"You don't like it?"
"No, it was great. Thank you again," I said as I smiled at the woman.
"Too bad the taverns won't serve beer until lunch time. That would be a nice way to celebrate. Do you drink?"
"Yes, I've got a place on level twelve that I--" the words hung in my mouth and I stared at Fallon with wide eyes.
"What?"
"The beers! In Veer's house!" my heart beat a hundred times a second, and I stood up from the chair.
"Beers? Yeah, there were a bunch of them. Place was a mess." Fallon's uncovered eyebrow lowered in confusion.
"Yes, and they all had Restina's label on the bottle."
"Huh. You are right. I didn't notice that. Maybe he really likes their beer?"
"His house was next to two restaurants and four taverns. Why would he walk up two levels and almost three miles to pick up booze from Restina?" I asked her.
"Maybe he had them delivered?" she shrugged, but I could see her single blue eye sparkle.
"Or maybe there is something else going on," I said.
My wingmate nodded and stood up from the table. She threw a few coins on the tablecloth and then peeled the bandage off her face. Her skin had scabbed over, but it looked as if it was already in the later stages of healing. The Alula was probably using its magic to care for the damage.
"Let's go back to Restina and ask a few more questions," Fallon said, and I returned her smile.
Chapter 17
Fallon and I made our way toward Karmane's office at the rear of the warehouse as soon as we landed. Before we could get to the door, the woman exited and closed the green wooden portal behind her.
"Greetings, Potentia." Karmane's eyes were lined with dark circles, and it looked as if she hadn't combed her long gray hair in a week. We had spoken with her only six hours ago, so I guessed that the woman had only partaken of unfulfilling slumber. "Calter has not returned from his shift, but the guards returned his cart to us. They said little to me, but I will guess he was arrested?"
"The rumor is true. We would like to ask you some more questions," I said.
"I am very busy, Potentia," the gray-haired woman said with a huff.
"So are we," Fallon said. Her face almost looked healed, but there was a reddish rash over her eye, nose, and the corner of her mouth, as if someone had spilled hot water there.
"Fine, what do you want to know?" Karmane crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
"Do you know Fontyane Veer?" Fallon asked.
"The guard?"
"Yes. Do you know him?" Fallon asked with a blank expression on her face.
"He patrols this area," Karmane shrugged, and her eyes fixed squarely on my wingmate's face. "I think the brewers have a relationship with him."
"Are they in now?" I asked.
"Probably. I just woke. The brewing takes place at the far side of the building. I don't go over there much; too busy with the shipping."
"What is the name of the brewing manager? What does he look like?" I asked.
"I'll walk you over there." The woman sighed with frustration and beckoned us to follow her past the shelves of stacked bottles.
"She didn't ask why Calter had been arrested," I leaned into Fallon as we walked and whispered the observation.
"She is lying. Keep your feathers ready."
We walked behind Karmane to the other side of the large warehouse,where there were giant vats of copper metal, a maze of pipes, and countless bags of grain stacked in organized piles. The side of the building where we had first entered smelled of finished alcohol, wood, and donkey. This far corner carried the pleasant aroma of malted rice, wheat, fermented honey, and grapes.
A group of five men stacked crates onto a bamboo rickshaw. The men were tan, wearing Restina branded tunics, and they moved with a practiced efficiency.
They also wore swords.
Karmane's body position became rigid, and she raised an arm to point at the men.
"Who are you? What are you doing with those crates?" She didn't quite scream, but the question was shouted with fear.
One of the men turned to look in our direction.
It was Ash.
Except it wasn't.
Ash stood about the same height as this man, and their faces were extremely similar, but the man who evaded my arrest earlier was slightly broader of shoulder and carried ten extra pounds of muscle. Ash also had dark brown, almost black hair, and this mirror image had dark-honey colored hair cut much shorter. The eyes were the same though, and I knew that the men were twins.
Like a strike of lightning through my brain, I knew this man was Dust.
"Ahhh, Potentia." Ash's almost mirror-image said with the same smirk. "If you must know, we are trying to save the world."
The other four men stopped their activity and turned to face us.
"Are you stealing--" I saw Dust pull the pistol from his side holster, but it was more of a sensation.
The man was extremely fast at the draw. The bullet took Karmane in the head before I could knock her out of the way and before she had finished her question.
Fallon had also been slow to react, but once Karmane's body fell beside us, she grabbed my shoulder and pulled both of us behind a grain shelf.
"Kill the Potentia," I heard Dust growl from the other side of the shelving, and the metallic sound of four swords being drawn echoed off the high roof of the warehouse.
"Shit, and I bet we'll get issued our pistols tomorrow," Fallon muttered as she drew her rapier. The woman and I ran to the middle of the storage aisle, where the stacks of grain gave us cover and it would take longer for the men to reach us.
"If we live that long." I tried to sound confident as I pulled my own sword. I didn't see pistols on the other four men, but four swords against two were still odds that made my stomach tighten.
Booted footsteps ran along both sides of the shelving, and Fallon pushed her back to mine.
"As soon as they turn the corner, we'll fly over the shelves and dive at the man with the pistol. We need to take him out before he can reload," she whispered.
"Got it," I said as the four men rounded the corner of the shelving to face us.
As soon as we saw them, Fallon and I leapt into the air. Our Alulas became wings at the same time, and they beat in tandem to carry us to the top of the thirty-foot shelf. Dust was on the other side, still standing by the cart. The man was reloading his pistol, and I guessed that he had already put the bullet inside the gun, since he was tapping the rod into the barrel with the palm of a gloved hand. The man turned his head up to see us, but instead of surprise on his face, Dust just smiled wickedly.
We dove off the top of the shelf toward him, but he pulled the rod out of the barrel and placed it in his side pouch with practiced ease. I didn't understand how the man could be so calm, but then he drew a long dagger with a curved guard with his left hand.
Fallon came in first, and her rapier thrust aimed at Dust's right arm. I guessed that she meant to incapacitate the limb so that the man couldn't finish loading his pistol, but his dagger arched into the path of my wingmate's blade, and the blow knocked the strike wide.
His parry had moved Fallon's sword into my path, so I took a step to the left and slashed at his hip. I would have liked to taken the man alive for questioning, but we had to worry about our own safety first, and the man was obviously intent on killing us.
Dust's body twisted to the side, and his dagger angled downward toward my slash. Our blades connected, but instead of knocking my edge free of his body, I felt his blade twist. My sword slid up toward the curved hilt of his weapon, and I yanked it away from him.
"Not bad," he said as his shoulder slammed into Fallon.
The woman stumbled a few steps toward me, and I had to dance away so that we didn't get tangled.
Dust shuffled toward my wingmate and thrust his dagger at her face. His movement was whip fast, and my partner almost didn't get the guard of her rapier up in time to block. The big man
did seem to anticipate her parry though, and he kneed her in the stomach when her blade was engaged with his dagger. She grunted from the blow, and her body bent over. The dagger spun in his hand, and he almost managed to slam the point down into the blonde woman's skull, but I thrust my rapier against his blade. The weapons smashed together, and then I threw my shoulder into his right side.
My opponent hadn't expected my awkward attack, and he also didn't expect me to joint lock his right hand with my left. The job was made easier since he cradled his pistol in the loading position. I only needed to clasp his fingers and bend the wrist back toward the nook of his arm.
I twisted his hand as hard as I could.
He yelped with surprised pain, and he seemed to forget about the dagger pinned to my blade. My joint lock was easy to escape, because I couldn't keep him from pulling away from me, but his desperate movement left the flintlock pistol in my left hand. I grabbed the handle, put my finger on the trigger, and leveled the gun at the man's chest.
"Surrender, Dust," I said, but as my eyes sighted down the weapon, I realized that the flash pan was empty, and the frizzen was open. The gun might be loaded with powder and a bullet in the barrel, but it wasn't going to fire without powder in the pan that could be ignited by the flint on the hammer.
He already knew that though, and I saw his right foot drift behind his other leg as he twisted his torso.
"Shit," I cursed as I leaned away from the big man's kick. It had come in at my head, and I was surprised that the man was so flexible.
I panicked for a second and waved my rapier in the air like an idiot. The blade didn't connect with his next kick, but it did manage to keep the man a healthy distance away from me. My sword was much longer than his leg, and Dust pulled back a few steps while he transferred his parrying dagger to his right hand.
"Keep the gun," he laughed, and I saw a pair of his assassins had run to Fallon from the far shelving. The other pair came from behind the cart, and Dust waved them to me as if he was conducting a group of musicians. "for as long as you live, that is."
The two men came in quickly, and I parried the first thrust from the one on my left. The second man made a quick slashing cut at my arm while I blocked, and I had to twist the hilt of my sword so that I caught his strike. Our enemies wielded small swords. The weapons looked like rapiers, but they were about eight inches shorter, had a thinner triangular blade, and were most effective at making small cuts or stabs with the point. They were extremely light though, and I quickly found myself retreating a few steps as I bounced my heavier blade between their attacks.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Fallon fared a bit better than me. She hadn't lost any ground, but she wasn't making any counter attacks against their quick jabs. I felt fear swim through the contents of my stomach, and I forced myself to remember the breathing techniques from my training. This situation was tough, but far from hopeless. I just needed to find a way to hold my ground. These men used far more energy attacking than I did parrying, and my Alula would give me the endurance to win when their arms grew heavy with fatigue.
Dust stood behind the pair who attacked me and crossed his arms while he studied our battle. One of the men made a deep thrust toward my stomach, and he had to lean out beyond the side of his partner. I guessed that one of them would think that they needed to finish me quickly, so I had halfway expected the movement.
My rapier knocked the shorter weapon down toward my foot. Then I stepped on the triangular blade and kicked him in the face with my other boot. I had hoped that he would have let go of his sword when he tumbled away from me, but he held on tightly to the weapon, and it slid from under my foot as he fell.
I used the opportunity to rush toward the other man. My rapier cut toward his face, but he brought up his shorter blade to block. I'd anticipated his parry though and had made my feint as obvious as I could. The man hadn't seen me actually attack yet, so he didn't think I would make my first thrust a sham. When he raised his sword to block, I had already pulled mine away and pushed the tip into his unguarded stomach.
He shouted and brought his sword down to smack mine away, and then he made a hasty counterattack cross slash from his left side. The swing was aimed at my head, and I dropped to my knees. The blade passed over me with a gust of wind, and I drove the point of my rapier into his chest as close to the heart as I could aim. The assassin's eyes opened wide when my weapon pierced him the second time, but I had to pull my rapier away again to block his next overhead swing before I ripped my blade through his chest.
His small sword bounced off my thicker rapier, and I stood as the man stumbled away with his hand clutching at the blood pouring down his front. The second assassin had jumped back to his feet, and he moved in-front of me to block my advance on his wounded friend.
I saw Dust shake his head in disappointment, and then the muscular man moved around the side of the rickshaw. He wrapped his hands around the long poles of the cart, lifted so that the wagon was on its wheels, and then he walked away from the battle.
"Anelia!" Fallon shouted from behind me.
"I see him! Have to take care of this first," I yelled back as I blocked my assailant's next series of slashes. I could tell his arm was getting tired, and my body still felt fresh. It could have been a combination of the fear, the adrenaline, and the Alula's magic.
The assassin who I had pierced twice with my sword fell to his knees, and his blade clanged to the ground like a cymbal. I made a quick slash toward my attacker, but this man was much more experienced than his almost-dead partner. He easily parried the attack to the outside of his body and then countered with a flurry of low strikes. The advancing blade dance forced me to step back a few paces, and I lost sight of Dust's rickshaw.
I thought about circling my attacker, but that would have meant abandoning Fallon's back. My opponent was tiring, and I guessed Fallon's were as well, but it would take a few more minutes for this battle to end, and Dust might escape. I needed another idea to dispatch this man, and then I could help Fallon. I glanced down at the pistol in my left hand between parries. It wasn't as gaudy as Ash's silver-and-gold etched weapon, but this one still had some artistic engraving on the steel parts, and the wood looked like expensive polished walnut. I guessed that the gun was worth five months of my salary, and I bet that it was accurate up to eighty yards.
"Here, catch," I tossed the pistol to the swordsman in front of me with a gentle underhand lob.
The man gasped and made a grab for the gun with his left hand. It was already heading toward his chest though, and he leaned back to cradle the weapon when it fell against him. His sword angled toward the ground when his hands rose, and I stepped in to make my attack. The assassin realized his mistake as soon as my blade angled toward him, but I didn't blame his desire to grab the pistol. I probably would have made the same error.
The tip of my rapier punctured his face at the cheek. I felt a half instant of resistance when the metal met his skull, but my weapon was razor sharp, and the sword emerged out the other side like a toothpick through an olive. His face went slack, and I pulled the blade out of the man's brain as his body transitioned from life to death. Then I turned to watch Fallon cleave the arm off one of her assailants. The man screamed and fell to the tiles of the brewery like a twitching fish. Her other attacker had numerous cuts on his arms, legs, and hands, but he was still moving quickly and would have been able to attack on my wingmate's unprotected flank had I not stepped in and parried his thrust with my rapier.
"Surrender and we'll just arrest you," Fallon growled at the man, but he just shook his head and continued his hopeless attack.
He made a quick cut at Fallon, who parried the strike easily and forced his blade to go wide. I took the opening that she gave me, stepped in past his guard, and drove my sword into his chest where his heart beat. The man dropped his small sword and reached with a bloody hand to where my metal entered his chest.
"Potentia bitch," he cursed as blood came from his
mouth. His eyes flashed with hatred as he glared at me, and then his lids closed and he sank to the ground.
"I thought you scored low in your fencing classes?" Fallon asked between ragged breaths.
"I did. I was close to the bottom."
"I find that hard to believe," she said with a laugh as we sheathed our swords. "These bastards were skilled."
"Thank you," I said as relief filled my chest. Part of it was being alive after the battle, the other part was the praise from the woman who I never thought I could please.
"Let's go get that last one," Fallon nodded her head to the far side of the warehouse. "He couldn't have gotten far."
I walked to the corpse of the second man I had killed, grabbed the pistol out of his hands, and then put the weapon in my belt.
"What are you doing?" Fallon asked with a smirk on her face.
"Did you hear him? He did say I could keep it for as long as I live." I winked at her.
"Ha, he did indeed. How do you know that is Dust?" Fallon asked as we ran out of the warehouse.
"How are you familiar with that name?" I asked.
"He's one of the crime lords of the city. No one knows what he looks like though. You there! Did you see a man pulling a rickshaw?" She called to the group of workmen who had gathered at the end of the warehouse.
"He went out the south entrance," one of the men said as he pointed out to the unroofed area of the property.
We finished our run out of the warehouse and then took to the air. In a few seconds, we cleared the wall surrounding Restina Brewery, and Petrasada's steep slope spread out before us. The morning crowd filled the streets, and there were dozens of donkey carts and rickshaws on the thickly packed streets.
"Shit," Fallon and I said at the same time.
"Take the west. I'll take the east," she ordered as she swept down to my left.
I flew over the nearest covered cart and saw that it didn't have Restina's marking on the side. The man who pulled it was also half of Dust's size. I flew to the next rickshaw, but this one was filled with crates of vegetables. The next carried glass plates, another had dried fish, another bore sacks of rice.
Wings of Justice (City of Light Book 1) Page 16