by Jon Sprunk
Caim leaned forward in the saddle. The old man had changed. His beard, as scraggly as always, had grown down to his chest, and he'd lost some hair on top. Extra weight now clung to his middle, but his shoulders were still massive, rolling on either side of his head like tumbling boulders. Caim supposed he had changed somewhat himself. He'd been little more than a half-grown boy when he left. Would the old man even recognize him?
Those fears evaporated with a nod. "Caim."
Caim returned the nod. "Kas."
The axe man scratched his leg with the blade. "Looks like your taste in company has improved. You two jumped a broom yet?"
Calm's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. "Uh, no. Kas, this is Josey. Just a girl I know."
The old man started toward the door. "Well, come inside. I've got a pot of cha on the fire. It should be about ready."
Caim climbed down and moved to help Josey from her horse, but she beat him to the ground.
"So I'm not good enough for you?" she asked, wearing the same feral smile Kit gave him whenever she wanted to pull his tail feathers.
With a grunt, Caim headed toward the cabin, hobbling with every step from the long ride. Caim ran his hand across the surface of the table in the larger of the cabin's two rooms. The whorls and knots brought back memories. He and Kas had spent a lot of time at this table, conversing over meals of homeground sausage garnished with whatever they could coax from the garden. Well, Kas had mostly talked while he listened. He remembered less pleasant things, too: angry words and all-out battles, the bitter winter when everything in the cabin except themselves had frozen solid. Caim could still imagine the chill in the tips of his fingers after all these years.
The interior was just the way he remembered it, except smaller. A layer of dust covered everything. Cobwebs hung from the rafters and the old spear over the fireplace, and the window shades looked like they hadn't been cleaned since the cabin was built. A pile of threadbare blankets was stacked in the corner where he used to sleep. The smells of wood smoke and Kas's joint liniment hung in the air.
The old man hadn't said much since they arrived, just dropped his firewood by the hearth and puttered around the squat iron stove. Josey sat back in the homemade chair and studied the two of them like animals in a menagerie.
Caim shifted to alleviate the stitch in his side. Maybe this wasn't the best idea. He was trying to come up with an excuse to leave when Kas came over with a steaming kettle, a rag wrapped around the handle. He poured a cup for each of them and lowered himself onto a stool made from a tree stump. Josey offered to give up her chair for the third time since they arrived, and for the third time Kas refused.
"No, I'm fine. I made those chairs, you know. Hope you don't get a splinter." He made a smile at that like it was a private joke.
Caim took a sip from his cup and winced. The cha was just like in the old days, horrible, but it was hot.
"So," Josey said, "are you and Caim related?"
Kas glanced across the table with raised eyebrows. Caim shrugged. They were past the point where his secrets could do him much more harm.
"Not exactly," Kas replied. "I served his father for a time after my soldiering days. After his father and mother were killed-"
"She wasn't killed." Caim squeezed the cup tight. The old resentment bubbled to the surface as quick as marsh gas. "She was taken."
Kas nodded. "All right."
Josey looked Caim. "Your father was killed, and someone took your mother? How old were you?"
Caim took another sip. "Eight."
Josey reached out as if to touch his arm, but stopped before her fingers made contact. "I'm so sorry, Caim."
"Ancient history."
"Who did it?"
"We never found out," Kas said. "Caim ran off during the attack. I searched for weeks before I found him scrounging around the streets of Liovard, skinny as an alley cat and almost as feral. I brought him out here and we built this cottage."
Caim could feel Josey's stare. He could guess the thoughts running through her head, trying to piece together the shambles of his life, to trace the journey from that small forlorn boy to what he'd become. He could have told her not to bother, that he had chosen his path with his eyes open wide, but it didn't matter what she thought. Nothing could change the past, so the past didn't matter.
"We had some good times here," Kas continued. "That is, until he up and ran out on me. You were what, Caim? Fifteen?"
"Thirteen." He remembered the day like it was yesterday. They had argued over something; he couldn't remember what, but it had seemed like the most important thing in the world at the time.
"We had a fight," Kas said with a shrug, as if that explained everything. "I can't even recall what it was about. Anyways, Caim turned in early that night. The next morning, he was gone. You know, I went back to Liovard searching for you."
"No one asked you to."
"Dammit, boy. I thought you were long dead by now."
"Well, I'm not." Caim got up. The room was cramped and stifling, the air thick with regrets.
"I know I made mistakes," Kas said. "I couldn't replace your family. The gods know I tried."
"Save it."
Caim left the cabin. He went around back to the wide meadow lined by a bulwark of ancient boles. This had been his playground, the place he went to escape with his thoughts. Years had passed, but the sights and smells of the cabin brought it all back like he was still just a boy, wrestling with the same problems, asking the same questions. And still finding no answers. What had really happened all those years ago on that cool spring night? Was he truly alone in the world?
Footsteps crunched on the carpet of dry leaves behind him. "I come out here a lot," Kas said. "In the evening with my pipe. It's relaxing."
"Where do you find tobacco this far out?"
"A trader comes by every few months. I got a new adze last spring."
Calm's gaze wandered to a boulder at the edge of the woods. Almost as high as his waist, half sunk into the earth and covered in gray lichen, it had to weigh as much as a prize steer, if not more. He remembered watching Kas lift the boulder and toss something underneath before dropping the stone back into place. It had happened so long ago, and yet the memory was as sharp as a knife.
"You're thinking about your parents," Kas said.
Caim nodded.
"You think you're strong enough to lift that stone yet?"
Caim considered the boulder, and the mountain of history heaped upon its craggy face. "I don't know if I'll ever be strong enough."
"I think about your father a lot," Kas said. "Your mother, too. I wonder if I should have searched longer for the ones who did it. Maybe I didn't try hard enough."
Caim scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt and kicked up a pebble. It landed beside his foot, flat and smooth like a river stone. A band of red twisted through the white surface. What could he say? Nothing. He had his own reservations about the past.
"But you know, Caim, I'm glad I didn't go back, because then I'd never have found you. Your father was a great man, the best I ever knew. He would have wanted me to take care of you until you were old enough to look after yourself."
"What about what I wanted? What if I'd been willing to trade a few years on the streets in exchange for the knowledge that what happened to my parents had been made right?"
"You still want revenge? Boy, listen to me. I've seen war and more than enough killing for a lifetime, and I can tell you from experience, that's an endless hole. You can pour everything you got into it, but every morning it's still going to be empty. It doesn't matter how many men you send to their graves, what's past is never going to change. It's time you learned that and moved on."
Caim ground his teeth together until sharp tingles of pain ran along his jaw. "I still see him in my dreams, Kas. He dies again and again right in front of me, and he keeps asking for justice, but I can't give it to him. What am I supposed to do? Just let it go and forget they ever existed?"
<
br /> Kas sighed. "Caim, you've been walking a line between light and dark your whole life. Maybe it's time to choose a side and stick with it."
Caim stepped away. A sick feeling uncoiled in his belly. Suddenly, he didn't trust himself. Was he doing the right thing? How could he know?
"There are no sides, Kas. Just everyone looking out for themselves. That's the truth my father couldn't face."
"You don't see it, boy. You're in trouble."
"It's nothing I can't handle." He turned to face the man who had raised him. "But I need a safe place for Josey to stay. It'll just be for a couple days."
"Of course, she's welcome. What about you?"
Caim headed back to the cabin. "I've got things to take care of."
Josey stood in the tiny kitchen area. She looked over as he entered. "I'm not staying without you," she said as if reading his thoughts.
"It's for the best."
She crossed her arms across her chest. "You don't get to decide where I go and how I live."
He waited for the anger of her outburst to subside. The blush of her cheeks faded, but her fingers were knotted now, into a hard, white ball. She looked like she was searching for something to throw at him until Kas stepped through the door.
"We'll have a grand time, lady. We can talk about Caim while he's gone. I'll tell you all his childhood secrets."
Her eyes bore into Caim. "What if you don't come back?"
"I will."
"But what if-?"
He came around the table and wrapped his hands around hers. "I will return. Believe that."
She bobbed her head before collapsing against him. "You better," she murmured into his chest.
Kas cleared his throat. Caim gently pushed Josey away. He gave her his most sincere smile and a wink, and then he headed for the door. Kas stood in his way. Caim tensed, but the old man simply stepped aside.
"Hope you find what you're looking for, boy."
Caim kept his head down as he stepped over the threshold.
"Caim!"
He turned in time to catch Josey. She clutched him hard for a moment, and then pushed a small object into his hand. It was cool against his palm.
"Take this," she said, and stepped back.
He looked down into his hand. A golden key nestled there amid a jumble of leather string. Her necklace. With a nod, he wrapped the cord around his wrist as he went out to his horse.
Back in the saddle, he took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the scents of pine and maple, good earth and sweet smoke. Then he rode away and left behind the two people he cared about the most.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
thir's gates were barred when Caim returned, their wardens replaced by soldiers in the hunter green livery of the Nimean army.
So he entered by the underground tunnel. After snuffing the lantern inside Pieter's mausoleum, he stood for a moment with his hand on the crypt's bronze door. If he failed, it was only a matter of time before they got to Josey. The girl was lovely, smart, charming, but she was also haughty and headstrong. She wouldn't be content to wait with Kas for long. And where had Kit gotten off to?
Taking her own sweet time getting over being mad at me just when I need her the most.
Caim shook his head as he slipped through the cemetery gate, and wondered how he had acquired so many responsibilities.
A wild wind whipped through his hair as he navigated the cemetery. With Mathias dead, there was only one person who knew he'd be at the earl's mansion that night.
The streets bordering the boneyard were quiet, but only a block away the clamor of fighting resounded. Though muted by the fog from the river, it sounded like a full-scale war. He turned onto Acacia Avenue and found the way blocked by a pair of overturned wagons. Beyond the barrier, soldiers clashed with angry citizens. Bodies clogged the street. The ululation of rage long denied, now suddenly unleashed, filled the humid air.
An explosion lit up the night as a firebomb landed amid a cluster of soldiers. Orange flames engulfed them. Their screams made an inchoate chorus to the cheers of their attackers. The citizens pressed harder, eager to get at the men who had previously protected their homes and property. Sparks swirled in the air and were caught by the wind until the bombers were forced to scramble to avoid getting singed by their own handiwork.
Caim stayed in the shadows and bypassed the brawl. After several minutes of skulking, he arrived in the merchants' district. The fighting hadn't reached this part of the city yet, but it was only a matter of time; the fires of Low Town would spread quickly.
On Silk Street, the Golden Wheel stood between a chirash den and a brothel to form a triumvirate of earthly pleasures. The confirmation linking Ral to the plot behind the earl's assassination stared Caim in the face: a squad of Sacred Brothers slouched on the stoop of the front entrance like they were paying rent on the place.
Caim avoided the street's tall lampposts as he slipped around to the back. A narrow wooden gate gave entrance to an alley behind the gaming house. Dim light reflected in the windows overhead. Three located on the top floor were secured with stout shutters. Those would be Ral's rooms.
Caim started his ascent with slow movements, conscious of the wound in his side as he pulled himself up. The amulet dangling from his wrist was an unfamiliar hindrance, but he didn't remove it. He focused on the task one hold at a time until he reached the center window. There, he clung onto the narrow ledge and listened. No sounds issued from inside. He boosted himself higher to peek over the sill. The room on the other side of the rose-colored pane was spacious and well appointed. Light shined from a tiny lamp above the bed. A large four-poster bed of varnished oak rested in the near corner to his right, a tall wardrobe against the opposite wall, one of its doors partway open. Upon a sideboard next to the wardrobe sat a row of wooden boxes. Boots, capes, shirts, and other articles of clothing were strewn across the floor and draped over furniture.
Caim counted thirty heartbeats, until his hands and toes began to cramp. Nothing moved inside.
He yanked open the shutter and pulled. A jolt of pain seared his side as he heaved himself over the ledge. He fell forward, onto a thick piled carpet. In the scramble to sit upright, his elbow collided with a wooden stand. The hollow scrape of sliding metal triggered his reflexes. He caught a heavy object wrapped in silk before it hit the floor. As he let out a long breath, he regarded the item in his hands, a brass icon of St. Jules, patron of the chaste and good-hearted, wrapped in a lady's undergarment.
Caim set the statuette back on the stand and stood up. There were two exits: an archway to another room to his left and a narrow door on the other side of the bed, which was probably a closet. Except for the wooden boxes lined up on the sideboard, there was nothing unusual. He was about to check the boxes when footsteps approached from the archway. Caim flattened against the wall and drew his suete knives.
Ral stepped into the room. Steel glittered between the fingers of his left hand. The arm was whipping back to throw when Caim stepped into the light.
Ral lowered his arm. "Caim. I wondered when you might turn up."
Caim adopted a relaxed pose, but his muscles were as tight as iron cables under his clothes. He held his knives by his sides to keep his hands from trembling. He needed answers, not more deaths.
"Why is that, Ral? Didn't you expect your pet tinmen to finish the job?"
Ral walked over to the sideboard and set down the stiletto to pour himself a drink from a tall decanter. "Not really. Brandy? It's imported."
Caim didn't reply, but he watched every move.
Ral shrugged and lifted the crystal tumbler to his lips. "It wasn't personal. You didn't need to get involved. You should have left the girl to my men."
"You're the one who got me involved. You set me up with that job from the start. Thought you'd bag a nobleman and pin it on me."
"No harm in a little gamesmanship between friends, eh? I thought you'd make your escape and leave town, hopefully for good. Either way, I get wh
at I want and you're out of the picture."
"Who's behind the murder of Josey's father? Who are you working for?"
Ral put a hand on the sideboard. "Josey is it, eh? I'm disappointed, Caim. I always figured you for a smart guy. I'm done with serving others. I've taken matters into my own hands."
"And you killed Mathias because he knew too much."
"Actually, that wasn't me, although I'll admit I didn't shed any tears. But it makes no difference. There's no one to stop me now."
"There's me."
"Don't be an imbecile, Caim. Think of this as an opportunity. Yes, I wanted you out of the way, but now I see a better way. We can work together. We can both be free to live how we want with no one to tell us otherwise."
Caim had trouble keeping his knives from leaping into Ral's chest as anger flared in his belly. "You think you can buy me off?"
"Think of the team we would make."
"I'd rather think of you lying in your own blood."
Ral set down his glass and faced Caim. "That's not going to happen. Even if you could kill me, you're still a wanted man sought by the entire nation. You've been implicated in the murders of several government officials, including a retired exarch and half the Elector Council."
"All lies-"
Ral flashed a humorless smile. "Articles of a personal nature were found at the scenes, all of them leading back to you."
Caim suspected the fire that burned down his apartment building had been no accident, and now he knew. "You stole those things from my place before you torched it."
"You're out of control, Caim. A blood thirsty animal. The Sacred Brotherhood has orders to kill you on sight."
"Then maybe I'll just kill you. One more murder attached to my name wouldn't make any more difference."
