Old moss, dangling down the edge of the wide cistern opening, gave out beneath Vaenuth’s hands, and she slid down inside. It was a controlled drop, and she landed on the sloped stones below along with a scattering of dirt and green. The cistern was built on the hill above the Ra’las estate, shaded by a few trees and surrounded on all sides by distant towers and maze-like streets. She had wrapped her sword belt around her torso, and her sword hung from her back.
Tagg followed, thumping down onto the smooth stone bricks next to her. Next was Pressip, then Arloe, and then Krebin. Vaenuth had already walked across the mostly drained reservoir before they finally followed. A pool of water in the base of the bowl was all that was left—she was surprised to find that it was deep. There was still a fair bit of water there; the cistern just gave a strange impression of the space. A small wire grate let the water flow through into the sluice that descended into the neighbourhood this cistern supplied.
“Let’s go,” Vaenuth said, kneeling. She kicked the grate through the hole, revealing a slanted trough wide enough for two people to lay side-by-side. She went first. Lerran’s soldiers were waiting in the streets near Ra’las’s grounds for the infiltration to open a way for them.
It was cool water, she realized, as she submerged her backside in its gentle flow. She slid down the chute to the next landing, where a small pool of water ebbed into adjoining ways. The next aqueduct was long; it descended most of the tall hill and entered the slaver’s property in the grove at the back of the plot. From there it branched into a number of pipes and a few smaller sluices. Vaenuth arrived first, soaked and shivering. Her inked skin was covered in goosebumps. Cold sweat and water dripped down the back of her neck and her mostly-shaved scalp. She glanced back up the covered aqueduct to see the shadowy shapes of her friends climbing downward.
Tagg arrived next, and crept to the opening at the corner of the small intersection. “Anyone down there?” he asked. The pool was only a few steps away from their small reservoir.
“I can’t see,” Vaenuth said. Pressip splashed quietly as he joined them. He removed his bow and dragged an oily cloth along its bowstring to keep it taut. Krebin and Arloe soon followed, and Vaenuth led her friends out into the foliage of the garden. The pool was empty, clear water in a blue mosaic pond. Vaenuth glanced up at the other nearby hill, where a few mansions rose—that was where Tagg and she had first spotted their current location.
“Vae,” breathed Pressip, pointing his bow.
A serving girl had been walking up the slope toward the garden. She started to shout… and then a throwing knife blossomed in the crook of her neck and shoulder. She went down without another sound, but her cry had echoed off the cobblestone courtyard before Tagg had thrown.
“No hesitations,” Vaenuth growled to Pressip. She dashed toward the looming three-storey building. Ra’las’s mansion was built out of pale bricks and trimmed with a dark, course wood. A guard appeared from around the corner of the house, shaded by a canvas canopy, and Vaenuth slammed him against the wall before finding an opening behind his pauldron and forcing her sword point through.
“Attack!” shouted another guard.
Very soon they were going to be dealing with a lot of resistance. “Pressip,” Vae said, as they rounded the corner of the wall. A man on a balcony raised his crossbow but Pressip’s arrow splattered his blood against the railing. Two other guards were briskly advancing toward the mansion from their positions on the outer wall. Pressip matched her gaze, and she said, “Get to the gate.”
He slowed the progress of the two other guards with a quick shot from his bow, and charged toward the front gate, while Vaenuth and her friends hugged the mansion wall. Another guard appeared on the balcony above and leaped down to the ground behind them. With an airborne spear thrust, he grazed Arloe’s shoulder, but Krebin drove a machete blade onto his outstretched arm and broke the spear shaft in the same move. Blood sprayed against the wall.
Vaenuth hauled open the first door she came upon, leading into the house. The wood moved too easily—it hadn’t been locked—and a sword blade thrust through the opening at her, grazing her thigh as she spun out of the way. Tagg, right behind her, drove his blade forward and strode through the door using whoever he had stabbed as a shield. Vaenuth followed.
Three crossbow bolts embedded in Tagg’s human shield as they entered a large foyer. Blood drips landed on Vaenuth’s black-ringed arm and the dark tapestry on the wall behind her. Krebin stepped up behind her and hurled the broken spear point at one of the guards who had fired. The man slumped over a spiral staircase that led upstairs, while more guards descended behind him. Tagg deposited the dead pin cushion against a toppling stone bust and finished off another archer before the statue hit the ground. A chain mail clad man with a dagger slammed into Vaenuth, but she grabbed his sword arm as his blade went high and jabbed him three times in the unprotected hip with her sword. He fell to one knee and she slashed his throat.
Arloe and Krebin readied themselves for the guards coming down the steps while Vaenuth pressed a hand to the gash in her thigh. Her hand touched sticky blood that matted her grey pants. She found a dry spot and wiped her hand clean again. Servants were cowering in the corner, and shouts could be heard all over the estate. Pressip and Lerran’s men would hold the front gate if they could, while Vaenuth’s surprise attack drew most of the attention.
Tagg’s sword flashed—the radiant blade they had received in Maykren, from a friend—as he swung at one of the defenders. The man parried and another man thrust with a spear; Tagg easily stepped out of the way of the spear and hewed a chunk of shoulder off the spear man while the first sword man tried to get out of the spear’s way too. Krebin and Arloe each took an opponent into a duel, while Vaenuth spun to face a man that had charged through the door in pursuit. She slashed at his bearded face, and he almost lost his sword, but he grabbed her by the opposite shoulder and shoved her against the wall. She ducked under his next swing, ending up on her buttocks on a very hard wooden floor. He raised his sword again, and she slashed his shin, slammed her shoulder into his stomach and impaled his lung against the wall. When she pulled her sword free, he coughed blood and tangled his feet with the human shield Tagg had left behind.
Two spear men had replaced him—by now the side door they had entered was knocked free of its hinges altogether—and Vaenuth warily paced toward her friends again. Krebin slammed a man’s scalp against a display table hard enough to shatter glass and teeth, and then followed them up the stairs. Tagg led the way now, and Vaenuth followed close.
In the hall above, Trist and a formation of guards stood in formation, spears bristling and armour gleaming in a ray of sunlight from the window behind them. “Who are you?” Trist demanded. “Enemies of my father?”
The spear men were ascending the stairs behind them, while Arloe guarded the rear. Behind Vaenuth was the stairs, to her left a balcony overlooking the foyer where they had first fought, and the heavily defended corridor stretched away to her left. Tagg flung his arm and a throwing blade embedded in the eye of the man next to Trist.
“Charge!” roared Ra’las son, and a dozen spear points rushed toward Vaenuth and her friends. Krebin cut away a spearhead with his red-gripped machete, while Tagg dodged a spear and knocked a warrior over with his foot. A man behind him thrust with a sword, and Tagg dodged out of the way, only to find a third enemy.
A spear grazed Vaenuth’s bare shoulder and she ground her teeth as she shifted to the left and slashed at her attacker’s side. He parried, using his spear like a staff. She snatched the knife from her belt and drove it into his chest. Another man charged at her, and thrust his sword, but Vaenuth was on fire. She knew exactly what angle his point was advancing from, and she stepped to the side—the man impaled himself on her blade.
Krebin finished off the enemy he was fighting with a loud bellow, only to be barrelled into by another armoured warrior. They collided against the balcony railing over the lobby below. A loud wooden crack echoed the whole structure. Someone else shouted—Vaenuth glanced up at Trist—and smashed into her. The son of Ra’las and she slammed against the same railing. Pain lanced through her hip as she struck it. In a moment of vertigo, Vaenuth felt the balcony break. With Trist’s impending blade held at bay with her offhand, there was nothing to be done.
The wood split beneath Vaenuth, and the entire ledge gave way. Everything blurred as she plummeted down amidst broken wood. Krebin cried out, while Vaenuth could only give a loud curse—she twisted Trist around herself. They hit the marble floor and everything went black.
For a moment, Vaenuth slipped through a daze. Waves of pain shook her muscles and she tried to remember where she was. She looked at the man below her. Trist had taken her weight, his ribs broken by her sprained knee, his neck snapped by her bruised shoulder. She coughed and tasted blood—was it from her innards or from her tongue? She couldn’t tell, she felt pain but no specific pain.
A guard appeared over her, and she knew she should feel fear. He had a scarred face, but was clean shaven. “Vaenuth!” someone shouted. But time was moving sluggishly and she didn’t know who had spoken. A spear was raised over her.
With a shriek, Krebin crashed into the warrior, but it was too late. The spear was falling.
If Vaenuth had felt a muted pain lapping like a tide around her muscles, she felt a needle of agony in her arm. The spear pierced it, and sunk into the body beneath her. White light blinded her and fire burned up her arm into her shoulder. She twisted, convulsing around the pain in her elbow. Was it her voice screaming? She couldn’t be certain.
Vaenuth looked around for help, through blurry eyes, and saw Krebin struggling with the guard. A knife was between them, she realized despite the pain. Then Krebin stepped back a pace. Another thrust pierced him, and then a third. Blood fanned down his torso as the same scarred warrior jabbed every ounce of life out of him.
Tagg landed nearby, rolling through wooden splinters and debris as he dove down from the broken balcony. The pain in Vaenuth’s was burning her irreparably, she thought. It felt like a brand—gods, another brand! She stared at the spear that danced in the air above her with horror.
Tagg stepped toward the knife-wielding soldier. The man cursed and tried to dance with Tagg, but the mercenary broke his hand with his sword hilt, and ran him through the ribs with the wide blade of the Numa broad sword. Krebin lay slumped in the corner, his eyes transfixed on something unseen. Vaenuth squirmed against the spear that had pinned her arm.
“Stay still, Vae,” Tagg said, quietly. He grabbed the spear shaft. “Still.”
Then a volcano of torture erupted from her elbow. Agony kept her muscles squeezed and blood welled up from the hole. She stared at the wound and watched red spilling over the black rings. “Bind it,” Tagg said. He knelt and jabbed his knife into Trist’s neck to make sure only a corpse lay next to Vae.
Vaenuth, with tears of pain in her eyes, cut one pant leg off and wrapped it around her arm. Tagg patted Arloe on the shoulder as he stumbled down the stairs. He had his hand bundled up and stained with blood. Had he been injured too?
Tagg turned back to Vae. “We keep going?” he asked.
“Damn better,” Vaenuth said, clenching her teeth. She stood up shakily and reclaimed her sword from nearby. She had to hold it in her left arm.
“What about Pressip and the guards?” Arloe asked.
“They’d be here by now, if they could,” Tagg muttered. He was drenched in sweat and splattered blood.
Vaenuth made her way toward the stairs once more. Tagg took the lead, giving her a weak, worn out smile. A lost dagger lay on a step halfway up, as well as scattered wooden debris. Vaenuth kept her head up as they walked through all the dead guards. Tagg must have killed six or seven of them there, where men and man blood was scattered. They strode down a long corridor, checking each room. Once, a servant tried to attack from behind a door, but Tagg ran him through. They left the rest of the slaves and servants alive.
The next flight of stairs led to the third floor. No guards waited there, just a silent hallway and a sickening shrine to Ra’las’s trade. Every ten paces, a man or woman in chains stood with a lantern held high. Vaenuth and her friends freed them as they walked, breaking wall hooks with their swords. The hole in Vae’s arm had become a dull ache.
At last they reached the master bedroom, locked behind a big wooden door. Arloe and Tagg hauled a dresser from the hallway over and used it as a battering ram. After a few blows, the door’s hinges tore out of the wooden frame, and the dented structure fell inward with a boom. One more defender strode forward to fight them.
Tagg forced the man to step back, by pacing forward with his bloody sword held ready. The man slashed forward, but Tagg blocked it easily. Arloe took his flank, while Vaenuth stayed a few paces behind. Someone else tried to attack Tagg from the back but Arloe kicked the man back, against the bed and levelled a sword at him. It was an old man with rotten white hair and pale wrinkled skin—Ra’las himself.
“I surrender,” the slaver muttered. “Put down your sword Toron.”
The soldier stepped back from Tagg and tossed his sword on the ground. Tagg stepped forward, with his sword angled along his forearm. In a smooth move, he opened Toron’s throat. Ra’las just shook his head and muttered, “Gods, what do you people want?”
Vaenuth stood before her old slaver and closed her eyes. She had awaited this moment for so long. “Tagg, find her.”
Tagg kicked open the adjoining door, perhaps a living area or a privy, and dragged a flailing woman out. Elthia, wife of Ra’las, fell to her knees with tears running down her cheeks. She stared at the bloody pool around Toron’s corpse, and then looked at Vaenuth.
“What do you want?” Ra’las demanded. “Gold? Treasure?”
“Revenge,” Vaenuth said, through clenched teeth. “You don’t remember me, but I remember you.”
“A slave?” Ra’las asked. “A fool. You can kill me but you’re never going to be free…”
Vaenuth inhaled sharply. She didn’t want to listen to his curses and his lies. He was a madman and a fool. She crossed the room in a few steps and looked Elthia in the eyes. The woman who would marry evil incarnate. She put her sword between Elthia’s breasts and looked to her left. The woman whimpered didn’t affect the slaver. Ra’las gazed over the bed he had been subdued against and met her eyes. He wasn’t pleading or afraid. He just looked angry and tired. Had he lost women he loved before? It looked as though he had.
Vaenuth pushed her sword forward and Elthia cried out before she fell back onto the carpet. Her blood mingled with Toron’s. Ra’las let out a loud sigh. “Then get your revenge,” he mumbled.
She rounded the bed in anger but held herself back. She looked at Tagg, as though to ask him how to proceed.
“We’re here for this. Do whatever you want,” Tagg said, quietly.
Vaenuth nodded. She pushed her sword point into the slaver’s foot. When his screech subsided, he stared at her with true terror in his eyes. He knew he should fear her now. He knew how this would happen. She lifted her sword out, and watched him squirm. She had never imagined doing this with her left hand before; her right arm hung at her side. She cut his legs, gashed his arms. “You branded me with this hand,” she said quietly, “as though I was your property.” She raised her sword and brought it down onto the floor with as much force as she could. The wood boomed, and Ra’las shrieked. He raised his stump before his eyes and grew pale.
“Don’t fade on me yet,” Vae hissed. She dropped to her knees and grabbed his collar. She drew Ra’las’s face close to hers. “You’re no one’s property,” she told him, with a low voice. “No one will put you back together. No one will come and save you. You’re all alone.”
Ra’las’s feet tried to push him away from her, but that only caused him more pain. He lay there, horrified and gasping. “I don’t do it anymore,” he whimpered. “I haven’t killed anyone or taken anyone in years. I—”
Vaenuth put her sword at the base of his rib cage and slowly pushed it higher. He shouted and screeched and hollered hoarsely as her sword cut through his lungs and nerves. Blood welled up his mouth and he started coughing, his face paling as he choked. A moment later, it was all done. Vae, dripping with sweat, stood up and let out a long held breath.
She looked around her. Tagg was looking at her, and nodded consolingly. There was no sign of Arloe. “He’s in the hall,” Tagg whispered.
“Let’s go,” Vaenuth said. She tossed down her sword. She didn’t need it anymore. She didn’t look at Ra’las’s body again either—he didn’t deserve it. The estate seemed quiet now, and dead. As her two friends and she shambled outside, they found Lerran’s men dead, but no more of Ra’las’s guards. Pressip lay amidst the carnage, missing an arm. His bow had broken, and he didn’t stir. The guards who had defeated Vae’s friend and allies were gone.
The estate was abandoned. No one would mourn the passing of a slaver.
Under a sky of coal smoke and severed beams of sunlight, Vaenuth walked out into the streets of a city she had just improved. She had no idea where she was walking to, yet, but she was light enough to float across the Stormy Sea without any boat, right back to Banno’s warm embrace.