The Tarkin led his wife and children immediately to the nearest beds, making sure they were seated comfortably before leaving them in the hands of the nurse Denobea and joining Dhulyn, who had stepped around them and the guards to stand beside Alkoryn. Head lowered and tilted to one side, she listened to his whispered orders, nodding, though at one point her face went completely blank.
Something she doesn’t like there, Parno thought, maintaining his position as rear guard just inside the entrance to the chamber. With his eyes still on his Partner, he arched his back and raised his hands over his head, willing his abused muscles to stretch out.
“Lord Tarkin,” Dhulyn said, her voice pitched to carry to everyone in the chamber. “My Brother Alkoryn Pantherclaw suggests that you rest here in comfort while he and I continue to the surface. There is fuel, food, and drink. We will return or send for you as soon as we are able.”
“Why must we wait?” The Tarkin, Parno was impressed to see, was not arguing, but simply asking the question.
“It’s very likely Lok-iKol will want Mercenary House searched,” Dhulyn said. “This chamber can be closed off and hidden, so you’ll be perfectly safe here. If it comes to the worst,” Dhulyn added, “my presence in the House is natural. Yours, Lord Tarkin, could not be explained. My Brother Parno Lionsmane will remain here with you.”
Parno met Dhulyn’s eyes over the heads of the Tarkina and her children. That’s what made her face change, he thought. Is it the thought of separation she doesn’t like, or the idea of leaving me here with my cousin, the Tarkin?
She smiled at him, lifting her shoulder in the slightest of shrugs.
In Battle. Only her lips formed the words.
In Death, he answered.
He was close now. Only a matter of hours until the decrees went out. He wiped sweat from the forehead of the body he wore and shuddered. And then only a matter of days until he had all of them, even the Seer, and the danger would be over, and he could throw off this disgusting shape, and undo, and unmake. Turn the whole shape-filled place into NOT. Perhaps find the doorway once again.
“No one in without a badge, my little quails.” A dark-haired Mercenary leaned out of the sentry’s window next to the gate at Mercenary House, tapped her own tattooed badge, her green eyes flashing.
“But we’ve important information,” Mar said, craning her neck to see the woman.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt he’s got information enough-but I’m not inclined to let him in, no matter how important it might be.”
“Then let Mar in,” Gun said, placing a hand on the gate in his eagerness. He swallowed, realizing that he’d just called Mar by her personal name. Out loud. “The Lady Mar-eMar I mean. You’ve nothing against her, let her in.” He looked at Mar, looked back up to the sentry window. “You’re Thionan Hawkmoon, aren’t you?” he said. “That’s how you know me.” He waved his hand impatiently. “It doesn’t matter about me, but you can let Mar-eMar in, she needs to speak to Dhulyn Wolfshead, or-”
“Ah, so you’re the little trickster from Navra, are you? I hadn’t seen you before now.”
Any hope Gun might have had that they’d do as he asked died at the tone in the Mercenary woman’s voice.
“Listen, children, we’ve our orders, and if I was likely to break them-which I’m not-it certainly wouldn’t be for you two. And besides-”
Thionan Hawkmoon froze in mid-syllable, her attention caught by something within the walls.
“And besides,” she took up where she’d left off. “There’s an order out for both of you. Seems you ran away after the Fallen House Kor-iRok was found dead.” She looked down at them with a wink. “Don’t make me send for the City Guards, now.”
Sixteen
FANRYN BLOODHAND AND Thionan Hawkmoon were both waiting when Dhulyn swung the counterweighted chunk of flooring to one side and climbed out, reaching back in to give Alkoryn Pantherclaw a hand up.
“We’ve left the others in the lower chamber,” Dhulyn said, telling her Brothers in a few words just who those ‘others’ were. “Hernyn?” Thionan said.
Dhulyn’s lips parted, but her throat closed on the words.
“Hernyn Greystone the Shield remained behind,” Alkoryn said for her. “That we might escape.”
“In Battle or in Death,” Fanryn said after a long pause. The eyes of the four Brothers met, and for another moment they were silent, in honor of the one who had fallen. And in unspoken prayer that they should fall the same way, on their feet, swords in hand.
“Since his body will be found,” Alkoryn said, breaking their silence at last. “We can expect inquiries, perhaps even a request to search our premises before the day is out. What is it, Thionan?”
Even Dhulyn could see and recognize the slightly furtive look that had crossed Thionan’s eyes.
“About an hour ago,” she said. “I turned away the Tenebro’s tame Scholar and that Navra girl you and Parno brought, Dhulyn, telling them I’d call the City Guard on them. I was joking, but…”
“You spoke truth without knowing it,” Alkoryn said. “Well, at least they have been warned. What else can you tell me?”
Dhulyn only half heard Fanryn’s first words. So Mar and Gundaron of Valdomar had come here. Looking for what?
“Lok-iKol holds the Dome and the city,” Fanryn was saying, leading the way out of the room that, to anyone who didn’t know better, held nothing but the old cistern of Mercenary House. “Of the High Nobles, Jarifo and Esmolo Houses are with him-”
“We saw their men in the Dome,” Dhulyn said as she followed the other women up a short flight of stone steps and through another counterweighted chunk of wall.
“The other Houses are holding off, waiting to see how true Lok-iKol’s arrow will fly, though there’s talk that the Tenebroso will be acclaimed by midday,” Fanryn continued, her face showing her displeasure. “The only one demanding to be shown Tek-aKet Tarkin, living or dead, is the Penradoso.”
“I know that House,” Dhulyn said, thinking back over the years to the last time she’d fought in Imrion. When she and Parno had met.
“You should,” Alkoryn said, pausing with his hand on the wall to take a deeper breath. Dhulyn didn’t like the look of the man, his color was worse than a sleepless night walking underground should make it. “Fen-oNef Penrado was an old ally of Tek-aKet Tarkin’s father, and he fought on the old Tarkin’s side at Arcosa. You’d have seen him there. The odds are very short that he’ll come to Lok-iKol’s side without proof positive that Tek-aKet’s dead.”
“Lok-iKol’s gone ahead and scheduled his anointing for next new moon,” Thionan added. “Twelve days from now. And the Jaldeans have agreed. So old Penrado hasn’t much time to decide.”
They’d reached Alkoryn’s map room by this time, and the old man looked better for being able to sit down in his own chair. Dhulyn leaned against the wall between the two windows, angled into a corner of the map shelves where she couldn’t be seen from outside, and stifled a yawn. If she sat down, she thought, she’d fall right to sleep.
“Is there anything more?” Alkoryn said.
Fanryn considered, her head to one side. “There’s seventeen Brothers in the House,” she said. “Eleven of those from the Carnelian Guard who were out in the streets overnight. They felt their oaths were to Tek-aKet Tarkin, rather than the Carnelian Throne, so when he Fell, they came Home.”
“Did any die in street fighting?” Dhulyn asked.
“None. In fact, they saved some of the other Carnelian Guardsmen, and we’ve got them hidden around the quarter, some in the Old Market. None in the House, of course.” Fanryn looked over at Thionan when her Partner cleared her throat. “Besides the children you sent us, we do have a guest, however, who was visiting in the House when your orders came to shut the gates.” Fanryn waited to be sure she had both Dhulyn and Alkoryn’s attention. “Cullen of Langeron is here,” she said, “an intimate of Yaro of Trevel, and a Racha man, no less. Seeing that Yaro was once of our Brotherhood, we gave them sanctuary.”