Leaning from the saddle, drawn sword in hand, the guard charged him, yelling a war cry.
Cursing the man, Shadrael had no time to grab a sword from the guard he’d just killed. He threw himself into a thornbush to avoid the charge and felt a sword blade whisper death just above his head.
Still yelling, the guard swung his horse around and charged again with bared teeth gleaming in the starlight and the ends of his head wrap streaming out behind him.
Shadrael dodged right, then left, yanked the dead man’s sword from its scabbard, and met his foe’s attack with an expert twist of his wrists that caught his opponent’s sword and sent it sailing into the brush.
“Nine thousand curses upon you!” the man swore, and threw a star.
Shadrael deflected it with his sword, sending it spinning harmlessly to the ground. Even as the man kicked his horse into another charge, Shadrael was pouncing on the throwing star. He scooped it up, cutting his hand on the sharp edge of steel, and spun about. The horse was too close; he’d been too slow. He stumbled back, pushing against the horse’s sweaty shoulder to gain momentum, and flung the star without aim.
It bounced off the guard’s mail shirt but flew up, cutting his jaw instead. With a howl, the man swayed in his saddle, and Shadrael sprang at the horse, causing it to shy sideways. The rider lost his balance, and Shadrael gripped his stirrup, tipping him from the saddle, then pouncing on the man as he tried to scramble to his feet.
Their fight was brutal, messy, and brief. Panting hard, Shadrael staggered to his feet, shaking off the sweat streaming into his eyes. He felt spent, so out of breath he was almost dizzy. Swaying, he almost sank to one knee, then gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand upright. Out of habit, he cleaned his weapons, wiping blood with the edge of his cloak. He sucked at the blade cut on his hand, feeling nothing at the moment, and pulled a thorn from his shoulder. At the moment, with killing lust pounding through him, he did not know whether his healing severance had held or not. He did not care.
Someone from the nearby camp called out a question, and was swiftly hushed. Shadrael could not see them but he imagined a swift argument was taking place. The merchants would not dare venture out of camp to investigate trouble that didn’t involve them. He was more concerned with Hultul, who would also have heard the commotion and doubled back.
Hearing hoofbeats, he slid swiftly into cover despite getting scratched ruthlessly by thorns. Sweating in the cold air, clutching the stitch in his side, and wrapping one corner of his cloak around his cut hand to stop the bleeding, Shadrael kept still while the remaining guard searched warily in the dark.
A moan nearly startled Shadrael from hiding. He listened to Hultul’s voice, shooting questions, and the groggy answers that told him he hadn’t killed the first man he struck down. The temptation to attack burned inside him, but Shadrael gritted his teeth and forced it under control.
“Kalfim? Sarthu?” Hultul called.
Silence.
Shadrael waited grimly, letting the lone man work it out for himself. Three armed companions downed in short order by an unarmed man supposedly kept under control by Choven magic that had failed. In the end, Hultul decided he did not want to hunt a ruthless donare in the dark by himself. He gathered the wounded man and retreated.
As soon as he deemed it safe, Shadrael moved swiftly, breaking cover to seek his horse. The animal had managed to catch one of its reins in the brush and was caught fast. Snorting, it shied from him, but he tied it more securely and set to work.
It was simple enough to strip one of the bodies and change clothes, although he struggled to fit inside the man’s mail shirt and surplice. The head wrap was warm and itchy. Finding the belt too long, Shadrael sliced off the excess length with his dagger. Then he put his clothes on the dead guard, and struggled to lift the man across the horse he’d been riding. Trussing the corpse swiftly in place, Shadrael caught the guard’s horse and climbed into the saddle.
Shadrael rode cautiously, leading the other horse carrying the dead man.
The city gates were closed for the night, and numerous wagons were parked outside the walls. The guards, however, were still admitting a few travelers through the eye gate, provided they carried the right kind of pass.
Well aware of the annoying habits of bureaucracy that required every guard to carry a duplicate pass, Shadrael dug into saddlebag and pockets until he found a writ of arrest signed by Vordachai. Clutching it, he approached the gates, nervous in the torchlight, and answered the questions put to him.
“Bringing in a prisoner on the warlord’s orders,” he said, using a broad dramen accent. He remembered to slouch in the insolent curve of the true dramen horseman, and did not look the centruin on duty in the eye as an officer would.
The centruin studied his writ with a narrowed eye. “What in Gault’s name would my commander want with some renegade?”
Shadrael shrugged. “Does m’lord tell me such things? He says, ‘Deliver a traitor!’ and that is what I do.”
“This isn’t some weird festival joke, is it?”
“To ask that is to insult my religion.”
The centruin raised his hands. “Gault knows, we don’t want to do that. But treason’s a stiff charge.”
Shadrael mentally swore at the fellow and tried to look bored. “He gives me the orders. I follow the orders.”
“Right. You know nothing about nothing, and I’m supposed to let you into town with a dead man charged with treason during a festival when violence is forbidden. So how’d he get dead?”
Shadrael let his gaze wander indifferently. “It is a long way down the mountain from m’lord’s citadel.”
The centruin grinned, giving Shadrael a friendlier look. “Is it now? And you’re bringing him in all alone.”
This time Shadrael did meet his gaze. “Does he look like he needs a full escort?”
“Nope. He don’t, at that.”
“It’s cold, eh? If I get him delivered before the taverns close . . .”
“You won’t,” the centruin said gruffly, his sympathy dying fast. “Got to file a report first. No one on duty in camp will accept a corpse on a night like this. Might as well roll up over there”—he pointed—“and wait for morning.”
Shadrael felt grudging admiration for the man’s training. He was doing his job exactly as he should. “There is a reward,” he said. “M’lord says I am to collect it from the commander.”
“Reward for what?”
“Delivery of traitor called Shadrael—”
Stiffening, the centruin stepped back. “Pass!” he shouted loud enough for the sentries to hear. “Man and prisoner coming through.”
An echoing shout replied from the other side, and the eye gate swung open. He feared the centruin would detail an escort for him, but the cold night and a hot barrel fire seemed to be working in his favor. The men on guard duty barely looked his way. He rode down the street until he was out of sight of the wall sentries. Then he dropped the reins of the horse he’d been leading, abandoning it and its burden. He tossed away his head wrap and turned his cloak inside out to change its color. Flinging it around his shoulders, he rode through narrow, twisting streets, avoiding crowds singing in groups as the festival wound down, and keeping away from crooked dark alleys where thieves lurked.
Eventually, in the guild quarter, he found what he wanted—a large tavern ablaze with lights and roaring with celebration. A dozen or more horses were tied at the rear. Shadrael secured his mount among them and hastened off on foot.
By the time he reached the pawnbroker street he was short of breath and inclined to stumble if he wasn’t careful. Frowning, he pulled out the flask and sipped at the potion in an effort to regain some strength. He hoped the healer hadn’t put anything in it to make him sleepy.
After a moment of enforced rest, he regained his wind and skulked along the row of darkened shops until he reached the one where he’d pawned his armor. An expert jimmy with his dagger opened one of the shut
ters. The shop remained silent inside, with no dog on guard to sound an alarm, and no Choven warding keys to hinder his entry. All he heard was a faint rumble of snoring from upstairs.
Shadrael hoisted himself inside the window. Slowly and cautiously, he threaded his way through the stacks of goods, making no more sound than a ghost, searching patiently until he put out his hand and touched his breastplate.
“Thanks to Mrishadal,” Shadrael murmured, aware that it was forbidden to sell weapons and armor during the festival. Legal to buy, but not legal to sell. A convenient law, in the circumstances, for it meant the pawnbroker had not yet dispersed his possessions.
He shed the uncomfortable mail shirt and buckled on his breastplate with the familiarity and ease of long years of practice. His sleeve knives were gone, but he dug around in the shop until he found replacements. He located his sword, fastening the scabbard to his belt, and hooked his fang-point axe at the small of his back where it felt at home. The borrowed belt he wore had no hooks for throwing stars. He frowned at that, but let it go, taking instead a boot knife and two more daggers. His helmet took longer to find, and he was growing impatient before he located it on a cluttered workbench. It smelled strongly of oil as though someone had been polishing it, and he tucked the greasy thing under his arm with relief.
The snoring overhead stopped. Shadrael froze, his heart thumping hard. He was tired and cold, and there was much left to do. He didn’t want to kill a harmless shopkeeper nosing downstairs at the wrong time.
But after a moment the snoring resumed. Shadrael eased out his breath and left. Back in the street, he clamped his hand firmly on his sword hilt, put an assured swagger in his step, and walked where he chose, aware that no thief was likely to attack an armed man.
At the tavern where he’d left his horse, a sizable crowd had gathered, yelling drunkenly and slurring Last Night blessings to each other. One by one the patrons came stumbling outside, ejected by the landlord who was trying to close down his establishment before curfew.
Impatient with the delay, Shadrael retreated to avoid both crowd and torchlight. If they didn’t break up soon, the soldiers would come to disperse them. He didn’t want to be rounded up with drunks and questioned. There was always the risk of being recognized.
“Make way! Make way!” a man called out. “Let us pass!”
Shadrael saw a portly man shaking his staff at the crowd in an effort to get through. By his clothing and rings he was a wealthy man. With him were a cluster of sleepy-eyed servants and a wheeled litter that doubtless held his wife or mistress. The curtains were firmly closed, and yet something about the conveyance caught Shadrael’s attention.
He found himself staring hard at the litter, his curiosity sharpening. He sensed something familiar and unwelcome, something he had to acknowledge. Before he could stop himself he stepped away from a doorway’s shadow into the torchlight.
Pushing his way through the revelers, who were shouting good-naturedly at the rich man without letting him through, Shadrael yanked open the litter curtains and peered inside.
A pair of startled eyes, heavily painted, stared back at him. The woman’s mouth parted in surprise, but it was not her plump, coarsely attractive face that held Shadrael’s attention. It was not her lush figure or the gawking maidservant with her that made him stare.
Around her neck hung Lea’s gli-emeralds, the green stones huge and glowing as they reflected the torchlight. They dangled in their settings of intricate Choven gold, all nine stones holding enough power to bring down a mountain and burn his flesh like fire.
“How dare you?” the woman cried, although her painted eyes appraised him openly. “Get back from my litter at once! Husband, I am being accosted!”
Her cry to her husband wasn’t loud, however. The man, busy arguing with the revelers, did not hear her.
Grinning, Shadrael leaned inside audaciously to press her mouth to his. She tasted of wine and scented lip wax, her perfume a heavy cloud. Her lips, frozen only for a moment in surprise, parted beneath his with a willingness that told him everything. Her fingers slid through his hair.
“Bad man,” she whispered against his mouth. “Join me quickly. The maid can go.”
Shadrael had no intention of obeying. Kissing her so expertly she moaned and melted, he unfastened the necklace adroitly and was gone, tucking the jewels into his cloak pocket as he went. The woman shouted in annoyance, then screamed, but Shadrael was already mixing into the crowd. He escaped into a dark alley, turned corners as more shouts went up behind him, and ran until there was only cold dark night and sleeping houses.
Stumbling to a halt, he leaned against a wall to catch his breath. He ached all over. His strength was spent. Possession of Lea’s emeralds was already making him restless and uneasy. He felt that dull, heavy ache around his heart return, and his spirits dropped. The magic in the jewels had done nothing in the past but weaken him. He would be a fool now to keep them, for he could not afford to waste his scant strength resisting their effect, much less concealing them from the Vindicants.
She’ll need them, he thought.
Still gasping for breath, he shook his head at his own impulsive stupidity and stumbled on through the night.
Chapter 16
Coated with dust, his hips and knees aching from too many hours in the saddle, Thirbe was standing once again in Commander Pendek’s plain office. He had just been offered a cup of hot mead, but slammed it down untasted. “Got away?” he said. “You’re saying you had Lord Shadrael in your fist, and he got away?”
Looking stout and authoritative in full armor, his insignia glinting on his breastplate, a crimson cloak of thick Ulinian wool hanging from his shoulders, Pendek had likewise just come in from outdoors. They had met at the door, and Pendek had invited Thirbe inside and offered him a drink to help warm him up before telling him the news.
Standing with his back to the fire, his hair windblown and his cheeks reddened, Pendek did not immediately answer Thirbe’s outburst. Instead he drank his mead in what seemed to be a display of indifference, but when he lowered the cup, his green eyes were troubled.
“According to Lord Vordachai,” Pendek said carefully, “he arrested Commander Shadrael and sent him here to be charged officially with treason.”
“On what grounds? Abduction? Does Vordachai have Lady Lea?”
“No.”
“You don’t believe that, do you? Or did you even ask?”
Pendek reddened. “Of course I asked. I have made full inquiries. Lord Vordachai says he caught his brother for reasons of outlawry and theft. He also says that you informed him that his brother was under suspicion and wanted for Imperial questioning. He sent him to us.”
“Except Shadrael just happened to escape,” Thirbe said. His throat felt raw, as if he’d swallowed a roadside thistle. “How lax is your security on the guardhouse?”
“The man never reached Kanidalon,” Pendek said huffily. “You needn’t lay blame here, Protector. The Ninth does not lose its prisoners.”
Thirbe was shaking his head in disgust. “Plague smite that wind-swelled liar! Sitting up there on that mountain, safe behind his walls, and laughing at us. He’s spread this lie to cover his own involvement; of that, I’m sure.”
“Well, I’m not. Three of his men were killed by Lord Shadrael,” Pendek said. “The warlord has no reason to lie.”
“He has every reason!” Thirbe burst out. “Gods, man, how can you believe such a feeble tale?”
“One of the dead men was found tied to a horse wandering Kanidalon streets,” Pendek said, picking up a pen from his cluttered desk and putting it down again. “Stabbed through the—”
“What does that matter? The—”
“Of course it matters!” Pendek said, looking shocked. “Every detail in this affair could be important.”
“Every detail in a lie still adds up to a lie,” Thirbe told him. Unable to keep still, he stomped over to the small window overlooking the camp and back again. “Y
ou can’t approach this like a clerk, organizing old ledgers, Commander. It’s strategy, and he’s outmaneuvered us.”
“I don’t—”
“Nothing holds together. Vordachai wouldn’t surrender his own brother voluntarily—”
“He did,” Pendek insisted. “Which means your talk with him the other day accomplished something.”
“Aye, proved my point. Both of ’em involved. My visit must have spooked him, made him worry we were closing in, perhaps considering arrest. So he pretends to surrender his brother as an act of good faith, and Shadrael conveniently escapes before he reaches the guardhouse. Very tidy, damn his eyes.”
Pendek gave Thirbe a flat, unblinking stare, the kind only a Chanvezi could produce. “Your interpretation is . . . creative,” he said eventually. “But why not view the positive side of the situation?”
“What’s positive about it?” Thirbe asked. “We’ve lost our one solid lead. If Shadrael is even still in the region. There’s no proof that any of this happened, no matter how much you want to believe Vordachai.”
Pendek shook his head. “Well, I do believe him. He’s not clever enough to create the kind of complicated intrigues Itierians love so much. Don’t you see how positive a step this is?”
“No.”
“Lord Vordachai is beginning to trust me. I believe he can be—”
“Trust!” Thirbe broke in. “There’s no trust, you—” Just in time he stopped himself from completing the insult. Exhaling fiercely, he tried again. “If he trusted you, Commander, he would have followed the proper procedure by clapping his brother in chains and sending for an escort from the Ninth to take him. There would have been no convenient escape, and we’d have our prisoner sitting tight and tidy in the guardhouse, ready for me to question.”
“This is exactly why you should leave diplomacy to the experts,” Pendek said. “Permitting my men to remove Lord Shadrael from his property would break every law of hospitality a Ulinian knows.”
“Do you think I care about etiquette, you great—”
The Crown Page 16
