“Stop!” The call arrested Kettle in mid-stride. “Show me your face.”
Kettle turned and spun a throwing star at his head. He almost avoided it. The star caught him just below the left cheekbone rather than in the eye. He proved less fast after that and the second star took him in the throat just above the line of his breastplate.
Kettle ran on, wrapped in clarity. She entered a large chamber, her exit on the far side. The faint echoes of a door being battered reached her from the distance. And something closer, just the ghost of a sound, high up. Kettle swerved and a cross-knife sliced past her ear, rotating as it flew. Kettle kept running. She knew her attacker lay above and behind her, probably in some gallery over the tunnel through which she entered the cavern, probably a Noi-Guin. She jerked left, then right, running an erratic zigzag path, relying on her speed and the distance between them to not be where she was expected to be when the knives arrived. And arrive they did, a storm of them, hissing out of the dark, clattering against the rocks to both sides of her, striking sparks from the stones at her heels. A sharp line of pain scored her shoulder and another knife flew past. Without breaking stride, Kettle found the most likely antidote, kilm oat, and smeared it over the cut. If she was right and fast enough the venom on the blades wouldn’t touch her. If she had to take an oral cure then the effects might overwhelm her before the antidote kicked in. She muttered a prayer to the Ancestor.
Two-thirds of the way across Kettle stopped dead and spun around, drawing her sword, and struck a cross-knife from the air. She was near the limits of the Noi-Guin’s range now and wanted to exhaust their supply of the deadly little knives. Two more came and she avoided them disdainfully. Her shoulder burned where the small cut still trickled blood. She kept her vital signs in mind, alert for any signs the kilm oat hadn’t solved her problems.
Back across the cavern the Noi-Guin on the balcony turned and ran through a tunnel, either to give chase or gather more of his kind. Kettle sprinted back. She knew the doorway they would most likely exit from and didn’t want a Noi-Guin following her to the cells.
As she returned through the tunnel she had entered by she heard the soft impact of the Noi-Guin landing behind her. The assassin had also doubled back and vaulted from the gallery.
“Damn.” Kettle turned back around.
* * *
? ? ?
“NONA! WAKE UP, Nona!” A hand slapped Nona’s face. She opened her eyes and found herself being dragged across a rough floor. Flickering lantern-light painted the rock ceiling just inches above her face. One of the hands under her armpits pulled loose for another slap. “Bleed on it! Wake up.”
“Kettle!”
“You’re stuck with boring old Clera.” Another grunt, another heave. Nona felt herself inch across the rock. “Little help?”
Nona began to wriggle her shoulders and push with her feet. Their progress accelerated markedly. “Kettle’s in trouble!”
“We’re all in trouble,” Clera said.
Nona shook her head, trying to clear it of pain and confusion. “What are you doing here, Clera?”
“Besides saving you?” Another heave. “The Tacsis are my patrons. Lord Tacsis sent me to the Noi-Guin to get the same training his son got here. Lano, the younger one.”
“And . . . they showed you a secret tunnel into their cells that they’ve . . . now forgotten about?” Nona jammed her arms against the walls to stop being dragged further. She felt stronger. Not good, but stronger.
“These caverns belong to Sherzal. She’s hosting the Noi-Guin, but she hasn’t shared all her secrets with them.” Clera tugged. Nona stayed where she was.
“But she shares them with you?”
“Lord Tacsis is her main ally. I’ve spent time training at the palace too. And you know me. I dig out secrets.” She tugged again.
“At the palace?” Nona struggled to turn to her front. She managed with difficulty, gasping at the pain from her ribs. “Training with who?”
Clera frowned, coughing on the lantern smoke building around them. “Safira.”
“And Yisht?” Nona reached out, closing her hand around Clera’s wrist. “A woman who stabbed Kettle and a woman who killed Hessa?”
Clera’s face hardened. “I’m saving you here. Remember the torture? I’ll be getting some too if they catch us.”
“Get my collar off.” Nona rotated the lock towards Clera and turned her neck.
“How?”
“They’ve been training you haven’t they?” Nona tugged at it angrily.
Clera moved in closer, the lantern in Nona’s face, her breath on Nona’s neck. “I could try to pick it. Might take a while. It’s more heavy duty than complicated. Applying the torque—”
“You have acid, don’t you?”
“We’d both end up with holes in our lungs if I used it in here. We need space.”
“I’m going back.” Nona started to push herself back along the tunnel, feet first.
“Saving you is much harder work than betraying you!” Clera frowned, advancing after Nona’s retreat. “Turn your head to the side.”
“What?” Nona did as she was asked though.
A fuzzy sort of pain blossomed as Clera struck the nerve cluster at the bottom of Nona’s neck. Nona fought to hold on to consciousness but lost her grip and pitched forward into a darkness the lantern could not illuminate.
* * *
? ? ?
NONA SAW, THOUGH whether her own eyes were open or not no longer mattered. Kettle’s urgency had hauled Nona into her mind once more.
The nun crept along a tunnel, part natural, hewn out in sections. The stink of smoke hung in the air, stinging her eyes; her arm ached and the taste of blood filled her mouth. She used a tiny mirror on a thin metal rod to look around the next corner. Twenty yards away five Lightless and another guard waited before the ruins of a door. Beyond it figures moved in a smoke-filled corridor.
Noi-Guin. Kettle’s heart sunk so far that even Nona felt it drop. However the previous encounter had ended, it clearly had not gone easily.
Kettle withdrew and began to set traps in the corridor behind her. First a scattering of envenomed caltrops: small, razored pieces of tempest-glass, tough enough to pierce any boot sole, small enough to be overlooked. Next she set a small sigil-marked piece of iron to the rock wall. It bound fast and she drew out the Ark-steel wire attached to it, pulling it taut and binding it to the opposite wall with a second sigil-marked fastener. The device would require a fortune to replace, and not a small one. Finally, with great care, she felt among her poisons and antidotes, removing a screw-topped steel tube. She undid the lid and extracted a leather tube from within. She coated the tube with a thick tar-based adhesive, holding it by the weak, untreated ends. Nona sensed the Grey Sister’s anxiety . . . Without further hesitation Kettle threw herself at the nearest wall, kicked off, gaining height, stretched up, pressed the tube to the ceiling, and landed on soft feet. The tube stayed where she stuck it.
Nona knew she had to leave. She was no use to the nun as a mute watcher. She had to get back to her body, deal with Clera. Quite how to do that was another matter. Nona set to work.
Ducking under the near-invisible wire, Kettle returned to the corner with her mirror in one hand, a throwing star in the other. She peered around. The Lightless were beginning to advance, the Noi-Guin behind them. Soft feet had not been soft enough.