Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) Page 20

  Loren gulped. “Circumstances did not permit.”

  Damaris shook her head. “Oh, I know you thought it best at the time. But your failing is great. You have returned to me and placed yourself utterly within my mercy. I could kill you at any moment.”

  “You will never find Annis without me.”

  Damaris shook her head. “Nothing could keep me from finding my daughter. I will tear up every stone and street in this city to find her, and whether you live or lie a corpse will not change that outcome one whit.”

  Loren tensed, and then leapt from the couch.

  Gregor moved faster, crossing the distance and intercepting Loren before she reached the door. His hand caught her wrist, and he twisted. She fell to the ground with a cry.

  Damaris stood above her. Gregor loomed.

  The merchant stared down, looking at Loren with a curious mix of fondness and detachment.

  “I will not kill you, child.”

  Loren fought through the pain in her wrist. “Then why this attack? Call him off.”

  “It is important that you know your situation and station. Despite all that you seem to think, I still hold a certain . . . affection for you. But remember this moment. And all I have said. Our paths align now. But if you stand in my way . . . well, not needlessly do we take lives.”

  Gregor released her. Loren slowly rose, cradling her wrist.

  “Now, what do you propose?” said Damaris.

  “There is a house . . . ” Loren swallowed. “An old, abandoned pigpen in the heart of the city. That is where Auntie hides herself. Tomorrow at dawn, constables will attack the place to find me, and Auntie will make her escape. That is where you will take her, and we will both gain what we want.”

  Damaris slowly nodded. “Very well. Prepare yourself for the morning, and we will see you upon the morrow.”

  Damaris returned to her couch. Gregor remained unmoving, eyes burning as he glowered down at Loren. She turned and made for the door, hoping she had not made a terrible mistake.

  thirty-two

  The next morning found Loren hiding in a back alley behind Auntie’s hideout. Grey slowly filled the dark sky, the sun still mostly buried by the horizon. All was quiet. Gem had already swept the rooftops; they were free from any of Auntie’s children. Whatever suspicion the weremage held, she clearly did not expect a frontal attack.

  The black cloak draped Loren’s shoulders. Her fingers kept groping for the dagger at her waist, and she had to remind herself time and again that she would not find it there. Gem shifted from one foot to the other, rubbing his arms to stay warm beside her. Gregor was there, an odd companion, along with a few of his men. Many more filled the alleys and side streets in all directions. The rickety wooden fence sat before them, rimming the pigpen out back.

  Damaris waited in the alley as well, standing far back behind her men, wrapped tightly in a cloak of sable. Puffs of mist erupted from everyone present, lending the air a constant, smoky feel.

  “Where are they?” growled Gregor. “Dawn nears.”

  “Be still,” said Loren. “See there.”

  A man approached the hideout with a torch. Beneath his brown cloak Loren saw the telltale sign of red leather armor. A constable, sent around back to catch any runaways. Little did he or his master Bern know how many children would flee upon their attack.

  “Remember,” Gregor said, turning to his guards. “Slay no guardsman. Any man who brings the King’s justice upon us will be served like a warm meal.” His men made no reply, tightening their grips on sword hilts instead.

  “They will attack soon,” Loren said. “If they are already setting a boundary—”

  The air split with a sharp cry from one street over. There came a great crash of splintering wood, as though the home’s front door exploded open with a crashing blow.

  Gregor did not wait, but charged from the alley’s mouth. The constable could only gape before the captain’s pommel crashed into his temple, laying him flat in the street. Two of Gregor’s men seized the guardsman by his limbs and flung him into a dark corner.

  Children spilled out like a rolling tide. Tens of them, and then dozens, pouring through holes in the fence and into the streets. Their hunger-wide eyes grew larger at the sight of Gregor and his men rimming the yard. But the men ignored them, and the children melted into the vanishing darkness.

  Fighting erupted in the streets. Loren saw two of Auntie’s boys brawling with a constable and recognized the man as Bern. Though outnumbered, the constable’s skill with a blade far outmatched his opponents. With a sudden swipe, he sliced one’s cudgel in half, and the boy fell back. Bern took the opportunity to lunge at the other, thrusting two feet of steel into his gut. The boy collapsed, writhing and moaning on the ground as life spilled from his gut. The other boy fled, and Bern ran for the front of the house.

  Loren thought she might be sick. She ducked farther into the alley, trying to shrink into nothing. She forced her eyes upon the wooden fence as children kept pouring through it.

  A plank burst outward, and through the hole came a boy. Then another, followed by a shapely woman in a fine green cloak. “There!” Loren cried.

  Auntie turned at the sound as Gregor pounced with his men. Her boys both quailed before the fighting men, but to her relief the guards did not kill them. One fell before a crushing blow to his face; the other traded two parries with a sword before dropping his cudgel to run. Like a striking snake, Gregor seized Auntie’s cloak as she tried to flee.

  The weremage spun around, already changed. Her face had grown paler than Loren’s, her hair in long crimson curls. Blue eyes flashed as she feigned terror, falling to her knees and wailing for mercy. Confused, Gregor’s hand loosened on her cloak. Like a flash, Auntie fell back, out of reach, and fled the street.

  Loren gave a strangled cry of frustration and chased her, ignoring Gem’s frightened cry. “I told you she was a weremage, you fool!” She did not wait for Gregor’s reply but followed the whipping green cloak as it rounded a corner.

  Loren followed but found the next street empty. Footsteps echoed down a side alley, but it proved vacant as well, and only a shadow passing on a far wall told her which way Auntie had gone. Teeth grit, Loren ran.

  Only after entering the narrow space between two buildings, far from Gregor’s men and torchlight on the streets, did Loren realize she had separated from the rest. Steel flashed in the night and she fell back, ducking one swipe and crying out as she felt a blade bite into her shoulder.

  “Vile little witch!” Auntie snarled. “I will gut you and keep your heart with my treasures!” Her voice had grown to something frantic and mad, a shriek entirely unlike the seductive tones of their first meeting.

  Her blades came forward again, and Loren backed away. Out of desperation, she pulled the hunting knife from her boot, its twisted tip pathetic against Auntie’s strange weapons.

  “I sought not to harm you,” said Loren, brandishing the knife. “I only wanted your help!”

  Auntie’s knives fell to her sides, waiting like a serpent to strike. Loren saw her own blood upon one of the blades. “Why should I help you, sniveling child that you are? Any child of mine, fresh from the arms of his mother, knows more of the world than you. You are worthless to me! A grasping, mewling pup.”

  Auntie sidestepped, trying to circle and block Loren’s path to escape. Loren took several hasty steps backward. She must not let herself be trapped. With luck, Gregor would find them.

  What an odd circumstance, to hope for succor from that brute.

  “You stole what was mine.”

  “Yours,” spat Auntie. “The would-be thief has such grand notions of property. Yours is only what you can take!”

  Auntie lunged, her blades passing a hair’s breadth from the bridge of Loren’s nose. She nearly fell trying to avoid them. “Now my children are lost in the night, without their mother, and so many of my boys lie dead in the street. Their blood is on your hands.”

  If Loren
could only keep her talking . . .

  “You mean to say your hands are clean? What do you do with the girls, Auntie? The girls you raise and profess your love for, naming yourself as their mother? What happens when they come of age?”

  Auntie smiled. Her face shifted for a moment, bones sliding around beneath it, as if her soul stirred with fury.

  “Boys are useful to me. I can control them and make them love their mother. A girl is a pretty thing to have around, a beggar to tug on the heartstrings of any merchant. But a woman, who would force herself upon my sons? They are useless to me. And worse, a danger. Come closer, and I will show you what I do with them.”

  Loren had nearly reached the alley’s mouth and could see torchlight dancing at her vision’s edge. Mayhap she could hope for a constable to see the fight and end it.

  As though she had had the same thought, Auntie attacked again. But as Loren tried to dodge, the weremage released her hold on one knife, and the blade sped through the air toward Loren’s head. Sheer luck saved her, for at last she tumbled backward, wincing at the cut in her shoulder. Auntie’s blade tangled in her cloak, and the hilt came crashing into her forehead.

  Loren saw stars, reaching up to free the knife from the cloth that ensnared it. Stars receded just in time for Loren to see Auntie coming in for the kill, her remaining knife high in a curled fist.

  The weremage’s eyes focused above Loren, and she stopped. Loren heard heavy, running footsteps, and a sword swiped through the space before Auntie’s frightened eyes. She stumbled back, as Loren had, and ran into the alley’s mouth.

  Gregor watched her go. Loren’s disappointed heart sank into her gut. The fight, and the accompanying deaths, had been for nothing.

  Still, she might have a chance. “We must go to her hiding place. Mayhap she will return there, hopeful of protecting her treasures.” Loren held up a hand for Gregor to help her up.

  The captain stared down at her, his eyes a low, burning smolder. She became suddenly aware of his sword. Silence in the street stretched like a yawn.

  “Gregor!”

  Gregor’s eyes snapped up, joining Loren’s to find Damaris just up the street.

  “What of the weremage?” she said.

  “Escaped, my lady.” Gregor looked down.

  Damaris’s lips pursed. “Escaped? You had her within your grasp. I hold you accountable.”

  “I apologize, my lady.”

  “We may still find her,” said Loren. “She might be in her hiding place.”

  The merchant’s gaze fell to Loren. “Very well. Make haste, then. And get up off the ground, child. You soil your cloak.”

  Loren gained her feet, dusted herself off, and went to Damaris. She did not want to look at Gregor, or see the hate in his eyes.

  thirty-three

  Gregor’s men gathered again near Auntie’s hideout. Gem nearly overwhelmed Loren as she approached, pouncing from shadows to wrap his arms around her waist.

  “Thank the sky and stars! I thought I would find you again as a corpse, or not at all.”

  “You could have come with me,” said Loren, trying to sound gruff. She patted his head, and then firmly pushed him away. “I might not have nearly died, then.”

  Gem drew himself up and placed his hands on his hips. “I am not so foolish as you. When a deadly foe seeks my life, I do not pursue her into the darkness she calls home.”

  “Enough,” snapped Damaris. “If you are right, Loren, we must make haste. Show us the way.”

  Loren waved a hand at Gem. “Here is our guide. Take us to the hidey hole.”

  Gem’s eyes widened, and he looked around at them all. “You wish to go there? But why? Auntie’s boys—”

  “Will flee or be destroyed.” Damaris’s eyes were iron, her voice sharpened steel. “Lead us now, or join their lot.”

  Gem swallowed hard and looked at Loren. She gave him a nod. Their only chance at success lay with Damaris, and the die was already cast.

  Gem took them to a drainage hole, but Loren cuffed him lightly on the head. “How will these men crawl through that, simpleton?”

  The boy rubbed his head and glared at her. “Am I at fault for their bloated size?”

  “Take us another way,” said Loren. “Have you forgotten our haste?”

  Gem grumbled but did as she asked. They found an entrance like the one they had used to escape from Auntie the night Loren had lost her blade. Iron rungs set into the wall provided an easy way down, and the hole gaped wide enough for even Gregor’s mighty shoulders. Loren had half thought the merchant might stay behind, but she climbed down like the rest, hitching her skirt up slightly to swish a few inches from the filthy floor.

  The moment their boots touched stone, Gregor’s men pulled torches from the wall.

  Gem said, “Torches will only let others see you the more easily.”

  “We are not cravens who fear to be seen,” said Gregor. “Lead on.”

  Gem did. Again, Loren grew lost amid the twists and turns, but the boy never wavered. Gregor remained close by Damaris’s side, peering into the gloom with suspicion. Men flanked her to either side. But Damaris might have been on an evening stroll, or one of her horseback rides with Loren, for all her calm.

  Before long, they reached the intersection that led to the hidey hole. Gem slowed before the corner and turned. “We’re almost there. We’ll want to be quiet—”

  Gregor grunted and pushed Gem aside with a sweep of his arm. His men drew blades and marched around the corner, brandishing steel in the torchlight. Loren helped Gem back to his feet and quickly followed.

  She rounded the corner in time to see Auntie’s fleeing guards, terrified at the sight of men in armor approaching from the darkness. There lay the short hallway before the hidey hole, and beyond it the huge wooden door. But she saw no sign of Auntie.

  “Where is she?” Loren muttered.

  “With all the noise they’re making, probably far away,” whispered Gem.

  Damaris’s men did not slow. Two took up positions at the hallway’s mouth while others headed off to guard the closest intersections in every direction. Gregor himself moved down the hallway toward the door. Damaris waited halfway down. Loren paused at the hallway entrance, uncertain whether or not to proceed.

  Gregor glared over his shoulder at Loren. “It is only a wooden door. We should have come here first.” He tried the handle but it did not move, so he turned and nodded to one of his men. “Break it down.”

  The guards at the hallway’s entrance left their posts and went to the door. They reared back a few feet at Gregor’s direction, and then charged the door with their shoulders. Neither stood as tall or broad as Gregor, but still Loren guessed that more than five hundred pounds slammed against the wood. But the door did not move. They reared back and tried again. And again. Five times they struck, and five times the door held.

  One of the men rolled his shoulder, but did not wince—Loren suspected Gregor did not cultivate weakness in his ranks. The guard turned to his captain, baffled. “It does not move, sir.”

  “I can see that,” Gregor growled.

  “No, I mean that it does not budge at all. Wood has some give, whether you can break it down or no. This has nothing. It might as well be a cavern’s stone wall.”

  Loren half expected Gregor to yell at the man in anger, or mayhap strike him. But instead, he stepped past him without question, went to the door, and placed a hand against it. He furled a fist and sent it into the wood. He took two steps back and tried his own shoulder at the door. He turned back to Damaris, his expression dark.

  “It is as he says, my lady. I suspect some sort of enchantment. I have seen a mindmage do something like this once. If it is so, only another mindmage can break it.”

  “And yet our little tart of a weremage remains unfound.” Her words seemed harsh, but Loren heard no trace of anger or frustration in Damaris’s voice. She ran a hand up and down her neck, deep in thought. “I may know of a man, a mindmage. But he is
more than a day’s ride from Cabrus, and if Annis is trapped within . . . ”

  Loren heard a shout and a scuffle to her right. Turning to look, she saw two of Damaris’s men thrashing and fighting some figure. A third man joined the fray and threw a fist. The figure jerked and fell still. The guards came forward. As they emerged into the nearby torchlight, Loren saw skin of loam and hair like sunlight.

  “That may not be necessary, my lady,” Loren said. “Here comes our weremage.”

  Gregor’s men hoisted Auntie up by her arms at the hallway entrance. Her eyes rolled wild in their sockets, piercing in their hate and mad as they glowed in the torch light. They focused on Loren with an impossible fury. Bones shifted beneath her skin.

  “Hello, Auntie.” Damaris stepped forward while keeping well out of reach. “That is what you call yourself, is it not? I am Damaris, of the family Yerrin. Well met.”

  Auntie spat, but it went wide and flew past the merchant’s shoulder. Damaris looked at the spittle upon the stone floor and raised an eyebrow. Then she lifted her head and spat directly in Auntie’s eye. The weremage responded with a shriek of rage and a fresh bout of struggling.

  Gregor’s fist crashed into her face, and Auntie went limp. She raised her eyes, still burning with anger and defiance. Loren saw that her nose had broken. Then she closed her eyes, and the bones of her face shifted. She briefly looked like someone else, with a sallow face and little in the way of good looks, before she reverted back to her normal visage, with her nose no longer bent at an odd angle.

  Auntie’s lips parted in a sardonic grin. Blood stained her teeth.

  “It is my wish that we should avoid any more such unpleasantness,” said Damaris. “Tell us how to open the door.”

  Auntie stayed silent, and Loren thought she might try spitting again. Instead, she chose to ignore Damaris, looking at Loren again.

  “Hello, girl,” she said, her voice silky smooth as it had been when they met. “You know, of course, that no matter what happens here, I will find and gut you. No power on earth can stop me from leaving you bloodless and bloated, floating along the sewer’s current until you spill into the river. I will cross the veil wrong just to haunt you in your dreams and lead you screaming from a rooftop. I curse it in every language of the nine lands.”