The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “A nice show of solidarity, three or four of us hanging with him.” This caused everyone but Menikas, who was too deep in thought, and his brother, who looked angry, to cloud their expressions with unease. Lanokas turned to the thief, his face hard.

  “Wilhem’s a spy. His tips led us to the Librette. In the time since we lost contact he might have learned more, and even if he hasn’t, he’s one of us. Would you want us to abandon you?”

  “I wouldn’t grudge it,” said Ranler.

  Lanokas insisted, “If they hang him publicly we have the obligation….”

  “We have the obligation to make sure the cause he’s dying for isn’t wiped out with him!”

  The room fell silent once again. Ranler’s bald head glistened in the light from the candles and lamps. Lanokas glared at him, and Neslan positioned himself between the two, afraid one or the other might start a brawl. Menikas remarked, “If they hang Wilhem publicly, Zalski will have every guard he can spare at the execution. He expects we’ll make an appearance. Now,” he added, as Kansten sputtered protest, “that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t appear. It means we have to be smart.”

  “The death will be public,” said Neslan. “Zalski won’t pass up this chance to lure us in.”

  Menikas asked, “We have whom, exactly, to help with this?” Laskenay gave the answer: no one the League could risk exposing.

  “But we have Sedder,” said Neslan, his eyes lighting up. Everyone stared at him. “We place Sedder at the front of the crowd,” he insisted. “They haven’t seen Sedder, have they?”

  “They haven’t,” Sedder claimed. Kora grabbed his arm. “Only one or two guards, and that was in Hogarane. They’ll still be searching for the Librette.”

  “Good,” said Menikas. “You get a prime view of the action.”

  “I’ll be under the scaffold,” said Laskenay.

  Kora felt calmer, knowing Sedder would have help stationed near; calmer, that is, until Menikas caught her eye. “How familiar are you with the crossbow?”

  “Me? Good God! Not at all.”

  “Well, Ranler’s the best we have. He’ll give some quick instruction.”

  “Shooting’s not hard,” said the thief, “not from close-by. What distance are we talking about?”

  “Fifty feet.”

  Ranler let out a whistle, and Kora demanded, “What’s going on? Why me? Why can’t Ranler take the bow?”

  “Ranler can’t turn invisible to take the post.”

  “And where’s the post?” Kora asked.

  “The nearest roofs. It has to be.”

  Kora paled. “Roofs? No sir, I don’t do roofs. I don’t do heights, and I don’t know how to shoot.”

  Laskenay assured her, “I’ll find a spell, improve your aim. I hate abusing magic, though.”

  Menikas rolled his eyes. “We’ve no choice here, Laskenay. Her shots must hit home.”

  Seeing a strategy take shape seemed to hearten everyone else, even if Kora wanted to run screaming. Soon the League was throwing ideas around—most of the best came from Neslan—and before Kora realized they had a set plan, the plan was as developed, and as close to failproof, as anyone could hope.

  445

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Of Death and Diversions

  High noon the next day found Kora cloaked with the invisibility spell, hanging her legs over the flat roof of the Old Town Hall, grateful the building was only two stories. Two stories did not make her head swoon. Structures identical to the red brick building on which she perched rose to the right and left: the courthouse, well preserved despite a broken window and scratched door, and the prison, in perfect condition, its windows barred. The mass of wood that was the scaffold stood mere yards away on an adjacent side of Podrar’s Great Square. Three men in blue uniform paced across it, swords at the ready. The boards creaked beneath their feet. At their back the executioner, masked per tradition, stood as still as the corpse he was soon to create.

  The Great Square was ill named, being narrow and long, in fact a great rectangle, so that the crowd that gathered there was more than twenty people deep. Sedder, however, had wormed his way to the front; only one person stood between him and the scaffold. At the human mass’s back were seven or eight soldiers, including Lanokas and Ranler. The two were clad in uniforms Wilhem had supplied months back. Black suited them both.

  The uniformed men were being charmed by a group of women with bob cuts and low-hanging dresses. All but one of the females were prostitutes, Kora knew, for Kansten, with Lanokas and Ranler’s prodding to help, had the soldiers thinking of anything but the execution. Not a bad day’s work. Menikas had predicted that, because of the Librette, Zalski could only spare his elites to guard the scaffold, not man the crowd, and the noble’s insight had proved a stroke of luck. The elite guard knew their own and would have recognized imposters. Not so with the civil guard.

  The prison door opened, and as though a legion of ghouls as invisible as Kora issued forth to set the scene by stealing voices, not one of the three hundred people in the square kept speaking. The unnatural stillness only deepened when two soldiers led out an unshaven, well-built man of about thirty-five with a hint of premature gray in his hair, which somehow retained traces of good grooming. He wore the dull brown tunic and pants of the man condemned. They fit him ill. The manacles on his wrists and ankles impeded movement, and the exertion they caused him when he climbed the scaffold made Kora’s bottom lip quiver. The men who guided him to death did not abuse him, not even verbally, but neither did they trouble to ease his passage. Wilhem himself looked straight ahead as he shuffled on. Kora’s first impression of the League’s most vital spy was one of pensiveness, but that was unsurprising, considering the circumstance.

  We’re saving him. We’re saving a good man. This doesn’t make me a murderer, it doesn’t. Good God, just don’t let me hit the wrong person!

  The scaffold guards stood at attention as the condemned approached and the executioner, showing life for the first time, fitted a rope around his victim’s neck. Meanwhile, the escort returned to the prison, and the spectators watched in respectful but silent solidarity with the spy. The quiet no longer felt unnatural, and the crowd’s worthless demonstration touched Kora as much as it angered her. She reached for the crossbow she had earlier laid behind her.

  You stupid people. You frightened fools, don’t you realize how much you outnumber them? You could save him yourselves!

  The guard serving as master of ceremonies stepped forward to read the charges, then pronounce the sentence. The executioner’s hand inched toward the lever that would open the scaffold’s trap door, and Kora aimed her weapon at the same moment Wilhem’s complexion mysteriously darkened. The spy’s gaze turned blank, his body rigid; Laskenay had cast Estatua, the spell she had used against Malzin the day before.

  The rest happened in a rush that left no time to think. The switch was thrown; the rope snapped beneath the weight of the statuesque Wilhem, who fell through the trap door and out of sight. Kora, on her stomach now, with her crossbow at roof-level, hit one of the scaffold guards square in the thigh, then the executioner in the arm, before the crowd even realized someone was firing. When it did, the silence ripped in two as abruptly and completely as the noose. The mingled screams and cries of approval pained Kora’s ear. The master of ceremonies swung his head around, searching for the shooter, his senses compromised by the tumult; Kora hit him in the shoulder. The impact sent him off the platform’s back.

  Meanwhile, Laskenay unshackled and revived Wilhem with a quick few spells. Kora’s next shot merely grazed the last guard; before she could shoot again, Wilhem rushed into the crowd, which by now was full of people running each and every way, attempting to scatter. The man in uniform dove after, but Sedder dispatched him in the thick of the panic with a dagger. The executioner, wounded in the arm, dared to dart forward and immediately stiffened as Wilhem had done.

  Kora left the bow on the roof and jumped to the courthouse, where
metal rungs attached to the building formed a ladder. As she climbed down, she saw Kansten knee one of the rear guards in the stomach.

  The crowd’s screams grew louder as one of the scaffold’s legs burst into flame, courtesy of Laskenay, to cover the League’s retreat. The smell of smoke wafted through the air; half the platform was soon burning. Everyone fled as a single body, sweeping the newly freed Wilhem along. Kora, still invisible, stayed as close to the hysterical mass as she could without risking being trampled. As she fled the square, a series of crisp cracks of wood announced the scaffold had collapsed.

  Kora worked her way to the Landfill as fast as possible. She could only follow the crowd for so long before her route turned off, and from that point she had to be conscious of her steps. She stayed alert, suppressing any thought that she might have killed one or more of the guards, appeasing her conscience with the thought that she had aimed to wound, though Ranler, on the way to the Great Square, had suggested she do otherwise. That the League had rescued Wilhem so easily astounded her.

  Too easily, she thought as she descended the Landfill’s rope ladder. A now familiar twinge of unease in her abdomen took hold. The room’s occupants took such small notice of her entry that she glanced at her arm to make sure she was visible. When she stood on solid ground, she saw she was last to return: Kansten and Ranler were whispering in a corner; Bendelof was on her way to join them, her freckled face grave; the rest of the League had gathered around Wilhem, whom they blocked from Kora’s view. Kora rushed to the huddled group, nudging Neslan to force her way in.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The paneled wall supported the bulk of Wilhem’s weight. Though he stood, he was nearly doubled over. Lanokas, who shouldered up what part of the man the wall did not bear, pulled back the spy’s sleeve, and Kora gasped.

  On the outside of his upper arm was what looked to be a knife wound, neither deep nor damaging in itself but a shade of inky green that made Kora’s gut seize up even more, almost forcing her to copy Wilhem’s posture.

  “It looks…. It looks infected.”

  Wilhem’s voice was stronger than Kora expected, with only a trace of a rasp. “Close,” he said. “Poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?”

  “Zalski tricked us,” said Lanokas. Sedder punched the wall at his words, and Kora started.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Laskenay said, “He poisoned Wilhem after we eluded Malzin’s capture. The elites you shot from the roof were promoted this morning in reward for their incompetence. The hanging was a diversion, a cruel diversion, and we still don’t know what for.”

  Kora’s face fell. She said, “Zalski expected those guards to die. He intended it.” Zalski might, in fact, have made her his unwitting executioner. And Wilhem would die as well, unless the League could work a miracle. He looked pale, and in pain, but his eyes were glued to the bandana Kora wore around her head. “What can we do?” she asked him.

  “The poison’s irreversible after ten hours. It’s been fifteen.”

  “That spellbook.” Kora’s words were involuntary; when they registered in her brain, she grabbed Laskenay’s arm. “The book with healing spells.”

  “Those spells heal wounds. They don’t counteract a poison of this strength.”

  “There has to be something!”

  “I’ve been studying that book. I’ve read it through twice. There is nothing about poisons, let alone magically-enhanced ones.”

  “You’re the Porteg girl,” said Wilhem.

  The statement caught the younger sorceress off-guard, but she said, “I’m Kora, yes.” With a grimace, Wilhem forced himself to stand straighter.

  “Zalski’s done his research on you. He knows you’ll want revenge for your father’s death, for the Foden murders. He fears what you might become, Kora. When he learned you were part of the raid that stole that list, his anger was unimaginable.”

  Kora’s face went white, but not nearly as white as Sedder’s. “What list?” he demanded. Wilhem breathed deeply, painfully, and gave no answer. Undeterred, the Fodens’ son wheeled on Kora. “What list?”

  “A…. A hit list.”

  Kora watched Sedder’s brain working. She watched him comprehend how the murders must have happened; watched him realize she had known, and never told him. He sent her a glare so inextricably mixed with insult, shock, and anger that Kora flinched beneath its beam. She moved her eyes to the dusty, dirt-flecked blankets that covered the floor, and with that acknowledgment of guilt, Sedder stormed to the ladder. Kora made to go after him, but Lanokas stopped her, and followed Sedder himself. He was refusing to let her waste the only chance she might have—that Sedder might have—to learn why the Fodens’ names were on that list.

  “I thought he knew,” said Wilhem.

  “He should have known,” said Kora. “I should have told him. What none of us knows is why Zalski had them killed.”

  “She was royal.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Kora.

  “She was the king’s sister, the old king’s bastard. And she knew it.”

  Laskenay said, “Were she royal, Zalski would have killed her son.”

  Kora replied, “Sedder’s not her son. Not by birth. They found him abandoned on a street corner.”

  Beads of sweat broke out on Wilhem’s hairline, though the underground chamber was as cool as always. Neslan took up the job of helping him stand. For the first time, Kora noticed the spy’s left leg was positioned at an unnatural angle, and she suspected he had lost feeling or control of it, or both.

  Menikas asked, “There’s nothing more you can tell us? Nothing we can do for you?”

  “Nothing but that spell.”

  “If you’re ready then,” said Laskenay. Wilhem nodded, and she whispered, “Dwerma.” Wilhem’s eyes slid closed. He fell into an enchanted sleep, and Neslan lowered him to the floor. “We can’t save him,” said the sorceress, “but at least we can spare him some measure of pain.”

  “How long?” Kora hazarded.

  “He’ll be gone before midnight. The poisoning’s entered its final phase. I just hope he doesn’t wake before….”

  “If he does,” said Neslan, “we’ll make him sleep again.”

  The League covered the dying man with a blanket, to keep him warm, and Kora scaled the ladder to the cabin above. Twilight had fallen; sun enough remained to make out silhouettes, but to ignite the lantern sitting on the bedpost, the lantern that seemed to entrance both Sedder and Lanokas, would pose too great a risk. The noble seemed relieved when Kora appeared. He descended to the organized chaos below, while Sedder turned an accusatory face half-covered in shadow to his childhood friend.

  “You knew.”

  “I suspected. I suspected, there’s a difference. There was no way to be sure.”

  “I expect the lies and the bullshit from them, not from you.”

  Kora folded her arms. “What do you mean, you expect it from them?”

  “You weren’t the only one to see that list. If you think there’s nothing they’re still hiding from you….”

  “I happen to trust them,” said Kora.

  “Funny, when they keep risking your life.”

  “I’m risking my life. I made the decision to work with them.”

  “And you should have told me that Zalski had my parents killed!”

  “Like you told me when they hanged Hunt?”

  “You weren’t close to Hunt. You hadn’t seen or heard from Hunt in a decade. There’s no comparison, none.”

  Kora shut her eyes, breathing deeply. “You’re right,” she admitted. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you, not when I could have been wrong.”

  “You knew what happened. It was poison, right? What were you waiting for, Zalski to confess it?”

  “I was waiting for proof.”

  “Convenient, when you thought you’d never find it.”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  Sedder shook his head skeptically.
“Just tell me the rest. Why did it happen? You know that too, I’d wager.”

  “I only just found out,” said Kora. “Only just, please believe me.”

  “Well?” Sedder prompted.

  “Look at you. You’re not in any condition to hear this. The day we’ve all had….”

  Sedder’s eyes were blazing. “Why did it happen?”

  She felt she was making a mistake, but she told him. Kora told him about his mother. Sedder’s anger subsided to an uneasy calm; he forced himself to sit on the blanketless bed.

  “Lies,” he muttered. “It’s been nothing but lies my whole life.”

  The insinuation against the woman who had raised him was more than Kora could take. She slammed a hand on the mattress and placed her face before Sedder’s. “Be as angry with me as you want. I deserve it. But your parents were good people, and I won’t let you pretend they did wrong by you. Zalski checked up on your mom before he killed her. Do you think your name would have escaped that list if he thought for one instant she might have told you the king was her brother? How dare you blame her? How dare you judge the people beneath this floor? Zalski took just as much from them as from you, in some cases more. Wilhem is their friend, and he’s dying before their eyes. If you can’t muster some inkling of sympathy….”

  “I can sympathize,” he said. “I just….”

  “You what?”

  “I can’t stand the idea of something happening to you!”

  Sedder’s outburst was loud, loud enough that Kora worried the others may have heard. The tone of his voice, the expression on the half of his face she could make out, the locked elbows that supported his upper body against the mattress, everything about him was unapologetic, if not defensive. Kora felt suddenly embarrassed for her tirade against him. She took a moment to let her heart rate slow, then seated herself beside him.

  “If something happens to me, you’ll go on. Because I promise you, my story will be worth telling. Even if you don’t hear it, you’ll know that.” Sedder’s countenance softened to hear his own words echoed back to him, though it lacked a true smile. The sight heartened Kora, who told him, “When Malzin ambushed us, I remembered what you told me at Nani’s, and that cleared my head enough for me to fight back. I freed Laskenay. Ranler took a hit for me. We worked together.”