The man flinched violently, but couldn’t seem to tear his eyes free. Birch took advantage of his distraction to dart forward, and he felled the man with a sharp jab to his throat with the tip of his bowkur. Birch looked at both opponents for a moment and saw they were both still alive. He nodded in satisfaction.
A glance back at Maran showed the elf had already dispatched one opponent and would soon deal with the other. Birch turned toward the torchbearers and rushed them before they could react.
One dropped his torch in shock and tried belatedly to draw his blade. Birch rapped his knuckles with his bowkur, then struck him across the head. The torch on the ground sputtered, but stayed lit.
Two left.
The closest man to Birch had the torch in his left hand and held a mace in his right. Birch eyed the spiked club warily and tracked the second torchbearer out of the corner of his eye. When it looked as though Birch would engage the mace wielder, the second man charged in with an upraised dagger.
Birch whirled and dropped to the ground, lashing at the man’s knees. The Coalition soldier doubled over and dropped torch and dagger to clutch his knee. Birch lunged forward and stabbed his bowkur into the man’s chest, driving the air from his lungs.
A footstep behind Birch warned him, and he threw himself to the side to avoid a blow by the other guard. He knew he was going to be too slow, and Birch grimaced in anticipation of the pain. When the blow didn’t come, Birch looked up from the ground and saw Maran lowering the guard to the ground, supporting his weight from the knife buried in his chest.
“Thank you,” Birch said, accepting the elf’s proffered hand.
“You fight like a warrior,” Maran said, his voice matter-of-fact. He nodded in respect.
“As do you,” Birch replied, nodding similarly. The two men stared at each other a moment, then each cracked a slight smile. The expressions disappeared a second later as they glanced about for further danger.
“Hand out those torches quickly, before they die,” Maran said, and Birch immediately responded to the crisp tone of authority. They passed out the two torches that hadn’t gone out and resumed their escape.
- 3 -
Danner breathed a sigh of relief as they rounded the street corner, leaving the Coalition headquarters out of sight behind them. The brief nightmare of his confinement was over, and Danner’s next task was to find a safe place to hole up until things calmed down.
Which probably won’t happen until I’m as old as my father, he thought wryly. After all it wasn’t every day that someone broke into the Coalition’s headquarters and walked away with prisoners, leaving men dead and bleeding in their wake.
“What did they take you for, to’vala?” Maran asked softly, appearing at Danner’s side. Though he was used to the elf’s sudden appearances, the night’s events had strained Danner’s nerves, and he nearly yelped in surprise at Maran’s voice.
“I don’t know, Maran,” he replied honestly. “I can only assume they found out I was fixing the books and robbing them blind.”
Maran nodded doubtfully.
“It wasn’t that, son,” Hoil said, walking across the alley to be closer. “I had a quick chat with one of the guards who said you were there because of your ‘improper associations,’ as he put it.” Hoil paused a moment to let that sink in. “They found out about your gnome, boy.”
“Faldergash,” Danner gasped. He glanced about to gain his bearings, then sprinted down the street without another word. He heard his father call his name once, then Danner turned a corner and left them behind. It wasn’t that he was ignoring them, at least not entirely, but he knew that his father and Maran would follow him. Instead of worrying about them, he concentrated on his footing and on getting to his house as quickly as possible. He heard a screech somewhere above and behind him and guessed that his uncle’s dakkan had taken to the air to follow him.
Rats skittered in the alleys and shrieked at him as he flashed past. Danner hurdled piles of garbage and huddled bodies, ignoring the drunken queries that warbled from behind him. He cursed himself for a fool – for thinking he was so smart that he’d never get caught. He knew what happened to employees who violated the first rule of working for the Coalition – he’d seen the results and he’d heard the stories. Danner never thought he would be caught, though. His friend might very well be dead right now, all because of Danner’s overconfidence.
His self-directed fury fueled his steps, and the streets passed beneath him like never before. The wind roared in his ears and he heard a warbling cry of protest as Selti struggled to keep up overhead. Danner turned the last corner that put him on his street, and his eyes widened as he saw flames licking through the windows in a house down the street. His house. Faldergash’s house.
Teeth clenched, Danner sprinted down the lane, bowling over people hurrying down the street with pails of water to put out the very blaze he was trying to reach.
“Faldergash!” he screamed. As he reached the front of his house, an explosion ripped through the building and sent timber flying in every direction. Danner skidded to a stop, arms over his head as he turned back and collapsed to the ground to avoid the blast of heat and debris that washed over him.
“Faldergash!” he cried again. He regained his feet and started toward the door, but strong hands gripped his shoulders and held him back. Danner fought for a moment, then looked back angrily into his father’s eyes.
“Let me go!” he yelled.
“If he’s in there, boy, he’s already dead,” Hoil shouted back over the roar of the flames. “You can’t help a dead man.”
“Let go of me!” Danner screamed, struggling to reach the door. “I’ve got to help him!”
“Listen to me, Danner,” Hoil yelled. “Your friend is either dead or else gone. If they caught him in that blaze, he’s out of your hands, son.”
“No!” Danner yelled, but he couldn’t break free of his father’s unyielding grasp. With a cry of despair, Danner turned and flailed at his father, beating against his chest and arms in a vain attempt to make his father loosen his grip. Hoil accepted each blow unflinchingly, and Danner at last collapsed against his father’s chest.
Tears streamed down his face as he moaned at his friend’s fate.
“I know, Danner,” Hoil said, stroking his son’s hair. “I know.”
Had Danner looked up at his father then, he would have seen his own tears mirrored there as Hoil clenched his eyes against his son’s pain.
- 4 -
“He might as well come with me, Hoil,” Birch said, glancing to where Danner sat slumped across a table. The young man had finally fallen asleep, his exhaustion winning out over his grief. He’d been listless and unresponsive as Hoil carried him back to his hideout.
Hoil watched his son silently, only half aware of what Birch was saying. He shook his head and turned back to his brother.
“Say again?”
“I’ll leave in the morning, and I’ll take him with me,” Birch said, “if you’ll allow it. I would just ask him, but right now he’s not in any condition to make any decisions, much less one this important. So it’s up to you for now. Do you want him to take his chances here, or to take his chances out on the road with me?”
“Where are you going?” Hoil asked.
Birch was silent a moment before answering.
“I’ll stick to my original plan and go to Demar for a brief visit, then I have to go back to Nocka to hear the Council’s decision,” he said finally. “I had intended to come back through Marash to see you again, but under the circumstances I think it best if we turned south to Lokana and then go west through the Delnar-Salka range to Nocka.” He paused. “That is, if you want him to come with me. There’s a chapterhouse in Demar I can leave him at, if you’d like, but I think the farther away he gets, the safer he’ll be. I’ll take him all the way to Nocka with me. The paladins will protect him if I ask it for as long as it takes.”
Hoil stared at his brother, directly meeting his ga
ze. The thief seemed beyond the shock Birch’s eyes caused, as though some sort of vital energy within him had abruptly been drained by the night’s events.
“You’ll protect him?” Hoil asked, his voice desperate. “He’s all I have left.”
Of her. The unspoken words echoed in the space between them, adding a heart-wrenching poignancy to Hoil’s plea.
In answer, Birch stood and solemnly drew his bowkur. He held out the wooden sword in both hands, with the hilt in his left hand, proffering it toward his brother. “I swear on my life that I will protect your son,” Birch vowed.
Recognizing the gesture, Hoil stood and accepted the weapon, reversed it, then handed it back to Birch so the paladin’s right hand closed over the hilt. The vow was now accepted, and it was worth Birch’s life to see to its fulfillment.
“Take Maran with you,” Hoil said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, brother, but you’re only one man against who knows what the Coalition could send after you. I’d send more, but…”
“That would only slow us and attract attention,” Birch said, completing his brother’s thought. “Very well. I saw how Maran fought tonight, and between the two of us we can guarantee your son’s safety.”
Hoil barely heard his brother’s words. He was staring forlornly at the collapsed form of his son, thinking how very much he looked like his mother.
Chapter 9
Like a sword, the mind must be honed and kept sharp.
- Red Paladin Gerard Morningham,
“A Treatise on Modern Warfare” (1006 AM)
- 1 -
“Maran, this is boring,” he complained, dropping two convoluted pieces of brass to the table. Until recently, they had been twisted about each other in a maddening tangle, a seemingly inextricable mess of metal. “The puzzles are too simple now, and the last marks were so oblivious I could have stolen their pants instead of just their purses, and they still wouldn’t have known I was there.”
The elf looked at him impassively, his nimble fingers folded in front of him, forefingers steepled in front of his nose. Had he been human, he might have sighed in exasperation.
“There is a purpose to all things, to’vala,” Maran replied calmly. “Before the rose can grow, the soil must be prepared. If the foundations of your growth are not properly laid, you may topple as you reach your greatest heights.”
He groaned. “More flowers? Can’t we just go back to the rooftops? I know I can make the jumps today. I’ve been practicing.”
“You are young, Danner, and you are a fast learner. You are swift. Your knife skills progress well, and soon we will move forward to an adult’s weapon,” the elf said. Then he did sigh. “You progress quickly, but always you rush forward when you should stop to breathe, to think, to grow. If you must leap, then leap. But you must know your limits and know the risks.”
Only with an effort did he keep his leg from twitching in agitation. He knew he should stay silent, it’s what Maran expected of him. After a long moment, the elf nodded in resignation.
“You’ll make no further progress in this state of mind, and your human energy of youth is burning too brightly for me today,” Maran said. “Very well, follow me and keep up.”
Without further warning, the elf sprang to his feet and vanished through a doorway. He whooped in delight and chased the elf out to an alley. Despite his quick reaction, he barely saw Maran’s foot disappear past the edge of the rooftop above him. He sprang to a window sill, then pivoted, leapt, and caught a drain pipe a foot below the roof line. A quick push off the wall and he was up top.
Maran was already a house ahead of him, and he sprinted after the fleet-footed elf. Maran leapt effortlessly to the next rooftop, then disappeared behind the corner of a taller building. There was no moon, no stars, no light of any kind, but somehow he could just see enough of the cityscape to run with confidence.
He chose a different path and managed a smaller gap than the one Maran had jumped, then picked his way across a flat, rubble-strewn roof, hoping to make up ground on his teacher. Two more houses behind him, and finally he started to catch up to the elf. He had no doubt Maran was deliberately restricting his pace so that his human pursuer could keep him in view, but only if he pushed himself to his limits. With a laugh, he did just that and ran even faster.
He caught sight of Maran climbing a drain pipe, and he exulted at how close he was. Only one house separated them! He ran to the edge of the house and sized up the gap. Easy!
He leapt forward, his foot ready to land…
…and the building wasn’t there. The gap increased inexplicably, and instead of landing safely, he tumbled through the air, now falling.
This isn’t right, he thought. This isn’t how it happened. I made the jump. I knew I could make it and I did!
There was no light as he fell. Only two stories up, but the fall continued and darkness wrapped around him, suffocating him in fear.
He felt helpless like never before in his life.
“That’s right, you are helpless, Danner,” a voice called from the darkness. Mocking laughter from a dozen throats followed, redoubling his mounting panic.
“Are you afraid, boy?” the voice asked. More laughter.
“No,” he said, his voice quavering.
“He lies!” the voice said cheerfully.
“No,” he declared more strongly, but his voice was drowned out by the mocking chorus of laughter.
“Seek not to deceive, boy,” the disembodied voice said; he felt it was somehow nearer and more menacing now. At some point, he had stopped falling. He was standing in a complete void, his body numb.
“Don’t call me boy,” he cried. He felt it was obscene for this unknown, disembodied voice to address him the same way his father did.
“Ah yes, your father, a great man,” another voice said, softer than the other, as though considering. “A very clever man, unlike his son.”
He opened his mouth to protest, then hung his head. Tears formed in his eyes. He’d once thought himself so blessedly clever, and his cleverness had only succeeded in getting his friend killed. The laughter fell silent.
“Faldergash,” a voice whispered. “Yes, poor, poor Faldergash. Too bad for the little gnome. You killed him, you know.”
His head jerked up and he stared defiantly toward the impenetrable darkness.
“Oh yes,” the voice said relentlessly. “The good halfling would have lived a long, productive life if not for you. If you’d stood on your own rather than living with him because it was convenient for you. It would have been better for him if he’d never met you.”
He flinched at having his own thoughts and remorse flung back in his face so stringently. Each word was a knife in his heart, and he gasped at the sudden pressure and agony in his chest.
“It hurts, yes?” the first voice mocked softly. The chorus began again, this time in soft hissing noises. The sound tickled the edge of his hearing, like a splinter in his brain.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Think how much it must have hurt poor Faldergash,” the voice cracked like a whip. “Surrounded by flames, with no one to help him, slowly suffocating in the smoke. Who knows how long he suffered. And it’s all… your… fault.”
“I tried to save him,” he said, pleading. “I couldn’t get there in time.”
Even as he said this, he knew his friend had still died simply by having known him. Because he had taken a job with the Coalition, just for the money.
“You took the job for the money, but that’s not what kept you there and you know it. It’s your fault,” the voice whispered, the words caressing his ears and wrapping him in a void of guilt.
“It’s your fault…
“…your fault…
“…your fault…”
- 2 -
“I think he’s slept long enough, Maran.”
“He needs to sleep through his pain. It will help him recover.”
A pause of silence.
“True. I know
full well the healing power of sleep.”
The voices drifted toward Danner as he struggled toward consciousness, clawing his way up from the depths of a terrifying nightmare that was already fading from his mind. Danner opened his eyes, but he only partially registered what it was he saw.
“Ah, his eyes are open,” Maran said softly. The one-eared elf leaned into Danner’s field of vision and peered into his eyes. For some reason, Maran’s head seemed to be on sideways and tilted at a queer angle. “You are awake, to’vala? Yes? Good. Perhaps then we can put you in a more dignified position,” Maran finished with a polite smile.
Danner blinked his eyes and slowly realized he was lying prostrate across the back of a horse. With his awareness came a stiff ache in his chest and an overwhelming surge of dizziness as he suppressed a sudden heave in his stomach. Moaning wordlessly, Danner pushed himself forward and slid off the horse face-first. He tucked under his shoulders and rolled, but didn’t have the strength or coordination to finish on his feet. Instead, Danner ended up stretched out on his back in the middle of a dusty road.
“Graceful,” Maran said lightly from behind him.
Danner decided not to justify that with a response, even if his mental state had allowed him to think of one. His attention was focused solely on his rebelling stomach and trying to make his body respond properly. He felt hands beneath his shoulders lifting him up.
“No, don’t tip him up,” Birch called, but too late. Danner’s stomach heaved and he spat chunks of food and burning liquid onto the ground beside him. He gasped a strangled breath, then immediately vomited again.
After his third expulsion, Danner collapsed back into Maran’s hands and shivered uncontrollably. He curled his legs toward his chest and turned on his side – away from the noxious puddle – swallowing hard against the leftover burning sensation in his mouth and throat. Maran patted him on the shoulder and helped him to his knees.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 10
