The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall (7 page)

A soldier in pynvium armor walked out of the coffeehouse.

Lanelle gasped. “Undying!”

“Be still.” I looked away fast, keeping my face down. My heart raced, and my feet wanted to follow, but running would get me noticed.

A regular soldier in Baseeri blue walked out next, and a boy in Healers’ League green followed.

Soek? He was one of the apprentices Vinnot had been experimenting on in the spire room along with Tali. He’d helped me escape, even tried to help free me when the tracker captured me, but we hadn’t seen him since that day.

The same day I’d lost Tali.

Soek stared at me, his eyes full of fear; then he looked away and shot a nervous glance at the soldiers escorting him.

What were they doing to him? He had to be a prisoner; he’d never help the Undying or the Duke. But why here and not the League?

Folks stepped aside, their heads down, and let them pass. The Undying walked with the same arrogance I’d seen in Baseer, as if he knew nothing could hurt him.

For a moment I wondered if there was any pain in that armor of his. If so,
I
could hurt him plenty.

“Eyes down,” Danello whispered into my ear. “You’re glaring at him.”

Was I? I looked away, face flushed, but I couldn’t help peeking again.

Soek and the soldiers walked to the traveler’s house. Soek glanced helplessly at me once more before following them inside. A plea.

People started moving again, and I caught a few loud sighs of relief. We darted into the coffeehouse and grabbed a table in the back where we could watch both the door and the dining room.

“Was that Soek?” Aylin asked, keeping her voice low.

I nodded. “We have to save him.”

“No, we don’t,” Lanelle said, face pale. “We have to get out of here right now. There are
Undying
here.”

I leaned closer. “We knew there was a chance we’d see Undying,” I half lied. I’d figured we’d see them once the Duke got there, but not this soon. Had he sent some in advance? “It’s just one, and he doesn’t seem to be doing anything but guard duty.”

“Who’s Soek?” Quenji asked.

“A friend of ours. He was an apprentice at the League. Nya, he looked really scared,” Aylin said to me.

“He did.”

“You think he’s the only one here?” asked Lanelle.

“I don’t know. The League comes out to the marsh farms once a month for heals. They could be here for that.” I used to join Mama on those trips. Folks would ride in from all over Geveg proper for a chance at real healing.

The server headed over and we fell silent.

“Excuse me,” I said after he set our plates down. “Did I see a Healer leave here a few minutes ago?”

The server hesitated but nodded. “There’s a League group at the traveler’s house. Been here a few weeks, ever since things got bad over there.” He tipped his head toward the Isles.

“What
is
going on over there? I noticed the ferry wasn’t running.”

He glanced around and leaned a little closer. “I hear the whole city revolted, Baseeri
and
Gevegians. Each of the Geveg islands belongs to a different group now. The commander, the dockworkers, the aristocrats. Anyone willing to grab a sword and guard a bridge could take an island.”

“What about the Governor-General?” I asked, fishing for more information. “Isn’t he doing anything to stop it?”

“They say he died the first day. That’s what set off the riots.”

But why would Baseeri revolt against the Gov-Gen or the Duke?

“Are there a lot of those soldiers in that blue armor?” I said. “I’ve never seen them before.”

The server gulped. “Just the one. He came over with the Healers. That was the last ferry out of the Isles. Lots of smaller boats docked after that, but nothing since last week.”

Danello looked puzzled. “The Healers are just staying here?”

“Seems like it.” He shrugged. “They’re making good money, and it’s not safe to go back to the Isles.”

I’d met plenty of folks who’d take advantage of such a situation and see it as a way to earn some fast money, but not Soek. Maybe the soldiers were forcing him to do it.

“Is there any way into Geveg?” I asked.

“Not unless you wanna swim.” Another customer called, and the server hurried off.

“Did you see his face when you asked about the Undying?” Aylin shuddered. “I think finding someone willing to take us over there just got harder.”

We’d be fools to wander in blindly. We had no idea which isle belonged to who, or who we needed to speak to and warn them about the Duke.

“We need more information about what’s going on over there,” I said.

Danello nodded. “How do we find out?”

“Soek? We need to rescue him anyway.”

Everyone looked at each other as if they hoped someone else had a better idea.

Danello sighed. “Yeah, we can’t leave him there. And he’ll probably know what’s going on better than anyone else here.”

“We’ll need a boat too,” I said. “Quenji, see if you can trade the horse or wagon or both for one, even for a day or two.”

“Can’t we steal one?”

“As long as it’s not a fisherman’s boat. He can’t support his family without one.”

Quenji rolled his eyes but nodded.

“How do we talk to Soek?” Danello asked. “They’ve got him guarded pretty well.”

Aylin huffed and added more sugar to her coffee. “He’s a Healer. We hurt somebody.”

“Help, I need help!” Danello carried me into the common room at the traveler’s house, blood running down my face. I groaned and feigned delirium. My scalp stung from the cut Aylin had made, but heads bleed easily, and we needed to put on a good show.

People gasped and pointed. A woman behind the bar called out to a boy who was washing mugs.

“Go get the Healer, hurry.”

Patrons cleared an old couch near a window and Danello set me down. He paced, wiping his upper lip and brow like he was afraid I was about to die right in front of him.

“I can’t help if you won’t let me through,” Soek grumbled.

He shoved through the gathering crowd, shooing them back with a sharp twist of his hand. He looked at me and his eyes widened, but he covered his surprise quickly. “What happened?”

“She fell,” Danello said, waving his hands about as he spoke. “I told her not to walk on the fence, but she did it anyway and she slipped and fell and hit her head on, oh, I don’t know what but it was hard. Her head made this awful cracking noise.”

“That’s bad.” Soek turned to the crowd. “Stop gawking at her. Go back to doing what you were doing before she got here.”

The Undying was also in the room but standing back watching the crowd. I didn’t see the other soldier or anyone else.

“Now, let’s take a look.” Soek pulled over a chair and sat down beside me. He put one hand on my wound and the other on my forehead. My scalp tingled and the cut hidden in my hair closed, but he frowned.

“She cracked her skull,” he said. “Some brain bruising there as well. You’re lucky you got her here in time.” He turned to the Undying. “I’m going to need the brick for this. The orb won’t be enough.”

The Undying hesitated, glancing at his pynvium armor as if debating whether or not to use it rather than go back upstairs. It was either full or he wasn’t allowed, because he sighed and headed for the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

Soek nodded, then turned back to me, dragging one hand through his red hair. “Saints, Nya, you gotta get me out of here,” he whispered.

“We will. What’s going on?”

He took a deep breath. “I was over here on a farm run when the fighting started. The soldiers wanted to go back, but Keeper Betaal wouldn’t let us. She’s selling heals at twice the cost and pocketing the money. She’s paying off the soldiers, so I don’t think she plans on going back.” He swallowed. “Or letting me go.”

“Who’s Keeper Betaal?”

“One of the Luminary’s new ‘administrators.’ Glorified thug is more like it.”

“Is anyone else with you?”

“No. Just soldiers and Betaal. When I questioned her, she said she had an Undying and wondered if she really needed
two
Healers.” He gulped. “I stopped asking questions.”

Thumps sounded on the stairs. “He’s coming back,” Danello said. The Undying appeared. A woman followed him, also in Healer’s green, but not a uniform I’d seen before. Two additional soldiers walked behind her.

Soek’s expression changed to grave concern like any good Healer’s. He took the battlefield brick of pynvium and placed his hands back on my head. No tingle this time with nothing to heal, but he made a show of it anyway. He pretended to push the pain into the pynvium and handed the brick back to the Undying.

I fluttered open my eyes and sat up, swaying a bit.

“There you go—all better now.” Soek stood and stepped away from me.

“Wait,” the woman in green said. I held my breath. “She didn’t pay.”

I looked at Danello. I didn’t know how much he had, but if heals were double now, it couldn’t possibly be enough to cover what Soek had pretended to heal. It probably wouldn’t even have covered healing the actual cut.

“It was an emergency,” Soek said. “She would have died otherwise.”

“Then you should have let her die.”

“Keeper Betaal—”

“You know the law, Soek, and I’m tired of you bending it. This stops right now.” She folded her arms and scowled at me. “Taking a heal you can’t pay for is stealing—and punishable same as any other theft.”

D
anello fumbled through his pockets. “I have some money, not a lot, but you can have it all.” The gratitude in his voice was utterly faked.

Keeper Betaal glared at him. “A pittance won’t buy your way out of this. Arrest them,” she told the two soldiers.

The Undying was still holding the battlefield brick, and odds were it held lots of pain. Could I reach it before the Undying stopped me?

Flashing that pynvium would alert the Duke I was here. So would shifting. He was on his way anyway, so it might not matter, but if more assassins were looking for me, they’d find out exactly where I was. I had no idea if Quenji had a boat yet, so we might not be able to escape even if I did flash it.

“Keeper Betaal, please,” Soek said. “She was dying.”

“So? She would have died if we weren’t here. And now you’ve wasted pynvium on a freeloader, so someone who could afford it won’t be able to get the help they deserve.” She sneered. “You probably just cost someone else their life.”

The soldiers grabbed Danello and me. They checked us both for weapons, took our knives, then hauled us out of the traveler’s house and toward a small brick building sitting by itself not far from the docks. Bars lined the windows. It was probably the only jail in the marsh farms. The farmers tended to take care of criminals in their own way.

Lanelle was sitting outside the coffeehouse. She rose when we approached, but I shook my head. She stopped, watching us with worried eyes.

The soldiers took us into the guardhouse. One guard sat at a worn table, eating lunch. Shaggy hair a bit too long, worn uniform. Perhaps a local, one of the farmers’ sons. He glanced up, then looked again and jumped to his feet.

“Afternoon, sir.”

The soldier holding Danello’s arm frowned. “Prisoners.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard hurried over to a rack by the door and pulled a key ring off a peg. A reward poster hung on the wall next to it.
My
reward poster, the same one Vyand had nailed up in Geveg to flush me out. It wasn’t the best drawing, but it was accurate enough. Heart pounding, I angled my face away and let my much shorter and blacker hair fall across my cheek.

What if they recognized me? What if they’d been told to look for me?

The soldier glanced around the room, his lip curling in distaste. “Where’s the other guard? Betaal told you to maintain two at all times.”

“And I keep telling her we only
have
two.” He unlocked the cell and stood to one side. “She wants to send some of you soldiers over to help us out, I’ll be happy to take a day off.”

The soldier grunted and pushed Danello forward. He stumbled into the cell, a typical ten-foot-square box with two cots. The soldier on my arm let me go, and I walked inside. If they saw that poster and looked at me closely…

“What did they do?” the guard asked, his gaze on my bloodstained shirt.

“Theft.”

A puzzled frown. “What’d they steal?”

“Healing.”

“You arrested them for—”

The soldier stepped close to the guard. “That’s the same as stealing pynvium.”

The guard gulped. “Yes, it is.”

“Stay with him,” the soldier told the other.

“Yes, sir.”

I sat on one of the cots, my back to the soldier and guard. Danello sat next to me. The guards had no reason to look at that reward poster. It was at least four months old. As long as I didn’t do anything foolish, we could bide our time and wait for a rescue.

By now Lanelle had told Aylin and Quenji what had happened. The cell lock would be easy for Quenji to pick, but getting him inside and the guards outside wouldn’t be. All three were probably studying the jail right now, looking for weaknesses, ways to get inside, tricks to play on the guards. Well, maybe two. Lanelle was probably trying to get them both to run.

I took Danello’s hand. This time it was up to Aylin to come up with the plan.

Unless Lanelle didn’t tell her.

I jerked, every muscle tense. What if Lanelle
had
run? What if she hadn’t even tried to find Aylin or Quenji? They might not even know we’d been arrested.

My guts twisted. Were our lives really in
Lanelle’s
hands?

Saea have mercy on us all.

Rumbling of dozens of wheels broke the silence. The light had left the windows hours ago, and an orange sunset lit the trees I could see. The soldier rose and looked outside.

“What’s going on?” asked the guard.

“Horses. Go see what’s going on.”

“Me?”

“Or stay here and deal with whoever attacks if that happens to be a distraction.”

The guard rolled his eyes. “I’ll be right back.” He slipped outside.

The soldier stood by the door, hand on his sword. Mere feet from the reward poster.