The ranger looked at the man’s body. “No coin or jewelry that I can see. They didn’t bother to strip the armor, but his weapons are gone. An old scar across his cheek …” She frowned suddenly and straightened up. “Damn. I think I’ve seen this man before. It’s a little hard to tell in this condition, but that scar, I know I’ve seen it.”
Geran glanced at Hamil then back to Kara. He waited in silence, allowing her to search her memory without interruption. After a moment, she gave a soft snort and nodded. “He’s a House Veruna man. I’ve seen him around town, usually in the company of other Veruna armsmen. Most of them are Mulmasterites and wear mail coats just like this. He left his colors at home, naturally. There’s nothing here to positively identify him as House Veruna.”
“So, they dragged the dead or dying armsman in here and left his body in the barrow grave. But why was the woman killed?” Geran wondered aloud. “I doubt that she was part of the ambush, since she’s hardly dressed for a fight.”
“She outlived her usefulness,” Hamil said darkly. “The Veruna men brought her here as a prisoner, maybe for the purpose of luring your friend Jarad to this spot. Once they’d killed him, she was nothing more than an inconvenient witness. Her bad fortune, I suppose.”
“We only know of one Veruna who was here, and he’s in the ground at our feet,” Kara answered. “We don’t know for sure that the others were Veruna men too.”
Geran made a sour face. “I have a strong suspicion about that, especially after what Mirya told me about Jarad’s missing dagger.”
Kara grimaced, but she didn’t debate Geran’s point. Instead she stared at the two bodies, her azure eyes gleaming in the dim light. “What I don’t understand is why they left Jarad outside,” she said. “If they went to the trouble of burying two bodies in here, why not three? Why leave Jarad out in the open to be found? If they’d simply dragged his body in here too, we might still be looking for him.”
“That’s simple,” Hamil said. “They wanted his body found. The killers wanted to send a message, something more pointed than an unsolved disappearance. But why bury these two here, where they might be found? It would’ve been better to carry these bodies away and bury them somewhere else.”
“It would have been awkward if they’d met somebody else out on the Highfells while carrying the bodies with them?” Geran guessed. “They were lazy? Or perhaps they thought that the harmach’s law would keep anyone from looking too closely at the barrow?” He shook his head. “It could be anything. All right, let’s have some fresh air while we figure this out.”
They withdrew from the barrow chamber and made their way back out from the entrance, climbing into the bright afternoon sunlight. The wind was cool and deliciously fresh after the stale dead murk of the barrow. Geran took several quick strides out into the hollow around the mound, straightening and stretching, before he realized that someone was standing by their horses, watching him. “Hamil!” he hissed.
The halfling stopped close behind him, and Kara halted too. They stared at the man who was watching them. He wasn’t human, that much was apparent. His skin had a ruddy brick hue, and two sharp, black horns jutted from his forehead. He dressed in a long coat of bright scarlet embroidered with gold thread over a ruffled white shirt, and his black silk breeches were bloused into low boots of fine leather.
“You should be more careful,” the horned man said in a rasping voice. “There are dangerous men abroad these days. They might have been lying in wait for you.”
Geran set one hand on the hilt of his sword and slowly moved away from his friends. “Well, it seems that we were fortunate to encounter you instead of them.”
“I didn’t say I’m not a dangerous man too,” the stranger replied. He carried a short, rune-carved staff in the crook of his left arm, but kept it at his side. He nodded at the barrow behind them. “Did you find anything in there? Anything like a book?”
“A book? No, only corpses,” said Hamil with a scowl. He shifted behind Kara to hide his knife hand from view.
The horned man snorted impatiently. “Well, of course. Barrows are full of them.”
Geran narrowed his eyes. He could make out some of the sigils on the horned man’s staff, and he didn’t like what he saw. Unless he misjudged the horned man badly, they were dealing with a formidable sorcerer of some sort. Symbols of fire and lightning glinted among the runes.
“Who are you?” Geran challenged. “What are you doing here?”
The sorcerer’s nostrils flared. “Who I am is no business but my own. As for what I’m doing here, well, I’m looking for something. But if this barrow’s empty, then it would seem I am in the wrong place. I will trouble you no more.” With an eye over his shoulder, he turned away and started back down the thready trail.
“Not so fast!” Kara called after him. She hurried after him. “In the name of the harmach, stand where you are! I will have some answers from you!”
The sorcerer glanced back in irritation. “I think not,” he said, and he struck his staff to the ground. “Arkhu zanastar!” he cried, and then he leaped up into the air. His scarlet coat rippled behind him as he soared off into the sky.
Kara swore and dashed over to where Dancer neighed and pranced nervously, reaching for the bow cased by the saddle. But by the time she retrieved the weapon, the horned sorcerer was only a distant speck in the sky, speeding away over the moorland until he topped a low rise and vanished from view. “Damn,” she snarled. “If that … person … was not involved in this somehow, then I’m an orc. What was he, anyway? Some manner of devil?”
Hamil shook his head. “No, a tiefling. They come from the distant east. They’ve got some infernal blood in their veins, but they’re not really devils.”
“On the other hand, that fellow was clearly a sorcerer of no small skill,” Geran added. “I think you ought to be glad that you didn’t have your bow closer to hand. If you’d shot at him, he might have taken offense.”
“I don’t care who or what he is, I won’t stand by and let him spite the harmach’s laws,” Kara retorted. She returned her bow to its case, still looking after the vanished sorcerer. Her brilliant eyes glowed with anger, and she turned away to collect herself. After a moment she shook herself and looked at Geran. “We should at least take the bodies back to Hulburg for a decent burial. I don’t like the idea of leaving the woman out here for Aesperus, and I intend to ask Darsi Veruna how one of her men ended up dead at the scene of Jarad’s murder. She still hasn’t given me a good answer about the business at Erstenwold’s, anyway.”
“We might as well get started then, since the afternoon is getting on,” Geran answered. They’d have to wrap the bodies well to keep the horses calm, double up on one of the mounts, and they wouldn’t make very good speed returning to town. “I’d just as soon not be out on the moors after dark.”
“What’s our next move, then?” Hamil asked Geran.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I think I’ll follow Mirya’s advice and try to figure out why Veruna’s mercenaries are suddenly interested in barrows.”
EIGHT
14 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One
Sometime in the cold hours before dawn, snow began to fall around Hulburg. When Geran awoke and looked out his window, the higher hilltops were covered with a dusting of white, and fat, wet flakes were sticking along the castle’s turrets and rooftops. He performed his morning exercises in a fitful flurry that stopped and started several times as he practiced his forms. Spring snow was not at all unusual for the northern shores of the Moonsea, but it rarely lasted long.
The cold air spurred him fully awake and chased the last dregs of sleepiness from his mind. It had been a long ride back to Hulburg from the barrow the previous evening and a longer night of explanations, as Kara insisted on setting down their recollections of the discovery inside the mound before allowing Geran and Hamil to retire for the evening. She’d also been careful to set down their descriptions of the sinister sorcerer t
hey’d encountered too. Geran had no idea if anything would come of either account. He sincerely doubted that anyone at House Veruna would admit that the dead man was in the barrow on company business, and as for the sorcerer, he doubted whether the Shieldsworn could arrest and hold such a creature against his will. It seemed unlikely that he had anything to do with Jarad’s murder or the deaths of the Veruna armsman and the townswoman, simply because Geran couldn’t imagine why the fellow would return to the scene or ask them whether they’d found a book. He finally gave up with a shrug. Strange folk roamed the Highfells at times; either they’d see him again, or they wouldn’t, and there was little point looking for him.
Geran bathed quickly, dressed himself, and headed down to find himself some breakfast in the family great room, turning events over in his mind. By the time he’d finished his breakfast—and games of dragon’s-teeth with the younger Hulmasters—Geran had decided on his next course of action. He clapped Hamil on the shoulder and said, “I think I’d like to seek gainful employment for the day. If you’re done with allowing Kirr to instruct you in grand strategy, why don’t you come with me?”
“Gainful employment?” Hamil raised an eyebrow. “Very well, then.”
“But I was winning, Geran!” Kirr groaned.
“Nonsense!” Hamil replied. “You were but one tile away from falling into my insidious trap. You’ll see when we resume this contest.”
The halfling bowed to his diminutive opponent and followed Geran down through a servant’s stair into the depths of the castle kitchens. In a few moments the two travelers came to the laundry room, where a couple of servant girls worked at a big tub of warm water, washing the castle’s linens.
“Oh, so it’s the wash, then,” the halfling said glumly. “All right, I suppose I have to earn my room and board somehow.”
“Some honest work would do you good,” Geran answered him. He spoke briefly to the young women working at the tubs, and they directed him to a large storeroom nearby. Battered old trunks packed with old clothing filled the room. Geran removed his sword belt and began to rummage through the trunks. The swordmage found a threadbare old tunic and a nondescript cloak of plain gray and held them up for a look.
“Ah, this should do,” he said.
“For mucking out the stables?” asked the halfling.
“Not a bad idea, but that’s not what I had in mind. I was thinking that we might look for some work as teamsters, and House Veruna might be a good place to look. I’d rather not be recognized. Here, try these.”
Geran and Hamil soon enough patched together mismatched working garb to reasonably disguise themselves as common laborers. They stopped by the Shieldsworn armory, and Geran replaced his elven blade with a plain short sword of the sort that a poor driver might carry for defense against bandits; Hamil found a well-worn crossbow. Then they visited the stables and harnessed a simple buckboard wagon and a pair of mules and drove down from Griffonwatch into town, joining the stream of cart traffic and wagons rumbling along the Vale Road in the wet snow.
They stayed east of the river down to the Lower Bridge, crossed over to Bay Street, and drove along the wharves past the tradeyards of various merchant costers—the Double Moon, House Sokol, House Marstel. Then they came to the Veruna compound and drove through its gates into the bustling yards beyond. Like most other trading companies in Hulburg, Veruna owned several storehouses that were enclosed together by a sturdy wall. Barracks, offices, stables, a smithy, and the stone-and-timber houses of Veruna officials clustered together within the Veruna holding, a town within the town.
It seems ordinary enough, Hamil said silently. This could be the Red Sail yard in Tantras. What are we looking for?
The mercenaries, Geran answered. He looked around, sizing up the place. A handful of armsmen in the green-and-white tabards of the House watched over the business in the yard; they seemed bored and disinterested. I expect that most of the Veruna operations here are perfectly legitimate, so I’m not worried about what’s in the storehouses or where it’s going. I’m more interested in the sellswords. Mark them well—I want to find this man Urdinger, and I want to see if any of them are riding off into the Highfells to go poke around in barrows when they don’t think anyone is watching.
The halfling nodded. “That might take days,” he warned. And it’ll look a little suspicious if we just sit here all day eavesdropping on the guards.
“I know,” Geran replied. He spied the big Veruna armsman Bann, the fellow he’d confronted in Mirya Erstenwold’s store, and he carefully shifted to lower his hood over his face and keep his eyes away from the man. The mercenary led half a dozen more Veruna men past the wagon without giving Geran so much as a second glance and headed out into Bay Street intent on his own business.
You recognize those men? Hamil asked.
I saw one of them at Mirya’s. Come on, we might as well ask about work. It’ll give us a good chance to spy out the place, and we should fit right in.
Fortunately, a fair number of the wagon drivers in the town were halflings; it was a little unusual for a human and halfling to work together, but not strange enough to be conspicuous, or so Geran hoped. Besides, he’d observed in the last few days that most of the wagons heading out of town carried at least two men. It always helped to have an extra hand along to carry a crossbow and keep an eye out for trouble.
He swung himself down from the wagon and headed toward the nearest Veruna clerk he saw. The fellow was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with thinning hair and a heavy green cloak to ward off the wet snow.
“Well met,” Geran said gruffly. “I’ve got a wagon and team for hire. Got any work for me?”
“Just a moment.” The Veruna clerk carried a small ledger and consulted it with a frown of annoyance. “I’ll need a load of stores taken up to a camp in the foothills soon. It pays five silvers, and you’ll get fodder and stabling for your team and a hot meal for yourself.”
“Good enough. Where am I going?”
“You’ll be with some other wagons. The other drivers know the way. Stay with them, and you’ll be fine.” The clerk looked up at Geran. “I haven’t seen you before. New in town?”
Geran shrugged. “I heard there’s work and good coin here.”
“We need all the drivers we can get.” The clerk pointed at a storehouse across the compound. “Take your wagon over there, and tell Koger—he’s the short fellow in the brown hood—that you’ve been hired for the Troll Hill train. You’re expected to lend a hand with the loading and unloading.”
Geran gave him a resigned nod and returned to the wagon. “We’re hired,” he told Hamil. “Keep your eyes and ears open, and we’ll see what we can learn.”
The halfling grimaced. “I hope they’re paying us well, at least.”
The two comrades spent most of the next five days hiring their wagon to House Veruna and driving provisions of all sorts out to the House’s mining camps and lumber yards in the hills east of town. Geran and Hamil turned in a more or less honest day’s work for their wages and made a point of trying to haggle a little more coin from the clerks, since Geran didn’t want to attract attention for working too little or too much for the pay. As he’d hoped, the work gave him an excellent opportunity to examine for himself the extent of Veruna’s holdings and watch their sellswords at close range. The mercenaries paid little attention to the teamsters who were constantly coming and going from the tradeyard, and Geran and Hamil found plenty of opportunities to ask questions of their fellow drivers and listen in on the hired swords without raising too much suspicion.
Geran soon learned much more about the merchant coster and their mercenaries. A noble family from Mulmaster owned the house; the Hulburg holdings were in the hands of Lady Darsi Veruna, who resided in a small manor on the slopes of the town’s eastern headland, rarely visiting the merchant yards. Geran and Hamil could think of no legitimate reason to drive a wagonload up to her residence and did not actually lay eyes on her, but they did learn that she was c
onstantly attended by several ladies-in-waiting, manservants, and guards. A cadre of master merchants who answered to Lady Darsi oversaw the Veruna business in Hulburg’s lands; the head of the Hulburg yard was a stout, black-bearded man named Tharman Kurz, whose demanding nature and foul temper created no small amount of misery for the clerks. Master Tharman was nominally in charge, but the large contingent of sellswords who guarded the Veruna holdings did not answer to the Veruna master merchants. Small groups and bands of mercenaries in green and white came and went from the Hulburg yards and the other Veruna holdings constantly, sometimes escorting wagonloads of provisions bound for the camps, or timber, fur, and precious metals bound back to the merchant yards, but sometimes heading off on patrols or errands of their own.
On the evening of the last day, just as they finished manhandling a load of hardwood planks into the Hulburg storehouse, half a dozen Veruna mercenaries rode into the merchant yard. At their head rode a lean, hawk-faced man who wore his red hair shaved down to angry orange stubble over his scalp. He wore enameled black half-plate armor under his Veruna surcoat, and he had a gold crest atop his helmet, which hung from the saddlehorn. The red-haired man rode up to the master merchant’s residence, swung down from the saddle, and handed the reins to a valet, while the rest of his men dismounted. Geran watched the sellsword over his mule team, idly patting the neck of the nearer animal. The mercenary stretched briefly and rolled his head from side to side, working out the kinks of a long trip in the saddle.
“Who is that?” Hamil asked quietly from the wagon’s bench. The halfling was careful not to look directly at the mercenaries.
“I don’t know,” Geran answered. He glanced to his left, where one of the Veruna teamsters they’d driven with was unhitching his own team, and called over. “Say, Barthold—who’s the captain over there?”
The other driver looked over. “Him? That’s Urdinger. He’s in charge of the armsmen. You’ll want to be careful around him, he’s got a short temper. I heard that he beat another driver senseless when the fellow spilled a load into a ravine out near Troll Hill. Why d’you want to know?”
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