by Barb Hendee
Brenden poured a small assortment of coins from the pouch into Leesil’s slender hand, who in turn sifted through the contents until he came up with enough copper coins to make up the difference. Leesil then emptied his own purse to complete the fee.
“Here,” the half-elf said, holding out the coins in his fist. He dropped them into Ellinwood’s open palm.
The constable returned to his desk, counting out the amount carefully. He put the coins into the chest, closed and locked it, and then went back to scanning the documents on his table without a word.
Leesil shrugged with disgust and motioned for Brenden to follow him out into the street. People bustled by, heading for the market or off to some other business of the day. A small boy hawked smoke-dried fish biscuits by the near corner. The sun beat down through a sparsely clouded sky.
“I . . . I’ll pay you back,” Brenden said under his breath, “as soon as I can.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I don’t spend money I can’t afford.” Leesil shrugged again. He had food, shelter, and an endless supply of wine. There was nothing more that he needed and little more that he wanted at the moment. “I’m sorry about last night,” he added.
“Sorry?” Brenden looked away. “Now you shame me. I heard what you said for me, and you could have set that wolf on me. From the way you put me down, you could have done . . . I guessed you could have done more.”
Leesil began walking, and Brenden fell into step beside him. This blacksmith was a man with a strong sense of fair play. It was odd company for Leesil, after years of less-than-scrupulous ventures with Magiere, or on his own before that. He found it difficult to say anything more now that he’d gone to all this trouble for a stranger.
“What you said to Ellinwood was justified,” Leesil said finally. “He’s done nothing to catch your sister’s murderer.”
“I’m not sure he can,” Brenden answered, kicking at some dust. “I’m not sure anyone can but your partner, and she refuses to help.”
“What are you talking about?” Leesil feigned ignorance, hoping to dismiss what he knew was next on the smith’s mind.
“Your partner—hunter of the dead.”
Leesil’s stomach growled, but not from hunger. He was beginning to understand Magiere’s restless irritation of late.
“You’ve been listening to too many rumors,” he added.
“Maybe, but too many is always the catch,” Brenden countered. “When it’s the same rumor over and over, wherever you go, it’s got something of truth behind it.”
“And I find people just like to use their mouths,” Leesil snapped. “They’ll talk up just about anything, including . . . especially what they don’t know a whit about.”
“Then why did you come to pay my fines?” Brenden barked back at him.
Leesil had no answer, or at least not one he could put into words. Perhaps Magiere’s generosity to Caleb and Beth-rae was contagious. Perhaps, like his partner, he was examining his own past and realizing for the first time how much harm they must have caused swindling village after village. But what possible good could this sudden attack of conscience bring? How could he make amends, any amends? And for all this rather new self-examination, Leesil still considered most people to be mindless cattle who deserved to be cheated by the more intelligent, or wolves who preyed on others through power or wealth. Helping any of them seemed pointless . . . but this blacksmith?
The man had walked into a public tavern and confronted a worthless town constable and demanded justice. Although Leesil tended to circumnavigate problems instead of facing them straight on, he could appreciate bravery when he saw it, and he could respect loyalty to the dead, to those who had no voice.
And for his bravery, Brenden had been called a criminal and locked up in a cell. It wasn’t right. Leesil was well aware that his own sense of right and wrong was tenuous at best, but helping Brenden seemed the proper course of action.
The two of them continued walking in silence until they reached the end of the street, where Leesil had to turn down through the middle of town toward the tavern. They both stopped in another uncomfortable pause.
“Don’t judge Magiere. You don’t know anything about us,” Leesil said more gently. “Come to The Sea Lion anytime. I’ll tell Magiere you’re my friend.”
“Am I your friend?” Brenden asked, his tone somewhere between puzzlement and suspicion.
“Why not? I only have two, and one of them is a dog, by the by, not a wolf.” Leesil made a mock face of great seriousness. “I’m a very particular fellow.”
Brenden slightly smiled, but with a hint of sadness. “I may stop by . . . more quietly next time.”
They parted. In the empty space between them, a light, brighter than the midday sun, flashed once. A few passersby blinked, turning their heads as if something had been there, then went on their way.
“He was with the blacksmith,” Edwan said in the small sitting room beneath the warehouse. “I saw him.”
Rashed approached Edwan’s visage, not certain why the ghost was so troubled. One minute, he and Teesha had been going over import accounts, and the next, Edwan appeared, rambling about the hunter’s half-elf and a blacksmith.
“Slowly,” Rashed ordered. “What is this about?”
“You need to kill that hunter now,” Edwan said, with emphasized precision in his voice.
“No.” Rashed turned away. Rash actions on top of Ratboy’s foolishness would only make them more vulnerable to discovery. “It’s too soon. We will wait until she has lost some of her apprehension.”
“You’re wrong. She visited the death place of the girl Ratboy destroyed. I saw her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Rashed asked angrily.
“And today the half-elf, her partner, paid for Brenden’s release. They talked together.”
Rashed shook his head and turned to Teesha with a questioning expression.
“Brenden is the dead girl’s brother, and the blacksmith in this town,” Teesha said from the couch.
“What?” Rashed turned back on Edwan as if the agitated spirit had suddenly become the source—rather than messenger—of misfortune. He began pacing again in silence, eyes shifting about without focus as his thoughts worked on themselves.
“She’s preparing to hunt, isn’t she?” Teesha asked. “Why else would she be searching for a trail, sending the half-breed to befriend the victim’s remaining family?”
Yes, why else would she? Rashed asked himself. Moving this quickly after one murder was dangerous, but that damned Ratboy had left them little choice. If she investigated too far and some connection led back to any of them or the warehouse, there would be little time to prepare. Ratboy had been reckless, and there hadn’t been enough time to even clean up after him. It was impossible to guess what clues might have been left at the site of the girl’s slaughter.
“We’ll have to move against her first,” he said. “Teesha, stay here, but prepare us to leave if it comes to the worst. Ratboy will come with me.” He raised a hand calmly to her coming objection. “No, I’ll do it quietly myself, and no one will find a body. She’ll simply disappear. But I need someone to watch the others, the half-elf and the dog.”
“Then you should take me. I could do better for you than Ratboy.”
“I know you would, but”—he walked over to the couch—“just stay here.”
“A noble gesture,” Edwan said from the center of the room, “but I agree. Do be careful, Rashed. It’s been a long time since you fought anything stronger than an accounting error. Something unfortunate might happen.”
Rashed did not respond, but he could feel Edwan’s attention upon him like the first glimmer of dawn burning at his skin. He wondered what he had ever done to earn the ghost’s venom. It had been Corische who’d falsely accused and beheaded him.
“Yes, you must be cautious,” Teesha agreed, either missing or dismissing the ghost’s sarcasm.
Rashed nodded and left to get his sw
ord.
Chapter Nine
Several patrons—mainly young sailors—remained talking and drinking at The Sea Lion until well past midnight. Magiere felt some relief when they finally downed the last of their ale and bid her goodnight. She had set no official closing time, preferring to wait until customers left of their own accord. But tonight had been longer than usual, with less than a handful of hours left until dawn. She was tired, and Leesil had been strangely quiet and distant all night. She overheard one of the fisherwives gossiping about how the half-elf had bailed the blacksmith out of jail. It surprised her and made her ashamed for her assumption that he’d been gambling on his own time and needed the money for a debt.
Beth-rae sighed deeply. “I thought those boys would never tire.”
Leesil sat at the end of the bar nearest the door, drinking a cup of red wine. “Perhaps we ought to start asking people to leave at a reasonable time,” he added.
“You could have gone up to bed,” Magiere said flatly. The last of the faro players had departed hours ago, and, with such peaceful late-night patrons as the young sailors, she wasn’t sure why he’d lazed about the bar the rest of the night.
He blinked, then frowned, looking hurt. “I always help close up.”
Yes, he did, and that wasn’t what bothered Magiere. For all her speculation, she couldn’t figure out why he’d spent a month’s wage bailing out that headstrong blacksmith and that annoyed her. In fact, it annoyed her enough that she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking him.
Chap slept contentedly by the fire, curled in a huge silver ball. With half the lamps and candles in the room snuffed out, the hearth threw its dim red light across the room, reflecting off Leesil’s yellow-white hair and smooth skin. It suddenly occurred to Magiere that she really had no idea how old her partner was. With mixed blood, he’d likely live longer than a human, but then she had no idea how long full-blooded elves lived.
“Well, let’s clean up then and go to bed,” she said.
“You go on up, Miss,” Caleb said in his perpetually calm voice. “You’ve been working harder than anyone. We’ll get things closed down.”
She glanced at Leesil, who nodded and stood up.
“Yes, go on, and I’ll lend them a hand,” he said. “I’ve been sitting long enough.”
The pink tinge of his eyes and almost indiscernible slur in his voice suggested he’d already had more than a cup or two, but she felt too tired to argue and headed for the stairs. Chap awoke and stretched as Leesil went to break up the fire. Caleb and Beth-rae went into the kitchen. All in all, it was a typical late night at the tavern, at least for as long as Magiere had been there.
Inside the darker night of the alley across from The Sea Lion, Ratboy crouched beside Rashed and watched the last glimmers of light in the windows fade out. Rashed stared down hard at him.
“No feeding at all, and no bodies if possible,” Rashed said for the third time. “Do you understand? Just watch the common room and be ready to assist me if needed. I will enter through an upstairs window and break her neck while she’s sleeping. If you have to kill, then so be it—but no noise, no disturbance. We take her body out to sea, and she simply becomes another ‘disappearance.’ ”
Ratboy’s resentment was difficult to hide, as was his discomfort at possibly having to fight the hunter or the dog yet again. At the moment, he couldn’t fathom why he hadn’t just refused. Even skulking in the night shadows, Rashed looked as resplendent as usual in his dark blue tunic, polished sword gripped in his hand just under the fold of his hooded cloak. His translucent irises seemed to glow softly.
Ratboy liked to pretend that his own shabby, filthy appearance was a conscious choice for hunting. In reality, he knew that no amount of bathing, grooming, or fine clothes would ever bring him close to Rashed’s noble appearance. Indeed, if he ever tried, the contrast would be embarrassingly comical, so he hid beneath layers of dirt in an effort to create his own identity. He was never more aware of their unfortunate differences than when the two of them stood so close and alone.
“What about the dog,” he demanded, “and the half-elf, for that matter? We don’t know where anyone is. I could walk into all three of them having late night tea in the kitchen while you’re nosing around upstairs. Then what do I do?”
“Don’t allow yourself to be seen for one,” Rashed hissed back. “That’s your skill, isn’t it—blending into shadows?”
Yes, but Ratboy feared the hunter. He remembered the pain of her blade and the panic as he felt his strength dripping away through gaping wounds until he’d gorged himself. But Rashed didn’t care about his feelings. All that mattered to him was that Ratboy do as he was told.
“What if the hunter kills you?” Ratboy whispered. “You have all the answers. Then what do I do?”
“Don’t play the idiot with me.” His companion glared down at him icily. “No mortal hunter is going to kill me. Now get inside. We have little time, and I won’t be caught at sea when the sun rises.”
Ratboy swallowed down the urge to hiss back as he inched to the alley’s edge. This was the best time to attack. If all went well, they would catch the household asleep, complete their task, sink the hunter’s body in the bay, go back home, and the cursed sun would be halfway to noon before anyone knew something was amiss. Rashed’s intelligence was not in question, only his manner. He treated everyone like a servant—except Teesha.
Without another word, the urchin slipped across the street to the corner nearest a front window. Rashed had already tricked Magiere into saying that all the nobleman’s friends, as patrons, were welcome. Although her meaning could be ambiguous, the invitation was legitimate. Peering through the shutters, he saw no hint of a light in the dark common room. The fire in the hearth was scattered but still smoldering, embers glowing softly.
Ratboy drew out a shining, thin-bladed dagger and slipped the point between the shutters’ edges. He quickly jimmied the inside window latch and silently swung it open. Too easy. He thought a hunter would have had better locks. Ratboy clenched the blade between his teeth as he slid up onto the sill. He didn’t plan to lose a second fight if the dog attacked him. He’d cut the beast’s throat immediately. Rashed had said “no noise,” but as for “no blood,” well, let Rashed try to fight that damn hound. The pompous long-shanks would quickly change his mind.
Testing the air for any scent of the living, Ratboy found the common room was still too rank with the odor of sweat-stained sailors, ale, and burnt meat. No one was at the tables, no one was by the fire. Rashed had probably crossed the roof and slipped inside by now. Perhaps all would go according to Rashed’s plan.
Ratboy dropped quietly down on the wooden floor, crouching low and peering over the tabletops across the room. A light shimmer caught in the corner of his vision, and he turned his head, craning his neck.
The silverish hair was light enough to spot in the dark. At the near end of the bar sat the half-elf facing toward the stairs and drinking from a tarnished tin cup. He was about to sip again, then seemed to think better of it and lowered the cup. His hand dropped off the bar.
His head turned, and he looked directly to where Ratboy crouched in the dark.
Ratboy felt his insides roll over. Of course, a half-elf’s night vision would nearly match his own. He wondered if he could throw his dagger fast enough to kill the half-blood before any alarm was raised. Then he heard a flutter in the air racing toward him and he ducked back against the wall.
A stiletto struck the tabletop where his head had been, point stuck deep as the blade quivered briefly on impact. An eerie, high-pitched snarl filled the room, emanating from amidst the furniture at the far side of the hearth. The silver hound sprang upon a tabletop, its eyes focused directly on Ratboy.
Rashed sheathed his sword and scaled the inn’s wall effortlessly, hardened fingernails clawing into planking cracks and crevasses.
This entire affair was far too rushed, without care, grace, or planning. Given time, he
would have visited the inn three or four nights in a row, noting the routines of its inhabitants, who slept in what room and what hour they retired, who locked up at night, who couldn’t sleep, and where the hunter kept her sword. He would have learned many things. Now he was forced to enter blindly and seek out his target.
He crept along the roof’s edge, looking for a suitable window through which to enter, preferably not the hunter’s bedroom window, for fear of waking her and giving her a chance to bolt for the door. Hanging over the edge, he peered through a window where the curtains had not been drawn. The room inside was large enough for a double bed, various chests, and a chair. The empty bed meant someone was still up and about, and he felt an urgency settle upon him. Ratboy had his orders—to be silent and bloodless—but it wouldn’t be the first time if he blundered, stumbling upon someone downstairs and awakening the whole household. Then Rashed saw a little blond-haired girl sleeping upon a floor mat at the foot of the bed. By the rhythm of her breathing she was deep in slumber and would not wake at his entrance. She had nothing to fear from him anyway. He’d never yet found a need to prey upon a child.
The window had no lock, and in seconds, he dropped quietly into the room. He stepped past the child and cracked the bedroom door to peer out. The hall lay empty. There were only two other doors and the staircase downward, so his search would be quick. He stepped out, closing the door behind him.
An unnatural, wailing snarl rose up the stairs from below and crawled over his skin. It was followed by manic snarls and the snap and shatter of wood.
The door at the end of the hall swung open. Rashed froze.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, but she was still dressed in breeches and a leather vest. Howls and snarls and the echoes of a wild fight below in the common room were now loud and clear. The hunter’s eyes widened.
“You—” she said in surprise.
