The Webbing Blade

TAKING REFUGE

LOU SAT UP in his bed, feeling the silk sheets drawn right up to his chin. The sun shone in through the windows warming him there. He could smell the sweet scent of freshly baked bread coming from downstairs, the slight clank of pots and pans. He envisioned the old man down there, busy in his kitchen, getting breakfast ready. He was getting breakfast ready for Lou, he knew that. But why? What had happened? How had he woken up here in this bedroom?

He stared about the bedroom. Bookshelves lined every wall, stretched right up to the plaster ceiling. The books were all battered, leather-covered hardbacks. The types that his ma had kept in the hall, the ones she’d used for reference whenever she had an especially difficult case, someone who’d come down with a fever, or cut their foot on a scythe, and it’d started to go black. And, Lou thought to himself, just like that book which Syre kept with her.

The one called A Practical Understanding of Dark Magic.

His skin prickled into goose bumps just thinking about that book, and the ones that surrounded him now. He couldn’t make out the spines of them, the golden lettering was so faded and his vision was still a little blurry from sleep.

He thought back to his final memory. Lying on the floor, in the front hall of the house . . . this house, the one that he was sitting in right now. And he thought about the guard, how the guard had stumbled about looking for him, and how he couldn’t find him. Then the old man turning on him, muttering something or other. Then he’d woken up.

Here.

He glanced over to the chair beside him, and saw his skuller’s uniform draped over it, the boots standing underneath it. The old man had undressed him and put him to bed. That seemed quite a great deal for a frail-looking old man to do.

He tossed off the sheet and headed over to the chair. He examined his uniform, held it in his hands and looked over it. It smelled freshly washed. There was no hint of the sweat and dust that should’ve clung to it.

But, Lou noted, it was also bone-dry.

Downstairs, a pan clanked.

A shiver ran up Lou’s spine, and he spun to look to the closed bedroom door. His mind whirled back to his friends, to Sully and Rut. He had to find out just where they’d been taken. He couldn’t afford to waste too much time. And the others too.

Syre.

But if he left now what chance would he have? He had no weapons, and little training. He was barely worth being called a skuller. In fact, he was only known as a rookie. He wouldn’t hold up to the grand might of the Royal Guards.

No, it was better that he took his time, that he worked out just what was going on, why the Royal Guards had imprisoned all of them. Then he could think about how he might move forwards. How he might manage to free them. How he might manage to free Syre.

He tugged on his skuller’s tunic, and prodded his legs through the pair of trousers. He felt better in those clean clothes, in those skuller’s clothes. It was like he had some sense of identity even here in this unfamiliar city.

The Crystal City.

He stuck his feet into his boots, noticing that they were both polished up bright and shiny. When he gave them a sniff, he again came away with none of that sweaty stench that had seemed to follow them all around, as they’d wandered about the plains looking for somewhere safe for them to go.

He made for the door, waited there a couple of seconds, still listening to the kitchen sounds down below, then he turned the handle and shuffled down the stairs, keeping to the rug down the middle to keep his footsteps silent.