The Blood Debt (14 page)

‘I suppose we could just cut ahead and get to Laure ahead of them,’ he said.

She looked up at him. ‘Is that what you want to do?’

‘Well, it would give us a chance to get Highson away before Marmion finds him. That might be his only chance.’

‘But...?’

‘But if we get tangled up with the Homunculus, we might make things worse for everyone. Whatever it wants in Laure, we have only one chance to stop it. Do you know how we can do that? I don’t. Unless Marmion comes up with a plan we really hate, I think our best bet is to stick with him for now.’

‘It’s Kail
I’ll
be listening to,’ Shilly said, poking a hole in the dirt with the tip of her cane and tipping a small stone into it.

Sal watched the tall tracker as he moved from vehicle to vehicle, checking supplies and testing ropes. The buses rested on six chunky tyres with a low centre of gravity and looked hardy enough to weather any sort of terrain; battered black paintwork suggested they were frequently required to. The other Wardens cleaned up the remains of a hasty meal and stowed their utensils with the rest of their equipment. Tom was already busy under the frame of one of the buses, scribbling charms and making arcane mechanical adjustments. Sal could sense the flow of the Change through the engines as a strange buzzing underneath the rhythmic thudding of their many parts. Although Sal had once known how to strip and clean the engine of his adopted father’s buggy, he lacked the real mastery of an Engineer. He could tell the buses weren’t working properly, but he had no idea how to fix them.

Shilly stepped closer to Sal and embraced him. He relished her warmth in the chill of a desert night. ‘You told me I was bossy, once. I hope you don’t think I’m as bad as Marmion.’

Sal kissed the crown of her head, where her hair was darkest. ‘If I did, I would’ve left you at home.’

‘And hated every moment of it.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I know you, Sayed. You’d have blown someone up by now, if I wasn’t here.’

‘That’s still a possibility.’ The remark came out less wittily than he had intended it. Being around Sky Wardens again, put him on edge. Cooperating with them went against every instinct in his body.

You’d better truly need help, Highson Sparre,
he thought as they walked back to the buggy,
or there’ll be a reckoning between us.

* * * *

As they waited for the Sky Wardens to be ready, Shilly and Sal had little to do. Shilly rested her leg on the back seat of the buggy and closed her eyes.

She felt Sal withdraw from her as he sat in the buggy’s front passenger seat. His posture didn’t change, but his mind had gone elsewhere. She sensed him looking for his father through the Change, reaching out beyond the Broken Lands and across the open countryside; looking for the man who had not just given him life, but had also given him a chance to live that life in freedom. She wished she could help him, but she didn’t know Highson well enough to have a hope of finding him. Looking for an unfamiliar mind in an unfamiliar place was like searching for a sliver of soap in a murky bath with gloved hands. She was more likely to find a rock that looked like him, or a lizard that smelled like him, than she was to find the real thing. Possessing a biological connection to Highson, only Sal had a chance.

He sagged after half an hour, giving up the quest. He was as tired as she was; as all of them were. The thought of setting off in rapid pursuit at any moment made her feel wearier than ever.

A shadow fell over her, blotting out the stars. She looked up at the towering silhouette of Habryn Kail.

‘I’d like a quiet word with you two,’ he said, ‘and I’m guessing you can spare the time.’

She sat up. ‘Sure.’ Sal turned as Kail folded his elongated frame into the seat next to Shilly. The buggy shifted on its suspension under his weight. His long, craggy face was close to Shilly and she was surprised by the smoothness of his skin. She had expected him to be as weathered as Aunty Merinda, whose face looked like a pear that had been left in the sun too long. Kail’s face was a well-worn but well-oiled boot, flexible and far from infirm.

His eyes were violet, a colour she had never seen before.

‘Where we’re headed,’ he said, ‘it’s dangerous.’

‘We know,’ said Shilly. ‘We’re still going.’

He raised a hand. It looked as long as her forearm. ‘I’m not trying to talk you out of it. Having you along, Sal, is only going to make things easier when we do find Highson, since he won’t be so likely to run if he knows you’re with us. I want to talk to you about something else — about the Homunculus, and what’s inside it.’

‘Do you have any idea what it is?’ Sal asked.

Kail shrugged, his broad, bony shoulders lifting under his cotton shirt. ‘I’m keeping my mind open on that one. As you should, too. All we really know is that it’s heading for Laure and it can somehow neutralise the Change. In forty years of patrolling the Divide, I’ve seen a lot of things. Some of them have names; others defy any attempt to define them. While I can’t say I’ve seen anything quite so driven as this, I
have
encountered creatures that ate the Change as easily as we’d breathe air.’

‘Golems,’ said Shilly, thinking of the horrors she had seen in the Haunted City.

‘Yes, and others. They’ll take any charm you cast and twist it back on you like a snake. Or they’ll suck you dry and make merry with what’s left. I don’t,’ he said, leaning forward for emphasis, ‘want to see either thing happen to you two.’

‘You don’t have to worry about us,’ she said. ‘We’ve learned that lesson the hard way.’

‘I mean it,’ Kail said, looking mainly at Sal. ‘No matter what danger your father appears to be in, I don’t want you throwing your weight around. That might only make it stronger. Understand?’

Sal was grim-faced. ‘You can trust us.’

‘Good.’ Kail sat back. ‘I do believe you. I just think it needs to be reiterated, and Marmion is too chickenshit to do it himself. Like, if he ignores what happened to Lodo, it’ll all just go away.’

A strange sensation swept through Shilly at the mention of her mentor’s name. Five years ago, she had thought Lodo dead when he summoned an earthquake to help them escape the Alcaide, but the effort had only emptied his body. The creature that had taken Lodo over had later perished with it, dragged down into death by the last vestiges of Lodo’s will. He had died in her arms on the beach at Fundelry, and lay buried there still.

‘You know about Lodo?’ she asked, her heart racing.

‘Of course.’

‘Did you know him?’

Kail smiled. It didn’t sit comfortably on his rugged features, but the emotion behind it was pure. ‘I wish I could say I had. He was quite notorious in his day. I was in my final year of the Novitiate and not doing quite as brilliantly as I’d hoped when he defected to the Interior. He provided a welcome distraction from my own problems.’

Shilly hid her disappointment. The only thing Kail and Lodo had in common was their age. Even if they had been the best of friends, that didn’t mean he would owe her any loyalty or friendship.

But she couldn’t help that momentary twinge of hope. Her parents had abandoned her as a toddler, unable to cope with a brief flash of talent she had displayed before it burned out forever. She didn’t remember them or know their names. She had, therefore, no family apart from Sal. Any connection to her past, even if it was second-hand, through Lodo, was something to treasure.

‘He was unique,’ said Sal, ‘and he didn’t deserve what happened to him. We’ll be careful.’

But Kail’s eyes were on her, now.

‘Did Lodo ever talk about his past?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It only came out when Sal arrived in Fundelry.’

‘What about family?’

She shook her head.

‘Lodo had an older sister,’ Kail said, ‘and his sister had a son. I can tell by the look on your face that you’re not aware of this.’

‘A sister?’ Her mind momentarily baulked at the revelation. ‘A son?’

‘They spurned him for casting shame upon the family, for being different. They behaved stupidly and heartlessly, without a doubt.’

‘What happened to them? Where are they now?’

‘These days, Lodo’s nephew likes to think he’s leading this expedition. There are, however, plenty who disagree.’

Shilly twisted in her seat to stare at Marmion. The balding warden was berating one of the younger Wardens for knocking over a box of supplies. She looked back at Kail, unable to suppress a stunned gape, and shook her head in denial.

‘Marmion?’
hissed Sal.

‘Is a hapless peacock who would rather die than admit any disloyalty to the Alcaide. Look all you like, but I doubt you’ll see any family resemblance.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘You don’t have to, and I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone I told you this,’ Kail nodded sagely at Shilly, ‘but I thought you ought to know, all the same.’

She just stared at him as he eased himself out of his seat and loped away.

* * * *

They barely had time to assimilate the information Kail had given them when Marmion whistled and announced that the Wardens were ready to move. Tom and Banner had recharged the buses and added a barrage of protective charms in the hope of preventing a recurrence of the breakdown. Shilly stared at the balding Warden as he issued orders. Sal could tell that she was confused.

He wasn’t sure what he thought either. Marmion owed them no allegiance or enmity, regardless of how he was related to Lodo. But the existence of a blood connection did change things, if only in the way they perceived him. That he had failed to bring it up suggested that he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Where did that leave Shilly, who wanted to know more about the man who had raised her? Should she ignore her new knowledge, or ignore Marmion’s obvious, if unstated, wishes?

Tom returned to take the wheel of the buggy with Banner in tow.

‘I’m riding with you three again,’ she said, swinging a small satchel into the back seat, ‘if that’s okay with you.’

Shilly made room for the Warden next to her. ‘No worries.’ Her tone was wooden.

Tom started the engine and awaited further instructions.

Marmion sauntered over. ‘You’ll be our vanguard,’ he told them. ‘You’re smaller and more mobile, so you can scout ahead.’

They were also expendable, Sal thought. If the Homunculus’s wake was still powerful enough to affect them, the Wardens would lose little.

‘At the next junction,’ Marmion went on, ‘just before the end of the Broken Lands, take the left turn, north. Head westward off the road when you see the lights of Laure across the Divide. There’ll be no chance of encountering the Homunculus on the way, since we’ll be looping around from the east. Should it change course or do anything else unexpected, don’t tackle it head-on. Let us overtake and deal with it. Understood?’

Tom and Banner nodded. Sal refused to commit himself. Shilly stared at the man as though trying to peel back his face and expose the connection to Lodo beneath.

Unaware of her scrutiny, Marmion hurried back to his bus and took the forward passenger seat. Habryn Kail sat behind the wheel of the second bus. At a signal, Tom dropped the buggy into gear and they trundled out of the hollow, back to the road.

The dirt surface showed no sign of either Homunculus or Highson Sparre. The only disturbances were skid marks where the Sky Wardens’ buses had come to a sudden, dead halt in the Homunculus’s wake. Sal held his breath as the buggy crossed that point, but either the wake had dissipated or Tom’s new charms successfully repelled it. The engine didn’t miss a beat.

Sal sank back into his seat as Tom accelerated through the Broken Lands. They were back on track, hunting Highson Sparre and the creature he had created. That was a good thing, but still not easy. Driving through the Broken Lands was difficult enough in the day; at night it could be deadly. Tom seemed to manage well enough, but Sal still felt a duty to be vigilant too, watching out for potholes, cracks across the road, or odd patches of colour that might indicate sink-sand and other hazards. Having now joined the quest to find Highson, the last thing he wanted was to be left behind with a broken axle.

Shilly slept, or pretended to. Banner’s restless eyes took in the scenery, while the wind flattened her curly hair. Sal wished he could sleep, but apart from keeping Tom company, he also felt off-balance and ill at ease. They were rushing headlong to a collision with so many unknowns he could barely keep track of them all. He rotated Shilly’s stick in his hands, finding comfort in its familiar textures.

‘What do you know about Laure?’ he asked Tom.

His friend shrugged. ‘A lot of artefacts come from the city. It’s a great source of Ruin fragments and old machine parts. The people who live there scour the Divide and trade what they find for salt, coffee, spices, and so on.’

‘I thought the Divide was dangerous.’

‘It is, and there’s no bridge across like there is at Tintenbar and the Lookout. Trade isn’t, therefore, as commonplace as we’d like. That keeps the prices high.’

‘Do you think that’s what the Homunculus is heading for, then? Something they found in the Divide?’

Warden Banner joined the discussion. ‘There was some talk a few weeks back of a major expedition in the area, but word hasn’t come through of what they found.’

‘Maybe they disturbed something,’ Sal speculated, ‘and it’s connected somehow to the Homunculus.’

‘Or to your father. Anything is possible,’ she said.

‘What did Kail mean when he said the town has an ill reputation?’

Banner hesitated. ‘I’ve heard of Laure,’ she said over the engine noise, ‘but until last week I couldn’t have pointed to it on a map. It was certainly somewhere I never wanted to go. Like a lot of border towns, it has to deal with things we can’t imagine. Finding a safe way to explore the Divide is just part of it. People can be very resourceful when things like water and food are in short supply.’

‘What are you hinting at?’ he pressed.

‘Laure is ruled by Woodworkers,’ she said, bluntly. ‘“Yadachi” they call themselves. Unlike Mages and Wardens, they use the energy in blood to keep the city alive, and they take a Tithe annually from every citizen and every visitor on entry to make sure they have enough. They’re not vampires and they don’t kill people. But the method is — distasteful.’