Deepwoods (Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  Denney started giggling, a watery half-choked sound. “You’re not really going to destroy their business or something, are you?”

  “Wolf’s the expert on breaking buildings, not me,” Tran protested.

  “I’d best go with you, then,” Wolf volunteered in a dark rumble.

  Siobhan eyed the three and wondered just how serious they were, or if this was just an attempt at some light hearted jesting to put Denney at ease. Then she saw the way that Fei eyed Denney, and the hard set to his jaw, and realized that every man in the room was truly planning on dismantling that brothel later tonight.

  Right then and there, she decided not to ask. In fact, she’d pretend she hadn’t noticed that little exchange between her enforcers.

  “Thank you.” Denney’s voice was soft, still a little muffled against Conli’s chest, but it carried throughout the room. “Thank you, Siobhan, Tran, Hammon, for coming to my defense even though you knew nothing.”

  “We knew you didn’t belong with them,” Tran assured her. “And that’s all we needed to know.”

  Siobhan’s street rat informants came through with the confirmation she needed in just one day. The missing party had gone through the city without mishap and were sighted leaving through the north side of the city, for all intents and purposes heading toward Sateren, as they were supposed to. While this was good news (Siobhan did not want to search for them in this crazy, confusing city), it also confirmed a dark suspicion she had been harboring in the back of her head. Whatever had gone wrong had happened either close to or inside of Sateren.

  And if it had been severe enough to wipe out a party of sixteen people, her own party of ten didn’t stand much of a chance.

  Siobhan started mentally planning for the worst even as she hoped for the best.

  Her team of stone gatherers did not manage to find 3,150 stones to satisfy the picky Grae—she hadn’t expected them to—so the next morning, they all trooped out to help finish the task. This was just as well, as she had no intention of sending Denney out again unless the whole guild went with her. Today especially, the girl stuck close to them, as if afraid of a repeat of events. From the protective stance that Conli and Tran assumed, they were itching for a fight with those men.

  She felt sorry for anyone that tried to tangle with Denney today. Well, almost.

  Siobhan bundled up against the morning cold, rubbing her gloved hands together briskly as they went well outside the city limits and to the place where Grae had started building his path. She noted the location with interest—it was near a seaside beach, no doubt so he could draw directly from the ocean’s power, but far enough away from it he didn’t have to worry about a tide sweeping his hard work away. It was rather a picturesque place to put a path, actually. The grass grew thick and lush here, ending rather abruptly near the ocean and becoming grey rock instead of sand. The ocean looked blue from a distance, but the closer she came to it, the more it seemed green to her. Her nose wrinkled at the smell, which seemed very pungent and salty at first whiff.

  Grae stood on the edge of the rocky beach and directed people to different spots like a general deploying his troops. She good-naturedly went where he pointed, hunkered down in the rocks, and started sifting through pebbles. What had he said the size was, again? The size of a kor? Something like that, anyway.

  Wolf and Hammon were within arm’s reach of her, and they all unanimously found a flat rock to put their finds on instead of trying to hold everything in their own hands. Siobhan had to watch her footing, as the rocks here were cold and smooth, and one careless step would send her sliding into a sharp, uncomfortable bed. She shivered now and again as a breeze came in over the ocean. “It is my imagination, or is that sea breeze making the air colder?”

  She hadn’t directed her words to anyone in particular, and it was Hammon that turned enough to answer over his shoulder, “It is. At least, it feels that way to me.”

  “Was it like this yesterday too?”

  “Worse,” he assured her with a dry smile. “I think the cold spell is passing.”

  “How many did Grae say he needed again?” Wolf asked.

  “Another two thousand and something,” Siobhan answered, not remembering the full number either.

  “2,673,” Hammon informed them, eyebrow quirked.

  She gave him an interested study. “You do have a good head for numbers, don’t you?”

  “I learned it at my father’s knee.”

  And did well at it. Hmmm. Come to think of it, this was the perfect opportunity to dig a little into his past without being obvious about it. After all, the only way to pass the time was to talk. She opened her mouth to ask him a question, but Hammon apparently realized the same thing at the same moment, as he beat her to it.

  “So, Wolfinsky, how did you come to join the guild?” Hammon asked with sincere interest.

  “You’re wondering how a Resken ended up so far south, aren’t you?” Wolf replied with a wry twist of the lips.

  “It’s very rare to see your people outside of Reske for any length of time, much less choose to live elsewhere,” Hammon pointed out.

  “True enough. Alright.” Wolf sat back on his heels, hands draped over both knees, so that he could look directly at Hammon as he answered. “Hammon, are you asking for my story?” The words were oddly formal, as if part of a tradition.

  Hammon picked up on the nuance as well because he abruptly straightened, much more focused than he had been before. For that matter, everyone else also went still, drawn to this discussion between the two men. Even Siobhan turned her full attention to it, despite having heard this story once before and being a major part of some of it.

  The scholar felt the weight of everyone’s attention but he answered steadily, “I am.”

  “I am Erik Wolfinsky of Reske. It was there I was born and there I grew until I came into my fourteenth spring. At that time, I was captured by a band of slavers.” Wolf’s eyes darkened in memory. “I was not the only one taken. I was, however, the only child that was not recovered. The slavers that took me paid dearly for their stupidity, as my village hunted them down, but two managed to get away with me in tow. To this day, I’m not sure how, as I was heavily drugged throughout the journey. I was sold to the mercenary guild in Wingate shortly after and there I stayed, fighting in every conflict that Wynngaard and Robarge had until I was nineteen. My life there was darkness. I lost my heart, my hope of returning to my home, and was in danger of losing my very soul before fate took an unexpected turn. It was in a bloody skirmish between two major guilds in Land’s Point that I lost my hand.” He held up his right iron hand in a silent illustration. “The mercenaries who owned me deemed me unfit to fight, useless, and so dragged me to the black market as soon as I was semi-healed. Because of my missing the hand, I was being auctioned for a very low price.” At this, Wolf let out a bleak smile. “Fortunate, that. I’m not sure how things would have turned out otherwise. But Siobhan, Grae and Beirly saw me by chance at the auction and recognized my heritage. Out of pity, Siobhan bought me and took me back to the guild. I didn’t know what to make of her, at first. Here was this beautiful woman, barely younger than I, who treated me with unreserved kindness and sympathy. My size alone scared her, I could see it sometimes in her eyes as she spoke to me, but never once did she shy away. She gave me the option of staying and working off the money she’d spent on me, or taking me home to Reske and letting the village reimburse her instead. I chose to stay.”

  Hammon blinked. “Why not go back?”

  “Oh, I did,” Wolf assured him, smile becoming more genuine. “Siobhan wouldn’t hear of it otherwise. We stayed for a good month, too, visiting. But I owed the woman a debt I might not ever be able to repay. It wasn’t just the money she spent on me—she rescued me from a hellish life without thinking twice about it. This, on top of being a brand new guildmaster! I stayed to protect her, to return whatever I could. Beirly made up the hand for me as soon as my arm fully healed, and it helped me reg
ain the strength I’d lost.” Wolf held it up and looked it over thoughtfully. “Actually, for combat, it’s even better than the flesh and blood hand. After the first year of being in the guild, I came to realize that I wouldn’t leave it by choice. I’d forged a strong bond with them, and I wasn’t suited for a quiet village life anymore, not after experiencing life in a good guild. I was born in Reske, and it will always be a part of me, but my home is Deepwoods.” With the same formality he had used at the beginning, Wolf ended with, “That is the story of Erik Wolfinsky.”

  Hammon didn’t quite seem to know how to respond to this. Finally, he managed, “I thank you for the telling.”

  “Ooh, good response!” Wolf clapped him on the shoulder—with his left hand, fortunately—and grinned. “You’re close to what should be said.”

  The scholar canted his head at this. “So there really is a proper thing to say? What is it, exactly?”

  “It was a fine telling, and I thank you for it,” Wolf responded as if quoting something.

  “I shall make note of that,” Hammon promised. “But formality aside, yours is an incredible tale, Wolf.”

  Those clear blue eyes softened. “Siobhan made it incredible. If she had not taken a chance on me, my story would be a tragedy.”

  Beirly came in close enough to knock into his shoulder with a gentle thump of the fist. “What are you on about, man? Without you, our stories would be tragedies.” To Hammon, he explained, “Wolf’s saved our skins more times than I care to recall. All those years as a mercenary sure have paid off, to my mind. I’ve never seen a man that can get the drop on him, although Tran’s tried for it a time or two.”

  Tran grumbled and growled to himself. Everyone ignored him.

  A grin split Wolf’s face from ear to ear, but he tactfully didn’t take advantage of the moment and rib Tran any. (Siobhan would have boxed his ears if he had.) To Beirly, he said, “Like you haven’t done the same for me? For that matter, Siobhan’s saved my skin a time or two, as I recall.”

  Siobhan snorted, well knowing what he referred to. “The first time, you had that terrible ear infection that wouldn’t let you stand upright without swaying. And you still fought two men off in that condition!”

  “Still saved me,” he retorted, an outrageous twinkle in his eyes.

  “And the second time,” she directed this to Hammon, as he was following all of it closely, “his foot got tangled up in a thick rope that was dragging him quickly to the bottom of a lake. I dove in and cut him free. But the reason he was being dragged down to begin with was because he jerked me out of the way before I could get tangled up in it. So I don’t think that properly counts.”

  “It counts,” Wolf defended mildly.

  Siobhan rolled her eyes. “As you can see, the only chance we ever get to return the favor is when the nigh-unthinkable happens and a string of bad luck hits Wolf so strong that he can’t save himself. But that’s happened a whole three times in the past ten years he’s been with the guild.”

  “I don’t mind this trip down memory lane,” Grae cut in, still perched on the edge of the beach where he sorted through his gathered stones, “but can you people work while talking?”

  With good-natured grumbling, they went back to the task at hand.

  “Speaking of…” Wolf raised his voice and called to Grae, “Will this be done tonight?”

  “I doubt it!” Grae responded, pausing just long enough to answer the question. “You might be through gathering, but it’s going to take a bit longer to build the path.”

  “In that case,” Wolf turned back to Hammon, “tonight we need to spar.”

  Hammon nodded ready agreement. “Of course. After all, the situation is becoming more dangerous the farther north we go.”

  Oh, so he’d caught on to that, had he? “Hammon, you’re from a large guild, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” he confirmed, although his tone sounded slightly wary.

  Siobhan itched to ask him a slew of questions, but that reaction made her think he didn’t trust them with his whole life history yet. So she bit back a good half of them and went with what she truly needed to know. “Then you’ll know how this works better than I would. Is it possible for a sizable party of guild members from a foreign guild to enter a city without attracting attention?”

  “No,” he responded immediately, without even needing to think of the response. “There’s too many other guilds that would notice that and report it to their guildmaster.”

  She’d assumed as much. “The information couldn’t be lost on its way up the chain of command?”

  At this, he did hesitate and think for a moment. “I highly doubt it. My guildmaster doesn’t rely on just one person to report everything to him. He meets regularly with all of the different masters of the guilds and gets information directly from them. I understand that this system is common and how most large guilds operate.”

  “Mmmm.” She let out a sigh. “In that case, we’ve really only got two options. Either they really didn’t make it through Sateren’s gates, or they did.”

  “And we’re dealing with betrayal,” Wolf summed up darkly.

  “Which guild were they supposed to be meeting with?” Hammon asked. “You said the main guild of Sateren, so I assume it’s Iron Dragain?” At her nod, he gave a thoughtful hum and sat back for a moment, focusing on speaking. “They’re well-known to be good business partners. They have a reputation for being fair at trade and generous in their dealings. I can’t imagine that they would betray another major guild like Blackstone. I can’t even think of a good reason to do so.”

  “I can’t either,” Siobhan confessed. “It’s just a dark possibility that Denney voiced and I can’t get it out of my head. I’m hoping I’m wrong. I’m hoping that we’re not dealing with a large guild out for our blood.” The trip to Sateren was hazardous enough without dealing with that threat. “But it begs the question, if it’s not that, what happened?”

  “A rival third party that knew about the trade agreement and wanted to destroy the possibility before it was formed?” Hammon suggested in an objective tone of voice.

  She paused, her mouth half-open, as the words struck her. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “It’s just a possibility.” Hammon splayed his palms up in a shrug. “I don’t know of anyone that would go to those lengths to stop a trade agreement, either. I mean, if it’s ever found out who it was that attacked them, then I don’t imagine Darrens would let it rest until he wipes the guild out completely.”

  True, that.

  “But they could very well get away with it if they hire a mercenary or assassin guild to do their dirty work for them,” Wolf pointed out. “It’s nigh impossible to track those requests back to their source without a lot of persuasion of a physical nature, if you catch my meaning.”

  And he would know. Siobhan blew out a breath. “In that case, if we show up looking for Lirah, wouldn’t we become a target too? No one would want us to find out the truth, after all.”

  Both men gave her unhappy nods.

  “Well, isn’t that a chipper thought?” Siobhan rubbed at her forehead, feeling a headache brewing. “As soon as we’ve let for Sateren, we’re sleeping in shifts.”

  “Probably for the best,” Wolf agreed.

  Not at all happy with her dark thoughts, she bent back to the stones and sifted through the ones on the ground with her gloved hands. She had no desire to keep going toward Sateren, not after this conversation, but she’d taken on the job, so they had no choice but to see it through. She might as well get this over with sooner rather than later.

  Grae finished the path by noon the next day, so they loaded everything back up in the cart and went to the newly placed stepping stones. Grae activated the path and took them through without mishap, and they arrived within sight of Sateren’s walls.

  Like most of the major cities of the world, Sateren looked like a veritable fortress from the outside. No one really worried about invasion from
an army or the like, as it would take a united front from several major guilds to even pull an army together, but the walls did protect from other dangers. If nothing else, it served as a way to regulate the traffic coming and going through the gates and let the major guild in charge of security have a better handle on their visitors. Siobhan took a long second to really look at the place.

  The walls stood three stories tall—a bit of overkill, there—made of dark grey stone that looked cold even from here. The gate in front of her stood wide open, the door made of thick wood that could be used for a ship’s mast, it was so dense. What she could see inside of the city didn’t look that different from any other major city she’d visited. Oh, the roofs had more of a slope at the edges, and the buildings tended to use shingles instead of thatch, but the people bustled about on business like in any other part of the world.

  “What now?” Hammon asked her.

  “Now we split up and ask questions,” Siobhan answered promptly. She’d been thinking about this all last night and this morning, coming up with a plan. “I don’t believe that our people ever made it to the city, but in case I’m wrong, I want two people to go to the gates and see if anyone there spotted them. The guards will have a record of a group that large. The rest of us are going to split up and backtrack a little.” She indicated the docks not a stone’s throw away, and then to the highway that led off in a south-westerly direction. “Odds are if they didn’t make it to the city, then they retreated one of these directions. If they didn’t, that means we’ve gone too far north, and we’ll have to travel back southward on horses and look as we go.”

  Hammon pointed toward the western highway. “Why go there?”

  It was Wolf that explained. “Wynngaard is not like most countries. The cities, sure, they act like any other guild-run city you might come across. But the people that live in the villages and towns, they’re a separate matter altogether. They don’t take kindly to guilds, they’re not known for coming to the city unless it’s a dire matter, and they tend to keep to themselves.”