Night Angel Complete Trilogy Part 35

He pulled Blat up, his dark hair plastered to his forehead down to his single brow, and Blat saved his air for breathing for a long moment. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm Duke Regnus Gyre, and you're going to tell me everything you know about my people's death."

The man cursed him again.

"Turn him a little," Regnus said. They did, and he drove his fist into the man's solar plexus, driving the wind from his lungs. Thaddeus Blat only had time to suck in half a breath before he went under.

Regnus held him below the water until bubbles burst on the surface, then he dragged Thaddeus up, but only for a moment. Then he pushed him back down again. He repeated the process four times. When he pulled Blat up the fifth time, he released his head. back down again. He repeated the process four times. When he pulled Blat up the fifth time, he released his head.

"I'm running out of time, Thaddeus Blat, and I've got nothing to lose by killing you. I've already killed my wife and all my servants, remember? So if I have to put your face under that water one more time, I'm going to hold it there until you're dead."

Real fear was painted across the lieutenant's face in dripping watercolors. "They don't tell me anything-no, wait! I swear it. I don't get my new orders until tonight. But this one goes all the way to the top. To the top of the Kin, you know?"

"The Sa'kage?"

"Yeah."

"Not good enough. Sorry."

They plunged his head back under the water and he thrashed like a demon, but on his knees, with his hands tied, there was nothing he could do. "You set a limit, and then you break it," Regnus said. "Most people can hold out if they've been given a limit. They tell themselves, 'I can hold out that long.' Let him up."

The man spluttered as he came up, spitting out inhaled water and wheezing. "You think of anything else?" Regnus asked, but he didn't give Thaddeus time to respond.

He dunked the man again. "Sir," one of the soldiers said, looking a little queasy. "If you don't mind my asking, how do you know all this?"

Regnus grinned. "I got captured by the Lae'knaught during a border raid when I was young. But we don't have the time to use everything I learned from them. Up."

"Wait!" Thaddeus Blat cried out. "I overheard them saying that Hu Gibbet's next deader was the queen. Her and her daughters. That's all I know. G.o.ds, that's all I know. He's going to kill them tonight in the queen's chambers after the banquet. Please don't kill me. I swear that's all I know."

They had promised Kaldrosa Wyn a man-o'-war and put her on a sea cow instead. The Sethi pirate hadn't been able to say no to the money. d.a.m.n the mother who whelped me, why didn't I say no? d.a.m.n the mother who whelped me, why didn't I say no? Looking over the port side, she barked an order and men scurried to adjust the sails to catch another cupful of wind. Looking over the port side, she barked an order and men scurried to adjust the sails to catch another cupful of wind. Sails? Bedsheets, more like. Sails? Bedsheets, more like. The sails were too small. The s.h.i.+p and its sister were too fat and ungainly to outrun a rowboat piloted by a one-handed monkey. In short, the Cenarian wars.h.i.+ps would be on them in minutes, and there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing Kaldrosa Wyn could do about it. The sails were too small. The s.h.i.+p and its sister were too fat and ungainly to outrun a rowboat piloted by a one-handed monkey. In short, the Cenarian wars.h.i.+ps would be on them in minutes, and there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing Kaldrosa Wyn could do about it.

"If you're going to do something, now might be a good time," she told the circle of wytches sitting on the barge's deck.

"Wench," the leader of the wytches said, "no one tells a meister his work. Understood?" The man's eyes didn't rise from her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s until the last word.

"Then to h.e.l.l with ya," Kaldrosa said. She spat over the side, not betraying the queasiness that rose in her at the touch of that wytch's eyes. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had been staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s for the entire trip. Normally around foreigners, she'd have covered herself, but she liked making the Khalidorans uncomfortable. Wytches were another matter.

Kaldrosa reefed the sails and had the men below decks start rowing, but even that was hopeless. Khalidoran craftsmans.h.i.+p. They'd even designed the oars poorly. They were too short. Even with the hundreds of men she was carrying, she couldn't translate their strength into speed because not enough men could man the oars at once, nor was there room below for full sweep. She cursed her greed and the wytches-quietly.

In minutes, the three Cenarian wars.h.i.+ps were on them. It was a shame. In all the ocean, Cenaria couldn't have had more than a dozen s.h.i.+ps in her navy, and Kaldrosa had found the three best s.h.i.+ps of it. In her Sparrowhawk Sparrowhawk or any Sethi s.h.i.+p with a Sethi crew, she'd be safe. or any Sethi s.h.i.+p with a Sethi crew, she'd be safe.

The wytches finally stood as the first Cenarian s.h.i.+p drew within a hundred paces. They were going to ram her sea cow at an angle and sheer off the oars. Eighty paces. Seventy. Fifty. Thirty.

The wytches had their hands twined. They were chanting and it seemed darker on deck than it had been a moment before, but nothing was happening. The sailors and soldiers on the Cenarian s.h.i.+p were shouting to each other and at her, getting ready for the collision and the battle to follow.

"d.a.m.n you," she yelled, "do something!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something immense pa.s.s by, under the s.h.i.+p. She turned to brace for the impact, but instead only got a face full of water. There was a tremendous crack, and when her vision cleared, she saw pieces of the Cenarian s.h.i.+p flying through the air. But not many pieces. Not enough to account for an entire s.h.i.+p.

Then she saw the rest of the s.h.i.+p through the shallow blue waters. Somehow, it had been sucked down in an instant. The flying pieces were merely what had broken off the decks and the sails as the water broke over the s.h.i.+p.

The sea went black, as if a thick cloud had pa.s.sed in front of the sun, but it undulated. It took Kaldrosa a moment to realize that something enormous was pa.s.sing beneath her s.h.i.+p. Something absolutely immense. She saw the wytches chanting, more than their hands intertwined now. It seemed as if the black tattoos that all of them wore had torn free of their hands and were holding each other, pulsing with power. The wytches were sweating as if under tremendous strain. seemed as if the black tattoos that all of them wore had torn free of their hands and were holding each other, pulsing with power. The wytches were sweating as if under tremendous strain.

Water swelled as if an immense arrow were pa.s.sing just under the surface of the sea-and then stopped as it reached the second Cenarian wars.h.i.+p. The men on its deck, fifty paces away, were shouting, shooting arrows into the water, brandis.h.i.+ng swords, the captain trying to turn the s.h.i.+p.

For five seconds nothing happened, then two gray ma.s.sive somethings slapped against the Cenarian s.h.i.+p's deck. They were too big for Kaldrosa to even guess what they could be for a moment-each one covered nearly a quarter of the s.h.i.+p's hull. Then the s.h.i.+p bounced ten paces out of the sea, straight up, and Kaldrosa saw that they were fingers of a ma.s.sive gray hand. Then the hand went down and the entire s.h.i.+p disappeared under the waves, bursting apart as the water closed over it, throwing splinters in a wave.

Then the black shape was moving again. It was too big to be real. And this time, the men on the last Cenarian s.h.i.+p were screaming. Kaldrosa heard orders being shouted, but there was too much chaos. The s.h.i.+p drifted, even though it had closed the distance with her sea cow while the other s.h.i.+ps had been being destroyed, and was now almost touching it.

The sea swelled again, but this time there was no pause. The leviathan swam beneath the Cenarian s.h.i.+p at incredible speed, rising high enough in the water that spines from its back rose thirty feet in the air.

The spines cut the s.h.i.+p in half and two flicks of a gray tail smashed each half into the ocean. The Khalidoran soldiers who'd crowded the deck-Kaldrosa hadn't even noticed them emerging-cheered.

She was about to begin ordering them back to their places when the cheering suddenly stopped. The soldiers were pointing. She followed their gaze and saw that swell rising again, this time pointed straight for them. The wytches were sweating freely, open panic on their faces.

"No!" a young wytch shouted. "That won't work. Like this. this."

Something rippled out from the wytches toward the leviathan. It met the oncoming beast, and nothing happened. The soldiers cried out in horror.

Then the huge shape turned and went out to sea.

The soldiers cheered and the wytches collapsed on the deck. But something wasn't finished. Kaldrosa saw that immediately. Even as she ordered the oars pulled and the sails raised once more, she kept an eye on the wytches.

The leader was speaking to the young man who-if Kaldrosa guessed correctly-had taken control and saved all of their lives. The young man shook his head, staring at the deck.

"Obedience unto death," she heard him say.

The leader spoke again, too low for Kaldrosa to make out, and the other eleven wytches gathered around the two men. They laid their hands on the young man who'd saved them all, and Kaldrosa saw his tattoos rise from below his skin. They swelled and swelled until his arms were black, and then they burst-not outward, away from the wytch's body, but in, as if they were veins that had been overfilled and now leaked through the rest of his body. The ruptured tattoos bled beneath the young man's skin and he collapsed to the deck, twitching violently. In moments, his entire body was black. He thrashed and choked, and in moments he was dead.

Everyone else on the s.h.i.+p was studiously ignoring the wytches. Kaldrosa found herself the only one watching the exchange. The leader of the wytches said a word, and the other wytches tossed the corpse overboard. Then he turned and watched her with too-blue eyes.

Never again, Kaldrosa swore to herself. Kaldrosa swore to herself. Never again. Never again.

"Do you know the secret of effective blackmail, Durzo?" Roth asked. He was seated at a fine oak table incongruously placed in a typical Warrens hovel. Durzo stood before him like a chastened courtier standing before the king. Roth's chair was even raised. The presumption.

"Yes," Durzo said. He wasn't in any mood for games.

"Refresh me," Roth said, looking up from the reports he'd been reading. He was not amused.

Durzo cursed himself and cursed fate. He'd done everything to avert this, paid every price of misery, and yet it had come. "Use your hold to get a better hold."

"You've made that difficult for me, Durzo. You've convinced everyone that you don't give a d.a.m.n about anything."

"Thank you." Durzo didn't smile. It wasn't in him to play the abased servant.

"The problem is, I'm more clever than you are."

"Cleverer."

Roth's close-set eyes narrowed at Blint's blithe monotone. Roth was a lean young man with an angular face obscured by an oiled black goatee and long hair. He disliked making words for their own sake. He disliked people. He stuck out an open hand. Waited.

Durzo tossed him the bit of pretty silver gla.s.s.

Roth looked at it briefly and threw it back, unamused. "Don't toy with me, a.s.sa.s.sin. I know there was a real one there. We have two spies who saw someone bond it."

"Then they should have told you someone got there first."

"Really?"

Roth was mimicking Momma K's tendency to state questions. He probably thought it made him seem authoritative. Roth was out of his league if he thought mimicking Momma K would be enough to hold power. Part of Durzo wanted to tell Roth that Momma K was the s.h.i.+nga. Roth obviously didn't know, and Momma K had betrayed Durzo, but Durzo had no taste for using rats to do a man's work. If he killed Gwinvere, he'd do it with his own hands. If? I'm going soft. When. She betrayed me. She must die. If? I'm going soft. When. She betrayed me. She must die.

"Really," Durzo answered, with no intonation.

"Then I think it's time for you to meet another of my cards. cards." There was no signal that Durzo could see, but an old man stepped into the hovel instantly. The creature was short and bent still further by more years than a mortal frame should endure. He had piercing blue eyes and a fringe of silver hair combed over a bald dome of head.

The man gave a toothless grin. "I am Vurdmeister Neph Dada, counselor and seer to His Majesty."

Not just any wytch. A Vurdmeister. Durzo Blint felt old. "How exalted. I thought you called your dog kings His Holiness," Durzo said.

"His Majesty," Neph Dada said, "Roth Ursuul, ninth aetheling of the G.o.dking." He bowed to Roth.

By the Night Angels. He wasn't kidding.

Neph Dada grabbed Durzo's chin with a frail hand and pulled it down toward himself until Durzo looked into his eyes. "He knows who took the Globe of Edges," Neph said.

There was no denying it. Not with a Vurdmeister here. Vurdmeisters were supposed to be able to read minds. It wasn't true, but it was close enough. Most of them couldn't do it, Durzo knew. Even those who could didn't actually read minds. The way Durzo had heard it explained, longer ago than he liked to remember, was that they could see hints of images that their subject had seen. The best Vurdmeisters could intuit a lot of truth from a few images, though. It was almost the same thing at this point. How can I take advantage of the differences between what I've seen and what I know? How can I take advantage of the differences between what I've seen and what I know?

"It was my apprentice," Durzo said.

Roth Ursuul-by the Night Angels, Ursuul?-raised an eyebrow.

"He doesn't know what it is," Durzo said. "I don't know who sent him. He never does jobs without telling me."

"Perhaps you should not be so sure of this?" Neph said.

"I'll get the ka'kari for you. I just need some time."

"Ka'kari?" Roth asked.

Roth had never used the word. It was a stupid mistake. Totally uncharacteristic. Durzo was falling apart.

"The Globe of Edges," Durzo said.

"I've given you a chance to be honest with me, Durzo. So what I'm going to do is your own fault." Roth motioned to one of the guards at the entrance to the hovel. "The girl."

Several moments later, a little girl was carried in. She was drugged, whether chemically or magically, and the guard had some trouble carrying her limp body. She was maybe eleven years old, skinny and dirty, but not the skinny and dirty of a street rat-healthy skinny, healthy dirty. Her black hair was long and curly, and her face had the same angelic-demonic cast that her mother's had had. She would be even prettier than Vonda, some day. She took her height from Durzo, but thank the G.o.ds, everything else from her mother. Uly was a d.a.m.n fine-looking kid. It was the first time Durzo had seen his daughter.

It made him ache somewhere that was already sore.

"You've already chosen not to cooperate enthusiastically, Durzo," Roth said. "So usually, I'd make an example of you. We both know I can't do that. I need you too much, at least for the next few days. So maybe I should, say, cut off her hand as a warning, and let the little girl know that it's because you won't stop it. That you are choosing to hurt her. Perhaps something like that would help gain your cooperation?"

Durzo was frozen, just looking at his daughter. His daughter! How had he put her in the hands of this man? His daughter! How had he put her in the hands of this man? She had been the king's leverage, and Roth had taken her right out from under the man's nose. She had been the king's leverage, and Roth had taken her right out from under the man's nose.

"How about this?" Roth said. "We'll cut off a hand or you cut off a finger."

There was a way out. Even now, there was a way. One of his knives was poisoned. He'd put the asp poison it. For Kylar. It would be painless, especially for such a small person. She'd be dead in seconds. Maybe Roth would be surprised enough that Durzo could get away. Maybe.

He could kill his daughter and probably be killed himself, and Kylar would live. Or this Roth Ursuul would demand he kill Kylar and get the ka'kari. That would have been easy enough to fake, if Roth didn't have a Vurdmeister.

Could he kill his own daughter? He'd be letting them kill Kylar if he didn't.

"She didn't do anything," Durzo said.

"Spare me," Roth said. "You've got too much blood on your hands to cry about the suffering of innocents."

"Hurting her isn't necessary."

Roth smiled. "You know, from anyone else, I'd laugh. Do you remember what happened the last time you called an Ursuul's bluff?" Durzo couldn't keep his expression blank; grief flashed through him. "Who'd have thought," Roth said. "My father takes the mother and I take the daughter. Have you learned your lesson, Durzo Blint? I think you have. My father will be pleased that I'm closing the circle. He tried to blackmail you for a false ka'kari and failed. I'll blackmail you for a true ka'kari and succeed." Neph's eyes flashed when Roth said that. It was clear he didn't appreciate the prince's presumption, but Durzo was still reeling. He couldn't see any way to take advantage of that tiny split between the men.

"Here's how blackmail is going to work for you, Durzo Blint: if I think you're resisting me, your daughter will die. And there are other, shall we say indignities, indignities, that she will suffer first. Let your imagination work on what those might be-I know I'll let mine. She'll be a husk by the time we're finished. I will spend months eking out every drop of suffering from her mind and body before we kill her, and I enjoy such work. I am one of Khali's most dedicated disciples. Do you understand me, Blint? Am I being clear?" that she will suffer first. Let your imagination work on what those might be-I know I'll let mine. She'll be a husk by the time we're finished. I will spend months eking out every drop of suffering from her mind and body before we kill her, and I enjoy such work. I am one of Khali's most dedicated disciples. Do you understand me, Blint? Am I being clear?"

"Perfectly." His jaw was tense. He couldn't kill her. By the Night Angels. He just couldn't do it. He'd think of something. He always had before. There was some way out of this. He would find it, and he would kill both of these men.

Roth smiled. "Now tell me everything about this apprentice of yours. And I mean everything."

49

Kylar stepped out of the shadows of the Blue Boar's office and grabbed Jarl around the throat with his arm, putting a hand over his mouth.

"Mmm mmmph!" Jarl protested against Kylar's hand.

"Quiet, it's me," Kylar whispered in his ear. Wary of Jarl shouting, he released his friend slowly.

Jarl rubbed his throat. "d.a.m.n, Kylar. Take it easy. How did you get in here?"

"I need your help."

"I'll say. I was just going to come looking for you."

"What?"