Pathfinder Tales--Reaper's Eye

by Richard A. Knaak

  The bait was taken.

  4

  THE CLIENT

  Daryus sensed the tension in the air as he returned to his quarters after purchasing food. He knew that no one could have found the bodies. Indeed, the overall aroma of the quarter guaranteed that even after the corpses began to decay, no passerby would take note of the smell.

  No, something else was going on. Daryus saw that others sensed the same. He was glad to return to his so very humble residence, even if that meant facing Toy.

  The weasel lay curled around the wine bottle on the table. He opened his normal eye upon Daryus’s entrance.

  “You better not have been drinking the wine again,” Daryus warned. “I warned you last night…”

  The familiar immediately uncurled, then scrambled off the table. “No, Master Daryus! I only kept guard should some diabolical and thirsty thief break in!”

  “You mean another thirsty thief, don’t you?” Daryus set down the new bottle that he had brought with him. As far as he was concerned, the weasel could keep the one on the table. Daryus had no desire to share a drink with the creature. He had already witnessed a couple of examples of the familiar’s taste in food. True, it meant a cleaner room, but the thought of that mouth then touching the bottle was too much for even the veteran soldier.

  Digging into the small leather bag he also carried, Daryus tossed a small, wrapped piece of goat meat. “This what you wanted?”

  The familiar quickly tore through the wrapping and began digging into the meat. Daryus’s nose wrinkled. The meat was well past selling for human consumption, but apparently that meant nothing to the weasel.

  “At least take that somewhere other than the table. I’d like to be able to eat, too.”

  Toy wasted only enough time to nod to Daryus before returning to his respite and utterly ignoring what the human had just asked of him. Daryus raised a hand to swat the familiar from the table, then gave in. Moving over to the bed, he sat down and concentrated on his own meal. As he ate, he pondered what to do next. All the activity outside unsettled Daryus. He didn’t want to be accidentally swept up in whatever was happening. He decided that it would be best to leave Nerosyan for now, but to do that he needed to find immediate employment.

  Once finished with his food, Daryus readied to depart again. As he headed for the door, Toy, still in the process of swallowing the last bit of goat, suddenly bounded after him.

  “Must not go alone again!” the familiar insisted. “I will go with you! Toy will go with you!”

  “You’d be better off staying here—”

  “No! He has eyes everywhere! He always has eyes! The witch has my eye!”

  The renegade crusader frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

  “He sees me with my eye! He follows me with my eye!”

  Daryus frowned. If he understood the creature correctly, Toy’s former master could keep track of the familiar through the orb that the witch had removed. That should not have been any concern to Daryus; after all, he had no true argument with the witch. He had simply become caught up in the attack due to his decision to intercede.

  Of course, from his past experiences with practitioners of the magical arts, such logic was not enough to keep them from seeing someone like Daryus as a potential threat. That was why Daryus hadn’t just thrown Toy out once the familiar had revealed himself. Even if the weasel had run off, Daryus knew that the witch might still seek to eliminate anyone with even the most minute knowledge of his sinister activities, whatever they were. Witches just did that.

  And not just witches. Everyone with power was the same in the regard.

  “All right,” he finally responded. “Climb atop my shoulder … but try not to breathe on me. Not after that goat.”

  Toy scrambled up Daryus’s body, finally taking a place to the right of the fighter’s head. Toy let his tail wrap loosely along the back of Daryus’s neck.

  “Don’t speak,” he warned the familiar.

  Toy nodded.

  With the weasel secured, the former crusader headed out to the Crimson Hammer. It was late enough in the day that some of those needing a hired sword would already be lurking around the tavern. Not only would Daryus have to make himself more noticeable to any potential clients, but he would also have to make certain they did not reject him for someone else. Daryus knew that he would also have to possibly accept a contract with a client he might otherwise have shunned.

  Does it matter? he asked himself. The oaths of honor you swore don’t matter anymore, do they?

  Do they?

  Halfway to the tavern, Daryus paused. He felt Toy stiffen, although perhaps not for the same reason as the human. Daryus quickly slipped into the shadows of an alleyway.

  Mere moments later, six armored figures marched past the hidden pair. Daryus watched with a combination of regret and frustration. He made an estimation of their likely destination and exhaled when he realized that they were not headed toward where he lived.

  Slipping back out into the open, he continued on at a quicker pace. The sooner he reached the tavern, the better.

  Turning a corner, Daryus all but collided with a second patrol.

  The lead crusader was half a head shorter than Daryus but broader of shoulder. Daryus instinctively surveyed the officer, wondering if the crusader might be one of those who would still recognize him.

  “Name!” snapped the officer.

  “Rogan Rolfsson,” Daryus answered without hesitation. It was not the first time he had used the false name.

  The crusader eyed him with open contempt. “Mercenary.”

  Daryus merely nodded. He was used to being greeted with such disdain for his profession.

  “You look like you can handle a sword well enough. Keep it ready, mercenary. There’s assassins—pitborn assassins—about. We found a dead one in the middle of the city. Tied him to an earlier slaying of a merchant.”

  Although Daryus managed to keep from showing any surprise, he felt Toy dig in his claws as the familiar digested the news. “Assassins here? Your men at the gates not getting paid enough?”

  He would not have been surprised if he had been punched for suggesting that some crusaders at the gates had taken gold in return for entrance into the supposedly impregnable citadel. Still, it was a necessary comment, keeping in character with the role Daryus played.

  Instead, the officer simply growled and shoved him aside. Most men would have been thrown to the ground by the crusader’s strength, but Daryus only stumbled back a few steps. Still, it was enough to satisfy the officer. “Just watch yourself, scum, and report anyone unusual immediately. There’s a reward for good information, if that’s what you wonder.”

  Daryus gave him an avaricious grin. “You should’ve said so in the first place!”

  With a sneer, the officer led his men on. Daryus waited where he was until the patrol vanished from view.

  “So one died of his wounds,” Daryus mused. “But that still leaves at least two.”

  “Strong is Master Daryus!” Toy cooed in the renegade’s ear, at the same time bathing Daryus’s face in scent of half-digested goat. “Swift of limb and skilled of sword is Master Daryus!”

  “Quiet.” More than ever, Daryus wanted to find a client, especially one needing to leave quickly. He pushed on toward the tavern … only to pause when a familiar figure flanked by two insignificant-looking ceremonial guards passed by.

  Daryus had seen the merchant in the Crimson Hammer seeking to hire protection his two overdressed servants clearly could not provide. That no one from the tavern followed the merchant meant that no deal had been made.

  Although the rotund figure was well dressed, Daryus could read enough of the man’s personality from the face to know that here was a client he would have generally not have accepted. Despite his fall from grace, Daryus still prided himself on choosing patrons who were for the most part honest.

  Now, though, he could not afford that luxury. That in mind, Daryus followed his potent
ial client to what he quickly recognized would be the main market. The destination suited Daryus fine. In the crowds, he could approach the merchant and offer his services. It would no doubt mean accepting a lower pay—the man would surely understand that Daryus either needed money or needed to escape—but the former crusader could not help that. Once he had taken the merchant to wherever he needed to go, Daryus would sever all ties.

  The market was a huge place filled with items from all over the known world. While on the surface the wares the various sellers displayed were of a harmless nature, even here in Nerosyan one could locate illicit items banned by the crusaders. Daryus suspected that the man he followed dealt in the delivery of some of those very pieces.

  The merchant paused to speak with a scrawny, bearded man whose name Daryus did know, but whose reputation among those like Daryus was very well known. It did not surprise him to see that the pair knew one another well.

  “You’d better stay here,” he muttered to Toy. When the weasel gave no response, Daryus brought one hand up to where the familiar perched.

  Toy leapt off.

  Daryus turned as casually as he could, but by then the weasel was already out of view. Why Toy would abandon him now, Daryus could not say, but it only encouraged the mercenary to find a patron and find one immediately.

  One of the two men with the merchant noticed the tall figure approaching. The guard immediately reached for his sword, only to have the merchant place a warning hand over the guard’s.

  Peering over his shoulder, the heavy man smiled slightly and nodded. Daryus had to assume the merchant recognized him from the tavern.

  “You’re still looking for someone to make up for this pair,” Daryus commented under his breath. In his profession, he had to not care what he said about men such as the pair flanking his potential employer. They might be useful in some chest-puffing display with one of the merchant’s counterparts, but not in a pitched battle against bandits.

  “You have a sharp eye, my friend,” the man said in nasal tones. “I remember you from the tavern. Someone said you had already been hired, but I see they were mistaken.”

  Daryus held his annoyance in check. There were those among the mercenaries who lacked anything remotely resembling his sense of honor. They were willing to lie about the free status of one fighter in order to gain a few coins from another for pointing them out to a mark.

  “I’m available, for the right price. Where are you heading?”

  “Toward the River Kingdoms.”

  The River Kingdoms. Daryus exhaled ever so slightly in relief. Not Kenabres. Not Kenabres.

  Eyeing Daryus up and down, the merchant remarked, “You’re not the usual sellsword. You had, if I am not mistaken, a good place, a strong position.” When Daryus revealed nothing, the man chuckled. “Got yourself in wrong with the powers that be? Some blood on your sword, perhaps? Or some dalliance with the master’s wife, hmm?”

  This was not the first time Daryus had faced such questions. He was not like so many of the others found in the tavern. Even after five years, he could shake neither his training nor his own self. Some clients rightly saw him as a valuable addition and paid him accordingly. Others—and Daryus read in the merchant’s eyes that the man was part of this second group—saw it as a way to force Daryus to take less money for more work.

  A horse’s annoyed snort briefly caught Daryus’s attention. The animal, one of two at the head of a heavy supply wagon, shook its head and seemed to be looking for something near its front hooves.

  “I can pay you … a modest sum. I think you’ll take it, too. How about we—”

  At that moment, the horse whinnied loudly, then abruptly reared. The other reacted. The wagon shook and almost tipped over.

  The horses started running. Some of the onlookers nearest to the wagon panicked. Fear spread through the area as the frightened horses charged, the wagon bouncing behind them.

  Unfortunately, they chose to charge at Daryus.

  He shoved the merchant away from him as the horses neared. Even despite the heavy wagon, the horse came at a swift pace. Daryus had two choices: he could try to jump out of the way or try to take the horses head-on.

  Most men would have attempted the former, and had even odds of surviving. The horses would also have continued on, crashing into tents and likely injuring or killing several innocents.

  Instead, Daryus leapt between the two horses, using them to push himself up. Flipping into a sitting position on one, he grabbed at the loose reins for both and started pulling back as hard as he could.

  Daryus was a strong man, but even he had to strain to pull the reins tight enough to force the horses’ heads up. The beasts slowed.

  Tugging hard on the reins of the horse to his left, Daryus forced the pair away from the nearest bystanders. At the same time, he used his body weight to add more pressure against the reins.

  The animals finally slowed. Daryus brought them to a stop.

  Before he could dismount, a squadron of crusaders arrived nearby. Silently cursing, Daryus slid off the opposite side. He looked for the merchant, but the man and his two bodyguards had disappeared. Daryus could only assume the merchant had seen the crusaders approaching and decided he did not want to be seen.

  That still left Daryus needing a path out himself. He quickly studied his surroundings.

  “Master Daryus!” Toy called from beneath him. “This way! Come this way!”

  Not certain how much he could trust the familiar, Daryus nevertheless followed. However, barely had he begun to do that than the weasel paused to look back at him. “To the east! To the east!”

  Although ordering Daryus to go east, Toy headed in the opposite direction. Still caught up in the incident with the runaway wagon, the crowd paid no attention to the small creature as he wended between their legs.

  Hesitating only a moment, Daryus did as Toy suggested. Yet, as he headed away from the vicinity, a shout made him glance back. There, two of the crusaders stood in the process of helping their squad leader rise to his feet. The lead crusader glared at something down near his feet, something that Daryus immediately assumed to be Toy.

  As if by magic—and Daryus could not help but wonder if perhaps some magic was involved—the weasel darted back to him.

  “Hurry! Hurry! They will not see you if you hurry!”

  Seeing no reason to argue, Daryus pressed on. In moments, they left sight of the patrol.

  Pausing, Daryus looked back. A curse escaped him. He could still make out no sign of his potential employer.

  “They were asking about pitborn,” the familiar suddenly said. “They were asking about pitborn who were near your dwelling, Master Daryus! It had to be done!”

  “What do you—” Daryus frowned. “Toy, did you do something to frighten the horses?”

  Toy’s ears flattened. “For good reason! It was done for—”

  “You could have gotten someone killed! And you also cost me the client we need!”

  “But I have another! I have another! A better one! You could not trust that other one! Look! See? There she comes now!”

  Stifling his anger, Daryus looked to where the weasel indicated. He saw a small woman in coat and breeches impatiently pushing through the crowds. Despite her stature, she somehow managed to make men nearly as massive as Daryus move out of her way.

  “Who is she?”

  “Better is the question—why have you not yet followed her?”

  Daryus started to say something, then realized he now had no real choice but to do as Toy suggested. Gritting his teeth, he spun from the familiar and hurried after the short woman.

  Unlike her, Daryus had trouble wending his way through the crowds. It was not that they tried to be in his way, just that she seemed to have the ability to make a path for herself that he couldn’t imitate. All he could do was try to keep her in sight, a difficult enough task considering that many of those between them were taller than the woman.

  Then, to his surprise,
they left the market and headed into the very quarter from which he had come. Daryus considered Toy’s suggestion and wondered if the woman planned to find a sword for hire in one of the taverns he frequented.

  The crowds quickly thinned out here. Worse, the remaining figures they passed grew of a more and more unsavory nature. The woman seemed not care, though. She passed the first tavern without even pausing.

  Shadows created by the nearby buildings began to offer several places where an unsuspecting visitor could find her throat cut. Once again, though, the woman continued on without evident fear. Daryus saw she wore a short sword and some other weapon on her belt. He had no doubt she could use them, but still, in height, weight, and reach, she was at a great disadvantage.

  When she passed the second tavern on their trek, Daryus grimaced. If he had to make a calculated guess, she was heading for none other than the Crimson Hammer. Daryus realized that he might have been better off simply waiting there for an employer.

  However, when the tavern came into sight, Daryus’s quarry surprised him by not only ignoring the establishment … but also taking a turn that would lead her past his home.

  His grimace widening, Daryus cut the gap between them by half. He now had no idea just where she intended to go. There was one more tavern in the vicinity, but only the most wary went there.

  And then, the young woman surprised him one last time, turning to a different street, a street Daryus knew very well. He was no longer surprised when, a few yards later, she turned to the lone door.

  His door.

  5

  A PACT MADE

  Shiera had known for some time that she was being followed. She had actually expected it in this part of the city. Taking such a risk had been necessary to find someone who could fulfill her needs for the expedition.

  Her original plan had been to go to one of the inns and taverns known among fellow Pathfinders as a ready source of bodyguards willing to do anything and keep silent about it so long as they were paid. Venture-Captain Gwinn had utilized such establishments for his own expeditions.