Page 76

CHAPTER

Seventy-Six

“T HE TRICK IS to keep moving,” Cain said to Neema, not for the first time. “An opportunity will present itself.”

Neema couldn’t see how. They had been running, and hiding, and fighting, for half the night. Now it was dawn. In the light, their luck would run out. It was inevitable.

They had to get off the island. But for that they needed a boat, and a quiet launching spot. They had neither. Long before sunrise, every quay had been packed with Hounds, and servants, and harried courtiers sitting on boxes of possessions, waiting to be ferried either to the mainland or on to a Leviathan. In the early hours, the new emperor had issued his first proclamation. The court was on the move to its new home. In the drama of leaving, the survivors would have less time to ask questions, or to see the bodies piling up in the Festival Square. To see their friends among the dead.

“We’re back where we started,” Neema muttered.

Almost true. They were close to the Raven palace again, on the common land that sloped gently down to the perimeter wall and the Guardian Gate. Sheltered in a shallow ditch, they could see that the ancient doors were flung wide open, the Mirror Bridge glittering beyond. They’d been searching for a discreet route off the island. This was very much not it.

“We could just go.” Cain sliced a hand towards the Gate. “Slash our way through.”

“… straight into the Hound garrison,” Neema finished, for him. “With nowhere left to run.”

They sat back against the ditch wall, stumped.

“Any ideas, Sol?”

Neema had coaxed Sol out of her chest a while ago. (“Don’t look,” she’d warned Cain. He’d looked, and regretted it.) She’d hoped he might act as their scout, but he was too bereft to form himself into his usual shape. There was something wrong with both wings, and one claw was mangled. When she held him, she could feel there were bones missing, or whatever metaphorical business it was that kept him in shape. Too feeble to return to the safety of her ribcage, he had spent most of the night hidden in her pack, a clotted, oozing, half-finished bundle of misery.

She opened the pack. Sol looked at her sadly. No ideas. He burrowed deeper into the pack. No flock. No home. So alone.

Ahead of them, at the Guardian Gate, the Hounds marched back and forth in the early light, swords glinting.

Neema brought out a cheese roll she’d taken from the Ox kitchen. Hours and hours ago. It was stale. She tore it in half and shared it with Cain. “Sinn Dunrelli’s First Rule of the Road,” she said.

“Eat when you can, sleep when you can, fuck when you can.”

“For tomorrow we die.” She chewed sadly on her roll. “So dry.”

“Like butter has gone out of fashion,” Cain lamented, with her.

“I love it when we agree on things.”

They smiled at each other. They were both a mess, bleeding and bruised. The ditch was damp with dew, soaking into their clothes.

“I think you’re right,” Neema said, lifting her chin towards the Gate. “Run and hope.”

“What about the garrison?”

“We’ll improvise.”

“Cain Ballari. Neema Kraa.” A voice called out across the common ground. Hol Vabras. He’d found them.

Neema and Cain peered over the ditch.

Vabras was standing at the edge of a small coppice, forty feet away. “You’re surrounded,” he called.

“By the dazzling glow of our genius?” Cain called back.

“By twenty-four Samran Hounds.”

Neema rummaged in her pack, looking for Sol. He was buried right at the bottom, half bird, half viscous puddle of despair.

“I think this is the end for us, Sol.”

You are leaving me too. Abandoned. Alone…

“Would you like to come out and fight with us? One last stand?”

Sol lifted his beak out of the black goo. Together? Fight together?

“Yes.”

As a flock?

“A flock of three. Yes.”

Sol blinked. The goo was soaking back into his body. I would like that very much, Neema.

She scooped him out of the pack and deposited him between her feet and Cain’s. A violent shake, some unstable flapping, and Sol had pulled himself together. He hopped to the top of the ditch and strutted back and forth, diamond-shaped tail fanning out behind him. Fearsome hooked beak, thick hackles. Purple-black feathers gleaming in the sun.

With a crack of his wings he lifted up into the sky and made a circuit, before returning to the top of the ditch. He confirmed what Vabras had said. Twenty-four Hounds. Twelve in the woods, twelve spread out behind. They are tired, like you. Their leader most of all. The one that shouted.

“Vabras.”

Yes. He is exhausted. He is hoping you will surrender; he does not want to fight.

“Well, that’s something,” Cain said, when she told him. “My turn with the pack, I think.”

He shouldered it, while Neema projected silently through their options. Their best hope would be to break the line of Hounds at their back and head through the devastation of the Fox palace. Back inland. They’d hidden out there earlier. The blackened bodies, the shredded limbs, the smell of burnt flesh. The clear-up team, with their carts. She looked at Cain from the corner of her eye. He was almost spent. Physically, emotionally. She couldn’t ask him to go back there.

“Surrender, and you will have a swift death. You have my word,” Vabras called. His voice was strained, and thin.

“He does sound tired,” Neema said.

“Busy night, murdering all my friends.” Cain dug his fingers into the earth.

Sol hopped on to his knee, and gave a tentative, soothing sound. Then he lifted back into the air. They are coming.

Cain and Neema looked at each other again. No need for a signal, or a discussion, beyond that look. Jumping out of the ditch, they sprinted towards the Guardian Gate.

Shouts behind them, as the Hounds at their back gave chase. More shouts to their left, as the second squad streamed out of the coppice. Neema hurtled down the slope. Up ahead, the captain at the Gate shouted an urgent command.

Neema! They are closing the Gate!

Sol flew straight into the captain’s face, raking at him with his claws. The rest of the guards came to their captain’s aid, as Sol slashed and pecked, keeping them occupied.

If we can make it through the Guardian Gate, Neema thought. If we can block it from the other side…

A Hound smashed into her, tumbling her to the ground. A blur of grass and dirt, sky and more dirt as she hurtled down the slope, head over heels, and scraped to a halt flat on her stomach. A couple of Hounds piled on top of her, pressing her face into the ground. She struggled but it was no use, she couldn’t shake them.

A heavy thunk. A shout of pain. Another thunk.

Arrows.

More pressure, and then less, as the Hounds were thrown off her.

“Get up, Neema. Go!”

Tala. She’d come from nowhere. Still in her cream halterneck, torn and bloody. She was holding her bow from the Tiger Trial, arrows slung over one shoulder. Knuckles bleeding from a dozen fights. “Run!”

Neema staggered to her feet and lurched on towards the Gate. She couldn’t see Cain, but sensed him behind her, fighting his own way through.

Neema!

A stifled cry from Sol, as the Hounds at the Gate caught him and threw him down, stamping on him with their heavy boots.

With a surge of fury she ran to his rescue, screaming at them to stop. How dare they? This land, once the home of Raven warriors. How dare they?

She took down three of them, with Tala. They could do this, they could fight their way through to the Mirror Bridge. Barricade the Gate.

“Cain!” she called, turning to look for him.

Vabras had him. Waiting patiently on the higher ground, holding a dagger to his throat.

“Neema, run!” Cain yelled.

Tala seized her, and tried to pull her through the Gate. Neema wrenched herself free. She gathered up Sol, his neck snapped, his wings broken, and pushed him into Tala’s arms.

Tala stared at the ruined bird in horror. “What the Eight…”

“He’s not dead. Take him with you. Please . ”

Tala hesitated, then ran through the Gate. Two Hounds chased after her.

Neema let the rest of the squad drag her back to their commander. Vabras kept his blade pressed tight against Cain’s throat.

“Why didn’t you run?” Cain said, anguished.

“Would you?”

“ Obviously .”

They laughed. You have to laugh, at the end.

“Life is a joke and death is the punchline,” Vabras said. “Hah, hah, hah.”

There was a bewildered pause. This was not the sort of thing Vabras said. And yet—he had said it. He pulled Cain closer into him and sniffed his hair, nose pressed deep into his scalp.

The Hounds shared startled looks. It had been a long night, they were all exhausted. But still.

Vabras licked a patch behind Cain’s ear.

“So this is weird,” Cain said, frozen to the spot. “Even for me.”

“High Commander?” the Hound captain said. “Are you well?”

“I am well, I am well,” Vabras sang, to the tune of…

Neema choked back a laugh. Oh. Oh. This was perfect.

Vabras grinned at her. “It is funny, isn’t it? I’m so pleased you are amused. You have been searching for a joke, Cain Ballari—a tribute for our lost friends. So many dead, so many of my little followers murdered. I can taste their blood in the air.” He hummed again. “I am the joke, I am the joke…”

“High Commander,” the captain said, more sharply. “I think you need to rest, sir.”

Vabras turned his gaze upon her. A cold, yellow gaze. “Thank you, captain. The High Commander rested some time ago. Closed his eyes and…” He lowered the blade from Cain’s neck, and pushed him to one side. “Here I am.”

The Fox smiled as its fangs slid through its gums. So much blood in the air, this fine summer morning. So much blood, and so much fear. And no Dragon to answer to.

The captain had a deep cut on her brow. The Fox licked its lips.

The next few minutes were unpleasant. Let us look away.