The Chain Breaker: Books 1-3

by Holmberg, D. K.

  “It seems to me that you have more reason than that.”

  “And I’m telling you that you need to stop pushing.”

  Gavin needed to be careful. Gaspar had limits. He could be crotchety, but he was also useful, and Gavin needed to have him be a part of what they were doing. If he angered Gaspar too much, he ran the risk of him being unwilling to work with them when they made a run at the Captain’s fortress.

  “I’m sorry,” Gavin said. “It’s just that I was taught to push and ask questions in my training.”

  “Pushing only drives people away,” Gaspar said.

  “Maybe that’s my problem,” Gavin muttered. He’d certainly done enough of that when he was training with Tristan. It was part of the reason he had so few friends from that time. None, now that Cyran had betrayed him.

  Gaspar looked over at him, and he shook his head. “Have you got it out of your system yet?”

  “What?”

  “All of your questions. Because that’s all you’ll get from me. You’ve seen what you seen, and you know more about me than damn near anyone. I’m not willing to bring you any closer unless you’re apprenticed to me. Even then…”

  “How many apprentices have you had?”

  “There you go again, asking questions. Didn’t I warn you about that?”

  “You might’ve warned me, but I’m not always good at heeding them.”

  “Obviously.”

  They continued along the street, and Gavin watched for movement, anything that would raise his alarms. After having visited Erica’s home, there was the possibility that they would come across something if it had been watched, but so far, there was nothing.

  He waited, and he continued staring at Gaspar. “You still haven’t told me if you’ve taken many apprentices.”

  “Not recently.”

  “What about Imogen?”

  “You sure you want to talk about her?”

  Gavin smiled, but Gaspar didn’t follow suit. “Eventually, we’re going to have to have a conversation about her.”

  “You can have that conversation. Not me.” Gaspar grunted. “If you got to know Imogen the way I have, you’d understand what I have to fear.”

  “She has some talent,” Gavin said.

  “Which is more than I can say about you.”

  “What about the rest of your apprentices?”

  Gaspar didn’t say anything.

  “What happened to them? Did they end up in jail?”

  Gaspar studied him. “You really ask the wrong types of questions, don’t you?”

  “That’s never really been my specialty,” Gavin admitted. “Usually, I get a target, I go after them, and I remove them. That’s sort of how my job works.”

  “Your job is terrible,” Gaspar said.

  “I didn’t say it was any good. I just said I’m good at it.”

  “Have you ever given thought to doing something else?”

  “All the time. That’s why I’m in Yoran.” Gavin sighed. But maybe not for much longer. It might actually be time for him to leave. Find the boy, then he could get on with things. Wrenlow would understand. “You know what happens when you get good at something?”

  “I know,” Gaspar said.

  “You find you don’t have much choice. You do what you can do, and you don’t complain about it. How can you, when it’s the only thing you know?”

  “Just because you’re good at killing doesn’t mean you can’t do anything else.”

  Gavin shrugged. “I’m saying that it’s what I was trained to do. And there are people who need to die.”

  “I can’t disagree with that.”

  “Which is why I do it. You’ve seen that I’m selective in the jobs I take.”

  “Selective, but you’re still taking that kind of job.” Gaspar looked over to him. “What if you decided to be something other than what you were trained to be?”

  Gavin didn’t have an answer to it, and Gaspar didn’t push.

  The Dragon was near, and Gavin moved more quickly as they headed toward it. The street around the Dragon was empty, the storefronts barely marked. Gavin’s gaze drifted along them. He recognized the small signs, picking up on those for the seamstress, the lantern maker, the butcher, and the scribe. Gavin rarely spent much time in any of them. He had visited each, mostly to scout the dangers around the Dragon.

  “I keep doing what I do because I have to,” Gavin whispered.

  “What makes you think you have to? Is it your training? Your mentor? Because if it’s either of those, then you have a choice.”

  “Like you do?”

  Gaspar glanced over at him as they slowed in front of the Dragon. “I made my choice.”

  “We all have choices. I’m telling you mine.”

  Gavin reached the door to the tavern and paused for a moment before pulling it open. It was time for him to get to work, see if he could figure out anything more, and create a plan to get into the Captain’s building. Hopefully Wrenlow and Desarra would come through with the knowledge they’d need to get inside. If not, Gavin wasn’t sure that he could even take the job. Jessica—and Gaspar, for that matter—wanted him to take the job, but without the necessary information, he wasn’t willing to put those he was working with in danger.

  Gaspar looked over at him as they stepped in the tavern, and the question in his eyes lingered. Gavin had his own questions for him, but he suspected that Gaspar would have no interest in answering them. Even more reason for him to ask.

  Instead, he turned to Jessica, who was working her way through the tavern, which was much busier than it had been in quite some time. Gavin forced a smile.

  “You aren’t going to talk about what you saw,” Gaspar said to him.

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. And you aren’t.”

  Gaspar peeled off, heading toward a table where Imogen sat, leaving Gavin at the entrance. She leaned forward, her dark hair hanging in front of her face, while she sharpened her sword by running a stone across the edge of the blade. As he had seen before, there was a pattern to her work, different than he used when sharpening blades, almost as if she knew something he didn’t about the sword. Having seen her work, and knowing just how deadly she could be, he wondered if maybe that were the case. He still wanted to know more about her though. He walked over to the table.

  “Well?” Imogen asked.

  Her sudden comment took him aback. Imogen rarely spoke. “Well what?”

  “Did you find out anything that might be useful in finding this boy?”

  Gavin smiled. “Hopefully. We’ll know soon enough.”

  She looked over to Gaspar. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Yeah, he’s probably going to be touchy for a while. We had to visit his ex-wife.”

  Her eyes narrowed a moment then she stood, sheathing her sword, and headed over to Gaspar. Another chance to get to know Imogen wasted.

  Chapter Six

  Gavin stood in the small room he occupied at the Roasted Dragon, working with the El’aras dagger and practicing different fighting styles. He flowed from movement to movement, using one form, then another, each of them demonstrating various techniques that helped him stay fluid. He used the training style that Tristan had taught him all those years ago. It was one that forced him to work through each of the training techniques. With each one, he could develop his confidence, and it took very little time for him to gain the necessary skill so that he could fight anyone. Despite not using any enchantments, Gavin had never encountered anyone who posed much of a challenge to him. Even those with enchantments—and even sorcerers—had never been that much of a problem.

  Until recently.

  Coming to this city had created a new difficulty for him. It was one he didn’t care for and one that put him in danger, though he was trained for that. There was no point in fighting it. He needed to be ready for those dangers, which was the reason he trained.

  Sweat glistened on his skin. He worked through the small spa
ce of his room, using the confines of the room to limit his movements, mimicking a fight. He didn’t need to have an actual fight to practice like this. He could make it more difficult for himself, and as he fought through the various movements, he flowed from place to place. His mind went blank the way that it often did as he trained, though flickers of memories came to him—images of what he had learned from Tristan over the years and knowledge that he embraced.

  A knock came at the door. Taking a deep breath, Gavin slipped the dagger into the sheath on his belt. He wiped the bead of sweat along his forehead and grabbed a towel from the chair. He dabbed it across his chest and pulled the door open.

  Wrenlow blinked. “Am I interrupting?”

  Gavin shook his head. “I was just training.”

  “You still do that?”

  “Skills fade if they aren’t practiced.”

  “But you’ve trained for so much of your life.”

  Gavin shrugged. That was part of the reason he continued to do it now. It made it easier for him to maintain the habit. If he lost the practice of training, he didn’t know if he’d be able to regain that. Already there were some skills that had faded somewhat because he didn’t use them the way he once had. When he’d been training with Tristan, tested on a daily basis, his skills had been sharpened to an edge that had made him incredibly powerful.

  “It’s habit, more than anything else. Besides, it helps me clear my head.”

  “What are you trying to think through now?”

  “I’m trying to get a handle on what we’re going to have to do here.”

  “That’s what I came for.”

  “Did you find something?”

  Frustration washed across Wrenlow’s face. “Not quite yet. Gaspar keeps looking, and my sources are digging into the details around the Captain, but so far we haven’t been able to come up with anything.”

  “I have faith you will.”

  “I’m glad you do because I’m starting to question whether we’re going to come up with what we need to know to get into his home. She didn’t give us much of a timeline, but…”

  “She didn’t, which means we need to act quickly,” Gavin said.

  A child abduction could be dangerous. In some of the places that he’d visited over the years, children were taken into slavery.

  “This still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The Captain has lived in Yoran for decades. In that time, he’s built up his fortress and created a position of power. Why would someone like that turn toward abducting children and sending them into slavery?” Wrenlow said.

  “There has to be something more to it. That, more than anything else, is what we need to better understand,” Gavin said.

  “We’ve been looking,” Wrenlow said. “I’m going to keep looking, and I remain optimistic that we’re going to find the answer, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  He handed a folded slip of paper over to Gavin. “This.”

  Gavin frowned as he unfolded it. As he scanned it, his surprise deepened. “This is a request for a job.”

  “That’s the way it looked to me. I’m sorry I opened it, but I wasn’t sure whether or not it was something to interrupt you for. You’ve been up here for the better part of two hours.”

  Gavin shook his head. Two hours wasn’t all that long to spend training, not compared to what he used to spend, but they went by quickly when he was focused. He wasn’t as tired as he would’ve expected, though in the small room, there were limits to how much he could move around.

  He skimmed the page, trying to figure out just what it was that he was asked to do.

  First Erica had come looking for me, and now a letter?

  This wasn’t how he did jobs. At all. It was about concealment. Staying in the shadows. Avoiding detection. Now it seemed all of Yoran knew about him.

  “Somebody wants to meet.”

  “I didn’t know if you wanted to take another job or not.”

  “Well, it’s been a few weeks since we’ve taken any.”

  “You took Erica’s.”

  “I didn’t really take that one by choice. That was more Jessica and Gaspar’s urging. Anyway, I can go and look into this at least.”

  Wrenlow nodded. “I can go with you if you’d like.”

  “I think we can get back into the usual pattern we have for jobs, don’t you?”

  The relief that swept across Wrenlow’s face almost made Gavin laugh. “I can keep looking into the details of the Captain’s fortress while you’re off on this job.”

  “I’m not going to do the job right now, Wrenlow. The letter is a request to meet.”

  He had been incredibly selective of late. Possibly he’d been too selective, but ever since the issue with Cyran, Gavin hadn’t wanted to take too many jobs. If he were going to stay in Yoran, maybe it was time for that to change. He pulled on a shirt, and on a whim, he grabbed his cloak as well.

  He felt to make sure that he had his dagger and knives. They were the only weapons he kept on him at any given time, though he was tempted to carry a sword. Travelers generally didn’t have them in other places he’d been to, but many people carried swords in Yoran, so it wouldn’t be out of place.

  “You’re going now?” Wrenlow asked.

  “The request suggests they’ll be waiting.”

  “I’ll keep listening.” Wrenlow tapped on the enchantment, and he flashed a smile at Gavin, who could only shake his head and chuckle. At least Wrenlow was getting back to his old self.

  Gavin headed down the stairs and into the tavern. There was more activity than usual. He searched for Jessica, but he didn’t see her anywhere. Gaspar sat at a table with Imogen, and the two of them were talking quietly. Her fingers tapped at the table as he’d seen her doing before, drumming a pattern. He looked over, curious as to what they were doing, but they didn’t look in his direction. He considered saying something to Gaspar, possibly asking him to join, but he decided that he wanted to do the job on his own. It was past time he returned to jobs like that.

  Gavin stepped out into the street and hunched down to stay low and blend into the crowd as much as he could. He weaved through the people, heading toward the meeting point. He stayed to the side of the street and moved past the seamstress shop, glancing through the window to see the arrangement of colorful dresses displayed. The proprietor, a woman named Marlowe who’d lived in this section of the city for decades, tottered around the shop, unmindful of him. He looked in the window of the next storefront and saw it empty. He kept his attention all around him, looking from storefront to storefront, before focusing on the crowd.

  As he walked, there was a familiar sense that somebody was following him. He took a few side turns and twisted through the streets to see if there was anyone behind him, but he didn’t see anyone. The crowd looked the way it should, and there was no sign he needed to be worried about. Perhaps there was nothing.

  Typically, Gavin wasn’t one to jump at shadows. He was trained too well for that. Maybe it was a matter of everything they’d been through and that he felt his time in Yoran was coming to an end. Or maybe it was more a matter of Cyran’s betrayal. That had troubled him, more than he’d admitted to the others. Gavin was normally a much better judge of character, and having Cyran betray him in such a way made Gavin doubt who he could trust.

  He turned another corner, and it seemed as if somebody trailed after him. This time, he caught sight of a flash of brightly colored fabric, which reminded him of Hamish. But Hamish had been Cyran wearing an illusion.

  So if it wasn’t him, who was it?

  Rather than continuing to push onward and risking his meeting being interrupted by somebody following him, Gavin decided that he needed to investigate. The potential employer could wait. They would have to understand. And by taking his time, Gavin was protecting them. He switched directions, changing course to move back along the street but in a way that wouldn’t be observed quite as easily.

  Th
e activity around here was sparse. There were other people out, but none of them seemed to pay him any mind. This wasn’t uncommon, and Gavin had grown accustomed to people ignoring him. It was only to be expected, since he kept himself covered by his cloak and made a point of drawing himself down so that he didn’t look nearly as large or threatening.

  Besides, it was more than just his size, it was a matter of how much attention he paid. He knew better than to focus on too many of the people in the streets so that he didn’t draw their notice. Gavin looked for trends instead, and as he scanned the street, he didn’t see any patterns emerge.

  Only… there.

  One man kept making a loop. He looked as if he were trying to avoid glancing in Gavin’s direction, but he wasn’t doing a good a job of it. He was lean; dressed in gray pants and a jacket. Different than the bright fabric that he’d seen before. Which meant a second person was watching.

  His hair was shorn, and there was a scar across his forehead. Gavin didn’t see any sign of weapons. A soldier, but not one who was prepared to attack.

  Gavin continued looking for other signs of movement. Where there was one, especially one who was unarmed, he suspected there would be another.

  Why are they watching me, though? Did they know what I was doing here?

  He didn’t see how such a thing would be possible. He was only coming for information, not to take a job yet. There wasn’t any reason for somebody to follow him.

  Unless they knew he’d been summoned.

  Could they be the ones who’d summoned me?

  Gavin was more on edge than he’d been before Cyran had used him. He made his way along the street, looking for any other signs of movement.

  It was times like these where he thought that Gaspar would have been beneficial. Having the old thief with him provided another set of eyes, and he couldn’t deny that Gaspar was incredibly skilled at searching for patterns. Not that he would ever tell Gaspar that.

  He didn’t see anything else and slipped back along the street. The other man made another circle and Gavin followed, taking up a path behind him. The man turned a corner, and Gavin darted forward and jammed his fist into his side. He pulled him toward an alley and set him on the ground.