Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) (24 page)

Nakvin heard something fall to the sand. “Keep still,” she sang softly. At last she turned and saw her assailant—a man of middling height; his face veiled by strips of rag but for his wide quavering eyes. He moved nothing but those eyes as she drew close and sank her fangs into his neck. A moment later, he collapsed with a muffled groan.

Scanning the area, Nakvin saw to her relief that her escape had gone unnoticed. She quickly bent down and dragged her fallen assailant into a cleft in the rock. Watching the camp from her hiding place revealed much about the raiders. Though their night vision was better than normal humans’, it obviously wasn’t as good as hers since more than one of them passed within spitting distance without noticing her. But their practiced motions and unnatural stealth more than made up for their visual deficiency.
They’ve done this before,
she thought.

Not only did the raiders know their business; their victims had made it easy for them. Pirates and sailors had split into two loose camps, and both of those had splintered into several loose clusters—most beyond sight of each other. The rest of Nakvin’s group were already being marched single-file into the night.
I can’t free them all,
she thought as a raider goaded Deim toward the end of the line.
But I can at least save one more.

“I told you,” said Teg. “They wouldn’t abandon us. Well, Jaren wouldn’t.”

Vaun’s black eyeholes met Teg’s gaze. “Not by choice, perhaps,” he said.

Damn, that mask makes him hard to argue with!

Teg and Vaun had returned at first light to find both camps deserted. Teg tried sending to his crewmates, but his ear stud was of little use without the
Exodus
to boost its range.

A heat haze danced on the sunless horizon, and a hot wind carried the smell of burned corpses. “We’d better split up,” said Teg. “You take the navy camp. I’ll poke around here.”

Not long after parting with Vaun, Teg found Nakvin and Deim sleeping in the shelter of a hanging rock. Irritable after a grueling slog through the hills with his taciturn companion, Teg picked up a scorpion and dangled it in front of Deim's nose. The tiny arachnid wriggled and flailed, pinching the sleeping steersman's left nostril.

Deim woke with a start, reflexively batting the diminutive creature away. His dark eyes widened when he saw the mercenary's face.

“I'll take it personal if the others left without me,” said Teg.

Deim rubbed his eyes, and Nakvin stirred beside him. “You're lucky I lost my knife,” the younger steersman grumbled.

Teg turned to Nakvin, who sat up with a yawn. Her black hair and robes looked remarkably unruffled considering that she’d slept on a rock. “Rough night?” he asked.

The lady Steersman’s smile seemed genuine. “If you call nearly being kidnapped
rough
,” she said, “then yes.”

“Is that what happened to everyone else?” Teg asked.

“They took half of us,” Nakvin said. “The rest spent the night in hiding.”

“Who are
they
?”

“Locals,” said Deim, “dead men.”

“Did you get a good look at them?”

“I killed two,” Nakvin said, indicating her victims’ resting place with a wave of her hand. “You’re welcome to check the bodies.”

“They wrap themselves like Nesshin.” Deim’s hands circled around his head, pantomiming the desert traders’ traditional swaddling.

“Interesting,” said Teg. “So half our people were kidnapped by dead peddlers?”

“These weren't just vagabonds,” Nakvin said. “They knew what they were doing.”

“You didn't try to follow them?”

“Running off into the night wouldn't have done any good. I’m the only one who can see in the dark, and my Workings would've given me away.”

“What about your glamers?” Teg asked.

Nakvin extended her arms in a gesture of helplessness. “There were over thirty of them. I can't charm that many at once.”

“What if they attacked you? Wouldn’t the dog eat them?”

Nakvin rolled her silver eyes. “If he could come, he would have the second I felt a knife at my throat. The hound is from the Vestibule. I think the same force that's blocking me keeps him out. Now let’s drop the interrogation and focus on rescuing Jaren and the others.”

“They took
Jaren
?”

Deim nodded. “Stochman, too.”

The air cooled as Vaun ducked under the hanging rock. “What news?” he asked.

“Some locals made off with half the camp,” said Teg.

Nakvin turned to Vaun. “Do you know anything about them?”

“You left none for questioning?” Vaun asked.

“Nakvin bit one and stabbed the other,” said Deim. “They both died.”

“If these men are like our own dead,” said Vaun, “that your venom slew them implies a hunter-prey relationship. Their accursed state is proof against mundane wounds.”

Nakvin glared at Vaun, but Teg spoke first. “I could say the same for you.”

“A mere conjecture,” said Vaun. “Unproven till I test the corpses.”

Teg pointed to the pile of rocks that marked the raiders’ graves. “Help yourself,” he said.

“This is business; not pleasure,” Nakvin called out as Vaun left to attend his task.

Deim stood and faced Teg. “How was your scouting trip?” he asked.

“I’ll say this for Vaun: nothing slows him down. He climbed right up the nearest peak.”

“Did he see anything helpful?” asked Nakvin.

Teg nodded. “There’s a small settlement in the hills across the desert. I bet that’s where the peddlers’ tracks lead.”

“Then we follow them,” Nakvin said as she rose.

Jaren's captors set a breakneck pace through the black desert night. His lungs burned as he struggled to keep up with the dead men before and behind him to whom he wash lashed.

Jaren cursed the distractions that had robbed him of sleep in recent days. First he'd helped Nakvin through her identity crisis, which had obliged him to question Vaun. There’d been the messy business with Crofter and Teg, and shortly thereafter he'd had a demon infestation on his hands. But Stochman had been the most persistent obstacle, and Jaren reveled to see the commander sharing his captivity.

I should’ve killed him on sight,
Jaren thought.
Or let the demons do it for me.
He vowed never to let sentiment compromise his command again—if he lived to hold another command.

Fatigue drove Jaren to the ragged edge of consciousness. He was near collapse when one of his captors took interest in his heaving breath. “This one's alive!” he informed his fellows. “A good many of them are.”

“Give them a rest,” said one whose word apparently carried some weight. He may have been the leader, but the raiders’ similar garb and rag-bound faces made them hard to tell apart.

“What then?” asked another. “Our business is with the damned. No one said nothing about the living.”

“The dead we treat as usual,” the leader said. “The rest go to the prefect.”

Hearing the archaic title made Jaren suspect that he'd been captured by a baal’s minions. But the more he considered the context, the less likely it seemed that these men served a demon lord. All of his captors were human, despite being dead. Besides, the Circles' fiendish rulers used the title
lord
, while
prefect
spoke of a governor or magistrate.

After far too little rest, Jaren resumed his midnight march across the hellish sands, knowing only that he didn’t know what to expect.

“There's some kind of fort in the hills up ahead,” Teg said when he returned to the roadside gully where the rest of the search party was hiding. “Probably the one Vaun saw from the ridge.”

“How is their strength arrayed?” asked Vaun.

“There’s a stone perimeter with guards on watch.”

“What
kind
of guards?” asked Nakvin.

“Human,” said Teg, “but they’re operating with military discipline. Judging by the number on the wall, we’re up against a force of three or four hundred.”

“Were they dead?” asked Deim.

“Couldn’t tell,” said Teg. “Go ask them.”

“If force will not avail us, perhaps we can treat with the landholder,” said Vaun.

“I tried talking with Gibeah’s man,” Nakvin said. “You saw how that worked out.”

“The fort’s outer wall was built to repel a large force,” said Teg, “but alone, I’d stand a good chance of…”

Teg fell silent at the approaching sound of absentminded singing.

Teg motioned the others to silence and cautiously peered over the embankment. The singer proved to be a small girl carrying a cloth bundle in her arms.

“That's what I call luck,” Teg whispered to his comrades.

Nakvin winced. “That's what I call off-key.”

“She might know something about the town.”

“I doubt she’s privy to their defense plans,” said Nakvin.

“We won’t know till we ask her,” said Teg. “At worst, she’ll make a good hostage.”

“You’d just scare her off,” said Deim. “I’ll go.”

Teg watched while the young steersman climbed up to the road and stood before the homely slip of a child. She froze when she saw Deim, giving Teg a better look at the bundle, which turned out to hold wildflowers picked from the heather-carpeted hills. Her chestnut hair was tied back with a plain strip of linen that matched her colorless frock.

“Hello,” said Deim.

The girl started so violently that she nearly dropped her flowers.

Deim slowly approached her with an outstretched hand. “Sorry,” he said. “I'm Deim Cursorunda. What's your name?”

The girl drew a small knife from her bundle and slashed at Deim’s face before Teg could shout a warning. Deim barely managed to grab her slender wrist. She continued driving the blade toward his right eye, forcing him to use both hands.

Teg’s zephyr cracked, and the girl folded to the dirt. He kept his gun trained on the small figure lying sprawled in the road as he approached, crushing spilled flowers under his boots.

Deim was panting; his face flushed. “Did you have to shoot her?”

“Chances are she was already dead.”

“What if she wasn't?”

Teg shrugged. Sensing a slight movement from the girl, he fired a shot into the dirt beside her head. “Play time’s done,” he said. “This might not kill you, but I bet it hurts like hell.”

The girl sat up and scowled at Teg. “You don’t know pain yet, but you soon will.”

“My friend asked your name,” said Teg, aiming the gun at her head.

“Ydahl,” she snapped before adding, “Sulaiman won't like you hurting me. Your heads will see first light from roadside pikes.”

“Sounds like a man after my own heart,” said Teg. “You can introduce us.”

Seated on a silk divan in a low, pillared room spiced with incense, Jaren waged a staring match against the most intense opponent he’d met in twelve decades of life. Jaren’s adversary sat on a wooden throne. The light of a thousand candles danced in his sapphire eyes. They weren't just eyes, Jaren knew. They were scales that weighed his sins.

The raiders had separated the living from the dead when they’d marched into town at dawn. The former were sequestered in the fort stockade. Jaren had languished there until he was brought before the prefect’s throne for judgment.