He dodged aside just as the sound of breaking glass and the loud thwack of a crossbow bolt slammed into the table where he had been standing.
Glancing up carefully from the floor, he looked out the broken window and saw—nothing.
Whomever had attempted to take his life was cautious, not glancing over the lip of roof at all. They might have thought they had succeeded and were slipping away, or knew they had failed and were rushing away. He guessed the later.
Throwing his mail over his bare chest, he grabbed his sword belt and raced down the stairs. The old man was spreading breakfast out on the bar and shouted something unintelligible as the Sellsword flew out the door.
There was a pervading stink of smoke in the air, but he paid little attention as he watched the rooftops and side streets along the backside of The King’s Crown. Nothing. There were few folk out and about this morning, and he saw no sign of a man with a crossbow or other weapon anywhere. Running along the street, he hoped to catch up to someone hurrying out of a door with a guilty look upon their face, but there was no one.
Satisfied the assassin was gone, he went to the mill across the street from The King’s Crown to see what clues he could find.
None of the mill workers had noticed anyone out of the ordinary and all swore they had not been on the roof. Heading up, he saw traces of dust where the assassin had been, but he was good, there were no other signs of his identity. No tell-tale marks of a man lying in wait remained, no pipe weed, tobacc, or other accruements. The man had to be a professional.
Trudging back into The King’s Crown, he slumped down on a stool at the bar.
“Now, you’re ready for breakfast?” asked the old man.
“Aye, I could eat a whole bird if you have one.”
“Just the eggs.” He tossed the plate in front of the Sellsword. “What was that this morning?”
“An assassin tried to shoot me through the window. It’s broken and you’ve a hole in the table.”
The old man slapped the bar, shouting, “See! I told you this was a bad place and that you should leave. I can’t protect you and now the wizards are suspicious enough they are trying to kill you. They’ll succeed one of these nights.”
“Glad to see I have your confidence, old man.”
“Oh, I forgot, you’re one man, and they are only hundreds.”
The Sellsword took a bite, then said, “I arranged to take care of a lot of them last night.”
The old man nodded his head vigorously with a sarcastic grin. “Uh huh, and they arranged to take care of you this morning too.”
“It may or may not be related,” he said, taking another bite.
“Of course, it’s related. For a great warrior, you’re as big a fool as any I’ve ever met. Overconfidence is a sin.”
A ragged looking man peeked through the drapes behind the bar. A young boy of perhaps four peered through below him and then another dark-haired boy near seven years of age.
“Who is that?” asked the Sellsword.
“Don’t worry about them,” said the old man, as he ushered them back through the curtains into the kitchen. He came back a moment later. “Don’t tell anyone you saw them, please.”
“Why? I don’t care if you feed beggars.”
“He is a disgraced iron merchant who lost his wife. It’s best if people think he is dead.”
“Best for who?” taunted the Sellsword.
“Those children for one and his poor wife.”
“Where is she?”
The old man frowned. “Anaias holds her in thrall for Brantus, the miner’s guild master. She is his unwilling concubine now and that poor wretch behind me in the kitchen has to live with it. Anaias had men try to kill him several times, and he finally succeeded in making them think they had done it. There was funeral just the other day.”
“If she were freed. Is there a place they could hide?”
The old man leaned back, sucked air through his remaining teeth, and whistled. “You are crazy. Brantus would have the city turned upside down to find her. He is obsessed with her. There is nowhere they could hide in Aldreth.” He shook his head.
“Could they leave? Maybe if someone fronted money for a horse and carriage? And had an old man keep it ready for them tonight?”
“I take it back. You’re not crazy. You are stark raving mad.”
“Just do it and leave the rest to me. There won’t be any pursuit of them out of the city. I’ll see to that.”
The old man rubbed at his stubbly chin a long moment, pondering. “I’ll get what I can ready. If you think you can really deliver her. But I’m telling you, they won’t just kill you, they’ll torture you a long time for this insult. They’ll get creative and make it last days.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Uh oh,” gasped the old man, as his eyes went wide glancing at the door.
“What?”
“That human pig-weasel is coming,” whispered the old man.
“Who?” asked the Sellsword as he shoveled the last bite into his mouth.
“Ah, Sellsword. Glad to see you’re alive. I was asked to come around and find out if you had survived the night,” said Captain Bearcoat. He sounded genuinely pleased and sat himself beside the Sellsword at the bar. “You have any for me?” he asked the old man, who just grunted and disappeared.
“Who wants to know?”
“Master Varlak, asked me to look into it. He was concerned for your well-being and then, as your charmed luck would have it, Master Anaias inquired the same to some of my underlings.”
“It’s good to be wanted,” answered the Sellsword, quaffing a tankard of mead.
“Isn’t it,” said Bearcoat, his voice growing ominous. “Trouble is, I have a lot of dead bodies to clean up now on Snow Street, and every informant I’ve got is telling me you’re the one fanning the flames of this war and that’s not good for business. In fact, it’s not good for anybody.”
“You’ve been misinformed then.”
“All right, let’s just say you had nothing to do with what happened on Snow Street right across from the closed mine shaft. Would you know anything about a pack of dead cultists in an abandoned warehouse across the street from Anaias’s stronghold?”
“No. Should I?”
Bearcoat scrutinized the Sellsword. “Death seems to follow you wherever you go, and the Marquis wants me to remind you to keep things in your scabbard. He doesn’t want the town going to hell and I don’t either.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“You’re still claiming you don’t know anything about dead cultists? They were sliced up real good, several missing arms and heads. I didn’t see any blood except that left by the dead men. That tells me some one real good with a blade did that work, and I don’t have to think too hard on who fits that bill of sale.”
The Sellsword raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his mead before saying, “You really are a top-notch paladin. No blood except that of the dead men? You work on that discovery all night?”
Bearcoat’s face reddened and his voice cracked as he snarled, “Wise up. You think I’ll take your lip?” He jammed a pudgy finger into the Sellsword’s breast to drive his point home all the more.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Yeah, you better think about it or at least lay low for a little while, or better yet—just leave. I won’t have this conversation with you again.” He stood up and waddled toward the door.
“Is that you asking, or the Marquis?”
“As far as you’re concerned, it’s the same thing,” answered Bearcoat, before he disappeared through the doors.
“See what kind of trouble you are bringing down on my house? Assassins and now that pig!” said the exasperated old man, slamming his hand down on the bar.
“Just means if they’re sending him out to call me off they’re getting worried. Sides, I think he was lying. He’s getting pressure from his handlers to take care of things and he’s graspin
g for straws. He’s got nothing.”
The old man gestured at his own crotch. “I wish I had balls as big as yours, but unfortunately I’ve got too much sense for that.” The Sellsword gave him a questioning look. “Look. There are bold bucks and old bucks, but there aren’t any bold, old bucks.”
“I’ll remember that, old man.”
***
The Sellsword made his way toward what he now thought of as the Duchess’s villa. No reason to call it the Duke’s anymore. Someone had let the drawbridge front down, but it didn’t appear that any harm had been done to the place in his absence.
He banged the big knocker and shortly Nicene answered the door.
“So, you’re still alive,” she said, somewhat harshly.
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“We were worried about you,” came the rusty, whispered drawl of Anaias. “We didn’t know if you got killed last night. Lotta things happened, awful fast.”
“You mean like Myrvin trying to stab me in the back?”
“Hey!” shouted Anaias, his hoarse whisper almost as loud as anyone else’s regular level of speech. “I did my best to protect you and had my men pin-cushion the son of a bitch for that.”
“Never mind they almost got me in the process,” retorted the Sellsword.
“You know as well as I do this is a tough business. You’re the Sellsword, there are always risks in your line of work.”
“True enough. What brought you here?”
“She invited me.”
Nicene looked embarrassed. She played with her hands while trying to answer, looking nervously back and forth between the men while she spoke. “I did. I was afraid after you left and I was worried. I had no protection and felt vulnerable being in this big house all alone. So, I asked for him to meet me in hopes we could work things out. Let bygones be bygones.”
“And you’re not sore about anything she said that your homunculus told you?”
“Should I be?” whispered Anaias.
“Of course not. I wasn’t myself when I spoke. I was in shock over Owain’s death.”
Anaias poured himself a goblet of wine and sipped it while casting a strange glance over Nicene. His eyes were quick, and he was alert for trouble. It was plain that he wasn’t ready to trust her yet, but the Sellsword knew he must have a good reason for accepting her invitation.
“So, what happened last night? After you were dragged into that mineshaft?”
“Varlak’s men were bait, there were only a couple of them in there,” answered the Sellsword. “I’ll bet you have more to tell than I.”
He grunted at that as he finished his wine. “They got the drop on us good. I lost a few dozen men right off the bat. But they were stupid too. We fired those buildings they were on top of. I think we burned more of them than they killed of us.”
The Sellsword nodded. That explained the abundance of smoke still lingering in the morning. “How many men did you lose?”
Anaias frowned. “Half. But I suspect I took more of Varlak’s.”
Nicene nursed her own goblet of wine. “Tell us how you managed to get away from those men in the mine.”
The Sellsword laughed. “There were only a few. They were no trouble for me. But since your men were shooting at me, I didn’t come out for some time. I slipped away back to my bed at The King’s Crown.”
“I knew it!” cried Nicene. “But why didn’t you come here?”
“I needed sleep, woman.”
She frowned again.
Anaias probed further. “Varlak was lying in wait and you said yourself that the men in the mine were bait. But how did they know I would be coming? Who manipulated that?” It was an accusatory tone and his dark eyes bore deep into the Sellsword’s, watching for any hint of deceit.
“I brought you the best information I had. If Varlak was clever enough to fool us both, I suppose that’s what he did. What about those other men that were slaughtered right outside your very door?”
“I don’t know,” he grated hoarsely. “It still doesn’t make sense that not a single man survived.”
“Perhaps some did but they were the enemy’s men?” suggested Nicene.
He grunted. “Those pompous adepts have no skill with blades and I don’t think they would have left any evidence. They would have burned the place down rather than left it for the dogs or me to find.”
“What if it was Varlak too?” suggested the Sellsword.
“I wondered that very thing. It had to be someone with an agenda, but I’m disturbed that the cultists were camped on my veritable doorstep to work their magics and assault my peace. It had to be a malicious spell working against me. I should thank the man that killed them,” he said, hopefully.
The Sellsword shrugged.
“It might have been worse, but someone I asked to come finally arrived.”
The Sellsword gave him a questioning look, but didn’t speak the words.
“The man on the roof?” asked Nicene.
Anaias nodded.
Now the Sellsword was curious enough to ask. “Who is that?”
“Uriel the Wasp.”
The Sellsword snorted.
“You know him?” Anaias asked.
“Only of him. Didn’t he kill the Queen of Timor and her brood?”
Anaias cracked a smile. “Well, he couldn’t very well have the brats growing up to contest the throne of his client, could he?”
“Slaying babes in arms is low, even from a Sellsword’s perspective.”
“Good to know you have principles somewhere in that bloody exterior.”
Footsteps came loping down the stairs. Then a lean, dark-haired man with a sharp, cruel face appeared at the edge of the foyer. His hand glided toward his hilt as he looked at the Sellsword.
Anaias addressed him over his shoulder. “Uriel, this is the Sellsword I was telling you about. Do you know him?”
Uriel’s piercing gaze looked the Sellsword up and down. “Have we served together? Somewhere foreign? Maybe in Dar-Alhambra?”
“I have never served with you. Maybe against you somewhere,” said the Sellsword, with a predatory grin.
Uriel grunted. “You look familiar.”
Nicene interrupted, “But we are all friends here now, correct?”
“Yes,” whispered Anaias. “We are. Sellsword, I wish for you to stop stalling and join my retinue so we can make a final push against Varlak. You want to be on the winning side.”
“It wouldn’t be right to not let Varlak make a competing offer. I’ll be in touch.” He turned to leave.
Uriel sneered. “You think I’ll let you walk out of here after rebuking Master Anaias?”
The Sellsword looked back. “Yes.” His steely gaze swept back over Nicene and the seated Anaias.
Uriel tensed awaiting orders.
Anaias clapped his hands. “Enough. I’m not about to let the two best swords in Aldreth fight it out in Duchess Nicene’s parlor. Save it for Varlak.”
The Sellsword looked to each man and said, “Maybe.” Then he went out the door.
Nicene chased after him. “Where are you going?”
“Out, I don’t care for the company.”
“What’s the matter? Is it Anaias? Is it me?”
“Looks like you’ve already taken a side. You don’t need my help anymore.”
She stopped trailing after him. “Don’t pout about it. I didn’t know what had happened to you. You left on those roof cables and I never saw you again. I thought you might have been killed or hurt badly at the least. Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“Don’t lie, you’re pouting.”
He wheeled angrily. “I said I didn’t care for your company and I meant it.”
“The assassin? Anaias said he was the best. Does that threaten your ego?” she accused with her hands on her hips.
“I don’t like child killers.”
She clamped her jaw together in distaste. “I didn’t know abou
t any of that until you said something. I suppose such folk always find their way to a town like this.”
“Did you tell them I went out over the roof?”
“No, I didn’t. Uriel just said he was very interested in getting a bird’s eye view of the city. He was up there for some time. But I didn’t tell them anything, I swear it by Innara’s golden crown.”
“Don’t swear by what you don’t own.”
“I promise then.”
“Someone tried to kill me this morning when I awoke at The King’s Crown. They shot at me through the window. It was a professional job. I think it must have been Uriel.”
“Are you sure? Anaias wants you to fight for him. He doesn’t want you dead.”
“I’m not too sure of that. I think he would rather I was gone than take the chance I’ll help Varlak.”
“Well then stop baiting him about who you will work for and join him. I know he will pay you well.”
The Sellsword looked back at the villa. “Do you know what you’re doing? Inviting him to be a part of things with you?”
“I’m just doing the best I can under the circumstances. I have money, but no one to help me. I need men with swords. I need you.”
Anaias and Uriel came out the door and paused, watching the pair.
The Sellsword gave a long hard stare and finally said, “Anaias. I accept your offer. You have my blade.”
Anaias beamed. “Good, I knew you’d come around. Get your things out of that hovel you’re in over on King’s street and come back to my place. We’ll make plans for finishing Varlak.” He walked away with Uriel beside him. The assassin looked over his shoulder at them a few times a cruel smirk on his face.
When they were well out of earshot, the Sellsword said, “I never told him where I was staying.”
Nicene shook her head. “I’m sure he just meant on The King’s Crown is on the east side of the street.”
“No.”
“So, you won’t go to the tower? What will you do?”
“I decided a moment ago, that I will go. I have unfinished business there.”
“That makes me worried. What business?”
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