Ironhand (Taurin's Chosen Book 2) Read online

  There are more words, but I can no longer remember them. They’re hidden away in the deeps of my mind. I can no longer reach into the well for what I need, but wait instead for memories to be thrown up, in snatches of scenes and a scatter of words.

  The taste of bitter greens in my mouth.

  A slight dark boy squatting by a snake hole, eyes alight with enthusiasm. “He’s a beauty!”

  Taurina riata seya… Taurina barata veya…

  “You need eilendi… we all need eilendi…”

  And as I sift through these glistening, broken shards of life (my life? Or someone else’s?), a Seeing seizes hold of me, clamping my head with steel bands, pushing my body against the stone, holding me in place.

  The bones of the world, a pattern of golden strings, thrumming with urgency, stretched almost to the breaking point. The ones nearer to the salt plains are knotted like wire, with stiff, sharp ends. And the ones closest still…

  Dear Taurin.

  They’re in shapes I don’t recognize, in colors I can put no name to. They’re changed beyond my knowing, and I can almost hear the mountains groan as the basic nature of them is twisted into something… alien.

  I reach for those shapes, with a quick light touch.

  And a mountain explodes.

  Mehmet and I return to the window, time and time again. It’s been an hour since the explosion.

  Rocks still hang in the air, orbiting the livid light in the east.

  Mehmet curses under his breath. Flutter is a drooping, grey figure at one side of the room. Her head is bent, long hair covering her face. She hasn’t said a word since.

  Daral calls me over to an opposite window. “Look.” He points down the valley to the city of Tau Marai.

  There’s a beacon above it.

  It’s not made of light.

  A column of darkness rises above the Dark Masters’ prison, stark against the night sky. It twists, almost like a living thing, and as we watch, dark tentacles stretch out from it towards the salt plains.

  My heart turns to stone. A leadenness drips down to my feet.

  The very air holds me in place.

  I say, slowly, moving my thick, heavy tongue. “Something got out.”

  Daral looks a question at me.

  “The Gates were open,” I close my eyes and behind the lids I see Sera once again vanishing in the savagery of light, the bronze Gates swinging open. “They were open. And something got out.”

  How long had I pushed against the Gates, forcing them shut? It had seemed like an eternity, but it was only a few minutes at most. Not long enough for the Dark Masters to escape.

  But there was that dark tendril wrapping around my wrist. There was that moment when an appendage of the Dark Master was outside Tau Marai.

  “A message of some kind. A signal.” I open my eyes, and Daral is pale, watching me out of narrowed eyes. He’s thinking about killing me, I think, distant, remote. Flutter comes to herself with a shiver of wings. I know she’s watching us from behind her hair. “A signal that awoke… that.” I look over my shoulder. Mehmet is silhouetted against the distant light, taut as a bow.

  “What can we do?” Daral whispers.

  I shrug. “You’re the scholar. What do the tales say about the Shivering Times?”

  His lips peel back from his teeth in a grimace. “Angels and demons fought across the world, gouging craters and plowing up mountains. The people cowered in caves, tried not to get in the way. We could neither survive the fight, nor even look upon the radiance of our angel protectors. Fires burned without fuel and light itself splintered into weapons.”

  “The very laws of nature were overturned,” I murmur.

  We look back at the ring of rocks that went up and never came down.

  I think I feel the world shredding under my feet.

  “What do we do now?” Daral asks.

  “Take the angel craft in Makai Crater by force. Or,”—my smile is mirthless—“beg Highwind for help.”

  Mehmet starts violently. “Those desecrators—”

  At the same time, Flutter begins, voice buzzing, “No, Kato! They want too much in return—”

  I raise my hand, and they stop. “Our world is in danger. This is a battle not only for the itauri lands, but for Highwind as well.”

  “Going to desecraters is not the right way to do this!” Mehmet breaks in. “Taurin will keep us and protect us! Trust in him, not in the defilers!”

  The message in the dark weighs down on me. Fight on, it said.

  With what?

  “I can do nothing against the salt demons. I have lost the transformation.” There, I’ve said it.

  Daral looks pointedly at my iron hand.

  I raise it up, clench the fingers. “This is all I can manage. There are not enough of the spiders in me to do more. Will this one thing suffice to stand against the demons?”

  “The eilendi,” Flutter says. “The salt demons twist and corrupt the strings of the world. Get the eilendi and have them make a Seeing…”

  “Will they have power enough to fix the problem?” I ask her.

  She shrugs, a fluid ripple that goes right through her body. “They can only try. Send word to them, at least, I beg you.”

  I turn to Mehmet. “Where are the nearest eilendi?”

  “A day’s ride away, in the Light Wells.”

  “Take a small, fast group of riders. Flutter will go with you.”

  “The Highwind abomination?” Mehmet draws back, makes a warding sign. “You would—”

  “Tauria vey lasati!” hisses Flutter. “Itauri dia itauri, eilendi dia eilendi!” Her eyes are wild, changing colors, and the words fall from her lips. Eilendi chants, eilendi prayers. Her arms flow from gesture to gesture, her feet sketch out the dancing circles.

  Mehmet is speechless. He looks at me, as if to say, What is this strange eilendi puppet?

  “She goes with you,” I say.

  “I would like to go as well,” Daral says quickly. He’s watching Flutter with an expression I can’t quite read—puzzlement, but oddly enough, a wary hope.

  “I could use you in the negotiations,” I say to him, expression and voice blank.

  He hesitates, then nods.

  “We’ll leave at dawn,” Mehmet says.

  “No.” Flutter’s voice rises. “We leave—now.”

  A flash of light in the night, like a green firework. A sizzle in the air, a belated siren call from a cloak on guard.

  Wind swifts. I catch Flutter’s eyes. They’re human, brown and sad. She nods at me.

  I’m seized by the unshakeable notion that I will never see her again.

  “Get your men and horses, Mehmet,” I say through a tight throat. “You must leave now.”

  Confusion in the courtyard. Wind swifts flash down like meteors, but they don’t dissipate. As they hit ground, they spread out in spiderwebs of burning green, crackling as they flow over the stones.

  An eerie man cracks his whip through one, and the swift sizzles through, arcing for his hand. The eerie man howls and drops his whip, cradling his hand. There’s a smell of burning flesh.

  Two cloaks surge up from the stones and smother swifts in their wings. Cobble crunchers swarm from the walls, carrying coils of wiring. Soon the courtyard is cris-crossed with metal and flashes of light.

  And still more swifts come, landing on eerie men’s shoulders and setting tents and bedding on fire.

  “Don’t touch them!” I yell to Mehmet’s men. “Just get your horses and go!”

  Great warm bodies and a clatter of hooves all around me. Flutter grabs at Daral’s sleeve. “Keep him safe, Daral. Keep Kato safe. Promise me!”

  I expect Daral to pull away, but he puts his hand over the pale ones clutching his arm.

  “Promise!” she insists.

  Mehmet’s on his horse, and he’s holding a jittery mare by the bridle.

  “Get on, Flutter!” I pull her away from Daral, and throw her into the saddle. She mists and for a
moment I’m afraid she’s going to fly apart.

  And then she’s solid again, still looking at Daral. Her lips part. “Trust…”

  A swift lights up above her head, and every one flinches from the unnatural brightness.

  “Go!” I slap the horse’s flanks and the mare leaps forward. Mehmet calls out, half battle cry, half order and the whole group of them thunders out the gate. Another flash of green, lighting up the confusion, and I glimpse Grip’s face, smug and satisfied.

  So, this was his doing, eh? Bastard.

  I turn to Daral, tense and alert next to me. “We have no more time,” I say. “Take this and go to Makai. I’ll be following you there shortly, one way or another. We need that angel craft.” I hand him the angel key; watch his face blanch as he realizes what he’s holding.

  “Careful,” I grunt, as his hands spasm. “That’s our only bargaining chip. Now get out of here.”

  I turn my back to him. If he wants to put a knife between my shoulder blades, now is the time.

  He doesn’t. He’s gone.

  I plant myself at the doors of Kaal Baran, between the fleeing riders and the stalking swifts.

  I pull out my sword, and it fits into my iron hand as if it were always meant to. A distant life stirs within it.

  Swifts don’t have eyes, but I sense them all turn to me. They swing around, these creatures of burning green fire, the crazed lines of them white-hot within the flames.

  They skitter towards me, scoring burn lines into the stone. The air sizzles. I brace myself, and my spiders run along my nerves, frantically spinning out a pathway for the incoming lightning.

  The first swift leaps at me. My vision’s a net of green and my ears are full of crackling. Heat blasts into my face; I lift up my sword and swing.

  A jolt in my hand, pain sears through me. My throat tightens, a scream shapes itself on my lips…

  And then its gone—all that voltage, dissipating into my shoes, into stone and dirt.

  I stand there, shaken, sword point dipping down to the ground. My flesh hand spasms, my thighs tremble.

  More swifts dash at me, and I slash and thrust. Heat builds up in my sword and my iron hand, my spiders channel it back down to the point, which glows hot and red. Every now and again a jolt runs into my arm. Dots of red and black pain pinprick my vision.

  A swift attacks on my left, I glimpse its green in my periphery. My mind screams Move! My iron hand and sword are already crossing over, but the rest of body, stunned and stupefied, is slow, too slow…

  I’m not going to make it.

  Low dark shapes scurry across the courtyard, a shining thread stretched between them. The swift flies into the cable, sizzles into a green line all along it. A pop goes off, shards of stone fly up into the air.

  I cringe.

  The smell of something warm and organic, with a slight hint of singed fur, and Leap’s in front of me, a broken board in one hand and his coiled whip in the other.

  “Leap,” I slur. “Get out of the way.” Damn, even my teeth are buzzing.

  He turns a wild face at me, large lips pulled back from his many sharp teeth, displaying dark gums. His hair lies flat against his head.

  “No! Leader in danger….” He ends on a howl, his muscles bunched.

  I drop the sword, grab the back of his neck with my iron hand. He twists, incredibly fast, and his claws rake across my arm, tearing cloth and ripping into the skin underneath.

  I cuff him across the ear and give him a shake. “Stop it! Now listen to me.”

  He stops squirming and I breathe into his ear. “Let the Highwinders come. Their quarrel is not with you, but with me.”

  “Ironhand,” he growls. “I’ll never—”

  Drat that pack instinct. I box him again, hard. “I want them to take me. This is the best way. Keep your men out of trouble. Watch and wait for my signal.”

  I push him away from me. He looks back at me, like a kicked puppy, but I scowl ferociously and he turns and smacks another eerie man across the head. “Listen, you—”

  I turn to look at one of Kaal Baran’s walls, now glowing silver. Cloaks slide off it, and puddle into the courtyard, slipping through cracks in the stone.

  Cloud looks at me a moment. I shake my head, no.

  She, too, mists down.

  I pick up my sword and sheathe it.

  Cobble crunchers give disgusted cries and scatter. Leap’s got the eerie men bunched in the opposite corner. The few remaining swifts, unable to hold their shapes any longer, explode in a shower of sparks.

  I put my arm in front of my face, and sparks burn through my sleeve and pepper my skin with small burns.

  The spiders are on it.

  By the time I drop my hand, the wall’s completely coated with a silver skin, something rippling that reminds me of Sera’s battle-armor.

  The skin hardens, turns a dull dark grey, and contracts.

  There’s a dull roar.

  One moment, there’s a wall. The next, it’s gone and a few motes spiral in the gaping hole that’s taken its place.

  I cross my arms and wait.

  Black-suited soldiers leap through the gap, faces hidden behind huge green goggles and masks. Eldritch guns swivel, point at me, at the clump of eerie men.

  A growl rises into the air. Leap whacks the undisciplined subordinate on the head. The eerie men all duck their heads and crouch in submissive poses.

  Their fear and anger is a warm, organic scent.

  A soldier gestures towards my sword with his gun. He points at the ground in a universal gesture for Put your weapon down, now.

  Of course, they’d want the sword.

  I put it down, still in its sheath, and kick it towards the soldiers.

  The soldier gestures again, and I raise my hands and spread my legs.

  Two of his men pat me down. One grabs at my iron hand, and tugs at it, as if it were a gauntlet.

  “That’s attached,” I tell him. “If you want it off, you’ll have to cut it off.”

  For a moment it looks like he will. Then he shrugs and settles for cuffing my hands behind my back, tightly, with cloth-wrapped manacles. They smell of chromatic metals, all sour.

  Sera must’ve told them about me. I breathe in sharply, and the soldier shortens the chain even more, pulling my shoulders back.

  I glance around the courtyard. The knots of eerie men, watched by gun-wielding soldiers, are the only Highwinders around. The cloaks have melted away and the cobble-crunchers are nowhere to be seen. Escaped through cracks and holes, I’ll warrant, not knowing whether to be exasperated or pleased.

  One of the soldiers stands in the gap in the wall, and holds up a light. It flickers on and off in a pattern.

  There’s a grinding noise, and the soldier backs up, gesturing. Two giant creatures ooze into Kaal Baran. They’re mottled brown and grey, and look like armored slugs. They’re pulling what look like covered metal sleighs, with treads instead of runners.

  The soldier guides them to the middle of the courtyard. They stop, their tiny eyes bobbing on stalks at the top of their heads.

  Other soldiers are busy setting up lights. They turn on, flooding the space with a yellow glare.

  Banish lights.

  The eerie men draw closer together, whimpering, agitated. The banish lights won’t kill them, but they’re in discomfort. I’m glad Flutter’s gone.

  A door hisses up on the sleigh, and a tall, lithe man springs down. Soldiers form a circle around him, but he waves them off.

  My nostrils flare. I did not expect him.

  The man picks his way fastidiously across the ground, stooping now and then to pick up a rock, turn it over in his hand, then drop it. Occasionally he darts to right or left, swooping on yet another interesting curiosity.

  The Director.

  He was the one who told me that Sera had been taken by a cloak. He hid her—no, he aided her lying, her mad plans, her dangerous experiments. He equipped her with machinery and weapons, provided her wi
th subjects and soldiers.

  All for what?

  Angel technology?

  I suspect I’m going to find out.

  Surrounded by soldiers in black, the white-coated Director stands out like a beacon.

  Still playing the part of the compassionate healer, I see.

  He peers at me through his glasses while I stare stonily at him. His face brightens.

  “Ah, Kettan! Though I should say Kato Vorsok, of course. It’s been too long since we last met. The hospital’s annual spring party, as I recall.”

  “Sera’s funeral.” I glare, as if somehow the power of my gaze will give the man a sense of shame.

  It doesn’t.

  “Bad business, that.” The Director takes out a handkerchief and dusts grit from his sleeve. “I was against lying to you, but she insisted. Women, you know.” He gives a What can we do? shrug, as if we’re in some men’s club on Smokejacket Road.

  “If you didn’t like it, why did you do it?”

  “Knowledge, of course. For science. For the wonders in this land, hidden away beneath layers of superstition and religious nonsense. It’s not fair to keep all this from the rest of the world, Kato.” His tone is mildly chiding, as if speaking to a child.

  “We aren’t talking about toys here,” I say. “Have you seen the eastern sky recently?”

  “We’re monitoring the situation.”

  “Monitoring!” I explode. “Can’t you just see the wrongness of it? Evil beings are awakening in the world again!”

  “If our instrumentation warrant it, we will take steps, of course,” says the Director, stiffly. “There’s no need to rush into anything”

  “Time is what you haven’t got!”

  “Kato.” His voice is severe. “You’re being very excitable. I’m afraid that I cannot let you run on like this and knowing what you can do, I don’t feel comfortable with your current situation—hold him.”

  They’re on me before I can move. The Director pulls a syringe from his belt. I try to throw myself backward, but I barely move.

  The Director reaches up and jabs the needle into my neck.

  A burning cold blooms out from that pinprick of pain, drowning me. As silver edges up my vision, I fall down—or else the world falls down around me.