by Mel Odom
Craugh flipped his hand out. A gold coin flashed through the air. The tavernkeeper caught the coin effortlessly. “Find someone to dispose of the trash I’ve left. I’ll not trouble you any further than that.”
“Thank ye.”
Turning, Craugh led the way through the door, ignoring the stares of the rest of the tavern’s patrons. Other goblinkin sat at tables, too, but none of them seemed inclined to avenge their kin. As Wick pushed through the door, one of them even offered to rid the tavern of the bodies—for a tankard of ale.
The price of life in Torgarlk Town, Wick thought unhappily.
Out on the street, Craugh took a deep breath and looked to the east. The Forest of Fangs and Shadows lay in that direction, miles down Never-Know Road.
“That went well,” the wizard observed.
“It did?” Wick couldn’t mask his astonishment or his disapproval. “You may have killed them, Craugh.”
“Would you rather have bathed in their stewpot?” Craugh looked at him.
“No.”
“You didn’t have to kill them.”
“Perhaps they’re not dead. In fact, now that I think on it, I think one of them was actually playing possum and another was twitching his foot.” Craugh smiled and looked back at the Big Ol’ Bear’s Tavern. “Mayhap they’ll rejoin us in a few moments.”
“We could keep moving,” Wick suggested.
Craugh got underway. “If you’re going to accompany me, we’re going to do things my way.”
Wick knew he was expected to respond. “Fine,” he said. But I don’t have to like it or even take part. Not that he could take part in flinging lightning bolts and fireballs around.
“Those goblinkin got exactly what they had coming to them,” Craugh said.
Although he didn’t like goblinkin, Wick preferred putting distance between them as opposed to putting the goblinkin to death.
“After all,” Craugh went on, “they were sent there to kill us.”
That surprised Wick. He stumbled over a loose cobblestone and nearly landed on his face in a pile of steaming horse dung. Craugh’s announcement, as well as the acrid scent that filled his nostrils, brought his senses to instant attention.
“How do you know they were sent there to kill us?” Wick asked.
Craugh flipped the coin he’d removed from the goblinkin’s clothing into the air.
Instinctively, Wick caught the coin. It was solid and heavy. When he opened his hand, he found it was a disk, not a coin. It was embossed with a straight razor. The Razor’s Kiss thieves’ guild, Wick thought, recognizing the emblem.
“Actually,” Craugh said, “they were sent there to kill you. After all, you’ve been identified by Ryman Bey and Gujhar.”
“Oh,” Wick said. Then he realized that maybe Craugh had been leaving him behind for just that reason: because he could be identified. Now he’d marked Craugh as a target as well.
“There’s nothing to be done for it now,” Craugh said. “We’ll just be more careful.”
Wick followed for a while as Craugh wandered seemingly aimlessly through Torgarlk Town. Finally, he could contain his curiosity no longer. “Where are we going?”
“To find Boneslicer and Seaspray.”
“That’s good.” But don’t we need an army for that? Instead Wick asked, “Do you know where they are?”
“More or less.” Craugh took an emerald from inside his robe. Two silver dots, looking like faraway stars, gleamed in the green depths. “I’m tracking them.”
“How?”
“Through the ties Quarrel and Bulokk have with them. Now that each of them has touched those weapons, and I’m able to use both of them and not just one, the ties are very strong.”
Wick stared into the emerald for a moment and saw that the silver stars were getting bigger and glowing more brightly. “We’re getting closer to them.”
“Yes.” Craugh pocketed the gem. He gazed down the Tiers and nodded at a large house that sat by itself not far from the port. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s where the weapons are.”
The house was huge, made of solid stone. A high wall ran around the estate, encompassing a forest of fruit trees and flower gardens. Stone gargoyles sat atop the wall and the house. Armed guards also held positions along the wall and at the main gate. Out in the water, anchored at a private pier with two other ships, Wick recognized Wraith, the ship Captain Gujhar commanded. One of the other two ships looked like the sleek black vessel Wick had encountered with Bulokk and his warriors in the Cinder Clouds Islands.
“That ship probably belongs to the Razor’s Kiss guild,” Wick said.
Craugh nodded. “It does.”
Wick hesitated. He hated pointing out the shortcomings of Craugh’s plans. On the other hand, he would truly hate to get caught by their enemies because of them.
“Do you really think the two of us—you and I—are going to be able to break into that house and steal Boneslicer and Seaspray?” Wick asked. “I mean, there’s just the two of us. Even if we’re very clever, and I know that we’re clever because you’re clever, and I would never intimate otherwise no matter how dumb an idea you concocted—”
“No matter how dumb?” Craugh asked archly.
Wick thought quickly. Dumb was a, well, dumb word choice. He was a Librarian, after all. A Second Level Librarian, no less. He knew words. Lots of words. Surely there was another word that wouldn’t be quite so acrimonious as dumb. (Or as potentially toadifying!) But he quickly rejected stupid, asinine, thoughtless, and forty others in half as many languages.
“Did I say dumb?” Wick asked. “I didn’t mean dumb. Dumb must have slipped out. I’m tired. We just had a close encounter of the goblinkin kind in the Big Ol’ Bear’s Tavern. I’m sure I’m not thinking straight. I’m sure I didn’t mean dumb. Dumb would be a totally inaccurate assessement of our current situation and your ability to—”
“Quiet,” Craugh growled. “Don’t make me regret relenting and letting you come along.”
Wick mimed locking his lips with a key and throwing the key away.
“Of course I don’t expect the two of us to manage that feat,” Craugh said.
Wick sighed with relief.
“That’s why I’ve recruited help.”
It took another hour to reach the top of the Tiers where the poor lived and cheap lodging was available. Staying silent that long, not knowing where they were going or who Craugh had “recruited” to aid them in the proposed break-in made the little Librarian intensely curious and anxious.
At the top of the Tiers, the housing was hardscrabble and dilapidated. Almost as many houses stood empty—roofs falling in, walls broken, windows empty—as held residents. The residents were living piled one on another. The economy of Torgarlk Town quickly broke into those who had (fierce and uncaring and bloodthirsty) and those who had not (who were willing or forced to live on the scraps offered or left by those who had).
Wick’s heart went out to the wan and hungry faces of the children he saw playing in the alleys or helping their fathers with work, mending nets or smoking fish, or sorting through trash that had been brought up from the houses and shops farther down the Tiers. The poor or economically disadvantaged were never seen in Greydawn Moors because they didn’t exist.
Once he had his bearings, Craugh turned and walked to the public well, standing a short distance off to one side while citizens hauled up buckets to meet their needs. Chickens gathered around the houses looking for food, and every now and again one of the stealthier children managed to grab one. That would trigger a celebration of sorts every time, because the quick-handed hunter would run back down an alley squealing for his mother while a parade of gamins followed.
“What are we doing here?” Wick asked. He judged it safe to ask since they appeared to be doing nothing and no one showed any interest in them.
“Waiting,” Craugh said.
“Oh.” Wick waited quietly for a moment but soon grew bored. “Waiting for what?”<
br />
“For me,” a quiet voice said.
Wick turned and his heart sped up. He recognized the voice immediately. “Sonne!”
She stood just behind him, not quite two feet taller and still as slender as she’d been when he’d met her a few years ago in Hanged Elf’s Point. She wore a dark blue cloak with the hood pulled up because females didn’t often walk around by themselves in Torgarlk Town that Wick had seen. Under the hood of her cloak, her short-cropped blond hair hung only to her jaw. Freckles scattered over her upturned nose. Her pale green eyes crinkled as she smiled to see him.
In addition to the cloak, she wore rather plain brown clothes and scarred knee-high boots. She was no longer the teenager she’d been when Wick had first made her acquaintaince but the years had been kind to her. She also carried more throwing knives on her person than anyone Wick had ever met.
“Greetings, dear Wick,” she said, smiling with real affection. She grabbed him and hugged him, then glanced at Craugh and back at him. “I didn’t know you were coming along on this trip. At least, not this part of it.”
Sonne was one of Brandt’s Band of Thieves, a ragtag group devoted to stealing from the wicked and evil to build a war chest to make a bid to get Brandt’s kingdom back from the man who murdered his parents.
“Craugh never mentioned that you were to be part of this either,” Wick said.
Sonne grinned broadly. “According to Craugh, there’s quite a fortune waiting to be claimed for any who’s careful, quick, and greedy.” She cocked her head to one side. “That fits us in every way.”
“How long have you been here?”
“For days. Ever since Craugh sent a message by way of a Dread Rider.”
Wick looked at Craugh. “You didn’t think to tell me this?”
“You’ve been busy working on this problem with your own special talents,” Craugh said. “I saw no reason to distract you from what you were doing. Nor was your knowledge necessary.”
“With Craugh planning to rob the house of a wizard,” Sonne pointed out, “who else would he call on?”
That was true. Wick sighed. He should have known Craugh wouldn’t have walked into Torgarlk Town on his own.
“Did you track the goblinkin that attacked us at the Big Ol’ Bear’s Tavern?” Craugh asked.
Sonne nodded. “After the two that lived recovered, they went straightaway to Kulik Broghan’s house.”
“Kulik Broghan?” Wick put in.
“The wizard who currently holds Boneslicer and Seaspray,” Sonne said. She grinned impishly. “Of course, that won’t last much longer.”
“Brandt has a plan?” Craugh asked.
“Brandt,” Sonne said, “always has a plan. I think you’ll like this one. Cobner even likes it. A little.” She clapped Wick on the shoulder. “Having Wick will not only be like old times, but it will make our task easier.”
“Easier?” Wick repeated. Easier generally meant things were more dangerous for him. Easier generally meant risking his neck first before all the others risked theirs. Easier generally wasn’t easier at all. “Maybe we should rethink the situation if having me here is going to make things easier. Maybe we should just go along with the plan the way it was originally conceived.” Back when I wasn’t here to make things easier.
Sonne laughed. “Come on.” She linked her arm through Wick’s. “The others will be glad you’re here. Cobner especially. He always enjoys your visits.”
Wick had mixed feelings about seeing Cobner again. Back in Hanged Elf’s Point, in the Serene Haven Cemetery where the Keldian mosaic puzzle had led them, Wick had saved Cobner’s life. Maybe. That was the way Cobner told it, and in every telling Wick got braver and braver. Instead of merely taking an arrow in the posterior, Wick usually defeated six or eight warriors in single combat, then somehow managed to leap out and catch the arrow in his teeth to save Cobner’s life. The romance writers on the shelves of Hralbomm’s Wing had nothing on Cobner’s tall tale-telling.
But looking at Sonne’s winning smile, Wick knew he couldn’t refuse.
“All right,” he said, and walked with her, hoping that the short walk didn’t lead him to his doom.
10
“Cake! That’s What This Will Be!”
Brandt and the Band of Thieves took one whole floor of the building where they were renting rooms. Since there were only four rooms on the floor, that wasn’t as impressive as it sounded.
The human who rented the rooms to the thieves knew something was in the wind, but he was an old hand at criminal activities and his price had been met. In addition, Sonne had said, Cobner had offered to slit his throat if he ratted them out.
Inside the building, Sonne led them up two staircases to the third floor. She paused at the closed door and held Wick and Craugh at bay with a raised hand. Cautiously, her left side turned to the door, she used the thin handle of a throwing knife to rap on the door.
The cadence was one Wick knew the thieves used when they were on operations. He recognized the answering signal when he heard it, then Sonne pushed the door open and went inside.
Hamual, tall and lanky, his light brown hair hanging down into his gray eyes, wore a mustache these days, but still looked younger than his years. He had the soul of a poet and Wick had taught him how to play a lute. Today he wore a warrior’s light leather armor under his long cloak. Before Brandt rescued him and brought him into his little family of thieves, Hamual had been a slave. Cuffs covered the scars on his wrists.
“Look who I brought,” Sonne said, gesturing to Wick.
“Wick!” Hamual exclaimed in delight, then knelt on one knee and hugged him.
Touched, and a little hurt to see how much the boy had become a man in his absence, Wick returned the hug. “Hamual, you’re looking fine.”
Breaking the embrace, Hamual pulled a flute from his cloak. “I’ve been practicing.” He fingered the instrument and fit it to his lips. Instantly, a happy tune piped through the hallway.
“Yes,” Wick agreed. “You have been. You’ll have to show me what you’ve learned.”
“A few things, though probably nothing you’ve never heard. The Minstrel Ordal teaches me songs now and again when we happen to meet him in his travels.”
“He’s a good teacher,” Wick agreed. “He’ll instruct you more than I ever could.”
“Perhaps,” Hamual said. “But it was you that taught me to love making music.”
Face reddening with the praise, Wick said, “The music was always within you. I merely pointed out to you what it was.”
Karick, an older, heavier human stood guard on the door with Hamual. His hair was dark brown but was shot through with gray these days. He was usually taciturn and quiet, a man given to deep thoughts, but he nodded and smiled and greeted Wick.
At the far end of the hallway, Tyrnen and Zelnar, twin dwarven pickpockets, kept watch through a window overlooking Kulik Broghan’s house and the harbor.
“See?” Zelnar, or maybe it was Tyrnen, asked, slapping the other twin. They were young and usually in one trouble or another. “I told you I thought Wick was with Craugh.”
Tyrnen, or maybe it was Zelnar, rubbed his shoulder and frowned. “I didn’t say he wasn’t.”
Wick exchanged greetings with both of them, got their names sorted out, and was pulled into the nearest room by Sonne.
“Wick!” Cobner bawled as soon as he saw him. The dwarf thundered across the floor and grabbed Wick up in a bone-breaking embrace.
“Can’t breathe,” Wick said with what little breath remained to him.
“It’s good to see you, too, little warrior,” Cobner said. He was a little shorter than Hallekk but broader across the shoulders. Scars creased his broad face, running into his sandy-gray beard.
“Can’t breathe,” Wick repeated, growing desperate and slapping Cobner on the back in an effort to get him to loosen his grip.
Cobner slapped Wick on the back as well, mistaking the effort. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, you ar
e.”
Just before he was about to pass out from not breathing, Wick was released and stood on unsteady legs. Black spots danced in his vision.
“You feel like you’re getting stronger,” Cobner said, pinching Wick’s bicep. “Have you been working out? Doing the exercises I told you to do?”
Wick thought about all the running he’d been doing for the last month or so. “Yes.”
“Well, it’s been working wonders on you,” Cobner said. He was bound and determined to turn Wick into the fiercest dweller warrior who ever lived. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”
Spotting a chair, Wick stumbled over to it and sat. He gazed around the room and spotted Brandt sitting behind the big desk littered with small wooden models. At the same instant he saw they were models, Wick figured out what they were models of.
Kulik Broghan’s house was reproduced there, down to the gargoyles on the high retaining walls.
“Greetings, little artist,” Brandt greeted. He sat at ease in the chair on the other side of the desk. Dressed all in black, even down to kidskin gloves, he cut an imposing figure at a glance. But only when he wanted to. When he wished to disappear in a crowd or even alone in a street at night, it only took him a heartbeat to do so.
When he was playing a role for some con or scheme or theft he’d dreamed up, Brandt oftened passed himself off as nobility. He came by the title honestly. His father had been a baron in the Sweetgrass Valley before being murdered by the current self-styled king. Brandt’s black hair was carefully coiffed and bangs hung down over his close-set black eyes and thin nose. His black eyebrows turned his eyes into hollows of black fire. His black goatee jutted arrogantly.
Little artist was the nickname Brandt had first given Wick when he’d met him back in the slave pens of Hanged Elf’s Point. Brandt had been there casing a possible job and had happened to catch Wick working on the homemade journal he’d fashioned while aboard One-Eyed Peggie after being shanghaied in Greydawn Moors. The master thief had flipped through Wick’s journal and thought him an artist at first, but had reasoned that there was more. At the time, Brandt had needed someone who knew art, and he’d purchased Wick and set off the adventures that had led them to the Broken Forge Mountains and the deadly encounter with Shengharck.
