The Shepherd (The Aionach Saga Book 0)

by Staudt, J. C.

  “Well, thanks to you, it looks like we all have a reason to worry again. Vantanible will have our hides for this.” Jakob’s rage came through in his loud whisper. The merchant was so angry, he was shaking. Toler couldn’t help but enjoy it.

  “Why don’t we have a talk with Shapperton?” Toler suggested. “Let’s see if he can be persuaded to keep his mouth shut.”

  “I tried that already. He refused.”

  Toler clicked his tongue. “Surely you of all people should know that everyone can be bought. Your price just wasn’t high enough.”

  “I won’t be subjected to intimidation by way of bribery,” Jakob said, crossing his arms.

  “I don’t see what other option we have. I’ll front some of the hardware myself if I have to. It’s worth it.”

  Calistari sighed as though he’d been punctured. “Very well,” he finally said.

  “I’ll be right back.” Toler strolled into the flatbed enclosure, an enormous protective circle whose center was spotted with freshly-lit campfires. He found Hyll Shapperton sitting alone, about to begin cooking the dinner in his skillet, a cut of salted eel over a bed of wild rice with sweet sague cactus sauce.

  “Mr. Shapperton?”

  The old man gave Toler a wary sidelong glance, but he tipped his hat when he saw who it was.

  “I’d like to speak with you, if you have a moment.”

  “If this hasta do with Mr. Calistari, I already done spoke with him.”

  “I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”

  Shapperton’s lip curled upward. Toler wasn’t sure if he was smiling or scowling, but the man stood and followed him all the same. Outside the circle, Shapperton put his back to the wall of the crate and kept his arms at his sides.

  “Mr. Shapperton, we’ve enjoyed a cordial business relationship for many years,” Calistari said. “One of mutual respect.”

  The coachman looked at Toler as if he’d just heard a bad joke.

  “We’ve spent a lot of time together up in that seat,” said the merchant, gesturing, “and I know you’re a good, dependable man. I’d hate for anything to happen that would tarnish the rapport we’ve built. I would like the second half of this trip to be smooth and painless, and Mr. Glaive and I would like to offer some... encouragement, to ensure that happens.”

  “I done tol’ you I ain’t innerested,” Shapperton said. “Smugglin’ is serious business, and I ain’t gonna pertend I dunno what you been doin’.”

  “Listen, Shapperton,” Toler said. “Whatever Mr. Calistari here offered you, I’m willing to double it.”

  “No thanks.” Shapperton waved a hand and started to walk away.

  Toler caught him by the wrist. “Wait,” he said, but he let go when the old man gave him a questioning look. “Wait, Mr. Shapperton. We’ll quadruple the offer.”

  Calistari was wide-eyed. “Y--yes,” he stammered. “All in gold. I have plenty of it.”

  Shapperton drew in a breath. It was so long before he exhaled that Toler thought the old man’s heart might’ve given out. Jakob looked as if his own heart was on the verge of doing the same.

  The coachman scratched his head. “Lemme see it.”

  Calistari was gone so fast Toler had to suppress the urge to theorize about the type of musculature the merchant was hiding under those rolls. He came back with his strongbox in one hand and a small merchant’s scale in the other, knelt, and began to weigh out a sizeable mound of gold coins and jewelry. Toler fished in his pocket for a few lengths of copper wire and whatever gold he had left, adding the items to the pot. Shapperton gave a furtive glance over his shoulder before he began scooping up his treasures and tucking them away into various pockets.

  “Secret’s safe with me, fellers,” he said, flashing them a snaggletoothed grin. He bowed out and strutted back to the fire, whistling.

  “Now we just have to hope he keeps his word,” Toler said.

  “Keeps his--I should hope so! That good-for-nothing just walked off with a third of my profits!”

  “Still, you can never be too careful. Know what I mean? If I were you, I’d tell Vantanible about the ammo anyway. He’s more likely to be lenient if you tell him the truth. Infernal forbid he finds out some other way. There’s no telling what he’ll do.” Toler didn’t know how it was possible to determine what was going on under those jowls, but he could’ve sworn he saw the merchant’s jaw tighten.

  “I won’t give that good-for-nothing Shapperton the satisfaction. I’ve always known he was crooked. I’ll go to Mr. Vantanible myself as soon as we get there, and I’ll do it before the old man can say a word; he’ll have no leg to stand on.”

  “That would be the smart thing to do,” Toler agreed.

  15

  When they crested the final rise, Toler could see the vast city of Lottimer spread out across the lowlands before him. Gulls flew in lazy circles over everything from humble domiciles to soaring towers, their territory stretching from the port bordering the Horned Gulf in the east to the sands of the open Tideguine to the south. The offshore breezes carried the scent of death and low tide, but the ocean air was cool and refreshing, which made up for the smell.

  Nichel Vantanible himself was there to greet them, his smile broad as he waved the caravan through. He pulled his horse alongside Toler’s and shook his hand.

  “Enjoying your stay so far?” Toler asked.

  “Trading has been good,” Vantanible said. “We’ll have lots to bring home with us. I trust the first half of the route has gone well?”

  “Not as well as I hoped,” Toler said, giving him a somber smile. “We lost some good men along the way.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t one of them,” Vantanible said. “Lenn has been making quite a fuss over you.”

  Toler gulped. “Has she?”

  “She’s very fond of you, Toler. She’s convinced me that you’re a good man.”

  “I try,” Toler said, unsure whether that was true.

  “Prove her right.”

  It was all Vantanible needed to say. Toler knew he was being given a chance - but only one. He decided then and there that he’d give up smuggling and go straight. Just as soon as this this job was done.

  Calistari gave a frantic wave from the coachman’s seat, calling out as his flatbed passed. “Mr. Vantanible, I must speak with you at once.”

  Hyll Shapperton sat beside Jakob, calm and silent. When Toler’s eyes met his, he gave the shepherd a warm nod. There was no smile on the old coachman’s face, but his eyes said enough.

  16

  “Jakob, you didn’t register any ammunition,” said Nichel Vantanible, flipping through the ledger. “Bullets embedded in the heads of your toys, you say?”

  “The dolls, sir, yes. The dolls. Come and see for yourself.” Calistari tore open the crate door and snatched up one of the dolls. Its head wobbled in place, light and fluffy. He turned it over in his hands. The stitch in the back of its head was split open, the stuffing peeking through the brown burlap like a cloud trapped between two mountains. Jakob dug his fingers inside and ripped out the stuffing. Confused, he picked up another doll and spun it around. He pressed the head flat, feeling for hard objects inside. When he found none, his face took on a horrified look. He tossed the doll aside, snatching up a third, then a fourth, turning each around and yanking out its insides. He whirled to face Nichel Vantanible, his face white.

  “I… I don’t understand… There’s stuffing in all of them. Nothing but stuffing.”

  “You’ve just admitted to transporting smuggled goods, yet now those goods are nowhere to be found? Explain yourself, Jakob.”

  “I… the shepherds. They found it. They know.” Calistari waved a chubby finger at Toler.

  Toler shrugged. “I don’t know why he thinks we had anything to do with it.”

  Calistari was past furious. “Liar. We made a deal.”

  “Whoever you made a deal with, it’s pretty clear you’ve already done away with the evidence,” Toler said.<
br />
  “You’re lying. They were here. You saw them as well as I did.”

  “Is this true?” Vantanible asked.

  “We found the bullets in his crate, yeah,” said Blatcher. “It was a routine search. I told him to turn himself in when we got here. He promised he wouldn’t sell them, so it looks like he just found a way to get rid of them while we weren’t looking. That lock is his, and he didn’t give me a key, so no besides him has been in that crate since we found the ammo.”

  Toler found Vantanible studying him. The man’s face took on a questioning glimmer. Toler responded with a shrug.

  “Jakob,” Vantanible said, nodding to his bodyguards. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

  “He--he… he said…” Calistari’s enormous frame rose and fell with each labored breath. The color drained from the fat merchant’s light-burned face as Vantanible’s men hauled him away.

  “Enjoy your time in Lottimer,” Nichel Vantanible told the shepherds. “You’ll be escorting Calistari’s crate back to Unterberg, only it’ll be empty this time. And you, Toler. Make sure you get yourself home safe. My daughter misses you.”

  With that, Nichel Vantanible followed his men out of the warehouse.

  Blatcher gave Toler a bewildered look.

  The look Andover Mays gave him was quite different. “His daughter misses you, Glaive. We better get you home safe.”

  Toler felt the blood rush to his cheeks. Everything had turned out so well, he almost didn’t mind the embarrassment.

  17

  The night was pleasant and warm, the streets of Tristol alive with apathy, crowded with the bodies of the poor and hopeless. Smoke billowed from barrel fires where alleys stretched into the dark. Shadows leaned against weather-stained brick frontages, figures hunched in languor, embers glowing at the end of their acrid narcotic wraps. Wind whipped through the streets, kicking up miniature tornadoes of dust and garbage.

  Hyll Shapperton strolled along, as casual as someone without a destination might be. He reached the corner, where a boarded-up fuel station sat decaying, and turned west. A set of shops ran along the next street, spray painted murals with broken doors and shattered windows, their insides glutted with debris. At the far end of the intersection, Shapperton watched the three shepherds enter one of the six gates that led into Tristol Village Square.

  He followed them inside, lit a cigarette, and tucked himself against the wall of the courtyard to watch them stagger toward the warehouse. The last shepherd looked back and nodded at him before they went inside. Shapperton began to count out five minutes.

  The hinges creaked like tortured things as he slipped into the dealer shed a few minutes later. He made his way along the rows within the cavernous expanse until he reached Calistari’s crate. The door was wide open, the lock pried off and broken on the floor. No one was around, just as Toler had promised. Shapperton glanced up at the coachman’s seat, where he’d spent so many sore hours on the hard bench, driving the horses through heat-riddled lands.

  His was the most thankless job in the caravan, made even more so by the fact that he worked for a cruel man like Jakob Calistari. He’d slaved away his entire life to earn enough to get by on, and to do it he’d spent months at a time away from his family. He was getting too old to work, and the expenses hadn’t stopped coming. Since no one else was going to thank him for all his years of service, the shepherd had arranged to thank him at Calistari’s expense. Toler had gotten one of the merchant’s seamstresses involved using nothing more than a bit of his charm and a two-foot of copper. After that, it was only a matter of setting the merchant up to take the fall for them.

  Shapperton drew his knife and retrieved the leather bag from within his coat, then set to work, knowing his time was limited. The stitches came undone easily, and he took care to replace each doll face-up in the same place he’d found it.

  Standing in the doorway, his bag full and jingling with product excised and ready for delivery, the coachman glanced down at the dolls. An ocean of unseeing faces smiled up at him. They would never speak a word of his passing, their brains removed for his benefit.

  The ammunition would bring in a tidy sum. With it, he and the shepherd would ruin Jakob Calistari. Shapperton almost flicked his cigarette butt on the ground out of habit, but he refrained, remembering that the shepherds would be back with the merchant any minute now.

  That was the problem with merchants. Always so concerned with getting the best of people that they never saw the bigger picture. What Calistari had amassed in wealth, he lacked in vision. What he was inspired to keep out of greed, he would lose because of that same greed.

  As for Toler Glaive, Shapperton thought him to be a man of the best kind - the kind who watched over the people who needed it. Toler Glaive knew what it meant to be a shepherd.

  The old coachman left the same way he’d come in - smiling.