“Run, woman! Quick!”
She hesitated, and the man nearest lunged for her side. That was enough. She knocked his thrust wide with her blade and danced away, boots slipping in the sand, as she tore off back towards Detan. Her eyes were rabbit-in-a-hawk’s-shadow wide, and he couldn’t blame her. She must expect a bolt in the back any second.
Distancing himself from what was happening, he focused on the little ball of sel under the coat. His mind felt slow, languid with care, as he segmented off a piece half the size of one fist and pulled it out into the open. It fought him the instant it was free of the coat’s weight, clamoring to rise high. He didn’t give it the chance.
The sel ball shot forward faster than any arrow and struck the central man dead in the chest. Detan felt the world slow around him, his focus sharpen. He saw in acute detail the would-be assassin’s face as he glanced down at the innocuous, glittering ball. He saw the slow confusion growing, wrinkling his brow. It only lasted a breath.
Detan shunted open the floodgates of his mind, unleashed the temptation that’d been dogging him since the day he set foot back on this sun-cursed continent. He let his anger flood through to the sel, all his hate and his fear. Bundled up his rage and fed it, nurtured it, ripped it free of his heart and his mind and broadcast it out.
Under the brunt of his fury, that little glittering ball tore itself to pieces. Rent itself straight through to its core. A concussion punched his chest, staggered him back a step, the crack of the blast loud enough to set his ears whining. Fire so bright even he was temporarily blinded speared in all directions, competing with the hot eye of the sun and winning.
When his sight returned to him, all that was left of the man was a charcoaled, rended mass, and his companions weren’t spared the conflagration. One had been consumed. The other rolled about on the rough sand, grasping at the charred meat where his arm had been.
“Sweet skies,” Ripka whispered, her voice muffled cotton under the ringing in his ears. She must have thrown herself down, or been thrown, because she was covered in sand and sitting, her back to him, her face glued to the spot where the attackers had been. Even the rock behind them was blackened, and no more arrows issued from the cleft. Detan stepped to her side and offered his hand. He pretended not to notice when she flinched away from it.
“Get up. We have to keep moving,” he managed around a hitch in his throat. He still had some sel left, and the strain of keeping it contained weighed double on him now.
He still had his anger.
Sweet, practical Ripka. She swallowed her fear and grabbed his hand. He hauled her up, gave her time to brush the sand from her clothes as best she could. She spent longer doing it than was necessary, but he wasn’t about to complain. His mind was still throbbing, consumed with the sel’s moment of destruction. That terrible blow-back was worse than slugging whiskey all night.
There wasn’t any time to cater to his pain. He had to keep the rest of the sel together, compact. Had to keep moving.
Ripka took up point as they transitioned from sand to stone. This section of the Fireline was flat, having given itself up to the march of time long before the city was ever founded. Its surface was covered in large, toothy boulders and spills of talus. Deep caverns wormed through the rock, gaping adits black and forbidding. Some of them led up to the baths, some down into the hot heart of the world.
“Tibs will have left a signal. Look for it.”
She nodded, her steps slowing as she scanned the landscape unfolding before them with more care. They saw the marker at the same time, a little strip of white cloth tied to a brown bit of scrub along the edge of a cave’s chasmal mouth. They entered it, Detan taking a moment to tug the signal from the scrub lest they be followed. Within the cavern all was dark, and Ripka grabbed his arm to keep him from walking smack into her.
“Wait, listen,” she murmured.
In the darkness, he found he had a hard time concentrating on anything but his own troubles. The sound of his labored breath, the frantic thumping of his heart. With his mind bent to keeping the sel intact it was all he could do to hear what Ripka was telling him, let alone some quieted aspect of the cave. Still, she held him in place for what felt like a half-mark, but in truth was only a handful of heartbeats.
It was hard to tell when your heart was racing on ahead of yourself.
“No footsteps, it should be clear, but I can’t see a thing. Can you use the sel to light something small?” she asked.
“I’d be more likely to blow my own head off.”
“Never mind.” She swallowed, loud enough for him to hear. “Step slowly, and let me guide you.”
Her fingers tightened around his wrist and she tugged him along behind. It was hard going, not seeing anything but the back of her head, and even that was little more than a smoky smudge. He could hear her shuffling along, testing her footing before bringing him into her wake. He was grateful for that – he would never have thought of it.
There was a glow up ahead, warm and welcoming. The kind of glow only oil lamps and candle wicks could provide. He was surprised by how blinding the smear of light was, and squinted against the water in his eyes. It occurred to him that this couldn’t be good for his poor peepers, going from naked sun to pitch black to light again, and he promised himself a good solid rest after this. The very idea of a pillow made his eyelids heavy.
The cave let out into the venting grounds, where Detan had burned his own trousers for the sake of winding up an irritating uppercrust. He wished he still had the fine, tailored coat he’d gotten from that game instead of the soiled and oversized miner’s attire he’d pilfered from Pelkaia. Maybe Tibs had grabbed it on his way out, the man wasn’t likely to leave anything of theirs behind.
He gave the little dunkeet bird-whistle he and Tibs used on occasion, and heard a rustling on one of the bathing platforms above. That rustle wasn’t the only thing moving in the baths.
A figure leapt from behind one of the craggier vents, looking an awful lot like the dead men they’d already left behind – clothes black-red to blend with the rocks, sword out and ready.
Ripka stepped between Detan and the advancing assassin, sword drawn, and he felt a flush of embarrassment standing there with his little balloon. He could defend himself, it just wasn’t always safe for those near to him.
The would-be murderer advanced, passing under one of the tub’s ledges. Detan heard a whistle, bright and cheery, and the killer looked up just in time to see the shadow of the rock that’d been dumped down on his head.
Before Ripka could get her blade near him, the killer’s face burst, easy as a rotting plum. He crumpled like a smashed buoyancy sack, and sent up wild sprays of blood from his ruined face.
“Oh good.” Tibs stuck his head over the side and squinted down at the crushed man. “That rat had been wandering around here staying under cover for a full half-mark. I thought you’d never get here to bait him out.”
“Happy to help, Tibs. Now where in the pits is my flier?”
“Get on up here and I’ll take you to her.”
Detan led the way through the venting floor, making sure Ripka was mindful of the great bursts of mineralized steam that whuffed up from the ground at regular intervals. When they reached the upper levels, New Chum came to greet them, looking pristine in his beige uniform and crisp little hat. There was, annoyingly, not a drop of sweat on him. Tibal, on the other hand, looked like he’d taken a tumble down a sand dune into a mudpit, and that heartened Detan some.