Weapon of Vengeance (Weapon of Flesh Trilogy)

by Jackson, Chris A.

  He eased away from the stall as Kiesha left the baron and followed her through the bustling crowd. After some aimless frittering at the stalls, she left the bazaar and hurried down the street deeper into Westmarket. Sereth kept her just in sight. He’d been tailing her all day. At some point, he reasoned, she would lead him to Jinny.

  Then it’s payback time…

  He winced as he rubbed his aching nose. The lingering pain, more to his pride than his face, reminded him that Kiesha was much more than just Hensen’s assistant and go-between. He’d underestimated her. She’d gotten the drop on him and taken him down with uncanny skill. What other surprises did she have in store?

  A few more blocks and Sereth knew where she was going. He’d tracked her from Hensen’s home this morning to an undistinguished inn. She’d walked in wearing a simple day dress, and walked out looking like a countess. It made sense that she had someplace where she could store and change into her disguises; she could hardly come and go from Hensen’s upper-class residence dressed like a streetwalker. As she entered the inn once again, he wondered who she would be next.

  Sereth took a sidewalk seat at a blackbrew café two doors down and across the street, ordered a cup and a pastry, and watched. He had a perfect view of the inn’s front and side doors, the only ways in or out, barring a window. He examined every woman who exited the inn: well-bred matrons, blushing maids, and servants sent out on errands. He spared barely a glance at the scullery maid in the nondescript gray dress stepping out of the inn’s side door.

  Not her style.

  He was about to order another cup of blackbrew when the maid adjusted her headscarf. Her hand was pale and smooth, the fingernails clean and neatly manicured, not the red, calloused hand of a scullery maid.

  Damn, she’s good!

  Sereth rose casually to his feet, dropped some coins onto the table, and started after her, lagging back a half block. Tailing Kiesha gave him a new appreciation for Hunters, and an admiration for the thief’s skill. Her imitation of a work-weary scullery maid was flawless, and she made her occasional glance over her shoulder look casual. Even with so many people out and about, Sereth was hard-pressed to maintain his distance and also keep her in his sights. Scullery maids were as common as bargemen, and just as invisible.

  Kiesha trudged across the arched span of High Bridge, one among hundreds of people making their way from home after a hard day’s work. On the other side of the river, she turned onto South Waters Avenue, following it for several blocks before turning into The Sprawls.

  Sereth wrinkled his painful nose with distaste. The Sprawls wasn’t where he had expected Kiesha to lead him. He knew the downtrodden district all too well, and the residents didn’t care for strangers.

  Nearly a third of Twailin’s entire populace lived in The Sprawls…the bottom third. Most of them provided simple, unskilled labor to those who lived in the nicer districts: hauling cargo, delivering goods, cooking, cleaning, sweeping streets, grooming horses, and collecting waste. They lived here because they could afford no better. The environment fostered an “us versus them” attitude, and though most accepted their lot in life, there were others who fought to escape. Long ago, Sereth had been one of the latter, and he’d never looked back.

  On these seedy streets, one more stooped and tired scullery maid heading home drew no notice. Few bargemen walked here, however, unless they were headed toward one of the seedier gambling dens, whorehouses, or taverns. Sereth ditched his straw hat and jacket in an alley, and dropped back farther. Kiesha glanced about whenever she turned a corner, but she hadn’t spotted him yet.

  Another corner, another glance, and Sereth ducked into a shadowed doorway, glad that he’d worn dark shirt and trousers beneath his disguise. Her gaze passed over his hiding spot without pause, and she moved on. Hurrying up to the corner, he peeked around the crumbling bricks. Dumpy little shops lined the block: pot makers, tinsmiths, and tinkers, if their faded signs were to be believed. Kiesha crossed the street and ducked into a tiny shop. Adopting the wary stride of a Sprawler—far too easily remembered for his comfort—Sereth walked past the shop, glancing sidelong at the grimy storefront. No placard identified the shop, just a single character drawn on the black door in flaking gold paint. Sereth couldn’t read the mark, but knew it was gnomish.

  “What are you up to, Kiesha?” He swallowed hard as he imagined Jinny captive in this rat-infested section of town. Neither the Thieves Guild nor the Assassins Guild did much business down here, leaving the impoverished territory to the local street gangs.

  Stopping at the corner, he leaned against a drainpipe in the twilight shadows and watched. The streets were still reasonably busy, but traffic declined as night fell. Honest folk didn’t venture out after dark in this part of the city.

  A gang of four street toughs rounded the far corner and strutted down the street. They get younger every year, Sereth thought. The oldest looked about fifteen. Each carried a stick with a long nail pounded through the end, identifying them as members of the Spikes gang, and Sereth was on their turf. Spying Sereth, they altered their course, grinning dangerously.

  “You waitin’ for a hackney, Norther?” the largest asked, flipping his spiked club in the air. The haft made a meaty pop when he caught it. Sprawls gangs referred to anyone who lived north of their own territory as Northers.

  “Bugger off.” Sereth drew two gleaming daggers from his sleeves. “I’m here on guild business, and it’s not yours.” He didn’t say which guild. It wouldn’t matter to the Spikes anyway.

  “Your guild don’t have no business down here, Norther, but I might take one of those shiny daggers from you for a souvenir.” The others chuckled as they approached.

  The last thing Sereth needed right now was a fight, but he’d have to deal with these toughs so he could resume his watching in peace. Even as he opened his mouth to warn them off, he noticed Kiesha emerging from the shop. Damn! The four Spikes stood between Sereth and his quarry, but he didn’t want to draw her attention. She closed the door carefully, but then only glanced his way before hurrying in the opposite direction. If Sereth didn’t conclude this soon, he would lose her.

  “I don’t have time to kill you right now, so why don’t you just take one of my daggers and go.” Sereth flipped his right-hand blade and threw it. The fine steel thunked into the leader’s raised club. Sereth had another dagger out before the boy even realized what had happened. “Now bugger off, or each of you gets a souvenir in the eye.”

  The Spikes gaped. The stunt stopped them cold, just as Sereth intended, but they still stood between him and Kiesha. If he tried to force his way past them, he’d likely get a spike in the back of his head.

  The leader wrenched the dagger from his club and examined the blade. Like all of Sereth’s knives, it was perfectly balanced and razor sharp. The boy’s eyes widened as he realized that it would sell for more than he made in a week, then narrowed and darted toward his friends. Sereth recognized the struggle between defiance and avarice. No Sprawls gang member could afford to appear weak among his fellows. Sereth had to give him a way out.

  “I tell you what. Consider that a down payment. You may have heard that the guild is recruiting down here. We’re serious about it. My name’s Sereth, and I’m the guild’s Master Blade. You come onboard with us, and every single Spike will be carrying a dagger like that. You can still be Spikes and keep your territory, but you can be Blades, too. Tell your boss about my offer, and ask for me at Donnovon’s Chandlery on South Waters.”

  The defiance in the boy’s eyes shifted to determination as he gazed again at the shiny dagger. He nodded. “We’ll see what Dangley has to say about your offer.”

  “Good.” Sereth hadn’t known the Spikes had a new leader, but then, gang leaders didn’t last long in The Sprawls. Tucking his daggers away, he nodded down the street. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m working.”

  “Oh, uh. Yeah. Sure.” The leader nudged his mates and they moved along.

  Kies
ha had vanished. Sereth dashed to the corner and peered around, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  “Damn!” The Blade hesitated. Should he hurry back to the inn where she changed clothes or… He looked over his shoulder at the tiny shop. Curiosity niggled the back of his mind. What was Kiesha doing here? He could always pick up her trail back at Hensen’s house, but right now, he needed to know what was inside that shop.

  Sereth strode back and turned the door handle. It didn’t budge, and a glance confirmed that a shade had been pulled down inside the filthy window. Up and down the street, other shops remained open late to serve homeward-bound residents. Why was this shop locked up, not only early, but right after Kiesha left?

  Only one way to find out.

  Sereth fished a tiny packet of tools from his back pocket, glanced up and down the street to confirm that the few passersby were paying him no attention, and slipped two picks into the lock. A wiggle and careful pressure with one while he flicked the other over the tumblers yielded immediate results. The handle turned in his grasp, and the door swung open.

  Sereth ducked under the low lintel and entered the dark shop, wary of the low ceiling within. The gnomish symbol and diminutive door warned him that the shop would be unaccommodating to someone over six feet tall. The shorter races built to their own dimensions. If humans and elves didn’t deign to stoop, well, they needn’t enter.

  The darkness around him buzzed with the ticks and whirs of clockwork devices, but there was no greeting or warning from a proprietor. Closing the door, Sereth noted a metal-reinforced frame and heavy iron bar meant to secure the door from the inside. So why wasn’t the bar thrown when the door was locked? He secured the bar now to ensure that no one else could enter, and waited while his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

  As shapes resolved around him, Sereth was surprised to discover no clocks in the shop. Instead, the shelves were crowded with finely crafted clockwork toys. Windup dogs, cats, horses, people, and even pigs blinked and nodded at him. Sereth had seen similar toys in other shops, but closer inspection revealed a macabre theme to these creations.

  A rocking horse bobbed up and down, its little rider swinging a thin wire lariat that garroted a fleeing man. Two goblins rode a seesaw, a human head sliding back and forth on a wire between them in a gruesome game of catch. A headsman wielded a bloody axe to lop off a woman’s head, which tumbled into a little basket before popping up to be lopped off again. A zombie beat a teasing dog with its own severed leg…

  Sereth marveled at the ingeniously grim toys—Gnome humor?—before recalling his real question. Why did you come here, Kiesha?

  He moved through the shop, careful not to touch any of the toys. Gnomes also enjoyed crafting deadly little traps to dissuade would-be thieves. Beyond the shelves stood a knee-high counter, a veritable sea of clockwork fishes and frogs swimming beneath the clear glass. Behind the counter, a simple curtain blocked his view into the backroom. Sereth stepped silently around the counter and stood with his back to the wall beside the doorway. The tip of his longest knife teased the curtain aside. He was greeted by the dim glow of lamplight and the sickly sweet scent of blood.

  Peering through the gap, he spied a diminutive corpse beside the workbench. He eased the curtain back and scanned the tiny back room; no one else was here.

  Sereth slipped inside and squatted down, careful to avoid the congealing pool of blood around the gnome’s oversized head. The little toymaker’s eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, his expression shocked and pained. His throat had been efficiently cut, so recently that blood still oozed from the wound. Sereth laid a hand on the corpse’s forehead; still warm.

  Standing, the assassin surveyed the scene with a professional eye. Blood spotted the tools and partially finished devices atop the bench, and a trail of droplets decorated the wall behind it. The toymaker had apparently been killed at his bench, his throat cut from behind. A clean job, Sereth decided, worthy of an assassin. Kiesha’s just full of surprises…unless she had an accomplice.

  Sereth glanced around, but not even a gnome could hide amidst the benches and shelves of junk. The shop’s back door was barred and padlocked. A quick inspection revealed dust on the lock. No one had gone out that way recently. Beside the door, a ladder led up to a hatch in the ceiling. The gnome probably lived up there, and if Kiesha did have an accomplice, they might be up there right now. Sereth listened carefully. No noise from above, but that might mean that someone was listening for him. Dagger at the ready, he put his foot on the lowest rung and lifted the trap door a finger-width.

  Nothing.

  Cautiously, he poked his head into the upper space. As suspected, it was a small apartment, boasting only a mattress on the floor, a tiny dresser, an undersized table, and single chair. No accomplice lurked in the shadows.

  Sereth shook his head in wonder as he added assassination to Kiesha’s list of accomplishments. He wouldn’t underestimate her again. Staring down at the body, curiosity spun in his head like one of the gnome’s macabre toys.

  Why in all the Nine Hells and Seven Heavens would you kill a gnome toymaker, Kiesha?

  Sereth meticulously searched the workshop, picking cautiously though the pervasive clutter, looking for answers. Tools, paints, and a thousand tiny clockwork parts filled boxes and shelves, but nothing that might interest a thief…or provoke a murder.

  Drawers, cupboards, and the bench top finally completed, Sereth ran his dagger beneath the lip of the bench, stopping when the blade clicked against metal. Still wary of traps, he slowly applied pressure, and a hidden catch popped open. A slim drawer slid silently out from the shadowed recess on long, well-oiled hinges. Sereth caught his breath.

  “Motherless son of a…”

  A dozen black darts nestled in velvet-lined nooks, darts identical to the one that killed Wiggen. Not one assassin at the Fiveway Fountain battle had been able to lift a hand against her because she wore the guildmaster’s ring. But the ring wouldn’t have prevented a thief from killing her, a thief skilled at assassination. He glanced at the dead gnome at his feet.

  Kiesha!

  The darts were the method, and the dead gnome indicated that she had the skill. Opportunity? With a sinking heart, Sereth recalled Kiesha’s attempted seduction. He had tried to expunge the memory, but now recalled how he had blurted out the location of the planned exchange of Mya for the guildmaster’s baby daughter.

  What about motive? What could possibly have provoked Kiesha to kill Lad’s wife?

  That, Sereth decided, is for Lad to discover.

  He lifted a dart from the tray to present to his guildmaster as evidence, but before he slipped it into his pocket, another thought came to mind. The Royal Guard was also looking for whoever had made the darts. A decaying corpse would draw vermin and eventually the authorities, even in this neighborhood. He couldn’t afford to have them make the same discovery. He emptied a small box of springs and gears onto the cluttered bench top, and put the entire contents of the hidden drawer—the dozen darts and loose components for several more—into it. He pressed the wooden lid snugly atop the box, and slid the drawer back into hiding.

  Now to get the hell out of here without being seen.

  Barred doors would delay the discovery of the corpse, so he needed another way out. Tucking the box with the darts under his arm, Sereth climbed the ladder and crawled into the dingy little loft. A window in the back wall opened into the narrow alley.

  “Perfect.”

  Sereth grabbed a soiled blanket from the rumpled little bed and tied the box into a bundle he could sling over his shoulder. He peered out the window, wrinkling his nose at the stink of refuse. Night had fallen, and the alley was empty. The assassin wormed his way out of the window, and hung from the crumbling brick casement by one hand while he closed it behind. He dropped down to the ground. As he started down the alley, the evidence bouncing over his shoulder, yet another thought struck him.

  Lad will ask how I discovered this. His steps faltered. The truth
would bring out his association with Kiesha and his treason against the guild. He’ll kill me. Sereth’s deep-rooted sense of self-preservation rose, and for a moment he considered throwing the parcel into the heaps of trash that fouled the alley. Then he reconsidered.

  Lad would give anything to find his wife’s killer, and Sereth now knew who that killer was. The information was priceless, but was it worth enough to spare Sereth’s life? Even enough to get Jinny out of Hensen’s clutches?

  It all depends on Lad.

  The guildmaster knew what it felt like to have a loved one taken from him, to be pressured into betrayal. He had killed the other masters not out of hatred or retribution, but to save his daughter.

  There was only one way to find out: tell the truth.

  Sereth thought long and hard on his walk home. By the time he was out of The Sprawls, an alarming notion resolved in his mind. Kiesha killed the gnome because she knows Lad is hunting her! She’s covering her tracks. That meant she was running scared, perhaps intending to flee. If Sereth delayed, she might vanish, and his evidence would be worth nothing. Urgency now trumped caution.

  “Tonight. It has to be tonight…”

  Chapter VIII

  By the time Kiesha reached home, evening had deepened into night, and her feet were long past aching. With the gnome dead, all she had to do was to get rid of her blowgun and darts, and there would be no physical evidence linking her to Wiggen’s murder. Only two people knew for certain what she’d done, and neither her father nor Hoseph seemed likely to betray her. Sereth might suspect that she had been at the scene, but she had the threat of Jinny to manipulate him.

  The backdoor lock clicked as she turned her key to the right, then clicked and clacked again as she turned it back to the left. She felt a tingle up her arm as the elaborate device disengaged. If she’d released the key or inserted the wrong one, the magically sealed portal would have reduced her to a smoldering corpse. Only the best security for the Master of the Thieves Guild, she thought sourly.