The man stepped back and vanished into the storm’s fury.
The Harpers had avoided the main road and pitched their tent when the storm made it too dangerous to continue. Inside the tent, as the heavy rains of late afternoon fell, Lucius elected to keep watch near the partially opened flap. He declined the meal the others devoured with their usual lack of decorum. Myrmeen was too exhausted and famished to do anything but join them. Stones were laid in the middle of their enclosure, and a small fire blazed there. Burke had unwrapped and skillfully prepared several slabs of meat, most of which had been snapped up by the dark-haired, fourteen-year-old girl whom they had rescued.
“So,” Burke said, determined to slap Krystin’s hand away if she grabbed at another serving before he could distribute the meat to the others, “is anyone else hungry?”
“You mean she actually left something for the rest of us?” Reisz said as he spat out the seeds from a mouthful of grapes. Ord had consumed an entire loaf of bread and was eyeing the blackened slabs of meat with lustful intent. Myrmeen had gnawed three apples to their core.
“Come now, the girl has been through an ordeal,” Varina gently coaxed, her stomach rumbling almost loud enough to be confused with the rolling thunder outside.
Reisz growled, “How are you, girl?”
“Fine,” Krystin said, the word delivered hard and fast, like a blow.
“You feel well?”
“Fine,” she repeated sharply. Her tone became demanding as she said, “Who are you people?”
“We told you, we’re Harpers,” Varina said gently.
“That’s right,” Reisz hissed. “No matter what you may think, we are not rival slavers. We are the lord protectors of the Realms.”
Krystin nodded. “So you just run around doing good deeds. You help people and don’t expect anyone to pay you.”
“Well,” Varina said, “essentially. But we have lives away from our duties as Harpers.”
Krystin bit off another chunk of meat. As she chewed, she said, “You people are either the worst liars I’ve ever met or the biggest fools.”
Ord raised his hands and smiled. “Well, at least she’s grateful we saved her life,” he quipped.
“You saved it,” she admitted, “but for what?”
Reisz unconsciously glanced at Myrmeen. She had been staring at the child and was alarmed to discover that she had absolutely nothing to say to her. They had decided on the long ride into the desert that, at least for a time, they would not disclose Myrmeen’s last name or her position as ruler of Arabel. To Krystin, Myrmeen would be simply another of the Harpers who had rescued her.
“What?” Krystin said nastily. “The dullard has something to tell me?”
“Stop calling me that,” Myrmeen said, her anger simmering within her heart.
“I’m just surprised you understand the meaning of the word,” Krystin said with a shrug. “You do, don’t you?”
Myrmeen fought back the urge to strike the child. She had been resisting that impulse for hours. “Where were you educated? It wasn’t just on the streets.”
“What makes you think I’m educated?” Krystin said. “I know I must seem that way to you, slow-wits—”
Reisz suddenly reached over and grabbed the girl’s wrist as he roared, “That’s enough!”
Krystin fell silent, a catlike grin on her face. She looked down at his meaty hand on her pale, thin wrist and shamed him into releasing her without saying a word.
“There are limits to our patience,” Burke said. “It’s best not to test them.”
“I’ll consider myself warned,” Krystin said, her smile deepening. She had learned when she was very young that those who ultimately revealed themselves to be the most threatening often approached wearing benevolent faces. By provoking these people, she had hoped to force them to reveal their true agenda.
Nevertheless, she was troubled. Normally she assumed the worst and did not bother to wait around to be proven incorrect. For some reason, she actually wanted to trust these people, and trust was an almost impossible commodity for the streetwise teenager after the brutalities of her early life. She decided that when she had a chance, she would steal one of their horses and escape.
“Why are you like this?” Myrmeen asked. “We’re just trying to help you.”
Krystin shrugged and tore another chunk of meat from the bone she had been nursing as Burke distributed the remaining meat among the Harpers. She said nothing as she slowly lowered the picked-clean bone to her lap and stared at the slab of meat that Varina was about to bite into. The child’s eyes widened and her shoulders slumped. She pressed her lips together and allowed the tip of her tongue to flicker out of the corner of her mouth, just for an instant. Varina slowly lowered the meat and held it out to the child.
“Don’t give her that!” Burke snarled.
Krystin sat back and laughed. “I’m not hungry anyway. But thank you for the offer. You’re a dear.”
Varina screwed up her features in disapproval, then took a healthy bite of the meat.
“You people are so easy,” Krystin said. “It takes almost no effort to get to any of you. You’re all a bunch of raw nerves waiting to be irritated. You’re so full of yourselves I could almost believe you are—what name did you use? Harpies? Helpies? Heifers?”
“Harpers,” Myrmeen said coolly.
“That’s right,” Krystin said. “Thank you.”
Ord had been staring at her as if he she belonged to a different species, one that he was unable to identify, at least until now. Suddenly it came to him: “I think you just want attention.”
The girl’s smile dropped and her eyes became hard as she returned his stare.
“You’re not subtle, you know. I played that game when I was your age. But I was better at it. You’re sitting there fishing with a meat hook, thinking nobody’s going to notice.”
“Fenghis-sla!” she said, backing up her foreign curse with a hand motion in case he did not understand the words.
“You’re the one who is so easy,” he said wryly.
Krystin froze. The others glanced at one another and smiled. Burke slapped Ord on the back and led his comrades in a tension-breaking round of laughter. The girl drew her knees up and stared at the crackling fire’s orange glow.
“Dullards,” she said, but her heart clearly was not to the insult. Her gaze drifted to the open flap at the tent’s entrance, where Lucius Cardoc sat, looking out at the storm. The heavy droplets of rain pelted the hard leathers with the force of meteors that had slashed across the blackened afternoon sky and exploded against the enclosure. The relentless pounding made her wonder if it had become a hailstorm. The sound reminded her of the constant drumming of insistent, curious fingers. Water cascaded down the sides of the tent, dripping to the large puddles where the companions had cut ditches. The sound of running water was making her insane. All she wanted to know was how long the storm would keep up.
She nearly dropped her tin cup filled with fresh water as she saw a flash of lightning in the distance. The heavy clap of thunder made her jump. Varina instinctively reached out to put her hand on the girl’s arm in a comforting gesture, then stopped herself, remembering the way Krystin had swatted her hand away the last time.
Myrmeen moved closer and sat down beside Krystin. “I hate the storms, too. I have a lot of terrible memories tied to storms like this one.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me all about it,” Krystin said nastily, resisting Myrmeen’s attempts to distract her from the storm.
“No,” Myrmeen said. “I’d rather talk about you. I’d like to know why you’re afraid of storms.”
Thunder rolled, somewhere close. Myrmeen tensed. So did Krystin. “Why should you care? You’re not my mother.”
Myrmeen flinched. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. “Who are your parents, then?”
Krystin appeared to shrink into herself. She set the cup down and hugged herself. Myrmeen tried to get the child to
look in her direction, but Krystin shook her head. Despite the way it frightened her, she would not take her gaze from the storm. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.
“Who raised you, then?” Myrmeen asked.
She swallowed hard, shuddered. “Monsters.” Suddenly, Krystin came to life. Expectantly, she asked, “Are you people with them?”
“Who?” Burke said. “The monsters?”
“No,” Krystin replied, shaking her head as if she were being ridiculed and no longer cared. She bit her lip and said, “The demon killers. The hunters who are killing off the Night Parade’s monsters.”
Ord grinned. “We killed four of them last week.”
Krystin sank to her knees and planted her hands on her thighs in awe. “Four? That many. At one time?”
“Yes,” Burke said, getting some idea of Ord’s destination. The younger man was trying to find a way to make Krystin show them some respect. With a smug laugh, Burke placed his hand on his wife’s back and said, “I expect we’ll be up for a few more before we leave Calimport.”
A shudder passed through Krystin. Her expression changed to one of sheer panic. Without warning, she scrambled to her feet and bolted to the partially open tent flap. Lucius turned and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms at her sides. She began to scream and wail incoherently, shouting phrases in a language that no one understood.
Myrmeen went to her. “Krystin, what’s wrong? We’re not going to hurt you.”
Krystin kicked at the mage’s legs, then leaned down and bit the fleshy part of his arm. He winced at the pain but did not let her go.
“Stop that,” Myrmeen said. “Lucius is your friend. We all are.”
“Let me go!” she screamed. “You didn’t say we were going back there! That’s where they live. That’s where they hide. That where they do things to you!”
“Krystin, we have to go back to Calimport. There is a man who has to be paid for his services. Once that’s done,” she said, looking back at the Harpers, “then we’ll leave.”
Reisz nodded, closing his eyes then opening them slowly.
“I’m sorry.” Krystin started weeping. “You’re not stupid. I’m sorry I said that. Just don’t take me back there.”
Ord laughed. “It’s just an act. Look at her, she’s—”
“She’s terrified, Ord,” Myrmeen said, the yellow slivers in her rich blue eyes appearing to burn with the flames of her anger. Ord looked away.
Krystin’s body relaxed as she watched Myrmeen. She turned her face in Cardoc’s direction. “I won’t try to run. You can let me go.”
Sensing the truth in her tone, Lucius released her.
She turned to him and said, “I’m sorry about your arm.”
“It will heal,” he said, “unlike some wounds you cannot see that sometimes take a lifetime to heal.”
Myrmeen nodded. He had been looking at her as he spoke. She placed her hand on Krystin’s shoulder. The girl did not try to force it away. “What did they do to you? What did those monsters make you do?”
“I’d find people for them,” she said, lowering her head in shame. Myrmeen guided Krystin back to the circle, and they sat with the others. She kept her arm around the girl, and the shivering fourteen-year-old did not protest.
“Those creatures don’t need humans to do their work for them,” Reisz said. “We’ve seen them. They can pass for human at any time.”
“Some of them can,” Krystin said darkly. “Not all.”
“So you found people for them,” Myrmeen said. “Then what happened?”
“Don’t you know?”
Myrmeen shook her head.
“You don’t know what the Night Parade monsters do to their prey? How they survive? What they live on?”
The Harpers were silent.
“Really?” she asked in stunned disbelief. “But you wish to make war on them. You slaughter them without understanding the reasons for what they do.”
“It sounds as if you’re defending them,” Ord said as he saw their dinner fire slowly die.
“No,” she said. “No, kill them. Kill them all, if you can. I just don’t think you know what you’re dealing with.”
“So tell us,” Myrmeen said.
“You’re not the hunters,” she said. “You’re not the ones that have been seeking them out and killing them for the past two years.”
Ord raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say—”
“Enough,” Burke said. “No. We are not the ones. We only arrived in Calimport a short time ago.”
Krystin buried her face in her hands and drew a sharp breath. She laughed a hollow laugh and shook her head in amazement. “How many of you are there? What’s the size of your army?”
“Why would you ask us that?” Myrmeen said.
“Because I only see six of you in this tent,” Krystin said slowly. “And I can guarantee there are over six thousand of the monsters in Calimport alone.…”
Outside, the rain began to level off. The storm rolled on, moving deeper into the desert. A sharp crack of lightning sounded in the distance.
Within the tent, Burke stoked the fire. He felt comforted by the warmth and watched the reddish orange glow of the flames as he quietly said, “Tell us everything.”
Krystin nodded and began to speak. Myrmeen listened to her daughter’s words with mounting fear. She gained an education into the nature of an evil that astonished even her jaded sensibilities, and the thunder that eventually followed sounded like a promise that the storm soon would return.
Eight
“That is all I can give you,” Myrmeen said.
Pieraccinni sat behind his desk, regarding the pile of coins and jewels before him with an amused expression. “I know I said a small token of faith would suffice, but I didn’t expect it to be this small.”
“You’ll get all that’s coming to you,” Myrmeen said stiffly as she stood before the merchant. “Or do you not trust the word of Myrmeen Lhal, ruler of Arabel?”
Pieraccinni’s gaze slowly rose from the riches on his desk to the piercing stare of the magnificent brunette. Her unusual blue-and-gold eyes were hard and unyielding.
“Why do I get the feeling you told Dak something very similar before you lopped his head off?” he asked.
Myrmeen leaned forward. “Perhaps because he tried my patience, too.”
The bald merchant of arms and men leaned back, rocked in his chair, and laughed. “If you ever get tired of your post in Arabel, I hope you will consider giving me a chance to employ you.”
“In what position? On my back or bent over your desk?” Myrmeen asked bitterly, tired of thinly veiled propositions.
Pieraccinni shook his head and opened his hands. “As a negotiator. You are far too suspicious.”
Myrmeen glanced around the room. There was movement from behind the red satin curtains of his four-poster bed. “Somehow I find it difficult to accept a serious job offer from a man who keeps a bed in his office.”
Pieraccinni pursed his lips. “No one told you? No, from your expression I see that they did not. I never leave this room. I have a rare malady that keeps me here.”
The statuesque adventurer stepped back from his desk.
“Don’t worry. What I have is not contagious and what I’ve told you is public knowledge.” He tapped his shining, bald pate. “What I suffer from has been diagnosed as a disease of the mind, but that does not make its effects any less real. If you were able to drag me beyond those doors I would collapse with fits and seizures within a minute’s time. Of course, you would first have to get me out there.”
Myrmeen heard the scrape of weapons sliding from scabbards. She glanced back at the shadowy figures behind the blood-red curtains. “The twins are highly protective?”
“They are, along with all my employees. Not one of them has ever had it this good before. They don’t want their comfortable lifestyle to be ruined, and they are aware that my skills are all that ensure their co
ntinued employment.”
“I understand,” Myrmeen said.
“All I want from you is the promise that the next time you have business in Calimport, you will come to me first.”
Myrmeen reached out and shook Pieraccinni’s hand. “You have my word.”
“And you have your daughter. May your life with her be as rewarding as it will be interesting.”
Walking to the door, Myrmeen stopped midway. “That sounds like a warning. Do you know something I don’t?”
“I have five sons and two daughters,” Pieraccinni said. “Believe me when I say you are embarking on your most challenging and perilous adventure yet.”
Myrmeen knocked twice and the doors swung outward. She left Pieraccinni’s chamber without another word. The doors slammed shut behind her. The boy, Alden, appeared from a secret doorway at the other end of Pieraccinni’s room. He hurried inside, rushing to the bald man’s desk.
“I have need of your special skills,” Pieraccinni said. “Assign Marishan your duties, then follow Lhal and her group. I want confirmation that they have left the city.”
“You will have it,” Alden said agreeably.
Outside the Gentleman’s Hall, Myrmeen joined the Harpers. Krystin nervously glanced at every shadow, though it was midday and the sunlight was glaring. The child had made her rescuers promise that they would enter the city and leave once more while the sun was there to protect them. The nightmare people despised movement during the day.
Myrmeen had not given Pieraccinni all of the riches she had secreted in the city. She left many of the caches in place as a contingency in the event that she one day returned to Calimport, but she said nothing of this to the others.
The group stopped at a nondescript eatery for one last decent meal before the long ride to Arabel. They were greeted by a fiery-haired serving maid whose pleasant smile faded as she caught sight of the Harpers. They had been in the desert for several days without bathing or changing clothes and they had the look of ruffians.
“A private table might be best,” she said as she took the small group to a pair of tables near the kitchen and promised to return shortly with tankards of ale. As she left, the girl was stopped by an older woman, who whispered in her ear, eyeing Myrmeen and her crowd suspiciously. The red-haired girl shook her head and raised her voice as she said, “You’re right, of course. I would have thought their kind would keep to the Hall.”
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