Erin Evans - The God Catcher

She watched the windows of the shop, waiting for the lights to turn on. Be calm, she thought. Be polite. He was going to try to hurt her-she didn't doubt that. But if he saw her as cool and well-mannered, he might not try as hard as if he thought she would fight.

Much like a nasty relation with a sharp tongue. Tennora wondered if her mother knew her advice could be applied to a situation as far from life among the nobility as the one that lay before her.

The lights in the shop came on. Tennora gripped the sack tighter until her hand tingled from the effort. Now or never, she thought.

The door was unlocked, and the room beyond nearly repaired from the earlier fight. Ferremo sat in an ornate, gilt wooden chair, ignoring her and examining a scuff on the heel of one boot. His lower lip was swollen and bruised.

"Well met," he said. "What have you brought me?"

Tennora didn't move. "Where's Nestrix?"

He jabbed a thumb toward the magically protected door. "Give me what I want, and I'll let you in."

"That hardly seems fair."

"You're not in a position to make the terms," he said. "I keep your mistress, and nothing changes much for me. I bring her out before I have what you're offering, and you have an ally-while I'm all on my own. Show me what it is."

Tennora hesitated for a moment, then withdrew the gorget from the bag.

Ferremo's eyes widened at the moonstone and the silvery metal that gleamed even in the faint light. He reached to take it, but Tennora pulled it away.

"So that's it?" he said. "That will block the dragonward's powers."

"It's charmed to counteract them," she said. "All he has to do is put it on. Now open the door and I'll hand it over."

"Certainly," he said with a coppery grin. "It's the least I can do."

He went to the door, sidestepping the pressure plate. A quick spell and an intricate wave of his left hand-and, Tennora suspected, the emerald ring on it-and the ward that had been protecting the door shivered and vanished. He opened the door and turned back to her with an elaborate bow.

"Here you are."

Tennora stayed where she was. "Where are your knives?"

"You think I'm going to cross you?"

Tennora shrugged and gave a coy smile. "You'll pardon the presumption, but it does seem likely."

He smiled back and pulled the knives from his belt, held them out, flipped them over into his grip, and lunged at her. Tennora leaped back out of his reach and swung the gorget in its bag up into his chin.

He grunted and fell back, clutching his doubly wounded jaw. A drop of blood bloomed between his fingers.

"Come with me and you won't get hurt."

"Oh, like Hells," Tennora snapped. She pulled a carvestar from her belt and spun it into his forearm. He cursed and pulled the carvestar free. His arm bleeding, he grabbed her by the wrist.

Tennora twisted under his arm and reached for her dagger, but he moved around her and out of the way, pinning her against him.

His arm locked around her throat, pressing into both sides. She struggled against him, jamming her elbow over and over into his gut, while her vision crumbled from the outside in. After a few seconds, everything went dark.

Tennora woke a moment later, bruised, dizzy, and lying on the floor on her stomach. Her feet were lashed together, and Ferremo was busy doing the same to her wrists behind her back.

"You are going to make me get your blood all over the floor," he said in a disgusted voice, "if you don't stop fighting back."

She spit on his boots.

He kicked her in the ribs, and a shock of pain exploded across her chest and drove the air from her lungs.

"Lie there and be quiet." He walked away, out of her line of sight.

Tennora wriggled her hands within the bonds. He'd tied them tightly, but the rope still had some give to it and each motion stretched the bonds. She could hear Ferremo's muffled voice as he paced in the distance.

She pulled her wrists up, so that they met the belt she wore. Pressing the rope into the cloth and lifting her torso off the floor, she twisted her belt so that the dagger that lay beneath her hip crept inch by inch toward the small of her back.

She nearly had it when Ferremo returned, still speaking to Dareun.

"Master, it's not that simple," he said, his voice tense and poorly covering an edge of anger. "If I kill her, I need to dispose of the body. This isn't a neighborhood where people won't notice. And if you need me-" A pause. "Pegno is dead. Alina is in the dungeons, and I wouldn't trust Arvinik with such a task." Another pause. "Master, it's more complicated than that. If you were to change, you could get rid of… I beg your pardon, master. I didn't…" A very long pause, and Tennora suspected Ferremo was getting an earful. "You need me there

… Yes. That is what's most important. Thank you, master. I will."

His boots tapped across the floor. He took her by the braid and lifted her head off the floor.

"Much as I hate the situation," Ferremo said, "we're pressed for time and have to go about it the old-fashioned way. You're going for a swim."

The hilt of his dagger clubbed her behind the ear, and Tennora's world went black.

The cobbles below drifted by like floes of ice on the harbor, Tennora thought. Were there floes on the harbor? No… it was still summer, even if autumn was nipping at the days' ankles. She had only thought that because the harbor was nearby. She could hear the lap of waves against the piers and the sounds of the boats rocking into each other as she went down the street, hanging down and looking at the cobblestones.

Terror returned to her like a white-hot knife through her core, and she realized she was hanging over the saddle of a horse, her arms bound behind her back, her ankles tied together. The boot near her nose was ornately decorated with gold embroidery and patches of some sort of dyed hide.

Ferremo. And everything else came back in a rush.

She made herself stay slack-let him think she was unconscious a little longer while she figured out what to do.

He reined in the horse at the edge of a dock and climbed down, hefting her onto his shoulder. She stayed still, though her heart was pounding. If she struggled free, she had no chance to run and he might just kill her outright.

He heaved her off onto the boards, tugged the knots at her ankles and wrists to make certain they were tight. The rope pinched painfully against her skin, but Tennora didn't react any more than if he'd pulled a tangle of her hair loose. She let her head loll.

"You should be glad," Ferremo said. "At least you don't have to smell the sewers while you wait to die, like she does. And by the way"-he grabbed her chin and pulled her face toward him-"I know you're awake." He scooped her up and threw her over the side of the dock.

Icy water slammed into Tennora, solid as a wall, shocking her to her senses with a gasp. Blessed instinct made her hold that breath, and she sank, watching dumbly as the light from the street lamps wavered and shrank from her sight.

The cold pressed into her skin and jarred her from her trance. It was summer, but the water flowing down from the north had not lost its chill. She thrashed against the water and her restraints. She had to get to the surface. She needed air! Her weakened lungs started to spasm, remembering the agony of featherlung, wanting to prove they could still draw breath.

No, she thought, surprising herself with her own calmness. If she surfaced, Ferremo would kill her for certain. She needed to get farther away, to struggle out of her bonds.

She sank, deeper and deeper, until she felt her feet touch the bottom of the harbor. Her calm was no use against her screaming lungs. Half a breath escaped her and bubbled up to the surface. Wriggling against the ropes that bound her wrists, she stretched them until she could drag one arm free.