Fortress Draconis (39 page)

That discipline usually lasted less than an hour, and diminished in direct proportion to the distance from the hideout. Will decided to stay out of the way for a little bit, then hunt down one of the younger kids in the group and get the information out of her. He’d decided on Skurri, a scruffy little girl about nine years old, since she was smarter than average and he’d often shared little treasures with her. The way her face lit up at uny kindness had been a joy.

The hour or so he spent waiting, slowly closing in on the section of the Dim where Skurri usually worked as a mule for one of the older cutpurses, gave Will time to re-fleet onwhy he was being hunted. He knew it wasn’t to turn him in for any reward. While he’d been a competent thief, he’d never pulled off anything spectacular enough to warrant a bounty being placed on his head. As with Crow and Resolute, there was only one reason in the world anyone would be looking for him: because of his blood.

Not being able to remember his mother, and never having seen or heard mention of his father, he had no idea if he was the Norrington of prophecy. The possibility that he might have been had never occurred to him, despite countless orphan fantasies woven around his father’s hidden identity. He’d always dreamed that his father might show up one day to take him away from the streets and to a life of leisure. The possibility that his father was a Norrington just didn’t enter into that scheme of things.

The Norrington tragedy was well known, and sung of in a number of varieties. Among the Vorks had arisen a prophecy that said a Norrington would lead the rescue of their island. His supposed grandfather had gone on the grand crusade and had been captured by Chytrine. She’d turned him into asullanciri. As Distalus had told him, the son had then gone north to redeem his family’s name, but had been turned into asullanciri himself. “Blood before nation” had been the refrain of the song sung about Bosleigh Norrington’s last campaign.

The idea of being a Norrington never came to an orphan, for two reasons. The first was that finding yourself related to the leaders of enemy invaders has little to recommend it. Will had seen kids get beat up for being thought the offspring of half-wit stableboys. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what folks would do in taking out their fears of Chytrine on anyone claiming to be a Norrington.

Second, and far more subtle, was the fact that being a Norrington carried with it a grave responsibility and the strong probability of a tragic life. If things were to continue along the lines of what he’d seen in Crow’s company, Will’s life wasn’t going to be full of laughter and joy. He’d be used as a weapon against Chytrine.Whether I want it or not.

The story of Bosleigh Norrington sent a cold chill through the young thief. The man had been a hero. He had slainsullanciri. Distalus had described him as Oriosa’s last hero, and yet blood had won out over nation. How could he, Will, a denizen of the Dim, resist the sorts of temptations that had made his father and grandfather succumb?Will my blood bind me to them?

That question sent a jolt through him. The ritual in the cave slammed back full force.My blood! I amlinked to them. That thing was my father?

“Damn them. Damn their eyes, damn their lies.” Will snarled at the evasions and trickery Crow and Resolute had used. They’d first said they could tell him nothing because they wanted to protect whoever theywere looking for, just in case he wasn’t it.But ever since the cave they’ve known who I was. They should have told me.

As much as he wanted to blame them, however, he couldn’t build up a righteous fury. First off, when hehad been told who he was, he ran. They’d known he would, and they had been working to change him into someone who wouldn’t. As Crow had told him, he and Resolute had volunteered for their duty in this battle. Will had not been able to do that—he’d been press-ganged just as they had almost been in Sanges.

Second, they had nothing to do with his parentage. His blood was his blood. It was his to deal with. They’d tried to insulate him as much as they could. In the one encounter with thesullanciri, Resolute had kicked the goat-man off him. Even on Vilwan they had placed him out of danger as much as possible.

The problem of who he was fell squarely on his shoulders. He knew Chytrine wanted him, based on what Nefrai-laysh had said to him. Crow and Resolute would be hunting for him, but they’d not go to Marcus—they hadn’t in the first place, trusting instead on their own skills to find him. The question remained of who else might be looking for him.

He chose to focus on that question, and started his hunt for Skurri. Will sped over rooftops, sailing across alleys, to land in a crouch or tuck into a roll and keep going. In shadows he would wait and watch. Then, down in the street, he saw the brown-haired girl enter an alley. The beggars stationed at its mouth let her pass without comment or challenge, clearly recognizing her as a creature of the Dim.

Will descended to street level by means of a stairway and darted across the empty byway. He gave the beggars a nod, then leaped over a sleeping body and trotted down to where Skurri spoke with a huddled mass of rotting rags.

“Skurri, a word.”

She turned slowly toward him, first bringing her head around, then her shoulders. She stared at him unblinking, and the greenish glow in her eyes unsettled him. “He’s here.” He barely heard her whisper and had he not seen her lips move, he could have missed her having spoken at all.

“Little sister, who’s hunting for me?” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly, hoping to shock the dazed look out of her eyes. “Who, Skurri, who? Is it Nefrai-laysh?”

The little girl’s eyes blazed at the mention of that name, then her voice changed, sinking into a deeper register. “You have learned much, little one. You wounded my brother, both hide and pride. Now you are mine.”

Skurri grabbed his wrists hard. Biting back a yelp, Will brought his hands up, then out, around and back in a big circle. The move broke her grip, then he shoved both hands against her chest and pushed her down.

As she fell, she touched the beggar to whom she had been speaking. Green eyes suddenly ignited beneath layers of rags. A hand grabbed Will’s right ankle. He stomped down on the bony forearm, heard it break, then tore his right foot free. He spun and fell, but caught himself on his hands and propelled himself toward the alley mouth.

He reached the street unhindered, but found green eyes staring at him from alleys and rooftops, even from beneath carts and in the face of a cat perched on a windowsill. He spun at a sound coming from behind him and saw a shambling mass of beggars heading for him. In most of their faces two green eyes burned, in others only a single. They weren’t moving fast, but they were moving as a mass.

Will stooped to grab a stone, then pegged it as hard as he could at the leading beggar. The missile flew true and caught the humpbacked woman in the forehead. She pitched back, knocking down a one-legged man, temporarily choking the alley mouth.

He spun and headed south. Will kept his eyes open for three things: broken cobbles that could trip him up, stones he could throw, and likely targets. He avoided potholes, not wanting to repeat his disaster with the Grey Misters. The stones he snatched up came easily to hand and didn’t lack for supply, but neither did targets. He threw as well as he could, and if he didn’t crush a rat’s skull, he usually got close enough to send the little beasts running for cover. The same was true of his former brethren, though he didn’t try to kill them, just hurt them enough to make them break off their pursuit.

Will realized two things almost immediately. The first was that some serious magick was at work and appeared to be contagious. At a touch Skurri had been able to infect the beggars with it and they, presumably, could infect others. Will found it all too easy to imagine some of his younger brethren in the sewers, catching up rats,“then sending them to the streets to watch him. While the green glow in their eyes meant they weren’t responsible for their actions, Will didn’t mind killing varmints.

The second thing was that by referring to Nefrai-laysh as “brother” the huntress had revealed her identity as asullanciri. That realization hadn’t taken much of a leap, since Chytrine’s interest in him would have outweighed everyone else’s,and she had sufficient power to send magickal hunters after him.And she is using my friends against me —as she used my grandfather against his son, and against all their former friends.

More thoughts cascaded through his mind, coming as fast as his breath and his steps. His attempt at stealing Predator’s prize had come because he saw it was time to move out on his own. Yes, he had prayed Marcus would welcome him back, but he had secretly harbored the hope that Marcus might make him a lieutenant. That would have been the first step in his breaking away, or supplanting Marcus. It was his first step at independence.

Chytrine would deny him that.She would use me against everyone. Nefrai-laysh had described him as a key for a lock, but he was much more, and he knew it. To run from that would be impossible—Chytrine would see to it that he could never live in peace. Either he would have to be in her fold, as his father chose to be, or he would have to be dead. He was enough of a threat to her that no other options would be allowed as far as she was concerned.

His only other option, of course, was to oppose her. Because of a prophecy, he had become a target. He could fight against those who hoped the prophecy would come true, or he could fight against the woman who wanted to make sure it didn’t. It really wasn’t even a question of which side was right. The simple fact of the matter was that she would deny him his freedom, and that just wasn’t sitting well with him.

Will cut into an alley and heard a furious screech rising. Something landed on his back and right shoulder, then a fierce stinging erupted. He reached back and caught a handful of tail, then yanked the cat from his back. The claws ripped free, the pain spiking. Will snarled, then whipped the cat against the wall, dashing its brains out.

A whirring sound filled the alley, growing louder as he ran. The alley fed into a crosscut alley and Will was pretty certain left was the way back to the street. Before he had a chance to make up his mind, the whirring grew to the right, then stopped abruptly to be replaced by a keening voice.

“Quick, quick. Run, this way, run. Quick.”

Will hesitated. Crouched there on the alley wall, clinging to a brick with two legs and four arms, the humanoid creature looked slightly longer than his forearm. A quartet of glassine wings protruded from its back, and two antennae rose from above two jewel-faceted eyes in what almost passed for a human face. Chitinous armor covered the creature and looked black in the night, though a couple of spots seemed to glow green.

Those spots weren’t its eyes, however, which counted for a lot with Will at the moment, and the color was more of an evergreen, not the pale corpselight that had been chasing him. “That way?”

“Yes, yes. This way. Yes.”The creature launched itself into the air with a whir of wings, then looped and sped off in the direction it wanted Will to go. Ten yards further on, where the alley opened into a courtyard, the thing dipped sharply, and a rat squeaked. The rodent rolled into the courtyard, then lay there struggling within a glistening webbing. The dark windows facing the courtyard watched blindly as the webbing contracted, crushing the rat to death.

Will sprinted after the creature and followed it to the north side of the courtyard. Through an arched carriageway he could see a street free of glowing green eyes. The problem was that a stout iron gate set with a grid of bars stood between him and freedom. He grabbed the bars and shook them, then glanced at the lock. He could have had it open in a minute, with the proper tools, but he didn’t have them with him.

He turned and looked at where his companion sat perched on a crossbar. “Well, now what?”

“Wait. We wait.”

“Wait for what?”

The creature shrugged. “We wait.”

Will spun and put his back to the gate, then thought better of that move and stepped a pike’s-length forward. That still left him deep in the carriageway’s shadow, but it didn’t really matter. Bleeding into the courtyard, moving through the alley as well as over the walls and down, came an army of green-eyed creatures. Rats and cats formed the flanks, with a few dogs out in front of the main body. Beggars predominated in the middle, with a few robust men at their core. Will assumed they were drunken sailors who had collapsed in the wrong alley at the wrong time.

One of the beggars shuffled forward and reached a two-fingered, leprous hand toward him. “You have a choice, Will Norrington. You come to us, now, willingly, or the pieces of your body will be shat by rats before dawn.”

Will lifted his chin. “Is that the sort of bargain you offered my father and grandfather?”

“What missed in the son resides firmly in grandson.” The beggar’s voice became almost wistful. “Serving our mistress, you will know the fulfillment of your dreams— even dreams you did not know you had.”

The thief shook his head. “It won’t work.”

“No?”

“No.” Will smiled defiantly and hefted a rock in his right hand. “My dreams are your Mistress’ nightmares.”

“So be…”

The rock caught the beggar in his throat, cutting off his words. Will, for the barest of seconds, imagined that throw being strong enough to spill the man back into the rank behind him, and cast them back and so on and so on, until the whole of the rabble fell. He knew it was impossible, but if Chytrine was going to make undreamt dreams come true, that would have been a nice start.

And yet, while his throw had by no means been strong enough to accomplish that goal, the rabblewas falling. Arrows and stones, crossbow quarrels and even daggers, rained down on them from the empty windows. People poured from doors, brandishing clubs with which they laid about, smashing rats, mousers, and hounds. Will’s saviors shouted savage war cries and took to the combat with a merciless and efficient economy Will had seen before.

In Resolute.The youth’s jaw dropped open.They’re all Vorks.