by Jackson Lear
She looked for an opening, the time slipping away, then came a glint in her eye. A curiosity. Something that needed to be tested. She lunged again, towards Lieutenant’s throat, then to his knees. He checked the first strike, fumbled the second, and retreated backward. He brought his sword back into an attack position.
A smile crossed Zara’s face. “A decent swordsman would’ve fought back.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” said Lieutenant.
“I’m not sure you could with that.” She looked across the rooftops surrounding us and stepped back, keeping her spear pointing at Lieutenant. “Sunset. Myalla. At the orphanage. There will be repercussions if she isn’t with you.” She stepped away, pulling back around the corner, and disappeared from sight.
Lieutenant sheathed his sword and mocked Zara’s accent. “‘I’m not sure you could with that.’ Bullshit.”
I said, “You’re pretty good at defending yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“But that’s about it.”
Greaser and Runaway made their way down from the roof. “You look like shit.”
No kidding. After being hit a couple of times by Vanguard’s finest, hauling ass from Castor’s men, then being catapulted into Kasera’s compound, I no longer felt my best. “How long have you been following us?”
“About a minute before she took the blindfold off.”
“So she knew she was being followed,” I said.
“Probably. She undid your ropes when she saw Runaway.”
“Not my fault,” said Runaway.
Greaser said, “I saw you take a flying leap over Kasera’s wall. How’d that landing work out for you?”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah. And you’re still alive. You must be the best negotiator we’ve ever seen.”
“Kasera’s kid wants to be a senator. She thinks her involvement in rescuing Myalla Castor will win her some favor.” I turned to Lieutenant. “I need a spare blade.”
“You lost yours?”
“The Kaseras are minding it for me until I find a way of getting it back.”
Lieutenant dug into the rear of his clothes and pulled out the dinkiest dagger I had ever seen a grown man carry.
I stared back at it, dumbfounded. “What the hell happened to the sword I gave you earlier?”
“You said it was a present so I’m keeping it. You can borrow my dagger for the time being.”
I strapped it to the inside of my outfit.
“Your girlfriend seems nice.”
“And capable,” said Greaser. “Which means you’re pretty much fucked. Both of you.”
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“Because a general’s head of security is never out of uniform unless the general is as well. She came to the orphanage dressed like us. You boys have just been chatting up Kasera’s personal assassin.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I filled the fellas in on what I had learned from Kasera, his daughter, and Zara. Doctors. Vanguard are in on it. Well connected.
“That’s what I got, too,” said Greaser. “I followed your lady friend from the orphanage. She headed back towards Kasera’s compound. About half a mile out she found a runner in army uniform. Gave him a message to deliver. I followed him. He brought me to Desten the Leaf’s building in Five Corners.”
“A soldier walked straight into the heart of Vanguard territory?” asked Runaway.
Greaser shrugged. “No one fucks with a guy in uniform. They’ll just keep him from seeing anything incriminating. He went into Desten’s building, spent enough time in there to deliver a verbal message and left. I stayed. Nothing happened for a while. Someone finally came out, crossed the road, went inside one of Vanguard’s buildings, and a new runner ran off. About fifteen years old. A new recruit. I followed him to an inn in the south. He was inside for a minute, came out, looked around like he was trying to figure out where to go next. He asked a couple of people walking by, one of them pointed north. He came back a while later with a litter. Two nicely dressed people came out of the inn. One old, the other half his age. The old one moved well. No obvious aches or pains. They got into the litter and headed west, taking one of the main roads out of the city. The twosome looked similar enough, like they were father and son.”
“I spoke with them briefly,” I said. “Probably two of the three Destens.”
“That’s what I figured. I went into the inn, asked around. If they are the real Destens then they used a different name. They were the only two likely people staying there who might be the ones we’re after. If there are more in their group they’re staying somewhere else. No one had seen a young girl there. I went after the litter and caught up to it as it headed towards Kasera’s compound. I saw you leap over the wall and get arrested. The Destens stayed for a while, left in the same litter, and at that point I went to find Lieutenant and Runaway.”
“What kind of daring rescue plan did you come up with?” I asked.
“No plan. We were just going to tell the Captain that everything went tits-up because you’re not as smart as you think you are. I’m guessing we now have to release Castor’s daughter.”
“That’s what they want.”
“How long do we have?”
“Sunset, though if we’re lucky we can push it to midnight.”
Greaser raised one hand to scratch the stubble along his jaw. “That doesn’t give us much time.”
“I made a deal with Kasera’s daughter. She brings us Día, we bring her Myalla.”
“Do you trust her to keep her word?”
“No.”
“And you still want to bring her the girl?”
“I think she might be able to tell us more about the doctors. Why they’re here, where they’re staying, where they’re going next.”
Lieutenant shook his head at me. “We won’t be able to follow them if they leave Erast.”
I buried a burst of anger, begrudgingly admitting that he was right.
“And they wouldn’t have stashed a kid in an inn, not with other guests coming and going. I’d guess the two Destens were the swift talkers of the group.”
“Their questioning skills weren’t very good,” I said. “I learned more about them than they did about me.”
“We could sniff them out,” said Runaway.
A worthy possibility but exhausting. In the same way I could listen in on a conversation hundreds of yards away, it was possible to track someone through smell like a bloodhound. The problem was, humans weren’t very good at smelling to begin with so you spend half your energy just locking in on the right scent. What with all of these people around here and the miles we potentially had to cover, it wasn’t likely to work.
I looked to Lieutenant. “What did you find from Black Rock?”
“Kel was a champion. Played the endearing orphan tune like a master musician. Some of the people we asked had indeed seen an old woman collecting clothes. We found where she stayed. She had a room at an older couple’s home. Nice house. Nice couple, too. Their children have moved away so they’ve been renting a room out for travelers. They cautioned her about heading out at night but she did so anyway. Gone for hours at a time. It seems like the room was simply where she slept.”
“What was her name?”
“Lysa.”
“Probably not her real name,” said Greaser.
“But she might be known around town with that name,” said Lieutenant. “It’s not her first time here.”
I asked, “Did she have any visitors?”
“None.”
“How long was she there?”
“Five days before Día disappeared.”
Given the expression on each of their faces, I probably looked fairly grim. “So the mages might’ve already been fully prepared when they got her?” If that was the case then Día was already dead. The older Desten did tell Kasera that Día was no longer a concern. I looked to Greaser for hope.
He shrugged. “I’ve neve
r seen anyone dabble in sacrificial magic. Not even with a goat.”
“If you were to do it, would it be more potent to charge your spell when you had the target with you?”
“Considering this is not their first time doing it I’m sure they’ve tried all sorts of methods in the past and have learned which ones work better than others.”
“How long had the Destens been staying at the inn?”
“Five days before Día was taken.”
“They told Kasera they arrived on the new moon.”
Runaway nodded. “The timing fits.”
I stared up at the sky, trying to put the days into some kind of order. “Kel said Día saw the Eyeless Ghost on the full moon. It chose her then and there. It took fourteen days for the Destens and the old lady to reach Erast.”
Lieutenant said, “It sounds like the Eyeless Ghost did actually choose her, leaving the doctors to figure out where she was and how to get her.”
“Makes sense,” said Greaser. “If they’re sacrificing a kid for some kind of magic, it would work better if the ghost they’re making the sacrifice to got to pick the victim of its choice.”
I asked, “How exactly did Día and the old lady meet?”
“In the street,” said Lieutenant. “The old couple said the woman spent the first couple of days out of the house, meeting with friends, and on the third day she started collecting clothes. On the fourth, she gave them to an orphanage.”
“The one in Red Hill?”
“Not exactly. She told the couple she gave the clothes to somewhere in the east. What she actually did was give them straight to Día. Which brings me back to Kel. He said Día started her day by the red fountain. We started there as well and found some guy juggling. Día had been watching him. So had the old woman. The old woman came over. They started talking. The old woman walked off with Día. A little while later the juggler saw the old woman and Día walking with a stack of clothes.”
“Is the juggler in on it?” I asked.
Lieutenant shook his head. “If he was, he wouldn’t have stuck around for me to question him. He has an Erast accent and didn’t seem all there in the head.”
“Had the old woman stayed with the couple before?”
“Not with them but with friends of theirs. Everyone who has a spare room to rent out are part of the same organization so they can vet travelers and blacklist them if necessary. This is the old woman’s fifth time in Erast using the name of Lysa. Her first time was twenty years ago. Then twelve years ago. Then seven. Then four. And now.”
“I don’t suppose Kel was familiar with any of those dates?”
Lieutenant gave me a solemn nod. “The two kids who disappeared from the orphanage in Broker’s Wharf. One disappeared seven years ago. One disappeared four years ago.”
I looked to Greaser. “Do these years have any kind of significance? Full moon? Star alignments?”
“A full moon happens a couple of times every season. As for calendar alignments, Agrat is the better person to speak to about that.”
“We’ll ask him later. For now it seems like we have a group of doctors arriving in Erast fourteen days after Día first saw the Eyeless Ghost. It took them three days to locate her and work on a trap. One day to meet her and verify they had the right girl, and an overlapping two days to arrange a kidnapping.” I must’ve drifted off into silence before the breeze caused me to jump with something of a startle.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just banged my head this morning in front of Kasera’s villa.”
“Yeah. You look like Ox punched the fuck out of your face.”
It stung like you wouldn’t believe, though I didn’t tell them that. “Where’s Kel?”
“I gave him some coins,” said Lieutenant. “Told him to have a long think about what he wants to do with his life.”
I turned to Runaway. “Did you get anywhere with the lemon butter hand thing?”
“A little. It’s for arthritis. Costs a fortune but apparently it’s the best that money can buy. It’s sold in a few places around town. After some haggling I found out who makes it and where. I’ll give you three guesses.”
“Five Corners?”
“Exactly. Not much of a lead given what else we know about the doctors. I’m thinking we should check the inns and spare rooms. Find anyone who arrived into town five days ago and left the day Día was taken.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Easy there,” said Greaser. “If Castor’s daughter has served her purpose then we should free her.”
“She’s still a useful hostage.”
“You have two hours until sunset.”
“And eight until midnight.”
“I wouldn’t wait that long,” said Greaser. “The doctors know you were at Kasera’s. They’ll know you didn’t leave in irons. They might learn that you struck a deal with Miss Kasera. If she’s still there and the assassin is still there then they might have someone watching them both in case you three have some kind of rendezvous planned, which you do. That’s something you’re going to want to avoid.”
“That sounds like a lot of waiting on their part,” said Runaway.
“Waiting and watching is almost the entirety of our job,” said Greaser. “You have two hours until sunset. One hour to get Castor’s daughter, one hour for her to get home.”
“It won’t take that long.”
“It might, considering that every company will be looking for intruders, and Castor will have someone on every single corner in the city trying to find his kid. That’s a lot of ducking and weaving.”
Lieutenant nodded with Greaser. “I can make a start on the inns and spare rooms.”
“All right. Runaway can go and release Qin and Myalla.”
He winced at me. “I gotta say, you’re in no condition to be the friendly face in the inns.”
“He’s right,” said Lieutenant. “This is a time for tact not intimidation.”
I was about to argue back. Greaser butted in. “Trust me, you haven’t seen yourself. These bruises of yours are only going to get worse. If we find any inns along the way to the river we can stop and ask them, but only if you stay outside.”
I sighed but was in no mood to make much of a stand. My only hope in releasing a hostage this early was that I might – might – win some favor with Miss Kasera, though how that would be of any use was beyond me.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
We snuck through the burnt-out quarter near the river, checking behind each wall and every alley. Runaway went ahead. Greaser took the rear. We fanned out, searching for any sign of Ispar Company or the city watch. It was still too light to make much use of the rooftops. And given that most of the buildings had collapsed anyway, I wasn’t too keen on finding out which roof could support my weight and which couldn’t.
Runaway stopped. Froze, in fact. He crept back, careful with each step and searching over both shoulders.
“Problem?” I asked.
He dropped to a whisper. “I found two places this morning. One to stash the kids and one for us to hide in, in case anything like what’s happening right now were to happen. Both places had a front door still intact. Stiff, but movable. The room we were supposed to wait in, the door is wide open. This morning it was ajar.”
“What about the room where the kids are?”
“I can’t tell from this angle.”
We searched the walls around us. No smell of tobacco. No glint in an eye staring back at us. If someone wanted us dead, they wouldn’t find a better opportunity to ambush us than right now.
It was a feeling we all came to at the same time. Runaway hurried forward. I walked after him. Greaser read our hunched shoulders well enough to know that something was wrong.
Runaway peered around a corner, signaled for us to wait. He trotted forward – always a risky move when the area is this quiet. The worst part came for whoever followed. In this case: me. I peered around the corner, checking every bit of broken wall and d
arkened window. This was the prime time for an ambush. The whole city would’ve heard about Myalla by now. Every company would be on high alert to catch anyone creeping through their territory. With any luck, Ispar would have convinced themselves that Vanguard had done it. Or – better yet – that someone had targeted Vanguard to take the blame. After all, someone had knocked out two Vanguard idiots just this morning. Whether Vanguard mentioned that to their rivals, I didn’t know. Either way, someone kidnapped Myalla an hour later and led the city watch to the orphanage deep in Vanguard territory. There’s no way Ispar would believe that someone had stashed the kid out here.
I ducked down and scurried after Runaway. He pulled me into a decrepit building, the door wide open and refusing to sway in the wind. Runaway forced it half closed, the wooden hinges grinding like a stone flour mill. No question about it, someone had to push that door open. There was no trace of a beggar or squatter here. Someone on a search had come through.
Greaser strolled in after us, far too casual for someone who could’ve been ambushed by a dozen members of the city watch.
Runaway took one final look into the street. “We’re two doors away.”
“Call him.”
Runaway poked his head back into the street, checked both ways, slipped away. He headed past Qin’s hideout while calling out the escape signal, which in this case was a song extolling the virtues of drinking an excessive amount of gin. Runaway returned, giving us a satisfied nod. “Won’t be long.”
Greaser and I leaned against the wall to regain some energy. Runaway kept an eye on the window. I turned Lieutenant’s dagger over in my hand. Somehow I had never seen him with it before. I rarely even saw him practice with a dagger. The sword, yes, but he was still terrible with it. I couldn’t exactly blame him. I mean I did blame him to his face and mock him mercilessly for his prowess but he was still the best long sword fighter in the company. Every so often he’d get excited with the story of an impossibly gifted weapon smith who found a way to enchant a sword so that it weighed no more than a dagger. I’m sure they exist. I’m sure they cost a fortune. Lieutenant reminds us as often as he can to keep an ear out for anyone who knows of such a craftsman. The Captain’s usual advice is to get better at the sword instead of trying to buy one which costs a thousand times what a normal blade should be.