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arm fell and the weapon clattered to the stones. Dizziness and a black
onrushing wind smothered his senses. From a vast distance, he watched as the
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beast coiled for another spring.
He must have lost consciousness, as the visage he avoided through every battle
and duel now gazed down at him. The Hooded One himself, come at last to
collect his spirit. Temper wished he had the strength to spit at him. A cowl
of darkness descended over him, and he felt himself falling, on and on until
he was smothered in night and knew nothing more.
You can't find me. You won't find me. You'll never find me. Arms wrapped
tightly about her knees, Kiska rocked herself back and forth, back and forth.
Never find me, never find me. She sat in a tiny hut while a silent rain
drifted down around her. She rubbed her chin over her hurt knee.
Who can't find you? she asked herself.
No one. Not one person ever. None of the kids she played hide and seek with.
None of the local thieves she competed against. Not even Auntie when she tried
her magic. But she could find anyone. She always did. Auntie said she had a
talent for it.
And what else can't find you?
Kiska rocked for a time. She hummed to herself. No one. No one. A whimper
sounded from her side and she glanced down. A dog lay curled against her
haunch. A large dog. It peered up at her with sad eyes full of fear.
Kiska sighed, freed one arm from its grip of her knees and stroked the dog. It
whimpered again and huddled closer. She nodded in agreement.
I think they could find you, girl, she told herself. If they wanted to.
She sighed again and massaged her knee where her black pants were torn and
blood had dried in a rough crust. She flexed the leg and winced at the pain.
The dog whined its alarm.
Can't stay here forever.
She rubbed her eyes. Stay here.
On this island? Forever?
'A living death,' Kiska whispered into the dark.
The dog cocked one ear. She peered down at it. Sorry, boy. I just can't hide
any longer.
She pushed herself to her feet. She had staggered into an out-house, a boarded
shack hardly larger than an upright coffin. She looked out over the half-door.
Boards covered the rear windows of a house belonging to a young family Kiska
knew. They exported dried fish and were quite well-to-do. They even had an
outhouse in their vegetable garden.
So here she was. The biggest night of her life and she was hiding in a
shitter. Everything she wished for all her life had materialized and what has
she done? Run away!
The dog rested its head on one of her muddied slippers and peered up at her.
Kiska searched her pockets and sheaths. A length of cord and a scarf, needles,
cloths soaked in unguents given to her by Agayla. This was all she had left.
She unfolded one cloth and pressed it to her knee. She hissed at the pain. Yet
who could've guessed at the vast difference between hoping for action, and the
sight of a man's head bursting like a melon in the maw of some monster from
another realm? No wonder she'd found herself throwing up in a back alley.
That man from the Imperial cutter ... he hadn't been afraid to walk the
streets. He'd faced down an entire nest of cultists. And he must've known what
he was walking into. She was certain of that. Yet he had come. Oleg said his
message had to get to him, a message he believed vitally important. But he was
mad. Agayla, though . . . she'd also sent Kiska after him.
Her hand found the flattened scroll at her chest. This was for him. Had he
reached the Hold yet? He must have - but who could be sure on a night like
this? And the gatekeeper -Lubben - he would let her know if he had. He might
even let her in. If she played it right.'
Kiska opened the door. The dog whimpered afresh. Looking back, she saw it
still curled on the privy floor, unwilling to even push its nose past the
threshold. She bid goodbye and headed for a shortcut she knew to Rampart Way.
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The night had turned unearthly still. Even her slippers and the whisper of her
breath sounded deafening. Then suddenly, randomly, a hound's baying shattered
the calm, causing her to shrink. But other than these terrifying moments -
each of which she was certain would be her last - it was as if the night stood
frozen. Only the moon appeared to move, watching her with its silver eye as
she made for the waterfront where the shore lapped the cliffs and the oldest
wharves ceased at a thatch of rotten piers.
She climbed the slick stones jumbled at the cliff's base. Salt spray beaded on
her shirt and the waves beneath her murmured, unnaturally subdued. Her
cord-soled slippers gripped the broken rock, but her hands slid, cut open on
its knife-like edges.
Soon she reached the barest lip in the uneven stones - an ani-mal path dating
back generations to when wild goats still clambered over the island. The track
was long forgotten and invisible to those beneath and above. She fancied it
was the mystery behind the phantom departures and arrivals of the island's
pirates.
She carefully edged her way up the slick rock ledges, most no wider than her
foot. Thorned brush choked the route, forcing her to ascend behind or over.
But she knew the way blind-folded, as she'd often climbed it at night. It led
to her favourite spot on the island - after Agayla's rooms, that is.
The mist closed in like a shroud. The bay, some hundred yards down, lay
smothered in low-lying fog. In the southern sky, lights flickered green and
pink, reminding Kiska of the legends of the Riders who rose in winter to tow
sailors to their doom. She also remembered the tales of ghosts and revenants
said to haunt the Hold above. Even these cliffs boasted an entire host of
spirits - drowned sailors deceived into drawing too close to the shoals,
tricked by her ancestors, wreckers and pirates all. It was said you could
still hear their moaning at night, seeking vengeance on their murderers. She'd
grown up on such yarns and believed not a one. Including those of a certain
demon-haunted Shadow Moon . . .
When her outthrust hand told Kiska she'd reached a depression in the veined
granite, she threw herself into the opening she knew awaited ahead. She gasped
for air, and not just from the strain of the climb. Her clothes clung to her,
heavy and damp. The air retained the rich fetor of rotting humus and bird
droppings. Kiska leant against one inward-canted wall to steady her breath.
The crevice she stood in couldn't really be called a cavern: it was more like
a ragged cleft in the living rock of the island, a jagged fissure that shot [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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