Oath Bound (Book 3) (23 page)

Windish

Haakon couldn’t help
Dingus. Vandis couldn’t help Dingus. Not even Dingus could—or would—help
Dingus. It fell to Kessa to
do
something about this mess. Dingus was
doing something real good, she knew it, something the Lady would be right
behind all the way. It was even in the Oath.

Lucky thing, she knew
just where to go. This was Treehopper trouble, Captain Dar trouble, partly
because Dar
was
a Hop, and partly because she had a thing for Dingus,
which Kessa could see plain even if Dar and Dingus didn’t have a clue between
’em. Dar didn’t turn friendly eyes on Kessa’s brother; those eyes said she
wanted to get Dingus alone and pantsless.

Well, it was weird. But
Kessa would use it if she could. She strode through the park to Veeler Street,
right where it met Koob. The main Hopper station overlooked the crossroads,
taking up no fewer than seven trees: a lacework of rope bridges and stacked
floors, decks, and chimney-pipes trailing quills of smoke across the sky.

She took the staircase
that led to the bottom deck. The steps were built with Ish in mind, and Kessa
skipped up three at a time. When she reached the deck, she paused at the top of
the stairs to look around. She’d never been up here before. Captain Dar always
came over to the camp, and Kessa didn’t have the first clue where to look for
her.

Should’ve thought of
that before.
Her mouth twisted down as she watched the Treehoppers
hurrying, moving back and forth, leading other Ish with manacles on or carrying
big armfuls of papers, some with truncheons, some with swords. She’d come here
with the idea that once she
got
here it would be easy: she’d talk to
Dar, Dar would help her fix everything, and she’d return to camp accomplished.
But it wasn’t going to be that way.

Kessa smoothed her
jerkin, squared her shoulders, and marched across the deck to the building in
the middle. Hops dodged her, circled her, even shot under her legs a couple of
times, but she didn’t stop or break stride until she reached the overhang from
the smaller deck above and had to duck her head. She couldn’t stand up straight
underneath. Vandis would’ve been able to, but Kessa had to shuffle to the side
to keep from scraping her head. To get inside the building she had to bend
almost double, and even inside she couldn’t stand up straight. It put an
apprehensive flutter in her stomach.
Bad start,
she thought.

There was a little desk
in the front room of the building. An old lady sat behind it in a J-shaped Ish
chair, meant for the sitter to straddle. Her crest was done up in sausage curls
that snugged across her head. Different-colored cords hung through holes in the
ceiling all around her. “May I help you?” she asked, peering at Kessa through tiny
spectacles.

“Yes, ma’am, please,”
Kessa said, as confidently as she could, given her awkward position against the
ceiling. “I’d like to talk to Captain Dar.”

“I see.” The old lady
pursed Ish lips. “And what may I tell the captain this is regarding?”

“It’s about my brother.
Dingus. He’s in bad trouble, ma’am, with Yatan and all.”

“Mm-hmm, I see.” The lady
leaned over and pulled one of the cords, yellow and blue braided together.
“I’ll have some help for you in just a moment, miss.”

Kessa waited with
cramping shoulders and a crick in her neck, and when finally a Hopper came to
fetch her, it wasn’t the one she’d expected. “Where’s Captain Dar?” she asked
of the tall Ish woman with brown fur.

“I’m Lieutenant Coo,” the
female said. “I’m going to help you. Just come with me now.”

Kessa chewed her lip, but
she nodded and followed Lieutenant Coo into the back of the building. The
lieutenant ushered her into a tiny room, dim and, she realized when the door
shut behind them, windowless. There were three other Hoppers in the shadows
thrown by the single candle, and her breath sped. This wasn’t right.

“What happened,
sweetheart?” one of them asked.

She tried not to let her
voice shake. A little way into her story she didn’t have to try anymore; they
were listening to her, at least, they heard what she had to say about Yatan.
But at the end of it, by the time she’d explained what Yatan had said and how
he was threatening them, there was a silence so deep she could’ve heard a pine
needle fall.

“Oh, no, Kessa,” said
Lieutenant Coo. Kessa didn’t remember giving her name. “No, no. We can’t have
this. Yatan is a fine, upstanding male of Windish, and this slander is
unacceptable. We can’t have you running around telling lies.”

“But—”

“I’m afraid we can’t have
you running around at all.”

“
What?
” She backed
up, sliding her shoulders along the ceiling to the door. How had she not noticed
them throwing the lock? Dingus would have. Her fingers couldn’t even find it.
“You can’t do this. I’m telling the truth!”

Three truncheons came off
three belts—the lieutenant pulled a sword. Kessa’s scrabbling fingers touched
metal. She threw the bolt, burst backward into the corridor, sprawled on her
ass. Her breathing sawed in and out, and she scrambled up as far as she could,
struggling to gain speed. It wasn’t enough.

She went down yelping
under the weight of Ish, the bashing of truncheons on the backs of her legs.
“Stop!” She writhed along the floor. Turned out all those pushups were good for
something besides swinging her sword; she popped free and shot along the floor,
wincing when a sliver jabbed her arm, and when she picked herself up and got
the balls of her feet beneath her, she looked right into Dar’s liquid eyes.
“Captain Dar! I need help!”

“wings is going on here?>” Dar bit off over Kessa’s shoulder, in Ishian,
meant for the other Hops, but her voice rushed to explain without her telling
it to, at least ’til Dar held up a dark palm. “”

“concern,>” the lieutenant said.

“make me think that it is? Do I need to remind you whom you’re addressing,
Coo?>”

“you won’t outrank me for long.>”

“” Dar
allowed, “insubordination.>” She curled a hand around Kessa’s elbow and led her out of
the building. “You’d better leave, Kessa,” she whispered as they crossed the
deck. “It was a mistake to come here about him.”

“But Dingus is in
trouble,” Kessa said, turning when Dar prodded her toward the stairs. “What am
I supposed to
do?
Captain Dar, he’s going to—”

“Not here! Listen, I’ll
come by tomorrow. That’s my day off.”

“That’s too late!” Kessa
cried, but Dar gave her a gentle push.

“Go,” she said. “It’s not
safe to talk here. Go.”

Kessa limped down the
steps, trying not to cry. Nobody would help—only she was left now.
I won’t
let him hurt you,
she thought at Dingus, and set her jaw. She set off for
the park, eyes stinging.

Up on the deck, Dar
sought out two she could trust. “to know where she goes.>” Kaylee and Hoop saluted and rustled up into the
trees, leaping after Kessa.

Dar watched the orange
blaze of Kessa’s hair until the girl disappeared into the park, then went back
into the office. She couldn’t settle to paperwork. Worry for Kessa—for Sir
Dingus—gnawed at her insides. But Kaylee and Hoop were steady. If anything went
down, she’d know it.

She sighed and pulled a
stack of reports in front of her. No use panicking. Raven’s eye had been on Sir
Dingus as long as she’d known him. It was probably useless to try to deny a
spirit so great, but she’d do the best she could.

the same day

Vandis strode up the
stairs to his office, in a better mood than usual these days, even if he had
spent the morning down at the Watch house, going around and around about what
had happened on the lift—had it been a month already? It seemed cut-and-dried
to him, but the Watch was taking plenty of time to be sure of itself. The
incident at HQ had been resolved two weeks ago; but people had died on the
lift, one of them by Vandis’s own lightning hand, and that complicated things.
Menyoral
complicated things. They’d sent him away with the same thanks-for-your-time,
the same don’t-leave-town, as ever.

He’d had a fruitful
dinner with Zoltan in the mess hall just now, though. Vard’s High Priest knew
people, the kind Vandis would prefer to contact indirectly. He might’ve asked
Wynn for another favor, but he felt a little sick when he thought of what he’d
let her do for him, what he’d told her. Together, seated in a small alcove,
they had begun on the problem of Lech Valitchka, and Vandis thought they’d made
a start on solving it, maybe for good. He wouldn’t get his hopes up, but maybe.

He went inside, checking
that his sleeves were still rolled up from dinner. He didn’t want to get ink on
another tunic. “Afternoon, Jimmy,” he said, lifting the latch on his door.

“Vandis,” Jimmy said,
sounding nothing like Jimmy.

Vandis turned to look and
blinked at the miserable expression on his secretary’s wrinkled face. “What’s
the matter?”

Jimmy wrung his hands.
“Vandis, I’m sorry, but one of your letters fell between my desk and the wall.
I’ve only just found it.” He swallowed hard. “It’s from Windish.”

“I’m sure it’s okay,”
Vandis said. “How old is the frank?”

“A month.” Jimmy handed
over a cheap sheet of paper: pauper’s seal, red wax. It was addressed in
Dingus’s untidy scrawl.

A cold heavy something
fell into Vandis’s stomach. The frank stamp was the harbormaster’s; the letter
would’ve been posted several miles from Tikka’s house, around the same time Vandis
had written his own letter to Dingus. He pushed his thumb under the flap and
broke the seal on the single sheet.

“Vandis,” the letter
said,

I
think I’m in over my head. Some shit happened, which is most definitely
probably sort of all my fault, and we aren’t staying on Tikka’s land anymore. I
know you’re busy and all but I could really use your advice.

–Dingus

He lowered the letter,
seeing nothing in front of his eyes, and it slipped from his fingers and
fluttered to the carpet.
A month!
he thought.
A month since he wrote
this! A goddamned month since—since—

He lifted his head.
“Cancel everything.”

“Oh,” Jimmy squeaked,
“that bad?”

Vandis’s eyes bulged.
Jimmy lunged for the datebook on his desk, and Vandis spun to fling open the
office door, seizing his cloak from the peg on the way.

Tell me they’re all
right.

They’re doing just
as they ought, My own,
She snipped.
Dingus could use a little
guidance from his Master, though, the poor lad. He’s probably thinking you’ve
forgotten all about him, and Kessa, too!

You couldn’t have said
something?
he thought savagely, flicking the latch on the shutters and
tossing them wide.

Oh, so it’s Me
you’ll hold responsible for your nonsense now? Go on wi’ y’!

He set his foot on the
sill, scowling into the snow that flurried in on the breeze.
No, but it
would’ve been nice if You’d told me they were in trouble.
He jumped out the
window. Loud noises be damned; he shot up through the clouds with all the speed
he could muster, breaking through the invisible barrier like tissue. The
pressure around his body couldn’t match the pressure of the fist clamped around
his heart.

At top speed, Windish
took him a frantic hour. From the moment he took off, his head swam with
images, each scenario more horrible than the last, so when his feet
finally—finally—slammed the boards of Tikka’s top deck, he’d worked himself
into a seething, shivering mess. He yanked the door open. “Tikka!” he called
down into the house. “It’s Vandis!”

“Coming!” she trilled,
but damn, she took her sweet time getting up there. Vandis paced the deck,
flexing circulation back into his icy fingers.

“Where are they?” he
demanded, the instant he saw her crest bobbing up the stairs.

She didn’t answer until
she’d stepped out. “You won’t find them here.”

“Oh, I know! Good thing
Dingus wrote to me!” His voice blasted out much louder than he’d meant it to,
and he couldn’t stop. “Did you not think I’d want to
know
about this? In
what world is it acceptable for you not to tell me?”

“Now I see where he gets
it! You’ve got the same problem, young man! No respect, no respect at all for
your elders.”

Vandis turned away and
stared out at the cedars, taking a long, deep breath. He turned back to face
her. “Where are my kids, Tikka?” he asked, low, poisonous.

She spread her hands. “I
don’t know.”

“That is quite possibly
the worst answer in the entire fucking history of time.”

“How dare you curse at
me?”

“I trusted you! I trusted
you, and you fucked them over! I’ll curse at you all I want, you
unbelievable
shit-smeared cunt!
” By that last bit, he was screaming as loudly as he
ever had, feeling incandescent, a pillar of fire. “Tell me what happened to my
kids!”

“They left,” she snapped.
“Dingus didn’t want to stay, and Kessa believed, in her infinite
thirteen-year-old wisdom, that she had to follow him. I offered them both a
choice. And they spat on it!”

Vandis’s heart staggered.
“You kicked them out?”

“I offered a choice.
Dingus’s behavior—”

“You kicked them out! And
you call yourself a Knight! You kicked a Junior and a Squire off your land!”

“I did not! I gave them
the choice! Dingus thought it was more important to harbor a swarm of
motherless pickpockets than to obey me—and he left!”

His nostrils flared. He
dived over the railing and burst up through the canopy, scattering needles. As much
as he had left to say to Tikka, damn her eyes, there were far more important
things to do.

Vandis went to Sodee
Marketplace and started poking around. He didn’t have to poke much; he asked
three different people about Dingus and Kessa, and got the same information
three times over. Whether it was a relief to find out where they were so
quickly or embarrassing that everybody knew all about it, Vandis didn’t know.

Either way, he couldn’t
help being impressed—and more than a little proud. They’d done an amazing
thing, his kids, and never mind that it was also a spectacular example of
compulsive do-gooding foolishness. He couldn’t wait to see them, or to chew
them out, so he decided to fly over to the finger peninsula in Feej Park.
Easier to find it from the air, and easier to surprise them. He laughed to
himself, thinking of landing at the end of the peninsula and shocking the color
right out of their hair.

He found it empty, except
for signs of recent camping: fresh ashes in the firepit, myriad tracks on the
ground, and a storage pit left open and empty. At last he found a trail blazed
by over a dozen Ishlings, plus his own two kids, and—he wasn’t sure, but
maybe—someone else, someone tall and broad. He straightened from the sign he’d
been examining and scraped his hands back through his hair.
Left in a big
damn hurry,
he thought.
Why?

Yatan,
She
said, and Vandis froze.

Are You fucking
kidding me?

Would I?

He legged it along the
broad trail; he would’ve flown, but he didn’t want to lose the sign in the
falling night. Luckily, there was so much sign on the ground that even when the
sun sank lower, he couldn’t miss it.

Vandis…

What is it?
he
asked Her, but he was already putting on the hustle.

I’m so proud of
him. You ought to know that.

He broke into a flat run,
stretching his legs as far as they’d go, and as fast. Over half a mile he ran,
deep into the center of the park, and before long he didn’t even need the sign.
He heard muffled shouting—Dingus shouting—and then it went quiet.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Vandis
muttered. He rounded a bend, clutching a stitch in his side, and saw a tableau
of chaos: the backs of a dozen Treehoppers, and Kessa with her sword held
ready. Behind her, with Ishlings clotted around his ankles and staring into the
trees on the other side of a little stream, Dingus.

Vandis called to him, and
he turned his head. Everyone turned, but it was Dingus that Vandis saw, and the
longing and resignation in his eyes. He faced the trees again. Vandis was on
the point of calling once more when he coiled his legs beneath him and leapt,
inhumanly strong and fey-graceful, fifteen feet from a standing start. His bare
feet touched the opposite bank of the stream, and he darted into the wood,
soundless and lightning fast.

“Just what the hell is
going on here?” Vandis demanded.

“Go help Dingus,” Kessa
said grimly, holding her sword on the Hoppers.

“Dingus can handle
himself,” he said, much as he hated to admit it, and forced his way through the
Treehoppers in their loose semicircle around Kessa. They didn’t move; too
shocked to hit out at him. In the shadows to his left, he caught sight of a
Rodanskan sailor, tall and tattooed, and recognized a man of Wynn’s; why hadn’t
he done anything? “I won’t leave you alone. I—”

“Where is he?” It was
another Treehopper, just coming through the trees at Vandis’s back, and she
sounded like her soul had caught flame. Her fur blazed orange. She had two
others with her. Vandis threw up his hands. He wouldn’t unwind this until it
was all over.

“Across the crick!” Kessa
said. “After Yatan.”

“Stay here,” the
brightly-colored Hopper said, but Vandis was already splashing through the
stream. She bounded after him, slightly behind, but gaining.