The Chronicles of Elantra 5 - Cast in Silence (16 page)

In the fiefs, people seldom grew fat.

“Strange place to hide.” Woman’s voice.

Elianne found herself relaxing, but only slightly. She stood, parting grass. “It was here,” she said quietly, “or the streets.”

The woman raised a brow; a scar bisected the left side. A scar also adorned her upper lip, in a puckered, obvious white. “Family toss you out? Or did you pull a runner?”

Elianne shrugged. “Ran,” she said.
Not that it’s any of your business.
She kept those words to herself. The woman didn’t
look
unfriendly. But given the scars on her face, she didn’t exactly look safe, either, even though Elianne knew many people who had scars. Scars, she’d been told, just meant you’d survived. Or that you could.

“I’m Morse,” the woman said. “You?”

“Elianne.”
Don’t tell them your real name.
Severn’s voice. She hated it. Hating it, she disobeyed. What difference would it make, anyway?

“Where do you live?”

“Over by the Four Corners.”

Morse frowned; the movement flattened the scar. “What’s the fief?” she finally asked.

It was Elianne’s turn to frown. “Nightshade.”

Morse whistled. “You’re not in Nightshade now,” she said, casually.

“Not…in Nightshade.”

“You’re in Barren.”

“Barren.”

Hearing what Elianne didn’t say, Morse shrugged. “You pulled a runner, and you crossed the border. You going to stay in there all damn day? I got things to do.” It was almost an invitation. She waited.

“Here’s as good as anywhere.”

“Suit yourself.” Morse turned. Walked a few feet. Stopped. She didn’t turn back, but her voice drifted over her shoulder. “You got no family here. No friends. You might want to make some.”

“What are you offering?” Elianne asked quietly. She asked it of the woman’s back; the woman still hadn’t turned.

“What do you want?”

“I want to be able to kill a man.”

Morse laughed. Still laughing, she did turn. “Kid,” she said, when the laughter had eased enough that she could speak, “you came to the right place.”

“Private?”

Kaylin shook herself. The memory had been so clear she could almost step into it.
I want to be able to kill a man
.

She could have asked for food or shelter. Those would have been a better, saner, place to start. Of course, she thought with a grimace, they wouldn’t have done much for Morse. “Sorry. I was just—I was thinking.”

Tiamaris snorted. “Do you mind thinking on this side of the fence?”

“Why?”

He glanced at Morse. Morse shrugged.

“Because short of removing the fence itself—”

“Don’t try,” Morse told him. Something in her voice had shifted from dead bored to serious.

Tiamaris raised a brow.

“I don’t fancy scraping bits of you off the street.”

He snorted again. “I’m not certain how you’d be able to distinguish them from the rest of the detritus.”

“I am.” Morse folded her arms. This was not generally considered a fighting stance in most people.

“Tiamaris,” Kaylin said, more sharply than she’d intended. “Don’t.”

He raised one dark brow, and then offered her a shrug in place of action. “I believe,” he told her quietly, “that the attempt will have to be made sooner or later.”

“Make it later.”

“As you say. Will you join us?”

She nodded. But she turned to look at the tower before she left the tall grass behind. At thirteen, it had been just another run-down building in a very strange place, and given what she’d just experienced, a building didn’t matter.

Now? She thought it old, and given the look and patina of age, she was surprised that it was still standing. It was wide at base—wider than a solid fief house—and it narrowed very little as it stretched toward sky. The stones that had gone into its construction were half Kaylin’s height, and twice that in width, at least at the upper foundation.

If it had windows, the shutters concealed them. Kaylin suspected that it didn’t. Glass—and a building like this must have had it—was usually the first casualty of a vacancy. She frowned.

“Tiamaris,” she said, in an entirely different tone of voice. “This tower—you’ve seen it before.”

He nodded gravely.

“Does it have a gatehouse on the other side?”

“Not now.”

“Did it, when you saw it?”

He was silent. She took that as a no.

“If the two of you are finished?” Morse asked.

Kaylin nodded absently. “Morse, has Barren ever been here?”

Morse didn’t answer.

Kaylin emerged from the long grass, just as she had done seven years ago. She had a burr attached to her tabard, and some of the seed that the grass was shedding; given the state of most of Barren’s men, she didn’t bother to remove them. When she’d reached the street again, she turned to look at the tower, and at the fence.

Shaking her head, she frowned. “I can see it,” she finally said. “Tiamaris?”

“No.”

“I don’t like it,” she told him.

Morse laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing.” But the laughter faded into a grim chuckle before it deserted Morse’s voice. “Remember what I told you, back then.”

Kaylin frowned. “You told me not to mention where you’d found me.”

“Still applies.”

“But—”

Morse raised a brow.

Kaylin fell silent. “Why’d you take me in?”

Morse shrugged. “You wanted to be able to kill a man,” she said. “I thought you were a girl after my own heart.”

Tiamaris raised a brow, but didn’t offer further comment; he glanced at the tower.

Please,
Kaylin thought suddenly,
don’t tell me that this Tower is the Tower of Illien
. Maybe he heard her somehow. He didn’t say another word.

They walked down streets that were familiar to Kaylin. She recognized the faded signs, the faded facades of wooden buildings; she recognized, as well, the turn of the badly cobbled streets. Almost subconsciously, she fell in beside Morse.

“You got my back?” Morse asked her.

“Always,” she replied, before thought could catch up with words.

Morse grimaced. “You don’t think much these days, do you?”

“Not more than strictly necessary,” Kaylin replied. “But then again—”

“You never did. I got that.” She stopped walking just a second after Kaylin did. Something like a high, soft growl had been carried by breeze through the nearly empty streets. It was hard to tell which direction it had come from, for if it wasn’t loud, it seemed to permeate the air.

“Tiamaris?” Kaylin said, voice quiet.

“I heard it,” he said softly.

Kaylin turned to Morse. “That wasn’t a feral.”

“No. But that,” Morse replied, raising her voice slightly, “was a scream.” She glanced at Kaylin, and her smile was all edge. “Let’s see what you’re good for.”

They ran. If the first sound had been hard to track, the second, a very human scream, had not. It didn’t last, and Kaylin had no hope; they weren’t running to the rescue, here. But if they got there in time, there would be no
other
screams.

As always, when she ran, the streets grew long and narrow, like a tunnel without any necessary light to show its end. She reached for her daggers, drawing them without breaking stride. Remembered—and why now?—her mother’s sharp admonition about running while carrying sharp things.

But when they cleared the last street, when they rounded the bend, they froze. Even Morse stood motionless for a second, her mouth slightly open—Morse’s equivalent of dropping her jaw in shock.

What stood in the street was in no way a feral—Kaylin had been right about that. Ferals looked as if they
might
be alive. This creature suffered under no such limitations. It had a body, a short, squat body with six legs, reminiscent of a spider’s. But even that was the wrong word: the legs were solid and muscular, and they ended in long, sharp claws. From where she stood Kaylin could see that they’d dislodged and broken stones.

It had a head, of sorts; the head was half the size of the body beneath it. It should have overbalanced the creature when it swiveled, because it swiveled so damn fast. It didn’t, of course. The creature’s mouth was an angry, livid slash of red against an obsidian background; the creature’s skin gleamed like chitin.

But it was the eyes that were the worst: it had not two, but several, and they seemed to ring its head, at varying chaotic levels, as if they sought to form a crown.

Kaylin muttered a Leontine imprecation.

Tiamaris joined her.

“You recognize it?” Kaylin asked him, not taking her eyes off the creature’s feet.

“Not as such,” the Dragon replied.

“How bad is it?”

“We’ll…see.” He hadn’t shrugged himself out of his armor. She waited for a moment, to see if he would start the transformation that would have him unfold in full Dragon glory in the middle of Barren’s streets.

The creature snarled.

Tiamaris opened his mouth, his very human mouth, and
roared
. The inner membranes of his eyes went up, but even muted, those eyes glowed crimson. Kaylin stepped back, keeping Tiamaris close.

The creature paused, and then its mouth, its much larger, lipless hole of a mouth, turned up in what might have been a smile. Which was bad.

Worse, though, was its voice. “Well met,” it said and, bunching its massive legs beneath it, it leapt.

Tiamaris was not there to meet it when it landed; he threw himself clear of both claws and body, and
just
managed to miss the beam of light that suddenly shot out from an eye on the side of the creature’s head. Kaylin, already in motion, had done the same.

Morse, not immediately a target, was slower.

“Morse!” Kaylin shouted, adding Leontine invective for emphasis, forgetting for a moment who she was with, and where.

Morse didn’t answer; she rolled to her feet.

“Watch its eyes! Tiamaris has most of its attention! We just need to—” The street two inches short of Kaylin’s feet exploded. She swallowed dust, threw herself clear of the beam that was continuing to dig a runnel in the road, and rolled instantly to her feet.

Morse shouted her name. It was the wrong name. “Over here!” She threw an arm out, pointed at a door. It was closed, but that generally didn’t mean much in the fiefs. Kaylin hesitated, turned to look over her shoulder. Caught a glimpse of Tiamaris, a glimpse of the creature, a billowing spray of something that wasn’t light, but that glittered anyway.

“In!” Morse kicked the door open, threw herself through it.

Kaylin heard Tiamaris roar again. The street broke as the creature leapt and landed; Tiamaris was, once again, well out of the way of its feet. But he pulled something free of his belt—not a sword. She couldn’t, at the moment, remember him ever using one.

What he held, she couldn’t see; it was small enough that it might have been a dagger. Or, she realized, a focus. It was a focus. A reminder, for Kaylin, of the fact that Lord Tiamaris had spent some time under the tutelage of the Imperial Order of Mages.

Morse grabbed her arm and dragged her around the door’s frame as the wood just beside Kaylin’s head blossomed into splinters.

“You get that kind of thing here all the time?” Kaylin asked.

“Not that one, no.” Morse, still serious, added, “I’m alive, after all.”

“You and how many others?” She regretted the words almost the instant they left her mouth.

But Morse wasn’t like most people; she shrugged. “Not enough,” she conceded.

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“How damn long have things like—like that—been wandering the streets here?”

“Not long. Won’t be that long, either,” Morse added, as something shook the building. She grimaced. “Look, I’ve never seen one of those before, all right? Can he stop it?”

Kaylin shrugged. “Maybe.” She shook herself free of Morse’s restraining hand. “He’ll do a whole lot better with some help.”

Morse laughed; it was terse, and it was higher than usual. “Have anything in mind?”

“Yeah. In the future? Carry crossbows.” She looked at the daggers in her hands, and grimaced. “I’m going to be eating gruel in the brig for weeks if I lose these.”

“Worry about being alive to eat gruel.”

“You’ve never met the quartermaster,” Kaylin replied. She didn’t ask Morse if Morse could throw a knife. Morse had taught her.

And in a pinch, Morse never played the idiot. “You want us to take out the eyes.” No question in the statement.

“If it’s even possible. I’m not sure the blades will travel through whatever it is it’s shooting out of them. Tiamaris has got the body, the claws, and the fangs; we just need to keep moving.”

Morse stared at her for a minute, and then shook her head. “I am out of my fucking mind,” she muttered.

“Oh, it’s real.”

“That’s not what I meant. What I meant,” Morse added, crouching well below eye-level and peering into the very loud street, “is that I should be running about now.”

“To where?”

“Anywhere that doesn’t have
that
in it.”

“Good point.” Kaylin sucked in air, and crouching, added, “If he goes down, we’re dead anyway. I don’t think we have much of a chance at outrunning the creature.”

“I’d be willing to give it a shot.”

“Be my guest.”

Morse shook her head. “There’s nowhere for me but here,” she said grimly. “There’s no Hawk waiting for me at the end of the bridge.”

The way she said
bridge
? It was the way the outer Elantrans might use the word
rainbow.
Kaylin knew; she’d been a fief ling for most of her life. She wanted to argue, but now was
so
not the time.

And truthfully? Morse killed people. It’s what she did. How much of that could she leave behind? How much of that did she
want
to?

“Ready,” Morse said, rising and backing away from the door.

“Back entrance?”

Morse nodded. They retreated from the frame of the door where a watchful eye—one at any rate—was probably waiting.