The Healing Wars: Book II: Blue Fire (5 page)

T
hey wanted the bounty. Wanted it so much they’d kidnapped me from a
tracker
. A good plan, actually. Insane, but good.

“What about the girl in the transport with me?” I asked as they bound my hands.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” said Uncle, rubbing his shoulder. “She might even be free by now. Those men at the docks were pretty unhappy about a pair of Takers being arrested.”

The boy nodded. “Especially that one guy, right, Fieso? Blond hair, tall. You should have heard him going on and on about you being a hero. He had the whole berth in an uproar.”

Danello.

“Oh, yeah.” Fieso chuckled and shook his head like he couldn’t imagine anyone sticking their neck out for someone else. “Resik listened for a minute and started smiling.”

“That’s when I got the idea.” The boy, Resik I guess, winked and tapped his temple. “Let them do the risky work, and if they pulled it off, we’d grab you right out from under their noses.”

These people would see soldiers burning houses and use it as an excuse to steal what was left behind. My escape options were few. I had little pain to use, and outrunning them with my hands tied was unlikely. I couldn’t count on a rescue, and I wasn’t even sure the others had gotten away. Vyand might have captured them all.

“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.

“Kill you,” said Uncle, casual as you please.

“Head works as proof, right?” Fieso added. “We got a box anywhere? Heads are messy.”

My stomach threatened to make a mess right there. “You don’t have to do this.”

“You got five thousand oppas? We’ll turn you loose.”

“Wait! The posters don’t say anything about me being dead.” They paused. “The Duke wants me alive. Kill me and you’ll get nothing.”

Fieso frowned. “Nobody ever wants criminals alive.”

“The Duke does. He needs me.” For what I wasn’t quite sure, and I hoped they wouldn’t ask. Luckily, they didn’t strike me as the smartest fish in the lake. I didn’t want to be handed over to the Duke either, but it beat having my head chopped off. Hard to think up an escape plan without a head.

“I don’t think so.” Fieso picked up an axe I hadn’t noticed on the table.

Please, Saint Saea, no.

Resik held up a hand. “Hold on, what if she’s right?”

“Easier to carry a head to Baseer,” muttered Fieso.

“Not if it don’t get us nothing.” Uncle stared at Resik as if he could divine the future from the pattern of his freckles. After a long minute he walked over and sat on the table next to Fieso. “It’ll be harder to get her there, but the boy makes sense. Posters said nothing about killing, and they usually do. The carriage is big enough to take her.”

“Not big enough to hide her.”

“Resik,” Uncle said, waving him over. “Go fetch that trunk off the carriage. She oughta fit in there.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to let me walk?” I asked.

“Not if you run.”

“What if I promise not to?”

“You know,” Fieso said to Uncle, “heads don’t talk so much.”

I shut up.

Resik laughed.

“Go get the trunk so we can get out of here.”

This was
so
not good. I casually studied the room, hoping something would inspire a perfect escape plan. One table, three thugs, three chairs, and four bedrolls. No windows. Just the one door. Uncle had already demonstrated his viselike grip, and Fieso was bigger and wider, with so many scars he obviously didn’t mind getting a little bloody in a fight.

Uncle wasn’t paying attention to me. He had his head down, studying papers spread out on the table. From the glimpses I caught, they were maps. Fieso watched me the entire time, his face blank.

He chuckled. If crocs could laugh, they’d sound exactly like that. “She’s a sly one. Look at her—planning her escape.”

“Was not,” I said.

“Oh, sure. I saw them pretty brown eyes looking around.”

“Can always blindfold her,” Uncle said without looking up from the maps.

Fieso slid off the table and walked to the bedrolls. “And gag her. Ten oppas says she’ll scream all the way to the traveler’s house if we don’t.”

Uncle nodded. “Yeah, fine.”

Fieso pulled some cloth strips out of one of the packs and came to me. I had no idea what the strips used to be, but they didn’t look clean or soft. The closer he got, the more I could smell them. Something sour.

“Please, don’t.”

“Look at that,” he said, tying a heavy knot in one of the strips. “Manners
and
sneakiness. Open.”

I shook my head. He grabbed my jaw, pressing his fingers into my cheeks. My mouth popped open and he shoved the knot into it, then tied the ends behind my head. I winced as he snagged some of my hair in the knot.

Fieso grinned and snapped the second cloth tight between his hands. Dust sprang out and floated around my head. I held my breath so I wouldn’t sneeze.

“Might wanna close your eyes.” He stepped behind me. “This one’s a bit dirty.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as he tied the blindfold around my head. At least it made it easier to hold back the tears.

Heavy thuds, muffled voices. The first sounds I’d heard in close to an hour. I’d been counting the minutes but lost my place at twenty-something when someone sneezed. I’d hoped it was Fieso, though it wasn’t much in the way of revenge.

The door opened and the thumps grew louder.

“What took you so long?” Uncle asked.

“It’s a trunk. It’s heavy,” Resik said, followed by a large bang. “And there’s lots of people out now, all yelling and throwing stuff. The streets are swamped.”

Hands seized my arm and yanked me to my feet, dragging me toward—I assumed—the trunk.

“Grab her,” Fieso said, and hands lifted my feet. I writhed but they just gripped me tighter. I reached out and found flesh, maybe an arm, and
pushed
my aching head into it. A man cried out and dropped me into something that smelled of fish stink and mold.

Something smacked me in the head as I tried to get up, and they all laughed.

“Stay,” Resik ordered as if I were a dog.

The lid thumped shut, and what little light came through the blindfold vanished. He’d bound my hands, but not my arms, so I pulled off the blindfold, then yanked the gag out of my mouth. My mouth
felt dry as a beach, but as soon as I heard crowds, I’d yell my lungs out.

One end of the trunk lifted and I knocked against the side. The other side rose a moment later and we were moving. Faint noises reached me after a few minutes, growing louder with every jostle. I rocked as the trunk rocked, banging into the sides as we went down the front steps. I’d never been one for lake sickness, but the heat and the swaying had my stomach flipping.

I listened, straining for sounds of people who might actually help if I started shouting. I prayed the others were safe and sound and heading for Barnikoff’s.

Voices yelled—commanding voices. Soldiers or guards for sure. “Settle down or you’ll be arrested,” said someone who
had
to be a guard.

“Help!” I kicked and pounded my fists on the sides of the trunk. “Help!”

The trunk dropped hard to the ground. I kept kicking and yelling, until a six-inch chunk of knife blade sliced through the top, cutting into my cheek. I jerked away and pressed a hand against it. After a heartbeat, the blade was yanked out.

“Next one goes through the side, where it’s heavy,” Fieso said through the hole. Most of me
rested on that side, my back flat against the trunk. “I don’t want to risk the money, but heads don’t try to escape.”

I stayed quiet. And still, despite the sting in my cheek and the blood trickling down my neck. Smells from the tannery oozed through the cracks in the trunk, mixing unpleasantly with the fish and mold. The smell of fish got stronger. Horses whinnied, wood creaked, and waves swished around dock pilings.

We had to be at the traveler’s house on the docks, the only one with a stable. Unless you were military or very rich, horses and carriages weren’t allowed on the isles. That never stopped people from ferrying them over, though. Housekeeper Gilnari made a good living stabling both.

Once I was on their carriage and off the isle, I was done for. I had to escape before they boarded the ferry.

Please, Saint Saea, do something. I’m out of ideas.

Voices drifted over, but nothing I could make out. Probably Uncle getting the carriage brought around and the horses ready.

“Let me help you with that,” someone called.

“No, I got it,” Fieso said, banging on the side of the trunk my back was pressed against. “You
scream,” he muttered through the hole in the trunk, “and anyone who tries to help you dies.”

A minute later someone grunted and I was swaying. The trunk dipped sharply at one end and I crumpled onto my head. A sharp jerk and it righted again.

My heart and my hope sank. I had to be on the carriage now.

“Can she breathe in there?” The voice was muffled, but it sounded like Uncle.

“I gave her an airhole,” Fieso replied.

“Gonna need more than one.”

The carriage rocked, then the blade punched through the lid—two, three, four times—then again in the front. I flattened myself against the side.

“That enough?”

“Better make ’em wider.”

The blade returned, twisting in each hole until grape-size shafts of light shone through. “Happy now?”

“Yeah, she won’t bake to death. Won’t it get messy in there?”

“Not if we don’t feed her.”

I shivered despite the growing heat in the trunk. It was four days, maybe five, to Baseer by road. I’d gone three days without food before, but never
longer. I’d known folks who had, so I could probably manage, but how long could I survive without water?

“Ferry’s boarding.”

“About time,” said Uncle. “Saints, my head is killing me. Wake me when we hit the mainland. I’m gonna nap.”

A door squeaked and shut, and the carriage lurched forward.

The shifted pain. How long before it thickened Uncle’s blood and wore out his body? It had taken only a day for Danello and his brothers to get pain sick after I’d shifted their father’s pain into them, but there had been a lot more of it. How soon until Uncle got sick?

How soon until he died?

Hope and guilt merged in a very uncomfortable knot in my guts. I’d killed him sure as if I’d stabbed him, only he didn’t know it. I didn’t see any of them going to a Healer. Maybe a pain merchant, but I doubted there’d be any of those along the way.

I shouldn’t feel guilty. He’d have killed me in a heartbeat. Cut off my head, just for money. Still, Healers didn’t take lives.

The crowd’s shouts echoed in my ears.
Abomination! Murderer!

I wasn’t a Healer and I never would be. I had other paths: hero or murderer.

Saints forgive me, but I felt more like one than the other.

My stomach rolled with every sway, queasy again from the heat and closeness of the trunk. I focused on breathing—in, out, in, out—trying not to be sick. I didn’t think Fieso would open the trunk for any reason, no matter what noises I made or smells I emitted.

Reins cracked and the rocking got worse as the horses picked up speed. Getting to Baseer faster might help keep me alive, but it was a whole lot more uncomfortable. I banged off the sides, bruising my bruises and opening up the cut on my cheek again. Already every inch of me hurt. My arms and legs burned from being crumpled like dirty laundry, and I doubted my spine would ever straighten up again. At least I’d have some pain to shift when they
did
let me out.

And kill more people?

I swallowed the thought. They weren’t people, they were criminals—
real
murderers. It should have made a difference, but the knot in my guts didn’t go away. Maybe I could escape without shifting.
I always had before, though I’d never been in this much trouble.

Hours later the light vanished from the holes in the trunk. The carriage slowed and stopped.

Footsteps.

Someone fumbled with the latch and the lid lifted. Fresh air poured in and I gulped it like water. Night had fallen and stars speckled the sky over Resik’s shoulder.

“You move even a little bit,” he said, hovering over me with a knife, “and I’ll slam this lid down hard as I can.”

“I won’t.”

He dropped a water flask onto my lap.

“Thank you.” Sweat dripped into my eyes, but I didn’t wipe it away or go for the flask yet.

He shrugged. “Be a waste of money if you died on us.”

“Are you really this heartless?”

He seemed taken aback at that, his expression shocked, then guilty, then angry. “It’s business. Nothing personal.”

“Trade places with me and see if you still think so.”

“You’d do the same thing.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, you say that now, but try turning it down when it’s offered. Not so easy.”

I smiled, which seemed to unsettle him. “I’ve turned down more wealth than you’ll see in your entire life.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” He slammed the lid shut and relocked it.

I sighed, sucking down the water and treasuring the last of the fresh air before it grew stale again. Maybe I
had
been an idiot. Where would I be now if I’d really accepted Zertanik’s offer, emptied the League’s pynvium Slab, and helped him and the Luminary sell it? Would I be standing in Verlatta, showing them empty healing bricks of ill-gotten pynvium and demanding a fortune for them? Or living without worry in my own villa with Tali and Aylin?

Most likely I’d be dead or sharing a prison cell with both men. I had a feeling either was better than what the Duke had planned for me.

T
he trunk opened again, maybe two days later, but I wasn’t sure. The sky was gray tinged in red this time. Sunset.

“What’s wrong with him?” Resik asked, looking both mad and scared.

“Wha?” I squeaked, my mouth too dry to talk.

“Uncle won’t wake up. I know you did this, so heal him.”

I said nothing.

“Tell me or you won’t get any more water.”

“Yo—won—” I coughed and my lips cracked.

Resik ran a hand through his hair and looked around. He yanked a much bigger water flask out of his pocket and dropped it on me. “Drink, then tell me.”

I sucked down the water, warm but good. My head stopped pounding, but the rest of me still hurt. I handed Resik the flask. “You won’t get paid if I die.”

He groaned in frustration and walked away, leaving the lid open. I reveled in the cool, fresh air. Much too soon he was back.

“Heal him and I’ll let you out of the trunk. We’ll keep you inside the carriage with us.”

“If I heal him, it’ll kill me instead and you won’t get any money.”

He swore. “You’re lying.”

“You need pynvium to heal and you don’t have any.” Not that it would do me any good if he did, but he didn’t know that. “You can have five thousand oppas or your uncle’s life. Your choice.”

He banged his fist on the trunk and walked away again, muttering. Then he was back once more.

“You can shift it into someone else though, right? That’s why the Duke wants you so badly?” He glanced away and brushed a hand across his upper lip. “Someone like—”

Fieso yanked him away from the trunk. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing! Just giving her some water.”

“Stay away from her.”

“I will.”

“I mean it.”

“I heard you the first time.” Resik reached over and shut the lid, but not before I caught the hateful look he shot at Fieso.

The lid opened again and pale sunlight poured in. The air tasted damp and clean. The sword pointed at my face shone bright.

“You’re going to get up, get out of the trunk, and heal my uncle.” Resik kept his gaze on me, but it jerked, like he really wanted to look somewhere else.

“Where’s Fieso?”

“Don’t worry about him, just do what I said.”

I sat up, muscles burning and tingling as blood rushed into them. My head spun and I gulped in air until it steadied.

“Hurry up!”

“I’ve been folded in a trunk for days,” I said, gripping the side with my bound hands. “Moving isn’t easy.”

Standing would be even less so, though that worked to my advantage. I wouldn’t have to fake tumbling out of the trunk. I hauled myself to my feet and pitched over the side, the trunk toppling
after me. I landed hard at Resik’s feet.

His
bare
feet.

I guess that’s how he’d sneaked away from Fieso.

I seized his ankle with both hands and
pushed
, sending all my aches and pains into him. He cried out and dropped on the trunk, cracking the side and breaking it into pieces. His legs no longer worked, and he ripped the lid off its hinge while struggling to get up.

My legs suddenly worked just fine again. I couldn’t shift hunger or thirst, so things were still a little swirly, but the pain was gone.

I grabbed the sword and braced it between my knees, blade edge up, and sawed away at my bonds.

“It hurts,” Resik moaned, curled into a ball.

I didn’t look at him, but it didn’t stop the guilt. He wanted to kill me, same as his uncle. Why should I care if either died?

I shoved the prickly thought away as the ropes snapped free. We were stopped on the side of the road, with nothing but rolling fields as far as I could see. No canals to dive into, no alleys to cut through, not even a tree to hide behind.

“Resik?” said Fieso.

I jumped. Faint smoke curled up into the sky on
the other side of the carriage. A campfire. If they were camped, the carriage and driver’s bench were probably empty.

“You’d better not be messing with that girl again.”

I rose, sword out, and circled around the carriage. I glanced toward the driver’s bench and frowned. It was empty, but the horses grazed fifteen feet away, tethered to a post in the ground. So much for stealing the carriage. How hard were horses to ride? Maybe I could steal one of them. I didn’t see a bridle, though, just loose ropes around their necks.

“Resik? Answer me.”

Fieso was closer now, and the only thing between me and freedom. My hands shook and the sword tip wavered. I’d get only one chance to catch him by surprise. I kept all Danello’s fencing lessons firmly in my mind. Thrust, parry, lunge.

“Are you—ah, hell.” Metal scraped—a sword sliding out of a scabbard. “Where’d she go?”

Resik moaned and mumbled something I couldn’t catch.

I gripped the sword tighter and readied myself to lunge.

Fieso’s shadow appeared first, bending around the edge of the carriage, then—

Crack!

Sharp pain flared behind my knee and I toppled forward, dropping the sword. It fell point first into the grass and wobbled.

“Good hit,” Fieso said, yanking the sword out of the ground.

I rolled over. Another man stood behind me, a three-foot reed rod casually resting on his shoulder. The carriage driver?

“Tie her back up,” Fieso said.

“Me? I’m not touching her.”

“We can’t leave her loose.”

“Force her into the trunk again.”

“Can’t. Resik broke it, the idiot.”

“Fine.” The driver stomped off and rooted around in the carriage. He came out with a coiled length of rope. “If she does that shifty thing, I’m gonna make sure you feel it worse.”

Fieso stepped closer and put the blade against my throat. “You won’t do anything, will you?”

“No.” I lay motionless while the driver retied my hands.

“We’ll be in Baseer in a few hours. I’ll put her in the carriage and keep an eye on her ’til then.”

The driver shook himself as if the very idea gave him shiverfeet, but he opened the carriage anyway.
Uncle was slumped inside, his face pale and sweaty. Fieso climbed into the carriage and shoved Uncle out. He moaned as he tumbled to the grass. Ashen skin, sunken eyes. I’d guess he didn’t have much longer.

“You should take him to a Healer.”

“Why? More reward for us.” Fieso turned to the driver again. “Get those horses. I’ll watch our girl.”

The driver frowned but did as ordered. Resik was probably still lying in the grass behind the carriage. For a heartbeat I wondered if anyone would stop and pick them up.

Fieso waved the sword at me and swung it toward the open carriage door. I climbed inside and sat. Fieso came in after, the sword never wavering.

“Now then,” Fieso said, leaning against the padded seat. “Let’s discuss the rules. You speak, I’ll kill you. You try to escape, I’ll kill you. You move at all, I’ll kill you. You do what I say, or I’ll kill you. Nod if you got it.”

I nodded.

“Good. Rules start now.”

I followed the rules all the way to Baseer. The landscape outside the window never changed, just green fields and farms stretching forever. I couldn’t even imagine how many people all those fields must feed.

The afternoon sun hovered over us by the time we reached the city walls. Golden stone disappeared into the distance, higher than most buildings in Geveg, maybe thirty or forty feet. Every few hundred yards, a tower loomed.

On the right, between the city and the river, was some kind of military fort. Rectangular, with a wide ditch around it. Barracks in neat rows. Armed soldiers posted around fortified walls, and towers at all four corners.

Was that the Duke’s army?

The carriage slowed at the gates, tall, with wide iron bars thick as my wrist. I saw at least five soldiers, but there were probably more.

One soldier walked up to the carriage door. She opened it, her hand on her sword. “Your business?”

“Delivering a prisoner for bounty.”

She looked at me and nodded. “Bring her out.”

Fieso slid down the seat and tugged on my rope. “Out.”

I got out, graceful as a frog.

“This way.” The soldier led us over to the guard station. Boards with reward posters nailed to them hung behind it. Faces of all kinds stared out at me, including my own.

“That’s her there,” Fieso said, pointing.

The soldier paused, then pulled the poster down. “Bring her to holding while I send someone for the magistrate.” She called over another soldier. They spoke briefly, casting glances at Fieso; then the second soldier waved us on.

“Follow me.”

“What about my carriage?” Fieso said.

“Tell your driver to ride on through. He’ll see the tether posts on the left.”

We stepped through the giant gate and into Baseer. My throat tightened, as if the air itself were poison.

Baseer. I’m in Baseer.

A square cage sat in the middle of a fenced pen. The soldier opened it and motioned me inside. I walked past her and plopped to the cool stone floor. Some welcome. Maybe it was a warning to all who came through the gates—obey the rules or pay the price.

“How long ’til I get my money?” Fieso asked.
My
money, not
our
money. Shame the driver didn’t hear that. I bet he’d be joining Resik and Uncle along the side of the road before nightfall.

“I don’t make the magistrate’s schedule,” the soldier said. She pointed to a bench not far from the cage. “Wait there.”

Fieso sat, and not long after, the driver took a
place beside him. People, carts, and carriages walked and rolled past us, but not many looked my way. I guess with so many faces on the reward posters, prisoners in the cage weren’t unusual.

I sat quietly, my head hanging down as if I were too scared or weak to do anything else. Wasn’t far from the truth, but I could move my wrists a little. With luck, maybe I could slide a hand free. No clue what I’d do after that, but every mile walked started with a step.

“What’s taking them so long?” Fieso said after an hour. He jumped to his feet. “How hard is it to count out some coins and put them in a chest?”

I guess he’d never tried to count to five thousand before.

The driver didn’t seem as concerned. “They gotta find guards to leave with all that money. Baseeri thieves’ll just rob it if they get the chance.”

That was a surprise. With their dark hair, I’d assumed they
were
Baseeri.

“Hey,” Fieso called to the gate soldiers. The same woman as before looked up. “When’s he getting here?”

She shrugged.

“I hate these people.”

The sun was halfway to the horizon when a carriage rolled up.

“About time,” Fieso muttered. The driver yawned and stayed on the bench.

The carriage door opened and an armored man stepped out. Not the usual silver chain armor the soldiers in Geveg wore though. This was dark and looked heavier. Next, a woman appeared.

Vyand.

“You got my money?” Fieso called, his hands on his hips.

“Your money?” she said, a cat’s grin on her face. A second man in armor left the carriage. The two men on the driver’s bench climbed down as well. The woman soldier from the gate walked over, followed by the man she’d spoken to earlier.

I had a feeling nobody in that carriage worked for the magistrate, and my guts said the two soldiers at the gate were working for Vyand. Bribes paid better than bureaucrats.

Fieso dropped his arms and tensed. The driver must have realized something was up, because he got off the bench. Vyand strolled toward them, her armored bodyguards in her wake.

“I have
their
money.” She pulled a pouch off her belt and tossed it to the woman soldier. She caught it in one hand and nodded once. “My thanks again.”

“Always a pleasure.”

Fieso’s hands clenched. “You trying to cheat me?”

“You stole
my
property and accuse
me
of cheating
you
?” Vyand tsked. “I’ll take my Shifter now.”

“I want my money first.”

“Sorry, it’s my money.”

Fieso dived at her, a knife suddenly in his hand. He sank it up to the hilt in her side and she cried out, fingers pressed against her stomach. Blood seeped through the cloth.

The driver drew his sword as Vyand’s men drew theirs. All except…

One of the armored men dropped to a knee, placing one hand over Vyand’s wound and the other on her forehead. His eyes narrowed, his cheek twitched, then the color returned to her cheeks. He pressed his bloody hand against his armor.

His
blue
armor.
Pynvium
blue.