by Stefon Mears
* * *
Cavan had to admit he was impressed. For a woman who had never been to Tradeton before, Amra had quickly grasped the flow and feel of the streets. The anti-ambush plan she’d sketched out would have had a reasonable chance of letting the three of them fight off a force of four or five times as many armed warriors.
It only had one problem: Ehren.
The moment Amra had finished describing her plan, Ehren turned his horse onto a side street. This turn was two blocks early, onto a curving affair that would take them away from the center of town before it joined up with a wide, snaking street that would lead the way they needed to go.
He made the move without warning, so that Cavan and Amra had to follow before they could even ask why. Ehren reined to a halt two buildings in, in front of a tavern, the Empty Chest. A brown-and-copper two-story affair with shuttered windows. Two stories was odd for a tavern without an inn, meaning the owners either slept upstairs, or they rented private rooms for one reason or another.
Cavan reined up next to Ehren. Amra joined a moment later. Her mouth was set in a line, nostrils flaring in irritation. But she did not look to be in a hurry to ask the question on Cavan’s mind, so he asked it himself.
“Care to tell us why you’ve—”
“This is not some wilderness,” Ehren said, before Cavan could even finish the question. “We are not facing bandits who would kill us for our horses and everything we carry, and we’re not fighting some kind of war. This is a town. And I will not have us fighting in the streets like brigands.”
“Men are waiting to kill us,” Amra said. “I doubt stern conversation will dissuade them.”
“And those are the only two solutions you see?” he said. “Stern conversation or spilled blood?”
“Most conflicts come down to one or the other,” Amra said with a shrug. “And time could be a factor.”
“If we knew the angle of their attack,” Cavan said, thinking through the spells he knew, “I might be able to cast something.”
“All right,” Amra said, one hand raised against the rising anger in Ehren’s clear blue eyes. “Why don’t you tell us what you would have us do before it explodes out of you in some kind of sunburst.”
“There is no warrant for Cavan’s arrest, yes? No formal writ to have him detained, much less killed on sight?”
“Couldn’t be,” Cavan said. “If Falstaff issued anything formal, word would spread and the king would want to know why.”
“Exactly,” Ehren said. “Instead he sent his own hunters after you. Men loyal to him, who won’t talk about why they’re doing what they’re doing. And they have the crest of the king’s own brother on their shoulders, so no one is likely to interfere if they see them in action. Most people will just accept any explanation they give.”
“Which is why,” Amra said, with as much patience in her voice as Cavan had ever heard — which, admittedly, wasn’t much — “we must kill them before they kill us.”
“Wrong,” Ehren said, and now he was smiling. He looked back and forth, but Amra didn’t seem to see his logic any clearer than Cavan did. Ehren sighed and said, “If they kill us and people ask questions, they can say they were on the duke’s own business, and no one will likely interfere. Right?”
Cavan nodded.
“But they haven’t killed us yet.”
“Yes,” Amra said. “That’s the part we’re trying to avoid. Keep up, Ehren.”
“You keep up,” he said, but he was still smiling. “Explaining dead bodies is one thing, but explaining murders they haven’t committed? That’s something else entirely.”
Cavan felt his eyebrows raise and a smile light his face. But Amra didn’t seem to get it yet, so Cavan said, “You want to go to the town guards now.”
“Exactly.” Ehren’s smile got even broader. “You’re known here, and everyone knows that Kent the Jeweler raised you.”
“Oh,” Amra said. “So you want us to go to the town guards and tell them we think something’s happened to Kent. They’ll escort us. The hunters won’t be able to attack us with the guardsmen right there.”
“Better than killing people we don’t have to.”
“Maybe,” Amra said, but she didn’t look convinced. “No guarantee we’d be able to leave safely. Plus, they’ll probably figure out our next move and get to set up for another ambush. And maybe that one won’t have a predictable kill zone. The safer way is to kill these hunters now.”
“Suppose we do,” Cavan said. “Suppose there’s a dozen of them and we kill them all here and now. More will come, and next time there won’t be a dozen. There’ll be two dozen. Or three.”
“He has a point,” Ehren said.
“This way,” continued Cavan, “at least we aren’t guaranteeing ourselves a bigger fight next time. And if we’re lucky, we’ll catch sight of them while we’re with the guards. Maybe get a look at what we’ll be in for.”
Amra opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated, and closed her mouth. Then she smiled a wicked smile, and said, “Make you a deal. How about you two go to the guards and get an escort, while I do a little reconnaissance?”
“Just reconnaissance?” Ehren said, one golden eyebrow suspiciously low.
“That’s all I plan on,” Amra said. “I’ll swear to Zatafa if you like. Mind you, I’ll defend myself if I have to…”
“Save your swearing,” Ehren said. “Zatafa wouldn’t be fooled by it.”
“Come on,” Cavan said. “She won’t want to fight on a reconnaissance mission. That would mean she wasn’t sneaky enough to avoid detection.”
Cavan winked at Amra, who started chuckling.
“Fine,” she said. “No fighting. Just a look around.”
And with that she turned Caramel off in a different direction, while Cavan and Ehren rode for the nearest guard outpost.
11
Tohen awoke to the sound of harshly whispered arguing.
He’d been dreaming something about orcs and great goldenrod stalks, but now he was awake, and his head hurt, and his mouth was dry. And his men were arguing.
One hour. All he’d wanted was one hour before the moon rose high again, and his men couldn’t even give him that.
He sat up on the lumpy straw mattress. His eyes fixed on Qalas, first thing, but the dark-skinned blue-eyed southerner stood to one side, his great, double-curved bow in hand, but down. An arrow ready, but not nocked.
And he wasn’t involved in the argument.
Over beside the small window, Rudyar had an arrow nocked and was trying to take aim. Lutik wouldn’t let him. And the two of them were practically hissing at each other.
“Stand aside.”
“Don’t shoot.”
There were other words thrown in — with a generous helping of curses for good measure — but that was the gist of it, as far as Tohen’s aching head could puzzle out.
“What?” Not a mere question. He made it a command. And his men knew it.
Lutik stepped aside, hands raised to show no threat, and turned to face his commander. Rudyar lowered his bow, relaxed his grip on the arrow and string, and turned to face Tohen as well.
Qalas only watched.
“It’s Cavan,” Rudyar said, sounding for all the world like a child having a toy stripped away from him. “He’s in view right now!”
“He’s not alone,” Lutik said. “Town guards are with him.”
“This is what we’ve been waiting for.” Rudyar’s shooting hand started twitching with the need to turn and loose before his quarry fled.
Tohen got to his feet, rubbing his temples, and stepped to the window.
Cavan all right, on that blue roan of his. That white-clad priest beside him on the blond chestnut. Ehren. And surrounding them, four town guards. All four with crossbows raised and looking around for trouble.
Tohen stepped back from the window.
“Put that thing away,” he said to Rudyar. To Lutik he said, “Thank you for preventing a disaster.”
“We’re the duke’s hunters,” Rudyar started, but Tohen cut in over him.
“And this is the king’s land.” He let those words sink in a moment before adding, “What did I tell you? No important witnesses.”
“That usually means nobles,” Qalas said, and from the look in his eye Tohen was damned sure Qalas knew better.
“Well, then I’ll say this real slow so I can be sure you understand. We have an order to kill Cavan. Not a writ. Not a license. Nothing formal at all. We get caught doing this by anybody with the power to object, and the duke will probably let them hang us.”
“But—” Rudyar started.
“But we’ve killed men in front of witnesses before,” Tohen finished for him. “What’s the missing link, Rud?”
“Never town guards,” Qalas said, apparently eager to remind Tohen that he did, in fact, understand. “Never soldiers. Never nobles. Never rich merchants.”
“Right,” Tohen said. “Never in front of anyone who matters. But if you’d been paying attention, you’d have noticed two things that are very important to us right now.”
“Those guards have crossbows,” Lutik said, “and they’re looking for us.”
“They’re looking for someone,” corrected Qalas. “Cavan couldn’t know we got a teleport, but he’d know the duke has more than four men.”
“Important,” Tohen said, “but secondary to the other point.”
“Where’s that warrior woman?” Lutik said, realization spreading across his face and leaving a sickly pallor in its wake. Not that Tohen could blame him. Tohen still wasn’t sure how Lutik survived those cuts.
“Amra,” Qalas said.
“Maybe she died,” Rudyar said. “Dangerous between the worlds, you said.”
Lutik scoffed, and Tohen smirked.
“No way we got that lucky. If she’s not with them…”
“…she’s looking for us,” finished Qalas.
“Right.”
“So we find her first?” Qalas said. “We take her out, the other two will go down easy.”
“Not a bad plan,” Tohen said, wishing his head would stop aching. He hated changing plans on less than two hours sleep. He’d done it time and time again over the course of his career, but he still hated doing it. “But not good enough. No way we can take her out without it getting noisy and messy. That’ll draw attention we don’t want. Plus, she may have some means of contacting the other two.”
Tohen shook his head.
“What then?” Qalas said with the impatience that Tohen was coming to know so well.
“We filter out one at a time. Hoods up and weapons concealed. Ride out to the rendezvous spot by different routes, and wait until we’re all together.”
“And then?” Lutik said.
“He came here first,” Tohen said, pointing toward the window and Cavan beyond it. “That’s good. That means I’m getting a feel for the way he thinks. Wasn’t expecting him to bring guards, but that’s fine. More information.”
“But what good does it do us?” Qalas said.
“It means I know where he’s going next.” Tohen smiled. “And this time, I’ll have a pretty good idea of the route he’ll take. We can hit him before he knows to look for us.”
Even Qalas nodded at that.
“Rudyar,” Tohen said, “you’re first.”
As he watched the big man try to hide that bushy blond hair and beard under a green hood, Tohen cursed that orc shaman again. Cavan and his cronies should have at least had to abandon their horses. Fresh horses, ones not yet trained to their system of battle commands, would have given Tohen a significant advantage.
Well, he thought as he rubbed his temples, I’ll just have to make due.
12
Cavan always figured that if he returned home under armed guard, he had to be in some sort of trouble.
Then again, he never expected Jamse to be leading those guards. For that matter, he never expected to see Jamse in a guard uniform, much less with a diagonal sergeant’s stripe across the left breast of his chainmail. Jamse had been just as much a troublemaker of a kid as Cavan had been. Maybe more. Certainly the last person Cavan would have guessed would…
Then again, Jamse had none of his father’s talent for cobbling. Had to make his living some way…
Almost as odd to Cavan was that the town guards wore chainmail now. Cavan wondered when that had changed. When he was a kid, they’d worn leather that always looked well broken-in. Sometimes even in need of repairs. The guards had tended toward blunt weapons in those days, the kind that didn’t need much training. Maces, clubs, that sort of thing.
These days the town guard looked like soldiers. Chain mail from the neck down. Steel caps with nose guards. Tabards over the chainmail, the royal sigil on the right shoulder — twin rivers crossing at a heart, on a pale blue background — town’s seal on the left shoulder — three gold coins against a green background.
They all wore swords now, in addition to their clubs. Short swords, but still. And they had small, round shields on their backs, the kind with a jut in the middle that could pack a punch, if swung right.
Their armament didn’t stop there. Crossbows weren’t only for special units of the town guard anymore. Apparently every guard was expected to carry and use one, when the need arose.
Cavan wanted to ask about these things. Wanted to ask how Jamse ended up a guardsman, too. But this was not the time. And he knew, as he looked around, watching the rooftops for archers, that this was not the place either.
“I don’t see anyone,” Jamse said. He had even more freckles now than he did as a child. And though his red hair was trimmed short under that steel cap, he still apparently had just as much trouble keeping his face free of dirt. “You’re sure they’re there?”
“Positive,” Cavan said. “They hit us once on the road coming here. And they knew this was our destination.”
“Get inside then,” Jamse said, eyes still scanning for trouble. “We’ll take a look around.” He glanced at Cavan, and just for a moment Cavan saw the friend he remembered so well, underneath the sergeant. “If you need long in there, I can’t guarantee we’ll be here when you come out.”
“Of course,” Cavan said. “Thanks, Jamse. Believe me when I tell you you saved lives today. Maybe even ours.”
Jamse smiled, and Cavan would have sworn a quip made it as far as his old friend’s lips before fading out. Not the time or place. But reassuring.
With town guards watching their backs, Cavan looked over the back of the house where he grew up. Three stories, the first two of stone. Glass windows on the second and third floors, no windows at all on the first. Kent preferred to work by torchlight, and he refused to tempt thieves by allowing breakable glass windows in his shop.
The shop was the front part of the first floor, plus the basement for storage, gem cutting and jewelry making. But here at the back, the green wood door set into large, mortared blocks of stone. The latch had a lock, and if the family had followed Kent’s rules, a steel bar reinforced the door.
Kent hated thieves.
“Have you been carrying a key all this time?” Ehren said.
“After a fashion,” Cavan said.
He raised his hand to his mouth and breathed power across it while whispering a certain word. He pressed his hand against the top right corner of the door, where he had inscribed a certain symbol before painting over it with green paint. The green paint didn’t matter. The symbol was still there, and still carried the power Cavan had breathed over it that day, so many years ago.
On the other side of the door, the bar thunked out of place.
Cavan wiggled his eyebrows at Ehren and opened the latch.
Blood and raw meat. The first smells assailing his nose. Not fresh meat either. Rank, like whatever it was had been left to rot where it fell.
Cavan’s heart began pounding. He started forward, hand reaching for his absent sword, but Ehren stilled him with a hand on the shoulder.
“The bar was in place,” he said.
“And who set it?” Ehren said.
Cavan shook his head. Ran through calming exercises. Got his breathing and heart rate under control. Only then did he push the door all the way open.
Small stone entryway. A door into the shop, open. Next to it, stone stairs going up.
“Is that door usually open?” Ehren whispered.
Cavan shook his head.
They stepped inside the green door and closed it behind them. The raw meat smell clung to the air, coming from somewhere up the stairs.
The blood-covered stairs.
Well, not quite blood-covered, but there was a definite trail of blood leading up — or down — those stairs.
If this was a trap, that was the way Cavan was supposed to go. No doubt whoever did this expected him to rush straight up the stairs.
“Down first,” Cavan said, following the blood trail into the main room of Kent’s shop.
Cavan remembered this room so well. The way it was supposed to look. Large mirrors along the walls, of brass, copper and silver, all hammered and smoothed not for vanity, but to reflect a different quality of light. Kent always said that gems and jewels had to be seen in three different lights to be truly understood.
Kent didn’t count sunlight among those lights. He called sunlight a cheat. Said it made everything beautiful, so nothing could be judged fairly.
The mirrors were still in place. That was something.
Kent always kept one large, smooth oak table in the center of the room, where he would meet with customers and show them wares he thought they would appreciate. Not like, or love. Those were never the words Kent used. “Appreciation is what matters,” he always said. Customers who appreciated a piece would take care of it and display it well.
The tables were overturned now. Kent’s stool was broken.
Cavan knelt by the stool. Picked up the pieces. The seat was still intact, but the legs were shattered. Ehren stood over him, saying nothing.
