Deniably Dead (Arucadi Series Book 4)

by E. Rose Sabin

  Come back here and get a jacket!

  Zauna’s urgent sending stopped Renni, and the clarity and force of the sending brought a big grin to her face. She turned back to the door of their room, where Zauna met her and thrust her heavy jacket into her arms. “You’ll need this if you have to be out all night.”

  With a mental, Thank you, Renni hurried away.

  When she reached the stable, she found three horses occupying the stalls. A spirited solid black stallion caught her eye. He met her gaze, pricked his ears, came forward, and reached out to nose and lip her.

  Would her new-found gift work with a horse? She opened the stall door. Ah, you’re a fine gentleman. Come with me. He regarded her solemnly and walked out into the central aisle. She stroked his neck. Wait here. She went to the tack room and picked a saddle pad that looked fairly clean, found a saddle that looked like it would fit the horse, selected a halter, rope, and bridle. She returned to the horse and set down her finds. The horse stood quietly while she put the halter on him, then put on and adjusted the bridle. She put on the saddle pad and saddle, buckled the girth, and put the reins over his head. Before leaving the tack room she spotted a coil of rope on the shelf and, took it, figuring it might come in handy. In the stable she found and confiscated a feedbag and filled it with oats. She had no way of carrying water for the horse and would have to rely on finding a stream from with he and she could drink.

  Wanting to get under way without further delay, she led the horse out of the barn and mounted him. We’ll be traveling fast, she told the horse. I’m counting on you, my dark star. “There!” she said aloud. “That’s what I’ll name you. Dark Star.” She gathered the reins and nudged him firmly with her lower legs. Let’s go!

  Dark Star broke into a canter. She guided him to the main road leading out of town, determined to be well away from Marquez before her theft was discovered. After about a mile, the road forked. Renni took the left-hand fork leading northwest, choosing her direction based on Zauna’s description of the hills where Lore and Camsen had encountered the thieves. She reasoned that they could not have gone far with the loaded wagon, and the only nearby area that fit Zauna’s description was the gem-mining territory to the northwest.

  She had chosen well in selecting Dark Star. The name suited him perfectly and he responded to it unhesitatingly. Once on the road, she brought him down to a sustainable trot, a pace he could keep up for a considerable time. Renni relaxed. She had always enjoyed riding, and sitting astride Dark Star, letting him have full rein, thrilled her. With the wind rushing past, carrying fleeting scents of desert grasses, horse and cattle dung, cook smoke from an unseen campsite, Renni savored the ride, the action, the adventure.

  A sending from Zauna broke through her reverie. Just as I’d feared, Lore’s horse collapsed from being ridden too hard and too long. I think the horse is dead. Lore was thrown and is hurt. I can’t tell how badly. He’s moving, so he wasn’t killed, but he isn’t getting up. Respond if you receive this sending.

  I hear you. I have a marvelous horse, and I’m making good time, but I don’t know how far I have to go.

  I can’t tell you that, came Zauna’s response. I’ll try to give you directions when you reach the hills. Oh, and here in the inn I keep hearing a man shouting about a stolen horse.

  Worried as she was about Lore and about his now failed pursuit of the man who had taken Kyla, Renni couldn’t help grinning at that last bit of information. Not that she didn’t feel sorry for the rider whose horse she’d stolen, but the innkeeper would have to replace the horse, and she had no sympathy for him, feeling certain he was in league with the thieves.

  §

  With his horse laboring, its sides lathered, Lore was forced to slow his pace. Even so, he found it hard going, following a barely discernible path over and around hills dotted with low shrubs, sprinkled liberally with rocks, and pocked with holes apparently dug in search of gems. He’d driven the horse too hard, too long, feeling he had no choice. And he was gaining on his prey. Blue’s horse had to be as exhausted as his. If he could just keep his going a bit longer, he’d catch up. He had to.

  He leaned forward, urging the horse to pick up just a bit more speed. The exhausted horse went down, sending Lore sailing over its head to land hard on the stony ground. Groaning, he tried to rise, but his head spun, and his energy finally deserted him altogether. He sank back to the ground and unconsciousness claimed him.

  He awoke in the dead of night, trembling from the chill that overtakes the desert when the sun is down. He struggled to his feet. Stars sparkled in the cloudless night sky. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, a nearby mound resolved itself into the body of his fallen horse. Dead, he understood even before placing his hand on the now cold and stiff animal. His pursuit had failed, he’d lost a horse, and now he was stranded in this desolate area with little hope of rescue. Feeling utterly defeated he could only lie down again and hope to sleep despite the cold. If he could rest until morning, his power might return sufficiently to allow him to transfer himself back to the inn, where he would have to confess his failure to Renni and Zauna. He could hear in his mind Renni’s caustic recriminations. And as usual, he’d deserve them.

  He vaguely recalled having heard a voice in his mind, Zauna’s, he thought, warning him to duck when Jeppy had been sneaking up behind him on the edge of the thieves’ camp. He hadn’t known she could mindsend. If she could send and receive, he could contact her, let her know what had happened and where he was.

  Except that he didn’t know where he was, and he wasn’t ready to confess his failure to recover Kyla. No, he’d stay here, try to rest and build up his power, and maybe in the morning he could think more clearly and come up with a plan that would somehow make him appear less of a fool.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THIEVES

  Jac Thornbridge loomed over the cringing innkeeper. “You fool!” he shouted into the man’s face, not a handbreadth from his own. “First, you pass on that stable boy’s wild tales as though he knows what he’s talking about, and then you let my horse, my pride and joy, get stolen. This is the thanks I get for sending you business. Well, Innkeeper Duncan, our business relationship has come to an end, and your life will come to an end if I don’t get my horse back.”

  “B-but I thought,” the innkeeper stammered, “I thought you said no one could ride the horse but you.”

  “I said no one but me was allowed to ride the my horse, and that I doubted anyone else could. Apparently someone managed. And if I find that my horse has been abused or injured, well, I’ll come back and burn this inn to the ground, and you know I don’t make idle threats. Now—what have you done about discovering who stole him?”

  “I-I haven’t—I mean, I didn’t know the horse was gone. I’ve had no chance to hunt for the thief. With the stable boy missing, I—”

  “You’ve done nothing. And don’t blame it on Ril. It’s your responsibility to check on the horses, see that they’re fed and cared for. And that no one has stolen them.” Thornbridge’s voice rose to a shout as he added the last.

  “But that’s the job I pay Ril to do. I supposed he’d done it until I discovered that he was missing. Along with the horse. So he must have stolen your horse. That’s it! The horse knows him. He’d go with Ril.”

  “Too bad to explode your theory, but I know where Ril went, and he did not steal the horse.” Thornbridge straightened and clamped a hand on Duncan’s shoulder. “I’d suggest you check on all your guests and see who’s missing. Because I suspect that someone staying here in the inn is the thief.”

  “I’ll get on it right away,” the innkeeper said. Thornbridge released his shoulder, and Duncan hurried off, calling for his wife and the maid to come out of the kitchen and help him locate all the guests.

  Thornbridge returned to the stable, where his two confederates waited for him. On his instructions, they’d been searching for clues as to who might have taken the horse he called Triumph because of his prowess at w
inning races. “Ched, Bax, you find anything?” he called out, bringing the two men out from separate locations in the stable.

  “I searched the tack room,” one responded. “Triumph’s saddle is missing, along with a saddle blanket and a bridle. Looks like somebody saddled him up and rode him away. Bax went out and asked everybody he saw whether they’d seen anybody riding a big, black horse.”

  Thornbridge turned to Bax. “Did they?”

  Bax nodded vigorously, sending a shock of thick blond hair falling over his eyes. He brushed the hair back with a dirty hand and said, “I had to walk up and down the street, but I found a couple of people who said they’d seen a woman in trousers and a heavy jacket riding a big black horse toward the main road, and they were going fast, like she was in a big hurry.”

  “A woman? Riding Triumph?” Thornbridge scowled. “I can’t believe he’d let a woman ride him. And fast like that? No, it doesn’t make sense.”

  Bax shrugged. “Well, I don’t know, but that’s all I could find out, and two people told me the same thing, and they weren’t together. I talked to one just a few doors down from the inn, and I found the other one a couple of streets away. I just got back from talking to that one when you came in.”

  “So, heading for the main road, you say? How long ago was this?”

  “While the staff was busy serving Second Meal,” Bax said. “I guess that’s why she could get away. Lots o’ folks were indoors eating instead of being out on the street.”

  “It’s not far into the afternoon now. We could probably catch up to her, if we knew what direction she headed off in,” Ched put in.

  “A woman!” Thornbridge scratched his head. “I’m not believing it. Go find some fresh horses. We’re going after her.”

  “Where’re we gonna find more horses?” Bax asked.

  “I don’t care where! Buy, borrow, or steal them, whatever you have to do. Just come back with three horses. Hurry!” With that he turned and strode from the stable, heading back to the inn.

  He found the innkeeper and grabbed him by the collar. “You find out who’s missing?” he demanded.

  “Three of the four people who came in the wagon you st—” Thornbridge’s slap stopped him in mid-word.

  Thornbridge gave him a hard shake. “Which ones?”

  “The two men and the young woman. The old woman’s in her room.”

  “Did you question her? Ask where her companions went?”

  “I asked her, but she wouldn’t say.”

  “Which room?” Thornbridge gave him another shake. “I’ll get answers from her.” He thrust the trembling innkeeper away and turned to the stairs.

  “Room five,” the innkeeper called after him. “Don’t kill her.”

  §

  Zauna could not distinguish the words but she heard a male voice shouting downstairs. And when she did catch one word, she knew what the shouting meant. The word was “horse,” and it meant that someone had discovered his horse’s absence and was expressing his outrage about the theft to the innkeeper. That someone would demand to check with the inn’s guests to learn whether anyone knew or saw anything that would tell him who’d stolen the horse. Zauna could waste no time.

  She rose, took her crystal ball to its box and placed it carefully back into it. She also recovered the book of mage gifts Renni had been reading and returned that to the box, then hid the box in the chifforobe, throwing a dressing gown over it to conceal it further before closing the chifforobe door. Next she went to the dressing table and examined her red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. She rubbed them hard and even poked at them, forcing them to tear up. Then she went to sit on the bed and wait.

  She didn’t have to wait long before a loud knock rattled the room door. “Who is it?” she called in a quavering voice. The knock came again, and then the door burst open. She looked up, her eyes filled with tears.

  A tall, broad-shouldered man entered without asking permission and demanded, “Where is your companion, the young woman who shares this room with you?” The innkeeper hovered behind him, room keys in his hand.

  “Oh, sir, I wish I knew. I trusted her, and the little hussy has taken off with every cent of money I had, and she’s left me alone here with no place to go and no way to pay for the room.” She dissolved into loud sobs that brought the innkeeper to her side, perhaps in sympathy but more likely, she thought, intent on helping to gather information about the missing horse.

  “There now, Mistress Raye. This is Master Thornbridge. It seems your companion has stolen his horse, and you may rest assured that he will do whatever it takes to find the thief and get his horse back, and in the process recover your money as well.”

  She looked up at Thornbridge, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Oh, sir, I do hope you can find her and get back what she’s stolen,” she said, her voice oozing hopefulness and gratitude.

  Thornbridge glared back at her, not sharing the innkeeper’s sympathetic response. “Which way would she have gone? Where were you headed?”

  Zauna thought fast. She couldn’t give him their true destination. “We were going to Harnor,” she said. “But my guess is she’d want to go back to Port-of-Lords, where we came from. She was always complaining that we should never have left there. I got tired of hearing it, but I never suspected she’d take matters into her own hands like this. But after someone stole our wagon with all our supplies and our horses, and the men went to try to find them, leaving us women alone here, she was fit to be tied. She paced and swore, and I should have known then that she’d run out of patience and resolve to take matters into her own hands. But I never, ever thought she’d stoop so low as to rob me. Me, as has been so good to her.” She burst into another round of loud sobbing.

  “So you don’t think she’d continue on to Harnor?” Thornbridge prodded with continued lack of interest in her apparent plight.

  She shook her head. “Port-of-Lord’s closer.”

  “What kind of horsewoman is she? Will she run my horse to death?”

  “That I don’t know. She didn’t have much to do with the horses we had pulling the wagon. She let the men do all the driving and the caring for the animals.” She was taking a risk telling him that, since the innkeeper might recognize it as a falsehood, and the stable boy certainly would. But the stable boy had gone, apparently with the thieves. And the innkeeper hadn’t paid much attention to what his guests did, so far as she had seen.

  The innkeeper patted her shoulder. “Master Thornbridge will find her and bring her back. Don’t worry.”

  “You’d better be telling me the truth,” Thornbridge said. “If I find out this has been all an act, and you’ve fed me lies, you’ll live to regret it—but not for long. Understand?”

  A cold chill ran up Zauna’s spine. But she managed to say, “Oh, sir, I don’t blame you for being so angry, but I’m telling you the truth. I’m an honest woman, sir, and I’ll regret trusting that heartless creature until the day I die.”

  “If you haven’t told me the truth, the day you die will not be far off.” With that, Thornbridge turned and stalked from the room, followed by Innkeeper Duncan, who at least had the courtesy to close the door behind him.

  §

  Renni brought Dark Star to a halt just behind the empty wagon. Zauna had mindsent to tell her how she had misled Dark Star’s enraged owner into looking for her in the wrong direction, but he hadn’t fully believed Zauna’s act and his mistrust might lead him to reverse his course. She wasn’t worried; even taking the wrong road for only a short distance would delay him considerably. And if he discovered Zauna’s deception immediately and went the way Renni had taken, he couldn’t catch up with her before nightfall.

  “Camsen,” she called softly, certain that the former priest was nearby. “Camsen, where are you?”

  Camsen came around the front of the wagon. “The leader of the gang of thieves, fellow named Thornbridge according to Ril, is due back with two of his men. When I heard the horse, I figured that’s who was com
ing.”

  “Thornbridge, eh?” A wide grin split Renni’s face. “That’s whose horse I stole. Poetic justice, wouldn’t you say?”

  Ril peered out from behind Camsen. “Why—why that’s Triumph, his prize race horse!” he said, his voice filled with awe. “He always says no one but him can ride him.”

  “Well, guess I’ve proved him wrong,” Renni said, dismounting and patting the horse’s neck. “I’ve named him Dark Star. He’s mine now.”

  “I have a stolen horse too,” Camsen said. “It was the only one left. They had three—our two and one other. A guy called Blue took off on one with Kyla. And Lore got on another and took off after him.”

  “Yes, I know, and he’s ridden the poor animal to death, or he will, the idiot!” Renni said. “In her crystal ball Zauna saw the horse go down and Lore sail over its head and onto the ground. He may be badly injured, but we can’t possibly go looking for him with night so near. He’s way off in the hills somewhere.”

  “So he didn’t catch up to the man who took Kyla?” When Renni shook her head, Camsen, his shoulders sagging, said, “Then we have little hope of getting her back.”

  “Maybe not, but I won’t give up so soon,” Renni said.

  “You talkin’ about the dead lady?” Ril piped up.

  “What’s that little bastard doing here?” Renni demanded.

  “We saved his miserable little life,” Camsen told her, taking a firm hold on Ril’s shoulder. “He’d told his thieving friends that the coffin was full of gems. They got it open and found nothing in it but a corpse, and they were ready to kill him, but he took off running and ran right into Lore and me. When they saw us, I was forced to kill two of his pursuers to keep them from killing us.”