Chapter 10 Hakara #2
All things considered, this was the best choice he could have made.
But Dashu, Alifra, and I were bereft of papers.
And if there was one thing enforcers loved doing, it was checking for your papers.
There was a tier system to it. If you were a legal foreigner, they’d often look at you sideways, look at your papers, look at you sideways again, and then try to pin you with some petty crime until you either bribed them or gave them cause to beat you.
If you weren’t one of the clans, well, depended on the day, how they were feeling, and how you looked.
If you were from a clan, they’d fall all over themselves to make sure you were doing well.
Maybe even fetch you a cup of water if the day was particularly hot.
And if you were one of the Unanointed? You got marched into a nice little cell, interrogated, and executed at the end of it.
But they didn’t know we were Unanointed just yet, and the godkillers would skip straight to execution. We had better chances here.
“Hide? Run?” Alifra whispered to me.
I shook my head. “Too late. They’ve seen us.” A loose plan formed in my head.
“I’ve got papers,” Mullayne said. “I could vouch for you.” His clothes were just as covered with dust as ours were, the bandage on his head spotted with old, brown blood.
Did he not see how he looked? We resembled a group of brigands more than anything else.
They wouldn’t believe him. I grimaced, not willing to argue the point.
“Maybe it doesn’t have to get that far. We stop here, look like we’re having a bit of a rest. Let me see what I can do.
” I was passably Langzuan, if you squinted.
And the day was hot and bright, so maybe they would be squinting.
At least my Langzuan was fluent these days.
So we sat, and waited, and had a drink or two of water in blessed silence. I pulled a few gems from my pouches and palmed them, just in case.
“Halt!” the enforcer in the lead called out as they approached us.
As if we’d been moving. Didn’t say a lot of nice things about them, that they were used to people running away.
“Name and business, please.” She was a tall woman, all leg with a short, stout torso.
She stood with one hand already on her sword, her posture aggressive.
I shaded my eyes, knowing it would make them harder to see. “Long way out from Bian. Hot these days too.” Before she could reprimand me for not doing as she’d asked, I gave her a quick, easy smile. “I’m Namata. All of us here are just headed to the mines. Looking for work.”
She didn’t change her stance, didn’t relax in the slightest. On the contrary, the two men behind her reached for their swords. They hadn’t even asked for our papers yet.
I gave them my best I’m-just-a-hapless-traveler expression. “Whenever a new sinkhole field opens, the supervisors are short on help. It’s not been long. Thought we’d try our luck.”
“You seem to know something about mining,” the woman said.
I shrugged. The gems felt warm in my sweaty palm. “I’ve mined before. Didn’t think I’d be returning to it. None of us did. We’re just laborers, down on our luck.”
Her gaze seemed to say, Try me. “Papers, please. All of you.”
“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding,” Mullayne cut in smoothly.
I gritted my teeth, hoping they couldn’t hear them squeak against one another.
I couldn’t stop him now without making everything worse.
I slid my hand toward the hilt of my sword.
He’d buy us a little time, at least. Alifra was at my back, and I knew from the slight rustle behind me that she was readying her crossbow.
“Is that so?” the enforcer said.
He reached into the battered satchel at his side, digging until he found the leather folio. He handed it over.
She took it, her gaze never leaving his face. With one hand, she flipped it open before glancing down. “Mullayne Reisun, is it?”
“Yes,” he said, the relief in his voice palpable. “I could use an escort.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “And these people are…?”
“My associates.”
She flipped the folio closed again, and Mullayne put out a hand to receive it. Gods, he might have been smart, but he certainly could be foolish. He frowned when she made no move to hand it over.
Instead she passed it to the man on her left. “There’s one small problem with your story. According to recent reports from Bian, from the highest levels of our realm’s esteemed government, Mullayne Reisun is dead.”
The click of a crossbow’s ratchet sounded from behind me. “Now!” I shouted as I ducked down and tossed the gems into my mouth.
People always liked to speak disparagingly of the Unanointed.
Like we were just a bunch of lunatics working ourselves into a cult-like frenzy every time we engaged in a fight.
But I had to give it to Lithuas – she’d not shirked on training them.
Had to be believable, didn’t it? Couldn’t lie effectively if you didn’t throw yourself so wholeheartedly into the role that it nearly became truth.
So even though she’d been working for Kluehnn, even though she’d used the Unanointed for her own purposes, we were honed to a keen edge.
What were the enforcers in comparison, living on the fatty, juicy scraps of the clans? The man to the left of the lead enforcer fell; Alifra had the crossbow reloaded before any of them had drawn their swords. Dashu flowed forward as I pulled my blade free and sprang from my crouch.
Wasn’t as quick as Alifra, but I was fair enough. I clashed with the leader, and just as our blades met, I breathed in the scent of the ocean.
A fierce joy buoyed me. Thassir had known what I would do, had been there to meet me at just the right time.
My shoulders and hips itched, the god limbs sprouting, giving me strength and speed.
The invulnerability felt as light as a cloak and stronger than metal.
I was no longer a mediocre fighter, I was divinity.
As long as I could hold my breath for, anyways.
Wasn’t going to waste it. I shoved their leader back and ripped into another one, flinging him into a tree stump at the side of the road. I swung my blade down so hard on the third that she fell to her knees, and I kicked her to the ground.
And then something in my belly flared to life. A fire there, waiting to be stoked. Wanting it.
The corestone.
I hadn’t known what I was doing when I’d swallowed it in Kluehnn’s den.
I’d only known we needed to keep it out of Lithuas’s hands, and she, one of the seven elder gods, had me at a distinct disadvantage.
Temporary solution, but I’d thought it would at least buy us time.
It would at least stave off Langzu’s restoration for a little longer.
Instead, the stone had burned me from the inside out.
It should have killed me. That was what Lithuas had told me.
She could have been lying, but at that point, what need had she for lies?
Thassir had done something when he’d poured that third aerocline aether into my lungs, when he’d held me close and kissed me.
I didn’t know what.
I only knew that my insides felt like they were burning up again. A slower, subtle burn rather than the raging bonfire I’d felt in the den, but it was undeniable. I couldn’t breathe through the pain, so I did my best to shunt it aside, to focus on the fight.
I staggered. Alifra was there with her daggers, making sure the enforcers didn’t skewer me. Teasing them with her neat footwork, whirling just out of reach.
If Thassir was going to act as my arbor, then I needed him here.
Alifra and Dashu could only do so much. I needed to take a breath, but something stopped me.
I focused on the burning sensation, the weight of the corestone still lodged in my belly.
There was something there. Just past the pain and the fire…
My mind fell into a vastness of power. It was like lying on my back in a field and contemplating the stars. I felt small next to it, insignificant. A fragile, papery thing as compared to the weightiness of an endless sea.
It was there, somehow just beyond my reach. I could feel the other gems reacting with the aether in my blood, fizzing into nothingness. And there was the corestone, promising so much more.
My stomach spasmed and I took a breath. The burning disappeared along with my god limbs and invulnerability, smoke lifting from my limbs and dissipating into the afternoon sun. I was mortal once more, the corestone in my gut a thing I could easily forget about.
One of the enforcers in the back stepped toward us.
Her eyes glinted. And then her enforcer uniform was melting away, along with her hair and her skin.
Shifting. Lithuas, here. She was all in silver, shining blade in hand, stalking across the wasteland with terrible purpose.
I shored up my resolve. I’d wanted to find her, hadn’t I?
But I’d wanted to find her alone, not with enforcers.
I moved back into the fray, giving Alifra a chance to retreat, to pester our enemy from a distance.
A click and the last enforcer fell. Dashu was darting toward Lithuas, his curved blade moving like an extension of his arm.
For a moment I could only watch their fight, the blinding speed of it, blades whipping back and forth, flashes like lightning.
They made it look like a dance, their feet kicking up whorls of dust.
A gust of wind lifted my hair. Thassir’s landing sent a little shock through the soles of my shoes; his black wings knocked over the lead enforcer, who’d only just found a way back to her feet. His voice was at my ear. “I’m here.”
It was the four of us again: the arbor, the vine, the pest, and the bruiser. Something about this felt right. We could do this.
Lithuas ducked a blow from Dashu, rising inside his guard in a movement I couldn’t follow. She snaked an arm around his waist, twisting beneath his arm so that she stood pressed to his back. Before I could confront her, she lifted the silver of her blade against his throat.