Chapter 21
“Here we go,” said the Dervish, as they settled into position at the edge of the trees. “Dog Violet, you go set the fire and stampede the horses. Francis, you’re with her. Stand guard, and if she gets caught, hide and make a note of exactly where they take her. Edmund…”
His first thought had been to leave Edmund well out of danger.
If they were both caught a second time, things weren’t going to go nearly as well.
But Dog Violet had pointed out the building that their gear had been taken into—the same one where they’d been held—and there were heavy wooden slats on all the windows.
Not quite bars, but effective enough if you didn’t have a handsaw with you.
But they were also angled to catch the breeze and there was a gap a few inches wide at the end of each row of slats, and that meant … “Edmund, you’re with me.”
Edmund nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”
The scholar didn’t meet the Dervish’s eyes when he spoke. It was probably the kiss. Edmund had obviously enjoyed it while it was happening—the man had a pulse, after all—but now, it seemed that fevered scholarly brain had gone to work, and he was undoubtedly overthinking things.
Ancestors, he’s probably wondering how to tell me that he isn’t really interested in a relationship. Which is totally and completely fine. That’s my line, in fact. He’s not even my type. I might bed someone like him, but obviously it wouldn’t last beyond that.
In his life before becoming stuck in a sword, the Dervish would have cheerfully bedded Edmund and cheerfully enjoyed it and cheerfully never thought of him again. But he was older now … so much older … and … “Sorry, what was that?”
“A gnole says it’s dark enough.” She had acquired a sack of dry pine needles, which she patted. “A gnole wants to get in position.”
“Yes, of course.” The day had bled out into a hollow blue-gray dusk. “Don’t hurry things. If they’ve been asleep, they’ll be more disoriented.”
“Don’t tell a gnole her business, knife-man.”
“Sorry.”
The two humans watched until the gnole and the low slithering shape of Francis vanished into the gloom. There were lights in some of the windows of the nearby buildings, but not many. As they watched, two more went on, and a third winked out.
Night darkened by interminably slow degrees. There was nothing to do but wait, one of the Dervish’s least favorite things to do.
“So,” he said. “You certainly recognized that werkblight quickly enough.”
Edmund jerked with surprise. “Oh. That. Yes, I suppose I did.” He picked at his nails. “It was common in Anuket City, seven years ago. There was nothing else like it.”
“Must have been terrible.”
“Yes.”
“And you said they don’t know what causes it?”
If he was hoping to provoke a lecture to pass the time, he was disappointed. Edmund merely shook his head. “The healers have no idea.”
“Do you think it was something we did?”
“I … er … no, how could it have been?”
The problem, the Dervish thought, was that Edmund approached a lie the way that a man might approach a steep descent—nervously and looking for handholds.
You could see it coming a mile off. The night before, when Otto had accused them of the same thing, the Dervish had hotly demanded to know how that was possible, but Edmund hadn’t said a word.
And yet … He couldn’t possibly have deliberately poisoned or infected that guard.
… Could he?
A nasty little voice in his head whispered that he had come from the Temple of the Many-Armed God, and the Dervish knew what they were capable of.
But Edmund had left. He turned his back on all that. No question that he was telling the truth about that.
The nasty whisper pointed out that the Dervish had left his homeland, too, but had still taken all his skill with the sword with him. What kind of skills had Edmund brought out of the temple?
“What happened when you were poisoned?” Edmund asked abruptly.
The question did nothing to settle the Dervish’s thoughts. He fought the urge to recoil. “What?”
“When you were cutting the ropes,” Edmund said. “You had just gotten to the part about being poisoned.”
“Oh, I suppose I didn’t finish that story, did I?”
“There was a lot going on.”
“Indeed. Well, after that very pretty bastard—this really is an excellent word—pronounced judgment, they had to arrange my execution. Executions don’t just happen, you know, you have to manage them or else it’s all very hurried and awkward and looks uncomfortably like a murder.
While they were setting up, the guards put me in a locked chamber to wait. ”
“And you escaped?”
The Dervish snorted. “No. The windows were carved stone, I’d have needed a hammer.
But there were charcoal braziers in the room, because the desert gets cold at night and the prince wasn’t a barbarian.
I smashed up as much charcoal as I could, made a paste with the water, and choked it down.
When they dragged me back to the royal chambers, the royal poisoner handed me a draft, I toasted the prince, told him I’d had better lays from my father’s sheep, and drank it down. ”
“That,” said Edmund, “was brilliant.” The Dervish could practically hear the scholar’s eyes shining.
The praise warmed him, despite himself. “Yes, well. I do have my moments. The charcoal absorbed enough of the poison that I didn’t die outright, but I certainly came close.
I was handed over to the grave attendants, who were supposed to bury me but instead sold me to a gentleman who trafficked in human remains.
Nearly gave him a heart attack when I sat up.
He wasn’t a bad fellow, which I realize sounds strange, but he didn’t try to finish the job or anything.
His mother was about a thousand years old, and she nursed me back to health.
I was groggy for days and also fairly banged up.
People don’t worry about dropping a dead body, so I had bruises almost as impressive as yours. ”
“I wonder what kind of poison it was,” Edmund mused. “Was there vomiting?”
“Thankfully, no.”
“Fever?”
“No.”
“Diarrh—”
“Oh look, I think Dog Violet got the building to catch.”
Indeed, a light was flaring up in the distance, a flicker that grew to a red glow.
The gnole had said that there was an outbuilding that contained mostly straw and stored grain, which from the fire’s point of view was nothing but a very large flammable box full of high-quality tinder.
Arsonists would stand in line for an opportunity like that.
Edmund and the Dervish watched. He heard the distant whinny of horses and winced. Lord of Horses, forgive me for scaring Your children, but it was something of an emergency.
He was just starting to wonder if anyone would notice or if he would have to stand up and yell “Fire!” himself, when he heard shouting and doors began slamming open. That’s more like it.
They gave it another five minutes, and when the sounds of running feet had faded, he tapped Edmund on the shoulder and got to his feet.
“Listen very carefully,” he said. “You take the sword. If at any point I get caught or you lose track of me, go back to the woods, sheathe the sword, then draw it again. Got it?”
“Got it.”
They didn’t bother sneaking. In fact, they broke into a light jog.
The Dervish hoped that anyone who spotted them would assume they were coming to help fight the fire.
They reached the building where they’d been held, and the Dervish flattened himself against the wall next to one of the slatted windows.
“Now,” he whispered. “Can you reach your hand through there? Great. Now slide the hilt of the sword through and sheathe it, then draw immediately. As far through the window as you can.”
Edmund wiggled the sword and one hand into the crack, then silver engulfed the Dervish. He had an instant to hope that it wasn’t bright enough for anyone to notice, and then he was standing inside a room with slatted windows.
“Perfect!” he whispered to Edmund.
“I would never have thought of that.”
“The magic won’t drop me into a wall. It tries to get as close to the sword as possible, but if you slide it through a window…
” He grimaced. He’d only learned that because his tormentor had carefully worked out the most efficient way to get the Dervish under control.
He’d woken from silver dreams dozens of times to see hands passed through the bars of a narrow cell and hear a voice telling him to throw down his daggers.
His hands dropped to the twin hilts and his nerves steadied. He studied the room in the slatted moonlight. It looked like a storeroom for unused furniture. There were rough-hewn chairs and baby cradles and a dark shape that was probably a headboard.
He tried the door, which was unlocked. “Right,” he whispered through the window. “Meet you at the next room.”
The hall was dark and empty. His memory of the building was that it was L-shaped, with a single central hallway, so if the fire was put out too quickly, anyone coming back would spot him immediately. He’d have to move fast and hope that Dog Violet was as good an arsonist as she was a cook.
The next room down was a second storeroom, this one for tools.
The Dervish didn’t recognize half of them—planes, probably, if you didn’t know what it was it was probably some kind of plane, or maybe an awl—but there were several hatchets, most of which had seen hard use.
He picked the least worn of the bunch and a couple of tinderboxes, then a coil of rope—you could always use rope for something—and went to pass the lot through the gap in the window to Edmund.
“Wait here,” he whispered. “Doesn’t look like the next room has windows.”
It did not, in fact, have windows, because it was a storeroom for bedding. It smelled strongly of cedar. The Dervish laughed under his breath and took a whole stack of blankets off the shelf. No more huddling for warmth for us.