Gateway to Fourline (The Fourline Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

“You were the last one left.” She thought of MC and felt the now-familiar ache of missing her family.

“Yes, but I never wanted to go to Rustbrook. I loved the farm, still do. One day, maybe after all this is over, I can go back. Start things up again.”

“What about your parents?”

“They disappeared around the same time Andris did. The last time all of us were together was in Rustbrook before Emilia’s wedding. Gordon sent for us a day before, but my mom and I had no idea what was in the works. I’ll never forget watching Estos introduce my brother as Queen Emilia’s husband. Even from where I stood in the crowd, you could see Mudug turn red like a beet. Rusrel passed out.” Soris leaned his head against the wall, lost in the memory.

The names and information swirled through Nat’s head. “The man in the pit was named Rusrel.”

“Same man.” Soris looked into the fire. “What House were you in when it happened, Sister, when everything began to fall apart?”

“I . . . I was trained in a fringe House.”

“That explains those markings.” He pointed to her bare arm. “I’ve never seen those on a Sister, except in books.”

They sat quietly. The muted rain continued to fall.

“Soris, how did Rusrel end up in the pit in your brother’s camp?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Are we in a rush to get somewhere tonight?”

“No.” His forehead creased. “After Gordon was killed, Estos disappeared. My dad and Gennes went north with a few men looking for him. I know they were looking for Gordon’s killer, too. Andris wanted to go, but Gennes made him promise to stay and guard Emilia. After they left, Andris came to me and said Emilia didn’t need guarding, that she wanted him to go find Estos.”

“So he left?”

“He left.”

“And you were supposed to watch Emilia for him?”

“Yes. Can you guess what happened after he left?” he asked bitterly.

“As I was leaving the pit, Cassandra was screaming at Rusrel, calling him a murderer over and over again while she . . .” Nat closed her eyes. “He killed Emilia, didn’t he?”

“Yes, killed her while I was supposed to be watching her.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Soris,” she said, placing her hand on his arm and remembering what Estos had told her about his sister’s death.

His eyes had a hollow look to them. “You’re probably right. She wouldn’t listen to me, anyway. I was just a kid.” He tossed a stick into the fire. “We both made it easy for Rusrel.”

Nat laid her head on her knees, resisting the urge to say something.

Soris gave her a quick, sad smile and continued, “Mudug then sent Rusrel with the guards to destroy the Healing House west of Rustbrook, claiming they were harboring duozi. Cassandra and a small group of Warrior Sisters ambushed them. The Sisters were outnumbered, but she managed to get away with Rusrel. It would have been better if they’d both died, if you ask me. Cassandra was pretty far off the cliff when she stumbled into Gennes’ camp. She’d been dragging Rusrel around for months as her captive.” Soris stood slowly, shaking his puffy hand. “I’ll take the first watch, Sister. This hand will be useless in a few hours. I’d rather watch while I can.”

Nat nodded and offered him some more dried meat.

“No, I’m good.” He held his hand up in protest. “Never liked dried bastle. Disgusting animals, even if their wool is worth a precious sum.” He shivered. “But we’re bastle herders now, aren’t we?” He grabbed his dagger and headed up the stairs, leaving Nat alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

She lay with her eyes open, staring at the rotting wooden beams that stretched across the ceiling. Like everything else she’d come across in this place, the beams were barely holding.

The faces of the people she’d met filled her mind. Everyone was suffering in some way. Benedict was so full of anger and suspicion that he attacked innocent children. Cassandra bore the memory of death and was just barely clinging to her sanity. People like Annin were hunted down and treated as parasites, even though they had done nothing but fall victim to some monster. The Houses, which even in their rubble told of past grandeur, were in ruins. She thought about Soris and her family. How would she feel if her parents disappeared, or if Cal up and left one day? What if this place were her home?

One of the horses snorted. Another let out a low whinny and stomped on the broken tile. Nat sat up and grabbed the crossbow. “What’s wrong, boys?” she whispered. The horses tugged at their tethers with their ears flat against their heads. Their eyes were wide and their skin danced as if it were fly season. Nat looked at the patch of open night sky through the stairwell and saw nothing.

The stairs groaned as she climbed onto the second viewing level. “Soris?” she whispered. A crumbling half wall obstructed her view of the landing. “Soris?” she said louder. She pulled out the orb. The sphere traveled toward the end of the viewing stand. In the soft light, she saw him, his head slumped over, snoring loudly. She jumped carefully over the exposed holes in the floor. “Soris, wake up. I’ll take watch since you are doing such a good job.”

“Watching for what?” the voice hissed from above. The orb blasted with light. Nat spun around, pressing her back against the wall, and swung the crossbow toward the ceiling. The slick blue figure balanced on a beam. One pointed arm lay on the rough wood while the other hung casually down like a blue ice pick. “I’ve made no aggression, Sister. Put down your weapon,” it said.

She didn’t move. She didn’t think she could. Soris snored on. Inching her foot slowly toward him, she nudged his leg with her toes. The Nala remained in its relaxed position. “What do you want?” Nat asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

The Nala blinked, and a thin blue membrane covered its webbed eyes. “Information, Sister. What are you? Wisdom or Emissary?” The orb moved closer to it, illuminating its bright, pointed teeth as it spoke. It pulled away from the orb as if repulsed by the light. She glanced at her forearm, realizing her markings were covered.

“What does it matter to you?” she said. The Nala batted at the orb. “You need to leave—now.” She nudged Soris with her toe again as she spoke. He jerked awake. The Nala let out a long hiss.

“Sisters of the Rim!” Soris exclaimed, dislodging chunks of mortar with his hands as he scrambled up.

“Leave now, Nala.” Nat raised the crossbow. It leapt to the next beam, and she swung the weapon, tracking its moves.

“Sisters no longer control the Nala.” Its voice seethed with anger. The orb whirled around its head, causing it to thrash from side to side. It jumped and scrambled along the edge of the roofline. Nat kept the crossbow trained on its disappearing figure. The orb chased it down the roof onto the treetops beyond the canopy.

“Do you think there’s more than one?” Nat asked Soris. Her arms were shaking, but she still held the crossbow.

“Maybe,” he croaked. The orb reappeared, zipping through the dark leaves.

“If it’s okay with you, let’s get away from these trees,” she said as the orb returned. The sphere hovered protectively over her shoulder. Soris nodded in agreement and they ran for the stairs.

“I don’t understand why it didn’t leave the minute it saw you. The Nala always leave Warrior Sisters alone. They have since the Rim Accord. Have you ever seen one act like that? I thought it was going to attack you.” Soris pulled the floppy hood of his bastle-herder cloak off his head with his good hand. Nat slowed her horse and turned as much as the tightly wrapped fabric of her clothes would comfortably allow. Every inch of her body, with the exception of her hands and a small square for her face, was wrapped in layers of a dingy cream-colored cloth. The riven and suix stone were tied to her inner thigh and the sleeping tar to her hip. She felt like a mummy. She looked at Soris and realized she could have it worse.

His freshly shaven face was the color of paste. He leaned slightly to the right while his left hand held the reins. His horse kept veering left. Nat couldn’t see his right arm, but his hand had been swollen and dripping with pus when they’d stopped in the morning to hide their gear and change. The orb, tunics, and weapons were stashed in a narrow fissure in the roots of a tree along the upper banks of the Rust River. The location was less than perfect, but it was away from the ruins. After last night, the farther they got from the ruins, the easier Nat found it to breathe.

“It never saw my arm. I didn’t tell it what I was,” she finally replied, feeling foolish.

“Why not? Did you want to antagonize it, get it to try to bite you? What in the Rim were you thinking?” Soris asked.

Nat wanted to tell him she hadn’t been thinking, because a blue creature with giant stick pins for arms and razors for teeth had been perched right above her head. “I . . . I just wanted to see what it wanted. I mean, what was it doing? It shouldn’t have been there in the first place, right?” Soris nodded wearily. “You said it yourself, the Nala aren’t supposed to be anywhere near the Houses even if they are in ruins.”

“I understand your indignation, but it was an odd time to hide the Warrior Sister markings. Next time, will you just send it on its way? I thought I was going to end up a duozi or worse.” He grimaced as he spoke.

“It won’t happen again, I promise.” Nat chewed on her lower lip as she glanced down at the dirt road strewn with rocks.

Soris’ horse veered left. He jerked on the reins and the horse stumbled. His right arm slammed into the saddle horn. He cried out, sending an echo down the valley. Nat pulled back on her reins and slid quickly off her horse. Soris’ face was covered with a sheen of sweat and his arms were crossed close to his torso. “Can you lead him for a while?” he panted, nodding to the horse.

“Let me see your arm first,” Nat demanded as she carefully pulled the edge of his cloak away. His hand looked like someone had blown up a surgical glove and stuck it in his tight sleeve. “This is never going to work. We’ve got to make a sling or you’re going to keep hitting your hand while we ride. Can you get down?”

Soris nodded. He grasped the saddle horn with his left hand and kept his right arm slightly raised while he awkwardly dismounted. Nat rooted around in the saddlebag and brought out what looked like wide white gauze. She unrolled it and felt the sticky underside.
It’ll work if I double it over on the sticky side,
she thought. She made three loops and pressed one sticky end to secure it.

“This should do,” she said as she pulled Soris’ cloak free and draped the bands over his neck before adjusting a band under his elbow, forearm, and wrist. His other arm draped over her shoulder.

“You have pretty eyes.” His face was a few inches from hers.

“You’re hallucinating,” she said but felt heat rise in her cheeks. “How does your hand feel in the sling?”

“Good as new.” He gave her a lopsided grin.

“Liar.” Nat linked her hands together and helped boost him back into the saddle. She took his reins and walked to her horse. The river running near the road curved, and a wide boat loaded with packed bales of wool sailed by on the rusty water. She waved in response to the salutation from the sparse crew. “How much longer till we get there?” she asked.

Soris lifted his head. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour.” His head dropped. The road veered away from the river and merged with a wider packed-dirt road. Caravans of people and animals clumped together, clogging the passage. Nat and Soris fell behind two narrow wagons laden with wooden barrels. A lanky teenager lay across a row of three barrels. He opened one eye a slit when Nat’s horse snorted. When he saw Nat, his eyes popped open and he scrambled across the barrels to the driver’s wooden bench. The boy whispered into the driver’s ear and the wagon began to move to the right, giving Nat and Soris a way round. The driver, dressed in a thick, faded blue tunic, leaned away from Nat as she passed. His felted hat crushed into the boy’s face.

Nat pulled the reins on Soris’ horse tight, bringing him alongside her. “What’s his problem?” she asked in a whisper.

“Probably doesn’t want your bastle fleas.” Soris slowly turned and watched the wagons as they almost ground to a halt behind them. “Let’s have a little fun,” he said with a weak smile. “If I try to scratch myself, I’ll fall off. But you can go at it like you’ve got the mother bastle flea. I guarantee it will clear a path for us.”

“Bastle fleas, okay.” Nat transferred both sets of reins into one hand and began scratching at the tight wrapping around her hair, then moved to her shoulders and arms. A wide path appeared the moment the travelers saw her digging into her wrappings. Nat greeted their scowls with a grin and kept scratching. She leaned over and dug into her leather boot like she had a colony of little bloodsuckers tucked beneath the tight wrappings around her legs. She pulled her hand out and flicked an imaginary flea at a man wearing a monstrously broad-brimmed purple hat and a beard that formed a single point and tufted at the end like a broomstick.

“Watch it there,” he groused and moved quickly out of their way.

“Sorry.” Nat giggled, feeling slightly giddy from lack of sleep and amused at how repulsed her fellow travelers were. They found themselves at the front of the caravans in no time. When Nat looked back, the wagons, livestock, and travelers were scattered on opposite sides of the road. “I feel like Moses,” she said.

“Moses?”

“A man . . . good at parting things.” Nat bit her lip. She was developing a sore from chomping down when she said the wrong thing. Her tongue ran across the tender area on her lip.
Maybe it will remind me to stop talking so much,
she thought.

“I think I see the city now.” Soris raised his head as they rounded a bend. An undulating stone wall curved along a hill in the distance. The taupe-colored stones ended abruptly near the riverbank. Tents of every shape and size dotted the sloping landscape around the wall and up and down the hill. “Take the route near the river,” he said, his voice ragged. “We’ll cause a riot if we try to make our way through the crowds around the main gate. It’ll be to our advantage when we leave, but right now . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Soris?” Nat brought his horse to her side and gently pulled off his hood. His eyes were slits and his mouth hung open. She uncorked the water skin and squirted some on his face. “Get it together, Soris. I can’t do this by myself.” She gently slapped his cheek. He shook his head and opened his eyes wider.

“What was that for?” He tried to raise his right arm and contorted his face.

“You were about to slide out of your saddle.” She wiped a few drops of water from his face. “If something happens to you between now and the Chemist, what should I do?” She pulled the horses onto the side path following the river and noticed the hostile faces of those in the caravans as they lumbered past on the main road.

“Get us to the bookshop on Wesdrono Street.” He tried to swallow a little more water from the skin, but most of it trickled down his cheek. Nat retrieved the skin from his shaking hand and urged the horses forward, away from the main road. “Ask for Mervin,” he said just loud enough for her to hear.

A narrow archway interrupted the stone wall right before it ended by the river. “Through there?” Nat asked as she noticed the lone guard standing near the open archway. Soris nodded and carefully pulled his hood back over his hair slicked with sweat.

“After we get through, pull your travel cloak shut so people can’t see your wrappings. We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves in the crowds.” He grimaced and slowly righted himself. Nat tightened the reins and proceeded forward along the uneven path.