Rom’s knives were in his hands as he rounded the corner of the perimeter. He smelled them before he saw them: two Dark Bloods and two guards at the gate, armed with swords. Jonathan’s and Jordin’s horses were tied to a rail halfway between the corner of the perimeter and the gate itself.
A cry rang out from inside the compound. “I’ve come to bring a new kingdom of life!”
A second car had entered the train tunnel. He could hear it, lower pitched than the siren; could pick out with Mortal ears the beat of the wheels churning on the track.
More Dark Bloods…
He whistled once, tongue curled hard against his upper lip as he rushed the Dark Bloods. Four heads spun toward him. He threw the knives in a swift volley, underhanded. The first caught a Dark Blood square between the eyes. The second never reached its target-the warrior reacted too swiftly, snatching the knife from the air and launching it back before his companion hit the ground.
Rom dropped to his knees and slid the last five yards as the knife whirred overhead. The Dark Blood was already closing, rushing in. Rom grabbed the hilt of his sword, freed it, but the Dark Blood was too fast. His foot came down on the blade, pinning it to the ground as he slid his own weapon free.
Rom rolled to his feet. The Dark Blood rushed forward, sword slashing through the rain. Rom threw himself to his right to avoid the blade. He felt the tug on his shirt as the sword sliced through the material. Too close…
He lunged forward and slammed into the Dark Blood with enough force to send him reeling back.
The distinctive sound of steel smacking into flesh drew his momentary attention to the gate where one of the guards spun and staggered back against the iron bars, clawing at a knife in his jugular. Beyond, the blurred vision of Jordin, who’d thrown the knife, pulled up sharply, hands empty, which meant only one thing: she was out of blades.
The squeal of sparking brakes cut the air as the underground car came charging up out of the tunnel a hundred yards away. Six forms inside.
Rom saw it all in the space of a second, even as the Dark Blood recovered and came again, more measured this time, sword in both hands. Rom dipped down and snatched his last knife from his boot, knowing that he was outmatched by his opponent, who was quicker and armed with a much longer blade.
The heavens opened in earnest.
To his left a form sprinted down the length of the concrete perimeter headed pell-mell for the Dark Blood. Triphon. He grabbed the hilt of Jonathan’s sword as he ran past the horses, yanked it free without breaking stride.
“Triphon!”
The Dark Blood’s eyes darted to the new threat. Rom moved then, while the warrior’s attention was divided. He sprang toward the remaining guard at the gate, leaving the Dark Blood for Triphon, knowing full well his back was exposed.
He reached the guard in five long steps and plunged his knife into the man’s neck as the sound of Triphon’s bulk colliding with the Dark Blood joined the rolling thunder.
Rom spun to see them crashing to ground. The rain was so heavy now that for a moment he couldn’t tell which form was which.
A scream. “Triphon!”
Rom spun to see Jordin at the gate, eyes wide. Starring past him.
He jerked back around. Triphon lay on top of the Dark Blood, barely stirring. A chill washed down Rom’s neck.
A shout cut through the rain from within the compound. “I bring you life not seen in this world. A new kingdom!”
Rom heard each word as if cried from a separate disconnected reality. Life. But the scene before him whispered death.
Triphon rolled over onto his back, fingers clawing at his chest. At the sword still protruding from it. Rom’s lungs seized. The Dark Blood lay still with Triphon’s sword buried in his throat.
His friend coughed once. For a moment he looked to laugh up to the sky. Then his hand fell down to the earth. Still.
The Dark Bloods in the train would swarm them at any moment.
Jordin stood unmoving, staring at Triphon’s fallen form beyond the gate.
“Jordin!” Rom was at the gate, turning the key. “They’re coming!”
She twisted toward the compound behind her. “Jonathan! We have to go!”
His head snapped toward her, braids sodden, clothes stuck to the hard panes of his chest.
“Now!” she screamed.
He dropped to his seat, skidded down the slope of the roof and emerged from around the end of the building with Kaya, who was wearing his coat. Together they tore down the broken walk, past a crowd of wide-eyed Corpses, not slowing until they reached the gate, just open enough against the bulk of three bodies to let them out one at a time.
Jonathan faltered, staring at Rom as he knelt over Triphon’s fallen form, frantically checking for signs of life. If Triphon had been a Corpse, they would be able to smell the scent of death. Because he was Mortal, only breath or pulse would tell the truth.
There was neither.
Dark Bloods began to pile out of the train car. Rom jerked his head up, hesitated only a moment, then sprang to his feet. There was no time to take Triphon’s body as long as Jonathan was at risk.
“The horses! Go!” he cried, urgently waving them on.
Jordin grabbed Jonathan’s arm and tugged. “Run!”
He scooped up Kaya and ran ahead of Jordin. They threw themselves into the saddles, Jordin behind Jonathan, Kaya and Rom on the other horse.
Shouts from behind. A knife whisked harmlessly past Jordin’s head.
And then they were riding in a full gallop through the veil of a heavy downpour.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ROLAND KNEW FROM THE SLIGHT but immediate tic beneath Saric’s eye that he’d struck the right chord in offering up Jonathan. He pressed his advantage while it was still his.
“And it’s not what you think,” he said.
“You presume to know what I think,” Saric said.
“You think I’m a man who would deceive you as I have. I would assume the same in your position.”
The man was a column in black, tall in the saddle, fingers like claws and arms all too obviously corded with muscle beneath his tunic sleeves. A powerful man, no pretender, and no fool.
A man of destiny like himself.
Despite the tic, he listened in silence-a sign of surety and resolve.
“What I have to say, you will want to hear,” Roland said. “All I ask is that you hear it alone.”
Still no reaction. Just that dark stare, so like a vulture’s on a fresh piece of carrion. This was not turning into the kind of confrontation Roland had anticipated.
“I have men in the trees above us. If I wanted to engage you, I would have without first exposing myself. I want no bloodshed. Only peace. But for that I must talk to you alone.”
“Who are you to speak to me alone?”
“Roland Akara. Prince of the Nomads.”
Saric seemed unaffected by his name.
“You see the man on my left?” Saric said. “His name is Brack. I am the kinder soul between us. I pity you if any harm were to come to me.”
Roland gave the man a curt nod. “You see the woman behind me? Her name is Michael. She is one of a thousand like her. I pity you if any of them led our people in a mission to strike, unseen, like serpents when you least expected it.”
