The Book of Deacon: Book 04 - The Rise of the Red Shadow

by Joseph Lallo

  The distraction of his earnings was just enough for Duule to miss a shadow separate itself from the swaying wheat and creep behind him.

  One moment his eyes were feasting themselves on the gleaming piles of tribute and his mouth was wide with a self-satisfied grin. The next, a knotted piece of cloth was shoved into his mouth and the world went black. In two lightning motions, Teyn had gagged him and thrown a sack over his head, drawing it tight around his neck. With a muffled cry, Duule lurched forward, clawing at the hood, but the malthrope caught his wrists, wrenched them back, and bound them with a few deft twists of rope. A few more twists and his ankles were similarly tied, leaving the man completely restrained and grunting furiously through his gag.

  Teyn allowed himself a moment to savor the victory before turning his ears to the field around him, scouring the sounds with trained precision until he was certain that none of the others were heading back. There was nothing but the sound of the wind and eight sets of hoofbeats becoming progressively more distant. It had worked. It had worked perfectly. Not even the guards had heard. The only thing that seemed aware of him was Duule's horse, which had taken a few uneasy steps away when Teyn appeared. However, now that what he'd expected to be the hard part was through, there remained the task of getting him back. The man was half again his weight, and carrying his struggling form for several days and nights wasn't likely to end well.

  At the edge of the clearing, the man's horse had calmed a bit and was nibbling at one of the dry stalks. Teyn flicked an ear, eyes narrowed in thought. The horse would ease the journey, but he had never ridden one before, and staying hidden while riding one would be impossible.

  With no obvious solution, he set the problem aside for a moment and rummaged through the pile of fist-sized bags left by his bounty's underlings. His time on the plantation hadn't given him much of a formal education. He didn't know how to read or write, so the slips of parchment within each bag did him little good, but he'd learned a bit about counting and tallying, and the sacks of assorted coins were perhaps a match for the reward for this scoundrel's capture.

  The wind carried warnings, the sounds of fresh and purposeful rustling as well as the heavy scent of men and horses. Time was running out; the guards were moving closer. He abandoned the thought of gathering the coins, snagging only the bag that his prey had sorted most of the silver into before heaving the bound and gagged form from the ground and dumping it across the back of the horse. The painful realization flitted across his mind that far too many of the lessons he'd learned in recent years had been panicked guesswork to avoid being killed. Riding a horse would be the latest.

  Vaulting onto the beast's back was simple enough, foregoing the stirrups entirely. The flash of motion as he leapt and the sharp impact of his feet on the saddle, for better or worse, shocked the horse into motion. Teyn hopped down to a seat on the saddle and reached back to keep his prisoner from sliding free. Dry wheat whipped by them, snapping and crunching as the frightened horse charged on. The sound must have been enough to bring the men nearby to full alert, because calls rang out and steeds quickened to a run.

  Teyn turned and gathered up a few of the jingling straps that the horse's former owner had no doubt intended to use to secure the sacks of payment and used them instead to hastily lash the restrained man in place. By the time he was finished, the horse had begun to slow and the others were nearly upon him.

  Teyn thought quickly, trying to recall the proper way to coax a horse into a gallop. On the plantation, they had never needed to do so, and though he'd seen it done countless times, he'd never once thought to take note of how it. Memories of a hundred different times he'd seen riders set off flashed through his mind and he tried everything he could recall. He snapped the reins, jabbed with his heels, jostled in his seat, and called out a dozen muffled commands through his iron mask. The pounding hooves of his pursuers drew nearer; in desperation, he pulled the mask free to dangle at his neck and called out again.

  “Ha! Forward! On! Heeyaa! Move! Move!” he urged.

  Time was up. Growling in frustration, he leaned back and jabbed his claws into the horse's flank. The beast reared, whinnied, and burst into a gallop that threw Teyn from the saddle. He tumbled to the ground amid the tall wheat, and an instant later three riders nearly trampled him as they rushed after the now-riderless horse. Shaking away the daze of the fall, he sprinted after them. The wheat was tall enough to hide horse and rider alike, and thus was well over Teyn's head, but that suited him fine. Bounding periodically into the air to get his bearings, he dashed unseen toward the riders. He saw them in fleeting glances among the swaying stalks, three hulking men on stout horses and weighed down with weapons. They were clearly muscle, hired to chase away and intimidate. Neither task called for speed, so they were woefully ill-equipped for the task at hand. Even on foot, Teyn was able to close the gap between them, and before long he was running along in the wheat beside the rear-most rider. Baring his teeth and pulling back his hood to make the most of his beastly features, he released vicious growl and lunged toward the horse. Instinctive terror took over and the beast tried to reverse direction, sending the unprepared rider to the ground in much the same way that Teyn had been thrown. Without missing a stride, Teyn launched himself toward the next horse.

  By the time the runaway horse had emerged from the field and was galloping madly along the road, all three of the thugs were chasing uselessly after their own steeds. Teyn slipped the mask back in place as he ran, and managed to catch up to the escaped horse a short distance down the road. The panicked run had all but dislodged his prisoner, who was now dangling upside down, a single strap securing his legs to the equipment harness. The malthrope managed to snag the reins and coax the horse to a halt so that he could properly secure his prize. He worked quickly, hands darting over the straps and shoving at the struggling form. The gagged mumbles were becoming more distinct. The ride must have dislodged the knotted cloth enough for him to force it bit by bit from his mouth.

  “Ugh. Augh!” he struggled to say, finally spitting the gag free. Instantly he began spraying profanities and threats, now muffled only by the thin cloth of the sack over his head. “You are dead! You understand me? Dead! Do you have any idea who I am? How powerful I am? Either you let me go right now, or I promise you, you'll never be able to see the light of day again! I'll have all of my men after you! You'll be hunted everywhere you go! I'll send men after your friends, your family, everyone you hold dear! If you had any idea who you were dealing with, you would thank your lucky stars I'm even giving you a chance!”

  “And if you knew who you were dealing with, you would choose your threats more wisely.”

  He pulled a final bit of rope from his equipment, pulled it tight over the sack-covered mouth to quiet his bounty once more, and finally mounted the horse to guide it forward into the fading light of the setting sun.

  #

  A few days later, Teyn rode his stolen horse into the capital once more. The journey hadn't improved his horsemanship much, but he knew enough to keep the horse calm and to keep it moving. That was enough. Along the way he'd shown his prisoner a measure more kindness than he himself had been granted during his trip to the slave camp so many years ago. Food and water were given once a day, provided he was able to find a place far enough from prying eyes and curious ears. The vicious words that poured out whenever he loosened the gag made him more certain each time he heard them that every ounce of compassion he showed was more than the scoundrel deserved. The man spoke of men he'd had killed for so much less, of deeds that had been done in his name that were nearly the match for his own dark day on the plantation. With each savage story, his voice resonated with a sort of terrible pride. Teyn was relieved that he kept the sack covering the man's eyes. A window into that soul was something he wouldn't dare gaze into.

  As the journey had rolled on he felt a spark of pride, long buried, begin to flare. What he was doing was right. Men like this did not deserve their freedom, and bri
nging them to justice would earn money enough to free a handful of those who were more deserving of the gift of liberty. For the first time in too long, he finally felt that he was moving in the right direction, and with every moment, he was more certain that this was why he woke every morning. This was his purpose.

  The hour was midnight, or very nearly, when the streets outside the watch house finally began to empty. He watched the coming and going of people, and when he deemed it to be the safest moment, Teyn steeled himself and guided the horse into the small courtyard of the watch house. Three hard knocks on the door prompted footsteps. There was the sliding of heavy braces, the irritable grumbling of a groggy watchman, and finally the door creaked open. A bleary-eyed underling stared out into the darkness of the courtyard, flickering lantern in hand. Teyn stepped away from the glow, shoving the bound and gagged criminal forward to lie at the young man's feet.

  “Who is it?” the watchman asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Duule.”

  The sound of the word hit the man like a splash of cold water. In a frenzy, he snatched away the gag and hood. The long journey had taken most of the fire from the criminal, but he still mustered the strength to mutter a few choice words.

  “Commander! Commander!” The watchman grabbed the bound man by the collar and dragged him inside, while a considerably more irritable voice complained of being awakened. The two officials then engaged in a hushed conversation they likely thought Teyn could not hear.

  “You are certain it is him?”

  “It is! Look at the tattoo, and the bad finger!”

  “We've . . . we've got to get him locked up. Get some men in here. Wake them up. I want him in and out by morning.” It was the commander who said this. His voice had the unmistakable tone of someone who had taken his current shift and position specifically so that he would not have to deal with things as serious as the current task. “And get the bounty. I don't know who brought him in, but he's going to need that money so that he can disappear before someone makes him disappear. Gads . . . let me get a look at him.”

  The commander came thundering up to the doorway, grabbing a lantern and quickly shutting the door behind him to keep the new prisoner from being seen by passersby. Teyn stepped back again, trying to stay clear of the light and turning his head to keep his eyes in shadow. He didn't know how much of his eyes could be seen through the mask, but it wouldn't take much to convince a human he was not one of them.

  “You, sir, bought yourself a bucket of trouble,” said the commander.

  He was older than both the official who had answered the door and the portly day commander, though he wore a uniform matching that of his daytime counterpart. His face was not quite so immaculately kept, with a scruffy beard on his chin and a tangle of gray hair escaping his hat. He raised the lantern high, holding it forward, but Teyn turned entirely away.

  “Please, no light,” he muttered, his teeth clenched and his voice muffled by the ill-fitting mask.

  “Mmm, yes. I suppose I'd be shy about showing my face after bringing in that man.” He lowered the lantern and snuffed out the flame, reducing the courtyard to near blackness. “You'll have a hard time from now, boy.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Why? You . . . you don't really know who that man is, do you? Gads, boy. How can I put it to words? Thieves and thugs, they don't have a lord, but if they did, it would be the man you just captured. Half of the hired blades in Tressor work for him, and half of the thieves we haven't been able to catch pay him for protection. He has an army, it is as simple as that. No one would nab him, even if he was out in the open, because they knew there would be a crowd of murderers tripping over each other to earn a little extra for slitting the throat of the poor fool who took him. Why do you think the price was so high?”

  “It doesn't matter.”

  “So you say, but you just wait. It is all we are going to be able to do to hold onto him until we can get him into a proper prison. Sad to say, he's probably got some watchmen working for him, too.”

  Behind him, the door opened and the younger of the men of the night shift handed out the small pouch of gold, hands shaking and eyes locked on the prisoner within. “Ten gold rhysus.”

  “If you are wise, boy,” said the commander as he passed the pouch to Teyn, “you will take this gold and disappear. Find someplace dark to hide and hope he doesn't have any men hiding there with you.”

  Teyn took the pouch and turned silently away, leading the horse as he went. It was remarkable how deeply the humans feared a life that had long ago become normal for him. He'd given up imagining what it would be like to walk through a city without having to worry about the threat of discovery. Perhaps there was a time and place where such a dream was a reality, but it was not here and it was not now. Better to focus on what could be done than to dwell upon such things.

  Though the horse would be helpful, keeping it and remaining hidden among the people of Gallishasa could not be done, and he had no means to sell it. Briefly he considered butchering it, but doing it properly would take more time and space than he had to spare. Besides, he felt a sort of gratitude to the beast for carrying him to his first real victory. Thus, he set it free. If the time came that he needed another horse, they were simple enough to find.

  He made his way back to the well-hidden bundle of belongings. The leather roll was still there among the tall grass, untouched in his absence. He pulled it open and poured out the coins, piling them with the others and sorting them into stacks.

  All told, his fortune now numbered two hundred and six copper coins, what the people called porus, forty-eight silver entus, and now ten gold coins, evidently called rhysus. It was enough for a slave—it had to be. He didn't know how many copper coins there were to a silver, or how many silver to a gold, but surely he had enough now to buy the freedom of at least one man or woman. All that remained was the final obstacle. A towering wall between himself and his goal. He needed to make the purchase. He needed to come face to face with the sort of men who had bought and sold him, and he would need to convince them to take his money.

  This wasn't going to be like the bounty, hastily exchanged in the dead of night. There would be haggling, bargaining, and all of the little games people play when money is involved. It wasn't something a mask could help him through. He needed help now. He needed a favor.

  #

  Though much of the justice of the region was meted out in the capital, the people of Tressor had better places to send those who were to be locked away. The ruling classes had no interest in sharing their city with the filth of society. Those found guilty were thrown in sturdy carriages and carted to places tucked far from the proper, law-abiding people of the kingdom. Duule, as one of the most notorious members of the underworld, did not receive so much as a mock trial. He was quickly ordered to a place called Makaat Prison, a sunbaked labyrinth of stone and steel tucked as near to the center of the Makaat desert as possible. A trusted and faithful messenger, a member of the day watch, was put in charge of his transportation, and Duule was sent rattling along the roads to where he would spend the rest of his days.

  The journey was less than a day old when, for no clear reason, the messenger guided his horses off of the main road and to a little-used path through the rolling hills and scattered groves of the countryside.

  “This isn't the usual way,” remarked one of the three guards assigned to the carriage.

  “This way's faster,” the messenger assured. There was a nervousness to his voice that the guard attributed to an understandable fear of the wrath of the man behind the bars of their carriage.

  The carriage was a simple cage with wheels, similar in most ways to the slave transport carriages, though higher quality. It was open to the air, displaying the condemned criminal to all who passed. The shame was considered part of the punishment, and also served as a warning to any would-be criminals of the consequences of their crimes. Duule had been strangely silent since he was loaded inside. The torrent
of profanities and threats that had been hurled at anyone in a watch uniform had tapered off shortly after their journey began, and now he was simply sitting in the center of his cage, arms crossed and eyes fixed on the guards seated at the head of the vehicle.

  After following the road until it had taken them well away from the nearest towns—and any witnesses—a half-dozen men on horseback came into view ahead. One was leading a horse with no rider. Instinct honed by years of transporting criminals began to nag the guards.

  “Don't slow down when you get to those men. I don't like the looks of them,” advised the senior guard. The messenger, now visibly anxious, did not respond, simply guiding the carriage forward with his eyes turned to the road.

  One by one, the horsemen ahead began to separate. Now they were near enough for the guards to see that they were far more heavily-armed than any mere traveler should be.

  “It's an ambush. Move! Faster!” the guard demanded.

  Instead, the messenger halted the horses. The bandits pulled the guards from the carriage and put their weapons to work. Before any could comprehend what had occurred, their lives had been brutally taken. The messenger watched miserably, untouched and unthreatened. Once all of the guards were dead, he climbed down from his seat and opened the cage. Duule stepped down.

  “You weren't supposed to kill them,” the messenger said, fear and awe in his voice.

  Duule delivered a vicious backhand, knocking the messenger to the ground. “And you weren't supposed to allow me to be locked away. What am I paying you for!?”

  Even in the grand capital city Gallishasa, the salary of a watchman was a meager one for a man with a large family to support. By dropping a rhysu or two into the proper hands once a month, Duule had secured himself a small contingent of men within the watch. Each of them knew that they could not continue to enjoy the life to which they had become accustomed without ensuring that their benefactor's generosity could continue. The scheming criminal was skillful in his selections, always making certain to gain the aid of those watchmen entrusted with the task of delivering men and information. Today, his investment in this man had paid off nicely.