The drakken severed the bonds tying her to the bedpost. “Someone sent by your father to get you off this garbage heap.”
“Wait,” Ashe said as she rubbed at her raw wrists. “My father? Emre Benld?”
“Come on.” The drakken dragged Ashe to her feet. “We gotta scurry, before Lu Har’s the wiser.”
“Sonuvabitch!” Ashe screeched as she put weight upon her injured leg.
The drakken’s head cocked as it gazed upon Ashe’s distress. “Can you walk?”
Bugger it, she’d make it work. She wasn’t planning to stick around. She nodded toward the drakken. “Where to?”
“Throw this on.” The lesser order of draconem tossed Ashe a cloak. “That thing stands out like an ogre amongst hobgoblins.”
“Zenith’s cock, I told Ancantha,” she grumbled as she slung the cloak about her shoulders, covering the hideously colored stola that everyone and their brother-friends kept drawling about. “Hey, that was a good analogy, by the way. Where’s my father?”
“What’s an analogy? And I don’t know where he is right now. He was taken by a scourge and held prisoner to be brought before Lu Har. Told me to find you and get you out of here. Been searching for you for nigh on two hours now. Whoever trundled you up here aimed to keep you out of sight. Can’t stop a drakken, though.”
“Care to tell me who you are?”
“Name’s Ruane Tevunsdotyr. My father was your family’s wardkeeper.” Ruane turned away, muttering under her breath, something that sounded like ‘before he was killed.’ “Come, humir, we must go.”
“What’s a wardkeeper?” Ashe asked as she tied off the cloak, pulling the hood up.
“What’s a wardkeeper?” Ruane said with an air of genuine shock. “You don’t know what a wardkeeper is?” Ashe shook her head. “By the Arbiter, you humir are ignorant. Gah. I knew something was fishy about this.” The drakken grumbled some more, maybe let out a drakken curse, then centered herself. “Only the most important mantle bestowed by Justice Himself. The true guardian of a ward. Your late grandparents were my father’s wards, then your father.”
The drakken that had rescued her from Cyan and the other vicars had said something about her being a ward. She’d nearly forgotten all about it. Until now. “Your father, I think I met him.”
Ruane seemed to grow agitated. “He’s dead. Killed by scourges in search of your father.”
“I’m sorry. Seems like my father’s good for that…”
“Your father is a good humir.” Ruane seemed to fight something inside of her. Drakken, unlike everyone else, didn’t generate an aura for her to read. But she knew this young draconem was battling inner daemons. What they were, Ashe had no idea. “Enough soppiness, humir girl, let’s move.”
Stepping over the corpse of Quick Fingers Cyrus, Ashe couldn’t stop herself from hocking a pulmo wad of phlegm and tar upon the wiry rodent and his neatly sliced neck. “Bastard. Fingers weren’t quick enough for that longknife of yours, eh?”
“What?” The horny protrusions about Ruane’s eye sockets bristled in what might be considered confusion.
Ashe pointed at his hand, the one missing the pinky. “His name was Quick Fingers Cyrus. Obviously not quick enough to stop your blade.”
Ruane stared at her. “I don’t get it.”
“It was a joke. You know, Quick Fingers wasn’t quick enough with his fingers?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I thought it was.”
“If you say so,” Ruane said dryly.
“I heard drakken are so literal, they wouldn’t know funny if it slapped them in the face.”
“Of course, Justice sends me to watch over a talkative runt with no sense of humor,” Ruane groaned. “You humir are odd. Let’s go.”
Red Tulio was collapsed near the wall. He bore a slash across his thick orcirish neck, and one upon his upper arm, his shirt bathed in sanguine.
Fitting, she thought, almost like bathing in his own blood this time, but she decided Ruane wouldn’t get that joke either.
“How in the Pit did you find me?” Ashe limped upon her gimpy leg, trying not to put much weight on it as they left the chamber. “And kill both without being seen. That was quick and precise. Wait, do drakken have aetheurgy? I bet it was aetheurgy. What Form do you use?”
“Drakken don’t have aetheurgy, humir,” Ruane grunted. They moved cautiously through the empty villa. Ashe tried to keep up, but her knee was becoming troublesome. “Draconem are borne of aether. Don’t you know anything?”
“I know things,” Ashe replied in self-defense. “Just haven’t much interaction with drakken, that’s all. Actually, the first drakken I ever met was your father.” Ruane pushed through a doorway into another chamber, this one bigger than the first. “Where are we going?”
“There’s an airship waiting.”
“An airship? Up here?” That got her moving again.
The drakken bounded into the maze of mansion halls, Ashe trying to keep pace. Before long, they barreled into the gondola gateways. Both carriages gone. Ruane led her past the empty trough where the gondola would sit and into a small doorway half-hidden by the gear control box that generated the power to the metal carriage.
The drakken went in first, Ashe closing the door behind her. “Uhhh… where are we going?” she asked again.
Ruane grunted while she crawled. “I’ve spent the last quarter turn of the day sneaking about in here. All because Emre Benld asked me to. There’s been so many pissing automatons and humir soldiers, this is the best way for us to reach the airglider.”
Crawling on hands and knees, Ashe could hear the sounds of Gargantua’s engines humming. It was dark in the tunnel, and hot. She was sweating, her breath tight in her chest as her pulmo aimed to fight for dominance of her lungs. Ashe exhaled when Ruane pushed open a small hatch and a rush of cool air filled the space. The drakken dropped into a cavern that was filled with engines and other mechanical devices.
Ruane trotted to a set of stairs and waited. “We’re almost there. Come, Brynn Benld.”
“My name is Ashe,” she said unthinking. “How much further?”
