Stormseer (Storms in Amethir Book 3) (17 page)

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Azmei smiled behind her veil. "Not Orya."

Kesh narrowed his eyes. "That much is obvious. She was taller."

Azmei chuckled.

"Are you here to kill me?"

Tish gave a little gasp at Kesh's question. Azmei ignored her. "Not unless I have to. I have hope that the new Patriarch will be more inclined to...negotiation."

Tish said, bitterly, "Not likely."

Azmei didn't look at her. She was holding Kesh's gaze, and she saw the moment he understood what had happened. He looked steadily at Azmei as he said, "You killed Rith."

Azmei inclined her head slowly. "Congratulations, Patriarch."

Tish shifted to the front of her seat. "You...killed Rith too?"

Azmei could see the woman's hope in the way her hands clasped each other, wrists turned up. It was almost a plea. How horrible had it been for Tish, living in this house with Rith? He couldn't have been kind to her. Why had she stayed? Was it only for Yarro?

"Did you take Yarro?" Kesh demanded.

Azmei flicked a glance at him. "I did not."

"Did you
hurt
him?" His knuckles whitened on the hilt of his dagger.

Azmei held out an empty hand. "Peace, Patriarch. Your little brother is safe."

"He...he could come back," Tish said. Her voice was thick, as if with unshed tears. "I swear he's no trouble, not really." She gulped. "He's sweet."

Azmei lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I think Yarro can make that choice himself."

"Why do you care?" Kesh asked. The question was genuinely curious rather than belligerent.

Azmei considered this. Why
did
she care? She had been curious about the boy who could inspire so much love and loyalty from Orya. She felt bad for him after seeing the way he lived. She admired the way he had struck out on his own despite his obvious handicaps.

"I'm not Orya, but I did know her," Azmei said at last. Tish cried out, but Azmei didn't stop. "I knew how she loved Yarro."

"Who are you?" Kesh asked again.

Azmei smiled. "You know I can't tell you that, Kesh."

There was a brief silence. The breeze from the window ruffled Tish's long hair. Kesh sheathed his dagger.

"What now?"

"That remains to be seen," Azmei said. "I did not kill the old Patriarch to put you in power. I came to mete out justice, for his part in Princess Azmei's assassination. No," she said as she saw Tish begin to rise. "I did not kill Orya. Wenda killed Orya. But the royal family must have justice from the Patriarch as well as his assassin."

Kesh's voice was quiet. "Rith wasn't involved in that."

Azmei arched an eyebrow at him. "I didn't kill Karsch to put you in power. I
did
kill Rith for that reason."

She saw Kesh's throat bob as he swallowed. "What do you want from me?"

Azmei relaxed the tiniest bit. She had hoped he would be reasonable. "Who wanted the Princess dead?"

"One of the Nine," Kesh said, shaking his head. "That's all I know. A man, but that doesn't rule out many."

Azmei nodded slowly. One of the Nine. Six of them had been men, three years ago. It didn't rule out many, but at least she knew it hadn't been Ladies Tel or Talt. She had already known it couldn't be Ilzi. Six families. Surely it hadn't been Arisanat, she thought. So that left five. It was more than she had known yesterday.

"It is possible you will yet make a good Patriarch," she told Kesh. "You will have to be shrewder than you have been, but make sure you remember how to be kind."

Tish sank back into her seat. "You won't kill us?"

Azmei tilted her head. "What will you do if Yarro doesn't come back?" she asked curiously.

Tish opened her mouth, but didn't appear to have an answer. Kesh said, quickly, "She'll always have a home here. For Orya's sake as much as Yarro's."

"I won't kill you, Tish," Azmei said. "Or you, Kesh, as long as you are careful to never again accept a contract on a Corrone."

"There's one out now on King Marsede," Kesh said. He flushed. "We didn't get it. But since you're so interested...someone called the Problem Solver took it. He's a Long Coaster, I think. I don't know any more than that. He never operated in Tamnen until last year." He lifted his chin. "When you declared war on us and eliminated so many of our operatives."

Azmei inclined her head, both in thanks and in acknowledgement of his last statement. She half turned, preparing to leave the room the way she had come.

"Justice, wait," Kesh blurted.

Justice? Azmei's eyebrows were raised as she turned back.

"Take good care of my little brother. In another family, he would have been treated better. Taken to the priests, maybe, or seen a healer. We didn't do well by him, but...tell him I love him."

Azmei didn't have a response to that. She left the house without looking back.

Chapter 14

Never in Yarro's life would he remember how he managed to get out of the stable of the One-Eyed Pony. Perhaps the Voices took over him again. Perhaps Firefoot managed to splinter the stall enough to get to him. Perhaps his body simply knew what he had to do.

However he managed it, at some point Yarro became aware that he was crouched at the edge of a canal backwater, puking into the water. His throat was raw. He must have vomited several times already. The taste of bile was acrid in his throat, but overpowering even that was a bitter, metallic tang. He'd been hit enough times by Rith to recognize the taste of blood.

A hulking shadow loomed over him. Yar yelped and overbalanced. He fell into the water he had just fouled and came up sputtering. The water was cold and slimy, but at least it brought him to full alertness. Blinking water out of his eyes, he peered up at the shadow until it grew clearer and he could discern the shape of Firefoot.

The horse was studying him as if uncertain whether he was a foal in need of nursing or a snake that deserved trampling. Yarro hunched his shoulders and did his best to look unthreatening. He splayed his hands in front of his face and peered at them. They were crusted with blood. So, he saw, were his clothes, where they weren't smeared with mud or horse muck. Yar grimaced and wiped his hands down his front.

Then he looked at the canal water. The canals were clean, for the most part, though this was the tail-end of one of them. He had no idea where he was in the larger city, but just here was a pitted stone wall with a grate, through which trickled water out of the city. The bile and blood Yar had vomited was already shifting that way on a nearly imperceptible current. Well enough; he was already soaked, so he might as well wash.

He preferred his baths to be hot water in a steamy room with thick towels waiting for him, but this would have to do. He ducked under the water and scrubbed his hands through his hair. When he came up, spluttering, for air, Firefoot snorted and danced a few steps back from the canal edge. But he lowered his head to snort at Yarro, so perhaps the horse thought his smell improved. Yar certainly did. He hated the smell of blood.

His mind shivered, his control fracturing.

Yar carefully steered his thoughts away from the smell of blood. Cherry blossoms, he told himself, thinking of the very best scent he could imagine. Honeysuckle. Chocolate.

He crouched in the water until he was shoulder deep. Then he scraped his fingernails over his tunic. He would have to wash them more carefully once he was out of the city, but in the meantime he could try to make himself as presentable as possible.

"You're soaked to the skin and probably bloody as well as dirty, idiot," he muttered aloud. Then he looked up at Firefoot. "Did anyone see me?"

The horse just watched him. Yar climbed out of the water to stand, shivering, next to the horse. The night air was cool. Yar peered up at the sky. It must be very late. How many hours had he lost to the—the—

CALL IT A VISION.

All right then, how many hours had he lost to the vision? He had been out of control and unaware of his surroundings. But Firefoot had come with him. And the pack was tied to the saddle. That was good, since Yar'd apparently slaughtered two grown men to keep them from stealing it from him.

His mind quivered and he shoved the thought away.

BE STILL, LITTLE MOUSE, slithered a Voice into his thoughts. YOU COULD LET ME GUIDE YOU AS I HAVE BEEN.

"No!" Yar exclaimed, horrified.

THEN BE STILL. YOU PROMISED TO FIND US. WE WILL ALLOW NOTHING TO HINDER THAT. WE WILL ALLOW NOTHING TO HARM YOU. COME TO US.

Yar swallowed. "I'm a monster," he whispered. Firefoot nickered and Yar reached up automatically to rub his velvety nose. "A monster."

But whether or not the horse agreed, he allowed Yar to lean against his flank, drawing comforting heat from his skin. Yar let himself sob into the horse's mane for a few minutes, but when he choked on the snot and began gagging, he told himself he had to regain control.

"Me, not the Voices," he rasped. "Me."

He put his pack on, shuddering at the way it pressed his clammy clothes against his back. Then he grabbed at Firefoot's mane and swung up onto the horse's back. He might as well ride; if no one had noticed him wandering around bloody and dazed, surely they would overlook him riding.

Not knowing where he was, he allowed Firefoot to have his head. The horse wouldn't go back to the One-Eyed Pony, he thought, since it had been such a frightening place for them both. It might take him back to Narda's corral at the horse market, since it had spent so many days there. That would be fine. Yar could find his way to the Dry Gate from the market.

And eventually that was where they ended up. Twice Yar nudged Firefoot into the shadows to avoid being seen by a guard, but soon enough he recognized that the horse was taking him to the horse market. He got his bearings then and redirected Firefoot to take a more direct route to the Dry Gate. It would probably be closed, this late, but they could hide in the shadows nearby and slip out at first light.

Yar wanted nothing more than to be away from Meekin, away from this city where he had spent his life in a dream world, where he had murdered people to obey the commands of the mysterious Voices that ruled him.

He found a place that was sheltered. Then he stripped off his outer clothes and hunched against Firefoot's body, shivering for a long time. When he was warm enough to lie down, he dropped into an uneasy doze.

The Voices woke him. He jerked upright and awake in the same instant, staring around him. His heart was pounding, but he saw nothing except a few shadows moving through the dim predawn light. The traders were beginning to trickle towards the market, and travelers were drifting towards the gate, where the guards were preparing to change shifts.

Yarro watched as the new roster reported for duty and the old rotated out. Words were exchanged, news and gossip shared, and the night shift wandered home, yawning and rubbing sore limbs. "Wake up," Yarro whispered to Firefoot, who was already awake. Yar stood and stepped back to give Firefoot room to get himself up. The horse rose with a lurch. He whuffled at Yarro's hair and shook himself all over. Yar wondered if Firefoot's stomach was rumbling the way Yar's was.

With a clank and a groan, the Dry Gate heaved open. Guards took up their positions on either side of it. Yar could see the shanties outside the walls. Smoke drifted in through the open gates, and the smell of frying bread and fish wafted to his nose. He pushed a fist against his stomach, hoping he hadn't lost his coins. No, there was the purse, shoved down inside his breeches.

The first of those leaving the city had come to the gates now. Yar swung up onto Firefoot's back and nudged the horse in that direction. A few people looked at him, but they turned their attention away again, so he supposed he either looked normal enough that they weren't curious, or he looked dangerous enough they didn't want to ask. He hoped it was normal. He didn't think the guards would let a dangerous-looking person pass through.

"Fall off your horse?" one of the guards greeted him, laughing, as he reached them.

Yarro gave what he hoped was a rueful smile. "He's mean as a scorpion. But my uncle says we deserve one another." He had no idea where the lie had come from, but it fell naturally off his lips.

The two guards hooted with laughter. "I'd say you need either a new horse or a new uncle, boy," said the woman on the left.

"Or both," said the dark-haired man on the right. "Be careful out there, lad. Joking aside, if you can't handle the horse—"

"I can, honestly," Yar interrupted. He wondered at himself. He would never have dared interrupt at his grandfather's house. "I was sleepy and Firefoot knew it. I got what I deserved."

The woman grinned at him. "At least you learn from your mistakes. All right, then. There's been reports of bandits to the south of the pass road. If you're heading that way, find some others to travel with."

"Thank you," Yarro said. "Give you good day."

"And you, young sir," said the man with a bow that looked teasing. Yarro wasn't sure what to make of it, but he closed his legs around Firefoot's flanks and let the horse carry him out of the city.

He didn't look back.

***

The morning after she met Yarro, Azmei rose early. She watched the Dry Gate until she saw Yarro join the line of people waiting to get out of the city. She quickly settled her bill with Narda, swung into the saddle, and joined the line some distance behind Yarro.

The road outside the gate took her between shanties and a few market stalls whose owners didn't want to pay the city's trading fees. She paused once to buy fry bread and honey, which she licked from her fingertips as she rode. When she judged she had gone far enough that the guard had forgotten her entirely, she guided the dun off the road and looked around.

It wasn't difficult to find a hiding place from which she could watch Yarro choose his direction away from the city. Avoiding notice wasn't much trouble either. People who lived in the shanty towns outside the walls might look out for each other, but they also didn't seem to care about minding other people's business, so long as it didn't mean trouble. Azmei didn't make eye contact with anyone and carefully ignored everything about her surroundings except the boy on the bright bay stallion.

As soon as Yarro had vanished from sight, Azmei guided her dun after him. She waited until some of the traffic had dropped away, turning towards the mountain trade route. Then she stopped to eat lunch and let Yarro get ahead of her. She would wait until this evening to catch up with him. Hopefully it wouldn't look as suspicious if a fellow traveler asked to share a fire. She spent the rest of the day traveling at a leisurely pace, stopping to look at a flower if it caught her attention, or watching the little stripey brown birds flitting in the bushes along the track.

What had made Yarro choose this trail? It was barely more than a single horse wide, threading its way southward through the low bushes and trees that dotted the dry landscape. But where did it lead? She had purchased a good map of the region during her stay in Meekin, and she was certain there was nothing of note between here and Rivarden, down in the desert. Could Yarro be heading there? But why? Did he know someone there? Was he just trying to run away to a place where no one would look for him? Azmei sighed and looked around her.

It was pretty country, if a bit desolate. The rolling terrain meant the walls of Meekin were soon out of sight behind her. To her left the Scarim Mountains loomed, seeming close enough to touch, though she was certain she had read it was several days' ride to reach the pass that led through the mountains east of Meekin to the Long Coast on the other side. With spring stretching out ahead of her, the day was pleasant and sunny, though she suspected the night would be cold out here away from city walls.

Midway through the afternoon, Azmei stopped to give the dun a rest and practice her sword forms. She didn't want to alarm Yarro by practicing in front of him, but she couldn't let her skills drop by not practicing at all. If she got in some practice now, she could skip tomorrow in the interest of building rapport with him. Then the day after she would be able to practice without scaring him. Hopefully.

Provided he agreed they could travel together for a while. She hoped he would tell her where he was going so she could tailor her own destination to his. It would be inconvenient to follow him without his permission when she could be traveling alongside him and getting to know him better. She was a better judge of character now than she had been when she met Orya, or at least she hoped so.

As she ran through the various swings, thrusts, parries, and blocks that formed the basis of all her other sword work, Azmei wondered if she should tell him who she was, or at least that she and Orya had once been friends. Her instinct was to keep that a secret until it was most advantageous to reveal it. But she also sensed that everyone around Yarro had probably operated with that same philosophy. Perhaps it would be better to be open with him. Then again, perhaps it was better to go with what he was used to. Then again, he was running away from what he was used to, so perhaps it would be best to...

She abandoned the circular thought process and focused on her form. She had more room here in the wilderness than she had had in her room at the inn in Meekin. She threw in a few leaps and tumbles, envisioning what her imaginary opponent might be doing to provoke such moves. If he thrust low, she could block it and sweep his sword down as she leapt closer to him. If he swung wide, she could duck under it and roll closer, coming up inside his reach and stabbing just so.

When she was breathless and felt her heart racing in her chest, she slowed her movements until she was moving fluidly through each stance in turn. It was a slow form of the moves she had been doing, but Master Tanvel had taught her using these forms, making her master the form before showing her how each stance could be used against an opponent. He had ignored the skills she already had with sword and dagger until she had mastered what he taught her. Then, in a lesson that had shattered her preconceived notions, he had shown her how to tie all of her skills together to become a whirlwind of death and defense.

At last her heart and breathing slowed to their normal rhythm. Azmei bowed in respect to her imaginary opponent and sheathed her blades. She was not good at communing with the god of peace, but she had learned to channel all of herself into the sword forms. She could take any emotion, any confusion, any doubt, and give it all to the form dance. When she finished, she might not have an answer to the question that was plaguing her, but she inevitably felt better for it. It was, in her opinion, better than prayer.