Gregory Keyes - The Infernal city

“Who are you?” he shouted. “Show your faces.” He made a wild cut at the one nearest, but stepped back as his companions moved to circle him.

The door burst open again, and the man on his left jerked his head to look. Attrebus thrust with Flashing, catching him in the ribs. The man cursed and fell back, clutching his side, even as one of his companions cut at Treb’s head. Attrebus dropped, feeling the wake of the blade on his scalp.

He was struggling to get his blade back up when something big hit his only remaining attacker. The other three were busy defending their own lives against Lesspa and her cousins, and he now saw that it was Lesspa’s brother, Sha’jal, savaging the man at his feet.

By the time he got around them, the rest of the fray was over.

Attrebus rushed to the bar, but the barkeep was dead with a knife in her right eye.

“Are you all right?” Lesspa asked.

“I am, thanks to you,” he replied. “I thought you were leaving.”

“No, no. We sent the kits and the old ones back with a few warriors, but the rest of us stay with you. We’ve been watching out for you. These fellows with their masks, they didn’t seem to have the best of intentions.”

“Take their masks off,” Attrebus said, bending toward the corpse nearest him.

Four of them were unfamiliar, but the fourth was Riente, the fellow from Florius’s office.

“Florius!” he swore.

He ran the two hundred yards back to the garrison, not caring if the cats were with him or not. He shoved the door open, blade in hand.

Florius was in his chair, with his head on the table. There wasn’t much blood; he’d been stabbed at the base of the skull.

“It told you to wait,” Sul said. “I should have tied you up before I left.”

“He was going with us,” Attrebus said. “I talked him into it. I killed him.”

“You killed him the moment he knew who you were. There was a guard dead, too—did you talk to a guard?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling sick.

“The massacre of your men, and now this? You need to ask yourself—who wants you dead?”

Attrebus closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. “I’ve seen Riente before. In the Imperial City. And some of the things Radhasa said made it sound like someone there had hired her. I assumed it was some criminal faction, but … I don’t know who could want me murdered.”

“It’s not just anyone,” Sul said. “It’s someone with a lot of connections. They may have scried you were coming here, but from your description it sounds more likely that they put someone here, in Bravil, Leyawiin—anyplace they thought you might turn up.”

“One of the dukes, my uncle maybe. Maybe someone who doesn’t want me to be Emperor.”

“Yes, but why now? Why not a year ago, in your sleep with venom from some woman’s lips? Why not a year from now?”

“You think it has something to do with Umbriel?”

“What else could it be?” Sul demanded. “Track back. Who knew what you were up to?”

“Gulan. My father. Annaïg. Hierem, my father’s minister. But we weren’t in private—others surely heard.”

Sul’s eyes went a bit strange for a moment, as if something Attrebus had said registered with him, but then it was gone.

“Ah, well,” he said. “It’s moot for the moment.”

“Florius is dead. It’s not moot.”

“For the moment, I said. I found the things we needed. When both moons are in the sky tonight, we’ll go where no one will follow—that, you can be sure of. Now, I’m going back to town to sell the horses, because we can’t take them with us, and to pick up more supplies for the trip. This time, stay put. I’ll take some of the cats to help.”

Sul returned a few hours before sundown, and under his direction they began to hike north, first on the trail, then through the bottomlands. At dusk they reached their destination—the ruins of an Oblivion gate, not notably different from the one at Ione, except there wasn’t a town built around it. They gathered on the glassy, fused earth, and Attrebus and the cats knelt in a circle around Sul, who walked among them dabbing a red ointment from a small jar and marking each of their foreheads, and finally his own.

When he was finished, he stoppered the jar and put it in his haversack.

“Get what you need,” he said. “We’ll be traveling light. When we start, stay close to me, as close as you can. We’ll be moving fast.”

Attrebus shouldered his pack and put his hand on Flashing’s hilt. He faced the Khajiit. There were four of the massive Senchetigers and four riders. Lesspa with Sha’jal, Taaj with S’enjara, M’kai with Ahapa, and J’lasha riding M’qar.

“You’re sure about this, all of you?” Attrebus asked them.

“Our lances are with you,” Lesspa said.

“Only our lances,” M’kai added. “I hope you know how to use them.”

His accent was so thick and his tone so solemn that it took a snicker from Taaj before he realized M’kai was joking.

“We’re ready, Prince,” Lesspa said.

“Okay,” he told Sul. “I’m ready, too. You can start whenever.” He looked up at the moons.

Sul nodded and the sky shattered.

SIX

The landscape beneath Mere-Glim had changed considerably since he’d last been in the Fringe Gyre. Gone the dense forest, winding rivers, and oxbow lakes, all replaced by ash-colored desert and jagged peaks. That meant they were out of Black Marsh at last, and well over Morrowind.

He’d never been out of his homeland before.

Not that it mattered anymore. He was dead to the Hist, and almost everyone he knew was dead. For all intents and purposes, he hadn’t been in Black Marsh since he and Annaïg had come upon Umbriel. Crossing a border was just a formality.

Of course, he could jump. Why shouldn’t he? His body would be too broken to become one of the living dead he could see massed in every direction now that the concealing canopy was gone.

He hissed. Maybe later. Annaïg was probably dead, but until he was sure, he would go through the motions as if they mattered.

So back up the tree he went, retracing his path to where he’d met Fhena.

True to her word, she appeared within half an hour, smiling. Her grin broadened when he handed her a sack full of orchid shrimp.

“I thought you might not be coming back,” she said.

“I … got in trouble last time,” he said.

Her smile vanished. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she said. “I promise.”

“It wasn’t that,” he said. “I got distracted on the way back. I was late. Since then I’ve had to be a little more careful.”

“Well, I’m glad you came back. Everyone else I meet—they’re all pretty much the same. You’re very strange.”

“A … thanks.”

“I mean it as a compliment.”

“I’ll take it that way, then.”

She perched on one of the smaller branches and crossed her legs. “Where you come from—is everyone strange, like you?” she asked, plucking one shrimp from her sack and biting its head off.

“Well, of course where I’m from doesn’t exist anymore, thanks to Umbriel.” At least the place that I grew up doesn’t. Everyone I know there is probably dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But what I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” he replied. “Where I was from—is called Black Marsh. That’s where my people are from. But there are other sorts of people, just as there are here.”