“The Elamner is awake, and he’s Red Hand the assassin,” I told Holgren as he came through the door a few seconds later. I may have been gibbering, just a little.
“Yes, we managed to deal with the demon, thanks very much for ask—” He saw the bodies littering the floor. “What happened here?”
“I told you, Heirus is Red Hand. Bosch pulled the knife out of his chest and woke him up. He killed everybody. He wants me to give him Abanon’s Blade or he’s going to kill me too.”
I watched him chew on it for a moment, then decide what question to ask first.
“Where’s Heirus now?”
“Gone. But he said he’d find me again.”
“We’ll deal with it. We will, Amra. Where is Bosch?”
“I don’t know. He disappeared when Red Hand started slaughtering everybody. Bosch is, uh, different now.”
“I know, I caught a glimpse. It should limit his options for hiding at least. I don’t see him renting a room, or doing much of anything where people can see him.”
While I spoke to Holgren, Osskil posted one of the remaining armsmen at the window and the other at the door. Kluge was inspecting the bodies and the circle that Heirus—Red Hand—had been resting in. Professional curiosity, I suppose.
“First things first,” said Osskil. “We need to do something about this house of horrors.”
“Agreed,” said Holgren.
“Good idea,” I chimed in. “How do you close a hell mouth, by the way?”
“With fire, of course,” said Kluge. “Fire with fire. But then you have to seal it, lest some other mad idiot reopens it.”
“And how do you do that?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “With magic, and lots and lots of very big, very heavy rocks.”
“That’s for another day,” said Osskil. “First let’s get our dead out of this foul place, then burn it to the ground.”
~ ~ ~
Kluge and one of the armsmen made sure nobody sneaked up on us while we hauled the bodies of the rest through the window. It was the shortest route, and besides, no one wanted to chance those hallways again. I agreed in principle; I didn’t like to think of those dead men resting in the ashes of that house. I may not have known them, but I didn’t have to, to want them out of there. But I was less enthusiastic about having to haul the bodies.
I’m not particularly squeamish. It wasn’t handling their corpses that bothered me. It was seeing that bloody handprint on those dead faces, and knowing it might very well be me next. If Red Hand wanted me dead, then I was dead. If even a fraction of the tales told about him were true, he’d been around for generations, dealing death to kings and queens, priests and generals, merchants and even godlings. Red Hand was literally the stuff that legends—and nightmares—were made of.
When we’d shifted all the corpses that Red Hand had made, I turned to Osskil.
“I hate to say it, but there are two more in there.” The arquebusier the demon crab had killed, and the halberdier Bosch had done for.
“I know,” he said, “but we dare not risk more deaths to recover them.” He shook his head. “We were not prepared. I was not prepared, not for this. We should not have continued once we knew what this place had turned into.”
“I don’t think it would have mattered if we’d brought a hundred men,” I told him, “or a dozen mages. You didn’t see how Red Hand moved. Eight men dead in the space of three heartbeats. There is no preparing for a foe like that.”
He just shook his head.
“We should have burned the place to the ground right off,” he said.
“But then you’d never have known for certain Corbin’s killer was done for.”
“I could live with that. In retrospect. I went looking to avenge one death. Now there are ten more, and my brother’s murderer no closer to being dealt with.”
“Such talk does not become you, Lord Osskil.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That sounded rather haughty.”
I shrugged and pointed towards Holgren. “Been spending too much time around that one.”
It got a smile out of him at least.
~ ~ ~
Holgren and Kluge reduced the villa with magefire. I noted with some satisfaction that Kluge had to quit halfway through. He looked as though he’d run from the Dragon Gate to the Promenade without stopping. Admittedly, Holgren didn’t look much better when he’d finished. I’d have made a joke, but neither mage looked like they were in the mood.
While they were about it, the rest of us loaded the dead into the omnibus along with the prisoners. Alain wasn’t going to be happy about the blood. Alain would get over it.
I took a water skin from one of the men and gave it to Holgren, who was surveying the ruins of the villa. He took it with a grateful look and drank deep.
“So. You think Bosch is in there?” I asked him.
“I’m afraid not.” He pulled out the compass he’d prepared with Bosch’s hair. The needle pointed due East.
“I don’t understand. It’s pointing at the house. Or what’s left of it.”
“If only it were. If he were as close as that, the needle would be spinning aimlessly. He’s much farther away.”
“But that’s the Dragonsea.”
“Precisely. He doesn’t need to breathe, and there isn’t much to him anymore to attract a hungry pheckla.”
“Kerf’s balls. He’s well and truly beyond reach then, isn’t he?”
“Yes. For now. Something tells me that one won’t be content to scuttle along the sea bed for long, however. We will see him again, and sooner rather than later.”
~ ~ ~
I was deeply, deeply tired. I parted company with the others as soon as we got into the Spindles, and headed toward another one of my bolt-holes to sleep, after promising to check in with Osskil and Holgren the next day. I don’t know what Kluge and Osskil did with the Elamner’s guards, or with the bodies. I also don’t know what Myra and Alain thought about the condition they received their omnibus in. It was all in one piece, though, so they couldn’t have been too upset.
I probably should have gone with Holgren to his sanctum, but it was just too far. Instead I trudged over to the herbalist’s whose back room I rented and sneaked in the window.
As I crawled under the single dusty sheet that graced the cot in the dark, funny-smelling back room of the herbalist’s, though, one thought kept nagging at me.
It was a little thing, and it probably meant nothing, but it kept me awake for a considerable time considering how exhausted and sleep-deprived I was. You’d think it was Red Hand, and his demand that I give him something I had no idea how to get, but it was something else.
Bosch. Gloating about chopping off Corbin’s fingers.
Sure it was a nasty thing, calculated to enrage, horrible enough in its own way. But why gloat about that and not the actual murder? Why not talk about letting him run, as Kluge had mentioned, and hunting him down like an animal? That was just as cruel, if not more so.
It was a small thing, but it didn’t fit.
Something was missing. Something was off.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I slept until noon, then left the herbalist’s the way I came. What the old woman thought about her mysterious boarder I couldn’t say. The room was paid up months in advance and the door triple-locked from the inside, which must have seemed odd, but not odd enough to turn down easy money. That’s one thing I like about Lucernans; once money changes hands, they become deeply uncurious.
At Osskil’s manse I was informed that I was invited to another funeral. Or funerals, rather. Three of the armsmen he’d hired had no one to claim their bodies, and so he’d decided to inter them in the Thracen crypt reserved for retainers. It was, apparently, a rather gracious gesture on his part. They’d have a posher afterlife than they would’ve had otherwise, at least. It was scheduled for the late afternoon. I wasn’t all that keen on going, but Osskil wouldn’t be available until then. I was led to believe by his servant tha
t he was off getting scolded by Lord Morno again.
I decided to have a very late, or rather for me a very early breakfast. At which point I realized I was thoroughly broke. I didn’t trust Holgren to have any food, and didn’t want to walk all the way to his house in any case, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a meal and an advance from Daruvner. I’d promised to check in with him anyway.
It was quiet at his dive. No nieces, no Kettle, and very few patrons. Daruvner fed me, loaned me a few marks and then insisted I tell him everything that had been going on.
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
“I think I do.”
I shrugged. “On your head, then, old man,” I said, then filled him in about Corbin, how I’d decided to go after his killer, and how things had gone straight to hells. He supplied me with wine as I wound through the whole sordid mess, and when I was done he sat back, stared up at the water-stained, sagging plaster on the ceiling and idly rubbed his massive belly.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” he finally said.
“You’re ahead of me, then. I’m starting to feel like I don’t understand anything.”
“‘Thus wisdom grows; in stony, unaccustomed soil,’” he replied.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure it wasn’t flattering.”
“Just a quote. Look, You don’t even know who killed Corbin.”
“The hells I don’t.”
“Hear me out, woman. You’ve pinned this on Bosch, and his boss Heirus—”
“Call him what he really is. Red Hand.”
“I’m not sure I believe that, but say that he is. Bosch admitted to cutting off Corbin’s fingers, but never said anything about killing him, correct?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s been bothering me. But his boss is Red Hand, Daruvner. You know, king of assassins? Maybe Bosch didn’t do it. Doesn’t mean his boss didn’t.”
“You say you saw this Elamner kill a half-dozen men right in front of you. You say you know it was Red Hand because he put his bloody mark on their faces. Correct?”
“It was eight men, actually, but yes.”
Daruvner leaned forward, locked eyes with me. “Did Corbin have Red Hand’s mark?”
I wanted it to be the Elamner. After all the blood and trouble, I wanted it to be the obvious bad guy. But the truth is the truth, and facts are facts.
“No. Damn it.”
He leaned back again, chair creaking under his weight. “I’m not saying he didn’t do it. I’m not saying Bosch didn’t do it. I’m not even saying it wasn’t hired out by one or the other of them. What I am saying is, you’ve been mistaking what you think for what you know. You wouldn’t do that on a job. You’ve let your anger cloud your judgment like you never would if this was business.”
“It’s not business, Fengal. Somebody killed my friend. How can I treat it as though it was just another theft?”
‘But it is just another theft,” he replied, his voice mild. “You’re going to take something. Something valuable. You’re going to take someone’s life. You’re going to take revenge. Here’s where I’m very much starting to worry for you though, Amra: The consequences of a mistake on your part are the same as if you were caught lifting a cask of jewels: Death. And in this case, I’m sorry to say, you’re not even sure you’ve got the right mark.”
“A daemonist who was just about to open a hell gate on the Jacos Road and his boss, the king of assassins. I may have got the wrong villains. May have. But they’re still villains, Fengal.”
“Since when is it your job to deal with evil, Amra? You’re a thief, not a hells-damned knight of the Order of the Oak. And consider this, please; while you’re keeping the world safe from these very bad men, it’s more than possible that your friend’s real killer is out there, safe, satisfied.”
“Well it’s a little late now. Bosch came after me first, and I doubt Red Hand is going to leave me alone just because I say sorry and pretty please.”
He rubbed his shiny head and sighed. “What can I say? You should have come and talked to me sooner. I’m deeply wise of course, but sadly I cannot undo what’s already done.”
“If you’re so wise, old man, why don’t you tell me who you think it was that killed Corbin?”
“True wisdom lies not in knowing the correct answer, but in knowing the correct question.”
“Fine. Be that way. I’ve got to go. I’ve got three funerals to attend.” I stood up.
“Don’t you want to know the correct question?” he asked.
I sighed. No, I didn’t. All right, yes I did, but I didn’t have to be happy about it. “Sure, why not.”
“Who had reason to want Corbin killed, besides the two new enemies you’ve made?”
“That’s just it, Fengal. I have no idea.”
“Well then maybe you should start trying to find out. When you have time.”
“Yeah, when I have time.”
“And for Isin’s love, get over to Locquewood’s and pick up your package. He’s been bothering me about it for days, now.”
“When I have time, old man!” I said as I went through the door.
Chapter Twenty Five
It wasn’t quite as nice as Corbin’s crypt, but the mausoleum for the Thracen retainers was still much more classy than any final resting place I was likely to end up in.
I met Osskil, the same three professional mourners, and two of the surviving armsmen in the necropolis in the late afternoon, about an hour before sunset. Holgren had sent his regrets and funerary tokens, claiming ‘unavoidable occupation.’ I think he just didn’t like funerals, for all that he lived next to dead bodies.
The funeral table was bigger, but the whole ceremony was pretty much the same as for Corbin. Someone had washed the Red Hand’s mark off their faces, thank the gods, and sewed them up with care. They were wearing good cloth under good armor, and their weapons were with them, shiny and sharp.
I arrived in time for the meal, which was all right. Simple fare, no meat. The three professional mourners, I found out, were brothers, though they each had different surnames; Wallum, Stumpole and Brock. I didn’t try to puzzle that one out. I had enough on my mind.
Osskil made the ceremonial speech, we drank the funerary wine, and suddenly there they were, for a few moments, no longer corpses. The youngest one, the one that had kicked in the door to his own doom, looked at me with a sheepish grin on his face. Another, the one in the middle, just looked befuddled. The one on the end, a swordsman, was obviously angry, though somehow I knew it was not at us.
We toasted them, and they raised their glasses at us, the one in the middle having to be nudged by the younger one. And then they were just bodies again, and we put them in the mausoleum in the golden afternoon light.
Once the doors were closed, I turned to Osskil.
“On the day Corbin was killed, Kluge and the constables went through his house.”
He nodded. “I know. I was told.”
“Then you know what they found?” The letter, which according to Kluge, meant that Corbin might have been invited back into the family. That, and a Thracen signet ring. Daruvner’s words had been bothering me the whole trip to the Necropolis. Who had reason to want Corbin killed?
“I know they found evidence he was a thief, and the letter I’d sent him, along with his family ring. Why?”
“The letter you sent him?”
“Certainly. Again, why?”
“What did the letter say?”
“I’m not sure that’s your business, Amra. It’s a family matter, and as much as I like you, you aren’t family.”
“But I was his friend, and so I’m asking you to tell me what was in the letter.”
He gave me a long, hard look. “This cannot be shared with anyone else.”
“You’ve got my word.”
“My father is head of the family, but he is no longer in control of his faculties in any meaningful way. I control o
ur interests, now, and make the family decisions. And now that my father is in no condition to object, I want— wanted my brother back. I wanted him to return to the family, to his home, to his daughter if not his wife. I wanted him to be able to be a part of her childhood, while there was still something of her childhood left. It was just too late.”
I felt ashamed for doubting him. It wasn’t as if Corbin, being the younger brother, could have inherited while Osskil was alive anyway.
“Now will you tell me why you wanted to know?” he asked, sounding more weary and heartsick than angry.
I really didn’t want to answer him. For several reasons. But I owed him.
“There’s a chance Bosch and Heirus didn’t kill Corbin,” I said.
“But what does that—” His eyes grew hard. “You suspected me?”
“No. Not really. But I wanted to make sure. You would have done the same.”
That hard, cold look of his softened. “I suppose I would have, at that. But why do you think the killer might be someone else?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry and my palms sweaty.
About twenty yards away, Heirus had suddenly appeared and was staring straight at me.
Osskil hadn’t noticed him there. I wanted to keep it that way. I turned away, walking slowly towards the crypt, and Osskil kept pace.
“Can I come by tomorrow?” I asked. “I’ll lay it all out for you then.”
“Certainly. I’ll be in all day. But why not now?”
“Because I need to do some thinking first.”
He gave me a long, penetrating stare. I tried to show him nothing. Finally he nodded, and started walking towards the exit. Everybody else had been waiting for him, and followed.
As the mourners streamed off towards the gate, I picked my way around headstones and past mausoleums towards Heirus. Night wasn’t far off. The sun was already behind the high walls, casting everything into half-gloom
He was standing at the base of the very large, not very lovely statue of the Weeping Mother. His oiled, ringleted hair glistened dully in the half-light. His gaunt, dusky face betrayed no emotion.
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids Page 14