The Noi-Guin’s most striking feature was the black-skin mask that covered his face, with just a slit exposing the eyes and perforations at the nose and mouth. Taken from the hull of a tribe-ship, the stuff was as flexible as silk unless some object tried to move it too swiftly, in which case it became rigid and tougher than steel.
A close-fitting leather hood, descending to spread out over the shoulders, prevented Nona from telling how far the black-skin extended. Red Sisters who were hunska primes or full-bloods, as most were, would wear black-skin only over their torso as otherwise it could resist their fastest movements with unfortunate consequences. Also the stuff, being fabulously rare, was often in too short supply to be used more widely. The rest of the Noi-Guin’s outfit was black leather, variously ridged or reinforced with iron plates. The dark grey cloak was presumably a concession to the enduring chill of subterranean life and shed when action was required.
“Where are you going?” The Noi-Guin studied them, his eyes like black beads within the slits of his mask.
“Arthran received this woman at the west-cave. He instructed me to escort her and the prisoner to the holding cells.” The Lightless stepped aside, leaving Kettle and Zole fully exposed to the Noi-Guin’s scrutiny.
“I don’t—”
“I’m Mai of the Lightless.” Kettle interrupted the assassin. It was better to break decorum than let someone state their opinion out loud. Once anything was spoken it became harder to change. “You know me, surely?” She stepped up beside her prisoner.
“You know her.” Zole’s whisper buzzed through the air. She stood, head bowed, the tendons in her neck rigid with the effort of working her geas.
“I know her.” A whispered reply from all four of the escort. Kettle heard it echoed behind the walls too, coming down through the murder holes above them. “I know her.”
“I don’t know this woman.” The Noi-Guin stood, though slowly, puzzled.
“You know her.” Zole’s whisper came more intense, bleeding through the air. Kettle had to restrain herself from shouting it out.
“I know her!” One of the escort yelled it, proud of the fact.
“No.” The Noi-Guin raised an empty hand, as if fending off the suggestion. The fingers of his other hand quested for the hilt of the knife at his hip. “I don’t know you.”
Zole changed tactics. She raised her head and her voice. “Your watch is over. Go to your beds. Now!”
Kettle couldn’t help but glance at her. The ice-triber’s face had grown pale, her eyes black wells. Her whole body trembled with effort and a trickle of blood ran from one nostril.
The Noi-Guin stood, seeming to struggle with the concept. Behind Kettle the four Lightless turned on their heels and began to walk away. From the sounds behind the walls, footsteps, doors opening, closing, others were also following the suggestion.
Seconds passed and still the Noi-Guin stood there while his servants walked away.
“Leave.” Zole spoke the word through gritted teeth. The sound sunk into the stone, the command hanging between her and the assassin in the silence that followed.
The Noi-Guin closed his fingers around the hilt of his blade.
An instant later, without warning, as if something snapped, Zole slipped her bonds, snatched out the knife hidden beneath her jacket, and threw herself over the desk at the Noi-Guin.
Even Kettle, who had seen Zole training on dozens of occasions, was taken by surprise, shocked by the girl’s swiftness. Both feet struck the assassin’s stomach, driving him back. By the time Kettle had drawn her sword Zole had one hand around the Noi-Guin’s wrist, controlling his knife while driving her own up into his armpit.
The Noi-Guin brought his arm tight to his body to trap the blade bedded in his flesh, and drove his forehead forward towards Zole’s face. She twisted her neck to avoid the head-butt and, hooking her leg behind his knee, drove the man backwards to the floor.
Kettle lost sight of the conflict as she turned. Three of the four Lightless were still walking away. Their leader had halted in confusion. Kettle drew her knife in her off-hand and hoped that the Lightless hidden by the walls were already out of their compartments. With doors closed behind them they would be shielded from being distracted by the sound of the fight.
Moving fast, Kettle sliced the woman’s throat from behind and strode past without a second glance. Back along the tunnel an awful screaming started, so agonized that Kettle couldn’t tell if it was Zole or her enemy. A moment later the nun caught up with the rest of the escort. She sliced two more throats and buried her knife between the vertebrae of the third. In the darkness behind Kettle’s eyes Nona winced at the brutality of it. Without her own heart pounding, and without the imminent threat to life and limb, she found such killing much harder to watch.
Kettle spun around. The first of the Lightless had her hands to her neck, blood welling between her fingers, but she had yet to fall. Kettle raced past her towards the desk that stood amid the murder-holes. Behind it Zole and the Noi-Guin were still entangled, but the oak bureau blocked all save the flailing of legs.
The scene that greeted Kettle as she ran around the desk was a grisly one. Zole had trapped the Noi-Guin’s knife-arm, scissoring it between her legs while she forced her thumbs into his eyes. His screaming ended suddenly.
Behind Kettle the first thump of a body hitting the ground echoed along the tunnel. Three more followed as Zole regained her feet. She wrenched her dagger clear and stood back from the spreading pool of blood in which the Noi-Guin lay.
Kettle blinked. “You killed a Noi-Guin.”
“His mind was confused.” Zole reached up to squeeze her forehead, wincing as if she had a headache beside which all other considerations, such as the gore her thumb was smearing across her temple, were secondary. “Do we have time to take his clothing?”
“Take the mask if it will come. But we have to move. The others will be coming. They’ll have felt him die.”
“How many?” Zole stooped to wrestle with the black-skin mask.
Kettle stared down the tunnel, all her senses open wide. Noi-Guin were shadow-bonded, not to a few closest to them, but each to the other in a great dark web.
“All of them.”
32
ABBESS GLASS
THE EMPIRE HAD always rested against the Sea of Marn. The roots of its origin lay tangled as much in myth as in history, but most scholars agreed that from tough and independent fisherfolk a tightly knit confederation of ports and coastal towns had grown. The midst of this proto-state had spawned the founder of the empire. That man, Golamal Entsis, had forged eastward, overland, despite his naval power and the saltwater in his veins. In fact, apart from short-lived strongholds established at vast cost on the Durnish shores and never held for more than a generation, the empire’s history had always been one of driving east along the Corridor.