She closed her eyes, putting her right hand on James’s arm and the back of her left hand to her forehead. She made a short incantation and finally said, “There. It is done. Now hurry, for it will last but a short time”
James said, “I didn’t feel anything.”
“It’s done,” she repeated.
“I usually feel magic when it’s - ”
“Go!” she said, pushing him toward the door. “Time is short!”
“But - ”
“Go!” she repeated with a strong push.
James tumbled head-first through the door, and ducked at the sight of flames licking the ceiling above. To his surprise, he felt no heat.
The smoke, however, caused his eyes to water and he blinked furiously to clear them. He wished he had thought to wet the cloth he held over his nose and mouth. He made for a stairway, following a serpentine route around flaming tables and burning tapestries.
He quickly reached the top of the stairs and did not have to ask if the children were still alive. Three tiny voices split the air with their screams and coughs. James shouted, “Stay where you are, children! I’m coming to get you!”
He hurried toward the shouts at the other end of the room, a barracks of sorts where the children obviously slept. Bedding was smoldering and flames climbed the walls, but he found a straight path to the children.
Two boys and a girl huddled in the corner, terrified to the point of immobility. James quickly decided that trying to guide them through the flames was pointless. The older of the two boys appeared to be about seven or eight years of age. The other boy and girl he guessed as being closer to four.
He knelt and said, “Come here.”
The children stood up and he gathered the two smaller children up, one under each arm, then said to the older boy, “Climb on my back!”
The boy did, clamping his arm over James’s throat. James put down the other two children, almost gagging. “Not so hard!” he said, prying the boy’s arm from across his windpipe. “Here,” he said, placing the boy’s arms across his chest. “Like this!”
Then he scooped up the other children and hurried back to the stairs. He moved quickly down the steps and saw the flames had closed around the landing. “Damn!” he muttered.
There was nothing for it but to run. He leapt as far as he could through the flames and instantly understood Jazhara’s warning. The heat itself hadn’t been noticeable, but the second the flames touched him he could certainly feel it. “Oooh!” he shouted, as he landed in a relatively clear patch of wooden floor, while the planks on all sides smoldered and burned.
The roof above was making alarming sounds, creaks and groans, that told James the support timbers were weakening. Soon the upper floor would collapse on him and the children if he didn’t move. The smoke was making the children cough and James’s eyes were tearing to the point of being unable to see through the smoke. Taking in a lungful that caused him to cough, he shouted, “Jazhara! William!”
William’s booming voice answered from slightly to his left. “This way!”
James didn’t hesitate. He leapt forward, trying as well as he could to avoid the flames, but by the time he came spilling out the door with a child under each arm and one across his back, he was burned on both legs and arms. The children were crying from their burns, but they were alive. He collapsed onto the cobblestones, coughing.
Two women took charge of the burned and frightened children, while Jazhara knelt and examined James’s burns. “Not serious,” she judged.
James looked at her through watering eyes and said, “Easy for you to say. They hurt like the blazes!”
Jazhara took a small jar out of her belt pouch and said, “This will make them stop hurting until we can get you to a healer or priest.”
She applied a salve gently to the burns and, true to her words, the pain vanished. James said, “What is that?”
“It is made from a desert plant found in the Jal-Pur. My people use this salve on burns and cuts. It will keep wounds from festering for a while, enabling them to heal.”
James stood up and looked toward the gate. “He’s gotten awayr
William said, “I expect so. Look.” He pointed to the other side of the street where members of the city watch were moving citizens back from the fire so that a chain of men with buckets could start wetting down the nearby buildings. It was clear that the orphanage was doomed, but the rest of the quarter might be saved. William sounded defeated. “Those men are from the gate watch, so I suspect the murderer got out of the city just by walking through.”
Jazhara said, “What sort of monster would set fire to an orphanage to create a diversion?”
James said, “The same sort who would break into a jail at sunset.” He coughed one more time, then said, “Let’s go back and see if we can find out who he was after.” He started walking back toward the jail.
Soldiers from the palace had arrived to augment the surviving city guards at the jail. James had just learned that Sheriff Wilfred Means and all but six of his men had been killed. The sheriffs son, Jonathan, stood in the main room surveying the damage. James had recently recruited the young man to work secretly for him in the Prince’s burgeoning intelligence network. The squire put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry for your loss. Your father and I were never what could be called friends, but I respected him as an honest man who was unstinting in his loyalty and duty.”
Jonathan looked pale and could only nod. Finally he controlled his emotions and said, “Thank you.”
James nodded. “For the time being, you and the other deputies report to Captain Garruth. Arutha will need time to name a new sheriff and you’ll be undermanned for a while.”
Jonathan said, “I need to go home if that’s all right. I must tell my mother.”
James said, “Yes, of course. Go to your mother,” and sent the young man on his way. Jonathan was an able man, despite his youth, but he doubted Arutha would willingly elevate him to his father’s office. Besides, having Jonathan tied to a desk wouldn’t help James’s plans. He put aside those thoughts and went looking for Garruth.
The captain was directing workers and soldiers as they started making repairs on the jail. “Didn’t catch him?” he said when he saw James and the others.
James held up one of his burned arms and said, “Bastard set fire to the orphanage as a diversion.”
Garruth shook his head. “That one is a mean piece of work.” He inclined his head to the stairs leading to the cell below. “You should take a look at what he did down there. I’d not want to be on this one’s bad side.”
James led the others down the steps to the lock-up. The jail was a holding area for minor criminals waiting to get justice from Arutha’s magistrates, or for prisoners waiting to be transferred to the palace dungeon or the prison work-gangs.
The jail comprised a large basement divided by bars and doors into eight cells - two large general holding pens, and six smaller cells used to isolate the more troublesome prisoners. At any hour of the day, drunks, petty thieves, and other troublemakers would be found locked up.
A city watchman saluted when he saw James and said, “It’s not pretty, Squire. Only one man left alive here, in that far cell.”
James couldn’t believe his eyes. Guardsmen were carrying bodies from one of the two large cells. James instantly saw what had likely transpired. The large man had come down, perhaps with henchmen, perhaps alone, and had found two cells occupied, six empty. The small cell across the way had been ignored, while he had opened the large cell. The door lay on the floor, and James wondered what sort of man could pry it off its hinges.
Three men lay dead in the cell, and a fourth was being carried out. Three of these men had died by the blade, killed quickly from the evidence before James’s eyes, but the fourth man look as if he had literally been torn limb from limb. Eyes fixed wide in pain and terror, the wizened-looking little man lay with his left arm ripped off at the shoulder, his righ
t leg smashed and broken in several places, and his left leg severed below the knee. His blood had splattered the walls across the room.
James glanced at Jazhara and saw her looking at the corpse without flinching. William looked pale, though he had seen dead men before. The young lieutenant said, “Who could do such a thing?”
“Someone who could kill barmaids and fire orphanages,” answered Jazhara.
James knelt beside the corpse and said, “I know this man. His name is Knute. Pirate working up the coast, used to come down from time to time to fence stolen property. Clever bastard, but obviously not clever enough.”
“What do you mean?” asked William.
“I have an idea, but I’m keeping it to myself until I get more information,” said James. With a slight smile he glanced at his companions and added, “Don’t want to look too stupid if I’m wrong.”
He stood and turned to the guard. Pointing at the other cell with the single living man in it, he asked, “What’s his story?”
The guard shrugged. “Can’t get much out of him. Local drunk, I’m guessing, Squire. Scared to madness, I’m think-ing.”
James motioned his companions to come with him. He crossed to stand before the drunk, who stood gripping the bars as if afraid to let go. His hair was gray and his face drawn and pale, damaged from too many nights lying drunk in the gutter. His eyes were tightly shut and he muttered, “Gods, gods, gods! Calm, calm, try to be calm. They’ll be along soon. Any moment now, they’ve got to come soon . . .”
James said, “Scovy?”
The man opened his eyes wide, and tensed as if ready to leap away. Seeing James he said, “Jimmy! Dala bless you! You’ve come to save me!”
James said, “Not so fast, old man. Did you see what happened?”
Words came tumbling from Scovy’s lips. “Oh, yes, yes, I saw it! Would that I had gone to Lims-Kragma’s Hall before seein‘ what was done to that poor soul!”
“You mean Knute?”
Scovy nodded vigorously. “Knute it was. Pirate from up near Widow’s Point. Smug he was, saying he wouldn’t hang. Said the Prince himself would sign his pardon once he heard the secret Knute was keepin‘.”
“What secret?” James asked.
“Blast if I know, Jimmy. Knute wouldn’t say. I’m thinking treasure. Knute probably had it hid . . . that’s what all this fuss is about.”
Jazhara said, “Tell us what happened tonight.”
Scovy looked at Jimmy and said, “Get me out?”
James nodded. “If I like what I hear.”
Scovy said, “Well, first this sound comes from above, like the gods’ own thunder was shaking the building. Twice it rocked the building. I was sitting down, but I damned near hit my head on the ceiling I jumped so high. Scared me sober, it did. Then this man comes down the stairs. Huge fellow, with a beard and a scar through one eye, murder in the other. Knute called him ‘Bear.’”
“What then?” asked William.
“Well, Knute’s about to piss himself, swearing to all the gods he didn’t betray Bear. The big man seems to believe him, then he reaches over and rips the door right off the cell. Calm as you please he walks in, draws a long dagger and kills those other three sods in there. The he tells Knute to follow him, and Knute takes a step forward, then Bear’s grabbing him by the throat and lifts him clean off the ground.
“Knute’s kicking and squealing like a pig heading for slaughter, and Bear keeps asking Knute where ‘it’ is. ‘Where did you hide it?’ he keeps asking. ‘What did you do with it?’”
Jazhara said, “And then?”
“Knute just keeps screaming he hadn’t done nothing. . . Bear says Knute’s a liar and starts cutting into him, slicin‘ him apart piece by piece. He wouldn’t even wait for an answer. He only stopped when he heard fighting upstairs. Then he screams like an animal and rips what’s left of Knute into pieces.” Lowering his voice, he said, “I’m only alive because this Bear ran out of time, I’m thinking. He was insane, Jimmy. Something about him . . . it’s not right. I’ve seen strong men, but nothing like this one. I’ve seen crazy men, but this man is the craziest ever.” His lips quivered as he finished his story. “Get me out?”
James nodded to the guard and said, “Release him.”
The guard produced a key and opened the door. “Thanks, Jimmy. I won’t forget.”
“See that you don’t, Scovy.”
The prisoner hurried up the stairs and James turned to his companions. “Any ideas?”
Jazhara said, “This Knute betrayed Bear?”
James nodded. William said, “Whatever ‘it’ is, this Bear must want it very badly to risk so much mayhem and murder to recover it.”
James let out a slow breath. “My thinking too.” Turning toward the stairs upward, he said, “Let’s see if Garruth has uncovered any more information in that mess. But one thing I know for certain.”
“What?” William and Jazhara asked simultaneously.
“Arutha is not going to be happy.”
FOUR
Secrets
A soldier descended the staircase.
“Captain, we found someone alive. It’s Dennison,” he said.
James glanced at Garruth, who nodded that the squire should investigate and James signaled to Jazhara and William to accompany him upstairs.
Up there, they found the rooms in as much disarray as the ground floor. Through a door in the far end of the hall, they could see another hole blown through the wall that was obviously the way the man called Bear had exited the jail.
Sitting on a stool with a cold wet rag pressed to his head was the jail’s scribe, Dennison. The scribe looked up and said, “Thank Dala, who protects the weak and the pious. Who knows what horrors they’d have inflicted upon me had you not shown up.”
William looked around the room. “What happened here?”
“I was knocked to the ground by a thunderclap, then rendered almost senseless by a second. This stool upon which I sit fell atop me, striking my head here.” He rubbed at a nasty bump on his forehead. “I had blood upon my brow when they arrived, so I feigned death. They killed all the guards in the barracks room.” He pointed to the door leading into the largest room on the top floor. “Someone with a powerful, deep voice gave the orders, but I kept my eyes closed so I can’t tell you what he looks like. But I did catch a glimpse of one of his men.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“I think so. I’ve seen him before. He’s rumored to be the bosun’s mate for Sullen Michael, the pirate.”
James’s eyes narrowed. He’d met many liars in his day, and this man was a particularly bad one. “Sullen Michael? How would a law-abiding servant of the Crown, such as yourself, know this man?”
The scribe blinked and said, “Ah, I have been known to drink . . . from time to time . . . and occasionally I find myself in the less savory taverns . . . down by the docks.” His speech became more rapid as he said, “Ah, maybe I’m wrong. Everything was happening so fast, and I only caught a glimpse before I closed my eyes again. I mean, it could have been someone else . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked around the room uncomfortably.
James glanced at Jazhara and William, and William inched over to the stairs, while Jazhara took up position between the scribe and the hole in the far wall. James said, “Given how thorough they were in killing just about everyone else, why do you think you were left alive?”
The color drained from the scribe’s face and he stammered, “As I said, sir, I feigned death.”
“Odd they didn’t check more closely,” Jazhara offered coolly.
James nodded to William, then the squire stepped forward and grabbed the slender scribe by the shirtfront. “It’s more than passing strange that every man in this jail was killed — every man except you and the drunk downstairs.”
“And the drunk only survived because he was in a different cell,” William observed.
James shoved the scribe so his back was to the wall. “The raid
ers knew exactly when to hit this jail. Who knew the schedule?”
Going even paler, the scribe sputtered, “The sheriff! The deputies!”
“And you!” said William, pressing in close to the man. “There’s a girl lies dead because of those mercenaries, a girl I loved! I think you know more than you’re telling, so you’d best be out with it before I spill your blood.”
The scribe was shaking with fear as he held up a placating hand and he looked beseechingly from William to James to Jazhara. “Truly, masters, I’ve no idea.”
William whipped out his dagger and put the point against the man’s throat. A thin trickle of blood snaked down Dennison’s neck. “You lie! Say your prayers!”
“No, wait!” screamed the scribe. “I’ll tell. I’ll tell. Just don’t kill me!”
James moved slightly, as if to pull William away from the scribe, and in even tones said, “Did you know this man Bear?”
Dennison nodded, looking defeated. “We did a bit of business. He used to slip me a few crowns in exchange for information regarding the jail and the guards, and on occasion I’d lighten a few sentences here and there when his men were picked up. I’d cut them loose; no one noticed. I don’t know what Bear was doing with that pirate Knute, but he was mighty upset when Knute got picked up.”
“What secret was the pirate keeping that would lead Bear to murder?”
The scribe let out a bitter laugh. “No one needs to lead Bear to murder, Squire. He finds it whenever he wants. It’s why I could never say no to him all these years. He’d have killed me without even blinking that one good eye of his. I don’t know why he was after Knute. I just found out that Knute had a room at Ye Bitten Dog, but I’ve not been able to let Bear know yet, and I wasn’t about to sit up and tell his men when they were killing everyone in sight.”
“Well, you’re not going to tell him now,” said William, as he reversed his dagger and slammed the hilt into the base of the scribe’s skull.
Krondor Tear of the Gods Page 8