We walked west through thin woodland, twenty feet out from the massive wall that encircled Nuhav. An owl hooted nearby. Various other animals surrounded us, rustling in the bushes and trees the further in we went.
At a certain point, the wall noticeably dipped because the ground itself lowered into a valley crevice.
Garroway nodded up to the wall, which only stood about fifteen feet high here, rather than thirty. “Can you get up there if I give you a boost?”
I nodded, furrowing my brow. “Why did we avoid the gate?”
“I don’t like the guard on duty,” he answered with a shrug. “Nosy and talks too much.”
I snorted a laugh. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
Garroway’s mouth popped open with faux injury. “Surely you aren’t speaking about any charming, bald bloodthralls you know.”
My smile widened. He matched my grin with a wink and then dashed to the wall.
I hurried over once he kneeled and put his hands out as a stepping stool. When I stepped on and put my body flush against the stone wall, Garroway stood to his full height and showed his supernatural strength. He easily lifted all of my substantialweight with his two hands then pushed me further up over his head without so much as a grunt of exertion.
My fingers grasped for purchase at the lip of the wall. It was still a foot or two away. So Garroway . . . tossed me.
I inhaled sharply, caught the edge with both hands as my body felt weightless for a split second. My feet kicked wildly at the wall as I scrambled, latched on, and hauled myself up and over onto the battlement.
Garroway was beside me before I could even catch my breath and roll from my back onto my hands and knees. He climbed the smooth wall with unnerving speed and skill, putting my skills to shame.
“Sorry,” he said, helping me to my feet. “Thought you might have been better at that after watching you repel from the third-story window at Manor Marquin.”
I dusted myself off, staring down to hide my blush. “You saw that?”
He shot me a crooked smile. “The whole clumsy event.”
“Shit. That’s embarrassing.”
He laughed lightly and tapped me on the shoulder. “No one ever said honey badgers were graceful, lass. Just tenacious.”
His compliment, as backhanded as it was, made me feel a foreign tumbling sensation in my belly. Before I could focus on it, he was already slinking down the other side of the wall into Nuhav, forcing my mind to stuff away the tingling, giddy feeling.
There was no doubting I felt freer with Skartovius, Vallan, and Garroway than I ever had while living in Nuhav. It was odd, since Olhav was the home of our vampire overlords and the cause of so much death, misery, and slavery to my kind.
I hadn’t spent enough time in Olhav to give myself a proper opinion of the place, other than to say the contrast between it and Nuhav was startling.
I was used to fighting and confronting obstacles head-on. I’d been trained for it. But Garroway took a different, subtler approach. He snaked through the streets and alleyways I knew so well, heading ever southward through the grimy, walled city.
The late hour meant few people were up and about roaming the streets. With horror stories of nightcrawling vampires and boogeymen wandering the roads and backalleys prevalent in every tavern and bedroom across Nuhav, people gave themselves a self-imposed curfew.
The only people we saw were the homeless and beggars sitting beside trash-fires and huddling for warmth. We passed dozens on our trek into the southern district.
My sympathy flared at seeing so many destitute souls on the streets like vampires hiding at daybreak. It filled me with anger and sadness, knowing how the bloodsucker Buvers lived in Olhav in their ivory towers and golden manors.
The further south we got, the more I recognized every curving road, broken cobblestone, and dilapidated structure. I decided it was good a time as any to ask my burning question, now that it was fueled by visions of poverty and rage. “What is the cause you three are fighting for, Garroway?”
He paused at the mouth of an alley, head swiveling left and right to scan for danger. We had stayed quiet during our trek through town, and he looked startled to hear my voice as he turned.
There was a sadness there, a hesitance. Wincing, he turned back to the street. “I can’t speak on that, lass. I’m sorry. You’ll have to ask Skartovius.”
Damn. I thought the most talkative of the trio would be the most open to answering.“Fine,” I said, clenching my jaw infrustration. I lowered my voice due to the natural quietness of the area. “Then tell me what we’re doing here. It seems your cause, whatever it is, is two-pronged, if it’s taking place in both Nuhav and Olhav.”
“Astute. You’ll figure it out by deduction soon enough, I reckon.” His fangs shone as he smiled in the darkness. He pointed out into the street and up to the horizon of the northern mountains hidden from view. “Don’t tell my master I told you this, lass, but one cannot survive without the other. The fullbloods may look down on the humans as nothing more than inconvenient bloodsacks, but they know better . . .”
I waited for more, understanding where he was going with this. It was a gloomy subject to be speaking about to a human, and I felt his trailing voice made him realize that.
