Egar held up his hands, aping the gesture he d squeezed out of Harath in the courtyard a few moments ago. Listen, I don t want to hurt you, I m not going to even touch you. I just want you to tell me about the other girl.
But she s gone. Eyes pleading.
We fucking know that, bitch. Where s she gone?
Egar bounced up, spun on Harath.
You want to shut up for a minute? he hissed. Fighting yet again a strong desire to punch the Ishlinak out. Do something useful. Get out there again, see if there s some way to climb up to that trelliswork and break through onto the roof. Go on. Fuck off. I ve got this.
Harath looked hurt, but he went. Egar crouched in front of the girl again. She was backed so hard into the stonework of the alcove now, her muscles were straining at the push. She had the blanket up almost over her face, as if she could wrap herself in it like the girl in the fairy tale, and disappear.
Don t worry about him. Just tell me anything you know about this girl. Did you know her name?
The eyes looked back at him over the drawn-up blanket hem.
He told her he d take her away. He promised her. All that week, she was waiting for him to come back.
Egar sighed. Yeah, what can I tell you? Like they say, never trust a fucking Ishlinak farther than you can throw-rope him. So what happened to her?
A tight gulp. They came.
They?
The priests, the invigilators. They dragged her out, they were asking her questions, slapping her, screaming at her. They were so angry. We have to be pure. Untouched.
Egar frowned. It was the same crap they handed daughters the world over, he supposed. But slaves? And some of the women he d seen didn t look to be much under thirty summers. If Menkarak thought he was holding a crop of virgins here, he had to be more fucked in the head than even Archeth reckoned he was.
Why untouched? he asked.
A visible shudder ran through her. The angels have chosen us. When it s their time to walk here, they ll come for us.
Angels. He was getting tired of this.
You don t believe me, she whispered. Her gaze wilted downward, her knuckles pressed through the blanket against her mouth as if she was trying not to be sick. Voice mumbling almost too low to catch the words. You re from the north, farther north even than me. Why would you believe? Men like you.
And then, as if these last words had woken something in her, the girl s eyes snapped up again. Fixed on his.
Get me out of here. It jerked out of her.
Please, get me out.
Uhm, look
Please. I ll do anything, anything. I m good, I was in a Parashal training stable before this, I can, you can. She swallowed. Anything. But you have to take me with you, right now.
Listen
You don t understand. Taut desperation now, snapping her jaw tight on the words. I ve seen them. I ve seen the fucking angels for myself. Just like they said. They came and I was judged. Blue fire. Blue fire and voices like beasts at play.
Blue fire
He sat back as if she d slapped him.
Abruptly, he was back in the mist-tangled marshes of Ennishmin, crouched among hardened artifact scavengers, watching the faint flicker of blue in the distance.
Swamp wraith, murmured one of the men, and the others made gestures at the various charms they wore. We don t go this way .
And later, at the tavern with Ringil, he saw the way a decrepit old man melted before his eyes, leaking that same blue radiance as he went down. Saw what rose instead to replace the illusion of humanity
Ringil always argued they couldn t come here, to Yhelteth. Wouldn t come here, where the sun was a withering white blast across the sky
The squat black glirsht statues in the altar chamber.
Some kind of beacon for the dwenda.
He almost turned to look, over his shoulder, back the way they d come. To what might now be blocking their way out.
Once, barely twenty years old, deep in the Dhashara pass, he d gotten into a tomb alone, only to find it was now a scree panther lair. The sarcophagus was tumbled, lid broken in huge fragments across the earthen floor. Bones strewn everywhere, and the piles of panther spore, the marks of iron-hard claws through the dust, the paw-pad traces.
The cave exit was thirty yards of chilled and twisting raw rock tunnel back the way he d come. He shuffled bent-backed along every darkened foot of it expecting to hear the scrape of claws ahead and the low yowl of the panther returning. Prayers in his throat to the Dwellers, begging he d go to his death gladly, whenever, wherever they chose, if it could only be under open skies.
When he made it out into the hot mountain sunlight, it was like being born again.
No fucking way. Harath, grumbling back from the courtyard. Stone s solid as the day they carved it. Take a week to chisel through.
Right. Back the way we came then. Get the lantern. We re leaving.
Thank Vavada s tits for that.
Egar reached out his hand to the girl. You want out, girl? This is it. Let s go.
The slave girl gaped disbelief, then grabbed at his hand as if coming up from drowning. Harath guffawed. Egar made a mighty effort and didn t smack him. He pulled the girl to her feet instead. Thin cotton shift under the blanket; the garment was practically translucent, barely made it to her shins. Her breasts molded to it, showed dark nipples through the cloth. Harath made an appreciative noise deep in his throat and reached to grope one of the soft mounds. Egar slapped him away.
We re in a hurry, he said gruffly.
You re a sad old man, Dragonbane. The Ishlinak gave him a filthy grin. I fucking told you, if you wanted
Egar peeled him a look and he shut up.
And I told you we re in a hurry. Now pick up that fucking lamp.
Perhaps it was there in his voice, a trace of tight-roped tension that closed the Ishlinak down. Or maybe Harath could feel the same thing Egar did not want to admit he felt. The creeping sensation that now breathed from every darkened alcove and doorway around them, that stalked the rooms behind them like the ghost of vengeance for brothers slain.
Something on its way.
They loped back through the endless rooms, knives out and carried low. Ignoring the blanket-bundled bodies to left and right, whether they woke and watched them go or not. Skirmish party pace soft, rapid crunch of their footfalls, the hurrying puddle of the lantern, and behind it all, a yawning prescient quiet. The girl, stumbling as she struggled to keep up on bare feet.
They cleared the main door to the slave quarters, found the bodies undisturbed. The other lanterns and the stretched-hideous flickering shadows that capered out from their bases. The staircase back up, the way they d come, and there at the top
Egar slammed to a halt.
The girl saw. Moaned low in her throat.
Blue fire.
CHAPTER 23
