“Look,” she said, “neither you nor I are a match for Sefris and the Red Axes by ourselves. But if we work together, we might have a chance.”
Frowning, he thought it over for a moment.
“At the end,” he said, “when I turn over the book, I want a reward.”
“We’re talking about your father’s life.”
“Even so,” the thief replied. “Think of it as wergild for my friends.”
“All right. I can arrange it. Where are my clothes and weapons?”
“Your clothes and armor are in the chest at the foot of the bed. We’ll have to buy you a new sword and bow.”
The night was overcast and dark. Still, peering down from the Rainspan, Aeron could make out some detail inside the shadowy enclosure off Dead King’s Walk. From the looks of her, Miri could, too. In fact, from the way she fingered her new longbow, he could tell she was thinking she could hit the guard who periodically emerged from his sentry box to amble around checking on the merchandise, and never mind that she’d complained of the poor quality of the weapon compared to the one she’d lost.
She was a dangerous woman for certain, one who’d already killed some of Aeron’s friends, and he was trusting her simply because, when she’d promised to deal fairly with him, she’d seemed to be speaking honestly, and even if not, so long as she didn’t know where he’d stashed The Black Bouquet, she might well hesitate to attack him. For what if matters went awry, and he either escaped her or wound up dead?
In any case, he had to run the risk of working with her, because she was right. For the time being, he did need her. His truest friends were dead, and Kesk had demonstrated his ability to turn the rest of Oeble against him.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I can make the shot,” Miri replied. A cool breeze, moist with the promise of rain before morning, shifted a lock of her close-cropped hair. “And I don’t like slavers. But the trade is legal in Oeble, isn’t it?”
“Thank Mask I’m just a ‘miserable thief,’” he said. “Such concerns don’t matter to me. Yes, a slave emporium is legal in and of itself, even if an outlaw like Kesk owns it. But if it makes you feel any better, I’d wager a wagon full of gold that he didn’t come by all his stock in a lawful manner.”
“That does make it better. Still, I’d rather not murder a man unnecessarily.” She glowered and added, “If that makes me a squeamish fool in your eyes, so be it.”
“It doesn’t,” he admitted. “If you remember, I tried to steal The Black Bouquet without anybody getting hurt. We’ll use the other plan.”
Keeping an eye out for those who were scouring the city hunting him, they stalked to the end of the bridge, entered a squat octagonal tower, and descended to ground level via the stairs inside. Aeron cracked open the match-boarded external door, peeked out, and frowned. Dead King’s Walk was one of Oeble’s primary thoroughfares, and despite the lateness of the hour, that particular section was both better lit and busier than he would have liked. He and Miri would just have to cope.
They sauntered to the slave market entrance. Aeron figured he had just a moment or two to make an assessment. If he took any longer, someone might conclude that he and his companion were loitering suspiciously.
The gate had a sturdy, well-made lock. Burgell could have opened it with a perfunctory mystical whisper, but it was likely to take Aeron a while. The high fence had long nails driven all the way through to catch and pierce a climber’s flesh. He thought he could swarm over unscathed, but had no idea whether Miri could do as well.
All things considered, he felt the third option was the best. He positioned himself against the fence, where someone opening the gate wouldn’t see him, then Miri took hold of the rope hanging from the brass bell and rang.
She had to clang it twice more before a surly voice replied from the other side, “We’re closed. Come back tomorrow.”
“I’m traveling at first light,” she said, “and I need thralls to tend the pack animals. I’ll pay well.”
The guard opened the gate a notch to peer out at what appeared to be a lone woman in a non-threatening stance, no blade in her hand or arrow on her bowstring. Squeaking a little, the hinges in need of oil, the portal swung wider.
Aeron threw his shoulder against it and slammed it all the way open, staggering the half-orc watchman in the process. He lunged onward and hammered his new cudgel against the guard’s temple. The half-breed collapsed, and Miri closed the gate. The whole thing had only taken a second, and with luck, no one outside the fence had observed it.
Miri gave Aeron a nod of approval, and a second attendant, a human, stepped onto the stoop of the shack at the rear of the fenced-in yard. He’d plainly heard the bell, too, and come to see what was going on. He goggled, then whirled to run back inside.
Aeron grabbed an Arthyn fang and threw it. The blade plunged into the target’s back at the same instant as Miri’s arrow. The man stumbled, made a ghastly little gargling sound, and fell on his face, the top half of him over the threshold and the rest still stretched across the little porch.
Aeron sighed. They’d hoped to do their job without killing, but it simply hadn’t worked out that way. They couldn’t let the wretch raise an alarm. Anyway, the dead man was a Red Axe, wasn’t he, or as good as. Aeron shoved the matter out of his mind.
The slaves slept in what amounted to lean-tos in the middle of the yard, with buckets provided for sanitation. Evidently no one had emptied them in a while, and the stink made Aeron’s eyes water. The thralls stared at him and Miri apprehensively.
“It’s all right,” the ranger said. “We’re here to free you. Where do the overseers keep the tools?”
An underfed, half-naked hobgoblin, its back and shoulders striped with whip marks, pointed at the shack. Miri stepped over the corpse in the doorway, then reappeared with mallets and chisels. Some of the slaves clamored for them.
“Keep quiet!” she hissed.
Once they obeyed, she passed out the tools, and they started striking off their leg irons.
“Kesk will puke blood when he finds out all this coin has grown wings and flown away,” Aeron said with a grin.
“Coin?” Miri repeated. “Is that all they are to you? I suppose if it was practical, you wouldn’t free them, but simply steal them to sell yourself.”
“You’re wrong,” Aeron said. He didn’t know why he should care about her opinion of him, but her scorn was starting to rankle. “In my time I’ve stolen copper ingots, bales of silk, pots of jam, and as it turns out, a formulary. Why not? They’re just things. What difference does it make whose pocket they wind up in? But I’ve never tried my hand at slaving—or kidnapping, or killing for hire. I don’t have the stomach for any of that.”
“But you do hurt people, in the course of committing your outrages. You and your accomplices killed some of my mercenaries.”
“At least killing isn’t the very heart of our trade. Unlike yours. A ranger’s a warrior and manhunter, right? I don’t suppose you would have joined your Red Hart Guild unless you liked shooting people.”
“I like defending the innocent. Sometimes that re—”
“This is madness!” one of the thralls, a rather pretty blond woman with an upturned nose, suddenly wailed. “We can’t escape! They’ll only punish us, maybe kill us, if we try.”
“Not if you’re smart,” Aeron said. “If you were enslaved illegally and can prove it, run to your families or the Gray Blades. The rest of you, sneak out of town before dawn, stay off the roads, and head for the Barony of the Great Oak. It’s not far, and they don’t traffic in slaves there. They won’t send you back.” He opened his belt pouch and handed one of the slaves a few coins. Miri probably suspected the funds he was spending were the same coins she’d been carrying before her fall, but so far, she hadn’t made an issue of it. “This will buy food, or pay a bribe if need be.”
“It won’t help,” the blond thrall said.
“You gutless bitch,” snar
led the hobgoblin with all the lash scars. “Always whining, or tattling on the rest of us.”
The hobgoblin had already freed itself, and it lunged at her, swinging a length of broken chain like a morning star.
Aeron and Miri sprang forward and grabbed the goblin-kin, which, biting and thrashing, struggled madly to break free. It was surprisingly strong despite the mistreatment it had endured.
“Easy!” Aeron said. “Take it easy!”
So intent was he on restraining the creature that when the other thralls cried out, it took a split second for the warning to register.
When it did, Aeron looked over his shoulder, just in time to see the Red Axes pull the triggers of their crossbows. The weapons clacked, and he dived forward with all his strength, bulling Miri and the hobgoblin down to the ground.
The goblin-kin grunted as one of the bolts pierced its body. Aeron was unscathed. He hoped Miri was, too, but didn’t have time to check on her. It was more important to assess the threat. He scrambled around to orient on the marksmen.
He saw five Red Axes, three human, one long-legged, hyena-faced gnoll, and an orc. Perhaps they’d been prowling around the city hunting him, or else some other business had called them forth from the mansion on the river. Either way, they must have heard the clank of the thralls breaking their fetters and come to investigate, entering through the gate Miri had closed but neglected to relock.
A couple ruffians reached for their quivers.
A big man with a boil on his neck shouted, “Don’t shoot! That’s him, Aeron sar Randal. Take him alive.”
His companions obediently dropped the crossbows and readied their cudgels.
Aeron was glad of that, at least. Their reluctance to kill the one person who could lead them to The Black Bouquet was the only advantage he had. As he scrambled up, he plucked a throwing knife from his boot. He faked a cast at the gnoll, whose eyes widened in alarm, then he pivoted and flung the dagger at a human wearing a foppish slashed doublet and fancy sash instead. The knife plunged into the bravo’s chest, and he reeled backward.
At the same moment, however, the orc lifted a tiny metal bottle, threw back its head, and gulped the contents. The man with the boil tossed what looked like a little brass toy to the ground. It scuttled forward under its own power, and as it advanced, it grew larger, swelling into a clattering metal preying mantis two heads taller than Aeron himself.
The slaves kept on screaming. He didn’t blame them.
Aeron couldn’t imagine a throwing blade damaging the enchanted apparatus, so retreating, he reached for his heavy fighting knife instead. That wasn’t likely to do much good either, but if was the best weapon he had.
Miri shot the mantis twice. The first arrow glanced off its long, thin body. The second stuck for a second, then drooped and fell away, leaving a shallow pock mark in the brass. She nocked a third shaft, registered the foes of flesh and blood rushing in at her, pivoted, and let fly at them instead. The arrow plunged so deeply into the torso of a human Red Axe that half of it popped out of his back. The outlaw dropped.
Her next arrow flew at the orc, whose flesh emitted a sickly greenish light—a product, no doubt, of the potion it had consumed. The shaft hit the creature squarely in the neck, but simply snapped in two without even slowing its target.
The orc had figured out that the Red Axes didn’t need to take anyone but Aeron alive. It still carried a long club in its left hand, but had drawn its scimitar with its right, and as it scrambled into the distance, it slashed at Miri’s knee. She retreated, avoiding the cut, tossed the longbow away, and snatched for the hilt of her new broadsword.
Aeron watched it all from the corner of his eye, directing most of his attention to the metal insect mincing toward him, graceful despite its size and the clanking that attended its every move.
The mantis leaped, its long hind legs straightening explosively and hurling it through the air.
Even though Aeron had his eye on it, the move caught him by surprise. If the mechanism landed on him, the shock would break bone, and the sheer weight of it would pin him to the ground even if it didn’t crush him outright. He sprang desperately backward.
Even so, the mantis crashed down right in front of him, the impact jolting the ground. Up close, it smelled of oil. Long serrated pincers opened to snatch him up.
He dodged one set of claws and riposted with a stab. The Arthyn fang grated along brass, merely scratching it. The other forelimb leaped at him, and a hand shoved him out of the way. The pincers snapped shut on empty air.
He glanced at his rescuer. It was the gaunt hobgoblin with the whip marks. The creature had a crossbow quarrel sticking in its left shoulder, but apparently wasn’t too badly wounded to fight. It lashed the mantis with its chain. The construct twisted its head, evidently considering the thrall through its bulbous faceted eyes, then it returned its attention to Aeron.
It chased him across the yard, snatching for him relentlessly, occasionally dipping its head lower in an effort to seize him in its mandibles. The other slaves scurried to stay clear. Aeron thrust and hacked with the knife when he could, which wasn’t often. It was hard enough just to stay out of the construct’s clutches and keep it from cornering him against the fence. He supposed the lack of offense didn’t much matter. As predicted, the blade wasn’t doing the device any real damage, any more than was the hobgoblin still gamely flailing away at its flank.
When Aeron was facing in the right direction, he caught glimpses of Miri and her opponents, who’d spread out to attack her from two sides. The orc pressed her hard, trusting the magical elixir it had consumed to keep her blade from penetrating its flesh. For the most part, the gnoll fought more defensively, hanging back a little until it judged that its comrade had her distracted, then attacking furiously. So far, neither of them had succeeded in penetrating her guard, but her manifest skill notwithstanding, Aeron was sure she was in trouble.
She was in no more trouble than he was in himself, but the hobgoblin’s attempts to save him weren’t helping. It was possible the slave could aid Miri, however, so he gasped in the air to shout and tell it to go to her.
But before he could get the words out, the goblin-kin left off battering the mantis and grabbed one of its middle legs. The thrall was either trying to tear it off, use it to heave the mechanism onto its side, or simply immobilize the thing. Aeron couldn’t tell which.
Whatever the hobgoblin intended, the maneuver finally served to distract the mantis. Pausing in its pursuit of Aeron, it jerked its leg, shook the slave loose, pivoted, and snatched it up in its pincers. It gave the thrall a shake, then flipped it across the yard to slam into the front of the shack, after which the hobgoblin sprawled motionless.
Though the goblin-kin’s effort had failed, perhaps it had given Aeron a chance. While the mantis was concentrating on its other foe, he dashed around to the back of it, the end it typically carried so low it nearly brushed the ground. Without hesitation, he clambered straight up its narrow body, the years he’d spent scaling sheer walls and traversing treacherous ledges and rooftops allowing him to maintain balance and traction on the slippery, rounded surface.
He straddled its neck like a rider sitting a horse. While he stayed there, he hoped, it couldn’t reach him with either its claws or mandibles. Looking down, he saw a gap where the head connected to the body. He jammed his knife into the crack, and when that had no appreciable effect, he threw his weight against the blade, prying as if it were a lever.
The mantis pitched sideways, and he realized that if he remained where he was, it was going to roll on him. He leaped clear, and landed hard. Metal crashed. Numb, half stunned, he forced himself to his feet, and the apparatus did, too.
Flinging itself to the ground had damaged it. One side was dented, and its left forelimb protruded at an angle. Still, it pounced at Aeron as agilely as before.
As once again he fled before it, he struggled not to give way to outright panic and despair. There had to be a way to stop it.
Once Nicos had resigned himself to the fact that his son meant to follow in his footsteps, he’d taught him that if only a thief kept his head, he could think his way around any danger.
And so, dodging, panting, gasping for breath, his heart pounding, Aeron strained to think, and eventually something struck him. Two Red Axes were dead. The orc and gnoll were fighting Miri.
Where is the fifth one, Aeron thought, the heavyset man with the boil? Why isn’t he battling alongside his comrades and the mantis?
Once Aeron looked, it was easy enough to spot the fellow, even though he was standing well back from the action. The ruffian was simply gazing fixedly at his quarry’s struggle with the metal insect … because he was controlling the contraption with his mind? Aeron had spent enough time with Dal and Burgell to know it was possible.
It was a long dagger cast to the Red Axe, but he doubted the mantis would let him get much closer. He dodged its next attack and snatched out a throwing knife. The brass insect pivoted, cutting off Aeron’s view of his target, so he sprinted to bring the man with the boil back into sight.
Thanks to the delay, the Red Axe had plainly spotted the new weapon, for he stood poised to duck or dodge. Aeron cocked his arm and flicked his wrist, faking a cast to make Kesk’s henchman move. The bravo jumped to the left, and Aeron truly threw the blade, leading the target slightly. The man with the boil was committed to his useless evasive action. He couldn’t arrest or change it, and the flat, leaf-shaped Arthyn fang plunged into his chest right up to the handle.
Aeron sensed motion above him. He looked up at a pair of grasping claws and jumped back just in time to avoid them. Pincers clashing and gnashing, the mantis lunged after him, and sick with terror and hopelessness, Aeron thought he’d guessed wrong. It didn’t matter that he’d killed the outlaw with the blemish. The apparatus would keep attacking on its own.
Then, however, he saw that it was hesitating between advances and attacks—slowing down—until, after a few more seconds, it froze into immobility with a final metallic groan.
The Black Bouquet Page 16
