by Mel Odom
Still crying a little, the livery boy got up and closed the door. He cursed for a while and promised death to the thieves if he ever saw them again.
Wick started to move.
The cat pressed herself back against him. “Wait,” Alysta said.
Before Wick could ask why, movement in the rafters caused him to sink back against the paddock wall. Then Quarrel dropped from the rafters into the area between the paddocks by the front door, startling a scream out of the livery boy.
“It’s all right,” Quarrel assured the boy. “I’ve come for my horse.” He fished a coin from a small leather purse.
Always alert for details, Wick spotted a curious symbol stamped onto the leather purse. It was small and artfully done, a rose clasped in the thorny embrace of a vine.
The livery boy caught the coin in the air and made a fist around it.
Moving quickly, Quarrel saddled his horse, negotiated the price of a bag of apples for the horse, and led the animal outside. With his cloak wrapped around him, Quarrel galloped out after the thieves.
“All right,” the cat said.
“All right what?” Wick asked.
“Now we follow them.” Alysta walked out into the walkway between the paddocks.
Wick had been afraid the cat was going to suggest that. “Shouldn’t we stay here? Until Craugh and the ship arrive?”
“Why should they come? You haven’t found anything of importance yet.”
“We’re following those thieves.”
“Yes, and that trail may lead us nowhere. We don’t know yet.”
“Doesn’t Craugh know what we’re here looking for?”
“That man,” the cat replied. “Captain Gujhar.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s from Wraith.”
“Wraith?”
“The ship that took Boneslicer from the Cinder Clouds Islands.”
“Is Boneslicer still on the ship?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we try to get the battle-axe back?” Wick still clung to the hope that he’d end up in a warm bed for the night.
The cat turned around and looked up at Wick. “All right.”
Wick halted and looked back at the cat. “All right?”
“As in, ‘All right, we’ll steal the battle-axe back from a ship of armed guards before we follow that pack of thieves and see what they’re up to.’”
Wick almost sneezed again. He lifted his fingers to his nose. “Armeb guarbs, huh?”
The cat gave a solemn nod.
Removing his hand from his nose, Wick said, “Maybe we could follow the thieves. At least for a little while.”
“Splendid idea,” the cat said.
“Sarcasm really isn’t an endearing trait,” Wick stated.
“Are you talking to that cat?” the livery boy asked. He stood in the walkway, a rag shoved up against his nose.
“No,” Wick said.
“Yes,” Alysta said. “We’ve come for the donkey.”
The boy looked at Alysta. “I’ve never seen a talking cat before.”
“I wouldn’t say a word,” the cat said, “if I thought the halfer could handle this on his own. Let’s have the donkey. Come on. Quick now.”
Dazed and befuddled, Wick joined Alysta at the paddock that held the donkey. Inside the paddock, a feedbag covered the donkey’s lower face. He munched contentedly, but without any real interest.
Before Wick knew what was about to happen, the cat pounced on him, landing on his shoulder, then springing to the paddock.
“Well,” the cat asked, “what have you got to say for yourself?”
Initially, Wick thought Alysta was talking to him. Then he noticed that her attention was on the donkey.
“The fact that we’re behind schedule is partly your fault,” the cat went on.
The donkey locked eyes with the cat. “It’s not my fault,” the donkey said. “Have you seen how dense the halfer is?”
Wick couldn’t believe it. He leaned heavily against the paddock door. The livery boy gawped beside him.
“You can talk, too?” Wick whispered.
The donkey rolled his eyes, looking even more comical because the feedbag made him look like he was wearing a veil. “Do you see what I have had to put up with? He’s not exactly the brightest candle in the bunch.”
“You knew where the rendezvous was supposed to be,” Alysta said. “You could have gotten him there.”
“It was cold,” the donkey said. He shivered and flicked his tail. “It’s still cold.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the cat told him. “We’ve got a job to do.”
“We can wait till morning,” the donkey suggested. “It’ll be warmer in the morning.”
That sounded good to Wick, too. He deserved at least one night in a warm bed.
“No,” the cat said. “We’re leaving. Now.” She flattened her ears against her skull and eyed the donkey with dark-eyed threat. “Or perhaps you’d care to be a toad again instead of a donkey.”
The donkey sighed. “All right, all right.” He shifted his attention to the livery boy, who was staring in wide-mouthed astonishment. “Give me a refill on the feedbag. I’m taking it with me. Put it on the halfer’s tab.”
Minutes later, equipped with a replenished feedbag for the donkey and enough supplies for a few days, Wick mounted up. The cat leaped onto the donkey’s haunches, who complained that they could—and should—both walk.
Outside the livery stable, Wick took up the chase of the Razor’s Kiss at a sedate pace. He wrapped himself tightly in the cloak. At least this time he was riding instead of nearly dragging the donkey. Overall, he had to admit that it was an improvement. Except for the fact that it was so cold, so dark, and that he was probably headed straight into trouble.
6
Caught
Falling snow blew through the air. The howling north wind picked up more dry, white powder from the ground and mixed it with the new flakes. Wick felt them touch his face, brief moments of icy cold, then a stinging numbness that lasted just a short time.
After hours of riding, Wharf Rat’s Warren was a collection of lights in the distance amid the foothills of the mountains. Wick had also begun to doubt the luxury of riding the donkey. In the beginning, he’d rather liked the idea of controlling the animal. Or at least having the illusion of controlling the animal. The donkey claimed to be an expert tracker, one of the many talents he professed to owning, and didn’t have any problems cutting the sign of the Razor’s Kiss horses.
Wick knew about tracking, too, and was confident that the donkey was on the right track. He was so cold he was miserable, even under the heavy folds of his traveling cloak. If he could have just closed his eyes for an instant, he felt certain he’d have fallen asleep.
Do that, he thought again, and you’ll be abandoned by the cat and donkey. They’ll leave you lying, and since there’s no true spring thaw up in the Great Frozen North, no one will ever find your body.
Dropping the protective wrap of the cloak from his face, Wick peered forward. With all the snow blowing, it was hard to see, but the road was clearly defined between the trees. Going any other way was out of the question because the deep snowdrifts covered treacherous terrain. Traveling that way in the dark would have meant a broken leg for a horse. As it was, even with the road fairly well traveled, the donkey had a hard time pushing through.
“How much longer?” Wick asked.
“Oh, please shut up,” the donkey snapped. “I’m the one doing all the work here.”
Wick had to admit that was true. But it also sharpened the question of why the donkey and the cat were helping the wizard seek out Boneslicer. And now Seaspray. The cat, if she knew and Wick thought she did, wasn’t talking. Even for a talking cat, she acted strangely preoccupied.
He turned his attention once again to the histories of the dwarven and human weapons, and to what he recollected about the Battle of Fell’s Keep. Nothing new came to mind. Cr
augh claimed that his only goal was to settle the old injustice against Master Blacksmith Oskarr and prove that he wasn’t a traitor to the brave warriors of the Battle of Fell’s Keep, but Wick no longer believed that. Craugh had some ulterior motive in mind. Wick just didn’t know what it was.
Scanning the skyline again, Wick tried to remember what was up in the mountains. He’d read about the area, but he would have liked to have read more. Primarily he remembered what had been written about the port city and the thieves, murderers, assassins, etc. who lived there. There were even a few outlying towns and villages that did a little business with Wharf Rat’s Warren, bartering food and wood for trade goods such as cloth and farming equipment the pirates brought in from cargo ships they took.
Wick hadn’t read anything about what lay beyond. Whatever it was, though, he felt certain they were headed there.
Sometime later, a pale glow took shape in the darkness ahead. It grew larger as they got closer.
“Stop here,” Alysta ordered.
The donkey stopped and swung his head around. “This isn’t the best place to spend the night.”
“That’s a campfire up ahead,” the cat said. She uncoiled from Wick’s back and stretched, arching her back and working one leg at a time. “We’re not going any closer.”
Wick gazed around wildly, not believing what the cat was intending. “We’re going to spend the night here? Here?”
“Yes.” With a lithe vault, the cat sprang from the donkey’s backside and grabbed hold of a low-hanging limb on a massive spruce tree. Snow fell thick as fog for a moment from the branch, then thinned out.
“But we’ll freeze,” Wick protested.
“No you won’t.” The cat sat in the crook of the tree. Her head turned to watch the silent flight of a passing owl.
The donkey turned and lumbered into the open space beneath the spruce. He pressed up against a pile of boulders and rock that had been shoved there by the road builders all those years ago. Earth had washed down the mountain and formed a berm that splashed up over the boulders.
“Get off me,” the donkey ordered.
Without a word, Wick slid off. I should be the one giving orders, he thought. Craugh sent me to do this. But that only made him think that the wizard should have been trekking up the side of the snow-covered mountain, not him.
Sheltered by the boulders from the wind, Wick rummaged through his supply pack. He took out a bundle of kindling.
“What are you doing?” the cat asked.
“I’m going to start a fire,” Wick explained.
“No.”
Grudgingly, Wick looked up at the cat. “If I don’t have a fire, I’ll freeze.”
“Sit close to the donkey.”
“He stinks,” Wick said.
“Hey,” the donkey replied, “you’re not exactly an apple blossom yourself.”
Wick realized that was probably true. He’d been on the road for several days, and there had been no way he was going to bathe in a freezing stream or pond. Still, he was certain he smelled better than the donkey.
Wick was determined not to sit next to the great, smelly donkey. He took an additional blanket from his pack and pulled it over himself as he sat in a spot he hollowed out in the snow. Despite his best intentions, though, he slid over close to the donkey, acting like he was falling asleep. Then, after a moment, he started feeling warmer and he went to sleep.
“Hey.”
The voice woke Wick. He clawed through the blanket for a moment to peer out.
Quarrel sat hunkered down in front of him. The young man held his bow and a nocked arrow in his hands. In the moonslight reflected from the snow, he was smiling.
“What are you doing out here?” Quarrel asked.
The donkey came awake beside Wick and swung his big head around to survey the situation. Instead of being concerned, the donkey only yawned and smacked his lips.
Glaring up into the tree, Wick saw Alysta sitting there on the branch. Evidently the cat had gotten caught sleeping as well. She stared down with baleful eyes.
“I got a job,” Wick explained.
“Awfully fast work,” Quarrel commented. “When I left the tavern, you were still telling stories.”
“That’s how it goes sometimes. Unemployed, then you’re employed.”
“By who?”
Wick remembered a line from the Spymasters of Darcathia romance. “If I told you that, you’d have to kill me.”
Quarrel looked at him as though he were odd. “You are the strangest thief and assassin I have ever met.”
“I meant,” Wick said, realizing that he’d gotten it wrong, “that I’d have to kill you.”
Grinning again, Quarrel nodded. “I thought that’s what you meant. It’s just as well. Knowing that you would do me harm if you had to makes what I’m about to do even easier.”
What you’re about to do? Wick sat up a little straighter. “Maybe we could talk about what you’re about to do.”
“I’m going to let the thieves find you,” Quarrel said.
“Thieves?” Wick swallowed, peering over Quarrel’s shoulder at the forest. Shadows seemed to slip among the trees.
“I got too close to the camp,” Quarrel explained. “My mistake. I was overzealous, I suppose. But it’s nothing I can’t fix now that I found you.”
Wick heard the snow chuffing under footsteps then. Someone was closing in on his campsite. He tried to stand up but got tangled in the blanket and his cloak and couldn’t get up.
“I do hope they don’t kill you,” Quarrel said. “Good luck with it.” Then he sprang over Wick’s head and ran with sure-footed grace up the pile of boulders. He was out of sight before Wick realized that he should be running, too. He made another attempt to get up and succeeded.
The chuffing sounded closer.
“Some watchdog you were,” Wick growled at the cat as he staggered through the snow. He grabbed the donkey’s harness and tried to urge the animal to his feet.
“I’m not a watchdog,” Alysta protested. “I was sleeping up here.” She craned her head around and kept her voice soft. “Too late, halfer.”
Abandoning his efforts to move the donkey, Wick turned and tried to run through the chest-high—on him—snow. His feet twisted and slipped beneath him. Before he got three steps, an attacker came up behind him and hit him at the base of the skull. He remembered seeing the snow-covered ground coming up to meet him, but blackness swallowed him before he hit.
Captured, he thought morosely, his thoughts swimming in pain. I hate being captured.
“Anybody recognize him?”
Someone grabbed Wick by the hair and flopped his head around. He tried to resist, but he was still too groggy. The headache exploding inside his skull seemed to be doing just fine, though.
“I think I saw him,” someone else said. “Back at the Tavern of Schemes.”
“Are you sure?”
“How many halfers do you think there are in Wharf Rat’s Warren?”
“Not many,” the other voice admitted.
“And even fewer of them with red hair like this one.”
Forcing his eyes open, Wick found himself bound hand and foot and lying on his right shoulder.
“He’s awake,” someone said.
Instantly, a sword swooped down and rested heavily against Wick’s throat.
“Have a care there, halfer. I’ll split you open as soon as look at you.”
Wick believed the speaker. The Razor’s Kiss had gotten their name first from the method they’d employed to rob their victims: slitting open the fat purses of merchants and letting the contents drop into another bag. But the thieves’ guild had slit a fair number of throats, too. He lay still.
“He’s not dead, is he?” One of the thieves leaned in for a closer look. “You hit him a pretty solid knock on the noggin, Flann.”
“He’s not dead.” The grizzled veteran holding the sword squatted down beside Wick. “I’ve hit plenty more a lot harder. Besides
, everybody knows halfers has got thick skulls. Takes a lot to get through one of ’em. Or to break one.”
Pain rushed through Wick’s thoughts, so violent and fierce that he thought he was going to throw up. Then, horrified, he realized he was going to. “I’m going to be sick,” he croaked. He made gagging noises.
Reluctantly, Flann took back his sword.
Wick turned over and threw up. He felt immediately embarrassed, which was exceedingly strange because he should have been frightened for his very life. Then he realized he was still scared as well. He felt very confused.
After a while, his stomach was empty of the wine. Worn out, chilled to the bone, he slowly rolled over to look at the Razor’s Kiss members.
“Who are you?” Flann asked.
“Nobody,” Wick said hoarsely. The taste in his throat threatened to set off another wave of sickness.
Flann prodded him with the end of the sword. “I’ll have your name, halfer, or I’ll bury you here without one.” He raised an arched eyebrow. “Which is it going to be?”
“Tevil,” Wick croaked. “My name is Tevil Bottleblower.”
“Bottleblower?” one of the thieves repeated. “That’s a strange name.”
“I’m a glass blower by trade,” Wick said. “I make … well, bottles.”
“Bottles of what?”
Wick blinked at that.
“Bottles of what?” the thief asked again. “Ale? Pickles? Spices?”
“Just … bottles,” Wick replied. “I don’t put anything into them. I make them so that other people can put things into them.”
“And you can sell an empty bottle?” The thieves marveled at that idea.
“Yes,” Wick said. “Some bottles are worth hundreds of gold pieces.”
“Really?”
Wick clung to that. If they thought he could make bottles worth hundreds of gold pieces maybe they wouldn’t kill him out of hand. “Yes.”
“How do you make a bottle?” one of the thieves asked. “I’ve always been curious. I thought maybe you might chip them out of glass, but I don’t see how you can do that without breaking them.”
“You don’t chip them out,” Wick said. “You cook glass, make it out of sand and other things, and heat it till it’s molten. When you get it right, you scoop some of it up on a pipe and you … blow it.”
