Chaos’s sounds followed them down the hill, accompanied by the bellows of frightened oxen and the howls of distant dogs responding to the explosions.
While she had silently cursed the fact no horses were available for them when they left the House, Lapis admitted that riding terrified animals—if they could even mount them—would not have helped their current escape. Using her fear-driven speed, she bounded downhill through snow, between trees, following Patch’s lead. Jhor’s shadow raced in front of her, his coat edges glowing with cyan color from the whirling forehead of the khentauree. He re-positioned them so, if they decided to fire, the beam would not take him as well.
They reached a wide road with random streetlights flickering and drifts piled beneath tall stone walls. Several entrance gates had fruit oil lamps blazing, highlighting their wrought-iron innards torn off their hinges and thrown to the sides. Trails led up the lanes to the mansions; the darkness hid them, making it impossible for her to tell if the buildings had received damage or not.
Patch pivoted and sped through the open doorway of a vacant guard shack. They crowded in with him; he closed the front door and set his back against it while Lapis pulled the functional curtain over the fogged window and retreated to the opposite wall.
“ENZ, can you dim your light?” her partner whispered as he turned off his handheld. The brilliance flickered and faded, though thin lines of light remained to delineate their features.
“What did you detect?” Jhor asked, squatting down to the side of a small table and hunching over to conceal as much of the remaining illumination as possible.
“Several people, carrying tech and larger weapons, but they’re running. I’m betting they’re heading for the battle.”
“So they probably won’t stop to check places they’ve already raided.”
“Yeah. If we stick to the estates they’ve hit, hopefully that will keep us out of sight.” Her partner touched his patch, and the lights dimmed. “There’s interference in the area, and I can’t detect tech until it’s too close.”
“There is a lot of noise, and not just of malfunctioning machines,” ENZ agreed. “A purposeful trap set. We khentauree worked around it for communication, but it continues to affect scans.”
Just what they needed. Lapis glanced at the table, noting an overturned cup and frozen stains dribbling from it and onto the floor, the only indication a guard recently sat there, waiting to let visitors in. Had that happened during the ‘shroud’s crash, or had the unlucky sentry failed to keep the subsequent enemy from entering the estate?
“They didn’t know which mansion was the one they wanted, did they?” she asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Jhor said. “Every gate on this street was destroyed as far as I could tell, so they must have done a systematic sweep until they reached their target.”
“These mansions are owned by favored Gall supporters,” Patch told them. “Each one has enough aquatheerdaal-powered tech in the form of generators, water purifiers, weapons and the like, the enemy might not have been able to locate their target without a closer inspection. Add in the interference messing with their probes, and that’s the only way they could find their stake. I don’t know why else they raided the neighborhood, because I can’t see all of them storing random khentauree parts or those grimdal boxes.”
“Maybe grimdal’s what Gall came up with to replace aquatheerdaal,” Lapis said. “So all these places had a crate or two because of that.”
“Maybe,” Jhor said, skeptical. “But we haven’t seen evidence of it. All the guards and soldiers at the palace had aquatheerdaal-based tech, no matter how depleted the power source. If there were an alternative, they would have used it to make them viable again.”
“That’s true, but Seeza’s his knight, and she was with the guards loading grimdal boxes after we escaped the ‘shroud.”
“Seeza’s a loyal noble Gall could plop into the knight position,” Patch murmured. “Armarandos had too much of a law-abiding streak in him for the crown to manipulate him like they wanted, and she didn’t care. The problem was, they humiliated her when they made her a knight. No ceremony, no pomp, just pulled her out of bed and handed her a medallion. Wonder if Kez saw an embarrassed woman who might want revenge on the people who thought she was a useless placeholder, and lured her in.”
“So Seeza decided to work behind Gall’s back, maybe even hide the fact the grimdal might be used as an aquatheerdaal replacement.” Jhor nodded. “I can see it. Of course, my experience is with Dentherion nobility and their backstabbing.”
“Same game, different country.” Patch hmphed. “I know; I lived with it for sixteen years.”
They quieted, and suffocating silence surrounded them. No calls to buddies, no crunch of boots, no explosions, penetrated the walls; good, no one had seen them. Cold seeped through Lapis’s pants and paraded up her torso, and she wanted to jump to warm up, but her shoulder protested when she moved. Why had she volunteered for this when she could be in a comfy bed at the rebel’s House, dosed with painkiller and sleeping?
After several eternities, Patch opened the door; the hinges creaked, loud and long. He hunched over and padded out; she helped Jhor rise, and they both stiffly followed, their boots crunching on the crusty, trampled snow until they reached wheel grooves, then proceeded in those.
Orange flame topped the bare treetops before dying back down, briefly illuminating the lightless lane. Was that really the grimdal reacting poorly to a tech fight? It did not seem a good replacement at all for aquatheerdaal—but neither was keltaitheerdaal, she supposed, and she had witnessed the flesh-eating fire that mineral lit. Desperate people hunted for another energy source, but she did not think it lay within the theerdaala mineral family. She glanced at her bladed gauntlets and flexed her fingers; well, not within easily obtained theerdaala minerals, anyway. Jhor said the rare aubergidaal that powered her weapons was a gift from Vision, and she doubted the khentauree sage would hand it to anyone else.
They reached the front of the mansion; broken furniture, lamps, cookware, and other interior items littered the yard, draped in discarded curtains and carpet. She winced at the scene; no guttershank did that. They would have carted the gold-plated stuff to the undermarket rather than destroy it. The unknown enemy must have done so, but why take the time and effort to toss unrelated inside items into the snow?
“They want the khentauree badly, don’t they?” Jhor asked softly as they skirted the debris.
“They didn’t tear through noble houses looking for red rocks,” Patch said. He motioned to the right, and they headed to a path with a scattering of wind-blown snow coating it.
“ENZ, do you know who kidnapped you?” Jhor asked.
“No. We patrolled Torc Decambraa for many long years. No humans returned, as they promised, but we kept the torc ready for their arrival. We followed orders, we did not deviate. I went into statis to recharge thirty-nine days ago. I awoke within a box. I do not know what happened to my chassis.”
The deep, desperate buzz tweaked Lapis’s heart, and she hoped they could find it and return it to them.
“My etak called, and they, too, had their bodies taken. We do not know how, or why.”
“Hopefully we can piece something together,” Jhor said. “That might lead us to the chassis and we can rescue them.”
“Chassis are replaceable,” ENZ said, though they did not sound as if they believed it. “Torc Decambraa has many.”
“We’ll need to figure out where Decambraa is first,” Jhor said. “Not all the older forts remained in use after Taangis evacuated Theyndora, and I don’t recall one by that name. We’ll see what we can find in military histories.”
“We should ask my uncle. He loves reading histories.” The memory of Rodas ensconced in a comfortable chair, lamp blazing, squinting at tiny print while storms raged outside, brought a small smile to Lapis’s lips. “Ragehill might have something on it, too. They have documents from that time.”
“It won’t hurt to ask, though I don’t know how long it will take to get a correspondence through to Abastion.” Jhor glanced back at her. “The comm lines went down early this morning, and we don’t know why. Midir’s sent a courier with a physical message, but it’s going to take time for them to get to the nearest Abastion rebel House.”
ENZ’s buzzing dropped to a low drone. “Sanna says there are many enemies. Tia crushes them, but we do not have a Tia. We must be careful.”
Jhor sucked in a breath, and Lapis patted his back. “Sanna will be fine,” she reminded him.
“I don’t want her using her voice,” he murmured. “We don’t want the enemy to know that some khentauree are . . . more than they were.”
“They might have prepared to battle khentauree, but I doubt they’ve faced a terron,” Patch said. “Their weapons are useless against Tia after she hardens her scales, and when she strikes, it’s nothing but pain.”
“Terrons?” ENZ buzzed. “You mean weeld kleeth, the thinking lizards. They are allowed to fight?”
“Their leader sent them here to do just that,” Lapis said. “Theyndora’s changed since Taangis left. The mine owners are gone, so they run their own communities.”
“Weeld kleeth labored with khentauree. It is good, they escaped the orders.”
Towering evergreens stood between the mansion’s outer wall and the estates next to it, their moon-created shadows bathing all in deep darkness. Patch flashed his light, hunting for a break, and discovered one; whoever wanted out had blown the stone to bits and toppled a couple trees, which had crashed onto the neighboring wall and framed another hole.
How odd; why not leave by the already-open front gate instead of doing more damage? Lapis looked down, but the trampled snow did not have a hint as to why the enemy decided to destroy the back wall, too.
“Someone’s taking advantage of the ‘shroud’s destruction to cause a bit of their own,” she whispered.
Patch hummed in agreement as he peered through the hole. He crouched and crept across the debris, stopped, examined both ways, then headed for the opposite gap. They followed, and Lapis’s hair tickled the back of her neck; something was wrong, but an uneasy feeling was not enough of a hint to identify what.
They entered a trampled garden pathway lined by crushed bushes and scattered twigs, moonbeams reflecting off the crackling snow and producing a soft light. The darkened back of the mansion towered over them, the faint glint of the moon in the windows the only break in the shadows.
They heard shouts, and an orange beam passed across a third story window. The enemy was still in there?
Patch ducked behind the tri-tiered fountain, and they pressed close, waiting until the calls faded into nothing. ENZ must have decided the danger too pressing, for the cyan streaks across his head disappeared and his low buzzing stopped.
Her partner glanced at them. “Get to the far wall and find a way over.”
“Patch!”
He nuzzled her masked nose with his and sprinted to the stairs leading to the building. Dammit, they had to escape, not check out another mansion!
Jhor gripped her arm, and she reluctantly followed him down a row of white-laden bushes, mentally muttering things at her partner and his daring. What if they left someone behind to continue rifling through the house? If the interference inhibited his scans, how would he know until it was too late? She did not want to drag him to the Pit mere days after they escaped the skyshroud!
The back and forth of dogs broke the stillness, with random, louder bangs and crashes quieting them momentarily. Despite the company, Lapis felt alone in the cold, dismal garden, and the ache in her heart equaled the ache in her shoulder. Patch should have stayed with them. How long must she wait, before it became clear something bad had happened to him?
“Are you alright?”
Realizing she rubbed at her wound, she dropped her hand, feeling guilty for worrying Jhor. “Yeah. It’ll be nice to get back and take some medicine.”
“You and Patch should have stayed in.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”
He chuckled. “In a warm bed.”
She clucked the roof of her mouth and smacked his arm; warm bed indeed.
“Humans sleep in beds, like we recharge in stalls,” ENZ said. “Is that fun?”
“It can be,” Lapis replied, the urge to smack Jhor again overwhelming. He did not look contrite for confusing the khentauree, either.
They reached and skimmed the wall, happening upon a gate nearer the mansion proper. Someone had ripped the black iron bars from the stone and tossed them into the road beyond, where they lay on top of frozen slush. The lane had wheel tracks sunk deep enough, lines of mud peeked through the ice; it must have been a busy passage before the ‘shroud crashed.
“Can you hold ENZ, Lapis?” Jhor asked, handing them to her before squatting down. Confusion battered her as he dug into his pocket and withdrew his light; what did he notice? He focused the beam on the trampled snow; smaller divots the size of a khentauree hoof sank just a bit lower than the boot prints.
Oh no. “They’re chasing a khentauree.” She turned ENZ around so they could see the ground.
“Yeah. I wondered, after seeing the wall.” Jhor glanced down the dark street, then shined his light further away. “ENZ, were there any of your etak that might still have their chassis?”
“I will ask.” They buzzed. “No. We have all lost our lower bodies. We believe this khentauree is a stranger, for they do not answer our etak call.” His buzz quieted. “Sanna sends a broad invitation. If the unknown khentauree hears, it may answer.”
A flash of orange lit the northern end of the road. Hissing, Jhor scurried back through the gate, and they sought cover behind bushes buried deep in snow; not a great shelter, but the best they could find. The orange light drew closer, and the murmur of men drifted on the wind.
Movement towards the house; Lapis caught her breath but recognized the gait of the hunched shadow.
“His patch is useful,” ENZ said in a low fuzz. What did he mean by that?
Patch pushed through the bushes and plastered himself against the other side of the gate as beams poured through the opening. The light moved along the stomped path, then back through the gap, and agitated talk started. The language was unfamiliar; not Jilvaynan or Lyddisian, and she had heard people from Abastion, Ramira and Shaloar talk enough, she knew it was not their native tongues.
Boots crunched on snow, which faded with the talk. Moments passed as darkness returned, and Patch scampered to them.
“Did you recognize that language?” he asked.
“I think it’s Meergeven,” Jhor whispered. “I’ve heard Cassa speak it a couple of times.”
“I recorded it,” ENZ said.
“Ah! Thank you, ENZ. We can play it for Cassa, and she can confirm.”
“Sanna is upset at the danger, but she thinks, if they chase a khentauree, that we must find them,” the mechanical being said.
“I’m not certain that us carrying your head is going endear us to them,” Jhor murmured.
ENZ buzzed but did not reply.
“Did you find anything?” Lapis asked, touching Patch’s arm. He covered her hand with his and squeezed.
“I did, but I don’t know what. This place still has staff inside. The mercs tied them up in the foyer and left them there. I freed them, and the butler was so pissed, he opened the safe they were trying to get into. I gave him the valuables and told him to mention my name to the undermarket. They should buy that stuff from him. They all had the widest grins. Guess Lord Haimon was not the nicest of employers.”
“What else was there?” Jhor asked.
“Papers, and a small book. Handwritten, so probably a diary. We’ll have to read them when we get back.” He leaned away from the wall. “ENZ said you saw khentauree prints?”
Wait, he had? How? Through the patch?
“Yes, and we know Sanna and Path didn’t come this way because Tia would have left a much larger trail,” Jhor told him. “I think that’s who they’re searching for, an escaped khentauree. ENZ said Sanna put out an invitation. I’m not certain they’ll answer. Hearing a call in hostile territory would make me suspicious, anyway.”
“Me too. And if those mercs are looking for this khentauree, which is likely, they probably aren’t too keen on humans right now.”
“Sanna says there is badness along their route,” ENZ said. “Blue stags battle these new enemies, and it spills into neighborhoods still inhabited. The Minq erect barriers, and she does not think we will make it to safe streets on lower Green Castle before they are cut off. So we should find the unknown khentauree instead.”
Lapis glanced at her partner, then at Jhor, though she already knew the answer. They had to prevent another khentauree from being captured. Patch slipped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed tight, leaning his cheek against her hood. She winced as the pressure hurt her wound but did not protest.
“How’s your rib?”
“I’m feeling it.”
“The quicker we find the khentauree, the quicker we can get to safety,” Jhor said. He rose, brushed at his coat to dislodge snow, and headed for the gate. Patch squeezed one last time before pulling away, and they followed.
