He folded the bloody shirt and placed it on the table. “And the entire country of Aendrim died.” He looked at the shirt and the blood.
“A whole country,” he said, looking out the window at the empty street outside.
He turned and walked back to Aimsley, stood over the thief and looked down, loomed into the polder’s field of view again. The veins on the little man’s head and neck throbbed, his eyeballs bulged. He grimaced back with hate, about to die.
“Did you think I wouldn’t kill you?” Heden asked, his head cocked. “Or were you counting on me killing you? Putting you out of your misery?”
The priest began to fade, to swim in Aimsley’s vision. All he could think about was how badly he wanted to slip his dirk into the man’s heart.
Denied that satisfaction, without any breath, he tried to spit one sneering, last hate-fueled rebuke at the man. All he managed was some spittle that dripped down his cheek. He closed his eyes as the life ebbed from him.
Heden watched the polder dying. He looked across the floor and saw one of the thief’s dirks lying on the wooden floor. Then looked back at the thief.
He spoke a word, and the curse was released. Aimsley’s eyes flew open and he gasped, heaving air into his lungs.
Heden stepped over him and walked across the floor. Bent down, and picked up the dirk.
Aimsley rolled himself over, pushed his chest off the floor, but was too weak to get up.
“Gwiddon asked me what happened in the wode,” Heden said, looking at the weapon. “So did Vanora. I couldn’t tell them.” He turned around and faced the polder struggling just to keep his head up, drool dropping into a pool on the wooden floor. “Let me tell you.”
He walked back across the room, chest bare, dirk held in his hands like a wounded bird.
“There was a man,” Heden said, looking at the weapon in his hands, seeing something else. “A good man. A man I loved. I would have done anything to save him. I felt like…like that was the only reason I was here, the only way anything in my life made sense. If I could save him.” If he could save anyone.
He looked up from the polder’s weapon and saw the room, his inn. A dream he had. Dead. He saw Taethan, and wondered again at what he could have done different to save him, and sacrifice himself.
“When he died,” he managed to continue. “It was like…like it was happening to me. I was dying then. I didn’t have a choice, I was either going to give up and die…or find a new way to live.”
He went down on one knee in front of the thief, grabbing the polder’s hand, pressing the dirk into it. Gave him the weapon he needed to kill Heden. The polder looked up at him, eyes red swollen with tears and rimmed with hate. Heden locked gazes with the thief.
“And now I’m going to do the same thing to you.”
Aimsley reeled. The curse was gone, but it had nearly crushed the life out of the little man. He braced himself unwillingly with one hand on Heden’s shoulder. Heden grasped the hand the polder held the dagger with, and pulled it up until the tip was pressing into Heden’s flesh. It was sharp enough to draw blood, even as feeble as Aimsley was. Heden ignored it.
“Brick sent you here to kill me,” Heden said. “You failed. But now I’m giving you the chance.”
Aimsley leaned forward, seeming desperately to want to push the dirk into Heden’s bare chest, but did not. He grit his teeth with effort.
“If my death buys your freedom,” Heden said, and the thief lifted his head to look at the priest through bloodshot eyes. “If killing me means you’re free. Free from the guild. Free to do what you want. What you think is right….” Now he had the thief’s attention. Aimsley’s mouth hung slack as he absorbed the import of Heden’s words.
Eyes locked with Aimsley’s, hand wrapped around the polder’s, Heden pulled the dirk further into his chest. “Then you have to do it,” Heden said. Aimsley stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’ll help you,” Heden said, and pulled on the dirk, scraping his breastbone.
The thief looked down, saw what he was doing and yanked himself away. Fell over with a shout. A grunt. Tears were streaming from his eyes and he was still propelled by hate. But not for Heden.
Strength flowing back into his limbs, he got up, dirk forgotten and staggered to the bar. Heden watched him disappear behind it. He couldn’t see him, but he heard the sound of glass. The uske. Choking, coughing. The thief was pouring it down his throat.
Heden got up and went behind the bar. The thief was covered in alcohol, poured the last of a bottle into his mouth, coughing and spitting most of it up, weeping openly as he did so.
With one bottle empty he smashed it into the others and glass and amber liquid went flying. He grabbed another bottle and wrenched it open, sobbing as he did, gritting his teeth with concentration on the task at hand. He would kill himself like this. Deliberately. Heden saw it. He would consider it a fitting and just end to die finally at the hand of the demon who taken everything else away.
“No!” Heden said, and lunged forward knocking the bottle out of Aimsley’s hand. “Not like this!” He pulled the thief up by his jerkin and shouted into his red, wet, weeping face, inches from Heden’s. “You don’t get out that easy!” Heden slapped the dirk back into the thief’s hand and grabbed his wrist, brought it to his neck this time. The polder didn’t have the strength to fight him.
Heden produced the second dirk, and pressed it into the polder’s neck.
“You want out!?” Heden shouted. “We go together! But you have to do it!”
The thief let his hand fall open, and the dirk fell from it. Heden was holding him up by his wrist now. The little man just dangled. Heden let him go, and he fell onto the floor of the bar unresisting. Heden tossed the second dirk on the floor.
Aimsley lay there, covered in drink, cut by the glass that had shattered all around him. His chest heaved with sobs.
“Help me,” he gurgled as he wept. “Please. Please help me. Help me.”
The words came from some other place, some place beneath his conscious mind. He wasn’t even aware he was saying them. But the tears came from him. The powerlessness, the complete inability to control himself, stop himself. The things he did, the horrible things he’d done to distract himself from what he’d become.
The thief begged for help until, with a gurgle and a quiet snort, he passed out.
Heden took a deep breath and said a prayer over both of them. Then another, and another. His wounds, the ache in his back, tingled away and the thief started to snore. Heden looked around the bar, the inn. Saw the path of blood and destruction they’d left, and relaxed. It worked. He didn’t know how it would end, but when the polder asked for help, he knew it was over. Knew there was hope, and that was enough. A beginning.
Heden reached down, grabbed the collar of the polder’s jerkin, behind his neck, and lifted the little man until only his boots touched the floor.
He turned and began dragging the polder by the collar toward the door.
“Dangerous way to start a friendship,” he said to himself.
Chapter Fifty-nine
Domnal hefted his bulk around the chair, sat down, and pulled the mug of ale across the table.
“What the fuck was all that about?” he asked, cocking a thumb backwards to the stone cell where Aimsley Pinwhistle lay, unconscious.
Heden took a deep breath. “He killed the abbot,” he said.
“Shut the fuck up!” Dom said. “That little streak of shit?!”
“He’ll need to go to the citadel eventually,” Heden said. “Once he comes to, he’ll figure a way out of the jail.”
“Black gods,” Dom said, “why do you bring this stuff to me?”
“Sorry,” Heden said. “It’s been a long week.”
Dom twisted around to look at the door beyond which lay the cells and the polder, then turned back to Heden.
“He killed the abbot and you bring him to me? You didn’t kill him yourself?” Dom asked, amazed.
“I’m not in the
murder business,” Heden said.
Dom gave him a look. “A passel of thieves killed on Moorfield the other night,” he said.
“Oh?” Heden tried to look innocent.
“Someone chewed up and spat out a bunch of thieves and an alchemist went missing a few months ago.”
Heden sighed. “No shortage of alchemists about,” he said. “Or thieves. Easy to replace.”
“Alchemist named Tam, turns out.”
Heden said nothing.
“You used to know an alchemist named Roderick Tam,” Dom continued. “Used to be friends with you lot,” Dom said, meaning the Sunbringers.
“Name sounds familiar,” Heden said.
“You knew those thieves were going after this Tam? You’d stop ‘em, if you could. You’d kill ‘em if you couldn’t. I know you. ‘Not in the murder business’ my arse.”
Heden said nothing.
“You’re going after the count,” Dom guessed.
Heden looked around the room. Then back at his friend.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Shit,” Dom said, disappointed and angry.
“You think the count can take me?” Heden asked.
Dom spit on the sawdust covered floor of his office in the jail. “The count is a little streak of shit, I could take him. You got to worry about Garth.”
“I know Garth,” Heden said.
“Yeah you do. No love lost there, I reckon. Both of you happy to keep it that way.”
Heden didn’t say anything.
“Ragman finds out you were here, probably ask me why I didn’t arrest you.”
“For the murder of Roderick Tam?” Heden asked.
Dom made a noise like ‘psh.’ “Ain’t no one think it’s you going around killing alchemists. But those thieves didn’t drag each other and everyone knows you’re after the count now…and Tam was your friend. Ain’t hard to put two and two together.”
Heden didn’t say anything.
“Plus…you coming in here…telling me you’re about to go murder a man…even the count…Ragman sorta considers that his territory.”
“You know he doesn’t like it when people call him that,” Heden said.
Dom barked a laugh. “Then he should get a woman, find someone to do his washing for him, knit him some new clothes.”
Heden couldn’t argue with that.
“I could arrest you,” Dom said, admitting the possibility.
Heden said nothing.
“I should arrest you, I guess,” he offered, both of them knowing he wasn’t going to.
“For what? For the ragman?” Heden asked.
“For you,” Dom said, putting his elbows on the table and looking at Heden. “Garth will chew you up,” he said. “You realize what that makes me, right? Makes me the last person to see the victim alive. Which is also, just sos you know, how we figure out who to press around here.”
He looked down at his mug. “Means if I let you leave, knowing what I know, I’m responsible. A little at least. Which is enough.”
Heden looked at his friend. Thought of the real bind he’d put him in. But the count had Vanora.
“I know,” Heden said. “I’d feel the same way, if it were me.”
Dom looked up from his drink, a sad smirk on his face.
“But you’re not going to lock me up,” Heden said.
“No,” Dom said.
“Not a long term solution,” Heden said.
“No,” Dom said. “Best I could do would be throw you in with the polder. Wait for you lot to get yourselves out, get yourselves killed.”
Heden stood up.
“I’m going to go now, Dom.”
Domnal nodded without looking at Heden.
Heden went for the door.
“You’re a good man, you know,” Dom said.
Heden turned around. Dom was still looking at his mug.
“Many is the time I wondered what you would do, when things were thick down here.”
He looked at his friend.
“I’m better for having you as a friend,” Dom said.
Heden just stared at Dom.
“Me too,” he said, and turned back to leave.
“Maybe that’ll make the difference,” Dom said.
Heden tried to remember to breathe as he grasped the door handle. Noticed he wasn’t shaking. Hadn’t had a fit of terror since he left the Wode. Since he got back in. That was one problem solved.
“Maybe,” he said.
Chapter Sixty
The alley connecting Rile St. and the Broad Road allowed Heden to get from the jail to the castle quickly. It was just after noon, the sun was bright, the sky was blue and he was in no mood to appreciate either.
He was going to find Gwiddon. Going to confront the king, and demand to see Gwiddon. Gwiddon would know how to find the count. And Heden would force him to tell.
As his mind played out the upcoming scenario, he noticed there was no one in the alley. Was that unusual?
He looked behind him. No one. He turned back around and saw him.
Garth.
He stood at the end of the ally, in his black leather, casually standing with his weight one his right leg and one hand resting on the pommel of his rapier. Apostate. The prayerbreaker.
Heden put a hand on Solaris.
“You knew sooner or later I’d have to…,” Garth shrugged. “I mean, how did you think this would end?” Garth asked. He seemed sad, disappointed.
“I guess it ends when one of us kills the other,” Heden said.
“No point wondering who’ll come out on top,” Garth concluded.
“Nope,” Heden said.
“We’ll find out, and then we’ll know,” Garth said.
“One of us will,” Heden said.
Garth nodded. “Don’t imagine you’ll have any regrets if it me who goes down.”
“Just one,” Heden said.
Garth raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”
Garth smiled and walked forward. Heden walked to the right, forcing Garth to the left. Garth had the initiative, but Heden the defensive advantage.
With his left hand, Garth reached behind him and pulled out a dagger. Heden prayed, and his skin flashed to stone. The strength of Cavall.
Garth threw the dagger, Heden deflected it with his forearm, but in the same instant Garth produced a hand crossbow, and fired a bolt at Heden.
The bolt struck Heden full in the chest, and he gasped as the flood of power given him by the granite prayer fled his body. It was an experience completely new to him. Like vomiting with your whole body.
This was no poison. It was some kind of curse. That bolt was cursed, cursed by a dark god. Nikros or Cyrvis. One of the black brothers or their saints. But the power of the god must be great to strip away Heden’s defenses. The stone skin, the strength. All gone. He felt naked. Felt like someone had punched him in the diaphragm and forced all the air out of his lungs.
“Did you think the dust was our only trick?” Garth sneered. “Never show your whole hand.”
Heden was out of breath and the fight hadn’t even begun. He wrested the bolt from his chest, staggered once, but mastered himself.
“I’ll remember that,” he said, and gripped Solaris. I need you, he thought.
Together, the voice of the sword echoed in Heden’s head, we shall cast light into darkness. Cast shadows out.
There was an eagerness. Solaris had been waiting for this moment. Garth was the shadow. Solaris yearned to destroy him.
Garth saw Heden’s play, and drew his unholy rapier.
Unbidden, with swordsmanship Heden never possessed, Solaris willed Heden’s arm to draw itself from its sheath, and counter Apostate.
As their swords clashed, Heden’s entire body erupted in flame.
Garth leapt back, his hand burned, but did not cry out. He assumed a dueling pose, relaxed, as he tried to understand what happened.
Heden felt healed, renewed. Solaris w
as drawn. Something like lava, liquid sunlight, dripped from the blade. When it hit the street, it splashed in rainbow crystals like prisms, bouncing and disintegrating on the stone cobbles.
Heden looked like a summoned creature of elemental fire. His entire body blazed.
Garth’s eyes went wide as he saw the relic Heden wielded. A blade of immense power. More than a match for Apostate. He looked back at Heden and his eyes went cold. Dead. He’d made one mistake, one missing element in his research. He hadn’t considered Zaar might forgive him, hadn’t known the dwarf had come with a sword. The sword.
Garth would not make a mistake like that again.
Armed with the black steel blade, Garth catfooted forward, back on the attack.
Now, aided by Solaris the blade of Saint Pentalion Sunbringer, Heden began to fight for his life.
Shadow and sunlight, the assassin and the priest danced across the cobbled street. Heden relaxed that part of his mind that controlled his body, and let Solaris take over.
Heden lunged forward, a memory of skill, experience, suddenly present in his mind. All he had to do was let it happen. Easy.
Garth betrayed no surprise at Heden’s blazing form, his newfound swordsmanship. He parried and feinted, his acrobatics more than a match for Heden’s but Solaris was a match for Garth.
Solaris cast a spell. A wall of fire erupted behind Garth, blocking his retreat.
Instead of retreating, Garth flipped over Heden, an inhuman leap deftly clearing the priest’s reach.
Heden spoke a prayer, a shaft of sunlight stabbed down at Garth, who effortlessly danced out of the way, recognizing the spoken prayer.
Garth produced three crystal throwing daggers, threw them at Heden. Each unerringly struck Heden in the chest, but melted upon contact with his blazing form.
They crossed blades again. They danced out of the alley where it emptied onto a bridge that crossed the Kirk river, the river that snaked through the city, and circled the king’s castle.
Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) Page 26