And she hadn’t delivered an iota, a goddamn morsel of that promise. The Eyes of Aleer commanded as much respect as a ragtag group of bandits. And now she was about to bend over and let Olyssi Gravendeer have her way with her. After this, the Eyes of Aleer probably wouldn’t exist. Adom, Tig, Kaun—everyone, they’d abandon her, and for good reason. She was a coward.
Olyssi and the Jackals stood patiently in the shadows of the tavern’s overhanging roof, far away from the drunks meandering outside.
“Tig, Adom,” Elaya said, “come over here.”
“And bring the boy,” Olyssi said.
“Actually,” Elaya said, “I don’t think so. Your terms are… unsuitable.”
Olyssi’s head twisted in an almost imperceptible fashion. “Are you mad?”
“Maybe.” With a yank of her hand, Elaya’s sword scraped along the inside of her scabbard. A moment later, the silver blade winked like a shooting star as she held the fine-pointed tip at Olyssi Gravendeer. “Maybe I am.”
A brief silence ensued. And then, chaos.
Scrapes and screeches—the sounds of steel rasping against leather—polluted the quiet night. There were ten Jackals in all, and they crowded around Olyssi Gravendeer like bees around their queen.
“Are you afraid to duel me alone?” Elaya asked, cautiously tiptoeing sideways to match Olyssi’s movements.
“Not afraid, just smart.”
“We’ll see about that.” Elaya beckoned her mercenaries forward with a gesture of one hand and then the other.
The Eyes of Aleer had practiced for this moment. They called the exercise vital target preparation. The key to isolating a target of high importance is to peel away their layers of protection. There are plenty of ways to do this, but given the slightly lopsided numbers—fifteen mercenaries to ten Jackals—the best strategy here was brute force. The Eyes of Aleer executed this strategy with speed and precision.
Tig took six mercenaries from the right side and stormed the Jackals. Adom and his gang assaulted from the left.
“Fook off!” Tig roared. His blade crashed into the steel spine of a Jackal’s sword, the sound reverberating through the air itself.
Olyssi Gravendeer’s face paled as panic set in. She retreated deeper into the shadows. Elaya pursued her, a predator chasing her prey.
In the whirl of confusion, two Jackals turned to chase down Elaya. They took two steps, lifted their blades high above their heads. They had the reach. They had the aim. But they didn’t have the time.
The glinting summits from two swords darted out and stuck the Jackals in their armpits—the soft, exposed area of their armor. Their weapons fell to the ground, splashing into the mud. Painful, horrifying screams followed as they were stabbed again and again.
Elaya didn’t hear the yelps and the wails and the cries. She couldn’t hear them. Her senses were dialed in solely on Olyssi Gravendeer. She heard only the mud sucking at Olyssi’s boots as consternation drove the scared woman back, back, back.
She saw only Olyssi’s flaring nostrils, her wide eyes, her trembling lips.
She smelled only the scent of pine as the forest behind Olyssi seemed to vault toward them.
She tasted only burnt iron on her tongue, the lingering flavor of blood seeping into her mouth as she gnawed her lip.
She felt only passion as she broke into a sprint, closing the gap between her and Olyssi.
Actually, no—she felt something else. She felt a sting shoot up her arm as her sword clanged against Olyssi’s.
“You bitch!” Olyssi screamed. She squared herself to Elaya and went for a quick jab.
Elaya easily deflected the blow. She circled Olyssi, and Olyssi circled her—both waiting for an opportunity to present itself.
Elaya’s foot turned sideways, sliding in the muck and mud. She righted herself just as Olyssi lunged forward with the tip of her sword aimed at Elaya’s heart. Their blades met one another again, a harsh jangle followed by heavy breathing.
Elaya saw Olyssi’s eyes rise just a smidgen, looking at something behind her. There was a smile on Olyssi’s face then.
A Jackal, maybe more than one, had likely broken free. If Elaya spun around to confirm that theory, she’d have a few vertebrae sliced open and cut from her spine. If she traded minor attacks and counterattacks with Olyssi, she’d suffer the same outcome.
She needed to make her move. Right now.
With gnashed teeth and spittle flying from her mouth, Elaya lurched forward. A diagonal swing followed by a sideways chop, both glancing off Olyssi’s sword but driving her back. A jab and another, then a faux upwards strike.
The feint tangled up Olyssi’s feet. She tried readjusting herself to deflect the incoming thrust of Elaya’s sword, but the wet, muddy ground shifted beneath her. Her arms flew upwards behind her head as she fell backwards like a tree in a storm.
She didn’t fall fast enough, though. Had she, the crown of Elaya’s blade would have likely barely nipped her belly or, more likely, missed altogether.
But it didn’t miss. And it didn’t nip. It chewed. It sunk. It plunged into her stomach, a solid four inches of steel masticating muscle and fat. Maybe even an organ or two.
“Elaya!” Adom hollered.
Elaya wheeled around. She hit the ground at the precise moment a Jackal would have cleaved off her head. She crawled to her knees, climbed to her feet. And she ran, slipping and sliding in the mud. Five Jackals were lying on their backs, and another four were peeling away from Tig’s group, racing to help Olyssi Gravendeer.
There were fallen mercenaries too, Porky, Laela, and Ekman among them.
“Get the horses!” she barked. “Is Lavery here? Baern?”
“Oh, we’re here,” Baern said. “I doubt we’ll be here—meaning in existence—much longer after what just happened. But what the hell, it’ll make for an exciting last few days.”
Elaya clambered up into her saddle. She glanced into the shadows. The Jackals were carrying Olyssi in their arms.
A shiver crawled across Elaya’s shoulders. She had just killed—or at least gravely wounded—the daughter of a powerful king, days after kidnapping the newly crowned lord of Valios.
The Eyes of Aleer were certainly making a name for themselves. But Elaya knew the faster people learn of your name, the faster your enemies will want to erase it from the pages of history.
Chapter Nine
The problem with evidence is that, if you want to acquire it, it first needs to exist. Ideally, evidence comes about organically. You stumble into fewer messy situations if you find your desired evidence instead of creating it.
But Maren O’Keefe couldn’t rely on stumbling upon evidence tying the Rooks to Lavery’s disappearance. Mostly because they’d had no part in his disappearance. While Maren had learned from the Master Griffin’s apprentice that Lady Aylee had been sending letters to the Roost—the Rook’s kingdom—that was hardly noteworthy. Rumors had abounded for months that the brother-in-law of the king’s son’s cousin—or something like that—had been involved in a rather spicy affair with Lady Aylee. She’d been sending him love letters since their apparent night of heavy petting in her quarters.
Possibly the Rooks had sent the so-called Eyes of Aleer to capture Lavery, but Maren saw little plausibility in that. Bastion Rook was an opportunist. He always sought to expand his empire, but often by small proxy wars and joining feuds where the victor was obvious. He wouldn’t start a war by himself, much less one that would pull the whole damn world into battle.
Maren figured the Eyes of Aleer were probably truthful in the letter they had sent him: they simply wanted money in exchange for Lavery, nothing more. But if the boy returned, Maren could kiss his dreams of kingship goodbye. And if he didn’t place blame on the Rooks and implicate a member or two of the Council, he’d never unite the West behind his claim for the throne. So, yes, he needed evidence. Good, solid evidence. And since none existed, he’d have to manufacture some.
This explains why he set
off from Valios on the saddle of a black steed with golden eyes, aimed at the north. It was there, about seventy miles away, that Vivine Village stood. It was fairly unremarkable as villages go, save one minor detail: thieves, swindlers, murderers, and general miscreants were not kept in a dungeon for a few days, brought out in the open and delivered whatever punishment had been deemed fit. The elder of Vivine Village didn’t believe in swift retribution, but rather slow, painful justice. Criminals there keeled over only after weeks of starvation. The point is, if you needed a couple folks who you’d frame for kidnapping and who were going to die anyhow—and whose true identity wouldn’t be exposed—Vivine Village would be your best shot.
Maren had left at dawn and arrived at Vivine Village two days later under a broiling noon sun. Maren hated this time of year. One day it was cool enough for a heavy cloak and that nice wool coat his grandmother had made before she’d passed away in a tragic accident involving a hungry boar who had an appetite for old ladies, and the next you couldn’t keep the sweat out of your eyes.
Vivine Village had no wall surrounding it, mostly because… who the hell would want to visit?
Maren remembered Vivine Village being a shithole, but he didn’t remember just how bad of a shithole it was. As he guided his horse into the village proper, a rancid smell assaulted his nostrils, went into his eyes and then lingered in the back of his throat.
He gagged. What could the smell be? What couldn’t it be? At one point, Vivine Village had enormous lake stones set flush with the ground that served as walking paths. The stones were still there, but you wouldn’t know it from the two-inch-thick layer of cow, goat, and horse excrement. Villagers had shoveled away a small portion of the waste, revealing a thin walking path.
Maren attempted to keep his steed on the path, but he heard its hooves sloshing around, which made him gag again.
“Is… is that Georgio?” said a man with a husky voice. The voice’s owner sat on the stoop of a wattle-and-daub church. A wooden effigy spiraled high into the air from the slanted roof, its likeness that of a woman from whose appendages bloomed flowers. It was not appealing. But Alecca, the goddess of the earth and who Vivine’s small populace worshiped, was not a pleasantly described individual in folklore.
“Unless you’ve a nickname for me that I’m unaware of,” Maren said, “I’m no Georgio.”
The man shoved his bald head forward and took a long squint at Maren. Once the blurriness in his ancient eyes faded, he observed the black caparison draping Maren’s steed, and on it the Valiosian twin serpents coiled around one another.
“Valios,” he said hoarsely. “Must mean a favor’s wanted.” He groaned as he pushed his hands onto the church steps and got to his feet. “The king isn’t one to send his lackeys for good drink and conversation.”
Maren idled his horse and patted him on the ribs as he clambered off. “I’m overqualified to fill the position of a lackey. It’s Maren O’Keefe, you blind bastard.”
“Mmmaren O’Keeeefe,” the man strained. “Well. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Five, ten years?”
“Not quite that long, Bemin,” Maren said, sidestepping yawning puddles of yuck, tiptoeing around pools of eww and jumping over small ponds of unspeakable gross.
“You look redder in the cheeks,” Bemin said. His mouth twitched as a smile tried to sneak out. “Fatter too.”
“And you look like Death should have taken you yesterday.”
Both men chuckled as they greeted one another with firm handshakes.
“Some of the boys will be excited you came. They’ve been chompin’ at the bit to leave home. You know how the young ones are.”
Maren had made regular pilgrimages to Vivine Village when he needed fresh bodies for the Valiosian Silver Swords; the village boys were easier to train and satisfied to work for less than those who grew up in and around Valios. And Bemin was more than happy to part with them, because conscription meant a fat payment of food, some livestock and, depending on Vivine’s needs, a few new tools to replace the rusted ones.
“I’m afraid they’ll have to be disappointed today,” Maren said. He glanced around the village. From dirt patios and open doors stared the dirty faces of youth. They whispered to one another, likely betting on who would get taken today and who’d get left behind to spend their life tilling crops and milking goats. “I’m not here to fill in the Silver Swords’ ranks.”
“Oh?”
“I’d prefer to talk in private.”
Bemin wrung his hands, then unfolded one toward the effigy of Alecca. “I suppose the church will do. Unless you’re afraid of being struck down.”
Maren smiled. “The gods have had plenty of opportunities to do so if they desired. The church will be fine.”
A woman with a leaky, snot-filled nose stood near the church steps, a hoe in one hand and a spade in another. She watched the two men walk toward her. Bemin paused briefly, kissed the tips of his fingers and touched them to the woman’s forehead. She bowed marginally, then splashed away through puddles of waste.
The gesture unsettled Maren. He’d never been close to the gods himself—mostly because religion required time and effort, and he had neither to spare. So churches never provided him comfort, and pious gestures and acts were often foreign and strange to him. But that wasn’t the reason his intestines themselves seemed to cringe when Bemin kissed his fingers and put them to the woman’s head.
Nasty rumors hovered over Bemin, several of which Maren had personally confirmed. He was not the gentile, caring old man he projected. He manipulated. He deceived. He indoctrinated. Over the decades as the elder of Vivine Village, he had molded his people to view him as the gateway to Alecca. Disobeying him meant rejection of the goddess herself. This is why requested favors from Bemin never went unanswered, no matter how depraved.
Maren preferred to not keep company with monsters, but sometimes you have to make deals with bad people to get what you want.
The two entered the hollow church that sat empty save several candles on the windowsills. Old, musty-smelling rugs blanketed the floor, some indented with praying knees. Paintings hung on the walls, several displaying a blurry Alecca holding hands and dancing and embracing Bemin.
“I need a few prisoners,” Maren said, kicking the door closed behind him.
Bemin strolled over to a candle, picking it up. “Prisoners?” he said, a hint of incredulity in his voice. He leaned the candle flame into the wick of a torch by the church entrance. “You came here for prisoners. What… why?”
“Official business of the crown,” Maren said. He felt slimy, snakish even, for saying those words. He wasn’t some goddamned prim and proper noble who obfuscated his intentions with pretty language. He was bold. Direct. Blunt. But you go around telling everyone of your desire to be king, and soon word gets out to the wrong people, and instead of sitting on the throne, you’re lying in a grave—likely without a head.
“Hmm,” Bemin said. “I have fifteen. How many do you need?”
“Four.”
“Actually, I think one died yesterday. So I have fourteen. You’re sure you don’t want them all?”
“Quite,” Maren said. “Tell me what provisions you require and I’ll have them sent to you within the month.”
“Hmm,” Bemin said, rubbing his chin. “I assume you wish for me to keep this secret. Secrets cost a lot…”
“Do I look like a beggar to you? Name your price in tools or livestock, whatever you need.”
Bemin smiled. “What about gold? Say… a hundred glittering coins?”
“Consider it done.”
The elder looked surprised. “You don’t need to consult your master of coin?” Maren stared at him, unblinking. “Fine, fine,” Bemin said, “it was only a question. Don’t get your knickers all bunched up around your arse.”
“I don’t want questions,” Maren said. “I want an agreement.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know you have one.”
Valios’s mercant
ile district was once a dilapidated settlement of crumbling buildings and fissured walkways. But ever since Craigh Opsillian’s eye-bulging investment in the district’s infrastructure, it’d been the gold standard of commerce throughout Avestas.
A fresh delivery of raw silver ore sat on a wagon outside Luthmen’s Architecture, an enterprise that designed pretty buildings for rich men and women. Their newest project saw them constructing a bridge made entirely out of gems for the capital kingdom of Torbinen. Maren O’Keefe had little interest in the mercantile district and even less interest in Luthmen’s Architecture—so long as Slim and Erath Luthmen paid their taxes—but he was on the hunt for someone. And a little birdie told him that someone had gone to Luthmen’s for a quick chat.
Maren pulled up his trousers and knocked on the granite double doors of Luthmen’s Architecture. The gable glittered with crushed opals and sapphires and amethysts, rubies and emeralds too. I need a better damn belt, Maren thought as his pants began to sag again.
The doors opened inward, revealing a portly man with a curly mustache. “Ah, Lord O’Keefe,” he said, clapping his hands. “In the market for a barracks, are we?”
“Quit trying to sell me on a new barracks, Slim.” Slim wasn’t the man’s real name, but it was the only name he’d gone by for the past fifteen years. Some said he had chosen it out of irony, while others claimed it had once fit but that, like the pants he inadvisably still wore, he had simply outgrown it. “I hear Horace Dewn might have stopped by. Any truth to that rumor?”
The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1) Page 7
