Woe to the man who betrays a Ghaultic lass.
Nobody would mistake Eles for an expert in the ways of the heart. In fact, Eles would freely admit he knows less about relationships with women than just about anybody he knows.
But he knows when they’re angry.
He was oblivious enough to have set off more than his fair share of ladies in his younger days, and even as he got older, and the women he knew grew thicker skins, his talent to offend held steady. Fortunately or not, identifying an irate woman came easy, and Nadja embodied all the telltale signs.
Her jaw clenched. Her pressed lips could crack a walnut. She stomped on the heels of her feet, punishing the blameless earth underfoot. With rigid spine, her chin tilted slightly skyward as if daring the moons to question her right to wrath. Even though the she-bear’s ire focused on Dargon, Eles suffered through association.
“Are you idiots sure those men won’t talk?” she asked Dargon as they skulked over the dark cobblestones of an alley.
They exited the catacombs with surprising ease. Nary a priest nor city official in sight. Dargon handled the situation the way he handled most all his situations: with gold. It’s alarming how quickly a man will ignore loyalties and personal responsibilities when there’s an opportunity for personal profit. Rare is the individual who will refuse a chunk of gold hefty enough to pay six months of living to simply turn away, or even leave a door ajar. Dargon had an uncanny ability to identify the amenable, and the amount needed to guarantee the desired outcome.
“Those men don’t want any trouble,” Dargon replied.
“Of course not. Why live up to your promises when there’s coin to be had?” Nadja’s jaw clenched.
Eles and Kelshar, who trailed slightly behind the pair, shared a glance. Kelshar looked remarkably healthier. A flush of red suffused her cheeks, a result of the lingering effects of the stimulant that coursed through her veins. Though she regained the bounce in her step, she still couldn’t speak in anything more than a coarse wheeze. Now clad in a dark blue hooded cloak and black leather boots, she kept a twitchy hand on the pommel of her newly procured broad sword. Nadja and Dargon had apparently been busy preparing for all possibilities.
Five solutions prepared for every problem. Never only considering the next step, but rather a half dozen steps ahead.
If Eles had his way, they would slip in and out of Keetie’s manor without bloodshed. No swords needed. Somehow, he doubted Kelshar saw it the same way. The woman wanted revenge. Keetie arranged her hanging, and the fact that she still lived didn’t dilute the memory of the execution. Once Dargon explained what Eles had done: the neck grab, injection, and rejuvenation, Kelshar looked at Eles for what seemed an eternity, and then, nodded. It was a subtle gesture, but one of reverence and respect, and it affected Eles deeply.
The streets darkened as clouds rolled across the sky and the first drops of a fast-gathering summer storm pelted their cloaks. They crossed into the noble’s district, where the wide roads made it more difficult to move under the cover of narrow alleys. Eles’ nerves buzzed as they approached Keetie’s manor. He had made uncountable questionable decisions in his life, but one could argue this was the riskiest. He could have been rid of this crew, warming himself in his new, richly furnished lab. He could be enjoying his new life as Elestran the Phoenix, alchemist to Inspector Keetie of Venaisin. But he refused to betray Dargon.
Still a fool. After all these years.
“Years of hard work…” Nadja muttered under her cloak, “years of building contacts and support. Gone. You are a blight on my life.”
“I didn’t tell you to kidnap that man and kill his driver. That choice was yours,” Dargon muttered back.
Nadja spun on him. “That’s not the choice I regret. The choice I regret is not letting that exum tear you to ribbons.”
Dargon knew better than to make that remark. The man’s ability to read people was unparalleled. The only conclusion Eles could make was that he wanted to rile her. Not for any strategic reason, but because something in the sparring with her filled a need. Maybe it rekindled old memories, or maybe because she was the only person in the world that challenged him like that. Either way, Eles would rather they all be in congruity as they attempted the rescue of Rakana.
He knew the location of the dreamer’s room, and the approximate position of the manor guards, the dogs, and Keetie’s room. He, more than anyone else here, could help them slip in and out before the compound awoke.
The walls of Keetie’s manor came into view as they crested Noble’s Hill and started their descent toward the shore. Venaisin arced out, a hollow circle of hundreds of lanterns. Storm clouds rolled in from the bay and lightning flashes offered brief glimpses of the dark waters beyond the city. Narrow towers rising out of the dark looked like massive lightning rods firing deadly arcs into the swirling quagmire above.
“Remind me to tithe Lord Verdant,” Dargon mentioned to Kelshar, “this storm is fortuitous.”
“Like you to think you could bribe the gods,” Nadja murmured as rivulets of rain dripped off the top of her hood, though not quite as thick as the disdain that dripped from her words. “The impudence.”
“That’s the spot,” Eles whispered as he pointed to a section of the rear wall where scaling was least likely to be espied.
Kelshar launched Nadja up first and she laid flat on the wall as she reached down and helped Eles over. Next climbed Dargon.
“You’ve gotten fat,” she grunted as she pulled him up.
“I’m the same weight as when we were lovers,” Dargon replied flatly.
Dargon smiled and rolled off and dropped into the courtyard garden next to Eles. Nadja dropped one end of her rope to Kelshar, slipped down into the courtyard with the other end, and anchored the rope as Kelshar climbed up and over. Eles pointed to a window on the second floor of the manor and nodded. They took off under cover of darkness and rain. As they weaved through the expertly pruned topiaries, lightning flashed overhead, and thunder rattled the leaves. Eles saw no dogs, assuming the thunderous crashes must be cowering the pack in their kennel.
They set their backs against the rear wall of the manor, below Rakana’s window. Nadja tossed her grapple up to the roof’s edge as the rain poured down in sheets.
Kelshar kept alert for guards as Nadja pulled herself up the rope, but the night’s watch must’ve decided the weather wasn’t worth braving. Nadja pulled herself up onto the balcony and quickly got to work on the lock of the gate that kept ‘guests’ relegated to their rooms. Kelshar quickly followed up the rope.
The ease by which they broke into this well-guarded keep unnerved Eles. He wondered what Keetie would do to the men who slept on the job this night.
Rakana slid down the wet rope. Eles couldn’t help but stare at the exposed leg as her robe slid up to her thigh. Somehow, the girl was even more lovely dripping wet, he marveled. While Kelshar followed down the rope, Nadja simply hopped the balcony railing and hung down before dropping to the grass below.
As if to accentuate the looming peril, lighting cracked above their heads, so close the thunder boomed simultaneously. The flash illuminated armed men pouring into the courtyard from both sides, taking positions with spear and shield amid the topiaries.
Dargon and Kelshar drew blades, while Nadja loaded her crossbow.
“The mysteries of life abound.” Keetie stood on Rakana’s balcony looking down on Eles. He called in a voice loud enough to be heard over the hum of the rain. “The whipped and beaten naïf, offered a new life, rejects his new home. Why? Because torture is all he’s ever known. Tragic.”
“Inspector Keetie,” Dargon called up, “I am Dargon Lodern, Lord of Greyarch and lead seat in the ruling Council of Ghault.”
“And here you drip. Having raided my boudoir. What a delicious parlor story this will make at dinner.”
“I am a very rich man,” Dargon offered with a suggestive cock of his head.
Kelshar, who still eyed the guards, stiffened at the offer and clenched her jaw.
Keetie laughed. “You were a very rich man. Now I’d venture my prized fox terriers would fetch more in the Merchant’s District. Are you so unhinged as to believe you could poach the dreamer from my home?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re surrounded. Drop your swords and kneel.”
Kelshar took several steps away from the back wall, turned around, and lowered her hood. Lightning flashed, illuminating her face to Keetie. For the first time, Eles saw the Inspector blanch.
He quickly recovered. “The dead walk. Impressive, Phoenix. All the more tragic I must now kill you.”
Kelshar pointed up at Keetie and made a ‘come to me’ motion with her finger as she took another step backward.
“As seductive as your dark Rhoanish cheekbones are, I’m quite comfortable up here,” Keetie replied, before his smile disappeared. “Kneel. I promise to consider not killing you twice in one day.”
Nadja fired a crossbow bolt through the neck of the man closest to the wall, grabbed Rakana’s arm, and dragged her along the wall where her opponent crumpled into a puddle of rainwater.
“Ring the bell!” Keetie shouted. “Release the dogs!”
Eles stood there, frozen. He’d never felt so useless. He didn’t carry a weapon, and in fact, dreaded violence.
“Follow Nadja!” Dargon shouted.
Eles didn’t need any more prodding and ran through the rain to catch up to the women who were headed for the outer wall. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Dargon had slashed the spear hand of the guard he battled. It distracted the man enough to allow Dargon to break and run. Kelshar also ran, but not before having ripped through three men.
Nadja let another bolt fly and it tore through the thigh of one of her pursuers, felling him. And like that, the squad of eight men that had surrounded them was down to three, with one bleeding from the hand. Those three dutifully followed, but carefully, at a distance, waiting for reinforcements and not wanting to be the first to reach Kelshar.
Dogs barked in the distance. An alarm bell shook the night awake and made Eles break out into a sweat. Dargon pushed Rakana up and over the wall while Nadja fired another bolt at their pursuers to ensure they kept a respectful distance. Eles climbed next, then Kelshar. When Dargon pulled himself to the top he reached down and helped to pull Nadja up.
“Nice shot,” he muttered.
“I know,” she replied as she flipped down the other side. “I don’t need your approval.”
He hopped down and caught up to the group as they raced down the rain-soaked cobblestones. “Nadja, truce.”
“That’s why you’re still breathing.”
Dargon shook his head in frustration as Nadja raced ahead of the pack.
“This way!” she called back to the group as she plotted her path, darting between buildings with the confidence only someone who has studied escape routes would have. She followed the shore of the bay, headed in the direction of the piers where Kelshar had been hanged.
“Do you think we lost them?” Eles asked Dargon.
A high-pitched screech cut through the night’s silence as a large, winged creature soared over their heads.
“No.”
The creature matched the largest of horses in size, had the head and fore of a vulture and the hind of a jackal, no doubt the result of an overzealous alchemist specializing in monstrous biology. This kind of aberrant experimentation was forbidden in Ghault, but the rulers of Faros often turn a blind eye to such activities should they be conducted in the rulers’ best interest. As the vulture-jackal arced to block their pass, Eles realized the monster had a rider: Keetie. He soared through the rain and just over the rooftops.
“Magesty! That should have struck!” she called.
Keetie leaned out and tossed a bulging burlap sack. When it hit the ground in front of them, it exploded, covering the whole ally in a thick, green, slimy substance. Eles recognized it immediately: spider glue, a powerfully adherent goop sometimes issued to the most well-funded guard units.
“Don’t!” Eles warned, and they skittered to a stop.
“No kidding,” Nadja remarked sarcastically as she turned and judged her options. Drops of the green goop splattered her thigh-high leather boots. She looked to Dargon, “Your plan isn’t going to work. Not with that thing watching from the skies.”
“Aren’t you the animal trainer?” he asked, frustrated.
Nadja swung her crossbow at his face, but he pulled back just enough to avoid getting smashed.
They sprinted back the way they came, but when they emerged from the ally, they saw six guards on horseback approaching through the rain.
“They’re too close!” Nadja shouted as she scanned the intersecting street.
“Good,” Kelshar croaked as she stepped forward, an incensed look in her eye. Clearly her voice had recovered enough to issue the simplest of replies.
Nadja barked at Dargon, “Lead them to the Mermaid! Go!”
Dargon ran to the left with Rakana and Eles in tow. Eles looked back as he ran and saw Nadja hook her rope to an iron gate on one side of the street and dash back to the other side right before the charging coursers arrived. She pulled the rope taut and the two riders in front went flying over the heads of their mounts as the beasts tripped over the rope and crashed headlong onto the muddy stones. The riders behind pulled their horses to a stop and dismounted. By that time, Kelshar had already killed the two on the ground. That carnage was the last thing Eles saw before he turned a corner, racing after Dargon.
They sprinted down a narrow alley and stopped to take cover underneath a stone bridge that spanned the second story of two flanking buildings. Rain poured down on either side as Dargon rifled through his sack. He produced a sling and a red quartz rock the size of a sling bullet.
Eles looked at the quartz in surprise, prompting Dargon to crack one of his cocksure smiles. “You’re not the only one with tricks,” Dargon said in a hush as he placed the red quartz into the pouch of the sling. He poked his head out into the rain, looking for Keetie. As if on cue, the vulture horror appeared overhead. Dargon whipped the sling in a great arch, an extension of his arm, and released the ruby quartz at its farthest point so that it fired up into the sky. Whether the stone would’ve hit its target was irrelevant because it exploded into a fiery comet well before impact, cutting a blazing swath through the night air. The vulture-jackal caught a breast full of flames and panicked. It jerked up suddenly and spun in tight circles, beating its wings furiously in protest at the painful conflagration. The mount struck the side of a temple sending Keetie spilling out of its saddle. The Inspector fell a short drop to the temple roof below and out of sight.
Dargon, Eles, and Rakana raced out from under the bridge and weaved between buildings, looking up for signs of the vulture beast, but none came. The docks came into view and at the far end of the longest dock Eles saw a small merchant vessel with a barnacle-encrusted mermaid as its masthead. Perhaps the regal maid had red hair at one point, during the ship’s better days, judging by the last remnants of flaky color clinging to the top of her head, but now, the weathered maid heralded a desperate ship, barely afloat while clinging to the memories of more productive days.
As they approached to within earshot, Dargon yelled ahead, “We sail! Now!”
“What?” the man shot back, confused, “Why?”
“Just do it!” Dargon demanded, as the boat began to drift away from the docks.
Rakana clutched at Dargon’s sleeve. “We can’t leave! The others…”
“We’re leaving.” It wasn’t up for discussion.
As the boom swung to catch the wind and the vessel creaked into motion, the moor line began to unwind and fall into the water, foot by foot.
Dargon stared back at the streets expectantly.
The rope continued to slip into the dark waters.
Finally, Kelshar and Nadja came sprinting into view. As the absconders raced down the dock, a dozen armed men, led by Inspector Keetie, raced thirty yards behind. The two escapees sheathed their weapons as the end of the mooring line fell into the bay. With a running start, they leaped off the edge of the dock into the dark waters of the bay and grabbed onto the end of the mooring line. The boat was moving fast enough now that the bodies of Kelshar and Nadja skipped on the water, crested by a high arc of water spraying over their heads.
Dargon pulled at the rope. “Help me,” he ordered, and Eles jumped to assist. As he pulled on the rope, he could see Inspector Keetie through the rain, reaching the end of the dock. Keetie motioned and called to the harbormaster. A great horn blast echoed across the bay, sending an unknown message to all who were minding the harbor at this time of night. Eles knew it wouldn’t take long for Keetie to commandeer a boat. A bigger boat. A faster boat.
A minute later, they dragged the waterlogged Kelshar and Nadja onto the deck. Nadja coughed up alarming amounts of bay water sputtering, “You would… have left us… Ack! Drowning’ll be the death of me!”
The ship’s captain, an aging man with faint whispers of grey hairs clinging perilously to the sides of his bald head approached and spoke with a brusque voice, “That warning is meant for us. We’ll be stopped at the Passage.”
“Keep sailing until you get there,” Dargon instructed, “and remember you’ll find ten times what I paid you tonight waiting for you at the docks of Greyarch.”
Eles imagined the captain weighing the dangers of being stopped and searched by the city’s inspectors against his desperate need for gold. The gold appeared to win, as the captain simply shook his head for having to suffer fools and strode back to the helm.
“He’s right,” Nadja said between gasps, “we’ll never make it through the Passage.”
“We’re not going through the Passage. We’re going inland. Upriver.” Dargon moved to the gunwale and pointed off into the rainy night. About fifty yards off starboard the tip of a ruined tower protruded out of the waters of the bay. Lightning flashed. Tied to the ruin was a covered fishing boat, big enough to hide a few bodies, bobbing restlessly on the choppy waters.
“Get ready to jump,” Dargon said with a shrug of his shoulders meant for Nadja.
Nadja, still spitting out bay water, looked at Dargon with fury. “You’ll pay for this,” she swore.
Checking to make sure none of the crew was watching, they leaped into the storm.