Tangle of Thornes

by Lorel Clayton

  “You’re the one who told me to keep my dagger in my trousers,” Duane said. “Those goblin mercs will eat you for lunch if you attack.”

  “We need to get on board somehow. They’ll pay the docking fees again or figure another way to slip out of here. We don’t have much time.” Why did I keep saying ‘we’?

  “Have they met the dock master?” Duane asked Bell.

  She shook her head. “He sent underlings.”

  “Elves?”

  “An elf and a human,” she said. “Ah. You think we can claim they need a last-minute inspection or something. I’m not really dressed for the part.”

  Duane looked at me. “We are.”

  It was a good idea, but I doubted it would work. A dispute over fees was one thing, inspections were another. Would they honestly let us examine every slave crammed aboard? If they were stealing free humans, they had to be afraid someone would recognize one of their captives.

  Not that I could recall any faces among the street people I’d seen. Except, there was one girl who reminded me of someone I grew up with. It wasn’t enough to make me feel like a caring and thoughtful person though. I knew I was as guilty as anyone of ignoring most of the misery around me. Well, that was about to change.

  “Let’s give it a shot,” I said.

  We would need accessories to look convincing. I went into the dock office and joined the long queue of people there to complain about how their cargo was treated by the longshoremen.

  “I lost an entire case of wine!” I shouted. “I bet it’s in the dock master’s office!” This lent fuel to the general grumbling, and a few short-tempered captains demanded a look around.

  With the clerk distracted, I swiped a quill and notebook from the desk.

  Duane had been watching. “Not bad. Anyone but me wouldn’t have seen a thing.”

  “Theft is not something to be proud of,” I lectured as we made our way back to the ship. Duane seemed to exude an aura of bad influence, but I was doing this for a good cause. “…I was pretty quick, though.” Ok, I couldn’t help bragging a bit.

  I wanted to do the talking, but he insisted I hold the book and take notes, since there weren’t any female dock inspectors. I accused him of perpetuating inequality before I hooked the Ashur through my belt and took up the pen.

  The goblin at the top of the gangplank bared his needle-like teeth when he saw us approach. “We pay already! We told you!”

  “We’re here for something else,” I said. Duane glanced back at me, reminding me of my role, and it was difficult to be quiet when he wanted me to.

  “I’m here to conduct an inspection,” Duane told the mercenary, “to make sure fees and tariffs were adequately assessed.”

  “We pay!”

  “May I speak to your captain?”

  “He tell me not to bother him until we ready to leave dock. You let us leave?”

  “The sooner we carry out this inspection, the sooner you can go,” Duane said.

  It had been eerie watching Duane’s taut, predatory gait transform into the bored shuffle of a bureaucrat. His vocabulary was different, and his normally commanding tone shifted from the air of personal power to a sense the power of the state was backing him. He had convinced me, but the mercenary was another matter.

  “No. Take ropes off boat and go away.” The goblin waved his hand dismissively.

  “By the Dead God,” I cursed. “Let us pass.”

  “Hey.” The goblin squinted at me with beady black eyes and took a sniff with his pug nose. “I know you. You was with the grall.” He fingered his jaw—it popped—and I bet it was still sore.

  “I’m moonlighting,” I said.

  “Tell grall we be back! We’ll get him! Now, you go!” He had an iron-tipped spear, which he poked in our direction.

  “Hey!” I didn’t like weapons being aimed at me. I grabbed the shaft and twisted it out of his grip. Oops.

  The goblin was not happy. He opened his mouth wide and lunged. I remembered how those teeth had dug into Jorg’s thigh. The grall hadn’t noticed the pain, but I would, especially when my head was bitten off. Before the teeth clamped down, I swung the spear I’d taken and stuck the wood into the goblin’s mouth. He broke it into splinters, chewed for a moment, and spit the pulp at my feet.

  Duane grinned and stifled a laugh. It wasn’t funny. Couldn’t he see I was under attack? When the goblin’s mouth opened again, I threw the notebook into it and reached for my Ashur.

  “Not here.” Duane clamped a hand around my wrist, preventing me from drawing the weapon. “Witnesses.”

  I wasn’t going to kill the goblin, just give him a knock upside the head so he’d stop trying to eat me.

  Duane pulled me a few steps back down the gangplank, opting for retreat instead. The goblin kept coming.

  “Halt!” The command made us all stop in our tracks.

  Behind us were half a dozen guardsmen. A dwarf had spoken. He wore the yellow-plumed helmet of a sergeant. They were all dwarves, except for the unmistakable human towering over them in white armor.

  “Conrad,” I said, relieved.

  The goblin hid his menacing teeth. “They on my boat! Me innocent.”

  “What’s going on here?” The sergeant strode up the gangplank, the other guards in a double line on the dock behind him. Even with the plume, he was shorter than me.

  “Nothing. We were waiting for you.” I stood to the side and indicated the guardsman should get on with it.

  Duane stood on the opposite side of the gangplank, judging the drop. He was uncomfortable around soldiers and looked like he might retreat over the side now that reinforcements had arrived.

  “Miss Thorne is the one I was telling you about, Sergeant. She’s Sir Markham’s friend,” Conrad said.

  “Ah,” the dwarf bowed. “Thank you for the tip, my lady. The illegal acquisition of slaves will not be tolerated by the Crowns. We will take things from here.”

  He turned to his troops. “Search every deck.”

  “What you doing?” The goblin trembled, agitated. He signaled to his compatriots; they had lingered in the background up until this point. “It time for fun, Fierce Brigade!”

  Suddenly, eight spears were pointed at the guardsmen and at me. The goblins didn’t aim at Duane, I noted. I couldn’t possibly look like the bigger threat? I stood a little straighter, liking the fact they were taking me seriously. Then I remembered the high voices of females irritated them. Probably why they didn’t like me much.

  The white-armored soldiers responded by swinging shields forward and drawing short blades. The sergeant frowned at the goblins. “Don’t be foolish, boys. We have a writ from the magistrate. Stand aside and allow us to conduct our search.”

  “No,” the lead goblin mercenary said with finality.

  Duane and I were caught between a mass of little green men with sharp spears and even sharper teeth and a wall of white armor and jutting blades, which was much worse than a rock and a hard place. I was surprised Duane hadn’t scuttled away already. I’d go myself, if I wasn’t likely to die from falling the twenty feet to the wooden dock below us. Duane was the acrobat, not me.

  Instead of fleeing, Duane flicked his hard gaze between Conrad and the spear aimed at my eye, and his muscles tensed, ready to spring into action. He’d decided to fight. I’d seen Duane kill, and I knew the goblins’ reputation. This would turn into a blood bath if I didn’t do something.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “Listen up, Fierce Brigade. This is the Guard, and they are the law around here. They can have this entire ship impounded and all of you cast in irons. That would not make your captain happy, believe me. Now, go and fetch him.” I allowed my voice to take on a higher pitch than usual and green ears flicked.

  The goblins cast nervous glances at each other.

  “You’re not qualified to make this decision,” I continued. “Go... and I’ll ask the grall if he’s interested in a rematch.”

  Maybe it was my voice coup
led with the practiced glare I gave them or the enticement of a glorious and hopeless combat against the giant, but their spears were suddenly pointed at the sky, and one of the goblins hurried off to find his master.

  “I should put them in irons anyway,” the sergeant grumbled. Several spears twitched in response. While the goblins’ ability to speak elvish left much to be desired, they understood it fine.

  The ship’s captain, a plump human from Duane’s neck of the woods, was red faced. He swaggered up to us, growling about the incompetence of the city’s officials and demanding to see the writ of forced search. When the sergeant showed it to him, he cursed and reluctantly told his mercenaries to stand down.

  The squad of guardsmen marched across the main deck and broke up into groups of two for the sweep. The sergeant and Conrad stayed behind and asked to see the manifest and the documentation for every piece of cargo. ‘Cargo’ was their euphemism for slaves. The captain spit at their feet before obliging them.

  Duane slipped away without me noticing.

  Typical. I tried to sneak onboard and conduct my own search for Nanny, but Conrad caught me.

  “This is Guard business,” he said.

  “Your people don’t know what Nanny looks like!”

  “This search has to follow the parameters of the writ, which Sir Markham was kind enough to arrange for me despite the scant justification I was able to provide.” He looked more haggard than he had this morning.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Thank you for doing this.”

  He nodded and returned to his sergeant’s side, going through the paperwork the ship’s captain supplied. I felt a tightening around my heart.

  Conrad’s patience in me was stretched to the breaking point. The least I could do was behave myself for his sake.

  I tried sitting, but the fidgets took over, so I paced up and down the gangplank. The search took hours, and the sun was well past its zenith when the glum-faced soldiers were all back on deck.

  “We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” the dwarf told the captain as he handed back the thick sheaf of paperwork. “You are free to go.”

  “What?” I asked, shoving my way into their midst. “They’re stealing people. You can’t let them get away with it!”

  Conrad took me by the shoulders and led me away from the sergeant, who frowned at my outburst.

  “Everything was in order,” Conrad told me. “All slaves were marked and documented.”

  “They can place marks! And they can forge documents!”

  “Says who?” He looked at me in such a way I suddenly wondered if he suspected me of being a pathological liar or a hysteric at the very least.

  I calmed down, opened my mouth...and then shut it again. I couldn’t tell him the truth about Kali being a slave, her forged documents, or Olaf being re-branded. Erick would inevitably be implicated as an emancipationist. The elven courts would have him quartered and the pieces burned.

  “You’ve made a fool of both of us,” Conrad whispered. I winced at his words. “Leave this boat before the captain decides to press charges.”

  The dwarven squad marched past me. There was a curt, “My lady,” from the sergeant. Conrad gave me one last disappointed look and joined them.

  I’d done it this time. I didn’t have enough friends to afford to abuse them, but I had done just that with Conrad. I doubted Sir Markham, and consequently Gypsum, would be happy either when they discovered how I’d embarrassed him. I’d been lucky to get the Guard to help me at all, and on a ‘trust me’. Now, they would probably never help again.

  I noted the red-faced captain and the black-eyed goblins all staring at me, and I reluctantly followed the soldiers. Their clomping footsteps vibrated the plank and made my own gait awkward. I reached the relative firmness of the dock and realized I was all alone: No sign of Duane or Bell; Conrad was nearly out of sight; Viktor was dead, and Nanny wasn’t home.

  I looked up at the steep walls of the gorge, and the long path I’d soon be climbing without even Duane for company, then at the corral of donkeys for hire. I felt my belt purse, but only a few copper knuts remained, along with Nanny’s necklace and the amulet Erick had given me. I’d have to walk.

  I took a few steps and realized the amulet felt warm. I pulled it out and saw it glowed a deep orange. Viktor had been here. He had stood on this spot in the days before he died.

  I shuffled to the side and the glow dimmed, a little further to the other side and it grew brighter.

  I must have looked like some mad woman doing a dance on the dock, but the docks had a high threshold for strange, and everyone ignored me.

  I crisscrossed the entire area until I was sure I had identified Viktor’s trail. I followed it to an empty berth with nothing but a numbered marker buoy floating in the spot. Viktor must have visited a ship that was no longer docked. I suspected it was the other slaver vessel Conrad had found on the dock master’s log, the one Gypsum’s brother-in-law investigated before he was murdered.

  I followed Viktor’s trail up the crowded road leading out of the gorge. The river dwindled beneath me, and I saw the slavers’ ship had oared its way into the center of the current. Its giant paddle wheel began to turn, propelled by Southern steam and slaves shoveling coal. There was a tributary a mile ahead that would take it east and Nanny along with it. I’d failed her.

  I dreamed of grabbing the goblins when they were next at Karolyne’s, getting Jorg to extract the information on Nanny’s whereabouts and then going after her with Conrad and the rest of the gleaming Guard at my side.

  If they’d ever believe me again.

  If the goblins even knew where their cargo was bound.

  If....

  Trying not to feel helpless, I turned away and let the amulet guide me where it would.

  20│ SECRETS

  ~

  VIKTOR’S PATH WAS DIFFICULT TO follow. People, donkeys, carts and miniature locomotives all got in my way, and I had to dodge them while trying to stand in one place and feel the faint heat from the amulet. His trail was growing colder, but I hoped enough of it remained for me to find whatever he’d hidden—whatever had gotten him killed.

  I passed near the outer wall under construction. Slaves and laborers levered huge blocks into position. It was massive, made of rough-hewed stone, fifty feet high and ten feet thick: Not a beautification project. Highcrowne had plenty of soldiers and Avian magic to defend it, but the Dead God’s rise and the stirrings in the human nations had impelled our far-sighted rulers to begin building the wall over a decade ago. It would enclose the Outskirts as well as add an extra layer of defense to the Central City. Karolyne saw it as a sign the Crowns cared about humans. They could have reinforced the Central City and left us unprotected. I disagreed. This way we were just a more effective buffer zone.

  Whatever the reason for building it, the wall was nearly complete. Soon, there would be a gate regulating entry into the Outskirts. Soon, the Guard would have us hemmed in on all sides.

  I let the amulet guide me. The place where Viktor died was strongest, the wooden disk a bright orange, but that place held no interest. I’d stood there once before, after they found him, to say goodbye.

  I was on the familiar path to Viktor’s house and worried this entire approach was pointless. The amulet was leading me in circles. But when the path detoured toward the Slave Quarter, my heart sped up. It wasn’t the route home after all. Had Viktor hidden whatever the slavers were looking for under their very noses?

  I no longer felt the uneven cobbles beneath my boots or the icy flakes of snow falling on my outthrust arm—all my attention was focused on the amulet dangling from my fingers.

  As soon as I stepped in the Quarter, the path turned sharply right. I’d never been this way before. The empty square where wagons camped and the slave block stood was farther south, while the amulet led me west.

  I wove through narrow alleys that should have been crammed with refugees hiding from winter winds. There were only a few old men, hud
dled next to a small fire fed by rotted wood and coal powder, which was disturbing. The slavers were stealing people. Where else could everyone have disappeared to?

  I clutched my Ashur in one hand. Duane claimed this territory now, but Jessup’s old gang had tried to kill me once already. I wasn’t about to forget that.

  The wood disk instantly dulled from orange to brown. The trail ended.

  I looked to either side of the narrow alley and saw nothing but brick walls. No doors and no place Viktor could have gone. Then I thought to look up. A wooden ladder stretched over head, connecting the windows of two buildings like a bridge. Quite a few such makeshift bridges and pathways interlaced the upper stories.

  I tied the Ashur to my belt, pocketed the amulet and jumped—I was tall enough it was only a hop—and grabbed the ladder, so I was hanging by my arms. Pull ups weren’t my forte, but I swung until I got a leg up. A few grunts later, I was on hands and knees. I tried not to fall through the rungs of the ladder and felt the weathered wood digging into my shins.

  I scooted towards one window and pulled out the amulet. It was still cold. Wincing and wobbling, I turned around and went to the other window. The amulet warmed again. My brother had been this way.

  I clambered through the open casement and into the ruins of an old textile mill. This hadn’t always been the Slave Quarter. While Solhans migrated to the Outskirts only fifteen years ago, other humans, like Duane’s ancestors and Karolyne’s people, had lived outside the Central City for generations. This was one of the older neighborhoods, established when the Crowns still required a killing field around the central wall. Unlike deportment lessons, I had paid attention during history class. The dictate that a killing field exist eventually lapsed, and the areas abutting the wall were filled in with newer neighborhoods, like mine and the temple district.

  Wood creaked beneath my feet as I shuffled across the second story floor. The boards were weak, ridden with termite marks, and could collapse at any second. I stuck to the edge next to the brick wall, thinking it less likely to cave in there, and circled the room until I found an old staircase leading down.