Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1)

by Harry Leighton

  The black-clad man laughed behind Alia, and moved a hand to his sword.

  “Your friend has very big eyes,” Alia said to the boss.

  “What?”

  Alia snapped a hand down to where her blades were concealed, and fluidly pulled one, turned and threw it before the junior man could reach her. It struck him in his right eye and lodged in his brain. He fell with a satisfying thud. Now she turned back to the boss, another blade in hand, him sat frozen behind the desk.

  “I assume you can kill me before my guards come in.”

  “Yes.”

  “In which case there is a dossier in the top drawer explaining we’ve been shipping the products to the healer. To the region’s capital, well, just outside. Always a different drop off, but always near a pair of villages. Go there and you’d find his agents if you searched.”

  “Take it out.”

  He did, and she came over and looked. The writing was crisp, clear, and explained what he said.

  “How many women have you bought and sold?”

  The boss looked at her, nodded, and ignored the question. “I have plenty of money. Whatever you want. Free who we have. Just let me live.”

  If she’d brought the rod of office she’d have beaten him with it, but he read her eyes and went for a blade hidden under his desk. She was quicker and her strike slit his throat. At the dying scream the door opened and two guards rushed in.

  “He has money in this office. Take it and fuck off,” she said calmly. “Or we could always fight…” she added, wiping the blood from her knife.

  The guards looked at the bodies, and parted to allow her to walk out with the dossier. The next thing she’d do was contact the authorities and have them raid the building, free the… What the fuck?

  There was a man leaning against the opposite warehouse. A man she knew, just standing nonchalantly.

  “Hello,” Trimas said.

  “Are you spying on me?” Alia said, storming over.

  “Not at all.”

  “Oh, you’re just passing. Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m here in case you needed backup. I saw you didn’t. They underestimated you.”

  “You don’t think I can do this.”

  “If I thought that I’d have come inside. I’m just here, in case. What if the coach arrived a few moments later, and brought guards instead of taking them?”

  “Because I’m a woman.”

  “This has nothing to do with age, sex or experience. Everyone needs friends, everyone needs support. Just there, just in case. Jonas has you. Yes, even Jonas has backup. Nothing wrong with it. Friends are, well, friends.” Alia was softening her stance. “I’ve got Zedek and Daeholf. Although I’m used to having a general’s staff, so I guess lone wolves like you have a different approach.”

  She laughed. “Lone wolf? Maybe.” She hesitated before asking, “You coming back to Jonas?”

  “No, I need to go see if Daeholf has stopped Zedek getting drunk and starting a fight.”

  “Would he do that?”

  “Not normally. This is a very abnormal moment.”

  “Well, thanks. And think about staying as our backup when we go after Marlen. I know where he is roughly.”

  “I will.”

  *****

  Jonas needed some time to himself so he started walking the streets. The general hubbub of the day helped to drown out some of the darker thoughts he was having and helped to distract him. He did as he usually tried to do and focussed on the job in hand, leaving the difficulties of his personal relationships behind. Trying to clear his head, he thought back to the guards at the council offices. A morning change of shift was normal but why had one of the guards from the night shift remained? Had the shift really changed or was something more suspicious going on? He resolved to go back and look, though carefully. The more he thought about it the more it started to bother him. He wasn’t himself at the moment and his thinking wasn’t entirely clear but this was something to do, something potentially important.

  He stopped across the street, some distance from the residence, outside a shop and eyed it carefully whilst pretending to examine the goods in front of him. The original guard was back.

  So maybe he hadn’t been wrong with his suspicion. Which led to the question: why had the guard changed temporarily? Was he reporting to someone? If so, this could have been bad. On a hunch, he looked around carefully. There were a couple of people nearby that didn’t quite fit in, pretending like he was shopping whilst watching the street. It was almost with relief that he recognised one of them. Well it wasn’t Marlen that the guard had reported to then. The man was a bounty hunter himself, though not one that Jonas particularly favoured. Whilst he couldn’t remember his name, he did know who he often worked with. Hooper. And after the humiliation inflicted on him during their last encounter, not someone he really wanted to have to run into again.

  If he’d recognised the man across the street it was more than likely that he’d been spotted and recognised, or soon would be,. There wasn’t going to be time to go back to the others and he wasn’t sure they’d particularly welcome him anyway at the moment, especially if he was bringing trouble. This was something he was going to have to deal with himself.

  Sneaking wasn’t going to get him anywhere with two men watching carefully so he decided on the direct approach. He walked boldly across the street to them in plain sight. The one he recognised did a double take when he saw him and tapped his friend on the shoulder who also turned to face him. Both were big men, though neither as big as him, and hard looking. The one who noticed him first had started to run slightly to fat. That one then Jonas thought to himself. He smiled at both of them as he approached, watching as they tensed, not quite sure what to do, not expecting him to approach them like this. He took advantage of their indecision, striding up quickly.

  “Gentlemen,” he said affably, before dropping the one he didn’t know with a lightning right cross to the jaw. He stayed the fatter one with his left hand, grabbing his arm as he tried to draw a knife.

  “Let’s keep this friendly,” Jonas said, exerting pressure on the man’s arm, stopping him from moving. The fat man looked down at his companion, sprawled, dazed on the ground, slowly trying to right himself. “Between us two anyway,” Jonas added as he kicked the downed man in the face, stilling him completely.

  Shoppers nearby started to back away and there was a shout for the watch.

  The fat man redoubled his efforts to draw his knife, using his other hand to try and prise Jonas off. Jonas headbutted the man in the face and he immediately went limp, staggering back.

  “Hard way it is then,” Jonas said. As the man sagged, Jonas took the opportunity to disarm him before quickly twisting the man’s arm up behind his back. “Shall we go?” Jonas said, looking at the commotion around them.

  “You broke my nose,” the fat man said thickly and in pain.

  “Your arm too if you don’t move,” Jonas said, twisting it up further.

  The fat man gasped before choking and spitting some of the blood that ran into his mouth. Jonas pushed him forwards towards an alleyway, directing the man through pressure on his arm. Passers-by parted before them and they left the street unmolested, though from the shouts that were going up, the watch was probably on the way. Jonas directed the cursing man through a series of alleyways until they were some distance from the original incident.

  “Let’s talk,” Jonas said.

  “Bastard,” came the response.

  Jonas twisted the man’s arm.

  “Aargh, okay, I’ll talk.”

  “Why were you watching the street?”

  “We were looking for you.”

  “Why me?”

  “We had information that another hunter was in town. Hooper recognised the description as you.”

  “It is Hooper then.”

  “He really wants to talk to you.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Five.”


  “Why are you here.”

  “On a hunt.”

  “Who?”

  Jonas twisted the man’s arm again when he was met with silence.

  “Aargh. Okay, local merchant.”

  “Why so many of you?”

  “He’s connected, has guards.”

  “How did you find out about me?”

  “Hooper has paid some of the local watch and council guards to keep an eye out for hunters. He doesn’t want anyone muscling in.”

  “And I suppose the fact that I’m not after his target won’t be enough for him?”

  “Not when he found out you were in town, no. You did something to upset him.”

  “He tell you about that?”

  “Not what you did. What did you do?”

  “Not important. Where is he now?”

  “He’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Possibly. Doesn’t matter. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jonas applied more pressure to the arm.

  “Stop, please. I don’t know. He’s out looking for you so I don’t know where he is.”

  Hooper probably wouldn’t recognise Alia. But she wasn’t expecting him so she might be in danger. She’d gone out somewhere too so he wasn’t going to be able to get to her easily. He’d have to bring Hooper to him.

  “There’s an old smithy on the edge of town with a stables attached.”

  “I know it.”

  “Tell Hooper I’ll be there in an hour if he wants me.”

  “You’re letting me go?”

  “You can’t give him the message if I don’t, can you?”

  Jonas put his foot in the back of the man’s knee, bending his leg before pushing and dropping him to the ground. With only one arm to catch himself, the man landed heavily.

  “Bastard,” he said.

  “One hour,” Jonas said before walking off quickly.

  *****

  Alia felt good: her first case as a fully fledged bounty hunter had gone well. In fact, her first solo case. She’d been up all night, but she’d ordered the guard to raid the warehouse, had wielded her rod as proof she knew what she was talking about, and all the prisoners had been freed. Bodies had been recovered, including those of the organiser, and one fool who’d hung around trying to find a secret cache of silver had been arrested and would probably be hanged.

  Now she was walking home, wanting to smugly fall asleep for as long as possible. Her thoughts were interrupted by a smell, and she looked up. There was a cloud rising not too far away, a cloud of smoke, and she could smell burning. People had begun to run around her, and the right thing to do would be to get over there and help the flames be quashed. But she was dead on her feet, and decided the gods would let her sleep given the good she’d done.

  She kept walking, her mind turning to Jonas. Yes, she sighed, the real reason she wanted to get back was to see how he was, but it still felt uncomfortable to picture herself as looking after him. She should be reporting back on how she’d done and being told where to improve, not worrying he was still so upset.

  She never thought she’d miss the idea of being taught.

  But … hmm, that fire was close wasn’t it, she was walking right towards it, in fact as she turned the corner…

  She broke into a run until she hit the crowd, and then began to twist herself through it, until she came out of the onlookers and into the people rushing trying to help. The inn she and her friends had been staying at was right in front of her, and the stable block was a glowing mass of burning wood, straw and shit, clouds of black smoke rising and the heat difficult even at this distance. Half the people she saw were funnelling buckets back and forth quickly, and the other half were helping people out of neighbouring, and increasingly charred, buildings.

  People … building…

  Restarting her run, Alia got in through the door to the inn, dodged past a pair of women carrying an unconscious man out, and headed through to the stairs. Smoke was coming in where it could, and it was growing harder to breathe, but she judged she had time, got up the stairs, and went into the room she’d shared with Jonas.

  He wasn’t there.

  Okay, okay, that’s good, he’s out, probably helping, now for the others.

  She resorted to kicking open the door of the room Daeholf, Trimas and Zedek had been sharing. No one in here, and now the other doors had been opened and the last people were moving. Was everyone out?

  She made a pragmatic decision, grabbed the bags she saw in each room, and carried them out. Then she helped with the water, while a gang armed with whatever they could get began smashing down a firebreak.

  Alia couldn’t remember those minutes well after, and it seemed amazing to her that the fire could be quelled given the elemental chaos she saw in its flames, but the townsfolk managed it, especially after the guard arrived to order the onlookers about.

  That left everyone standing round blackened in smoke, faces hot, eyes stinging, trying to find their family and friends. Alia began it herself, trying to pick Jonas out, usually an easy task given his size and looks, but he was nowhere to be seen. That was when she heard it.

  A guard officer, one not stained with smoke, walked over to a group of male and female guards who were poking about in the stables, now a charred wreck, and the only building that would need to be pulled down.

  “Any dead?” he asked.

  “Just one. Big bloke, charred to fuck now, great big stab wound in his chest. Bounty hunter, here’s his rod, should be easy to identify, metal made it through okay. Just one. Bloody lucky.”

  Alia was frozen, and she only slowly turned. A large bounty hunter in a fire? Here?

  No, no it couldn’t be. Time seemed to slow down, as everyone’s movements became jagged and languid, and all she could see was the cold wisps rising from the sodden stables.

  “Everything alright?”

  At the expression on Alia’s face, Trimas had turned from concerned to very worried as she slowly faced him, eyes wide, hands shaking.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead? Marlen?”

  “Jonas, Jonas is dead.”

  Trimas turned to his friends, as Daeholf was standing by him and Zedek a little behind. The latter man looked coldly at the stables.

  “How do you know?”

  “The guard, they found a big man with a rod of office. A bounty hunter. How many of them are there staying at this inn?”

  “I see your point. Still…”

  “Don’t fucking ‘still’ me, Trimas! He knew it, he knew this was going to happen, that’s why he gave me my rod, why he made me official. It wasn’t just that I’d passed, it was a goodbye!” She slowly sank to a crouching position. “He’s dead. Oh God, he’s dead, and I never got to say … never got to tell him thanks. Or goodbye.”

  Trimas looked at the stables. “Fuck” was all he could manage. All four looked silently on.

  “What do I do now?” Alia finally asked.

  “Find Marlen,” Trimas suggested.

  “I meant burying him. Do we take him home somewhere?” But she tailed off at the end, realising she was without her mentor for the first time in years and that, yes, she would have to bury him.

  Trimas pondered offering a helpful hug then decided against it.

  “Just a thought,” Daeholf said quietly, almost ashamed, “but there are no horses in the stable. I heard the guard too. If Jonas was killed, and the stable was on fire, who would let all the horses out first?”

  Alia looked up, and felt the world regaining speed. As she looked, she realised there were horses standing in the street. Someone had let the horses out…

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Daeholf replied. “I – Zedek, where are you going?”

  The elf had walked over to the stables, and was getting himself sooty as he walked through the damage. Clambering over, and sometimes collapsing, fallen beams, he came to the body.

  “Zedek, serio
usly, what are you doing?”

  Now he bent from view.

  “It’s a bit late to have a fucking argument with him!”

  A few moments passed, then Zedek rose, walked through the ruin with an emotionless face, and walked right up to the group, so close they could have rubbed the dirt off him.

  Quietly, so no one else could hear them, he explained, “It’s not Jonas. But I think we’re supposed to behave like it is. I think we should remove ourselves from the scene.”

  *****

  “What do you think we should do?”

  One of the watch turned and looked at the other, then back at the wall in front of them. Their building was mostly wooden, and someone had daubed bright white limewash over it to form the phrase ‘FUK THE EMPERER’.

  “We will find whoever did this, and we will flog them and make them paint over it. We’ll flog them as they paint over it. Yes.”

  “But do we tell the Sergeant?”

  “Oh, yes, er, perhaps we could catch the criminal before she finds out.”

  “Bit late for that, boys.”

  The two guards turned, and saw the Sergeant stood behind them.

  “Hello ma’am.”

  “That might not stand out so much if you’d kept the building in good shape.”

  “We’ve been catching, er, criminals, ma’am, not painting.”

  “Well now you’ll be painting.”

  “What?”

  “I want that painted over before lunch.”

  “Why? We will get the guilty party to…”

  “Yes, you will get them, and you will flog them. And if they’re the same person that’s been doing this all over, you will cut their right hand off and nail it to the God damned wall. But we will not leave it here for people to gawp at as a sign of weakness. Got it?

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good, so go get some paint and get this watch house looking like a true bastion of imperial law.”

  “I will give them such a flogging for this.”

  “Oh, one final thing.”