“I have thought about that,” Orwin replied. “After the tariffs have been lowered, I will write a letter to him myself, and explain that she is my hostage until the end of the war.”
Wren scoffed. “This war won’t be over in our lifetimes,” he said.
“True, but that will at least buy me several years of equal access to goods. You see, even if I had to steal his daughter away to accomplish that goal, it would be a good trade as far as I am concerned.” Orwin shrugged and then arched a brow while making a slight frown. “However, the fact that she doesn’t want to return, and will be off in the northern territories with her lover should make it all the sweeter for her and for you.”
“And the item I requested, do you have it?” Wren asked.
Marshal Orwin reached down to a sack between his boots and came up with a wooden box large enough to fit several books inside. “I have it here.”
Wren reached out with one hand and opened the lid, inspecting the contents while keeping his weapon trained on the Marshal. “Everything appears to be in order.”
“So you’ll go through with the changes?”
Wren nodded. “I had something… different in mind to convince the governor for you, but this will work. Be warned, however, that if his daughter does not corroborate everything you have told me, I will abandon the assignment and come looking for your head.”
Orwin frowned. “Yes, well, then it’s a good thing she will confirm my claims.”
Wren stood, taking the wooden box with him, along with its contents. “Don’t forget to leave an offering before you depart the cathedral if you seek the divine’s blessings.”
Marshal Orwin stood up and straightened his shirt once more and offered a single nod to Wren before he turned and walked toward his men. Wren, on the other hand, disappeared through a side door that led down a long corridor along the western side of the cathedral. He passed four more doors and then ducked into the fifth, quickly locking it behind him. He knew he couldn’t carry the large wooden box with him everywhere he went, but he didn’t need to. He opened the lid once more and transferred the items inside to a large cloth bag. He then went to the wardrobe and undressed, hanging the priestly garments inside the large wardrobe and exchanging them for beggar’s rags. Next he tucked his short hair into a cap of fake skin that would give him the appearance of being bald and then grabbed a large cloth hat that looked as though it had been fished out of a swamp for all the various stains on it.
Wren moved to the large window and pushed it open. Along with his bag containing his payment, he slipped out and onto the grassy ground outside the cathedral. He walked along the streets, keeping his eyes fixed down on the dirt road before him as he wound his way through the city. He stopped behind a large elm tree and set his bag down so he could look inside once more and ensure nothing had been damaged in his escape. Noting that everything was in perfect condition, he took a moment to glance over his shoulder. He saw one of Marshal Orwin’s guards scouring the streets, but the poor man looked far too flustered to continue the pursuit. Wren picked up the bag and continued hobbling along his way to the outskirts of the northern side of town.
Most of his safe houses were secluded and also well fortified, but his safe house in Astyr was quite the opposite. He wound his way through meandering shacks that housed other war refugees, those torn from their original homes in villages along the Serpent Tongue River, or perhaps driven from their farmlands as new forts had been erected over the last century. Here he could hide in the open. No one bothered him. His house was even less interesting. It was missing the front third of its roof, with only exposed beams holding up the rest of it. The front door was crooked and never closed completely. The walls were cracked and bleached with age and weather. Nightshade grew around the front of the shack, and plenty of morning glory crept up to what had once been windows.
Atop the apex of the sagging roof sat the raven. It spied Wren approaching and gave a long caw.
Wren answered with a series of sharp, short whistles to identify himself.
The raven then answered that with ca-caaw, ca-caaw.
Wren sighed. A single vocalization would have meant no one had disturbed the house in his absence. Three vocalizations would have signaled that someone had come and gone, but two meant that someone had come and remained there.
Wren gave a short, two-toned whistle to continue the conversation with his raven.
Rook, rook, rook.
“Wonderful,” Wren sighed. “Three strangers in my home.” With any luck, they had come only to share the shelter, but that was never a chance Wren could rely on. He walked through the front garden, which consisted mainly of weeds and crab grass, and around the side of the house, stealing a glance in through the first window as he passed.
Inside was a tall man dressed in dark clothes. By the looks of him, he was not a beggar or a refugee. Wren continued to the back of the house and rounded the corner. He moved to a spot in the ground and checked for onlookers before lifting a fake patch of weeds sewn onto a wooden hatch. He slipped down into the tunnel and pulled the hatch closed. It was pitch black in the hole, with absolutely no sunlight reaching the depths, but then he didn’t need to see. He set his bag down against the side of the tunnel and then moved in the darkness. Twenty steps straight ahead, then turn to the right and take seven more steps before turning to the left and walking fifteen more steps. It wasn’t a complicated pattern, but following it avoided the several snares he had set in the floor in case his tunnel was ever discovered.
When he reached the ladder going up, he slid his hand up the side and felt for the seventh rung. Anyone lucky enough to avoid the snares would have to go up the ladder, and none of them would suspect the seventh rung would be nothing more than a hollow dowel with a tripwire inside. He felt the connecting wire and disarmed the trap. Up he went to the hatch above. He worked the locks, a series of bolts and levers that had to be moved in the correct order to unlock the portal, and then quietly went up into his safe house. Of course, he had taken quite a bit of care in creating his secret entry, so instead of simply popping up through the floor in the middle of some room he emerged into a large stone pillar at the back of the house. There was just enough room to maneuver himself about and look through each of the peepholes, and then once he was certain the area was clear, he opened the secret door and stepped through.
The room itself was also kept secret from the rest of the house. There were no windows or proper doors to speak of. There were a few chests, each containing various pieces of equipment useful for different missions such as weapons or disguises, others held poisons or maps of different structures. Of course, there were only maps for previous assignments in the safe house, nothing in here could point to his current missions.
He moved to the northern wall and bent down to use one of the covered peepholes. There were two men, dressed similarly to the first, in the adjacent room. He studied them carefully. On occasion, it happened that a potential client would come looking for him. It always frustrated him when they managed to render a safe house useless, but it was always better that a client do it than an enemy. In this case, however, it wasn’t a client.
Aside from the weapons hanging from their belts, these men didn’t have the nervous look of a client. They wore mean expressions, and waited in silence, occasionally tugging at a knife or sword along their belt as if waiting for his return. He wasn’t sure how his house had been found, but it wasn’t the first time he had needed to move.
As he watched, the tall man he had seen through the window entered the room to join the other two.
“Any sign?” one of the others asked.
“Nothing yet,” the tall man said.
Wren smiled. Three ambushers might be tricky for someone to deal with, but fortunately for him, he was a meticulous planner. He moved to the rear wall of his secret room and opened a false panel inside a large armoire. Behind the false panel was a series of levers. Without hesitation, he pulled each of the levers e
xcept the last. The sound of gears clicking echoed through the wall, followed by faint sounds of darts flying from their hiding places throughout the house. Moments later the house was filled with wailing and screaming.
Wren moved to the secret door that connected his safe room to the adjacent room and stepped through. He found the first two men lying on the floor, writhing in pain and unable to speak or control the spasms in their bodies.
He went to them and patted the first one down. “Professional outfit, or a disgruntled nobleman?” Wren asked as he searched the assassin’s pockets. “Ah, never mind, it doesn’t matter to me who sent you. The point is you failed and I didn’t. Welcome to the Wren’s Nest. Hope you enjoyed your stay, brief as it was.”
The first man tried to say something, but his face turned purple as veins popped out along his forehead and neck. He then arched backward and went stiff. It would still be several minutes before the assassin died, but his body was useless now. Wren grunted when he found nothing to identify the assailant with. He moved to the second man and checked him, but likewise found nothing useful. He left them and went to the third man.
“And how about you? Do you have anything to tell me?” Wren asked as he bent down to check the man’s pockets. He came up with nothing for a third time.
Ca-caaw! Ca-caaw!
Wren perked up. The raven was warning him off. Someone else was coming. Without hesitation he turned and ran for the safe room in the back of the house. He jumped through the secret opening and pulled it closed behind himself. Moments later he heard boots stomping about the wooden floors. He went to the armoire in the back of the room and put his hand on the last remaining lever. He closed his eyes and listened to the boots storming his safe house.
“Spread out, find him!” someone shouted.
“He can’t be allowed to leave here alive!” another yelled.
Wren almost jumped when something thudded into the secret door behind him. They knew he was in there. There was only one thing left to do. He pulled the last lever. Unlike the others, which controlled hidden dart guns in various rooms, this one controlled a much larger set of darts in the walls and floors of every room in the house. Anguished shouts filled the house as Wren hurried to one of the chests near the stone pillar. He quickly worked the lock while the ticking gears of the final lever continued to count off the seconds he had until the last remaining trap was sprung. Unlike the other levers that only used darts, the last one ensured the destruction of the house after stopping infiltrators. It was connected to a series of devices that used oil to set the house on fire and torch all evidence of his existence there.
He pulled the disguises he needed for the night’s mission and then slipped back down into the underground tunnel just as the house burst into flames above.
To facilitate a quick exit, there was a line of magnesium built into the tunnel walls that sparked and flashed with brilliant flare as he raced through the trap-infested cavern to retrieve his bag and ascend the ladder to the secret hatch in the rear garden. He pushed open the hatch and emerged behind a short man who was cursing at another and had him by the collar. From the looks of their clothes, they had been part of the team that had tried to catch Wren in his safe house.
“Sir!” the first shouted as his eyes went wide and he pointed at Wren.
The short man let go and turned around.
Wren smiled. “Hi, please, have a seat and make yourself comfortable,” he said as he lashed out with a kick to the short man’s chin that dropped him to the ground.
The second man pulled a sword, but Wren wasn’t deterred. He dropped his things onto the ground and came in so fast that he grabbed the assassin’s sword arm at the wrist before the man could swing, then pummeled the man in the throat with a knife-hand strike, followed by a head-butt to the face. The second assassin went down, coughing and choking as his nose, now broken and grotesquely bent to the side, began to bleed. Wren came in with another punch to the man’s temple and then pulled a knife from the assassin’s belt to finish him.
Wren then went to the short man he had dropped first and pinned him down face first. “Who sent you?” Wren asked as he dug his knee into the man’s spine.
“Can’t tell you,” the man groaned through a face full of dirt.
“Tell me, and I will spare you,” Wren said.
“Lies. We both know you’ll kill me afterward.”
Wren used the thumb of his right hand to press into a cluster of nerves in the side of the man’s neck. “Two things you should know about me. The first is I always keep my word. The second is that I am keen on developing new contacts. You tell me who sent you, and I let you go. In return, I may call on you in the future.”
“Lord Draur,” the man said.
Wren nodded and looked around for witnesses. Fortunately, no one else was around, and the raven was silently flying above him, keeping watch. “What was the price?” he pressed.
“Two hundred gold to each of us if we brought your body, and three hundred each if we brought you alive.”
Wren smiled. “Is that all? That’s rather insulting considering what I did to him last time I met Lord Draur in Freyr. Now,” Wren said as he pressed his thumb in a bit harder. The man beneath him tried to squirm away, but Wren had him tightly pressed into the ground. “How did you find me?”
“Lord Draur put out a notice,” the man said.
“Yes, yes, there are always notices, but how did you find me?”
The man grunted again and then relaxed a bit. “The baker, over on Flittern Street. Her husband hired you two years ago. Said he knew where you lived in Astyr.”
“Is that so?” Wren asked. He knew the baker well. She had been a rough sort, but no worse than most other people who began work before the sun came up and finished after it had set once again. Her husband had hired him to help with a sizeable gambling debt. At the time he had taken the job because it was good money. He had warned the husband off of gambling afterward, but it seemed logical that the man had new debts, and had rolled over on Wren in an attempt to collect on reward money. After he finished his business with the governor, he would have to pay the baker’s husband a visit. It wasn’t fair that the man leeched off of his hard working wife just to throw it all away, and it was unforgivable that he would repay Wren’s former kindness with such mal-intent.
“Are you going to kill me?” the short man asked.
“No,” Wren said. The man started to sing his praises, but they were cut short when Wren slammed his fist into the back of the man’s head and rendered him unconscious. “I’m just going to leave you here in the field, but I will visit you again sometime, if I ever have need of you.” He stood up and gathered his belongings. Without turning to look at the burning building behind him, he disappeared in the rows of shacks ahead of him and then made his way out of Astyr and to a small farm about half a mile outside the walls. There he would change into yet another disguise. With any luck, he would have the governor’s daughter well in hand before supper, and then later in the evening he would pay the baker a visit and deal with her treacherous husband.
Chapter 7
“Can you stop eating for a couple of minutes?” Debir asked as Liden shoved another piece of soggy jerky into his mouth. After getting to shore, they had repacked their bags and found that most of the food had gotten wet during their escape. “We’ll run out of food before we even get to Astyr.”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t been able to hold down food since we left Ryr. Besides,” he added through the half-chewed food. “Everything’s soaking wet, it’ll go bad if we don’t eat it.” He grabbed a slice of jerky, ripped it into three pieces, and began juggling the three small chunks of meat.
“You may have a point, but you haven’t been able to do anything but pack down food since we’ve left that cargo ship.” Sarta commented.
Liden tossed the three pieces of meat into the air and caught them one by one in his open mouth. He then stopped looking up into the lofty boughs of the evergre
en forest to stare down at the young girl and shake his head. “I’m a little shocked to hear you complaining,” he replied. He reached out and leaned a bit on her already oversized pack. “I’m lightening your load by eating this food, and you’re the entire reason we’re out here hiking through the woods instead of riding a ship into the city.”
Sarta shrugged her shoulders to adjust the pack a little. She opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again after a stern look from Knell. “How far have we gone?” she asked instead, turning to Debir.
“By my calculations, about five miles. We’ll probably make another three before nightfall. At this rate we’ll reach Astyr by mid-day the day after tomorrow, assuming the woods stay this clear and the weather holds up.”
Hiking through the trees was relatively easy as the trees in this part of the forest were old and had shaded out most small undergrowth. The ground crunched as Liden stepped on the thick layer of needles that had formed over the years, and over a half rotten log. It was actually very peaceful and quiet compared with the hustle of the city. Not that he wanted to settle down in the woods or anything, but he could enjoy it as they went. The one thing that was a little bothersome was that the heavy shade of the forest meant his clothing and pack had still not dried through the hours of walking.
“Can we stop for a little?” Sarta asked, shifting herself back and forth, trying to situate her pack better.
“Not for you,” Knell replied, walking past her without slowing down.
Hunlok stepped up next to Knell and leaned over to whisper something into her ear. Liden couldn’t tell what he was saying, but it was fun to watch Sarta’s face darken. “Wonder what he’s saying,” he said to the younger girl.
She shook herself when she realized Liden was watching her. “Who cares?” She groaned a little and kept walking, though it was clear she was struggling.
“Here,” Liden said, leaning over and grabbing the back of her pack. “We’ll switch.” He knew why Knell had given the heaviest pack to Sarta, but he felt like the lesson had been learned.
Wren and the Ravens Page 9