I need to get cleaned up and get some sleep. The cold water in the bucket woke him as it sluiced the sweat from his face. He checked his arms and legs for snake bites, relieved when he found none. That’s one good thing. And it doesn’t look like we’ve burned down the city. That’s two.
Corran almost missed the note on the table in Kell’s scrawled handwriting:
Rigan’s staying the night at the tavern. Said there’s a girl. Back early.
Corran crumpled the note in his fist. Raw nerves and sheer exhaustion made his temper flare. Rigan left Kell alone. We’re going to have a word about this.
* * *
WHEN HE WOKE, Corran could feel the ache of the fight in every muscle. The drainpipe might have saved our lives, but I haven’t climbed like that in ages. Damn, it feels like someone tried to rip off my arms. Sun streamed through the bedroom windows. Kell rattled pots on the hearth, humming cheerily. The room smelled of fresh coffee and burned bread.
Corran pushed himself out of bed with a grunt of pain. “Where’s Rigan?” He said as he entered the kitchen.
Kell turned. “Morning, Corran. Coffee’s ready and—”
“Where’s your brother?”
“There was a note on the table—”
“Isn’t he back yet?”
Kell’s smile slipped a little. “It’s still early, Corran.” He frowned. “You look awful. Get in a bar fight last night?”
Corran grabbed a burnt piece of toast and a cup of black coffee and headed down to the workroom, ignoring Kell’s question. Part of him hoped Rigan had returned before dawn and was sleeping on one of the tables. When he saw his brother was nowhere in sight, Corran’s mood darkened.
“It’s not like he left without saying where he was going.” Kell followed him partway down the steps. “And he planned to stay at the Dragon rather than break curfew.”
“It was a bad night out there.”
“Which is why Rigan did the right thing by staying at the Dragon,” Kell repeated, as if speaking to a child.
“He shouldn’t have gone out. He should have been here with you.”
Kell glared. “I’ve been old enough to stay home by myself for a long time, Corran. The doors were locked. Nothing got in.”
“He’s still not back.” Since the close call the night Wil died, Corran had been unhappy letting either Rigan or Kell out of his sight.
“He’ll be home.”
“He didn’t tell me he planned to go out.”
“Is that the new rule? Because that’s not going to go well,” Kell warned, starting to lose his patience. “Gods, Corran! Do you think I didn’t hear you come in just shy of dawn? How can you be angry at Rigan—who stayed over at the damn tavern—when you took a crazy fool risk like that?”
Corran bit back a reply as Kell’s anger registered. He knew where Rigan was. He didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t come home. Before he could say anything, Kell stomped back up the steps and began crashing the pots and pans around as he started the soup for lunch.
The door opened to the alley. Rigan froze in the entrance, realizing Corran had beat him home.
“Where were you?”
“I let Kell know,” Rigan snapped.
“You left your brother alone.”
“So did you.”
Rigan had not wanted the fight, but he wasn’t going to back down now. Corran knew he should be relieved to his brother safe, but the storm of fear—for Rigan’s safety and from last night’s hunt—had already worked into a full-blown rage.
“Don’t you dare do that again without asking me.”
“You’d have to be home to ask.”
It went downhill from there, although, later, Corran couldn’t remember exactly what they had said—screamed—before the pounding on the door got their attention. With a glare toward Rigan, Corran walked around his brother and opened the door to find Mir standing in the alley.
“We need to talk,” Mir said, and Corran’s heart sank.
“Get started on those bodies,” Corran ordered Rigan before he shut the door behind him and stepped into the alley.
“Bant, Pav, and Jott have been captured. Gods, Corran, what if they tell?”
Corran felt his heartbeat quicken. He put a hand on Mir’s shoulder. “Captured, not killed?”
“Calfon found out this morning. If they break, the guards will be after all of us. By the Dark Ones! They might have already given our names. The guards have had them all night.”
“If we run and Bant and the others didn’t break, we’ve admitted our guilt.”
“Yeah. Lousy choice. Stay and risk capture; run and confess.”
“I’m going back to work,” Corran said. “What about the others?”
“Everyone else checked back in after last night.”
Rigan was already mixing pigments when Corran let himself back into the workroom. Normally, Rigan would have asked about Mir’s visit, but after their argument, he kept his head down.
Just as well, Corran thought. There’s nothing I can say that isn’t a lie. Gods! I started hunting the monsters to keep my family safe; but if the guards find out, I’ll have destroyed us.
Usually, they talked as they worked. Corran was too consumed by his own worries to press the matter, especially if it led to another fight. Kell made his opinion clear by leaving their lunch on the kitchen table to grow cold, before heading out without a word to make his rounds.
“Hand me the knife.” Corran did not turn to look at his brother. He held out his hand, and Rigan placed the knife, hilt-first, in his grip. Footsteps told him Rigan had moved to the other side of the workshop to fix more of the mixtures.
Kell’s got a reason to be angry, Corran admitted to himself. I don’t think he believes the story about Guild meetings anymore. But where in the name of the gods was Rigan? Is he really that taken with a girl? A possibility occurred to him: Maybe, after what happened to Jora, Rigan doesn’t want to say anything if he’s courting someone.
Jora’s death still haunted his memories, and probably always would. We should have run instead of trying to fight. I didn’t know anything about fighting monsters. I should have pushed her out the door and let the creature get me instead. Too many nights his dreams played out all the other ways that evening could have gone. Training or patrolling with the hunters let him fall into an exhausted sleep, a small mercy. And killing the creatures satisfied a little of his need for vengeance, something Corran suspected was a bottomless well.
Loud noises from the front of the shop interrupted his thoughts. He froze. Is it the guards? Have they come for me? “I’ll go see what it is,” he said, peeling off his gloves before Rigan had a chance to move.
He opened the door to find a crier in the square loudly ringing a bell. “Hear ye, hear ye! By order of Lord Mayor Machison, there’s to be a gibbeting in the town square at fourth bells. The bodies of three traitors will be displayed for their attempt on the lives of the Bakaran ambassadors and Crown Prince Aliyev. The traitors are Bant the tanner, Pav the weaver, and Jott the carpenter. Their Guilds have disavowed them. Know this, all of you.”
The crier walked off, heading for the next block, where he would repeat his message. Corran stood motionless on the front step, barely aware of the buzz of conversation around him.
“Corran?” Rigan’s voice seemed far away.
How did they get blamed for trying to kill those people? What in the name of the gods is going on? Corran wondered. The crier’s words sank in, and he realized something else. He called them ‘traitors,’ not ‘hunters.’ Maybe they didn’t break. Maybe the guards aren’t coming after the rest of us. He felt momentary relief, and then guilt washed over him. It could have just as easily been any of us. If they died protecting us, their blood is on our heads.
Rigan took his elbow and steered him back inside, watching Corran worriedly. “What do you think they did?” he asked.
Now I absolutely can’t tell Rigan or Kell about the hunters. He had almost gone with
Bant and Pav, only to switch to Mir’s team at the last minute. If I hadn’t changed teams, if I had gone with them, it would be me in one of those gibbets.
“Corran?” Rigan was staring at him, and Corran realized he had missed answering a question.
“I’m just stunned,” Corran replied, looking away. “I knew all those men, grew up with them. I can’t believe they’d do something like that.” I know damned well they didn’t. So what game is Machison playing?
“I’m sorry,” Rigan replied. “I knew them, too. Are you going to go to the square?”
“I don’t think—”
“They didn’t do it.” Rigan met his gaze. “I don’t know what the guards are up to, but Bant, Pav, and Jott were not traitors. Maybe we should go. We were their friends.”
Or maybe it will just make it easier for the guards to round up the rest of us. We don’t know for certain what Bant and the others told them, if anything.
“Maybe you’re right,” Corran replied, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut. “I need to think about it. Come on. Let’s get back to work.”
JUST BEFORE FOURTH bells, Corran lingered at the edge of the crowd in the town square. He hated gibbetings and executions. They were common enough that many people considered them entertainment. I get enough of death every day. I don’t need to watch it for sport, he thought. The size of the crowd sickened him. How many of you are alive right now because we fought the monsters that were going to kill you? And this is the thanks we get?
Corran stayed well back, out of sight of the guards. He didn’t want to see any more of the ghastly show than necessary. A gallows stood in the center of the town square. The crowd jeered and shouted, calling for the prisoners, hungry for blood.
The prison wagon rolled into the square and the crowd cheered. Corran swallowed back bile, knowing the bodies of his friends were in that cart.
“Hear the sentence of Lord Mayor Machison!” One of the guards climbed onto the gallows platform, shouting to be heard. “These three men—Bant, Pav, and Jott—have been condemned for the crime of high treason, and for the attempted murder of the League ambassadors and Crown Prince Aliyev. Their bodies are to be gibbeted so all may take heed of their folly, and they will not receive burial. Their names have been blotted out from the ranks of their Guilds, which disavow their treason. This is the word of the law.”
Corran swallowed hard and forced himself to watch as the guards dragged the bodies of the three men from the cart. Blood covered their faces and bodies, and the angles of their arms and legs suggested broken bones. They’ve been tortured. How could they possibly endure that, and not turn the rest of us in? He remembered the moment their groups went in different directions. If we had gone left instead... if I had stayed with them instead... that would be me. And if they had taken me, would I have been able to keep from betraying my friends?
The crowd pressed forward, anxious to see the spectacle. Guards held the bodies upright while the executioner fitted them into the iron cages hanging from the arm of the gallows. The cages swung when the doors clanged shut, creaking on heavy chains.
That ended the spectacle, so the crowd dispersed. Corran remained, bearing witness from a distance. He turned his back when the ravens descended.
Chapter Eighteen
“HEARD THEY CAUGHT a witch.” The comment was offhand, just casual gossip, the kind Wrighton’s merchants relished sharing.
For a heartbeat, Rigan froze, then tried to cover for his lapse with a neutral expression.
“What happened?”
He’d volunteered to run an errand when Corran had remembered a few things they needed for the workshop after Kell was already on his rounds. Corran was in a foul mood, and Rigan was glad for a break.
“Might be the one who caused the fever down near the harbor,” the storekeeper remarked, gathering the salt and honey Rigan requested. “Won’t be causing anyone any more trouble.”
Rigan’s stomach did a slow flip. “The guards caught her?”
“Nah, the folks who live down there did. It was the seamstress’s apprentice. She’d made clothing for five of the people who died just before they took sick. And if that wasn’t enough, I heard they went back and looked at the clothes, after they caught her, and found some strange patterns in the stitches.”
“Does that prove she’s a witch?”
The shopkeeper gave him a look. “She had dealings with five of the victims. Made something personal for them, something they wore—with those weird witch threads. And I heard they found black feathers in her room.” He said the last with an emphatic nod, as if the feathers provided all the evidence needed.
“Did they give her to the guards?” Rigan looked down, counting his coins, so that he did not have to meet the shopkeeper’s gaze. It doesn’t sound like any kind of witchery I’ve seen. Just bad timing and bad luck.
“She didn’t last that long. The folks who caught her had lost loved ones. They weren’t inclined to be patient. Tried to make her confess to her crimes. But you know what they say, the Dark Ones are liars, through and through. The fellows that killed her, they’d lost family, and they wanted a little revenge.”
The shopkeeper warmed to his subject. He had no other customers to serve, and a captive audience in Rigan. “She was a tough one. Wouldn’t talk when they broke her fingers, or after they’d tried holding her head under water. Couldn’t beat a confession out of her, either. So they burned it out, and I guess that worked just fine.”
“Burned?” Rigan’s mouth was dry.
“That big bonfire last night, down by the harbor? Guess you didn’t catch the way the wind smelled. Roasted witch,” the shopkeeper said with a laugh. “Oh, I guess once the fire got started, good and hot, she confessed to everything.”
Who wouldn’t? “So the fever’s gone now?” Rigan focused on not being sick.
“Better, but not over yet. They’re pretty sure a couple more witches are loose. They’re monsters, just like all those creatures that show up. Worse, because the witches look human, but they ain’t.”
“Thanks,” Rigan said, taking the bag.
“You look a little green around the gills,” the shopkeeper called after him. “Thought an undertaker would have a stronger stomach.”
“Breakfast didn’t set well,” Rigan lied. “I’d better be going. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Yeah, sorry they didn’t save the witch for the undertakers, but there wasn’t much left when the fire was done.”
Rigan clenched his jaw and headed back to their workshop, taking deep breaths, trying to slow his racing heart. They tortured her. Tried to drown her. Burned her.
He swallowed hard. Where were Damian and the others? Why didn’t they do something? But as soon as he thought the question, he knew the answer. Because she wasn’t a real witch. And because there are a lot more townspeople than there are witches. There’s not enough magic to fight everyone on the harbor front, and I bet witches burn the same as regular people.
Rigan took the long way home, knowing that if he showed up now, Corran would notice something was wrong, and in the mood his older brother had been in lately, that was likely to lead to another argument. No one said anything about the witch’s family. If anyone discovers what I am and comes after me, maybe they won’t hurt Corran and Kell. That’s why I have to keep what I’m learning Below a secret. That’s why they can’t know. Safer that way.
Corran looked up when he finally walked through the door. “Where in the name of the gods have you been? There’s work to do.”
Rigan turned his back as he shut the door, willing his hands to stop shaking, hoping he could steel his expression to not give away his fear. “I had to go all the way to the shops near the harbor.”
“Come on, give me a hand. Kell brought us some new bodies, and I’d like to be able to take them to the cemetery tonight. I hear there’s a storm heading this way.”
Rigan tied on his apron and got his gloves. He had stopped shaking, though h
e still felt like throwing up.
Corran looked his brother over. “Are you sick?”
Rigan shrugged. “I don’t feel well. It’s nothing. Probably something I ate.”
Corran turned back to their work. “Watch yourself. Kell says there’s a fever going around. If you’re sick, get some tea when you see the herb woman.”
The Chirurgeons’ Guilds of the League held crown monopolies on healing magic. Those who could not afford Guild fees treated ailments with herbs, teas, poultices, and potions administered by midwives or herb women schooled in plant medicine. Or they braved the trek to Below, where magic and cures could be bought for a price. A ‘miraculous’ recovery without Guild intervention was more likely to be attributed to illicit magic than to favor by the gods.
“I’ll go as soon as we’re done,” Rigan promised. “It’ll be fine.”
The fever victims were outside in the cart, and Corran had already quicklimed them. “Who do we have today?” Rigan asked, trying to distract himself.
“A woman who died in childbirth, a boy who died of fever, a traveler from the tavern who choked on his meat, and a suicide we’ve been paid extra to treat as an accidental poisoning.”
“Suicide?”
“The family told me she used the wrong leaves in her tea. But look.” Corran held up the corpse’s forearm. Old scars, long and deep, ran almost wrist to elbow. “There’s another set on the other arm. And an old scar on her throat. This wasn’t her first attempt.”
“So what did you tell them? Saunders said the Guild won’t let the priests bless the passage of a suicide.”
“The priest doesn’t have to know, and the gods can figure it out for themselves. There’s a mass in the corpse’s abdomen the size of a melon. Probably damn painful. I’m not going to judge her choices, and I’ve never seen a priest look beneath a shroud.”
Rigan mixed pigments in silence.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” Corran said.
He managed a weak smile. “Just letting my mind wander a bit, I guess. How was the Guild meeting?”
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