“What?”
“That is not Ty.”
The Sarge and Rickard glared back at Phin. Claudja had taken a step away from him, but she froze as well.
“Sarge?” the voice that was and was not Ty called again, though a different note was creeping into it. Impatience. “Come on, Sarge. I’m waiting.”
The voice started to laugh. The Sarge and Rickard sprang away from the trap stone, and the glint of gold from the bait coin. The laughter changed until it did not sound like the dead legionnaire anymore. It sounded like a woman. Cackling.
The Sarge, sunken eyes wide in his ashy face, turned toward Phin and he shouted. Phin blinked and looked around, and saw that the Duchess of Chengdea had not waited for him. She was running, and was already halfway back to the north exit from the plaza.
The sergeant charged, and Phin turned and ran after Claudja. Rickard must have reached for the sword he had set down next to the trap stone, for the sharp scraping sound came again. Rickard screamed.
Phin looked back and saw the Sarge skid to a halt and turn around. The stone had been yanked open from below and a hand had reached out to grab Rickard by the wrist. It was pale and thin, like a woman’s, and the long nails were painted crimson red.
Rickard was falling forward into the hole as Phin turned and ran full-out after Claudja. The Duchess left the plaza and took the first corner, then she screamed.
Phin licked a finger as he ran and slipped it into the pouch of sand at his belt, bringing to mind the arcane words to release a Sleep spell. He rounded the corner with his hand in front of his face, hoping the few grains of sand on his finger were enough to constitute the material components for the spell, but his breath caught in his throat before he could exhale at the thing holding Claudja.
It was a figure in white robes though its hood was thrown back to reveal a scaly, crimson head with horns, a bristling beard of wiry hair, and green eyes without pupils. It had lifted the struggling Duchess off her feet by the shoulders, and there were another half dozen creatures just like it, grinning at Phin.
Phin started to speak his spell, though there wasn’t much point. He did not get halfway through the sentence before one of the things bounded forward, grabbed his hand in a cold grip strong as iron, and jammed two fingers into Phin’s mouth so hard he started to gag. He was jerked off his feet by one wrist and his chin, spun around in the air and slammed to the cobbles on his chest.
The fingers came out of his mouth but the hand pressed Phin’s face against the ground, and a sharp knee settled on his spine between the shoulder blades.
“No spell, mage,” a voice hissed in his ear, so close that a flicking tongue tickled the lobe.
The leather satchel containing the book was yanked off his shoulder.
Phin could not see Claudja but he still heard her, voice muffled but furious and feet scraping a wall as she kicked in the air. There was some dark, sibilant chuckling all around, and when it subsided Phin heard footsteps. A clacking as though from boot heels, drawing near from the direction of the plaza.
As his face was pinned to the ground all Phin saw was a pair of boots come around the corner, moving at an unhurried stroll. They were of shiny black leather and extended up shapely calves at least past the knees. The heels were ridiculously high, though the woman wearing them did not totter as she sauntered forward and stood directly in front of Phin. Behind him, Claudja stopped struggling.
“Dead or alive, Mistress?” the creature on Phin’s back asked.
There was an agonizing pause, before a throaty voice purred.
“Alive, I think. The Lord Balan may wish to speak with them.”
A legionnaire’s short sword clattered to the ground next to the boots. The blade was bloody, but it was smeared. Like it had been licked.
A scaly hand slithered around Phin’s throat, and he was throttled unconscious.
Chapter Thirty-Five
On their third day in Vod’Adia, Nesha-tari and her party experienced something of what the Sable City was like for a more typical band of adventurers.
The majority of those who came into the place were in search solely of loot, and so spent their days entering the buildings which Nesha-tari’s group had avoided as much as possible. While it was known that the demonic denizens of Vod’Adia spent their days indoors, that was also where the riches were believed to be. Anything of value accessible from the streets was long since gone from an earlier Opening. Carvings had been chipped off buildings and banisters, metal lantern posts and signs had been yanked down, and even the ornate plates that had once identified streets by name in the old Ettacean script were now just rectangular outlines on corner buildings. With the streets picked clean centuries ago, anything worth having had to be looked for indoors.
Nesha-tari’s party did not enter a building for loot, but only for a vantage point. After walking south for yet another hour parallel to a tall district wall within Vod’Adia under the shimmering sky of sheeting rain above, they at last reached a gate. There were two massive doors around forty feet high set in the great wall, made of ancient wood that was itself as hard as stone. The doors were closed and the grim square towers on either side of them, in which some sort of winch system must have been housed, had no access from this side of the wall.
The party huddled before the gate to decide what to do, Zebulon quietly translating for Nesha-tari. Amatesu or the Miilarkian girl might have climbed into a tower to try and find a winch, but that idea was not particularly popular with anyone. Beside the danger, it was unclear if they should try to pass the wall at all. After more than two days of heading south as much as they were able they should have been about as deep into the city as was necessary to find a palace in the middle of it, at its “heart.” That place could be on the far side of the district wall, or it might still be on this one. It was impossible to tell from street level for here all the buildings were at least three stories tall, blocking the view in any direction. The group decided they needed a look around, and so they back-tracked to a tall tower they had passed by earlier.
The structure was of black stone, of course, cut in triangular blocks and fitted together like saw-teeth in ascending rows, rising in a round cylinder half-again as high as the adjacent wall. The tower stood by itself in a walled courtyard of barren dirt but the gate and the door had long since been staved-in. There was no way to tell what the purpose of the place had been, but while the tall tower would have been a remarkable feature in most contemporary cities it was not unduly impressive within Vod’Adia.
The others discussed their intentions before venturing inside, all arming themselves fully and advancing with great care. A single chamber filled the ground floor, naked stone with alcoves and niches showing where objects had at one time been displayed. Fluted columns supported a high ceiling and an ascending stone stair wrapped around the outer wall. The party lit the lantern and some torches, leaving a couple in mounts on the columns as there were no windows nor even arrow slits on the ground floor. They relieved themselves of excess packs which they piled in the center of the room, and Nesha-tari had Zeb tell the others she would wait with the packs. Shikashe did not like the idea and seemed to order Amatesu to wait as well, but Nesha-tari insisted through Zebulon that the party was far more likely to need a healer than was she. At length Nesha-tari was grudgingly left alone and the party ascended the stairs, Shikashe in front with the Miilarkian girl Tilda right behind him, her bow drawn and eyes narrowed for any sign of a trap.
It was barely ten minutes before the sounds of combat rolled down the stairs; yelling, growling, the clash of weapons and the thud of bodies. Nesha-tari did not expect the others would run into anything they could not handle, and sure enough the sharp sounds of battle were soon followed by the six party members sounding off one at a time. A few minutes later, Zebulon came bounding back down the stairs bearing a torch and his axe, his face flushed beneath a layer of dust and his scruffy beard.
“We found four nasties,” he huffed as he reached Nesha-tari. “Third floor. Ugly little critters, all beaks and claws. Regular weapons worked on ’em. Tilda took one down with an arrow right in the eye!”
“Did the bodies disappear?” Nesha-tari asked.
“Disappear? Oh. No. They’re still up there, all right. Smelly and bloody.”
