The Sable City (The Norothian Cycle) (51 page)

“
Brother Heggenauer?”

His face was serious and his blue eyes focused on her intently. Tilda resisted the urge to push any loose strands of hair from her braid back behind her ears.

“
You told Sister Paveline you would go after the Duchess, as the lady was under your protection.”

“
Yes,” Tilda said. “So did you.”

Heggenauer nodded. “I want to know if you meant it. Is helping the Duchess your true reason for entering Vod’Adia?”

Tilda knew exactly why she was here, even if she had not said it out loud. She did so now.

“
Claudja is my friend,” she said quietly, but with force.

Heggenauer smiled faintly, and his posture relaxed. “Good,” he said, and looked up the stairs. There was no sound from above but he took a step closer, holding the torch out to the side and speaking in a low whisper.

“
I do not trust the woman, Nesha-tari. She may be here just to stop the Circle Wizard and retrieve his book for the Shugak, but I am not so sure she is as disinterested in the Duchess’s fate as has been implied. She is a Zant after all, as were the men who arranged the Duchess’s abduction.”

Tilda blinked. “Yes, but didn’t she and her people fight against the Ayonites with you and Sir Towsan?”

“
They did, but protecting the Duchess did not seem to factor in that. Ayzantium, politically and otherwise, is a contentious place. Nesha-tari could be of a faction opposed to the Fire Priests, yet she could still have her own nefarious plans. The Duchess Perforce may be a part of them.”

Tilda thumbed the string of her short bow.

“
You are telling me this as more than a warning,” she said. “You want me to do something.”

The corner of Heggenauer’s mouth turned up a bit more.

“
I have heard Miilarkians have sharp eyes, I see now that it is true. Yes, Miss Lanai. While I do not trust the Zant woman, I find it harder to make judgment on the foreigners with her.”

“
Foreigners?” Tilda asked, perhaps a tad defensive.

“
The Far Westerners, and the Minauan as well. They may be in Madame Nesha-tari’s employ, but they seem…somehow more honorable.”

Tilda could have told Heggenauer that as a samurai and a shukenja, the Westerners were not so different than a Norothian knight and a cleric. They would know as much about honor as a Jobian from Exland, if not more. She could not immediately think of a way to say that however that would not have come out as waspish, and she found she did not want to hurt Heggenauer’s feelings. He was the only person here apart from Tilda herself who seemed to be worried about Claudja.

“
What exactly do you want me to do?” she asked.

There was noise from above, Zebulon’s ring mail jingling as he and Amatesu returned down the stairs to the first floor. Heggenauer leaned in close to Tilda’s ear and whispered.

“
I have been walking next to Zebulon all day. He likes you. You may be able to talk to him.”

Tilda blinked again. “He said something?”

Both sides of Heggenauer’s mouth turned up in a smile.

“
No. But I have seen where he rests his eyes.”

The light of Amatesu’s lamp was approaching the top of the stairs.

“
We should go,” Heggenauer said, and turned to lead the way.

“
Brother Heggenauer,” Tilda said, but when he turned to look back she closed her mouth and shook her head. They both went up the stairs to meet the others.

The Islanders of Miilark often drew sharp distinctions between themselves and foreigners as well. Tilda had almost violated that sort of chauvinism, and possibly the interests of her House, as for a moment she had wanted to warn the Codian cleric to trust John Deskata least of all.

*

The party was busy for the next hour as night settled over the city. They closed up the broken doors to the street and nailed them shut with tent spikes, then used a bunkroom’s worth of old bed frames with the ropes long since worn away to seal off one long gallery upstairs, along with the corner room that overlooked the adjoining streets through arrow slits. They set aside some boards to brace shut the door that gave access to the stairs connecting to the central courtyard and the flat roof, but left it unsealed for the time being.

The supplies the Shugak had provided included some iron cookware, and Nesha-tari managed to start a small fire in the courtyard from old wood. Tilda did not see her do it but thought the woman may have had to use magic to fire some ancient boards as kindling sticks. With the dark misty dome blocking out the stars to make the sky wholly black, there was little chance of the smoke being spotted. When Amatesu began to heat the salted meat and dried vegetables provided by the hobs and wugs, there was some concern the good smell might attract attention. Everyone was hungry enough to forgo that concern, except it seemed for Nesha-tari who ate very little.

The group spoke as they ate in the gallery upstairs, tentatively at first but a bit more openly as the warm food settled in their bellies. The subjects remained Vod’Adia itself, and specifically just what sort of monsters were actually supposed to occupy the city. Zebulon knew tavern tales, and Heggenauer said the Jobians believed the creatures to be other-worldly demons who came into Vod’Adia when it was “Open” to other realities. No one knew any real specifics.

The party arranged a rotating shift of two guards to keep watch on the roof above, staggered so that the pair would not both be waking up or growing exhausted at the same time. Only six of them participated, as Nesha-tari had already curled up and fallen asleep atop her bedroll at a far wall. Tilda managed to get a middle shift and Uriako Shikashe awoke her after midnight with a toe on her shoulder. Tilda got back into her leather vest and sleeves, draped her Guild cloak over them and slung her bow. She tottered yawning up to the roof to join Zebulon for the rest of his time.

They did not say much for awhile but only listened and stared out into the darkness, for the Vod’Adia night was more profoundly dark than any Tilda had ever seen. A faint silvery smudge in the blackness was as much of the moon as could be perceived through the mist, and the streets all around were only occasionally illuminated by orange flashes from what may have been lanterns or torches, always far away. The lights never stayed lit long enough for Tilda to be sure.

There were more sounds. The distant crack of a gun, and maybe a shout or scream. Once it sounded as though someone ran by on the street below, but the heavy footfalls faded. Tilda and Zebulon had moved to that corner of the roof and both peered over the battlements in the direction the sound had receded.

“
I can’t see a damn thing out there,” Zeb muttered. “Might as well stand this shift blindfolded.”

“
If that is what you're into,” Tilda said, suddenly glad Zeb could not see her face as she rolled her eyes at herself.

“
What?”

“
Nothing.”

After a moment of silence, Zeb sighed. Tilda heard jingling and some scuffs as he turned, put his back to the battlements, and slid down to a seat on the gravel-covered roof. After another pointless look out into the pitch black night, Tilda sat down cross-legged against the right angle of the corner.

Zeb yawned faintly in the dark.

“
So how much did she pay you?” Tilda asked quietly.

“
Sorry?”

“
Nesha-tari. At the Shugak palisade. The four of you went aside into that separate area.”

“
And?” Zeb asked.

“
I may have peeked around the corner,” Tilda admitted. “Thought I saw a couple big hobgoblins lug out a chest, and open it up. Then it looked like Nesha-tari and the Westerners were running some negotiations, through you.”

Zeb was quiet for several seconds, and when he spoke his voice was thoughtful.

“
You know, I don’t think Shikashe and Amatesu even cared about the money. They came to a price to continue on with Nesha-tari, but it was all a formality. The Shugak scratched them out a receipt but Amatesu just stuffed it in a pocket. I think the two of them wanted to come in here, it is the kind of thing they do. Battling monsters and demons and Fire Priests and what-all.”

“
And you?” Tilda asked. Zeb sighed.

“
I am purely parrot on this gig. If Nesha-tari could speak to Amatesu or Shikashe without a translator they would have forgotten me somewhere along the way weeks ago.”

“
But you were paid as well, right?”

Zeb patted something that made his ring mail jingle.

“
Got the receipt right here, close to my heart. I would have been a wealthy young man.”

“
Would have been?”

“
Well, obviously I am going to get killed in here.”

Zeb’s tone was light, bantering, but it had a bit of an edge. Tilda would have liked to have been able to see his face just then.

“
You think?” she asked.

“
Oh, I always think I’m about to get killed,” Zeb said. “That way at the end of a day, no matter how bad it was, I am never disappointed. Just pleasantly surprised.”

Tilda smiled in the dark, though she knew Zeb couldn’t see it.

“
I hope you are wrong,” she said. “But if you’re not…and you want someone to hold your receipt, know that I am here for you.”

Zeb was quiet, and probably staring for a moment, then he threw back his head and laughed. It was too loud a sound to make for a man ostensibly standing guard duty, but Tilda found that she liked the sound of it.

Zeb returned to his bedroll shortly thereafter, and Amatesu announced her arrival in the dark by speaking Tilda’s name at her shoulder, giving the Miilarkian a start for which the shukenja apologized. Tilda spent the next half hour or so wondering if she knew half as much about Far Western priests as she thought she did, for while she was aware of Amatesu moving about on the roof the woman hardly made a solitary sound on the loose gravel. Tilda crept about a bit herself, but her own steps sounded loud in her ears.

She was considering asking Amatesu a question, when a tremendous roar split the night sky. Every living thing in Vod’Adia shuddered to its core.

Chapter Thirty

The legionnaires set a punishing pace for the rest of the day. The men had apparently decided that if they blundered into anything on Vod’Adia’s streets they would do it at a jog, and while the veterans of an Imperial Road Legion’s long strides seemed effortless, Phin and the Duchess spent the day struggling to keep up. The Sarge permitted no lagging behind.

At one point the street they were on was blocked by a fallen tower forming a jumble of jagged stone. The legionnaires huddled to decide what to do, giving Phin and the Duchess a moment to settle heavily onto a curb to get their breath. Phin had a slug of water and passed the skin into the Duchess’s bound hands. She drank greedily though her face twisted when she was through, as the water did have a sort of leathery taste from the rough skin.

“
Sorry about the quality of the fare, your Grace,” Phin said.

The Duchess sighed when he used her title. “Just call me Claudja,” she said. “Anything else seems ridiculous in the situation.”

The three legionnaires were still arguing.

“
Where do they think to take me?” Claudja asked quietly, keeping her mouth behind her bound hands as she wiped her face. “Why are we in Vod’Adia?”

Phin scratched his moustache and spoke behind his own hand. “They think there is a gate or portal in the middle of town. They think I can use it to get us to Ayzantium.”

“
Ayzantium?” Claudja hissed.

“
No talking!” the Sarge barked at them.

They made it over the rubble without anyone damaging themselves worse than a bruise or a scrape, and kept moving southwards until their only option became an east-west cross street without another southerly turn visible in either direction. The Sarge made as though to flip a coin before realizing he did not even have a single copper. His mood was even worse as the group headed east.

They eventually hit another southern street but by then it was almost evening. The buildings lining the block were a style of narrow, two and three-story row houses, but the legionnaires passed them by until finding something even smaller. The structure they settled on was built low to the ground and only had two rooms, a larger one in front that seemed to have been a shop floor and a smaller storage area in the back. It looked as though someone else had used the place before as a camp at the last Opening, as the wide gaps for windows facing the street were sealed with old shelving and bric-a-brac crammed into them. A huge old desk was beside the hanging front door, suitable to wedge it shut.

The legionnaires did so once inside. They only lit a single candle as there was not wood for a fire without pulling the barricades loose from the windows. The four men and one woman sat around the candle, shivering as the dark night outside brought a numbing chill to the barren city. They choked down cold rations of middling quality with the brackish water.

There was no dinner conversation. Afterwards the Sarge lit a second candle and looked around the back room. He returned and hauled the Duchess roughly to her feet by the bindings around her wrist. Claudja gave a startled cry and Phin leaped to his feet beside her. The Sarge smirked and shoved the Duchess into Phin’s arms.