City of Gods [Book 3 of the Teadai Prophecies] Read online

  A hand landed on her shoulder and she took in the Energy as she spun, ready to draw her belt knife in her right hand and breast knife in her left. “Bloody sneaking lice brain,” she spat without thought. Guilt suddenly flooded her at Thad’s shocked expression. He didn’t deserve her anger.

  He held hands up. “My apologies for startling you.”

  “No,” she said quickly. “My apologies.” His eyes drifted to her hands, where she still gripped the hilts of her knives. She relaxed, on the outside anyway, and released the Energy. “Seeing these children. It sickens me. I didn’t mean to take my anger out on you, Thad.” This play-acting became harder with each encounter. She pulled her cloak tighter against a particularly chilled breeze.

  “Accepted.” Thad smiled. He was a handsome man, and polite, not at all the type Cass had grown up around. “I may gut one of those men myself. That a fact.” He didn’t look as though he joked, either, which made her feel even more guilty for snapping at him.

  “We could do it together. I’m certain we could take out several before a mob formed.” She didn’t jest. However, if she chose an ally in a fight, it wouldn’t be Thad. He knew how to gut fish well enough with his boot knives, but there were more able kin when it came to killing.

  Thad gave her a thoughtful nod. “Elder Siri sent me for you. The women need help.”

  Of course they did. Siri didn’t abide idle hands when there was work to be done, and Cass had watched the little ones a heartbeat too long. The Elder could see her clearly from the fire.

  She obliged Siri and the other women, careful not to cause them any concern. After they set up camp and had midday meal, they still had most of the afternoon left. Could she possibly sneak off in the light? She didn’t have nightsight like Tsianina or Birek so the sun would be a welcome ally. The skies didn’t look promising, either. No doubt, they would bring more rain. If that happened, then the road may not be the only area affected. Cass was no expert on weather like some of the Bankari, but she knew that rivers overflowed and floods spread if not allowed to dry up between rains. Any simpleton could figure that out.

  Her best chance to get away would be just before sunset. She might not be missed until too late. At least, that’s what she hoped. Her father’s stench hadn’t moved from the Clamoring Jackass. So he still had his senses enough to drink or bet on the stones. No tavern owner abided drunks who passed out or couldn’t afford food, drink or entertainment. She didn’t want to imagine what else he might be doing in there.

  Thad passed by and smiled. She nodded an acknowledgement but wondered whether he would pose a problem. He seemed to watch her when he thought she wasn’t looking. Not much missed her attention when it came to men. Perhaps she could distract him somehow. She really didn’t want to wait until the middle of the bloody night to sneak off.

  Adelsik came toward her with some swiftness. She had blankets draped over one arm and an unlit lantern in her hand. “Cass. Haranda asked me to find you. She said we’re all bedding close together tonight.”

  Just my bloody luck. “Where?”

  “She wants us to help clean out the buildings and set up in there. We’re to get help from the younglings too. And Gwen wants to speak to you. She seems a bit on edge.” Those blond brows arched. “Well, that doesn’t really seem a surprise, now does it?”

  “No.” Cass smiled at her friend but the gesture didn’t ease her agitation at yet another obstacle.

  She had hoped to bed under the stars tonight, where her footsteps would be covered by the flowing stream. She had planned to sleep near Maesa and Henny. Neither of them woke lightly from sleep. And Maesa’s snoring would cover any sounds the stream didn’t. Many of the others, especially Gwen and Taniras, were light sleepers. Blazes! I have to get to that tavern before dark.

  The privies. Yes! No one would bother her behind the curtained area now being set up near the forest. She could use the trees for cover. Barking caught her ears. Dogs would be another problem. Perhaps she could stuff meat bits into her pockets. None of the dogs had seemed vicious when the kin rode through the hamlet. Most played with small children and got excited at a scratch behind the ears. No one would think twice about a barking dog before sunset. She realized Adelsik was speaking to her again.

  “We really should get started. I don’t want to still be working after night meal.” Those innocent-looking eyes gazed eagerly at Cass and she leaned forward. “I’ll have Lyssinya nipping at my backside if I’m late to the Netherworld tonight.” She grinned.

  Cass smiled again, this time with genuine affection for Adelsik. Yes, the two had become friends, closer than Cass had ever allowed anyone else to get, even Pim. She took the blankets and walked alongside her kin sister. “Has Ved’nuri decided what to do about the raising?”

  “Not yet. Pim’s still remembering everything Sureyah did so Henny can write the spells. Ved’nuri’s certain she got some of the herbs mixed up, though. Too bad Sureyah didn’t survive.”

  “Yes.” She nudged Adelsik as they stepped over several stones. “But I’m glad you’re all right.” She was also glad Pim hadn’t been harmed. The girl trekked back and forth between Siri and Haranda now.

  “And I’m happy you made it.” Adelsik smiled. She used a sulfur stick to light the lantern as Cass draped the blankets on a nearby trunk.

  The two took up brooms that someone had leaned against the trunk and stepped into the closest of the stone buildings. The Bankari had already completed wooden shutters and were now working on a roof and door. Several others worked on the second building. They were bloody fast, these Bankari. Shouts and hammers gave the place a cheerful atmosphere. A fire hadn’t been lit in the hearth, yet, but it looked like someone had already swept it.

  Cass noticed that Adelsik wore a frown. “Anything wrong?” Gypsies had saved her in more ways than she could count. And she cared about this woman’s welfare. After all, the two had been clan sisters not long ago and now they were kin sisters under the Goddess.

  “Just worried.” Adelsik began sweeping damp dirt, rock and cobwebs from the stone floor.

  She nodded as she got to work with her own broom and wondered just how long this place had been abandoned. She took in the Energy and allowed herself to take stock of all the heats that pressed against her senses. Someone had cleared both buildings of rats or any other animals, probably Taniras. Tiny insect heats flitted about within the awareness but she ignored them and released the Energy to concentrate on Adelsik again.

  “There’s something going on in the Netherworld, Cass. I know you can’t see a Gypsy’s nimbus unless a slumberer allows it, but I’m certain you remember them from your nightmares.”

  Cass nodded. Adelsik and the other slumberers’ bodies had glowed within her dreams.

  “Well, they’re fading.”

  That was alarming. “Does Ved’nuri know what’s causing it?”

  “She didn’t even know it was happening until I informed her. She suspects it has something to do with the void. But no one knows why there is a void in the first place.” She leaned against her broom. “Sureyah’s magic didn’t cause it. We’ve established that. And Mindona swears she knows nothing, even under Wren’s urging. Ved’nuri thinks maybe Croferituus has something to do with it, but I watched Mindona when Siri questioned her. Cass, I don’t think Croferituus is the cause of the void, at least not the sole cause.”

  Taniras stormed past the doorway, mumbling something, and Snowy flew after her. Several flakes of snow drifted by outside and Cass wanted to curse. Snow, in the middle of summer! Bloody blazes in the underworld! What in the name of the Goddess is going on? Perhaps the Goddess Herself put up these obstacles between Cass and her bloody, root father. She forced concentration on Adelsik again. “Are you certain Mindona knows nothing?” The Big Iron at the center of camp came to mind, surrounded by several supply wagons and pacing guards. “She’s extremely loyal to that yellow-eyed idiot.”

  Adelsik turned her gaze from the doorway and focused large, br
own eyes on Cass. “I can’t be certain of anything. But I have become pretty good at noticing people’s reactions, something Ved’nuri taught me to do in the Netherworld. I don’t trust Mindona, by any means, but I don’t think she knows any more about the disturbances than we do.”

  “Have you spoken to Ved’nuri about your concerns?”

  “Not yet. Tonight.” Adelsik began to sweep again.

  “I’m certain she’ll know what to do.” She said that for her own benefit as much as Adelsik’s.

  “I hope so.”

  More flakes began to drift by the doorway and Cass quelled a string of curses. She took in the Energy again and focused on her root father’s whereabouts. For an instant, something created more of a stench than her root father had. But it vanished so quickly she doubted it even existed.

  Chapter 3

  As evening grew, Cass ate a quick meal, stuffed meat bits in her purse and feigned going to the privies. She took in long breaths of the frigid air and rolled her shoulders to alleviate soreness and fatigue from the day’s work as she stepped along the shoveled trail. Snow coated the ground already and she wanted to get to her root father before the bloody stuff was ankle deep.

  Mistress Norine and one of her husbands passed and she nodded to them. Both looked distracted but at least they acknowledged her. Having someone see her go in the direction of the privies would keep anyone from looking for her, and she could probably stay gone a while before anyone noticed her missing. Her heart raced as she mapped out the escape in her mind again. The trees would give her enough cover and she could see an opening, an alley perhaps, that ran beside the tavern where he was this very heartbeat.

  If she kept her cloak hood up, no one would pay her any mind, especially in this cold. She snaked her way along the path and stepped to one of the hastily erected lean-tos. There, she took the ribbon from the tree branch and tied it through the small hole in the blanket used for a privy door. Occupied. Despite heat from the well-placed firepots, she shivered. She pulled her cloak tighter and started to turn and walk around behind the privies, when one of the Bankari men stepped from the next lean-to.

  She waited just long enough for him to see her duck inside. The smell was stronger behind the blanket, despite the colder air and the large hole that had been dug in the ground with the makeshift seat of wooden boards covering it. She took in the Energy and the smell became a distant bother. Gypsy and Sage heats tapped against her senses as well as those from servants, middlings and horses. From here, she sensed the entire hamlet, along with her kin. Most huddled together in some shelter or other.

  Her nose ran from the cold and she blew it on the crying cloth in her sleeve. After several heartbeats, she stuck her head out from behind the blanket. She was alone. It didn’t take long to get from the privies to the trees, where she hid behind large trunks. Rising wind whipped her cloak up behind her and she grabbed at it. A cloak flapping from the side of a tree would certainly catch someone’s attention. She pulled the thing up around her and held it, not caring if her hood fell back just now, and ignored the biting wind that stung her cheeks as she snaked her way through the trees.

  The hamlet children were nowhere that she could see. She didn’t want to imagine what kind of sleeping arrangements they had for the night. One dog huddled beneath a cart and she tossed him some meat bits to keep him quiet as she passed. He gobbled them without chewing and slinked back beneath his cover.

  Well, so much for ferocious dogs. Cass smiled and made her way in the waning light to the nearest alleyway.

  The wind blew strong as it funneled between the two stone buildings but she ignored it. What she couldn’t ignore, were the frozen flakes that fell against her cheeks and caused her to shiver. Music and laughter waxed and waned from the various taverns. The evil stink she’d noticed earlier at camp flooded her senses for a heartbeat then was gone. It had come from another building not far from where she now stood. So she hadn’t imagined it. Probably a bloody repetitive murderer from the strength of it. But he would have to wait.

  Her root father’s stench still emanated from the Clamoring Jackass. She wrapped her cloak tightly around her body and pulled the hood up to hide her face then stepped from the alley, grateful the wind wasn’t as fierce in the open street. The uneven and broken cobblestones kept her attention on her feet most of the way. The snow and waning light didn’t help ease her trip any. Various heats press against her senses, many attached to some thief or rapist, perhaps even a killer or two. She couldn’t distinguish one evil from another or male stench from female. She could tell adult from child, though, and there were two little ones inside the Clamoring Jackass. She could also tell her root father’s stench from anyone else’s. And he was inside. Finally, she would pay him back for all those nightmares that made up her childhood.

  A narrow window let light into the alley beside this tavern, and Cass ducked down the dark passageway with one hand on her hood to keep it in place. With her foot, she shoved a crate beneath the window and tested her weight on it before stepping up to look inside. The thick, rippled glass made everything appear distorted but she could see the place was crowded with men and women, some standing, some sitting, others making their way toward the back of the tavern. She didn’t see her father but he knocked against her senses with the smell of an unclean privy.

  She walked around to the front again, climbed the three stone steps to the wooden door and pushed it open. The place had people crowded at every table, gambling, drinking. It smelled of sweat and sour wine. Drunken men pulled laughing women into back rooms. No one even looked her direction. One little girl of about eight or nine walked the tavern with a tray and gathered dirty mugs, while another poured spirits. At least they weren’t being used in the back rooms. Which was exactly where Cass’s root father had gone. She could feel him like a cold knife in her gut. No amount of Energy could make her forget what he had done. Ever.

  A man latched onto her arm and she spun, careful not to let him see her belt knife, her hood still in place. He reeked of sour wine.

  “I told you to go home,” another man said. This one wore an apron over his breeches. The drunk was pulled from Cass and shoved out the tavern door. “And don’t come back without something to trade!”

  No one seemed to notice Cass as anything other than just a woman, probably thought her another whore. She felt a pinch to her backside as she passed a table, which she ignored as she headed for the door to the back rooms. One man laughed and called out to her in language she didn’t recognize but no one followed. Thin curtains that separated each room from the hallway kept no sounds from her ears. Men and women in thralls of passion. A slap followed by weeping. Two voices argued in a language other than her own.

  She passed several curtained rooms before coming to the last one, the one that housed her root father. Yes, his stench was unmistakable. With one hand on the ivory handle of her belt knife, she pulled the curtain aside just enough to see into the stark room. A small fire burned in the tiny hearth, two lanterns hung on the wall, and several discarded pig bladders used to thwart pregnancy littered the floor.

  A thin man, with his back to Cass, sat on a straw pallet fumbling with his breeches while a woman knelt behind him. He looked much skinnier than Cass remembered. Gaunt. The body of an old man. He whispered something she couldn’t make out but she knew all to well what he said, because he had said it to her every time he had his way. Anger caused her hands to tremble but she managed to steady them and held her belt knife in a tight grip.

  Don’t panic. You must remain calm. Let him be the one with terror in his heart. She kept the cloak hood up to hide her features.

  In two strides, she stood at his back and looked down on the woman. But it wasn’t a woman’s face that gazed back. The girl couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. Large for her age. Large enough to give off an adult heat against Cass’s senses, yet her cheeks held the plumpness of a child. The girl’s matted hair hung to the middle of her back and dark
, chubby arms stuck out from beneath a thin tunic. Young, haunted eyes widened and Cass put a finger to her lips. She recognized those eyes. Eyes that revealed experiences no child should ever go through. She held up the ivory-handled knife for the girl to see and pointed to her root father, half expecting a scream.

  The girl gave a quick nod and determined eyes offered support. Then Cass quietly dug into her purse and held up a silver coin. She made a motion of drinking, pointed to her root father again and gave a questioning look to the girl. He was still busy trying to get his breeches off and hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

  The young face lit up and the child nodded again. Cass held up a finger then made the drink motion. She held up two fingers and made the drink motion again. The girl understood and held up a chubby palm, fingers spread. Five mugs. Not enough to quell his urges but enough to weaken his reflexes. She took in a quick breath, pressed the coin into the girl’s chubby palm, pulling her to her feet at the same time, and seized the fool man by the hair. It took little effort, especially with the Energy giving her strength, to haul him off the pallet and onto his knees. He hadn’t even gotten his belt undone, thankfully. He murmured something that sounded like a curse.

  “Quiet or I’ll kill you,” Cass said in a dangerous voice.

  The girl inspected the coin in the dim lantern light.

  Cass eyed her. So young. “Tell no one.”

  The child nodded and fled.

  The man in Cass’s grasp struggled until she pushed the knife blade against his throat. She yanked him to his feet without much effort. He had always towered over her, made her feel especially small, yet he was no taller than she was now.