Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) Page 23

  Bern’s lip curled. “I would do my duty. Can you say the same? Obey the authority that binds you to your post.”

  Corin’s face grew crimson. Loren feared he would strike Bern; she knew he would be lost if he did. But Corin only turned and stalked off down the aisle. Bern stayed only long enough to give Damaris a mocking half bow. “Enjoy, my lady.” Then he, too, walked away.

  The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him, leaving only Damaris and her guard. Loren, meanwhile, refused to look up, studying her knees with exacting interest.

  Damaris said, “Stars and sky. So many interruptions. Now, Loren. There are many words to be had.”

  “There is nothing I wish to say.”

  “Nothing you wish, I do not doubt. But you will tell me where Annis is, and will not enjoy the consequences if you refuse.”

  Loren shrugged. “The truth, then?”

  “Of course.”

  At last Loren raised her eyes to Damaris’s. “I do not know. She ran when the constables took me the first time, and I have not seen her since.”

  Damaris stood silent for a moment. Loren could not read her eyes. Finally, the merchant sighed and shook her head.

  “A brave attempt. You are gifted in the art of deceit, and if I did not know better I would take your words for truth. But the weremage gave farce to your story. She saw you together in the sewers not two days ago.”

  “She is lying. I have searched for Annis since we separated and have not found her.”

  “She did not lie,” Damaris said. “Would you like to know how I can be so sure?”

  Loren did not, knowing her answer for the arrow it was.

  Damaris reached into her cloak and withdrew a rope. No, not a rope, Loren saw. For as she pulled it from the pocket, the thing moved. Shiny cream scales shone in the daylight pouring through the window. The end twitched as it hung from the merchant’s fingers. The top had a brown hood drawn around it, tied tight with leather.

  Loren’s heart stopped. “What is that?”

  “This is a viper,” said Damaris, “of a particularly unique breed and temperament. It is not . . . a kind-hearted beast. Its teeth seek flesh most eagerly. But what makes it particularly useful is its venom. Aside from being most deadly—which it is—in the painful moments before death, the victim’s mind grows most pliable. A useful creature for extracting the truth.”

  Loren pushed herself harder against the wall, trying to sink into the wood. “Do not do this, Damaris.”

  “I do not wish to,” said Damaris, and Loren heard genuine regret in her voice. “I do respect you, cherish you, even. You will never know how high you stand in my estimation, Loren of the family Nelda. But blood before all other matters, as the saying goes.”

  Damaris removed the leather hood with a swipe, revealing a pointed head with spiked ridges running along both sides. The serpent hissed, but Damaris held it behind the neck so the snake could not move.

  With a flick of her wrist, the merchant flung it between the iron bars to land upon the floor of Loren’s cell.

  thirty-seven

  Loren cried out and leapt to her feet, away from the snake’s snapping head. It reared up, the front twelve inches rising from the ground, swaying back and forth as it studied her.

  “Stop, Damaris!” Loren cried. “I will tell you everything.”

  “Do so, then. And quickly. The serpent, I fear, is impatient.”

  The snake inched closer. A thin, milky film of skin passed across its eyes and retreated.

  Her words poured forth: “Annis hides in the pauper’s district. She poses as a beggar, wrapped in leper’s rags. She waits for me to find her so that we might escape the city.”

  “While you searched for your dagger, I suppose?” Damaris’s mouth twisted in amusement. “A risky endeavor. One might say foolish.”

  “She said the same.” Loren shoved her boots against the wooden wall and edged toward the corner. It bought but one foot of space, and the snake inched closer at her motion. “And I see now I should have listened. But it is the truth, I swear it!”

  “That is where we saw her,” said Damaris. “But the pauper’s district is large. You must be more specific, girl. Accuracy in all things.”

  Loren thought quickly. She must give them something to make them go away and give her more time. “There is a tavern! The Princess Pig. She waits in the alleys around it.”

  “How long will she wait?” said Damaris.

  “As long as she must. Annis said she would remain until I returned.”

  Damaris turned to her guard. “Very well. We must go there at once and find her, before she thinks to vanish again. My daughter is wise and will know the foolishness of too long a wait.”

  With a whirl of her skirts, Damaris turned to go.

  “Wait!” cried Loren. “The snake!”

  She turned back, her cool eyes alight above a smirk. “Ah yes. My pet. But I have many to replace it and will account it no great loss. And besides, my doomed dear, how did you think I could possibly recall it? Can you speak with a serpent’s tongue?”

  She stalked to the doorway and left, the guard close on her heels.

  Loren screamed for help. None came, and the sound only made the snake rear up again, flicking its tongue out at her. In the cells to either side, Auntie’s children studied Loren with terrified eyes, all of them edging as far away from her cell as they could.

  Loren remembered her dagger, and in a flash the blade leapt into her hand. She brandished the weapon at the snake, now scarcely more than a yard away. She might as well have thrust it in the face of a river.

  Loren could try to stab it, but it would strike her for certain if she missed. She had only the chamber pot upon which to stand, and that was too low. At least a table would be something.

  Her eyes found the bars of her window high on the wall. Reaching them would mean passing closer to the snake, but her options were few.

  Ever so slowly, Loren edged along the wall. The snake reared up again but did not advance. Its tongue licked out, tasting the air, its spiny ridges shifting.

  Loren took another step. And another.

  A few feet more . . .

  Loren sensed the serpent before it struck, and leapt high. Its teeth missed her by a hair, and she jumped into the air to seize the bars of her window. Quickly she scrambled up, pulling herself to curl in a ball against the wood. She dangled four feet from the ground, boots planted against the wood while she held the rest of her body still higher.

  The snake coiled beneath her. Its head rose into the air, mouth open, a thin hiss issuing from its throat. It stretched and snapped but came short each time. Loren’s arms burned with the effort of holding herself up, her body so tense she could feel her legs beginning to cramp. But at least she was safe. No power on earth would bring her down from the window, not even her exhaustion. The guards must eventually come, if for no other reason than to give the prisoners food and water. She would hang on the window as long as she must.

  The snake coiled on the ground, milky film blinking across its eyes. Loren watched, wondering if she might drop her dagger point first upon its head.

  In the adjacent cell, a child’s foot shifted across the floorboards.

  The serpent’s head snapped to the right.

  “No!” cried Loren. “Here! Up here!”

  The snake ignored her. It slowly uncoiled, its head sliding across the wood toward the bars at the side of her cage, the rest of its body slithering behind. The children cowered in fear. With every movement of their feet upon the floor, the viper seemed to move faster.

  “Stop!” said Loren. “Stop moving! It can feel you!”

  The children did not take their eyes from the snake, nor did they stop pushing themselves back, trying to slip back through the bars and into the next cell. The snake was a foot away.

  Loren swallowed hard and dropped from the window, drawing her dagger as she thudded to the floor. The serpent stopped, head snapping back toward her. With a
cry, Loren leapt at it, swiping madly in a wide arc with her dagger. The snake’s head darted back, the blade missing by inches. Its fangs snapped forward, closing on the empty space where Loren’s hand had been. She fell back a step, and the serpent snapped again. She swung the dagger madly, too afraid to get within striking distance but desperate to kill it.

  She backed up another step, and the viper paused. It settled back down, only the end of its neck still suspended in the air. Then its head pivoted again to the children in the next cell. Silent and swift as wind through the branches, it spun and darted for the bars.

  Loren cried out and leapt.

  Her dagger plunged into its body, impaling it to the wooden floor. The viper writhed, its flailing head whipping around, mouth open in agony. Fangs sank into the flesh between Loren’s thumb and forefinger—a burning venom seeped into her blood.

  She screamed, withdrew the dagger, and stabbed again. The blade pierced the serpent’s head.

  Its tail spasmed, milky film blinked across the eyes a final time, and the snake fell still.

  thirty-eight

  The burning in Loren’s hand spread slowly—slower than she feared, and yet outpacing her prayers. She screamed for the guards again, but no help came. With the serpent dead, the children sat silent and still, staring at her.

  Surrounded again, and yet alone as ever.

  Loren rose to her feet and felt herself sway upon them. The poison. It had to be working upon her already. She silently thanked the stars that Damaris had left—were the merchant still here, Loren would no doubt tell her where Annis and Xain waited beyond the city walls.

  Not that it mattered now, at least not to Loren. Here in this cell she would die, a victim of poisonous fangs. Perhaps a fitting end for a great thief who made her home in the shadows. But she was not yet a great thief. Nightblade would be but a dream in Loren’s mind, extinguished as her life faded away.

  The idea held no justice. But then, none of this did, nor had Loren’s life ever done so. Justice would never have served her to hateful parents in a spot of a village, nor seen her beaten near daily. Justice would not have offered escape from that life only to hound her with constables, ruthless merchants, and mad weremages, all snarling for her blood. Justice, Loren saw now, did not come of its own accord. It found the weak only when the strong deigned to grant it.

  Her thoughts grew hazy. She went to the bars and shook them. They did not budge in their iron fittings, and the burning grew worse.

  She retreated to the corner and sank onto her pallet, eyes fixed upon the cream-colored serpent lying dead on the floor, her blood still staining its fangs.

  Shadow surrounded her in the crook between wall and floor, and Loren thought of Mennet in the burning house. He had knelt and prayed to the shadows, and they had come for him, wrapping the man to take him for their own.

  Mayhap they would do the same for Loren now. She rose to her knees, placing her forehead to the floor and splaying her hands out before her. The floor stank, but Loren ignored it.

  Shadows that wreathe the world in darkness, she said. I beseech you, hear my plea. Save your daughter. Rescue me from prison and poison. Save me that I might serve you all the rest of my days.

  Nothing happened. Loren repeated the prayer, and then again. But the burning climbed to her elbow, and the words came like a burden to her mind. And all the while, dust motes danced in sunbeams pouring through the window.

  “Shadows that wreathe the world in darkness. I beseech you, hear my . . . hear me and save me, your daughter . . . ”

  Loren stopped, realizing she had said the words out loud. Children stared throughout the jail. Even the older boys fixed her with disbelieving looks.

  Save your daughter, she thought. Save me, Father. No, Father never saved me. He only hurt me. Why would I want his help?

  I do not want his help. I ask only the shadows for succor.

  She seemed to be talking to herself, and it occurred to Loren that she might be going mad. Had Mennet ever lost his sanity? She did not recall. Only that he prayed to the shadows.

  And. And, and, and. And what?

  Loren knew another tale. No, she knew a thousand tales of Mennet, every word about the thief that Bracken had ever divulged to her endless hounding. But Loren always wanted more.

  Why was she thinking of Bracken’s stories? Ah, for Mennet. Mennet had many tales, and Loren knew them all. But why did she think they mattered? The shadow story mattered not. She had prayed, and the shadows ignored her. Why consider them now?

  No. Not the shadow story. Another. One she told Annis by firelight, surrounded by darkness on the road.

  She straightened from the floor and looked again at the bars of her window.

  She slowly pushed herself to standing, reaching up to clutch the bars. She shook them, but they did not move.

  Loren looked down at her tunic. Idly, her mind wandering, her fingers found and played with its fabric. So rough. So coarse. She had not taken it off in days, not since she left the Birchwood. It stank.

  Loren shook her head and forced her thoughts to clarity. The fabric was rough, too lightly woven. It would not do. She pulled at the cloak still draped at her shoulders—a gift from Damaris. Thick, like velvet, and strong. It hardly stretched as she pulled.

  It would serve, or she hoped it would.

  Loren removed the cloak. She reached up to tie it around the bars, but stopped before she did.

  There had been another part to the story, the part she had withheld from Annis. Mennet had asked the Wizard King for water and used it to wet the cloth. That had lent his fabric the strength to conquer iron.

  Loren looked toward the jail’s front, to the thick wooden door leading out. The guards had ignored her cries—she would not be getting water from them. She went to the chamber pot but found only a thick sludge that made her retch. She backed away, hand over her mouth. Her heel struck the dead serpent’s head, and its body twitched as she kicked it.

  Loren dropped the cloak on the floor against the wall and undid the drawstring of her pants. She squatted over the cloak, mind growing more hazy by the moment. At first, she feared not having enough, but finally her urine soaked the fabric in a thick stream.

  She glanced up. At least these children had some level of decency; their eyes were averted as she did her business.

  Loren stood and retied her pants, nearly vomiting as she rolled the cloak into a short rope. But soon it was done, and she stretched up. Without too much trouble she tied the cloak around the middle of the window’s center bars. She pulled the knot, but not too tight. She would need some slack for what came next.

  Her boots had wooden soles. Loren removed one. She stuck the sole through the cloth and gave it a half twist. The cloth wrapped the boot, crushing the leather against it. She turned again. The cloth tightened farther, and Lore saw—she felt it stretch.

  Do not break. Please, do not break.

  Loren kept turning. With every movement, her head spun harder. She could not keep her feet and soon was hanging from the wooden sole, letting it support some of her weight.

  Still, she did not stop turning.

  She heard the cranky, groaning noise of iron bending. Loren looked up to see the cloth had done its job. The bars bent inward. To their left she saw a small gap, one she might slip through.

  Loren withdrew her boot, slipping it back on her bare foot before painstakingly untying the cloak. She had thought for a moment she might leave it behind, but she could not bring herself to do so. It was too fine a gift, even now, stretched and reeking of piss.

  She glanced over her shoulder one final time and found nearly every eye in the jail upon her. Silent, they watched. She saw no more hatred; instead only awe.

  “No cell may hold Nightblade.”

  Her voice came weak and cracked.

  Loren leapt and grabbed the iron bars, hauling herself up. Though a tight fit, her head slipped through, and as her hair blew in open air Loren knew she would be free. One a
rm came through at a time, and then she hung suspended against the building’s exterior.

  The alley behind the jail lay beneath her. No constables patrolled the cobblestones below. She was ten feet up—an easy drop. She hung low, and then let go. The cobblestones came hard and fast, and she tumbled prone upon them, wincing from the earlier pain. The street felt deliciously cool against her face, and she let herself enjoy the moment. She felt herself drifting off, until she remembered where she was. Then Loren scrambled to her feet—head spinning from the effort—and fled down the alley, into the darkness and shadow that had turned a blind eye to her prayers.

  thirty-nine

  Loren stumbled from corner to corner, alley to alley, hiding from every flash of red leather armor. She missed one constable and walked right by him, but he did not seem to recognize her, merely recoiling from the smell of her cloak.

  She could think only of Jordel. If any man in Cabrus could save her now, it had to be him. Loren directed her feet to where she believed the Wyrmwing to be, hoping the snake’s poison had not dimmed her sense of direction.

  Her arm burned, and the sensation crept into her chest. Worse, it moved faster now that she walked the streets. She knew something of poison, and that it crept through the body with blood. Now that she moved, her blood would flow quickly. So would the poison.

  It seemed a week before she spotted the Wyrmwing over buildings far away. Her steps quickened, and she almost burst into the street to rush headlong for the inn. Loren had to force her caution, keeping an eye out for constables.

  At long, long last, she reached the square before the inn. Looking around, she could see neither the King’s law nor any sign of men in bright mail. She took a moment to compose herself, stretching to her full height and steadying her steps. Then, as she had the day before, Loren strode straight to the front doors. As before, the guards started to see her. This time, she paused about ten feet away, far enough that they would not catch her stench.

  “I am here to see Jordel,” she said. “I assume he has told you of my coming?”