36. The End of the Tunnel (Gadarien)¶
The echoes were too chaotic to discern an exact number, but at least a dozen people in armor were moving in Gadarien’s direction. Vaye was rigid, her arms half-raised. He removed his hand from her mouth and spun her to face him. “What did you do?” he snarled.
Vaye’s momentarily relief at seeing him was quickly replaced, her face a pale gray. “Adranaya,” she said. “They took her. They’re going to turn her into an Oruma. We have to—”
“Slow down,” he said, sheathing his knife. “Who took her? What happened?”
“The Sihiri. They broke into class and took her away. They said she stole something from Yobaza’s office.” There was a sizeable anomaly in Vaye’s melody, something she was leaving out, but the footsteps were getting closer. He’d search that hole later.
“Come on,” he said. He knelt by the door and hummed the locking frequency, his nerves slowing him down. The latched opened and they dashed into the darkness, Gadarien fairly dragging Vaye along as he hummed just loud enough to hear the way.
He’d realized his cover was blown that morning. It was lucky that the cells had no doors, or he might not have heard the Sihiri approaching. As it was, he’d barely managed to escape, slipping down the hall into another novitiate’s cell while they searched his room.
Someone had sold him out, perhaps someone captured in the raid. With his network in shambles, he hadn’t realized any Feiçeira had been taken alive. But if the Helix had Adranaya, he was compromised anyway. He tried to think back to everything he had told her or what she might have been able to deduce.
“Where are we going?” Vaye panted, her voice tight with fear.
“The sobração,” he replied. “I have friends there.”
“What friends?”
He ignored her question as they reached the exit. He unlatched the door and kicked it open, and a gust of cold air hit him just before the sight of eight spearheads leveled at his chest. Behind the city guards—not Sihiri, thank the Deucanta—stood Jovadão.
“Preceptor,” said Gadarien, drawing his knife. Jovadão silently unfurled his peljak, the witchglass fluttering in the breeze before snapping into a half-moon shape.
The first two guards grinned as they stepped forward, sensing easy prey. Although they were mere city guards, barely trained, they were armored in boiled hide, and Gadarien had only his knife. The tunnel mouth was behind him, allowing him to take them on one or two at a time, but more guards would soon arrive from that direction. And once Jovadão joined the fight, it would be over. He retreated a step, pushing Vaye into the tunnel, hoping to at least make the bastards pay for the privilege of killing him. “Stay behind me,” he told her.
“Why?” she said.
The first guard jabbed with his spear, the blade meeting empty space as Gadarien swayed back. He turned the second attack aside with his knife and countered with a kick that shattered the man’s knee. The guard fell with a scream, his leg bent the wrong way.
Gadarien flowed into the space behind the first attacker’s spearhead and opened his throat with a backhanded slash. The man staggered, grasping at his neck, and Gadarien shoved him into the next rank of guards, but the momentum had carried him away from the tunnel mouth, leaving his side vulnerable. He didn’t even see the third attacker until the man was already lunging forward.
Before the spear could skewer him, though, a white line shot out of the tunnel and sliced off the guard’s face. Gadarien stared, mouth agape, as the tzash flew back to Vaye’s hand. She looked almost as shocked as he did.
The remaining guards split their forces, belatedly realizing that this prey was tougher than it looked. Three rushed Gadarien, leaving two to engage Vaye, who had retreated back into the tunnel. Gadarien stepped on the butt of a spear where it lay propped on a dead guard’s leg, popping it into the air before kicking it into the nearest guard’s bicep and making her drop her weapon with a howl. He threw his knife at the next guard, who tried to turn his head but only managed to catch the knife point straight in the ear.
Enraged, the last guard put all her weight behind her spear, intending to kill Gadarien even if she died in the process. He sidestepped her thrust and grabbed the shaft, but she yanked the spear back and drove him toward the wall. He felt his strength begin to ebb as the point inched closer and closer to his chest. Behind her, the guard who had taken the spear in her arm had picked up her weapon with her other hand. She hefted it, ready to finish him off.
A silver-white semicircle flashed through the air. The top of the unlucky soldier’s skull spun away like a coin. Jovadão’s peljak shot out again and the head of the guard pressing Gadarien flopped forward, her neck severed from behind. The woman collapsed, her spear scraping down the side of Gadarien’s ribs as she fell. He looked up at the older Cantereian in shock.
Before he could say a word, Vaye flew out of the tunnel, screaming and swinging her tzashim with both hands. Jovadão barely managed to duck as she shot a dagger at his head.
“Vaye, wait!” Gadarien shouted.
She kept coming, not stopping until Gadarien himself grabbed one of her wrists. Even then, he almost thought she’d stab him. Her eyes were wild, the whites radiant, her veins a network of flickering pink beneath her skin.
She blinked rapidly, realizing that Jovadão wasn’t trying to kill them, and looked between the two Cantereians in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Gadarien said, warily eyeing Jovadão.
The older Cantereian stood just out of striking distance, his peljak still open in a low guard. He relaxed as Vaye lowered her daggers. “I am your ally. You must trust me,” he said, but another message rode his words, encoded in the melody and rhythm of Sussura.
Teira awaits us at the new safehouse.
Gadarien stared, slack-jawed as a begging dog. Everyone knew that Jovadão had once been a Feiçeira, and had turned on his former countrymen after the war. Hearing Sussura from his lips shouldn’t have been a surprise. But the clandestine language had another property that set it apart from spoken language: it was impossible to lie in Sussura.
“First, though, we need to deal with that,” Jovadão said, pointing at Vaye’s arm. A large flap of flesh hung down, bright blood welling up around the white of bone.
“Oh,” she said sedately. “I think I got cut.”
Gadarien cursed as he guided her to the stone bench. Jovadão tore a strip of fabric from the uniform of a dead guard, then held the flap of skin in place and quickly bound the wound. Vaye sat with her mouth agape, clearly in shock.
“Vaye,” Gadarien said, snapping his fingers in her ashen face. “Hey. Look at me. We have to go.”
“We killed them,” she said softly. “They’re dead now.” She was staring at the nearest corpse. The woman’s wrist was adorned with a brightly-colored beaded bracelet, the kind Sarmalan children gave each other for Dunvirmak.
“Yes, they’re dead,” Gadarien replied. As if to mock him, the guard with the broken knee moaned loudly.
Jovadão grimaced and silenced the man with his peljak. “We have to go. More guards are coming.”
How much does she know? he said in Sussura. Can we trust her?
“I need you to walk, Vaye. Can you do that?” Gadarien said as he replied to Jovadão.
I trust her more than I trust you.
Vaye looked up as though she had forgotten Gadarien was there, then nodded solemnly before turning and vomiting all over the bench.
“Come. I’ll explain on the way,” Jovadão said.
It seems we both have some explaining to do.
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