The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall (12 page)

Soek peeked out the window. “Doesn’t look like it.”

I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved or bothered that a young girl screaming in the middle of the night was ignored.

“Sorry she hit you, Quenji,” I said.

“She didn’t mean it. And look”—he stuck his nose in the air, turning it to each side—“the bleeding’s already stopped.”

Tali rolled over and pulled herself up, her knees shaking. She crawled into the chair and curled back into the same ball she’d been in before. I wanted so much to hug her and let her know it would be okay.

“Do you think it was the bells?” Aylin said. “Or just that she woke up scared?”

“I don’t know.” My guts said it was fear. I’d woken up in a panic before, almost every night the first month after the soldiers had thrown us out of our home. I had to find a way to get her back, make her Tali again.

For once I was actually looking forward to seeing Onderaan.

We left the town house shortly after the clock tower struck one. Tali jumped when the chimes started, but didn’t attack anyone. I kept the rope around her waist, left her hands free. The street was quiet as a grave, but I still felt watched. Even in the shadows it felt out in the open.

No one said a word while we sneaked along the buildings and climbed over low walls. Aylin carried the bag with the enchanter’s book, pynvium, and jewels close to her chest, keeping it as silent as we were. We stopped near the bridge behind some gardenia bushes, their white flowers sickly sweet.

I scanned the street ahead. I counted four soldiers, all sitting. They’d built a barricade, crates piled high, tied together with rope. More crates were stacked across the street at the foot of the bridge. They wouldn’t be easy to get over.

“So what do you think?” I whispered. “Distract them or talk to them?”

If they didn’t want to talk, Danello had his rapier. Quenji no doubt had at least one knife on him. Aylin and Soek had thick table legs from the town house. The soldiers had swords. Probably no pynvium weapons.

“Won’t hurt to try and talk, right?” Aylin said. “But just in case, you’d better take this.” She handed me one of the ruler-shaped pynvium strips out of its metal box. Soek had checked them earlier and discovered they did indeed hold pain.

My skin started itching as soon as I touched it. “Right. Never hurts to be prepared.”

“I’ll go first,” Danello said, giving Aylin a quick grin. “Just in case.”

He slid out quietly and slipped around the bushes. Quenji and Soek went next, then Aylin. I followed her, Tali right behind me. We crossed the open distance, fifty feet, seventy-five.

One soldier turned, glanced away, then snapped back to us. He cried out and his partner turned our way as well. They both stepped forward, swords out. Hard to tell in the moonlight, but both looked fair-haired.

“Hold it right there!”

“We’re Gevegian,” Danello said, hands out to his sides. “We need to speak to whoever is in charge of the rebellion. The Duke’s army is on the way.”

“Don’t care who you are, and on this isle,
we’re
in charge.”

“But the Duke is coming!”

“So?” The man tipped his head at the bundle in Aylin’s arms. “What you got there, girlie?”

She gripped it closer. “Nothing of yours.”

“It’s
all
ours here.”

Saints, they were looters. They weren’t fighting for freedom—they were trying to steal what they could while everything was a mess.

“We don’t want trouble—we just want to pass,” Danello said, hand on his rapier. Quenji pulled out his knife and Soek hefted the table leg.

I pressed my fingers against the pynvium strip and angled closer. I had no clue what the trigger might be, but it was usually just a flick of the wrist. My guts said it would be a strong flash, just like all Zertanik’s weapons, but the other two men were still back a ways and could be out of range.

“Give us the bag and you can pass.”

“No.” Danello drew his rapier.

“Better know how to use that shiny sword then.” He charged forward. I flicked my wrist.

Whoomp!

The two men in front screamed and went down. Other men hollered, shouting orders, swearing, yelling at each other. More stepped out from the barricades they’d been hiding behind, swords drawn. A
lot
more.

“They got pynvium!”

Tali’s rope yanked out of my hand. She shoved me aside and dived for one of the swords lying on the street. Grabbed it in one hand as she somersaulted back to her feet.

“Tali!”

She sidestepped Danello, spinning right and sinking the blade into the stomach of one of the looters. Kept moving, graceful as a dancer, the sword flying from man to man. Danello gaped at her, then stumbled back, parrying an attack.

What was she
doing
?

Aylin swung the table leg at a looter’s head. It cracked against his skull and he went down. More men appeared from the shadows. There had to be a dozen, maybe more now.

“Two on your left,” I called, trying to watch Tali and the looters at the same time. She moved through them fearlessly.

A looter thrust his sword at me. I threw myself right, but not fast enough and the tip cut through my side. I grimaced, rolling the moment I hit the ground. He came at me again. I held my ground and my breath, then darted for his wrist as he struck. Skin met skin and I
pushed
the wound into him.

He tumbled forward, hand pressed against his side. “Shifter! It’s the Shifter!”

I cringed and scrambled back to my feet. I had to get Tali, get them all, and get out of there.

“Across the bridge, hurry!” Danello shouted.

Aylin smacked a soldier with her club and ran for the crates blocking the bridge, the bag tucked under her arm. A looter lunged at her. Quenji jumped between them, taking the blade in his shoulder. He gasped and stumbled sideways.

“Get away from him!” Aylin flailed with the table leg, nearly smacking Quenji with it as she hit the looter.

I darted between shocked-looking soldiers, protecting Soek’s back and heading for Quenji. A looter got past Danello and came at me, his sword slicing my thigh. Sharp pain pinched my leg, but he jumped back out of reach before I could touch him. Danello swung his rapier around and stabbed him.

Tali was still a blur of blades and anger. Quenji backed away, protecting Aylin as they moved across the bridge. A looter charged out of the darkness and kicked Danello behind the knee. He collapsed onto the bridge, and the man kicked him again, catching him across the temple.

“Danello!”

Two other men lunged at me, grabbing my arms and pinning me to the railing. I struggled, writhing against the warm stone, trying to break free.

“Let me go!”

Soek raced over and smacked one in the head with his club. The grip loosened, and my arm wrenched free. Quenji appeared, running right at me. He leaped at the man holding my other arm, and they both toppled over the side of the bridge and into the canal, dragging me over the rail with them.

“Quenji!” Aylin screamed.

I clung to the railing, my feet dangling. Two splashes below—the looter and Quenji. Then a third splash, and a raspy growl that chilled me.

Crocodile.

Q
uenji screamed, thrashing wildly. I caught a glimpse of flailing arms before the water churned and his scream was cut off. The croc spun, twisting Quenji round and round, then sharp snaps that I prayed were hyacinths, but they sounded far too much like bones breaking.

Please, Saint Saea, help him.

My fingers clung to the stone railing, but my arm muscles were already shaking. I couldn’t hold on much longer. Part of me wanted to drop, grab the croc, and see if shifting worked on animals.

Another raspy growl, more splashing. The same croc, or had another arrived to finish off the looter?

Oh, Quenji.

“Hang on!” Soek grabbed my wrists. Aylin seized my shirt. They both pulled, dragging me over the railing and back onto the bridge.

Shouts and screams all around me. Terror from below, fear from above. The looter in the water clawed at the lakewall as if trying to climb it.

I glanced at where Quenji had vanished, the water’s surface dark again.

Was there blood? Anything that said Quenji was down there?

“We can’t just leave him,” Aylin said, and I realized we were moving. Soek had us each by a hand, pulling us across the bridge. Danello was on his feet, blood running down his face. He had Tali’s rope in his hand and was leading her away from the fighting.

“He’s gone. We have to go,” Soek said.

Aylin slapped at his arm. I stopped. Her arms were empty. Her bag was gone.

“The book! Where’s the enchanter’s book?” I couldn’t lose it. I let go of Soek’s hand.

“Nya, we don’t have time, come on!” Soek looked ready to throw us both over his shoulder and run, but Quenji had died helping me get that book so I could find a way to save Tali. He
wasn’t
going to die for nothing.

I spotted the bag. Some of the looters were on their side of the bridge, hauling their friend out of the canal. The others were racing toward me. I snatched the bag and ran back to Soek and Aylin, the looters right behind me.

“No, please,” Aylin cried as we ran. “What if he’s still alive?”

Danello reached the other side of the bridge first. Dark shapes moved from behind another set of stacked crates, but they didn’t come forward. Maybe they were on our side, or maybe they’d seen the fight and didn’t want to take us on.

“The boat,” I gasped. “Get back to the boat.”

Torchlight flared ahead. Shouts from behind.

Danello cut down a side street heading deeper into the isle. We plunged into shadows again, the close buildings masking most of the moon’s light. A putrid smell hit me, rotting food, or maybe dead animals.

Aylin tripped and the smell got worse. She squealed, shaking her foot.

“Ah! Get it off, get it off!”

“Shh, what is—” Danello stopped. I followed his gaze.

A body. Dead several days from the bloat.

“Keep moving,” I said, trying hard not to look for more. Had it been a soldier or some poor person trying to get home?

Orange torchlight flickered on the side of one of the buildings.

“Are they still after us?”

“I’m not staying to find out.”

No boarded-up buildings on this street, just broken windows and shattered doors. Trash and wood littered the ground, slowing our steps. More dark shapes slumped on stairs and on porches; some smelled, others didn’t. We didn’t linger to see what—or who—they might have been.

Danello took streets haphazardly, cutting back and forth, putting as many turns between us and the looters as possible. The clock tower struck two, its sorrowful bell like a howl over the dark city.

“In here.” Danello slipped through an open door. I couldn’t make out much in the room, but it looked like some kind of shop. Counters, shelves—all bare now. We huddled behind a counter, panting. Tali stared at the bloodied blade in her hand, turning it over and over.

“Tali, give me that, okay?” I held my hand out, ready to yank it away if she came at me.

She stared at me, then back to the sword, and tossed it on the ground.

I exhaled and slowly pulled it out of reach.

No footsteps raced by outside, but faint shouts floated in on the breeze. Not close, but not far enough away to risk leaving yet.

Aylin sobbed, pressing her hands over her face. Her whole body shook.

“It’s going to be okay,” Soek said gently.

Her hands fell. “No it’s not,” she snapped. “Quenji’s
dead
. He got
eaten
—how is that ever going to be okay?”

“It’s not. I’m sorry.” He looked away.

No one spoke. I had no idea what to say or even what to feel. Quenji was dead. He’d come here to help us and now he was dead.

“How, uh, close do you think the boat is?” Danello asked, not looking at anyone.

“Eight or nine blocks?” With no light and everything in and around me in shambles, it was hard to get my bearings. “Where are we now? See any signs or anything?”

“Not from here.” He got up and crept to the door. “I’ll see if I can figure out where we are.”

Aylin continued to sob. I held her, stroked her hair. A dozen things to say rushed into my mind, but nothing I said was going to make her feel any better.

I watched Tali while Aylin cried. Hard as that was, it was easier than thinking about Quenji. She leaned against the wall, wiping her bloody hands on the floor. Nothing about her right now suggested she could have done what she just had.

She’d fought like Danello, maybe even better. Moved as gracefully as Aylin. She was so small, the looters probably didn’t even see her darting between them until it was too late.

What
had
the Duke done to my sister? She’d killed men, and it sure as spit didn’t seem like she’d given it any thought. She’d just gone wild, as if triggered, same as any other pynvium weapon.

“Why did he have to die?” Aylin said. “It’s not fair!” She buried her head in my shoulder.

“People die easy,” Tali said.

She spoke! Her words chilled me, but she’d spoken.

“Tali? Do you know where you are?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, just stared at the blood still on her hands. “Too easy,” she whispered.

I shivered, my skin hot and cold at the same time. It was just too much. Quenji gone, Tali killing, the Duke coming to destroy everything I cared about. I never should have come home. We should have stayed with Jeatar and gone with the others.

But then you’d never have found Tali.

I glanced over at her. Heard her words again.

People die easy.
Had I found her? Or had I found only what was left of her?

Light footsteps outside, then Danello slipped back into the shop. “I think it’s clear.”

“Where are we?”

“I’m not sure, but I can see the lakewall from here, so we can’t be far from the water.”

“He thought this was so exciting,” Aylin said to no one in particular. “An adventure he could talk about for years. He never thought he could get hurt.” She looked at me. “Did any of us? I know we talked about the danger, but did we
really
think we could
die
?”