“So we have initiated our excavations in quadrant seven,” the man on the stage said in his monotonous voice as he tapped the map, “which has shown much promise.”
A man in the audience raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“It seems to me you shall only find more minor burials.”
“But there is much to learn from even minor burials about—”
“Like you learned from the Big Mounds?”
There was some snickering in the audience. The man on stage frowned, then jabbed his pointer at the map again. “We excavated those mounds east of the Old City to put to rest all speculation they were not the burial sites of ancient kings, but simply deposits of sand and gravel shaped by the glaciers thousands of years ago. We have wanted nothing but to be exacting in our methods.”
Could it be he was talking about the Scangly Mounds? Karigan wondered. She peered harder at the map. The bright hissing lamps helped her make out the lines and shadings. The landforms looked vaguely like the area around Sacor City, and the Big Mounds he pointed out certainly corresponded to where one would find the Scangly Mounds upon which she’d so enjoyed riding her Condor. The landmass in the center of the map, divided into a grid by precise intersecting lines, could very well be Sacor City, but . . .
Then a gentleman along the wall caught her eye. He stared at her. Karigan’s heart leaped. She realized she’d been drawn almost across the threshold of the building, to get a better view of the map, and could be plainly seen by anyone who bothered to look.
The gentleman, whose gray-speckled brown hair swept luxuriantly across his brow, twitched his mouth, which wiggled his bushy mustache. He had full side whiskers, too. He touched the shoulder of a younger man beside him. When the second man turned to look, Karigan ducked from the lit doorway, shaking.
She did not know these people, this place. She was not ready to trust anyone until she learned more. She ran-limped away. Did she hear footsteps running after her, or was it her own that echoed against the canyons of brick walls?
She turned into another alley, breathing hard, sweat slicking down her sides. She decided to call on her fading ability, and in this way she could survey the city, town, or whatever this place was, without being observed. But when she touched the winged horse brooch clasped to her greatcoat, she felt no change. She glanced at her hands and down at her body. She remained solid—she had not faded out. She tried again, and nothing.
“What . . . ?” What had the looking mask done to her?
A scent of putrid, decaying matter wafted to her. She glanced down the alley. She thought she detected movement, but the alley was too shrouded in darkness. Hesitating but a moment, she withdrew her moonstone from her pocket, but it emitted only a weak, dying glow as it had in the sarcophagus.
Magic does not work here, Karigan thought. At least not much.
The moonstone emitted enough light to sketch out a heap of rubbish at the other end of the alley. There was more movement. A cat? An oversized rat looking for food scraps?
But then the heap stood and the low gleam of the moonstone caught in the whites of its—his—eyes . . . and on the metallic sheen of a knife.
Karigan gasped and pocketed her moonstone, intending to flee, but when she turned, her escape was blocked by two hulking figures.
She found herself wishing, absurdly, she was back in Blackveil. She raised the bonewood staff to a defensive position, thankful it had made the journey with her, but regretting the loss of her saber, which had served her so well since she became a Green Rider, and F’ryan Coblebay before her. Lost forever, she suspected, in the deeps of Castle Argenthyne.
Even as the two at the open end of the alley rushed her, so did the one with the knife from behind. Karigan did not think, she moved. With her right hand all but useless, she swept the staff at the two forward assailants relying on the strength of her left. She smashed the closest one in the chin. As he staggered away, she rammed the butt of the staff backward catching the knife-bearing assailant in the gut. He fell back with a grunt of pain.
She thrust the staff forward again, battering the metal handle into the bridge of the third assailant’s nose. She felt warm splatters across her face, and he reeled away clutching at his bleeding nose.
Not bad, Karigan thought, for being one-handed and pretty much one-legged.
She made to retreat from the alley, only to find half a dozen more figures blocking her way.
MORPHIA
Karigan backed away as the thugs advanced on her. One of her original assailants recovered enough to grab her from behind. She smashed the heel of her boot into his instep, and he hopped away howling. The others paused as one as if reassessing their prey, indistinct in their ragged cloaks. She held her staff in a defensive position, keeping an ear open to anyone creeping up on her from behind. Mostly she heard whimpering from that quarter.
Her limbs quivered from having expended so much of her energy in Blackveil, as well as in the streets of this nameless city. Her mauled leg was likely to give out at any time now, and truly she wanted nothing more than to drop where she stood, but that would mean worse consequences.
“Put down yer stick, girlie,” one of the thugs said, “and we won’t hurt ya. Real gentlemen we are, ain’t we, boys?”
The others answered with affirmative grunts.
“Let me go, and I won’t hurt you,” she said, her dry throat making her voice harsh.
“Got ya some sass, eh? There’s them that’d pay good for the likes of you.”
Karigan did not wait for them to make the first move. She charged into them with a guttural yell, staff humming as the metal handle thudded into the leader’s skull. She had hoped they’d scatter after that, but they grabbed for her, their rags rancid with filth. The staff became entangled in their arms, and when one kicked her injured leg, she sank with a moan, and they descended on her as predators on wounded prey.