by AC Cobble
Balzac shook his head. “That’s not the way it works, mate. You’re in our guildhall. You answer our questions.”
“Let the girl go. Tell me who hired you,” insisted Rew. “Tell me. Then, I will answer your questions. I have nothing to hide from you, but I have something I need. Tell me who contacted you.”
Licking his lips, glancing between his superior and Rew, Balzac asked, “And what’s in it for us, Ranger, if we tell you what you want to know? You already threatened me with the rope, so why should I tell you who my contact was?”
Rew stopped walking, facing the man. “Because whoever hired you is the one that’s going to lead the spellcaster right to your guildhall.”
Balzac’s lips twisted into a sinister grin, and his gaze dropped to Zaine.
“King’s Sake, lass!” barked Rew.
“She’s been right under your nose, Ranger.” Balzac laughed. “She’s our contact, and as long as she’s in our care, she ain’t telling that spellcaster or anyone else where we are. Fortune’s dealt us the winning hand.”
To her credit, Zaine looked exceptionally guilty and remorseful.
Rew stared at her, his mind churning. His ploy to frighten the thieves into immediate action wouldn’t do a bit of good if their only tie to Alsayer was bound to a chair in the middle of the room. He heard Jon shifting, as if the younger ranger was realizing their time was almost up. If Jon sensed it, the thieves would as well.
Balzac turned to Axxon. “The King’s Ranger doesn’t have the answers we seek, but the girl does. She’s the one we need to question. Axxon, he has nothing to offer us, and he says he came alone.”
Before Axxon could respond, Rew reached up to his neck, and he twisted, yanking his cloak off and flinging it. The cloth, weighted in the corners, spun out flat, creating a flying wall between him and the crossbowmen. He launched himself toward Zaine and Balzac, drawing his hunting knife as he moved.
The thief’s smile faded, but he didn’t have time to react before Rew reached him and grabbed a handful of his tunic. Rew jerked the man around, putting him between Zaine and the crossbowmen. Then, the ranger tore his hunting knife up the back of the chair Zaine was strapped to, slicing the bindings in two. Rew kicked the back of the chair, sending Zaine sprawling, and he flung Balzac toward the crossbowmen.
The room was erupting in chaos. Several thieves advanced, but none appeared eager to engage, frightened of jumping into the line of fire for the crossbowmen. Jon drew his longsword and shuffled closer, but most of the thieves were ignoring him, focused on the action around Rew.
Balzac, regaining his balance, pulled out a wicked, curved dagger. It was the same blade he’d used to kill Arcanist Ralcrist, realized Rew. Balzac’s back was to the crossbowmen, and he seemed oblivious that it was only his body in the way that prevented the men from firing upon Rew. The ranger drew his longsword and feinted at the thief, trying to freeze Balzac in place.
“Attack him!” bellowed Axxon. “Why is no one attacking him?”
Thieves closed around Rew. The attackers carried a variety of short weapons that could easily be secreted as they moved throughout the city. Rew had an advantage with his longsword, but there were a lot of the thieves, and they weren’t blinded by rage like narjags were. These men were cunning survivors of a dangerous life of crime. Instead of charging directly at him, they began to encircle him, trusting to their numbers and that time was on their side.
“Get out of here!” Rew shouted to Zaine and Jon as he stepped away, moving into the center of the room to draw the thieves away from his companions.
Jon shuffled after him, as if he meant to engage the thieves, but Rew was surrounded, and the younger ranger had an opening to the doorway they’d entered through.
“That’s an order, Jon. Get Zaine and get out!”
Zaine stumbled to her feet, crouched low as if to fight, but her hands were empty.
Rew rushed one side of the circle that had formed around him. The thieves wheeled back, staying well out of reach of his longsword, but he kept them moving between him and the crossbowmen.
Zaine saw the opportunity and bolted, but Axxon leapt in front of her, a long, serrated knife held low in his grip. She skidded to a halt, and Jon stepped beside her.
“I’ll take him,” grunted the ranger.
Rew dodged to the side, and a thief’s dagger flashed past him. He smashed the pommel of his longsword down on the man’s wrist, hearing it crack. He turned, tangling with another thief as the man tried to grapple with him. Rew slammed his knee up, catching the man square in the crotch. The ranger shoved the quaking thief back into his companions.
Between the shoulders of the men in front of him, Rew saw Jon advancing on Axxon. The leader of the thieves’ guild, evidently not liking his chances with a dagger against a ranger with a longsword, turned and bolted down the stairs, calling for more men.
Taking a glancing blow to his arm, Rew spun and whipped his longsword across his attacker’s neck. Then, he felt the tip of another dagger dragging across his hip. He whirled, whipping his longsword around him, fighting for space, realizing he couldn’t defend himself for long. The thieves were being cautious, but they were quick and had a natural instinct to strike when his back was turned. These men were killers, and he couldn’t fight them all.
“Run, Jon, run!” Rew shouted, lurching back and forth to distract his opponents, trying to keep their attention to give the other ranger and Zaine time to escape.
Jon stared down the stairwell, listening to the shouts of more men coming up from below.
Zaine ran toward a shuttered window. She gripped the clasp and shook it, but it was fastened shut, and her panic-slowed fingers couldn’t seem to pry it open. Jon followed behind her and raised his longsword, apparently intending to bring it down and smash open the shutter.
Rew saw a blade coming at his face and leaned back, getting nicked across his chin. He snapped back and stabbed his longsword into the man who’d struck at him. A club smacked down on the ranger’s back, narrowly missing his head, and he staggered forward, cursing. He grabbed a charging thief and slung him about, throwing the slender man at his companions, fouling their path.
Across the room, Balzac had taken a crossbow from one of his men, but he wasn’t pointing it at Rew. He was pointing it at Zaine.
“Crossbow!” cried Rew, surging toward his companions, shrugging off another thief, parrying a strike from a short sword, and dancing through a pair of swinging long knives, trying to burst free from the group that swarmed around him.
Jon turned and raised his longsword. He stared down the bolts of the crossbows and bellowed over his shoulder to Zaine, “Get out!”
Zaine stood frozen behind the ranger, eyes wide.
Balzac shrugged and fired. Within a breath, the other two crossbowmen released as well. Jon spun his longsword, trying to knock down the quarrels. He clipped one, and it flew astray, thudding into the wall behind him. The other two smacked into his torso, burying themselves deep in his flesh.
“Run,” he whimpered, wavering. His longsword fell from limp fingers and thudded onto the wood floor. Jon opened his mouth again, but this time only a trickle of blood escaped his lips.
Rew slashed wildly, racing steps ahead of the thieves, jumping onto their giant meeting table, running across it, and leaping down on the other side. Two of the crossbowmen were trying to reload. Balzac threw his weapon aside and drew his curved dagger. Jon fell to his knees, gasping in pain, his blood-slick hands fumbling at the feathered quarrels sticking from him.
He rasped, seconds before collapsing onto his face, “Run, Zaine. Run!”
Rew charged straight at the girl, slashing his longsword at anyone who tried to come in front of him. She stood, paralyzed with fear, her eyes on Jon’s back where the pair of crossbow bolts had burst from his flesh like shoots of growth stabbing up from spring soil, grisly strings of blood and flesh stuck on their jagged, steel barbs.
Rew launched himself, tackling the gi
rl and sending them both flying toward the window. He hit the shutter with his shoulder at full speed. It burst open under the combined weight of him and Zaine. His momentum carried them, and they both tumbled out the window, falling into the open air.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wrapping Zaine tight in his arms, Rew crashed into the shutter, and it shattered from the impact. His thigh caught the bottom of the windowsill, and he flipped, falling out the third-story window. Zaine squealed, thrashing and struggling, her panicked eyes right in front of his.
Rew dropped his weapons, kicked his legs, and snapped out an arm to grab the windowsill as they fell from it. His fingers raked across rotten wood, and he tugged Zaine close with his other arm, but the ancient wood on the exterior of the brothel crumbled from the force of their fall. He felt the sill tearing away beneath his hand. They dropped.
He kicked out with his legs, trying to find purchase against the wall as they slid down. Toes dragged across wooden boards, his free hand slapped helplessly against each bump and protrusion from the wall, slowing them, but nothing could arrest their momentum, and they tumbled. Zaine flailed in his grasp, and he hugged her tight then twisted. His legs hit the ground first, and he tried to drop into a roll to displace the force of their fall, but with the thief in his arms, he ended up flopping hard onto the dirt street in front of the brothel.
He groaned, blinking up at the window above them. Flakes of old paint from the wall and dust from where they’d scraped and scrambled against it rained down on top of them. A thief poked his head out of the window, saw them, and pointed.
Cursing, Rew scrambled to his feet, his legs almost buckling under him, an ankle throbbed with sharp pain, and his body throbbing where it’d smacked against the hard-packed street. Half a dozen lacerations where the thieves had cut him stung something awful, but his legs weren’t broken, and after he tested his weight on it, he knew he could at least limp on his injured ankle.
He heard shouts and commotion inside. Fear propelled him like firepowder bursting from the back of a firework. Rew scrambled around, occasionally hopping on one foot, snatching his weapons and sliding them into their sheaths. He patted himself, realizing he’d lost his cloak, and shook his head, knowing even if they completed their escape, the cloak would be the least of his worries. The cloak—and Jon—were both lost.
“Come on,” he said, reaching down to grab Zaine and haul her to her feet.
“He died because of me,” she murmured.
“He did,” agreed Rew.
He grabbed the back of Zaine’s collar and shoved her down the street ahead of him, hurrying in a limping shuffle to get out of the dead-end street.
Behind them, he could hear thieves running out the door of the brothel, but he made it to the main avenue and turned toward the market. This way was becoming busy now, with people coming out to gossip and cheer. Their town had been attacked, but they had survived, and they would celebrate. Up and down the street, there were hundreds of people, and the thieves were not bold enough to come after him with so many witnesses. That, or perhaps, they were scared. Rew had been surrounded by twenty of them, trapped in their lair, and he’d escaped.
Zaine kept murmuring to herself and seemed to be paying no attention to what they were doing. The ranger held a tight grip on her, steering them both through the growing crowd.
“H-He could have moved…” she stammered. “He wasn’t the target. I was. Balzac was shooting at me. Jon could have stepped out of the way. Why didn’t he move?”
Rew let her talk, let her work it out. If she could come to terms with her actions leading to Jon’s death, maybe that would make it easier to confront the truth that she’d had a part in hundreds of other deaths as well. Maybe it would shake her out of her stupor and she would finally tell him what the hell was going on.
Blessed Mother. Jon and Tate both dead, and for what?
The Investiture, swirling gently in the far-off corner of the kingdom, and two of his men had already been killed. Jon hadn’t even known what the Investiture was. Tate hadn’t a clue of who he’d been watching in the cell. Both men killed simply because they’d encountered three younglings in a place where they didn’t belong.
Zaine, trapped in his grip, stumbled ahead of him as they approached the keep. The flags of the Fedgleys rose high, though the baron was gone and, Rew guessed, would soon be wishing he was dead. The flags of the baron, and of his children.
Raif and Cinda had been moved to their rooms to recuperate, so Rew took Zaine and Anne to a guest room in the keep and sat the thief down while Anne checked them both over. He ordered food and drink from the kitchens, but with the madness of the day, the staff could only send a loaf of two-day old bread, a sausage, and a hunk of sharp, white cheese. Luckily, they had ample supplies of ale and wine.
Rew poured himself an ale and Anne a mug of wine. He stripped off his shirt and sat on a bench, cradling his mug of ale, staring at Zaine while Anne worked behind him, poking at the various lacerations, bruises, and scrapes he’d gotten during the confrontation with the thieves, the narjags, and Alsayer’s conjurings hours before.
“Save your energy,” said Rew as Anne prodded a finger into a deep bruise.
“Rew,” she said, “you’re minced like a New Year pie.”
“You’ve spent too much already,” he argued.
“I can—” she began.
“Anne,” he interrupted. “This isn’t over. I’ll heal, so save your strength for when I cannot. No empathy, not now.”
She pinched the flesh on his shoulder where a short sword had caught him a shallow cut, and he jerked at a sudden stab of pain. She leaned close and asked, “You’re sure about that, Senior Ranger? Stitches are going to sting without my empathy.”
He grunted but did not reply. Instead, he turned to Zaine, and asked, “Who hired you, lass?”
She was sitting in a chair, looking down at her hands clasped in her lap. She’d been unarmed when he’d rescued her, but even if she had weapons, he didn’t think she’d use them to try and escape. She was still in shock, dazed at the horrors she’d seen.
“Who hired you?” he asked again, trying to be gentle, but knowing if it came to it, they didn’t have time to spare the girl’s feelings. He had to get answers only she knew.
“He died for me,” she said, looking up to meet the ranger’s stare.
“Yes,” agreed Rew, nodding to her. “He did.”
“Why?” asked Zaine.
Rew sighed and sat back.
Behind him, Anne cursed and slapped him on his bare back. “Hold still or I’m going to do more damage with this needle than good.”
Grunting, Rew settled down, and in between short gasps as Anne began to stitch him, he explained to Zaine, “Jon was a ranger in the king’s service. Part of our role is to protect the people of the realm, even thieves. Did he put a lot of thought into it before he held his ground and took those quarrels for you? I don’t know. Would he do it again, give his life to save yours? Yes, I think he would. Jon sensed something in you, lass. He sensed a goodness, despite the facts of the matter. You’re a thief, and much of what happened today could be laid at your feet, but Jon wouldn’t have believed all of this was your intent. Tell me, was Jon correct? Is there some good in you? What’s going on, lass? Was his sacrifice worth it?”
“I’ve never had anyone do something like that for me,” said Zaine, still lost in her own thoughts.
“Few of us have,” remarked Rew. He shifted, risking Anne’s wrath. The girl was young, nearly a child, but not one. He glanced at the table where they’d set their food. Should he offer her a drink? Maybe that would loosen her up, pull her out of her leaden stupor.
“Zaine,” said Anne.
The girl looked up at the empath.
“Jon died for you,” stated Anne. “He gave his life so that you could live. He would have wanted you to answer our questions.”
Zaine looked away. “He shouldn’t have traded his life for mine. If he’
d moved, Balzac would have fired on me, not Jon. It’s not—“
“He didn’t move,” said Anne, stepping around Rew and stabbing a finger at the young thief. “He died to save you. He died so that others can live. Can you make his sacrifice mean something and answer the senior ranger’s questions? What you know could save the lives of countless others.”
Zaine frowned then shook her head. “I-I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I want to believe you,” said Rew. “How about you start from the beginning? Tell us how you became involved in this mess.”
Zaine shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Two years ago, I was an apprentice in the thieves’ guild here. I know it’s not an honorable path, but it was the only one I thought I had. My parents died, and I lived with my uncle and my aunt. They couldn’t afford me any longer, and they’d decided to sell me. It’s against kingdom law, but it’s known Fedgley looks the other way for the brokers who line his pockets well. A girl like me? There’s only one profession I’d be sold into. My uncle and aunt both knew it, but they planned it all the same. I was warned by a friend, and I ran.”
Rew grimaced and drank his ale. Such things were not common in the kingdom, but they were known to happen. That Fedgley allowed it within his barony turned the ranger’s stomach.
Zaine continued, “I’d rather the streets or starvation than that. And well, that’s just about what I got. I had no skills that might earn me an honest living, and the inns and taverns who might’ve hired me refused when I couldn’t provide any references. They were worried I’d bring trouble. I thought I’d found a seamstress who would take me as an apprentice ‘til she caught her husband speaking to me. I scraped by for a bit, but before long, I was on the streets, picking at food behind the taverns, fighting the other urchins there. One day, the thieves scooped me up and gave me a choice. They told me I could join as one of them or work downstairs with the girls in the old brothel that used to house the guild. In the brothel, they would have offered me double until my sixteenth winter, but I told you, that’s not a life I was willing to live. I don’t think the thieves cared much either way, but I chose to be a thief. At least stealing… I knew it wasn’t right then, and I know it’s not right now, but somehow, taking from others seemed more honorable. Maybe that’s just a story I tell myself, but I chose the way I did, and I won’t hide from that.”