by Vox Day
He had just reached the first landing when a sudden scent of heavy perfume filled his nose, and he turned to see the shocked face of a female Man standing four steps above him, wearing little more than the sheerest slip of purple silk.
Her mouth gaped open at the sight of him, but before she could scream, Lodi leaped up the steps at her and attempted to stuff his free hand into her mouth to silence her. But in his haste, he missed and accidentally smashed the calloused bottom of his palm into her upper jaw.
She collapsed limply on the stairs as if he’d struck her with the butt of his axe before tumbling awkwardly down the steps to the landing. She slammed against the miniature marble columns there just as Gulfin reached the platform and he was very nearly tripped by her unconscious body.
Hodli, joining him, looked at Lodi and waggled his axe, but Lodi shook his head. There was no need to kill the whore. Between the steps and his hand, she had taken at least two solid blows to the head, and he intended to be back in the tunnel and out of the building before she was likely to stir.
His three young followers seemed either fascinated or horrified by the fallen Man, so Lodi had to snap his fingers to get their attention, then he resumed climbing the stairs.
Somewhere underneath the miasma of perfume and Man and food and sex, he detected the unmistakable scent of elf. She was there, up the stairs, one level higher. He was absolutely sure it was the elf for whom they had come. A dwarf who couldn’t trust his nose was one who didn’t last long in the mines. Whether it came in the form of gas pockets or sharp-clawed denizens, in the Underdeep, danger was usually preceded by an olfactory warning of some kind.
There were eight doors on the first sky level, plus corridors leading off to his left and his right. He ignored them, however, since he could tell the elf was somewhere behind the rooms nearby. He sent the brothers to the rooms on the left side of the railings overlooking the floor below, and indicated that Gulfin should follow him to the right.
He paused outside the first three doors and sniffed at each. There was nothing but the smell of Man. But the elf scent grew stronger as they came closer to the two doors on the end, and he was increasingly confident she was in the one on the right.
Hodli and Glodli were just coming around the far corner to join him when the left door opened. It was a Man, a guard, and he had his hands occupied with his belt. Otherwise he surely would have defended himself more effectively. As it was, he fell heavily to the ground, either unconscious or dead, as both of the dwarf brothers stared in shock at the bloodstained axe that Hodli was holding in his hand.
Frightened and on edge, the young dwarf had simply lashed out, and the results were dreadful. Lodi groaned. He knew how easily Man bones shattered when struck with dwarven muscle. But there was nothing he could do about it now.
He pushed both hands down, encouraging the young dwarves to remain calm, then sniffed at the door in front of him. The elf scent was powerful, but there was Man scent too. He cursed under his breath. It seemed Hodli would not be the only one with blood on his hands tonight. He tried the doorknob and found it was unlocked, so he turned it, eased the door open, and stepped quietly into the candlelit room.
The light was dim but brighter than the dark hallway, and Lodi found himself standing behind the slug-white and nearly hairless body of a naked Man. To his left, lying half-covered by some rumpled red sheets, was the elfess he’d smelled. Her eyes were wide with fear, but she wisely refrained from screaming.
Lodi nodded to her and raised a finger to his lips. Then he cleared his throat, and the Man turned around.
He was a head taller than Lodi. His stomach protruded roundly in a manner that would have made Lodi think he was pregnant were he not observably male. It was hard to tell if the expression on his smooth, naked face was arrogance or annoyance.
“I didn’t ring for service! How dare you walk in on me like this? I shall complain to Quadras in the morning!”
Lodi punched him in the face.
The Man flew backward and slammed into the wall. He slid down the wall and sat there, stunned, his head lolling and his legs splayed wide. Lodi drew a dagger from his belt and held it out towards the elfess, whose fear had disappeared in an instant, replaced with a feral mask of unmitigated fury as she looked at the Man against the wall.
“We come to rescue you, Elf.” Lodi spoke Man, assuming she probably understood it. “But before we go, maybe you like to do the honor?”
She leaped from the bed and snatched the knife from his hand. Then she kneeled down in front of the Man. What she did to him next made Lodi, no stranger to death and violence, a veteran of the siege of Iron Mountain as well as the gladiator stables of Amorr, blanch and look away.
• • •
“Savonian!” The cry awoke Nicolas from what had been a pleasantly deep sleep. “Savonian!” It was the voice of his new master, Quadras Aetias, but the man sounded more furious than frightened.
“I’m coming, my lord,” he shouted, heedless of the murmured complaints of the two other men with whom he shared the room. He fumbled for his tunic, slipped it over his head, pulled on a pair of trousers, grabbed his sword, still in its scabbard, and ran from the pitch-black room into a hallway lit by a single candle. It didn’t sound as if the house were being attacked, but it was clear that something was amiss.
Quadras Aetias was standing in the front foyer of the manse. He was speaking with a slender, sweat-drenched young man clad in the livery of the house. Two of his household guards were standing near him with their short blades drawn. Upon seeing Nicolas enter, Aetias beckoned toward him.
“Itolos says there has been an attack on the Golden Rose. Captain, I know I can rely on you. I want you to take a coach over there immediately. I can give you five men now, and I’ll send two more coaches with ten more as soon as they can be gathered and armed.”
Nicolas nodded, confused by what appeared to be the strange coincidence of a second attack on the man. He knew he had nothing to do with this one. “How many of them were there? Did you see any of them?”
“They say there was ten attackers, maybe more! I didn’t see them, but I heard them fighting with the guards. I didn’t go to see what happened. I’m a harpist, not a warrior! I ran here because I thought Lord Aetias should be told at once.”
“You did well,” Nicolas assured the young musician before turning to Aetias. “I’ll go, but I think you should come with me in the first coach.”
“Come with you?”
“Absolutely. The attack on the Rose may be a diversion. As you recall, the last time you were the target. The natural thing for you to do now is to send off most of your household guard in response to this attack on your property, which would leave you vulnerable here. You stay in the coach with one of the men, and I’ll go inside with the other four. The boy is probably exaggerating their numbers. Assassins wouldn’t usually take more than two or three men to hit a whorehouse, and he didn’t actually see anything.”
“You think someone might be planning to murder me here?”
“I couldn’t possibly say, my lord. I only know that if I wanted to strip you of your household defenses, attacking your prize brothel would be an effective way to do it. But no one will know you are in the coach, and secrecy is a better defense than walls.”
“Very well.” Aetias quickly came to a decision. “Itolos, you will come with us and serve as a guide for the captain. Brand, you come as well while Cornelias wakes the others. Cornelias, have the rest come as soon as they are armed and ready, but leave two positioned outside the front entrance in case anyone is watching it.”
The frenzied ride to the Golden Rose through the dark and unlit streets was veritably as frightening as any battle in which Nicolas had ever fought. The wheels of the coach clattered over the cobblestoned roads, and Nicolas was repeatedly thrown against one or the other of the guards between whom he was sitting.
The fact that he didn’t know if they would be facing two or twenty armed men didn’t
help to settle his stomach. He found himself wishing he’d dared risk bringing a decent mail shirt here to Malkan. But the driver was clearly skilled, and as Nicolas reminded himself every time they lurched around a corner, the man had surely made this drive at night a hundred times before. He glanced over at Quadras Aetias. The banker looked concerned but didn’t appear to be the least bit alarmed by the reckless speed at which they were travelling.
Finally, they arrived at The Golden Rose, well-lit with several blazing torches mounted on stakes outside. Nicolas followed a guard out the door of the carriage with his hand upon his sword hilt. He found himself in the middle of an excited group of about fifteen women milling about and talking, most of them less than fully dressed. It was a situation that would have been more enjoyable were it not for the blood that marred the face of one pretty brunette and the large man lying with his arms outstretched upon the marble steps of the grand mansion that Aetias had converted into his exclusive brothel.
Nicolas pushed his way through the crowd of women to reach the injured brunette. She was crying, but her nose didn’t appear to be broken even though blood was still flowing from it.
“Who struck you?” he demanded. “How many were there?”
The dark-haired whore’s eyes widened in alarm at his brusque approach, but after a moment’s hesitation, she answered. “A short man. He was strong, very strong. And short. He had a beard. At first, I thought he was a dwarf, but then I thought maybe he was only hunched over. He hit me in the face. He didn’t even say anything, he just hit me. It hurts!”
“Was he alone? Where was he going? Was he armed? Did he wear armor?”
“I didn’t see anyone else. He was coming up the stairs, and I was on the landing of the first floor. He knocked me down, and I fell down the stairs. I think the fall must have knocked me out for a little while. When I woke up, I ran outside. He had something in his hand, but it wasn’t a sword. I didn’t see it clearly. I know he wasn’t wearing any armor, though.”
“And he was alone?”
“He was the only one I saw.”
“What about the dead man, there?” Nicolas pointed to the man, under whom a pool of blood was slowly expanding. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. That’s Jordiss, one of the guards. I saw two of the women dragging him out here, but I think he was already dead. There was blood all over his face.”
Nicolas looked more closely at the steps. He could see a dark, wet trail that marked the path of the man. He frowned, then walked over to the body, bent down, and grunted as he rolled the dead weight of the man over. The wound to the face was deep, like a sword thrust, but the left cheekbone was crushed as if struck by a club or a hammer. Probably not dwarves, then, the fatal wound was too small. A dwarven battleaxe would have cleaved the poor guard’s unarmored skull in two.
“Follow me,” Nicolas ordered the guards accompanying him, but he came to a halt as he saw Aetias had also stepped down from the coach and was talking to an older woman. “My lord, get back in the coach!” he ordered. “Go now! The attackers may still be inside.”
“One moment, Captain,” Aetias held up a finger and continued his conversation for a moment, then turned from the woman to approach him. “Bettavia says she saw the men who killed the guard at the bottom of the stairs. There were three of them. Only she says they weren’t men—they were dwarves.”
“Are you holding any dwarves here?” Nicolas wasn’t easily shocked, but at times the sheer depravity of these Malkanians bid fair to accomplish it. It was not easy to keep the contempt off his face.
“No, not a one,” answered Aetias. “I have seen more than a few with unusual tastes pass through over the years, but none with an appetite for any such absurdities. I don’t own a single dwarf, still less would I employ one here. Do you suppose it might be a simple robbery? There are some gold plates and goblets that I expect would be of interest to a dwarf.”
Nicolas listened skeptically. Malkan abounded with far more lucrative targets than a brothel, even an exclusive one like this. For gold, a bank. For a whore, a whorehouse. Was it possible that the dwarves were after the same treasure he pursued? That was hard to imagine, but it was just barely conceivable.
“There is an easy way to find out.” Nicolas drew his sword and beckoned to the four house guards, two of whom had obtained torches. “Go now, my lord. Don’t stop here again until you see me or one of the men on the front steps.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and ran up the blood-stained marble steps toward the darkness lurking behind the open double-doors. He’d never fought a dwarf, but he was supremely confident that they would die as readily as any man, elf, or orc he’d slain.
Once inside, he was surprised to discover that Aetias, or more likely one of his slaves, had decorated the Golden Rose in much the same manner as his private residence. There were in evidence no red velvet wall-hangings or obscene statuary of the sort so common in such places. The large entry hall looked not unlike the mansion from which he’d so recently come. The wide, carpeted staircase was toward the back of the hall.
Nicholas took a torch from one of the guards accompanying him and mounted the steps two at a time. He could hear the men behind keeping pace with him. Being guards rather than soldiers, they might not be worth much in a fight, but at least they had courage.
Upstairs, the whore with the bloody nose had said, and she was on the landing. That meant that the dwarves, assuming they were in fact dwarves, were after something on the floor above that. Or someone.
Sure enough, as soon as Nicolas reached the first floor, he saw the figure of a man, presumably another guard, lying dead or unconscious on the floor at the far end of the hall. The hall extended in both directions and formed a square around the open space of the stairwell. There were three doors on each side and two on the far end. The guard lay in front of one of them. The other was ajar, and the flickering glow of a candle or hearth fire inside was casting shadows that danced about the walls of the hall.
“There,” Nicolas whispered. He sent two men around the left of the stairwell, while he and the other two went right. If anyone emerged from the room, they’d find their exit blocked unless they were amenable to a leap over the railing and the resultant plunge.
As he crept closer to the half-open door, sudden terror flared within him as the darkness triggered a memory of a previous night filled with iron and fire and blood. He took a deep breath and steeled himself, fighting the urge to risk releasing the power held within his sword. Too soon… It was too dangerous.
With a conscious effort, he conquered his mindless fear with fey humor. How ludicrous it would be for him to perish here and now, in a whorehouse brawl! His poor shade would bid fair to perish itself from sheer mortification.
Nicolas leaped through the door frame with his teeth bared, holding the torch out before him in his left hand as he kicked the wooden door to the side.
But no sword rose to meet his entrance, no giant double-bladed axe descended to split him from sternum to crotch. The room was not empty, but there was no danger to be found in it now. Death had already come to this place, and he had come in a merciless form for the distinguished, dark-haired man slumped lifelessly against the blood-spattered wall opposite to the door.
But Death had not come alone. Someone had brought him here, and unless Nicolas was very much mistaken, that intruder had also taken someone else away. He cursed in helpless anger. One failure was mere chance. Two began to stink of bad fortune.
“Check the other rooms,” he ordered the guard with the other torch. “Take him with you. There should be a few girls hiding in their rooms. When you find one, bring her here.” He turned to the guard standing next to him. “Do you know who that is?”
“I think that might be Lord Baern, Captain. The banker.”
“A big man in the city, then?”
“Yes, Captain. Very big. He’s on the Council of Seven… Was on the council, I should say.”
Nicolas groaned. T
his was ugly. He wasn’t sure exactly how this might complicate things, but he knew it wasn’t going to make them easier. The man was not only dead, but emasculated too. The first stroke had missed and opened his left thigh. The second one had rendered him a eunuch of the most extreme degree. Though not for very long, as the dead man’s unstained hands told Nicolas that the third stroke, the one that had killed him, must have followed almost immediately. There were at least two killers, he observed, as the wound on the dead man’s thigh was not very deep, whereas the killing blow had caved in the entire right side of the banker’s head.
“Yes, it would appear there is now an open seat. Go to the front steps and get Lord Aetias’s attention when his coach passes by. Bring him up here and tell him to wait for me. There should be no danger. Whoever did this is already gone.”
“Wait for you, Captain?” the man asked.
“Someone did this. And they’re not here. So the question is, how did they leave and where are they going?”
• • •
Quadras Aetias looked as if he had been sick when Nicolas and the guard who accompanied him on his search of the brothel reached the top of the stairs for the second time that night. Even in the shadows cast by the candles that had been relit in the hallway, his face was visibly pale, and his hands were shaking.
“Murdered,” he whispered harshly to Nicolas. “A Counciller of the Seven, murdered in my establishment!”
“Lord Aetias,” Nicholas said, “you were not here. I can testify to that. There were a dozen witnesses, two dozen, who can testify on your behalf.”
“No, I was not here. Unfortunately, that will make no difference!” Aetias smiled thinly. “An influential man, a banker of extraordinary importance, is dead. Upon my property. There will be an inquisition at the behest of the Council, and who knows what crimes will be uncovered? Some real, some imaginary, who can say? Whose hands are truly clean? I have wealth, I have influence, but not enough of either when it is the head of the House of Baern who lies dead in my establishment!”