An unexpected gift indeed. But what to do with it?
Suddenly, he remembered the first time he’d discovered one of the many secret passages and rooms scattered throughout the nine forest manors he’d grown up in. He’d been six and playing spymaster with Aedric’s father, Gregoric. He’d leaned against a section of shelves in his father’s library, discovering a knot in the pine that seemed out of place, one that moved to his touch and unlocked a hidden panel in the wall. He’d spent an entire summer finding every door, every passageway, every hidden ladder and stairwell he could find.
Rudolfo smiled at the memory.
This is not so very different. He looked at the men who stood with him. “This remains secret,” he said in a low voice. “I want a perimeter kept at all times and guard stations at and in the cave. Use magicked scouts. Bring Lysias in and show him; I want a training ground for the new army established nearby and two companies of scouts deployed to assist.” He slowly raised himself to his feet, his eyes never leaving the well. “I want couriers to the mines in Rudoheim and Friendslip-five seasoned men from each.”
Philemus raised his eyebrows. “Miners?”
Rudolfo stroked his beard and nodded. “And I want two of Isaak’s mechoservitors brought up. If they do not have cartographic and geological familiarity then Charles should script them for it based on whatever we have in the library catalog.”
The Second Captain nodded, and Rudolfo saw the understanding dawn in his eyes. “Aye, General.”
“I want a half-squad assigned to each miner,” Rudolfo continued, “and I want mapping shifts around the clock. “If this is a gift-if it truly does give access to the Machtvolk Territories-I want to know everything about it.” He paused. “And I want our neighbors to know nothing.”
“I’ll see to it, General,” Philemus said, inclining his head.
The others left first until only he remained, with the scout who bore the lantern.
Rudolfo looked down the well once more, then turned away from it. There was a day, he realized, when he would have stayed and commanded this effort himself. He’d have even climbed down the well and set about exploring what lay below with his men. But something had changed. He wished he could say it was the investigation into the attack on his family, but it would only be partially true.
After half a lifetime of security, I no longer feel safe.
No, he remembered, not quite half a lifetime. He reached back and took hold of that first day he truly felt unsafe, there on the grass as he held his dying father while Fontayne’s mob of insurrectionists shouted curses upon his family.
Even then, he’d laid hold of every resource, every possible tool or weapon to root out the insurrection that House Li Tam had sown among his people. He had not stopped until every last bit of that vile weed was eradicated from his forest. And he’d watched every last one of them find redemption beneath the blades of his father’s Physicians of Penitent Torture. Each penitent named three more, and in the end, peace and order returned to him and to his father’s lands.
Rudolfo had not stopped until he felt safe again.
As he left the cave and started his slow climb back into a snow-flurried day, the Gypsy King knew it would be the same this time as well. Because they’d tried to take his family from him for a second time, and it sparked something deeper than the loss and fear. It sparked anger.
I will not stop until I feel safe again.
And for just a moment, Rudolfo thought he smelled salt and blood upon the wind.
Neb
They ran beneath a crescent moon, its dim blue-green light wavering over ridges of molten glass and gray barren slag. Neb steadied the girl as they forced their legs to carry them, powered by the root they chewed. They’d be out of root soon, he realized. With the two of them chewing it, his supply was running dangerously low.
They ran by night, hiding themselves by day as best they could, finding the ruined pockets in the ground or hills where they slept fitfully before waking to run again.
They pressed westward, zigging and zagging across the landscape.
As they ran in silence, Neb tried not to admire his companion’s graceful stride. He’d tried to bring more conversation out of her, but she’d been close-mouthed since that afternoon they’d set out. He’d not even been able to wrest her name from her.
A pack of kin-wolves howled a league or two north of them, and Neb steered them south. He could feel the strain of the run in his feet and calves, the solid jarring of his lower back as each booted foot found its purchase in a long and stretched-out stride. He glanced to the woman again.
She ran with her head up and moving slightly side to side, and if her shoulder pained her, she didn’t show it. Her long legs stretched out beside him. She wore her pack high on her shoulders, cinched down for easy running, and if she’d had her iron knives upon her narrow hips, she’d have looked the part of a scout.
They put three leagues between them and the wolves before he whistled them to a stop near a patch of scrub they could use as cover. Neb drew his canteen and passed it to her first, admiring the long line of her neck as she tipped back her head and drank from it.
I cannot take my eyes off her. It stirred something in him-guilt, he thought. He’d tried to hang on to the image of Winters with her freshly scrubbed face and her clean dress, but he couldn’t lay hold of that dream. He tried to draw from memory the last time he’d stood close to her, felt her hands and mouth upon him, but it had been most of a year since he’d kissed her good-bye there in Rudolfo’s garden. And this thirty-second daughter of Vlad Li Tam was here with him now, her face and form filling his eyes and the sweet smell of her sweat in his nose.
The thought of her made him blush, and he cursed himself for it, hoping she would mistake the red in his ears for exertion.
Behind them, the wolves howled again, and Neb turned his thoughts away from the girl and to their westward flight. There was only so much care they could take along the way. But he’d killed prey and left it where he could, hoping the blood would draw kin-wolves to cover their flanks. He’d also poured taint-salts into the scarce watering holes they passed. Anyone who drank from them over the next three days would find themselves incapacitated by dysentery. Even the girl proved her craft, giving him tips on how to quickly erase the evidence of their passing every ten leagues or so. “But understand,” she had said, “that my sisters will also know these tricks and will know to look for them.”
He looked behind them, watching the blue-green as it danced over glass and stone. “We should cover our tracks and turn south for a bit.”
She passed the canteen to him. “I agree.” Her brow furrowed, and when it did, her scars shifted.
He lifted the canteen to his lips and took a long swig of the tepid water. It tasted like copper in his mouth, and he tried to remember that last cool, fresh drink he’d taken. It had been months ago, when he’d been recovering with Renard’s people. Even then, it had not been the sweet, cold water of the Ninefold Forest.
They covered their trail a half league behind them, established a false trail northwest and then turned south, chewing yet another bit of the root to carry them forward. As the juice took hold, Neb felt the elation seize him and gave himself to his pumping legs.
When the morning slipped upon them, they hid themselves in an abandoned Waste rat warren tucked in a crevice of pockmarked ancient stonework. The woman curled up and fell instantly asleep, and Neb watched her for a while, pondering her. She wasn’t a Marsher, despite her use of the blood magicks. Her accent betrayed her even as her posture and appearance betrayed her kinship with House Li Tam. He dug into his pouch and withdrew the phial, opening the lid and sniffing the foul contents. Somehow, she was able to survive her use of them-unlike the Marshers, if what he’d heard in the Gypsy camp near D’Anjite’s Bridge held true.