by Rachel Aaron
Eli’s grin faltered a fraction, and he picked up a pair of oblong coins from his own stack. “You’re showing a knight,” he said, pointing at the face-up card by Josef’s foot. “That’s five points at least. Maybe you’re confused, but in Daggerback, it’s the lowest hand that wins.” He paused, twirling the coins between his long fingers, seemingly oblivious to the danger of taunting a man whose daily dress included over fifty pounds of edged weaponry. “You can take the bet back, if you want,” he said, his voice positively dripping with generosity. “I won’t mind.”
“No.” Josef crouched behind his cards. “You’re not getting me with that again.”
“Have it your way,” Eli said, tossing his coins into the pot. “Let’s see who was right.”
Josef threw his hand down, adding a bearded man with a staff and an old geezer with a crown to his gallant knight in the grass. “Bachelor party: wizard, king, knight. That’s ten points,” he said, grinning.
Eli smirked and deftly flipped his cards like a fan. “Wizard, king, and my lovely lady.” He scooped up the queen card he’d laid face-up in the grass after the first round of bets, and his smirk became intolerable. “Nine points.”
Josef glowered murderously as Eli rubbed his hands together and reached out to gather his winnings.
“Grand sweep,” Nico said quietly, and the two men froze. “Hunter, weaver, shepherdess.” She named each card as she laid it in the grass. “Three points.”
Eli sighed and shoved the pile of gold toward Nico. Now it was Josef’s turn to grin. “Too bad, Eli,” he said, leaning back against one of the mossy trees that ringed their tiny clearing. “Next time, you should worry less about bluffing me and more about not losing your shirt.”
“I don’t mind losing to Nico,” Eli said, tossing her the last of the coins. “She’s a much better winner than you are.”
Josef grunted and nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the castle, where the spires were barely visible through the thick trees. “Speaking of winning, have those idiots gotten back to us? We’ve been sitting here for almost a week, and if I have to spend another day playing Daggerback with you lot, the name might start to sound like a good suggestion.”
“Actually, the flag went up fifteen minutes ago,” Eli said casually. “I just wanted to see if I could win the rest of your gold before telling you.”
Josef jumped to his feet. Sure enough, a large flag dangled from the top of the second tower, its white folds lying limp against the slate shingles, twitching in the breeze.
Eli winked at Josef’s murderous glare and walked whistling into the hut.
The king was lying on the dirt floor, looking miserable as always. Eli had left him under the watchful flicker of the fire, which, in exchange for Eli keeping Nico outside for most of the day, was willing to make sure their royal prisoner didn’t escape. Eli skirted the edge of the hearth and poked the king’s shoulder with the toe of his boot.
“Almost done, your royalness.”
The king sat up stiffly, and Eli handed him a tiny pot of ink and a pen nib attached to a stick, which he produced from somewhere in his pockets. “All you have to do now is write exactly what I say, and we’ll take you home.”
The king looked defiant for a half second and then he nodded glumly and began to copy Eli’s demands word for word.
Josef was gone when Eli emerged ten minutes later, the king’s letter rolled in a tight tube and ready to go. Nico, however, was where he had left her, arranging her newly acquired gold in shining patterns across the scrubby grass.
“Don’t worry,” she said without looking up. “He’s just gone to scout the meeting place.”
“Why?” Eli said, laughing. “We haven’t even told them where it is yet.”
Nico shrugged. “He said you would say that, and he said to tell you that you can’t make assumptions about anything.” She paused thoughtfully. “He also said to tell you that if he does find any traps he’s going to make sure you stand on them.”
“Marvelous.” Eli sighed. Why did swordsmen have to be so competitive about everything? “The good king was kind enough to write another note for us,” he said, twirling the roll of paper in his hands. “I’m setting the trade-off for this evening, an hour before sunset. That should give them plenty of time to prepare, and us plenty of leeway should things go off course.”
Nico turned back to her coins. “Do you expect things to go off course?”
Eli shrugged. “Does anything we do ever go as planned?”
Nico looked up at him and shrugged back.
“Anyway,” Eli continued, holding up the note, “I’m going to find a bird to take this to the palace. If Josef gets back before I do, make sure to tell him that if his trap finding is as good as his card playing I’ll gladly stand anywhere he tells me.”
Nico’s mouth twitched, and if Eli hadn’t known better, he would have said she had just suppressed a laugh. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned and walked into the forest, whistling a falcon call.
An hour before the appointed time, Josef made everyone move out.
“You can’t be serious,” Eli said from his comfy spot in the grass.
Josef just shook his head and strapped another bandolier of throwing knives on top of his already impressive personal arsenal. “Last to a fight, first in the dirt,” he said, hooking his short swords into place, one on each hip. When those were set, he grabbed his enormous iron sword from the log beside him and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
He turned and walked out of the clearing, his heavy boots surprisingly quiet on the leaf-littered ground. Nico followed just behind him, moving over the fallen logs like a shadow. Eli lounged for a moment longer. Then, with a long sigh, he heaved himself up and went into the hut to get the king.
They walked single file through the forest. Josef went first, stalking through the tree shadows like a knife-covered jungle cat. Eli strolled a good distance behind him, leading the king by his rope like a puppy. Nico trailed at the back, her enormous coat pulled tight around her despite the warm afternoon, and her eyes glued to the thick undergrowth.
“You’ll never get away with this, you know,” King Henrith said, trying to keep some of his dignity as he stumbled after Eli. “As soon as I’m back with my own men, I’ll put my entire army after you. You won’t even reach the border.”
“Splendid!” Eli said, ducking under a low branch. “At least things won’t be boring. After this last week, an army on our heels sounds like a welcome vacation.”
“Don’t you understand?” the king sputtered, shaking his bound fists at the thief’s back. “I’ll have you drawn and quartered! I’ll hang your innards up in the city square for birds to pick at, and what’s left, I’ll throw in the river for the fish!”
“That doesn’t sound very sanitary.” Eli pressed his finger to his lips thoughtfully. “Still, it’s the thought that counts.” He looked over his shoulder, a heartfelt sunbeam of a smile lighting up his face. “I’m so happy we got to know each other like this. That’s the best part about this business: You meet so many interesting people!”
The king turned purple with rage, but before he could think of a proper comeback, Eli came to an abrupt halt, causing the king to run face first into his back. A few feet ahead, Josef had stopped and was watching the trees, one hand hovering over the short sword at his hip.
They were at the edge of a small gap in the trees, not really a meadow but a rare sunny space where bushes and wildflowers had taken root. The forest around them looked just like every other bit they’d spent the last twenty minutes walking through, a mix of midsized hardwoods and thick undergrowth. The only sounds were the cries of far-off birds and the wind rustling the leaves high above them.
“What is it?” Eli whispered, creeping toward the swordsman.
Josef stayed perfectly still, with his hands on his swords. “We’re being followed.”
As soon as he said it, a monster launched itself out of the undergrow
th. It moved like mist over water, gray and cold and canine, with enormous teeth, which Josef managed to dodge barely a second before they would have sunk into his leg. He landed hard on his knees beside Eli, rolling to his feet as soon as he touched the ground, his short sword flashing. Eli pulled the king and Nico close behind him, backing them into the center of the small clearing to give the swordsman room to maneuver. Josef crouched low beside them, both short swords out now, and readied himself for the creature’s next charge.
However, the charge never came. As soon as they were all bunched together, the trap sprang.
CHAPTER 11
The ground erupted at their feet, sprouting four enormous walls that grew ten feet before they could react. At first, the walls appeared to be made of dirt, but as soon as they reached their full height, the dirt shifted and became solid, slick stone, caging them in on all sides save for a tiny, open square of sky at the very top. Then, as suddenly as the walls had grown, they stopped, leaving the king and his kidnappers squashed together like fish in a square, stone barrel.
“Eli,” Josef whispered. “Please tell me this is one of your spirits.”
“No such luck,” came a voice from above. A shadow fell over them, and the captives looked up to see a red-headed woman smirking down through the opening.
“Eli Monpress,” she said, “I am Spiritualist Miranda Lyonette. You are hereby under arrest by order of the Rector Spiritualis, Etmon Banage, for the improper use of spirits, treason against the Spirit Court, and, most recently, the kidnapping of King Henrith of Mellinor. You will surrender your spirits and come quietly.”
“Now wait a minute,” Eli yelled up at her. “Treason against the Spirit Court? Don’t you have to be a member of something to commit treason against it? I don’t recall ever joining your little social club.”
The woman arched her eyebrow. “The Spirit Court preserves the balance between human and spirit. When you used your abilities to ruin the reputation of all wizards by turning to a flamboyant life of crime, you committed treason against all spirits and the humans who care for them. Does that answer your question?”
“Not really,” Eli said.
“Well, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it later,” Miranda said, smirking. “Will you surrender the king and come quietly, or must I ask Durn here to march you all the way to the Spirit Court’s door?”
The stone prison jerked several feet to the left, knocking its occupants in a pile on the dusty ground.
“You make a strong argument, Lady Miranda,” Eli said, untangling himself from the king. “But I’m afraid there’s a slight problem.”
“Oh?” Miranda leaned forward.
“You see, we already had his royal dustiness here order his people to write a letter pledging thirty-five thousand gold toward my bounty. You know how the Council is; they never go back on something once it’s been through the system, so you must agree it would be frightfully rude of me to just go off with you and forfeit all of Mellinor’s money to the Spirit Court, especially considering the country’s general aversion to practitioners of the magical arts.”
“I fail to see how that is my concern, Mr. Monpress.” Miranda waved her hand dismissively. “Why don’t we wait and ask the Rector Spiritualis what he thinks?”
“Ah,” Eli said. “That sounds lovely. Unfortunately, I must refuse. You see, I have a pressing prior obligation to take his highness home and pick up a rather disgusting amount of money.”
“You might find that difficult, considering the circumstances,” Miranda said, patting the wall below her. “I don’t know how you charm your spirits, sir, but Durn here only answers to me, and he says you’re coming with us.”
“Really?” Eli rapped his knuckles against the hard stone. “Let’s see if he won’t have a change of heart. Nico, if you would?”
Nico nodded and stretched out her hand, pressing her long fingers delicately against the stone wall. For a moment, nothing happened. Then her eyes flashed under the shadow of her hat, and the wall beneath her fingers began to vanish. Not pull back, not crumble, but vanish, as if it had never been there to begin with.
After that, things happened very quickly. The stone walls of the prison collapsed with a thundering scream, falling over in an avalanche of rubble, including the wall Miranda had been so confidently perched on only seconds before. Suddenly without purchase, the female Spiritualist fell tumbling to the ground with a sickening thud.
The giant hound sprang forward with a terrifying roar, landing in a protective crouch above his motionless mistress. “Monster!” he roared, his patterns whirling through the thick cloud of dust and grit. “What did you do?”
“I’m sure we don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eli said, dusting himself off. “We were the ones attacked by a mon—”
Gin didn’t give the thief a chance to finish. He leaped forward, almost too fast to see, his claws going straight for Nico’s throat. He would have struck true if Josef’s blade hadn’t been there. The swordsman parried the hound’s swipe at the last second, but the impact took them both to the ground. Josef rolled and came up sword first. The hound pushed off the grass in a shower of dirt and wheeled around, narrowly dodging the swordsman’s counterswipe with a well-timed leap.
“Stand aside, human,” Gin snarled, his hackles bristling as he circled for another charge. “It’s not you I want now. Rest assured, I’ll eat you later for what you did to my mistress.”
“Growl all you want, pup.” Josef flipped his swords with a toothy grin, and pointed both tips at the ghosthound’s nose. “I’m no wizard, so if you have something to tell me, you’ll have to say it in a language I understand.”
The ghosthound clawed the ground and launched forward, teeth snapping in readiness to crush the swordsman’s skull, but before he had gone more than a few feet, something extraordinary happened. On either side of the charging hound, enormous roots burst out of the ground. They flew like spears, shooting out of the dirt and over the ghosthound in a tall arc. Then, with a whip crack, they slammed down hard, pinning the dog beneath them. Howling, Gin clawed and tore at the ground, foam flicking from his mouth as he fought to get free, but it was no use. The roots were young and strong, and, as much as he struggled, they would not let him go.
Josef stared in confusion for a moment and then glanced over at Eli, who looked to be in deep conversation with the stand of oaks on the far side of the clearing, and his face fell.
“Powers, Eli, did you have to?” He slammed his swords back into their sheaths. “Things were finally getting interesting.”
Eli finished thanking the trees and turned to scowl at his companion. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll still want to kill you later, but we don’t have time for this right now. You were the one who said we should be early.”
Josef grunted and turned away. “Nico,” he called, “grab the king.”
Nico nodded and reached down. The king shied away from her with a terrified squeak. On her next grab, she didn’t give him the chance to dodge. She took hold of his collar and dragged him up. Then, as easily as a thresher lifts a bag of chaff, she roped her arm around his middle and hoisted him onto her shoulders. She looked at Josef, who nodded, and they began to walk slowly in the direction they had been going before the disturbance.
Eli didn’t follow immediately. Instead, he walked over to the struggling ghosthound and knelt just out of claw range, so that he was eye to enormous eye with the beast.
“I asked the trees to hold you until nightfall,” he said, watching in amusement as the hound tried to snap at him. “You’re no servant spirit, are you? I’ve never heard of a Spiritualist keeping a ghosthound in a ring, and no member of the Spirit Court would enslave a spirit against its will. So, I’m curious, why do you follow her? Did she save your life? Pull a thorn out of your paw?”
“Come a little closer,” the hound growled, “and I’ll tell you.”
“Maybe later.” Eli stood, brushing the dirt off his knees. “I’m s
ure you’ll be able to find us easily enough when you do get out, but I would suggest you look to your mistress first.” He glanced over at the Spiritualist’s crumpled body. “We humans are so fragile.”
“Miranda is no weakling,” Gin snapped. “She would not forgive me if I let you escape, especially now that we’ve seen the company you keep.”
“Nico? Don’t worry about her. We’ve got things well in hand on that count. Besides,” he said, grinning, “she’s our companion, as I suspect that Spiritualist is for you. Companions don’t leave each other in the lurch.”
He turned and started to jog after the others. “Think on what I said,” he called over his shoulder.
Gin growled and snapped at the wizard’s retreating back until he disappeared into the brush. When Eli was well out of sight, the hound flopped against the dirt, panting. The roots snickered above him, and he snarled menacingly, which just made them snicker harder. Gin laid his ears back and flicked an eye over at Miranda. She was still lying where she had fallen, crumpled on her stomach, face down in the dirt. She wasn’t moving, but her shoulders rose and fell slightly, and that gave him hope. Gin watched her for a moment more and then, with a sigh, he began the long process of digging himself out.
Miranda woke up slowly, one muscle at a time. Everything hurt. There was dirt in her eyes and, she grimaced, her mouth. She coughed experimentally and immediately regretted it as the bruised muscles along her rib cage seized up in protest. She lay still for a moment, with her eyes clenched shut, concentrating on breathing without pain. The world was strangely still around her. She heard nothing except the normal sounds of the forest, crickets and frogs croaking in warm air and the evening wind in the trees high overhead. Gritting her teeth, she raised her hand and began wiping away the dirt. When she had cleaned as much as she could hope to, she cautiously opened her eyes.
