“What is it?” he snapped but his gaze remained fixed on her.
“The guards are flagging us down,” the driver responded. “It’s the Argbed. What you want me to do?”
Ax-Wed’s ears pricked up at the mention of the title. Argbed was a traditional title for a castellan, a rank equal to the Gondbed or captains who oversaw a quarter and thus second only to the Hazarbed. Given that she was certain they were in the Gold Quarter, the castellan would be from the royal Citadel. The conspiratorial thrill she felt at her dawning comprehension was matched only by the growing unease she felt.
“What else can we do?” Crim growled through gritted teeth even as he forced a smile across his face. “We are merely law-abiding citizens delivering goods to our betters, aren’t we?”
“Yes, boss,” the driver muttered before he turned to issue a profane command to halt, which the ragged beasts drawing the wagon obeyed.
A surge of hopeful, anxious energy rushed through the Thulian and it took everything she had to stop herself from squirming under her abductor’s hand. Either she’d get the guard’s attention or she’d use her captor’s distraction to get her arm free but this was likely to be her best chance.
Visions of the bloody vengeance she’d planned danced behind her eyes and within the cover of her helm, a grim smile spread slowly.
Crim’s eyes narrowed at her as though he might have intuited her thoughts but he removed his hand and slid it inside his ragged coat.
“What are the guards doing?” he asked.
“They approach,” the driver whispered, a slight quaver in his tone.
Is he reaching for a weapon? Ax-Wed wondered and felt a pang of dread. She didn’t believe an operation like this would be so bold as to fight a guard patrol in the middle of the Golden Quarter, but what if they were willing to kill the two women to avoid being exposed? In Jehadim, the stringent laws against slavery were such that it would be better to be caught with a corpse and a bloody knife than have someone level the accusation of slaver.
Getting the guard’s attention isn’t an option, she admitted to herself.
Caught between trying desperately to free her arm and not wanting to give Crim an excuse to slit her throat, she continued to hold very still and forced her breath into a slow and even rhythm.
“What’s the plan, boss?” the bruised man asked.
The leader’s hand emerged from his coat and instead of a blade, he held a small disk. She glimpsed something—a seal or stamp of some kind—along one edge and cuneiform numbering on the other. The clustered triangles and stems denoted the number seventeen.
“Pay our respects, of course,” he said in a soft, deadly voice and turned to join the driver.
Masheed’s eyes snapped open as the ringleader departed, a painfully fevered light in her eyes. Ax-Wed tried to give the faintest shake of her head while, as surreptitiously as she could, she began to probe and work at the bindings around her arms.
Don’t do anything stupid. She wished she could will the words into the desperate woman’s brain and held her gaze for an instant before the mercenary’s wild gaze roved around the wagon, that of a trapped animal desperate to escape.
“Evening, your honors.” Crim’s voice carried to them from the front, genial and relaxed. “Well, if it isn’t my old friend Argbed Alborz. How are you this very early morning?”
“I’m not your friend, Crim,” Alborz replied gruffly accompanied by the sound of several heavy sandals striding alongside the wagon. “Another delivery, then?”
Ax-Wed whispered thanks to whatever gods were listening that she hadn’t tried to get the guards' attention. From the sound of it, Crim wasn’t the only villain running the streets of Jehadim.
She didn’t dare to even change the pace of her breathing but set to work on the bonds that trapped her right arm to her side. Mercifully, the bruised man’s attention was fixed on the front of the wagon.
“I’m surprised to see you out patrolling this particular area in such force,” Crim said, his tone unchanged by either the guard officer’s tone or question. “But I’m sure you won’t need to tarry much longer once you see this.”
There was a creak as Crim shifted on the driver’s bench and in the tense stillness, Ax-Wed heard one set of sandaled feet approach the bench and then retreat.
“It’s in order, sir,” a curt, disciplined voice reported.
“The streets have been crawling with your little spiders,” Alborz said and his tone left no doubt as to his opinion on the matter. “What do you have in that wagon that someone wants so very badly?”
There was a single, crackling second of silence and Crim’s silken voice cut through the stifling tension in the same instant that the first drops of sweat slicked Ax-Wed’s skin. She’d just managed to position one of the lames in her armor to chafe against the ropes.
Keep talking, please.
“My good Argbed,” Crim responded smoothly. “I’m most astonished that you seem to have forgotten how this works. I give you that piece of clay and we go on our way unmolested and unquestioned.”
A gravel-throated laugh answered the statement.
“Imagine that—a little rat like you educating me about how the Hazarbed’s seal works.” Alborz chuckled before he heaved a weary sigh. “Fine, you can move along but remember that one of these days, I might not care what’s stamped on a little piece of pottery.”
Ax-Wed was afraid that the bruised man was about to look down and see the cord fraying, but she was so close.
“Oh, Argbed, we both know the Citadel will be dust before your vaunted honor crumbles,” Crim replied and laughed roughly. “But I suppose if I’m still around when that happens, it will certainly be an interesting day.”
“Indeed.” The castellan grunted before he raised his voice in a hoarse command. “All right, move along, Crim. And make sure to not get yourself killed before I can drag you to the gallows.”
The warrior woman had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying out in frustration when the tough leather refused to part.
I am so close.
“Such is my nightly endeavor, Alborz,” the ruffian declared with a flourish of his hand. “A very fine day to you.”
With a lurch, the wagon set off again.
“He’s getting bolder,” the driver growled as they moved into what must have been some kind of tunnel by the sudden cacophony of hooves on stone. “Let’s hope you are right about his honor.”
“Let’s get these delivered,” Crim roared and shouted over his shoulder without turning. “Is everything still in order back there?”
“Yes, boss,” the bruised man declared with a relieved sigh as he turned his attention to Masheed with a barely audible drawl. “Isn’t that right you little—”
At that precise moment, Ax-Wed’s bond came apart with a sharp snap.
His head jerked and his eyes widened. She lurched forward with her fingers curled into a powerful claw that snared the man about the throat. The air he’d gathered for a shout stalled in a tight gagging sound and she squeezed with terrible force. His body seemed unsure of whether to fight back or try to escape and one hand clawed at her vambrace while the other pushed against the side of the wagon. As a result, he was successful at neither and spittle began to foam at his lips.
She stared into his eyes as she felt his strength weakening and let him see the futility of his struggle in the face of her furious vengeance. He attempted to rally at the sight and both hands clamped around her wrist, but the violence of that movement only made her fingers bite deeper into his throat.
The man managed to resist for a few more pain-filled seconds before he went limp when something snapped wetly in his throat. His body began to shake and spasm but she dragged him on top of her so his seizing limbs wouldn’t thump against the boards of the wagon.
Several heartbeats passed while his body twitched but finally, he was still and she dared to look toward the front of the wagon. Crim and the driver’s backs were to her a
nd although it was hard to hear with all the noise in the tunnel, they seemed to try to discuss something.
Her fingers ached and her arm burned from the exertion but she managed to slide the corpse off her and drag herself to where her weapons lay. Although her hands itched for the ax, she took hold of the dagger and with some fiddling, extracted it from the scabbard and set to work on her other bonds.
Some god must be smiling on her but she didn’t think she could expect that to last so she sawed furiously at her restraints in defiance of her pained limb.
The timbre of the echoing hooves changed and Ax-Wed knew they must be out of the tunnel and into a larger chamber. The wagon began to slow as the last of the cords parted.
“This is the last two going in tonight,” Crim called to someone and in answer, there was a grinding whir as though someone was turning a great iron crank. Somewhere nearby, the sound of stone grating on stone rose to exceed the noise of the slow hoofbeats.
She rose into a crouch and snatched her ax up as the floorboards lurched under her. The wagon was turning.
Crim and the driver were ahead of her and still oblivious, and she was certain they would fall easily enough, but who else lay beyond the confines of the wagon was a mystery. Looking through the front, she could see stone walls with a few lanterns hanging from iron rings. Were they in a chamber in the palatial Citadel? Did an army of Jehadim’s guards wait beyond the patched canvas that blinded her?
A sharp whine sounded beside her and she noticed Masheed for the first time since she’d severed her bonds.
It wouldn’t hurt to have someone to watch my back, she thought and attempted to reason with herself even as the thought repelled her.
This thing masquerading as a woman had attempted to abduct two innocent boys for a fate that she now seemed terrified to face. The only reason she wasn’t free to keep working her wicked ways was because she’d somehow displeased Crim, so she wasn’t only a monster but an incompetent one. The thought of freeing her—even to have aid in escaping—galled her beyond measure, but the strange mechanical noises beyond the canvas didn’t fill her with confidence.
When the conveyance turned, she thought she glimpsed shadows moving between the lights that glowed through the canvas.
Snarling curses in every language she knew and some she didn’t, Ax-Wed bent and began to saw the other woman’s bonds.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she warned in what amounted to a rough growl and expected to hear someone cry out in alarm at any second.
The restraints around Masheed’s arms fell free and the woman yanked the gag out. Before she could say anything, the Thulian clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Be quiet and be quick,” she said as she pressed the dagger hilt into the woman’s hand. “Cut your legs free while I take care of those two. Once they are eliminated, we’ll try to drive this wagon out the way we came.”
If it is big enough in here, maybe we can turn, she told herself as she let go of the abductor turned abductee. I merely wish it didn’t sound stupider every time I think about it.
She began to creep toward the front of the wagon when Masheed’s hand grasped her wrist beseechingly.
“What?” Ax-Wed snapped as she turned back.
The mercenary’s eyes were swollen with terror and brimmed with tears as she looked from the warrior woman to Crim’s exposed back and back again. Her split lip quivered as she struggled to force words to form.
“A f-failed acquisition is still an acquisition,” she whispered.
“What?” She grunted as she began to pull her arm free.
The dagger drove up between the lames in her armor in search of the meat beneath.
“Crim!” Masheed screamed at the top of her lungs. “Crim, she’s free!”
Ax-Wed, with the hilt of her own dagger jutting from the parted lames on her side, thrust back with such force that the ax in her hand punched through the canvas.
“Crim!” the woman wailed and threw her arms around her fellow captive's legs, even though hers remained bound together. “Crim!”
Off-balance and with a dagger point tickling her ribs and a madwoman on her legs, she reeled back and her armored body forced the split canvas to rip apart.
Beyond that was a yawning pit beside which the wagon had drawn up. A sharply sloped stone wall slid into a stygian dark that yawned eagerly before her widening gaze.
“What in all the hells?” she managed as she lost her balance.
She tumbled into the waiting abyss with the mercenary still clinging to her and a manic shriek ripped from her raw throat.
Chapter Eleven
“I don’t care what time it is!” Vahrem roared in a voice like thunder. “You fetch your Salar and you fetch him now!”
To the surprise of all present, the caravan master included, the two guards sent to investigate the disturbance at the stockyard responded with quick bows of obeisance and hurried toward the Tin Quarter barracks.
“There’s not a chance in the Serpent’s Coils that we’ll get a Salar here.” Iyshan growled his disgust. “We’ll be lucky if those two idiots come back.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” the merchant all but snarled in a fury. “But if you’d maintained the watches properly, we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”
Iyshan’s mouth curled to protest but then his gaze lowered and his shoulders sagged.
“Yes, master,” he muttered softly, his head bowed beneath the weight of the merchant’s burning glare.
“Vahrem,” Numi called admonishingly as she ambled toward the gates of the stockyard.
It was the caravan master’s turn to lower his gaze. His calloused hands rose before his face and he curled them into fists that he beat against his thighs. With a shake of his head and a heavy swallow, he turned, calmed himself, and looked at the elder dwarf.
“You’re right,” he said, his deep voice so tight it was close to cracking. “You’re right.”
One fist unclenched and he rested a hand on Iyshan’s sinew-corded shoulder.
“I’m sorry, old friend,” Vahrem said heavily, frustrated tears in his eyes. “Twice in one night, I sin in my anger toward you.”
The other man could only manage a single glance at his master before he looked at the ground with a nod.
“Forgive me, please?” he implored, his words pained but sincere. “I know better than to treat you so.”
Iyshan nodded again and patted the hairy hand on his shoulder.
“I forgive you,” he said. “Shepherd knows we’ve all been tested tonight.”
“And none more than that poor boy,” the dwarfess cried and ran a gnarled hand over her face. “Little Jalen doesn’t seem to remember anything, which is a mercy, but Julo wouldn’t stop crying. It seems he tried to fight one of them and thought he was dying.”
With a hiss, she shook her staff and muttered her malediction.
“Spikes find those monsters. Stealing children! Spikes take them to the Pit Without End.”
All three fell silent for a moment of dark thoughts and desperate prayers while overhead, the first shades of dawn began to creep across the sky.
“Did you send for the boys’ father?” Vahrem said after he’d sucked a breath in between his teeth.
Iyshan nodded and they lapsed into silence again.
“What do you think they’ll do with her?” Numi asked, her voice little more than a dry whisper.
Neither man answered but the look they shared spoke volumes. She shuddered as every dark tale about the seedy dens and foul-hearted villains in Jehadim threatened to overwhelm her.
“I know we just met the lass,” Numi said quickly as though afraid either man might cut her off. “But I think we have to do everything we can to try to find her. It seems like the right thing to do. A wandering sell-sword like her has no one to come and rescue her, I’m thinkin’.”
“More than likely, she’ll be past rescue even if we do find her,” Iyshan remarked grimly. His face wore a stony a
nd set expression but a deep well of sorrow lay in his eyes.
“Then we find her faster, damn it!” Numi snapped and rattled her chiming staff. “Or we find her and give the poor thing a proper burial at the very least. She was taken from our camp, by the Mount.”
Vahrem rested a bracing hand upon the old dwarf’s shoulder and shook his head against the weight of responsibility that lay heavily on him.
“My camp,” he said softly. “She was taken from my camp after I told her she was safe. Her care was my responsibility.”
“You couldn’t have known.” Numi was close to tears as she reached for the hand on her shoulder. “These were professional monsters. What could any of us have done?”
He smiled at her as he extracted his hand gently.
“Thank you, Numi,” he said and each word fell from his lips like a leaden weight. “But you know the first rule of leadership—it is always your fault. It has to be.”
Both dwarfess and man watched the caravan master as he straightened and noted the fierce light in his eye. He gnawed the top of his lip for a moment as his thoughts danced through some wild scheme, then he snapped his gaze to his manservant.
“Fetch Durra,” he said in a voice that brooked no discussion before he turned to Numi. “Your sister still has you carrying the clan seal, doesn’t she?”
She nodded, her brow furrowed.
“I’ll get some parchment and you will help me write a betrothal contract in Wain-cant,” he declared as he turned to stride toward the caravan’s baggage train. “And we’ll need to borrow your chariot.”
Numi shook her head as she watched him walk away and struggled before she finally found her voice.
“What exactly are you planning to do?” she shouted after him.
“See an old friend,” he called over his shoulder. “And create a diplomatic incident.”
Durra was doing a remarkable job of acting exactly as he’d been taught—standing silently in his chariot and looking very irritated and very haughty. His beaky nose raised in disdain and dark eyes flashing with irritation, he was the very picture of piqued entitlement.
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