Later. If he lived.
“It is unique. You’re right about that,” Oliver replied. “A gift to me from an old man. A gift he received a long time ago from King Hunyadi himself.”
The Atlantean glanced at the officer. “You’ve made a dangerous mistake, Sergeant.”
Oliver saw the moment of confusion and hesitation in the captain and he used it. Cursing under his breath, he turned and fled, drawing his sword on the run. Shouts came from behind him.
“Intruder! Kill him, you fools!” the sergeant roared, boots pounding the earth in pursuit. “Kill the Intruder! He comes to assassinate the king!”
The words made Oliver wince. As if things hadn’t been bad enough already.
The third and last Keen Keeng froze in the midst of Lycaon’s Kitchen. It began to back away from them, moving out into the restaurant’s central courtyard…into the rain.
Cheval Bayard shifted back into the lovely façade she usually wore and advanced upon him.
Chorti licked blood from his metal claws and came at the bat-man from another angle.
Across the restaurant the Mazikeen stood and threw back their hoods, moving to surround the Keen Keeng.
The waiter, Grin, stripped off the long, black uniform jacket Lycaon made his staff wear and joined Cheval.
Blue Jay nodded in approval and moved in as well.
The rain began to swirl in a dark tornado, turning to ice, and then snow. The humans in the restaurant had scattered, retreating to safety as best they could. Now the tone of their mutterings changed as they watched Frost sculpt himself a body of jagged ice from the moisture in the air. There was awe there, and a different sort of alarm.
Even in the Latin Quarter, word had come of the conspiracy against the Borderkind and the rebellion against those killers. But only now, as they saw Frost, did these people realize that they were in the midst of that rebellion. Blue Jay heard some of them talking about Frost as the leader of the Borderkind, and he wondered how news traveled so quickly. How secrets were so easily revealed.
Not that it mattered. It was true enough.
“How many others are there?” Frost demanded, moving toward the Keen Keeng. Blue Jay and the others did likewise, closing in around him. “You are no Hunter, so I want to know which Hunters are here in Perinthia. How close? And what other foot soldiers have they conscripted?”
The Keen Keeng spat at Frost.
With a gesture, the winter man froze the yellow spittle in the air and it fell to the marble floor to shatter into brittle shards.
“If they are here,” a voice said, “there will be other spies. You know this without being told.”
The words came from the little man with the flaming eyes. He strode now toward the circle they had made around the Keen Keeng. Pursing his lips, he whistled, and from the kitchen there came a roar. Everyone within the walls of the restaurant flinched and let out a gasp of surprise as a huge orange-and-black tiger bounded out from the back. It stalked across the restaurant, even the harpies scrambling out of its way, and brushed against the little man.
He mounted it as though climbing onto the back of a horse.
“There really is nowhere to hide, is there, Frost?” the little man said, the tiger moving beneath him, muscles taut beneath its fur. The fire flickered in the man’s eyes like candle flames.
The winter man stared at the Keen Keeng, not looking at him. “Nowhere, Li.”
“Then I am with you.”
Frost tilted his head, icicle hair clinking together. “That is very good to know. We may have a difficult time leaving the city.”
Blue Jay knew the name. Li, Guardian of Fire.
“If you’ll allow me,” Li said, gesturing toward the Keen Keeng.
Frost nodded. “By all means.”
The tiger-rider raised his hand and fire rushed up from it, forging itself into a flaming blade. Li spurred the tiger forward. The great cat bounded toward the Keen Keeng and Li swung the fire-sword, decapitating it in a single, searing stroke.
The Keen Keeng’s head fell to the ground.
Silence ensued. For a long moment those gathered in the courtyard only looked at one another, ignoring the restaurant’s patrons completely. The two Mazikeen stroked their braided beards. Grin stood with Cheval and Chorti, who were checking one another over for injuries. Li stood beside Blue Jay, across from Frost.
Word had traveled faster than reality. Frost had been planning to begin a rebellion, to gather up those who would fight back, who would hunt the Hunters. But now it had begun in earnest.
A soft clapping broke the silence.
Lycaon continued the derisive, almost mocking applause as he approached the circle.
“Well done. Now leave. Begone from here, valiant idiots.”
Frost glared at him, blue-white ice eyes narrowed. “You are Borderkind, wolf. They will come for you, in time.”
“Not if you stop them first,” Lycaon said.
“But you will not help us, even to help yourself?”
“Some of us still live here,” the werewolf growled, and his cruel features became darker, more bestial, as though he might transform at any moment. “Most of you Borderkind are nomads, but I’m no wanderer. I have a home. And I want you out of it, before they destroy it to reach you.”
Blue Jay chuckled softly. Rocking gently from side to side he stepped toward Lycaon. The rain spattered his face and the feathers in his hair danced in the breeze.
“Coward,” the trickster said. “You’ll regret this. If not at the hands of the Hunters, then at my hands, when this is over.”
“As it may be,” Lycaon said, and he raised his hand and gestured to the door.
One by one, they walked out of Lycaon’s Kitchen and into the street, half a block from the Latin Quarter’s marketplace.
Blue Jay glanced up immediately, scanning the rooftops and dark windows again. A pair of huge black birds took flight, streaking toward the city center. But they were not alone. At least half a dozen others perched on various ledges and rooftops, watching them.
“Strigae,” Cheval said, coming up beside him.
Blue Jay nodded.
“Watching for the Keen Keengs to emerge,” Li said.
“Or for us,” Blue Jay replied. “They may have been tracking us from the moment we passed the watchtowers.”
The two Mazikeen raised their hoods, hiding their gray faces and haunting eyes.
“There are Hunters in the city. Jezi-Baba and the Manticore. We have sensed Perytons as well.”
Frost shook his head. “Ty’Lis grows bold, sending out Hunters that can only be commanded by Atlanteans.”
“We haven’t the numbers to face them,” Cheval said, shifting her feet nervously, her equine nature coming to the fore.
Blue Jay had seen a wounded spirit in her eyes—her heart had never healed after her husband’s murder. Much of the time she was the quiet, pensive widow, but all too often she wore the mask of a brittle, imperious bitch. He thought it might be best if she kept the façade up at all times; if Cheval drew too much attention or sympathy from the rest of them, it could endanger them all when the time came to fight. As it was, he wondered how effective Chorti would be in the midst of a real battle. If all he cared about was Cheval’s safety, he would be useless to them.
We’ll find out in time, Blue Jay thought. All too soon, I expect.
He studied the Strigae. “We’ll have to face them in time, numbers or not. But I’d prefer it not be today.” He looked at Frost. “We’ve got all the help I think we’re going to find in Perinthia. Could be we’ll find more on the road south. For now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Frost nodded, starting northward. The other Borderkind followed, heading toward the edge of the city. It was the opposite direction from their destination, but for now the quickest route out of Perinthia was the smartest.
As they began to run, the Strigae took flight, pacing them.
“Pardon me, sirs,” Grin said, long arms at his sides as he loped along. “You know we’re never going to get away from the Hunters as long as those damned birds are watching us.”
Blue Jay smiled grimly. “Not in this world.”
The tiger trotted along the road with Li on its back. The little man had gained on the rest of them almost immediately, the tiger swift on its feet, even by the standards of myth. Now Li and his tiger turned together. Fire guttered from Li’s eyes.
“Trickster, you wish us to cross the border?”
Cheval laughed softly. “That is what we do, is it not?”
Troubled, Li frowned, and the flames in his eyes burned higher. “I have not been through the Veil in a great many years.”
The Grindylow shrugged. “Never done it, myself. Not once. My sort can do it, mind, but I never had the urge.”
The strange parade of creatures turned onto a side street, threaded beneath a half-toppled column and through what had once been a Roman bath. Several times they spotted figures in alleys or windows of the Latin Quarter, but the people were not going to trouble them. Only the Strigae pursued them. The eyes of the Hunters.
The Mazikeen moved in silence, hands together in front of them like monks. They seemed only to walk, but covered more ground in a single step than was possible.
Blue Jay caught up to Li. “You’ll love it, my friend. Their world is more corrupt than ever, but still beautiful, even so. Still stormy with love and lies and passion.”
The trickster glanced around and then faltered. He came to a halt, and one by one the other Borderkind did the same. Chorti snuffled at the ground and then the air, baring metal fangs at the Strigae that circled high above them. The Mazikeen had their heads together, nearly touching, communing silently in their sorcerous way.
“Where’s Frost?” Blue Jay asked.
Even as he did so there came a cry from above—a shriek that was not quite a bird’s scream. The trickster turned and looked up just in time to see a Strigae fall, end over end, toward the ground. It shattered upon impact, body splintering into fragments of black feathers and ice.
Up on the edge of the roof, Frost crouched. He shot out a hand and a spike of ice extended instantly from his fingertips and impaled a Strigae in mid-flight. It screamed, blood mixing with the rain, and then it glided lower and lower to crash to the street, dead.
Frost leaped from the roof and simply flowed down toward them, merging with the rain, becoming an avalanche of snow and ice, and then re-forming on the ground only inches away from Blue Jay.
“Beautiful,” Cheval Bayard said, sliding closer to Frost. She reached out to run her fingertips along the sharp edge of his shoulder in fascination.
The winter man pulled away and glared at her, then regarded the others. “There is no choice. We cross. Only long enough to escape the spies…”
He gestured skyward, where several other Strigae still circled, another joining them.
Blue Jay watched the sky. “Are you sure that’s wise? All of us in one place, in the mundane world, we’re sure to draw attention. You saw what happened the last time.”
“Perhaps we’ll be lucky,” Frost replied.
The two Mazikeen stared at him, eyes narrowed, pale flesh drawn over the bones of their skulls.
Some scent on the air alarmed Chorti. He ambled over to Cheval and grunted, crouching at her side. The wild man pointed a metal talon to the south, back the way they’d come.
“It’s decided, then,” Cheval said. “We cross. We’ll make our way to the ocean, then come back through the Veil on the bank of the Atlantic River.”
Blue Jay watched the way the kelpy stood, chin lifted regally, as though she led them. He glanced at Frost, but the winter man ignored her, glancing around at the others and then up at the Strigae.
“I wonder where it will bring us, crossing here,” Frost said.
Li and his tiger circled the group. “You do not know?”
Blue Jay considered the question. The entirety of Perinthia had been traversed by the Borderkind, back and forth across the Veil, for centuries. The corresponding locations in the human world were well mapped. But he had never bothered to memorize the parallels. Locations in the world of legend did not correspond with the maps on the other side of the Veil. Geography and distance meant almost nothing. There was some relationship, of course, but nothing quantifiable. Crossing the Veil from Perinthia might bring a Borderkind to Britain or to the Himalayas.
Outside of the city there was a more predictable corollary. But Perinthia was a patchwork of cultures and pieces of ancient, mythical places.
“Somewhere in Italy, I’d presume. Or Greece.”
One of the Mazikeen glanced at the other and nodded. “The Akrai,” it said.
“Yes. The Quarter is all the Akrai,” replied the other.
Chorti dug his metal talons into the street and tore it up, grunting furiously. He took a long look south, then turned to Frost.
“No more talk,” he said, his voice a primal growl. “Go now.”
“We go,” Frost replied.
He waved a hand before him and the air began to shimmer. Blue Jay followed suit and soon all of the Borderkind were doing the same. Grin stood beside Blue Jay, shuffling anxiously. There was fear in his eyes. Li and his tiger were the first to leap through, trailing sparks and drops of liquid fire. The enormous cat bounded through a ripple in the air and passed through the Veil into the world of man.
Blue Jay waited while all of the others went. Frost, then Cheval and Chorti. The two Mazikeen. At last, Blue Jay looked at Grin, who clapped him on the back, a grateful expression upon his hideous features.
“Right, then, mate,” Grin said. “On three, yeah? One, two—”
Blue Jay took his arm and the two of them stepped out of the world. The Veil was parted by the magic of the Borderkind, but still there was just the slightest resistance, like passing through a curtain of silk.
The first thing that came to Grin was the smell of the grass and the flowers around them, the trees and the earth. The sky was pale blue, and on the eastern horizon, the sun was just beginning to rise. The view was breathtaking.