Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

She touched Lirrit Ofka’s arm.

The isya nodded, dropped to her stomach close to the wall. She extended a collapsible tube painted black, eased it around the bend, put her eye to the viewer. She lifted her head, wriggled forward a few spans, looked again, repeated the process until all Elmas Ofka could see of her were feet in the soft black mocs with a gray dust smear like a crayon rubbing on the soles, footprints clinging to the bottom of her feet.

Lirrit Ofka rolled over, there was a faint hum, a tinkle. She rolled back, crept forward again, her feet vanishing. For several seconds there was a tense silence broken only by the near inaudible rub of cloth against stone, then even that stopped, then the isya came trotting back. She grinned, gave them a thumb salute. Keeping her voice low but not bothering to whisper, she said, “There was just the one. I spotted the guard, took him out. Dart this time. You hear it?”

“Uh-uh. How fast?”

“Got him in the neck. I think he thought a bug had bit him, he started to raise his hand, poop! down he went.”

“Alert?”

“Nah. Leaning against the wall half asleep.”

“I see.” She thought a minute. “We won’t change plans. Question chamber first, the other cells on our way back. Any objections? Good. Let’s go.”

Elmas Ofka and her isyas took out the drowsy sentries as they came on them with as little trouble as Lirrit had with the first; they left the men propped against a wall as if they slept sitting with their weapons beside them. Down and down the women went, through latched but not locked doors, running silent as hunting cats through the dimly lit corridors and down the spiraling stair flights. Empty corridors. Not even a rat prowling them, let alone an insomniac.

The door into the lowest level was locked and barred.

Elmas Ofka waved the others back, swung the spotter in a wide arc, watching the bright green line that trembled across the readout. The walls were thick stone, N’Ceegh had warned her she couldn’t fully trust the sensors if that stone had traces of metal and most of the stone the old fathers used was like that. The line wobbled in one place but she didn’t know if that was her hand or a sign. She swung the spotter back, held it still where she’d seen the tremble. After a moment she was sure she was seeing a spike. She moved the sensor array a hair to the left, another spike. She counted four spikes and a wiggle that might have been another, or a rat in the wall. She thumbed off the spotter and slid it away. “Four,” she said, “maybe another. Off that way.” She pointed. “Hri cousin, you and Lri cousin be ready to jump soon’s we get the door open. Ti cousin, you and May cousin and Hay cousin back them up. Ji cousin, handle the cutting. Then you and Bi cousin stand watch out here. Questions? Right. Let’s move.”

The two isyas ran down curving stairs, their mocs scuffing minimally on the stone. They took the last four steps in a flying leap, landed braced on the stone flags of the chamber floor, darters snapping up. Four men sat at a battered table playing cards and drinking from a skin they passed around. They looked sleepy, bored, uninterested in anything, even the money riding on the outcome of the game. The eyes on the man facing the foot of the stairs went wide and he opened his mouth to yell as he shoved his chair back and started to dive away.

Harli Tanggаr put a dart in his cheek, another in his arm and shot the man at the left end of the table as Lirrit Ofka took out the other two. While Elmas Ofka walked to the table to inspect the dead and make sure they weren’t shamming, the other three isyas ran silently from cell to cell, opening each grill-wicket and shining a light inside.

“Ondar,” Tez Ofka called, her voice low and angry. “Come here, please.”

Melly Birah was on her knees by the lock, using the cutter carefully, its lightblade angled toward the ceiling so she wouldn’t inadvertently slice into the occupant of that cell. She finished as Elmas Ofka reached them, got to her feet and pulled the door open.

The boy sleeping heavily on the chain-braced plank moaned and twitched but didn’t wake. Elmas Ofka shone her light on his face, sucked in a breath, let it trickle out, too shocked to say anything. His nose was broken, his face bruised and swollen, there was something wrong with one eye, the lid sagged inward; he was breathing through his mouth so she could see that a number of his teeth were missing. With a secret guilty relief she knew it wasn’t her brother; she leaned closer, tried to fit the battered features into a shape she knew, all the boys who’d vanished were her brother’s friends, she’d seen them with him more than once. Angrily, she shook her head, straightened and stepped back. “Who…”

Hessah Indiz pushed past her, knelt beside the bed. “Fazil,” she said. “It’s Fazil Birah. We were going to…”

Elmas Ofka frowned, nodded. “See if you can wake him, isya. We’ve got to locate the others.” She moved out of the cell. “Any more here?”

Lirrit Ofka scraped her moc across the filthy floor, Harli Tanggаr fidgeted and wouldn’t look at Elmas Ofka. The other isyas stood with their hands behind them, eyes shifting toward and away from a cell near the stairs. Tezzi Ofka came from behind the door. “Ondar…”

Elmas Ofka stiffened. For a moment she stood very still, then she ran past Tezzi into the cell. She pulled up, gulping as her stomach convulsed at what she saw. Bodies stacked on the floor like firewood. Bodies so torn and battered they weren’t even butcher’s meat. She moved the light over the faces visible, stopped it on one. Her hand trembled. “Tangus,” she whispered, “Tangus Indiz.”

Tezzi’s hand closed on her shoulder, tugged at her. “Ondar, Fazil Birah’s awake, he wants you.”

Elmas Ofka shuddered, she wanted to scream, she wanted to swing round, clawing and kicking. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself calm. Feeling brittle as a sheet of sugar candy, she turned with slow care and walked out of the cell without really seeing the door or Tezzi Ofka or anything. Fingers just touching the wall, needing the contact with stone and wood to keep in mind where she was and what she had to do, she moved toward the first cell. Tangus Indiz was her baby brother, she’d raised him from the time he was weaned, taking care of the youngers was one of her jobs before she went to diving. Of all the toddlers she bathed and clothed, cuddled and taught, he was her favorite, a fey baby, happy, terribly bright with the accent on terrible, too full of jagged energies to fit comfortably inside the settled outlines of farm life. She’d felt the kindship of his spirit which was more to her than the kinship of the blood and bled for him as time passed and took him out of her hands. She was a diver and gifted enough to know she was going to be Dalliss with all the freedom that meant, her energies were funneled that way, she didn’t have to fight to breathe. He did. He had a dozen talents but none of them seized hold of him like diving did her, he drifted and used his energy on mischiefs, things that were giggles at first, puncturing pomposities to the general applause of the middlers in school or early apprenticeship. He was punished; pomposities don’t appreciate needles, clever or not, or those who use them, and generally have the power to enforce their disapproval. Except for Elmas Ofka and a few others, the middlers who laughed at his antics and urged him on left him dangling when he was caught. The past year she’d seen him turn bitter and his fancies take on malicious overtones. She worried about him, she couldn’t reach him anymore, he wouldn’t listen to her. No more worries now. Tears stung her eyes. No. I won’t cry. Not here. Not now. She stopped walking, closed her eyes and fought herself calm again, then moved into the cell with Fazil Birah and knelt beside the plank.