Boult arched his sword around and plunged the blade deep into the back of the nifern’s neck. The animal squealed and let loose of Verran’s shoulder. The boy scrambled back on the roadway, slicing his hands on the shards before Kitto and Harp reached him and pulled him to his feet.
Yanking the sword out of the twitching animal collapsed on the ground, Boult wheeled on Verran, who was cradling his bloody hands against his chest.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Boult demanded angrily. “Don’t you ever do what you’re told?”
The dwarf started to say more, but Harp silenced him with a shake of his head.
“You have bandages?” Harp asked Kitto, who nodded and pulled off his pack.
Verran whimpered and held out his hands as Kitto wound the gauze around them. Boult stalked a perimeter, keeping an eye on the churning water in the canal.
“The spells I want to do, I can’t,” Verran said sadly. “And the spells I hate come as naturally to me as breathing.”
“Yeah,” Kitto said. “I know how you feel. The only thing I was ever good at was stealing.”
The glass from the roadway had shredded the back of the boy’s shirt. Through the rips in the dirty white cotton, Harp could see a sliver of glass as long as a finger lodged in Verran’s shoulder.
“I need to pull that out,” Harp said, but Verran shook his head and twisted away from him.
“It’s fine,” Verran insisted.
“You have a huge shard of glass stuck in your back,” Harp said. “How is that fine?”
“Leave it alone!” Verran snapped, turning again so Harp couldn’t see his back. “It doesn’t hurt.”
The absurdity of Verran’s claim made Harp instantly suspicious. He started to chastise the boy but stopped abruptly. With sudden clarity, Harp realized why Verran didn’t want him to pull the glass out. Looking at the defiant boy, Harp felt fear for the first time since they set foot in the repulsive ruins of Hisari.
“Then let Kitto do it,” he said nonchalantly, despite his growing dread. “But someone has to. You can’t reach it yourself, and you can’t wander around like that.”
Verran seemed to consider the suggestion while Harp strolled casually over to Bolt, who was staring grim-faced into the canal.
“We got a problem?” Boult asked softly.
“I told you that his father was a warlock,” Harp whispered. “His father had brands across his back. They marked the debts he owed his patron in exchange for power.”
“Do you think Verran has them too?” Boult asked.
“It would explain how he can do spells beyond what you would expect a boy to handle,” Harp said. He felt slightly ill at the thought of a father who would lead his son into a cult and let him make a bargain that would mark his child’s life forever. Cutting his son’s throat in ritual sacrifice might have been a less cruel fate.
“And if the patron is working through him …” Boult said. Behind them, Verran yelped as Kitto yanked out the glass. “Then who knows what Verran is capable of.”
“Remember, we don’t know anything for certain,” Harp said as they went to rejoin the boys. “And I don’t want to confront him down here-if we’re wrong, we’re just going to make him upset and distract him.”
“And if we’re right?”
Harp stopped and faced Boult.” You really think he’s a warlock-do want to fight him in this cesspool? We deal with it before we get back to the Crane. Let’s find the palace. Hisari is a breeding ground for things I don’t want to meet.”
The palace wasn’t hard to find. The wide causeway leading up to the dome was adorned with pillars, each with a white urn at the top that might have held flowers but were crumbling into dust. When the crewmates reached the carved doorway at the front of the palace, they could see a band of blue sky above them where the jungle floor didn’t meet the edge of the golden dome.
They stared at the imposing facade, which had been constructed from dark red. An arched double doorway reached halfway up the front of the palace. Framing the sides and top of the door, three panels of redwood carvings depicted a creature with the body of a snake, the head of a bird, and horns like those of a ram. Both the stones and the ornately carved door were untouched by the dank growth that marred the rest of the fallen city.
“Look at those,” Kitto said, pointing at the pattern of tiny interlocking triangles carved into the face of door. A shiny silver stone had been laid at the center of each triangle. Of the hundreds of tiny stones spaced across the door, not a single one was missing.
“The stones must not be valuable,” Boult said as they approached the door. “Or someone would have stolen them.”
“Thieves probably took one look at the ruins and ran screaming in the other direction,” Harp said.
“Look, there’s no handle,” Kitto said, running his hands lightly over the door. “Or hinges. Or seam.”
On closer inspection, they saw that Kitto was right. The door appeared to be a solid piece of wood. If there was a way to get inside the palace through the front entrance, it wasn’t readily apparent. And it wasn’t going to be easy to search the perimeter of the building for another way inside, either. Thick, black water had seeped over the banks of the canal and settled in the low courtyards on either side of the causeway.
The rectangular courtyards were home to bulbous swamp dwellers that oozed across the top of the water and around mossy bones jutting above the water line. Except for the elevated causeway, the stagnant water surrounded the palace. Occasionally black tentacles or the arch of a bloated back would crest the surface and then disappear.
“No one goes anywhere near that water,” Harp said. “Just the sight of it probably takes years off our lives.”
“Just the sight of you takes years off my life,” Boult replied.
“Can we get up there?” Kitto asked. There was a narrow balcony high above their heads, its stone supports carved to look like snakes.
“We’re not getting anywhere,” Verran said after they had searched the front of the palace. Even Kitto couldn’t locate any handholds or niches to climb up to the balcony.
“I say we go back into the ruins and try to circle behind the palace,” Boult suggested.
“I agree,” Harp said. “What do you think, Kitto?”
“I think we’re in trouble,” Kitto said, pointing to a nifern that was standing at the top of the causeway.
“Nah,” Boult said. “They’re like dumplings with legs. I killed the other one with one blow.”
Before Boult had finished his sentence, several other niferns appeared. They milled around at the top of the causeway, raising and lowering their heads as if they were sniffing the foul-smelling air.
“Huh,” Harp said as the pack continued to amass on the road ahead of them. “I don’t think they liked you calling them dumplings.”
“Your mother was a dumpling,” Boult said.
“My mother was a saint.”
“Your mother was a whore who left you in an alley for the rats.”
“Your mother was a rat who left you in the alley for the whores,” Harp retorted.
“Shut up!” Verran snapped. “Can’t you be serious for once?”
“It gets them worked up to kill something,” Kitto said. “You should try it.”
“I don’t think so,” Verran said. “And I don’t see you making a fool of yourself every time you open your mouth, Kitto.”
“My house is in order,” Kitto said. “I’m not scared to die.”
“You don’t have a house, kiddo,” Harp said, smiling faintly.
“That’s why it’s so easy to keep it clean,” Kitto replied.
“Well, that water’s not clean,” Harp said. The niferns had grown to a dozen, trapping them against the palace door. “I’m guessing fighting for the causeway is our best option.”
“What are they waiting for?” Boult asked.
“Probably just sizing us up,” Verran prattled nervously. “There’s a type of wolf that hunts like that. They’ll surround you and just watch. They won’t let you leave, but it’s like they want to see what you’ll do. I don’t know. Maybe they’re not really that smart. There’s also a kind of beast-”