Wolf's-own: Weregild (33 page)

"I'm going down,” he told her. He patted her shoulder and made his careful way to the edge of the roof that overlooked the street first, noting a black carriage—horse-drawn, of all things—that was collecting a bit of attention from a few curious children and their mothers. It was past midday, and those who'd broken for lunch and crowded the streets for a few hours had already returned to their occupations, but the presence of an actual horse and the rich-looking carriage to which it was harnessed was drawing everyone that happened by. Good. Malick had no doubt whatsoever to whom it belonged and why it was here, and he might need every distraction he could get.

Mouth tightening, Malick stepped carefully over to the edge that overlooked the alley, saw Asai as expected, saw Fen, head bowed, defeated, held between two thugs—maijin, Malick could tell, and if he wasn't mistaken, two of those who'd been with Leu the other night. Saw Caidi clinging to her brother and saw the two maijin alternately trying to pry her off and work around her. Malick couldn't see Morin or Joori, but he heard Joori—"I won't let you take him, not this time. Jacin!
Jacin
!"—wondered vaguely where the fuck Umeia was, because whatever happened, she wouldn't have left her charges so open to ambush like this. But she'd been veiling against Malick since that day outside her door, and he couldn't tell.

He saw Caidi go flying, saw the flash of metal as her cloak flapped and tangled around her. Saw, even from four stories up, the look of knowing dismay on Asai's face and the abrupt focus in Fen's eyes.

Watched as Fen came alive and began to do what Fen did.

Damn, but those sparring sessions with Samin in hand to hand had done more than Malick could have hoped. He'd have to give Samin a raise. Even as the maijin got Fen down and ostensibly pinned, Malick didn't worry.

"Give me a count of ten, then go check on Shig and bring her up here if you can,” he told Yori, gaze locked onto the fray below. “Make yourself a little sniper's nest,” he said. “Double pay if you get Asai between the eyes.
Triple
."

A slight smile turning up one corner of his mouth, he gathered the air around him again, recalling the spirits, but a swell of magic that wasn't his own made him pause, half-pleased and half-uneasy. It was too crude, too directionless—dangerous for its untried simplicity—and filled with rage and fear that could only be Joori.

"
Shit
!” Malick muttered, giving his head a quick shake, then almost fell off the roof altogether when the pain hit him again. Visceral this time, bone-deep and agonizing, striating out through his chest in sharp waves, scattering his concentration and hold on the spirits, and making him gasp and nearly double over. “Umeia,” he breathed, because it didn't just feel like her—it
was
her. And so much wronger than it had been with Shig's truncated warning. “Fuck.” Veils dropped, protections shattered, and with them, the unmistakable feel of losing a part of himself, an almost physical wrench to his spirit.

Not like when Skel had gone to the suns, Malick told himself. Umeia's soul wasn't crying out, but Malick felt it as it was forced from her body, felt it with a gut-twisting grief as she moved from physical to spirit.

"
Mal
!” Yori shouted, impatient, like she'd already done it a few times, and he didn't blame her—the roof was shimmying beneath their feet, and he could hear the uneven grumble of the earth shifting beneath the building.

He took in a long breath and gave his head a sharp shake. No time. “Forget about getting Shig,” he barked, throat too tight, and vision far too blurry. “Just give me enough time to set up a gallery for you and start shooting. Get into position now.
Move
!"

Enraged almost beyond sense, Malick threw himself at the spirits and forced himself to the mouth of the alley below.

Joori honestly had no idea if he'd really meant to do it. He supposed he must have done. He was furious enough—the betrayals, the lies, the bloody “protection” she dangled in front of Jacin's nose to turn him compliant—and he supposed he couldn't honestly say he didn't know he had it in him. His wrath was leaking out through his pores, combining with the spirit of the earth throttled inside him, letting it stretch its atrophied limbs and shake them loose, and he really didn't care who might get in the way once he really let them go, so he couldn't say his intentions were to ask nicely. But even as hope had curled bright in his chest when Caidi pushed the smooth handle of the blade into his hand, Joori hadn't really been sure he'd be able to do anything with it but wave it around until someone saw through the bravado and took it away. But it curled in his fist as tightly as the anger in his chest that rumbled out through the earth beneath his feet. And yet still, there hadn't been any real thought—just action.

The blade slid into Umeia's side with a lot more ease than Joori would have suspected. Killing and butchering chickens and rabbits and the occasional boar for their table had shown him that flesh was easy to part, but somehow, he'd thought it should be harder to slide a knife into an actual person. He'd known
Temshiel
could be hurt, could be killed, that they were almost as vulnerable as mortals when in mortal form. And
still
, he hadn't really expected the knife to actually do anything when he wielded it.

It sank home with a sick ease. He felt Umeia spasm at first, her grip tightening painfully before it loosened. Still without thought, Joori threw her off him altogether, pulled the knife back as he turned, and sank it into her chest.

The shock on her face made him want to start babbling apologies. The blood that pumped from around the blade and soaked his hand with sticky, wet heat made him want to vomit. He wrenched the knife loose, backed away, watched, dazed, as Umeia's hands fluttered for a half second, as a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth... as her gaze latched onto his. Confused accusation flared then snuffed like a star sparking out, and Umeia fell gracelessly to the floor at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, a bright puddle bleeding out around her.

"Oh,” Joori breathed. All he could do was back away, knife still clutched tight in a white-knuckled fist as he stumbled out the door and into the alley. “Oh...
no
.” It wasn't possible. He was only mortal—he
couldn't
have just killed a
Temshiel
, and certainly not taken one so utterly by surprise and so easily. But there she was, dead on the floor, and here he was, blood all over him.

The ground was seizing up beneath him, he could feel it all the way down through the rock, could almost feel its veins where the molten blood of the earth ran in honeycombed passages fathoms below. A fissure opened up, right between Joori's feet clad in Jacin's borrowed boots, and Joori merely watched as steam billowed out and bathed his face, searing his skin. The rest of the world clamored about him—Jacin fighting with the thugs Asai had brought, Asai shouting something to... someone, Morin doing... something. Joori registered none of it, only the nauseating tackiness of the blood all over his hands and how it at once both slicked and stuck his hand to the grip of the knife, like it was fusing with his skin and becoming a part of him. He wondered if this was how Jacin felt when he killed—just an extension of his weapon, the machine behind the implement that allowed it to do its blood-hungry work.

"Umeia,” someone said, breathless and full of dismay. Joori looked up into the eyes of a mousy little man dressed in loose linen and a stained white apron.
Kitchen help
, Joori's mind supplied uselessly, and he flinched back some as the man took hold of his arm, barked, “
Stop it
!” and backhanded Joori so hard his ears rang. He staggered, the wiry man's grip keeping him on his feet, and it was only very vaguely that Joori noted the ground had stopped shaking.

He turned back to the man, said, “What...?” but the man wasn't even looking at him, just holding onto his arm, his quick glance scanning up and down the alley and landing on....

"Oh, fuck,” Joori all but whimpered as he watched Malick stalking down the alley, face like thunder, eyes flat pools of obsidian. The air almost crackled around him as he stepped swiftly but all too surely. A young woman paced steadily behind him, her face murderous but calm, along with a tall man with dark hair that reminded Joori too much of Asai.

A small crowd was gathering at the mouth of the alley, and two more people—another man from the kitchens and a young woman who must be one of the doxies, apparently come from the middle of a bath because her hair was streaming wet and her robe was stuck to damp skin—had come up behind the one who held onto Joori. Joori dismissed all of them, only watched, terrified and awestruck, as Malick strode down the alley like a living storm. The brick walls of the Girou all but rattled in his wake, thunder booming overhead, and tension gathering to him like a curling fist.

He looked right at Joori. There was no pretending that Malick didn't see the bloody knife in Joori's hand, and there was no pretending Malick didn't know exactly what it meant and what Joori had done. The knowledge was all over his face. But Malick didn't come after Joori. His hand came up, slashed through the air, and Asai went flying back into brick and mortar. It came up again, and the two men Asai had brought with him went to join him—one just as bloody and dead as Umeia, but Malick didn't seem like he cared.

"You would
dare
,” he snarled at Asai, jerked a little and took a lurching step back, as though he'd been struck with an invisible mallet. Joori's eyes darted over to Asai, noted his hand up in the air as Malick's had been, felt the crackling of magic all around, raising the hairs on his nape and setting actual weight to his skin. “You've got some balls,” Malick seethed, “using
his
Blood where I can get my hands on you."

"You never did approve of even odds,” Asai answered coolly. “Kill me and risk the suns, Kamen. And you're just not the sacrificing sort."

Another gesture by Asai, and another blow knocked Malick back a few steps, but he kept coming, all seething rage and murderous intent. And all at once, Joori could almost understand what his brother might see in Malick. He was brilliant in his fury, diamond-hard in his pain, almost beautiful in his extremity of pure and perfect rage. He stopped where he stood, put his hands together in front of his chest, then slowly opened his arms. Joori watched, dumbstruck, as Caidi and Morin were gently pushed out from between Malick and Asai then nudged to relative safety a few feet away from Joori. Kept watching as Jacin stood right where he was, knife in his hand.

"Fen,” said Malick, eyes on Asai, “get out of the way."

Jacin was breathing too heavily, sweating too much, and his arm was bleeding right through the bandages and into the light brown of his duster's sleeve. And still, he stood calmly between maijin and
Temshiel
, said, “No,” and twirled the knife absently along his fingers.

Asai smirked a little, and Malick's jaw clenched, his hatred and malice almost physical things, swirling with the magic weighting the air.

Samin and Shig came spilling out into the alley directly behind Joori, but he almost didn't notice them. Not until arrows started hailing down from the rooftop. One hit the man Jacin had fought with, the one bleeding from a gory chest wound on the stone of the alley; if he wasn't dead already, the arrow through the eye had certainly finished the job.

Good shot, Yori. Get Asai with the next one, and I'll love you forever.

Asai and his one remaining man both shot their glances upward. Asai looked unconcerned, but the other man flinched to the side when another arrow sailed down to hit the wall right behind where his head had just been.

Smirking with a quick flick of his glance upward, Samin made his way over to Caidi and pushed her behind him. Shig sort of tottered down the alleyway toward Morin.

"He is mine, Kamen,” Asai said, his tone attempting snide but shaking a little around the edges. Fear? It sounded like fear. Scared of Malick, maybe. Joori could understand that.

"Is he?” Malick bit back.

Before Joori could figure out if that was as ominous as it sounded, a fist closed around him, took his air, took his sense and all ability to move. It wasn't until the reality of the sensation hit him that Joori realized he'd effectively killed their protection when he'd killed Umeia. And opened Jacin up unconditionally to every threat Asai wanted to level against him.

It was worse than the spell from the charm—at least with that Joori had been able to breathe. Not with whatever this magic was. Tiny little spasms shook him, and reedy noises were forced from his throat. He was almost immediately lightheaded, but he heard Malick curse, saw Jacin start toward him, then heard Malick bark, “
Now
, Fen.” Malick curled his fist and drew his arm back. Fire whizzed across the alley, spattered all around Asai, but didn't touch him, like there was an invisible wall about him, but whatever had held Joori let him go. Abruptly, he could breathe again. He sagged, the small man who'd struck him earlier gasping along with him, but still holding on, holding Joori up as he gagged and wrenched air back into lungs that felt altogether too small.

Malick took a step farther into the alley, toward Asai. Jacin was right behind him. Both of Malick's hands were seemingly on fire now as he advanced. The ground shifted again, but it wasn't Joori this time, though he could swear he felt a thread of...
something
running out of him, twining and twisting and curling into something bigger, stronger.

Piercing whistles were sounding the air from a few blocks away, and a reedy horn took up the call, sending it farther into the city. The alarm for the Doujou had been raised. Magic had been unleashed in the heart of Ada, and the hunters would be out and focusing in on them within probably minutes.

A hail of arrows pelted down from the roof, one right after the other, and all of them pinged off some invisible barrier and fell to the ground at Asai's feet. Joori could hear Yori cursing.

Asai was laughing. “The hunters come, Jacin-rei,” he said. “They've already caught the scent of your earth-bound brother. Who will protect them, now that their paladin is gone?"