Both ambushers veered unerringly towards her. Prone, the advantage of Kettle’s greater speed was considerably lessened. One ambusher swung to split her head but branches blocked the arc of his blade. The other, wise to the limitations of a longsword in woodland, thrust to skewer her. Kettle rolled onto her back again, bringing her knives up to deflect the thrust. She barely managed it and the blade sliced through her coat before driving into the ground.
In desperate straits, Kettle focused on the only opponent she could reach. Taking advantage of the momentarily trapped sword, she sliced one knife across the wrist of the hand holding it. The other she stabbed up into the man’s groin.
The last attacker stood revealed as his companion doubled up, an ugly grin on his face, the point of his sword less than two feet from Kettle’s chest. On her back, arms extended, she knew she had no real chance to avoid or deflect this thrust. But she gave no space to fear or regret, only gathered herself to try.
At the back of Kettle’s mind Nona knew the nun had no hope. The man had moved with the speed of a half-blood at least. Nona, unable to help, or leave, or even scream, tensed for the blow. She would share the pain. It would be the last thing she could ever do for Kettle.
Nona knew that, even for those without hunska blood, at the sharpest edge of things the world would slow to a crawl. It might not offer you the opportunity to act but the inevitable happened slowly. Nona watched the point of the sword. It filled Kettle’s vision, finding glimmers in the gloom. She watched the killer’s face, met his stare, and knew those eyes would see the death of one of the few people she treasured and of her last hope.
When the man’s face began to distort, bulging outwards, Nona could make no sense of it. When blood suffused his skin and began to erupt from eyes, nose, and mouth, both Nona and Kettle stared in vacant disbelief. Suddenly, as if their terror had released its hold on time’s flow, the face exploded and a red fist emerged from the tumbling gore.
Moments later Kettle was on her feet facing a figure so wrapped in shadow that even her dark-sight struggled to make out any detail. The pair of them stood for a moment in silent regard. Kettle became aware of the moans from the groin-stabbed man by her feet, and of his hand reaching into his jerkin. She stamped on his neck, breaking it with a detachment that startled Nona. Her gaze never left the figure before her. “Who are you?”
The darkness smoked away by degrees. The newcomer stood of a height with Kettle, clad in a range-coat.
“Sister?” Kettle cocked her head, staring into the midnight still gathered beneath the hood.
The figure made no reply, only stepped back, shaking the blood from her fingers as the last of the shadows left her.
“Zole?” Kettle saw it before Nona did.
Zole pushed back her hood. She looked at her hand in distaste and wiped it on the nearest tree. “I do not think there are any others close by.”
“Zole? What are you doing here?”
“Following you.” She blinked as if the answer were obvious.
“Why?” Kettle glanced around at the trees that pressed on all sides, as if expecting more novices to emerge.
“Because you are following Nona.”
“How do you—” Kettle abandoned the question in favour of “Why do you want to find Nona?”
“We planned to visit the ice together.” Zole almost shrugged, turned away as if embarrassed. “She is the Shield. I am not supposed to lose her.”
“I didn’t think you believed in all that Chosen One stuff?” Kettle crossed to the first two attackers and stooped to recover her throwing stars with the aid of a knife.
“I do not.”
“Why then?” The second star came loose with a wet noise.
Somewhere behind Kettle Zole spoke in a voice almost too quiet to hear. “She is my friend.”
28
NONA CLUNG TO Kettle’s thoughts, refusing to let them slip. The surge of tension that had dragged her along their thread-bond now seeped away but a dark cell waited, and sickness, and boredom, and fear. She wanted to be with Kettle, out in the world, hunting down those who had captured her. Also, there was Zole.
Between them Kettle and Zole had dragged the supposed woodsman from the trail and off into the woods, taking him in the opposite direction to where the bodies lay.
The union between Kettle and Nona was weakening. Nona could no longer hear Kettle’s thoughts or touch her memories, but she could watch through her eyes, feel through her hands, and listen with her ears. It was enough.
Night had fallen and Kettle had made no fire but both she and Zole wove shadows well enough to see in any natural darkness. Kettle secured the man to a tree using cord from her pack. She sat him with his back to it, hands tied behind the trunk. His head flopped on his chest. The throwing star had been coated with a resin based on the boneless brew that rendered its victims limp and unable to move. She removed the star from his biceps and bound the wound.
“You punched through that man’s head.” Images of the act flooded Kettle’s vision. In a distant cell Nona winced.
“I walked the Path,” Zole said, standing behind Kettle as she attended the captive.
“You could have just stabbed him. Or punched him more . . . gently.” Kettle stood up and turned around.
“I did not know how many I would have to deal with. And I have not got a knife.”
Kettle presented Zole with one of the daggers from her belt, a hefty piece of iron, nine inches long and honed to lethality. “Now you do.” She smiled. “And thank you. I think he had me.”
Zole said nothing, just scowled and flexed her fingers.
“You’ve not killed someone before.” Not a question.
“No.”
“You’re right to feel it. It’s not something to be taken lightly.” Kettle put her hand to Zole’s shoulder. The girl flinched but made no move to push Kettle away.
In the distant cell a frown creased Nona’s brow. She tried to remember her first. One of Sherzal’s soldiers that night in the Rellam Forest. She had been eight, perhaps. She had worn the blood of those soldiers into Giljohn’s cage but any trace of guilt had washed off long before.
“Well.” Kettle gave Zole’s shoulder a squeeze then removed her hand. “We should find out who our friend here is and what he knows.”
Kettle crouched and studied the man. The others had been similarly dressed in grey jerkins, dark trousers. Nona had little doubt they were the same order that held her captive. They had the same short hair, the same quiet dedication.
“I don’t really have to ask what he is,” Kettle said. “He’s one of the Lightless. He’s shadow-threaded, like me. I can sense it now I have a moment to concentrate. You can see it in him.”
Now Kettle said it Nona could see it too and wondered how she hadn’t before. The darkness moved around the man, a subtle thing, as mist would move around any other person.
“Lightless?” Zole asked.
“The Lightless are servants of the Noi-Guin,” Kettle said. “Most of them candidates who survived the training up to some point but failed to prove themselves. They outnumber the Noi-Guin considerably. You don’t often find them out and about though: it indicates that Nona has been captured by a Noi-Guin. Also that either this Noi-Guin took Lightless with him and left them to guard his trail—which seems unlikely. Or that they guard this trail habitually. Which would indicate that we are near the Tetragode.”
Zole had no more questions.
Nona had plenty but none of her efforts to get Kettle’s attention met with any success. Nobody knew where the Tetragode was sited, though it was rumoured to relocate every two to four years in any case. But wherever it was the place would be impregnable. The Noi-Guin had survived many enemies over the centuries, a good number of them emperors. Remaining hidden might be their primary defence but it was far from being their only defence.
“I’ll give him the antidote and we can see what he has to say for himself.” Kettle reached into her pocket.
“Is there any point?” Zole kicked at the ground. “He will be sworn to silence. I do not know what tortures they teach a Sister of Discretion but will it be enough to break him, and quickly?”
“I know how to hurt someone.” Kettle’s voice was grim. She took out her boning knife and used it to cut a rectangle from the bottom of the man’s trouser leg, enough to cover two splayed hands. Next she showed a pill between thumb and forefinger. “Antidote first.” Lifting the man’s head she put the pill into his open mouth, closed it, and raised his chin. She turned the man’s head so she could stare into his eyes. “In a short while you’ll gain control over your muscles again and be able to speak.” She picked up the rectangle of cloth and waited.
Control came to the man’s eyes first. A twitch, another twitch, and then a frenzy of darting this way and that.
“Your friends are dead,” Kettle said.
Next his mouth recovered. He spat a dark mess at Kettle who caught it neatly in the patch she’d cut from his trouser leg. She moved back. The man kept spitting and gagging as if he had the foulest taste in his mouth. At the back of Kettle’s mind Nona puzzled. The antidote to boneless tasted of nothing . . . perhaps a little salty.
“How far from here is the Tetragode?” Kettle asked.
“Ten miles.” The man slurred the words, his muscles still weak from the boneless. He blinked, a look of horror and astonishment coming over his face.
“We’re looking for a girl who has been captured. Tell me about anyone who has passed this way in the last few days who might have had her with them.”
The man’s face contorted with effort but his mouth betrayed him. “Tellasah came through two days ago, she was leading a mule, the box on it smelled as if it held a prisoner, or a body.”
“Who is Tellasah?” Kettle asked.
“She is a Noi-Guin, second order.” The man struggled to raise his hands to cover his mouth but the ropes held him.
“Describe the entrances to the Tetragode and their defences,” Kettle said.
“The main entrance is a cave at the foot of cliffs in the Grampain Mountains, half a mile west of the ri—” With a scream the man bit down hard and blood sprayed from his mouth. He gargled through it as if he were still answering the question but Nona couldn’t make out the words.
Kettle glanced down. Between the man’s gore-spattered legs lay a chunk of flesh. A large piece of tongue. Nona felt Kettle clench her jaw. A moment later her knife jutted from the man’s left eye, his pain over.
“You gave him Mistress Shade’s truth pill along with the antidote?” Zole asked, her voice as flat and free of emotion as ever.
“I did.”
“How many more do you have?”
“None.” Kettle pulled her knife free and wiped the blade on the man’s sleeve. “It’s not just a matter of rare ingredients, a powerful enchantment has to be used to bind them. Apple swapped favours with an Academic named Hanastoi, but no help from the Academy is ever cheap . . .”
“No point trying to capture another one then.” Zole knelt and started searching through the man’s pockets. “They must have a camp near here. What is your plan?”
“I don’t have one.” Kettle started back towards the trail. She paused. “How did you follow me without my noticing?”
“Carefully.” Zole looked up, pocketing a few coins. “Do not feel too bad about it. I am the Chosen One, after all.”
Although there was no hint of a smile Nona suspected that she might have witnessed Zole’s first joke.
“We should take their robes.” Kettle led the way back to the track. “If we can find any that aren’t obviously bloody. And cut our hair like they do. You’re almost there as it is.” She glanced back at Zole’s black and bristling thicket.
“You should,” Zole replied. “You are shadowed like they are. I should be your prisoner.”
“They won’t buy it.” Kettle reached the first of the fallen Lightless. The woods were thick with the smell of death, clinging despite the wind. “The guards will know this lot by sight. I can’t believe there are so many out here that they wouldn’t. And if there were that many then there would be passwords and such. Besides, we’ll probably be spotted hunting for the entrance. I doubt it’s obvious . . .”
“If we can get near I can make them believe we belong there.” Zole flexed her fingers.
“Really?” Even detached from Kettle’s thoughts Nona could feel the Grey Sister’s doubt. “This isn’t like Pan’s classroom you know. These Lightless are—”
“Go home.” Zole’s narrow gaze rocked Kettle on her heels.
Kettle paused as if struggling with some reply, then without a word she turned and strode back to the track. Once clear of the trees, she turned to the left and walked back the way she’d travelled. Overhead the red stars bore witness and in the east the white eye of the Hope began to rise. It took perhaps fifty yards before Kettle’s confident stride faltered. She glanced back, saw Zole following, and came to a halt.
“What . . .”
“I changed your mind,” Zole said.
Kettle turned to face her.
“It was not easy, but a large part of you wants to go back to the convent anyhow, and I just helped it.”
“Thread-work?” Kettle asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t do that again.” Kettle shivered. “At least not on me. What makes you think it will be easier on a Lightless?”
“Because they are not you, sister,” Zole said. “You have a strong mind and it is well-trained. If you really did not want to do something I could not make you do it. But making a guard believe that you are a Lightless who is new to the order, or that the person next to them recognizes you should be easier.”
“Should be?”
“Some people hold their threads more tightly than others.” Zole shrugged. “I can also do this.” She thrust an open hand at Kettle, who burst into laughter.
Even at the back of Kettle’s mind, shielded from her emotions, Nona felt the echoes of it and in the darkness of her cell she smiled.
“Marjal empathy,” Zole said over Kettle’s snorts and giggles. “Sherzal had Academy tutors train me before I came to Sweet Mercy.”
“I . . .” Kettle fought for breath, bent double. “You’ll never need a punchline . . .” More laughter, before she forced herself to stand, still grinning.
“It works on you because you trust me,” Zole said, no hint of a smile on her. “But with less guarded minds I can have quite an effect.”
“I don’t trust anyone.” Kettle dropped her smile. “Not out here. Not on a mission.”
“‘Trust is the most insidious of poisons.’” Zole quoted Sister Apple. “But you do trust me, and you are not on a mission—nobody told you to do this.”
Kettle frowned and glanced to the west, through the treetops. The moon’s focus would be sweeping across the Marn by now, making the sea steam. Time was slipping away. “So that’s the plan? Present myself at the gates as a Lightless with a prisoner and hope that because I walk in shadow it won’t take too much of a push for you to make them believe it?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Then we see.”
“They’re dangerous, these Noi-Guin,” Kettle said. “They’re like us, like Grey Sisters, but worse because killing is all they do. If just one of them spots us we’re done for.”
“The Noi-Guin are even spoken of on the ice.” Zole rolled her head, clicking the bones in her neck. “They come after people in the night and murder them in their sleep. We are going into their home, where they believe that they are safe. If they find us we will see what they are made of. And show them what we are made of.”
Kettle grinned. “And what’s that?”
Zole did not smile in return. “Sweet Mercy.”
29
ABBESS GLASS
THE CARRIAGE THAT Brother Pelter had waiting for Abbess Glass proved to be quite luxurious. She had expected one of the usual b
lack wagons with barred windows normally used to transport suspects but this one looked rather like the sort some lesser lord might own to bear him to the palace, although if the doors had ever sported a coat of arms the evidence had been expertly removed.
“For me?” Abbess Glass pursed her lips. “I’m impressed.”
Brother Pelter climbed in and one of the Inquisition guards helped Glass into the opposite seat before joining her, another climbing up top. The other guards remained at the pillars as the carriage rattled away across the Rock.
“Two guards is all I warrant, brother?” The abbess inspected the silver chain wrapped half a dozen times around her wrists. “I’m not sure whether to be offended that you think me so lacking in threat or complimented that you have such trust in my good behaviour.”
Brother Pelter made no reply, only watched her, cold-eyed. He had sent a rider on ahead, clutching a message-scroll, presumably to forewarn of their arrival.
“I suppose it might be of considerable help to some parties if I did escape.” Glass sat back. “Nothing makes the Inquisition’s job quite as easy as when someone declares their own guilt by running.”
“Like the novice in the caves,” Brother Pelter replied. “Nona Grey.”
Glass shrugged. “Nobody was arguing over her guilt, brother, just her punishment.”
* * *
• • •
EVEN THE EXPENSIVE suspension of the inquisitor’s carriage proved unable to provide much comfort over bare rock and they bounced and jolted along. Beside Glass the overlapping plates of the Inquisition guard’s armour rattled to the point of irritation. It proved something of a relief to begin the descent of the Vinery Stair where a layer of earth softened the road.