Darkwind, p.9
Darkwind, page 9
Shadows rippled as Ashe loomed over Maleck from behind the trunk, keeping its berth between them, and raised the rock high.
She almost made contact with his skull.
Almost.
Cistine squeaked in terror when Maleck’s fingers flashed up, seizing Ashe at the wrist. In one deft movement, he caught her armpit and flipped her over the trunk and above his head, knocking her windless on the ground.
Julian leaped up, and Cistine scrambled with him, terror ripping a scream from her throat. Ashe snatched her hand away from Maleck’s grasp, crawling backward from him as the death-god, the man of smoke and shadow, unfolded to his feet and drew his sword.
Armed with the nail, Julian pounced and jabbed, but the makeshift weapon did no good except to shred the buttons from Maleck’s undershirt. With a backward jab of his elbow, he put Julian down to his knees, clutching his throat, and he turned back to Ashe.
The state of him terrified Cistine. His shirt hung open over his bare chest, exposing his clavicles and pectorals where the skin was nothing but a gnarled heap of scarring—as though he’d been struck by lightning or set aflame.
Maleck wasn’t the only one alerted now. The archers abandoned their posts, tearing toward the campfire as a dark shape careened across the night sky.
Faer. Off to warn Quill that Maleck’s blade was underneath Ashe’s chin now, the point impressing the skin of her throat.
Cistine lurched forward, and when an archer stepped into her path, Julian surged up, tackled the man and disarmed him, took his thin sword, and rendered him unconscious in two blows. But he didn’t dare strike again with the blade when the other archers encircled them; when Maleck’s steel was ready to taste Ashe’s blood.
Helpless, horrified, Cistine gasped her Warden’s name.
Ashe’s eyes traced the twisted skin on Maleck’s chest and moved to his face. “You were an augur.” She looked as if she wanted to peel the skin from his bones with her bare hands. “You fought in the war, didn’t you?”
Maleck stepped closer, his blade tipping up her head, and Cistine started to weep in fear. In anger. In horror.
But Maleck didn’t make the strike. He was frozen. They all were.
At last, shattering the silence, Maleck said, “You can see what I am, and yet you attacked me. And you face me still.”
“You think I’m afraid of you?” Ashe snarled. “You augers don’t frighten me. You never have!”
Maleck blinked, and in the depths of that blank stare, something flickered. Cistine couldn’t put a name to it. But as Ashe and Maleck stared one another down, twin warriors from opposing battlefields, Maleck’s face changed. Emotion tried to crawl across it for just an instant.
And that instant was broken by a piercing whistle.
Cistine twisted toward the sound, and Julian stepped back to her, sliding an arm across her front. His fingers curled in the sleeve of her tattered dress as they looked at the wagons. At the figure standing atop the nearest one.
He was another death-god, robed in a dark shirt and pants. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, baring long vambraces on his forearms, each one buckled with a slender knife. Swords glinted at a cross behind his shoulderblades. His face, angled their way, was hardly older than Cistine’s—less than a decade’s difference between them—but his hair was white, like the upper thatch of Quill’s, and he wore it chopped into unruly layers; some ending above his ears, others traveling down the deeply tanned nape of his neck. A few wild hanks hung into his eyes as he turned toward Cistine, and their gazes met.
She had the sudden sensation of sticking her hands into ice water, and feeling it scald before it stung.
The man dismounted lithely from the cart and strode across the meadow to join them. Julian’s grip on Cistine’s sleeve tightened, pulling the seams loose. His back, pressed half-across Cistine’s chest, vibrated with a growl.
The man halted beside Maleck, who sheathed his sword and gestured to Ashe. “She’s a Talheimic Warden.”
The man stared at Ashe, and Ashe stared back. No remorse, no pity in their faces.
Not even when the man reached back for his own sword.
Cistine didn’t know why she moved. What she truly intended to do. But she saw steel glint, and for the second time that night, Ashe was in danger.
Cistine refused to be useless again. She would do something.
She didn’t realize what that truly meant until she’d shoved down Julian’s arm, ripped the sword from his hand, and lunged over Ashe to meet the man’s blade.
Julian roared her name like a battle-cry, and Cistine heard the scuffle of someone restraining him. She barely managed to heft the stolen sword in time to block the steel that sliced toward the side of her neck.
Her arms wanted to buckle under the sheer power behind this man’s attack. He wielded his weapon with single-handed grace, while Cistine braced the grip of Julian’s sword with all her might, and still sweat gathered in the small of her back.
But she faced him. He was taller and broader than her, and the most frightening person she’d ever seen, with those cold eyes and that grim jaw. Worse than blank, fathomless Maleck, she saw this man’s intentions on the clear surface of his face: he wanted to kill Ashe.
“I won’t let you touch her.” Cistine meant every word, even if they shook as badly as the rest of her.
The man studied her face, as if she was a problem he hadn’t anticipated facing and didn’t have a precise idea how to solve. Perhaps no one else had ever stepped in the way of his killing strikes before, or told him he wasn’t allowed to butcher whomever he pleased.
“Thorne!”
Cistine almost felt relief at that shout, almost let herself believe she had an ally when Quill jogged into the firelight. His weapons whispered as he slowed to a halt at Maleck’s side. Wide-eyed, he looked between Cistine and her attacker—Thorne—who still held his weapon with casual grace. Cistine’s shoulders ached as she clung to her sword.
“You left them unbound, Quill.” Thorne’s voice was the scrape of a fallen star slamming into the dirt, heavy with disappointment. By the way Quill lowered his eyes, Cistine knew exactly who this man was.
Her heart stumbled in her chest.
“I didn’t think she would make the attempt.” Quill shot Cistine a wounded look, as if she’d betrayed him, but Cistine didn’t care. They weren’t friends, and even if they had been, she wouldn’t apologize for where she stood. Ashe was her Warden, her closest friend. Ashe came before everything.
Thorne circled his blade casually, and Cistine’s arms gave way. Ashe shouted as Cistine struggled to heft the sword again, to block the next blow aimed toward her legs. She managed it, but only just.
Several archers snickered. Cistine colored in humiliation.
“You don’t know swordplay?” Thorne asked.
“I haven’t needed to,” Cistine said. “I’m a princess.”
Quill hissed under his breath, “Nimmus’ teeth!”
Thorne’s eyes raked over her. “Poor excuse.”
“Don’t you dare condescend to her!” Julian snarled, and Cistine heard the dull impact as someone hit him. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Thorne’s gaze traveled to Ashe, still in a sprawl, now gripping her leg. For the first time, deeper concern pushed through Cistine’s immediate panic. Ashe was a Cadre Warden, trained by their commander himself, and if she was still on her back with weapons drawn on every side, then she must have reopened her wound.
There was no hope of fleeing now, even if Thorne dropped his guard.
“A princess.” Thorne pressed in with his blade. Cistine’s wrists popped, and she sucked in a whimper. “Not a title we hear often in these lands.”
Cistine glanced at Julian. His eyes begged her not to give up the secret she was meant to tell the Chancellor, the Guide, and no one else. But Cistine knew words were weapons, and against these warriors with their swords and powerful bodies, she had nothing but her words in her quiver.
She had to use them, and trust her aim was true.
“I am Princess Cistine Novacek,” she said, “and I demand your respect and clemency.”
Thorne released Cistine’s blade. When she stumbled forward from the lack of weight to brace against, he rested his sword against the side of her neck instead. “You demand nothing from me that you haven’t earned.”
Cistine’s bowels threatened to release. “As royalty, I invoke diplomatic protection.”
“We aren’t diplomats, and this is a kingdom with Chancellors, not kings. Your title means nothing here.”
Cistine cobbled together the vestiges of her courage and screamed in his face: “I am Princess Cistine Novacek of the Middle Kingdom of Talheim, and you will lower your blade—now!”
To her shock, Thorne’s sword fell away from her neck. He tipped his head, studying her matted hair and muddy dress, searching for the princess beneath all the filth her capture had brought to her. “And why have you come to Valgard, Princess Cistine Novacek of Talheim?”
“I’ve come to appeal to the Chancellor of Kanslar Court,” Cistine said—and then added for good measure, “I’m under his protection as well. If you harm me or either of my friends, it will be the death of you.”
Quill skimmed a hand under the veil of his hair, grazing the scar beneath those mottled layers. Maleck’s gaze slid to Thorne, whose eyes narrowed. “You were traveling to Stornhaz to meet with Kanslar’s Chancellor, of all men. With no knowledge of how to wield a blade yourself, and with a King’s Cadre Warden for a companion.”
Cistine sensed she was treading water over an abyss neither she nor her friends had been aware of until this moment—and that Thorne alone knew precisely how deep it was, and what sort of creatures dwelled in it.
But she refused to show him how much he’d unsettled her, or how truly out of her depth she was. She raised her chin and gripped the sword more tightly in her aching, shivering hands. “Yes, I was. Not that my business is any of yours.”
“It is when my men find you traveling with a caravan of smugglers.” Thorne sheathed his sword, and Quill snapped forward to disarm Cistine with a blow to the wrists, forcing her hands apart. He kicked the sword away and bundled Cistine against his chest, just like the day they’d captured her.
“Do not argue,” he murmured. “Do not sass him. Don’t even speak.”
Cistine gave one painful twist against the strength of his arms as Maleck hauled Ashe to her feet and restrained her by her wrists. Ashe shuddered at his touch as Maleck and Quill marched them after Thorne toward the wagons. An archer led Julian alongside them, also restrained.
Where they stopped just outside the ring of firelight, the other archers met them, leading the merches out from the wagons and thrusting them to their knees in the grass.
The merch who’d told them of the bandit hoards was the first to raise his head. In the flickering firelight, he’d gone ashen. “You. You’re the mongrel of the Vingete Vey?”
Thorne looked at them with pitiless spite, and Cistine saw in him the man they’d told stories of. “Answer me quickly, and death will also be quick. Waste my time, and I’ll make more of it to gut you.”
The youngest merch swallowed audibly.
“Who made the bid for your weapons, and why?” Thorne asked.
“Someone in Skyygan,” the head merch spoke up. “We aren’t foolish enough to tell you a name.”
“But foolish enough to transport weapons down the Vingete Vey.” Quill’s voice was lazy. “Under the guise of garments and food? Really?”
Cistine cut a quick glance toward Julian. That was the same lie Rolf had given them, but Quill had learned, all the way back in Veran, that the caravan wasn’t what it seemed.
“Why is Skyygan arming itself with steel from the Black Coasts?” Thorne demanded. “And why is it being done in secret?”
“Ask Chancellor Benedikt,” the merch spat. “If you’re man enough to walk into Stornhaz and face the Judgement Seat yourself, bandayo.”
Quill’s arms tightened around Cistine, and Thorne’s jaw tensed at the strange word. He stepped forward, drawing his sword and resting it against the merch’s neck. “Did you know what you were transporting when you set out, or was this Rolf’s idea, and his pay kept you from asking questions?”
The merch lifted his chin. “Unlike you, I do my dealings in the open, and with pride. We all knew. We offered our wagons for sparse mynts to serve the Courts. So ask me again if I’ll tell you that name.”
“No. I know you won’t.”
Thorne’s blade stroked. The merch’s severed head fell to the ground.
Cistine arched, bile traveling up her throat. Quill released her, pushing her toward Julian, and as his captor unhanded him he caught her and brought her into the shelter of his chest so she didn’t have to see Quill and Thorne bring down the other merches. But she heard their screams, their prayers—and then the deafening silence that meant the only ones still alive in the meadow were Thorne’s people and hers.
Cistine peered out from the crook of Julian’s shoulder, watching as Thorne sheathed his blade, stepped over the headless merches, and walked toward her. “Look at me, Princess.”
Julian’s grip tightened around her, but Cistine fought to turn, to face Thorne even while she leaned back into the strength of Julian’s chest. If he was going to kill her now, he would not run her through from behind.
With his arms folded, his eyes like chips of ice, Thorne watched her. Behind him, Ashe hung forward slightly in Maleck’s grip, taking weight from her injured leg. Quill glanced between them, his eyes dancing just as the firelight danced along his unsheathed blade.
She wondered if Thorne would order Quill to kill her himself, because he’d left them unchained.
“Princess of Talheim,” Thorne said. “Do you want to live?”
“Yes,” Cistine gasped.
Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t take that tone with me. If you want to survive, you’ll fight for your life. You won’t beg me for it.”
Cistine didn’t know what he meant, but Quill sheathed his sword.
“Free the horses,” Thorne said to the archers. “Bury the bodies. Quill, the chest. Maleck, with me.”
He strode toward the grove beyond the wagons, and with Julian’s arm around her back, Cistine stumbled after him. With every step Thorne took, and every step they followed, Cistine heard it again: Come. Come this way.
And despite her terror, Cistine’s feet heeded that call.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THORNE SET A ruthless pace through the dense undergrowth, moving with easy familiarity among the black pillars of the trees, brushing against the night buds blossoming between them. The leaves’ veins were a vibrant light-blue, like ghostlight, casting a dim glow along the forest floor. Flowers shivered when Thorne passed them, as if he emitted a palpable energy that sent even nature cowering.
When Ashe’s limp slowed them after the first hour, Maleck snapped a branch from a tree and tossed it to her. With that crutch in her hand, they moved even swifter, and Cistine almost screamed with frustration. Her weary feet stumbled over every root and rock, the sharp angles of the forest floor digging into her thin flats.
She was too weary to care where they were going now or what would happen when they arrived.
The pale light of inclining dawn seamed the undergrowth when Cistine stumbled yet again, her sore feet catching in the hem of her dress, and Julian grabbed her elbow to steady her. “I could carry you, Princess.”
Cistine shook her head. She was too tired to speak, but she knew she couldn’t show that kind of weakness in front of Thorne. He was the bandit leader the merches had feared, and as a princess, as a leader herself, she refused to seem weaker than him.
Any weaker than she already was.
They’d gone perhaps another mile when the rush of falling water reached Cistine’s ears. The trees thinned, but the shadows elongated against their faces, and when they finally emerged from the undergrowth she saw the day was later than she’d expected—well past sunhigh. Brown stone hills arrested the light, their great heights propping up a plateau ahead. Water snaked over the lip of it, cascading down a sheer fall and roaring around the rocks at its base into a city of stone-and-wood edifices. Some were built at the cliff base, some hollowed from the brown rock itself. Dirt paths and wooden bridges hemmed the city’s fragments together across the river, and small, hardy trees and grasses struggled from the dirt wherever the water touched.
One house, larger than the rest, was wedged against the cliffs, its three hefty watermills churning louder than the echoes of conversation on the wind. These were the sounds of life, the musical backdrop of a normal day. Cistine could’ve shut her eyes and believed they were in Astoria.
The thought of Astoria, a home she might never see again, stole the last of her strength.
Cistine’s knees gave way. Julian grabbed her shoulders and shouted her name, and then she was unconscious.
Cistine wasn’t certain how much time had passed, or where she was, when she woke from her dreamless slumber. The first things that struck her were the smells of naked wood and weapon polish—scents that had embraced her for as long as she could remember, thanks to Ashe—and the grainy starch of clean linens.
She was lying face-down on an unfamiliar bed.
She sat up swiftly, then stiffened and moaned. Her head throbbed horrifically with every movement, her mouth dry as sunbaked rocks. The soles of her feet stung from blisters, but at least someone had removed her slippers. Her heels trailed on the scratchy sheets as she slowly dragged her knees beneath her body, surveying the room.
She’d never seen anything like it before. The craftsmanship was immaculate, the wooden posts carved into elegant twists and the archways fashioned into a latticework of knots and angles. Everything was wood—the bedframe she’d slept on, the walls, the rafters, the seats and sofas. Even the empty shelves, sprouting from the walls across the small room, were chiseled from the wooden panels themselves. This room, and the small sliver of hallway beyond it, sprouted from one enormous skeleton: ribs of ornamentation, organs of chairs and couches, and veins of darkwood decoration.
