Voyage of the Mourning Dawn: Heirs of Ash, Book 1

by Rich Wulf

  “Stop her!” Rolf cried, running up behind her.

  “She’s stopped herself, Officer Rolf,” the horseman said.

  Seren scowled and staggered to her feet. This time, the three watchmen surrounded her. Officer Shain had his crossbow drawn. Rolf still held his lantern and bell. He leaned heavily against a wall, struggling to catch his breath. Ironically, it was at that point that the storm faded into a drizzle, ending as quickly as it had begun.

  “What’s this all about?” the mounted guard asked, looking at Rolf curiously.

  “She was acting suspicious, Sergeant Narem,” Rolf said. “She rolled a barrel at us. Probably a thief.”

  “Search her,” Narem commanded.

  Well used to the ritual, Seren sighed and held her arms up, away from her body. At least in her current filthy state, perhaps the guard would enjoy this as little as she did. Officer Shain put his crossbow away and began to pat her down. Seren grimaced. The way he pressed against her, she realized the dirt wasn’t doing a great deal to dissuade him.

  “Can I at least have a cigar so I enjoy this too?” she asked.

  “Quiet, you,” Sergeant Narem said. “Shain, go easy or I’m telling Doris,” he added in a gentler voice.

  The other watchman looked embarrassed and mumbled an apology.

  “Hello, what’s this?” said a bright voice with an elegant Lhazaarite accent. “A little midnight justice? What drama unfolds in the weary, rain-soaked roadways of Wroat?”

  The watchmen looked to the sound of the voice. Seren peered over her shoulder as well, though she kept her hands raised. A young man stepped out of the shadows of an awning, greeting them with a broad smile. He was dressed in a long blue coat and fine black cloak. His sandy brown hair was tied back by a think leather cord, and a thin pair of spectacles sat perched upon his nose. He wore a sword at his belt in the manner of a gentleman, though he kept his hand away from the hilt so as not to upset the guards.

  “My, this is more dangerous than I first suspected,” the man said, eyes widening as his gaze met Seren’s. “Three watchmen band together to arrest a fifteen-year-old girl?”

  “Nineteen,” Seren said tersely.

  “My apologies, my lady, but one day I think you will treasure such underestimations,” the man said. He looked back to the guards. “But clearly this is even worse than I suspected. Four years more experience than I thought—all the more reason for caution. Are you certain you three can handle her? I am no citizen of your fair city, but I would be pleased to offer you my modest sword arm for the cause of justice, if deputies are required. I would be proud to participate in such a heroic confrontation.”

  “You’re not funny,” Rolf growled. “Move on, stranger.”

  “What’s in this bag?” Officer Shain asked, tugging at the sack at her hip.

  “Book,” Seren said. She looked straight ahead and kept her voice and posture bored, hoping this would soon be over. She had no doubt that if they saw the seal on that book’s cover, it certainly would be.

  “A scholar!” the man interrupted again. “She is obviously a student of some local university. Is this how Wroat’s watchmen encourage Breland’s youth? No wonder this neighborhood is in such a sorry state.”

  Even Seren glanced back at that, fixing the stranger with a bewildered scowl. She hoped this odd person wasn’t trying to pick a fight with the Watch. One man against three guards was bound to go badly for him, and she didn’t want to be in the middle of that. The man noticed Seren looking at him. He winked. What was he doing?

  “Go take your advice somewhere else, pirate, before we search you too,” Narem said. “Chances are a Lhazaarite has something in his pockets that doesn’t belong there.”

  “Your prejudice does not surprise me, though it saddens me,” he said. “I am Tristam Xain, citizen of Zilargo and an honored guest in this city.” He sighed. His shoulders slumped. “I am wounded.”

  “Keep it up and you will be,” Narem said. He looked up at the horseman. “Rolf, detain this man.”

  Rolf drew his sword, moving purposefully toward the well-dressed stranger.

  “Put your weapon on the ground and back away from it, please,” Rolf said.

  “Now this is just going too far,” Tristam answered, removing his spectacles and tucking them into his jacket pocket. “I am a protected guest of the city with powerful friends. I have papers granting me immunity from such action as this. Omax, show them my papers.”

  The shadows behind Tristam moved. A bulk that Seren had previously thought to be a large stack of barrels rose and resolved itself into a monstrous figure. It was a foot taller than a man, with shining black wood and gleaming blue metal in place of flesh. Its face was a smooth metal plate, split only by an expressionless line for a mouth and two hollow eyes, glowing with an unnerving blue light. It wore only loose brown trousers and a soft woolen hat. It stepped out of the darkness with movement surprisingly lithe and graceful for a creature of its size. The watchmen each took a step back, and even Narem’s horse whinnied nervously. Seren had seen creatures such as this before.

  “Good evening, officers,” Omax said, his cool voice echoing in its metallic chest. “Is there a problem?”

  This was a warforged, one of the automatons created by House Cannith to fight in the Last War. Seren’s annoyance was quickly replaced by fear and suspicion. She realized belatedly that the guards had not been looking for her, when by all rights Dalan d’Cannith should have roused the City Watch to investigate the theft. Perhaps he had not wanted the Watch to become involved. Perhaps he wanted to send his own agents to retrieve what Seren had stolen.

  Now they were here.

  Sergeant Narem climbed out of his saddle, drawing his sword and standing beside Rolf as they watched Tristam and Omax cautiously.

  Seren watched the warforged with undisguised fear. She knew the dragonmarked houses could be ruthless, but she wondered if the Canniths were ruthless enough to kill three watchmen just to take back what she had stolen. She didn’t intend to find out. She scampered into the horse’s empty saddle. Rolf charged toward her, but she scattered Jamus’s bag of marbles on the rain-slicked cobbles. The watchman squawked in comical surprise and fell forward on his teeth. Seren seized the horse’s reins, kicked its flanks, and galloped off.

  “Stop!” came the cry, followed by the sound of boots falling on cobblestones.

  Seren ducked as low in the saddle as she could, hoping that the guards would be unwilling to loose arrows at their own horse. Rolf’s bell clanged again. She saw lights flare in the windows along the road as the locals peered out to see what the trouble was, but she saw no more guards. She kept riding till the Watch, the Lhazaarite stranger, and the warforged were out of sight. Seren was not foolish enough to ride through Wroat on a stolen horse wearing City Watch colors, so she slowed just enough to leap out of the saddle and slap the animal’s flanks. With a frenzied whinny it continued galloping without her. She darted into the nearest alley. In three years she had come to know the back streets of Wroat well. This was hardly the first time she had used this twisted network of alleys, tunnels, and abandoned buildings to escape pursuit.

  Seren kept running for ten minutes before slowing to catch her breath. She stopped for a moment in a leatherworker’s shack, using a rag left hanging on a post to wipe the grime from her face, arms, and legs. By all rights she should hurry back to rendezvous with Jamus, but she was tired, cold, and frustrated. She needed a moment to compose herself.

  So Seren sat on a stool, took a cigar out of the box she had taken from Officer Shain’s pocket during his energetic search, and enjoyed the finest smoke in all of Eberron.

  Seren waited an hour, just to make sure she wasn’t followed, and then headed to the rendezvous point. As she made her way to her destination, the streets became softer beneath her feet. Manicured cobblestones gave way to bare ground, paved only by a random covering of occasional wooden planks. Even these did little to make the path more hospitable, as the rain had
turned the streets into mud. The streets sucked at Seren’s shoes until she finally tired of struggling and took them off with a sigh, slinging the muddy things over one shoulder by their laces.

  The fishermen’s district was crowded even at this late hour. It was always crowded. People moved quickly through the streets in tight groups, moving urgently toward whatever clandestine business had brought them here. Few spared Seren any more than a suspicious glance. She minded her own path and ignored them; they were content to do the same. She arrived at the meeting place soon enough.

  The Friendly Buzzard was an abandoned inn. In the three years she had come here to train with Jamus Roland, it had never been anything but a ruin. Jamus lived here and sometimes met clients here to fence stolen goods. She wasn’t entirely sure whether he owned the place or had simply taken up residence since no one else wanted it. A painted sign still hung above the doors, depicting a comical, grinning buzzard clutching a mug of ale and a loaf of bread in its talons. The wooden stairs squealed noisily as Seren climbed up to the door. The effect wasn’t entirely accidental; Jamus had replaced several of the boards in this place to make it difficult for someone to approach unheard. She tiptoed as she walked inside, setting the sign overhead swinging with a gentle slap as she always did.

  The interior of the inn was dimly lit. Seren knew the way and easily navigated the darkness to the stairwell in the back. On the second floor, a long hallway led to a series of what had once been private dining rooms. She continued to the end of the hall, the floor creaking beneath her feet, and opened the last door. Within was a small room featuring a table and three chairs. Only a single candle provided light. Jamus sat with his back to the far wall. His arms were folded tightly and his chin was tucked against his chest. He seemed to be dozing.

  Seren frowned. He had been growing tired more often of late, sometimes even dozing off at important times like now. Much like his cough, his exhaustion was something he never spoke of. His silence on the matter was what worried her the most. Jamus Roland could be a manipulative cad and a demanding teacher, but he was all that passed for a friend in this large, uncaring city. Without him, where would she be? The old thief’s body jerked as he was taken by a violent snore. Seren closed the door solidly behind her. Jamus glanced up in surprise, now wide awake.

  “Seren,” he said. He flushed with embarrassment. “I’m glad to see you had no trouble getting here.”

  “A little trouble,” she corrected him, sitting down across the table. “A few watchmen,” she said. She dropped the muddy sack containing the book on the table between them.

  “But you lost them,” Jamus said. There was no questioning tone in his statement, only a surety that Seren would not have been foolish enough to come here otherwise. He reached for the bag.

  “I lost them,” she said, leaning back precariously on her chair and propping her muddy feet on the table. “Some warforged distracted them while I ran off.”

  Jamus paused in the act of opening the bag’s drawstrings, then offered an uneasy smile. “Ah, warforged,” he said with a light chuckle. “Such curious creatures. Some were built to protect humans, you know. Perhaps he saw a young girl in danger and felt motivated to intervene.”

  “Jamus, don’t lie to me,” Seren said in a low voice. “We’re hired to break into a Cannith guildmaster’s house to steal one particular book out of a whole library. I steal the book, make a mess of his office, and he doesn’t even report it to the Watch? And then some Lhazaarite mercenary and a warforged thug coincidentally show up to ‘rescue’ me from a wandering patrol? What’s really going on here? What is this book? Who are we meeting here tonight?”

  “The less you know the better, Seren,” Jamus said, his voice surprisingly clear and even. His previous sleepy frown was now replaced with an alert, intense stare.

  “I warned you it was a bad idea to steal from Dalan d’Cannith, Jamus,” Seren said.

  “And perhaps you were right,” the old thief answered. “Now it’s probably best if you left. Go home. I’ll meet you in the morning, and we can leave this city behind.”

  “You don’t actually expect me to do that,” she said.

  Jamus sighed and ran one hand through his thinning white locks.

  “At least tell me who we’re working for,” she said.

  “Well, make up your mind,” he said with a sudden, irritated tone. “Do you want to know who we’re working for or who we’re meeting here?”

  Seren gave him a long, angry stare.

  “It’s complicated,” he said evasively. “Our employer’s identity is a confidence I am not at liberty to betray, even to you, but she can be trusted.”

  Seren wanted to slap the old man off his chair. She restrained herself, holding one wrist tightly with the other hand behind her back. “Jamus, you know I trust you,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even and patient. “I assumed you wouldn’t suggest a job like this unless you were sure it was safe. Now you’re telling me you can’t tell me who we’re working for? I’m risking my life. Can’t you give me that much?”

  “I told you, Seren, it’s complicated,” he said. “Suffice it to say the Canniths are the least of our worries. We have powerful allies. If Dalan d’Cannith moves against us, we’ll be protected. Why do you think they offered to move us out of Wroat? Our protection was always part of the deal.”

  “The fact that a group as powerful as the House of Making is the least of our worries doesn’t make me feel much better, Jamus,” Seren said. “What are we involved in?”

  Jamus folded his hands on the table before him, staring silently at his long, gnarled fingers. He looked much older than he normally did, much more exhausted.

  “Have I ever told you about this place?” he said. “About what it once was?”

  “This inn?” Seren asked, confused by the sudden change of subject. “You’ve told me a little about it, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Be patient, Seren,” Jamus said, looking at her with a crooked smile. “I have taught you many things in the time we’ve known one another, but I suspect this is the most important thing I have to teach.”

  Seren frowned, but did not argue.

  “Years ago this building was home to a den of smugglers,” Jamus said. “They were war profiteers. Scum. They stored weapons, supplies, sometimes even the occasional spy here. They used to meet their clients here. After the King’s soldiers discovered what was going on, the place was cleaned out. The smugglers were executed for treason, and the building was left empty for twenty years. It was a Cyran woman, Fiona Keenig, who purchased it next. Exiled from her home, she did her best to turn it into a welcoming, comfortable sort of place. She said that she felt like a scavenger, snapping up this old husk of a building, so she named it the Friendly Buzzard.”

  “You’ve told me about Keenig,” Seren said. “You said she was a friend of yours.”

  Jamus nodded. “Something of an understatement, but yes,” he said. “The Last War drove a deep wedge between Breland and Cyre. They were indifferent neighbors at best, bitter enemies at worst, depending on which way the War had turned that week. Fiona wasn’t welcome here at first, but she persevered. This was the only place in all of Wroat where you could find genuine Cyran cuisine and hospitality. Fiona’s brothers still lived in Cyre that time, and did what they could to send her the spices and ingredients that weren’t available here.” Jamus grinned. “In a city as crowded as Wroat, it pays to be unique. People started noticing the Buzzard.”

  Seren stared at her teacher in silence. She wanted to demand answers, to demand Jamus stop stalling, but when she saw the sad, distant look in his eyes she could not bring herself to interrupt. There was something deeper here. This was important.

  “But rumors bred, as they always do,” Jamus said. “Mistress Keenig was accused of being a Cyran spy. The King’s inquisitives conducted a public investigation, and Keenig’s business ground to a halt. A few of the locals, people who knew her, braved the stigma of
coming here. It wasn’t much business, but it was enough to keep her afloat.”

  “Was she a spy?” Seren asked.

  Jamus shrugged noncommittally. “After two years, the investigators found nothing,” he said. “King Boranel offered no apology, of course, because a king cannot apologize. However, he and his retinue did dine here. Boranel gave the Buzzard his highest possible recommendation, and business turned around overnight. The wealthiest members of the nobility lined up to dine at the Buzzard, even braving the wretched streets of the fishermen’s district to emulate their beloved king.” Jamus smiled silently for several moments, remembering. “To her credit, Fiona did not allow the sudden fame to overwhelm her. She did not forget those who had remained her friends. The upper floor became dedicated to her wealthier clientele, private rooms and tables available only by reservation at astronomical prices. Her new customers were happy to pay. The bottom floor remained open to the common man, offering an alternate menu that was mostly the same thing being served upstairs … but at one-tenth the price.”

  “Bold,” Seren said. “What if the nobles had discovered she was overcharging them?”

  Jamus gave a wry smile. “Fiona was a clever woman. She knew her clientele,” he answered. “The nobles expected a high price. After all, had not the king himself dined here? They were paying for the privilege of sharing in his glory. What they were eating certainly didn’t matter, and they most assuredly were not going to share the details of their dinner with the scum downstairs. The nobles believed that Fiona only allowed the locals to dine here so that the Buzzard would have an authentic, earthy charm.”

  “She lied to them,” Seren said.

  “She gave them what they wanted,” Jamus said. “The sheltered rich will pay a fair sum for authenticity, as long as that authenticity is kept safely at arm’s length.”