by Grace Draven
She stopped to rest and shake the kinks out of her shoulders and wipe the perspiration sheening her forehead. The task did nothing to distract her from worrying about Asil or Malachus. He’d left with a crossbow, obviously with a plan in mind but no time to share it with her, only a promise to return.
Rejuvenated by the quick rest, she took up the bat again and set to beating on the second carpet, imagining it was the cat’s-paw.
“Halani, stop for a moment.” Jorgan, Saradeen’s son-in-law and the caravan’s wheelwright, stood out of hitting distance, warily eyeing her and the bat she held. “I left a hollow auger with Hamod when we traveled to Domora. I forgot about it until now. I checked the side chests on the wagon, and it wasn’t in there. Did you see it when you were inside?”
“No, but I’ll go with you and we can look together.” Glad for the respite, she accompanied Jorgan to Hamod’s wagon. Her uncle wasn’t there to tell them where the auger was, and at the moment she didn’t care if they invaded his privacy by opening boxes and drawers to find it while he was gone. Anger over his greed and faulty guardianship of Asil still simmered in her gut.
As they neared the wagon, she put a hand on Jorgan’s arm to stop him. “I closed and locked the door when I left,” she told him in a low voice, staring at the door, which had been cracked open to reveal a sliver of the dark interior.
Jorgan unsheathed the knife at his belt. “Maybe you didn’t slide the bolt enough and the wind pushed it open.”
“What wind?” It was a typical summer day in the city—hot, stifling, and dead still. The sound of the latch bar sliding into place echoed in her mind. She’d latched the door. Someone had entered the wagon after she left. And might still be there.
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two more of the free trader men and waved them over, finger to her lips, indicating that they should stay quiet. When she whispered she thought someone was in the wagon, they did as Jorgan had and took out weapons, prepared to confront an uninvited guest. After Malachus shared the news of the cat’s-paw’s machinations, everyone was on edge.
Jorgan motioned for them to step farther away from the wagon. “Deric, stay here with Halani. Brecka and I will pass on either side of the wagon, see if we can hear anything inside.” He turned to Halani. “Did you leave any of the windows open?”
“No. I didn’t want dust getting in.”
“Good,” Jorgan said. “It’ll be easier for us to walk along the wagon without being heard if we step lightly.”
They put their plan into action. While Jorgan and Brecka reconnoitered the wagon’s perimeter, more free traders, curious as to what they were doing, joined Halani and Deric. It wasn’t long before they resembled a small army, with several brandishing everything from knives and crossbows to washing bats and iron skillets.
The tension in the group ratcheted higher when Jorgan paused in his inspection, forehead creased in concentration as he listened. His expression darkened. He pointed at the wagon, nodded to confirm he’d heard someone inside, then pointed to himself and then the door, indicating he was going in. Several of the men formed a ring around the wagon, blocking off escape routes.
Jorgan abandoned his efforts at staying quiet as he strode to the door. “Halani,” he shouted, as if she stood across the camp instead of a stone’s throw away from him. “If the auger isn’t just lying out where I can see it, you’ll need to give me the key so I can check the chests.” When his words failed to flush out the intruder, he jerked the door fully open and vaulted inside the wagon.
For a moment nothing moved. Suddenly the wagon rocked on its struts. A series of muffled thuds followed, accompanied by grunts and a pained groan. The crowd collectively jumped when a body flew out the door to land in the dirt with a thump. Jorgan stood in the doorway, sporting a newly split lip and a red patch under one eye that promised to bruise by evening.
“Caught him going through Malachus’s satchels,” he said.
He didn’t get a chance to say anything else before the free traders descended on the thief like wolves. A gasp sounded from the pack, followed by more until the crowd withdrew, leaving their victim to stumble to his feet.
Halani gawked as hard as the rest, hardly believing her eyes. “Uncle?”
Hamod stood before them, bedraggled and bruised. He blinked at those he lived with and led as if they were strangers. Hostile, vicious strangers intent on tearing him apart.
“Gods’ bollocks,” Jorgan snapped as he leapt from his perch in the wagon’s doorway. “Why didn’t you say something?”
The leader of their caravan had always presented a formidable figure, a man possessing both confidence and cunning, and a demeanor that warned he could back up a claim or a command with physical force. He was sly, manipulative, and unquestionably devoted to the survival of their caravan, even if it sometimes meant the sacrifice of one member for the good of the group.
Halani had grown up admiring and sometimes fearing her uncle. He was her elder, the caravan leader, and her mother’s beloved brother. Halani didn’t much like Hamod, but she respected him. The shambling creature standing before them now, looking like he’d been dragged through a back-alley sewage canal and smelling almost as bad, bore no resemblance to the daunting wagon master.
Her shock didn’t last. The fear and anger seething inside her since Clamik had told her of Asil’s disappearance erupted, and a red haze descended over Halani’s vision. She cannoned into Hamod so hard they both went down. Knees digging into his chest, she held him pinned under her, whacking him once across the side of his head with her hand. “Where is my mother, you bastard?” she roared directly into his face. She hit him again, this time on the other side of his head, while he cowered beneath her, shielding his face with his hands.
She didn’t struggle when several people grasped her shoulders and arms to pull her off Hamod. Two of the free traders helped him stand once more, keeping a cautious eye on Halani, who glared at him through her tears. “I should never have let her go with you,” she spat. “You were supposed to protect her.”
Silent until that moment, Hamod glared back at her from bloodshot eyes. “If you hadn’t brought the outlander into our camp, she could have stayed.”
Halani gasped, noting the puzzled looks exchanged among the others. “Don’t you dare place that blame on me. I told you—begged you—not to buy that draga bone.”
“Enough!” Saradeen planted himself between the two combatants. “Whatever arguments you have between you, they’ll have to wait.” He turned to Hamod. “What happened to you? We scoured Domora several times. Not even a hint as to where you might be. You said you planned to find a way into the Maesor to sell this bone Halani doesn’t like, and then you disappeared. Asil was gone the next day. Most of us thought you were dead.” He sent Halani an apologetic look. “We don’t think the same about Asil.” His face hardened again when he returned his attention to Hamod. “What happened?” he repeated.
Haggard and filthy, wearing clothes that looked like he’d stolen them off a beggar, Hamod closed his eyes for a moment before speaking. “I’ve been hiding in different places throughout the city. Coming back here wasn’t safe. For any of us.” He crossed his arms and shivered. “I made it into the Maesor. Blood tithe in exchange for entrance.”
A shadow passed through his eyes, making Halani wonder what such an exchange entailed and whose blood was traded for the privilege of entering the Maesor to trade. A splinter of sympathy for her uncle pierced the armor of her fury.
He continued with his explanation. “I met a man called Koopman, who seemed very willing to do business with me and broker the sale of the draga bone.” He frowned at Halani. “I told you I would sell it.”
She snorted. “It wasn’t yours to buy or sell.”
“Did you make the sale?” Saradeen’s gaze reflected the doubt in his voice. By the look of him, Hamod didn’t have a half belsha
to his name.
Her uncle shook his head. “No.” He spread his hands in a gesture that begged for patience and understanding. The Maesor is an . . . unclean place. You go in fully human, but I don’t think you come out that way.” The same shade of horror once more flitted through his eyes. “And the longer you stay there, the less human you become.”
It seemed the Maesor lived up to its reputation as a perilous place to trade, and that danger didn’t just come from the risk of getting caught by the Empire’s witch-hunters.
“What made you abandon the sale?” Halani asked. It would have to be an extraordinary event to make Hamod walk away from something potentially so lucrative.
“I didn’t at first. Once I was in the Maesor, I met with Koopman.” He shuddered. “He trades in rugs and tapestries. Nothing you’d want to put in a wagon. There are enslaved souls woven into them.”
Murmurs of “Now, there’s evil in the making” and “Who would be mad enough to weave a soul into a rug?” echoed through the crowd.
Hamod plucked at his filthy clothing and scratched his head. Halani wondered if they’d have to purchase bags of onions for a future lice treatment. “Koopman also trades in information and, as I mentioned earlier, acts as a broker for more costly items sold to the wealthy in the city. I was in his tent waiting for him to return with what he said were promissory documents when I overheard a couple of people speaking on the other side of the tent wall. It seems word had gone out that someone might be trying to sell a draga bone on the Maesor, and when it happened, Gharek of Cabast was to be told.”
“The cat’s-paw,” Halani said. This Gharek was involved in all manner of schemes and plots.
Hamod stared at her, surprised. “So they call him. The empress’s henchman and feared even by the likes of Koopman.”
“And he’s hunting for you, Mama, and me. Easy to understand why he wants you, but why me and Mama?”
He ran a hand down his face as if trying to scrub away mistakes and bad decisions. “Once I found out someone was already looking for the draga bone, I knew the sale had gone sour before it even happened. I wouldn’t see a single belsha from the transaction or even survive the deal. I sneaked out of the Maesor before Koopman realized I was gone. I found your mother waiting for me once I returned.” He winced. “She’d followed me and I never knew it. I’d only been in the Maesor for an hour at most, but a full day had passed here while I was gone.”
“Why did she follow you?” Why did Asil do anything? Even Halani, who knew her mother best, was sometimes mystified by the reasons Asil gave for her actions. So was Hamod.
He shrugged. “Who knows? I probably should have asked her, but I was desperate to get us both out of there and her away from me in case someone in the Maesor came after me. I sent her back to the camp with a message I wouldn’t return until later.” Despite his ordeal, the song of avarice hadn’t yet ceased to sing to him. “That draga bone is much more valuable than we realized,” he said in yearning tones.
If you only knew, Halani thought.
“Asil never mentioned she saw you.” Saradeen shook his head. “All she told us was that she got bored in the camp and went to explore, and she only said that after she returned to camp while we were all in a panic trying to find her. To keep a better eye on her, we took her with us to the market, hoping that keeping her busy might encourage her to stay put. That’s where she disappeared.”
Halani’s stomach knotted. Her sweet, childlike mother was probably frightened out of her wits. “Who else besides the cat’s-paw would want her? He’s figured out she means something to you. You have the draga bone. He’ll use her as bait to lure you out.” It explained why Gharek was looking for Halani as well, though she still didn’t know how he’d discovered what she looked like.
Hamod’s face had paled while she spoke, and he stared at the ground, mumbling something. Her eyes narrowed. Hamod had never acted this way before. Even when he lied to your face, his gaze remained direct and unwavering. “Speak up, Uncle. We didn’t hear you.”
“I don’t have the draga bone. Asil pickpocketed me before I sent her back to the camp. I didn’t realize it until hours later when I was trying to hide from both Koopman’s and Gharek’s scouts.”
Were their situation not so dire, Halani would have laughed at Hamod’s revelation and his humiliation at being pickpocketed by his own sister. Now all she wanted to do was scream. And bludgeon her uncle with her carpet bat.
“Too bad Malachus isn’t with us to hear this,” Saradeen said. “It would have helped him in his search for Asil.”
Halani’s frustration lessened a tiny bit. At the moment, Malachus was on a search for two things he believed to be in separate places. If Asil still had the mother-bond, he could find her through the shared connection he had with the artifact. An awful thought immediately took hold. If, however, the person who took Asil only needed her as a way to get the mother-bond, her usefulness ended the moment they discovered it on her person. Halani’s heart seized. “I think you’ve killed my mother,” she told Hamod in a flat voice.
The last bit of blood drained from his features. He backed away as if to ward off a blow. “No,” he said. “No.”
She might have struck him again if one of the free traders acting as camp guard hadn’t sent up an alarm whistle, warning everyone they had unexpected visitors.
“Get him back in his wagon, quick!” Saradeen instructed both Deric and Jorgan, who each grabbed one of Hamod’s arms and hustled him out of sight. “You should hide, too,” Saradeen told Halani.
“If I get in that wagon with Uncle, only one of us will walk out alive,” she replied. She gestured to the woman closest to her. “Loan me your head scarf. I can use that to hide my hair and part of my face.”
A trio of guards approached, escorting their visitor between them, crossbows angled in such a way that if he so much as sneezed the wrong way, he’d end up bristling with arrows.
“What strange bit of business is this?” Saradeen muttered beside Halani.
Masked and silent and draped in a shapeless garment, the visitor made directly for Halani despite her attempt at obscurity. They held out a folded piece of parchment to her.
“Don’t shoot,” she ordered those with loaded crossbows. The gods forbid any of their more hot-blooded traders let loose an arrow. Their unexpected guest was a messenger, and not just any messenger. They were an Unknown. Kill one of them, and Hamod’s caravan would never be able to set up in Domora or its satellite towns again, and that was if they actually made it out of Domora alive.
She plucked the missive from their hand, turning it this way and that, staring at the unfamiliar wax seal holding it closed. The seal made an audible crack when she broke it to open the letter. She shouldn’t have bothered. Malachus’s lessons had opened up a new world of possibilities for her, and he was a good teacher, but in no way did her rudimentary reading skills hold up against cryptic script that was nothing more than ink scratches. She sighed and handed it back to the Unknown. “Tell whoever sent this to try again. You can’t talk and none of us here can read.”
The Unknown took the letter, gave a quick nod, and strolled out of the camp, unconcerned that a dozen crossbows were trained on their back.
“What do you think that was all about?” Saradeen asked.
“With any luck, it’s either from the cat’s-paw or whoever has Mama. If I were to guess, they want to bargain.” Which meant they hadn’t yet discovered that Asil had the mother-bond. It seemed too good to believe. Too convenient.
She spent the time waiting for the new messenger to arrive by interrogating Hamod where he hid in the wagon. More than once she had to walk away to rein in her temper. This time, the guard’s whistle brought most of the camp running. The new messenger wasn’t an Unknown, and he lacked his predecessor’s uncanny ability to single out the message’s recipient. His gaze touched on each person, settling
a little longer on those holding weapons at the ready. “I seek a woman who looks like Hamod the free trader.”
Halani stepped forward. “That would be me. I’m Halani. You’ll have to read the note to us.”
He nodded. “So I was told.” He held the parchment by its top and bottom edges and cleared his throat before reading. “I hope this message finds you well. I am Gharek of Cabast and have news of interest to you regarding a woman with a child’s spirit.” All the air left Halani’s lungs. The messenger didn’t notice and continued reading.
“I invite you to meet me on the Galdoka Bridge this afternoon. A safe place for us both, in view of many. If you agree, my messenger will escort you there.”
The cat’s-paw had Asil. It was her worst fear and best hope combined in a single moment. Halani remembered to breathe and recalled Malachus’s cautionary advice. Stay hidden; stay safe. She didn’t have to think twice. The time for caution was over. “I’m ready,” she said. “Take me to the bridge.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When she arrives, the two of us will have a short chat. If she accepts my offer, she’ll come with me. If she doesn’t, take her to the palace with a message for the empress that the woman is of use as additional bait. She’ll know to what I’m referring.” Gharek handed a folded missive with his seal to the spokesman of the small group he’d brought to the Galdoka Bridge with him. “If you end up taking her to the palace, she goes unmolested. I don’t want to hear of so much as a scratch. She’s only valuable if she isn’t broken.”
The group’s leader tucked the missive away. “You expecting a struggle from her?”
Gharek shrugged. “I have no idea what to expect. This will be the first time we meet.”
