned in closer and whispered into my ear. “But we both know that’s not why he
really
wants you.”

Ropes bound my wrists together, same as Tali. Vyand had thrown us into a prisoner transport waiting in the rear courtyard of the Healers’ League. High stone walls and wrought-iron gates I recognized well fenced us in even more.

The courtyard gate clanged open and Vyand entered, followed by four armed men. Tali slid closer and grabbed my hand.

“Listen up,” Vyand called, walking over to us. “You have been extremely annoying. If you give me any more hassles, you’ll spend your nights in a box belowdecks, where it’s hot. Behave yourselves and you’ll get to sleep in a cage on deck, where it’s cool.”

She flicked a hand in the air. “Mount up.”

The cage dipped to one side as men climbed onto the driver’s bench. Seconds later the transport lurched forward and rolled onto Grand Canal Street. I frowned. Vyand was going to parade us through the streets, as if proving to Geveg that I was caught.

Crowds of Baseeri gathered and watched the transport pass. I’d never been booed before. Yelled at, spat on, beaten, yes—but not booed.

“Abomination!”

“Murderer!”

“I bet I’ve healed some of those people,” Tali muttered, dodging a rotten orange.

“Tali, about that. What did you do when Vyand flashed us?”

“Nothing.”

“You had to do
something.
The flash didn’t hurt you.”

“It burned a little, but that was it. Think I’m immune like you?”

“You weren’t before.”

She shrugged. “I was trying to get you to leave. I wasn’t thinking about anything but dragging you out of there.”

Wait…
dragging
. She’d been touching me. I closed my eyes, pictured us standing there. I’d felt something just before Vyand flashed us. A tingle, like she was
pulling
something from me. What if it had been my flashing immunity? Did she
borrow
it?

“Put your hands over mine,” I said. “See if you can shift into me.”

“What? I can’t do that.”

“Just try.”

She put her hands over mine and…

“Nothing.”

“I didn’t feel a tingle this time either.” Maybe she hadn’t done anything. I could have blocked her from the pain, or the angle of the flash had missed her. Maybe I’d drawn it away just as it hit her.

“You have a plan to get us out of here, don’t you?” She looked at me, hope in her eyes. Her confidence was touching, but I wasn’t so sure I could live up to such faith. I had no idea how to get out of a locked prisoner transport. I couldn’t even escape in a city I knew as well as my own name.

“They can’t keep us in this cage forever. When Vyand opens the door, I’ll shift and we’ll run.”

She frowned. “That’s not one of your better plans.”

“It’s all I have right now.”

“Okay. Tell me when you think of something else.”

“We’re going to get out of this,” I promised. She smiled, but I don’t think she believed me.

The taunts and thrown items stopped when we reached a rundown neighborhood. People watched us go by, their expressions hard and cold, but for Vyand’s men, not for us. I could see the hopelessness,
the defeat. That’s what the Duke had done to us: turned us into people who let our children be dragged through the city on display and hauled off to the very man who’d beaten us.

“Free the Takers!”

Danello? Shouts rang out all around us. Men with clubs and nets ran from the crowd. They swarmed over the main guard, catching him in a net before he could do more than turn. A half dozen more ran for the horses. Aylin, Jovan, Bahari, Enzie. Even Winvik!

A high-pitched whinny split the air. The horses reared, front legs pawing as some fishermen tried to throw blankets over them. The driver was on the ground, unconscious. I caught a glimpse of Barnikoff swinging a stick at one of the soldiers.

“See? We don’t need a plan. We’re being rescued!”

The horses shrieked again, and one kicked out its rear legs. The cage shuddered as hooves cracked against the front. The horse kept thrashing, trying to throw off the man clinging to its harness. The cage rocked like a boat on rough water.

“Push harder!” Danello called above the noise.

I screamed as the cage toppled and dragged the horses to the ground. Tali tumbled over me, her knee
smacking painfully hard against my head. The door screeched open and a man hauled her out. Another seized my arm and yanked me to my feet. He hurried me away from the cage.

“No, my friends are that way.” I tugged to return, but the man wouldn’t stop. Vyand’s men might have been surprised by the attack, but they hadn’t stayed that way long. More had appeared, surrounding the others with swords and pynvium rods. Danello backed away, shielding Tali and Aylin.

“Wait, please!”

The man kept leading me down the street.

Away from Danello and Tali.

Away from
everyone
.

Saints and sinners! This wasn’t a rescue. It was a
kidnapping
.

“Let go of me!” I couldn’t break free of the man’s grip. I pounded on his hand, but it was like smacking rock. I leaned over and bit his shoulder.

He gasped and let me go.

“I don’t think so,” said another man, coming up behind me before I could take a step. He grabbed my arms and half carried me down the street. There wasn’t a soul around.

They hauled me into a rundown boardinghouse half a block farther along the street. The first man
opened a door on the ground floor and shoved me inside.

“We got her,” he said, shutting the door behind us.

“Good.”

I snapped around. A boy about twenty stood there.

“What’s going on?” I asked, though my guts knew only one reason why anyone would save me from a tracker and take me away from my friends.

“We’re earning a quick five thousand oppas.” He elbowed the man standing next to him. “See, Uncle? I told you this would work.”