Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  “We don’t have much time,” Starros warned, gently pushing Kalan ahead of him towards the cool, dim interior of the taproom. She hesitated on the threshold. Kalan had never been in a tavern before. The smell overwhelmed her as much as the decor. It reeked of stale beer, old food and mouldy straw. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so there were few customers and fortunately none of them paid any attention to the three newcomers. Unconsciously, Kalan reached for Damin’s hand and felt it close over hers comfortingly.

  “Now what?” she whispered nervously.

  “We ask for Wrayan, I suppose,” Starros suggested.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Kalan was worried about that. The Wrayan she remembered always appeared far more sophisticated than this dingy establishment seemed to imply.

  “Only one way to find out,” Damin shrugged. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers in the direction of the nearest servant. “You there! Wench! Come here!”

  Kalan cringed at Damin’s tone, as the young woman he had hailed looked up in surprise from the table she was wiping. She tossed her dishrag down and sauntered across to the door, eyeing them up and down suspiciously. As she drew closer, Kalan decided the girl was actually quite pretty in a rough, peasant sort of way. She had dark hair and eyes darkened with kohl and her lips had been reddened with berry paste. Around her neck, she wore a leather slave collar, tooled with a geometric design in a vain attempt to make it look decorative.

  “Who are you calling wench, little boy?” she asked. She seemed amused by them, not intimidated.

  Damin held his ground admirably in the face of her mocking smile. “Please inform Wrayan Lightfinger we are here to see him.”

  The woman studied the three children for a moment and then laughed. “You’re here for Wrayan?”

  “Is he here?” Starros asked.

  “Who wants to know?”

  Kalan looked up at the boys and frowned. This was all wrong. In her imagination, Wrayan had been waiting for them on the threshold of a rather nice inn where the tables were covered with snowy white cloths and high tea was served in a delicate Walsark porcelain tea service. She’d never dreamed they’d have to deal with some insolent tavern court’esa who obviously thought they were a joke.

  “We’re friends of his,” Kalan said hurriedly, before Damin got all wounded and announced who he was to all and sundry. “What’s your name?”

  The court’esa bent over and studied Kalan in the dim light. “By the gods! You’re just a little girl.

  My name’s Fee. And what’s a pretty little thing like you want with a rogue like Wrayan Lightfinger?”

  Kalan hesitated and stared at the court’esa in surprise. Nobody had ever called her a pretty little thing before. “Is he here?”

  “No, sweetie, he’s gone,” she said, still studying Kalan closely.

  “Gone where?” Damin demanded impatiently.

  Fee looked up at him with a frown. “Gone where is none of your business, my lad. The likes of Wrayan Lightfinger don’t have to answer to . . .” Fee’s voice trailed off and she stared at Damin for a long moment, and then back at Kalan, and then she paled and added in a breathy whisper filled with awe, “Oh, by the gods . . .”

  Now we’re for it, Kalan thought. She’s recognised us.

  As usual, it was Starros who thought fastest. He slipped his arm through Fee’s before she could drop into a curtsey. “Please, not here!”

  Fee looked at Starros in shock. “You’re the other one. Almodavar’s bastard.”

  Kalan smiled. She had thought only people living in the palace knew about Starros. Apparently, the whole city knew.

  “Is Wrayan here or not?” Starros asked in a low voice, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. “We really need to see him.”

  Fee shook her head and then jerked it in the direction of the table she’d been wiping down.

  “Over there. People will start to wonder if we stay here blocking the door.” The court’esa led the way and a moment later they were seated in the booth, with Kalan next to Damin and Fee next to the dusty window beside Starros.

  “Where is he?” Damin asked impatiently.

  “Fardohnya, your highness,” Fee told him, apparently in awe of whom she was addressing. Kalan rolled her eyes. Fancy anyone being in awe of Damin!

  “Please don’t call me that,” he begged. “What’s he doing in Fardohnya?”

  The wench shrugged. “Meeting someone from the Guild over there, I suppose.” She smiled, probably realising how bad it sounded. “You know what they say: thieves and assassins know no borders. He and Brak left about a month ago.”

  “Brak?” Starros asked. “Who is he?”

  “A friend of Wrayan’s.” Fee looked at the three of them and shook her head. “I’m not sure I should be telling you this.”

  “Don’t worry,” Damin assured her with a scowl. “When I have him arrested for treason on his return, I’ll make sure your name isn’t mentioned.”

  “Damin!” Kalan objected. The poor court’esa looked as if she was about to faint. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Fee. He’s joking.”

  “Wrayan is completely loyal to Hythria, your highness,” Fee hurried to assure the young prince.

  “You must believe that! If he’s gone to Fardohnya, I’m sure it’s nothing dishonest.”

  Starros smiled as he glanced around the room. “He’s the head of the Thieves’ Guild, Fee. I’m not sure dishonest is the word you want there. We need to go, Damin. Now.”

  Kalan’s brother nodded and turned to his sister. “Sorry, Kal.”

  “Can I leave him a message?”

  Damin glanced at the wench. “Can we trust you to give Wrayan a message when he gets back?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then tell him Kalan Hawksword came to see him,” she volunteered, before Damin could leave a message on her behalf. “And that I need him to come to the palace. As soon as he gets back.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Kalan smiled at the nervous young woman, wishing she had something with which to pay her.

  Damin didn’t seem to care. He prodded Kalan, none too gently, so she slid across the bench, pulling the hood of her undistinguished cloak a little further forward. Starros was already heading for the door.

  They had very little time to get back to the markets, Kalan knew, before word reached the palace that they were missing and Uncle Mahkas decided to seal the city until they were found.

  “Thanks for your help,” Kalan said over her shoulder as Damin took her hand and pulled her towards the street. She stopped abruptly, shook free of Damin and ran back to the table. Reaching up behind her neck, Kalan undid the clasp of the copper necklace she’d bought earlier. “This is for you.”

  “I couldn’t!” Fee gasped in awe.

  “Take it!” Damin commanded. “We have to go, Kal!”

  “Thank you!” Kalan called over her shoulder as Damin hurried her to the door.

  Her last sight of the tavern wench was of her sitting at the table, holding the necklace Kalan had given her, with tears in her eyes.

  “Why did she cry?” Kalan asked as they slipped through the crowds back towards the markets.

  “Who?” Damin asked as he dragged her along.

  “That girl in the tavern. Fee. She cried when I gave her that necklace.”

  “Slaves don’t expect gifts from people like you,” Starros explained, stopping and holding an arm out to halt the other two. “Or payment.” He glanced down at her and smiled, ruffling her hair fondly.

  “That was a nice thing you did for her, Kalan.”

  Starros turned his attention back to their route, cautiously glancing along the next street before allowing the other two to proceed. They stopped like that at every street corner until they were almost back at the markets. It took more than two hours. As they neared the city’s inner wall, they could hear the commotion going on as the Raiders searched the crowded marketplace fo
r their lost charges.

  “When we get back to the first row of stalls, we should split up.”

  “I could cry and pretend I was lost,” Kalan volunteered.

  “Or you could tell us where you’ve been.”

  The three of them spun around to find Geri Almodavar, Raek Harlen and several dozen Palace Guards filling the street behind them.

  Kalan’s heart sank. Now we’re really in trouble. Damin, however, appeared ready to bluff his way out of it. He stepped forward boldly.

  “There! You see, Starros!” he declared, grinning at the soldiers rapidly surrounding them. “I told you it wasn’t possible to give a Krakandar Raider the slip for more than an hour to two. Thank you, Captains. I just won a wager thanks to your efficiency. Sorry for giving you a fright, but you can dismiss the search parties now. I trust they enjoyed the exercise as much as we did.”

  Almodavar smiled thinly. “Nice try, Damin.”

  “You didn’t enjoy it?”

  Almodavar glanced over his shoulder at his men. The Krakandar Raiders were efficient. There was barely a person left in the street not wearing palace livery by now. The captain smiled coldly. “We had a wonderful time searching several acres of market stalls, looking for you three, didn’t we, lads?”

  “Highlight of my whole week,” Raek Harlen agreed, coming to stand beside Almodavar, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

  Kalan frowned. It was never a good sign when Krakandar’s captains stood shoulder to shoulder scowling like that, even when they were supposedly on your side.

  Damin must have come to the same conclusion. He glanced at Kalan and Starros with a rueful smile, then turned back to face the guards. “I guess this means another forty laps of the training yards?”

  Almodavar glanced at Raek before he replied. “Forty laps? You should be so lucky, my boy. More like four hundred.”

  “Assuming, of course,” Raek Harlen added, with a degree of malicious glee that made Kalan cringe, “you three survive explaining where you’ve been to your mother.”

  Chapter 25

  Even surrounded by the towering Sunrise Mountains, Winternest dominated the landscape as Wrayan and Brak approached, its massive walls rising out of the mountainside and looking just as eternal. The castle guarded one of only two navigable passes across the Sunrise Mountains between Fardohnya and Hythria. This one was known as the Widowmaker Pass. The other pass was much farther south, near Highcastle.

  Against the majestic backdrop of the snow-capped mountains that flanked the fortress, it seemed as if the building had grown from the very rock of the mountain itself, rather than been constructed by mere mortals. Not surprising, Wrayan mused as they rode up the steep highway leading to the massive keep at a laboured walk, because it hadn’t actually been built by mere mortals. It had been built by the Harshini, its tall spires and elegant lines achingly reminiscent of Sanctuary.

  The keep served as a garrison, customs house, inn and fortress and catered for much of the traffic that moved between Hythria and Fardohnya. As they drew closer, Wrayan realised Winternest was actually two castles in one, built either side of the road leading through the pass into Fardohnya, joined by an arched and heavily fortified bridge high above the road that linked the northern wing to the southern wing. By the amount of traffic heading through the southern gates, he guessed that was where most of the commerce of the border post was carried out. The other side was probably the private domain of Sunrise’s Warlord, when he was in residence.

  The road was paved now, right up to the keep and all the way through the pass to Westbrook on the Fardohnyan side of the border. Sunrise’s War-lord, Chaine Lionsclaw, fulfilling an agreement Damin’s father made years ago with Hablet of Fardohnya, had paved the narrow pass through the mountains in a massive construction project which had taken the better part of seven years to complete and had proved a test of engineering skills far beyond that initially anticipated. The pass had been awkwardly narrow in places, causing traffic jams that contributed much to its reputation for being a maker of widows. Fardohnyan engineers had come up with a solution in the end, figuring out a way to harness the explosive powders used in fire-works and using them to blast through solid rock. The result was a much wider pass that could be kept clear of snow all winter, no more traffic jams and, subsequently, far fewer widows.

  The recipe for the explosive powder, however, was a jealously guarded secret, for which there was a king’s ransom on offer to anybody able to discover it. In the past, Wrayan had toyed with the idea of using the considerable resources available to him through the Thieves’ Guild to discover the secret, but as the mill where the powder was made was closely guarded, and Hablet had either executed or cut out the tongue of anybody who even thought they knew the process, he’d decided the risk just wasn’t worth the reward. But he hadn’t abandoned the idea altogether, and it was on this flimsy pretext that he’d arranged to meet with a man from the Fardohnyan Thieves’ Guild to discuss the possibility of purchasing the secret of the explosives.

  There was almost no chance the man would help Wrayan in his quest, but that wasn’t really the point. Wrayan needed an excuse to be in Westbrook and the meeting gave him one. The rest was up to Brak.

  That there was something seriously amiss with the Halfbreed had become more and more evident the longer Wrayan was in his company. On the surface, he seemed the same old Brak. He caroused with whores every chance he got, drank more than most men could stand without it having a noticeable effect on him, and joked about everything and everybody who crossed his path. But there was a brittle edge to his humour, a dark side to his revels. He acted like a man trying to drown his pain, not a man looking for entertainment.

  There were other hints, too, Wrayan noticed. Strangely, there was no sign of any demons around the Halfbreed. Wrayan knew Brak discouraged the demons from following him about in the human world, but he also knew that a few of them—Eyan and Elebran in particular—worshipped the very ground Brak walked on and spent every moment they could dogging his heels. But there had been no sign of the little demons during the four weeks it took the two travellers to reach Winternest. Brak hadn’t mentioned them, either.

  At first, Wrayan didn’t think much of it. Brak was over seven hundred years old. He had secrets enough for a dozen lifetimes. But as the weeks progressed, Wrayan’s sense that Brak’s pain went far beyond simple remorse grew stronger. He wondered if his inclusion on this fool’s errand was merely a ruse to give the Halfbreed an excuse to share his burden. He would allow no mental communication between them: a sure sign there was something going on in Brak’s head that he had no wish to share.

  He’d deliberately thrown himself recklessly into a brawl at a tavern in Zadenka, on the border between Krakandar and Elasapine, and then picked another fight with a wagon driver on their way through the city of Byamor. On both occasions, Brak had provoked his opponents and picked men bigger and more belligerent than he was, as if he sought a beating. And he fought like a man seeking oblivion.

  But Brak remained silent about whatever tormented him, and Wrayan was wary about asking, certain that if Brak wanted to talk about it, he would do it in his own good time. As they approached the border fortress, however, he felt compelled to say something. Brak may have some dark load weighing on his soul, but Wrayan couldn’t afford to have him unburden his pain in a place like Winternest.

  “Let me do the talking when we get inside,” Wrayan suggested, as they urged their horses up the cobbled road. The air was much thinner up here and although there was little trace of snow by the roadside, there were still sheltered pockets of white scattered across the mountain in the shadows of the thickly forested slopes, and their breath frosted as they spoke.

  “Why? Don’t you think I know how to talk to a customs official?” It was the first thing Brak had said for hours, another reason for Wrayan’s concern. Brak was not normally so taciturn.

  “I think, in light of your present mood, it might be better if you left it t
o me.”

  Brak glanced at Wrayan. “In my present mood?”

  “You have been a bit irritable lately.”

  “You’ve got more balls than a pawnbroker’s sign, Wrayan,” the Halfbreed told him with a shake of his head. “I’m not in any damn mood.”

  “I see,” Wrayan mused. “That fistfight in Byamor was just you letting off steam then, was it? And the one in Zadenka? And then there was that poor woman in the markets in that village we passed through this morning, who you turned into a quivering mass of tears because you didn’t like the look of her apples . . .”

  Brak turned his attention back to the road. “That doesn’t mean I’m in a mood, Wrayan.”

  “Even so, I still think you should let me do the talking,” Wrayan insisted. “Whether you’re in a mood or not.”

  “Fine,” Brak shrugged. “You do the talking.” The Halfbreed fell silent after that and didn’t say another word until they were riding through the gates of Winternest.

  As it turned out, they had little trouble with the customs men. Wrayan was Hythrun, after all, and carrying no goods for trade, and although Brak’s father had been a Medalonian, he spoke Hythrun like a native and knew how to blend in, so nobody paid him much attention. The customs man waved them through with barely a second glance, although he did advise them to join one of the caravans travelling to Fardohnya for safety.

  Widening the pass had made travel between the two countries easier, but it had also opened up the route to bandits, who found the numerous abandoned campsites and the web of tracks that linked them to the pass and to each other, left by the workers employed to build the pass, the perfect environment for highway robbery. The bandits attacked swiftly, savagely and without warning, disappearing back into the mountains as quickly as they came. It was rumoured, the customs man added in a conspiratorial tone, that they weren’t really bandits at all. The popular belief around Winternest was that the bandits were Fardohnyan soldiers in disguise, robbing and pillaging every Hythrun caravan they could lay their hands on for the enrichment of their king. Wrayan didn’t discount the rumour. It sounded like something Hablet would do.