Promise of Blood

Chapter 35

Taniel’s chest heaved, his legs ached. A few short hours of rest just before dawn was all they’d taken in the last two days. Only his powder trance let him keep the pace, but he always found himself outdistancing his companions. Two of the Watchers had collapsed from exhaustion. They left them where they were and continued on. Those men would find their own way back down the mountain.

The going was easier than Taniel’s last ascent. Some snow had melted, the rest had been cleared by the Mountainwatch. There’d been some travel between the Mountainwatch and Novi’s Perch for resupply since winter. Campfires and old horse droppings remained from resupply caravans sent to the monastery.

Those didn’t concern Taniel. What concerned him was the more recent passage. They’d yet to catch sight of the Kez, but they’d found two camps. There was scat and tracks enough for at least a hundred men and pack animals to boot. That many men shouldn’t have been able to sneak past the Mountainwatch, yet somehow they had.

They found the third camp midday. It was tucked away off the main trail, down by a waterfall that was still half-frozen despite summer being almost upon them. Taniel checked the ashes of a cook fire. They were still warm.

He took stock of the camp. It brought back memories of camps not so unlike this in faraway Fatrasta when he and the natives tracked Kez patrols and lay ambushes for them. Only that hadn’t been in the high mountains, and those patrols weren’t filled with Privileged. And Wardens.

His chest went cold as he kicked something with his toe. He picked it up, flipped it around in his hand. It was a metal ball just about the size of a man’s fist. An air reservoir from a Warden’s air rifle.

“How far behind them?” Bo asked when the rest of the group had caught up to Taniel. Bo looked less well each day. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes underlined by black bags. Their punishing pace had done him ill.

“Hours,” Taniel said. He tossed Bo the air reservoir. “I should have expected this.”

“Where there are Kez Privileged, there are Wardens,” Bo said.

He dropped the metal sphere, only to have Ka-poel swoop in and pluck it from the ground. She examined it closely and tucked it into her rucksack.

“We’re gaining on them,” Taniel said.

“Close to the top, too,” Bo replied. “We’re not far from Novi’s Perch.”

“Everyone rested?” Taniel asked Fesnik. The young Watcher staggered to the waterfall to refill his canteen.

Fesnik groaned. “Pit, no. We supposed to be able to fight after a climb like this?”

“Fight and win,” Taniel said. He nudged Fesnik with his toe.

“Right, right,” Fesnik said. He climbed to his feet. “Come on,” he called to the others. “We’re moving again.”

Taniel watched them head back to the main trail. These were hard men, Mountainwatchers. Yet none had his advantage with the powder, and even he felt sapped from the climb. What good would they do against Julene and the other Privileged? How could they possibly win a fight?

Taniel fell in beside Ka-poel on the trail. She held a blank-faced wax figurine, pushing and shaping the wax with her fingers.

“What are you doing?” he asked her.

She tucked the doll under one arm. Expecting an explanation of hand signs, Taniel leaned closer. She punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow.”

She shooed him away with one hand and returned to her project. He fell back beside Bo.

Bo looked troubled.

“You seem cheery,” Taniel said. Bo’s expression didn’t change. The sarcasm seemed lost on him.

“We might be too late,” Bo said.

“We’re making better time than I expected.”

“We have to be there during the solstice.”

“Don’t worry,” Taniel said. “We will.” Taniel spotted smoke in the sky. He grabbed Bo’s shoulder and pointed.

“Is that the mountain?” Taniel said. He couldn’t remember being able to see the smoking crater from here on his last journey up.

Bo paled. “No,” he said. “Too close. That’s Novi’s Perch.”

Word spread and they redoubled their efforts. They reached the Perch within an hour.

The wall of the monastery that effectively ended this portion of the trail had been smashed in. It looked like a giant had stepped up to the side of the mountain and simply slapped it with the flat of his hand. Some of the old rock remained where it met the mountain. The rest had fallen away into the abyss and was invisible against the stone of the gulch far, far below. The monastery was exposed like the side of a dollhouse, hallways and stairs bare to the elements.

The ruins lay like a smoking animal carcass, splintered timbers jutting out from the rubble like broken ribs. In some places the rock itself had melted away. The invisible fist that had destroyed a great part of the monastery had also destroyed a chunk of the cliff, and the hallway that led from one end of the monastery to the other was now divided by a fissure twenty paces across.

“We can go back, and head down one of the halls,” Fesnik said. “There’s a warren inside the mountain – that’s where the rest of the monastery is. Shouldn’t take but a few minutes.” His voice was quiet, almost reverent. He gazed about with a look of sadness. Taniel realized that the Watchers must have known these monks.

They found the hallways just as Fesnik had said. Once they were inside the mountain, the smoke got worse. They could barely breathe as they made their way through the crisscross of hallways. Rina’s dogs whined despite her rebukes. Taniel paused by one wall, noting a splatter of blood. An odd chip had been made in the stone. He ran his fingers over it. From a bullet, for certain.

“There’s no bodies,” Taniel said quietly. He spoke mostly to himself, but was surprised to find Ka-poel very close to him. She examined the ruins clinically. Taniel said, “There have to be survivors. The smoke would drive them out. They must be on the other side.” He nodded to himself. “That’s it.” Taniel felt ill.

Ka-poel gave him a look that seemed to say she doubted this.

They came out of the hallway on the other side of the fissure. He could see where the monastery ended, and the broken stairways that led up to the opposite entrance. No one was to be seen.

“Please,” a voice said.

Taniel leapt into the air. He spun around, pistol out before he could process a thought. He lowered the pistol.

A monk shied away from him. It was a woman, much younger than he expected.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The sight of her made his hands shake. Her face was bruised, battered. Blood stained her robe. “Are there more survivors?”

The woman indicated one of the many hallways. Thirty paces in, as far out of the elements as they could manage, was a ragtag group. The smoke wasn’t too bad here. There were seven that Taniel could see still standing, and a large number of linen-wrapped bodies on the floor. His heart fell as he counted those bodies. He stopped at forty, and that couldn’t have been half.

Fesnik spoke to one of the monks, an old man, his gown torn and dirty, his eyebrows singed. Taniel approached.

“We gave them the best fight we could,” the old man said. He brandished his walking stick. “They came out of nowhere. We should have been better prepared. Had there not been so many…”

Taniel knew the monastery would still have been destroyed. What could a bunch of monks do against half of the Kez Cabal, and Julene on top of that? She stormed through, slaughtering as she went. What could Taniel and Bo hope to do against her?

The man went on, “That was two hours ago. The fight was fast, violent. I’ve never seen anything like it. Some of the younger ones can’t even believe it happened.” He gestured to a young monk who sat near the wall, arms wrapped around himself. He was in shock, eyes staring out at nothing. “Del hasn’t spoken since it happened. Still, we made a good accounting.”

Taniel could barely hold back his bewilderment. “A good accounting?”

The old monk’s face was serious but proud. “Well, yes. Half these bodies are theirs.”

Taniel looked around. He then saw what he hadn’t before – a stack of air rifles in the corner. He realized that many of the bodies were big, bigger than any man should be. Fifteen, twenty. Wardens. Then there, near a small fire one of the monks was using for warmth, he saw the frayed corner of a Privileged’s glove and a Kez uniform. Taniel felt awed. This small group of monks had not only stood their ground against the Kez Cabal, they’d given as good as they got.

There had to be sorcery at play here. Powerful stuff. Not anymore. He wondered if there were more monks farther in the monastery. No, probably not. This looked like it. A meager handful of survivors. Yet they managed to fight Wardens and Privileged.

“Why’d they leave you alive?” Taniel asked as gently as he could.

The old man tightened a bandage around his wrist. “Seemed in a hurry.”

“The solstice,” Bo said, appearing at Taniel’s shoulder.

The monk barely blinked, his face revealing nothing. “There are old magics,” he said quietly.

“They were led by a woman?” Taniel asked. “Regal, looks about thirty-five with a great scar on her face.”

“A woman?” the monk said. “No, a giant cave lion, slinging sorcery.”

“Her chosen form,” Bo said glumly.

“We’re going after them,” Taniel said. “Do you know how many were left?”

The old man gave Taniel an annoyed look. “I didn’t pause to count as we collected our dead.”

“Sorry,” Taniel muttered. There were a lot of bodies here. They may have wiped out a good chunk of the Kez. Mostly Wardens, it seemed. He gave Bo a glance. Bo was examining the wrapped bodies and moving among the survivors. His fingers twitched in his gloved hands. He’d love to know what kinds of sorceries these monks were hiding. Taniel guessed that not even the cabals knew all the old secrets.

Bo returned to the old monk. “This monastery. It was put here to guard against something.”

The monk’s face remained neutral.

“Against Kresimir’s return?”

“Nothing good will come of the god returning,” the old man said. “But there are worse things on this mountain.” He paused. “Yes, we are the gatekeepers of Kresim Kurga. The Predeii have returned. We were meant to stop them.” His proud countenance faltered. “We failed.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Bo said.

Taniel gave what he hoped was a confident nod.

They stepped away from the old monk and put their heads together.

“He knows a lot more than he’s letting on,” Bo said.

“We don’t have time to interrogate him.”

Bo rubbed his gloved hands together. “I’d make it quick. It might be valuable.” His eyes glowed with curiosity, and his face was more alive than Taniel had seen in weeks.

“No,” Taniel said. “Look around. He wants Julene dead. He would have told us anything he knew. God, they really do make you sell your soul to join the cabal, don’t they?”

“Expediency.”

“We have to go,” Taniel said. “The solstice?”

“Today.”

“How long will it take to get to the peak?”

“Longer than it is until the solstice.”

“We’ll have to beat it,” Taniel said. “Do we have a plan?”

Bo frowned. “There are plenty of Privileged among these dead,” he said. “Maybe enough to ruin her plans. She needs power to summon Kresimir. She needs to bridge great distances to bring him back.” Bo seemed to consider his options for a moment. “Take out as many Privileged as we can. Ignore Julene.”

“She’ll be hard to ignore when we’ve made her angry.”

Bo sighed. “We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”

Taniel returned to the old monk. The man was kneeling next to the other he’d called Del, and was speaking quietly into his ear. He looked up.

“You’ll need a guide in the city,” he said. “There are dangerous paths up there. Del knows the way best. I’m trying to coax him up…”

Bo pushed Taniel aside and knelt next to the man. He touched gloved fingers to the man’s forehead and held his other hand up. He touched the air gently – a pianist performing a song with one hand.

“Yes,” Del suddenly said. The word came out as a hiss. “I’ll go.” This was a croak. His eyes came awake, like a fire coming to life in a dark hearth.

“Are you all right?” Bo asked.

“Water.”

“Get him some water,” Taniel told the old monk. He was back in a moment, and they tended to Del before helping him to his feet.

“I’ll be all right,” Del said. “I’ll go. You… you say you can stop them?”

“We’ll try,” Bo said.

“We have to get to Kresim Kurga before the solstice.”

“Do you know where they’ll be?” Taniel asked.

Del frowned up at the sky. “There is a coliseum there, built by Kresimir. It helps focus sorcery. I think that is the most likely place.”

“Excellent,” Taniel said. He pulled Bo to one side. “What did you do to wake him up?”

“Nothing,” Bo said. “I was going to touch his mind, see if there was anything there, but he came awake before I did.”

“It’ll be good to have a guide.”

Bo agreed.

Taniel stepped away. A pair of Watchers pulled a body from farther in the smoke-filled hallway – an old woman. She had not a mark on her. She might have died in her bed, killed by the smoke, too deep in the mountain to hear the battle. The Watchers left her body with the monks and turned back to search for more.

“We need to go,” Taniel said. He kept his voice gentle, but loud enough for the others to hear. “Fesnik,” he said. “Gather the men.”

Fesnik had been helping wrap yet another body. He stood up, cast a weary look about him. He seemed to have realized what they were up against. This wasn’t an adventure. This was a chase to the death against opponents far more powerful than they.

Bo was arguing with the old monk when Taniel returned to them.

“You can’t bury them all,” Bo said.

“It’s our way,” the old monk replied. His face was, as always, neutral.

“Toss the Kez over the cliff. Tend to your own if you can’t leave them packed in ice for a few weeks. You need to get down the mountain and tell Gavril what happened.”

“We’ll send someone,” the old monk said.

Bo sneered at the old man. “And your own survival? The monastery is destroyed. The nights are cold enough to freeze anything left outdoors. This is no home for you now!” His voice began to rise, and his gestures were making Taniel nervous.

“Bo,” Taniel said.

“What?” Bo whirled on him.

“Time to go.”

Bo took a deep breath and collected himself. “Take care,” he said to the old monk. There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Stubborn bastard,” he muttered as he passed Taniel.

“Your friend is very tired,” the old monk said.

“He’s had a rough month.”

“He has very little left.”

Taniel scowled. These monks were a mystery. What kind of sorcery did they have at their call to have been able to fight Julene and the Kez Cabal? He didn’t see any Privileged’s gloves on any of them. He opened his third eye, fighting the nausea. He closed it again as quickly as he could and tried to blink away the blinding colors of the Else. The sorcery was too thick to make out anything.

“I know,” Taniel said. “Find some shelter.”

“Good luck,” the old monk said. He managed a smile, something for which Taniel found himself more grateful than he expected. “We gave them a good fight,” the old monk said. “They are weaker now. Make it count.”

If these old men and women could fight Julene, then so could he, Taniel decided. He took a deep breath and clenched his fist. It was time to take the fight after her.

Taniel clasped hands with the old monk and joined the waiting Watchers. They’d done what they could for the surviving monks. Some of the Watchers left their rations and spare blankets – though Taniel hoped the monks would be able to scrounge more from the ruins when the smoke died down.

Taniel did a head count and noticed Rina and her dogs were missing.

They found her at the end of the monastery squatting just outside the broken walls, examining the path up to the peak. She turned to face them as they approached. Her dogs whined and pulled at their harnesses. She silenced them with a hiss, but only for a moment.

“There’s something else on this mountain,” she said.

Taniel tried not to shiver. “What do you mean?”

“Cave lions.” She indicated the ground, pointing to tracks that Taniel could barely see. “We’ve hunted them before. The dogs know their scent.”

Taniel felt relief wash over him. There’d been something so sinister about her statement. He realized his hands were shaking. “Oh,” he said. “There’s lions on all the mountains. That could even be Julene – the monks said she used that form when she fell among them.”

“I don’t think that’s it.”

Taniel felt his heart beat a little faster. “Pole!” he called. “Get back here.”

The girl had gone on ahead, some thirty paces, and was squatting on the trail, picking at the ground. She ignored him.

“No?” Taniel asked Rina. “How can you know?”

Rina spread her hands and spoke in her ever-quiet voice. “Because there’s at least fifty.”

Taniel heard more than one of the Watchers swear. Bo sputtered, making warding signs in the air with his hands.

“What?” Taniel said. The word came out more forceful than he’d intended.

Rina said, “Farther up. Past Ka-poel, where the trail widens. They came down off the slope and fell in behind the Kez.”

Taniel glanced at Bo. “Can she summon them?” he asked. “I’ve heard stories about Privileged who can–”

He was interrupted by Rina’s laugh.

“What?”

“They’re not with the Kez,” she said. “They’re hunting them.” There was a note of hysteria to her quiet voice. “They’ll hunt us too when we go up there. Kresimir above, they’ll hunt us.” She pulled the dogs closer to her and stared at the tracks on the ground.

“Cave lions don’t hunt in packs,” one of the Watchers said.

They all seemed to turn to Bo at once. He looked back at them, his face tired and haggard. He felt the air tentatively with gloved hands like a doctor feeling for a broken bone under the skin, a warm thread of sorcery touching Taniel’s senses.

All he said was, “There’s something wrong on this mountain.”

Nila acquired a cart for the laundry. One of the many workmen attending the St. Adom’s Day Festival helped her build it out of an old washtub and the base of a four-wheeled vendor’s wagon. She couldn’t bring herself to ask one of the guards, though they’d likely do it without protest. Word had spread that she’d rejected Olem. The soldiers were still courteous, but not like they’d been.

For three days she used her new cart to collect the laundry, so that the guards would get used to the idea. It made sense – she had more work to do than usual, what with half the staff of the House of Nobles skipping out on their duties to attend Mihali’s feast. The lack of help left her alone in the basement to do the laundry more often than not, and she was able to amend her usual route to pass down the hallway to Jakob’s room.

Nila quickly realized that night would be the hardest time to sneak Jakob out of the building. With the halls deserted, it would be difficult to hide him. During the day, however, the number of people in the House of Nobles was almost overwhelming. The feast going on outside made it impossible to keep track of everyone who came and went, and once out of the building she’d be able to melt into the crowd.

On the morning of the final day of the festival she wheeled her clothing cart down the halls of the House of Nobles. She made her usual stops and collected enough clothes that she’d be able to conceal a child, before turning down the hallway to Jakob’s room. She passed men and women, soldiers and clerks, nodding and smiling to everyone.

The guard wasn’t at his station. Nila gave a sigh and whispered a prayer of gratitude to Kresimir. Only Jakob’s nurse would stand between getting the boy to freedom.

Nila checked to make sure her truncheon was still in her cart. She didn’t want to use it, but she would if the nurse gave her trouble.

She came to an abrupt stop. The door to Jakob’s room stood open. It was never open. She forced herself to continue on, wheeling her cart past the door, glancing inside as casually as she could.

The room was empty. No nurse. No Jakob. Had she made a mistake? Did they move Jakob to another room this morning, or even out of the country?

She checked the hallway for soldiers and went inside.

The bed was unmade. There were toys on the bedside table, and a child’s clothes hanging in the closet. It looked like he’d left only recently. Was he using the washroom? She needed to get out, in case he came back with a guard.

“Who the pit are you?” a male voice asked.

Nila spun around, her heart leaping into her throat. Two men stood in the doorway. The one who spoke looked like a dockworker, with a flat cap and a wool jacket with mended elbows over a grimy brown vest. The other was obviously a gentleman. He wore a black jacket over a velvet vest and white shirt, black pants, and black, polished shoes. He carried a cane and top hat.

“The laundress,” Nila said, swallowing hard. Who were these men? Why were they in Jakob’s room?

The dockworker frowned at her, then looked back at the clothing cart in the hallway. “Come back later,” he said.

“Can I help you with something?” Nila asked. She could tell by the dockworker’s accent that he was a local. Probably a member of the Noble Warriors of Labor. The gentleman remained silent, but something about his steady stare put Nila on edge.

“Just came back for the boy’s clothes and toys,” the dockworker said. “Won’t take but a minute.”

“I was just about to take them for laundering. I could get them cleaned and then send them after.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The gentleman finally spoke. His voice was quiet, steady. He sounded educated. “Go on,” he told the dockworker.

The dockworker pushed past Nila, politely but firmly, and began emptying the closet and the dresser drawers onto the bed. He tossed a wooden train and a pair of tin soldiers on the pile and gathered it all up in one of the sheets, tying it in a knot at the top.

“I’m sure he has a travel bag…” Nila began.

“That won’t be necessary,” the gentleman said again. “You may take care of the rest of the bedding.” He left the room.

The dockworker swung the whole bundle over his shoulder and carried it out into the hallway. Nila followed him, watching him head down the hallway behind the gentleman. When neither turned to look back at her, she began pushing her cart after him.

She followed them at a distance down the main hallway, then down a side corridor before they turned into a room at the end of the hall: one of the many offices in the building. Nila left her cart and slowly approached the door. She peeked around the corner.

A hand grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. She was jerked into the room and slammed hard against the wall. Someone gripped her by the chin, and she found herself staring into the compassionless eyes of the gentleman.

“What does the boy mean to you?” he asked. His voice was still calm, collected, despite the bruising grip he had on Nila.

Nila mumbled in surprise, not certain as to what to say. Who was this man? Why would he treat her like this? How could he know Jakob meant anything to her?

“What,” the gentleman said, jerking her face from one side to the other with emphasis on each word, “does the boy mean to you?”

“Nothing. I’m just the laundress.”

“I have a Knack for knowing when I’m being lied to,” he said. “You have five seconds to tell me. Then I will strangle you.”

Nila felt his fingers close around her throat. She stared back into his eyes. She’d seen more life in the eyes of dead men. She counted down in her head. His grip tightened.

“I was…” she started, feeling her throat constrict. He let up slightly. “I was his family’s laundress before the purge. I’ve known him since birth. I wanted to help him escape from Tamas.”

The fingers dropped from her throat. “Fortunate,” the gentleman said. “We had problems with his nurse. You will take her place and come with us.”

“I don’t…”

He grabbed her by the back of the neck, half dragging her across the room as one might an unruly child. He opened a closet and forced her to look down.

Nila remembered the nurse who’d been watching Jakob when Olem had taken her to see him. She was an older woman, heavyset. She lay at the bottom of the closet unnaturally, her eyes staring up at nothing. Nila tried to back away. The gentleman’s grip on her neck prevented her from doing so.

“This,” the gentleman said, “happened because she had qualms. If you decide to have qualms… if you ever disobey me… I will not hesitate to kill you with my bare hands. My name is Lord Vetas, and I am your master now. Follow me.”

He closed the closet door and led her out into the hall. The dockworker appeared with the sack of Jakob’s clothing over his shoulder. Vetas gestured to Nila. “She will be the boy’s new nurse. Take her. I have business to attend to elsewhere.”

Vetas left at a brisk pace. Nila couldn’t help but watch him go. Her heart hammered in her chest, her legs sagging beneath her. She’d never felt fear like this. Not before Olem had saved her from rape, not when she’d almost drowned as a child in the Adsea. That man was pure malice.

The dockworker shrugged and took Nila by one arm. He led her down the hallway and out a side door, toward a carriage waiting in the street. Even on the back side of the House of Nobles there was a crowd. Nila looked up at the dockworker. His grip was not painfully tight. She could kick him and get away, disappearing into the throng.

They drew closer to the carriage. Some dread in the pit of her stomach told her that if she set foot in that carriage, she would never escape Lord Vetas. She watched for an opportunity, her body tensed, her skirt gathered in one hand so that she could run.

“Miss Nila?” Jakob appeared in the door of the carriage. His hair was mussed, his jacket askew, but he seemed unhurt. “Miss Nila! I didn’t know you were here!”

Nila let her skirt fall from her hand. She took Jakob’s hand and stepped into the carriage. “Don’t worry,” Nila said. “I’ve come to take care of you.”