Assassin's Honor (Assassins of Landria Book 1)

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Once again, I’m glad you’re on our side,” Rett said, chuckling. He looked to Ridge. “I say we work the dens and the docks. We’ve still got some informants down there, and it’s been a while since we’ve had a situation take us to the smoking houses, so no one should be expecting us.”

  “I won’t be surprised to find that Destwiler—and anyone who’s taken over for him—was using the opium to pay for the weapons,” Ridge said, swallowing a bite of the cake. “We might pick up the trail on the weapons from a different angle.”

  “Or find out whether the Witch Lord is using the opium for his ‘magic,’” Rett suggested. “I imagine there are others like Fenton who take advantage of this situation to climb the ladder a bit higher, grab more power. But we won’t know until we do some digging.”

  “If you have all you need for the moment, m’lords, I’ll see to the horses, and then be on my way to roust that apothecary,” Henri said.

  Ridge nodded. “We’ll be fine. But—be careful.”

  Henri grinned, and his blue eyes held a mischievous glint. “I’m always careful, m’lords.” Then with the incline of his head, he went out the door, nabbing his jacket from the peg on the wall on his way.

  “I worry about him,” Rett said with a sigh. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

  Ridge snorted. “Henri? He’s got the survival instincts of an alley cat, and he can fight like a wharf cur. Not that anyone would suspect it, to look at him.” He shook his head. “Nobody minds talking to him because he looks so bloody harmless. That’s why he always knows all the street gossip. Everyone talks in front of him because they forget he’s there.”

  “And he enjoys every bleeding minute,” Rett added, grinning. “I think we’ve corrupted him.”

  Ridge’s eyebrows rose. “Mate, I think you’ve got that wrong way around. Or have you forgotten how many horses he’s stolen for us when the need struck? Not like he had to learn how or figure it out—he came with the knowledge when he landed on our doorstep. We’re just lucky trailing after us amuses him, or we’d find our purse strings cut, and the saddles pawned.”

  Rett could hear the fondness that took the edge from Ridge’s joking accusations. Henri’s loyalty had been proven time and again, and in a dangerous business with shifting allegiances, the squire’s courage and wit had saved them often.

  “Docks first, or dens?” Rett asked.

  “Docks,” Ridge replied, polishing off the last of his cake as Rett finished the tea. “I want to know who’s taken over for Destwiler, so we can start figuring out how to put him down, too, when the time is right. It’s like pulling at a knotted ball of yarn. Pick at it long enough, and sooner or later the whole thing falls apart.”

  ###

  The air smelled of flowers, heavy as syrup, sweet and cloying, but the smoke tasted bitter on the back of Ridge’s tongue. He glanced at Rett and saw the other man deep in thought. Ridge suspected Rett remembered the thick perfume of opium from his days on the streets when he told Ridge he would pass the dark, crowded rooms and perhaps be sent with a few coins to bring back food for the men who ran the dens. Those days were decades past, but Ridge was sure the scent made Rett remember the dens, and probably also the cramping hunger and the dull ache of the cold that went with those memories.

  “Hey.” Ridge nudged him with his elbow, intentionally pulling him back to the moment. “You with me?”

  Rett nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. It’s just—”

  “I figured.” Ridge knew his partner well enough that he didn’t need Rett to put everything into words.

  Opium taverns skirted the edge of legality in Landria. Its users were rarely violent if one didn’t count the thievery done to pay for the next desperately needed smoke. So long as bodies didn’t stack up in the streets, the guards ignored them, just as happy to take their bribes in the same potent powder. Since the monks used opium in their religious rituals, tavern owners sketched a few symbols and sigils on their walls and declared their properties to be temples. The tavern owners made a show of offering food and drink to their customers, in addition to cots and pipes. If the most broken men who lingered too often wasted away to nothing because the seductive smoke stole both appetite and energy, no one could fault the providers and their uneaten fare.

  “We’re looking for Canthis,” Ridge said at the door.

  Their clothing suggested enough prosperity that they might be suppliers, and their weapons assured they were no one’s fools. They had already agreed that Ridge would do the talking, while Rett played bodyguard.

  “Maybe he ain’t looking for you,” the doorman replied. Large, bald, and muscled like an ox, the man’s heavy-lidded eyes suggested that sitting in a haze of opium smoke might have dulled his reflexes. But the flash of a blade to stop them from entering put the lie to that assumption.

  “Got a shipment of good bricks,” Ridge replied, referring to the sticky brown paste in the form most convenient for shipping. “Heard Canthis might be buying.”

  “How much?” Ox asked.

  Ridge named a price, lower than what good opium usually sold for, but not so much of a bargain as to be suspicious.

  “I’ll give him the message.”

  Ridge shrugged. “Can’t promise we’ll still have any left, not at that price. He wants some, needs to get it now.”

  Ridge had heard that some of the nobility’s wastrel sons acquired a weakness for opium, but those who found its oblivion sweetest came from the poorest sections of Caralocia. He suspected that the mother Rett didn’t remember had been lost to opium and probably, inevitably, whoring before childbirth finally killed her. Maybe that was why Rett had always instinctively shied away from those dark dens and smoke-wreathed rooms, even in his most desperate days.

  The rich could drown their disappointments in brandy, but the broken men and women at the bottom took refuge where they could find it cheaply. Ridge knew that more than a few of the men who looked like famine victims reclining with their pipes had been soldiers once, and what they had seen and done left them unable to live with their nightmares. Rumor had it that over the years, a Shadow or two had found their way to these smoky lairs as well. Ridge did not doubt that. Without each other to rely on, he and Rett might have felt the same pull, to forget, even for just a little while.

  “I’ll see if he’s interested,” Ox said, with an expression suggesting that moving annoyed him. He looked toward another man farther inside who lingered near the wall, and with a jerk of his head summoned him to take his place at the door. Ox lumbered off, into the smoke-shrouded darkness, and his replacement looked just as dead-eyed and expressionless.

  Ridge stared into the shadowy room. Perhaps the places that catered to those with means might call themselves a parlor, but this sad chamber stank of unwashed bodies and desperation. Rett kept his hand near his weapon. Dens usually hired their own security, thugs to assure that no one would be relieved of their coin before entering, so that the lair’s operator could do that once they took their bunks. Still, Ridge did not trust their safety to anyone, certainly not here.

  Ox returned after a while, with a thin, stoop-shouldered old man. Canthis’s wizened face and bony arms did not fit the outsized reputation for ruthlessness he had among Caralocia’s ruffians. When he raised his head, his sharp blue eyes made it clear that neither age nor his chosen product had dulled his wits.

  “You have an offer for me?” Canthis asked in a voice like the dry hiss of a snake.

  Ridge repeated his terms and brought out a box from beneath his cloak with a small chunk of the dark paste. Canthis touched the tip of his finger to the paste and then to his tongue, silent for a moment as he determined its worth.

  “This is very good,” Canthis said, giving both Ridge and Rett an appraising glance. “How is it you come by such good paste?”

  Ridge’s enigmatic smile let Canthis draw his own conclusions. “Some people left the market. That made room for us.”

  “No one gets shit like this
past Rai Gorat,” Canthis said, skepticism clear in his voice. “Now that Horan Jarvis is dead, the bastards that killed him make sure Gorat controls everything. Everything—except you?”

  That answered one question, Ridge thought. They now knew what became of Destwiler’s supplier. Gorat had taken advantage of Destwiler’s death to move against his broker, consolidating his power. If Gorat made himself the choke point for opium coming into Landria’s biggest harbor, then it stood to reason he had a hand in supplying the Witch Lord’s contraband.

  “We have friends in high places,” Ridge replied with a feral smile. “Gorat’s not going to remain the only player.”

  Canthis snorted. “Many men have been against Gorat. Their blood is in the harbor. Not that a little competition might not make for better prices. But…Gorat won’t go quietly. So I’ll take your offer, and buy your brick. Come back next week, if you’re still alive. I will be surprised to see you, but I will buy if your price is good.” He nodded to Ox, who counted out sufficient coin for the rectangular package wrapped in cloth and twine.

  “I wish you good luck,” Canthis said. “I do not think my wish will come true, but you will need it.”

  Ox moved forward as Canthis vanished back into the haze of smoke. The big man did not need to say anything. He stood blocking the doorway, hands on hips, his face set in a glower that warned them to move along.

  Once they had put several blocks between themselves and the den, Ridge took deep breaths to get the sickeningly sweet smell out of his nose, preferring even the tang of piss and rotting produce to the cloying opium smoke and gave his cloak a flap to air it out. “Well, that went about as well as it could,” he remarked.

  “Didn’t make enough to pay back Henri’s apothecary friend,” Rett replied.

  Ridge made a dismissive gesture. “With how much tincture and laudanum Henri buys to patch us back together, I figure that apothecary has made a fortune.” He turned as if simply making conversation, surreptitiously scanned for anyone following them. Rett did the same, careful not to let his gaze linger or move his head too obviously should they be watched. Neither of them saw anyone tailing them, but Ridge could not shake the feeling that they were being watched.

  “Canthis is a crafty old bastard, isn’t he?” Ridge said. “I wonder what he does with the fortune he makes off those sorry sons of bitches?”

  Ridge knew Rett could hear the edge in his voice and would understand it came from the same fear they both felt, that on another day, with the wrong circumstances, life’s betrayals could break a man until he craved a dreaming death.

  “Don’t imagine he’ll be happy when he finds out this was a one-time deal,” Rett replied.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t set Gorat on us himself,” Ridge answered. “I kind of expect it. Might make this next part simpler if we don’t have to ferret him out.”

  “You really want to go up against Gorat’s ring, just the two of us?”

  Ridge gave him the same cocky, fearless grin that he knew Rett remembered from their more infamous exploits at the orphanage. “That’s what keeps life interesting.”

  “And common sense keeps it long,” Rett said. “We don’t need to see Gorat. A man named Torson is his lieutenant, and he’ll do nicely. By all accounts, he’s more brawn than brains. Gorat’s likely to make trouble.”

  “There’ll be trouble one way or the other,” Ridge replied. “I don’t need a vision to tell me that.”

  ###

  Caralocia’s bustling seaport drove the fortunes of the palace city and the kingdom. Ridge glanced up at King Kristoph’s palace in the distance, high on a hill overlooking the sea. From where he stood on the wharf amidst the bustle of dock workers unloading ships and the jumble of languages from across the sea, the palace seemed impossibly distant. And though Burke summoned Ridge and Rett to the palace regularly, looking up at it from here made that seem like something out of another life.

  Gulls swooped and dove, brazenly attempting to steal food out of the hand of a sailor who had just purchased a meat pie from one of the vendors along the waterfront. The smell of pickled herring, roasted cabbage, spiced meat pasties, and candied nuts warred with the less pleasant odors of the seaweed, bilge water, and dead fish.

  Ridge wondered if he or Rett might have ever been tempted to go to sea, had they not been sent to the army and from there, conscripted to the Shadows. He had no illusions about how hard life was aboard one of the ships, though their own lives were hardly free of danger or likely to be long. Ridge rather fancied dry ground beneath his feet, glad that he had never been faced with the choice between staying in Landria and sailing for distant ports.

  “You think Torson will be here?” Rett asked in a low voice.

  Ridge shrugged. “He’s here most days, from what my informant said. And if the deal is good enough, I imagine he’ll come if he isn’t here already.”

  The warehouse loomed over a stretch of the wharf, its wide doors like an open maw. Men hurried to unload wagons from the ships and load others bound inland. Crates bearing the markings of Landria’s many trading partners were stacked higher than even Ridge’s head. The workers shouted to each other in the common trading language, albeit strongly accented from their port of origin. They cursed in their native tongues, at each other, at the horses, at the wind.

  Ridge sniffed the air as they entered. He caught a hint of coffee from the southern realms, tea from more moderate climates, and the smoky-dark spices of dried meats from the northern lands, but not a hint of opium’s floral scent. Then again, wrapped in enough silk, or perhaps sealed in wax, even such a pungent smell might be covered.

  This time, having sent word ahead that hirelings of Lord Tremont had come to broker a supply for their master, they faced a much warmer reception than at Canthis’s den. Torson and his bodyguard came to meet them with a forced friendliness barely covering their greed.

  Ridge smiled. He had never cared for the highhanded and arrogant Lord Tremont, so the possibility of besmirching his reputation with rumors of a fondness for opium was hardly reason for pause.

  “Good sirs,” Torson said, and both his voice and manner suggested an eagerness to take their supposed lord’s money. “I understand you come to do business for your master.”

  Ridge managed a somber expression, which Rett matched from long experience. “He’s had difficulty sleeping these past few weeks,” Ridge replied as if obtaining more opium than the apothecary would dispense were a matter of life or death.

  “Of course, of course. So many responsibilities. Hardly a surprise it weighs on one’s shoulders,” Torson commiserated. “How can I help?”

  Ridge did the talking while Rett stayed a step back, on guard. Ridge opened his Sight and felt bitter satisfaction to note not just a shadow, but the taint that confirmed Torson had sold himself to serve the Witch Lord. He came back to himself, catching the conversation in the middle.

  “…a dose for an adult or a child?” Torson asked.

  Ridge covered his lapse of attention well. “It’s for the lord,” he replied. “His wife is most concerned about his…condition.”

  “Ah,” Torson said as if a code had been passed. “I see. Does she wish for him to sleep or just drowse?”

  Ridge understood the intent behind the question, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rett flinch. Years of dangerous living meant both Shadows hid their thoughts and emotions well, but Ridge knew his partner’s tells. He felt his own temper flare and tamped it down as he saw the subtle shifts that signaled Rett moving from astonishment to disgust to fury, hidden behind a cold mask.

  “Drowsy, for now,” Ridge replied without pausing. “So much easier that way.”

  “I understand,” Torson said. “I have exactly what you need.” He left his bodyguard and disappeared into the warehouse without inviting them to step inside.

  Ridge felt exposed framed in the warehouse doorway, even with Rett backing him up. He shifted to put his back to the door, but the sense
of danger only grew stronger. Rett rubbed his forehead as if he felt a headache coming on. Ridge’s eyes narrowed as he caught the gesture, asking a silent question in his gaze and getting a shrug in response.

  Rett suddenly moved forward. Ridge stepped toward him, worried but still maintaining their roles. Ridge knew that no matter what Rett’s vision showed, they dared not be suspected of being anything but the messengers of a bothersome lord. Yet in every fiber, he knew they needed to move…now.

  Torson strode toward them, carrying a small package. As he reached the doorway, a shot rang out. Torson’s head exploded. Rett was already in motion, diving to knock Ridge out of the opening and into the shadows. Rett rolled to get out of the marksman’s sights, as the bodyguard cursed and took off running to find the sharpshooter.

  The warehouse workers fled except for Torson’s overseers. “What happened?” The speaker was stout with a thick neck and massive arms. He took in the spatter where the bullet had shattered Torson’s head, and then looked to Ridge and Rett, who had regained their feet.

  “Don’t know,” Ridge replied, his confusion sincere even if the note of panic in his voice was a performance for the benefit of the overseer. “One minute he was walking toward us and then—” He and Rett stepped closer to the body, and Ridge saw the package lying near Torson’s outstretched hand.

  “Gods, I think I’m going to be sick,” Rett groaned, falling to his knees next to the body so that his coat covered the motion as he slipped the package beneath it.

  “Get him out of here,” the overseer growled. “Where’s Torson’s guard?”

  “He went after the shooter,” Ridge replied, pointing in the direction where the bullet most likely came, the rooftop of the building across the street.