Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (24 page)

When a scratching came, Vendanj sat up.

The sound came again, from the waste hole in the corner.

Vendanj went there, expecting to see a rat scrabbling for a crumb. Instead, the entire stone where prisoners put their asses to relieve themselves jumped. Then again. And finally moved up and over. Beneath it, out of the sewer, rose a filth-covered, stinking sodalist with a small lamp in one hand and a book to navigate by in the other.

The hope in his breast shone a little brighter.

*   *   *

A few hours after the commotion in the plaza, Tahn and Sutter sat in their room looking up into the iron gaze of the Sheason, who had just returned with Braethen.

“Mira told me,” Vendanj said. “You were foolish to deceive her and the sodalist and take to the streets on your own.” His voice hit them icily but low. “Why did you not listen to me?”

Tahn did not intend to answer. He could say nothing that would not sound preposterous to the Sheason, and he knew it.

But Sutter’s teeth began to grind just before he opened his mouth to speak. “We have the right to decide where we will put our feet.”

Vendanj fastened his steely gaze on Sutter and seemed to weigh his response. Finally he strode slowly toward Tahn’s friend, taking a stance only a boot’s length from him, their faces so close that Sutter surely felt Vendanj’s breath. “And I may choose where my feet take me, root-digger,” he said in a hushed tone that Tahn scarcely heard, even standing so close. “Be wary that our feet do not tangle. My charge is to you both, and I will not stumble in it.”

Sutter stood still. Tahn had never seen his friend so scared. Always, a nervous smile crossed Sutter’s face when danger or worry threatened him. This time, Sutter did not smile, and Tahn did not like the look of emptiness on his friend’s face.

“A general call has been issued on you three and the boy,” he said. “Discovery fees are promised.” The Sheason locked the door, and moved to the window. “Milear will be here any moment with the horses. Can you all use a rope?”

They each nodded.

“Out the windows, and then north along the city’s edge to the next gate. Those who’ve seen us would recognize their good fortune in turning us over at once. Keep your hoods up, and avoid looking directly at anyone. There will be many searching eyes.”

“What is that smell?” Sutter asked.

Vendanj ignored the remark and looked out the window again. “Focus. He’s here. Go.”

Mira went first, followed by Braethen and the boy. Sutter went next and then Tahn and Wendra. Finally Vendanj came. On the ground, Milear camly held their horses. The liveryman did not speak, but took Vendanj by the hand and gave Mira a quick embrace. They mounted fast, and Milear waved them off.

Clouds hung low in the sky, casting deeper shadows in the narrow alleys they traveled. In the distance, thunder pealed, announcing a storm. The familiar smell of straw and mud rose from the street, now tinged with the ozone scent of the coming rain. Strawdrift watched them pass: Tahn thought their attentiveness had heightened in just a day’s time.

Slowly they rode through the more brightly illuminated roads, where windows and street braziers glowed with fire. Then, through the dimness, Tahn could see the gate toward which they wound. Vendanj led them into another broad cross street, angling for an alley that passed toward the gate.

“Halt there, travelers!” A familiar voice called out of the shadows.

Vendanj did not slow, but Tahn turned toward the sound reflexively. In a shallow alcove on the far side of the street stood three figures. With careful ease the largest stepped from the darkness into the street. His vivid mahogany cloak looked like a night shadow in the sallow light, but the crest upon it shone unmistakably.

The Sheason continued on, the others following.

“I say, hold!”

Upon the frosted air, Tahn heard Vendanj utter the words, “Mira, gate.”

In a blinding flash, Mira dismounted and dashed into the alley ahead of them. Tahn had never seen anyone move so fast.

“After her!” the captain called. Three more men emerged from another vantage point down the road and disappeared into the alleys.

Vendanj pulled Suensin to a halt, looked toward the leagueman, and then backward at Tahn. The play of dreary light in the Sheason’s eyes made Tahn’s neck and back prickle.

“Why might she have run, friend? Have you something to hide?”

Vendanj sat upright in his saddle. “It is best to be hidden from the eyes of the League.”

The captain surveyed the party, stopping to take account of the boy.

“This fellow here is awfully small to be riding through the murk, don’t you think?” He smiled, his clean, angular features sharp in the weak light of the street. “I believe I will offer him another place to rest this evening.”

“We’re of no interest to you,” Vendanj said with diffidence. “We must be going.”

“Be still!” the captain called. “There are questions to be answered. And I will have those answers.” He walked close to Vendanj. “I believe you may be at the heart of it, too.” He narrowed his eyes to try and peer through Vendanj’s cowl. “You lead, they follow. You talk slowly in the face of questions. I will have a look at your face. I will know your affiliation.”

A slight wind groaned in the eaves of a nearby building, and brazier fire sputtered and whipped. The rest was silence. Vendanj sat unspeaking for long moments.

Then the Sheason turned his head to the man in the russet cloak and inclined his head delicately toward him. “No!” he said, and the thrum of his voice roared like rushing water. He thrust a hand into the air, palm up and fingers curled skyward like talons. A stream of incomprehensible words followed his eyes toward the blackness above. Instantly a streak of red fire erupted from his fingertips and arced menacingly into the air. The fire swirled above all of them, leaping and falling back upon itself. It surged and licked above them like a living serpent, then shot earthward in sustained bolts. The street lit with ominous, reddish light, like the star fire seen deep in the night sky during dark moon. In the space of a breath, a wall of fire formed on each side of them, ending at the alley Vendanj had been heading toward. The horses pulled at their reins, shaking their heads and rearing.

“Ride!” Vendanj screamed over the fury of the blaze.

Tahn kicked Jole, who bolted past the Sheason. He could hear the rest following close behind him. In an instant, he entered the alley. Large, black, hulking shapes flew past Tahn in a blur. Jole carried him so fast through narrow paths betwixt boxes and barrels that Tahn thought they would surely slam into something.

The chill night air ripped at him, causing his eyes to water, roads and byways like a maze in his vision. Jole kept on, and the roar of hooves rose like earth-locked thunder in the confines of the narrow alleys.

Abruptly, they came to the gate. Solus stood placidly there already, his reins hanging to the ground. Mira could not be seen, though angry speech blared from the height of one of the parapets. The shriek of steel being drawn echoed down upon them as they all took rasping breaths. The horses, too, breathed heavily and shimmied about, their legs still blood-warm from their run.

“Now!” commanded a voice, unmistakably Mira’s.

Vendanj came up behind them, reigning in Suensin. “Quickly!” he called.

Then the gates began to draw inward. Shouts echoed behind them, followed by a distant clatter of hooves and boots in the mud. The gate came open with aching slowness, and beyond the wall, the sound of heavy rain upon the trees could be heard, though the showers hadn’t yet arrived at the city. Bolts of lightning fractured the night, booming just beyond the city wall. Mira appeared from the small gate house atop the parapet and looked at the ladder. Briskly she jumped, raising her cloak with her arms to each side. She landed, and fell immediately to a crouch, but more out of defensiveness than any apparent need to brake her landing. Immediately she went to the outer gate and threw the thick, iron crossbar aside.

As Mira pushed open the entry, Vendanj retook the lead and passed by her so closely that her cloak whipped in Suensin’s passage.

“Go!” Mira yelled as rain began to deluge upon them.

Tahn heeled Jole and went directly after the Sheason, the others coming on fast. He looked over his shoulder and saw torches flaring against the rain, and a number of russet cloaks grown almost black from the sudden storm. Mira mounted and passed through the gate just ahead of the League. Into the downpour they raced, the sound of thunder filling Tahn’s head from above and below. Myrr fell away like a dream image behind them and Tahn wondered if their numbers had been increased by one.

A child.

Why would Vendanj allow it?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Beatings

The hard light of midday beat down on the man. But it could do no injury to skin that had already been darkened by long years in a desolate place of hot sun. He walked contented in the rolling hills, glad for the moment to be in a place of life and hope. There seemed precious little of that to be had.

His contentment was shattered by angry shouts from the cottage he’d come to call on. Raised voices, muted from within the dwelling, drifted on the still air. He hastened his steps, feeling an awful certainty of what he might find. The sun-worn man could discern three voices as he came to the stoop—two belonged to adults, the other to a lad.

As he stopped to listen, a loud crack shot from the cabin, sounding like a fist striking the face of another, followed by the thump of something falling to the cottage floor. A scream rose up, shrieking through the windows and cracks in the cottage walls—the wail of a woman. Then another crack … and silence.

The man’s weathered face drew taut with grim lines. He ascended the stoop and pushed open the door.

Angry surprise registered on the face of a husband and father who stood panting at the room’s center. On the floor to the right lay his woman, crying now, her head buried in her hands. On the left sat a boy of ten—the boy the weathered man had brought to this family long ago. The lad seemed to be struggling to suppress his anger and fear and helplessness. A heavy welt purpled one side of the boy’s face, the skin there split. Blood dripped slowly down his cheek.

The lad shifted his gaze to the sun-worn visitor, and the two shared a long look. The man knew its message. The boy wanted to be rescued; this moment of anger and abuse was not the first. But any intervention would have to be permanent, because anything less would only invite more suffering after the visitor left the cottage.

The man sensed that the lad feared the time—perhaps when his father had had too much to drink—when the beating would be his last.

Indignation flooded the visitor as he shared that look with this father’s son; a son he himself had given the man, had trusted to his care and safety.

He slowly turned his glare on the unworthy patriarch, who stared back with defiance.

“It is
my
family. I will do as
I
see fit,” the abuser said. “You’ve no authority here. Get out!”

Instead, the visitor drew close, his limbs alive in anticipation of violence. He allowed his nearness to be his threat, staring, saying nothing. The abuser’s breath reeked not of bitter, but of some recent meal; this cruelty had no reason. As the visitor looked deep into the abuser’s eyes, he also looked inward at the long years of his own life abused in a forsaken place. Those years had given rise to another breed of malice and intolerance: one directed at low men like this, men who defiled the stewardship entrusted to them by denying their families the patience and kindness they deserved.

“Do you know how close you are to death?” the sun-worn man said. “I’ve no care for your life at this moment. Were it not for the family you’ve thrown down at your feet, I would end you here.”

The abuser did not yield his own ire. “I don’t owe you anything. I have fed and clothed and housed my own well enough these many years. Don’t you show up and play the hero. I have my own way of keeping things right around here. And you gave up any part of it the day you left the brat.” His eyes darted to the lad. “So you can take yourself back to your desert, and hope I don’t share ill news of you with those who would see your visits here as a violation of your sentence.”

The visitor shook his head in disgust and leaned in toward the man so that his nose nearly touched the other’s. “You are a fool. If I am the criminal you suggest, what makes you believe I won’t kill you to silence your gossip? And if I am not, then your threat is empty.”

“You possess a double tongue,” the abuser shouted back. “I will not be trapped—”

“It is this family that is trapped,” the weathered man cut in. “Bound to you for sustenance and protection. But instead you feed them knuckles and fear, when they would have the better part of you to learn and grow by.” The visitor’s wrath seethed in his words. “You are more use to them dead than alive. For then at least their fear will be gone, and hope may enter their hearts.”

The abuser sneered. “Hope?”

“The last victim of every prison,” the visitor replied. In his mind he felt a thousand hot suns upon his cheeks and brow, tasted the dust and grit of his barren home, and recalled the countless children he’d carried into the care of others, bearing the simultaneous hope and fear that he was making the right choice of their guardianship.