Nightblade: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 1) (27 page)

“Let us sit here, where both sun and wind may kiss us.” Damaris waved her hand at a pair of couches that curled almost around each other, with a small gap between either end and a sort of oval in the middle, holding a low table. The merchant led the way, draping herself lengthwise along the couch and placing her jug and wine cup upon the table. Loren followed, though she sat upright—
The better to run, if necessary
. She took another deep swallow of wine and thought that perhaps she should keep her head from growing muddled and pushed the wine cup away.

“I find myself more curious with each revelation,” said Damaris, returning to their conversation. “Why the sudden change of heart? You seemed eager enough to steal my child away. What, now, prompts her return?”

“You may choose to believe this or not, but Annis conceived our flight herself. She knew of my danger, yes, but seemed most eager to escape from you.”

“Your danger?” said Damaris, spreading her hands in confusion. “What danger was that?”

“That you intended to relinquish me to the constables. I know you see me as a foolish girl, but I have never been so silly as to miss your intent.”

The merchant’s eyes widened. She leaned forward with sudden intensity. Quietly she said, “Oh, dear child. Is that what all this mess has been about? You cannot think I meant to
leave
you in the hands of the King’s law.”

Loren blinked. “If not, then what did you intend by offering me up to them?”

“You would have landed in their cell, certainly,” said Damaris. “But once you told them all you knew of the wizard Xain—and that is precious little, I wager—I would have ensured your release. Long is the arm of the King’s law, they say, and yet the family Yerrin may reach farther.”

Loren kept her face calm at the mention of Xain. Could she believe even a word of what the merchant said? She did not know. But her course was clear, and Loren could not hesitate, despite her inner thoughts.
 

“Such words come easily now, when you might never see your daughter again if the constables take me. But their truth lies neither here nor there. Do you know of the weremage Auntie?”

“No, though her name fairly terrifies.”

Loren allowed herself a small smile. “A jest of a name, yet the woman who holds it is fearsome and fell. It is she who has taken Annis and, even now, keeps her trapped beneath the city’s streets. My dagger, too, she took.”

“What is your thought, then? That we should break into this weremage’s stronghold to rescue your blade and my daughter?”

Loren shook her head. They must not proceed there without Auntie. If Loren stood alone when they entered the hidey hole and found Annis absent, all Damaris’s attention and wrath would descend on her own head.
 

“The door to the room is locked and guarded,” said Loren. “Your men may overcome the guards, but still the door will defeat us. Auntie holds the key. We must capture her.”

Damaris leaned back, nodding. “And you know the way to do so but lack the means. Hence, my Gregor and his men. At last I understand.”

“Just so,” said Loren, nodding again.

Damaris let her eyes fall to her wine cup and ran her finger along its rim before taking another long, slow sip. Loren forgot her earlier decision, reached for her own wine, and drained it to the dregs.
 

“You know, I do respect you,” said Damaris, her voice kind and gentle. “You have such spirit. That wide-eyed innocence with which you face the world fills me with longing. And yet as any loving parent, or mayhap a godsparent, I must tell you how foolish you are.”

Loren found it hard to swallow. “Never let it be said that I turned down sage wisdom.”

“You should never have acted against me. You reached broad conclusions about my mind without ever thinking to ask. This mess could have been avoided—over and done with already. And you should have never returned once you left. An ounce of sense would see you running from Cabrus until your horses fell dead upon the road, then run until your feet were smearing blood into the dirt. Then, mayhap, crawled until your hands and knees were showing their bones.”

Loren gulped. “Circumstances did not permit.”

Damaris shook her head. “Oh, I know you thought it best at the time. But your failing is great. You have returned to me and placed yourself utterly within my mercy. I could kill you at any moment.”

“You will never find Annis without me.”

Damaris shook her head. “Nothing could keep me from finding my daughter. I will tear up every stone and street in this city to find her, and whether you live or lie a corpse will not change that outcome one whit.”

Loren tensed, and then leapt from the couch.
 

Gregor moved faster, crossing the distance and intercepting Loren before she reached the door. His hand caught her wrist, and he twisted. She fell to the ground with a cry.

Damaris stood above her. Gregor loomed.
 

The merchant stared down, looking at Loren with a curious mix of fondness and detachment.

“I will not kill you, child.”

Loren fought through the pain in her wrist. “Then why this attack? Call him off.”

“It is important that you know your situation and station. Despite all that you seem to think, I still hold a certain . . . affection for you. But remember this moment. And all I have said. Our paths align now. But if you stand in my way . . . well, not needlessly do we take lives.”

Gregor released her. Loren slowly rose, cradling her wrist.

“Now, what do you propose?” said Damaris.

“There is a house . . . ” Loren swallowed. “An old, abandoned pigpen in the heart of the city. That is where Auntie hides herself. Tomorrow at dawn, constables will attack the place to find me, and Auntie will make her escape. That is where you will take her, and we will both gain what we want.”

Damaris slowly nodded. “Very well. Prepare yourself for the morning, and we will see you upon the morrow.”

Damaris returned to her couch. Gregor remained unmoving, eyes burning as he glowered down at Loren. She turned and made for the door, hoping she had not made a terrible mistake.

thirty-two

The next morning found Loren hiding in a back alley behind Auntie’s hideout. Grey slowly filled the dark sky, the sun still mostly buried by the horizon. All was quiet. Gem had already swept the rooftops; they were free from any of Auntie’s children. Whatever suspicion the weremage held, she clearly did not expect a frontal attack.

The black cloak draped Loren’s shoulders. Her fingers kept groping for the dagger at her waist, and she had to remind herself time and again that she would not find it there. Gem shifted from one foot to the other, rubbing his arms to stay warm beside her. Gregor was there, an odd companion, along with a few of his men. Many more filled the alleys and side streets in all directions. The rickety wooden fence sat before them, rimming the pigpen out back.

Damaris waited in the alley as well, standing far back behind her men, wrapped tightly in a cloak of sable. Puffs of mist erupted from everyone present, lending the air a constant, smoky feel.

“Where are they?” growled Gregor. “Dawn nears.”

“Be still,” said Loren. “See there.”

A man approached the hideout with a torch. Beneath his brown cloak Loren saw the telltale sign of red leather armor. A constable, sent around back to catch any runaways. Little did he or his master Bern know how many children would flee upon their attack.

“Remember,” Gregor said, turning to his guards. “Slay no guardsman. Any man who brings the King’s justice upon us will be served like a warm meal.” His men made no reply, tightening their grips on sword hilts instead.

“They will attack soon,” Loren said. “If they are already setting a boundary—”

The air split with a sharp cry from one street over. There came a great crash of splintering wood, as though the home’s front door exploded open with a crashing blow.

Gregor did not wait, but charged from the alley’s mouth. The constable could only gape before the captain’s pommel crashed into his temple, laying him flat in the street. Two of Gregor’s men seized the guardsman by his limbs and flung him into a dark corner.

Children spilled out like a rolling tide. Tens of them, and then dozens, pouring through holes in the fence and into the streets. Their hunger-wide eyes grew larger at the sight of Gregor and his men rimming the yard. But the men ignored them, and the children melted into the vanishing darkness.

Fighting erupted in the streets. Loren saw two of Auntie’s boys brawling with a constable and recognized the man as Bern. Though outnumbered, the constable’s skill with a blade far outmatched his opponents. With a sudden swipe, he sliced one’s cudgel in half, and the boy fell back. Bern took the opportunity to lunge at the other, thrusting two feet of steel into his gut. The boy collapsed, writhing and moaning on the ground as life spilled from his gut. The other boy fled, and Bern ran for the front of the house.

Loren thought she might be sick. She ducked farther into the alley, trying to shrink into nothing. She forced her eyes upon the wooden fence as children kept pouring through it.

A plank burst outward, and through the hole came a boy. Then another, followed by a shapely woman in a fine green cloak. “There!” Loren cried.

Auntie turned at the sound as Gregor pounced with his men. Her boys both quailed before the fighting men, but to her relief the guards did not kill them. One fell before a crushing blow to his face; the other traded two parries with a sword before dropping his cudgel to run. Like a striking snake, Gregor seized Auntie’s cloak as she tried to flee.

The weremage spun around, already changed. Her face had grown paler than Loren’s, her hair in long crimson curls. Blue eyes flashed as she feigned terror, falling to her knees and wailing for mercy. Confused, Gregor’s hand loosened on her cloak. Like a flash, Auntie fell back, out of reach, and fled the street.

Loren gave a strangled cry of frustration and chased her, ignoring Gem’s frightened cry. “I told you she was a weremage, you fool!” She did not wait for Gregor’s reply but followed the whipping green cloak as it rounded a corner.
 

Loren followed but found the next street empty. Footsteps echoed down a side alley, but it proved vacant as well, and only a shadow passing on a far wall told her which way Auntie had gone. Teeth grit, Loren ran.

Only after entering the narrow space between two buildings, far from Gregor’s men and torchlight on the streets, did Loren realize she had separated from the rest. Steel flashed in the night and she fell back, ducking one swipe and crying out as she felt a blade bite into her shoulder.

“Vile little witch!” Auntie snarled. “I will gut you and keep your heart with my treasures!” Her voice had grown to something frantic and mad, a shriek entirely unlike the seductive tones of their first meeting.
 

Her blades came forward again, and Loren backed away. Out of desperation, she pulled the hunting knife from her boot, its twisted tip pathetic against Auntie’s strange weapons.

“I sought not to harm you,” said Loren, brandishing the knife. “I only wanted your help!”

Auntie’s knives fell to her sides, waiting like a serpent to strike. Loren saw her own blood upon one of the blades. “Why should I help you, sniveling child that you are? Any child of mine, fresh from the arms of his mother, knows more of the world than you. You are worthless to me! A grasping, mewling pup.”
 

Auntie sidestepped, trying to circle and block Loren’s path to escape. Loren took several hasty steps backward. She must not let herself be trapped. With luck, Gregor would find them.
 

What an odd circumstance, to hope for succor from that brute.

“You stole what was mine.”

“Yours,” spat Auntie. “The would-be thief has such grand notions of property.
Yours
is only what you can take!”
 

Auntie lunged, her blades passing a hair’s breadth from the bridge of Loren’s nose. She nearly fell trying to avoid them. “Now my children are lost in the night, without their mother, and so many of my boys lie dead in the street. Their blood is on your hands.”

If Loren could only keep her talking . . .
 

“You mean to say your hands are clean? What do you do with the girls, Auntie? The girls you raise and profess your love for, naming yourself as their mother? What happens when they come of age?”

Auntie smiled. Her face shifted for a moment, bones sliding around beneath it, as if her soul stirred with fury.
 

“Boys are useful to me. I can control them and make them love their mother. A girl is a pretty thing to have around, a beggar to tug on the heartstrings of any merchant. But a woman, who would force herself upon my sons? They are useless to me. And worse, a danger. Come closer, and I will show you what I do with them.”

Loren had nearly reached the alley’s mouth and could see torchlight dancing at her vision’s edge. Mayhap she could hope for a constable to see the fight and end it.
 

As though she had had the same thought, Auntie attacked again. But as Loren tried to dodge, the weremage released her hold on one knife, and the blade sped through the air toward Loren’s head. Sheer luck saved her, for at last she tumbled backward, wincing at the cut in her shoulder. Auntie’s blade tangled in her cloak, and the hilt came crashing into her forehead.