“And these are the runners this mysterious behaviorist was warning us about? The ones looking for the boy?”
Petronus nodded, remembering Hebda’s words. “And looking for the missing mechoservitors.”
Grymlis studied the body, and Petronus followed his eyes. “She was a tough one by the looks of her, but no match for whatever found her. And likely not much of a match for our men.”
Still, Petronus knew there must be more to this than what lay before their eyes. And as if in answer, a low whistle reached his ears from the other side of a low rise of bent and mounded glass.
They joined Edrys where he crouched with his scout. “It happened here,” the lieutenant said, pointing with his knife to the bare patch of ground. “She was carried to the place they buried her.”
Petronus stared at the ground, barely able to see the marks so obvious to the Gypsy’s trained eyes. “They?”
Edrys nodded. “There were three-maybe four of them-not counting the girl.” He pointed to another nearby outcropping, blue and yellow and green, with wind-sharpened ridges. “They waited here and took her quickly by ambush, I suspect, without much fight.” He stood and stepped carefully out of the clearing. “She ran from the east. Possibly in pursuit. Her stride indicates magicks of some kind were employed.”
Yes, Petronus thought, remembering that night so long ago in his shack, when the blood-magicked assassin had attacked him and sent him into Ria’s trap there on the Entrolusian Delta. The trap that had laid him out dead for his sins and brought him back in some twisted mercy he still could not comprehend, bending him into a miracle to prove their abominable gospel.
Grymlis must’ve been thinking in the same direction. “If she were under blood magicks, even a half-squad would be hard pressed to take her so easily-let alone four men.”
Edrys stood. “Not men,” he said as he looked to Petronus, and the realization dropped into his awareness like a rock in a well. He followed the scout’s knife tip and saw the clear outline of a footprint.
“The mechoservitors killed her,” he said, and his voice sounded flat in his ears. “The ones we saw moving west toward the Wall.”
Edrys nodded. “It appears that way.”
“Gods,” Grymlis muttered.
Petronus inwardly cursed the broken skies of this place that kept the birds from finding their way. Then, he cursed their already small numbers and gave his orders anyway. “This,” he said, “is something new that we cannot overlook. Magick a runner and send him for the Wall. And gather the party-we ride immediately.”
Then, as they moved off and away, Petronus turned back and made his way slowly back to the shallow grave and the girl who waited there in it. He was not sure if it was her nakedness or the starkness of the mark over her heart, but something compelled him, and he stooped to pull her shirt closed. With the scar covered, his eyes found the bruises at her neck and he imagined the quick, possibly even painless end she’d met in service to her faith in this desolate place.
Whatever the mechoservitors guarded, whatever they were about, they were willing to kill for it. And that was something utterly against the gospels and precepts that fueled their scripting. It unsettled him deeply.
And at the same time, he found himself quietly rejoicing.
Because if these are the same that seek Neb, he realized, there’s now one less of them for us to deal with.
Grabbing up a stone in each hand, Petronus set about to bury his enemy. He worked quickly, feeling the sweat that trickled from his hairline and armpits tracing its way down his back and sides. When he reached that final stone, the white one that signified the light inherent in every human life, he hesitated.
In the end, the mechoservitors had more mercy than he himself could muster, despite the cold and calculated murder of their prey.
He remembered Ria’s knife, remembered her words, and felt the burning of the scars she’d left upon him. Felt the despair washing over him when he realized just what his death and resurrection had accomplished after a life of service to the light of reason, the light of human knowledge and experience. Then, he looked to the place near the corpse’s head, where the light-colored rock had lain before.
Hefting that stone, Petronus cursed and hurled it as far from the grave as his strength would allow.
Then he turned back to find his horse and press eastward with his men.
Jin Li Tam
Cold rain pounded them from a bruise-colored sky, and Jin Li Tam’s hands kept moving beneath the rain cloak to where Jakob nestled close against her in his riding harness.
She was grateful that he rode so well, having heard stories from the house staff about the less amenable infants they’d encountered. And she’d been surprised-she’d been prepared for his ear to keep him screaming for the trip. But Lynnae’s powders, administered through Jin’s milk, seemed to cut the pain, and he’d ridden largely in silence.
Still, after so many days in the saddle she was ready for a real bed and a hot bath and a roof that wasn’t canvas. She imagined little Jakob felt the same way, though he seemed content enough to pass the time sleeping and nursing and looking about when the weather was less foul.
Aedric’s company of Gypsy Scouts were all around them, a platoon’s worth magicked and on the run, maintaining a perimeter that moved around her entourage as they rode for the Machtvolk Territories. They’d sighted the first of Ria’s watchtowers the day before, tall and dominating the rugged terrain, and a kin-raven late in the evening informed them that they would be met today by an escort who would guide them into the territories.
It was hard to believe that she’d been here not so very long ago, deep in the winter, riding at the head of Rudolfo’s Wandering Army. It had been much colder, but the rain seemed more miserable to her than the snow. Of course, growing up on the Emerald Coasts, where winter was a warmish rain, had made settling into her new northern home a bit of an adjustment.
She shifted in the saddle, sore from the ride and aching still from the blast. Isaak had shielded them from the worst, saving their lives, but she still bore the bruises and cuts. She expected a scar now on her thigh where a long sliver of pine had laid open the flesh.
Memory of that day brought a shiver to her deeper than the wet and cold.
A flash of brown to her left brought her head around, and she saw Aedric fishing a bird from his catch net. He whistled and raised his hand for them to stop.
She reined in, a hand once more creeping to Jakob’s stomach to feel the warmth of him.
Just beyond Aedric, she saw Winters sitting tall in the saddle, though the girl’s eyes were downcast. She’d been quiet of late, and her work with the knives had taken on a determined edge that felt something like banked anger to Jin’s practiced eye.
When Aedric spoke, she met his eyes and returned the anger she saw there with cool aloofness. “The Marsher escort approaches ahead,” he said, then corrected himself. “Machtvolk. Their queen rides with them.”
She inclined her head, keeping her face masked. “Good.”
She glanced to her right, where Lynnae rode. The girl had insisted that she accompany them. It had been months since she’d served as Jakob’s nursemaid, but the bond between her and Jin and the child was palpable, and the River Woman had sent her with a full field kit of powders and scripts. Now, the woman rode swaddled in a rain cloak twice her size, her face buried in the cowl and her long curly hair spilling out from under it.
Behind them, the rest of the company stopped. Aedric would not move them forward, Jin knew. Instead, he would make their hosts come to them-a subtle message.