Blade of Secrets (Bladesmith #1)(48)

I hold my breath, waiting to see how bloody it’s about to get, prepared to shut my eyes against it.

One person at the front of the line retreats, apparently deciding we’re not worth it. I pray the others will follow suit.

And then there’s a ripple in the crowd, as though people in the back are pushing toward the front. Kellyn, with his superior vantage and height, swears.

“City guards!” he calls, and turns tail.

Ah, they will have weapons.

He soon surpasses the rest of us with his impressive leg span, and he veers from the road instantly, plunging into the trees. Quick thinking, since we’ve no guarantee of outdistancing trained guards. Our only hope now is to lose them in the forest.

I hear their shouts behind us as leafy branches scratch my cheeks. My boots sink into the wet earth, slowing me down. Secret Eater throws me off-balance, the weight of my secrets pulling me to the left.

We twist and turn, Temra and I hiking up our skirts to prevent them from getting caught. Petrik has the best of it; his blue robes were replaced by fancy dress pants and a frilly shirt for the morning’s service.

Kellyn turns his head over his shoulder regularly to make sure we’re all still behind him, and I look back to see where the city folk are.

Not nearly far enough away.

As Kellyn returns his attention to what’s in front of him and rounds another tree, he windmills his arms, trying to slow his momentum. “Stop!” he shouts, but it’s too late.

A decline lies ahead.

Barely better than a drop, really.

We tip over the edge and slide downward. I lose my feet, going onto my rump as the mud slicks underneath me.

In fact, part of the earth seems to tumble down with us.

Mudslide.

Petrik is falling end over end to my right, and Temra is on her side, her dress coming up to her hips with the slide.

I think I’m screaming. I know Petrik is. I wait for the solid ground that has to follow, surely, and wonder how bad the impact will be.

Instead, everything disappears.

No ground. No mud. No sliding.

I’m falling.

I hear a waterfall churning somewhere nearby, can barely make sense of the noise over all the sensations coursing through me.

And then my knees buckle as my feet crash into the surface and water fills my mouth. At first I can’t tell up from down. Then my body slams into a rock, orienting me and bruising me at the same time.

I manage to get my feet under me and kick up toward the surface.

But Secret Eater will have none of that.

The sword is heavier than ever. Each time I swim a few feet upward, it drags me back down. In a full panic now, I twist my fingers around the knot holding it to my waist, but the leather won’t loosen now that it’s wet.

Something brushes against me in the water, and I shove away, imagining large fish and birds and who knows what else.

Until a hand wraps around my arm and hauls me up. I kick for all I’m worth, and my savior does the same.

When I finally break the surface and take my first drag of blessed air, I think I’ll find Kellyn grasping my arm.

But it’s Temra.

“I’ve got you,” she says. “I’m not letting go.”

We kick to the shore, where I see Kellyn dragging Petrik out of the water. They’re screaming at each other, so at least I know they’re both breathing.

“—grown man doesn’t know how to swim?”

“I was raised in a library! There were no lakes or rivers or damned puddles in the library!”

Once I crawl onto solid ground, I roll onto my back to breathe. Mud and rocks and even small trees still plunge into the lake from where we fell, the slide not done yet.

The guards are blessedly absent, finally, deterred by the dangerous drop.

We made it.

Kellyn urges us up and finds the nearest road leading out of the city. The visible threat may be gone, but it could easily return.

After a few hours, we finally rest. Kellyn clears a path through the trees, and we slump onto the soft mosses on the ground, each of us out of breath, a hundred or so feet from the road.

“Everything’s gone,” I say. “Our spare clothing, all the supplies, the horse.”

“Poor Reya,” Temra says.

“They won’t hurt the horse,” Petrik assures her. “She’ll likely have a very good life on that estate. You needn’t worry.”

“At least we have the weapon. Weapons,” she clarifies to avoid specifying the sword. “And we have money, don’t we?” Temra turns to me. “You always carry a large purse on you. Just in case.”

At that question, I turn my accusatory stare to Kellyn. “No, we don’t have any money. Not anymore.”

“Did it fall in the lake?”

“No,” Petrik supplies. “The mercenary wouldn’t come help us save you unless he was properly compensated. We would have been there sooner if Ziva hadn’t had to convince him to come.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Kellyn says. “That’s not what happened.”

“Really?” I cut in. “What would you say happened?”

“I said taking on the whole town would be stupid. I meant we needed a plan before jumping in!”

Petrik is shaking his head before Kellyn finishes his sentence. “You only came once Ziva handed over everything she had on her. You’re despicable.”