Javel woke to shouting.
The voice was a woman’s, and for a moment he was confused, until he remembered where he was: in the Keep. He had ridden hard for three days, with only brief breaks to water his horse, and at the moment he put the Mace’s letter into Devin’s hand, he had not cared whether the man believed him or not, had only felt great thanksgiving that the ride was done.
Now a man was shouting. Javel sat up in bed, scrubbed a palm across his face, and found at least four days’ growth of beard. He had been asleep for some time. The argument continued to rage outside, unintelligible but rancorous, and Javel sighed and grabbed his boots.
When he emerged into the hallway, he found it lined with Queen’s Guards. The guard in charge, Devin, was squared off with a tall, dark-haired woman just outside Javel’s door. Javel did not recognize the woman, but he marked how hard the rest of the Queen’s Guard were working not to look at her, their gazes fixed on the floor or the ceiling or anything else.
“I tell you, they are coming!” the woman shouted at Devin.
“Calm down, Andalie! You’ll wake the wing!”
“Good! We must get out of here, now!”
Devin glanced at the men around him, his face reddening. “Are you giving me an order?”
“Yes, you great ass! Get these people out of bed!”
“Shut up!”
The voice echoed down the hallway. On Javel’s right, a new figure emerged from one of the rooms farther down the corridor, and this was someone Javel did recognize: Arliss, one of the biggest bookmakers and dealers in New London. If a man spent any amount of time drinking in the Gut—and Javel, of course, had spent plenty—he could not fail to encounter Arliss’s ubiquitous, gnomelike figure, in and out of various pubs, wheeling and dealing, making money hand over fist.
“This had better be good,” Arliss growled. “I’m trying to resettle nearly a hundred thousand people who still don’t want to leave. The provisioning alone would make you cry.”
The woman, Andalie, said, “We must leave. Now. Immediately.”
“To go where?”
“Anywhere,” she replied flatly.
“The woman had a nightmare,” Devin told him. “I will clear this up, sir. Never mind.”
But Devin’s voice had weakened, and he would not look directly at Andalie either. Even Javel could feel the aura of strangeness around her, her eyes so distant that they seemed to see beyond this world. The group of Queen’s Guards shuffled uncomfortably, looking from Devin to Arliss.
“Andalie?” Arliss asked.
“The Holy Father’s people are coming here, now. We must get out of here.”
“I warned you, Andalie.” Devin lowered his voice, for now doors were beginning to open up and down the hallway. “Get yourself back to your children.”
“I will not,” Andalie replied coldly. “The Mace put you in charge of the Guard, not of me.”
“How do you propose the Holy Father means to enter the Keep? He has no soldiers!”
“Yes, he does. The Mort.”
“The Mort are gone!”
“No.”
“She’s right!” said a younger guard. Javel vaguely remembered him from that long, dreamlike trip back from the Argive. He could not be more than twenty. There was a bow slung across his back. “Andalie always knows! We must get out of here!”
“Shut up, Wellmer!” Devin snapped. At the same moment, a thundering blow shook the floor beneath their feet. Javel cried out, and he was not alone.
“A ram,” Arliss muttered. “Too late.”
Devin grabbed one of the guards. “Find out what’s happening down there.”
The guard disappeared. Javel watched him go, picturing the scene at the gate below; the Gate Guard would be scrambling to bolster the doors, to pull the drawbridge. They knew how to repel invaders; it was part of the standard training for a Gate Guard. But if there were too many people on the bridge, it would not rise, and the gates, while strong iron, would not hold forever against a steel ram. Even the moat was not deep enough to act as an impediment. If Vil was still in charge of the Gate Guard, he would be down there, calm and competent as ever, directing men as they bricked the gate and strained to raise the bridge. But if the attacking force was large enough, every guard on the gate would know that these were holding actions only.
Arliss turned to Devin. “What about the Mace’s back way out? The tunnels?”
“I don’t know them,” Devin replied, looking shamefaced. “He never told me.”
“Andalie?”
She shook her head. Another blow shook the walls around them, and Javel blinked as grit silted down from the ceiling into his eyes.
“Have the Mort invaded again?” Devin demanded. “How could we not know?”
“It’s no invasion,” Andalie replied. “This is the Arvath.”
Javel felt a tug on his trouser leg, and looked down to find a small girl staring up at him. She was tiny, little more than a toddler, but her eyes were strangely adult. Javel tried to ignore her, but she kept on tugging, her small face determined, and finally he bent down and asked, “What is it, child?”
“Gate Guard,” the girl whispered, and her voice did not match her age either; the tone was mocking, somehow familiar.
“Yes?”
“You might still be useful.”
Javel recoiled, but the child had already released his leg. She toddled over to the woman, Andalie, and climbed up into her arms. They stared at each other for a long moment, as though speaking, and a shudder worked its way up Javel’s spine. For the past few days, he had been riding too hard to even think of drink, but in that moment he would have given anything for a shot of whiskey. Perhaps ten.
A rhythmic thrumming echoed beneath their feet, and Arliss shook his head. “The gate won’t hold forever. We have to barricade the wing.”
Andalie nodded. “We need furniture. The heavy pieces.”
Thinking of the heavy armoire in his room, Javel headed back there. But he paused in the doorway, struck by the pitiful pile of belongings at the foot of the bed. He had brought only a few things with him to Mortmesne, preferring to leave their house just as it was, so that when Allie came home, she would see that nothing had changed. The idea made him smile now, but it was a smile full of winter. His old life was gone, wiped away, and the sad, half-full state of his baggage seemed to prove it.
Gate Guard, the girl’s voice, Dyer’s voice, echoed inside his head.
“I was,” Javel replied, almost absently. He had been a Gate Guard for more than ten years, and a decent one. Going to a job every day, a job that needed doing, and performing it competently . . . there had been honor in that. But a man eaten up by his past mistakes could not see it. Javel bent to his baggage, picked up his sword, and stared at it for a long moment, feeling as though he stood on the edge of a precipice.
Useful.
He turned and strode down the hallway, into the great open room that housed the Queen’s empty throne. When he turned the corner, he saw the Guard preparing to barricade the great double doors with heavy furniture, several pieces already grouped on the far wall.
“Hold!” Javel shouted. “Let me pass!”
“You don’t want to go out there,” Devin told him. “There’s a mob, at least two hundred, plus the Mort.”
“I’m a Gate Guard,” Javel replied. “Let me pass.”
“Your funeral.” Devin knocked four times on the door, then raised the bar and opened it wide enough for Javel to slip through.
“We can’t let you back in!” Devin called after him.
“Right,” Javel muttered, increasing his pace. The sound of the ram was much louder out here, a steady thudding that shook the walls. More dust drifted down from the ceiling, a light snowfall in the torchlight. As Javel descended the stairs, the thudding increased until it was strong enough to make his teeth clatter, each blow punctuated by the metallic clang of wood on iron. Part of Javel, the weak part that always retreated into the sh
adows of the pub, wanted to turn around, to run right back upstairs.
“No,” he whispered, trying to convince himself. “I can still be useful.”
When he reached the first floor, he ran down the main hallway, passing several wide-eyed Keep servants along the way.
“Sir, what’s happening?” an old woman demanded.
“Siege,” he replied. “Make for the upper floors and hide.”
She fled.
Javel came around the final corner and found the Gate Guard preparing to brick the gate. This was a contingency for which they all prepared, and a small storeroom was kept just off the gatehouse for this purpose. Guards moved back and forth from the storeroom, carrying piles of bricks, and several more were already laying a triple layer of bricks and mortar behind the barricade. Javel was relieved to recognize two of them: Martin and Vil. As he approached, Vil straightened, holding a trowel.
“Javel! What—”
“What’s happening?” Javel shouted. The blows of the ram were so loud out here that they seemed to make his spine shudder.
“They came out of nowhere!” Vil replied, shouting as well. “We dropped the gate, but we didn’t have time to get the bridge up! The gate won’t hold unless we brick!”
Javel nodded. “Give me work, Vil!”
“I thought you were with the Queen’s Guard!”
“I’m a Gate Guard!” Javel shouted back. “Give me work!”
Vil stared at him, measuring, for a long moment, then said, “I could use another man to mix mortar! Gill’s already in the storeroom. Go!”
Javel nodded, smiling, for in this simple order he felt somehow blessed. He belted his sword to his waist, stepped lightly over Martin’s back, and went to work.
Aisa crouched in the shadows of a recess, her hand on her knife. She was filthy, covered in the grime of the tunnels, and she could smell herself, a mixture of long-congealed sweat and the rotten dampness that seemed to reign down here. Her arm throbbed dully from a long scratch she had taken yesterday. But the song of the fight was upon her; her blood coursed with it.
Merritt stood behind her, and across the tunnel, in another recess, were the Miller brothers, barely visible in the thin torchlight. Daniel’s neck was wrapped and bandaged; he had taken a terrible burn when he surprised a woman who was cooking chicken in a pot of boiling oil. She had thrown the pot at him and then tried to flee with her charges, two boys and three girls, all under the age of ten. They had managed to save the children, removing them to the large holding area up in the Gut. But the woman had fled into the dark. Another of the handlers, a man, had tried to club Christopher with a shovel, and ended up with the shovel buried in his ribs. Aisa didn’t know whether the Miller brothers were typical Caden or not, and she no longer cared. She meant to join them or die trying.
But that dream was still years away. The first step, the one she could accomplish now, was to have them treat her as though she were anyone else, a tool to be wielded.
Christopher leaned into the light, pointing to Aisa. Merritt poked her in the back.
“That’s you, girl. Give us another good show.”
Aisa tucked her knife into the back of her trousers, covering it with her shirttail. She took a deep breath and darted out into the main tunnel. It was a wide bore, perhaps twenty feet from side to side, and another twenty to the arch of the ceiling over her head. Water seeped through the cracks and dripped down to form wide puddles on the floor. Aisa thought they must be somewhere near the Keep moat, perhaps even underneath it.
Ahead, the tunnel branched into three passages, each leading into darkness. Down one of these three passages were several men, a pimp and his clients, holding at least ten children. Aisa and the four Caden had been tracking them for more than a day in this underground labyrinth. The upper levels were lit by scattered but consistent torchlight; down here, there was none but what they brought themselves. Aisa held her torch higher, but she could see nothing of the three passages beyond their entrances, vast black mouths opening into more dark.
“Hello?” she called. “Is anybody there?”
Silence. But Aisa could feel eyes upon her. She tottered forward, wrapping one arm around herself in the manner of a cold child. In the five days she had been down there, she had seen many children, both living and dead. James had explained to her, in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice, that some pimps chose to slaughter their stables, so that the children could neither implicate them nor slow them down in flight.
“Hello?” she called again. “Mrs. Evans?”
They had put Mrs. Evans under arrest three days ago, and she was now being held at the New London Jail. She had not gone easily; it was she who’d given Aisa the knife wound on her arm. But her name was very useful, for she seemed to be well known in the Creche, and no one knew that she’d been arrested. Aisa had already pulled this trick successfully twice.
“Mrs. Evans? I’m hungry.”
She sensed movement ahead, but could not tell which tunnel it came from. Fear welled within her, but adrenaline was stronger. It was the song of the fight, yes, but there was something else at work here. Aisa was doing something important. She didn’t know whether the Caden would have accepted her if they hadn’t had use for a child, dangling bait to draw out the difficult prey. But it no longer mattered. She was helping, helping to save the weak and punish those who needed punishment. The song of the fight was a great thing in itself, but the song of the righteous fight was exponentially more powerful, allowing Aisa to ignore her fear and limp forward a few more feet.
“Hello?”
The shadowy form of a man emerged from the left-hand tunnel. Aisa blinked up at him. Instinct told her to give the alarm, but she held silent. When they spooked the prey, the prey would panic, and that made them more likely to kill the children.
“Mrs. Evans left me,” she told the man, pitching her voice high for the Caden behind her.
He smiled; she could see the white of his teeth in the dim light. But the rest of him was a large shadow, holding out a hand.
This was the most difficult part for Aisa. She would have liked nothing better than to lop his hand off at the wrist, but there were more than ten children down that tunnel. The man could not be given the chance to scream.
She took his hand, grimacing inwardly at the sweaty feel of his skin. The man took the torch from her and held it high, pulling her with him into the tunnel. With her free hand, she reached behind her and grasped the hilt of her knife. The man was much taller, and it would take a movement both sharp and seamless to get the knife to his throat. The people in the Creche, both adults and children, were like animals, skittish and overly sensitive to danger. Merritt said it was the result of a life lived in the shadows, but Aisa wondered. She was skittish herself.
They rounded a corner and Aisa found herself in a small, enclosed chamber with a low ceiling, barely tall enough for the man beside her to stand up straight. The chamber itself was lit by two torches, but on the far wall was another door that led into blackness. The floor was covered with children sitting cross-legged; a quick scan of the room gave Aisa fourteen of them. The oldest could not be more than eleven. Five more men were scattered along the walls, and Aisa marked that three of them carried swords before she halted, dumbfounded, her eyes locked on the fourth: Da, staring right back at her.
His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to shout. Aisa tried to jerk her hand free, but the tall man had already whirled her around and thrown her against the wall. Aisa went down, half dazed, and felt a bloom of pain in her chest as the man kicked her in the ribs.
“A trap!” Da shouted. “Run!”
The children began to scream, and the echo of all of those voices against the tunnel walls made Aisa clap her hands to her ears. The children scrambled to their feet and rushed through the far doorway. The blows to her rib cage stopped, and Aisa looked up to see the last of the men disappearing behind them.
Da, she thought fuzzily. And she wondered why she had not expect
ed him. Pimp or client, neither would surprise her.
The four Caden burst into the room, swords drawn, and she pointed to the far doorway as she tried to sit up.
“You’re all right, girl?” Daniel asked her.
“Fine,” she wheezed. “Go, go.”
They tore through the doorway, and Aisa began the slow process of dragging herself to her feet. Her ribs ached, and her head was cut open where she had hit the wall. She heard the ring of swords in the tunnel beyond and pushed herself up. The Caden could take care of themselves, but later on they might remember that she had not been there with them.
Da here, her mind repeated, and the thought had a sharp edge to it now. She pulled one of the torches from its bracket and cast around until she found her knife, lying across the room. The screams of the children were muted now, growing distant. With her knife in one hand and a torch in the other, Aisa took a deep breath, feeling something pull at her ribs, and charged after them.
The tunnel was narrower on this side, and soon it began to wind, snakelike, ever upward. Ahead, she heard a man shouting, and then there was only the scuffling of her own feet. The closeness increased until Aisa would have given anything for a breath of fresh air. She thought she was gaining on them, but could not be sure. Her head ached. Every few seconds, she had to wipe blood from her eyes.
She skidded around a turn and came to a halt. At her feet lay a man’s body. She crept closer, then used her foot to roll him over: Da, still breathing. He, too, had taken a blow to the head; she could see the beginnings of an ugly bruise on his temple.
Aisa squatted and placed the torch on the floor, her knife held at the ready in case it was a trick. But Da lay still, hoarse breath hissing in and out through his thick black beard.
“I could kill you now,” Aisa whispered, brandishing her knife before Da’s closed eyes. “I could cut your throat, and no one would care. I could say I was defending myself.”
And it would be true, she realized. She couldn’t even imagine how it would feel, to walk the earth knowing that Da was no longer doing the same. To know that she no longer had a lurking enemy out there, a danger to them all . . . that would be freedom indeed. Aisa had never killed anyone before, but if she was going to start, she could hardly make a better choice than this.