by Darian Smith
Brannon didn’t slow down at all, and he barreled into the would-be assassin at full speed. Both of them were flung free of Ylani and tumbled over each other. The knife skittered across the stone road. Brannon felt the sting of grazed skin on his legs and arms, but ignored it. The assailant scrabbled toward the knife. Brannon reached for him, his fingers closing on the fabric of his shirt. He tugged hard, pulling him off balance.
The man’s entire head was covered in a mask of thin black fabric. Only slight curves and indentations marked his features. Brannon plucked at the mask, but the man jerked back out of reach, breaking Brannon’s grip on his shirt. He held out a finger and wagged it back and forth.
“Really?” Brannon said. “You’re happy to attack innocent women on a public road but not to show your face. What a surprise.”
He could see Ylani lying very still on the road. Latricia was to the side, frozen in fear.
The attacker got to his feet and Brannon did the same, keeping his knees bent and his hands wide, ready to act. The man’s head turned slightly toward the place where the knife lay.
“Go on then,” Brannon said.
With a guttural growl, the assailant left the knife and fled.
For a moment, Brannon warred with himself as to whether or not to follow. The physician in him won out and he knelt beside Ambassador Ylani.
There was no sign of a stab wound, but she appeared unconscious. Brannon felt around the back of her head gingerly. The brim of her hat was crushed. His fingers came away with a little blood.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Ouch,” she said, and tried to sit up.
“Don’t move,” Brannon told her. He let his hand rest on her shoulder, holding her down. “You may have a concussion.”
“Oh.” She frowned, but didn’t fight him, only twisted her head slightly. “Is he gone?”
“Yes.”
“My hero.” Her eyes fixed on Brannon’s and her smile was a little crooked. He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or thanking him.
“You’re welcome. Now just lie still while I check on Latricia.”
The widow waved him away but her hands were trembling. “I’m fine. A grazed knee is all. Ylani saved my life.”
The ambassador chuckled, a rich, delicious sound. “You’re practically my only friend in Kalanon, Latricia. I could hardly let anything happen to you, could I?”
“Do either of you know who that was?” Brannon asked.
“I don’t suppose you’d believe ‘bandits,’ would you?” Ylani suggested.
Brannon gave her a look.
“No, I suppose not.”
Latricia scrambled forward and clutched his arm in a grip that could crush armor. “You remember the man who was going to attack us in the garden, back in Alapra?”
Brannon nodded. “Of course.”
Her eyes were very wide. “It was him! Somehow he’s here. He’s the steward up at the manor.”
Brannon blinked. She was distraught, terrified and in shock. He laid his hand over hers gently. “That’s impossible, Lady Latricia. That man was a spy on the boat we came in. I caught him myself and he went overboard just as Magus Draeson froze the river. There’s no way he survived.”
She stared at him, her mouth moving silently for a long time. “But . . . I saw him.”
Ylani sat up slowly. “The mind does strange things when you’re stressed. We can figure it all out back at the inn, where it’s safer. Sir Brannon, would you mind acting as our escort?”
“Sure. I was actually coming to look for you. I wanted to take you up on your offer to help interview Kholi Gruul. But if you’re not feeling up to it, that’s okay. It doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches but you might still have a nasty headache.”
“I’ll be fine. I think my hat took most of the impact.” She fingered the high crown, now somewhat crushed.
“Great.”
In the end, Latricia came with them. Brannon didn’t want to leave Draeson waiting any longer than necessary and the widow quickly made it clear that she did not feel safe, even in town, without someone nearby for protection.
“What about Tomidan?” she asked. “What if they come for him too?”
“He’ll be fine at the inn,” Brannon assured her. “I saw him coming in with Brother Taran and my apprentice as I was leaving. They’ll keep him safe.”
She took a deep, quivering breath and nodded.
The mayor’s office was in the side of the town hall. It was in the basement of this hall that the cells for keeping prisoners were built. There was only one way in or out. Like so many of the buildings here in Sandilar, this was made of the stone carved out of the mountains by gold miners. Here and there, a teasing flicker of light sparkled in the rock, giving the illusion that, perhaps, there was still wealth in the walls of the building itself. Mayor Shillia assured them there was not.
“Just a fool’s gold glimmer,” she said. “Not much real gold gets past our people.” She gestured to the stairs leading down to the basement. “Head on down. Magus Draeson went down a few minutes ago. He’s an interesting chap, isn’t he?”
“You could say that.”
Brannon led the way down the shallow steps. At the bottom, a corridor looped back beneath the hall. Iron banded oak doors ran down both sides of the corridor, each leading to an individual cell.
Halfway down the corridor, Draeson sat on the floor, his back propped against a cell door. He looked up as they approached.
“You’re not going to like this,” he said. “Gruul’s dead.”
Chapter Thirty
Latricia stared at the corpse of the Djin blacksmith. His eyes were empty, like glass orbs pushed into his face. He’d been stripped of all but his underwear, his clothes piled in the corner of the room as though waiting to be taken to the laundry. His skin was covered in lacerations, all but his tattoos.
Blood covered the floor, far more than the shallow cuts on his skin would allow. Latricia watched as Sir Brannon crouched beside the body, touching it ever so gently on the shoulder. The movement was enough to send the head rolling back and pulled open the wide gash below the man’s chin. Kholi Gruul’s throat had been cut. The weight of his skull tugged at the edges of the torn flesh. Latricia turned away and covered her eyes. She’d not seen wounds like that since the early days of the war and had hoped to never again.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Sir Brannon’s voice said softly, “but aren’t these cuts in the same shape as Ula’s tattoos?”
There was a pause as Draeson moved closer. Latricia’s fear warred with necessity. She had to look. Information is power, as Keldan used to say. Her own safety and that of her son depended on her knowing what was going on now. Depended on her finding them protection.
“You’re right,” the mage said. “He already had some tattoos himself. It looks like someone wanted him to have the rest.”
“Which means they didn’t want him being Risen.”
“Is that what they do?”
Latricia could see what they were talking about. What she’d taken as random cruel lacerations where actually carefully drawn runes, like those on the Djin woman in Sir Brannon’s party. “Were . . . were those the symbols they drew on my husband?”
Sir Brannon turned to look at her, his eyes sad. “The same language. Different runes. But Keldan wasn’t cut like this, Latricia. His were painted on.” He rubbed his scar. “You don’t have to be here, you know. You could wait in the hall if you like. I’ll take you back to the inn shortly.”
Latricia shook her head. “I’d rather stay with you.”
He nodded. “Okay.” Then turned back to his investigation. “The mayor says no one has been allowed down here since he came in. But she wasn’t in her office all day, so she can’t know for certain.”
Something touched Latricia’s fingers and she jumped.
“Sorry.” Ambassador Ylani gave her hand a squeeze and pulled her gently into a corner of the cell that seemed relatively untouched. “How about you
come over here with me. I don’t think either of us are any use now. The best we can do is stay out of the way.”
Latricia felt as though her body was heavy. As though her skin had forgotten how to feel. Her eyes, however, did not forget and the image of the dead man was burned into her brain. But somehow, in her mind, she saw her husband’s face instead of the blacksmith’s. “Why would somebody do this?”
She left the bigger questions unsaid: What if they did it again? To herself? Or to Tommy?
Ylani squeezed her hand again. “I don’t know. I wish I did.”
Latricia watched as Sir Brannon went through the victim’s clothes, no doubt looking for clues. He’d dismissed her assertions about the attacker out of hand. There was no way she’d get him to believe anything about his boyhood friend, Duke Roydan. Their whole expedition had been a wasted trip and she’d done nothing but put herself in harm’s way. In trying to keep her position safe, she’d somehow blundered into a game she wasn’t ready for.
Magus Draeson stood over the body, his arms bent at the elbows, palms up. He muttered softly to himself and suddenly light bloomed in both his hands. The seemingly young man looked down at the corpse at his feet, swore, then closed his hands, extinguishing the light.
Sir Brannon looked across at him. “Not what you hoped?”
“Apparently not.”
Latricia felt her mind go still. She’d only ever seen a mage’s magic in person once before, when Draeson had levitated Sir Brannon in her garden. There was power there. Real power. If she could tap into it, she’d never need to feel unsafe again. Draeson was the perfect ally to keep her safe in this dangerous time and Roydan would never turn her out if she had a mage on her side.
She could almost feel Keldan’s spirit chuckling as she turned the memory of his journal over in her mind. It seemed she had a card to play in this game after all.
She cleared her throat. “Magus Draeson,” she called softly. “When you’re done here, I’d like a word with you.” He looked over at her, his incredibly handsome face made interesting by the dragon tattoo curving over his left cheekbone. She pitched her next words low so only he could hear them, and felt a thrill of warmth when they made his blue eyes widen. “I’d like to talk about your deal with the royal family.”
Chapter Thirty-one
“It’s getting so that there isn’t anyone in this town I can trust.” Brannon sighed and lowered himself into a chair beside his apprentice. They were back at the Knox Inn and Tavern. The evening crowd was thin in the dining room. It seemed the coming of darkness at the end of a day that had contained two more murders, and tales of a rampaging Risen, had sent the townsfolk of Sandilar hurrying to their homes and locking the doors. Brannon hoped it would be enough. After all, there had been a lock on the cell where Kholi Gruul had died.
He brushed at his fresh shirt, grateful to the innkeeper for the bath and laundry service. He never liked to stay in bloodstained garments for long. Ever since the war, one of his chief, private luxuries was clean clothes—something hard to come by on the front. Or travelling after a shipwreck, for that matter. And, of course, when he’d come to physician training, Master Jordell had drilled the habit into him. Dirty clothes helped breed infection. It was one of the simple things a physician could do to remove risk for his patients.
If only removing all risks were as easy.
“Here for a day and our best suspect is murdered in custody. Brilliant.”
“You really think there’s no one here we can trust?” Jessamine asked. Her fork hovered absently above her plate.
Brannon sighed. His eyes tracked Shillia Vere and her son Morgin as they stood at the bar, chatting to Draeson. “I don’t know.”
Jessamine set down her fork. “I still can’t believe what happened to Kholi. But then, I found it hard to believe he was involved at all.”
“Oh, he was involved,” Brannon said. “I just don’t know how much.”
“So weird,” Jessamine said. “He always seemed so nice.”
Brannon turned to her. She had inside knowledge of Sandilar but no vested interest in the case other than being here as his apprentice. At this point, she was quite likely the most reliable resource he had.
“How well do you know the people here?”
She shrugged. “Well enough. I didn’t live here long. Just for a few months after my mother died. Once I realized I wanted to be a physician, I only waited long enough to earn money for passage to Alapra. But they’re nice people. To be honest, I can’t imagine anyone here as a murderer.”
“Well, someone is. What do you think of Mayor Shillia?”
“She’s been mayor as long as I know of. I don’t think anyone has ever challenged her for the position. I don’t think they’d dare. She’s has a special connection with Duke Roydan.”
“I heard Roydan is the father of her son,” Brannon said.
“That’s what they say.”
“Do you believe it?”
Jessamine chuckled. “Morgin certainly believes it. He can be pretty full of himself sometimes. But yeah, it’s been unofficially acknowledged.”
Brannon considered it. “Does Shillia seem like the type to want more power than she has?”
“I . . . ” She paused. “I wouldn’t have said so. She’s already the most powerful woman in town. Well, until now.” She jerked her head toward the table where Lady Latricia sat quietly with her son Tomidan and Ambassador Ylani. “You think Shillia’s involved?”
“She had unrestricted access to Kholi Gruul while he was in custody and she can’t tell us if anyone else visited him before Draeson found him dead. We have to consider the possibilities.”
Jessamine nodded slowly. “What would she gain from it?”
Brannon sighed. “That, I don’t know.”
He watched as Morgin Vere drifted away from the conversation, leaving his mother and Draeson to continue alone. Shillia laid her hand on the mage’s arm and laughed at something he’d said. The mage was up to his tricks again. Brannon just hoped that his flirting wouldn’t get in the way of the investigation. A moment later, Lady Latricia approached the pair and Draeson’s attentions moved to the richer prospect.
Brannon shook his head. A grieving widow. Did the man have no boundaries?
Beside him, Jessamine shifted. “Do you think we’ll actually solve this before the king’s birthday celebrations?”
He felt himself slump further into the chair. “I hope so. For all our sakes.”
She shivered. “You really think we’ll go to war again?”
“If we can’t find the truth, people will need a convenient villain.” Brannon’s eyes drifted across to Ylani. “It won’t take much to fire them up against the Nilarians again. They stand to gain a lot from killing Kalan royals.” He knew his king. Aldan wouldn’t start a war, but if he believed the Nilarians were behind this attack, he’d consider one was already begun.
Jessamine touched his hand. “What will you do if it happens? I know you don’t want to go back to war.”
Brannon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The king has made it clear that my role will be to lead the army as before.”
“He wouldn’t allow you to be one of the army’s physicians, perhaps? Put your new skills to use?”
Brannon shook his head. “I’m more use as a figurehead. He needs me fighting.”
He ran his finger along the blunt edge of a table knife. It tilted to his touch, throwing reflected light across his arm. There was so much blood on his hands already. More than he was likely to ever balance out, no matter how many lives he saved as a physician. Another war would make Bloodhawk the Hooded One’s most irredeemable contributor.
“You could leave.” Jessamine’s voice was barely above a whisper. “No one would blame you.”
“Run away, you mean?” Could he? Could he really say no to his king and country, and walk away, knowing the horrors that would befall them?
“Not run as such but . . . stay out of it. Withdraw. H
ide, even. You could go be a farmer somewhere. Or continue being a physician. You could do a lot of good from the sidelines. I’m sure Master Jordell would help you there. He’d keep you hidden in one of the hospitals. Nobody would have to know who you are.”
“I would know.” Brannon sighed. It was a pretty dream. As long as he didn’t factor in disappointing his friend, a possible accusation of treason, and a required willingness to leave his country’s defense in the hands of those less qualified than himself with no thought for the consequences.
“You’re too honorable for your own good, you know.”
He felt his lips twist in a wry smile. “Yes, I do know.” He pushed the knife away. “Let’s order dessert.”
He lifted his hand to signal for a waiter, then lowered it again, suddenly aware that the tavern had gone quiet. Voices fell silent. Cutlery ceased to clatter. There was a soft thud as the open door bumped against the wall. He turned to see seven armed men taking positions inside the door. They wore chain mail and hardened leather breastplates with the Sandilar insignia of the wolf and pick-axe in yellow. “What are they doing here?”
He looked toward the window. Outside, the courtyard was lost to the night. Instinct and experience told him it was not empty.
“Captain.” Brannon stood and moved quickly toward the ranking officer, the stripes on his shoulder were golden pins. “What brings you from the manor?”
“Sir Brannon.” The man acknowledged him with a brisk nod. Brannon didn’t recognize him, but the man obviously knew who he was. “Steward Fressin sent us to escort the duke’s family.”
Brannon flicked a glance toward Keldan’s widow. She stood near Draeson, her son clutched close in her arms.
“You can get out,” she said, her eyes fixed on the captain. “Go back where you came from. You’re not taking my boy.”
The man smiled and inclined his head ever so slightly in a mocking mini-bow. “Of course, My Lady. The steward is merely concerned for your safety. We heard you were attacked on the road.”
Ambassador Ylani rose slowly from her seat. She caught Brannon’s eye and mouthed the word “How?”