Warlord

by Jennifer Fallon

  “I’m serious, your highness.”

  “So am I.” She put down her cup on the side table. “But you can relax, Wrayan. I’m not going to play that game. I’m quite aware how dangerous Galon Miar is. As soon as I conclude my business with the guild, I’ll have nothing more to do with him.”

  “Can you be sure of that?”

  “We have a barely civil relationship based on some unfinished business I have with his guild and a mutual acquaintance in the High Arrion.” Then she smiled deviously, as another thought occurred to her. “I can’t imagine Alija will be too pleased, though, to learn her lover has a wandering eye.”

  “Assuming she knows.”

  “Given Galon Miar’s open flirtation every time I set eyes on him, I’m fairly certain she would have some idea.”

  “Then you’re right. She’d be furious. Alija already thinks you’ve robbed her of Hythria’s throne. The idea you’d stolen her lover as well would be like rubbing salt into an open wound.”

  Marla laughed humourlessly. “It’s almost tempting, just to see her squirm. And the irony is,” she added, obviously amused by the thought, “she can’t say anything to Galon without betraying the fact that every time he touches her, she can read his thoughts.”

  “More fool him then.”

  “He’s many things, Wrayan, but I doubt a fool is one of them. What do you suppose she’d do?”

  Wrayan looked at her blankly. “What would who do?”

  “Alija? If I stole her lover from her?”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I was just wondering …”

  Wrayan put down his wine and stared at her in concern. “Please, your highness, don’t wonder about it. Not even in jest.”

  Marla laughed. “Look at you, Wrayan. I swear, you’ve gone quite pale.”

  “Because I can’t decide which would be more dangerous—challenging Alija so openly, or inviting a viper like Galon Miar into your bed.”

  “Given that we are actively plotting to destroy the High Arrion, Wrayan, I think it’s a bit late to start worrying about challenging her. As for Galon … are you suggesting I couldn’t handle him?”

  “I’m suggesting you don’t even try.”

  “Perhaps we should discover what is in Master Miar’s mind, then, before we involve ourselves with him,” the princess suggested.

  Wrayan looked at her suspiciously. “What exactly do you mean by we?”

  Marla hesitated and then walked to the sideboard to refill her cup.

  “I want you to read his mind, Wrayan, and tell me if I can trust him,” she said, her back to him quite deliberately so he couldn’t see her expression.

  “You can’t trust him,” he stated emphatically.

  Marla turned before she replied. “Do you know this for a fact?”

  “He’s an assassin, your highness. You do know what that means, don’t you?”

  “Gracious, no!” Marla exclaimed with mock astonishment. “Perhaps you should explain it to me, Wrayan.”

  “Your highness,” he sighed. “I’m not trying to insult you. I just want you to be very sure you know what you’re dealing with. Assassins take an oath, binding until death, which places loyalty to their guild above loyalty to everything and everybody else. Even if you could trust Galon Miar, you could only trust him up to the point where the Assassins’ Guild invoked his bond to that oath. After that, he has no choice. There’s a reason they have that old saying about thieves and assassins knowing no borders.”

  Marla looked down at him apologetically. “I know you have my best interests at heart, Wrayan, and believe me, the issue of whether or not I trust Galon Miar goes to the heart of that interest. I made a deal with the Assassins’ Guild, you might recall, a long time ago. In hindsight, I realise I wasn’t thinking all that clearly. The cost of that … incident … involved more than just an exchange of money. And now that deal has come back to bite me. It’s a problem I could well do without and Galon Miar has suggested a … somewhat radical … solution. I need to know if it’s an option.”

  Wrayan stared at her curiously.

  “What did you do?” he joked. “Promise the Raven the soul of your firstborn child, or something?”

  “You would be horrified to learn how close to the truth you are, Wrayan.”

  Suddenly, Marla’s willingness to deal with a man like Galon Miar made sense.

  “You promised the guild a son.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Are you reading my mind?” she asked in alarm.

  He shook his head. “It’s a common practice in the Assassins’ Guild. Part of the reason they’re so successful is their ability to infiltrate every level of society, from slave to highborn. Whenever the opportunity comes along, they ask for a son in addition to the payment. They don’t need the children to bolster their numbers. It’s more about the network they build up in the process. And for a man with three or four spare heirs, it’s a useful way to take care of a younger son. It gives the guild access to places they wouldn’t normally be able to recruit from, and it’s a pretty good way of making sure they stay in business.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “With almost every noble house in Hythria having some sort of connection to the Assassins’ Guild, however vague, they’re not likely to be shut down without a protest.” He smiled wistfully and added, “I’d do the same thing in the Thieves’ Guild if I thought anybody was frightened enough of our wrath to agree to handing over their sons and daughters to become disciples of Dacendaran.”

  Marla shook her head in amazement. “And all this time I thought your only use to me, Wrayan, was your magical ability to shield and read minds. I never knew you were such an authority on the Assassins’ Guild.”

  “Our territories cross fairly frequently, your highness. It’s a bit difficult to avoid the assassins completely when you’re a thief. I suppose they’re calling in the debt?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I have it on good authority, however, that my time is running out. It also appears I didn’t hear the bit about taking a son meant just that—taking a son. Dead or alive.”

  “Your eldest son is the High Prince’s heir,” he assured her. “Your second son is the heir to Elasapine. The Assassins’ Guild wouldn’t risk harming either one of them over something like this.”

  “Of course not,” Marla agreed. “But it was pointed out to me, in no uncertain terms, that I have stepchildren, and some of them have children of their own. Apparently the guild isn’t too fussy about the bond being one of blood.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Then you really do have a problem, your highness. What can I do to help?”

  “Tell me about Galon Miar,” Marla said, as if she could shrug off the seriousness of her dilemma. “Is he some nobleman’s third son, apprenticed to the guild in return for a favour? Or does he just act as if he’s highborn because it amuses him?”

  “I don’t know,” Wrayan told her. “But I can probably find out.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Sensing the audience was over, he rose to his feet and bowed. “It may take a day or two.”

  “Just let me know when you have something useful. In the meantime, I’ll arrange for Master Miar to pay us a visit so you can examine his mind and tell me how far he can be trusted.”

  “As you wish, your highness.”

  “Goodnight, Wrayan.”

  “Goodnight, your highness.”

  He turned for the door but Marla stopped him dead in his tracks when she remarked casually, “Did I mention that Tarkyn Lye is dead?”

  Wrayan spun around to stare at her. “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday sometime, I believe.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Someone slit his throat,” she informed him calmly. “Right in the middle of Alija’s bed, I hear.”

  He stared at the princess. “Did it cost you much?”

  Marla smiled coldly. “Not as much as it’s going to cost Alija,”
she said.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Gentlemen, I have a proposition for you.”

  The gathering turned to look at Starros, their expressions hard to read in the flickering lamplight. They were ensconced in the back room of the Pickpocket’s Retreat, a place, Starros had recently learned, where most of Wrayan Lightfinger’s more underhanded transactions were carried out.

  He’d been a little surprised to learn about this room. Starros had always had a vaguely noble picture of Wrayan as gentleman thief, settled into his own private corner of the taproom, dispensing wisdom and stolen property with equal panache. He forgot, sometimes, that the Thieves’ Guild was no place for the faint-hearted and that the reason Wrayan Lightfinger was considered one of the greatest thieves in all of Hythria was that when it came to his honouring the God of Thieves, he was unrelenting. And he wasn’t in the least bit squeamish about it either, Starros guessed, eyeing a few of the stains on the long wooden table that looked more like blood than beer.

  Like Starros, Wrayan had sold his soul to a god. It was sobering, sometimes, to realise what that meant.

  “You found something worth stealing?” The man asking the question was Kylo Korenne, a pickpocket who worked the markets in the central ring near the palace. A slender little man with lightning-quick reflexes, he was one of the four men Wrayan had appointed to his informal council of thieves. In his absence, no significant business in the guild’s name took place without the council’s approval, which was why Starros was here tonight. Sick of pilfering small items from the palace, he’d come up with something much more ambitious; something that would require the approval of the Thieves’ Guild council.

  “People.”

  Medin Crow, a thin-faced burglar who worked the more salubrious part of town, took a swallow of ale before announcing, “People ain’t worth stealing … unless they’re slaves or hostages.”

  “They are if you’re stealing them out from under the nose of the very person trying to keep them confined.”

  “What do you mean?” the third man in the council asked. His name was Vale Granger and he was rather cagey about exactly what he did. The fourth member of the council, Luc North, sat opposite Starros at the other end of the long table listening to them, but saying little.

  “I mean, gentlemen, that if the Regent of Krakandar won’t unseal the city, we will. We’re going to open up a route out of the city. And charge for it.”

  “Strictly speaking,” Luc North mused, “that’s extortion, not theft.”

  “If Mahkas Damaran finds out about it, I’m not sure he’ll care too much about the distinction,” Starros said.

  “Get them out how?” Vale asked.

  “The same way we do when we don’t want to be seen.”

  “But to do that, we’d have to reveal the routes through the sewers to outsiders.”

  “Only one,” Starros said. “And if we choose it carefully, we can make sure it doesn’t intersect with any of the other routes.”

  “And if the Raiders catch us … hell, Lord Damaran hanged poor old Umbrose for just complaining out loud about the city still being sealed. I hate to think what they’d do to us if they caught us selling passage out of the city. Defying the Regent is treason, you know.”

  “I have a plan for that, too,” Starros announced.

  Medin Crow scowled at him. “Been a thief for ten bloody minutes and now he has a plan. This ought to be a good’un.”

  Starros ignored the man’s derision. “I think I can arrange for the palace guards to turn a blind eye to our activities.”

  “How?”

  “Xanda Taranger is currently in the palace, and he has some influence over the guards. He can’t do it officially, but he can whisper in the right ears. More importantly, he’ll know the right ears to whisper into.”

  “Nice plan, Starros, but how the hell are you going to get into the palace to speak to Xanda Taranger? And what’s to stop him having you arrested the moment he lays eyes on you? You’re not exactly welcome up at the big house these days, I hear.”

  “Don’t worry about the how,” Luc advised the men. “Starros can come and go as he pleases to the palace. But Kylo does have a point, lad. Are you certain he won’t have you arrested on sight? Word is he’s mightily close to his uncle these days.”

  “Only because Damin asked him to stay here in the city and watch over things until he returns. I’d bet my life on Xanda not betraying me to Mahkas.”

  “You will be betting your life on it, my friend,” Luc pointed out. “But if you think it’s worth the risk of making contact with him, then do it. Knowing the palace guard isn’t going to make a surprise appearance every time we escort a group of people through the sewers will make it easier to coordinate. And don’t think it won’t take a lot of work to open a route, Starros. To get out of the city through the sewers, even from the Beggars’ Quarter, is going to take a lot of negotiation. The shortest route crosses the territory of a half dozen different thieves and none of them is going to be thrilled by the idea of exposing their secrets, even for a profit.”

  “And it’s not going to be the shortest route you want,” another man added, “but the safest.”

  “And the least strenuous,” Starros added. “Some of these people will have children with them.”

  “Which raises an interesting point,” Kylo remarked. “Why should we just help the rich get free? Don’t seem right opening up a route and only letting out them what can pay for it.”

  Luc smiled. “Why Kylo, I do believe you’re getting sentimental in your old age.”

  “Well … I was just thinking, that’s all. There’s a profit to be made here for certain, but admit it. What we’d all really like to see is that bastard Mahkas Damaran suffering a whole world of grief. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see his little empire come crashing down on top of him.” A series of nods around the room indicated their agreement. “So let’s do what the lad says. Let’s steal his people.”

  “All of them?” Starros asked in astonishment.

  “All of them,” the old thief agreed. “Let’s honour Dacendaran and pull off the greatest heist in history! Let’s rob an entire city of its people.”

  “It would take an unprecedented level of cooperation,” Starros mused. “You’d need to involve every guild in the city.”

  “Why the other guilds?” Luc asked.

  “Because knocking on someone’s door in the middle of the night without warning and suggesting they come with us to the sewers isn’t going to wash with the vast majority of people. There are more than twenty thousand people in the city. To move them quietly, we’ll need the guilds to disseminate the information and coordinate the exodus. We’re not going to get all the people out in one night. That would be physically impossible. We’re going to have to do it over a period of days, so we need to make it happen around a Restday.”

  “Why Restday?”

  “So it’s not immediately obvious a goodly portion of the city’s workforce is nowhere to be found.”

  “And we need somewhere for them to go,” Vale added, warming to the idea. “You can’t just get them out of the city and have them milling about outside the walls, waving at the guards, waiting for someone to take a shot at them.”

  “Walsark would be the nearest safe place,” Starros said. “The Lord of Walsark is Xanda Taranger’s brother. I’m certain he’ll shelter our people, temporarily at least.”

  “You’re still relying on the cooperation of Mahkas Damaran’s own nephews to make this work,” Kylo warned. “That’s more risk than I like on a job.”

  “Damin Wolfblade is Mahkas Damaran’s nephew,” Starros reminded him. “You don’t seem to have a problem with him.”

  “Our prince is Laran Krakenshield’s son.”

  “Travin and Xanda Taranger are Laran Krakenshield’s nephews, too. I know them. They can be trusted.”

  “Wrayan trusts Starros, Starros trusts the Taranger brothers, and we trust Wrayan,” Luc North poin
ted out. “If we’re going to honour Dacendaran in such a spectacular fashion, there’s got to be a risk, or it’s no honour at all. And like Kylo says … think about the effect this is going to have on Mahkas Damaran.”

  Vale nodded. “Aye. Lady Leila was the most precious jewel in Krakandar’s crown. After what that mongrel did to her …”

  The other thieves indicated their agreement, which still left Starros shaking his head in bemusement, even though he’d encountered dozens of thieves since joining the Thieves’ Guild who behaved as if his loss was theirs as well.

  Most of these men had never even seen Leila, except from a distance, and they’d certainly never met her, yet her beating and her suicide had affected the whole city. To Starros, it seemed as if the entire Thieves’ Guild thought of Leila as some kind of delicate piece of artwork that had belonged to the whole of Krakandar and her death was like having their precious painting stolen from them. They were more than happy to aid in taking vengeance on the man they considered her thief.

  “It’s settled then,” Luc announced, looking around the room at the others for their agreement. “We steal Krakandar’s people.” He glanced up at Starros. “When Wrayan told you to steal something of value from Mahkas Damaran, lad, you really took him literally, didn’t you?”

  Starros smiled. “Blame it on Orleon. He always claimed a job worth doing was worth doing properly.”

  “Then take a seat, lad,” Kylo advised. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  The discussion after that turned to the practicalities of evacuating the entire population of Krakandar out from under the nose of her regent, the work to be done and who they needed to bring in on the plan in the early stages.

  Starros took a seat between Vale and Medin, thinking that if this actually worked, he might really be able to claim he was a criminal mastermind after all.

  CHAPTER 37

  Alija Eaglespike had faced more than her share of hard decisions during her life. She’d ordered the deaths of every man, woman and child in Ronan Dell’s household and never lost a moment’s sleep over it. When she was being honest with herself, Alija was even prepared to acknowledge she’d been responsible for more people dying than she could count with her decision to unleash the plague on Greenharbour in the hope it would strike down a few Wolfblades as it ravaged the city. She’d arranged for others to die more directly, too. And at last count, she’d been responsible for at least six direct attacks on Damin Wolfblade over the past twenty-four years, never mind the other deaths she had so calmly arranged.