The Dustman and the Sandman had merged and become one, and now the Dustman turned toward Oliver.
“Now, while I am ascendant.”
Oliver and Collette raced at him. The Sword of Hunyadi flashed through the night air and cleaved the Dustman’s head from his shoulders. It fell to the ground and burst into a cloud of sand that eddied in the mountain breeze. The rest of his body seemed to have frozen, as though sculpted from sand. Collette began to tear at it, and even as she did it crumbled at her touch.
The Dustman collapsed, sand spilling across the ground, half burying the bones of Detective Halliwell, until no form remained at all. Only sand. Only dust.
“How did you…?” one of the soldiers said.
Oliver turned and saw it was the woman who had chased after Halliwell and tried to save him. She wore the insignia of a captain in Hunyadi’s service.
“That’s just not possible,” she said. “They were legends.”
Collette leaned against him. Oliver put his arm around her, helping to hold her up with his free hand. In the other, his sword hung low, point digging into the soft sand.
He could not claim to understand exactly what had just happened. Had the Dustman destroyed his brother, or did he and Collette really have some kind of magic in them, some legendary power?
Oliver met the captain’s gaze, unflinching. “This world is full of impossible things.”
The entire city of Palenque was a maze, a circular labyrinth of dead-end streets and alleys that twisted back upon themselves. The architects who had conceived it were brilliant, and the king who’d ordered its construction ruthless, for the entire city had been created as protection for the palace that lay at its center. Enemies who intended to destroy the palace or usurp the king would become lost in the maze of stone and wood. Each long, curving street of Palenque looked, with its balconies and lanterns and white-washed walls, much like the others.
Ingenious. But it also revealed how little value the king placed upon the lives of his subjects. Instead of building walls to protect his people, the founder of the city had used those very people as his walls.
Tonight, they showed King Mahacuhta the same courtesy.
Night had fallen, and though the city flickered with electric lights and gas lamps alike, Frost felt invigorated by the darkness. The sun and heat had been a constant drain upon his strength and power. Now only clear black velvet hung in the sky, punctured with starry pinpoints and a sliver moon. The heat of the day seeped away quickly, and while the night was still warm, he felt much improved.
“Not exactly the reception we were expecting,” Blue Jay whispered beside him.
Frost nodded intently, not returning the trickster’s smile. Caution demanded they take care, no matter how cooperative the citizens of Palenque seemed.
“You thought the people would attack us?”
Blue Jay shot him an odd look, punctuated by the rasp of denim on denim and the slap of his boot heels on the street. “Attack? I figured the whole city would be villagers with torches. If Ty’Lis is really the guy behind the Hunters, why would he just let us walk up to his front door?”
The winter man did not reply. This was precisely the question he had been mulling over, and as yet he had not come up with an answer.
The streets of Palenque were alive with life. It was, after all, the capital of Yucatazca, one of the most powerful and most alive cities in all the world. Frost did not eat, but even he marveled at the melange of aromas that filled the labyrinthine streets: scents of cooking meats and spices and fruits and boiling fish stews. Distant sounds of engines and of the hoofbeats of horses carried to them along the curved alleys and roads of that circular maze city as they made their way toward the palace at its center.
Along the way, as though their route had been announced earlier, hundreds of people gathered to watch them pass. Some of them were grim-faced and anxious, but others cheered and whistled in support as he and Blue Jay, Grin, Li, and Cheval passed by. The strange Borderkind who had met them at the outskirts of the city accompanied them, as did dozens of Lost Ones. Others fell in with the parade as they marched through the streets, all of them headed toward the palace in search of answers.
Music and singing, shouts and laughter came from many of the buildings they passed-inns and drafthouses and restaurants alive with the lives of ordinary people who had toiled all day in the sun.
Some of the people seemed troubled by their passing and strode quickly away, not wishing to be anywhere near the trouble that the Borderkind might cause. Frost felt disgust roil in him. If there was danger to ordinary people in simply being in the presence of Borderkind, the Hunters ought to be accountable, not the Borderkind themselves. But regardless of who was at fault, just being near Frost and the others could have been fatal.
Yet on this night, when they were so close to their goal, there were no attacks and no resistance. Frost had seen very few of the legendary in the march through Palenque, and those he had seen had been mostly in shadows, standing in arched doorways or watching from windows and quickly disappearing behind curtains when they realized they’d been seen.
The tide had turned.
The Lost Ones had heard rumors that the Legend-Born had been discovered, that they might be within the Two Kingdoms already, and that somehow this was connected to the Myth Hunters’ slaughter of the Borderkind.
Frost knew the truth, but he would not speak of it.
Not now.
First, Ty’Lis must be stopped. The Hunters must be recalled and punished for their savagery. Those Borderkind who still lived must be saved. Only then would he answer the Lost Ones’ questions about the Legend-Born.
Cheval and Li hung back, both of them grieving, unable to enjoy the camaraderie of the southern Borderkind who had joined them. But Grin caught up to Blue Jay and Frost, took a glance at the winter man, and turned to the trickster instead.
“Right, so what do you think, Blue?” Leicester Grindylow asked. “D’ye think we’ve killed all the Hunters?”
Blue Jay clapped a hand on Grin’s shoulders and tossed back his hair, feathers dancing in the wind. “Not by half, friend. Not by half.”
Grin frowned, once again looking from Blue Jay to Frost. “No? Then why do you reckon they’re not here trying to kill us? Not like we’d be hard to find, is it?”
“I can think of three reasons,” Blue Jay said.
Frost raised an eyebrow, icy mist steaming from his eyes. He said nothing, only continued walking along with his companions, blocking out the sounds of the crowd to listen to the trickster speak.
“First, their master has been moving in secret all of this time, acting without the knowledge of his king or the support of the people, on some kind of personal vendetta against the Borderkind. The people don’t like that sort of lying, bullshit politics. If the Hunters tried to attack us here, it’d be wholesale slaughter. Lots of people would die. That would make it even worse. See, if Ty’Lis is behind all of this, you’re talking a major diplomatic incident here. Atlantis is neutral, remember? They brokered the truce that created the Two Kingdoms. People might blame Atlantis. Worse yet, they might blame King Mahacuhta, and kings tend to frown on their advisors doing things without permission that could cause their subjects to rise up in anger.
“Second, Mahacuhta may have just killed the bastard already and saved us the trouble. Even if we assume he’s been blind and deaf to all that has transpired, kept in the dark by Ty’Lis and his other advisors, by now he’s likely to have heard what the Hunters have been up to. If he’s traced it back to Ty’Lis…well, you see where that’s going. Also, Ty’Lis might have just run off. The pricks who do this sort of thing, secret genocide orders, conspiracies, that sort of thing…they’re cowards. They’re far more likely to run than to fight.”