Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Read online

  The Skir Master took a step back. “You and your ridiculous Groves. You are all meat. Pathetic meat.”

  Argoth growled, rose like a snake, long knife glinting. The Skir Master turned, but Argoth was too quick and slid the knife deep into the Skir Master’s side, pressing him out onto the balcony and broken railing. The Skir Master’s cry of pain mixed with the howl of the wind.

  The wind blasted Argoth, making him stagger, but he surged forward and shoved his knife in deeper. “Take that to your masters!” he roared over the wind. “Tell them it’s a gift from their pathetic meat!”

  The Skir Master took a step back. The wind rose in full fury, banging the balcony doors, tearing a tapestry from the wall, whipping debris about the room.

  Argoth stepped forward to stab the Skir Master again, but wind blasted into him, and he brought his arm up to protect his eyes and was forced a few steps back into the room.

  Then the Skir Master stumbled backward off the balcony, but he did not drop to the bailey below—the wind caught him and carried him aloft.

  Debris slammed into Sugar’s eye, blinding her.

  For a moment the wind howled, filling the room with its screams until Sugar thought it would drag them all out.

  “Back!” Argoth roared into the gale. “Back!”

  Then the wind lessened, the pitch of its rage fell to a whistle, and then it was gone.

  Outside the room, men still hacked at the thick door.

  Sugar blinked the tears out of her eyes and rushed to the secret panel. Argoth paused by the three Shimsmen that had fallen. Each wore a braid on his belt. Argoth knelt, cut the braids, then shoved them in his pocket and hurried to the door. He was the last man out.

  The blade of an axe broke through the door to the hallway just as they closed the secret panel.

  “No running,” hissed Argoth in the passageway. “Quickly, quietly. Let’s not reveal our positions.” Sugar’s nose was still bleeding. She pinched it and breathed out of her mouth. Behind her, the dreadman who’d lost three of his fingers held onto her shoulder with the two he still had.

  Sugar knew the passageway and could feel her way back without entering the yellow world. But it would do no good to flee if a Walker simply followed them out and reported their location. Sugar did not feel the howlers, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by. She had to look.

  She quickened the weave and risked a peek. They were not there. Relief flooded her, and she began to walk forward, following the passage as quickly as she could. They turned the corner, passed the stairway, and hurried back to the tower. Despite Argoth’s warning, they rushed, and Sugar was sure some in the apartments heard their passing.

  They ran into the tower room, past the dead woman on the bed, to the doorway leading down to the slope. As they ran through the room, howls rose from the passageway behind them.

  “Close the door behind you!” she said as they filed into the passage leading out. The door wouldn’t stop the Walker and his beasts. But it might slow them. However, she knew slowing this new Walker wouldn’t be enough. As long as he was alive, he would simply follow them in soul and guide the defenders and those awful dogmen to their position.

  There was only one way to stop him, but she needed to get everyone through the door to the slope first.

  Sugar and the others rushed down the stairs. Somebody stumbled behind her, knocking the whole line forward.

  “Calm!” said Argoth. “Calm.”

  They exited the base of the staircase, and then each man dropped through the doorway in the floor. When it was her turn, she stepped aside. “I will catch up,” she said.

  In the yellow world, the howling behind them grew, and then it changed its tone, became louder, and she knew the wicked beasts were pressing through the secret door in Lord Hash’s room above.

  The last of Argoth’s men disappeared through the floor just as the howlers and the Walker reached the top of the stairs above. The howlers surged forward grunting and rattling.

  Sugar jumped through the hole, then swung the door shut. She knew the wood wouldn’t stop them, but she hoped it would give her enough time.

  She sat down and stepped out of her body. Above her, the howlers reached the door and began to force their way through. She hastily removed the blackspine from its bindings, then turned. The first howler pushed its hideous head through the door, gnashing at her. She waited until it was about to break free, then shoved the blackspine into its thorny side. The howler hissed and fell to the floor. She stabbed it again, and again. The second howler pushed through, and she stabbed it in the head. It fell next to her body of flesh and writhed in pain. She realized the doors of her flesh were open, and she closed them, not wanting it to find a way inside.

  She waited, blackspine in hand, for the Walker to show himself, but nothing else pushed through the wood. She wondered if the Walker could sense her presence. Having seen what she’d done to his howlers, he’d probably hold back until she was gone.

  Sugar walked back to her body, laid down the blackspine, merged, and scrambled out of the passage onto the slope. A sliver of moon had risen, allowing her to make out the barest shapes of the slope about her. A small rock tumbled below in the darkness. Argoth and the others must already be descending.

  “Looks like it’s me and you again.”

  Sugar turned and found Oaks.

  “Every time I’m with you,” he said, “we’re running for our lives.”

  “We still have a Walker on our tail,” she said.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  She could cover the hole with the rock, preventing the Walker from coming this way. But then he would simply return the way he’d come and reappear on the parapet, watching their every move in the darkness and reporting it to those chasing them. She had to kill him as he exited the hole. “We can’t leave yet,” she said.

  “I feared you’d say that,” he said.

  On the parapet above, men called to each other, but they hadn’t spotted her.

  “Back away from the opening,” she whispered. “I don’t want him to feel you.”

  Oaks moved away and squatted next to the outer wall of the fortress. She sat down and tore her soul away from her body yet again. This time the pain did not fade, even when she pulled on her skenning. She turned to retrieve the blackspine, but it was gone. Dismay filled her. She frantically looked around, then realized, in her haste, she’d left it in the cavity.

  Far above, three red and black skir chuffed and passed over the castle. Something else groaned in the distance. Below her, Argoth and the others made their way across the rock.

  If she was going to deal with Walkers and howlers, she needed a weapon. She had to go back.

  She shot through the hole and found the Walker already halfway through the wood, his spiked head and torso hanging from above. He saw her, and pushed harder to free the rest of his body.

  Sugar ran for the blackspine and picked it up.

  The Walker pushed through past his waist.

  She changed her grip and stabbed two-handed, but the Walker drew his smoky red blade and turned her thrust. Then he shoved with one leg and slipped the rest of the way through the wood and tumbled to the floor. He immediately rolled up and sprang at her.

  Sugar stabbed at him, but he deflected the point with his armored hand. This exposed her side. He slashed at her with the smoky red blade.

  She braced herself for the pain, but his stroke only felt like someone had struck her and knocked her to the side. She looked down. The blade had slightly cut the skenning, but it had not sliced through.

  Surprise briefly flashed across the Walker’s face, but it was immediately replaced by resolve.

  Sugar yelled and feinted a jab at his face.

  He raised his blade and tried to block it. When he did, instead of trying to skewer him, she brought the end o
f the staff around and struck him on the side of his crab-armored head. He reeled back a step.

  Sugar struck him again. Hard. She went to strike him a third time, but he lunged for her and took her by the throat. She tried to strike him with the blackspine, but struck the horned side of his helmet with her hand instead, piercing her soul.

  She cried out, pulled the hand of her soul back.

  It was the moment he was looking for. He slammed his horned elbow into her face. Pain shot through her. Then he slammed her to the ground and pinned her below him, a few of the spines of his armor pressing through the skenning.

  His face was full of murder. “Whore,” he said, his voice sounding like the rustling of leaves.

  She clawed at his eyes, but he punched her in the face. The blow dazed her.

  She looked for her weapon and saw the blackspine lying only a few feet away.

  From some pocket he retrieved a length of cord woven with some bright material, but it wasn’t a cord. It was alive, twisting. “I’ll bind your soul now. I’ll get your pretty body later. You and I are going to have a good time.” Then he grabbed her by the top of the head and pulled her exposed neck back to wrap the thing about it.

  With her free hand Sugar reached out, fumbling, and seized the blackspine four or five inches from its point.

  He brought the twisting collar around.

  Sugar yelled and stabbed the point of the blackspine straight into his face.

  With a body of flesh, her thrust would have been stopped by the bones of the skull. Not so with the soul. The point of the blackspine sank deep. The Walker reeled back and dropped the living cord.

  Sugar rolled to her knees, grabbed the shaft with both hands, and shoved it forward as hard as she could, sinking the point to the back of his spiny helmet.

  He screamed with that rustling voice—it was no sound a human could make—then toppled to the side, writhing in pain.

  She pulled the blackspine out, then shoved it through the armor into his chest. On the floor, the living cord snaked toward her. Sugar pinned it with the point of the blackspine, then whipped it out through the mouth of the cavity and into the night.

  The Walker rolled over, tried to rise, but fell to the ground again.

  A dark substance rose from the wounds she’d inflicted on him. It spread in the air like ink in water. She noticed a similar substance rising from the howlers.

  She wanted to retrieve the Walker’s blade, wanted to steal his armor and anything else of value, take it all to see what she might do with them, but she didn’t dare delay. The inky substance began to fill the cavity like smoke.

  Sugar backed away from it, scrambled out. Oaks was still waiting for her. Argoth’s men were below her and far to the right, but there were only four of them with him, which meant one must have fallen to the river below.

  Above her the fortress rang with shouts. Dogs barked. At the corner of the fortress wall, just where the rocky slope began, a giant dogman held a lantern aloft and looked down. He had two of the massive maulers with him. At the opposite corner, a group of soldiers with torches began to climb out on the rocky slope toward her and Oaks.

  Sugar took off her skenning and merged with her body, still feeling the wound of the tear. “Oaks,” she hissed with the mouth of her flesh.

  “About time,” he said.

  “We need to go down. Follow me.”

  “I wasn’t planning on doing anything else,” he said.

  Sugar turned to face the slope and, still looking in the yellow world, began to back her way down, guiding Oaks as best she could. She tried to be careful and not give their exact position away, but she kicked loose a rock. The Mokaddian soldiers above heard it and shouted. She and Oaks continued to descend, then angled toward Argoth and the others.

  But the dogman was joined by another, and then both began to climb down the slope angling toward her and Oaks.

  “That dogman’s coming for us, isn’t he?” hissed Oaks.

  “And bringing a friend,” Sugar said.

  They quickened their pace. The dogmen and maulers scrambled down the slope, gaining on them.

  Sugar knocked a few more rocks loose, and then a whole section of rock and soil broke loose underneath her, and she was sliding, falling. She tumbled the last twenty feet and wheeled over the edge of the cliff, Oaks tumbling behind her.

  The rush of the river echoed off the face of the cliff. She yelled as she fell, but managed to pull her soul completely in. The yellow world winked out, leaving her in darkness, robbing her of the ability to see where the surface of the river was. A moment later she smacked into it, the cold water slapping her hard in the side and face. Pain shot through her broken nose again, and she went under, startled at the shock of cold water. She tumbled, took in a mouthful of water and came up coughing. Above her, the two dogmen sprang from the edge of the cliff.

  Sugar turned and swam downstream with the current. Then Oaks called out some distance to her right, telling her to swim for the far side. She was magnified, but the current was cold and strong, sapping at her strength, and the river was wide. How were they going to make it all that way?

  Behind them the dogmen splashed into the water.

  The current carried her downstream, but she swam for all she was worth in the freezing flow and suspected she and Oaks would be swept out into the bay. But then she heard one of the dogmen behind her and realized they would probably catch her first.

  She put on a burst of speed, but the dogman was faster, cutting through the water with huge strokes. At the last moment, she reached for her knife and turned. But he grabbed her knife arm with his huge hand and pushed her under. She struggled, but he took her knife, then grabbed her around the throat, his hand like a massive collar.

  She thought she would drown, but he yanked her back up, held her to his chest, and backstroked toward the shore. She flailed once, but he growled and put her under the water until she stopped struggling. She came up coughing, and he continued on. A minute or so later, they reached the rocky shore downriver from the fortress. The dogman stood and dragged her up out of the water. Upon his arm he wore a weave of might, a big metal bracelet woven with big open gaps.

  He dragged her up onto the rocky bank, flung her into a wet heap, and barked something at her.

  Sugar looked around. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. He was larger, faster, stronger. Out in the water, two of the huge maulers were paddling toward shore. He whistled and they quickened their pace. Then they too climbed up the bank and shook the water out of their large coats. Their eyes were small, their huge mouths full of teeth.

  The dogman issued a command and the two monstrous animals woofed and padded over to her, growling. They stood above her, rigid, tense, teeth bared, waiting for her to move. Their breath stank of rotten things, and she was positive they could bolt her down with two bites of those massive mouths. Every inch of her flesh prickled, and Sugar looked away from their eyes for fear of provoking them.

  A few minutes later the other dogman hauled a half-drowned Oaks ashore. The second dogman grinned, said something that made Sugar’s dogman laugh. Then the first dark-haired giant turned to her.

  “Up,” he said.

  10

  Prisoners

  ONE DOGMAN LED Sugar and Oaks up the hill to the town gate. The other walked behind. One of the maulers stayed close. Every so often it would growl and send a shock of fear coursing through her. The other giant dog roamed as they walked. Oaks held his forearm. The dogman had broken it in the water to subdue him.

  They came to the town wall and were stopped at the gate by a Fir-Noy captain of the guard and five others who, with spears and torches, barred the way. The captain said, “Well done. Leave them with us. We’ll take them up.”

  The dogman laughed, deep and full-throated. “And take our pay?” He turned to his dog. “What think you abou
t that?”

  The huge mauler walked forward until it stood before the captain and sniffed the man’s chest, then his face. The captain stepped back. The second mauler stopped its roaming, turned to watch, and growled. The soldiers looked nervous.

  “Find your own booty,” said the dogman. “Or should I call to my brothers walking your streets?”

  The captain hesitated a moment, then ordered his men to back off.

  The big dogman pushed through. Sugar and Oaks followed. The second dogman brought up the rear. As Sugar walked past the Fir-Noy, one of them said, “The sleth girl from Plum.”

  Sugar ignored him and kept moving forward through the gate. The wind blew down through the moonlit houses and cobblestone streets, cutting like ice through her wet clothes and hair. The dogmen led them past another group of Fir-Noy soldiers huddled around a fire and then onto the wide winding road that led up the hill to the castle. As before, one mauler stayed close to Sugar and Oaks while the other roamed. They hadn’t traveled far when horse hooves beat on the cobblestones behind them. A rider wearing the colors of the gate guards galloped past.

  “Shum,” said the dogman behind her. He and the other dogman exchanged a few more words in their language, then the lead dogman howled. A moment later a howl rose in the distance, and was picked up farther away. When the calls died down, they continued on. Even with her broken nose, she could smell the musk of the dogmen. It was pungent, earthy, mixed with the tang of sweat. She expected such large men to lumber, but they walked with power and grace.

  They passed houses, a town square, more houses. She could see guards and fires down a number of lanes. As they approached the castle, they were met by a troop of at least fifty Mokaddian dreadmen led by a man wearing a scarlet and white padded tunic over mail. The eye of Mokad was embroidered in the fabric of his tunic. But it was the sash he wore over his shoulder that proclaimed him a Guardian, a Divine who led dreadmen to war. He rode a white horse. Another mounted man burst from the castle gate behind the troop and galloped his horse forward. He was bald with a thick black beard. As he came forward, Sugar recognized him as Lord Hash.