When I awoke up, I was tied to bolts on the barges and the pole handler walked carefully around me. I tested the bonds and to my utter chagrin, they were silver. He looked down at me sardonically and spoke. It was not the same young man that I had conversed with earlier–this one was older, more weathered by his outdoor lifestyle and his eyes were deep blue. Not so much human blood in this one. He spoke and the younger bargeman came out of a small cabin on the foredeck. He translated for me.
“Did you think our great Lyr would not notify all his garrisons that you were escaped, Tobias Spencer? We have been expecting you to surface for the last two weeks.”
“Where are you taking me?” I asked dry-mouthed.
“To Lystris. There is a Garrison Fort there and a company of Rangers. They will pick you up and fly you back to the Lyr’s battlefront.”
“I can’t be in the sun,” I said watching the skies.
“We know your restrictions, Prionsa Tobias,” he said.
I swallowed and asked meekly, “the Ranger–Arianell? She was captured?”
“They search for her still. It was said that if you came in, the Lyr would cease searching for her, release her family and reinstate all.”
“I forced her to help me,” I denied. “She is blameless.”
“That is what her father said, that he found both of them dazed and wandering the rim partially drained of blood.”
I was silent. I had not bitten either of them but I knew Arianell was smart enough to know why I had left her and to take the opportunity to protect herself and her family.
“This is the only reason that Lyr Averon has not ordered their deaths,” he shrugged.
I put every inch of my glamour into my voice and said, “come close, Elassan.”
He started to lean towards me and jerked himself back as his magic repelled the Dracule’s.
“Strong. Your allure is so strong even with silver binding you. Riordan, do not come within earshot of him unless you are wearing ear plugs.” The younger man nodded and the one speaking to me laid out his huge knife near his hand so that it was close enough to grab and that I could see it. “Reward or no reward, I will kill you, Dracule,” he translated. “If you try to use your witch lure on me again.”
“I would rather die than go back to my grandsire,” I spat and heaved for all I was worth. To my complete amazement, I pulled the bolts, boards and all free from the barge’s deck and the supports that held the entire floor to the hull. Rapidly, the ship began sinking and me with it. The two crew floundered in the water trying to climb aboard the barrels. I rammed my hands into the planks and smashed them into splinters tearing my chains loose from the bolts.
I had learned to swim at the age of three almost before I could walk. My mother had insisted on it, stating she was not going to lose a child to drowning. It was no effort for me to swim across the river and head for the opposite side. Soaked to the skin but not cold, I walked following the broad banks of the river. I stayed hidden until dark and avoided men.
There were many patrolling up and down the river and more riding a toll road alongside it. Dressed in both uniforms and Ranger suits, I even saw condorla and Klese pairs searching from the skies.
It was more difficult to hunt at night. Only a few large animals were nocturnal. Some deer but mostly raccoons and big cats. I couldn’t eat as much as I needed and had to dispose of the bodies so the smaller prey were easier to carry and dump in the river. To leave exposed, drained of blood was a sure way of announcing I was still in the area. And I had no means to bury the bodies.
My shoes went, the soul flapping through. I tied them to rocks and threw them in the river where they sank without a trace. I wished I had been smart enough to steal one of the bargeman’s clothes or at least his cape. The next one I met, I wasn’t so sure I would leave them alive. I came out as soon as I heard the Nighthawk cry. It meant no one was nearby to disturb its territory and it was safe.
In those places where I could run, I did so and my senses allowed me both to see and hear the soldiers before they could me. Until I nearly ran right into the back of a group of twelve dressed in a uniform I had never seen before. It was black with silver boards and buttons. They carried bows and blades, some even had pistols.
I could smell nothing and did not see a heat signature from a single one of them or their mounts. What was stranger still was that nearly half of them were Elassa and the other were definitely Old World lieutenants and officers. They rode horses. Well-bred officers’ mounts branded with the Emperor’s crest–an eagle grasping an ‘A’ and a ‘D’ in its claws.
Somehow, they had discovered a way to mask their spoor from me which made it doubly dangerous for now even my evening travel time was compromised. I froze, not daring to move a muscle and praying to all the gods that no one looked behind them. For a few tense moments, I remained in plain sight until they dropped down a small dip in the road and around the corner.
Once gone, I let out my breath and ran for the brush alongside the road and huddled under a thornberry. For the next three hours, I hung there unable to continue on for the traffic back and forth was busy with both Rangers, Faet Guards and Hussars. All I could think of was that it was a good thing no one had thought to bring scent dogs. It was nearly dawn before I was able to crawl out of the bushes and continue on. In fifteen minutes time, I was crossing old railcar tracks that usually led into the lower-class sections of town and was not disappointed as I found myself in the warehouse section near the depots were goods came in on hand cars and barges.
This section looked abandoned, the warehouses run down, padlocked and in poor condition. The roofs had fallen in, glass of the windows were broken and some were missing their loading doors. I couldn’t read the signs nailed to the fronts but I knew it was Valesch. I broke into one and found that it had been used to store barrels of grain and oil, the smell was distinctive and a few broken bins lay on the vast concrete floor. The offices were in the back and upstairs, the treads creaked and groaned but held my weight as I climbed. Inside the broken and askew door, I found the lading office which looked as if the owner had only just left. Papers were piled neatly on the desk held by a stone weight. There was a quill in the inkstand but it had long since dried up. His chair had baby mice resting in the half-chewed cushions. Best of all, I found a serviceable cloak in his closet and a pair of coveralls with heavy work shoes that were too large but I wasn’t complaining.
It took me only seconds to change and I felt instantly anonymous. Now, I could enter the city and not be singled out. I still didn’t know if I was the only Newlander this side of the Border. If I was, the minute I opened my mouth, I was marked. With a cloak over me, I could stand the sun to a certain extent if I stayed in the shadows and it was there I kept to until I approached a tavern still open nearly at dawn. Music drifted onto the street and drunk patrons stumbled in and out of the doors. I watched from a storefront across the street and was relieved to see Newlanders among the revelers. No uniformed Hussars but they could be in civilian clothing. What they could not hide was that you could tell an Imperial soldier by his very carriage. They moved as if they had a poker up their ass.
I followed one of my kind as he stumbled down the alley behind the tavern. Waited until he was bent over retching before I came up behind him. Placed my hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. He did not stiffen but relaxed as my glamour compelled him.
I bit him in the neck, delicately and took only enough to weaken but not kill him. It was a struggle to pull away before I was satisfied but I knew I could not leave a trail of corpses behind me. He swooned and I dragged him over behind their refuse bin, going through his pockets. I found his papers, learned his name and took his wallet. He was Adam Kendley from Mirsk, a trader who crossed the Border regularly to provide arms and munitions to the Garrison at Lystris. There was a permanent gate in the Wall here, both sides knew of and condoned it.
I didn’t understand how the Newlanders from the East coast did not know about it or that these people had not heard of the Cape Fear Massacre.
I entered the tavern and was immediately surrounded by a full room of bustling ale drinking society. Prostitutes, gamblers, merchants, off-duty constables and the Border version. Family men out to relax. There were three bartenders and four serving maids in the ale house keeping too busy refilling mugs, wineglasses and serving dinner or breakfast to pay much attention to me. I found an empty table near the staircase in the rear. Not the most popular, it was far from the bar and the maid’s notice and directly next to the privy. It was dark and it smelled.
I wanted to swoon with the intoxicating aroma of blood in the mixed room yet forced myself to picture Sally Mitford’s poor little body and terrified face. What I thought first was disgusting–I likened her to sheep out there for me to shear and butcher for my pleasure. I turned instead to Arianell’s face, her lips, breasts and the honeyed scent of her skin. That brought an uncomfortable fullness to my loins which quickly dissipated when the barmaid literally flew over.
“Ale? Wine? Beer? Or hard stuff?” She asked, a clear cross between a bulldog and a Newlander. She was homely with a huge bust, shoulders a lumberjack would envy and frizzy white blonde hair. Her eyes were pretty, a mix of hazel and blue. “Want something to eat?”
“Bring me a Freidsch cognac,” I ordered and she took off to return moments later with a bottle, a brandy snifter and a plate of pine nuts. “That be two silvers,” she said and I flipped her that plus a tip. She didn’t linger, someone was already hollering her name.
The cork had been pulled and just barely replaced. I popped it out, sniffed the fine aroma of one of the best cognacs my father had sworn by. Poured a finger’s worth in the goblet and drank. The flavor was smoky grapes, rich, full-bodied and slid down my stomach like a well-trained dog heeled, reached my belly and sat there like a nugget of coal just waiting for a fan to spark it into flames. I drank a whole bottle. It stayed down and did not make me drunk.
I was one of the last patrons leaving the bar. It closed around 5 AM, just as the sun was rising. Outside, a few of the heavier drinkers were being carted off to sober up in jail. I watched warily but none of the constables were interested in me. I now had to find a place to spend the day time without attracting anyone’s interest and someplace where I was safe. I went back to the warehouse and found the most secure and out-of-the-way place I could to wait out the daylight hours while I decided what I was going to do next.