Assassin's Touch, Iron Portal #1

by London, Laurie

  A small knot formed in his gut as he thought about how strange this must be for her, alone in a foreign land. But he knew the feeling well. Although he’d spent a fair amount of time on the other side to undermine the Pacifican army’s efforts to find the Iron Portals, he’d never connected with anyone. Only the members of his small band of fighting men. But even when he came back here, he felt as if he didn’t belong. Seasons changed, homes were built, crops were planted, families were started. Despite the devastating loss he’d suffered and would never forget, people around him seemed to have no problem getting right back to the business of living.

  He tied Duag to a hitching ring. The stallion’s black coat gleamed like polished obsidian, his long mane silky and free of tangles. Rickert really didn’t need to spend much time brushing him before they headed out to Crestenfahl, but he did it anyway. The longer it took to get there, the more time he had before turning Neyla over to the jail master.

  “He looks great,” Rickert said, changing the subject. He didn’t want to discuss Neyla’s situation with Rosamund. He knew what had to be done. “Was he a good boy for you?”

  The woman snorted. “A troublemaker as usual, but in the end, he did his job and did it well. Doc Murphy says all three mares are pregnant.”

  “Already?” Rickert laughed and patted the stallion’s neck. “You were busy, weren’t you, boy?”

  “What did you expect?” She grabbed an old broom from the corner and knocked down a few cobwebs. “You were gone almost two months. It was plenty of time.”

  “Then I’d say he earned his keep.”

  Rosamund stopped sweeping and placed a hand on his arm. “Now. About Neyla.”

  Not again. He stiffened. He didn’t want to be an asshole to this woman who was like a mother to him, but if she kept pushing, he might not have a choice. “You’re wrong about her. She’s a Protection-Talent working for the Pacifican army. If given the chance, she’d kill or betray all of us—which is why I’m taking her to the pits. Let Louis figure out what she knows.”

  “That bone cracker? You’d let him work his magic on her?”

  He looked warily at the broom the older woman was holding. She looked as though she might smack him with it.

  “I’m shocked you’d allow such a thing,” Rosamund continued. “I thought you were a better man than that.”

  Her words stung like an albino scorpion, fast and painful. Honor was important to him. And he knew his responsibilities well. He was taking his prisoner to the jail pits because he was a good man.

  Rickert shrugged off her criticism. “He’s effective.”

  “His methods are cruel and heavy-handed. Look at her. You want to knowingly place her in Louis’s care? That girl is no enemy of Cascadia. It’s as plain to me as that disrespectful scowl on your face.”

  Glancing over the top of Duag’s back, he tried to ignore the perfect view of Neyla sitting on the porch. She wasn’t alone now. At some point, Antonia had joined her, and together, they were examining what looked to be a blanket. Or maybe it was some piece of clothing.

  “Why?” he asked. “Did you read her?”

  He really shouldn’t be surprised that Rosamund thought she could predict Neyla’s future. Although, if you asked Rickert, she wasn’t very effective. As much as he respected Rosa, she hadn’t foretold what was going to happen to his sister’s village. When it really counted, her gifts had failed.

  “Not her,” Rosamund answered, flicking him in the arm. “You.”

  * * *

  Neyla watched as Rickert finished saddling his big black horse, and when he was about to put on the bridle, the older woman, who had introduced herself earlier as Rosamund, called him from the cottage.

  “What now?” He made a sound of exasperation, put the stallion’s halter back on, and tied him up again. “Hold this, will you?” Rickert threw her the bridle.

  She grabbed it by the crown and draped the reins evenly over her arm. He narrowed his eyes, clearly recognizing that she knew how to handle the tack and had been around horses before.

  “Don’t get any ideas about riding away on him. Duag is a one-man horse and is highly trained. He’ll either buck you off or simply turn back if I whistle. And don’t pet him, either. He bites.” He turned on his heel and headed to the cottage.

  “You sound like a handful,” Neyla said to Duag, ignoring Rickert’s orders and patting the animal anyway. “The pretty ones always are.” Stallions were often nippy, but she wasn’t intimidated. She gave him the evil eye instead. “But if you bite me, you’re toast.”

  Rickert and Rosamund were clearly arguing about something, but Neyla could only hear snippets of the conversation.

  —filthy—

  —pig-headed—

  —dangerous—

  Rosamund held up a small package and patted her forehead. Rickert tried to snatch it from her but she jerked it away.

  —crazy—

  —jail pit—

  Absolutely not.

  In the end, he crossed his arms over his chest, looking bored as Rosamund talked animatedly to him.

  A few minutes later, with the package tucked into his belt, he strode back into the barn. Without saying a word, he put the bridle on Duag—a little roughly, if you asked her—and offered Neyla a leg up. She brushed his hand away, checked the girth, and cinched it a little tighter, scolding Duag when he stomped a hoof.

  “Front or back?” she asked.

  Rickert stood there, hesitating. “What?”

  “Will you be riding in front of me or behind me?”

  “You…you know horses.” It wasn’t a question, really, since he’d recognized earlier that she was familiar with them. But the fact still seemed to puzzle him. Maybe he was surprised at her confidence.

  “A few, yes. Front or back?” she repeated, trying not to let her smugness show. She liked being underestimated.

  “Uh, front.”

  “Okay then. Up you go. I’ll climb on behind you.”

  As they rode along in silence, Neyla was grateful she’d ridden a lot as a girl. Using only her legs, she could easily maintain her seat and balance behind him without having to hold on to his waist—because, if she were honest with herself, the less physical contact she had with him, the better.

  Rickert seemed strangely subdued. At least on the way to Rosamund’s, he’d told her to watch her step and guided her around various obstacles in her way. Now that they were riding, he was all but silent.

  “Duag is a beautiful animal,” she said to break the quiet. “You keep him with Rosamund when you’re…on our side?”

  “Yes, and I keep her and her daughters supplied with Vengold silk from my travels.”

  Ah, so the fabric was a type of silk. “Do all the women here dress like that?”

  He shrugged. “Some do. Others wear dresses. Fewer wear pants.”

  “Why? Is it forbidden?” In a male-dominated society, it shouldn’t surprise her that women were forced to wear dresses or saris to cover their legs. If a woman exposed them, they probably assumed she was a whore.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her and frowned. “We have no rules like that. I think they prefer to dress that way.”

  “So if I walked through your streets wearing shorts and a tank top, I wouldn’t be jailed… or pulled into a dark corner and raped?”

  Reining Duag to a halt, he turned in the saddle to stare at her. Up this close, she couldn’t help breathing in the herbal soap smell of his sun-warmed skin. “We have our customs, Agent Trihorn, just like you do over there, but violence against women is never acceptable. However, I suspect the punishment we mete out for such crimes is much more final.”

  He wasn’t quite angry with her, she decided. It was more like…disappointment or hurt. She suddenly felt myopic and foolish, aware that she was judging his world—perhaps too harshly—through her own limited lens.

  “I’m…sorry. That was unfair of me.”

  A tiny muscle in his jaw flexed. “Clearly, you’
ve got a biased view of me and my people.”

  As she stared down at her hands, she knew he was right. She’d never bothered to learn anything about them other than what she’d gathered from scattered news reports and army briefings. Occasionally, the tabloids would have a story about someone crossing over, but there were some in her world who didn’t even believe the portals existed. She recalled a well-known evangelist who publicly stated he wanted to save the barbarians, so he prayed for a portal to be shown to him. As far as she knew, it had never happened, because he was soon preaching about how the portals and the Barrowlands weren’t real. They were merely the unholy inventions of a society in moral decline that was fixated on false prophets and the supernatural.

  “Yes, I guess that’s true,” she admitted.

  He was quiet for a moment, contemplating what she’d just said. “But I’m sure I’m just as guilty of judging you.” The way he said it made it sound so personal, as if the rift between their worlds boiled down to just the two of them.

  It was easier to be angry with him for being part of the enemy as a whole. It was less easy to be upset with him, the man. After all, he had saved her from Smythe and had shown remarkable concern for her welfare. He’d even given her the package from Rosamund, explaining that it was a poultice of herbs to help with the bruising.

  The saddle leather squeaked as he shifted slightly, and she assumed he was about to turn around. Instead, he reached back and carefully moved a strand of hair from her face without touching her skin. Only when his gaze dropped to her mouth did she realize she’d licked her lips, drawing his attention.

  “My little soldier, what am I to do with you?”

  The air around them seemed to crackle. She was suddenly hot under the thin tunic. Could she be reading him right? Was he going to kiss her? Should she lean forward a couple of inches and kiss him first? She wondered what he’d taste like, how his skin would smell if she were that close. Would his short stubble prickle against her lips?

  Duag stomped an impatient foot and snorted, effectively breaking the spell.

  The corner of Rickert’s mouth twisted. “I suppose if it were me walking down your streets wearing my leather kilt, I’d draw a few stares too.”

  She laughed at the visual, relieved on some level that whatever had just happened between them was over.

  “Yeah, from every woman with a set of eyeballs.” She remembered his bare, muscular chest. His powerful shoulders and arms. Women would line the streets in New Seattle just to admire his physique. After all, who could resist a man like him, wearing nothing but a leather kilt?

  Chapter Five

  “We’re not far now,” Rickert said, startling Neyla.

  She must have dozed off for a bit, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic sound of Duag’s hoofs on the hard-packed ground. Stifling a yawn, she had no idea how he knew where they were, since she couldn’t see for more than a few feet given the thick fog. Shadows just out of reach hovered in the mist, mere hints of the trees and bushes around them. Once, she thought she saw something moving, but when she blinked a few times and stared harder, it was gone.

  She leaned a little closer to Rickert’s broad back.

  “You okay, lass?” he said over his shoulder.

  His concern touched her more than she was willing to admit. “I’m…I’m fine. Just tired and loopy, I guess.”

  “That is to be expected. Your first crossing through an Iron Portal can be exhausting and overwhelming.”

  “How many times have you crossed over?” she asked, trying to be more conversational than probing.

  “Often enough.” His clipped answer didn’t surprise her. Telling her specifics like that would be sharing secrets with the enemy.

  As she listened to the steady clip-clop of the horse’s hooves, she considered her own secrets—the lingering trauma of the train wreck that was never far from her thoughts. The guilt. The horror. Some things were best left alone, where they would hopefully be forgotten.

  At least in theory, that’s how things were supposed to work.

  A short time later, Rickert reined Duag to a stop at the edge of the forest. The fog had thinned somewhat. “There it is. Crestenfahl Castle.”

  Following the direction he was pointing, she saw a stone fortress rising out of the mist. It appeared to be floating above the clouds.

  She must’ve gasped because he added, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Y…yes,” she managed to say. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Then, before she could balance herself or grab the saddle, he urged Duag into a canter. She nearly lost her seat, and she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his waist. He’d done this several times throughout the journey. She was beginning to think he was doing it on purpose.

  The castle loomed larger as they approached and she could see that it actually sat atop a small hill overlooking a valley. Ornate corbels supported the rounded turrets of the keep and a pair of stone griffins flanked the gatehouse entryway. A tower with narrow arched windows stood at each corner of the thirty-foot wall that surrounded the courtyard.

  As they rode up the narrow road, both sides of the heavy gate swung open slowly.

  “Say nothing,” Rickert told her. “Not even if you are asked a question. I’ll handle everything.”

  Three dark-haired livery boys ran up to greet them. Rickert swung a leg over and hopped down. Before Neyla could do the same, he reached up, gripped her by the waist, and helped her dismount.

  Although it probably seemed like a natural gesture to him, it felt intimate and thoughtful to her. Like a man opening her car door. Certainly she was capable of doing it herself, but it was nice to know he was thinking about her first.

  “Can we take him for you, sir?” the tallest boy asked.

  Rickert tossed him the reins. “He is to be rubbed down by hand. The tack cleaned and oiled. Think you can handle it?”

  “Yes, sir,” the two older children chimed together and Rickert handed them each a coin. “Remember, though—he’ll bite if you’re not careful.”

  The younger one, who couldn’t be more than six or seven, dropped his chin, clearly disappointed he had not been given a job, too.

  But before he could follow the other two, Rickert pulled him aside and knelt on one knee. “We’ve been riding all day and Duag’s going to need an extra pitchfork of hay. Can you make sure he gets it?”

  The boy straightened, his eyes brightening. “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Riley can be crabby about such things,” Rickert said with an exaggerated frown. “It might be a difficult task.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s sleeping. I can do it right now before he wakes up.”

  Oh God, he had the most adorable lisp. She wanted to squeeze him and tell him how cute he was.

  “I knew I could count on you.” Rickert handed him a coin and the child ran off to join the others.

  “You’re very astute,” she said as they crossed the courtyard and approached the keep. He knew just what to say to make each boy feel special and needed.

  Rickert merely grunted and walked faster. She practically had to run to keep up.

  They stopped in front of a large wooden door. The hinges groaned loudly as he pulled it open, and they stepped into a great hall. At least three stories tall, the room had a wood-beamed ceiling and colorful tapestries on the walls depicting castles, hunting scenes, and battles. Five or six candlelit chandeliers hung above one long table, where at least a dozen people stared at them. The stringed notes from a fiddle or small guitar died in the air as the door closed behind them.

  “Rickert, my man, what a surprise.” A tall, rosy-cheeked man dressed in leather breeches and a deep navy tunic pushed away from the table and approached. “We didn’t expect you back so soon. And who have you brought home with you this time?”

  This time?

  Rickert pointed to a nearby bench. “Wait here.”

  As he strode to meet the man, several children ran up to him and ga
thered around his legs. He scooped up the smallest, a boy no older than four or five, and twirled him around.

  Rickert and the man spoke for a few minutes, while the gaze of every other pair of eyes settled on her. Drawn to the vivid colors of the women’s gowns—sapphire, aubergine, garnet, maize—she flashed a weak smile, the kind you use when being cordial to a stranger on the street. None of the women smiled back.

  So much for pleasantries. Clutching her own garment tightly about her, she examined the wood bench instead and awaited her fate.

  “Lord Tierney D’Angelus,” Rickert said, addressing the man, “I’d like to present Miss Neyla Trihorn. Neyla, this is my uncle. The Lord of Crestenfahl.”

  Miss? Not Agent? Jumping to her feet, Neyla opened her mouth to say something, but Rickert gave a quick shake of his head. Lord D’Angelus bowed in her direction, but that was all. She was perplexed at the strange introduction.

  Not quite what she expected for someone heading to the…jail pits.

  * * *

  On a set of stone steps that curved up and away from the main hall, Neyla thought she might explode. “You told him what?”

  “Keep your voice down.” Rickert kept climbing.

  “But—”

  “Unless you prefer to sleep on the floor of a rat-infested jail pit with nothing but a single piece of cloth to keep you warm…” His voice trailed off, as if he were defying her to argue. “I made the assumption you’d rather stay here. That you’d prefer my company to that of vermin. Was I mistaken?”

  Her throat tightened further. “But…you told him we were betrothed?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, like it was no big deal.

  Was this how things worked here? Was she a spoil of war now, to be used in any way he chose? Then she remembered what Lord D’Angelus had said. Rickert clearly had done this sort of thing before.

  She glanced around the narrow passage for a way to escape, but there was nowhere to go except up or down. Not much of a choice.