Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun (19 page)

Zera tossed him what was left of the loaf she had bartered for earlier. Lakaan caught it, took a sniff, then stuffed what was easily half of the original loaf into his mouth—
all
of it, Leitos noted with amazement—bloating his already considerable cheeks. Equally amazing was all the rest of the sagging flesh the man carried on his frame. Leitos had never seen anyone so hugely fat, and did not know how Lakaan’s legs, thick columns though they were, could hold him up.

“Is Suphtra here?” Zera asked.

Lakaan bobbed his head, making his jowls wiggle. “If there are whores to monger,
swatarin
and swill to sell, and goods to be smuggled and traded, you can rest assured Suphtra will be about. Just now he is in the back, skulking in the shadows. Way he keeps hidden anymore, you would think he fancies himself kindred to the Faceless One.”

Zera and Lakaan had a good laugh over that, but the humor was lost on Leitos. His continued silence drew the big man’s questioning gaze.

“What you got there,” Lakaan inquired, eyes fixed on Leitos, “a weanling pup missing his mother?”

“A stray that shows potential,” Zera answered, her hesitation so brief that Leitos nearly missed it.

Lakaan’s already slitted eyes, however, narrowed a fraction. “Just so,” he murmured doubtfully, before perking up. “Well, bring him along! Suphtra will be pleased to see you. Stay around awhile, and it could be that I can teach this little man the art of stealing back some of the loot the king’s men steal from us.”

Lakaan booted open the door he had been guarding. He motioned them into a dim hallway thick with smoke, and a sickly sweet odor that went straight to Leitos’s head. In the light of thick, guttering candles poked into crude wall brackets, Lakaan bolted the door behind them, then led the way deeper into the building. They passed many open doorways that let in on rooms packed with crates of every size, overflowing sacks, and barrels filled with all manner of weaponry.

“Is Suphtra planning a rebellion?” Zera asked casually.

“You will have to talk to him about that,” Lakaan said over his shoulder, sounding uncomfortable. Zera did not ask any more questions, but she did not stop looking. Leitos did the same.

In one room men and women, all half-starved and bleary-eyed, sat about on a dirt floor. Flagons littered the ground around them. Many wafted the smoke rising from clay bowls into their faces, while others sat bolt upright, listening to the murmurings of a strange figure in rags.

Peering more closely, Leitos stopped dead. “
Alon’mahk’lar
!” he breathed.

The figure looked to be two people melded together, sharing the same misshapen body, yet having two heads bowed over a smoldering bowl. As if sensing his shocked appraisal, those heads swiveled toward him on a pair overlong, spindly necks. Two pairs of eyes peered at him from under deep brows, and two pairs of lips turned up at the corners. One head belonged to a woman, the other to a man.

Even though he had gasped the word just above a whisper, Zera spun, green eyes blazing, ready to join battle. Seeing what had captivated Leitos, she relaxed.

“The Twins,” she said with quiet deference, “are as human as you and I. They are seers—or maybe very good charlatans. Either way, they tell futures that seem to come to pass more often than not. Come, leave them to their work.”

The Twins nodded at his scrutiny, each of their heads bobbing independently of the other. Leitos’s insides twisted and he looked away. Zera and Lakaan moved down the hall, and he hurried after.

There were other rooms filled with people. One room in particular shocked Leitos to his core. Behind a sheer, pale green veil, naked bodies writhed against each other over a floor covered in rugs and heaped with pillows. Low moans and wicked, lustful laughter drifted out of that room and into the hallway. His face flaming, Leitos rushed by, refusing to look at Zera when she glanced at him over her shoulder.

After some time, the air cleared of the heady smoke, and Lakaan stopped before a door. “Wait here,” he said, opening the door and closing it behind him.

“What is this place,” Leitos asked, mind reeling at all he had seen … especially within that last room.
Gods good and wise!

“People who can, often drown their sorrows in decadence,” Zera said with a shrug. “It is a weakness to my mind, and a waste. However, providing such services has made Suphtra a man of some wealth, even where such wealth is forbidden. It also makes him a danger to the order of things, which is why he hides his doings within the most sordid quarter of Zuladah. Bribing any that would report him to the king is also to his benefit.”

Lakaan squeezed through the doorway and into the hallway. “Suphtra will see you,” he said. Looking despondent, he added, “I suppose I will go back to guarding the alley. You don’t have any more to eat, do you?”

Zera grinned at him, rooted through her satchel, and pulled out a lump of something wrapped in greasy leather. Lakaan bowed his thanks and went on his way. After a few paces, he gave a delighted cry: “Cheese!” Then he was gone, a shadowy mountain of flesh vanishing behind a swirling haze of pungent smoke.

Feeling light-headed, Leitos was all too happy to follow Zera into the chamber beyond the doorway. His enthusiasm faded rapidly. The only light came from a pair of crimson firemoss lamps set high up on a wall. Centered beneath the lamps, a man sat upon a plain chair, his features lost amid the darkness under a tented curtain of thick cloth.

“Well met, Zera,” the figure said, his voice deep and resonant, even pleasant, despite the morbid surroundings. “It has been too long.”

“Not so long as that, Suphtra” Zera said.

“No?” The figure shrugged slender shoulders. “Perhaps it only feels like that to me, what with trying to counter all that has changed of late.”

“I seek shelter,” Zera said. “Only for the night. As well, a team of burros and a cart.”

“I loathe to ask,” Suphtra said, not sounding troubled at all, “but with the burden of obligations increased of late, I would require payment
before
delivery.”

“I have
swatarin
,” Zera offered. She opened a leather packet to display a large bundle of dried leaves.

“A year gone,” he said regretfully, “such would have bought you a pair of horses to ride and an oxcart loaded with supplies. Now....” He let the unvoiced refusal hang between them a long moment, then said, “Gold is required.”

“Since when do Hunters, or even smugglers, trade in gold?” Zera blurted.

“We never have,” Suphtra said, “which is at the root of my problem. I was informed this morning past that should I wish to receive the king’s continued blindness to my trade, I would pay with gold, silver, or precious stones.”

Suphtra’s voice had risen in anger as he spoke, until he was near to yelling. “Long years have I helped keep the people of Zuladah passive for Rothran and the Faceless One’s empire! Now …
now
the king and the Faceless One take and take, leaving people with nothing. They are either fools … or they want to incite a rebellion. In the end, if the obligations continue to rise, it will not matter, for rebellion is what they will reap. Men can only be pushed so far before they break.”

Zera tugged open the throat of her tunic and withdrew her stone of protection. “Do not insult me by claiming these have become valueless.”

Suphtra sat forward, the ridge of his nose pressing like a blade into the bloody light falling from above. “There is nothing more precious than that,” he murmured. “I must ask, what madness would drive you to relinquish such a prize?”

Zera showed her teeth in a mirthless grin. “As you said, things have changed of late.”

Suphtra nodded and sat back, threw a leg over the arm of his chair, and raised a hand to his chin. “What have you there, another
stray
… and this one an escaped slave, if I do not miss my guess?”

Zera stood motionless, silent.

“There is no point hiding it—I see the set of his shoulders, the bow of his back. This boy has spent his life digging and hauling rock, for whatever purpose that serves the Faceless One.” When Zera still did not respond, Suphtra chuckled. “Have no fear, my girl. He is safe here, at least for a night, as are you.”

“He is escaped,” Zera admitted, but would say no more.

“And you mean to safeguard his freedom,” Suphtra said. “I understand. I do, truly. But you must know that yours is likely time and effort wasted … unless you mean to take him far from the reach of the Faceless One … and from your fellow Hunters?”

“I see not how this discussion has anything to do with shelter for a night and a pair of burros. Do you wish to trade for what I need, or not?”

“I taught you to barter better than that,” Suphtra chuckled. “You must find a common bond between yourself and those with whom you would trade, create a kinship of sorts. But we will come back to our negotiations. For now, I desire information—a most undervalued commodity. I want to understand why so many slaves of late have taken to fleeing their masters? Surely a Hunter must be privy to such knowledge.”

“I do not know what you mean,” Zera said, sounding curious despite herself.

“Perhaps you do not,” Suphtra allowed. “Because I value our relationship, I will tell you some of the things that have come to my ear. By my count, there have been no less than a dozen escapes this year alone, and countless attempts—before that, perhaps one or two in a year. It seems reasonable to assume that even the slaves are growing restless.

“What’s more, rumors have it that some mines have been abandoned, the slaves chained like dogs and left to die, their masters simply gone. Other tales point to stirrings in the far west, skirmishes, murdered
Alon’mahk’lar
. Other whisperings say that the bone-towns—never safe at the best of times—are worse than ever, overrun by
Mahk’lar
and strange, twisted breeds of
Alon’mahk’lar
.”

Leitos flinched involuntarily at that, but Suphtra continued as if he had not noticed.

“Something, dear girl, has changed in the order of things, something for the worse, something not seen since the Upheaval.”

“I’m sure you will work your way around it,” Zera said. “You always have.”

He shook his head. “Not this time. I’m getting too old to play these tired games, too old to adjust to changes … too old, perhaps, to continue serving the
Alon’mahk’lar
and their pet king.”

“What are you saying?” Zera asked.

“War is coming—that is the change I sense. I do not know who will start it—humankind or demon-spawn—but it is coming.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“When all is taken,” Suphtra said slowly, “your family, your home, the very food you eat … when all that is stolen away, and there is nothing at all left to live for, men stop caring whether they live or die. Some will look to death, and whatever waits beyond the grave, as the better choice. The same can be said of the
Mahk’lar,
those which had free reign to haunt dead towns, but are now as much the slave as humans. War,” he said again, “is coming, because the Faceless One has miscalculated his strength and his perceived divinity.”

“You may be right,” Zera said, “but for now what might come to pass has no interest to me. I need shelter, burros, and a cart.” She held silent for a moment, then added with an edge in her voice, “And no one must know that either I or the boy were here.”

“How is Sandros these days?” the smuggler asked. “And Pathil? I have not seen either in Zuladah for some time.” He sounded merely curious, but Leitos sensed otherwise.

Zera glowered for a moment, then threw her hands up in surrender. “Very well,” she said, catching hold of the leather thong around Leitos’s neck, from which hung his stone of protection. With a deft twist, she pulled the amulet free. “Surely this will seal your lips.”

Suphtra gave her a look of mock astonishment. “You mistake me, dear girl. I would never betray you. Not for any price!”

“Indeed,” Zera growled, to which Suphtra laughed merrily.

L
eitos startled awake. Night’s black face, adorned with slashes of dim moonlight peeked through the gaps in the shutter of the room’s lone window. The raucous noise that had earlier filled Suphtra’s debauched refuge had ceased, and so too the racket upon the streets of Zuladah.

Zera, a faint lump on a pallet across the room, slumbered on. Her long, even breaths calmed him, but still he listened, waiting. Something had brought him out of a sound sleep.

The moments stretched, the silence held, and his eyelids grew heavy again. Zera murmured in her sleep, rolled over onto her back, went still. Caught between sleep and waking, Leitos heard again Suphtra’s warnings of change and coming war, leading him to wonder where he would be in a month … a year … in ten. He could scarcely imagine what the morrow would bring. As sleepiness stole over him, thoughts of the future, or anything for that matter, faded to nothing.

A rattle at the door made his eyes flare wide.
Just another drunken reveler, lost and wandering
. There had been many after they settled in the room Suphtra had given them for the night, enough that Zera had lost her patience and struck the last fool to barge in, knocking him unconscious. She dumped him in the hallway, and the presence of the bleeding brute had put an end to unwelcome visitors. Before falling into her blankets, Zera had made sure the door was bolted, and then shoved a heavy chest in front of it for good measure.

The latch jiggled again, softly. Instead of some grumbling fool throwing a shoulder against the door, there seemed to be an element of stealth with this would-be intruder.

Leitos sat up, straining to see. A blade, its keen edge crawling with a gleam of moonlight, pushed slowly between the gap of the door and the doorframe. It slid up, clicked almost inaudibly against the iron bolt’s shaft, then began wiggling gently in a bid to slide it loose.

“Zera,” Leitos hissed. “Wake up.”

She sighed peacefully.

Leitos flung his blankets aside and crawled over to her, cringing at ever pop and creak of the dusty floorboards.
“Zera!”
he said, his nose an inch from hers.