K T Harding - [Hinterland 02]

by K. T. Harding

  With her and Bishop firing together, they managed to detonate enough of the globes that she made her way back to him. She crouched down next to him, but she could only crouch there and fire a constant barrage of lightning to keep up with the Musicologist’s speed.

  How long this would have gone on, Raleigh had no idea. Maybe these cubes had an unlimited supply of power, or maybe they would run out and the Musicologist would cut them down. On the other hand, maybe the Musicologist would run out of power and Raleigh and Bishop would cut him down.

  She never got a chance to find out. Bishop paused in his fire just long enough to snatch the cylinder from her hand. She didn’t see what he did to it before he threw it at the Musicologist.

  The Musicologist fired his globes at it, but their explosions made no impression on it. It landed on the cobblestones and rolled toward the Musicologist’s feet. It would have bumped into his toes if he hadn’t turned and bolted back the way he came. He dove through the door, into the safety of his building.

  Bishop launched himself off the ground. He lunged over and tackled Raleigh to the ground. His weight thumped her down on the cruel cobblestones and bruised her all over. At that moment, a massive explosion pounded down the street. Bishop covered Raleigh’s face with both his hands, and he buried his head in her hair.

  Chapter 8

  Bishop peeled himself off Raleigh. “Are you okay?”

  She coughed and rolled onto her side. His jumping on top of her hurt worse than anything else, but she didn’t dare tell him that. She croaked through her parched throat. “I’m okay.

  He got to his feet and brushed the dust off his clothes. “Let’s get out of here before they come after us.”

  Raleigh cast a glance back over her shoulder before they left the scene. “What was that thing you threw at him?”

  “That was one of the splatter grenades I ordered from Pringle. They’re very useful.”

  “How did you detonate it?”

  “They have to be programmed ahead of time to recognize a single person’s biological signature. Once they are programmed, they will only detonate when that person touches them. The metal senses adrenaline and stress hormones in the person’s skin when they touch the grenade. That’s what triggers it to explode.”

  Raleigh studied him. “So you gave me a useless weapon to carry around?”

  “It wasn’t useless. I just didn’t want you to detonate it by accident. I gave it to you, but I knew only I could detonate it, and I did. When we get back to the house, I’ll program some for you to use. Now that you know how to use it, you won’t make the mistake of touching it in the heat of battle unless you really plan to throw it.”

  “Well, we aren’t going back to the house, are we? What am I supposed to use in the meantime?”

  “You used that cube pretty well. Stick with that for now.”

  “When are you going to show me how to use your other weapons? You keep saying you’re going to, but you never get around to it. I have two hands, just like you, but only one weapon, and now I don’t have any bolts, either.”

  He turned to face her, but before he could say anything, another glorious cacophony of music came from around the front of the Guild headquarters. Bishop took her arm and guided her away. They didn’t stop until they couldn’t hear any more music at all.

  Raleigh slumped against a nearby house and caught her breath. “I never thought I’d live to hate and fear the sound of music.”

  “I’m telling you, these Musicologists are deadly.” Bishop rummaged in his pocket until he brought out his notebook.

  Raleigh watched him flip the pages. “What are you looking for?”

  “I was going to ask Major about the twen’s necklace. I thought I could trust him, but I see now he’s working for the cabal of Ten Guilds. Who knows? Maybe all of them are. Maybe we can’t trust anybody anymore.”

  “Is there something in your father’s notebook about the twen?”

  “No. He lists a series of names of Guildsmen he thought might be involved in the alliance. He also details all the Guildsmen he went to for help in his investigation. Major helped him and even gave him valuable information, but perhaps the cabal turned him their way since then. I don’t know.”

  “So where are we going to go now?”

  Bishop put the book away. “Before we go anywhere, you’re gonna take a look at this.”

  He took another object out of his boot and held it out. Raleigh looked down at a smooth black disc in his hand. “What is it?”

  “It’s a weapon, like the others, but not as powerful. You grip it in your palm like this. You squeeze it on all sides with your muscles so this surface faces out toward your enemy. You summon all your will and force it out the end of your hand, like this.”

  He extended his arm down the street. He pointed his palm toward a water trough next to another house. A faint ripple of energy surged out of him, down his arm, and a powerful concussion thumped out of his hand. It hit the trough, up-ended it, and spilled the water into the street.

  Raleigh frowned. “What do you mean by ‘summon all your will’? That makes no sense.”

  He handed her the disc. “Here. You try. I can’t explain it any better than that. I should have explained it back at the house so you could practice instead of wasting all your time on Dax, but here we are. Hold it out and shoot. Once you succeed, you’ll understand how to make it work.”

  She took the disc and laid it in her palm. She couldn’t figure out what to do, so she held it out the way Bishop did. She might have stood there all day with her arm out, but that disc acted on her in a curious way. It called up forgotten power from the bottom of her soul.

  Before she knew what she was doing, a wave of that energy gurgled up out of her guts. It convulsed down her arm and burst out through the disc. It hit the trough and flipped it over one more time.

  Raleigh stared at the trough. Then she stared at the disc. Bishop turned away. “There you go. Just like that.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do with it?”

  He shot back over his shoulder. “Fight with it. What do you think?”

  She couldn’t move. Fight with it? Well, all right. She could do that. She put the disc in her vest pocket where she could reach it with no trouble. Then she hurried after Bishop. “Where are we going now?”

  He didn’t stop his quick stride. “I have no idea. I was hoping Major could give me a clue. I don’t have our next move planned out. Got any ideas?”

  “How am I supposed to come up with ideas? You’re the one with all your secrets tucked in that notebook of yours.”

  He shot her a dreadful glare. Then he stopped dead and his shoulders slumped. “I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. The notebook doesn’t say anything about the twen—at least not about this one we’re investigating. We have to find out what the Guilds are up to.”

  “We already know that. The question is finding where they’re keeping the twen, and that could be a needle in a haystack. They could be keeping the twen anywhere.”

  Bishop’s eyes popped out of his head. All of a sudden, he rushed at her, grabbed her, and kissed her hard on the lips. “That’s it! You’re a genius.”

  Raleigh blinked. “I am?”

  “Don’t you see? They couldn’t be keeping the twen anywhere. They could only keep it in certain places. The twen are a very delicate species, and the juveniles are even more particular. They have to be housed under special conditions and fed special food. All we have to do is track down who’s purchasing the food, and we’re home.”

  “I thought you said they keep twen in huge facilities. There must be dozens of people buying twen food.”

  He grabbed her hand and dragged her down the street. “But hardly anybody will be buying juvenile twen food. There might be three breeding programs in the world, and the people we’re looking for won’t be buying the food in any large quantities. They’ve only got one twen to take care of. That in
itself will tip us off.”

  “Where would they go to find twen food?”

  “There’s only one place I know.”

  “Where?”

  “The market.”

  Raleigh said nothing more. The market. They were going back to the market. Maybe this time wouldn’t descend into a battle to the death. Maybe now that Soto wasn’t around to send his Underlings after her, they could find what they were looking for and get out.

  “So what do juvenile twen eat?”

  Bishop put his head on one side. “Do you know what? I really don’t know.”

  Raleigh’s head whipped around. “You don’t know what they eat?”

  “No.” Bishop laughed. “I never learned, but I think I know someone who does know. He might even be able to tell us who’s been buying the food. The bad news is we have to go a ways to find him.”

  Raleigh didn’t say any more. This whole expedition was spinning out of control.

  Bishop steered her back to the large square, but the moment they entered it, they saw the zeppelin rise off the ground and drift off into the clouds. “Drat it!” Bishop muttered. “We missed it, and that’s the last flight of the day.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat. We can talk about our next move, and then we’ll arrange for somewhere to spend the night.”

  He led the way across the square to a tavern near the Guild of Musicology building. Raleigh cast a sidelong glance at the Guild headquarters. “Aren’t you worried about them coming after us again?”

  “They aren’t looking for us now. Major probably had to report the whole thing to the interim Chairman. They’ll be running around, contacting the other Guilds and warning them that we’re on their trail. They’ll have a bunch of meetings to decide what to do about us. That will take time, and we would see any Musicologists coming after us.”

  He entered the tavern and found a booth near the back. Raleigh slid in opposite him, and a bright young barmaid came over. “What’ll you have?”

  “The usual, please, Matilda,” Bishop replied. “This is my new apprentice, Raleigh Douglas, and she can start with my usual, too, until she gets tired of it and wants something different.”

  The barmaid didn’t look at either one of them. She bustled away out of sight. Raleigh studied Bishop. “Is there anybody you don’t know?”

  “Of course there is. I don’t know everyone. I’m just one man, but I’ve spent enough time in this city to know a few people. I know quite a lot of people connected with the Guild of Martial Arts.”

  “Is there anyone there you can ask for information on the Guild alliance?”

  He made a face. “We just had to fight our way out of the Guild of Musicology, and you want to take on the Guild of Martial Arts? No, thank you.”

  “There must be a way to get inside.”

  “There is. Oh, there is! You have to fight your way inside against fighters who have been training since they were toddlers. I wouldn’t go near the place.”

  Raleigh chuckled. “Maybe the cabal is keeping the twen in there. Maybe that’s the safest place for it.”

  Bishop stared at her. “Don’t you ever stop?”

  Raleigh shifted in her seat. “I was just joking.”

  He shook his head down at the tabletop. “You just keep coming out with one smashing idea after another. Of course they’re keeping the twen in the Guild of Martial Arts. It’s the most obvious place. No one in their right mind would try to break in there. Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?”

  “I wasn’t serious.”

  “Well, I am. They’re keeping the twen there. They have to be. All we have to do is track down the twen’s food supply to prove it.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something? You were hired to find the twen and get it back from these people. If you’re right and the twen is inside their headquarters building, we have to go inside. We have to find it and get it out. That’s gonna be tricky, to say the least. Then we’ll have a whole new problem keeping the twen fed and cared for until we can turn it over to your client—whoever that turns out to be.”

  Just then, Matilda reappeared. She set two giant mugs of ale in front of each of them, along with a massive plate of food.

  “We’ll work that out later,” Bishop said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll track down the twen’s food supply. We would have to do that anyway, for when we get the twen back. Once we prove the twen’s food is going into the Guild building, we can decide what to do next.”

  “We’ll have to move fast,” Raleigh pointed out. “Niui said they wanted to harvest an oil from the twen’s brain. If Soto procured them a twen they could use, they’ll kill the twen to produce their Elixir. Getting back a dead twen won’t do us any good.”

  Bishop took a swig of his ale. “We can only move as fast as we can move. If we’re going to tackle the Guild of Martial Arts, we’ll need to prepare. Not all the weapons in my bedroom could get us inside that place.”

  Raleigh bent over her food. She didn’t recognize it. On one side of the plate, a large compressed slab of ground meat rested between the cut halves of a bread bun. Sauces and vegetables peeked out all around it, and the meat juices dripped into the bread.

  Bishop picked up the thing, squeezed it together, and took a bite—bread, meat and all. Raleigh observed him. “What is that?”

  “They call it a hamburger. This is the only place, in Hinterland or out of it, I’ve ever seen one, but it sure is good. Try it.”

  Raleigh hesitated another moment. A salad covered the other side of her plate, but that didn’t appeal to her empty stomach right now. She imitated Bishop, picked up the food, and took a bite. The juices mingled with the sauce to dampen the bread and fill her mouth with aromatic flavors. It really was incredibly good. She took another bite.

  Bishop dug into his food, and for some time, neither of them said anything. At length, Bishop wiped his mouth with his napkin and concentrated on his beer. Raleigh leaned back and took a sip, too. “So tell me more about the Guild of Martial Arts.”

  “What do you want to know? They’ve spent millennia studying combat in all its forms. They’ve perfected every art to its finest state, and they’ve distilled all their knowledge into the most complete fighting art you can imagine. They train up unstoppable fighters who go on to work for pontiffs, kings, magistrates—anybody who wants to hire them. Guildsmen are notorious the world over.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  Bishop eyed her over his beer. “Why do you ask that?”

  “You said you knew quite a lot of them, and Dax says you’re the best at what you do. Are you a Guildsman?”

  He lowered his eyes, and his finger traced the frosty condensation on his mug. “Yes, I am.”

  Raleigh regarded him across the table. So he was one of them. He was a Guildsman of the Martial Arts. That’s how he got so good and earned a reputation, both in Hinterland and outside it. His name struck fear into the hearts of all who heard it.

  “My father and grandfather were Guildsmen, too,” he told her. “My whole family belonged to the Guild. I know all their dirty little secrets—at least, I know most of them.”

  “Did you do something to displease them? Is that why they would fight you to stop you from getting inside?”

  Bishop’s mouth twisted into a grin. “Now what makes you think I did something to displease them?”

  She shrugged. “Just the way you are. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

  He chuckled. “No, I never did anything to displease them. I was their star pupil. My instructors wanted me to go into the Guild hierarchy. I probably could have become Chairman someday, if I had listened to them, but I became a bounty hunter and a slayer like my father. He’s the one who displeased them, and that’s why they…”

  Raleigh didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to ask what he was about to say. He always believed someone killed his father for findin
g out something they didn’t want him to know. Now the truth came out. He believed the Guild killed him. Mr. Bishop, Sr. must have learned one dirty little Guild secret too many, and he paid the price.

  “Anyway,” Bishop went on, “they fight anybody who walks through the front door. They’re Martial Artists. They’ll fight you to the death before they’ll even talk to you. You better be ready to stick up for yourself if you want to go in there. That’s how they determine if you’re worth talking to. They throw everything they’ve got at you, and if you’re still standing at the end of it, they might ask you what you want.”

  “They must have members walking around on the street,” Raleigh remarked. “They aren’t fighting everybody to the death instead of talking to them.”

  “That’s on the street,” Bishop returned. “On the street, you wouldn’t know a Guildsman from any other man jack. They can mind their manners in public. Once you get inside their Guild, though, they play by their own rules, and only one rule counts. You’re gonna fight, and you better win. Only then will they deal with you on an equal footing.

  Chapter 9

  After spending a quiet night in the tavern’s upstairs rooms, Raleigh and Bishop went back to the square to board the zeppelin. Raleigh stood at the window and watched the lovely city of Pernrith fade into the distance. She could almost be sorry to see it go if she didn’t have to worry about coming back here to storm the Guild of Martial Arts.

  All too soon, the city faded into its alabaster haze. The green fields, the purple mountains in the distance, and the rolling sea off to one side assaulted all Raleigh’s senses with more beauty than she could stand.

  Her heart didn’t patter with the same excitement she felt when she first rode this zeppelin, but the grandeur and loveliness of the landscape still filled her heart to overflowing. She could ride this airborne vehicle again and again and never get tired of it.

  The zeppelin didn’t fly back to the little village on the prairie, though. It headed toward the sea, where it turned along the coast and headed into the mountains. “Where are we going?”