Free The Gathering of the Lost by Helen Lowe Page B

been able to find.” Tarathan emerged from the darkness at the end of the hall, wiping the blade of his knife clean as he joined them.
    The Derai’s gaze flicked to the blade, then back to Tarathan’s face. “So they did leave watchers behind. Are you sure you got them all?”
    “Yes. Two assassins.” Tarathan sheathed the knife and asked the question the Derai would expect, although he already knew the answer through the mindlink with Jehane Mor. “What brings you here?”
    “Hunting a Darkswarm minion,” Tirorn replied. “It was working with the assassins who killed your comrades.”
    Tarathan frowned. “Swarm minions in alliance with the School of Assassins. That’s not good.”
    “Must it be the School?” Jehane Mor asked, arguing against her own foreboding. The implications, for Ij and the River, of the School and its Masters overturning centuries of precedent and pursuing unlicensed vendetta against anyone, let alone the Guild, were profoundly disturbing. The alternative, that a sizable part of the School had turned rogue and declared their defection so publicly, was almost as worrying. “ How could this have been building,” she asked silently, “and no one heard anything, no one have known?”
    Tarathan stared down at Naia. “They don’t call it the Secret Isle for no reason.” The edge to his voice could have quarried stone. “What if the School no longer wishes to be one amongst Three, and the followers of Kan have decided to come out of the shadows and rule alone? Who would stand in the way of their ambition?”
    “All those who have held the River lands together since the days of the Cataclysm,” Jehane Mor answered softly, “including the Guild of Heralds. But if this is the work of the School, and not just rebel elements within it, then we dare not go to the Conclave.”
    “No,” said Tarathan. “We must flee Ij. The rest of the River must be warned.”
    “If this strike is not already one of many, up and down its length,” she said, expressing her deepest fear. “What of our people who may still be abroad in the city?” she added silently. “There were no other mindspeakers here, so we cannot warn them that way.”
    “And the empathy bond is only between pairs.” Tarathan’s mindtone was grim. “Warning the Guild is the priority now, but we cannot do that via mindspeech either. The nearest pair with any mindspeaking strength is in Ar, which is too far for even you or I to reach.”
    “We’ll need horses,” Jehane Mor said, as though the silent exchange had not taken place. “But Naia sent ours to the livery stable near the riverport. We’d have to cross half the city to reach them.”
    “They’re too obvious anyway,” said Tarathan. “Who else rides Emerian grays?” His gaze swept the hall and courtyard and his mouth tightened. “But there should be a stableful of mounts here, all of them without riders now.”
    Tirorn shook his head. “I suspect your enemies cleared the stable. They took a string of horses with them when they left.”
    They crossed to the stable anyway, but found it completely empty. “Thorough indeed,” observed Tarathan dryly.
    “You may be less noticeable on foot,” Tirorn said, clearly thinking out loud. “Especially if you change your clothes.”
    “And we have money,” Jehane Mor added. “We can hire horses on the other side of the river.”
    Outside, an owl hooted in alarm and they heard the heavy, startled beat of its wings, crossing the yard. Tarathan jerked his head toward the loft and they fled up the ladder and between the stacked, sweet-smelling bales of hay. Moonlight filtered through a small skylight and there was an opening, partly covered with ivy, that overlooked the yard. It would be used, Jehane Mor knew, for bringing the hay bales in. Tirorn made to pull the ladder up behind them, but Tarathan stopped him. “It’s never pulled up,” he whispered, and the Derai nodded as the owl called again, mournful, from the