by Carol A Park
“Are you well?” Caira asked.
“I’ll live,” Ivana snapped. “Why are you still here?”
“Where else would I go?”
She didn’t want to deal with this right now. She was physically and mentally exhausted, and worse, she felt that crack like a splinter beneath her skin. She wanted to tend to her wound, get a bath and go to bed, so that she could rise fresh and begin preparations for how she was going to handle this complication that had arisen in her life.
She pushed aside her own desires for the time being.
“Where are the others?”
“Nearby.”
Too nearby, no doubt. “Then, since you were so foolish as to stay here, you can have the task of retrieving them.”
Caira nodded again, and turned to go. But she paused at the threshold of the kitchen. “Da?”
“What is it?”
“How…how did you learn to fight like that?”
Ivana rubbed one hand over her face and then turned to face Caira. “A long-forgotten diversion from my youth,” she said. “I suppose it came back to me in my time of need.”
Caira studied her for a moment, and then nodded and left through the kitchen door.
Ivana put her back to the wall, closed her eyes, and slid down it until she reached the floor.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure the story sticks.”
Oh for— “The gods smite me ten thousand times over, why in the abyss are you still here? Did I not give an order?”
Aleena moved closer. “I followed it.”
“Caira was still here.”
“She wouldn’t leave. I think she was hoping a monster would crush the inn with her inside. We took her babe with us, though.”
Ivana exhaled. “Why did you come back? You shouldn’t have left the girls.”
“You weren’t explicit on that point. I wanted to make sure you were well.”
Ivana struggled to her feet. Why in the abyss did everyone suddenly care about her wellbeing? “Your primary task is always—always—to make sure the women and children are safe.”
“They care about you, you know. We all do.”
Ivan stiffened. “They shouldn’t.” She looked out the window. Dal Heilyn was gone. She turned to leave.
“Ivana—”
She whirled around. “You will address me as Da. Now, go help Caira find the others, get some sleep, and attend me first thing in the morning. We have something we need to discuss.”
Aleena lifted her chin and met Ivana’s eyes. “Yes, Da,” she said, but there was no submission in her voice. She turned and left.
Ivana exhaled again. She had spent years meticulously crafting her world, keeping every piece under control and in its proper place.
It was unraveling, and she didn’t like it.
Of course, it was bound to happen eventually. The world she had made would become the world she deserved.
She roused herself and started back down the hall. But that didn’t mean it had to be this day.
Vaughn stood on top of the monster, watching the retreat of the assassin until she disappeared back into the inn, unable to help but admire her—in more than one way. She had fire, that was for sure. Then again, he supposed such qualities were useful for an assassin.
He shook his head. But it was a cold fire. She had stalked straight past half a dozen bodies, some mangled beyond recognition, without even pausing to look.
He looked. He always forced himself to. From his vantage, he could see the entirety of the destruction that the beast had caused. It could have been much, much worse, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t bad.
In addition to the corpses Sweetblade had passed, another dozen were scattered around the square in various states of wholeness. Eight of those were the unfortunate Watch; the rest were from the mob: men, women, though thankfully no children. The reinforcements had started to arrive, and some were now moving among the bodies, checking for signs of life. Others were picking their way into the damaged buildings.
For most of the dead, it was their own idiotic fault. He would never understand it. Everyone knew if a Banebringer were killed, the death would pull a monster from the abyss. Yet, if the circumstances were right, people would still allow themselves to become whipped into a mindless fury, heedless of the danger to themselves or anyone else, simply because Banebringers were that hated.
But the carnage wasn’t limited to those who had come with the mob. He didn’t know if anyone had been killed when the monster had crushed buildings around it. And the Watch weren’t part of the mob. They were merely doing their duty.
It was a bitter reminder of what could happen simply because he and others like him existed. He never wanted to forget that. Never wanted to be tempted not to care, like some others, simply because they hated him.
Someone called to him from below, and he glanced down to see two Watchmen and a rotund, balding man at the side of the monster. One of the Watchmen was an officer. The bald man was twisting a hat in his hand, casting fearful glances at the monster.
“Pardon, Dal!” the officer shouted. “Could you come down?”
Vaughn gave a brief wave to indicate his acquiescence, but before clambering down off the beast he retrieved his arrows. The only reason they had slid so easily through the monster’s flesh was due to the beastblood aether infused into the heads. While the suspicious silvery substance would be sealed inside, he didn’t need to take any chances. He had already drawn enough attention to himself.
When he reached the ground, the two soldiers bowed deeply. “Dal,” the officer said, “this man says you were involved in slaying this beast.”
“I’ve some skill with the bow,” Vaughn said, lifting his bow for emphasis. “I did what I could.”
“Some arrows,” the officer said, eyeing Vaughn’s quiver.
Vaughn shifted and shrugged the quiver farther back on his shoulders, glad he had retrieved the arrows. “My cousin is a master smith,” he said. “Sometimes it seems he can work magic at his forge.” He wanted to be away from their scrutiny—and away from the assassin who was now going to be pursing him.
As if having his own personal Hunter on his tail wasn’t enough.
“If I could, Watchman…?” the bald man interjected.
The officer waved at him, and the man scurried away. Thankfully, the interruption seemed to distract the officer from the subject of Vaughn’s arrows.
“I’m told you’re not from around here.”
Vaughn’s mind worked. “Ah, no. I was a guest at the inn over there.” He waved in the general direction of Sweetblade’s inn.
“Well, regardless, the Ri will want to know your name so you can be properly rewarded.”
Vaughn paused. Of course. The king encouraged the Ri and Gan to give generous rewards to subjects who slew bloodbane. He said it encouraged “citizen responsibility” to chip away at their numbers. What it really did was encourage young, foolish men to commit suicide. Still, every bit helped—and as a bonus, the nobles who had the luck of rewarding such subjects were recognized at court, as if they themselves had done the slaying.
But what a way to start his next stint at laying low. This was why he hunted monsters out where there were no nobles to use him as a trophy; only poor, grateful villagers.
At least, why he used to hunt monsters in such places. He had to disappear, and fast.
“And the shoemaker says there was a woman with you as well,” the officer said before he could reply, raising an eyebrow in question.
An idea came to him. Could Sweetblade be convinced he wasn’t a threat? Perhaps, but only if he had time to do so.
“My name is Heilyn. And, yes,” he said. “There was a woman. And if she hadn’t helped me, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
“Truly? We assumed he didn’t see right, with all the excitement…” The officer shrugged. “Who is she?”
He did not, in fact, know her real name. “The innkeeper where I was staying.”
; The officer’s mouth dropped open. “An innkeeper helped you take down this monster?”
“So it would seem.”
The officer nodded again. “Well, Dal Heilyn, if you’ll stay put for a day or two, you’ll likely receive a message from the Ri.”
Vaughn bowed again, and the two Watchmen turned to leave. He had just made an incredible gamble in order to keep the assassin off his back for a little while longer. It likely wouldn’t turn out well, but with both a Hunter and an assassin after him, he would never be able to leave the safety of the Ichtaca again.
He ambled toward the inn, keeping an eye on the Watchmen, and then stopped on the other side of the monster’s body, where they wouldn’t be able to see him.
A silvery sheen coated the ground around a woman’s body where a normal person’s pool of blood would be—solidified aether from the Banebringer.
Some of the aether had already been crushed beyond his ability to easily transport under the feet of the mob—and monster, no doubt—but a good portion was still relatively intact.
He didn’t know what kind of Banebringer she had been, but he could make an educated guess. Bindbloods were some of the Banebringers who were caught most frequently, usually because they couldn’t resist using their abilities to help people. And if there was any truth to the correlation between the frequency of aether use and the strength of the bloodbane summoned…
He couldn’t just leave without taking some of the aether. He glanced around. The Watchmen were still out of sight; he could hear them talking from the other side of the monster. He glanced up at the windows before him. Was anyone still watching? If they had sense, they would have fled.
His eyes roved to each window, checking to be sure there were no curious faces pressed to panes of glass, and he saw no one.
Reasonably satisfied he was out of sight from inquisitive eyes, he pried up a hefty chunk of the aether and then pocketed it. The priests, when they finally arrived to clean up the profane substance before it could do something completely fictitious like, oh, contaminate the water supply, wouldn’t notice one piece of the aether missing amidst all that had already been crushed.
And with a final glance around him and at the windows again, he left the square and entered a nearby alley.
To anyone who would be watching, it would appear that he never left it.
Chapter Six
Buying Time
Ivana drew the cup of tea she had been nursing closer to herself. It had gone tepid, but she took a sip anyway, and then wrapped her fingers around the body of the cup. She glanced out the window, taking a mental break from pondering her plans on how to deal with Heilyn beyond tasking Aleena with discovering his whereabouts.
The sun was well on its way to its place of rest. A group of priests had already been by to gather up the aether left behind by the Banebringer woman, and a group of workmen had removed the human corpses—or what was left of them. Then, a different group of men had stood around and argued for an hour, presumably about the best way to remove the monster’s body, which was far too large and heavy to drag through the streets.
Finally, they had brought in a cart and secured the services of a priest, who was now moving about the carcass, touching joints and muttering whatever arcane words made his magic work. Now and again, a small puff of smoke rose from his hands, and some of the men came with large saws to cut through the weakened joint and haul away a finger or a toe. Currently, they were working on dragging one of its forearms over to the cart.
A slow process that would likely continue all week.
She sighed. Her inn was quiet and empty. Anyone with half a brain had fled; she hadn’t seen a single guest since she had forced herself out of bed this morning, and likely wouldn’t until they managed to get rid of that monstrosity—especially if they left it long enough to start putrefying.
Enormous, rotting carcasses in the square weren’t exactly good for business.
That was why she was surprised when a strange man walked through the door of her inn as the sun was setting.
He wore the livery of the Ri of Weylyn—currently a man named Talesin—but had the dark skin of a man from the southern region of Donia, darker even than the deep bronze of her home region of Ferehar.
He made straight for her and bowed low when he reached her. “Pardon me, but I’m looking for the proprietor of this inn, a Da Ivana.”
She put on her most gracious smile, rose, and curtsied. “That would be me, Dal. How may I serve?”
His eyes swept over her critically. “I bear a message from Ri Talesin for you and a Dal Heilyn, a guest here.”
She took one long, slow breath in through her nose. To the abyss with him. What now?
“All of my guests have fled,” she said, “and none have returned yet that I am aware of. However, I will hear your message and pass it along should the guest in question return.”
“Very well. My master would like you and Dal Heilyn to accompany me back to his estate, so that he might personally extend his gratitude for your recent service to the region.”
“My recent service, Dal?”
“It has been reported to Ri Talesin that you and Dal Heilyn were instrumental in slaying the bloodbane which appeared here last night.”
Reported, indeed. By none other than Heilyn himself, she was sure.
“Oh!” she said, putting a hand to her chest, feigning surprise while her mind skimmed through all her options. “I didn’t know anyone even noticed.” Public recognition for skills she preferred to keep quiet was the last thing she wanted. But she couldn’t deny the messenger’s identification of her as taking part in the slaying. All it would take would be for Caira to walk in and confirm his words in an idle comment. Neither could she refuse to go with him, as that would be unthinkably rude for a common, humble innkeeper like herself—not to mention she would draw attention to herself for the insanity of refusing a reward.
She was going to kill Dal Heilyn. Literally. But that was nothing new. Could she do worse than kill him? “I would be honored. What time should I be present?”
“The Ri already had plans to leave this morning for his country estate,” the messenger said. “Therefore you and Dal Heilyn are to join him there at a banquet where you will be honored. A second caravan is leaving for his estate tomorrow; I will return in the morning to collect you so that you may join it. Please make sure Dal Heilyn attends.”
As the messenger was speaking, Heilyn waltzed in from the hallway to the rooms, carrying a satchel and his bow.
That invisibility trick was really starting to annoy her.
“I heard my name.” He bowed to the messenger. “Dal Heilyn.”
“Ah. So you are still here. I will leave the explanation to Da Ivana, as I have other matters to attend to. Good day.”
Ivana resisted the urge to sneer at the messenger’s back as he left. The Ri’s country estate. A day’s journey there and back, not to mention the two or three days at the estate himself. How typical of a noble. If he really cared about those he was rewarding, he would have put off his plans to leave the city for another day. It probably didn’t even occur to him what a hardship it would be for most commoners to simply go off gallivanting through the countryside at a moment’s notice, even for a substantial reward.
But she had more pressing aggravations, the most important of which was standing just out of arm’s reach.
Vaughn gave her a broad smile when she turned to look at him. “Ivana, is it?”
She didn’t return his smile. He had trapped her—again. She couldn’t dispose of him now, not without drawing additional attention to herself and the entire affair. It would have to wait until after they collected the reward, and eyes were turned the other way. “I suppose you think you’re clever,” she said.
“Not at all,” he said. “Merely resourceful.”
“All this does is buy you time.”
“I’m aware. But I’ve bought a lot of time in my life.” He winked. “I’m becoming quit
e the haggler.”
Insufferable—
A trill of laughter sounded from the hallway, and a moment later, Ohtli’s little boy ran into the common, straight for the front door.
Ohtli chased after him, dismay on her face. “Oh, no, no! Please don’t go out there…”
He giggled and hurtled onward, glee at escaping his mother giving him extra energy.
He ran right past Dal Heilyn, who reached down to scoop him up as he passed by. He flew him through the air, much to the boy’s delight, and right back into Ohtli’s arms. “Oh no, you don’t,” he said.
“Oh!” Ohtli exclaimed, looking up at Heilyn with wide eyes. “Thank you, Dal…”
He bowed, giving Ohtli a charming smile; no, not a charming smile, that charming smile. “Of course, Da. Not a pretty sight out there for anyone’s eyes, let alone a little one.”
Ohtli blushed, returned his smile, and curtsied.
Ivana’s stomach soured at her distaste for this man. “Ohtli,” Ivana said. “Could you please find Aleena? Tell her to meet me at room four.”
Ohtli looked away from Heilyn and to the ground. “Of course, Da.” She curtsied again, this time to Ivana, and hurried away, child now snugged to her hip, but not without another backward glance at Heilyn, who winked at her.
“You will follow me,” Ivana said to Heilyn. She just had to make it through this. And then…
“Room four?” Vaughn asked Sweetblade as he followed her down the hall. Sweetblade didn’t respond.
Vaughn hoped that wasn’t code for “torture room,” or some such. He was reasonably certain Sweetblade wouldn’t dare to murder him now, not while Ri Talesin was expecting both of them. Still, there was a lot a person could do beside murder.
“If you think I’m following you into another—”
Sweetblade stopped, unlocked a door labeled with a large numeral “4,” and pushed the door open. “You will stay here until we leave.”
He peeked through the door. It was, in fact, a comfortably furnished guest room. “Ah.”