Thren shook his head, trying to banish the thoughts. Dozens of reasons could explain the delay, and dwelling on the worst of them did nothing. He had to focus on what he knew, and so far all he knew was that it was a quiet night in that little corner of Veldaren.
And then out went the candle.
“Where?” Thren breathed, pressing himself against the blackened wall. Across the rooftops he watched his guildmembers rise from their hiding spots, coming out through windows and up from false shingles. Several others rushed out from the alleyways, encircling the house. Yet despite it all, not a sign.
Dread clenched its cold fist around Thren’s stomach, and he staggered to his feet, ignoring the aches from spending so many hours in one position. Stepping through the broken wall, he drew his swords as members of his guild neared.
“We saw no sign,” said one, but Thren shook his head, hurrying toward the house.
“Inside,” he said. “All of you, inside, now!”
When he reached the door, he heard Marion’s scream. His foot slammed against the handle, and though it’d been locked, it broke under the force. The door opened a space, and using his shoulder for leverage, Thren smashed it open the rest of the way. He gave himself no time to think, no pause to survey the situation. It was time to act, and he whirled into motion. Two men were just before the door, small crossbows in hand. Their clothing was of the Scorpion Guild, and no doubt their arrows were tipped with the deadly poison of their namesake.
Thren flung himself to the left, lashing out with one of his short swords. One arrow sailed past him, embedding into the chest of one of his guildmembers behind him. The other bow failed to fire, Thren’s sword smashing through its frail construction, snapping the string and cutting the arrow in half. Before either Scorpion could react, he flung himself back the other way, his swords dancing, opening up their throats with a shower of blood.
When they fell, Thren found himself face-to-face with Carr. The man looked harmless enough, his face round, his eyes a soft brown. But there was nothing soft about the dagger that pressed against his Marion’s neck. Michael lay dead in the corner, an arrow lodged in his throat. By the window, his hand still resting atop the candle, was Wallace. The entire back of his shirt was soaked red.
“Not a step,” Carr said. His voice was calm, as if they were good friends.
“Let her go,” Thren said, the muscles in his body tensing.
“I said not a step.” Carr pressed the dagger tighter against her throat, drawing a single crimson drop. From outside came screams, followed by the sound of combat. “Do you think you’re the only one in Veldaren who knows how to plan an ambush?”
Thren looked to Marion, and she met his gaze. So far she had kept her mouth shut, but he could see by the fire in her eyes that she was just waiting for Carr to give her an opening. Even the slightest delay, and she would escape. Thren was not the only one who had grown up on the streets.
“How many men did you bring out there?” Thren asked, thinking to stall.
“Marion is mine,” Carr said. “Which means ten or ten hundred, it doesn’t matter, I have all the leverage I need right here.”
“You lay a finger on her…”
“You’ll what?” asked Carr. “Kill my wife? Cut a finger off little Reed’s hand? They’re not here, Thren, just you and me and Marion. Put down your swords, and fall to your knees.”
“And if I don’t?” asked Thren. He took a step closer, just to see how Carr reacted. The man didn’t even flinch. “You’ll kill Marion? Do it, and your family dies. Even if by a miracle you kill me as well, my orders will still stand. Grayson will execute both of them.”
“Except Grayson’s off stalking an empty warehouse,” Carr said, and there was no hiding the victory in his voice. “And as for my family…you don’t think I’d come after your wife without having freed my own, do you?”
The dread that had been building in Thren’s stomach suddenly exploded throughout his body. That was it then. All his maneuvers, all his planning…it’d meant nothing. He’d thought he’d hidden Lenore and Reed somewhere Carr could never find them. He’d thought his ambush careful enough, and subtle enough, to suffice. But instead it’d all come crumbling down.
“You haven’t won,” Thren said.
“Yes,” Carr said. “I have. Drop your swords.”
“No.” Thren took another step closer. “You’re here, right here. No matter the territory, the gold, the reputation, or anything else, I know that you’d sacrifice all of it to save your life. And that’s what’s at stake right now, Carr. Harm her, and you die. It’s that simple.”
“And I know you,” Carr said. “I know you’d never let something happen to Marion. No matter how fast you think you are, I’m the faster. On your knees, and drop your swords. I won’t ask ag—”
“Carr!” shouted a Scorpion as he barged through the front door. “More Spiders coming in from the…”
Marion twisted in Carr’s grasp, and Thren lunged. No one was faster than he was. He’d always believed it, worked hard training himself to be the absolute best. But it seemed time itself slowed so he might see the blur that was Carr’s hand, see the spray of red that flew across the room, see the gap of flesh that was once his beautiful Marion’s throat open up.
“No!” he screamed. He made to stab with his sword, but Carr flung Marion into his arms. Unable to help himself, he caught her, cradling her against him. She wasn’t dead yet, the cut on her throat too shallow. As Carr fled into the second room of the house, Thren held her, stared into her dazzling blue eyes as the life slowly drained from them.
Thren shoved his cloak against her neck, trying to stem the bleeding. He heard her cough, try to speak. Her lips formed the words, and he read them easily enough.
Don’t go.
Thren held her, looked to the other room. He felt his rage overwhelming him, felt his sorrow weighing down his shoulders. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. Carr was getting away. That was all he could think about. The bastard was getting away.
Gently he put Marion down, cut off a shred of his cloak, and pressed it hard against her throat.
“I’ll be back,” he said, kissing her forehead.
When he ran into the other room, he found a latch open in the floor, the door lifted up to reveal a tunnel dug beneath the house. Thren heard Grayson’s damning words echo in his head.
This was Scorpion territory for years…
A tunnel network. How many houses linked together? How many secret raids and transactions had been carried out through them, completely under Thren’s nose? Not wanting to think on it, not wanting to let his mind realize how thoroughly he’d been outsmarted, Thren dropped into the tunnel. It was as dark a chasm as Thren had ever seen, but he was friends with the darkness. The tunnel went in only one direction, and on his hands and knees Thren crawled ahead. The sound of combat faded away, and on and on he rushed. His hands brushed the walls, following their gentle curves. In the growing silence, he listened for movements, for breathing, anything to signify Carr’s presence.
After a curve, a yellow orb quickly came into view. It was a single stone, shining a puke yellow, but the light was enough for Thren to see that it shone directly above an intersection of two tunnels. Stopping beneath, Thren looked down all three passages, but they were nothing but empty walls of black. He tried to scan the ground, but there was no way to tell in what direction Carr had gone.
Curling his fingers into fists, he smashed them against the dirt and let out a bitter cry. Using the intersection for space, he turned around and crawled back to Marion. When he stood at the secret latch, he found several members of his guild standing around, waiting for him. Their weapons were bloodied, and many of the men were wounded. From the other room, Thren heard sobbing, and it took no guessing to know who it was.
“I’m sorry, Thren,” said Senke, one of his more promising recruits. The handsome man reached down a hand, helping Thren climb out from the tunnel. “Grayson got us her
e too late.”
Thren nodded. Feeling like a stranger in his own body, he stepped out into the other room. Grayson huddled over Marion’s body, cradling her in his massive arms. Her eyes were closed. She did not move.
“Grayson…” Thren said. “I’m sorry. I should have known better. I should have…”
The man looked up.
“Damn it, Thren,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You’re not as good as you think you are. No one is, and now my Marion…now my little…”
Still holding his sister’s body, he yanked the gray cloak off his shoulders and tossed it to the floor.
“I’m done with you,” he said, rising to his feet, Marion’s weight seemingly nothing as he held her. “You never listened, you bastard. Never thought someone could beat you. Maybe you’ll learn again, maybe not, but I won’t be here to find out. Take the whole damn city if you want. I’m gone.”
He stormed out of the house, leaving Thren alone with the handful of his men.
Thren’s fists shook as he closed his eyes and collected himself.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Warehouse was empty,” Senke said. “Grayson didn’t seem surprised at all. After that, we were going to return back to our hideout, but then we found this…”
Thren opened his eyes and accepted the offered item. It was a gray cloak, stained red and cut into several pieces.
“Grayson sent a runner to the safe house we had Carr’s family locked up in, found it smashed open. The cloak belonged to one of the men stationed there. That’s when Grayson sent us hurrying here. Managed to kill the rest of the Scorpions, at least those that didn’t get away.”
Thren crumpled the cloak in his hands. No doubt Carr had expected to get in and out of the home without being noticed, taking Marion with him. The cloak at the warehouse had been his way of taunting Thren, making sure he knew every single step of his plan had been expected or countered in some way.
“How many of you are there?” he asked Senke.
“Fifteen of us,” the man said.
Thren drew one of his swords and scanned the faces of those with him. When he saw one in particular, he couldn’t believe the audacity. Taking a step forward, he grabbed Pennell by the neck, yanked him to his knees, and then jammed a knee into the man’s stomach.
“Carr tell you to stay and watch?” he asked as Pennell lay on the ground, clutching his waist. “He want you to tell him how miserable and beaten I was?”
“I don’t know what you’re…”
Thren kicked him in the teeth, silencing the lie. Reaching down, he grabbed Pennell’s left hand, stretched it out, and then slammed his sword through the palm. It pierced the wood of the floor as Pennell screamed. The rest of the Spiders stepped away, some stunned by the revelation, others furious.
“Listen to me, you little shit,” Thren whispered into the man’s ear. “Someone will suffer my wrath tonight. It can be you, or it can be Carr. Now you fucking think long and hard about who you’d rather it be.”
“The Raven’s Claw,” Pennell said, his face turning pale. “The upper levels, they’re all Carr’s. He’ll be there, I swear!”
Thren stood, flipped his other short sword so he could grab the hilt with the blade downward, and jammed the blade down through Pennell’s mouth. He let go of both his swords so he could stand and watch as Pennell convulsed. At last, when he was dead, Thren freed both weapons and cleaned off the blades.
“The Raven’s Claw is a tavern in the far south,” he told the men with him. His face felt flushed, yet his hands and feet like ice. “We’re going there, now. I don’t care who you see when we attack, whether or not you think them innocent. When we step inside their door, everyone dies. Everyone but Carr and his family. We take them alive. Do you understand?”
The hard eyes of hard men met his gaze, and they all nodded.
“Good,” Thren said. “Then let’s go.”
They ran through the dark night streets, weapons drawn, cloaks fluttering behind them. The few who saw them coming fled quickly out of the way. No doubt many were in league with the Scorpions, but the Spiders ran too fast, too straight. No one would beat them. Thren wouldn’t let them. Heart pounding, he let the blood coursing through his veins push away his thoughts of Marion, of the betrayal in Grayson’s eyes. The chill of the night was a bitter kiss on his skin as the sweat ran down his neck.
They turned a corner, Thren still in the lead. The Raven’s Claw tavern was in sight, a two-story construction lurking over the nearby homes. Lights shone through gaps in the curtains of the upper floors. Three burly men leaned against the front and side, looking bored. Guards, Thren knew, disguised as vagrants or drunkards. There was no disguising their panic when they saw the mass of gray cloaks come storming toward them.
“Never slow, never stop,” Thren shouted as he drew his swords. “Faster than the night. Faster than the dead. Let the blood flow!”
The guards had fled inside by their arrival, but Thren wasn’t worried. His mind had no space for worry. They’d come too fast, too hard. Carr couldn’t outthink Thren at a game Thren was no longer playing. Arms crossed before his face, Thren slammed into the door, using his weight and momentum to smash it inward. As wood splintered around him he rolled, dodging frantic swings of swords by men on either side of the door. Pulling up from his roll, he lashed out, slicing out the throats of two men unlucky enough to be drinking at the table beside him. As they collapsed, Thren jammed his elbow onto the curved table, tipping it over as he fell once more. Arrows thudded into the table above him, fired by three men on the stairs with crossbows.
“Move!” Thren screamed at the door behind him. Glass shattered as his men smashed in through windows, others lunging through the doorway with their daggers drawn. The guards there were quickly overrun, and as the rest of the patrons drew their own weapons, Thren let out a laugh. What were they to him? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The men on the stairs were busy reloading when several Spiders flung their daggers, killing one and wounding the two others. Thren saw this while glancing around the table, and with their threat over, he returned to his feet, short swords held out at either side of him. Behind the bar was another door, and pouring through it came members of the Scorpion Guild, all carrying long daggers or maces. Thren met their eyes as they leaped over the bar, trying to overwhelm the Spiders. This was the best they could do? The first to near him offered a clumsy thrust in an attempt to disembowel him, but Thren slapped it aside, stepped closer, and rammed his sword through the man’s stomach.
“That’s how you gut someone,” Thren whispered into the man’s ear, as if he were a dying lover. A twist, a yank, and the sword came free.
The rest of his guild clashed with the Scorpions, but these were Grayson’s handpicked best, and they made short work of the frantic defenders. Blood spilled across the counter, and from every direction came screams. Thren reached behind the counter, grabbing several bottles, and then smashed them into a single puddle. That done, he grabbed a rag, soaked it with some of the liquid, and then dipped it into the fire as all around him men died. When the rag caught fire, he tossed it into the puddle, setting it aflame.
“Carr must be upstairs,” Senke said, sliding up to him. His arms were caked with blood, as was his mace, and along his left cheek ran a weeping gash.
“Come with me,” Thren said. “Send the rest outside to circle the place. No one escapes.”
Senke shouted out the order as Thren climbed the stairs. At the top waited a trio of men, all wielding swords, their faces hidden behind the deep yellow of their cloaks and hoods. Behind them Thren caught a glimpse of an open door at the far end of the hall, and Carr running inside it.
“Do you smell the smoke?” Thren asked the men. “How well does a scorpion burn, I wonder?”
The first slashed with his sword, but it was a feint. The two others lunged as the man suddenly pulled back. Thren lifted his blades, and he could not keep the look of contempt off his face. He�
�d seen the other two tense, seen the way their feet shifted for their lunges, and the feint could not have been more obvious, for even if Thren had not blocked, the angle was such that the blow would have missed anyway.
If these were the best Carr had, Thren was sorely disappointed.
With his left hand he blocked one attack, and the other he parried aside so he could step closer, pull his sword around, and double-thrust for the man’s stomach. Except instead of gaining an easy kill, he found his prey leaping away. The other two men converged simultaneously, one striking high, the other low. Thren let out a cry, and he fell back toward the stairs while batting aside the lower hit. Pain spiked across his chest, his shirt ripped and his chest bleeding from a shallow wound. Despite the pain, Thren let out a laugh. Perhaps Carr had at least one more trick left up his sleeve.
But now Thren knew the level of his foes. More importantly, he had help coming from the stairs. He rushed them headlong, swords a blur. They tried to cut him as he passed, but he shifted, angled his run so he flew through them, cloak hiding the bulk of his movements. Skilled they were, but Thren felt his mind sharpened, its focus magnified by the corpse of his beloved Marion. With every step, every hit, he felt his rage growing. Bleeding from more shallow cuts along his arms and legs, Thren landed on a shoulder, rolled to his back, and then kicked up to his feet.
“Not good enough,” he said, spitting blood. From the stairs ran Senke, the way no longer blocked by Thren. Attackers on both sides, the three Scorpions tried to divide their attention, two to Thren, one to Senke. Neither had a chance. Senke was as skilled with his mace as any man could be with a weapon. He swung wide for the man’s chest, but when he made to block, Senke had stepped in close, left leg sweeping out the man’s knees. When the Scorpion fell, Senke’s mace followed him to the ground, blasting in his ribs with an audible crunch.
Thren’s two died just as easily, one sword finding throat, the other piercing lung. Yanking his blades free, Thren turned down the hall as smoke began to billow up the stairs.
“At my side,” Thren said, ignoring the other doors as he ran. Finding the one on the far end, the one he’d seen Carr enter, he tested the handle and found it unlocked. Eyes narrowing, he turned the handle, kicked the door open, and then dodged to the side. An arrow shot through the center of the door, embedding into the opposite wall. Thren stepped inside, showing no hurry. Carr stood in a small but well-furnished bedroom. By the window stood Carr’s wife, Lenore, and his ten-year-old son, Reed. Seeing Thren, the guildmaster lowered his empty crossbow.
Cloak and Spider: A Shadowdance Novella Page 8