Feeling threatened and anxious, I balked when Na'Cyd pointed down a steep, narrow lane he had been told was a less crowded approach to the Heir of D'Arnath's palace. But D'Sanya insisted she was tired, and that anything that would speed us to our destination was welcome.
The deserted lane was little more than an alley between the brick walls of two tall houses, and blissfully quiet. Even D'Sanya was subdued. We reached the juncture where the lane opened into the grand commard so quickly, I felt foolish at my apprehension. But when I glimpsed the vast expanse, crammed with enough booths, carts, and vendors hawking sausages, music boxes, card games, and rubbish to make twenty Tymnath markets, the skin on my back crawled. “How did I let you persuade me to come here?” I said.
“Because you are my play friend, who cannot bear for me to enjoy myself alone.” She sighed deeply. “I would dearly love to have stopped to hear the Singers' play, but I think supper, bath, and bed in Ven'Dar's house will be the most I can manage tonight. Tomorrow, business first and then our little adventure.”
I wasn't going to argue with her. I was not so tired, but I needed time to think without distraction. To feel. Perhaps to have a private word with Prince Ven'Dar, if I could arrange it. Something was dreadfully wrong.
D'Sanya had wrapped a light blue veil about her head and shoulders as we rode into the city, so that no one would recognize her. Knowing we were stopping in Avonar, I had worn a wide-brimmed hat for the journey. Though the sun was long gone and the lingering daylight quickly fading, I tugged it lower to keep my face in shadow.
Just as we nudged our horses to life again, ready to abandon the dark lane for the well lit commard, a fiery explosion of blue light engulfed us. Stormcloud balked and whinnied. Flash-blinded, swearing at the Dar'Nethi and their frivolities, I slapped one hand over my burning eyes, while keeping a firm hold of the reins. “Easy, easy, fellow,” I said. “It's all right. My lady, are youâ?”
But I knew instantly that she was not all right. Grunts and thumps and a woman's muffled scream came from my left. Miaste whinnied in panic. I could see nothing but a blue glare. So I concentrated . . . listened . . .
“Get the rings . . . and that thing on her neck . . . Bind her hands.”
Thieves. How many?
Listen . . . feel . . .
A thud and a groan in front of me . . . Two men grappling. Blood on the air. An aborted cry identified the bleeding, choking victim as Na'Cyd. Four men to my leftâall afootâand D'Sanya struggling . . . Feeble bursts of enchantment . . . ineffectual . . .
“Lady!” Damn these human eyes that would not recover fast enough!
“Hurry,” growled a breathless man to my left. “Get her away.”
Searing threads of binding magic . . . foul . . . diseased . . . These were no ordinary thieves. Enchantments slowed my limbs . . . clouded my thoughts . . . Zhid enchantments . . .
D'Sanya's cry . . . cut off . . .
“No!” Shaking off the Zhid snares, I dragged Stormcloud's head around, dropped out of the saddle, and slapped his rump, sending the frightened beast toward the two in front. Confusion might give Na'Cyd a chance. “Consiliar! 'Ware!”
Racing hooves, scrambling boots, screams and shouts. I lunged in the direction of that breathless abductor's voice, calling up every scrap of power I could muster to sharpen my senses, thanking my mentors in Zhev'Na for those interminable, hateful hours of practicing hand combat blindfolded. My hands slapped and groped and fumbled until they found a jutting jaw attached to a thick, sweaty neck and twisted the two in opposite directions. The neck snapped.
Shoving the heavy body away from me, I extended my hands and my senses, crouching low as I spun and dodged, caught up in a confusion of nervous horses before I felt the threatening movement to my left. I pivoted on one foot and slammed my leg into a human target, evoking the crack of bone, an aborted cry, and the solid, satisfying crack of a skull hitting pavement.
“Enough! Kill him!” shouted the leader.
I pivoted again, this time with my forearm on a course for the speaker's throat. But I checked abruptly when cold, edged steel intruded on my inner vision in company with a lady's whimper. Where was D'Sanya? Where was the damnable blade? Blinking furiously as I stood paralyzed for a moment, trying to clarify the hints of form and substance appearing through the veil of blue fire, I was startled to feel the prick of the knifepoint under my chin, lifting my face upward. Pausing. A severe mistake.
I smiled.
“By the winds of darkness!” The awestruck whisper came from a solid blur right in front of me. Even half blind I knew him Zhid. “We heard that you livâ”
I broke the cursed Zhid's hand when I twisted the blade from his grasp and plunged it into his throat. By this time I could see the outline of a fourth man hurrying away up the dark sloping lane, a ripped blue veil and a mass of light hair dangling over his broad shoulder. I raced after him. But before I could catch him, a party of horsemen approached from the direction he traveled. I considered enchantments, ready to lick the blood from my hands to feed my power. They would not have her. They would not.
Before I could do anything so drastic, my clearing vision noted the gleaming white-and-gold badges on the horsemen's mail shirtsâVen'Dar's men. The leader of the party rode toward the trapped Zhid. In one hand he held a sword that shone brightly, casting a green glow on his silver mail and helm. The weapon was wreathed with enchantment that twisted my own bones though it was nowhere near me. “Release the princess,
arrigh scheide,
” said the warrior, “or you'll suffer such torments as even a flesh-eater cannot imagine.”
“You do not know your peril, Dar'Nethi pig. Zhev'Na will rise, and we will have this one as we will have you all.” One of the Zhid's arms was wrapped about D'Sanya's body, holding her on his shoulder. His other arm he held behind his back, fist clenched. Enchantment swelled from it. “She is poison.”
I crept slowly toward the Zhid. All the villain's attention was on his growing enchantment and the Dar'Nethi rider. The Dar'Nethi nudged his mount a few steps closer, then slipped easily from the saddle. As he approached the Zhid, he twirled his blade in the air, leaving little green circles of light to tease the eye. “
Zhid
are the world's poison, flesh-eater. We've almost done with you. Think you to give me a fight? Put the Lady aside and use both hands, and even so, I'll stick this blade between your Zhid eyes.”
When the Zhid shoved his clenched fist into the air, I knew we were out of time. Forced to choose between his fist and D'Sanya, I lunged forward and gripped his wrist, wrapping my body around his forearm. The Lady could better survive a fall to the pavement than whatever deviltry the Zhid had built. An explosion slammed into my gut. Fighting for breath, I held on and felt the Zhid's arm crack.
Though a violent tug threatened to pull the squirming Zhid from my grasp, I refused to release him. We staggered on the sloping pavement when the tension was released. A second explosion in my gut propelled me backward, smashing my back into the brick wall. Feeling my grip slacken and my senses waver as we slumped toward the ground, I flung one arm around the Zhid's throat, rolled forward, and trapped his writhing body under mine, squeezing. After a while, he lay still . . . as did I for some indeterminate time. . . .
Â
Firm footsteps paused behind me. Moved around my head. Mail chinked and boots creaked, and a body's mass settled close to my face. A firm warm finger felt the vein in my neck.
My jaw was jammed into the hard, uneven pavement. I still couldn't move. Could see only blue-edged blurs. Every bone, muscle, and hair ached, and a small boulder or perhaps . . . someone's head . . . pressed into my breastbone. “The Lady,” I mumbled awkwardly.
“She's safe.”
The voice was familiar. Through a milky haze, I spied a green gleam from a sheathed sword. The swordsman. But more familiar than that . . .
“My men have escorted her to the palace. A few scrapes and bruises and a wrenched shoulder; I had to pull her away a bit forcefully. And she's already shaking off the fright. Prince Ven'Dar will see to her.” He was cool. Polite. “I've sent for a Healer. Can I move you? Or perhaps I can help until she arrives.”
I closed my eyes and considered the state of my health. Wriggled my hands and feet, stretched my neck a bit, and started drawing my knees up underneath me as well as I could with a body crumpled under me. “I think I'm all right. Bruised”âmy belly felt as if one of the brick walls had been dropped on itâ“but not bleeding.”
He offered me his hand, the back of it the color of good earth, the palm lighter. Je'Reint.
I accepted his help, as I was tired of the paving stones digging into my face and Zhid bones poking everywhere else. And I wasn't sure I could get up on my own.
We stood alone in the center of the sloping lane. Two men hefted the bodies of dead Zhid onto horses. A man stood guard at either end of the lane, preventing anyone from happening across the scene. Je'Reint slung his helm on his saddle and watched as I confirmed to my amazement that the blasts of power from the Zhid had not even broken my skin.
“We'd ridden out to escort you into the city,” he said, shoving his damp, matted hair out of his eyes. It hung almost to his shoulders. “After this week's raids, the prince was concerned about the Lady traveling with so little protection. But obviously we weren't watching the right roads. Who would have expected you to take back alleys?”
“Someone did.” Someone had directed us to this very lane. “The Lady's consiliar . . . how is he?”
“A little roughâa stab wound to his backâbut he'll live. Your horse seems to have trampled his assailant at a critical moment. The consiliar was fit enough to ride and chose to remain with the Lady.”
Nothing conclusive about Na'Cyd, who once was Zhid. I clucked to summon Stormcloud, who stood fidgeting and blowing alongside Je'Reint's mount. “So how did you find us?”
“We were right on your heels. A young woman witnessed the initial attack and rode for help. Said she had followed the Lady here from Gaelie and insisted that Prince Ven'Dar be notified. Persistent enough to see it done. I didn't get her name.” A good thing Je'Reint's eyes were not knives. His examination would have flayed me. “She said the Lady's âlover' traveled with her.”
Sefaro's daughter. That would take some thinking about when I had time and sense to do it.
Happy to have something to hold on to, I fondled Stormcloud's ears and stroked his neck. He was still quivering. So was I, but I didn't want Je'Reint to notice. Five years since I had killed a man with my bare hands. Such an elemental thing. Power for the taking.
“Well, if you ever introduce me to the young woman, I'll have to thank her. And I'll thank the prince for sending you to watch overâ”
“Here, my lord. We've found something with one of the bodies.” One of Je'Reint's men tossed him a small leather bag. As the soldier returned to his fellows, Je'-Reint dumped the contents into one hand: four silver rings, a bracelet made of entwined strands of gold and silver, and a long silver neck-chain with a plain circle pendant.
“Those belong to the Lady,” I said, as I moved slowly to Stormcloud's middle, my belly protesting at the thought of getting up on his back.
Je'Reint lifted a hand to stay me. “While we're here alone, I need to speak with you.”
Needed
to, perhaps, though he definitely did not
want
to. But I welcomed a longer time to recover. I laid my forehead on the saddle for a moment while a wave of dizziness passed. “Go ahead.”
Piece by piece he dropped D'Sanya's jewelry into the leather bag. “Three days ago thirty to forty Zhid attacked a settlement and a supply caravan. Witnesses swear that the Zhid attacked in formation. Not a ragtag few after the same prize, not undisciplined warriors joined together for a raiding party only to kill each other over the spoils, but small marshaled bands that hit swiftly, took only adult male prisoners, and retreated. How is that possible?”
“Marshaled . . .” Organized Zhid acting under tactical command. But the Zhid had never devised their own tactics in Zhev'Na. Every direction, every initiative, every plan had come from the Lords.
I glanced up at Je'Reint, sure he must be mistaken. But his demeanor stated that he was not merely purveying rumor.
“In all the years we fought the Lords, we were never able to extract strategic or tactical information from captive Zhid,” he said. “No mind-bending or thought-reading or arcane investigation revealed anything of how orders were passed. Ever. We couldn't even distinguish between commanders and the lowest warriors.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “You were one of them. They trained you to command their warriors. How did you do it?”
I had trained as a commander for months, and yes, eventually the Zhid had obeyed my voice commands with the same ferocious, terror-laced loyalty they yielded to all their brutal leaders. But I had never learned the final pieceâhow the Lords deployed so many thousands so seamlessly. “I don't know. I never commanded in the field. Only in training.”
“Has someone else learned how to do it? How could they? Do you believeâ? Are the Lords truly dead? We
must
know what enemy we fight. We've heard rumors of thousands of Zhid. If you are what you claim, then you must tell what you know.”
“I told you I don't know anything.”
A blatant lie. As I had told my father, I
did
know the information Je'Reint wanted. Or rather, I
could
know it, if I choseâas I could know everything the Lords had known, everything they had done, every depravity and despicable plot that three beings of corruption had been able to devise over a hundred lifetimes. Even the truth of the Lady. The sum of their memories lived inside of me like another organ, another stomach or heart, only rotted and loathsome.