by RW Krpoun
Bridget would remain in command of Blue Platoon until Janna returned.
“You’re sure?” Durek asked. “This is it?”
“We’re as sure as were going to get short of assaulting the place,” Arian shrugged, and Elonia nodded in agreement. The three were in the paneled room studying the information written on the walls.
“It fits the general requirements of the Hand’s central headquarters,” the Seeress explained.
“The headquarters must be a sizeable building to hold all the staff and guards, be fairly centrally located, and be of a nature that large amounts of foot traffic would be normal”.
“And this is, we believe, the location.” Arian pointed on the map.
Durek leaned close to read the small handwriting. “ ‘Golden Cartographers, number seven, Magnolia Street.” He oriented himself on the map. “That’s in South Town.”
“Not far off the Duke’s Path,” Arian pointed out. “A pretty good location to reach anywhere in the city. And a map-maker uses lots of writing supplies, has a large staff, and plenty of coming and going at all hours.”
“We actually got the first hint when Blackthorn had to escort a shipment of maps to the place,” Elonia said. “They do sell maps there, but they buy them in Navio and smuggle them in secretly while pretending to draw them on the premises. Apparently the place has been a front for the Hand for years, even producing real maps before the war to keep up appearances.”
“How many people are in the building?” Durek studied the lay of the streets.
“That’s the tough part,” Arian admitted. “We don’t know; probably no less than twenty, and up to as many as forty at times.”
“It seems that an awful lot of people know where this headquarters is,” Durek pointed out.
“Not really; messages sent to the headquarters are left at drop points, and moved to a second drop point by people who know only that they are moving goods. From these second points the messages are picked up by couriers based at the headquarters who do nothing but pick up these messages, or drop off out-going message from the headquarters staff, which likewise go through at least two drop points. A good number of people do know the location of the headquarters, but very nearly all of them are stationed there. When ‘A’ or other people at the headquarters meet with section leaders, they arrange to meet at pre-established meeting points.”
“Which is why it was so difficult to find,” Elonia pointed out. “Neither of our turn-coats had ever been there, nor could we tail anyone else there.”
“And even with them it took two months of hard work and no small amount of luck,” Arian gestured at the walls. “Meredith was an amazing break as well, not to mention Philip’s connections. Apparently the Eight like us.”
“Let’s hope they still do,” Durek muttered. “At least we’ve official authority, so we’ve no concerns about government reactions. How do we carry this off?”
“In our plan it calls for the Captain to tell us what to do,” Arian informed him, and the three shared a short laugh. “We figured we would let the Green Bureau handle the foot soldiers of the organization while we struck directly at the headquarters. Elonia and I are almost done writing up information packets which can be handed over to the Greens at the last minute. Some, or even most, of the rank and file will escape, but their operations will come to a complete halt until they can reorganize.”
“And loot,” the Seeress pointed out. “There ought to be a good portion of the organization’s cash and magical item stores in that building. If we move fast we’ll be able to secure a pretty fair bonus before regular troops show up.”
“What about Blackthorn and Simer?”
“They will be ‘killed’ by garrison troops while trying to avoid arrest, using bodies we’ll pick up the night before, there’s always plenty of corpses to be had. The two will be given their antidotes and a sum of money and put on board the next ship leaving port.”
“I don’t like leaving them alive,” the Captain scowled.
“Neither do I, but a promise is a promise and more importantly, they’ve more to fear from the Hand than anyone else. It won’t take the survivors more than a minute to figure out they were betrayed from within, and the list of dead will be the first thing they examine. They’ll get copies of our letters to the Greens, and from that they’ll be able to piece together who told us, if not why. The most those two will get is a head start.”
“I suppose,” Durek agreed. “Although I’m inclined to cut their throats and be done with it-there is no honor binding an agreement with a Void-follower.”
“True, but the Hand will find out in time, and the fact that we keep our word will make its way into their archives, and on to whoever spies upon them. You never know when that can be of use.”
“All right. Now, I expect they’ve considered the possibility of an attack?”
“I imagine they will have some defenses built into the building itself, everyone will be armed, and plans will have been made to deal with various types of intrusion. Escape tunnels and the like are a virtually certain, as will be provisions to destroy the archives within the building. Our chief advantages are that their defenses cannot be visible on the exterior of the building, and that we shall choose the time and method of the assault.”
“And the time and method will be what?”
“The date is up to you; we’ll need at least two days to prepare and train the troops. An outright assault seems best.”
“Send in some people to buy maps, while others sneak in?” Durek studied the map.
“Precisely. The main objective is to kill everyone we can, knowing we can’t get them all, and secure the building itself so that we can pillage in the best Company style.”
“All right.” Durek thought for a bit. “Today’s the second; we’ll move on the fifth, which gives you two full days and parts of two more to work with. By striking in early evening we can stick pretty close to our usual schedule in case they’re watching us. Both of you are relieved for the duration; I want every detail attended to, every contingency planned for. Don’t stint on what’s left of our magical supplies, either.”
“They’ll never know what hit ‘em,” Arian promised.
“They’ll know who, eventually,” Durek grunted, stroking his beard. “But it’ll be too late, then.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arthol Mane had read a treatise by an Imperial siege specialist who pointed out that cities which fell from within often collapsed well before the food supplies ran out, but never while there were still stocks of alcohol on hand. The engineer’s opinion was that as long as the bulk of the people had some sort of escape from the pressure of the siege (getting drunk), their morale held up, and once that escape was removed the morale wasted away to nothing. His spies indicated that there was plenty of alcohol coming into the city along with food, enough so that inns and taverns stayed open and there were regular, if small, issues of free ale, so it appeared as if the Duchy’s government agreed with the engineer.
However, the entire city still throbbed like an infected wound with hunger, disease, despair, and fear; his agents slithered through the streets working to increase the spread of illness, deepen the pangs of hunger, strengthen the grip of despair, and to twist the fear into resentment, blame, and ultimately, violence. He and his organization was succeeding despite some set-backs: Sagenhoft was growing weaker each day as plague spread, buildings burned, and riots grew in intensity. The situation was far from perfect, of course: the business with the late Lord Staifon had shaken the local nobles and set them to toeing the government line, and his last rat farm had been destroyed days ago. The Green Bureau was picking off his people, one here, another there, forcing re-groupings, reshufflings, and changing of assignments, all on the fly without proper security safeguards and back-checks. People were being promoted far faster than was probably wise, but to increase the effect on the city he had to continually expand his networks while replacing operatives killed or i
njured. He received a trickle of new agents smuggled in aboard the flocks of ships flowing through the port, but there were never enough hands to do the Hand’s work.
He took his evening meal on the fifth of Zahmteil in his quarters, as was his habit; solitude was important to keeping a clear head. His quarters were simple by any standards, but space within his headquarters was at a premium. The Golden Cartographers had long been a useful Hand front, directed mainly at gathering information on the ships passing through the port. As preparations were laid for the coming invasion last year the building had been reconditioned and set up to serve as a central headquarters for the siege that the Hand operatives had been confident would come. They had moved into the building a week before the Amphitheater raid, and Mane planned to personally burn the structure to the ground the day after the seven-taloned Hand floated over Dragon Isle.
And that was coming, he knew: two days ago the Bohca Ileri had arrived outside the walls; even now their forces were taking over the encirclement duties, allowing the Hand to concentrate Bohca Tatbik north of the river, ready to react to any move by the Heartland Army. And no more than ten days away the heavy siege train labored towards the coast at an incredible rate, leaving behind scores of ruined dray beasts and damaged wains as it travelled around the clock, moving fast to beat the autumn rains, and bringing the means by which the city’s walls would be breached.
A bell-pull summoned one of his guards, who carried away the dinner tray, and the Hand priest worked steadily until the discrete chime of the water-clock alerted him that it was time for his two-hour diversion period. He finished the report in his hand, arranged the paperwork just so, and stood, grabbing his sword-belt off the back of the door and buckling it on.
The door to his room was both locked and barred; the Golden Cartographers’ walls were plastered brick, the windows were sealed shut, and the external doors barred and guarded, all designed to slow any raid so that the vital files could be destroyed. Stepping out his door put him in a hallway that ran the length of the second (and top) story; the rectangular building stood facing north, flanked on the east side by an attached chandler’s warehouse and on the west by an alley. The rear, or south, of the building faced an alley with a block of apartments on the other side. Mane’s quarters were on the south side of the hall, one of ten rooms served by a staircase on the east end of the building. Tolver, his operations officer, had one of the nine remaining rooms, while the four priests assigned as Mane’s personal guards shared one more; the remaining seven housed sixteen staff officers, all Markan-Fets of various grades. It was too many people for such a confined and airless space, and lately it had taken on the prison stench of too many bodies and not enough ventilation.
One guard accompanied him as he passed down the hall and descended the stairway; two others were out on errands for him, and the fourth would be resting, as the station chief had to be guarded all hours. The eastern four-fifths of the ground floor was a vast barn-like room where an army of map-makers would have worked; now it was occupied by staff officers and a dozen clerk-messengers, all hard at work on the staggering administrative and planning tasks. A row of cots against the east wall served the clerks as quarters; food was brought in from a nearby tavern that was owned and operated by a Hand associate. The west wall had two doors opening off it, one to Mane’s office, and the other to the sales area.
Everyone was busy, moving here and there with a great show of purpose, but Arthol was hardly surprised: they knew his schedule. Not far from the bottom of the stairs another stairway led down into the cellar, which housed archives; four cells, an interrogation room, and a vault took up the rest of the space.
It was dark and pleasantly cool under the building, the cellar having been hewn out of bedrock; Arthol made his way through the darkened cellar, pausing to check the locks on the vault. The enchanted devices he used to remain in touch with his superiors were at a different site, being far too valuable to be placed in even minor risk by being associated with other facets of the Hand operation.
The guard stopped at the entrance to the interrogation room and took a seat as Mane went in to enjoy his two hours’ diversion. Things were just about ready to begin, he noted with approval: Markan-Ra Adept Tryza was just putting the finishing touches to the preparations. Tryza was of the Ra, the military priests, a professional soldier in every sense of the word, one of the four assigned as Mane’s bodyguards. She was a burly, olive-skinned woman with close-cropped black hair. She had stripped to the waist, the tattoos of her branch and rank standing out in a swirl of color and darkness on her left arm.
The entertainment Mane had been amusing himself with was a girl not far past sixteen, selected by Tryza (on his instructions) for her strong resemblance to Lady Eithne. A refugee, the girl was offered a job as a live-in maid by Tryza, who claimed to be employed by a large shipwright. Naturally, things had not gone as the girl had expected.
Her hair had been cut and styled to match the future Duchess’, and for two hours each day she was brought out of her cell to entertain the station-master. Actually, it was more than two hours, for thirty minutes ahead of time Tryza would go downstairs and prepare the room and see to it that the girl was bathed and her hair done correctly. To enhance the effect, a water clock and lamp were positioned opposite the girl’s cell to ensure that she knew exactly how long she had until the next session began.
Arthol had conducted hundreds of interrogations over his career, the pace always determined by the urgency of the situation and the materials at hand, and so for a change he had decided to break down a subject for sheer entertainment, just to see how long and far it could go. He had started slow, very slow, beginning with the girl being bound, blindfolded and naked, being asked nonsense questions and receiving a lash for wrong answers. The pain had been increased slowly but markedly with each punishment, and always there were the rules: if she did well, there would be no pain, but if she did not do well, there was pain.
Of course, the rules were never the same from one session to another, and each punishment that came was more severe than the last, only slightly so, of course, but enough so the girl understood that her survival meant discerning the rules as quickly as she could.
It was the times between the sessions, Mane quickly recognized, that wrought the greatest effect upon her: first the hours immediately after a session, when she would curl up in a corner of her cell, and try to come to terms with some new degradation she had to endure and pretend to enjoy, then a few hours of ragged, nightmare-haunted sleep, and finally the countdown as the hands of the clock turned towards the time when Tryza would come to oversee her bath and hair.
Mane had moved his schedule around a time or two just to watch this last hour through a peephole in the cell’s wall, watching the girl pace and whimper and fight the mounting fear and dread, knowing all too well that only her most clear-heading cunning could get her through the nonsense rules of a session even as the horror of what was to come robbed her of those facilities.
It would only be a couple more days until her mind gave out completely, Arthol reflected as he seated himself on a chair and poured himself a glass of wine, the girl standing in the center of the room before him wearing a sheer silk slip that would have cost a great deal before the siege, her skin freshly toweled dry and her hair shining in the lamp light. Tryza would have had some sport with her while she was bathing and preparing, which was one reason Arthol had chosen her from amongst his guards and staff. It would also be Tryza who cut the girl’s throat and disposed of the corpse when she was reduced to a mewing, mindless husk. He was tempted to simply release the girl when she reached that stage, have Tryza leave her on the steps of one of the hospices where servitors of the Eight tended such human wreckage, a permanent example of how easily a person might be stripped of virtually everything. That, of course, represented an unacceptable risk, as the girl might babble the wrong words into the wrong ears. Better to put an end to her and get another, twins, perhaps, that might be a
musing. Before the year was out, he vowed to himself, the real Lady Eithne would be his and Tryza’s plaything until her mind was empty and her spirit shattered beyond all repair. They could carry her through the city streets then, to show the populace what it meant to oppose the Hand.
For a moment hot anger pulsed behind his eyes: blast the luck that left a Sorgen alive, and that one the girl, whom the populace would most respond to. Worse that she was a serene little bitch who looked noble in her mourning clothes, rather than some spotty-faced simpering little trollop. And trebly-blast that bastard Chaton, who not only had also survived but who had had the balls to end the intrigues and bickering in the highest ranks with one bold, warning stroke. And to the Void with that red-haired witch who stood off an entire ship’s crew of those worthless Hobrec to save the damned girl.
With an effort Mane tore himself from that line of thought and focused on the girl, who was standing at attention, fists clenched so tightly that her nails were cutting into her palms, a tic jumping beneath one eye. “So, girl, are you happy to be here tonight?”
“Yes, sir, very happy.”
“Did your good friend Tryza make you happy during your bath?”
“Yes, sir, very happy.”
“Excellent. Tell me everything you and she did, and how much you enjoyed it, and how much you want her do it all again. Then you can explain why you enjoyed our last session, and those portions of it that you wish to perform again. Begin.”
Henri opened the door to the sales office, sending a strap hung with small brass bells to jingling and strode inside, Jothan and Dayyan trailing along behind. Not far inside the room was a chest-high counter that ran the width of the room, a small locked gate being the only way to the main area of the office, which was filled with racks of maps. The back wall was covered with framed maps, while the walls to the left (exterior) and right (interior) were paneled and bare. The wizard glanced at a door on the back wall and turned his attention to the thin, balding man who sat on a tall stool behind the counter, an open ledger in front of him.