Authors: Kelly McCullough
Broken Blade (10 page)
Test your bindings.
None of the men was currently looking my way, which suggested one of two things. Either they were stupid, or they were very confident about the efficacy of my . . . what
was
I hanging from? It didn’t feel like any of the sorts of manacles I’d learned to slip as a child. There were too many fastening points for one thing . . . ankles, knees, chest, throat, elbows, wrists. All snug.
was
I hanging from? It didn’t feel like any of the sorts of manacles I’d learned to slip as a child. There were too many fastening points for one thing . . . ankles, knees, chest, throat, elbows, wrists. All snug.
Very carefully and very slowly, I turned my head to the right. The taste of blue came back, but I ignored it. Looking along my bare arm I could see that there was a heavy leather strap buckled just above my elbow and another at my wrist. The buckles were brass. It was hard to tell given my angle of view and scrambled senses, but they all seemed to be mounted to some sort of magically active wooden framework. I strained weakly at my bonds, but they didn’t move, and the effort brought back the nausea, so I stopped and went back to trying to make sense of the framework that held me. Its shape seemed far too complex for its purpose.
“It’s a sheuth glyph, Blade,” said a rough voice.
I glanced up to find that one of the dice players had turned to look my way. The one with minor bits of magic hanging about him.
“I don’t think I know that one,” I replied.
“No surprise there.” He got up to come closer, approaching me from one side. “It’s not anything your kind is supposed to know about. Came straight from Tangara, God of Glyphs, it did.” He chuckled then, and it was an evil sound. “He made it special like for the destruction of that bitch Namara’s temple.”
How could Devin bear to employ such a man? I took a moment then to really fix him in my memory. I wanted to be absolutely sure I would know him anywhere. If I didn’t kill him on my way out of here, I was going to make a point of looking him up later.
Middling tall and middling dark, with narrow shoulders and a bit of a paunch, he would have blended into any Tienese crowd without raising an eyebrow. He
was
better dressed than his fellows, wearing bloused pants of rough silk and an embroidered leather vest, where the others wore cotton and badly tanned hide. He also had a slender spit-adder wrapped two or three times around his neck.
was
better dressed than his fellows, wearing bloused pants of rough silk and an embroidered leather vest, where the others wore cotton and badly tanned hide. He also had a slender spit-adder wrapped two or three times around his neck.
It raised its head and hissed at me when they got within a few feet. Its attitude mirrored that of its mage, for that was clearly what the man was, though of a minor enough sort that I didn’t recognize the school. Seeing the familiar made me realize that Triss hadn’t tried to signal me in any way yet. Though I could feel him lying against my back, he didn’t seem to be as present as normal, and that worried me. A lot.
“Sheuth, huh? What’s it do?” I asked.
The man smiled, showing uneven teeth. “Can’t you guess?” Before I could answer, he went on, “It’s got another name; the pillory of light. Working along with the stone there”—the snake’s head rose to point at the brilliant magelight hanging in front of my face—“the sheuths’s a binder of shadows. The light makes your pet monster act like a
real
shadow, substanceless and inanimate, and that rack you’re on trusses it up even tighter than it does you.”
real
shadow, substanceless and inanimate, and that rack you’re on trusses it up even tighter than it does you.”
I didn’t panic though I felt the first edges of real fear. Quickly I moved my hands through a half dozen of the signals I used with Triss when we couldn’t speak aloud. But the device was custom-designed by a god to hold Blades and Shades, and Triss made no response, not even the slightest change of pressure across my back.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I wanted to bust loose, to kill the bastards who’d messed with my familiar. I couldn’t even move my arms though I strained against the straps until the muscles in my chest and shoulders felt raw and shredded. The mage just watched me, smiling all the while, and there was nothing I could do to him. Nothing at all. That was what finally made me stop fighting like an animal and start thinking like a Blade again. And that began with making an honest assessment of my situation, both in terms of my options and how I got there.
If they didn’t kill me outright, there might come a moment when I had a chance to act. If I was exhausted, I’d fuck up, and that would be it. I would die, and Triss would die with me, and there’d be nobody to blame but the miserable drunk that had inherited the Kingslayer’s skin. But I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I didn’t much care about me. If I’d had the choice, I would have followed my goddess into the grave when the temple fell. But I didn’t have the choice because Triss’s life was tied to mine, and I loved him far more than I hated myself. Now, if Triss was going to live, I had to live. That meant I had to get smart, maybe even become the Kingslayer again, if only for a little while—I didn’t think I could bear the weight for much longer than that. I took a deep breath and looked my captor in the eye.
“Does it hurt him? Your glyph, I mean.”
“Does it hurt the Shade?” He laughed. He. Laughed.
Dead man.
“I sure hope so,” he said.
Again I wondered how Devin could have let himself get involved with this sort of human filth. Or with the baroness for that matter. What had happened to him in the years since the fall of the temple? I couldn’t imagine the Devin I’d grown up with doing any of this.
As I was calculating what I ought to say or do next, the dice game finished up, and two of the other men came over to join the conference. A big rawboned fellow with a deep scar on his forehead and a shorter one who reminded me of a weasel. The fourth man remained by the door.
“Be damned careful you don’t block that light,” said the mage.
“Don’t worry, Lok,” said “Scar.”
“There’s really no need to be careful on my account,” I said. “The regular light’s more than adequate for anything but reading, and I left my book back at my inn.”
Never let them see you sweat.
The lessons were still all there. Now, if I could only get back to the place where I lived them without having to think them, I might be able to really call myself a Blade again.
The lessons were still all there. Now, if I could only get back to the place where I lived them without having to think them, I might be able to really call myself a Blade again.
The snake hissed again, and the mage said, “I’m going to enjoy hurting you. Lads, whenever you’re ready.”
The pair moved to stand close to the wall on either side of me. By tilting my head, I could see one or the other but not both at the same time. I was looking at the one on my left, Scar, when Weasel hit me from the right, striking me just under the front edge of my rib cage on bare skin—they’d stripped me naked. He used a freshly peeled willow branch about as thick around as a dagger’s hilt, simultaneously heavy and whippy. Damn! It hurt as bad as any punch or kick would have but wasn’t nearly so likely to do lasting damage.
I turned and tried to spit at him, only to catch a shot across my cheekbone from the other side—Scar using a much thinner branch to do the fine work.
Fuck!
It didn’t split my cheek, quite. Weasel hit me again, about midway down my thigh. Things got ugly after that as the pair worked me over for a bit. They were very good. They never hit hard enough to break anything, and they kept their blows far enough apart so that I felt each one sharply without any merciful blurring. But the sticks didn’t hurt me half as much as my fears for Triss.
Fuck!
It didn’t split my cheek, quite. Weasel hit me again, about midway down my thigh. Things got ugly after that as the pair worked me over for a bit. They were very good. They never hit hard enough to break anything, and they kept their blows far enough apart so that I felt each one sharply without any merciful blurring. But the sticks didn’t hurt me half as much as my fears for Triss.
Control the pain, don’t let it control you.
I forced myself to step outside the pain as I had been taught, to assess what they were doing to me on a tactical level instead of experiencing it viscerally. On the personal level, it was a very professional beating. But what was the point? I couldn’t make the bigger picture make any sense at all.
They couldn’t be after information. They hadn’t asked any questions before they started in with the sticks, and beating was a shitty way to get real information anyway. Most people would tell you whatever they thought you wanted to hear just to make it stop. More importantly, I didn’t
know
anything. I hadn’t done one thing that really mattered since the temple fell. Devin knew all the same secrets that I did from the days before the goddess died, and even if he didn’t, Namara was gone into the grave. None of it mattered anymore.
know
anything. I hadn’t done one thing that really mattered since the temple fell. Devin knew all the same secrets that I did from the days before the goddess died, and even if he didn’t, Namara was gone into the grave. None of it mattered anymore.
It didn’t make sense as a recruiting tactic, either. If I’d had the least inclination to sign on with Devin and the other traitors to Namara’s memory, this would have put a knife in the heart of that plan. Devin knew me well enough to understand that. It was just as bad an idea for sending a message to the other remaining rogue Blades. Jax, Siri, Loris, none of them liked being pushed any more than I did.
The only thing I could think of was that Lok and his boys were freelancing, beating me in a way that wouldn’t leave a lot of marks for the sheer joy of kicking the shit out of a Blade. In which case, Devin was an incompetent bastard. Once again I found myself wishing I hadn’t hesitated back at the Marchon estate. If I’d killed Devin as soon as I saw him dishonoring his Namara-given swords, none of this would have happened. But that would have killed Zass as well, and even in the middle of a beating, I knew I didn’t want any Shade’s death on my conscience if I could possibly avoid it.
Which brought me back to my fears for Triss. I lost control then, maybe went a little mad even, screaming and swearing and wrenching at my bonds again and again for some unknown length of time. An open-handed slap brought me back from that edge, though it was more the different sound of the impact than the sting of the blow driving my lips against my teeth that registered.
“What?” I shook my head in an effort to return the world to proper focus. The part of me that had heard the slap also vaguely remembered there being a question asked or an order given in there somewhere. “Could you pass that one by me again?”
Lok caught me by the chin and turned my head to the right so that I was looking directly at him. With the intense white shock of the magelight only a few feet away, he looked like nothing human. Half of his face lay in such deep shadow that for all purposes it didn’t exist, and the other half was washed out, pale as any night-walking undead.
He leaned in so close we were practically kissing, and his breath was foul. “I said,
Blade
, that I want you to tell me everything you know about the man who calls himself Devin Nightblade.”
Blade
, that I want you to tell me everything you know about the man who calls himself Devin Nightblade.”
“Wait, what now?” I squeezed my eyes tight shut, then blinked several times while I tried to make sense of the words.
What he’d just said was so far off the page of my read on things that I almost couldn’t make sense of the words. Weren’t these Devin’s trained rats? What possible reason could they have for beating me to get information about Devin?
Lok let go of me and stepped back, speaking very slowly and clearly. “Devin Nightblade, your onetime comrade in arms, tell us about him, or what you’ve suffered so far will seem like so many love-caresses from your dead goddess.”
I put another mark on Lok’s dead-man tally sheet, then opened my mouth to answer. But nothing came out. Nightblade. Nightblade? Really? When had Devin bartered Urslan away for a use-name that all but spat on the grave of the goddess? More importantly, if these boys didn’t belong to Devin, my emerging view of the bigger picture had just gone from blurry to spilled paint in a dark studio.
“Hit him again,” said Lok.
Scar laid one on the side of my neck, just above the leather collar. It stung like the gods’ own bumblebee. It also helped bring me out of my stupor. More because of the threat than the pain. An inch forward, and he would have crushed my larynx. I couldn’t afford to die right now, mostly for Triss’s sake. But I also very much wanted to have a few steel-edged words with these fellows and with my dear old friend
Nightblade
before I followed my goddess.
Nightblade
before I followed my goddess.
“Wait,” I said. “Assuming your Devin is the same as mine, I’ll happily tell you everything I know.” Hell, if it weren’t for Zass, I’d have been more than half-tempted to help them string him up in my place here.
Lok looked incredulous. “If they’re the same man? You’re not seriously suggesting that there’s more than one ex-Blade named Devin running around this city, are you?”
“Point.” I nodded as firmly as the straps would allow. “What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with his long-term plans for the baroness.”
I didn’t say, “How the fuck would I know that?” Though it’s what I was thinking. “That could be a problem. I haven’t seen Devin in five years. I have no idea what he’s planning right now.”
Lok shook his head sadly. “Are you going to try to tell me you weren’t the man that Nightblade talked to on the Marchon estate two nights ago? Because I don’t believe you. Think carefully before you answer because I’m starting to think I ought to just let the boys give you another working over before I ask any more questions, this time without playing so gentle.”
I wanted to tell Lok I was going to ghost him. I wanted to make him understand what a
really
bad idea all this was, particularly messing with my familiar. But in the short term, that would only put Triss in more danger. And in the long term, Lok was a dead man.
really
bad idea all this was, particularly messing with my familiar. But in the short term, that would only put Triss in more danger. And in the long term, Lok was a dead man.
“No,” I said. “That was me, but it was my first and only contact with Devin since about a month before the fall of the temple. I didn’t even know he was alive until I saw him on the baroness’s balcony. Honestly, at the moment I’m wishing he’d stayed as dead as I thought he was.”
I don’t know whether Lok believed me, but he didn’t immediately have his men start in with the sticks again, so I continued, “I can’t tell you what Devin’s doing right now, or where to find him, or anything like that. I can tell you what his favorite foods were as a kid, and who his first lover was, and a thousand other little details, but you don’t want all that. If you could just tell me why you want the information, I could probably narrow it down to the stuff that’s actually usefu—ungh!”
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