“How many are there?” she asked.
“Enough,” Nira grunted, as though there were nothing more to say about the matter. “Was it him?”
Adare shook her head in confusion. “Him?”
“Il Tornja,” Nira replied. “Was he the one that grabbed ya?”
She was staring south rather than north, not at the Urghul, but over the innumerable walls and rooftops of Annur. Adare’s stomach went cold inside her.
“We thought he might have returned. Is it true?”
Nira nodded slowly, wearily. “And my brother with him.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel him, for one thing,” Nira replied quietly. “Oshi. I never told ya this, but he’s my well. I can feel him moving through the city, somewhere to the south.”
Adare followed the older woman’s gaze. “If Oshi is here, then so is il Tornja.”
“Ya don’t need me ta tell you that,” Nira said, rummaging in the folds of her dress for a moment, then extending a gnarled hand. “He sent ya a love letter.”
Adare stared at the folded parchment. The letters she had received of late had brimmed with disaster. “You opened it,” she said.
Nira nodded. “’Course I opened it. Thought ya might be dead.”
“And what does it say?”
Even as she asked the question, Adare could feel the dread coiling around her heart, squeezing tighter and tighter, until her own pulse hammered in her ears, drowning out the awful noise of the horsemen to the north. War and worse than war had come to Annur, and yet that single sheet of parchment terrified her more than all the Urghul nation, more than whatever fight was unfolding in the streets below.
“What does it say?” she asked again, the words dry as sand inside her mouth.
Nira grimaced. “It says he has your son.”
It felt as though someone had closed a fist around her lungs. For a moment all she could do was gape, staring at Nira like some dumb fish hauled up from the depths to flop itself to death atop the tower. Finally, she managed one more word. “And?”
“Focus on the Urghul,” Nira said. “Leave what’s happening inside the city alone, and your boy’ll be fine.”
Adare exhaled slowly, the breath rattling out of her.
Just focus on the Urghul. That was what she’d climbed the tower to do, and yet, she’d already sent Gwenna south. Il Tornja couldn’t miss that golden bird knifing through the air. Would he see Adare’s hand behind it? Was it already too late?
Trembling, she placed her hands on the stone ramparts, trying to find some strength in the ancient masonry. Down the wall to the west, she could see Lehav readying the Sons of Flame. She suddenly wished Fulton were there, the longing for his stern, steady presence an ache so vicious that it momentarily stole her speech.
“So,” Nira said, the syllable simple and unforgiving as an anvil.
“So,” Adare replied, trying to keep the scream inside her from ripping free.
“What are you going to do?”
“What I came here to do. Hold back the Urghul while the Kettral finish what needs doing in the city.”
Nira narrowed her eyes. “And what is it, exactly, that needs doing? What is it everyone’s so worked up about that the whole ’Kent-kissing army seems ta have not noticed the arrival of the entire Urghul nation?”
Adare shook her head, unsure how to tell the story, unsure what words would suffice. “Trying to save us,” she said finally.
After studying her a moment, Nira nodded. “And if it comes ta your brothers or your son, who’ll ya choose?”
“It’s not going to come to that.”
“Sayin’ a thing don’t make it so.…”
“It’s not…” The words died in Adare’s mouth.
She stared north. While she’d been standing on the tower’s top, the Urghul had divided into two groups, separated by a wide lane. She hadn’t been paying any attention to the maneuver-they were still days from being able to attack. Or so she’d thought.
Without shifting her gaze from the Urghul, she groped at her side, found the long lens, and raised it to her eye. A figure leapt into view, riding down the center of that lane, a man she’d heard discussed a thousand times, but never actually seen. He was decked out in the Urghul style, all leather and fur, though his skin and hair were far too dark for any Urghul. Despair’s gray, sickly flower unfolded in Adare’s mind. Through the long lens, she could see the grim smile on the man’s face, the leashes trailing from his saddle, and collared at the end of those leashes, naked, terrified, and bleeding from some recent lash, a dozen prisoners, men and women, all Annurian.
“Balendin,” Adare said quietly.
That got Nira’s attention finally. The old woman turned, took up a long lens of her own, and studied him silently.
“He’s the leach, eh?” She shook her head. “Emotion. It’s a strong well. One a’ the strongest.”
“What can he do?” Adare asked. The story from Andt-Kyl was that he had used his foul power to hold up an entire bridge while the Urghul rode across. Adare wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not-the bridge had been destroyed by the time that she arrived, Balendin gone.
Nira frowned. “A lot. He’s not just leaching off those poor doomed fucks.” She gestured down the wall with her cane. “There must be five thousand men on these walls. They’ve heard a’ him. Everyone in the ’Kent-kissing city’s heard a’ him. Once they know he’s here, once he can feel all that hate, and rage, and fear”-she shook her head again-“even the Army of the North might not make a difference.”
* * *
When Quick Jak finally put Allar’ra down inside the improvised Kettral compound, the entire place was on the verge of madness. The other Wings were all there, back from their own scouting missions. No one had found Kaden, obviously, but everyone had seen the same thing north of the walclass="underline" the Urghul army parting down the center to make room for Balendin and his string of blood victims. Sigrid and the Flea had managed to impose some sort of order, but Adare was up on top of her tower, stabbing a finger to the north, and a string of terrified messengers were waiting on the cobblestones, all bearing the same message: kill the leach.
“Son of a bitch,” Gwenna cursed, dropping off the talon, “how long has he been there?”
“Not long,” the Flea replied. “Just getting ready, from the sound of it.” He nodded to the south. “What happened to you?”
Gwenna shook her head, unsure how to cram it all into a few words. “Nothing good. Valyn’s with Kaden and Triste. According to Adare, they all need to get to the Spear. I have no idea why, but everyone seems to think it’s pretty fucking important. Including the Army of the North, who is hunting them.”
“You couldn’t manage an extract?”
“The bastards have a leach. Almost knocked us clear out of the air, and we never even saw him.”
“A leach?” the Flea asked. He glanced over at Sigrid. The blond woman just shook her head, made an angry growl in the back of her throat. “That’s two of them,” the Flea said grimly. “Whoever this is south of the wall, and Balendin to the north. Sig thinks that after half an afternoon of cutting out hearts he’ll be strong enough to clear a path through all Adare’s hard-earned wreckage, maybe strong enough to punch straight through the wall.”
“Well that’s unpleasant,” Gwenna said, scrambling for anything resembling a plan, something that would save Kaden and Triste and Annur at the same time.
“Valyn and Kaden,” the Flea said, slicing through her thoughts. “What was their last location?”
“West of the Wool District, heading farther west.”
The Wing leader’s brow furrowed. “Thought you said they wanted to get to the Spear.”
“Yeah. Well. Looks like wanting not to get killed counted a little higher than wanting to get to the Spear. Valyn’s leading them west, which, given the way the army’s arranged, seems like a pretty good idea.”