The Nightblade Epic Volume Two: A Book of Underrealm, page 72
“That still seems too plain,” said Annis. “Never since we came to Danfon has Loren seen the mountains, as she did in Sidwan. Yet the mountains are not a very good clue.”
“And I see Niya almost every time, no matter what I do,” said Loren. “Yet she is dead. Or rather, Auntie is.”
Chet’s expression grew dark, and he turned away.
“One thing might be helpful, at least,” said Annis. “You saw a secret entrance to the treasury. If it is there, that would help our plans immeasurably.”
“If it is,” said Loren. “But if it is not? We might be trapped, thinking there is a means of escape when none exists.”
Annis sighed. “I suppose you are right. We cannot know what will help us until we are there, and then it may already be too late.”
“I fear Duris will betray us,” said Chet quietly. “What if she does? What if Damaris learns—or has already learned—about her meeting with us? What if Damaris knows about our way into and out of the city, as your dream suggests?”
“Then all our plans are for nothing,” said Loren. She tugged at her hair. “But if that is the case, we should leave Danfon at once and never return. Our cause is hopeless.”
Chet looked up eagerly, his eyes shining in the light of the room’s lamp. “Would you do that?” he said.
Loren wondered the same thing. She had pledged herself to the High King. She had sworn to fulfill the duty assigned to her, and she had vowed to capture Damaris. Yet if their plans were doomed … if she was doomed … could she knowingly walk into death? She could not help the High King as a corpse. Mayhap it was wiser to retreat now, to return to Kal with her tail between her legs and seek his instruction.
Her grip tightened on her dagger. If she did that, Kal might punish her. But then? He would use her again, just as he had aimed to from the beginning. He would devise a plan, and he would issue orders. What would Loren do, then, if her dreams showed her that those orders would lead to her death as well? Would she run from them? Was that to be the rest of her life, fleeing one dark premonition after another?
Before she could give voice to the thought, Gem spoke up. “I … I would not leave,” he said. “Not if it were my choice. I will follow you to whatever end, Loren. But I do not want to live the rest of my life in fear. We know your dreams have shown you lies. I think we should use your dreams when we can—but I think we must ignore them when they tell us to do the wrong thing. And fleeing this city—leaving Damaris to work her evil in Dorsea—I think that that would be the wrong thing.”
Loren nodded slowly. “I think you are right. I do not know why these visions have come to me, and I do not even understand them more than half the time. But I cannot—I will not let them turn my life to one of fear. I am a servant of the High King. I am not one of her soldiers, but I am like one. I follow her orders and carry out her will. Every soldier marches to battle knowing that they may die. We could die now, tonight, betrayed by one of Yushan’s servants. That is not enough to make me flee from Danfon. Neither are my visions. I will stay.”
“And I,” said Gem.
“And I,” said Annis.
“I will stay with you, then,” said Chet softly. She met his gaze. Until he said the words, she had not realized how much she feared it—that this would be the moment. This would be when he chose to leave her. And in fact, she could see the sadness in his eyes, see his own fear. He had been hopeful, for a moment. He had let himself believe that Loren might actually abandon her duty, might leave Dorsea to its fate. She could see it in him now. He was disappointed, even crestfallen.
Yet he would stay.
Her dreams were no visions of the future. She did not know what they were, but they were not that.
“Very well,” whispered Loren. “Thank you. And now we must all go back to sleep, for tomorrow we rob a king.”
THEY ROSE EARLY THE NEXT morning, and they left Yushan’s manor before the sun had come up. Loren brought all her party along, save for Annis. Kerri came with them as before, a guide through the streets. Loren had come to feel grateful for the girl’s presence. Danfon was still a strange city to her, and it felt reassuring to have someone along to whom the place was so familiar. And though the words they had had together were relatively few, Loren had come to greatly value Kerri’s counsel. She almost wished the girl were coming with them into the palace, but that was far beyond her area of expertise.
Soon the walls loomed above them. One six paces in height bordered the outer courtyards. It was a magnificent structure, and could likely hold well against even a determined attack by enemy forces. But the wall was built of rough white stone, and Loren knew she and her friends could scale it easily.
The problem was that the streets around them were too crowded. No guards were on patrol, but five warriors scaling the palace wall would surely draw attention from passersby. Loren already felt a bit conspicuous out in public. She wore her black cloak to hide her new, distinctive clothing, but the cloak itself was beautifully made, and she thought she caught one or two sidelong glances from people walking past.
Once they had walked the perimeter, they ducked into a nearby alley. “We should wait a bit,” said Kerri. “Soon most people will have arrived at their destinations—the marketplaces and other shops. There will be fewer curious eyes around then, and we should be able to find a moment when no one is around to see us.”
“I agree,” said Loren. “Chet, would you fetch us some water and bread? We may be waiting here a while.”
Chet took some silver pennies and headed for the nearest inn. The rest of them settled down to wait. Gem sat on the ground against the wall, silent with his own thoughts. Shiun and Uzo took up position at either end of the alley, watching for any signs of danger. Two barrels sat side by side. Loren hopped up on one, and Kerri took the other.
For a moment, Kerri looked down the alley in the direction Chet had gone. “I have been meaning to ask—where did you all come from?”
Loren blinked at her. “I am from Selvan,” she said. “Most of us are. Annis is … well, I suppose she is from the High King’s Seat, though her family’s home is in Feldemar.”
Kerri shook her head at once. “No, I mean … how did you meet, is closer to the question. I know little enough about you all, but you are a forester, and Annis is a merchant child. Chet is … did I hear he was a hunter? And I do not know what to make of Gem. How did such a varied party come to join you?”
Loren chuckled. “That is a tale indeed. More than one, actually, and we do not have the time to tell them all now. Chet and I have known each other all our lives. I met Annis shortly after I left the woods where I was raised, and I met Gem a little while after that, in the city of Cabrus.”
“Why did you and Chet leave the forest?”
“I …” Loren smiled and shook her head. “He did not leave with me. I left, and he left some months later. He went looking for me, in fact, and happened upon me in the city of Northwood.” Her expression fell as she remembered it, and she went silent.
“Tales reached us of what happened at Northwood,” said Kerri softly. “But I had not heard you played any part in that.”
“Only by accident,” said Loren. “The Shades—the ones who destroyed it—they were looking for me. And I lingered there too long, for I … I had lost someone, and I had also learned something … unpleasant. I spent too many days wandering the Birchwood, with Chet trying to lure me out of my sadness.”
“You say he went there to look for you?” said Kerri. “Why?”
A small smile dusted Loren’s lips. “Because he loved me. In truth, he had loved me for a long while before that. And after I left the forest, he was drawn out to find me again.”
Kerri’s eyes widened. “Oh, I … oh. I am sorry. I did not realize.”
Loren’s smile vanished. “You would have had little reason to. Things have not been well between us since … well, since before we came to Dorsea. Many things have happened to us in our travels together, and some were worse than others.”
To Loren’s surprise, Kerri looked down at her hands in a quiet fury. “That seems to be a common thread that wends its way through all of Underrealm in these days. It is why I grow frustrated that I cannot help.”
Loren put a hand on her shoulder. “Yet you yourself said that we must accept the things we cannot change, the things we are blameless for. We can vow to ourselves that we will do better in the future, but that does not mean we must stew in the darkness now.”
“How do you do that?” said Kerri. “How do you keep the sorrow away?”
Loren paused to think. She had wondered much the same thing, back in Northwood. She had sought comfort in Chet’s company, but that had been little help. Only leaving the town had begun to lift her mood, even though that had been a dark enough day on its own. It seemed to her that taking action had been the best thing she could have done. That, and …
“Look at him,” said Loren. She pointed at Gem. The boy was fiddling with a small knife from his boot. He flipped it back and forth across his fingers. It might have looked impressive that he did so without cutting himself, but Loren happened to know the blade was incredibly dull.
“Gem and Annis have been my solace through many dark times. Gem is always cheerfully arrogant—excessively so—and Annis always seeks to throw herself into whatever bit of work is before her, not to mention the fact that she has a brilliant mind. When I am unsure of what to do, or when I feel a dark mood coming over me, I only have to be around them, and they bring me out of it. And when they are frightened in turn, or mournful, I do my best to return the favor. Sometimes they want reassurance of safety or some plan of action. But most of the time it is enough simply to be with them, to tell a story and share a laugh. Alone, any one of us would likely have fallen into sorrow. But we all look after each other.”
“Friends,” said Kerri. “I had few enough of those, even before the city was in turmoil.”
Loren smiled at her. “Well, you have some now.”
Kerri returned her smile, and Loren had to look away to keep herself from blushing.
Chet soon returned, and they ate the bread and drank the water. Then they waited, huddled in their cloaks against the cold, while the street beyond their alley gradually cleared. Before the sun had long cleared the tops of the mountains, Loren poked her head out. There was hardly anyone about, and the few stragglers would soon be out of sight. She looked up at the wall. There were no guards patrolling, but only some standing guard in the towers. If they climbed the wall right beside a tower, they should be able to avoid detection.
She turned to the party. “It is time. Ready yourselves.”
They stood, shaking off the snow that had dusted them while they sat. Once the street was clear, Loren led them across it. She climbed first. The wall was as easy to scale as she had thought it would be, and soon she scrabbled over the top. She fell to her knees on the other side of the ramparts.
The courtyard beyond was empty. She could hear the soldiers above her moving about the tower, but their gazes were turned up and outward. Loren did not doubt that the army was on alert since her appearance a few days ago, but clearly no one expected her to infiltrate the palace directly, for the guard seemed to be lax.
Loren leaned back over the ramparts and motioned to the others. One by one they came up after her—all but Kerri. She would remain behind, for she would be of little help once they were in the palace.
Using Jo’s map, they had very carefully chosen the place to climb up. Here, a smaller wall joined the palace to the main outer wall, forming a barrier between the front and back halves of the courtyard. This little blockade was less than a pace wide, and not designed to be walked on, but if they were careful they could use it to reach the palace itself. Loren glanced up one last time to ensure the guards were looking outwards, not towards the palace, and then she led her party across it. She had to control her speed—it would not do to slip on the snow and fall into the courtyard. But they reached the palace without incident. Just above them was a balcony. Loren leaped up and seized the handrail, pulling herself atop it before helping the others make the climb. Once they were all up, Loren tried the door. It was unlocked.
“Wojin is arrogant,” said Shiun once they had slipped inside. “This was almost easy.”
“It is to be expected,” said Loren. “He only lets his most trusted guards watch the palace, and those are very few.”
“They could at least check the locks,” said Uzo.
“What if it is a trap?” said Chet. “What if Damaris guessed this is our aim?”
That gave Loren pause. It seemed unlikely that Damaris could anticipate such a plan as quickly as they had come up with it. Yet their entry did seem almost too easy.
She shook herself. “We will be cautious,” she said. “If we see the jaws of a trap closing around us, we run. But we will carry out our mission. Let us go.”
They had entered the palace very close to the apartments where they guessed Damaris would be. The hallway outside their room was empty, and Loren turned right, creeping down it. She feared that at any moment, she might recognize a location from her dreams. That could be disastrous, if the dreamsight struck her as it had when she met Duris. But nothing happened, and soon they had reached the last corner before the apartments. Loren peeked around it. There were two guards there, dark of skin and wearing green clothing. Yerrins.
Loren ducked back out of sight. “We have the right place,” she murmured. “I see two guards.”
“Easy enough,” said Shiun.
“Gem, go back to the last turn in the hall and keep watch. I do not think we can take them silently. If more soldiers come, we will need your warning.”
Gem looked up in shock. He had already begun to draw his sword. “I thought I was supposed to fight!” he whispered.
Loren gave him a hard look.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Very well.” Quickly he ran back the way they had come.
At Loren’s signal, they charged around the corner. She, Uzo, and Chet ran wide, hugging the left wall to give Shiun a clear shot. Her arrow sank into the thigh of one guard, who grunted as she went down.
Before the nearer guard could draw his sword, Uzo was there. The butt of his spear cracked the man in his forehead. Finally, Chet pounced on the second guard. He struck her senseless with his staff—but not before a defiant yell burst from her lips.
“Well, someone will have heard that,” said Uzo evenly.
“Then let us be quick,” said Shiun, running up behind them.
Loren opened the door and leaped inside, one of her knives held before her. For a heart-stopping moment, she feared to find herself in the room from her dreams. But it was not the same room, and Gregor was nowhere to be seen. For just a moment, relief washed through her.
Then she saw the figure in the chair. It faced the window, and the sunlight cast it in silhouette. But Loren could see that its hands were bound behind the chair. It did not move.
Loren straightened, her throat going dry. Behind her, Chet and the Mystics hesitated.
She knew what she would find when she turned the chair around. She had seen it in her dream already. Loren shook her head, forcing her thoughts back to the present.
“Uzo and Shiun … search for a chest. A lockbox. Search the cupboards if you must. Find the magestones.”
They went to do as she had bid. Slowly, Loren approached the chair. Chet went with her but remained a half-step behind.
“Loren?”
She waved him off. Step by step, she came around the chair, finding exactly what she knew she would.
It was Duris. She had been tortured to death. In the end, her throat had been cut, just as Loren had seen in her dream. But it was obvious that she had been dying for a long, long time before that. Bruises covered her face, and one of her severe-looking eyes was almost swollen shut. There were other wounds that looked far more painful, cuts all over her body that left blood running down her dress to soak into the carpet. Loren shuddered as she realized it must have been done overnight—they had met with the senator only yesterday.
“Nightblade,” said Shiun. She had approached while Loren was distracted. “The room is empty. There are no magestones here.”
Nothing but the corpse, thought Loren. Duris, dead, just as I saw in my dream. What else among my visions is fated to pass?
“Loren—” said Chet.
“Damaris outwitted us,” said Loren. “She learned somehow that Duris had met with us, and she plied her for information. That means …” She looked up, working it out. “That means she could have traced us back to our hiding place. Somehow.”
Uzo’s eyes widened. “This was not a trap for us. The guard here is light because the soldiers are out scouring the city to find us.”
“Or they have found the others already,” said Shiun.
Loren met Chet’s gaze and saw the same fright in his eyes that must be in her own. “She could not have learned from Duris about Yushan’s manor,” he said. “Duris did not know. We took precautions.”
“She knew about Duris before our meeting, and she followed us back from there,” said Loren. “It is the only possible explanation—it is the only reason Damaris and Gregor would not be here. We need to leave, now.”
Footsteps pounded in the hallway outside. Uzo turned, hefting his spear, and Shiun drew an arrow. But they put up their weapons as Gem appeared in the doorway.
“Guards are coming,” he said breathlessly.
“Time to go,” said Loren. “Out of the palace, and then back to Yushan’s home. We have to save the king.”
They ran down the hall, back the way they had come. Loren heard the cries and bootsteps of soldiers in all directions. Just before they reached the room by which they had entered, they came upon four palace guards.
Loren’s party launched themselves into the fray. She herself downed one guard with a punishing blow from the hilt of her dagger. The rest fell before they could recover from their surprise. Gem got his chance to fight, fending one off with desperate swings until Uzo could pierce the man with his spear. Loren winced as she saw the spearhead sink into the man’s chest.
