A latch scraped ahead of her.
Dart crabbed backward with a wheel of her arms, ducking back into her alcove. Brant’s door opened. He glanced up and down the hall as if someone had rapped on his door. Or maybe it was the trumpets that had blared for the past half bell, echoing down from the top of Stormwatch.
Dart studied him.
He was dressed the same, still in his heavy winter cloak and boots. Seemingly satisfied that he was alone, he headed for the stairs. Where was he going? To investigate the trumpets? To sample the ale here, like the guards?
He reached the far stairs. Dart craned her neck to see, curious where he was going. Without a glance back, he headed down.
She drew after him, her feet moving on their own. Pupp trotted ahead of her down the hall.
Upon reaching the landing, she searched below. He had already vanished around a curve in the stairs. She hesitated on the steps. Her spying had already revealed what she had wanted to know. He had come. It was best now that she return to the castellan’s hermitage. The first evening bell would be ringing any moment. The regent’s flippercraft was due to arrive. Castellan Vail would expect her to attend the welcoming.
Still, she stood on the landing, burning with curiosity, tempered by a trace of fear. What to do?
Then her decision was taken from her.
Pupp bounded down the stairs after the boy, perhaps responding to some unspoken desire in her own heart. She hissed at him, but only faintly. A moment later, she pursued her ghostly companion.
Brant proceeded slowly, new to Tashijan, but he seemed to know where he was going, moving with a dogged determination. Perhaps he had been given a map to the towers.
As they progressed, Dart kept easily hidden. As usual, the stairs were crowded. She had no difficulty keeping him in sight while staying back herself. As she trailed her quarry, she heard snatches of conversation. With each level she passed, she slowly pieced together some mishap that had befallen a flippercraft landing atop Stormwatch. Word had traveled faster than the trumpet’s blare: of a fire, burning mekanicals, but order had been restored. No deaths.
Then she heard Tylar’s name.
Her feet slowed to listen to the rest of a knight’s conversation with a comely older maid. He leaned an elbow on the wall. Dart noted the Fiery Cross embroidered on his shoulder. “The regent arrives with as much turmoil as he’s beset our fair land. Is it any wonder Warden Fields disapproves of his position at Chrismferry?”
Dart continued past, lest she draw the knight’s eye. But it seemed the maid’s ample bosom had captured his attention full enough.
She hurried down a few more steps, dread clutching her throat. So it had been Tylar’s airship that had landed so roughly! He must have come early. She stopped at the next landing.
Enough with this foolishness. She needed to get back to the castellan’s hermitage. Kathryn might need her.
“You!”
The shout startled her-as did the hand that grabbed her roughly and pulled her around. She expected it to be Brant, wise to her spying.
But another familiar countenance pushed close to her, almost nose to nose. Pyllor. She smelled the sour ale on the squire’s breath.
“What are you doing out of your cage, Hothbrin? Come looking for some more lessons?” He shoved her against the wall with an angry laugh.
Dart struggled against him, but he outweighed her by two stones.
“’Course,” he slurred, “we’ll have to manage without Swordmaster Yuril. None of her coddling this time.”
His guffaw sounded more like a bark-but Dart was deaf to it, hearing only the beat of ravens’ wings behind his laugh. She tensed, remembering when another man had touched her so roughly.
Behind Pyllor, Dart saw two more of Pyllor’s friends. Dart didn’t know their names but recognized their hard eyes. She also noted the Fiery Cross emblems crudely stitched to their shirt collars.
Folks passed them on the stairs, barely noting them. Such ribaldry and hassling were not unknown among the ranks. But Dart read the mean intent in Pyllor’s eyes. The Fiery Cross bore no love for the castellan-or those who served her. Swords had been drawn over the division.
One of his companions grabbed Dart’s other shoulder. “Let’s do her?” he hissed at Pyllor, his eyes shining with malicious fire.
The second squire hesitated, half-blocking the way. “The castellan’s page-we don’t dare.”
Pyllor flat-handed him aside. His other fist knotted in Dart’s half cloak and tugged her toward an open door. “Bugger that sellwench up in her hermitage. We’re the warden’s men. She needs to learn who truly rules here.”
Dart fought against the fist in her cloak, trying to shed the garment and twist away. But her other elbow was snatched by the more exuberant of Pyllor’s two companions. The other hung back still, glancing to the stairs. But all interest still seemed caught upon the crashed flippercraft.
Dart was half-carried through a doorway into a dark, empty room. A single brazier burnt near the back, offering a meager glow.
An iron rod protruded from it, buried in the embers.
“Get your flat arse in here!” Pyllor’s friend said to their reluctant cohort.
He obeyed, caught in the wake of the other two.
“And latch the door!” Pyllor called out.
Dart stamped on the squire’s foot, desperate to escape, heart pounding in her throat. Raven wings echoed. Did they mean to rape her?
Pyllor swore and threw her deeper into the room, hard enough to trip her up. She skidded on the stone, ripping her leggings, bloodying her knee.
“Act like a skaggin’ wench…and we’ll treat you like one!”
A coarse laugh encouraged Pyllor.
The door closed behind him, sinking the room into gloom.
Pyllor’s partner crossed to the brazier, wrapped up his hand in a cloth, and pulled the rod from the coals. Its iron end glowed a fiery crimson. A branding iron. The tip was shaped into a circle bisected by crossed lines.
The symbol of the Fiery Cross.
It was not rape that they intended, but another violation of body.
“Where should we mark her?” the bearer asked. “The thigh, like we did that Moor Eld boy?”
Pyllor glared at Dart. “No. Somewhere where all will see.” He touched his cheek. “It’s time the Fiery Cross sent a message to that sellwench up in her hermitage.”
Dart scrambled back as the others laughed. She sought her only weapon. She reached down to her scraped knees, blessing her hands with her own blood. She needed Pupp.
Dart glanced around and only now realized she was alone.
Pupp was gone.
Pyllor stalked toward her. “Grab her.”
Brant knew he was being hunted.
He had sensed it for the last three levels as he descended the stairs, a pressure building behind his breastbone. He searched behind him, but the curve of the tower stairs betrayed him. All he saw was men and women in cloaks or various drapes of finery. A washerwoman with a tied bundle of linen bustled past him, almost knocking him aside. He caught the scent of soap and perfumed oil from her burden, intended for someone of higher station.
He took another step down. He was thwarted from much further progress by a tide of people heading up. He had almost reached the bottom of the tower, and some excitement seemed to be drafting folks upward, like smoke up a chimney, something about an arriving flippercraft.
Pressed against a wall, Brant finally noted the heat at his throat. His hand rose to touch the scar on his neck, then the stone resting below it. The stone wasn’t burning like the last time, flaring with a blistering fire. It was only warm, as if slightly fevered. Both curious and disturbed, he tested its black surface with his fingers.
As he stood, the stone warmed further, a match to the tension mounting in his chest. Brant took a step back up the stairs, then another. Under his fingertips, the stone heated to a toasty warmth. He reached the next landing, and a deeper burn surged, the stone becoming a coal in his fingers.