Deepwoods (Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  Finding readily available food for an assassin in a, if not hostile, unwelcoming village proved to be quite the challenge. Siobhan ended up paying more money than she intended, but her grocery shoppers hadn’t returned yet (probably because they faced the same challenges Siobhan had) and she was worried about Rune’s condition. He put up a strong front, but there was no way to disguise the slightly grey color to his skin or the heavy way he moved, as if it took extreme effort on his part. She wanted decent food in him as soon as she could manage it.

  When she returned, she found that Rune hadn’t quite escaped Conli yet. Her resident physician was wrapping the younger man’s wrists with a white bandage, issuing instructions to keep it clean as he did so. Rune had that inscrutable expression on his face again, as if he didn’t know how to react to any of this. Maybe he didn’t. Wolf had told her stories, from time to time, about what life in a dark guild was like. It had made her hair stand on end. Worse, she was fairly certain he only told her the milder tales. The darker ones he never spoke of.

  She walked through the doorway and put the wicker basket in Rune’s hands. “Eat all of it,” she commanded.

  Rune opened the basket and peered at the loaf of bread, wedge of cheese, smoked ham, and apple tart inside. He nearly started drooling. “No problem.”

  As Rune enthusiastically dug in, she settled cross-legged next to Conli and asked him, “How’s his condition?”

  “Malnourished, dehydrated, and exhausted,” Conli replied promptly, his mouth in a flat, unhappy line. “I could whip these people for how they treated him.”

  Rune paused in devouring the ham and gave them an odd look. Around a mouthful, he managed, “I did try ta kill one of their own.”

  “They should have executed you for that or bargained with your guild to send you back for a hefty fee,” Conli responded angrily, slamming the rest of the bandages back into his pack. “You don’t starve and neglect people. That’s just cruelty.”

  Siobhan agreed with him one hundred percent. She didn’t like how they’d handled Rune either. “His wrists and ankles?”

  “Bruised and chafed, but not serious,” Conli assured her. “That said, I don’t think you should send him out today. Or tomorrow. He needs good food, a lot of liquid, and some uninterrupted rest for at least two days before you send him anywhere.”

  She understood the sense of his advice as he said it.

  Rune, not understanding, protested as he ripped a chunk out of the loaf of bread. “I can go today.”

  Siobhan shook her head firmly. “No, Rune. You’re not in the best of shape right now. I don’t send weakened men into potentially dangerous situations. You might be able to go into Sateren and arrange a meeting with a karl without a hitch. Then again, you might be in for quite the fight. We don’t know what will happen. I’m not sending you anywhere until Conli says you’re strong enough.”

  He looked between the two of them with expressionless eyes, not saying a word. Siobhan was really beginning to hate that look. “Fine,” he finally capitulated with a shrug. “Yer the guildmaster here.”

  Too true.

  No one really complained about having a few days to rest in one place, not after the traveling they’d done. The problem Siobhan faced lay in that no one wanted to stay in close quarters with Rune. No one trusted him, and it was hard to relax in the presence of someone you didn’t trust.

  Siobhan wouldn’t swear that she could trust Rune either, but she did believe that he would hold up his end of the bargain as he honestly couldn’t afford to break the deal. She felt like saying, Look, he won’t bite. He’s a nice assassin, see? Alas, no one would likely listen.

  She tried to ignore the uncomfortable atmosphere for the first day, giving people time to come to terms with him on their own, but by afternoon of the second day, the tension got to her. Giving up, she dug out the deck of cards and a brush pen from her pack.

  People had more or less sorted themselves out in the narrow house. The bedrolls were rolled up during the day, as frankly there wasn’t enough floor space to leave them out, with the packs laid against the walls. Wolf and Tran seemed intent on polishing weapons, Conli eerily imitating them by polishing his medical tools. Markl had his notebook out, writing something down, but Sylvie looked beyond bored as she unbraided and re-braided her hair.

  “Sylvie,” Siobhan invited while waving the deck in the air. “Up for a game?”

  The other woman perked up. “Sounds good. What are we playing?”

  “Thirteen Cards,” Siobhan responded. “Course, it’s hard to play with only two people…Rune, care to join in?”

  No one was fooled by this casual invitation. But Rune seemed glad for something to do aside from ignore everyone’s not-stares. “Well, a game sounds fun, but I don’t know this one.”

  “It’s not hard,” Siobhan assured him. She sat cross-legged near him, Sylvie joining her on the other side so that they formed a circle. “Are you familiar with card games?”

  “Somewhat,” he responded carefully.

  “Then here’s the rules. You have thirteen cards in your hands. Your goal is to get rid of them, and the first person with no cards left wins. You can lay down pairs, sequences, or multiples of cards, but whatever you lay down has to match what the first person lays down. Got that? Good. If you can’t lay something down, or don’t want to, say ‘go.’ We’ll play rounds, eliminating people, until only one person is left.”

  He nodded understanding, watching as she quickly shuffled the deck of slim wooden cards before passing them out between the three. “What are we betti’n? This is a gambli’n game, it seems.”

  “Of a sort,” Sylvie agreed. “But there’s a long established rule in the guild that we don’t bet money with each other. It leads to bad blood later. So instead, we have penalties.” She smirked as she held up the brush pen. “The winner gets to scribble whatever she wants to on the loser’s face.”

  Rune seemed intrigued by this, and if that quirk of the mouth were any indication, amused. “And, ah, how permanent is that ink?”

  “Very,” Siobhan assured him cheerfully.

  “Warni’n taken.” Rune took the cards from her and started sorting through them.

  The first few minutes, people were busy sorting through cards and figuring out how to best play them. Then Siobhan nodded to the assassin. “We always start left of the dealer. So, you go.”

  “Pairs or sequences, right?”

  “If you have three or four of a kind, you can lay that down too.”

  “Got it.” He laid down a pair, starting the game.

  Perhaps it was beginner’s luck, but whatever the case, Rune proved to be a tough opponent. Siobhan barely squeaked by in getting rid of her cards before he did. Sylvie wasn’t so lucky. With an outright smirk, Rune leaned forward with the brush and painted a sloppy star on her right cheek.

  Making a face, she picked all the cards up and shuffled them. “I deal this time.”

  “Can you deal me in?” Markl requested.

  Siobhan waved him forward, secretly relieved that he chose to do so. They all shifted their positions enough that he had room to sit with them. “Are you familiar with Thirteen Cards?” she asked him as he settled between Sylvie and Rune.

  “I listened to the instructions, I think I know how it works,” he assured her.

  With the way the game was set up, no more than four could play. But as Sylvie dealt the cards, and Siobhan started them off by laying down a five-card sequence, she could feel Wolf and Tran paying very close attention.

  With two beginners, Siobhan didn’t play as ruthlessly as she normally did, which proved to be a mistake. After three rounds, both Markl and Rune proved that they had the strategies of the game down and she lost magnificently, getting a circle painted around her eye for her troubles. Sticking her tongue out at a grinning Markl, she played much more seriously after that.

  Time passed quickly, the rounds becoming quicker and more hilarious as people got interesting things pai
nted onto their skin. With no mirror, they had to ask what was painted, and Siobhan was sure that no one had told her the truth about what Sylvie did on her skin.

  Beirly came in as the dinner bell in the village rang, took in their faces, and burst out laughing. “Playing Thirteen Cards, I see!”

  “Beirly, they’re ganging up on me,” Sylvie complained with a mock-pout. Considering that she had a mustache painted on her face, the pout didn’t have quite the effect she was aiming for. Beirly doubled over laughing, wheezing for breath.

  Fei came in behind him, looking the situation over with a suspiciously straight face, as if he were laughing internally. “I see that Markl-xian is winning so far.”

  Considering Markl only had a black spot on his nose, an eye on his forehead, and a heart on his cheek, that was a fair judgment to make.

  “It’s a near thing,” Markl admitted without an ounce of modesty. “Rune’s wicked with cards. He’s almost gotten me these last three rounds.”

  “And yet here I be with more scribbles on my face,” Rune drawled, which made Sylvie and Siobhan laugh. Truly, he looked like a demented clown. Rune had black circles painted under his eyes, high on his cheekbones, over the tip of his nose, and a fat lip around his mouth.

  “I’d suggest stopping now,” Beirly managed in between guffaws. “If you start scrubbing, you might only have faint spots on your face tomorrow.”

  Siobhan imagined going to a meeting with a karl with traces of ink still all over her face and grimaced. Perhaps the game hadn’t been the best of ideas. Although Sylvie and Markl, at least, were now much more comfortable with Rune, so it had paid off. “Right. And someone needs to start dinner. Who’s on duty tonight?”

  “Fei and Denney,” Conli answered.

  She blew out a secret breath of relief. That meant the food would be decent. Both of them were good cooks. “Where is Denney?”

  “Coming,” Fei assured her. “She and I went fishing earlier.”

  “Fishing?” Siobhan repeated blankly. “Fishing where?”

  “We’re not that far from Drahn Lake,” he responded with a casual shrug. “An hour’s walk will get you there.”

  “You went fishing in Drahn Lake?” Siobhan’s eyes crossed just trying to imagine that. “The lake that never completely thaws, that lake?”

  He grimaced. “It was unpleasantly chilly. But the fish were biting well.”

  In near-freezing temperatures? What kind of bait had they used?! Shaking her head, she dismissed it. She wouldn’t turn down fresh fish for dinner, for sure. “Alright. While you cook, I’m scrubbing.”

  Fei snickered behind her as she marched resolutely for the inner bathing room. Rune, Sylvie and Markl had beaten her there and were already crowding around a pail of water, using the reflection to see enough to scrub with. The small towels and strong lye soap in their hands were doing a fair job of getting the worst of the ink off.

  Resigned to the inevitable skin irritation this would likely cause, she grabbed a towel herself, soaped it up, and commenced scrubbing. As expected, the cloth felt rough as she tried to take off three layers of skin.

  Since those three hogged the water-mirror, she was scrubbing blind. Her eyes roved over everyone as she had nothing to focus on. Rune had gotten off the black circles under his eyes, the one on his nose, and most of what was around his lips. The cheek facing her had a good swipe of black ink still left, though, as if he couldn’t properly see the sides of his face. Maybe he couldn’t.

  “You missed a spot, Rune,” she told him. Without asking permission, she grasped his chin with one hand to hold him still and used her own towel to start scrubbing at it. “Ah, there, it’s coming off now.”

  He looked at her from the corner of his eye, his whole body completely and carefully still. For a moment, something flashed across his face, an expression there and gone so fast she couldn’t begin to read it.

  She pretended not to notice, instead shifting his chin to the other side so she could see his right cheek. “Ah, here too.”

  “You’re so worried about his face, but what about your own?” Sylvie asked in rich amusement. She leaned across the water to attack Siobhan’s face.

  Siobhan tried to duck, protesting, “Let me take care of him first! You’re likely to get soap in my eye at that angle.”

  “He’s fine,” Sylvie responded in exasperation. “It’s all off his face.”

  “But there’s this spot on his arm—” Siobhan started, only to cut herself off as she got a better look at the black ink etched into Rune’s upper arm. Right below his shoulder was a long dagger, plain in design, with one drop of blood coming off the blade. It looked…eerie. She knew without asking what it was, but still the words came out of her mouth. “Your old guild’s emblem?”

  “Silent Order,” he stated quietly. “Yes. It’s an unsaid rule here that all members of a dark guild carry their emblem somewhere on their body.”

  Thereby trapping them into that life? Anger coursed through Siobhan in a red-hot wave. She choked it back. “I see.”

  “Conli might be able to take that off,” Sylvie ventured slowly. She came around to get a better look at it. “How long have you had this, Rune? Ten years or so?”

  Rune nodded cautiously. “About that.”

  “A cream likely won’t work, then. But he’s taken off scars and tattoos before. I’ve seen him do it.” Sylvie glanced up at him. “If you want him to, that is.”

  “I have no reason ta keep it.” Rune shrugged. “In fact, it’d be better if it were off.”

  Yes, if other people saw this in the future, when Rune was away from Wynngaard, they would likely make life difficult for him. It might even prevent him from building a new life somewhere. Decided, Siobhan turned on her heel. “I’ll go ask.”

  Sylvie caught her arm and spun her back around. “He’s a grown man, Siobhan, he can ask for himself. We need to get that ink off your face before you go to a meeting with a dark guild member looking like a demented ghost.”

  Siobhan stuck her tongue out in a childish gesture.

  “And if you keep sticking that out at me, I’ll wash that too,” Sylvie threatened, waving the rag at her with an evil glint in her eye.

  She promptly sucked her tongue back into her mouth.

  Markl chuckled and even Rune smiled.

  “If you four are done playing in the water, dinner is nearly done!” Denney called from the other room.

  Sylvie wouldn’t let go of her until all the ink had been taken off, along with about five layers of Siobhan’s skin. Her face felt hot and probably looked as red as a tomato. By the time she made it back to the group, where they had congregated outside, the food was already being dished out. She accepted a loaded plate of fish stew from Fei, mouth watering. With rich anticipation, she put a spoonful in her mouth and sighed in bliss.

  Denney passed around biscuits, a specialty of hers, and they gorged themselves with hearty thanks to the cooks. Siobhan kept an eye on everyone, making sure they had enough to eat, although Fei and Denney had cooked enough for everyone to have not only seconds, but thirds. The only one that didn’t take advantage of this was Rune, who sat a little apart from the group.

  Still not comfortable with them, eh? Sighing, she put her food down and went directly to him, grabbing his plate. He didn’t protest, handing it over easily at the first tug. She filled it up to the brim, put two biscuits on the side, and gave it back. Catching his eye, she ordered firmly, “Eat all of it. And if you’re still hungry, get another plate.”

  He took the plate in both hands, regarding her with an expression that might have been amusement. “What if I’m full?”

  She snorted. “You’re male. You’re never full.”

  Every other man in the guild choked, laughing. “Wait, Siobhan,” Conli said in disagreement, though his tone was distinctly amused, “I’m afraid that being around the men here have skewed your perceptions. There are men in the world who have limits on their appetites.”

  “Ha!�
�� she scoffed, not believing that for a minute.

  “Considering what we spend on food expenses every month, you can’t blame her for not believing you,” Denney pointed out.

  “We saved seventy-five kors alone when we sent Wolf on that one-man escort mission this spring,” Sylvie observed.

  “I don’t eat that much,” Wolf protested.

  “Yes, you do,” at least four people disagreed in unison.

  This started off a round of bickering on who ate more. Siobhan decided she didn’t care to be in the middle of that debate and went back to her plate. As she moved, she saw Pyper approach Rune with a slow tread, her nose sniffing him curiously. Rune regarded her approach with the same caution, not at all sure how to respond to her.

  Denney, bless her, went and sank down next to the dog, her tone neutral as she asked Rune, “You got experience with dogs?”

  “Only hunting dogs, not like these,” he nodded toward Pyper and Pete. “These are friendlier.”

  “Colliers,” she supplied. “They’re more watch dogs than anything. Smart ones, these are. Pyper’s trying to figure out if you’re a friend or not. You feed her something, she’s likely to think you are one.”

  Rune listened to this advice carefully. “She like bread?”

  “They both do.”

  He picked a biscuit off his plate and offered it to Pyper on a flat palm. She sniffed it for a second, then tilted her head sideways so she could pick it up daintily. Typical of dogs, she then proceeded to swallow it whole, without seemingly chewing at all.

  Being a dog, her affections were then sealed, and she nosed at Rune’s hand in thanks before circling around once and settling down right at his feet, her head resting against his legs.

  “Well.” Denney beamed at him openly. “Glad she likes you.”

  Rune smiled back, seemingly out of sheer reflex. “That’s good.”

  “It is. In many ways.” With that cryptic statement, she rose back onto her feet in a smooth movement before going back to her plate. “Pete! You stay out of my stew, you rascal.”