The Black Bouquet r-2

by Richard Lee Byers

  Aeron threw his shoulder against Tharag's leg. That brought the giant crashing to the floor, and he scrambled toward its neck, where no armor protected it, and a major artery throbbed just beneath the skin.

  Tharag flailed at him but missed, then was in position. He slashed, a torrent of blood sprayed, and the bugbear thrashed in its death throes.

  Aeron jumped up and rushed in on the orc's flank. The pig-faced creature pivoted and parried his knife with its short sword, but in the instant it was distracted, Miri cut into its chest. It whimpered, and its legs gave way.

  That left Aeron and Miri confronting the man with the beard. Aeron just had time for an instant of savage satisfaction that for once, it was the foe who found himself outnumbered.

  Miri said, "Deal with him."

  She turned, and dashed away.

  Aeron and the Red Axe shifted in and out of the distance, feinting, striking, and parrying, neither, in those first moments, able to score. Something shattered, then warmth and a wavering yellow light flowered at Aeron's back. He surmised that Miri had smashed an oil lamp to set something on fire. The blaze alarmed his opponent, who started shouting for help.

  If the Red Axe kept on yelling, some of his comrades just might heed him, too, even though, so far, Sefris was holding her own against them. Desperate to shut him up, Aeron lunged forward, inviting a stop cut. When it came, he blocked with the knife in his off hand and simultaneously drove his largest Arthyn fang into the Red Axe's chest.

  It took the ruffian a moment to drop, and by that time, Aeron could feel the hot pain burning in his shoulder. His knife had been too light a weapon, or his defense not deft enough, to stop the heavy sword entirely. His parry had robbed the stroke of some of its force, but the blade still gashed his flesh.

  Aeron knew he had no time to stop and examine the wound. Instead, he pivoted toward Miri and the fire. She'd set the mesh sealing off the servants' stairs alight, and the gluey cables were burning away.

  "I learned to clear spider web in the Thornwood," she said, flashing him a grin. "Help me with your father."

  As they dashed toward Nicos, a couple more Red Axes started in their direction.

  Fine, Aeron thought. If it was a race, he and Miri would just have to win it.

  He caught sight of the wizard. Standing by the windows at a reasonably safe distance from any of the intruders, the mage had also oriented on the thief and the ranger. Holding a spell focus-Aeron couldn't make out precisely what the small object was-high above his head, he recited a rhyme.

  A dark blue vapor billowed up around Aeron's feet, so thickly that he could no longer see any farther than his hand could reach. Even worse, the fumes had a vile, rotten smell that instantly turned his stomach. Stricken with a nausea as intense as any he'd ever experienced, Aeron swallowed to keep from puking.

  "Run!" cried Miri from somewhere in the mist.

  The strain in her tone made it obvious that she too was struggling not to be sick.

  "My father!" Aeron called back.

  "We can't… find him… in this murk," Miri replied between coughs, "and we're too ill… to carry him off… if we could. It's over… for tonight."

  He hated her for it, but she was right. Silently vowing that he'd come back for Nicos somehow, he tried to turn around toward the servants' stairs, only to realize he no longer knew where they were. He was so sick it made him dizzy.

  He nearly panicked, then spotted a smudge of brightness that could only be the firelight. He staggered forward into the center of it. Curling wisps of burning web seared him as he brushed by.

  At the moment, it didn't matter. The fog hadn't penetrated far beyond the doorway, and as soon as he clambered down out of it, his nausea abated. The relief of that rendered the sting of his blisters insignificant.

  Miri stood below him on the steps. She beckoned impatiently, and they ran on down to the first floor, then onward through the house. When they reached the stairs leading down to the cellars, he swiped some blood from his shoulder wound and smeared it on the banister.

  CHAPTER 15

  Sefris had suffered a second wound, a gash just above the knee, by the time the fire started and the ruffian at the far end of the hall started bawling for help. A couple of the other Red Axes left off attacking her to answer the call.

  She dodged a dagger thrust, grabbed her assailant, and spun him at a goblin armed with a spiky-headed mace. The outlaws fell in a tangle, and finally, for the first time since the man with the cane had snared her in his enchantment, she had time to rattle off a spell of her own.

  She snatched a handful of black ribbons from one of her pockets, recited the words of power, and snapped the lengths of silk as if they were a cat-o-nine-tails. Tatters of shadow exploded from a point on the floor to engulf the nearest Red Axes, who cried out at the insubstantial but somehow repulsive contact. They stood dazed and shaken for a few moments, and their incapacity bought Sefris even more time.

  Time to dissolve the unnatural sluggishness with which the wizard had afflicted her. Crooking her fingers through the proper signs, she began the counterspell. Gloom crawled around her, the Shadow Weave responding to her call.

  At the same time, she took note of the blue fog filling the opposite end of the room. Thanks to her own magical expertise, she knew what the conjured mist was. No doubt it was intended to drop Aeron and Miri in their tracks, make them too nauseated to do anything but retch, but it evidently hadn't. Sefris could hear them calling to one another inside the cloud. If they could resist the vapor long enough, they were going to flee through the far doorway.

  Sefris wouldn't be able to follow without fighting her way past more Red Axes and subjecting herself to the debilitating queasiness engendered by the fog. She thought she'd be better off trying something else instead.

  She spoke the final word of power. The air around her sizzled like meat frying in a pan as her own magic burned the small man's hindering spell away. She whirled, dashed out the door, and bounded down the wide marble steps.

  As she ran, her wounded leg throbbed, the pain begging her to favor it. She blocked the discomfort from her mind. If she allowed herself to limp, she might not be fast enough to intercept Aeron on the ground floor.

  It turned out that she wasn't anyway. When she saw the bloody mark on the banister of the cellar stairs, she realized he and Miri had scurried down them to escape through the Underways. She continued the chase through the labyrinth of storerooms and piled crates until she found her way to the exit.

  It was still locked. And bolted. Even if Aeron knew a burglar's trick that would allow him to secure it fully from the other side, it was unlikely he would have taken the time. He and Miri had actually fled the house at ground level.

  Which was to say the handprint had been a trick to make a pursuer believe the fugitives had gone that way. It had worked well, too. It would be futile to race back upstairs and try to pick up Aeron's trail. Even if it didn't result in another useless encounter with the Red Axes, and further delay, he'd gained too long a lead.

  Sefris simply opened the inner door, then the outer one, and departed via the tunnels herself. She felt herself seething with anger, and worked to quash the feeling. Her frustration and injured pride in her own competence didn't matter, nor the pain of her wounds-only patience, resolution, and the success they would bring did.

  Yet deep down, she hoped with a bitter fervor that, in the course of accomplishing her mission, she'd have the chance to slaughter Aeron, Miri, Kesk, the wizard with the blackwood cane, and everyone else who'd gotten in her way. Perhaps it was a prayer that even a deity as cold and unyielding as the Lady of Loss would grant.

  A couple blocks from Kesk's mansion, Miri and Aeron climbed a rusty wrought iron ladder, the rungs tangled in ivy, that ran up a tower wall. At the top was a Rainspan. From there, they could watch for signs of pursuit. Thus far, she hadn't seen any.

  She and the outlaw leaned on the railing and panted for a time, catching their breaths and waitin
g for their stomachs to settle. The night breeze was mild, but her clothes were so sweat-soaked that it chilled her even so.

  When Miri felt able, she said, "Better let me take a look at that shoulder."

  "All right."

  For once, Aeron's voice was dull, not the energetic, sometimes humorous tone to which she'd become accustomed.

  She ripped the rent in his bloodstained sleeve wider to get a better look at the gash.

  "You're lucky," said the ranger. "It's shallow. If you think it's unsafe to go back to Ilmater's house, some salve from an apothecary and a bandage will probably take care of it. If need be, I can put a couple stitches in."

  "Lucky…"

  From the bitterness in his voice, Miri realized he wasn't talking about the cut.

  "I'm sorry the plan didn't work," she said. "It nearly did. If the wizard hadn't been there…"

  "Even though he was," Aeron said, "we almost saved my father. Another couple paces, and I would have picked him up in my arms. Then the fog came, and it panicked us. We turned tail and left him lying there."

  "We didn't have a choice."

  "You can't be sure of that. Maybe we still could have gotten him out. We'll never know, because you said we had to run, and I listened."

  She stared at him, then said, "So it's all the fault of my cowardice that things didn't work out."

  "I didn't say that."

  "Not in so many words, but… Listen, when we fight your fellow cutthroats, all they do is try to club you unconscious, or cut a leg out from under you. They're out to kill me. So I'll be damned if I understand where you find the gall to question my courage."

  "I said we both panicked. I didn't mean to put it all off on you."

  "I'm a scout of the Red Hart Guild," Miri replied. "I have honor. You're a common sneak thief. You don't. Be thankful I'm willing to dirty my…"

  She felt the clench in her muscles and heard the shrillness in her voice. She took a long breath.

  "Never mind," Miri continued. "I shouldn't have said that I'm frustrated, too."

  For a few heartbeats, Aeron just stared out at the night as if struggling to swallow his own anger.

  Eventually he said, "For all we know, he could be dead now."

  "I don't think the mist would kill him," Miri replied, "and I didn't see any fresh blood on him when he was lying on the floor. I think the one Red Axe just knocked him out with the flat of his blade, or his fist."

  "That could have been enough to kill him, sickly as he is. Or maybe, after what happened, the Axes decided I'm never going to trade the book, and they stuck a knife in him."

  "I doubt the wizard would let them do anything rash," said the ranger. "He strikes me as too canny."

  She reached out to give Aeron a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but he irritably twisted away from her touch.

  "You don't know that, either," he said. "All we do know is that we wasted our one chance to sneak into Kesk's house. We'll never get inside a second time."

  "Then it's time to try it my way, isn't it? Seek help from the Bouquet’s rightful owner, and the authorities."

  Aeron scowled and said, "I explained to you why that wouldn't work."

  Despite herself, Miri felt her own hostility welling up anew.

  "While painting our faces green like clowns in a pageant works brilliantly," she said. "I think you won't turn to the law just because it is the law. It would tarnish this notion you have of yourself as some sort of master rogue, and you couldn't bear that. You'd rather let your father die."

  "That isn't true. It just wouldn't help."

  "What is the answer, then?"

  "I don't know," he said. "Shut your mouth for a while, and maybe something will come to me."

  Kesk's mood was already sour from several fruitless hours of hunting Aeron through the Underways, and it curdled into cold fury as soon as he tramped into the solar and saw his henchmen. It was obvious from the way they quailed from his gaze, as much as their fresh splints and bandages and the sooty fire damage around the far doorway, that some new fiasco had occurred in his absence.

  Ambling closer, his cane tapping the floor, the wizard took it upon himself to explain how Aeron and a female accomplice had entered the house in disguise to spirit Nicos away.

  "We would have captured them," the wizard added, "except that Dark Sister Sefris burst in to snatch them away. Evidently she'd been tracking them or something. While we all fought over Master sar Randal and his ally, they escaped. It's rather ironic when you think about it."

  Kesk trembled. At that moment, he would dearly have loved to split the rich man's masked face with his axe.

  "You think it's funny, do you?" the tanarukk asked.

  "Mildly," the wizard replied. "Now, don't glare at me like that. Aeron didn't rescue his father, which means that except for a few casualties, which you, with your horde of underlings, can readily afford, we're no worse off than before."

  "And no better."

  What truly infuriated Kesk wasn't the wear and tear on his henchmen. Those too weak to defend themselves deserved whatever they got. What nettled him was that, by arranging the raids on his various enterprises, Aeron had successfully concealed his true intentions. In other words, made a fool of him. Kesk wondered which of his other foes or rivals were actually responsible for the harassment his operation had suffered earlier in the evening, at the same time the redheaded thief was invading his home. He vowed to find out, and pay them back triple, but supposed it would have to wait until he settled the maddening business with the black book.

  "If," the wizard said, "Aeron could be convinced we'll make a fair trade, give him Nicos and a reasonable amount of coin, too, and not come after either of them later, don't you think he'd agree to it?"

  Across the room, bound to his chair, Nicos laughed feebly until an orc silenced him with a slap.

  "I suppose that is the proper response to my suggestion," sighed the small man. "Aeron would have to be mad to trust us at this point. Your malice and bungling saw to that."

  Kesk glared.

  "Get it straight once and for all," the tanarukk grumbled. "I'm not your lackey, and I don't take orders from you. I did what I thought best."

  "And look how far it got us."

  "As far as your nimble-fingered wizardry and magical toys."

  " 'Toys' you extorted from me after I spent years collecting them," the mage countered. "I wouldn't care if it had done some good. But even equipped with enchanted gear, your Red Axes can't lay their hands on one lone-wolf cutpurse. Instead, he's made you look like a dunce in front of the entire city."

  Kesk had been thinking something similar himself, which only made the magician's taunt rankle all the more. For a second, he was so angry that it choked off the words in his throat, and the merchant saw something in his face that made the eyes above the lemister scarf widen in alarm.

  "Well," gritted Kesk when he was able, "I'm not going to look foolish for much longer. Tomorrow I'm going to put an end to this business."

  "How?"

  "My people will spread the word that if Aeron doesn't hand over what I want by midnight, I'll chop his father's head off and dump the sundered pieces in Laskalar's Square."

  The wizard shrugged and said, "You've been threatening Nicos's welfare right along. How will this be any different?"

  "Because of the deadline, my promise to display the corpse to the whole city, and the fact that my men will repeat it to every robber, slaver, and whore they can find. Aeron will know I have to follow through. Otherwise, I'll lose respect."

  The magician cocked his head and asked, "You mean, if things don't work out as planned, you actually mean to do it?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we lose our hold on Aeron, don't we? With Nicos slain, what's to stop him from fleeing Oeble with The Black Bouquet still in his possession?"

  "Nothing, I guess. At least I'll be rid of him," Kesk replied, "and you."

  "Without me for a partner, you'll never rise any higher th
an you have already."

  Kesk sneered and said, "Maybe it doesn't look like it to you, but since the day I first came to Oeble, with nothing but this axe to help me carve out a life, I've climbed pretty high already. If I never go any farther, that will be all right."

  "You don't mean that."

  "Oh, yes, I do, and you can't talk me out of it. So why don't you turn that twisty mind to yours to the task of laying a trap that Aeron can't possibly escape?"

  Aeron kept quickening his pace despite the fact that even under normal circumstances, it could be dangerous to race headlong through the Underways. You could blunder into a strong-arm robber lying in wait for easy prey or intrude on plotters willing to kill to keep their palavering a secret.

  Thus, whenever he caught himself, he forced himself to slow down, but it was hard. After fleeing Kesk's mansion, he and Miri had slept aboard an unattended skiff moored at one of the docks. Restless, anguished over their failure to rescue Nicos, he woke first and rose to prowl the streets. It was then that he overheard a team of thieves, two pickpockets, a bag man, and a lookout, discussing Kesk's well-publicized threat to murder his hostage at midnight unless Aeron gave him what he wanted. Since then, he'd felt a seething urgency that made him want to hurry every instant, whether it was sensible or not.

  "Do you really think," said Miri, striding along beside him with her bow slung over her shoulder, "our allies are likely to do more than they have already?"

  "We won't know until we ask."

  "Actually," said the scout, "I already did ask, when we talked to Om-their chief the first time. If you recall, he said he'd snipe at the Red Axes on the sly, but not risk open war."

  Squinting against the darkness, Aeron peered down the passage. Three people stood murmuring to one another at the next intersection. He recognized one of them, and once more had to quash the impulse to rush.

  "Then I'll just have to change his mind," the thief said.

  "I tell you, visiting him again is just a waste of precious time. Let's go to my employer."

  "We had this talk already."