Deepwoods (Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  Wolf let out a gusty sigh. “You really adopted an assassin without thinking it through? He has bad habits, dangerous habits, y’know. His first instinct will be to ignore trouble as long as it won’t have anything to do with him. His second instinct will be to kill anything that does trouble him.”

  “That’s—” she closed her mouth on the instinctive denial and frowned when she realized he was right. In fact, that was exactly how Wolf had been at first. Oh, not with her, but he owed her a huge debt for buying him out of a terrible life. He’d felt duty-bound to protect her, at the very least. But Rune…how did Rune perceive her? “Is that why you don’t trust him? You think he’ll cause trouble?”

  “And that,” he rumbled darkly. “You don’t see it, because he acts differently around you, but the only person that boy responds to in this guild is you. He ignores everyone else.”

  “Because I named him?” she hazarded.

  “And you fed him. And bargained for his freedom. He has little idea how to respond to kindness, and only reacts to what we do for him out of bewildered obligation.” Wolf let out another sigh, this one longer than the first. “He’s the type to do things to please others without any true emotion behind it. I don’t trust a man like that.”

  Ohhh. So he did have a concrete reason to distrust Rune. True, Siobhan had noticed that as well. If she suggested something, Rune did it without hesitation or complaint. Even when cutting his hair he hadn’t done more than be sure she wanted it done. This willingness to blindly obey her had disturbed her, but Wolf had been the same at first, afraid of upsetting her. She’d hoped that with time and patience, Rune would work his way through it.

  But if he was only responding that way in her presence and ignoring the rest of the guild…that was not a good sign. Not at all.

  “Keep an eye on him,” she requested slowly. “Interfere if you see his old habits kicking in.”

  “I will, but the question still stands: what do you intend to do with him?”

  Siobhan rubbed at the bridge of her nose with one hand, feeling a headache coming on. “I wish I knew.”

  Siobhan barely had her boots on when there came a quick rap on the door. Without waiting for a response, Conli stuck his head inside the room. “Siobhan, I need to borrow Rune.”

  “Good morning to you as well, Conli,” she responded mock-genially. “I slept well, thank you for asking.”

  He shoved the door aside impatiently, toe tapping. “I don’t have time for pleasantries, Siobhan. They don’t have the necessary medical supplies here for me to properly treat people. I used up the last of my supply last night. I need to go shopping in the city, expeditiously, and I need a guide to do it.”

  “Hence why you want Rune,” she finished, setting aside her teasing. “But why ask my permission? Go get him yourself.”

  Conli was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “That boy doesn’t want to move unless he knows you ordered it done. I’m not about to start an argument with him about it. It’s easier if you just tell him yourself.”

  Again. Again someone had told her that Rune only followed what she said. Siobhan’s forehead crinkled into a disturbed frown. She needed to do something about this, somehow break this distance that Rune was keeping from the guild, or trouble would certainly follow. As she had no business to attend to, it would behoove her to start working on that problem today.

  “Fine. I’ll track down Rune. You go fetch Sylvie.”

  With a thankful nod, he turned and disappeared into the hallway.

  Still frowning, she laced up her boots and grabbed her jacket before heading out of the bedroom. As she went, she called out in arbitrary directions, “Rune! Rune?”

  Sure enough, just as she turned a corner, he appeared from seemingly thin air. He asked no questions, just looked at her steadily, as if awaiting orders.

  Oh yes. This needed to be fixed.

  “Conli needs to go shopping for medical supplies,” she informed him. “He requests that you guide him through the city.”

  “Sure, sure,” he responded with a lackadaisical shrug.

  Taking him in from head to toe, she belatedly realized that he was dressed in the mismatched clothes that Beirly had scrounged for him. “Actually, while we’re out, do you want to shop for you? Those clothes don’t really fit right.”

  He glanced down at himself. “That’s fine.”

  Not that she expected him to disagree about that, but…if the clothes really had bothered him, wouldn’t he have already fixed the situation himself? He knew this city and where to go to shop, after all. Again, the impression that he was just doing whatever she wished. Suppressing a sigh, she waved her hand, gesturing for him to follow her.

  They all met at the main entrance to Iron Dragain’s compound. To Siobhan’s surprise, it wasn’t just Conli and Sylvie waiting on them, but Denney and Wolf as well. Well, no, she should have expected the other two to show up. If Conli went out, Denney normally went with him. Those two were nigh inseparable. And Wolf, after hearing that she and Conli would be going out alone with Rune, likely panicked at the thought and joined to keep an eye on the assassin.

  Not caring about the extra additions to the party—they could all do as they wished, after all—she waved Rune to lead them. He did so without a word, taking them to the main street and immediately to the left, into a section of the city that she had never been to before.

  Wolf fell into step beside her, and as he did, gave a significant look at the back of Rune’s head. She nodded grim agreement, indicating that she finally understood what he had meant last night.

  The party was unusually subdued as they wound their way through the morning crowd and into the market. Siobhan quickly found that the only way to press through the throng was to hide behind Wolf, as he made a marvelous trailblazer. She glanced back and found that Sylvie and Denney were using Conli to the same purpose. Part of the trouble came from the narrow, winding street they were on—with the kiosks, street stalls, and such, the path became significantly smaller. People were crushed together and walking at a shuffle, trying to force their way through.

  “Rune!” she called around Wolf’s arm. “Do we have to go this way?”

  “Only medicine stalls are farther down this way,” he explained, voice barely loud enough to carry over the din. “Gets less crowded in a bit.”

  So if they could survive long enough, they’d be able to escape? She clung to that thought and stayed at Wolf’s back as much as possible.

  Rune’s words became nearly prophetic, as moments later they crossed an intersection and the traffic abruptly thinned out. She went from being nearly pressed like a grape in a wine press to having more than enough room to dance in the street if she felt like it. Heaving out a breath of relief, she came around to walk at Wolf’s side.

  Conli stepped around her, stretching his legs to a fast walk. “Rune, I need a variety of herbs, ointments, and bandages. Where should I go?”

  Rune pointed to a row of shops ahead and to the right of the street. “There.”

  With a nod of thanks, he went ahead of the group and ducked into a shop that had clearly not seen a fresh coat of paint in well over three decades. Siobhan took one look at the dark, confining interior of the place and decided she’d wait outside. Denney, Wolf and Sylvie all must have come to the same conclusion, as no one braved the doorway.

  “Sylvie,” Siobhan waited until the woman turned to face her, “I think while we’re out, we should find Rune some better fitting clothes. He needs more than what he has on anyway.”

  “That’s fine.” Sylvie lifted her shoulder in a shrug, not troubled by the idea of more shopping. “Rune, what’s your preference?”

  He gave her the blankest expression Siobhan had ever seen from him. “Preference?”

  “What kind of clothes do you like to wear?” Sylvie explained patiently. “Things like what Wolf wears? Or more of the traditional Wynngaardian style that we’ve seen here in the city? I know you are wearing these clot
hes because it was the only thing that Beirly could find that would mostly fit you. So what do you choose to wear?”

  Rune seemed nonplussed and not sure how to answer this, which Siobhan found somewhat strange. Did he not pay attention to his wardrobe at all?

  “Close-fitti’n clothes,” he finally answered. “Not heavy material, but flexible.”

  In other words, good clothes to skulk in. She should have guessed.

  Sylvie seemed to realize that was the best answer she was going to get, so smiled and pointed back the way they had come. “Then while Conli is shopping, why don’t we go back to that store on the corner? I saw some things displayed outside that might work on you.”

  Rune looked to Siobhan for permission, which she gave, urging him silently to go with her. Wolf, unsettled by the idea of Sylvie going off alone with Rune, took an instinctive step to follow before glancing back at Siobhan and Denney. Then he stopped dead, clearly torn between which group he should be protecting.

  True, leaving Denney alone outside the shop with Siobhan was likely not a good choice. They were still in Wynngaard, after all. To make it easier on her enforcer, Siobhan stuck her head into the store and called to Conli, “We’ll be at the clothing store on the corner!”

  “Fine!” Conli called back from some dingy recess in the back.

  He likely wouldn’t miss them for a good hour anyway, not with that shopping list of supplies.

  That sorted, she led the other two and caught up with Sylvie and Rune just as they entered the clothing store. In terms of lighting and such, this store was in much better condition. It contained every variety of clothing imaginable crammed inside, with shirts and pants in a wide range of sizes hung up on nails all the way to the ceiling. Dresses, skirts, and traditional women’s clothing were in the back of the store, while men’s clothing took up the front.

  Siobhan belatedly realized that quite a bit of gear had been lost or damaged in Lirah’s party during their mad escape from the assassins who’d attacked them. She’d been so focused on getting them to a safe place that she hadn’t really thought about that until just now. “Denney, help me pick out some shirts and pants that might fit our Blackstone group,” she requested. “I don’t think they have much left after everything that happened.”

  “Oh!” Denney said, snapping her fingers. “That’s a good thought. I’m not sure of everyone’s sizes, though.”

  “They’ll need looser clothing to cover the bandages and splints anyway,” Sylvie called over her shoulder, already arm-deep in a stack of shirts. “Just guess and then go a little bigger.”

  “Sound advice,” Siobhan approved. “Wolf, you wear a thirty-two or so in shirts?”

  “About that,” he agreed.

  “Isn’t Luvaas about your size?”

  “A mite smaller, more like Conli’s size.”

  “Conli is a thirty,” Denney offered. “Well, he’s actually a twenty-nine, but he prefers a looser fit.”

  “Then let’s get a thirty for Luvaas.”

  Siobhan lost track of time as they browsed and picked up shirts, sweaters, and pants, discussing and guessing what size people wore. At some point, Wolf started taking things out of her hands and carrying them to the counter, where the woman there started folding and figuring up the total so that the girls weren’t forced to carry the whole lot of it around and start a clothing avalanche.

  Denney paused in her browsing and looked up through the store window. “There’s Conli. Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh?” Siobhan repeated, looking up to see what the trouble was.

  Conli was tottering their direction with arms overflowing in packages, bundles, and bags. It seemed only a matter of seconds before something would slip and fall to the street.

  “Denney, go rescue him,” Siobhan urged. Her words were unnecessary, as the young woman was already moving, heading quickly out the door at a half-lope, the fastest pace she could manage through the crowd outside.

  But her progress abruptly stopped when two men grabbed her by the arm, dragging her to a halt. Siobhan recognized the situation for what it was within a heartbeat. Once again, because of Denney’s obviously half-Teheranian heritage, she’d been mistaken as a prostitute. Siobhan waited three seconds, just to see if Denney could reason her way out of it. But the cheap flasks in the men’s hands were half-consumed and they were obviously too drunk to understand ‘no.’

  Growling under her breath, she looked back toward the counter. “Wolf. Denney.”

  Wolf pushed forward, an angry tic in his jaw. “What, again?”

  “Conli’s in no position to help her, either. His hands are full.” She almost said, ‘go help her,’ when she caught sight of Rune’s face. The assassin hadn’t even looked up at their exchange, but was examining the shirt Sylvie had pressed into his hands. His complete disinterest in what was happening disturbed her. Wolf hadn’t exaggerated the matter—if trouble arose, and it didn’t affect Rune, he truly wouldn’t respond.

  Making a snap decision, she ordered, “Rune. Go help Denney.”

  With nothing more than a glance to show that he had heard her, he passed the shirt back to Sylvie before leaving the store in a quick stride.

  Wolf came in close and murmured, “Is that a good idea?”

  “I’ve got to get him in the habit of thinking of the guild as his guild,” she muttered back. “Otherwise trouble is going to arise. But go after him and step in if things get out of hand.”

  “Right.” Wolf lengthened his stride and left the store in little more than a blink of an eye.

  Siobhan, worried that things might go from bad to worse, followed after him but couldn’t quite keep up as the crowd outside blocked her. She had to use her elbows and sheer brute force to carve a path toward Denney.

  Because of that, she missed what happened when Rune first reached Denney. All she knew was that the crowd abruptly shied away from the middle of the street, scattering all directions, and left her a clear view. Wolf had Rune by the arm, his iron right hand blocking the assassin completely from what appeared to be a lethal strike toward one of the drunks. Denney was on her knees, arms over her head, although she was peeking upward. The drunks were flat on their backs nearby, hands also held protectively over their heads, their eyes squeezed tight in fear.

  What by the four winds…?!

  “Easy, kiō,” Wolf rumbled, his stance as solid as a mountain. “Don’t kill the poor blighters.”

  Rune’s head cocked in puzzlement as he looked up at Wolf. “Isn’t that what she wanted me to do?”

  “No,” Wolf denied patiently. “We don’t kill people unless we absolutely have to. Breaking bones is one thing, ending lives another.”

  Rune slowly extracted his hands, which Wolf allowed without fuss. Seeing her nearby, Rune gave her that same puzzled, uncomprehending frown. “Didn’t you send me out here to take care of the situation?”

  Siobhan resisted the urge to go find a flat, hard surface and start banging her head against it. Taking in a deep breath, she tried to find the right words to explain. “Rune, I said help. I meant, go protect Denney and discourage the lack-heads from flirting with her. They’re drunk and mistaken about her profession. That’s not a crime worth losing their lives over.”

  Said drunks were nodding vigorously in avid support of this.

  She could just tell by Rune’s expression that he still didn’t get it. Was his training really that deeply ingrained, or was she just not explaining it right? Giving up for the moment, she ducked around the men and offered a hand up to Denney.

  Conli beat her there, hands frantically checking for any injuries even as he demanded, “Are you alright? I couldn’t see what happened, did these men hurt you before Wolf got here?”

  “I’m fine,” Denney assured her uncle, then Siobhan. “Fine. Rune hit those two hard and fast, and I lost my balance too, I was so surprised. But I’m fine. Conli, your packages? Where are they?”

  “I dropped them all,” he admitted. Peeking over his shoulder
, he said morosely, “I think some of them broke. I heard glass cracking.”

  Oh joy of wonders. That meant he’d have to go back to the store to replace things. This was turning into quite the shopping trip. Blowing out her breath, Siobhan started pointing fingers at people. “Wolf, you and Rune go finish the shopping with Sylvie. Then meet us at the herbal store. Conli, Denney, let’s wrap this up and get back to Iron Dragain.”

  The faster they left this potential hotbed of trouble, the better.

  ӜӜӜ

  Siobhan’s punishment for adopting an assassin without thinking it through was having to deal with said assassin and his bad habits. After returning to Iron Dragain the day before, she’d done her best to explain the do’s and don’ts when helping someone out of a sticky situation. She’d also tried to explain that she hadn’t taken Rune away from Vakkiod because she’d wanted an assassin at her beck and call. Rune had assured her he understood, and that he wouldn’t kill people unless necessary, but he’d still looked confused at the end of the conversation.

  She could only hope that he would figure it out on his own, as she didn’t know how else to explain.

  A full day had passed since their disastrous shopping trip and her worries were only growing. Siobhan had mistakenly believed that if she could just find Lirah and her missing escort, then all would be well. But in truth, their rescue carried a great many troubles with it. Rune just complicated matters more.

  She sat outside and looked up at the half moon overhead, her toes just grazing the tip of the pond water. It felt ice cold to her skin, but strangely pleasant, probably because she’d once again been on her feet all day.

  A door opened and closed behind her. She smiled as she recognized the heavy tread and greeted without turning her head, “Evening, Wolf.”

  “Evening.” He sank down to sit beside her, making the wood of the porch creak under his weight. “You out here thinking again?”

  “Yes.” Blowing out a gusty sigh, she whined, “What do I do with Rune?”