by Jackson Lear
I stopped. Lieutenant swore at me from under his breath. I glared back at two of Vanguard’s ugliest. They would be quick to draw their weapons, no question there. That they hadn’t done it yet gave me hope. I shot them a look of impatience and gave them my best interpretation of a Gereran accent. “What?”
The uglier one stopped a short distance away, squinting at me like he wasn’t sure if he heard me correctly. “What the hell the do you mean, ‘what’?”
I didn’t catch a whiff of alcohol. A little of it would’ve been a good sign. A lot would’ve been a problem, as drunks looking for a fight tend to hit that sweet spot of dominance and reckless abandon. Sober meant they were on patrol. “We have permission,” I said.
They eased back a notch. Not much, but enough to put a moment of doubt in their mind. “Who from?”
“The old woman.”
“Women aren’t the ones handing out permission here, pal.”
“Then let’s say it’s from Desten the Leaf, all right? We have a deal with you guys.”
They eased back another notch, resentful that their authority was being undermined. The chattier one shifted his attention to Lieutenant. “How come you have a sword?”
In all my years in the Governor’s Hand, I’d never heard Lieutenant pull off a convincing foreign accent. He would be largely out of the conversation, unless these two were exceptionally stupid. He lifted his chin, giving the twosome one hell of a condescending look, and spoke quietly to me. “We don’t have time for this.”
“It’s for tying up loose ends,” I said. I motioned back to Lieutenant. “Let’s go.” I turned, showing my back to Vanguard for the first time in my life. I half expected a dagger to skewer me in that second. I might’ve been able to fight back, I might even have gotten a lucky hit, but a knife in my back would still see me dead before midnight.
“We didn’t say you could go,” said the one who had remained silent until now.
“So take it up with your boss,” I said, and continued walking. The less I said, the less they could latch onto.
Lieutenant stayed by my side, silent. I kept my ears primed, listening for a rush of boots or a whispered spell. Maybe one of them would listen in on us when we thought we were far enough away to not be heard. Maybe he’d hear us say, ‘that was close’ or something else that would expose us. Instead, we carried on in silence.
For the next hour, Lieutenant walked with his eyebrows knotted together, thinking over what those two had revealed about Vanguard’s operation. Someone else was working in their territory. Desten the Leaf was known to them. Whoever took Día looked like us and didn’t walk around with swords.
I asked Lieutenant, “How much would we charge to allow someone else to come into our quarter and kidnap an orphan?”
Lieutenant blew out a long breath of air. “I’ve been trying to figure that one out too. The potential for a mess that had to be cleaned up is high. Sestas, merchants, and orphans talk. There’s a good chance of something going wrong. Even if we held one of theirs as insurance until their kidnapping and murder was done, as a guarantee that no clean up would be necessary, we would still charge the earth.”
“A lot of money and a lot of risk to kidnap one orphan.”
“Maybe someone has finally figured out how to turn stone into gold.”
We reached the river. We weren’t far from Long Bridge now. I pulled out the note left behind by Día’s kidnappers and studied it for a while.
“You getting anything from that?” asked Lieutenant.
“Yeah. I can tell you that our day is about to get a lot more lively.”
Lieutenant squinted at me. Crow’s feet formed around his eyes. “Do I need to sit down to hear it?”
“Probably. You know how no one cares that an orphan is about to be murdered?”
“Yeah?”
“I know how to make rescuing her become the city’s highest priority.”
Chapter Fifteen
The chill from the evening breeze often made the river shimmer with a rolling mist. Whenever the pockets of fog lifted you could see the briar fish within the water snap and attack each other. They’d fight with a crackling light bursting around them then settle into the dark depths below. Many a drunken fool has been sure they saw the ghost of a loved one down there, calling to them. They’d reach over and fall into the middle of a school of stinging fish.
Greaser and Runaway made their way over the bridge. “What happened to you two?”
Lieutenant looked my way. “Mr. Debonair here decided it would be entertaining to ask Vanguard a couple of question.” It took me a few years to learn what ‘debonair’ meant and many more to learn how to spell it.
Greaser eyed me up. “Oh yeah? How’d that work out for you?”
“They know that someone from another city is working in their territory. The old woman wasn’t known to be giving orders. They are familiar with the name Desten the Leaf. They didn’t like that Lieutenant carried a sword with him.”
“So they brought their own security people,” said Greaser.
Runaway nodded along. “Working in someone else’s territory would cost a lot of money.”
I agreed. “How’d you guys go?”
“We were less successful than you two,” said Greaser. “We found Día’s old home in Miller’s Den. She ain’t there. Her folks died years ago, she was raised by her aunt then by her brother. Her brother was caught for stealing, lost his hand. An infection took the rest of him. Día has been at the orphanage since she was eleven. We moved on and went to Five Corners. Gotta tell you, Desten the Leaf is a bit of an odd ball.”
“He ain’t kidding,” muttered Runaway.
“There are three Desten the Leafs. Grandfather, father, son. All doctor types. I’m not sure which one of them owns the double-door room that Día was held in but the family owns a two story building in the heart of Vanguard territory. A healing practice operates on the ground floor. No one lives on the one above. All three Destens spent some time in Genera training to be doctors.”
“Anything unusual?”
Greaser shook his head. “Nothing that seems to be related to a missing girl. We went inside, looked around the pots and sacks. Downstairs seems legit. Upstairs is mostly storage. More pots, more sacks. There was a single work bench up there, recently used. Lots of chips, knife scoring, dings, and dents. That’s where they make a lot of their ointment.”
“Any Childer’s Kiss?” I asked.
“Yeah but come on, we use that stuff as well.”
I mulled it over for a moment, trying to find something that connected an old woman in Black Rock to the Destens in Five Corners. “How close to Vanguard’s base is the healing practice?”
“Depends. Where’s Vanguard’s base?”
We all looked at each other blankly.
“Is Desten’s place close to the orphanage? Or where Día went missing?”
“About a mile from both, I’d say.”
“Has anyone seen any of the Destens lately?”
“Not for years,” said Greaser.
“Did anyone see any big baskets arrive during the night? Or litters? Or a cart?”
“I asked. They get carts coming and going every day, loaded up with sacks, pots, and the like. Even so, I don’t think Día was there. She’s definitely not there now. We went in actively looking for her or anyone who was holding her prisoner. No one.”
“And that’s the only other place belonging to Desten the Leaf?”
Greaser nodded. “The family used to live on the second floor.”
“So what are they doing with the double-door place where Día was held?”
“It’s not exactly an investment opportunity, not when it remains empty,” said Runaway.
One by one they looked my way, ready for me to figure out what to do next. So far we had nothing on the old woman in Black Rock. We had no idea where Día was, we had no idea how someone could summon the Eyeless Ghost … the only thing we really had to go on was the note left behind an
d the piece of tile that held it in place on the wall.
I thought back to Relund, at his nonchalance when he said that no one from the city watch came to ask after Día. I thought back to Kasera’s head of security at the orphanage, there to save face on behalf of her boss.
We needed a new plan.
Greaser eyed me carefully. “Let’s hear it.”
I had a feeling they were about to regret helping me. I also had the feeling that the Captain would have to find another list to put me on when I was done explaining myself because simply being on his shit list would be a relief compared to what I would soon deserve.
“We go on the attack,” I said. “Provoke whoever has Día into making a mistake and force them to keep her alive.”
Greaser growled at me, reading me. Or perhaps he’d heard this suggestion before. “How?”
“We kidnap someone else and put the blame on whoever took Día. It might be the only way to keep her alive.”
Greaser’s growl turned into a thick mess of eyebrows almost hiding his eyes, a piercing squint that constricted my chest. “Who?”
“One of the high-borns,” I said.
A silent conversation rippled between Lieutenant and Runaway. Lieutenant was already nodding.
“… How would that keep her alive?” asked Runaway.
I had one chance before Greaser shot me down for fucking around with the wealthiest and most connected assholes around. “The deal with Vanguard is that one person is kidnapped, not two. Two causes a shitstorm of problems for both sides that they can’t control. If the city watch discover that Día is dead, they’ll be convinced that the high-born we’ve kidnapped will also have died and they won’t stop until they find whoever wrote Día’s note. If Vanguard cooperates, they get to live. If they don’t, they’ll be hanged.”
Lieutenant was gently nodding by my side. “I hate to say it but kidnapping someone who’s important to the city and holding them hostage until Día is released isn’t the worst of ideas. These people have left a trail of clues over the last twenty years. People will talk. People will inform the city watch. Going on the attack is a good idea.”
Greaser squinted at us both. “How high-born are we talking?”
So far that was the entirety of what Lieutenant knew of my plan. “If, say, the governor’s daughter was taken–” The fellas became quite animated at that moment. “–If the governor’s daughter was taken and if Día is found with her throat slit, then the kidnappers won’t have a hope in hell of convincing the governor that his daughter isn’t dead. If Día dies, they die.”
“And the person we kidnap?”
“We’ll play that one by ear.”
Runaway was shaking his head at me. “This is waaay beyond our capabilities, even with the full company behind you.”
“We’ve done it before though,” I said. “Kidnapping and ransom. We’ve targeted the wealthy quite a few times.”
“Yeah, but never the governor and only ever for money.”
Greaser peered off into the distance. “Not always. There have been times when we’ve held onto someone for a while just to make someone else behave.”
“But the governor isn’t going to ‘just behave,’” said Runaway. “He has an army. Wait, not just an army, a legion. They’re what? Seven thousand strong?”
“Yeah,” said Greaser.
“And we have forty five. Let’s not forget that General Kasera is just a couple of miles from us, General Renair could be here by this time tomorrow, and the city watch will jump at every order coming from any of those three. That would be at least ten thousand swords and mages swooping down on us. In a single day the governor could take every door in Erast, set fire to them, and let all the nosey neighbors peer into the next house and see who, in fact, has kidnapped one of his kids.”
“Then you better hope the governor doesn’t have a daughter the same age as Día,” I said.
Runaway slumped against the bridge.
“Has three sons,” said Greaser. “Adults now, I think. The youngest is in the army making a name for himself.”
“Well, thank fuck for that,” muttered Runaway.
“Plus the governor, Renair, and Kasera will be in Ispar for the Emperor’s coronation,” said Lieutenant. “Maybe they took their families with them.”
“For the fourth time in a year?” asked Greaser.
“Given the emperor’s reputation, I’d go to Ispar if I was duly summoned,” said Runaway.
“Not any of them then,” I said. “But this is still what we do, right? We provoke action and we rattle people in the right direction.”
Lieutenant bit back on his lips, reluctant to acknowledge that this was one of our strongest points as a company of bad guys.
“We need someone with influence to lead the charge and save this girl. We just might have to kidnap one of their kids to make it happen.”
“Does it need to be a girl?” asked Runaway.
“They fight less,” said Greaser. “Easier to handle. Noisy, though.”
“It’ll be better if we can use the same note,” I said. “These guys will have an army of mages at the ready. Maybe they’ll find something we’ve missed.”
Greaser sneered at me. “We’re an army of mages and we didn’t find anything on the note.”
“Still, they might,” I said. “If not one of the governor’s kids then who else in Erast can we get?”
“Anyone important enough to get this thing going will be well protected,” said Lieutenant. “One of the merchants is probably your best bet.”
“Yeah, there’s plenty of those,” said Greaser. “Just take your pick really.”
They started to rattle off names but they were all families under our protection. None had any connection to the Red Hill orphanage or the city watchmen who came to the orphanage to investigate. Given that Día disappeared on the southern most edge of the city, we needed someone from that area as well. Before long I found them all staring at me. “What?”
“Do any of these names help?”
“No. They’re all our people. If we take one of them, they’ll just come straight to us to sort it out and the Captain won’t want to piss off our main source of livelihood.”
They shared a nervous look, one where a bad idea was about to ruin their lives. Unfortunately for them, I knew of someone who was still in town and had a history of throwing his weight around to get what he wanted.
“The captain of the city watch. What do we know about his family?”
Chapter Sixteen
Lieutenant, Runaway, and Greaser stared at me like I had finally lost my mind. I had been awake for a day and a half already, preparing myself for whatever was coming our way. Perhaps a life of sleep deprivation had actually warped me for good.
“Who the hell would kidnap someone from his family?” asked Runaway.
“And expect to get away with it?” added Lieutenant.
“Us,” I said. “It gets us right to the source of the investigation. Whoever we take, their parents are going to go to the city watch, right? That takes time. They might not even find the note or know what it says. And we’d be fucked if they go to one of the other companies, expecting them to deal with this privately instead of going to the city watch. Hitting the captain’s family limits the chances of this screwing up. So, can it be done?”
They needed a moment to check with themselves to see if they had heard me correctly.
“I mean, yeah, it can be done,” said Lieutenant.
“Castor has at least one kid,” said Runaway. “A boy?”
“Has to be a girl,” I said. “Someone between the ages of ten and thirteen.”
Lieutenant huffed to himself. “If you’re going that specific, I’ve got two families you can choose from. Luckily for you, they both have an eleven year old daughter called Vanara.”
“Fuck off if you think we’re abducting a general’s daughter,” said Greaser.
Lieutenant grinned at the sheer lunacy we were heading in
to. “I’m telling you, you want to get shit done, start at the top. General Kasera isn’t that far away. General Renair … all right, he’s in the next city over but we could be there by this time tomorrow.”
“Too far away,” I said.
“Not to mention stupid,” said Greaser.
“It’s exactly in line with what Raike is talking about,” said Lieutenant.
“I’m not saying it’s a stupid idea. For this conversation it’s perfect. Raike wants to cut out all risk of this note not being read and he wants people out there looking for this girl. Renair and Kasera have thousands of people jumping at their orders. But even going after Castor’s family is going to ruin us, and it will ruin us.”
Runaway shook his head at all three of us. “Thank shit we don’t live anywhere near Ispar or we’d be talking about the emperor’s kids like this.”
Greaser sighed at me. “You know he’ll find where we all live, right? Bust through every door between us and him and have us all decapitated. And if he can’t get away with doing that, he’ll get Kasera to do it.”
“Kasera outranks him,” said Lieutenant.
“He’ll still ask for help,” said Greaser. “Kasera could say that we are rebels, part of a rising movement against the new emperor. The general stepped in to help defeat these kidnappers who threatened the safety of the empire.”
I looked to Greaser. “When you were in the army, how many of your battles took place in the middle of a city?”
“Two.”
“And those were main cities, right? Wide open roads? None of this twisting and turning shit we have here. His archers and cavalry would be useless. His mages won’t have a clear line of sight on any of us. The city is our stronghold. We work well in pairs and we move well across the rooftops, they don’t. You know their capabilities better than I do. How many troops would they need to guarantee a win?”
Greaser shook his head as he tried to run through the numbers. “Ten of his for every one of us.”
“One of Castor’s daughters isn’t worth losing five hundred guys, is she?”
Lieutenant butted in. “Not to put a dampener on things but doesn’t every army have at least one assassin among them? Someone who remains out of uniform and infiltrates the enemy camp with a cleverly concealed weapon?”