“Right,” Traver agreed, grabbing the leather purse and springing up to follow him. At least, it was meant to be a spring. He caught himself on the chair to keep from falling over.
He had to strain to keep the image of the man’s back from becoming doubled as he followed him out of the inn and into the calm, clear night. As he shuffled across the yard, his eyes kept trying to slide closed. How much ale had he put down? He couldn’t remember, but he figured he was about ready to fall flat on his face. He’d better make this quick, Traver decided. He knew his limit well, and he knew when he was well over it.
The man led him into the dark stable with its almost overpowering stench of hay and horse manure. Whoever the innkeeper was paying to muck out the stalls wasn’t earning his keep. Soft nickers greeted them as they made their way down the dark aisle between rows of stalls toward the back of the stable. A soft black nose brushed against Traver’s arm as he staggered past one of the doors, making him flinch. He despised horses.
The man opened the door to a stall and Traver followed him inside, stumbling over hay piled on the floor. It was dark inside, and he could barely see a thing. His eyes weren’t adjusted yet, and they weren’t working well, anyway. He blinked, squinting as he peered around in the darkness.
“Hey,” he muttered thickly, managing to slur even that one syllable. “I don’t think there’s a horse in here.”
“He’s a genius,” said a new voice from behind him.
Startled, Traver bent to reach for the knife in his boot. A steel-tipped toe caught him in the side of the head before he could get his fingers around it.
Chapter Six
Dumb, Rotten Luck
THE SOUND OF THE DOOR banging thunderously open startled Kyel from a deep sleep. Then hands were on him, hauling him out of bed and onto his feet. They slammed him back against the wall, his head cracking against the stiff wood paneling.
Someone twisted him around and snaked a muscled grip around his neck. He tried to struggle, but it was useless. The man behind him jerked his arm upward forcibly, holding it at an impossible angle. Kyel groaned, feeling his tendons starting to go. He stopped moving, sagging limply as they bound his wrists behind his back with coarse rope. Someone slipped a cord around his neck and yanked on it, hauling him backwards and out the door like a leashed animal.
Kyel stumbled down the hallway after the big bearded man who held his rope, two other men guiding him firmly from behind with a hand on each arm. He had no idea what time it was, only that it was still the middle of the night. The second level of the inn was empty, but when Kyel reached the opening of the stairs he looked down to find the greatroom crowded with people. All eyes were staring up at him with hateful glares. Kyel couldn’t understand. They were all looking at him as if he had just murdered somebody.
As he reached the bottom of the staircase, a buxom young woman stepped forward and spat in his face. A blonde-haired man took care of the spittle for him, at least, by tilting the tankard he was holding and dumping the contents over his head. People were screaming things at him, but the voices all rose together at once in a terrible cacophony.
They hauled him out the back door of the inn and into the night. The yard was full of people, all standing around staring at another man who was kneeling in the dirt by the stable. A few men were holding flaming torches, their faces glowing red in the flickering light. Kyel was dragged by the neck toward the stable, where his confusion solidified into fury.
The man kneeling on the ground was Traver. Kyel felt his cheeks heating with a sudden rush of anger that filled him to the point of boiling. What could the scoundrel have possibly done this time? By the looks of things, it must have been something far worse than just another rowdy tavern brawl. Then Kyel saw the dead body spread out on the ground.
His guards pushed him to his knees in the dirt beside Traver. The man looked even worse than usual. His head was a bruised mess, his scraggly hair matted and his face caked with blood and grime. He reeked a brutal combination of ale and horse manure. Traver’s eyes were reddened and half-closed. Kyel couldn’t tell if that was from the head injury or the drink, but it didn’t matter. The facts were totaling themselves in his head. What they added up to was certain trouble.
“What did you do?” Kyel hissed at him, working his aching shoulders to try to get some feeling back into them.
Traver looked over and regarded him with a dim expression, noticing him there for the first time. He grimaced and shook his head in exasperation, as if it was all just dumb, rotten luck.
“I got jumped,” Traver informed him almost conversationally. “But these lackwits who think they’re the Emmery Deathwatch Guard keep saying I killed that bugger.”
“What?!” It was as bad as Kyel had feared. Traver had stolen some money from someone, gotten himself good and sotten, and then went out and killed some poor fellow. “Oh, by the gods, Traver—”
A short and pudgy fellow approached, shaking a finger at them. “Now, you just sit there quiet-like. Save your lip for the mayor. He’s on his way, and when he gets here, you’ll both likely end up with your heads on the block.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” both Kyel and Traver exclaimed at the same time. Kyel turned his head and glared at his companion, who just shrugged sheepishly in his restraints.
“Well, I didn’t,” Traver insisted.
They just sat there after that, on their knees in the dust of the yard. Kyel couldn’t keep his eyes away from the dead body spread out in front of him only a few paces away. He thought he recognized the man, but it was hard to tell in the flickering light of the torches. The corpse had so much blood splattered all over its face that the features were indeterminable. He thought it might be one of the two men he’d taken for mercenaries that had tried to block him from the inn’s door when they had first arrived. Kyel hadn’t liked the way they had been staring at him. He found himself wondering if Traver’s story might have some grain of truth to it. It was possible they had seen the wagonload of trade goods they had driven in and marked Traver for an easy target. Of course, that didn’t explain how one of them had ended up dead.
Kyel made certain his voice was a dead whisper as he prodded his companion, “How could’ve you gotten jumped? You didn’t have anything anybody would want to steal.”
Traver hung his head, grimacing. To Kyel, he looked like a mischievous boy who had just gotten caught by his mother. “I borrowed your coin purse,” he whispered glumly.
“What?!” Kyel couldn’t believe it. He’d known the man was a scoundrel—and a compulsive drunk and gambler, besides—but stealing your own friend’s coin was low. He wouldn’t have thought even Traver’s base morals were that appalling.
“It’s a long story,” Traver muttered.
“I’ll warrant it is!” Kyel hissed, having a hard time keeping his voice down. “Everything with you is a long story. Your whole life is just one long, bloody tragedy!”
“Actually, I think it might be a very short bloody tragedy. Look.”
Kyel looked. A small procession was heading their way from the direction of the street. The man that rode in front on a heavy draft horse was still wearing his nightclothes. Kyel took him for the town mayor. Behind him were a few decently clothed individuals, as well as another man bringing up the rear. Kyel didn’t like the looks of that one. He was heavily bearded, dressed in what looked like rags and carrying the biggest half-moon axe Kyel had ever seen. The light of the torches reflected off the blade of the axe, and Kyel could tell that the weapon had seen some heavy use. The entire cutting edge was dented, nicked and chipped.
“Gods,” Traver gulped beside him. “Wager that would smart a bit coming down.”
Kyel couldn’t take his eyes off the axe. He couldn’t believe it. All he’d done was go to bed, and the next thing he knew a group of people wanted to take his head off. It wasn’t fair. He thought of Amelia back at home, and little baby Gil. He didn’t want his son growing up without even knowing his father. Ky
el hung his head, forcing himself to wrench his eyes away from the red glow of the half-moon blade.
Traver whispered, “You’re a businessman, Archer. You talk us out of this.”
Kyel let out a long, exasperated sigh. There was no hope. If only Traver really would let him do the talking, there might be a chance. But Kyel knew there was no way the wretch beside him was going to keep his mouth shut.
The mayor dismounted a short distance away from them. He was a squatty man with a balding head and salt-and-peppered whiskers on the sides of his face. He seemed like a good enough fellow, although Kyel figured anyone strutting around in his nightclothes couldn’t seem too harmful. He leaned over the dead body, holding a spectacle against his right eye and muttering something to another man who handed him an object that glinted in the torchlight.
Kyel frowned, squinting at the object in the mayor’s hand. “Isn’t that your knife?”
Traver nodded glumly, staring down at his boots. “What do you think our odds are? Three-to-one?”
“Is gambling all you ever think about?”
“Well, no, actually,” Traver responded mildly. “Right now, I’m thinking more about that axe. It doesn’t look very sharp.” He groaned, wincing. Craning back his head, he worked his neck around stiffly. “Oh, gods, my head aches. Maybe it’ll be better if that bloke just takes it off for me.”
Kyel could only glare at him. Then he turned back to the group of men that were still conversing quietly over the body of the dead man. The mayor had squatted down beside the corpse and was fingering the knife in his hands as he examined the bloody puncture wounds in the torso.
“We’ve scores of witnesses, Mayor,” the bearded fellow was saying. “Everyone saw the killer lose a heap of coin to this poor bugger, and I mean not just coppers. Gold, mind you. Then everyone heard the bastard telling him to follow him to the stables. Seems he beat the poor chap senseless and knifed him real good. Then he collapsed flat drunk. That’s how we found him.”
“Oh, is that the way of it?” Traver cried, tossing his hair back from his face. “Then would you pray explain how I acquired this dent in my head? And if I knifed the ‘poor chap’ to get my coin back, then where is it?”
“We found this in the stable,” announced another voice. Kyel turned and saw a tall young man walking toward the mayor. There was something in his hand. Kyel squinted at it, trying to make out what it was in the shadows of the yard. When he stepped into the light, Kyel almost groaned. It was his own coin purse. And by the way the man was holding it, there was still a good amount of heft to it.
The mayor received the leather purse into his pudgy hands. He opened it, and Kyel could hear the sound of clinking coins rattling around inside as the mayor sifted through the contents. He turned to Traver, shaking the purse as he walked toward him.
Raising his eyebrows, he said, “So you’re telling me that there was a third party who knifed him, beat you senseless, and then didn’t bother to abscond with the coin? That’s a bit hard to swallow, don’t you think?”
Traver shrugged. “That’s the way of it.”
“And what about me?” demanded Kyel. “I never left my room all night!”
The mayor looked over at the bearded man in askance. The ugly brute stepped forward, gesturing toward Kyel with a wave of his hand. “That bastard was gambling with his money! And we’ve two witnesses who say they saw him near the stable.”
“I was sleeping!” Kyel insisted, frustrated almost to the point of tears. He had no idea what had happened down in the stable, whether or not Traver was innocent or guilty. All he knew was that he had nothing to do with any wrongdoing, and that it should be perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain in his head. He turned to look across the yard, startled to find a small mob pouring out the back door of the inn and moving toward them. He swallowed, looking again at the axe. His neck was starting to ache. He knew exactly where this was going.
“All right,” the mayor grumbled, raising his hand to rub his balding head. “Give me a moment to think.” He paused for a minute, fingering Traver’s boot knife between his fingers. He glanced back again toward the body, then held the small blade up to dangle in front of Traver’s eyes. “Is this your knife?”
“Well, yes, but—”
Turning to Kyel, he hefted the leather purse. “And is this your money?”
“Yes, but—”
The mayor turned and trudged away, by all appearances deep in thought. Kyel hoped he thought long and hard on it; the whole story really didn’t make any sense at all. But the mob that was gathering around them was looking vicious. Angry voices were being raised. Kyel’s stomach was suddenly feeling queasy; a town mayor was an elected office. The man would be thinking more about his reelection possibilities than he would about true justice for the crime. Which lowered their chances considerably. The man would want to pander to the demands of the people he represented. And, by the sound of the angry voices, the people were demanding blood for blood.
“I don’t know, Halbert.” One of the men who had ridden in with the mayor was shaking his head. “You can’t execute two men on evidence this flimsy. Not a soul actually saw them do it.”
The whole mob started shouting. Frustrations were fomenting, Kyel could tell. He heard someone call out, “They murdered a man! Take their bleedin’ heads off!”
There was a collective outcry of agreement. Some people were shaking their fists in the air as others began directing their wrath toward the mayor. The poor man walked away, turning his back on them and lumbering toward Kyel and Traver. Behind, his men were having a hard time holding back the surging mob.
“Doesn’t Rothscard send their convicts north to the front?” The mayor asked the bearded fellow.
“Aye, they do.”
“Then we’re in luck,” the mayor finally sighed, glancing back toward his constituents with a look of vast relief. “There’s a group of Rothscard Bluecloaks over at the Oak Tree. Perhaps they’ll agree to take these two fellows along with them. We can even pay for it out of their own coin purse.”
Kyel gaped. He shook his head and pleaded with the mayor in a desperate voice, “I can’t go to the front! I’ve a wife and child at home! And a load of trade goods I’m supposed to haul out on the morrow!”
The mayor only looked down at him sadly. His expression of sympathy seemed almost genuine. “Sorry, son. But if you really were in just the wrong place at the wrong time, then you’re the unluckiest fellow I’ve ever met.”
Kyel slammed his chin against his chest as all of the air in his lungs seemed to rush out all at once. Between clenched teeth, he heard himself rasping, “Damn you, Traver!”
Traver sighed, “Already am, Archer. Already am.”
In front of him, the bearded man chuckled, eyes sparkling in the glare of the torchlight. “Your name’s Archer?” he scoffed, visibly amused. “Hope you know how to use a bow.”
Kyel glared at him vindictively.
Chapter Seven
The Bird Man
DARIEN WAS ADRIFT in a sea of golden light that filtered downward in gentle, beading rays. The light shimmered, shifting, and kept fading into darkness before coming back again. Hazy objects hovered overhead and all around. A soft breath of air stirred, making the shapes above him dance and spin. Gradually, the objects came into better focus. But even when he could make out the forms of the strange, fluttering shapes, they still did not make any kind of reasonable sense. The whole image was strangely surreal and utterly bizarre.
He found himself staring up at the forms of moving birds. Their wings were outstretched in the air overhead, though not in flight. Instead, the birds fluttered and spun on thin and almost transparent strings, dangling from a ceiling that sloped sharply overhead. There were hundreds of them. Small sparrows and warblers, finches and jays. Hawks and eagles with great wingspans extended in a strange parody of flight. Above, mounted to a corner against the ceiling, a great horned owl regarded him somberly, eyes round and glassy, its ex
pression perplexed.
Darien struggled to sit up, but was instantly overcome by a stunning pain in his head that brought on such a surge of nausea that he fell back again immediately. The light and the birds faded dimly away, and it was a long time before they came back again. When they did, he had no idea why they were even still there. He had expected them to be gone, just another one of the strange dreams that had been plaguing his sleep. It took him a long time to come to the conclusion that this was no dream. But, if it were not, then this was a strangely peculiar reality.
He was lying in a soft and comfortable bed. The birds continued spinning overhead, feathers stirring on a breeze admitted through an open window. Dim recollections were coming back to him, filling him more each minute with a tremendous sense of loss and foreboding. He remembered the disaster of the Hall, the column of light that pierced the night, his brother’s cold, malevolent eyes. He remembered falling.
There was nothing after that. Until the birds. He tried to sit up again, clenching his jaw against the pain in his head and trying to fight back the queasiness in his stomach. He managed to get almost halfway up before the sound of a hoarse voice stopped him short.
“I wouldn’t try that just yet.”
He hadn’t even noticed the old man sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. The face was familiar, but Darien couldn’t place it. He knew he had seen this man before, even recently, but could not imagine where. The face that regarded him was cobwebbed with wrinkles, age-stained and weathered. The nose was bird-like, resembling the beak of one of the golden eagles that dangled above his bed. The old man’s puffy blue eyes were what finally made him realize that he was looking at the gatekeeper he had met yesterday in the Vale before his arrival in Aerysius.
The old man stood stiffly, using his hands to push himself off the stool. With slow, shuffling steps he moved toward the edge of the bed. He breathed wheezily as he bent over Darien, placing a hand on the younger man’s brow. He closed his eyes. As he did, Darien felt a rippling sensation pass through his body. The old man was another mage, and he was using his ability to probe his condition.
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