Tax or not, the people around them seemed eager to attend. They were all dressed in their finest fur-lined cloaks and heavy trousers. Though in some cases they weren’t especially fine. People from all walks of life attended the games, from the wealthy merchants to the poorest day laborers. There were probably some visitors as well, but Yaz couldn’t tell locals from out-of-towners.
Shuffling along five feet at a time, it took nearly forty-five minutes for them to reach the gates of the arena. When they arrived, there was a detailed painting of two dog sleds racing around an oval while the men riding them fought with spears. It was an interesting concept and would no doubt serve as the main event for the day. Unless the dragonriders were also going to be riding dog sleds, Yaz didn’t particularly care about that match.
When their turn came, the man on duty at the arena entrance, a portly fellow in a green uniform, asked, “What seats would you like?”
“Which are the cheapest?” Yaz asked.
“That would be the silver bleachers,” the man said. “One scale apiece.”
Yaz dropped three silver scales into his hand and received three tickets marked with an S in exchange.
“Go inside and keep right until you reach the staircase. When you reach the section marked with a large S, you can take any seat you want that’s available. Enjoy the show.”
Yaz gave Brigid and Silas their tickets and the three of them went inside. The bulk of the crowd appeared to be heading for the cheap seats as well. There was a bit of shoving as some eager people tried to force their way to the front in hopes of getting a better spot. Yaz was content to let them. As long as he could see the arena floor, he’d be able to tell whether the dragonriders were there or not.
It took another twenty minutes for them to find seats so high up they were practically outside the arena. They brushed the snow off the hard, wooden bench and settled in. The first match began only moments later, a beast brawl between a wolf and a mountain lion. There was a lot of growling and snarling but in the end the mountain lion proved victorious.
The next two bouts were men versus beasts with the men going one by one. Whoever drew the sabercat must’ve been truly unlucky. He hadn’t lasted ten seconds.
“This is horrific,” Brigid said. “Are all the gladiators slaves or do some of them choose to do this?”
Yaz had no idea. He wanted to see the riders before he got sick to his stomach. Maybe someone could tell him when they were supposed to fight.
He leaned forward and tapped the man in front of him on the shoulder. “We were hoping to see the dragonriders. Do you know when they’re coming out?”
The man barked a laugh and looked back at Yaz. “You’re out of luck, friend. Those giants fought three matches in the arena. After that they proved so popular that their owner began renting them out for private matches. We haven’t seen them since.”
“Private matches, you mean there are other arenas?”
“Not real arenas. Some of the rich and powerful pay the lords for permission to hold private fights. Most of them have some sort of small ring or pit in their homes. At least that’s what I’ve heard. The gods know I’ve never been invited to such a thing. Anyway, if you want to see the dragonriders you’re going to have to get an invitation to a private match.”
Yaz nodded his thanks and leaned back. This could either be a good thing or bad thing, he hadn’t yet decided. Whichever it ended up being, there was little point in remaining behind to watch the pointless battles. The information he just received was well worth the three silver scales.
“Unless you guys want to watch dogsled battles, I say we get out of here,” Yaz said.
Silas and Brigid seemed as eager to leave the vile spectacle behind as he was, so they got up and made their way down the empty stone steps and out onto the street.
“So what now?” Brigid asked.
“Now we take a stroll around the nice part of town and see what we can see. Maybe we get lucky, seems like we are due.”
Like wealthy districts the world over, this one was not difficult to find. All you had to do was watch the houses get bigger and fancier until they were completely beyond something you could even dream about affording. The number of truly rich in this city seemed to be a bit smaller than most they’d visited. The wealthy district consisted of fifteen houses clustered in their own neighborhood. They were all two stories tall and sprawled over several acres of snow-covered grounds.
It was good that it was a relatively small number of places to check, but fifteen houses were still a lot to break into. Most of them were surrounded by iron fences and he saw more than one guard patrolling through the snow.
“Where do you want to start?” Silas asked.
“Nowhere, for now. Any exploring will be best done after the sun sets. Against that snowy background we would stand out too much. Let’s head back to the inn and wait for dusk then we can take another look around.”
They had barely left the wealthy neighborhood behind when Yaz spotted a particularly tall man walking away from them. Something about the way he moved triggered a memory and, as they had nothing better to do, he shifted his path to intercept the stranger.
They caught up just in time to watch the giant duck his head under a low door and into a stone building. Through the open door he caught a glimpse of chains around the man’s ankles. Just before the door closed the giant looked back at him. It was Calvin, his father’s second-in-command.
The door slammed shut, but Yaz couldn’t stop staring at it.
“What is it?” Brigid asked.
“That was one of the dragonriders,” Yaz said. “Whoever bought them must be keeping them in that building. Talk about a lucky break. As soon as it gets dark, we’ll come back and bust them out.”
Yaz just hoped someone knew where his father was.
An hour after midnight, Yaz and his companions were crouched across the street from the stone building where the dragonriders were being held. They’d been forced to deviate a couple of times on the trip back to avoid city patrols. The area must’ve been pretty peaceful because the two men they snuck around were chatting about their wives and not paying the least attention to what was going on around them. Had Yaz wished them ill, he could have killed them both before they even realized he was there.
He grimaced at the stray thought. When had he begun to consider how or if he could kill everyone he met? He never used to think about that sort of thing at home. Something in him had been bent if not broken by all the blood he’d been forced to shed over the past months. Maybe once he found his parents, he could get back to being who he really was. Assuming this wasn’t who he really was.
Brigid touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Yaz shook off his dark mood and nodded. He glanced at Silas. “Are we in the clear?”
The wizard closed his eyes a moment. “No guards in either direction as far as Wicked can see.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” Yaz drew his dagger and checked the edge. How long had it been since he used a staff? He blew out a sigh and jammed that thought away with all the other useless ideas that had been rattling around his head. He could muse all he wanted once they were safe and out of the city.
He ran across the street with Brigid and Silas on his heels. The stone building was relatively small but had thick walls and a heavy, iron-banded oak door. Getting in was going to be the tricky part. Hopefully, the people on duty were as lax as the city guards. They all got down out of sight and Yaz rapped on the door with the hilt of his dagger.
A few seconds passed with no response. He rapped again, harder. This time a glow appeared in the windows. Looked like he’d finally gotten someone’s attention. He glanced first at Brigid then Silas. They both nodded and dark magic began to gather around Silas’s hand.
The lock rattled and the door opened six inches. A man in his midforties with a drooping mustache and wearing only his sleeping gown poked his head out and looked left and right.
He never loo
ked down. If he had, he might’ve seen Silas coming. As it was, the wizard grabbed him by the face and sent a spell into his brain. The man fell over backwards and didn’t move.
Brigid and Yaz pushed the door open, darted in, and pulled the unconscious man out of the way. Silas joined them, closing the door behind him.
They didn’t even have time to look around before a voice from deeper in the building asked, “What was it?”
They remained silent. Yaz drifted over beside the doorway that led into the building’s interior. Footsteps approached along with a light.
Yaz tensed, ready to strike the moment the first man’s partner appeared. He didn’t have long to wait. A hand holding a candle emerged first followed by the rest of a younger man in stockings and nightshirt.
Yaz grabbed him, slammed him against the wall, and put the tip of his dagger to his throat. “I have questions. Answer them quickly and honestly and you may live through this.”
“Anything you want, please, just ask,” the trembling man said.
“Where’s the key to the dragonriders’ cells?”
He pointed at the desk in the corner of the front room. “The top drawer. But you’re too late, they’ve already gone.”
Yaz glanced at Brigid and nodded towards the doorway. She hurried out of sight and returned a moment later.
“He’s telling the truth. All the cells are empty.”
Yaz pressed harder, causing a trickle of blood to run down the terrified man’s neck. “Where are they?”
“The Doormans’. They’re having a party tomorrow night and wanted the dragonriders for entertainment.”
“Where do the Doormans live?” Yaz asked.
“In the biggest mansion in Gold Alley of course. They’re the richest family in the city.”
Yaz pulled his dagger away from the man’s neck, drew back, and slammed him in the temple with the pommel. He fell like a ton of bricks.
“What now?” Brigid asked.
Yaz sheathed his dagger. “Now we have to figure out how to get invited to a party.”
“What about these two?” Silas asked. “When they wake up, they’ll spread our description and what we’re after all over the city in an hour.”
“Oh, hell.” Yaz scrubbed his hand across his face. “We’ll have to torch it.”
“With them inside?” Brigid asked.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t look her in the eye. “It’ll look like a lantern fell over. Just bad luck.”
As if they ever had any other kind.
Callie sat nursing a mug of wine in the second-story bar at the Stone Garden Inn. After their meeting, King Rend had made it clear they were not to cross into Carttoom under any circumstances. She’d expected the order of course. He was as angry about the attacks as she was, but he couldn’t very well start a war based on the actions of a third party. He had promised to send a letter to King Carttoom to let him know about the Dark Sages and the fact that they were operating out of his territory. She had also provided a detailed location of their headquarters based on Moz’s report which the king agreed to pass along.
At least he’d seemed pleased to talk with Durnik and the other sages. The king wasn’t an intellectual himself by any means, but he enjoyed surrounding himself with people that were. That fact should serve Durnik and his companions well. It probably wasn’t good that she was wishing them luck with manipulating the king, but the sages deserved a break after all the difficulties they’d endured.
She took another sip of wine and winced. It was her favorite vintage but still tasted bitter. That was no doubt more due to her mood than the quality of the wine. In the room behind her, the other bards were chatting amongst themselves in low voices. She didn’t even try to listen in. They had to be as upset as she was.
A gentle hand landed on her shoulder and Thomas perched himself on the stool to her right while Lucy sat on the one to her left.
“So what are we going to do?” Thomas asked.
“What can we do?” Callie countered. “The king was extremely specific and firm about his orders. Under no circumstances are we to go to Carttoom to get revenge or try to rescue Ariel. I don’t see any wiggle room, do you?”
“Maybe. Just because we can’t go to Carttoom,” Lucy said, “doesn’t mean we can’t still go after them. You know they have to have people in Rend as well. I say we hunt the bastards in our own backyard and make them pay. It won’t get Ariel back, but at least we can hurt them a little.”
Callie thought over Lucy’s suggestion. It didn’t break the king’s command. In fact, he’d probably be pleased to have the snakes rooted out of his city. She doubted it would accomplish much but hunting down the local Dark Sage agents would give her people purpose and the feeling that they were making a difference. Certainly, it would be better than having them sitting around the inn all day with nothing to do but think about all the things that had gone wrong and get drunk.
“You have a suggestion for how we might get started?” Callie asked.
“It just so happens,” Thomas said, “that one of my spiritmasters, his name is Erickson, is from Rend City. And in his youth he didn’t always follow the exact letter of the law. Suffice it to say he knows the back alleys and who we might talk to about locating these agents. Believe it or not, even thieves don’t like foreigners poking their noses into the kingdom’s business.”
Callie didn’t doubt for a moment that the thieves didn’t like foreigners around, though she figured it was more the competition they disliked than because of any sense of national loyalty. Either way, if they were willing to help the bards locate Dark Sage agents, she wasn’t about to complain about their motives.
“Erickson and I will go have a look around tonight and see what might be learned. If we come up with anything valuable, we’ll make plans to move on it.”
“It shouldn’t just be the two of you,” Lucy said. “You’ll be heading into some of the roughest parts of the city. If something goes wrong, you’ll need backup.”
“I was planning on having some of you follow along a block or two behind. But a gang of outlaws isn’t going to want to meet with half a dozen bards. We are too well known as government servants. If we all show up at once, it’s liable to spook them.”
“If Tonia followed you from above,” Thomas said. “She could signal us if things went wrong as well as help you escape.”
Callie nodded. It was a good plan. She took another sip of her wine and found it sweeter than it had been a moment before. This would be a good thing, she felt certain of it.
Moz lay awake in his bed as the first rays of the sun poked through his window. He’d been lying there thinking for the past several hours, hours he should have spent sleeping. He’d pay for that lack of sleep later, but for now his racing mind insisted on having its way.
When he finally stopped thinking about the tower, his thoughts drifted to Ariel. He hadn’t done much good for her back at the border and now he didn’t know where to find her. Some protector he turned out to be. All he could do was sit on his hands and wait for her kidnappers to bring her here, assuming they ever showed up.
He couldn’t think that way! One way or another he would find her and set her free. It was a question of when not if. Or so he had to believe. At least the Dark Sages didn’t appear to want to hurt her. That was the one fact that let him sleep at all.
“Gods damn it.” He tossed the covers off and sat up. If he wasn’t going to sleep, he might as well get breakfast. Maybe he’d take another trip out to the swamp island. See what kind of trouble he could get into out there.
As he was buckling the last piece of his armor into place, something flashed in front of the window, casting a long shadow quickly across his bed. Faint footsteps confirmed that he had company. It would be rude to keep them waiting.
He buckled on his swords and marched to the front door. Sure enough he found half a dozen men waiting. Judging from their armor and weapons, they were a higher-caliber soldier than the ones he dealt with
yesterday.
Moz pushed through the door and stepped onto the porch. That was when he saw the extra ten crossbowmen ringing his house with loaded weapons pointed at him. His armor was good, the best there was in fact, but ten crossbows were bound to find a gap.
Still, no reason to let his nerves show. “Morning. Can I help you?”
“Our master doesn’t appreciate people interfering in his business,” said the largest of the mercenaries, a near-seven-foot-tall brute with a double-bitted axe on his shoulder. “He wants to talk to you.”
Moz shrugged. He didn’t exactly have a lot of choices at the moment. Hopefully his little guest would be okay until he could return. “Fine, I have some questions of my own.”
“You’re in no position to ask questions,” the giant said. “Unbuckle that sword belt nice and easy. The master wants to talk to you, but I doubt he’d be too upset if I just brought your body.”
“I’d be upset.” Moz held out his sword belt.
“Toss it back inside, along with any other weapons hidden on you. If I search you and find so much as an eating knife, I’ll break both your legs.”
Yup, this guy was way more competent than the ones they left on watch. Moz would have to bide his time and wait for the exact right moment to act. He doubted he’d get a second chance.
When he tossed the garrote back into his house Moz said, “That’s it.”
The mercenary spun Moz around and did a thorough search. “Smart. Looks like you can follow directions after all. You might just get to meet the master standing up. Come on.”
They led him around to where a handful of jon boats waited. Moz sat in the center boat beside the giant while two others took up paddles. Back in town, Moz spotted Cork watching him get paddled away.
He didn’t dare make a move, but silently willed the kid not to try anything stupid. If he was going to have any hope of escape, he couldn’t be worrying about Cork at the same time.
The Sunken Tower: The Dragonspire Chronicles Book 5 Page 7
