Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (23 page)

The scene resolved: Alyea, her expression tense, standing beside a heavily-laden pack pony. She seemed unharmed, and Idisio found himself resenting that. Alyea had obviously been given a comfortable room to sleep in, and a good meal or two. If he’d been fully human, he’d have been sitting beside her, instead of suffering through insult, indignity, and fear.

He glanced at Deiq’s sullen expression with a certain sympathy. But it wasn’t Alyea’s fault. She hadn’t asked for the teyanain to isolate the ha’ra’hain. All the same, Deiq’s glare laid blame squarely at her feet.

She returned the hard stare with surprising composure. In the background, the trail guide settled the two remaining packs into place on the pony.

“Go with the gods, Lord Alyea,” Evkit said, bowing. Alyea broke her silent stare-down with Deiq long enough to return the farewell. Evkit glanced over at the two ha’ra’hain and added, “Ha’inn: teth-kavit.”

Deiq’s matching reply was blatantly insincere. The corners of Evkit’s eyes tightened in a repressed smile—or maybe a scowl; Idisio wasn’t sure. His nerves went taut at the sudden, thick tension in the air. Desperate to break the mood, he said, “Teth-kavit”, deliberately mangling the pronunciation. It worked—everyone glanced at him, their expressions vaguely condescending.

The hair on the back of his neck settled, and he let out a quiet breath of relief. Then they were off, with no more ceremony than that, scrambling down a narrow path bordered by sheer cliff faces to either side. It was better than the black tunnels: there was sky high overhead, and daylight making everything steadily more visible.

Idisio hadn’t minded promising never to return. He
hated
this place. The entire southlands was insane, as far as he could tell, and he devoutly hoped he’d never have to travel past the Horn again.

Deiq snorted at that, and said, sourly,
Be careful what you wish for, Idisio. When you get it, it’s rarely what you thought it would be.

The tavern was no more welcoming or sweet-scented under morning light. Tank paid a copper bit for a bowl of lumpy grey porridge and took it outside. He settled on a bench by the door, his pack between his feet.

Rat, Frenn, and Breek swaggered by, sneering. He kept his gaze on his bowl, and they went by without pause or comment.

A few moments later, Dasin came out of the tavern and sat on the bench beside Tank.

“Didn’t see you in there,” Tank said.

“Came in through the kitchens. Venepe wanted breakfast brought up to his room.”

Tank tilted an eyebrow expressively.

“Yeah,” Dasin said, catching the look. “He’s one for
service.”
He snorted, hacking one bootheel into the ground, then eyed the bowl in Tank’s hand. “You’re actually eating that?”

“Better than hunger,” Tank said, and forced down another spoonful.

“Better not tell you what the kitchen looks like, then.”

“Probably best.” He took another bite, then sighed, surrendering, and set the bowl aside. “You’re not eating?”

“I’d rather trail jerky than that garbage,” Dasin said, then: “Venepe’s in a
mood.
I’m hoping the room service will sweeten him up. Some damn fool came banging on our door before dawn, wanting to talk business. Livestock trader, of all things, wanting Venepe to buy off his precious damn lizards. I thought Venepe was going to put him through a wall.” He shook his head.

Tank grimaced. “I ran into him last night,” he admitted. “Tried to tell him not to bother Venepe.”

“Well, he didn’t listen.”

“Damn fool.”

“Yes.”

Tank leaned back against the wall of the tavern. The only word for the landscape forming around them in the dim dawn light was
dilapidated.
Even the straggly grass looked dejected. The small stable had several boards loose and a sagging spot in the roof; what white paint remained was streaked green and brown with mold. The inn was no better: bugs had skittered across Tank’s arm four times in the night, and the floorboards had seemed to creak of themselves.

“Why did we even stop here?” he said aloud. “These people don’t have the coin to buy decent cloth. The most I saw being sold yesterday was that piece as wide and long as my arm.”

“And she paid with a fistful of copper bits,” Dasin agreed. “I know. But Venepe says nobody else will stop here, and someday this place won’t be so poor; he wants their goodwill for when things turn around.”

“The only way things are going to turn here is into the ground,” Tank said sourly.

Dasin shrugged, then squinted and pointed. “What’s
that?”

A low-slung reptilian form was waddling slowly toward them. “The hells,” Tank said, standing. “It’s one of the merchant’s gerhoi.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“No idea.” Tank advanced cautiously. The lizard gave him a vague, unblinking stare and veered to pass by. Its lower jaw dripped with viscous red.

He stood still until it was past, his heart hammering against his ribs, then headed for the gerho pen. The gate stood wide open. Three of the lizards still stood in the pen, staring around incuriously. Thick, muddy tracks aimed into the nearby swamp showed where the others had gone.

Tank moved closer, peering into the enclosure.

“Oh, damn,” he said, and put a hand to his mouth.

The blond man from the night before lay inside, long cuts on both arms from wrist to elbow. Blood still seeped out. The knife he’d slashed himself with lay near one hand.

As Tank watched, one of the lizards moved over to the body, sniffed with sleepy interest, and began to lap at the blood.

“Damn,” Dasin said from behind him.

Tank turned to find a crowd gathering, all with varying expressions of shock and pity. Venepe, flanked by Breek and Rat, pushed through to look; after a moment’s brooding glare at the scene, he shook his head.

“Let’s get moving,” he said. “Road isn’t getting any shorter.” He waved toward the stables.

“His daughter was killed,” Tank said, not even sure what he was saying. “He told me last night.”

“Are you the damn fool told him to come wake me early and whine over his reeking lizards?” Venepe demanded, glowering.

“No,” Tank said. “I told him you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Weren’t too convincing, apparently,” Venepe snorted. With another black glare, he stomped away.

“Damn fool,” Rat said in an undertone, then moved away.

Tank glanced after the dark-haired mercenary, wondering if he’d been talking about Tank, Venepe, the dead merchant, or something else altogether. It was hard to tell, with Rat.

“Don’t waste your sympathy on that one,” another voice said in his ear. Turning, he found the worn-out barmaid standing beside him. She stared at the body with an expression of intense loathing.

Tank glanced at the barn, weighing Venepe’s impatience to get on the road against curiosity. “He killed himself,
s’a,”
he said at last. “Means he was in a world of pain.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” she said cryptically, and went back into the inn. He shrugged and went into the barn.

Dasin stood outside his horse’s stall, frowning at the beast with plain uncertainty.

“Tank,” he said, looking up as Tank approached. “I had a hell of a time with this monster yesterday. D’ya think you could—?”

Tank cast a swift, assessing glance up the row; Rat, Breek, and Frenn were busy with their own horses.

“I’ll talk you through it,” he said. Dasin’s expression went sullen, so he added, a little impatiently, “You don’t want to look like you can’t do it yourself. Quickly. What trouble are you having?”

Dasin stared at him, breathing hard, then said, “He
killed
himself, Tank!”

“Holy gods,” Tank muttered. Louder, he said, “This isn’t the
time,
Dasin. Just—forget about it. Get your damn horse sorted out, before I belt you back to sense.”

Dasin’s lip curled, his chin rising. “Go fuck a lizard,” he said, and went into the stall without looking back.

Tank shook his head. His mare was in the next stall; he grabbed the bridle from the peg by the door and let himself in as Rat led his gelding by. The grey mare shook her head and seemed almost ready to go up on her hind legs. Tank slapped her near shoulder, hard, and said, “Stop that.”

She shook her head again, but settled down with a heavy snort.

“Does talking to them actually
help?”
Dasin said through the bars.

“Beats me,” Tank said. “Keeps me from getting pissed off, is about all I can tell for sure.”

He slipped the bridle over the grey mare’s nose. She eyed him warily but made no move to bite this time; her ears twitched in time with her tail. He heaved pad and saddle onto her back. She snuffled a little, almost like a sigh; stamped a back hoof once, then held still.

He cinched everything secure, checked, checked again, then turned to look through the bars. Frenn led his black gelding by, whistling under his breath, followed by Breek, who shot a mean grin at Tank as he went past.

Dasin stood staring at nothing, bridle limp in his hand. His bay gelding continued to doze, apparently uninterested in anything at all.

“Dasin,” Tank said.
“Dasin.
Wake up.”

The blond blinked and focused on Tank. “What? Oh.” He looked down at the bridle and grimaced.

Tank slipped out of the stall, latching it behind him, and into Dasin’s. He lifted the bridle out of Dasin’s hand without comment.

“Get the saddle,” he said.

“Thanks,” Dasin said in a muted tone. “It shook me. All that blood. I don’t—like blood.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

Dasin ran a trembling hand over his eyes. “Damnit,” he whispered, and went to get the saddle.

The day’s travel went by in a blur of Alyea and Deiq bickering, the teyanain guide seeming intent on provoking Deiq into violence, a hazy heat that sent a steady trail of sweat down Idisio’s back, and the constant awareness of being watched by hidden teyanain. Idisio had never thought he’d be glad to return to Bright Bay, but as they entered the alley of shops and inns that led up to the southern gates of the city, he very nearly broke into a run. A glance at Deiq’s severe expression stopped him; the older ha’ra’ha’s nerves were strung far too tight at the moment to indulge any foolishness, and he looked more than ready to take out his temper on the nearest safe target.

Don’t be stupid,
Deiq said sourly.
I’m not
that
much like Cafad Scratha, and you’re kin. I won’t lay a hand on you.

Good to know,
Idisio answered.
How about those gate guards? Or the nearest stray asp-jacau?

Deiq shot a narrow-eyed, sideways glare at him and made no reply.

The southern gates were an odd amalgamation of regimes: originally nothing but a low brick wall, they had since been built up into a head-high structure tipped with ominous metal points. Idisio remembered hearing that at one point during the Purge, every spike bore the head of someone accused of conspiring with the south to undermine the kingdom. He squinted a little; some of the spikes did look stained and corroded.

The wall ran twenty feet to either side, then butted up against two massive guard towers, also built since the beginning of the Purge. Beyond that, the wall went on, interspersed now with the thick back walls of various warehouses, until it reached the sea to either side. Even given that this was the narrowest spot on the strip of land connecting Bright Bay to the Horn, it had taken a massive amount of brick and labor.

Prisoner labor,
Deiq said, glancing along the wall himself.
A lot of bones and blood are in this wall. Can you sense it?

Idisio took a closer look as they neared, squinting a little and
listening
with that odd other-hearing he’d been wrestling with of late.
No,
he said at last.
It’s just a wall.

I wish I saw it that way,
Deiq said darkly.
I’d love to tear it down, but I don’t know if I could stand to touch it. They waited far too long to kill Ninnic.

The gate itself, wide enough to allow three oxcarts to pass side by side, had temporary barriers set up to funnel carts to one side and foot traffic to the other; at night, the barriers were removed and heavy metal gates slid across the opening. Few enough people were coming through at this late hour that the guards were in the process of removing the barriers. As Idisio and his companions approached, all four guards turned to form a line barring passage. Two of the guards bore predominantly southern features, two northern; one had red hair, the other three black.

A few steps closer, their faces clarified, and Idisio’s heart sank. He knew all four of the guards; one had grabbed him during his initial encounter with Lord Scratha. The others he knew from rather earlier. He ducked his head and stared at his feet through sheer reflex.

He thought Deiq shot him a hard stare, but couldn’t bring himself to look up. Didn’t want to see if any of the guards recognized him; didn’t want to remember, or even think about that time—

“I know that one!” one of the guards said, sounding startled and angry all at once.

Idisio stood very still, drawing in a long breath. A mixture of nausea and resignation surged through his stomach.

“Lord Scratha called justice-right on him. Said he was a pick-thief.”

Idisio’s breath let out in a nearly inaudible hiss, drowned out under the sound of Alyea’s own shocked inhalation.

Oh, gods, nobody’s told her
anything
about my past?
He glanced at Deiq, who moved his head in the tiniest of negations. Frantically, Idisio sorted through possible responses:
Yes, I was, but I’m reformed now
had almost no chance of success. Neither did
You’re mistaking me for someone else.

Swallowing hard, he straightened.
I’m honorary Scratha. I’m ha’ra’hain. They can’t hurt me.
“Lord Scratha decided to take me on as a servant,” he said. “Would he have done that for a thief?”

Why wasn’t Deiq speaking up? Surely he had a way out of this. The southern gates weren’t all that stringent these days; the guards were probably grumpy at the end of a long day and looking to take out their temper on the last arrivals.