Coldmarch. Daniel Cohen A.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Loud orders were barked so close that I could almost smell the burning oil on the Vicaress’s blade. Either the Vicaress had a vision of our plan to go to Mama Jana’s – which seemed highly unlikely, considering she was a fraud – or she had gathered more of her army, flooding the streets.

      ‘Hurry,’ Cam pleaded, sucking down a swig from the waterskin slung across his chest. ‘Not that I’m rushing you.’

      Shilah turned and gave him a stern look. ‘Save that water, it’s all you have.’

      I closed my eyes and tried to recall how metal could serve as an extension of my fingertips. Leroi often told me a true Inventor’s reach could be measured only in imagination.

      He was dead now.

      My hands were shaking with fear and adrenaline. The metal rods felt like greased needles trying to stab a single grain of sand.

      ‘I can’t,’ I said, getting frustrated. The cloud had parted enough to let me remember that Mama Jana’s lock was a snap-pin set-up, which meant the pins needed to be lifted at once. My flailing fingers were only making things more futile. The knowledge alone of how the lock worked was not enough to steady my grip. ‘I can’t feel anything.’

      Shilah reached down and placed a hand on my lower back. ‘What do you need from me?’

      Cam was muttering to himself under his breath, his father’s name appearing no less than three times within the murmurs.

      ‘You can make it work,’ Shilah said, matching my calm. It was as if we were back on our cots, taking turns telling stories as the night waned. Back then, safe in the womb of the tinkershop, I’d never thought we’d be on the run, protecting one of the most important discoveries in the history of the Jadan people.

      I tried to feel for the pins in the lock again, closing my eyes this time, but the answers wouldn’t reveal themselves. Over and over the proper technique slipped my touch, and I finally pounded my hand against the door out of frustration, a shock of pain ricocheting down my arm.

      Shilah shot me a disappointed look, but the slamming noise had been drowned out by the blaring of a distinctive horn.

      Three long blows.

      Followed by two short.

      And three more long.

      I hadn’t heard that call in years, and even then it had been faint, sounded from the outskirts of the city. It was a harbinger of death. There was a reason why the noise was rare – important Jadan runaways were quite uncommon – but every once in a while a favoured Jadan Domestic would choose baking to death in the sands over what waited back at the Manor.

      That’s when the beasts were sent hunting.

      ‘Shivers and Frosts!’ Cam exclaimed, eyes flitting around, almost as if he could see the echoes of the horn bouncing off the walls. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

      Shilah’s eyes darkened, her chest rising and falling quickly. I didn’t blame her. Torture under the Vicaress would be bad enough, but getting stalked down and eaten alive would be another level of agony entirely.

      ‘The Khat’s hounds,’ I said, my hands shaking like loose boilweed in the wind. The needles clacked uselessly in the lock.

      Cam swallowed hard. ‘Sun damn.’

      ‘You know about the hounds?’ Shilah asked him with a snarl. ‘You’ve seen what they can do up close?’

      Cam wilted, taking his glasses off and closing his eyes. ‘He doesn’t let … I’ve only seen the ones he keeps in his chambers. But they’re small and harmless and … fuzzy. Just relics from before the Great Drought.’

      ‘Those runts are not his hounds,’ Shilah said, her voice breaking for what felt like the first time. She absently touched her throat, her arms flexing so fast that I wondered if she might try punching the door down. At this point that might have been more effective than my trembling hands. ‘The Khat keeps his real hounds in the basement of the Pyramid,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘He starves them for days on end. And when he does feed them … guess what he uses for the meal?’

      ‘I’ve heard.’ Cam’s face went so red he might as well have smeared Khatberries on his cheeks. ‘But you have to remember. I have nothing to do with the Khat.’

      ‘Other than your name and blood.’

      ‘I’m only heir to the Tavors,’ Cam said, not meeting her eyes and changing the subject fast. ‘Keep trying, Spout. Please.’

      ‘Why did the Crier take us this far?’ I asked. The words came out lifeless, and I wondered who this stranger was using my voice. ‘Only to let us get caught. Why would he be so cruel?’

      The taskmasters’ shouts were almost on top of us.

      ‘Spout,’ Shilah said, guiding my chin sideways with her finger, forcing me to meet her eyes. ‘Don’t worry about the Crier. I have faith in you.’

      I followed the sweat beading off her face, which dropped quickly and flecked the stone at my feet.

      Splashing up an idea.

      I set the thin metal picks on the ground.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Cam gasped, hands pulling at his yellow hair. ‘Maybe let’s just go find a shop that’s actually open, and hide there?’

      ‘No one leaves their doors unlocked,’ I said, returning to the alley, not looking at the Opened Eye as I passed. Cam softly called after me, but before he could repeat my name I’d returned with a sharp slice of glass from the pile of trash.

      ‘Tears above, Micah. Are you going to try to fight the hounds?’ Cam asked frantically. I’d never seen him so worked up.

      Grabbing an Abb from the bag, I sliced off a tiny golden sliver, small enough to fit under the pins in the lock. Shoving it deep into the hole with the help of a parasol needle, I gestured for Shilah to give over her waterskin. Her lips opened in the shape of a question, but after a moment her eyes lit up with recognition.

      ‘Do it,’ she said with a smirk.

      ‘Do what?’ Cam asked.

      Shilah licked her cracked lips. ‘Ice. He’s going to open it with Ice.’

      Cam paused, looking as though the two halves of his body were trying to flee in opposite directions. ‘How? What if the lock just breaks off? Or we get blocked out completely?’ I could feel the buzz of fear in his words. ‘This can’t be the best idea.’

      A harsh voice shouted from the street next to ours. ‘Two of you go high and the rest of you lot go around! Check the rooftops and alleyway!’

      Blood shot into Cam’s cheeks, the sunburn there appearing even more raw. ‘Do it.’

      I nodded, holding up the waterskin to the lock and letting out a trickle of water.

      Cam manoeuvred СКАЧАТЬ