The Last Mortal Bond (108 page)

“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 wall: 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.”

The Flea glanced over at Sigrid. The blond woman met his gaze, then nodded.

“We'll get them,” he said, turning back to Gwenna. “We don't have a bird anyway, and this is a job for a foot team. You take care of Balendin.”

Gwenna stared. “Take
care
of him? You have any ideas how to do that?”

“Nope. That's why it's your job.” The Flea gestured toward the birds. “You've got five Wings here. Use 'em.”

For a moment, Gwenna couldn't move. The thought was too large, the responsibility too daunting. Then the Flea stepped forward, set a solid hand on her shoulder. “You're a good soldier, Gwenna.”

She met his eyes, but could find no words.

“This is what you trained to do,” the Flea went on, his voice quiet, low, steady as the waves on the shore. “No one ever thinks they're ready for something like this, but I'm telling you now, and I'm only going to say it once, so listen good.…” He paused, smiled that crooked smile of his. “You're ready.”

Then, before Gwenna could respond, he and Sigrid were gone, racing south toward Valyn, toward the Army of the North, toward a viciously powerful leach, and in all likelihood, toward an immortal Csestriim general against whom every human attack had failed.

“Well, shit,” Gwenna muttered.

“I agree,” Talal replied. He was standing just a pace distant, Annick at his side.

“We could go with him,” Gwenna said. “Provide air cover.”

“That didn't work so well last time,” the leach pointed out, “and besides. Balendin's here. We can't fight all the fights.”

Gwenna nodded, looked past him to where Quick Jak was going over Allar'ra's wings, sliding his hands beneath the feathers looking for damage.

“Can he fly?” Gwenna shouted.

The flier hesitated. “He can fly, but I need more time to assess the damage.…”

“We don't have more time. We have to hit Balendin now. Once he knocks down half the wall, there won't be much point.” She gestured to the other Kettral, most of whom had dismounted to check over weapons and birds. “Fliers and Wing commanders on me.”

The plan was as shitty as it was simple. They had five birds. Balendin couldn't look five directions at once. Four Wings would come in from the cardinal directions, and one would stoop from almost directly above.

“Balendin shields himself,” Talal pointed out. “He did at Andt-Kyl, anyway. If the leach attacking us to the south was using a hammer, Balendin's kenning will be like an invisible wall.”

Gwenna nodded, wondering if she had it all wrong. “He shields himself against arrows, flatbow bolts, spears. You think he can hold out against eight tons of bird coming at him faster than a galloping horse?”

Talal hesitated. “I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

The other Kettral looked nervous. Quick Jak, for all his slick flying just moments earlier, seemed close to panic. He had picked at the cuticle of his thumb so viciously that the nail was awash in blood, but he just kept at it, not seeming to notice.

“Look,” Gwenna said, stepping forward. “Balendin's only going to get stronger. The more people in this city learn that he's here, learn who he is and what he does, the harder it's going to be to kill him. I can't say that my plan will work. Maybe we get lucky, maybe someone gets through, and maybe we all die.

“I will tell you this, though. You are Kettral, every 'Kent-kissing one of you. We called you washouts, but you're not, not anymore. You went down in the Hole, you fought the slarn, you drank the egg, and you came back out. That makes you Kettral, you crazy sons of bitches, and let me tell you something about being Kettral. We don't get the easy jobs. We don't pull wall duty or guarding the baggage chain. In return for getting to fly around on these enormous, manslaughtering hawks, we actually have to go do the dangerous shit, the shit that gets men and women killed, and so if this isn't what you signed up for, you tell me now.” She paused, shifting her eyes from one soldier to the next. “Which one of you isn't Kettral? Who wants to wash out all over again?”

No one stepped forward. No one spoke.

Finally, Gwenna allowed herself to smile. “Good. Mount up.”

*   *   *

Their hastily constructed plan failed almost the moment they stepped from the shelter of Kegellen's street-level warehouse and into the street beyond. They needed to go outside in order for the bird to find them, of course, but when they stepped, blinking, into the afternoon heat and sunlight, there was no kettral in the sky. Kaden stood with Valyn and Triste in a wide, treelined avenue, one of Annur's larger thoroughfares. Shops occupied the bottom floors of the buildings to either side—leatherworkers, mostly, judging from the wares on display—and the street itself was busy with men and women haggling or selling, pushing handcarts loaded with stock, making purchases or deliveries. It almost might have been a normal city street on an everyday afternoon, except for the Annurian soldiers, at least a dozen of them, jogging up the center of the road from the south. They hadn't spotted their quarry yet, but they weren't bothering to stop, not even pausing to search inside the shops. They moved with the certainty of hunters who knew exactly where to find the beast they sought.

Valyn glanced at the soldiers, then gestured to Kaden and Triste. “North. Walk fast until they see us, then run.”

“Where's the kettral?” Triste hissed.

“No idea.”

“We could retreat,” Kaden said, nodding toward Kegellen's warehouse. The Queen of the Streets had remained behind, inside, along with a knot of her guards.

“No,” Valyn growled, dragging him into the foot traffic. “We can't. You can't hide, not as long as il Tornja has those 'Shael-spawned spiders. You go back in those tunnels, and you'll die there. He's got the whole Army of the North to pin you down, smoke you out.”

Even as he spoke, Valyn's eyes roamed over the street ahead. He hadn't drawn the axes from the belt, but that ruined gaze was enough to make anyone who met it jerk back, turn hastily aside, find somewhere else to look, somewhere else to be.

“The bird's our best shot at getting to the top of the Spear.”

“And if the bird doesn't show up?” Kaden asked.

“Then we do it the hard way.”

“What does that mean?” Triste demanded.

“We go on foot,” Valyn said. “Fight our way in, up. There's no choice now—we have to keep moving.”

Triste stopped walking, turned to stare at Valyn.
“Fight our way in?”

“There are three of us,” Kaden said quietly, taking Triste by the elbow as he spoke, urging her into motion once more. “Three of us against il Tornja's entire army.”

Valyn's smile was like something carved across his face with a knife. “I'm not sure you understand.”

“Not sure I understand what?”

“Everything that's happened this past year,” Valyn replied, then trailed off, shaking his head. “I'm not the brother you remember, Kaden. I'm something … different. When you tally up the good people in this fight, the noble ones, the ones who've been doing the right thing: I'm not on that list. Not anymore. I don't think I've been on that list for a very long time.”

The words were lost, haunted, as though someone had hollowed out this warrior who stalked down the street, his scarred hand on the head of his ax.

“That doesn't matter,” Kaden said. “Not right now.”

“Yes, it does.”

Behind them, a sudden cry cut through the everyday babble of the avenue. The soldiers were shouting, bellowing questions and orders. Kaden risked a glance over his shoulder. The men weren't jogging, they were running, fingers leveled directly at Kaden himself. When he turned back to the north, he found the far end of the street blocked by a hastily assembled cordon of armed men. Valyn was still smiling.

“The thing you don't understand, my calm, quiet brother, is that sometimes goodness and nobility aren't enough. Sometimes, when the monsters come, you need a dark, monstrous thing to pit against them.” He slid one ax from the loop at his belt, then the other. People cried out in alarm, lurched away. Valyn ignored them. “I am that thing, Kaden. The human part of me … the part that should feel camaraderie, friendship, love…” He shook his head. “It's gone. There is only darkness. I'm not a brother, not really. Not a friend. Not an ally or son. I don't know how to be those things. All I know is blood and struggle. It is all I am. This fight, right now, is what I am for.”

And then it began.

Kaden had spent years as an acolyte in the Bone Mountains, unseen atop the granite spire of the Talon, watching crag cats hunt. They had struck him as perfect predators, flowing over the stone like winter shadows, silently pacing their prey, moving from ledge to boulder so smoothly they seemed otherworldly, like creatures culled from a dream of hunting. He'd watched them stand utterly still for an hour, then uncoil all at once, leaping a dozen paces in a single, unerring strike. Death, Kaden thought, must be like that: perfect, patient, waiting one moment, striking the next, unstringing tendons so quickly, so precisely, that the dying thing—a bear, a mountain goat—was gone before the carcass struck the stone. Those crag cats, however, for all their perfection, all their silent, predatory grace, seemed clumsy, slow, almost comically awkward when Kaden compared them to the creature Valyn had become.

Valyn didn't attack the soldiers blocking the street to the north;
attack
wasn't the right word. An
attack
implied a fight, implied some defense—if only feeble, notional—on the part of those attacked. The Annurian soldiers had no defense. They might as well have stood at the ocean's verge, trying to hold back the steel-gray sea with their feeble spears. When Valyn was still twenty paces distant, he hurled his axes, one then the other. Kaden could barely follow the flashing blur of the vicious wedges tumbling end over end, but in the moment it took for both to find their marks, Valyn had already slipped knives from inside his blacks and hurled those, too, at the line of men. The sound reached Kaden a moment later—four sick wet
thwacks,
steel hacking into unready flesh.

The line of soldiers shuddered as the four men at the center collapsed into their own agony. Valyn didn't break stride.

Between him and the Annurians, an ironmonger's wagon laden with pots and heavy pans had skewed across the street. The mules, panicked by the scent of blood, were bellowing, stamping, hauling their groaning load in different directions. The bearded ironmonger hesitated a moment, torn between the need to protect his goods and the awful realization that there could be no protecting them, not against the madness coursing through the street. As the baffled merchant hurled himself to the dirt, Valyn leapt over the wagon, stripping two heavy iron pans from the load as he passed, hit the ground with a shoulder, rolled to his feet, knocked aside the arrows flying at his face, and then he was among the legionaries, caving in faces and shattering arms, bellowing at Kaden and Triste to follow.