K T Harding - [Hinterland 02] Page 8

  Donnelly shot daggers at Bishop across the room. “I’ll never forget that as long as I live. I’ll curse the man’s name until I draw my last breath.”

  “Who was it?” Bishop almost shouted.

  “It was Senator Barns.”

  Bishop stared at the old man. His face twisted in a mask of suppressed emotion. “Senator Barns has been dead for thirty years.”

  Donnelly went back to dragging around the room. “I know.”

  Bishop wilted before Raleigh’s eyes. His chin sank onto his chest, and his shoulders rounded under the weight of care. “What can you tell us about this juvenile twen’s diet? What did you feed it for seven weeks?”

  Donnelly sat down on his bed and stared out the window. “I fed it on blue mussels. The Guild had a contract with a procurer named Soto. He delivered a crate of the mussels to my lab every Monday morning. He was absolutely reliable and always polite and courteous. He was a pleasure to do business with.”

  Bishop snorted and turned away. “I’ll bet he was. With the Guild’s money in his pocket, he would be the nicest guy you ever met.”

  Bishop headed for the stairs, but Donnelly looked up from the book in his hands. For the first time, he fixed his eyes on Bishop’s retreating back. “Don’t get into any trouble on your way out of town.”

  Bishop didn’t turn around. He dropped down the spiral staircase and disappeared. Donnelly didn’t give Raleigh a second glance. He went back to his books and his papers, muttering to himself like she was never there.

  She found Bishop waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He held his cube weapon in one hand and the disc in the other. “Let’s get the devil out of here while we can.”

  Raleigh raced to catch up with him. “What’s the hurry? This place is peaceful.”

  “You heard him. They’ll come after us before we get outside the walls.”

  The city set in the mountains struck Raleigh as the most unlikely place for a battle to the death, but she trusted Bishop. He knew the place better than she did, and the expression on Donnelly’s face when he gave that warning did give her the impression something dangerous might happen.

  Bishop strode so fast she had to run to keep up with him. “Where are you going? Shouldn’t we be heading up to catch the zeppelin?”

  “We don’t have time. The zeppelin doesn’t leave for Pernrith for another hour. We don’t have that kind of time. We have to get out of here now, before they come after us.”

  “Why is everyone trying to kill us? We haven’t done anything, and these people are supposed to be your friends.”

  “Don’t you understand? They’re trying to stop us from taking the twen. They want to stop us from finding out what they’re up to, and neither Major nor Donnelly are part of the cabal. They’re just protecting it from us.”

  “What about the blue mussels? Why didn’t you ask Donnelly where someone might procure them?”

  “I didn’t have to ask because he didn’t know. He got them from Soto, and Soto never told anybody where he got anything. People who bought from Soto didn’t want to know the source. All they care about is the product. Besides, I already know where Soto got the blue mussels. There’s only one farm in all of Hinterland. They’ll know who’s buying. We’ll stop by there on our way out. Then we’ll fall back to the house to plan our assault on the Guild of Martial Arts.”

  “Do you have another friend at the farm who will tell you who’s buying?”

  “No. We’ll have to break in and steal the information.”

  Raleigh didn’t answer. Break in and steal it? Now he was speaking her language. All this running around and talking to people didn’t exactly float her boat. Fighting her way out of a dangerous situation? That she could handle.

  Chapter 11

  Bishop hurried down more stairs, down, down, down. He left behind the ringing halls hung with tapestries. He hurried past people in fancy clothes until he came to the stinking chambers full of filthy servants bent over steaming cauldrons of laundry. He came at last to the stables nestled in the very basement of Hallbreck.

  Horses and oxen dozed in their stalls while grooms and stable boys cleaned out the muck with pitchforks. Raleigh understood this world so much better than the world above, but even here, the sinister atmosphere clung to everything. How many of these people and animals participated in the Guild’s experiments, willingly or unwillingly? Where did the Guild get its breeding stock, if not from these low places?

  Bishop never stopped to look right nor left. He burst out of the stable into the brisk mountain air and hit the stone path winding into the mountains. Raleigh caught her breath when the bracing air snatched it from her lungs. “How are we going to get out of here? They’ll find us in these mountains.”

  “That’s why speed is critical,” Bishop called back. The more distance we put between ourselves and the Guild, the more chance we’ll get away.”

  “How will we find our way back to the house?” she asked. “We’ll be stuck in these mountains for weeks before we find a way out.”

  Bishop made his way along the path. It wound over the crest of a ridge before it dropped into the mountains’ black heart. Towering peaks rose up behind them to block their view of Hallbreck and all its rotten towers.

  The sun went down long before they found the bottom of that precipitous canyon. The light faded out of the world, but Bishop only hurried faster. Raleigh hugged her arms around her shoulders to keep warm. She dreaded the moment Bishop stopped walking. Then the chill would really take hold.

  He didn’t stop until full dark found them entering the ragged tree line where the rocky mountaintop gave way to the forest. As soon as the trees closed over their heads, the canopy blocked out the light so Raleigh couldn’t see where she was going. Bishop drew to a halt with a sigh. “We can’t go any further. We’ll stop here for the night.”

  Raleigh shivered. “We can’t light a fire, either, or the Guild will find us. We might freeze out here.”

  “It’s all right,” Bishop replied. “We can light a fire. They won’t come after us until morning.”

  Raleigh hunted around, but she couldn’t see well enough to gather sticks. She didn’t have a match on her, either.

  “Hey!” Bishop called. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it right here in my pocket.”

  “You’ve got what in your pocket—a match?”

  “No, silly. I’ve got the fire here.”

  Raleigh smacked her lips, but the cold numbed them. “Be quiet.”

  All at once, a blast of light and warmth flared in her face. Bishop squatted in front of her over a burning fire, and the flames sent out their heat and orange glow to cast away the shadows.

  Raleigh blinked at it. “What did you do?”

  “Come here and I’ll show you.”

  She crept closer, and he took a flat solid square out of his hip pocket. He held it out to her, but when she touched it, she couldn’t recognize what it was.

  “Take it,” he told her. “You keep this one.”

  “How do you light it?”

  “You press this button.” His fingers guided her hand to one corner. “As soon as you press that button, drop it and pull your hand back as fast as you can or you’ll get burned.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is there anything you don’t keep in those pockets of yours?”

  “I don’t keep a way out of here in my pockets.”

  She shoved the thing into her vest and sank down by the fire. “I suppose we’re in another hopeless mess here. The Guilds won’t stop until they bring us in. They’ll do anything to stop us interfering with their plans.”

  Bishop put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her against him. He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry. It’s not as hopeless as it seems, and even if it were, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

  She laid her head on his chest. “Neither would I.”

  Bishop leaned back against a
tree trunk and drew her down in his embrace. “Do you want to know something? I worked so hard to become the best because I never wanted to fail. I never wanted to get myself into a situation I couldn’t get out of, and I didn’t want to ever lose a contract. Now I don’t really care. If I fail, if the Guilds track us down and kill us, I don’t care as long as I’m with you. If we’re going to go down, we’ll go down together, and that’s all I really want.”

  Raleigh snuggled into the warmth of his arms. The fire calmed her and put her to sleep. “Me, too.”

  “Besides, I know a few people in these woods who might help us.”

  Her head shot up. “You do not!”

  He suppressed a grin. “Why do you say that? Why does that surprise you so much?”

  She put her head back down. “It shouldn’t. You know everybody.”

  He chuckled. “Not everybody, but I know a few key people here and there.”

  “So who is it this time? Is it someone who will help you break into the Guild of Martial Arts?”

  He cocked his head. “No, they won’t go that far, but they’ll probably help us get what we want from the mussel farm. Even if they don’t do that, they’ll help us get away from the Guild. We’ll be a lot safer with them than we would be on our own.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They’re people who have escaped from the Guild. Some are hybrids. Some are creatures the Guild has created and disposed of. Some are just people who used to work in Hallbreck and decided they wanted to leave for one reason or another. There’s not many places they can go if they don’t want to get caught and sent back, so they wind up out here. They get together and help each other, and they’re always willing to help anybody on the run from the Guild.”

  Raleigh raised her head to study him. “Really?”

  “Sure. The Guild of Husbandry is one of the most feared Guilds there is, almost more than the Guild of Martial Arts. You don’t see bands of dangerous outcasts on the run from the Guild of Martial Arts. The Guild of Martial Arts takes care of its people. The Guild of Husbandry, on the other hand—they lay waste to everything that falls into their clutches. That’s another reason they built their city up here. The rest of the population wouldn’t stand them conducting their business anywhere else. This is the only place they can get away with it—far from prying eyes and the long arm of whatever law exists in Hinterland.”

  Raleigh sat up to gaze into the fire. “Have you had much to do with these people before?”

  “Not much, but once you know them, they never forget you. Once they understand you’re against the Guild, you’re their friend for life. I’m sure it will be the same with you.”

  Raleigh shook her head. “I can’t stop thinking about Yafik. They would brutalize him if they got hold of him, wouldn’t they?”

  “He’s just one person. The Guild has sold millions of people just like him into slavery for no other crime other than not being fully human. They have bred whole species they sold to the Tax to work in their mining and farming operations. The Britlis you saw at Fuki’s mines had it easy compared to most of the Guild’s creations, and the ones who go into slavery to work are the lucky ones. Others spend their lives in experimental labs suffering the tortures of the damned until they die from the treatment.”

  Raleigh couldn’t speak above a whisper. “Have you seen that?”

  “I don’t have to see it. I’ve heard the stories from the few that escaped with their lives. It hurts even to look at them when you know what they’ve been through.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do? Isn’t there anything anybody can do?”

  He closed his eyes and rested his head on the tree trunk. His fingers rubbed up and down her back. “I wish I could destroy the Guild, but I’m just one man. The Guild is everywhere. They’re rich and powerful, and there is enough evil in the world to keep you and me busy for the rest of our lives. The important thing is to concentrate on the job at hand and do what we can to bring it to a conclusion. If we can help someone like….” He stopped.

  Raleigh didn’t turn around to look at him. She already knew what he was about to say. He did his best to help people like Dax and Yafik. He had to let the rest of them go.

  She understood what he meant when he said it hurt to look at those people. The whole subject hurt just to think about it, so she changed it. “How will we get back to the house? Will these people help us do that, too?”

  “We can get there through the mussel farm. Once we find what we’re looking for there, we won’t have any trouble getting back home. It’s the Guild of Martial Arts that worries me.”

  “Maybe the twen won’t be there. Maybe we won’t have to attack them.”

  “I sure hope you’re right. If we do have to attack them, we’re bound to lose. It’s a suicide mission.”

  Raleigh’s mind shifted gears into combat mode. “We would stand a much better chance with one more person. If we can’t recruit a whole band of disaffected refugees to fight with us, one more trained slayer could make all the difference.”

  “That’s impossible. Where would we find another trained slayer at this short notice?”

  “What about that bounty hunter you met in the market? You’re bound to find someone there willing to fight.”

  “They’ll fight, all right. They’ll fight for pay, and that cuts into my costs. No, there is no other slayer.”

  Raleigh lay back down on his chest. She listened to his heart pounding under his shirt. “There is another one we could get.”

  “Who?”

  She hesitated to say the word out loud. “Dax.”

  Bishop froze underneath her. That silence grew more terrible than all the horrors she could imagine. She dreaded what he would say, but he didn’t say anything.

  Raleigh gazed into the flickering flames. She didn’t say anything more, either. She let the fire soothe her tired brain until she fell asleep in Bishop’s arms. All Hinterland crowded around her, packed to the ceiling with horrors and beauty and mystery she could never unravel if she lived a thousand lifetimes.

  Sometime in the night, Bishop slid down to lie flat on the ground. Raleigh swam up to consciousness for a brief instant. The fire still blazed as bright and hot as ever, and she settled into Bishop’s arms one more time before sleep took her. The last thing she felt before she succumbed to the gravity of dreams was Bishop’s lips pressed against her hair.

  Chapter 12

  Raleigh woke up cold and stiff the next morning. Pre-dawn grey lighted the forest, and not one shred of evidence remained to show a fire burned on the spot the night before. Not even a black smug disfigured the ground.

  Bishop rose to his feet and brushed the leaves and dirt off his clothes. He fixed his hat to his head. “All right. Let’s get this party started.”

  “Where are these people?”

  Bishop waved his hand. “They’re all around us. They’re watching us right now.”

  Raleigh glanced around, but she didn’t see anything but dense undergrowth all around.

  Bishop marched on his way. “Come on. We have to put some distance between us and Hallbreck before anybody will show themselves to us.”

  So began a long day of hard travel over rugged mountains, through sheer ravines, over rushing rivers, over rough passes, into the mountains. Raleigh said nothing all day, even though hunger and fatigue plagued her to distraction. She quenched her thirst out of the streams, but she couldn’t do anything about the hunger and she dared not complain about her fatigue. If Bishop could keep up this punishing pace, she would do it, too. She would never give him any cause to regret he brought her with him.

  On and on they pushed. Another night came, and Bishop stood back to let Raleigh ignite her own fire-starter. It kept away the chill, and they slept in each other’s arms one more time. The second morning found them both sullen and silent. They got to their feet and plodded on without exchanging a single word.

  Pain, exhaustion, hu
nger, and despair wore Raleigh down so she no longer looked forward or dreaded the future. She ceased caring about anything but getting through this next hour, this next minute, this next step forward.

  Bishop stopped looking back to make sure she was still behind him. His muscles pumped him uphill and down. His boots thunked on the rocks with mechanical precision. He never stopped or paused. He never felt anything. Nothing existed but the constant motion forward. Only one thing drove them on: getting as far away from Hallbreck as possible.

  Toward noon on the third day, Bishop topped another lonely outcrop and surveyed the landscape all around. Raleigh swept the horizon and caught sight of a plume of dust crossing another pass behind them. Bishop hissed between his teeth. “The Guild!”

  Before Raleigh could answer, Bishop set off at a run down the hill going the other way. “Come on!”

  He plunged into the trees. He tore branches aside and thundered straight down into a dark ravine with Raleigh at his heels. All her hunger and desperation vanished in an instant. They had to run. They had to hide. They had to stop the Guild catching them and taking them all the way back to Hallbreck along the weary track they just crossed.

  At the very bottom of the ravine, Bishop hesitated to glance both ways. His breath rasped between his bared teeth. He spun right and floundered into dense brush. Raleigh worked hard to keep up with him, but his greater size and strength soon left her behind. She dared not cry out for him to wait for her, and in half a second, he passed out of her sight.

  She followed the sound of his crashing footsteps and the scratch of briars against his clothes. They guided her another hundred paces when, all of a sudden, the path vanished beneath her feet. She scrambled back, but she couldn’t stop herself. The path ended in a vertical drop to a bottomless canyon far below.

  She flipped over on her stomach and clawed the surface for any handhold, but the loam crumbled in her hands. The canyon towed her down, down into nothing. She would die out here, and she would never see anybody she loved again.

  Faces flashed before her eyes. Bishop. Her father. Dax. Esmeralda. Angela Cross. Even the faces of people she barely knew winked across her vision. She saw creatures wandering the streets of Pernrith. She saw Soto and the Underlings in the market. She saw Niui waddling around his low-ceilinged kitchen. She would never see any of them again.