Swords of Waar (31 page)

Sei-Sien’s eyes bulged. “Are you mad? He might go to the temple! We must kill him now!”

I exchanged a look with Lhan. The guy needed a Valium. Lhan patted his arm.

“If he nears it, we will act, but I would follow first. After you, Mistress.”

I didn’t wait to see how Sei took it. Instead I ran to the end of the alley, then looked around the corner. Yal-Faen was still in sight, and now I could see that it was him, though he was limping like a dog had bit him. Maybe he’d hurt his leg sliding down the rope.

Lhan and Sei-Sien caught up to me, and we followed him. I kept expecting him to do what Sei had said, and turn toward the Temple of Modgalu, which loomed off to our right the whole time, but he didn’t. He kept going south, into a market area, which was all closed up at this time of night, then through a rowdy, red-light district where the streets seemed to be paved in shit. The place was like something out of a cowboy movie—streets lined with taverns, drunk prairie-men staggering around arm in arm, hitching posts full of krae, and hookers leaning over the balconies of the tenements above.

Yal-Faen limped on until he got to a little hexagonal building right in the middle of it all. Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

Lhan ducked back. “A chapel of the Seven.”

Sei-Sien growled and drew his sword. “I knew it. Come, before he betrays us all.”

We tip-toed toward the church as Yal-Faen slipped inside. Sei-Sien was ready to charge in after him, but I stepped in his way and we listened at the door. There were muffled sounds of low talking inside, and another sound I couldn’t quite figure out.

I drew my sword, then turned to Sei-Sien and put a finger to my lips. “Easy, alright?”

He bared his teeth, but finally nodded, and Lhan opened the door as quietly as he could. We slipped in, ready for anything. It was dark in there, but a light from below showed me a little six-sided amphitheater with paintings of six noble-looking guys and gals on the walls, all looking down toward a crude statue of an even nobler-looking guy on a pedestal down in the middle of the pit. There were two figures down by the statue. An old priest held a lamp over Yal-Faen, who was on his knees in front of the statue, his shoulders shaking. Sei-Sien tensed like he was gonna charge, but I held him back.

“Is he crying? What the fuck is he crying for?”

“I know not, Mistress.”

The priest looked up, peering in our direction. “Who is there?”

Sei-Sien tore outta my hand and jumped down into the pit, howling and swinging his sword like a four-year-old pretending to be he-man. “Justice is here, traitor! And it brings you death!”

“Goddamn it!”

I leapt after him as he slashed at the priest, and kicked him in the back before he could take a second swing. Fortunately, the priest had ducked the first one, and was cowering back against the statue as Yal-Faen shrieked and tried to get in front of him.

“Stop! Do not kill him, I beg you!”

Sei-Sien staggered up again and was raising his sword for more, but Lhan held him back as I grabbed Yal by the front of his robe and shook him. I woulda rather eavesdropped on him and the priest, but since Sei-Sien had started with the “death from above” routine, I decided to run with it. I put my sword to his neck. “Fine. I’ll start with you first, you two-faced fuck! Talk or die!”

The priest caught at my sword arm. “Please, Mistress! Stop!”

I elbowed him to the floor, then put my foot on him. He didn’t shut up. He raised his hands, begging. “Yal-Faen is no traitor to you. That is the reason he sought me out!”

“Lies!” Sei-Sien tried to squirm past Lhan. “You protect your spy!”

I looked to Lhan. He shrugged. I dug my heel into the priest’s ribs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

It was Yal-Faen that answered. “Do not harm him, Priestess, please. Modgalu is my home, Ru-Zhera my family’s priest. Who else should I turn to when… when….”

Sei-Sien bared his teeth. “When what?”

The priest, Ru-Zhera, took a breath under my foot. “Yal-Faen was confessing a crisis of faith when you entered. He is torn between his loyalty to his Aldhanan and to his church.”

Yal-Faen clutched my wrist. “They mean to kill him, Priestess! The Aldhanan! They will kill him within the hour!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CONFESSION!

I
set Yal-Faen down with a thump and stepped off Ru-Zhera. “What! How? Where?”

Yal slumped against the statue and buried his face in his hands, sobbing again. “It is all my fault. I should have acted, but how could I dare go against the church?”

Sei-Sien pointed his sword. “How could you dare go against your Aldhanan? Traitor!”

The priest pushed to his feet. “Calm yourself, my son. Tell us what has happened.”

“Fuck what happened!” I shook Yal-Faen so hard his teeth rattled. “What about now! Who’s going to kill the Aldhanan? Where?”

“Aur-Aun,” he squeaked. “At the arena. Paar-Il has taken the Aldhanan there to introduce him to his most trusted Dhans and—”

“Aur-Aun you say?” Lhan let go of Sei-Sien. “Now I know you for a liar! Aur-Aun has been the Aldhanan’s most loyal servant since he was his banner guard. He has saved the Aldhanan’s life!”

“Aye,” said Yal-Faen. “And the Aldhanan repaid him by giving Wen-Jhai to another, when he feels she should have been his.”

Lhan stared, stunned. “I cannot believe it. To allow jealousy to turn him against the man who has been his friend and benefactor all these years?”

Yal-Faen shook his head. “It is ambition as well. He believes the church will make him Aldhanan when he shows them the Aldhanan is plotting war against them.”

Lhan looked at me. “Then has it been Aur-Aun all along? Is it he with whom the church wished to replace the Aldhanan? But he was not at Durgallah. How—?”

I cut him off. “Not now, Lhan! We gotta go!” I started up the steps. “Come on!”

Sei-Sien was right beside me, but Lhan was still hanging back.

“Wait. We must take them with us.”

I turned. “Are you nuts? They’ll slow us down! Poindexter was slow even before he hurt his leg.”

Lhan pointed at Yal-Faen. “We will need him to speak against Aur-Aun, and…” He pointed at Ru-Zhera. “We cannot let a priest free when he knows so much.”

Sei-Sien snarled. “Then kill him!”

Lhan looked at him, disgusted. “You have a blade. Kill him yourself.”

Now that it was cold blood, Sei hesitated, eyes wide. Lhan snorted and grabbed both Yal-Faen and the priest.

“Come. We must hurry.”

We hustled them up the stairs and out into the street as Sei-Sien followed behind. I started back the way we’d come, but Lhan stopped and looked around, then pointed to a couple of burly guys unloading a wagon full of wine jars in the alley beside a tavern.

“That is what we need.” He turned to Yal-Faen. “You have coin?”

“Y-yes.”

“Give it to me. All of it.”

Yal-Faen reached for the pouch on his belt. He was too slow. Lhan ripped it from him and hurried into the alley with the rest of us coming after.

“Brothers, we have need of your wagon.”

Lhan hopped up on the back of the cart and dumped the last jars of wine off the tail gate and the dudes gaped, then tossed them the pouch. “For your troubles.”

He pulled Yal-Faen and Ru-Zhera up onto the back, then sat down on the bench like he thought everything was a-okay. The carters didn’t agree. They started to climb up onto the cart.

“Your troubles are just beginning, ‘brothers.’”

I was pretty much on their side. Lhan was pulling some high-handed shit here, and a little bag of coins wasn’t gonna make up for them stealing their cart and fucking up their night. At the same time, we needed to go, like five minutes ago. I hefted Sei-Sien on the cart as it started to roll, then hopped up in front of the carters and shoved them back.

“Sorry, dudes. This is bullshit. I know.”

They flew backwards off the cart and landed on their asses in a puddle of wine mud and we were gone, picking up speed as we took the corner into the street, scattering drunks in every direction. I caught my balance and sat behind Lhan.

“That shit woulda got you shot in Texas, bro.”

He looked grim. “Forgive me, Mistress. Expediency makes churls of us all. I only hope Yal-Faen’s purse was well filled. Now, on to the arena!”

Sei-Sien’s head snapped around. “The arena? We go to the ship! We must warn Captain Anan of the Aldhanan’s peril!”

“There is no time for that. We must warn the Aldhanan himself.”

Sei-Sien turned the color of hand cream. “But… but….”

Lhan looked around at him, his face as snarky as I’d ever seen it. “Come, Sei-Sien. Surely you would not abandon the Aldhanan to his fate? Surely you would not allow cowardice to turn you from your duty?”

Sei-Sien swallowed, but shook his head. “Surely not.”

As we rattled on through the slum, I grabbed Yal-Faen and shook him. “So, what’s supposed to happen at the arena? Aur-Aun can’t be crazy enough to just shank the Aldhanan with Paar-Il and all his guards around. He’d be dead in seconds flat.”

Yal-Faen shook his head. “Aur-Aun wanted desperately to apprehend the Aldhanan himself, but with Paar-Il’s warning, he knew he would not succeed, so he has gone to the church for assistance. While I was at my books, and the Aldhanan talked to Paar-Il, Aur-Aun slipped away to the Temple of Modgalu. It will be the priests who kill him.”

“Fuck! But what are they going to do?”

He shrugged. “I know not, but Aur-Aun warned me it would be during the final event of the blood games.”

Sei-Sien turned, suspicious, as we took a corner. “He
warned
you? Why?”

“I—I was to wait until that moment to set the canopy of the Ku-Rho’s airship alight, so he and Captain Anan would be either dead or too busy to come to the Aldhanan’s aid, and to prevent his escape if somehow he managed to—”

I stared at him. “Wait a minute. You were part of all this? This isn’t just stuff you overheard?”

He looked like he was going to cry again. “Aur-Aun convinced me we did the will of the Seven! He said the Aldhanan had been corrupted by heresy and must be stopped.” Yal hung his head. “It was I who sent the messenger to Paar-Il to arrest the Aldhanan. I sent other messages as well, to other Dhanans.”

Sei-Sien whipped around, reaching for his sword again. “Betrayer! I knew it! It was you!”

I shoved him back as Lhan looked around.

“Which Dhanans did you warn? Speak! Ah! One curse it!”

A carriage veered into our path. Lhan swerved around it and we hit a bump that had us bouncing around like frogs on a hot skillet. I caught Yal-Faen as he was about to pitch over the side and he answered.

“There were many. I—I have their names in my journal. I—”

Sei-Sien shook his fist. “You villain! You have wrecked us!”

Yal wailed. “Think you I do not know it? Why else have I been so miserable?”

“So what changed your mind?”

Yal frowned. “I am a tax collector. By their tithes, I know how poorly the farmers fare. It has been getting worse every year. It made me begin to believe your story of the church stealing water from the air.”

I looked at Ru-Zhera. “What about it, priest? Is stealing water church policy?”

Ru-Zhera frowned. “My superiors have always denied it, but the rumors of such practices persist.”

Yal-Faen clutched at the sideboard as we skidded around a corner. “Even knowing this I might have continued to side with the church. The priests might have had some plan for the greater good that required collecting the water. But today Aur-Aun did not say he would have the Aldhanan arrested and held for trial, as he had always said before. Today he said that he would call upon the priests to assassinate him.” He looked off into the middle distance, staring at nothing. “That I could not abide.”

***

We heard the arena before we saw it—cheers and boos and singing echoing through the empty streets of the temple quarter—which made me breathe a sigh of relief. If everybody was still into games, shit probably hadn’t gone down yet. Unless of course they’d been subtle about it—put a knife in the Aldhanan’s back and carried him out like he was some drunk bodyguard. Suddenly I wasn’t so relieved.

The kraes swung our wagon around another corner and the place came into sight at last. It was about the size of a minor league baseball stadium—and just like stadiums back home, it was surrounded by vendors selling cheap snacks and knick-knacks and people drinking more than was good for them. There were big open arches on every side, and uniformed guards standing in them taking coin from the people going in.

Lhan reined to a stop at the edge of the plaza and jumped down.

“Come. Quickly.”

I frowned, confused. So did Sei.

“Ride on! To the gate!”

“No. It will make a scene, which will delay us.”

Sei saw his point and so did I. We helped Yal-Faen and Ru-Zhera down, then steamed them across the plaza like we were power-walking.

Lhan laughed and put on a big smile as we neared the guards. “Have we missed it, Dhans? The Priestess wants to see the vurlaks fighting. Their virility excites her.”

The guards gave Lhan a dirty chuckle and me a leering look, and took his coins without batting an eyelash. We didn’t even have to slow down, and charged up the ramp to the arch that led to the bleachers almost at a run.

The smell of blood hit me first. It was like an iron hammer shoved up my nose. I nearly gagged. Then we stepped out to the bleachers and I did gag. I don’t know what I was expecting to see. Maybe gladiator fights like the ones Lhan and I had fought in down in Doshaan? Maybe wild beasts tearing apart condemned men, which had also been on the card down there?

This was neither of those. Instead it seemed to be some kind of cross between bullfighting and a butcher shop. The arena floor was divided into six wedges, with a naked matador guy in each one, armed only with what looked like a giant skinning knife. In the middle of the arena was a big six-gated corral full of terrified maku, and every few seconds, one of the cage doors would open and one of the big bastards would charge into a wedge, heading straight for the matador.