Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) Page 16

  “If you hold yourself their mother, begone and do not pursue us. I wish you no harm but will not hesitate to bring fire and thunder upon you if you refuse to leave us be.”

  Auntie cocked her head. “I think not. Children, these people keep coins from you. Take them.”

  The children rushed forward, bare feet slapping on stones. Some leapt across the channel of refuse to circle the sides. Auntie’s young men marched behind them, slapping cudgels into their palms.

  “Run!” Xain waved his hand, and the magefire split into a wall of sapphire flame that receded before springing to new life in front of the children. They pulled up short, wide eyes and silent mouths visible above the dancing flame.

  Loren led the way, dragging a wailing Annis behind her. They rounded a corner, and she heard a loud snap behind them. Loren glanced over her shoulder to see nothing but darkness around the bend. “What happened to your flame?”

  “I cannot control what I cannot see,” Xain growled. He pushed his second ball of magefire ahead down the passage and birthed another in his palm.

  A wave of small bodies erupted before them, pouring from a side passage to block their path. Loren pulled up short, panic seizing her throat. They were trapped, with foes both ahead and behind.

  “This way!” Gem jumped across the river of waste and landed hard on a platform of stone. Xain followed, turning to wave his magefire in front of the children. Again, they pulled to a stop, waiting for the fire to die before advancing.

  Loren made to take the leap, but Annis clutched her arm. “I cannot! It’s too far. I . . . I . . . ”

  Loren gripped the girl’s shoulders. “Not now, Annis! Right now we must get away. Do you understand? Otherwise, they will capture us, or worse.”

  “Jump!” cried Xain, keeping the magefire bright.

  “I cannot,” Annis said. “I can scarcely move . . . scarcely breathe . . . ”

  Loren reached out and clapped a hand on either shoulder. “I am so, so sorry, Annis.”

  Annis barely registered confusion before Loren wrapped her fingers in the shoulders of the girl’s tunic and heaved. Annis flew through the air, wailing as she neared the stone walkway on the other side. Loren did not throw her far enough—the upper half of her body landed hard on the stone while the lower half landed with a sickening splash in the river of waste. Loren thought the flow might sweep Annis away, but Gem wrapped his hands under the girl’s shoulders and hauled her up onto the stone.

  Loren took two steps back, ready to leap. But just as she was about to take her first step, she caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eyes—a slim figure, flinging itself across the top of Xain’s flames to fly at her from the darkness.

  Loren whirled and ducked just as Auntie’s blades sliced the air above her head. She drew her dagger without a thought.

  Loren backed away as Auntie slashed twice more, waving her knife like a torch.

  “Lie still and die, damn you!” she snarled. Loren felt the passing wind of another headlong swipe. “What right do you have to enter my city?”

  “I mean you no harm,” said Loren, ducking yet another swing. “Leave us be, and we will never return.”

  “And me without so much as a penny for my little ones,” said Auntie. “I think not.”

  “We have done nothing,” said Loren.

  Auntie paused, her eyes narrowing. Loren looked into her eyes, desperately hoping that she might see some leniency there. But it was only a trick—Auntie lunged again, and Loren barely raised her dagger for a warding stab. Auntie struck the blade with both of hers, and it went spinning from Loren’s hand to the stone.

  She cried out and made to reach for it, but Auntie scooped it up instead. She stepped back and dangled the dagger by its pommel stone from finger and thumb, the rest of her hand still wrapped around her own unusual blade.

  “Oh, this is a fine piece,” said Auntie, taunting. “A pretty penny I will bet it cost you—no one who owned such a nice blade would let a wench like you place your grubby fingers upon it.”

  “Give it back!” cried Loren.

  “Come!” said Xain across the way. His concentration wavered as he said it, and the flames flickered. The children pushed forward, but the wizard recovered and pushed the wall toward them again.

  “You want your little carving knife? Come and claim it, if you dare.”

  Loren tensed, watching Auntie’s fingers. Mayhap . . . if she could only move fast enough . . . she could dart in and snatch it from Auntie’s grasp before the woman could react.

  Auntie saw the look in her eye. “Oh, come then, what good is the chase if—”

  THWOOSSSH

  A stream of foul, brown corruption erupted from the river of waste to engulf her. Auntie flew back along the stone walkway, followed by the torrent of waste.

  Loren’s eyes flew across the channel. Xain’s eyes glowed brighter as one hand maintained the flames on his left while he guided the jet of filth like a hammer blow with his right. He knocked Auntie back into her waiting children. But the wizard had relinquished his hold on the other wall of flame, and now the children rushed forward without impediment.

  “Come on!” Xain cried a final time, and vanished into the side passage where Gem waited.

  The flames blinked out.

  Loren could spare only the briefest glance at Auntie, lying amid her children, nearly drowned in filth, still clutching Loren’s dagger.

  She leapt, wrapping a hand around Gem’s and Annis’s arms as she landed. The four refugees vanished down the passage, running for their lives through darkness and disgust.

  twenty-six

  They fled through the sewer for some time, or the rest of the night, or no time at all. Loren scarcely remembered, only vague flashes of fire as Xain kept at bay the children who pursued them. Finally, he—or perhaps Gem—led them to metal rungs set in the wall. They climbed into the open air as dawn broke in the east.

  Xain led them to a squat building caked with faded blue paint. He took them to a door set in the back wall. There he knocked three times, and then twice in succession.

  Gem must have noticed Loren’s somber look, for he leaned over and put a hand on her arm as they waited. “It was only a dagger. It was not worth your life. You will get another.”

  She nodded, but she wanted to shake the boy hard enough to rattle his teeth. It had not been only a dagger. Somewhere on the road to Cabrus, the knife had become a part of her. It formed as much of Nightblade as Loren herself.

  A hatch in the door slid open, and a pair of wrinkled eyes peered out. “Who’s this?”

  “It is I, Markus,” said Xain. “You cannot have forgotten my face in only a day.”

  “I didn’t mean you, boy. These ones.” The eyes swept Loren, Gem, and Annis, lingering on the latter the longest.

  “They are friends,” said Xain. “You may trust them.”

  The eyes squinted tighter, and the hatch slid shut. A latch sounded from within, and the door swung open. Xain ushered them in and followed behind.

  Loren found herself in a small sitting room with a round wooden table and three chairs. Though her mind felt numb, she took in some details: a small fireplace in one wall, lazy smoke drifting up from embers, bits of leather hung by wooden soles ready for crafting, a bottle of something red sitting next to empty glasses upon the table.

  The old man looked them over. He didn’t precisely seem angry, Loren decided, but neither did he bear a look of welcome. Rather, he seemed the sort to think that everything might be a threat. Her eyes did not miss the dagger at his waist or the knobbly fingers that curled and uncurled beside it.

  “Markus, I must ask you a great service,” said Xain.

  “I thought I provided one already,” said the old man. “Not everyone could get you a carriage so cheap.”

  “And I am grateful, you may believe it. But now I need more. These companions I must bring with me.”

  The man barked a short laugh holding neither humor nor disbelief
. With a wave of his arm, he showed Xain to the table and offered him one of the chairs. The wizard threw himself down gratefully, his hands going to the red bottle without pause.

  “You want to sit, girl?” It took Loren a moment to realize that Markus had spoken to her. “You other lot, make yourselves welcome on the floor. I can strike a fire if you have taken a chill.” He looked Annis up and down. The girl had tried to scrub the filth that soaked her dress but could not get it all. Markus’s nose twitched. “And mayhap fetch some fresh clothes.”

  Annis murmured thanks, and Markus shrilled a short whistle. A young girl appeared from the front of the house. For a moment, she looked so thin, her eyes so wide, that Loren feared she might be one of Auntie’s children. But this girl’s dress seemed well mended, if rather plain, and she did not bear that haunted, hungry look that all of Auntie’s little lost orphans wore like a cloak.

  “Dearie, fetch this girl a dress. None of yours, they are far too small. One of your sister’s. Quickly now.”

  The girl nodded and vanished. Markus turned back to Loren. “Sit. You look half-dead.”

  Loren shrugged and went to the chair by Xain. The wizard had already poured and drained one glass. He filled another, followed by a glass for Markus. A third he pushed toward Loren. “Here. Something for your courage.”

  Loren looked at the glass. She thought it held wine, but a wine darker and . . . browner, somehow, than she had ever seen. She had never tasted wine. It was common enough at festivals in the Birchwood, but her parents insisted she was too young. If Loren pressed the point, she knew what to expect from her father. And certainly, her parents had never seen the value in spending coin on something so frivolous as drink.

  Loren had planned to have her first sip the night she left. Her parents could no longer object—they sought to put her up for dowry, after all, and how could a man judge his future bride without sharing drink? But then had come Xain, and the constables, and Loren had left wine and festivals and her parents and Chet. Dear, dear Chet.

  She looked at Xain and wondered: Would she go back, if she could? Could she call herself happy here, now, in this place, when every waking moment seemed to be a flight from death or a fight for survival?

  Then Loren thought of her father’s face as she loosed the arrow into his leg. No. No, she would never return to that.

  She placed the glass to her lips and took a healthy sip. Red liquid poured down her throat, burning like magefire. She almost coughed it back up, hacking and sputtering. But some part of her mind thought, I could stand another.

  “Yes, good, is it not?” Markus’s wrinkled lips split his pure-white beard in a smile. “My own make of brandywine, and likely stronger than you are used to.”

  Loren gulped and sat up straighter. She raised the glass to her lips again. Knowing what to expect, the second swallow tasted better: sickly sweet, biting, and warm.

  “A bit stronger, yes,” said Loren. “But not a terrible vintage.”

  Markus gave her a final smile and turned to Xain. “Well then, your favor. I can’t put these children on your carriage.”

  “What?” Loren, Gem, and Annis spoke in unison.

  Xain took another deep sip from his cup. “Go on, then. Why not?”

  “I must pay my driver, as you know. His rates to move shoes aren’t so bad. But people fetch a heavier price. And you might think it is all the same moving one body or four. It is all one carriage, after all. But the constables catch you with one charge, mayhap they take a hand or a foot. Two, and they will take your tongue and send you beyond the city walls for good. But four? It means the gibbet. We, and most importantly he, knows it.”

  “The constables want only me. And mayhap this one,” said Xain, tossing his head at Loren. “The boy and the girl have done nothing wrong. They would be only passengers.”

  “Then they can ride on the driver’s seat with my friend?” Markus studied Xain’s face as it fell. “As I thought. You are all running from something, and fleeing others outside the King’s law is in many ways worse than running from constables. At least most constables will not slit your throat in the moonslight.”

  “How much would he need?” said Xain.

  Markus’s eyes grew crafty. “Well, I could not tell you without speaking to him. But let us say he would do it for . . . ”

  Their voices faded to murmurs in the back of Loren’s mind. Her hand dropped to the dagger’s empty sheath, her thumb circling its edge.

  The dagger of power. The dagger that could command a constable. The dagger her parents should never have owned—as out of place in their kitchen as a dragon. Yes, just a hunk of fine metal wrapped in leather, she knew. But it was hers.

  Loren knew what she had to do.

  She poured the remaining liquid down her throat, wincing as the brandy burned, the wine rushing to her head. Then pushed her chair back and stood, planting both hands on the table before her. Xain and Markus stopped talking, looking up at Loren in surprise.

  “I won’t be going,” she said.

  Xain blinked. “You cannot mean to stay.”

  “Not for long. But Auntie has stolen something from me. And I must get it back.”

  Xain looked over at Gem, and then at Annis. Both of them shrugged. “Have you lost your wits?”

  “It is a matter of honor.”

  Xain barked a laugh. “Honor! Who cares for that? Do you think that thieving queen of infants will care for your honor when you come begging for your dagger?”

  “I will beg for nothing,” said Loren, surprised by her fervor. “I will take it.”

  Xain shook his head, reached over, and snatched Loren’s glass. “It seems hardly possible that you should be drunk, and yet it is clear that you are.”

  “I am not,” said Loren, though she could feel a slight wooziness nestling into her blood. “I will do this and meet you on the road.”

  Xain shook his head, poured another glass, and drained it by half. She saw Markus’s mouth twist in annoyance. The wizard missed it, raising his glass to Loren and pointing a long, delicate finger.

  “You will die if you stay. Simple as that. Or mayhap you will find yourself in a constable’s cell and put to the question. If that happens, they will know where to find me. So you see, more thoughts spur my decision than concern for your safety. I cannot let you stay.”

  “Let me? Who said I was yours to command?”

  Xain frowned, his thick eyebrows drawing together again. “No one. But I am, you will forgive me, wiser in this world than you have proved yourself to be.”

  “And yet we both find ourselves fleeing from constables. And in my case, because of you. I will take no lessons in right and wrong or wisdom from a wizard outside the King’s law.”

  Xain opened his mouth, but Markus forestalled his speech with a hand. “Xain, she may have some merit. You cannot leave together in any case. Why not let her stay, and one of the others? I will find them passage in time.”

  “Time they do not have.” Xain looked at Loren again, hesitating, as though he would say more if he could. Finally, he stood from the table and made for the door. “Outside.”

  Loren followed, her mind a blur. She could not have said whether it came from the wine or Xain’s mysterious look.

  Outside, the sky grew lighter as the sun finally cleared the horizon. Xain closed the door behind them and paced the alley’s width, stopping only to fix Loren with an angry glare and a pointed finger.

  “What game do you play at, girl?”

  “No game. Only I cannot abide the thought of Auntie keeping that dagger. It is mine. Part of me. I will take it back or die in the attempt.”

  “No,” said Xain, swiping his hands in a single line, like a throat being cut. “You will die. You will find no ‘or’ and no chance for any other outcome. Who do you think you are, forest girl? One does not walk into a throne room and tell the King to relinquish his crown if one wishes to walk out again.”

  Loren’s hands clenched at her sides. “You
do not understand. That dagger . . . I need it. I must learn what it means.”

  Xain looked mystified. “A dagger rarely has meaning. What do you speak of?”

  “Corin. You remember him. The shorter constable.”

  Xain nodded.

  “When they caught me, Corin searched me. He seemed a different man upon finding the dagger. He took me off alone, and out of sight he let me go. He told me . . . he said to tell my masters he had helped me.”

  Xain’s mouth fell open. “Masters? What masters?”

  “I know not. Only that somehow, that dagger may stay even the King’s law.”

  Xain’s eyes darkened as though remembering some unwanted memory. Again, he bowed and shook his head. “A matter of great interest, to be sure, but hardly a cause to squander your life. The dagger could breathe flame and raise the dead, and yet in the therianthrope’s grasp you will never see it again.”

  Loren gave an exasperated growl. “Speak like a common man—the weremage. And if I must die fighting her, so be it. At least that is my choice.”

  Xain turned and ran his hands down the smooth wooden door frame. “You would risk everything for this?”

  “And more,” said Loren. “When a part of you is in danger, you must be willing to risk the rest of yourself to save it.”

  Xain rolled his eyes. “If you would convince me, do not speak with such childish words.”

  Markus accepted the change easily enough. Then it came time to decide who would stay and who would go. Gem insisted on remaining by Loren’s side, and she felt glad for his choice; he knew more about Cabrus and Auntie than Loren could ever hope to. Annis, too, wanted to stay, but Loren would not hear it.

  “You must away,” she said. “Your mother hunts you most eagerly. You stand to lose much if she catches you.”

  “You stand to lose much more,” said Annis, pouting.

  “Indeed.” Loren smiled. “But she will not catch me. She gave me the means for her defeat.” Loren swept the cloak dramatically up and across her face until only her eyes gleamed through a gap in the cloth.