The Necromancer's Nephew (23 page)

“Templars?” Garrett asked.

“Yeah,” Warren said, “We’re not very popular with those guys right now.”

Marla chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’re my servants, and we’re on official business. They wouldn’t dare try to stop us.”

Garrett smiled, despite his growing unease
.

Marla’s wolf turned and padded down the dimly lit street, and the other two beasts followed close behind.

The distant shriek of a Watcher carried on the cold night breeze. Garrett pulled himself tight against Ghausse’s bristly fur. The wolf's fur, damp from the rain, smelled of musk and old hay. The beast’s muscles rippled beneath his fur as he moved, emanating a warm glow of silent power. Garrett still feared the wolf, but it was now only a distant sensation of awe and dread. He could face that, if he had to, for Marla’s sake.

“It won’t be long now,” Marla called back, “There’s the Duskgate.”

Garrett looked up to see the city wall rising above the buildings ahead. The broad lane dead-ended into a wide archway and a barred gate, illuminated by a half dozen witchfire streetlamps. Nine armored men in green surcoats stood before the gate, talking. They noticed the approaching wolves and, at the command of one, fanned out to bar the path.

“I am Legate Veranu of the Thrinnian embassy,” Marla announced as they approached, “We have need of the gate with all haste.”

One of the Templars moved as though to comply and then stopped himself, looking to the sergeant who had ordered them to bar the road.

The sergeant’s bruised and bandaged face twisted into a gap-toothed snarl when he saw Garrett and Warren. “
You!
” he hissed.

“Oh, fesche!” Warren said.

“Run!” Garrett cried.

Marla whirled her mount around and bounded away from the gate, shouting in draconic. Ghausse and Hauskr lunged after her.

Garrett grabbed two fistfuls of Ghausse’s fur and held on with all his strength, burying his face in the wolf’s back. The dire wolf stretched and bunched beneath him, its long strides leaving the Templars far behind in a matter of moments.

The strident blare of a horn tore through the night, and others answered it beyond the rooftops. Then the nightmare cries of the Watchers roared out in unison, and Garrett knew they were doomed.

A garrison of temple men spilled into the street, cutting their path back to the embassy. Shouts of alarm rose as the men spotted the wolf riders. A buzzing hiss split the air as a crossbow bolt ripped past Ghausse’s head. More followed, clattering and shattering against nearby walls, none finding their marks.

Marla le
d them into the momentary safety of an alleyway. They emerged into a side street looking for a way out.

“Find a tunnel!” Warren shouted.

Garrett looked at Marla, her face blank with fear. “No!” Garrett said, “The wolves can’t fit in the tunnels. We’ll have to run for it… find another way out of the city.”

A crossbow bolt whistled and skittered along the cobblestones from up the street, and Templars cried out, pointing toward them.

“The lift!” Garrett shouted, “Marla can we make it there?”

She looked at him and nodded. “Follow me,” she said, and her wolf bounded away toward the Market District. The two male wolves followed with their terrified burdens bouncing on their backs.

Another gate stood between them and the market in the low wall that separated the Merchant’s Quarter from the Foreign District. A score of Templars waited there with clubs and crossbows ready.

The wolves’ toenails scratched on the damp cobbles as they skidded to a halt. They huffed with exertion, their breath a pale mist in the night air.

“Do not fear,” Marla said. She leaned forward, urging Reigha into a charge, straight toward the startled gatemen.

“
Erieth lo’ghanon!
” she cried, as the wolves surged forward.

The Templars raised their bows and fired, but their shots went wide. The guardsmen faltered, terror on their faces as the three monstrous wolves bore down on them. Just as Garrett was sure they would crash headlong into the armored men, Marla’s wolf altered its course diagonally and leapt high into the air. The wolf landed atop the roof of the Templars’ stable, sending clay shingles flying.

Garrett gasped as Ghausse leapt in turn, knocking the wind from the boy as they landed hard atop the low building. Hauskr landed beside them with Warren on his back. The ghoul looked just as frightened as Garrett.

“
A’lon!
” Marla shouted, and her wolf leapt again, this time to a long, flat-roofed building across the narrow street that ran the length of the wall. Ghausse and Hauskr followed, and the three of them raced along the roof to a spot farther down where a series of adjacent and consecutively taller buildings acted as a stairway. With a final great leap, they crossed the street again, landing atop the dividing wall
.

Garrett’s stomach churned as Ghausse hopped down to land beside Marla and Reigha in the empty streets of the Merchant’s Quarter.

“Where the hell are we going?” Warren shouted. The ghoul looked miserable, clinging to Hauskr’s fur with one leg barely draped over the wolf’s back as he struggled to reorient himself.

“The lifts that bring goods up from the Lower City,” Garrett said, “We can use them to get down, and get out through the canals!”

“That’s crazy!” Warren groaned.

“No, he’s right!” Marla said, “We can make it.”

With a horrible shriek, a skeletal Watcher lurched from the gloom toward them. It stood over nine feet tall, a mismatched collection of animal bones, strapped together with iron bands. Long black claws ripped downward toward Garrett’s head
.

Ghausse yelped as he sidestepped the Watcher’s attack. Sparks flew where the Watcher’s steel-tipped talons split the paving stones.

The wolves needed no urging to flee, racing up the shadowy lane
.

Another Watcher stepped out to block the street ahead, but Marla ducked beneath its claws as Reigha slipped past. With a furious howl, Hauskr drove his two massive forepaws into the monster’s breastbone, sending it crashing to the ground. Warren cheered wildly as the dire wolf carried him over the fallen Watcher, and Ghausse followed quickly past before the thing could recover.

They raced on toward a ruddy haze in the night sky above the rooftops. Smoke, lit by torches below, hung above the great warehouse that fed the hungry stalls of the market during the day. At night, men labored to refill the warehouse with all manner of goods, lifted up on great wooden elevators from the canal boats of the Lower City.

Marla’s wolves ramped up the sloping roof of a carriage house and cleared the perimeter fence in one easy leap. Workmen scattered, dropping their loads in panic as the dire wolves snarled and snapped.

“There!” Garrett cried, jabbing his finger toward a wooden platform, thirty feet square, loaded with crates. Suspended by chains from an overhead gantry, it descended slowly through a gap in one of the four wrought iron structures that hung like black wings over the cliff that marked the natural dividing line between the Upper and Lower City. The other three lifts were out of sight, somewhere below.

“Quickly,” Marla said, and the wolves raced toward the lowering platform. The iron grate of the walkway bounced and rang with a hollow metallic sound beneath the pounding feet of the heavy wolves. Above, Garrett heard the steady clacking of gears as the ox-driven pulleys dragged the massive counterweight skyward to lower the lift.

They reached the edge, and dizziness threatened to overcome him, as Garrett looked down through the gap. The lift platform hung, twenty feet below the walkway, and over five hundred feet above the canal docks of the Lower City.

Marla’s wolf jumped, and Garrett let out a warbling cry as Ghausse leapt after her.

The three wolves crashed among the empty crates stacked high on the descending lift. They landed off-center, causing the platform to swing wildly. Ghausse whined, his shaggy legs splaying as he dug his claws into the rough wood. His hind leg kicked out, sending a crate over the edge. Other crates toppled and followed it into the gulf. Garrett sucked in a mouthful of air and spit, coughing violently as he clung to the great wolf’s back.

“Poxy dog, yer gonna kill me!” Warren shouted, “Hold still!”

A growling Hauskr scrambled back to the center of the swaying platform where all three wolves gathered to huddle and whine, the whites showing in eyes wide with terror.

Garrett managed to cough up the last of his inhaled spit, grateful not to have coughed up his dinner as well. He looked at Marla. Her topknot had come loose, and long strands of dark hair hung askew over her own wide eyes as she pressed her cheek tightly to Reigha’s back. Meeting his gaze, Her lips split into a grin, and she burst out laughing.

Garrett coughed out a ragged laugh as well, and soon Warren joined in, helpless against the absurdity of the situation.

“We made it!” Marla said
.

Garrett tried to speak, but a fresh wave of coughing kept him from doing any more than nodding in agreement.

The three wolves gingerly rose to their full heights and dared a look around, whimpering at what they saw. Marla cooed and stroked their fur, reassuring them with gentle words in draconic.

“What do we do when we get to the bottom?” Warren asked, looking a little sick.

“I don’t know,” Garrett said, “but it’s better than being back up there.”

Marla swung down from Reigha’s back and stepped lightly to the platform’s edge. She looked over the side. “There are a number of boats down there,” she said, “We can probably find one leaving the city.”

“Won’t they search the boats?” Garrett asked.

Marla shrugged. “Maybe they won’t search the ones leaving the city… I don’t know.”

A long moment passed in silence but for the steady clanking of machinery growing ever more distant and the night breeze whistling through the chains.

“Thank you,” Garrett said.

Marla smiled at him and then looked away. “Just going for ride with my friends,” she said.

“I mean it,” Garrett said, “Y
ou saved my life tonight.”

Marla blushed. “To tell the truth,” she said, “if I’d had to spend one more day in that stupid embassy, I probably would have died of boredom. I guess that makes us even then.”

Garrett laughed.

“How far down do we have to go?” Warren groaned.

Marla glanced up, then over the side again. “Looks like we’re about halfway. We’ll be passing another lift soon.”

Suddenly the lift lurched beneath them, the chains groaning against a sudden strain.

“What happened?” Warren said.

Marla looked up. “Oh no,” she said. Her hand blurred with motion as she yanked a knife from her belt and cut a crossbow bolt out of the air. Two more bolts thudded into the platform on either side of Garrett’s wolf, causing Ghausse to yelp in alarm.

The platform lurched again, and Garrett saw the lift’s massive counterweight, almost level with them now, begin to slowly descend.

“We’re going back up, aren’t we?” Warren said.

“What do we do?” Garrett asked.

Marla ran to the edge and looked down. She looked at Garrett, fear and desperation in her eyes. She swung up onto Reigha’s back and looked at her friends. “Trust me,” she said.

Reigha crouched and then bounded forward, leaping over the side of the lift.

“Oh, hell,” Warren said.

Ghausse followed his pack mate into the void, and Garrett fell with him. Wind whipped the hood back from Garrett’s head, giving him an unobstructed view of the yawning gulf below him. Marla’s wolf sailed through the empty air, high above the docks, and the heavily laden second lift platform rose up to meet her from below.

Marla and Reigha smashed into the crate-filled platform. The males followed close behind. Ghausse crumpled in a heap on impact, sending Garrett crashing against an unyielding wall of vegetable bins. His side exploded with pain where the Templar had kicked him before and now he had run afoul of a load of cabbage. Garrett groaned and shut his eyes against the pain, only thinking to pull his hood back over his head when Marla called his name. He opened his eyes to see her looking down at him. He saw the surprise in her eyes, the pity.

He tugged the hood low over his brow and struggled to his feet, ignoring her proffered hand
.

“I’m all right,” he said, “Where’s Warren?”

“Over here!” Warren cried.

Garrett and Marla scrambled over the tops of the crates to the far edge of the platform. Warren hung by his claws from the side, his shaggy legs kicking wildly in the empty air below.

“Get me up!” the wide-eyed ghoul shouted.

Garrett grabbed his friend’s wrist with no idea how he would ever lift the massive ghoul. Marla simply knelt and grasped Warren’s other wrist and pulled. Warren’s eyes went wider still as the slim girl hauled him up over the edge.

Marla noticed the two boys’ amazed looks. She shrugged. “Vampires are strong,” she said.

They got to their feet, the loaded platform swaying only slightly compared to the nearly empty one before. The three wolves climbed atop the highest stack of crates in the center of the lift and looked down at them, tongues lolling.