Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) (37 page)

The woman’s balding head was covered with ornaments that dangled and jingled as she moved, as though she were wearing a wig of gold. When she smiled in greeting, they saw she had only one tooth left in her mouth, a striking white among the red gums.

“Peace unto you,” she said in flawless Kandarin.

“And to you, Mother,” Shade replied. “We are weary travelers and wish to—”

“Is she sick?” The fat woman pointed a thickly ringed finger at Nora, who tugged the rim of her hood farther down over her eyes. “What’s wrong with her face?”

Shade sucked air and looked at Nora.

“Um,” he said. While working out a simple story, they had overlooked a reason for Nora’s facial scars.

“She is not sick, Mother,” Owen jumped in and pulled Nora’s hood down. “My sister was assaulted and we, my brother-in-law and I, are hunting the dogs who did this to her.”

The sun glared down and Nora shut her eyes at the sudden exposure. She tried to keep her gaze cast down, but she heard the gasps of the men and women who stood nearby and she could have throttled Owen. This was not the story they had settled on.

On account of their likeness, there would be no denying Owen and Nora were brother and sister, though they could drop the twins’ curse, maybe. Shade, though rough-looking, wasn’t old enough to be hired for protection, so Owen had suggested Shade and Nora pose as a newly married couple. Shade and Nora had traded a look, trying not to grin. Yeah, they could make that work. But now Owen was improvising the rest about righteous retribution and avenging a damsel in distress. Nora gritted her teeth as the gathering townspeople stared at her disfigured face.

“Who did this?” the fat woman wanted to know.

“Our village was attacked in the night. My sister was trapped in her burning home. Many died. My parents are dead. Only we three managed to escape with our lives.” Owen hung his head sadly.

It seemed to be working. The bits and pieces of the truth mixed and matched together. The question was whether the fat matron would swallow it.

“Who attacked you?” The woman repeated her question. “It was none of mine, I can assure you.”

“No, I’m sure they weren’t, Mother.” Owen shook his head and reached into his garment. “But they were carrying this.”

He held out one of the gold daggers they had found among the attackers on Solstice. It was the same make Nora had seen on the Ridge. The same one Owen nearly had been killed with on his way to the Temple of the Wind when they had been separated. She watched the fat woman’s face as the matriarch bent over and inspected the weapon. She recognized it but hid that fact well.

“It’s a ritual dagger, that’s all I can tell you.” She shrugged and pulled herself upright. “I’m very sorry. It could be from anywhere. We have one in our shrine to Shinar at the back of my house. Every settlement you pass from here on out will have one in their own shrine.”

Shade said something in a language Nora didn’t understand. It sounded demanding, imperative, but maybe that was just the language’s melody. She looked to Owen, who was following the rapid-fire conversation between the fat woman and Shade with a scrunched-up face. The woman raised her voice in pitch, making broad sweeps of her hands while she spoke. Then just as abruptly as it had started, the conversation ended.

“Come, come,” the woman said, flashing her single tooth once more. “Stay at my house for the night before you continue on your search.”

*     *     *

Darkness and cool met them
as they were ushered into the domed house. Over the chattering and bustle of various young women coming in to greet the strangers with friendly smiles and plates laden with food, Nora grabbed Owen by the arm.

“What was that all about?”

“I’m not sure.” He frowned, glancing over at Shade, who was immediately surrounded by a cluster of dark-haired beauties. “Shade seems pretty fluent in the ancient language of Shinar. I’ve only read it in scriptural texts. He asked the Mother whether she had retired from—”

“I didn’t mean Shade,” Nora hissed. “What’s up with parading my face around in public? I thought you were on a guilt trip about it.”

“What?” Owen seemed taken aback. “No. You’re failing to see the larger issues at hand.”

“Like what?”

One of the girls around Shade giggled, and Nora shot her a pointed glare.

“Nora, think! The north is in turmoil. There’s no clear leadership there anymore. There’s a gaping black hole that is looking to be filled. But by whom? And how? Everywhere you look, there are marauding bands, each spearheaded by a man with a golden dagger. Even the attack on the Temple of the Wind was clearly an organized and planned event.”

“Planned by Master Cumi.”

“
After
she had been visited by female pilgrims from Shinar. Think of what she said before she died. It wasn’t just her behind the attack. All the signs are pointing toward an instigator in the south, maybe even the prophetess we’re about to see. Who would be better in that position than the one who gave Bashan’s father the self-fulfilling prophecy that cast the heir to the throne out on the quest to find the Living Blade? Bashan said she was a manipulative bitch. His words. Not mine.”

“Bashan?”

“He sent me and Shade to scout ahead. See what we could find out.”

Looked like prophetesses weren’t the only manipulative bitches around, Nora thought. She scowled at another girl who had rested her hand on Shade’s. The hand whipped away.

“Look, I am sorry about your face,” Owen said.

“It’s not your fault, Owen.”

“I know.”

She turned her attention back to her brother and squeezed his arm tighter. “It’s really not.”

“It was my idea to blow up the gates.” He didn’t look her in the eyes. “Over three hundred people died because of me.”

“Most of them were attacking us.”

“And you nearly died, too.”

“But I didn’t.”

He nodded.

“I wish you had stayed with Calla,” he said softly after a moment.

“Forget it. I’m with you. Always.”

Owen smiled and leaned back.

“Well, you might want to reconsider. Your ‘husband’ is about to be taken from you.”

“They can try.” Nora smiled back. “He knows whose bed he’ll be sharing later.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Nora laughed.

R
eunited with the other three,
the small company followed the unspooling river, bowing east for a while, then back south. As they traveled ever farther, the landscape gradually changed, became more barren and wasted, empty. The only settlements they saw now were small gatherings of sunbaked mud-brick houses, herdsmen with stables for their domesticated animals, mostly goats. They passed through mazes of cliffs and sun-kissed rocks, natural ravines that shaped the land around them into a wild and rugged place. At night they heard jackals and the roar of lions. At least Shade said they were jackals and lions. He could just as well have told her they were fire spirits howling out in the desert plains and Nora would have believed him. With every week that passed, they came closer to their destination.

Nora rubbed her hand over her eyes. The red dust made them dry, and irritated the healing skin on her face. She had picked at the scab under her eye after Calla’s ointment had run out, and now that side of her face was divided into an upper and lower half by a thin, jagged scar.

She had retreated under Diaz’s fierce blows during training and moved away for some space. Now she lifted the baton to signal she was ready again. This time he attacked first with a strong horizontal blow. He had reach and used it, but she had flexibility and stepped aside, making to beat his baton down. Dawn came early now as the days grew longer, and Nora had been listening to the lions roar with Shade last night. She missed a beat, and Diaz’s baton landed on her arm once more.

“Concentrate,” he said.

“I
am
concentrating.” Nora massaged feeling back into her arm.

“You’re everywhere but in the moment. That’s why you make mistakes.”

She raised her baton and charged at him, dealing out blow after blow, forcing him to parry her strikes. They had dropped training with the shield a few weeks ago, leaving him unprotected. But now their training was more like a well-choreographed dance. Nora turned, ducking under a high blow, and managed to graze her baton over Diaz’s shoulder before he spun.

“Good,” he said, but unrelenting, he kept coming at her.

She skipped a few steps back to make room before launching into another busy round. Something was off, though. The energy between them felt disturbed by a presence. She glanced to the side to see if one of the others had come to watch. Sometimes Garreth rose early and gave her some extra advice or told funny stories of female mercenaries he had known. No one was there, though. Still, it felt as if someone had thrown a large stone into a small brook and now the water had to flow in a different direction. While her arm was cutting through the air in a forceful blow from above, Diaz stood there, unmoving.

She called out in warning, suddenly scared she’d hit him square in his face. The baton was blunt and only made of wood, but a blow was painful and could do serious damage. She pulled her arm back as best she could. He blinked then and moved sideways at the last second, so instead of hitting him in the face, she whacked his ear. The lobe split under the blow and started to bleed.

Diaz sucked in air between his teeth and pinched the injured cartilage with a flicker of anger passing across his otherwise calm features. He held up his other hand to signal for a pause and turned away.

“Gods, Diaz,” Nora said, shaken by the sight of blood pearling between his long fingers. “I’m so sorry.”

He grunted and looked at the blood on his hand with a frown.

“It’s fine.”

She stepped closer, a hand on his upper arm to make him turn back and look at her, needing to see how he felt, but he pulled away.

“It’s fine,” he repeated. “Leave me be.”

“But I—”

“Training is over, Noraya. Go, get some breakfast.” He marched off with long strides, out onto the sandy ridge surrounding their camp. Alone.

“I said I was sorry,” she called, angry he was walking away, but if he heard, he didn’t answer.

*     *     *

The final leg of their
journey was a climb up into the Red Canyons, and it was brutal. It was early summer, yet the sun was oppressive. The red earth beneath their feet burned fiercely with flickering heat, under them and next to them and above them. The wandering crags and canyons offered only sparse shadow, but when they did, it felt easier to breathe and easier to walk. The thirst was terrible. The more Nora drank, the more she sweated and the thirstier she became. Her waterskin had been full when they started the climb this morning, but now it was nearly empty and the lukewarm water tasted brackish. She felt dizzy and kept stumbling, catching herself on the jutting stones that scorched her hands when she touched them.

The last stretch was the hardest. The climb was steep, and though the way itself was not long, they had to go around and around on winding paths to reach the hidden city of Shinar. By the wayside stood little figurines with huge heads and closed eyes, smiling serenely on their dainty feet. Some stood under little roofs made of stone slabs; some wore shirts of faded, tattered red cloth. Some had little bowls before their feet, the rims marked with white lines showing how high the water level had been before it evaporated.

“What are they?” Nora asked Owen quietly as they passed another group of smiling bigheads in a crevice. She felt the hairs on her forearms rise despite the heat.

Her brother shrugged.

“No idea. Shrines to Shinar, filled with protective spirits for the pilgrims on their way?”

“Each figure carries the soul and ashes of the miscarriages of the women in Shinar.” Nora jumped as she heard Diaz’s voice, harsh on the ears. He looked grimmer than usual. “Those unborn, the unliving. They rest here.”

“So many?” Owen asked.

Diaz blinked solemnly. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

“There are many women in Shinar,” he said simply.

“Is it still far?” Nora asked.

“No.” Diaz’s lips were chapped and dry. Nora licked her own in sympathy. “We will reach the temple tomorrow.”

“Do you think I’ll be allowed in?”

He gave her a long look.

“I hope not,” he said finally and pushed to the fore, taking the lead.

“What did you do?” Owen asked Nora after a few paces.

“Me?”

“You must have done something. Else he wouldn’t be so…” Owen made a face.

“Yes?”

He must have heard the warning in her voice. “I’m still looking for the right word. It’s too hot to think.”

“Yeah, right.” Nora grinned lopsidedly. They walked on. “Shade’s been strange, too.”

“How so?” Owen’s brow knit together and he pointed to a crevice. “Scorpion.”

“Just some things he’s said.”
In his sleep
, Nora added in her mind. She gave the scorpion a wide berth and wiped the sweat from her face. “Didn’t sound like he had many good childhood memories.”