Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts) (51 page)
BOOK: Vengeance of Dragons (Secret Texts)
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Both men slowed without a word.
Kait heard voices ahead. “Who is likely to be coming through here at this time of day?” she asked Ian.
“Soldiers . . . gardeners . . . servants . . . Could be anyone.”
“We’ll have to kill them,” Ry said.
“Maybe not,” Ian said. The corridor they were in was pierced at right angles by regular intersections with other, similar corridors. “We can just move aside and hope they don’t notice us.”
“And if they do?” Ry asked.
Kait sighed. “Then we’ll have to kill them. But we’ll all be better off if we don’t.” Them included, she thought. She had no stomach for the murder of innocent gardeners or serving girls.
They moved into the first corridor to their right and stood in the shadows, not moving and barely breathing. They saw a light flickering from ahead of where they’d been walking. They waited, and the voices grew louder.
“. . . and I told Marthe I was going to quit and find a job slopping hogs if I couldn’t find nothing better,” a man’s voice said. “Hogs is friendlier than these bastards.”
“A hog’ll rip your arm off and eat it in front of you, you ain’t careful,” a woman’s voice answered. “Hogs is mean.”
“And these people’s meaner. You’re fresh from the country—you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. But you mark my words, Lallie, they’ll be dug under your skin and sucking the life out of you before you’re here a week. Find something else.”
“If that’s such good advice, why ain’t you already taken it?”
The pair drew even with Kait’s hiding place and she watched them. Their torch illuminated a tired-looking man of perhaps forty, slouch-shouldered and with thinning hair, and a fresh-scrubbed young woman with a pert smile and a bounce in her step.
“Because the bastards pay in good gold, and gold’s hard to come by these days.”
The girl flashed a broad grin up at the man and laughed. “As hard for me as for you, I reckon, and I swear I’m tired of being paid in eggs and promises. I guess I can wash clothes for bastards good as I can for my neighbors.”
They were past, then, and Kait’s heart slowed its knocking in her chest.
“I reckon you can. I just hope you don’t mind paying a high price for your gold wage.”
Kait wanted to tell the girl,
Listen to him, you idiot.
Instead, she contented herself with the thought that she held the Dragons’ downfall in her hands. Maybe, if Lallie wouldn’t save herself, Kait could save her. Maybe.
Listen to him, you idiot.
Instead, she contented herself with the thought that she held the Dragons’ downfall in her hands. Maybe, if Lallie wouldn’t save herself, Kait could save her. Maybe.
The voices died away to silence at last, and Ry and Kait and Ian got back under way.
The guardhouse proved to be close, and Ian proved to be right in his description of what they would find there. A guard stood, his back to them, watching a few boys playing ball in the alley he guarded. There was no traffic. There were no pedestrians.
Ian drew his knife, slipped behind the guard, jammed a leather gag into the man’s mouth, and slammed him on the back of the head with the pommel of his knife. The man fell like a dropped bag of rocks. Kait saw that he was still breathing. Ian carefully removed the leather gag and stood staring down at the man.
“I thought you were going to kill him,” Ry said.
“I’ve done more than my share of killing since I came here.” He looked bleak when he said it. “He didn’t see us, he didn’t hear us, and he won’t be able to tell anyone which way we went or what we did.”
Ry nodded. “I’m not complaining.”
“Where’s your carriage?”
Ian said, “Stand here a moment.” He strolled across the street, to all appearances the guard in the guardhouse stepping out for a moment to take a look at something interesting. When he came back, Kait heard wheels rattle, and an instant later, a large black funeral carriage drawn by four black horses rolled into view. It stopped in front of the guardhouse and Kait, Ry, and Ian dragged the Mirror of Souls into the darkened interior and followed it in.
The carriage lurched forward.
“Where are we going?” Kait asked. She couldn’t believe that they were free.
“Galweigh House,” Ian said softly. “It’s the last place anyone will think to look for us.”
T
HE EPIC ADVENTURE CONCLUDES IN
HE EPIC ADVENTURE CONCLUDES IN
Courage of Falcons
FROM
W
ARNER
A
SPECT
ARNER
A
SPECT
About the Author
Holly Lisle, born in 1960, has been writing science fiction full time since November of 1992. Prior to that, she worked as an advertising representative, a commercial artist, a guitar teacher, a restaurant singer, and for ten years as a registered nurse specializing in emergency and intensive care. Originally from Salem, Ohio, she has also lived in Alaska, Costa Rica, Guatemala, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. She and Matt are raising three children and several cats. Her Secret Texts series concludes with
Courage of Falcons
in October 2000.
Courage of Falcons
in October 2000.
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