by AC Cobble
The duke stumbled and fell onto his bottom, sitting on the stone stairs to his keep.
“I don’t wish you the same luck,” Duke Eeron muttered after leaning over and spitting a thick globule of blood. Soldiers shifted, moving around the duke in the open gate, but Eeron waved them back. He looked past Rew and snickered. “He’ll be dead soon enough, and his blood won’t be on our hands.”
Rew, his skin crawling, turned his back on the man and walked into the courtyard and the crowd. Within moments, he was lost in the flow of the citizens of Spinesend, but he couldn’t help noticing one woman who had been standing still, watching. A heavy woolen cloak hid her body, but the tall shock of blonde hair atop her head and the crawling blue tattoos over her ears were impossible to miss.
24
Mistress Clae.
Rew cursed. If Zaine was correct, and he had no reason to think she wasn’t, then the woman was an assassin for the Spinesend thieves’ guild. She’d attacked them in the woods outside of Umdrac and must have guessed they’d eventually turn up in the city. The crowd surrounded him, but the woman had been looking right at him as he’d left Duke Eeron. There was no way she missed him.
Rew was exceptionally skilled at moving through the forest stealthily, but in broad daylight in the middle of the city, there was nothing he could do to slip away. They were on her ground, not his. He strode quickly but not yet running. He took a convoluted path down the twisting stairs and sloped streets, dodging through narrow alleys, careening around sharp turns, and trying to use the maze of Spinesend’s buildings to lose the woman.
She matched his pace, staying close but not close enough that she could launch an attack. Whether by sound or some city-born sense Rew did not understand, she followed him around each corner and through each passageway. She was doing nothing to hide per pursuit. Her wild hair and the tattoos would stand out in any crowd, and by the way he was moving, she must have known she’d been seen.
He frowned.
She’d stand out in any crowd except for those in the foreign quarter of Jabaan, the capital of the western province. There was a contingent of refugees there from somewhere across the southern sea. They’d come generations ago and had been captured and stranded. A century later, little was known about where they’d come from, even by them, but the Morden kings had not stamped them out, and their cultural identity was strong enough that they did not assimilate into the hodgepodge of Vaeldon’s peoples. What was the woman doing in Spinesend working with the thieves’ guild? More importantly, why was she following him?
As he walked, he decided the second of those answers was easy. The woman had no interest in the King’s Ranger; she wanted the children.
Moving around a slow-moving cart laden with giant melons that was being painfully tugged uphill by a pair of sweating, swearing porters, Rew ducked into a narrow alley, sped up, and then took another turn.
He wasn’t sprinting, but he wasn’t short of a run, either. The woman was easy enough to spot, but he hadn’t identified any companions. If she’d survived the confrontation in the woods against Duke Eeron’s men, then surely some of her minions had as well. And if they had, and they were with her, he needed to know. He figured by pushing his pace, he would force them to hurry into the open if they wanted to keep up with him.
His mind churning, Rew realized that while she’d tangled with Duke Eeron’s men in the forest, the duke had recognized her outside of the gate of his keep. The duke knew her, but she wasn’t working for him. He’d claimed his hands would be clean.
Rew trotted down a narrow staircase, listening for footsteps above him. Near the bottom, he placed a hand on the railing and vaulted over, dropping a dozen steps down to the other side. He kept going, weaving through the tangled streets and paths of Spinesend.
Fedgley and Worgon thought they were working with Prince Valchon, which meant the woman behind him probably was not. If she’d been in Prince Valchon’s employ, simply speaking honestly to the children in the forest would have gotten them into her clutches. If she was allied with the Fedgleys, there’d been no reason for the threat of violence.
Prince Calb ruled Jabaan. Could she be working for him, a spy of sorts in the eastern province of Calb’s older brother, Valchon? But if she was a spy, she was a rather obvious one. Her hair and tattoos marked her clearly as coming from that far, western city.
Scowling, Rew saw the woman’s head poke around a corner fifty paces behind him, and he hurried, taking the narrow, little used back streets and alleys that trickled down the slopes of Spinesend like vines hanging from a tree. The woman had shown herself, which meant she intended him to know she was there, but she hadn’t attacked. She wanted to talk.
Rew punched a wall beside him as he hurried by.
She wanted to talk, and he needed to talk as well. The alliances, the secrets, it was too complicated for him to untangle without more information, but there wasn’t anyone who was going to volunteer that information unless he offered something in return.
He kept going, moving down through the city, until he found a stairwell with a hairpin turn that was wedged between two tall, windowless buildings. There was a small platform between the flights of the stairs where residents of the buildings had left ladders that climbed up to a web of laundry lines. Fresh air whistled between the buildings, stirring the clothing and linens overhead. The tenements rose sharply on either side like walls of a cliff. From that spot on the stairwell, Rew had a view both up and down the narrow street. He glanced over the edge of the platform and saw a roof one hundred paces below. No one was coming up from that direction.
He turned, waiting for the assassin to catch up to him. She didn’t take long, and she showed no surprise when she saw him standing there. She stopped on the stairs, still covered from the neck down in her heavy cloak. Rew eyed her, waiting for the strange woman to speak, but she did not. He shifted his feet, his eyes roaming around, looking for her minions. Finally, he decided no one else was coming, and he was tired of waiting. He asked, “Why are you following me?”
“You know why I’m following you, Ranger,” she drawled. “I want the children.”
“You think I’ll take you to them?”
“I decided that you were going to see me following you, whether I hid or did not hide, and that once you saw me, you were too smart to lead me right back to them,” she explained. “That meant I had to speak with you and work this out.”
Rew reached up and scratched his beard.
She asked calmly, “Where are they?”
“Why would I tell you that?”
“Because if you tell me where I can find them, I won’t kill you.”
Rew laughed.
It was the woman’s turn to frown. “Ranger, you were saved before by Duke Eeron’s men stumbling across us, but we both know that will not happen again. If the duke meant to interfere, he would have when he saw me. I suspect the duke believes I will kill you, and after whatever trouble you were causing in his keep, he is content with that knowledge. Duke Eeron knows me, Ranger, and he knows that I am thorough.”
Rew leaned back against the railing for a moment before recalling just how far the drop on the other side was. He stepped forward two paces but did not climb the stairs toward her.
“What were you doing in the keep?” asked Mistress Clae.
Rew shook his head. “You think a threat to kill me is going to make me talk?”
The woman pushed back her cloak, revealing her leather bracers tipped with the gleaming steel claws he’d seen in the forest. “It’s enough for most people.” She held up a hand. “This steel cuts like a razor, but those who know me do not fear that. I slather a toxic preparation along my blades. It won’t kill you, but it will feel like your flesh is aflame. That’s what the arcanists’ books say, at least. It’s much worse, Ranger. I’ve seen people attempt to flay themselves to stop the terrible agony. If I’ve disarmed them, they’ll use their own teeth between breaths begging me to kill them. Imagine that, gnaw
ing away at your own skin because it hurts so terribly. I tell you this because it is not the threat of death that should worry you, Ranger. It is the pain I will cause you before you die. We do not have to be rude, though, do we? Talk to me, and I will let you go. My employer cares nothing for you, just the children.”
“Who is your employer?” asked Rew.
The woman smirked at him and did not reply.
“It seems we’re at a bit of an impasse,” remarked Rew.
The woman shook her wrists, and the claws slid out, extending a hand past the end of her fingers.
“If we kill each other,” mentioned Rew, “then neither of us gets what we want.”
“I won’t kill you right away,” said the woman. “I will cut you, and then you will beg for me to kill you. Before the pain overtakes you, Ranger, understand that all I want is the location of the children. Tell me where they are, and I will do you the kindness of finishing you.”
“Prince Calb, is it?” asked Rew, guessing randomly.
The woman looked back at him impassively.
“I had a fifty-fifty chance,” muttered Rew. “Prince Heindaw, then. You’ve been working for him some time, I’m guessing, acting as a spy and assassin deep in Valchon’s territory? If you were ever discovered, Valchon might assume you were in Calb’s employ. You are from Jabaan, are you not? Does Heindaw know it is me you are chasing?”
“I’m chasing the children,” responded the woman. “Neither of us care a fig for you.”
“He doesn’t know,” surmised Rew. “If Heindaw knew you were standing here, threatening me with death to solicit information from me, he’d tell you not to bother.”
The woman’s face remained impassive. She raised her hand, the gleaming claw flashing in the mid-day sun. She paused, looking along the blade, as if studying the steel for whatever mixture she’d applied to it. “Humor me, Ranger. Why would the prince tell me not to bother?”
“Because Prince Heindaw knows me,” growled Rew, “and he knows to stay away.”
Mistress Clae smirked. “Ranger, there’s not a man in this kingdom that Prince Heindaw is afraid of, and there’s not many I’m afraid of, either. You’ve started to bore me. Tell me where the children are, and I’ll spare your life. Or don’t tell me, and your life will end in excruciating pain right after you blather what I want to know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Rew, drawing himself up, flexing his hands and rolling his shoulders. “You ever wonder why neither Prince Heindaw nor even Prince Valchon visit the Eastern Territory? It’s because I’m here. I told them I wanted nothing to do with the family, and I told them what would happen if they ever disturbed me. You were wrong, Clae. There are men in this kingdom that Heindaw is afraid of, and I’m one of them.”
Mistress Clae laughed.
“You’re an assassin, right?” questioned Rew, putting a boot on the step above him.
Mistress Clae gave him a sly wink and spread her arms wide, the steel blades protruding from her gauntlets flashing in the narrow bands of sunlight that trickled between the flapping laundry above them. She stepped down the stairs toward him. “You have no idea who I am, Ranger.”
“I don’t care who you are,” growled Rew, “but I’ll feel a lot better about this knowing you’re a killer.”
He charged up the stairwell.
Mistress Clae launched herself like a raven streaking toward its prey, but Rew had expected that. The woman was a killer, a talented one probably, but she had no idea who she was facing. It meant she’d be overconfident, expecting to carve him like a roasted chicken with those claws of hers. She swung, and he ducked.
Rew felt a brush of air as Mistress Clae’s swing whipped overhead. He didn’t bother to draw his own weapons. Instead, he surged upward, rising behind her swing, grabbing her other wrist, and punching into her midriff. He flung her over his head.
Mistress Clae, kicking and flipping in the air like a cat falling from a roof, twisted around to look at him, her mouth open, her eyes wide as she soared over the balustrade and out into the open air. Drying laundry flapped several paces above her, out of her reach. She had nothing to grab onto. There was nothing she could do to stop herself from falling. For a brief second, Rew saw her stunned realization that she was going to die, and then, she plummeted out of view.
He scowled. The woman was a murderer. By all rights, she deserved what she’d gotten, but he hated that he was the one to give it to her. He hated that Prince Heindaw had set the woman on the trail of the children, bringing the situation about. He hated what all of the princes were doing to the kingdom in an effort to kill each other. He hated that the king was the one orchestrating the entire bloody show from behind his curtain. Rew hated it so much that ten years ago, he’d run, and he’d never looked back.
He walked to the railing and glanced down. Far below, on top of a weather-beaten shingle roof, was Mistress Clae’s body. Blood leaked from her, staining the shingles and then dripping off the edge of the roof. Cold wind blew through the gap in the two buildings where Rew stood, and his cloak whipped around behind him.
Ten years ago, killing the woman would have sent him into a furious frenzy. He would have raged at what he’d been forced to do, and then, he would have vanished into the wilderness for weeks or even months, walking until there wasn’t another soul within days of him. He wouldn’t have called it hiding, but it was. He’d always known it was. Heindaw and the rest of them had understood, and they would have let him run off, afraid of what would happen if they kicked the hornet’s nest one too many times. Just weeks ago, he wouldn’t have felt the same rage, but Rew would have still walked away from it all. He would have returned to Eastwatch, hoping to be left alone there.
But not anymore.
Much had changed in the last weeks. He had changed. Looking down at Mistress Clae’s body, he thought sourly of his conversation with Raif, the one about life, the one when Rew had realized he was helping the children as more than a favor to Anne. He was doing it because it was the right thing to do, and because if he didn’t do it, there was no one else who could. Rew thought about Raif, and his sister Cinda. He thought about how ten years ago, he’d realized what it would take to stop all of this madness, and that he didn’t have the skill to do it. He’d run away then, like he always had, knowing that despite what he was capable of, he couldn’t do what was necessary.
But she could.
She could, and she would, if he asked it of her. Cinda and her brother were part of the terrible system that had ruled Vaeldon for two hundred years, but not because they chose it. They were part of it because of their birth, just as he had been, until he’d chosen to run. Running hadn’t changed anything for anyone, not even for him. He was still a part of that system, and always would be, as long as it still existed. He snorted. It’d taken two noble children—ignorant of the world—to show him the truth, but they had. And now, he was done running. Now, he knew what must happen. Rew checked his weapons, cracked his neck, and started down the stairs. He had work to do.
His body aching, Rew clambered up the rough, rock-strewn slope of the hill. The sun was setting, and he figured he had half an hour before darkness. Half an hour before he’d told Anne and the others to leave with or without him. The wounds Vyar Grund had given him stung every time he stepped or reached up with a hand to climb. There were bruises on him he didn’t recall receiving, and his head was throbbing with each beat of his heart.
For the last two hours, Rew had been skirting through Spinesend, making sure he lost any tails that had followed him from the keep or from his encounter with Mistress Clae. Duke Eeron had told his men to let Rew go, but that didn’t mean the duke had not changed his mind once the ranger’s knife left his side. It didn’t mean that no one had disobeyed the duke and set out on their own. Mistress Clae’s men, if any had survived the forest, would certainly be wondering where she was. King’s Sake, there were probably dozens of spies in the city working for both the duke’s enemies and hi
s allies, and Rew had given them every reason to be interested in him.
He’d involved himself publicly now, and he was at risk like anyone who was caught in the swirl of the Investiture. There were no rules, no formal guide to how the nobles should conduct themselves in the generational bloodbath, except that if someone was not with you, they were against you. Winning was always easier if you removed a few pieces from the board, and killing someone was easier than converting them as an ally. Not that Rew had any allies of his own or want of them. From all quarters now, Rew had enemies.
But Duke Eeron had been exposed as well, and he was experienced enough to know what it meant. Rew hoped that would give him enough time to find the others and escape. Even now, the duke would be gathering his things and preparing to flee. Maybe he’d already left, or maybe one of the princes had learned of the duke’s failure and had come for him.
Rew wondered if they would. Duke Eeron had to be allied with Prince Calb, since Mistress Clae had been in league with Heindaw, and both Fedgley and Worgon thought they’d been in concert with Valchon. Would Calb come to punish the duke for allowing Fedgley to die, or would Valchon or Heindaw move against Eeron now that his allegiance was in the open? King’s Sake. He wondered if Calb had even known the duke was holding Worgon. Heindaw would have, and he wouldn’t be happy the baron had been killed. He’d be even less happy that his plotting may have been exposed. Duke Eeron was right to worry that they would come. Any of the three princes had reason to take the man’s head.
As he considered it, Rew suspected the princes would not come. Not yet, at least. Rew didn’t think they’d risk Spinesend while he was there unless they thought it meant their own lives. They wouldn’t want to force a confrontation and then leave themselves weakened for the others. The princes wouldn’t want to face Rew until they’d killed a brother or two first.
