Weapon of Blood

by Chris A. Jackson

  Godsdamned guildmaster…

  First the Grandmaster, now the rest of the Twailin masters. It seemed her destiny to become guildmaster. A younger Mya would have rejoiced, but now she just saw it as a trap pulling her deeper into slavery. There would always be someone in charge, someone ready to spend her life on a whim. The higher the position, the worse that someone would be.

  “No.”

  Confusion and shock swept around the table, as she’d expected, and she tried to explain.

  “I don’t want to be guildmaster, because that would be the same as appointing one of you guildmaster. It would make me a slave again, answering directly to the Grandmaster, subject to his every whim and command. I won’t live like that again.”

  “That ring,” Horice nodded to the circle of obsidian on her finger, “means you have responsibilities to this guild. If you didn’t want that responsibility, you shouldn’t have put it on.”

  “I didn’t have a choice!” Mya protested, but she could see she had lost the argument. She had given them all she could. Why are they so insistent about electing a guildmaster?

  If they chose to forge a new ring, they would be in for a big surprise, because she would ride to the Nine Hells on a flaming horse before she would let one of them become her master. If it came down to the last resort—become guildmaster or suffer under the lash of one of these four—she would choose the lesser of two evils and take the position. She found herself wishing she hadn’t burned the Grandmaster’s letter. None of them would have argued with the Grandmaster’s edict.

  “A motion has been put forth,” Neera announced. “All those in favor of forging a new guildmaster’s ring?”

  Neera and Horice immediately raised their hands.

  “Opposed?”

  Mya raised her hand, and for a long moment no other mirrored her action. She stabbed Youtrin and Patrice with her eyes, all but pleading for their support. Slowly, the Master Inquisitor also raised her hand.

  “Youtrin?” Neera’s voice virtually dripped acid.

  Mya tensed; Youtrin could swing the vote either way.

  “I—”

  “Youtrin!” Mya fixed her eyes on the man and leaned in earnestly. “I don’t care what you think about me, and I don’t care about what you’ve done to oppose me. Just think about whether you want to be a slave, or your own master.”

  A thin smile crossed the Master Enforcer’s lips, but something else registered in his eyes. She could hear his heart racing in his chest, smell the sweat beading on his brow.

  He’s afraid of me! she realized. Or more likely, afraid of Lad. She flicked a glance over her shoulder toward her bodyguard, then looked back at Youtrin.

  “I abstain.”

  Mya allowed herself to breathe.

  Neera’s sandpaper voice broke the moment of silence.

  “The motion fails in a deadlock, so we are left with the only other option. We must cooperate. Master Hunter Mya has pledged her Hunters to aid our endeavors with no preconditions and at no cost. What additional matters can be addressed with shifts of manpower?”

  Her tension finally easing, Mya sat back and let them haggle over manpower and resources. Though it had cost her dearly, she had won the battle.

  “What in all Nine Hells was that about?” Neera snapped, glaring at Youtrin and Patrice. Mya had left the meeting, and their failed plan hung like a pall over the four masters. “We were supposed to vote to forge a new ring!”

  “She would have killed us.” Youtrin snatched up one of the bottles that his steward had just brought in and pulled the cork. The wine sloshed onto the table as he filled his glass. “I could see it in her eyes. If I’d voted against her, she would have told that weapon of hers to cut our throats!” He quaffed the glass of wine as if it were cheap ale. “Hells, she could have slit my throat herself, and I couldn’t have done a damn thing to stop her!”

  And what would I have done if Mya and her weapon had attacked the masters? Sereth wondered. Would I die trying to protect Horice, knowing that I’d fail? Personally, he had found Mya’s argument accurate and persuasive. Having worked directly under the Grandfather, Sereth knew better than most what a maniac the man had been. He was best gone. Maybe she would make a good guildmaster. And the weapon—Lad, he thought—intrigued him. Lad was always around, but such an enigma, always calm, collected, and quiet, but intense in a manner hard to identify. Why the hells does Hensen care so much about those two?

  “You’re afraid of her.” Neera’s voice dripped with scorn.

  “Godsdamned right, I am, and you would be, too, if you had half a brain!” Youtrin cast aside his wineglass, and it shattered against the wall.

  “And what about you?” Neera turned her gaze to Patrice, unfazed by Youtrin’s temper. “Did you vote with her out of fear, too?”

  “No.” Patrice filled her own glass and sipped, her face contemplative. “I voted with her because I was paying attention.”

  “Paying attention?” Neera’s eyes widened. “Paying attention to what?”

  “To the discourse between Mya and her weapon, Neera.”

  What? Sereth tried to recall what they said to each other. Lad told Mya he needed to speak to her, and she told him to shut up. Was there more?

  “What are you talking about? They barely said three words to each other!”

  “More than twenty, actually, but I won’t quibble about the number. The point is, Neera, I think I’ve discovered a chink in Mya’s armor.” Patrice sipped her wine and smiled like a cat that had just eaten a piece of raw meat.

  “What chink?” Horice asked.

  “The weapon disobeyed her,” Patrice said.

  “What?” Neera lurched forward in her seat. “When?”

  “Didn’t you see when he interrupted her?”

  “Interruption is independent action, not disobedience,” Neera argued.

  “Correct, but after his initial interruption, Mya told him to be quiet. That was a direct command. But then he interrupted her again!”

  “He did!” Horice slapped the table with his palm, rattling the glasses. “Ha! Mya’s little weapon isn’t as obedient as we were led to believe!”

  “So what? He still does her bidding. He’s still godsdamned untouchable.” Youtrin had found another glass and was well into the second bottle of wine.

  “If he can disobey, he is not what we thought him to be.” Sereth could see the machinations whirling behind Neera’s sharp eyes. “If he can disobey, what else can he do? What else could he do?”

  “He hasn’t signed a blood contract!” Horice slapped the table again. “He could kill Mya!”

  “Once again, so what? Where does this get us? Are you suggesting we walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, we want you to kill your boss.’”

  Neera levied an exasperated sneer at the Master Enforcer. “It may get us nowhere, Youtrin, but it’s at least it’s an avenue to follow, considering that our plan to convince her to destroy the ring has failed. It may provide us the opportunity to strike from within Mya’s shield. We need to find out more about that weapon. Where does he go when he’s not with Mya? Who does he live with?”

  “None of those I’ve assigned to follow him have been able to keep up, let alone discover where he goes at night.”

  “We found him before,” Youtrin shrugged his massive shoulders, “we can find him again.”

  “Mya found him.”

  “No, she didn’t. One of my enforcers, Jingles Jarred, stumbled upon him by accident when the Grandfather had Mya coordinating the search for him. Jingles was following up on a protection racket blunder; one of my thugs and a few of his men had gone missing. Jingles was assigned to the retrieval team, too.”

  “Where?” Horice looked over his shoulder to Sereth. “You were assigned to work for Mya during that search, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, Master, but I wasn’t in on the operation to retrieve the weapon. It was at an inn in Eastmarket. I don’t know which one.”

  “Surely he wouldn’
t be stupid enough to go back to the same place.” Patrice scowled at the notion.

  “Find out the name of that inn from Jarred, and let’s send some people into the area. Patrice, use your inquisitors; they blend in. Let’s cast out a net and see what we catch.” Neera rose from her chair in one fluid motion. The excitement of this new discovery had melted years away from her.

  “And if we find him?” Youtrin asked.

  “We look for a weakness. Something we can use. If her control over him is not complete, we may be able to exploit him for our own purposes. My fellow masters, we may win this one yet!”

  Sereth grimaced when he realized that another trip to Hensen was in store. Whatever the man’s interest in Lad and Mya was, this new development would certainly intrigue him.

  Chapter XVII

  Relief flushed through Lad as they stepped out of Youtrin’s warehouse into the late-afternoon sunlight. The crisis had been averted. Mya had convinced the masters that cooperation was better than forging a new ring. Despite the concessions she had to make, it eased his mind to know that they had accepted her back into their ranks. It was unlikely now that a new security contingent would have to fight off any more assassination attempts.

  Mya strode up the street, fast and silent, still angry at him, he assumed. But once they were out of sight of the warehouse, she whirled, grabbed his arm hard enough to hurt, and jerked him to a stop.

  “Now! What’s so damned important that you had to interrupt me in the middle of that catfight?”

  I’ve got to tell her, he realized. She needs to know the truth.

  “We have to talk, Mya, but not here. Every dock worker and teamster around here works for Youtrin.” What he had to say to her could not be overheard by anyone in the guild.

  Grudgingly, she released his arm and turned away. “Follow me.”

  She led him to the Ebony Urn, a little blackbrew shop on River Way. This late in the day, the place was virtually empty. Mya strode in and waved to the serving girl polishing the colorful tile table tops.

  “Two brews and a nut pastry, please.” Mya continued to the back of the place and picked the corner booth. She surprised him by claiming the corner seat, leaving Lad to sit with his back to the room. He couldn’t watch for danger sitting like that. At his questioning glance, she said, “I’ve got to start looking out for myself now, don’t I?”

  Lad’s eyes flicked around the café before he sat down. There appeared to be no threats here, but sitting with his back exposed to the open space instantly had his nerves singing like violin strings. He took a deep calming breath and said “You did a good job convincing them not to forge a new ring, Mya.”

  “What the hells did you think I was going to do?” Mya paused as the waitress arrived with two steaming mugs of blackbrew, sugar, cream, and her pastry. When the woman was out of earshot, she continued. “You know I don’t want a new guildmaster. And it cost me almost a third of my Hunters to get them to back off. Who knows what it’ll cost next time. But what do you care? You’re leaving.”

  “Mya, you don’t understand. They can never create a new guildmaster’s ring. A new ring cannot be made! It’s impossible!”

  “What? What do you mean ‘impossible’?” Suspicion narrowed her eyes. “The only reason a new ring couldn’t be made is if—” Mya’s face blanched, “—the old one wasn’t destroyed!” Pushing her cup away, she leaned across the table, her voice a bare whisper, shaking with dread. “Where is it?”

  “Safe.”

  “Bullshit!” She snatched his wrist so quickly that it actually surprised him. Her grip, no doubt panic-induced, pinched into his flesh. “Bring it to me, Lad!”

  He pried her fingers from his arm. “No, Mya! I can’t.”

  “Why the hells not? I need that ring!”

  “You can’t have it. But don’t worry. When I leave Twailin, I’ll go where they’ll never find me, and you can rightfully claim ignorance, both of what I did and where I’ve gone. They saw you order me to destroy it. It’s not your fault that I kept it instead. If they want proof, you can show them you don’t wear it.”

  “They’ll still think I’m behind it, Lad! For five years we’ve kept up the pretense that you’re under magical control, that you can’t disobey my orders. Even my own people believe that! In their minds, if the ring still exists, I must have ordered you not to destroy it. If you’re gone, then I must have ordered you to take the ring away. They’ll go to the Grandmaster, and if I can’t produce a guildmaster’s ring, I’m dead!”

  Lad started to protest, then the accusation hit home. He’d always faulted Mya for her deceptions, and prided himself on keeping his word, but now their roles were reversed. He’d deceived her; she had trusted him to destroy the ring, and he hadn’t. His caution, his attempt to protect himself, was coming back to haunt him. Now he couldn’t give her the ring, and for his mistake, Mya would die.

  “Give me the ring, Lad! You’ve got to!”

  “I can’t.”

  Mya leveled a trembling finger at him. “You’re not leaving until I get that ring. If you try, I’ll have my Hunters follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  Lad’s ire rose at her threat. “Good luck with that! None of the others have been able to follow me.”

  Her face fell like he’d slapped her. “What others? Who’s following you?”

  Mya’s sudden confusion was so open it took Lad aback.

  “People try to follow me almost every night when I leave the Cockerel. I assumed at least some of them were your Hunters, that you sent them as part of their training. That’s why I thought, last night...” His voice trailed off as she shook her head. There were no tells here, no evasions or lies.

  “I haven’t told anyone to follow you, Lad. Why would I?” She narrowed her eyes again, and he could see her thoughts buzzing like a nest of hornets. “Something’s wrong with this. There are more players in this game than seems possible.”

  “Who?”

  “I have no idea, but since you’re going to stick around until you decide to give me that ring, we’ve got plenty of time to find out.” Mya’s hand shook as she ripped off a bite from the pastry and washed it down with a great swallow of blackbrew. “Now, tell me every detail about last night’s assassination attempt, right down to the color of the woman’s dress.”

  Lad began his recitation, but his mind drifted. He knew Mya was right; even if he managed to elude her Hunters, they would find his family. In order to buy their freedom, there was a choice to be made, but he was not the person who had to make it.

  This is stupid, Jingles thought, scratching at the chafed spot under his arm. The hauberk he wore as part of his disguise—Damn that inquisitor and her disguises to the Nine Hells—was too large, and the iron cap on his head weighed a ton. His feet were already sore from only two hours of walking on the cobble streets, and his legs ached. The only good thing about wearing a City Guard uniform was the utter invisibility it offered; nobody glanced twice at a guardsman, and walking the same four blocks for hours drew no attention whatsoever. Unfortunately, he was likely to continue walking for many more hours before he slept. All because those fool masters thought there was a chance that Mya’s weapon still haunted the same inn where they caught him the first time.

  Nobody’s that stupid. The first rule is never go back to the scene of the crime. But I’ve got to waste an entire night and get blisters on my feet just to prove it to the bosses!

  Being summoned to an emergency meeting with all four masters on his night off hadn’t helped his mood. The messenger hadn’t even given him a chance to finish his supper. Youtrin’s warehouse had teemed with more activity than a kicked ant’s nest. They’d dressed him up like a city guardsman and sent him out on this wild-goose chase. He wasn’t the only assassin out combing the streets, of course, but the thought didn’t give him much comfort.

  Jingles made his turn and started back down the street, his thumbs in his sword belt, his practiced stride casual and unfeignedly bored. H
e didn’t know why real guardsmen did it, walking the same streets hour after hour, day after day, risking their lives for the pittance that the duke paid.

  No wonder they’re so easily bribed.

  It was getting dark, and a lamplighter was working his way up the hill, his long, double-crooked pole over his shoulder. Jingles sauntered on, watching the poor sap stop at each lamp post, lift the tiny door with a practiced twist of his pole, light the wick inside, then close the door with another twist. In the morning he would walk the same route, extinguishing the lamps he’d lit only hours before. That job looked even more boring than a guardsman’s.

  The man tipped his hat in passing. “Merciful dry, ay?”

  “Pray it lasts,” Jingles agreed. The only thing that would make this drudgery less pleasant was rain. He passed the Tap and Kettle’s gated yard for what felt like the thousandth time, and glanced inside. The stableman was at the barn door unharnessing a team from a merchant’s wagon, while the merchant was being ushered through the open inn door. The golden glow of hearth and lamp looked all too inviting.

  Perhaps I could stop in for supper, Jingles thought, continuing his stroll. I am supposed to watch the place, and the chances of Mya’s weapon showing up here are about the same as the Emperor of Tsing dropping by for tea and cakes!

  “Good evening, sir.”

  “Evening,” Jingles said, reflexively touching the rim of his iron cap to the lanky young man passing by.

  Bright hazel eyes met his for a heartbeat that seemed to last forever.

  Gods, it’s him!

  Jingles was no inquisitor, no spy, but he had the presence of mind to keep his face blank and his gait relaxed. The weapon’s physical appearance had changed—he was heavier, more muscled, with longer hair and better clothes—but his eyes, like twin chips of amber, had not.

  Just keep walking! Don’t look back! Look back, and you’re dead!

  A dozen strides later, he did glance back. The street was empty. The weapon must have gone through the inn’s gates.