The rider from the village drew even with them, but he continued past instead of turning around to ride with the watchmen. He yelled again about the rock golems but didn’t want to answer any questions. He threw terrified glances over his shoulder and kept going.
Jevlain turned on the bench to watch him, then frowned over at Zenia. “Why would he have run this way?”
“What?” she asked, not grasping Jev’s question. She was too busy being suspicious of him. And watching their surroundings. The highway had turned toward the river, so they weren’t that far now from the mangroves. The perfect hiding spot for ambushers.
Rhi stood up in her stirrups, also scouring the landscape with her eyes.
“If he wanted to warn people or get help for his village,” Jevlain said, “he should have ridden toward the city.”
The driver didn’t pay attention to him. He was alternating steering and loading more coal into the firebox behind the bench. The vehicle threatened to outpace Zenia’s horse, and she was tempted to tell Jevlain to jump off. She hadn’t imagined him getting away by simply being on a watch wagon that was too fast for her to keep up with.
“I think it’s a trap,” Jevlain added, yelling to be heard over the clattering of the vehicle and hooves on the stone highway.
“Of course it’s a trap,” Zenia yelled. “Your friends set it.”
Jevlain shook his head and opened his mouth. Before he could speak, a rifle fired from off to the side of the highway.
“Get down,” Rhi barked, dropping low in her saddle.
Jevlain jerked, then tumbled off the wagon seat, right into the path of Zenia’s horse. The mare reared up with a screech of alarm, almost throwing Zenia.
Jevlain had enough presence of mind to roll away from the hooves as the wagon kept going. The driver glanced back as Zenia struggled to quiet her mare, looking like he might slow the wagon. But the sergeant in charge yelled at his man and pointed to the smoking village, saying the residents needed their help.
Zenia had always thought golems and trolls and other monsters were something explorers encountered on distant adventures in far-off lands. They certainly didn’t appear here, scant miles from the capital city in one of the most populated kingdoms in the world.
But even as she tried to calm her horse and keep an eye on Jevlain, she saw exactly what the rider had promised. Giant rock golems. Two of them.
7
Fiery pain seared Jev’s shoulder. He rolled off the side of the road to avoid the hooves of Zenia’s horse, then rose into a low crouch beside a shrub. Should he run to the village to help with the massive rock golems smashing fences and buildings? Or toward the mangroves along the river to hide from whoever had shot him? He didn’t know what was happening, but he recognized an ambush when he saw it. The alarming part was that someone apparently wanted him dead. Thank the deepening twilight that had given his attacker poor aim.
“Rhi!” Zenia barked.
Hooves thundered as the monk urged her horse toward the mangroves. Had she seen the shooter? Jev didn’t know if Zenia had. She was glaring at him.
“Get off the horse,” Jev yelled up at her. “You’re an easy target.”
Zenia glanced toward the mangroves. “Nobody in the kingdom would shoot an inquisitor.”
Unless things had changed a lot in the last ten years, half the kingdom would happily shoot an inquisitor. Assuming there was a way to do it without getting caught.
Despite her certain words, her brow furrowed with concern. Her cohort had already disappeared into the trees.
Shouts of alarm and pain came from the village. Jev stepped in that direction, but he had no weapons, no way of hurting golems. At least he could punch a human shooter in the face. Despite the pain in his shoulder, he could still move his arm. He thought the bullet had only grazed him.
Movement from within the shadows of the mangroves caught his eye.
“Look out,” he barked, fearing another shot.
He dropped to his stomach. His shoulder protested, and he gasped with pain. A gun fired, and he heard the bullet whiz over his head.
Broken hells, whoever was shooting was definitely after him. He crawled on his belly into the deeper brush to the side of the road, lamenting that it wasn’t higher. And denser. A nice boulder field would have been appealing.
“That’s my prisoner,” Zenia shouted into the mangroves.
To Jev’s surprise, she thumped her heels to her horse’s flanks and charged in the direction of the shooter. She stayed low on her mount’s back and withdrew something from within her robes. A pistol?
Jev rose to a crouch, staying as low as he could and running toward the trees. He hated having people risking themselves to protect him, but she had ordered his weapons removed. The last he’d seen, they had been tossed into the back of one of the watch wagons.
A shot fired. Zenia roared. With pain? Or indignation?
Her horse tried to shy from its route, but she yelled and urged it forward again, then fired into the trees.
Halfway to the mangroves, Jev couldn’t see if she had a target or was merely trying to scare the shooter into stopping. He hoped she wouldn’t get herself killed on his behalf.
Jev sprinted the last hundred meters to the trees, not stopping until he was well inside the dense band that ran along the riverbanks and side streams for miles. The twilight was more like full nightfall under their sprawling canopy of branches.
Mud squished under his feet as he leaped over the high roots, making him aware of the noise he was making with his crazy run. He forced himself to slow down, then stop. He put his back to one of the trees and tried to listen to his surroundings over his own heavy breaths.
He’d gone into the trees well away from where the shooter had been, but there could be more people out here hunting innocent travelers. No, hunting him. How had he gotten into so much trouble when he’d been back on his native land for mere hours?
Stepping lightly and moving from tree to tree so he would always have cover, Jev headed in the direction the shooter had been.
A branch snapped off to his left, and he hesitated. Was that a second shooter? Or the first man running away?
A horse screeched up ahead. Jev quickened his pace, hoping the darkness would hide him and that he wouldn’t stumble upon the very people trying to kill him.
A thunk sounded, like an axe striking wood. Jev squinted into the gloom, picking out moving shapes ahead of him. Two people? Three?
“That got him.” It was the monk’s voice. Rhi.
“Who is he?” Zenia asked.
She’d dismounted—or been thrown—from her horse, and now faced her assistant. A man writhed and groaned in the mud between them.
Jev started forward, opening his mouth to warn them he approached, but a faint snap of a twig came from the left again. Someone paralleling his path?
He picked out a large figure sneaking between the trees and heading toward the women. Whoever it was seemed focused on them and unaware of him. The figure stopped and lifted an arm.
Fearing the person had a gun and was taking aim, Jev ran toward the would-be shooter.
He slipped on a protruding root and must have made some noise. The figure spun toward him. Jev was close, and instead of dodging, he dropped a shoulder and bowled into the person. A man. Jev felt muscled mass through his foe’s clothing. Fortunately, he had enough mass of his own to knock his target to the ground and land on top of him.
A thud sounded as something fell against a root. Hands reached up, grasping for Jev’s throat. He smashed an elbow into his foe’s face, and cartilage crunched. The man cried out. Jev struck again, this time slamming his elbow into the man’s solar plexus.
The squish of a boot in mud came from behind him. Not from the direction where the women had been standing.
Expecting an attack from behind, Jev rolled to the side. Another man lunged in, but he tripped on his downed comrade.
As Jev scrambled away, his hand landed on something nar
row and cool. The barrel of a rifle? He snatched it up, fingers grasping near the muzzle.
The man who’d tripped regained his feet and spun toward Jev. Jev swung the rifle like an axe, the butt smacking into the man’s temple.
A hint of orange light appeared behind Jev’s enemies, allowing him to see faces. Faces he didn’t remotely recognize.
The man he’d smacked growled and whipped a pistol up. Jev swung the rifle again even as he leaped to the side. This time, the man ducked, but having to defend himself kept him from firing.
Jev lifted the rifle over his shoulder, intending to swing it again, but something slammed into his foe from behind, and the man tumbled forward. His face smacked into a tree trunk, and he crumpled at its base.
Rhi lowered her bo. She glared at the man she’d struck, then glared at the man curled on the ground, trying to catch his breath from Jev’s blow to his chest. Finally, she glared at Jev and pointed at his rifle.
He thought she would demand that he drop it.
All she said was, “Some people like to use the end that bullets come out of.”
“I have no idea who these people are and if I should be shooting them.” Jev lowered the butt of the rifle to the ground.
“They were shooting at you.”
“I am aware of that.” Jev resisted the urge to prod his injured shoulder, though it throbbed with pain, and he could feel his sleeve sticking to the warm blood. “But I like to gather intelligence before I return fire.”
Zenia stepped into view, still holding her pistol. The soft orange glow lighting the branches and trunks around them came from the dragon-tear gem she now wore outside of her robe.
“Do you have any idea who they are?” Jev asked.
He could no longer see nor hear the commotion coming from the village up the road, and he hoped that meant the watchmen had arrived and found a way to deal with the golems. Not that such creatures were easy to deal with, even with bullets and arrows.
“Not yet,” Zenia said, “but I will.”
The one who’d smacked face-first into the tree appeared to be unconscious, but she knelt beside the one struggling to recover his breath. Jev glanced toward the third one the two women had been dealing with, but if the man was conscious, he wasn’t moving.
All three men were human and wore nondescript clothing. Jev hadn’t heard anyone speak yet, so he couldn’t verify that they’d come from within kingdom borders, but they looked like locals with the coarsely woven shirts and trousers favored by the working class in Korvann. Usually, only nobles and those who worked in the temples opted for silks and robes.
“Who are you?” Zenia asked.
“Remmy,” the only man conscious muttered.
Jev couldn’t tell if she was using magic when it wasn’t directed at him, but he suspected she was. Getting answers was exactly what she would have been trained to use a dragon tear for.
“Why did you shoot at us?”
“Not you, Inquisitor.” His eyes widened with fear as he looked up at her. “Wouldn’t pick a fight with one of the Orders or you. Just… had to get something.”
“What?”
“The Eye of Truth. Ivory. Old. She said the zyndar might have it. Big money if we could get it.”
Jev leaned against the rifle for support. How was it that the entire world knew more about this artifact than he did? And why were so many people convinced he had it? Was the charm Vastiun had worn even the right item?
“She?” Zenia stared straight into the man’s eyes. “Who sent you?”
“Iridium.”
Jev frowned. Was that a name? It sounded vaguely familiar, but more like something from Targyon’s books than a name. He’d been the only one to bring a dozen textbooks with him to the war, several on science, and he’d occasionally read to the men. Jev remembered Targyon saying he couldn’t sleep at night unless he read a few pages and learned something first. Jev wondered if he was learning about being a king now. And if he would be bothered if Jev showed up at the castle and asked for asylum.
“From the Fifth Dragon guild.” Rhi kicked a thick root that rose several feet from the mud. “Damn underworld criminals. Iridium is leading the guild now, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Zenia said. “Since her lover and the former guild leader mysteriously disappeared.”
“Mysteriously got a dagger stuck in his back before being dumped in the river, no doubt.”
Zenia focused on the thug again. “What does Iridium want with the artifact?”
“Dunno.” The thug prodded his broken nose and grimaced. “But she promised a big bonus and promotion to anyone who brought it in. Enough to make it worth getting beat up a little. The thing is magic, they say. Elf magic. But I wasn’t scared. Not of it and not of the zyndar.” His brow creased as he looked up at Zenia. He didn’t claim not to be scared of her.
“Did Iridium and your guild send the golems?” Zenia asked.
“Dunno. We were just told to wait for the zyndar to visit his castle and collect the ivory, that there’d be opportunities to take it from him on the way back to the city.”
Zenia's eyes narrowed, and Jev shifted, wondering if the stories of inquisitors being able to read minds were true.
“Opportunities,” Rhi muttered. “Right.”
“Why did they assume I would have the artifact when I was clearly your prisoner?” Jev didn’t think everything here added up. “If anything, you two should have had it.”
Zenia didn’t answer. She and the thug were still staring at each other, gazes locked and their bodies stiff, frozen in tableau.
“I’m guessing these boys weren’t doing a whole lot of thinking,” Rhi said. “Might be, they were afraid to shoot at Zenia and hoped that shooting you would somehow let them achieve their goal. Criminals never seem to mind taking out zyndar.” Rhi grinned, leaned over, and thumped Jev on the shoulder. “I should thank you. Usually, I’m the target if someone wants to irk Zenia without actually touching her.”
After dealing with the elves for so long, Jev had forgotten what it was like to be hated for the family he’d been born into and the entitlements he received. The Taziir had targeted him because he’d been an officer with a lot of knowledge. Now, he was just… he didn’t even know anymore. A man who needed to find this artifact and get it far, far away from his person, so he could go get drunk on the beach and figure out the rest of his life.
“It doesn’t sound like it’s safe to stand next to her,” he remarked since Rhi was still smirking at him and seemed to expect a reply.
“Not safe to stand next to either of you right now,” Rhi said.
Jev reached up and laid a hand over his wounded shoulder. “Not if shooting zyndar has become a popular kingdom pastime lately.”
“I was thinking of the miasma of odors wafting off you. Might knock me out if I take too big a whiff. If you get a chance tonight to stumble into the river—” Rhi waved deeper into the mangroves toward the distant sound of running water, “—you might want to take it.”
“I would happily stumble into a soap-filled bathtub if you would let me go back to my father’s castle.”
“If the Fifth Dragon are after you, you might not want to bring that trouble home,” Zenia said, rising to her feet.
The thug’s eyes were closed now. Jev blinked. Could she use her magic to knock men out? He knew he hadn’t injured the man badly enough to account for him losing consciousness.
“We taking these in?” Rhi pointed to the downed men.
“I would prefer to. Trying to kill a zyndar is highly illegal.” Zenia’s mouth twisted, and something akin to bitterness flashed in her eyes.
Trying to kill any of the king’s subjects was illegal, but it was admittedly more illegal to attempt to murder a nobleman or woman. The punishment was death instead of flogging and a fine.
“We’ll leave them unless we can catch up to the watchmen and get them to bring a wagon back here,” Zenia said. “Rhi, I want you to ride over and check on the vill
age. My horse was spooked and took off as soon as I dismounted.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with a prisoner in the woods,” Rhi said.
“Be careful too. I saw in his mind—” Zenia pointed to the thug at her feet, “—that there are many Fifth Dragon people out here. Apparently, Iridium didn’t assign an organized team to get the artifact, but rather she announced a free-for-all opportunity to everyone in her guild. The person who gets the artifact and brings it in first will receive her reward. No questions asked.”
“All the more reason why I should stay at your side.”
“If you can, bring some of the watchmen back with a wagon for our prisoners. I’ll stay here and see if I can find something to tie them up with.”
Rhi surprised Jev by giving him a frank look. “Do you like the way she ignores all my objections and just assumes I’ll do what she says?”
“Will you?” he asked.
“Well, yes, but not without a lot of surly grousing and proclamations that she’s making a big mistake.”
“How is that different from other times I’ve given you a command?” Zenia asked.
Rhi groused—in a surly manner—and thumped the butt of her bo on a root.
“Someone has to stay and watch these men and our prisoner,” Zenia said.
“Am I still a prisoner?” Jev shook the rifle, more to point out that he’d helped them than anything else, but he added, “I’m armed.”
Rhi swept her bo out, startling him. He started to step back, but the end cracked against his hand. He jerked it away, but it was attached to the wounded shoulder, and fresh pain erupted at the sudden movement. He dropped the rifle.
“No, you’re not.” Rhi picked it up.
Jev could have stopped her—she deserved a return crack on the hand, at least—but Zenia snorted. Maybe that was even a short laugh. He decided it might be safer to have her believe him unthreatening and maybe a little inept, even if his pride bristled at the idea. Then she wouldn’t watch him as closely.
“Let him keep it,” Zenia said when Rhi turned to start off with the rifle in hand. “He could have hindered us, but he helped.”
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