Shadow's Edge - Brent Weeks [83]
“Let’s try again,” Vi said. “What’s your name?”
“Uly,” the little girl said, tears making her face blotchy.
“All right, Ugly, we’re leaving. You can come with me alive or dead. It doesn’t matter. You’ve served your purpose. I’m going to tie your hands to the saddle, so you can jump off the horse if you want, but you’ll just get kicked and dragged to death. Your choice. Open your mouth.”
Uly opened her mouth and Vi stuffed the gag in. “Be silent,” she said. She scowled at the rag. “Say something.”
“Mmm?” Uly said.
“Damn.” Vi fixed her will on the rag. “Be silent!” she whispered. “Again.”
Uly’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Vi pulled out the rag; it wasn’t necessary now. It had been a little trick she’d discovered a few years ago by accident. It was spotty, but a merely silent child would be easier to get out of the city than a gagged one. Vi saddled her horse and the second-best horse in the stable.
In half an hour, Caernarvon was fading into the distance, but freedom was still a long way off.
27
Cold fury burned the world white. Kylar sprinted across the rooftop. He reached the edge and leapt, soaring through the night air. He cleared the twenty-foot gap easily and ran up the wall. He pushed off it, grabbed the extended roof beam, and flipped himself up onto it, not even wobbling.
He’d done it all while invisible, a fact that would have pleased him immensely a few days ago. Today, he had no ability to feel pleasure at all. His eyes scanned the dark streets.
Before he’d left, he’d cleaned Jarl’s blood from the floor—he wasn’t going to make Elene deal with that. He’d taken his friend’s body to a cemetery. Jarl wouldn’t rot in a sewer like some guttershite. Kylar didn’t even have the money to pay a grave digger—thanks, God—so he left Jarl and swore to return.
Jarl was dead. Part of Kylar didn’t believe it, the part that had thought the soft life of a Waeddryner healer might be his. How could he have believed that? There was nothing soft in a Night Angel’s life. Nothing. He was a killer. Death rose in his passage like mud swirling behind a stick dragged across the bottom of a clear, still pond.
There. Two punks were hassling a drunk. Gods, was that the same drunk he’d left to his fate the other night? Kylar dropped from the roof, swung off the next level, and in ten seconds was on the street.
The drunk was already down, bleeding from his nose. One of the punks was tearing the man’s purse from his belt while the other stood watch, a long knife in his hand.
Kylar let himself shimmer into partial visibility, muscles gleaming iridescent black, eyes black orbs, face a mask of fury. He only intended to scare the knife-wielder, but as the hoodlum’s eyes widened at the sight of him, Kylar swore he saw something so dark in them that it compelled him to act.
Before he knew it, the punch sword was drinking heart’s blood. The hoodlum’s knife dropped on the ground.
“What are you doing, Terr?” the mugger asked, turning.
A moment later, Kylar had the mugger pinned against the wall by his throat. He had to suppress the urge to kill, kill, kill.
“Where’s the Shinga?” he demanded.
Terrified, the man flailed and screamed. “What are you?”
Kylar caught one of the mugger’s flailing hands in his own and squeezed. A bone popped. The man screamed. Kylar waited, then squeezed harder. Another bone popped.
The stream of curses was unimpressive. Kylar ground the mugger’s hand to pulp, then grabbed his other hand. The man started gibbering as he looked at his mangled hand. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit, my hand.”
“Where’s the Shinga? I won’t repeat myself again.”
“You f—no! Stop! Third warehouse down from dock three! Oh, gods! What are you?”
“I am retribution,” Kylar said. He cut open the man’s neck and dropped him. The drunk gaped at him. He looked like he thought he’d gone crazy.
The warehouse was definitely the Shinga’s place, but Barush Sniggle wasn’t there. Kylar supposed it was too much to expect. There were, however, ten guards waiting inside