Chapter 28
28
F RELL SCRAMBLED UP the ladder behind Pratik. They were nearly at the top of a row of shelves. Frell’s heart pounded in his ears, but it still didn’t silence the insidious chanting of the Venin, a chorus that drew inexorably closer. Already, he felt his will ebbing, his limbs growing leaden. Or maybe it was mere exhaustion.
The only boon was that the Venin’s approach had driven off the plague of bats. Frell’s skin bled from hundreds of bites and scrapes. But if they didn’t find some way out of this trap, they’d suffer a worse fate.
The imperial guards scoured toward them. All around, the slavering howls of war dogs threatened. And somewhere in the dark librarie, the Dresh’ri surely lurked, conjuring other alchymies to confound their escape.
Overhead, Pratik mounted the top of the shelf and rolled out of sight. Frell hurried after him but knew such a ploy would not save them, only buy them additional breaths to figure out what to do.
He reached the last rung and hauled himself up to join Pratik. Though his limbs tremored, the crinkle of parchment under his robes urged him onward. Before mounting the ladder, he had tucked away the pages he had ripped from the ancient tome, stolen from under the baleful eyes of the Shadow Queen sketched on the wall.
Pray I live long enough to read them.
Frell sprawled on his back, panting hard.
Pratik was already on his feet and pointed along the top of the shelf toward the only exit. “If we’re lucky, we might be able to slip past the encroaching line of guardsmen. Then drop behind them and make for the lift.”
“It’s surely under guard, too.”
“We must try,” Pratik insisted.
Frell knew the Chaaen was right. With a moan, he rolled to his stomach and gained his legs. Before he could take a step, a low growl rose directly below them, at the base of the ladder. It escalated into a howl.
Frell cringed.
A war dog.
Someone must have given the hunters my scent.
He pictured that damnable Zeng leeching his blood.
Frell stared over at Pratik, both momentarily frozen, likely with the same question in mind.
Can war dogs climb?
The answer came quick enough. The ladder shook and rattled. Its length hung from large rings of reinforced steel affixed to a rod at the top, made for sliding the ladder back and forth. There was no way to throw the ladder off and no time to hack through the wood.
“Hurry,” Pratik urged, and set off along the shelf.
Frell followed.
The baying of the dog drew the guardsmen toward their location. Victorious shouts and trampling boots aimed their way. Lanterns and torches closed upon them.
Frell ran behind Pratik, trying to keep his feet from pounding on the wood and giving away their position. They had not gotten far when something large leaped to their perch, trembling the wide shelf. Frell turned to see a massive shadow scrabbling for purchase, then regain its footing as claws dug into wood.
The dog shook its spiked collar, hunched its shoulders, then lunged after them.
Frell stood his ground, knowing they could never outrun it. He intended to try his best to knock the beast from this perch, to give Pratik a chance to escape.
“Go!” he ordered the Chaaen. “Get to Kanthe.”
Pratik stepped closer. “I won’t—”
Then the world exploded.
Fiery maelstroms burst across the librarie with deafening concussions, illuminating the full cavernous breadth of the Codex. Shelves shook; some toppled over in splintering crashes. Their own perch quaked on its footings.
Frell fell to hands and knees. Pratik did the same. Unfortunately for the war dog, the beast had been in midleap when the blasts struck. As it landed, it lost its balance. Its hindquarters slipped sideways off the edge. Claws scrabbled to keep its purchase, digging deep.
Frell knew he had only a moment. He lunged low toward the beast. Once close enough, he spun on his backside and kicked out at the dog’s forelegs. Jaws snapped at him, catching the edge of his robe, but not before the strike of a heel dislodged a paw. The dog’s bulk slipped crookedly, hanging by the last set of claws—then those too ripped away.
As the beast fell, it kept a stubborn hold on Frell’s robe. Its weight yanked him toward the edge. He twisted to his stomach and grabbed for the far side of the shelf. One hand caught; the other missed. He held tight, his fingers straining with the effort.
Then silver flashed past his shoulder.
Pratik swept his sword down and cut through the edge of Frell’s robe. With a howl of fury, the beast tumbled away—until a meaty crash silenced it.
Pratik helped him up, but they both stayed crouched.
More bombs continued to explode across the librarie. And not just in the cavern. A series of rumbling blasts echoed up from the lower levels. A spiral of flames shot high out of the central stairwell.
Frell struggled to understand, glancing at Pratik. “Is this your doing?”
In the firelight, the Chaaen’s features were aghast at the destruction. “Never.”
Frell frowned.
Then who?
Across the cavern, the flames spread rapidly, fed by dry parchment and ancient wood. Smoke roiled upward, rapidly filling the dome, stirring the bats. The pall thickened around their high perch.
Frell coughed and his eyes burned.
More shelves crashed and fell as flames ate through their foundations.
“We can’t stay up here or we’ll suffocate,” Pratik warned, and headed toward the ladder. “We must get lower.”
As Frell followed, he searched to either side. He spotted no one nearby. The continuing blasts, the spreading flames, must have chased away the guardsmen, silenced the Venin. Both sets of hunters had likely retreated to safety.
Still, he held out little hope that the soldiers would leave the lift unguarded. Most likely, they’d ride the lift up and lock it down from above, trapping their quarry in this fiery oven until the flames subsided—then search for their burned bones.
Pratik mounted the ladder and descended quickly, trying to escape the scorching smoke. Frell followed, nearly sliding down the rungs in his haste. His lungs burned. Tears blurred his vision. Flaming embers stung his cheeks and hands. He was nearly blind by the time Pratik helped him off the ladder.
The Chaaen pointed in the direction of the lift. “We must pray,” was all he said, and set off.
They hurried, running low, covering their faces with their sleeves.
They didn’t get more than a few steps when someone appeared between the rows of shelves, blocking their way with outstretched arms.
Pratik stopped abruptly. Frell nearly collided with him.
Other figures appeared behind the first. They were all cloaked in byor-ga robes, marking them as baseborn servants. Frell was surprised to recognize the one in the lead. It was a woman of small stature. Her robe was adorned with a ring of beads that marked her as a maid. He remembered her bursting out of the spiral stairway, hesitating, then dashing away.
He had thought she was trying to escape. But now he suspected otherwise. He remembered the robed servants he had spotted lurking among the shelves with cloaked lanterns.
Did they plant all these bombs? If so, why? Was it an act of vandalism or one meant to aid our escape?
The woman stepped closer, ripping away her headgear. She swept back the sweaty bangs of her close-cropped blond hair. Cold eyes, glinting with copper, glared at them.
Pratik gasped.
Frell took a step back in shock. “Llyra…?”
He struggled to work the gears in his head to accommodate her sudden presence. The last time he had spotted Llyra hy March had been this past summer. She was the guildmaster of a den of thieves out of the city of Anvil in the Guld’guhl territories. She had aided Nyx’s cause back then and parted ways afterward. When she left, she aimed to rouse as many of her ilk as possible, to forge a secret army in case they were needed, one that was spread across whorehouses, thieveries, low taverns, and dark dens.
Frell finally found his tongue, still struggling with the impossibility. “How… how are you here?”
She scowled. “We can wag tongues later. Let’s keep going before all the hairs are burned off your arses.”
With fires roaring all around, she turned and headed off with her crew. She set a hard pace, making sudden turns, never slowing. She seemed to know the best route through the flames. Then again, she had planted the bombs. Still, the fires continued to spread rapidly. The heat had become an inferno. Ashes choked the air, making it hard to breathe.
To hold his fear in check, Frell studied the woman. Llyra looked the same as when last he had seen her. Even hidden in the robes, her body remained lithe. Though she bore the short stature of all Guld’guhlians, she had none of their stockiness. She moved like a caged lioness, all power and quickness.
As they continued, more figures folded out of the smoke and shadows and joined them. All wore baseborn robes, though some carried their headgear, revealing hard faces, bearing old scars, whiskey-red noses, and perpetual sneers.
Frell searched around him, then focused back on Llyra. He could not stop from asking again, “How are you all here?”
She huffed with irritation. “Symon thought you all could use my help. We’ve been working in tandem since you all arrived on these shores.”
“Symon?” It took him a full breath to put pieces together. “Symon hy Ralls? With the Razen Rose?”
She shrugged. “We knew you were intent on scouring these stacks. So, while you’ve been idling up top for months, I used the time to infiltrate down here and plan accordingly, in case something drastic needed to be done.” She picked up the edge of her robe. “Easy enough work when you don’t have to show your face.”
“And no one grew the wiser?”
She scoffed. “Dresh’ri need to eat, have their floors mopped, the cobwebs dusted off their precious books.” She eyed Frell up and down. “All you scholars are so full of yourselves. With your noses buried in books, you don’t bother to see who’s cleaning the privy of your watery shites, which, trust me, does stink, as much as you might claim otherwise.”
Frell felt his cheeks heat up—not from the inferno growing around them, but from the truth of her words.
Pratik drew alongside them, his gaze searching around. “Where are we going? This can’t be the way to the lift.”
“That’s not the only way out.” She arched a brow at the Chaaen. “Are you so daft to believe the Dresh’ri would want to share their grandest of entrances with baseborn servants?”
Pratik stared hard at her. “There are other exits?”
“Ten that I know of. Probably more. Some that even the Dresh’ri have likely forgotten about. There are quarters, kitchens, baths, smithies, dungeons that burrow around the librarie and extend in every direction. Many areas are so old they’ve crumbled into ruin.”
Frell had a thousand more questions but remained abashed, even humbled, at how much had escaped him.
Llyra pointed ahead and increased their pace. “Save your breath. We still have a ways to go. And from what little I know of Symon, he’ll not wait long.”