“We can’t mistreat him just on the basis of our suspicions.”
“No,” Sefris sighed. “Of course not. What was I thinking? I think this evil place is corrupting my judg—”
Without warning, she leaped and spun, her heel streaking at Miri’s head.
Reacting out of sheer reflex, Miri bounded back out of range, and the monastic’s kick missed her by an inch. The scout continued her frantic retreat, meanwhile nocking and drawing an arrow. Sefris landed in a deep crouch, one hand high and open, the other clenched into a fist and cocked at her hip.
“What is this?” Miri demanded. “Why would you attack me?”
“The arcanaloth promised you’d guide me along the path to the Bouquet,” Sefris replied, “but I think you’ve done your part. From this point onward, your mawkish scruples and squeamishness would only get in the way. So now I’m going to kill you for daring to set yourself against the Lady of Loss.”
Miri didn’t understand all of that. She didn’t know what an “arcanaloth” was, for example. But it was plain that Sefris was as treacherous a double-dealer as most everyone else she’d met in Oeble, and had been playing her for a fool from the start.
“I’m the one with an arrow aimed at your heart,” Miri said. “If you so much as twitch, I’ll let it fly. Now, you’re no Broken One. Who are you?”
“Perhaps you’ve heard of the Monks of the Dark Moon.”
Sefris’s hand leaped toward her pocket and the chakram inside it. Miri released the bowstring.
The arrow flew straight, but the monastic twisted aside. The chakram whirled through the air. Miri simultaneously ducked and flailed at the ring, and by luck as much as skill, she swatted it away with her buckler. Steel clashed against steel.
Sefris pounced, too fast for even the deftest archer to ready another shaft. In desperation, Miri swung her bow like a club. The monastic caught the weapon, twirled it out of Miri’s grasp, and cast it aside.
At least that took an instant, which Miri used to scramble backward once more. The retreat took her out onto the balcony, which groaned and dipped alarmingly under her weight. She also had time to snatch out her broadsword and, when Sefris lunged forward again, prompting the platform to creak and lurch, meet her with a stop cut. The robed, shaven-headed woman halted instantly, cleanly, on balance, and the attack fell short.
Smiling ever so slightly, Sefris shifted back and forth, looking for an opening. Miri felt an unaccustomed pang of fear, and struggled to quash it.
I know she’s good, she thought, but the sword gives me the reach on her, and she can’t dodge around too much out here. The balcony’s too small.
Miri advanced, feinted to the head, and cut to the flank. Sefris ignored the false attack and swept down her arm to parry the true one. It shouldn’t have worked very well. The broadsword should have chopped into her wrist, but the block incorporated a subtle spinning motion that somehow permitted her to fling the blade away and remain unscathed.
She riposted with a spring into the air and a front kick to the face. Miri swayed backward, out of harm’s way, and slashed at the other woman’s extended leg. She grazed the flapping hem of her robe, but that was all. Sefris touched down, spun, and caught the sword with a crescent kick. The impact tore it from Miri’s grasp and sent it flying over the broken railing.
The ranger grabbed for the hilt of the dagger sheathed at her belt. Hands poised for slaughter, Sefris whirled around to face her.
Wood cracked and screamed, and the balcony swung down, the horizontal surface becoming a steep incline. The platform was pulling loose from it anchors.
Sefris turned and, nimble as a cat, clambered up the slope and into the safety of the garret. Miri tried to do the same, but scrabble as she might, she couldn’t catch hold of anything to pull herself up. Her boots kicked away rotten fragments of railing, wood cracked and snapped, and she and the balcony plummeted, tumbling through empty space.
As the crash sounded below, Sefris drew a calming breath. She hadn’t feared Miri’s bow or sword, but she had felt a twinge of alarm when the balcony unexpectedly gave way. The fear proved she still had a way to go before she achieved a perfect, contemptuous indifference to the well-being of all unworthy created things, herself included.
It was something to work on in her meditations, but not just then. She had to recapture the opportunity that was receding beyond her grasp. The monastic retrieved her fallen chakram, she then sprinted back down the spiral stairs.
As Sefris hurtled downward, she cast off—she wished for all time—the habits of speech and expression she’d adopted to impersonate a Broken One. The warmth and compassion of a servant of Ilmater were entirely alien to her own nature. It had taken a constant effort to counterfeit them, and she knew she hadn’t managed perfectly. Still, she’d passed muster right up until the end, and that was what mattered.
When she reached ground level, she raced down the street in the direction the kidnappers and their victim had taken. She kept to the shadows as best she could, but stealth was less important than speed, and her sandals pounded the wheel-rutted earth.
Indeed, she’d nearly passed the narrow cul-de-sac before she registered the stairs at the end of it, like a well lined with steps twisting downward into the ground. When she spotted it, however, she stopped cold.
The part of Oeble that knew rain and sunlight did possess some semblance of law and order, no matter how corrupt or ineffectual, so it seemed unlikely that outlaws dragging a prisoner along would opt to continue in the streets when they could descend to the Underways instead. Sefris bounded down the narrow, unrailed steps, indifferent to the possibility of a fall. Her Dark Moon training had honed her sense of balance to such a degree that the rapid descent was no more difficult than sprinting on level ground.
The real challenge came when the stairs deposited her in a twisting tunnel, the inky darkness relieved only by the smears of phosphorescence on the walls. Peering around, she saw nothing to indicate in which direction the Red Axes had gone.
Accordingly, she listened, hoping that, since they’d returned “below,” the toughs would start taunting their victim or gloating over their success. In her experience, such mindless, undisciplined behavior was typical of robbers and goblin-kin the world over.
She thought she heard catcalls and laughter echoing faintly from the right, and she hurried in that direction. She judged she was heading more or less toward the river, though the mazelike warrens were already muddling her sense of direction. She rather wished she could cast a spell of tracking or guidance to keep her on the proper course, but the simple fact was that no sorceress could master every conceivable conjuration and enchantment, and such tricks weren’t a part of her repertoire.
As it turned out, she didn’t need them. She rushed or skulked past various scenes of the sort the Underways provided in such abundance—a burglar selling a silk wedding dress to a dealer in such stolen commodities, ruffians and apprentices squatting in a circle throwing knucklebones, several orcs closing in on a human who’d managed to draw his dagger but looked too drunk to wield it properly—and the kidnappers came into view. Unfortunately, they still had such a lead on Sefris that she wouldn’t have spotted them if that length of tunnel hadn’t been unusually straight or if a brothel-keeper hadn’t hung a scarlet lantern to lure patrons to the doorway of his establishment.
She loped to close the distance, meanwhile pondering the tactical parameters of her situation, not with trepidation, but simply in order to manage the coming slaughter as efficiently as possible. Her foes were many, and she was only one. They had crossbows, which could shoot their quarrels considerably farther than she could fling a chakram. The non-humans could see considerably better in the dark.
She, however, possessed her own advantages. The enemy didn’t know she was trailing them. Even more importantly, the Red Axes were simply ruffians, while Sefris was an elite agent of the Lady of Loss, possessed of all the lethal skills a Dark Sister required. A single spell could thin out the t
oughs in short order.
Unfortunately, the drawback to that approach was that the prisoner was limping along in the midst of the outlaws, and he looked frail enough that any magic potent enough to incapacitate a half dozen bravos was likely to kill him outright. Sefris was still trying to think her way around that aspect of the problem when the folk ahead turned down a side tunnel.
Afraid of losing them, she quickened her pace yet again, but even so, she was too late. When she peeked around the bend, she found that the way dead-ended in a massive oak door reinforced with iron, more like the sally-port of a castle than any entrance to a common residence. Plainly, her quarry had passed through.
She frowned in annoyance, because though killing a group of Red Axes in the Underways would have posed certain problems, invading their fortress was likely to prove far more difficult. Then an alternative occurred to her.
She proceeded to the door. Someone watched her approach. She couldn’t see the peephole or hidden sentry box, but she felt the pressure of his gaze. She knocked on the panel.
After several seconds, a gruff voice sounded through the door, “Password.”
“I don’t know it,” she said. “I’m not one of you, but I have business with your chief.”
“He’s busy.”
“Tell him it’s about the strongbox Aeron sar Randal stole from the ranger.”
For a while, there was no response to that. Then the door opened. The short passage on the other side likewise reminded Sefris of castle architecture, for it resembled a barbican, with murder holes in the ceiling and another stout door at the far end. Two ruffians, one a black-bearded man whose brawny arms writhed with tattoos, the other a naked, crouching meazel, waved her inside. The latter was another of Oeble’s surprises. Sefris would have thought the stunted, green-skinned semi-aquatic brutes with their talons and webbed feet too feral and dull-witted to relate to other humanoids as anything but prey, but plainly the leader of the Red Axes had attracted at least one of the brutes into his employ.
“We’re going to search you,” said the tattooed man. It was the same voice Sefris had heard before.
“Here,” she said, removing her chakrams and cesti from her pockets.
The ruffian frisked her anyway, fondling her in the process. It didn’t bother her. During her training, her Dark Father and other teachers had systematically subjected her to ordeals compared to which a bit of lascivious groping was meaningless. The important thing was that the sentry failed to discover the various spell components secreted about her person. The confiscation of those would have diminished her capabilities far more than the surrender of her weapons.
But even though the tattooed man’s impudence failed to perturb her, she memorized his face for chastisement later on. Her faith virtually required it, for as much as anything, the Lady of Loss was a goddess of revenge.
The toughs escorted her on through cellars crammed with a hodgepodge of no doubt stolen and smuggled goods, then up a flight of stairs into the living areas of what had once been a lavish mansion. In its essence, it still was, but the dirt, dust, scattered garbage, and smell of mildew marred the splendor. Eventually they reached a spacious solar on the second floor. The north wall was essentially one long window, made of genuine glass, and the expensive panes, cracked, smeared, and grimy though they were, provided a panoramic view of the Scelptar, the bridges spanning it, and the moon, her Tears, and the stars sparkling across the night sky.
The leader of the Red Axes apparently used the chamber as a lord would employ his hall, to grant audiences and issue decrees, for, his battle-axe lying across his thighs, the tanarukk lounged in a high-backed, gilded throne at the far end. A dozen of his followers loitered around in attendance, and the prisoner sprawled on the floor. Someone had pulled the sack off his head, revealing haggard, intelligent features, frightened but defiant, and an old scar around his neck.
“Bring her closer,” the tanarukk growled.
The meazel gave Sefris a shove, its filthy, likely disease-bearing talons jabbing her but not quite breaking the skin.
She advanced and said, “Kesk Turnskull.”
He grunted a swinish grunt and asked, “And who are you?”
“Sefris Uuthrakt.”
“What do you know about the lockbox?”
“I won’t bore you with the tale of everything that happened in far Ormath months ago,” she said. “Let’s just say I know what’s in it, and I came to Oeble to acquire it.”
Kesk grinned around the long, curved spikes of his tusks.
“Then you’re out of luck,” he said. “It’s already spoken for.”
“I figured you already had a buyer. I’ll pay more. I can lay my hands on three hundred thousand gold pieces’ worth of gems. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, tomb jade, and ghost stones, all of the finest quality.”
The lie reduced the hall to astonished, greedy silence for a moment, and then Kesk said, “I don’t know you. Why should I believe in this treasure trove?”
Sefris hoped an admixture of truth would make her deception seem more plausible.
“I serve the Lady of Loss,” she said. “Like you Red Axes, our temple reaves plenty of wealth from those unable to defend it.” She waited a beat. “Would it bother you to deal with us?”
Kesk, leering, said, “Do you know where the race of tanarukks sprang from? I’ll trade with anybody, no matter what devil-goddess she worships, so long as I can turn a profit. And I’d guess that the secret strongholds of Shar, wherever they may be, do have plenty of coin. But can you prove you’re one of the priestesses, or am I just supposed to take it on faith, like the existence of all these jewels you’re going to give us?”
“Have you heard of the Dark Moon?”
Kesk’s eyes, red and faintly luminous, like embers, narrowed.
“Of Shar’s clergy,” he said, “yet not. They’re protectors and assassins.”
Sefris inclined her head and replied, “Something like that. If you’ve heard of us, you know we study a certain unarmed fighting style. If I defeat a couple of your men at once, using only my empty hands, will that prove I’m who I claim to be?”
“It might,” the tanarukk said, “and if they beat you down instead, well, we were already planning on some torture. We might as well question you and old Nicos at once. He can tell us where his son keeps the coffer, and you can give us the truth about all those gems. Presmer, Sewer Rat—you brought her up here, you deal with her. Orvaega, you help. You can bleed her and break her bones, but try not to kill her.”
The tattooed man—Presmer, Sefris assumed—whirled off his short leather cape, dangled it in one hand, and drew his short sword with the other. The meazel—the monastic wondered if Sewer Rat was its actual name, translated into human speech, or just a nickname the other rogues had given it—simply hissed and crouched. Evidently it saw no need for any weapons other than its claws. Orvaega, a female orc, hefted a war club in both hands.
Sefris stood still as her opponents spread out to encircle her. Then, suddenly, she bellowed a battle cry, pivoted, and leaped into the air, kicking at Presmer. Startled, he recoiled, as she’d intended. She touched down, whirled, and Sewer Rat and Orvaega were lunging at her. That, too, was as she desired. She’d turned her back and feinted at Presmer to lure them in. Control what your adversaries did, and when, and you were well on the way to defeating them.
Twisting at the hips, she performed a double-arm block that bounced the war club harmlessly away. She then punched the startled Orvaega in the snout, breaking bone and knocking the orc unconscious, and shoved her into Sewer Rat, which served to knock the runtish meazel backward, spoiling its frenzied attack. Floundering out from under the dead weight of its comrade, the black-eyed creature snarled and spat.
Sefris would have rushed Sewer Rat while the meazel was still off balance and encumbered, except that she knew enough time had passed for Presmer to have returned to the fray. She turned, and he swung his cape at her face, seeking to blind her. And stun her
, too, perhaps, it the garment had weights sewn into the hem. She dropped into a squat, letting the cloak fly harmlessly over her head, and she simultaneously hooked his ankle with her foot. Presmer crashed down on his back.
Sefris sensed Sewer Rat pouncing. She turned, grabbed the meazel—immobilizing its raking claws in the process—spun it through the air, and smashed it down on top of Presmer. The impact snapped bones and stunned the both of them, and Sefris’s only remaining problem was resisting the impulse to go ahead and make the kills. A long, slow breath served to buttress her self-control. She inclined her head to Kesk.
“There,” she said.
He gave a grudging nod. If he had any concern for the welfare of the followers she’d just mauled, she could see no sign of it in his demeanor.
“I guess you probably do belong to the Dark Moon,” the tanarukk said. “It still doesn’t prove you have a king’s ransom in jewels to barter.”
“I’ll produce them when the time comes. If I don’t, simply sell the book to the person who first asked you to steal it.”
“The fact of the matter is, he’s promised more than coin.”
“Do you trust him to keep his pledges,” Sefris replied, “once he has the book in hand?”
Kesk spat. The gesture left a strand of saliva, which he didn’t bother to wipe away, dangling beside the base of one tusk.
He said, “I don’t trust anybody much.”
“Rest assured, if it’s a guarantee of future help you want, or even a genuine alliance, no one can offer more than the followers of Shar. We often make common cause with others who stand against the witless laws of men.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Kesk. “Tell me how to get in touch with you.”
“I’d hoped to stay with you for the time being.”
The Red Axe snorted and said, “I still don’t know what to make of you, human. Until I do, I don’t want you running around my house.”
“But you may need me. We may need to work together to take possession of the book.”
The Black Bouquet Page 12
