Men fell over her, wrestling to hold her arms even as a strange lethargy came over her. Focusing her will she burned two of them, but a second blow to her face ruined her concentration. A wrenching pain shot through her shoulder as her arms were pulled together behind her, and a second click sounded as the manacles were locked around her other wrist.
She shrieked with fury, but her aythar hardly responded to her will now. It was fading fast, draining into the strange shackles that bound her. “Get off me!” Moira kicked and twisted, but she couldn’t escape the hands of her captors.
An unseen blow sent the air exploding out of her lungs, and her resistance evaporated. Choking and gasping, she collapsed and in the relative silence she heard King Darogen’s chilling voice, “Kill her.”
“Go Pippin,” she gasped in little more than a whisper. “Find Gram, find Cassandra—tell them.” A makeshift club struck her then, and darkness found her.
Chapter 7
“I don’t like it,” Gram muttered, watching the carriage carrying Moira rumble away.
“Quit yer bitchin’,” responded Chad. “Today might actually be a good day.”
“How do you figure that?”
“With our little princess gone, we can do whatever we like.” The ranger gave him a rare smile. “Why don’t we take a stroll about town?”
Gram frowned. He could sense an undercurrent of extra meaning behind the older man’s words, but he wasn’t sure where he was leading. “Aren’t you worried about her?”
“Nah,” said the hunter. “Despite what you think, that fellow she left with seemed pretty decent. Besides, she’s probably safer with the King than anywhere else in this benighted city. This is a perfect opportunity fer us.”
“Opportunity?”
“To see what we can find out about the Earl Berlagen.”
Gram crossed his arms and waited, his posture indicating that he was anticipating a complete explanation.
“While you were wastin’ yer youth an’ not takin’ a roll with our most attractive hostess, I was takin’ care of business.”
“’Wasting my youth?’ I was sleeping, which is what you should have been doing, instead of spending all evening drinking,” argued the young knight. What he couldn’t say, what was too difficult, was that his heart was still broken. There was no way he could even consider lying with another woman after losing Alyssa. Gram wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to think of another woman that way, although he could perfectly understand why the hunter thought the proprietress was so attractive.
“Hah!” exclaimed Chad. “If I had a woman like that after me, I’d probably still be recoverin’ this mornin’. I could get over a hangover quicker’n that woman! What you ain’t realized yet, is that Chad here was workin’ hard last night, an’ while you were restin’ that big wooden knob you call a skull—I was gatherin’ valuable information.”
Gram looked at the woodsman skeptically, “You don’t say?”
“I do say, an’ you, me boy, would be wise to listen,” said Chad, giving him a conspiratorial wink. “Our dear Earl is in town, visitin’ the King. He arrived yesterday, an’ he’s stayin’ at the palace. All of his people are at his house here in the city. We could take a walk over that way an’ see what we can discover while their lord an’ master is out an’ away.”
The young knight stared at the hunter, thinking carefully. After a moment he said, “Moira won’t be back until this evening anyway…”
Chad gave him a wicked grin.
“But what if she needs us before then?”
“Do ye really think that? That girl’s more dangerous than both you an me put together, an’ she’s got magic too!” Chad laughed a bit at his own joke.
Gram made up his mind, “Alright, let’s do it.” He made a point of not laughing.
***
“Why am I carrying this again?” asked Gram. He shifted his hand to indicate the bow stave it held. “This doesn’t exactly make us inconspicuous. Normal people don’t walk around town with such weapons.”
“Speak fer yerself,” snapped Chad. “Our story is that we’re bowmen, lookin’ for employment. If ya don’t have a bow, that’ll spoil the tale.”
Gram sighed, but didn’t argue further.
“See, that fellow has a crossbow,” said Chad, nodding his head toward a man on the other side of the street.
“He’s a town guard,” answered Gram dryly.
Chad shoved him slightly, “Don’t stop an’ stare, he’s already lookin’ at us.”
Gram growled, “Then you shouldn’t have pointed him out!”
They kept walking. They were on the west side of the city now, and while they hadn’t yet reached the more affluent section where the Earl of Berlagen kept his city home, something felt distinctly out of place. Gram couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but it made him itch between his shoulder blades.
“Cut to the left there,” said Chad quietly as they were about to pass the corner of one building.
Gram did, but his eyes looked a question at the other man. They were now in a narrow alley between two shops.
“We got a stalker,” Chad informed him quietly. “If he turns the corner, be ready. If he keeps walkin’, just stay silent.”
Gram waited, letting his mind go still in the particular way that Cyhan had taught him. It was second nature to him now. Seconds crawled by until a man passed the entry to their alley. The stranger stopped, looking ahead and then turning into the darkened passage. The man’s eyes widened in surprise as he spotted the two men he had been following crouching on either side of the alley.
Time froze as Gram flowed forward, his speed seeming almost secondary to the perfect grace of his movements. His right hand stretched out, and his palm caught the newcomer under the chin, slamming his head back with such force that the man fell senseless to the ground. His skull echoed loudly as it struck the cobblestones; he had been completely unconscious before he hit the ground.
“Damnitt,” swore Chad. “How’m I ‘sposed to question him now?!”
The young knight grimaced, “Oh…”
The hunter was already kneeling over their would-be follower. “Shit, I think ye killed him.”
“What?!”
“No, wait—he’s still got a pulse, but his eyes are all out o’ kilter. How hard did you hit him?”
“Hard enough…,” said Gram somewhat sheepishly. Cyhan had once had him train with regular soldiers to teach him to moderate his blows, but since he had received the dragon-bond he still hadn’t quite adjusted to his strength.
“Anomaly detected,” said the stranger quite audibly. Opening his eyes, the man began to sit up.
Gram hit him again.
“Gods-be-damned! What were we just talkin’ about? Why’d ya hit him again?” cursed Chad.
“He startled me.”
The stranger began to twitch and spasm as he lay between them.
Chad gave the younger man a hard stare of disapproval.
“It was an accident,” said Gram, but he felt terrible already.
“There’s somethin’ not right about this fellow,” observed Chad. “He was actin’ odd, and talkin’ odd besides. Do you know what an ‘anonomy’ is?”
“I think he said anomaly,” replied Gram. “It means something strange or unusual.”
“I know what it means,” growled the hunter. “I just misheard him.”
Gram wrinkled his nose, “He smells terrible. Why is a tanner following us?” He held up one of the stranger’s brown stained hands to highlight his observation. That combined with the strong odor of urine was all the proof of the man’s profession anyone would need.
“Good point,” agreed Chad. “He’s a weird choice for a spy.” The ranger glanced down the alley and then back toward the street. “Let’s go. We’ll draw more suspicion if we’re seen hoverin’ over an injured body.
Gram didn’t like leaving the man there, but he couldn’t argue with the hunter’s logic. The two of them
made their way out of the alley and back down the street, doing their best to walk normally. There were a few people along the road, and each of them seemed to take far too long staring at them as they passed, heightening Gram’s paranoia.
Their road intersected two others a hundred yards farther on, and the crowd grew dense. The open space there became a makeshift market, filled with people selling a variety of vegetables and other foods. It seemed ordinary enough, but Gram noticed several people openly watching them.
You’re letting your imagination get the better of you, Gram told himself. This is just a regular market. Nobody has any reason to suspect us of anything. Chad’s hand on his arm drew his attention.
Twenty feet away a fish seller stared at them from his stall. After a moment, the man’s face changed, going strangely slack as he stood and began to walk in their direction. Most of the people in the crowd ignored the man, but a few others stopped and began doing likewise.
At least eight or nine different people were approaching them from different directions within the crowd. It might have seemed less unusual if they had all had something in common, like being guardsmen, but these townsfolk were seemingly unrelated. Two were women, still carrying their purchases, while another was a dried fruit merchant.
“This way,” urged Chad, heading to their left. It was the shortest distance out of the crowd and to one of the roads that led away from the congested area.
They made it ten feet before another stranger, one whom Gram hadn’t spotted yet, put his hand on his shoulder, tugging hard to arrest his forward motion. Already filled with adrenaline, he turned to loosen the man’s grip and planted his left elbow in the stranger’s belly. Without stopping, they continued forward, ignoring the gasps of surprise as some people noticed the sudden altercation.
Chad stopped suddenly in front of him. Someone else had grabbed him without warning, and the two men struggled briefly. It was impossible for Gram to see precisely what happened, but then the newcomer fell away, and the ranger began moving again, a flash of steel in his hand and blood marking the ground.
He just stabbed someone in front of everyone, thought Gram. The town guard will be after us in a minute. Despite the worry that thought evoked, it paled beside the mystery of why they were being followed and assaulted by perfect strangers. Two more people grabbed at Gram’s sleeves, and he struck out, knocking one sideways and sending the second one flying. He felt the distinct crunch of bone as his fist connected with one of their cheeks. That was a woman! Guilt and fear fought for dominance within him.
People were screaming now as others within the crowd noticed the unexpected violence. The man Chad had stabbed was bleeding on the ground behind them, and several others were struggling to rise after falling back from Gram’s reflexive blows. The most eerie part was that the injured made no sound at all. The only ones yelling were onlookers.
The hunter shoved a stunned farmer out of his path and broke into open air, his feet moving into a run. Gram stayed close behind him, and the two sprinted from the square and into a narrow road. Most of the people in the market watched them with expressions of either outrage or surprise, but a select few followed with blank stares.
“What’s going on?” Gram said loudly as they ran.
“I dunno, but it’s damn weird!” shouted the ranger.
“Which way?” asked Gram as they approached a new crossroad.
“Right, that should take us to the gate.”
“We can’t leave without Moira!” said Gram, already turning in that direction.
“She ain’t wanted for murder an’ assault,” responded Chad.
“They attacked us,” argued Gram.
“Tell that to the judge an’ see if he believes ya,” said Chad, but then he stopped. “What the fuck?”
A line of people stretched across the road in front of them. None of them were guardsmen, they appeared to be simple townsfolk, all with blank faces and glazed expressions.
Gram paused beside him, using the opportunity to summon Thorn and his armor. “I’ll break through; stay close behind me.”
“There’re too many,” countered the older man. “They’ll drag you down.”
“They’ll shy away from the sword,” said Gram. “None of them even have weapons.”
“How did they even get in front of us?” wondered Chad, but he followed the young knight as they ran at the line of townspeople.
Nothing happened as Gram had expected, however. The people in front of him showed no fear of the sword at all and instead threw themselves at him. He twisted and pulled, using his elbows and shoulders to tear himself free, reluctant to strike down unarmed civilians, but the ranger’s prediction proved accurate. Within moments he found himself mired in a throng of grasping hands, and their sheer weight began to bear him down.
Chad was showing less restraint, using two long knives to cut at any who approached him, but several bleeding opponents were already dragging him down to the cobblestone pavement.
Forgive me, thought Gram, desperate now. Despite the weight of those tugging at him, he ripped his arms free and swept Thorn outward, cutting two men down with one stroke. Blood flowed, and within seconds the roadway was slick with sanguineous fluids and dying men. Cutting fiercely, he cleared the area around himself and then moved to free his companion. Thorn rose and fell, and arms and legs came away from their owners as the great sword sundered flesh and bone.
More people were emerging from homes and shops that bordered the bloody street. Some cried out in dismay at the sight that greeted them. Men and women lay scattered and bleeding in the road around the metal clad knight. A loud whistle in the distance signaled the approach of the town watch.
Gram took in the scene around him with no less horror than the spectators did. I didn’t have a choice! his heart cried within him. Did I?
Doubt assailed him as he heard a young boy’s cry, “Mother!” Across the street a man was restraining the child who sought desperately to rush to his dying mother’s side.
I don’t even know which one she is. He stared at Chad in shock as the man yelled at him once more. He hadn’t even heard him the first time. “Let’s go, boy! The town guard is comin’.”
“Why is this happening?” he asked the woodsman.
“I don’t know, but if we don’t get moving we’ll be wondering it from a jail cell.”
They ran, continuing down the road and hoping to find a clear indication that the path they followed did indeed lead toward one of the city gates. Before they got such a sign however, they encountered another group of blank faced residents blocking the road ahead of them. Without thinking, they turned left, ducking down a blind alley and hoping to find a route to escape.
Fifty feet in they discovered their mistake. The alley ended in a stone wall. They were trapped, and people were filing into the only way out. Chad strung his bow and loosened the arrows in his quiver.
“How many arrows do ye have, boy?” the ranger asked him.
Gram stared blankly at him before his mouth answered for him, “Five.”
“Give me your quiver,” said the older man.
“I have a bow as well,” he argued. Men were running toward them already.
“No time, an’ no sense wasting arrows,” said the archer. His bow was up already and two arrows were in the air before he finished his sentence.
Gram’s heart wasn’t in it anyway. The thought of shooting people now, after he had killed so many, made him sick, but there seemed to be no alternative. Chad Grayson’s bow thrummed with a steady beat as he drew and released, the man’s arms working a deadly rhythm. In the span of less than a minute his arrows were gone, and seconds later he had emptied Gram’s quiver as well. Seventeen people lay stretched across the road, most of them dead already, though one or two still clung to life with arrows sticking out from their bellies.
“I’m out, lad,” said the archer. “It’s gonna get ugly from here.”
It’s already ugly, it’s horrific, thou
ght Gram. “No,” he said suddenly. Glancing upward he pointed for his companion’s benefit.
“It’s twenty feet to the roof. Even in my youth I couldn’ta climbed that, even if’n we had the time,” said the archer.
Rather than explain, Gram knelt and linked his hands, clearly indicating the other man should step onto them.
“It’s too far!” protested Chad. “Even with help, I couldn’t jump that far.”
“Just keep your leg stiff,” said Gram. “I’ll do the work.”
More people and a few guardsmen were appearing at the opening of the alley. Shaking his head in denial, Chad nonetheless picked his bow up and slung it over his shoulders. Stepping onto Gram’s hands, he locked his leg into place, balancing himself with his hands on the young man’s broad shoulders.
Standing abruptly Gram heaved upward with incredible force, launching his friend skyward. Chad yelled obscenities throughout his ascent until landing at last on the slate rooftop. Miraculously, he kept his balance, although he was clearly shaken by the experience. Looking down he called out, “Now what?”
Gram looked up as he bent his knees, trying to judge the distance. With little time to contemplate, he leapt as hard as he dared. For a moment he felt as though he was flying, and then he was past the edge of the roof. He continued on for another ten feet before falling back to crash onto the hard slate tiles. They cracked and crumbled around him as he fell on the far side and began tumbling down the sloped roof.
He flailed as he rolled, trying to arrest his fall, but it was hopeless; his armored hands could find no purchase. His only consolation was that when he eventually tumbled off the roof it was on the other side of the building. His armor, cunningly crafted, stiffened when he struck the cobblestones, saving him from broken bones or worse, but he still felt bruised inside it. Chad leaned over the edge, then turned and lowered himself carefully before dropping the last ten feet to join him.
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