“Oops,” was all she could manage. “Didn’t know it was taken. Give us a hand up, Rubis.”
The man helped her to her feet. She paused to give Thrace a long appraising look, then winked at them. “We do good work, don’t we?”
“That was Maggie,” Thrace told them after the woman hauled her man back out again.
Hadrian moved to the sofa and gestured for Thrace to sit. She sat gingerly and straight, not allowing her back to touch the rear of the sofa, and carefully smoothed out her skirt.
Royce remained on his feet. “Does Westbank have a lord? Why isn’t he doing something about this?”
“We had a fine margrave,” she said. “A brave man with three good knights.”
“Had?”
“He and his knights rode out to fight the beast one evening. Later, all that was found was bits and pieces of armor.”
“Why don’t you just leave?” Royce asked.
Thrace’s head drooped and her shoulders slouched a bit. “Two nights before I left to come here, the beast killed everyone in my family except for me and my father. We weren’t home. My father had worked late in the fields and I went to look for him. I—I accidentally left the door open. Light attracts it. It went right for our house. My brother, Thad, his wife, and their son were all killed.
“Thad—he was the joy of my father’s life. He was the reason we moved to Dahlgren in the first place—so he could become the town’s first cooper.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Now they’re all gone and my father has nothing left but his grief and the beast that brought it. He’ll see it dead, or die himself before the month is out. If I had only closed the door … If I had just checked the latch …”
Her hands covered her face and her slender body quivered. Royce gave Hadrian a stern look, shaking his head very slightly and mouthing the word no.
Hadrian scowled and placed his hand on her shoulder and brushed the hair away from her eyes. “You’re going to ruin all your pretty makeup,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t want to be such a bother. These aren’t your problems. It is just that my father is all I have left and I can’t bear the thought of losing him too. I can’t reason with him. I asked him to leave, but he won’t listen.”
“I can see your problem, but why us?” Royce asked coldly. “And how does a farmer’s daughter from the frontier know our names and how to find us in Colnora?”
“A crippled man told me. He sent me here. He said you could open the tower.”
“A cripple?”
“Yes. Mr. Haddon told me the beast can’t—”
“Mr. Haddon?” Royce interrupted.
“Uh-huh.”
“This Mr. Haddon … he wouldn’t be missing his hands, would he?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
Royce and Hadrian exchanged glances.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He said the beast can’t be harmed by weapons made by man, but inside Avempartha there is a sword that can kill it.”
“So, a man with no hands told you to find us in Colnora and hire us to get a sword for your father from a tower called Avempartha?” Royce asked.
The girl nodded.
Hadrian looked at his partner. “Don’t tell me … it’s a dwarven tower?”
“No …” Royce replied, “it’s elvish.” He turned away with a thoughtful expression.
Hadrian returned his attention to the girl. He felt awful. It was bad enough that her village was so far away, but now they faced an elven tower. Even if she offered them a hundred gold tenents, he would not be able to convince Royce to take the job. She was so desperate, so in need of help. His stomach knotted as he considered the words he would say next.
“Well,” Hadrian began reluctantly, “the Nidwalden River is several days’ travel over rough ground. We’d need supplies, for what—a six-, seven-day trip? That’s two weeks there and back. We’d need food and grain for the horses. Then you’d have to add in time at the tower. That’s time we could be doing other jobs, so that right there is money lost. Then there is the danger involved. Risk of any kind can bump our price and a mass-murdering phantom-demon-beast that can’t be harmed by weapons has got to be classified as a risk.”
Hadrian looked into her eyes and shook his head. “I hate to say it, and I’m very sorry, but we can’t take—”
“Your money,” Royce abruptly interjected as he spun around. “It’s too much. To take the full twenty-five silver for this job … Ten really seems like more than enough.”
Hadrian raised an eyebrow and stared at his partner but said nothing.
“Ten silver each?” she asked.
“Ah—no,” Hadrian replied, keeping his eyes on Royce. “That would be together. Right? Five each?”
Royce shrugged. “Since I’ll be doing the actual lock picking, I think I should get six, but we can work that out between us. It’s not something she needs to be concerned about.”
“Really?” Thrace asked, looking as if she might explode with happiness.
“Sure,” Royce replied. “After all … we’re not thieves.”
“Want to explain why we are taking this job?” Hadrian asked, shielding his eyes as they stepped outside. The sky was a perfect blue, the morning sun already working to dry the lingering puddles from the night before. All around them people rushed to market. Carts loaded with spring vegetables and tarp-covered barrels sat trapped behind three wagons mounded high with hay. Out of the crowd in front of them, a fat man charged forward with a flapping chicken gripped tightly under each arm. He danced around the puddles, dodging people and carts and offering a muttered “Excuse me,” as he pressed by.
“She’s paying us ten silver for a job that has already cost us a gold tenent,” Hadrian continued after successfully skirting the chicken man. “It will cost us several more before we’re done.”
“We’re not doing it for the money,” Royce informed him as he cut a path through the crowd.
“Obviously, but why are we doing it? I mean, sure, she’s cute as a button and all, but unless you’re planning on selling her, I don’t see the angle here.”
Royce looked over his shoulder, displaying an evil grin. “I never even considered selling her. That could defray the costs considerably.”
“Forget I brought it up. Just tell me why we’re doing this.”
Royce led them out of the crowd toward Ognoton’s Curio Shop, whose window exhibited hookahs, porcelain animal figurines, and jewelry boxes with brass latches. They ducked around the side into the narrow bricked space between it and a confectioner shop that was offering free samples of hard candy.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered what Esrahaddon has been doing,” Royce whispered. “That wizard was imprisoned for nine hundred years, then disappears the day we break him out and we don’t hear a word about him until now? The church must know, and yet the Imperialists haven’t launched search parties or posted notices. I would think that if the most dangerous man alive was on the loose, there might be a bit more of a commotion.
“Two years later he turns up in a tiny village and invites us to come visit. On top of that, he picks the elven frontier and Avempartha as the meeting place. Don’t you want to find out what he wants?”
“What is this Avempartha?”
“All I know is that it’s old. Real old. Some kind of ancient elven citadel. Which also begs the question, wouldn’t you like to get a peek inside? If Esrahaddon thinks there’s value in opening it, I’m guessing he’s right.”
“So we’re going after ancient elven treasure?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure there is something valuable in there. But for that we need supplies and we need to get out of town before Price lets loose the hounds.”
“Well, as long as you promise not to sell the girl.”
“I won’t—if she behaves herself.”
Hadrian felt Thrace leaning again, this time gazing at a two-story country home of stucco and stone with a yellow thatch roof
and orange clay chimney. It was surrounded by a waist-high wall overgrown with lilacs and ivy.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
It was early afternoon and they were only a few miles out of Colnora, traveling east along the Alburn road. The country lane twisted through the tangle of tiny villages that comprised the hill region surrounding the city, little hamlets where poor farmers worked their fields alongside the summer cottages of the idle rich, who for three months a year pretended to be country squires. Royce rode beside them or trotted forward as congestion demanded. His hood was up despite the pleasant weather. Thrace rode behind Hadrian on his bay mare, her legs dangled off one side, bobbing to the rhythm of the horse’s stride.
“It’s a different world here,” she said. “A paradise, really. Everyone is wealthy. Everyone a king.”
“Colnora does all right, but I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Then how do you explain all the grand houses? The horse carts have metal rims on their wheels. The vegetable stands overflow with bushels of onions and green peas. In Dahlgren all we have are footpaths and they are an awful mess after a rain, but here you have such wide roads and they even have names on posts. And back there a farmer was wearing gloves—gloves on his hands—while working. In Dahlgren, even the church deacon doesn’t own fancy gloves, and he certainly wouldn’t work in them if he did. You all are so rich.”
“Some of them are.”
“Like you two.”
Hadrian laughed.
“But you have nice clothes and beautiful horses.”
“She’s not much of a horse really.”
“No one in Dahlgren but the lord and his knights own horses, and yours are so pretty. I especially like her eyes—such long lashes. What’s her name?”
“I call her Millie, after a woman I once knew who had the same habit of not listening to me.”
“Millie is a pretty name. I like it. What about Royce’s horse?”
Hadrian frowned and looked over at him. “I don’t know. Royce, did you ever name her?”
“What for?”
Hadrian glanced back at Thrace, who returned an appalled look.
“How about …” She paused, shifting and twisting as she scanned the roadside. “Lilac, or Daisy? Oh wait, no, how about Chrysanthemum?”
“Chrysanthemum?” Hadrian repeated. As funny as it might be to have Royce riding a Chrysanthemum, or even a Lilac or Daisy, he had to point out that flower names just did not fit Royce’s short, dirty gray mare. “How about Shorty or Sooty?”
“No!” Thrace scolded him. “It will make the poor animal feel awful.”
Hadrian chuckled. Royce ignored the conversation. He clicked his tongue, kicked the sides of his horse, and trotted forward to avoid an approaching wagon, but remained there even after the road was clear.
“How about Lady?” Thrace asked.
“It seems a bit haughty, don’t you think? She’s not exactly a prancing show horse.”
“Then it will make her feel better. Give her confidence.”
They were coming upon a stream where honeysuckle and raspberry bushes crowned the heads of smooth granite banks with brilliant springtime green. A gristmill stood at the edge, its great wheel creaking and dripping. A pair of small square windows, like dark eyes, created a face in the stone exterior beneath the steeply peaked wooden roof. A low wall separated the mill from the road and on it rested a white and gray cat. Its green eyes opened lazily and blinked at them. When they drew closer, the cat decided they had come close enough and leapt from the wall, darting across the road into the thickets.
Royce’s horse reared and whinnied, dancing across the dirt. As the horse shuffled backward, Royce cursed and tightened the reins, pulling her head down and forcing her to turn completely around.
“Ridiculous!” Royce complained once the horse was under control. “A thousand-pound animal terrified by a five-pound cat; you’d think she was a mouse.”
“Mouse! That’s perfect,” Thrace shouted, causing Millie’s ears to twist back.
“I like it,” Hadrian agreed.
“Oh, good lord,” Royce muttered, shaking his head as he trotted forward again.
As they rode farther east, the country estates became farms, rosebushes became hedges, and fences that divided fields gave way to mere tree lines. Still Thrace pointed out curiosities, like the unimagined luxury of covered bridges and the ornately decorated carriages that still occasionally thundered by.
The road climbed higher and soon they lost the shade as the land opened up into vast fallow fields of goldenrod, milkweed, and wild salifan. Flies dogged them in the heat and the drone of cicadas whined. Thrace at last grew quiet and laid her head against Hadrian’s back. He became concerned she might fall asleep and topple off, but occasionally she would stir to look about or swat at a fly.
Higher and higher they climbed until they reached the top of Amber Heights. The prominent highland stood out as a bald spot of short grass and bare rock. Part of a long ridge that ran along the eastern edge of Warric, it served as the border between the kingdom of Warric and the kingdom of Alburn. Alburn was the third most powerful and prosperous kingdom in Avryn, after Warric and Melengar. Most of its lands were deeply forested and its coast was often subjected to attacks by the Ba Ran Ghazel, who made lightning assaults, abducting the unfortunate and burning what they could not carry. Its ruler, King Armand, had only recently gained the throne, after the unexpected death of the old king. While King Reinhold had been a Royalist, Hadrian had the impression the new king was an Imperialist sympathizer, if not an open supporter, which was unfortunate for Melengar, whose list of allies seemed to grow shorter each day.
Amber Heights was a curiosity even to the local residents due to the standing stones, the massive blue-gray rocks carved into uniquely fluid shapes. They appeared almost organic in their rounded curves, like a series of writhing serpents burrowing in and out of the hilltop. Hadrian did not have the slightest idea what purpose the stones might have originally served. He doubted anyone did. Remnants of campfires were scattered around the stones, etched with messages of true love or the occasional slogan: “Maribor Is God!” “Nationalists Are Barmy,” “The Heir Is Dead,” and even “Gray Mouse Tavern—it’s all downhill from here.” Reaching the crest, they could all see the city of Colnora spread out behind them, while to the northeast lay the endless miles of dense and untamed woodland where the kingdoms of Alburn and Dunmore blurred together. To Hadrian the forest appeared as an ocean of unbroken green—miles and miles of rugged wilderness, on the other side of which lay a tiny village called Dahlgren.
Because the wind on the hilltop was cool and strong enough to drive off the flies, it made a perfect place to break for a midday meal. They ate salted pork, hard dark bread, onions, and pickles. It was the kind of meal Hadrian would loathe to eat in a town, but it seemed somehow wonderful on the road, where his appetite was greater and options were fewer. He watched Thrace sitting on the grass, nibbling on a pickle, being careful not to stain her new dress. She gazed off with a faraway look, inhaling the air in deep appreciative breaths.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
She smiled at him a bit self-consciously and he thought he noticed a sadness about her. “I was just thinking how wonderful it is here. How nice it would be to live on one of those farms we passed. We wouldn’t need anything grand, not even a house—my father can build a house all by himself and he can turn any soil. There’s nothing he can’t do once he sets his mind to it, and once he sets his mind, there’s no changing it.”
“Sounds like a great guy.”
“Oh, he is. He’s very strong, very determined.”
“I’m surprised he would allow you to set off alone across the country like you did.”
Thrace smiled.
“You didn’t walk all the way, did you?”
“Oh no, I got a ride with a peddler and his wife who stopped in Dahlgren. They refused to spend a second night and let me ride in
the back of their wagon.”
“Have you done much traveling before?”
“No. I was born in Glamrendor, the capital of Dunmore. My family worked a tenant farm for His Lordship there. We moved to Dahlgren when I was about nine, so I’ve never been out of Dunmore until now. I can’t even say I remember all that much of Glamrendor. I do recall it was dirty, though. All the buildings were made of wood, and the roads very muddy—at least that’s how I remember it.”
“Still that way,” Royce mentioned.
“I can’t believe you had the courage to just go off like that,” Hadrian said, shaking his head. “It must have been a shock leaving Dahlgren and a few days later finding yourself in the largest city in the world.”
“Oh, it was,” she replied, using her pinky finger to draw away a number of hairs that had blown into her mouth. “I felt foolish when I realized just how hard it was going to be to find you. I expected it would be like back home, where I would be able to walk up to anyone and they would know who you were. There are a lot more people in Colnora than I expected. To be honest, there’s a lot more of everything. I looked and looked and I thought I would never find you.”
“I expect your father will be worried.”
“No he won’t,” she said.
“But if—”
“What are these things?” she asked, pointing at the standing stones with her pickle. “These blue stones. They’re so odd.”
“No one knows,” Royce replied.
“Were they made by elves?” she asked.
Royce cocked his head and stared at her. “How did you know that?”
“They look a bit like the tower near my village—the one I need you to open. Same kind of stone—at least, I think so. The tower looks bluish too, but it might be because of the distance—ever notice how things get blue in the distance? I suppose if we could actually get near it, we might find it was just a common gray, you know?”
“Why can’t you get near it?” Hadrian asked.
“Because it’s in the middle of the river.”
Theft of Swords Page 32
