March on, march on.
An awning flapped nearby. I paused to cut it down, wrapping myself in blue and gray striping.
March on.
Even the waterfront taverns were shuttered. Though the storm had faded to clear skies, still no one was out in the raw, blustery weather. All we lacked was more snow or rain to complete my misery. The wind-driven spume along the docks was freezing in place. Ships creaked dark and ominous at their moorings, a few faint lights showing even lonelier than deepest shadow would have been.
No barking dogs, no whores’ come-ons, no drunken singing. It was as if the entire city had been frozen into its grave. Copper Downs, brought to this. Though I’d be willing to bet things were quite warm inside the Selistani embassy.
That thought made me giggle. Giggling turned into laughter, and the laughter very nearly turned into whooping hysteria. I had to stop and sit on a pile of cargo nets until my breath ran out and I could rediscover my sense of purpose.
A few more ships farther down, stumbling under the starlight, I saw a vessel lit up with the pale orange-yellow flicker of bottled lightning. The steam kettle thrummed. She was making ready to sail. A few figures moved along the dock. One of those big drayage wagons was just pulling away.
Surali.
The Selistani embassy.
Corinthia Anastasia.
I tried to run, stumbled, slid on an icy patch and fetched up hard against a barrel. Climbing to my hands and knees, I staggered on. There was no running left in me.
Could I call them back? I opened my mouth and croaked. Damn me for carrying a sword but not a torch. These people would want me, if they knew it was me coming for them. I couldn’t fight a sick chicken in my current state, but I could catch up. Later I’d find a way to escape with the girl.
The dockside figures withdrew up the gangplank, weapons still at the ready. In careful order. A rear guard. Watching for me.
If only they knew.
To all the hells with staggering like a drunk. It was time for one last run. Time to catch them. I took a deep breath, lurched forward graceless and heavy as I had ever been of late, and was caught up in massive hands. Screaming, I turned to look into the face of Skinless.
He shook his head, no. One massive, meaty finger touched my lips for silence.
A bell clanged. Water churned as the ship slowly backed away from the dock. I didn’t even struggle. What would I have done, except be a prisoner? And who knows what Surali would have trimmed off of my body, the way she’d taken Mother Vajpai’s toes?
Still, I strained to retrieve the girl. I wept, until the tears froze on my cheeks; then the lumbering giant carried me away through the crystalline spaces of the winter night.
Defeat, and Another Sort of Triumph
To my surprise, Skinless took me not to the temple of Blackblood, or even the Temple of Endurance, but rather to the Tavernkeep’s place.
“How did you know?” I asked as the avatar gently placed me swaying on my feet before the door.
He shook his great, flayed head as if to deny any complicity, then lumbered once more into the darkness.
I was standing. Barely. For a moment, I was tempted to simply walk away. But that I could not do. I had allowed a child to be stolen to Kalimpura, home of the same child trade that had once sold me away. The two Blades who should be in here now were my key to following Surali, following that ship, and retrieving Corinthia Anastasia before… what?
I did not know.
So I staggered into the firelight.
My entrance was marred by my stumbling at the threshold. I hit the floor once more. This time I just stayed down. Something I’d never done. I felt too heavy to even move.
Strong hands-furred, as well as homey Selistani brown-picked me up off the floor. I was carried to a flat spot. A table?
Noises of crowding and moaning and the sweaty, bloody smell of recovery. Flickering light. Someone pouring pardine bournewater down my throat. Wincing as fingers probed for broken ribs.
Eventually I cried.
When I stopped crying, Ponce from the Temple of Endurance was holding my hand. “You need to sleep,” he said softly. “And perhaps to eat as well.”
“I need to know.” Then, one of the hardest things I’d ever asked: “Sit me up.” I had to see.
With the help of one of the acolytes, he propped me up, then they slid me into a chair. I looked around. Crowded, indeed. Rough-furred pardine Revanchists stalked among Selistani refugees with broken noses and bandaged wounds.
“Where is Mother Argai?” I asked. “And Mother Vajpai, and Samma?”
Ponce shrugged. “I am not certain.”
He slipped off, to find me food maybe, leaving me to wonder if he meant he did not know who I meant, or he did not know where they were.
No one else I knew well was close by. I half-recognized most of these people, though in my current state of fatigue and confusion, I might have thought to recognize anybody. Or no one at all. But where were any of my people? Corinthia Anastasia was gone, lost to me. My fellow Blades should be here somewhere. The Rectifier with them. Of course, the last I’d seen those three, they’d been leaping into a fiery night, while Mother Argai had been stumbling wounded in the street.
Even the Dancing Mistress, alien and alienated as she had become to me, would be a welcome sight.
Have I lost them all?
The thought chilled me. The idea that I might have only the gods for company now seemed more than I could bear. I rolled onto my side and curled up with my arms cradling my belly. When had I grown so large?
Ponce came back with a bowl of dhal, Chowdry in his wake. The priest wore an apron spattered with grease and sauce-he’d been cooking, then.
Was there a better ministry for him? I wondered, though, who stood with the god, and wished mightily that I might spend more time in his kitchen.
Me. I’d stood with the god most recently.
My mind was wandering, I knew it was. I forced my attention back.
“You are being alive,” Chowdry said in Petraean.
“You don’t have to sound so damned surprised.” I didn’t mean to be peevish, but the words came out that way.
He glanced at Ponce. “I am not being surprised. You are never surprising me.” Then, in Seliu, so the whitebelly could not understand us, “The embassy is gone. Little Baji went with them. So did some of the regulars here.”
“Spies,” I hissed in the same language.
Chowdry nodded. “But at least they are fled.”
“The girl hostage is with them,” I growled. “I have failed.”
He smoothed his apron, dirtying his hands in the process. “I am not thinking you have failed so much. This could have been a far more difficult night.”
“The gods live, but my sister Blades are missing. A child is stolen across the sea.” I briefly closed my eyes, blinking out my tears. “I cannot name this a victory.”
Chowdry took my hand. “Accept what success you can.” With a nod to Ponce, he turned back toward the kitchen, pushing through the crowd.
I realized that as we spoke, pardines had begun to surround me. A momentary stab of fear traced through my heart, which I laid aside. These were practically my own people. Even the Revanchists held little terror for me now.
The Dancing Mistress stepped between a pair of tall, furred shoulders to approach me. Her water-pale violet eyes glinted as she stared. I sat up to meet her, though it cost me much to move thusly. Back and belly protested.
“Where is he?” she asked.
That was not what I had expected. “Who?”
Her voice was hard. “The Rectifier. You gave our heart’s treasure away, but you have mislaid the bearer.”
I realized the room had fallen quiet. The Dancing Mistress’ ears were stiff, her tail flicking back and forth. “If you wish to punish me for losing track of your people’s greatest warrior,” I said, “lay into me and have done with it. I did not send him away or put him to sword. And he has two of my own with him.”