Shadow's Son (19 page)

Josey stood up and hooked her arms under the assassin's armpits. She
tugged as gently as she could until he rested flat on the ground. Then, she
pulled. Her feet slipped on the slimy floor of the pipe and her muscles
complained of the unaccustomed exertion, but she kept pulling toward
the distant light.

Raging flames painted the night sky in hues of orange and gold, and threw
shadows across the yard of the villa where the tall bodies sprawled.

"We have to go," Kit whispered at his back.

Caim wanted to turn away, but his feet were stuck fast to the ground. Men in
black armor gathered in the yard. Their angry words echoed through the compound.
His father knelt at their feet, a proud man, with a sword's pommel jutting from
his chest like the mast of a sinking ship.

A wail pierced the silent night. Calm's stomach ached like someone had
punched him as his mother burst from the burning house, into the arms of the
waiting soldiers. He wanted to run to her, to save her, but he could do nothing as
the dark men dragged her away, into the fields and the great forest beyond, vanishing like a pack of ghosts.

Then, the paralysis dropped away from him and he slipped through the fence,
ignoring the call behind him. He darted across the yard, avoiding the bodies of the
dead armsmen strewn across the ground like fallen toy soldiers. He stopped at the
center.

His father had been such a big figure in his life, like a hero from out of the
tales. In death, he looked smaller, as if that which had made him so large had
leaked away with the river of red-black blood running from the gash in his chest.

"I'll kill them,"
Caim said between sobs. "Every one of them."

A tremor ran through him as the corpse opened its eyes, and a whisper issued
from its blue-tinged lips.

"My son .... my son."

ulsing light dredged
Caim from the dark tides of oblivion. His
first thoughts were muddled, but one realization struck him
immediately.

He was alive.

He didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed. He had been prepared for death, ready to face whatever afterlife awaited him, or for
nothing at all. In his travels he had encountered many beliefs, from the
ancestor worshippers of Illmyn to the rigid monotheism espoused by the
True Church. All prescribed damnation in one form or another for those
who killed their fellow men. Whether to spend eternity in Death's gloomladen underworld or wander the fathomless ethers between the stars forever, he had accepted his fate long ago.

He squinted against the bright light and made out a lantern hanging
on a rusty hook. An odor of mildew pervaded the room, which was
cramped and unfamiliar. Water marks stained the plaster walls, decorated
by mosaics, their tiny tiles encrusted with mud and filth. A vault of ochre
bricks arched overhead. The stone floor was cold beneath his back.

He turned his head as the girl sat up. She had stayed with him, which
surprised him more than a little. She should have been long gone by now.
She still wore her ruined nightgown. For a moment he felt bad about her
clothing, until he took a breath and a lance of pain through his side
reminded him he had bigger concerns. Like dying.

He looked down and almost wished he hadn't. Twelve inches of
wooden shaft jutted between his first and second ribs on the right side,
not far enough back to hit a kidney, thank the gods of his forefathers. And
he wasn't spitting up blood, so it hadn't punctured a lung. He let out a
slow breath. The wound wasn't fatal in and of itself. He might even survive, if he could get the bolt out, if infection didn't set in, if a physician
appeared out of thin air. If, if, if ...

He knew it would be useless, but he reached back with his right hand
anyway and grasped the shaft. He tugged, just a little, to see how deep
the head was buried and clamped his jaws together to stifle the cry that
raced up his throat.

The girl grabbed his wrist. "Don't touch that!" She sounded angry, as
if he was her responsibility. Strange. Maybe he was still dreaming.

He dropped his hand away, too weak to resist her. He took a better
look around. They must be underneath the city. The Othir of modern day
was constructed over the ruins of the ancient Nimean capital. Invading
peoples from a variety of nations had sacked the old city several times before the empire reasserted itself on the world stage, emerging from its
own ashes like the legendary phoenix. Now, centuries later, those ruins
festered beneath the city, only seen from above whenever somebody's
cellar caved in. This chamber may have once been part of a villa, or a food
merchant's shop. Somehow the girl had carried him here, or dragged him
more likely. Still, it was no small feat for such a tiny waif. The lantern
looked like an antique, probably leftover from the days of the empire, but
it still had some oil in the reservoir. Another miracle. It would be nice to
die with some light.

As he looked around, Caim almost missed Kit sitting in the far
corner, arms around her knees. She watched him with sad, tearful eyes. He
offered what he hoped was a cheery smile, but the pain transformed it into
a grimace. The frown she tossed back at him didn't hold much hope.
Good old Kit. She never pulled any punches.

"Thank you," he mouthed.

Josephine frowned as she glanced into the corner where Kit sat, and
then turned back to regard him with a pensive expression. "What are you
looking at?"

"Why did you help me?"

She shrugged, a simple raising and lowering of her shoulders, but he
could see the pain behind her eyes. It raged like a beast within her, a
feeling he knew all too well.

"What else could I do? You're hurt."

"You could have left me."

"Maybe I wanted to look into your eyes as you died."

He took a deeper breath and let it out. "You don't seem the type, Miss
Frenig. But I'll do my best to make it quick."

"Caim!" Kit chided through a veil of tears.

"Call me Josey."

"All right, Josey. You'll get your wish soon enough. Just keep that
lamp burning a little while longer."

"You can't die. I need you alive."

Caim couldn't stop the racking laugh that erupted from his belly.
When he had recovered from the agony that almost sent him reeling back
into the darkness, he ventured to speak again.

"I'd sooner believe the first answer," he said. "You're harder than you look, Josey. So, now you get your revenge. After I'm gone, go find somewhere safe. Get out of Othir if you can."

"Where can I go? I can't go to the authorities. I don't know who will
try to kill me next. Whom should I trust?"

"Trust no one."

"What about you?"

"Especially not me. I don't know what to tell you. Go back to your
lord father's estate until things settle down. Or find a nice farm boy and
start a family."

"I don't want to run." She glanced down at her hands resting in her
lap. "I want to find out who killed my father. For that, I need your help."

Caim tested his strength by pulling himself up into a sitting position.
The wound didn't pain him much when he moved slow and took small
breaths.

"I'm no use to anyone anymore, girl."

She gazed back at him. Wetness gathered in the corners of her eyes.
He hadn't realized how green they were, like glittering jewels. Even
bedraggled and mud-stained, she was beautiful.

"Those men meant to kill me, and Markus is part of it," she said,
softly as if she couldn't believe the words coming from her own mouth.
"But you risked your life to save me. You're all I have."

Caim closed his eyes. Deep inside his chest, the old anger smoldered.
He wasn't ready to relinquish this life. He had things to do yet, debts that
needed settling. The dream loitered in the back of his mind, and the vow
he'd made on that night with his father's blood on his hands. Somehow,
other things had gotten in the way of fulfilling that oath, but he saw it
clearly now. His life up to this point had been a path toward that goal, if
he lived to see the end.

"You'll have to get the bolt out."

"What?" She shook her head, sending her straggly ebon locks flying
in all directions. "No. We'll find a physician. There's got to be a way out
of these sewers."

"I'll never make it. I'm losing too much blood."

"But I don't know how to do that. I've never-"

He reached under his back and drew a knife. He held the blade up to
the light. "This is a good time to learn."

She recoiled from the weapon. "No, I can't. We need help."

Caim hissed. The pain was spreading up his arm and through his
chest. He flipped the knife and offered it to her, handle first.

"I'm running out of time. You can't make it any worse than it already
is. Don't worry. I'll talk you through it."

She took the
suete
with both hands. "You've done this before?"

He peeled off his tunic, careful not to jar the shaft of the bolt, and
rolled onto his left side to give her better access to the wound.

"Not exactly." As the apprehension returned to her eyes, he added,
"But I've cut open enough people to know where the important parts are."

She looked at the knife in her hands, and for a moment he thought
she would balk, but her brow came together in a determined frown.

"All right," she said. "I'll try."

Caim let out a long breath. "First thing, get that lantern down here.
You'll need to be able to see what you're doing."

She did as he instructed and set the lantern on the floor beside him.

"Now open the shutter and hold the edge of the blade over the flame
for a few seconds." When she looked askance at him, he said, "It cleanses
the blade. The wound is probably going to get infected in any case, but
no use in stacking the odds."

"Should we wash your side first?"

"Not with any water you'd find down here. And we'll need something
to pack the wound afterward."

Josey set down the knife and reached under her skirt. Caim watched
with amusement as she rocked and shimmied. A petticoat of delicate lace
appeared, only slightly damp and shielded from the worst of the effluent
by her nightgown.

"That will have to do," he said. "Now, it's time to start cutting."

"It's so deep." She peered into the hole in his side. A dewy sheen of
perspiration beaded on her cheeks and upper lip.

"Don't think of it as flesh you're cutting. Think of it as a piece of
meat."

She put a hand to her mouth. "I'm going to be sick."

He grabbed her wrist hard. The bones under her skin were thin and
sharp. He forced his voice to remain calm.

"You can do this. Just start cutting until you can see the steel head."

She nodded and he released her. He clenched his jaws together. The
first cut, when it came, didn't hurt as bad as he feared. The wound was
already throbbing so terribly he hardly noticed. He tried to distract his
mind while she worked. He thought about where they might be in the
undercity, how they could find their way out, and where they should go if
they did.

As he was considering how to get them both out of Othir, a wave of
coolness fluttered over his injured foot. He glanced down to see Kit
kneeling beside him, her brow furrowed as she ran her hands over his foot.
He opened his mouth to ask what she was doing when a sharp pain
stabbed his side. His hands curled into fists as he struggled to hold himself still. Josey gnawed her bottom lip as she worked with the knife point.
Rivulets of blood ran down his stomach and formed tiny pools on the floor
beneath him.

"I see it!" she said. "I see the head."

Caim let out a slow breath. "Do you see any barbs curving back to
you?"

"No."

"That's good. All right. You'll need to make small cuts on either side,
just enough to pull it free. Now grip the shaft near the head and ..."

Calm's vision dimmed as Josey tugged on the bolt. He pressed his
forehead against the floor and focused on staying conscious, but his
exhaustion and the blood loss conspired against him. He was fading. As
he tried to describe how to dress the wound, the rising darkness swept
over his head and carried him away on its inexorable tide.