The first attacker came at her wielding a long metallic weapon—not a blade, but something heavy, dull, a bar of some sort. Before he even had a chance to use it, an easy jab with the point of the bonewood to his gut made him double over. His weapon fell to the flagstone floor with a resounding clamor that battered the ears. It cloaked the sounds of her other adversary as he advanced on her, but she was ready for him nevertheless. She whirled, and as the staff cracked into his ribs, he cried out. Then he dropped a jagged piece of glass and fell to his knees hugging himself.
The first attacker barreled toward her. She leaped out of the way, and as he passed her, she whacked the back of his head with the silver handle of the bonewood. He thudded to the floor and did not move.
“Yield!” someone shouted.
Cade’s fight appeared to have paused. “Jax, is that you?”
“Cade? Get off me!”
“Hold on.”
So, Cade knew these men?
Karigan detected him rising and shuffling over to his mule. He groped through his saddlebag and in a moment he had the phosphorene lantern alight at low glow. When her eyes adjusted, she saw that the one man who had attacked her lay unconscious on the floor. The other remained on his knees, groaning. Cade’s opponent rose unsteadily to his feet, blood running from his nose.
All three men wore the work clothes of laborers—formless, dull, and patched, and in deep contrast to the fine wardrobe in which Professor Josston attired himself. It was even worse than Cade’s own garb, which had already seen a fight with the Weapons at the Heroes Portal.
The one called Jax wiped at the blood beneath his nose and steadied himself by placing a hand on the mule’s haunches. “What in the name of all mercy are you doing here tonight?” he demanded of Cade.
“Hiding from Inspectors.”
“And you brought . . . you brought a stranger?” Jax’s gaze bore into Karigan. She held her offensive position with the staff and would not hesitate to lash out if given cause, whether Cade knew these men or not.
“A trusted person,” Cade responded.
“A girl,” Jax said with distaste and pointed at her. “That’s right, I heard your voice. You are no lad.”
“A girl who easily took out your boys,” Cade said. “Why don’t we go down below and discuss this?”
“Aye, safer. Give me a hand with Thadd and Jonny.”
Cade hoisted the unconscious Jonny over his shoulder.
“Stop whining,” Jax told Thadd, helping the man to his feet.
“I think my ribs are broke.”
“So what if they are? Whining’s not gonna help.”
Karigan followed behind as they made their way past the stage, and then behind it. In the light of Cade’s lantern, she glimpsed a yellowed poster tacked to the wall: Auction! Adults and Youths fit for all needs and types of labor. Healthy breeding stock . . .
The place was an auction house, an auction house for slaves.
A door creaked open ahead, and Cade led them down a set of sagging, wooden steps. The scent of dank earth and rot flowed up and out, and something else that was less a scent than a psychic infusion of fear, agony, torment.
Karigan halted on the last step, wanting to turn back, to ride Raven away regardless of how many Inspectors patrolled the streets. Could the others not feel it? The oppression, ghost voices screaming and moaning, children crying . . .
Cade set Jonny down on the earthen floor, having to move in a stooped position because of the low ceiling. His light glanced off metal chains dangling from the support beams. Rusty and strung with cobwebs, the chains ended in manacles. A couple hundred pairs must hang there. The gorge rose in Karigan’s throat.
After Jax settled Thadd onto the floor, he brushed past Karigan to shut the door at the top of the stairs. She closed her eyes as the souls of the tortured wailed at being trapped, confined, enslaved, with no way out.
“Your girl got a problem?” Jax demanded of Cade as he trotted back down the stairs, bumping her out of the way.
“Mind your respect,” Cade replied.
“Mind whose respect? You came here unannounced.”
“It was not planned, and I’d no choice.”
“There are always choices.”
“I do not consider being arrested by Inspectors a choice.”
Jax sat down beside Thadd. Cade sat opposite him on the dirt floor. Karigan did not know how they could stand it, touching that earth, being down here. She could almost see the captives crowded together out of the light, out of the fresh air, stripped naked and their bodies pressed together, wrists shackled over their heads. She did not sit, she did not leave the wooden step.
“And what brought you out after curfew, eh?” Jax asked.
“My reasons are my own.”
Jax snorted and glanced at Karigan. “I’m sure they are.”
“I would ask what you are doing here,” Cade said. Karigan heard the edge of anger in his voice. “It is not a meeting night.”
“No, no it isn’t, but Thadd, Jonny, and I, we wanted to talk over some business before the next meeting, what with Silk and his machine in the Old City. Went house to house, his Inspectors did, hauling out blastmen for questioning after your professor tried to delay the drilling. Those men that were taken away, well, they haven’t been seen again. Their families are wondering when their husbands, poppas, and brothers will be coming home. I don’t think they will be. Ever.”
“I know,” Cade said.