by Ari Marmell
"Captain Ellowaine!"
She spun on her heel, expression neutral. Even in those two simple words, she could hear the man's disdain-none of the Cephiran soldiers appreciated being assigned to a "filthy mercenary"-but at least she'd finally beaten it into their heads that they'd damn well better call her by rank.
"What is it, Corporal?"
Corporal Quinran pointed toward a dilapidated building farther along the packed dirt road, one scheduled to be torn down for raw materials in a week or two. It was a sad, sunken facade, the frowning windows and cracked wood forming the face of a tired old grandfather. She'd passed it any number of times on any number of patrols, and couldn't easily imagine what made it worthy of attention this time.
"What of it?" she asked.
"Just saw a man in rags slip through the front door, Captain."
"And?" Those poor souls still dwelling here were miserable enough; no reason to begrudge one whatever shelter he might find.
"I can't swear to it, Captain, but I think I saw a sword under his cloak. It was certainly jutting out like one, at any rate."
That brought a frown. Traveling under arms was another prohibition the Cephirans had heaped upon their conquered territories. Any citizen caught with a blade larger than an eating utensil was risking far worse than assignment to the work gangs.
"All right," she said. "It could be anything, but we'll check it out." Then, in the probably futile hope of thawing out some of their working relationship, "Nicely spotted, Corporal."
"Thanks, Captain."
She and Quinran hit the door shoulders-first, practically ripping the rotting wood from its hinges. Without waiting for their vision to adjust they darted aside, one each way, leaving the doorway clear for the crossbows of the soldiers behind. When they saw no one on whom to loose their bolts, Lieutenant Arkur and Corporal Ischina entered, carefully stowing their arbalests and drawing broadswords in their stead.
Ellowaine appeared briefly in the doorway and raised a hand toward the last man, Corporal Rephiran, still lingering outside. Palm, fingers upright, followed swiftly by a single finger pointing downward, then two pointing directly at him.
Stay here, watch for anyone who gets past us.
He nodded and stepped back, keeping his weapon trained on the doorway.
Rear guard established, vision adjusting to the gloom, Ellowaine took a moment to orient herself. A large entry chamber, coated in paint so faded that she couldn't guess at its original color, offered only a single exit other than the front door and an empty coatroom. What remained of a desk, its legs long since scavenged for firewood, slumped atop rat-eaten carpet. The air was pungent with old dust and older mildew, spiced just a bit by fresh urine.
Ischina sidled up to the far door and peered cautiously around the corner for just an instant before jerking her head back. Spotting no danger, she dropped into a half crouch and darted through for a closer look. Ellowaine moved toward the door, while the others gathered on either side.
"Hallway," Ischina whispered as she reemerged into the chamber. "Lots of doors, staircase at the far end. I'm guessing a cheap hostel, maybe a flophouse."
Ellowaine nodded. She'd seen the like before, and in her experience, it probably hadn't been much nicer before being abandoned.
"Whistles," she said simply. Instantly, the others produced, from within pouches or on thongs around their necks, plain tin tubes that produced a surprisingly sharp tone. She drew her own from a pocket on her belt and wrapped the thong around her wrist.
"Two by two. Quinran and I are upstairs. You do not, under any circumstances, let your partner out of your sight."
Three quick nods were all the acknowledgment she received, or required.
Slightly more gently-but only slightly-she continued. "Judging by the smell, more than a few vagabonds have been using this place. Try not to kill anyone unless you're certain they're a threat-but don't risk your skins for it."
More nods, and then she was off toward the stairs, Quinran falling into step behind. Even as they reached the steps, she heard the first door being kicked open back down the hall.
The stairs creaked and screeched like a cat under a rocking chair, and the entire structure quivered beneath their weight. Ellowaine, a hatchet now in each hand, winced with every step, but no amount of care could silence the rickety wooden banshees, so she'd little choice but to bear it. Gaps in the dust suggesting that someone else had come this way might have been days or even weeks old, but the broken spiderwebs hanging between the banister and the inner wall had to be more recent. Keeping silent, despite the stairs heralding their approach to all and sundry, she gestured at the webs with a blade. Quinran nodded his understanding and shifted his grip on his broadsword.
Below, Arkur and Ischina kicked in a second door.
The light faded as the captain and the corporal climbed higher. Presumably, most of the second floor's windows were shuttered or boarded. They slowed, hoping to give their eyes time to adjust, and scowled darkly at each other. They were a daytime patrol; none of them carried lamp or torch.
"If this was just some vagrant carrying a stick that you saw," she breathed at him in a voice below even a whisper, "you'll be digging latrine ditches for a week."
"If this is the other option," he whispered back, flinching away as another step screamed in the near darkness, "I might just volunteer."
A third door clattered open on the floor beneath them.
And something moved in the shadows above.
It was nothing Ellowaine had seen, or could put a name to. Just a sensation, a touch of breeze without benefit of an open window, a flicker of movement in the dangling cobweb. She froze, listening, halting her companion as he tensed to take another step.
Nothing. Nothing at all…
Except, just maybe, the faintest creak. It could have been the building itself, sighing and settling its aching joints. But so, too, could it have been the muffled protest of a floorboard buried beneath old carpet.
Weapons at the ready, Ellowaine and Quinran increased their pace, hoping now not for the stealth that the stairs had rendered impossible, but to reach the top before anyone could intercept them partway.
Nobody tried. They found themselves in a hall very much like the one below. Doors occupied the walls to either side. A few hung open, the wood dangling loosely from the hinges like hanged convicts, but most were firmly shut.
Again they looked at each other, then at the nearest door. Quinran shrugged, and Ellowaine made a flicking motion toward it. Hatchets in hand, she stood back, ready to strike as the corporal kicked.
Rotted wood gave way so easily he stumbled. A cloud of foul splinters wafted into the air, and the stench of mildew grew nigh overpowering, but the room was empty save for a splotched mattress and soiled sheets.
The same across the hall, and again in the room neighboring that. They were just turning toward the fourth door when Ellowaine drew abruptly to a halt.
"What is it, Captain?"
"Listen!"
A moment. "I hear nothing."
"That's just it!" She tilted her head, indicating the stairway, and Quinran understood.
Where were the sounds of Ischina and Arkur opening doors downstairs?
The corporal opened his mouth, but no answer crawled its way onto his tongue. They couldn't be taking a break, not so early in the process. Could they have run into trouble? What could have silenced them both before either could sound a whistle?
Ellowaine stood, undecided, but only for a span of heartbeats. Absently spinning her hatchets in small circles beside her, she stepped once more toward the stairs. "Watch my back."
She'd moved only a couple of paces before she realized that no sounds of footsteps followed her. Behind her, the door to a room they'd already searched slammed shut, hiding whatever lay beyond.
Of Quinran, or any life at all, the hallway offered no sign.
Ellowaine hit the door at a full tilt and dropped into a roll as it fragmented. Across
the moldy carpet she tumbled, then back to her feet, blades at the ready.
Quinran crouched on the floor, holding one hand to the back of his head. A thin trickle of blood-not enough, Ellowaine noted with no small relief, to suggest a dangerous wound-welled up between his fingers.
For just an instant, she couldn't understand how the room could be empty. Someone had grabbed the corporal, struck him across the head to keep him silent, but where-?
To her right, nigh invisible in the artificial twilight, a low hole in the wall provided egress to the next chamber. She listened, but neither the thump of a footfall nor the creak of a board suggested any movement.
"Can you stand?" she asked softly.
"I can bloody do more than that." Quinran rose, lifting his sword from the floor beside him. "Where are the bastards?"
"Later. First, we're checking on the others."
The corporal frowned, but when Ellowaine headed for the stairs, he followed.
They bounded downward, at speeds one notch shy of reckless, and the steps unleashed a chorus of wails. It was easy enough to see where their companions' efforts had ceased: Just look for the last open door. Once they were off the shrieking stairs they slowed, progressing with weapons at the ready.
Only as they neared could they see the crimson smears leading into the nearest open room. They gagged as the swirling dust of neglect pasted the acrid and metallic tang of recent slaughter to their tongues, their teeth, their throats.
Ellowaine darted past the door, crouched low, and rose with her back to the wall. Quinran mirrored her posture on the opposite side.
One… two…
She spun through the doorway, hatchets whirling, the corporal at her back.
And all but slipped in the puddled gore. "Good gods…"
The mercenary was certainly no stranger to violent death. It was the swiftness of it all, the fact that they'd heard nothing, that gave her pause.
Arkur lay just inside, apparently slain by a single blow that cleaved him cleanly from right shoulder to left hip-a hideous, jagged mirror of Ellowaine's own sash of rank. To judge by the drag marks, he'd been attacked in the passageway and hauled messily into the chamber.
Across the room, Ischina sprawled beside the decomposing mattress. Her blade lay beside her, shattered into steel splinters, and little remained of face and skull save a dripping ruin of mangled flesh. Largely hidden by the carnage, a tiny weed grew through the buckling floorboards. It wore an array of needle-like thorns as a crown, several of which appeared to be missing. Ellowaine knelt and found them protruding through the leather sole of Ischina's left boot.
And Ellowaine damn well knew witchcraft when she saw it.
She opened her mouth to bark an order at Quinran, but froze at the gaping shock on his face. His pupils flickered wildly from side to side, and then he was gone from the doorway.
Ellowaine followed at a run, rounding the corner just in time to see him reach the building's front door. He hauled it open, and she clearly heard his cry of "Get in here!"
"Corporal Quinran!" Then, when he reacted not all, "Gods damn it, Corporal!" She reached his side and hurled him against the wall by his shoulders. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Need help," he wheezed, even as Corporal Rephiran pounded up the steps and into the building, seeking targets for his crossbow.
"My call!" Ellowaine growled, shoving him once more into the wall for good measure before releasing him. "Don't you ever countermand my orders without checking with me first!"
"Understood," Quinran whimpered.
"Arkur and Ischina are down," she told Rephiran. "Enemies still unknown. We-"
She whirled at the sudden thump, watched one of the open doors drifting on its single remaining hinge-and allowed herself to breathe once more. It was just a feral cat, tortoise-haired. It stood in the hallway, hissing at them, back arched and tail bushy.
From what was now behind her, where the last survivors of her squad waited, came a burbling, stomach-turning crunch. Again she spun, just in time to see Rephiran slide to the floor, brains spilling from his shattered skull. Quinran just shrugged, shook the worst of the gore from his sword, and lunged.
Ellowaine's hatchets rose in a perfect parry, catching the blade between them and shrugging it to one side. With the rightmost she lashed out, and the treacherous corporal sucked in his breath as he leapt back, dodging the hatchet with nothing to spare.
Furious at the loss of her men, shamed that she'd never suspected the traitor in their midst, Ellowaine shrieked, leaping at her foe over Rephiran's mangled body. Her hatchets buzzed from all directions, a swarm of enraged hornets with lethal stings. Quinran backpedaled, and only the unnatural speed of his desperate parries kept his limbs attached. His body and face flickered as his concentration lapsed, and Ellowaine realized that poor Quinran, the real Quinran, probably lay dead upstairs. Well, she'd see who she fought soon enough…
And then she could only scream, leg buckling beneath her. With a strength and accuracy impossible in any normal animal, the alley cat had come up behind and sunk its teeth through the leather of her boot, into the flesh and tendon of her ankle.
She toppled, caught herself against the wall, and looked up just in time for the haft of her foe's weapon-revealed, now that the illusion was fading, as an axe, not a sword-to completely fill her vision. She felt the skull at her temple flex beneath the impact of the heavy shaft, and then the pain, along with the rest of the world, went away.
The Prurient Pixie had, for Ellowaine, more unpleasant memories and restless ghosts on tap than it had any of the more traditional sorts of spirits. In her mind, overlaid across the sawdust- and dirt-caked floor of the common room, she still saw dozens of men laid out in rows, slowly dying of agonizing poison. Sitting amid the various drinkers, she saw friends long gone; over the din of conversation, she heard Teagan's boisterous laugh. The clink of every coin was a knife-thrust to her soul, a reminder of all she'd been promised, and lost.
And through every open door, she saw, for just an instant, a glimpse of that cursed helm, and the lying bastard who'd worn it.
No, given her druthers, she'd never have come back here, or to the town of Vorringar at all. But this was where he was, so if she would speak with him, here she must come.
He'd arrived at the Pixie first and had, rather predictably, chosen a booth far from, but with a clear view of, the door. (She wondered idly if it had been empty, or if he'd cowed someone into leaving.) He barely fit in the chair, and the mug of ale looked like a child's cup in his meaty fist. The razor-edged shield that made up the lower portion of his left arm rested on the table, doubtless leaving deep scores in the wood.
Their greeting had gone well enough, and they'd passed several pleasant moments in friendly reminiscence and talking shop about weapons and tactics. Unfortunately, when she'd finally steered the conversation around to her current needs, any luck Panare had bestowed upon her swiftly ran out.
"Losalis, please. You know me. You know damn well I wouldn't ask anything of you-of anyone-if I wasn't desperate."
"I know," he told her in his deep baritone. "If it was up to me, Ellowaine, I'd have already brought you on. Nobody knows better than I do just how good you are."
"But it's not up to you." It was not a question.
"No. I have to clear any new commissions with the baron, and I can already tell you what he'll say. I'll try anyway, if you want me to, but it'll be a waste of your time to wait around for his answer."
"Why me," she asked him, "and not you?" Her tone was bitter, yes, but not at him. She blamed many for her fate-and one in particular above all others-but she would not make Losalis a scapegoat just because it was a fate he'd managed to escape.
"I've wondered about that, a little," he said. "Partly, I think, it's simply that I've had my reputation longer than you. Also, my company's a lot bigger. People are less willing to go without.
"But mostly? I'd have to suggest it's because you were with him inside Mecepheu
m. Sure, generals and commanders saw me leading his forces, but the nobles and the Guildmasters watched you standing right beside him. I don't think they're likely to forget that anytime soon."
Ellowaine nodded sourly. "It always comes back to Rebaine, doesn't it? I think I'd willingly put up with everything that's happened if I could just get my hands on him for a few minutes in exchange."
Losalis nodded noncommittally, and for a few moments they lost themselves in drink.
"Did you know," she said softly, "that I've lost half my men in the last four years? Not on the battlefield, I mean they just left. Loyal as they've always been, they wouldn't stick with a commander who couldn't find them work, and I can't blame them."
The larger mercenary leaned back, ignoring his chair's desperate creaks of protest. He had, indeed, known Ellowaine a long time-and he knew what she was asking, even indirectly, and how hard it must be for her.
"I can take them," he said with a surprising gentleness. "Not all at once-I don't think I can convince the baron I need that many new swords. But it'll provide work for some, and the rest are welcome to join my company when we start looking for our next contract."
For the first time in years, Ellowaine smiled and meant it. "Thank you, Losalis." At least now I'm only failing myself, not them.
"There might be something else I can offer you," he said, as though reading her thoughts or her future in the swirling suds of his tankard. "Nothing I'm positive about, mind you, just some whispers through the usual channels. Someone's putting an operation together, they're looking for Imphallian mercenaries, and I don't think they're likely to care that you were part of Rebaine's campaign."
Ellowaine tilted her head. "Imphallian mercenaries?"
"Yeah, you'd need to do a bit of traveling. How do you feel about the kingdom of Cephira?"
"If they pay, I'll feel any damn way about them they want."
It was, distressingly, the throbbing in her skull that convinced her she was alive. For long moments she didn't move, even to open her eyes. Mentally she ran through weapons drills and strategic puzzles, carefully examined a few randomly chosen memories, even took the time for some quick addition and multiplication. She found herself a bit slow, occasionally not as accurate as she'd have liked, but eventually the proper answers and images swam to the fore through the churning tide of pain.