by David Ekrut
Feffer walked toward the open gateway still glancing behind to see some sign of Wilton. He wasn’t sure if he was more irritated at being dismissed by his brother or that no one had taught him how to disappear into thin air.
“Yup,” Feffer decided. “I am going to have to find out where he learned that trick.”
Gurndol met him at the gate but looked toward the empty alley. “Was that Wilton?
“It was.”
“Did he tell you what happened?” Gurndol said.
“What do you mean?”
“Curse it all!” Gurndol said. “He did not tell you, then.”
“For the love of Life,” Feffer said. “Tell me about what?”
“Wilton’s entire squad of thief-catchers was given over for dead,” Gurndol said. “The word is that they were captured by something called dark savants. Or was it black savants? Some sort of savant. Either way, they are all Death witches that use the Elements in battle. He was the sole survivor. Somehow, he escaped them in the night and stowed away on the enemy vessel that brought him to the coast of Justice. Rumor is, Wilton tracked them here.”
“No,” Feffer said. “Wilton said nothing of the sort. Don’t go trusting idle gossip.”
“I heard Sir Gibbins talking to Lord Lifesong about it. That Chai Tu Naruo named Tharu was there as well. They discussed while you traversed the gauntlet. Well done by the way.”
“He didn’t say anything.” Feffer shook his head, skeptically.
Gurndol clasped his shoulder. “You know I wouldn’t lie to you about your brother. I am not the boy I was a year before.”
“I know,” Feffer said. “I just … I don’t want to believe it. But he was acting off.”
His friend nodded. “Let us get an ale to celebrate our early furlough. All the guys want to buy you a drink. You get to save your coin tonight.”
“The abyss knows I could use a drink. Or ten.” Feffer’s heart was not in his smile. “I did save you a bit of running drills.”
“You did,” Gurndol started toward the barracks. “That is why the first round is on me.”
“I better sort my pack before we hit the pub.”
“Are you going on a trip, then?” Gurndol said.
“I’m going back home for the Solstice Festival,” Feffer said. “Want to come?”
“My parents would have me locked in the stocks if I did not make an appearance at their Festival here. Besides, I wouldn’t give up a few stolen kisses from a pretty face for a couple toothless farm girls.”
Feffer laughed, “Better a toothless farm girl than a nose-stuck city girl. You’d be surprised what a farm girl will do in a darkened hayloft. And we actually touch each other when we dance.”
“We touch hands,” Gurndol said in defense. “Still, my parents would not allow it. Perhaps, next time.”
“Alright,” Feffer said. “Well, into the night then.”
“Aye,” Gurndol cheered, “into the night!”
The night was darkest in the city of Justice for a man lurking through the Commons. Few lamp posts lit the streets, but none carried into the alleys. Unlike other parts of the city, no footpaths lined the sides of the cobblestone. Even the road itself was narrower in the Commons and less maintained than in the upper city of the Nobles’ and Merchant’s District.
The buildings were built atop one another in large blocks of various earthen stones. The slate tiles of most buildings needed major repairs. Between most blocks, the alleyways provided enough space for one person to squeeze through, but rubbish and rotting crates littered the widest paths. Some of the homes or shops had gardens, but few had fences to shelter plants. In the upper city, the footpaths, gardens, and alleyways would be gated, but here Wilton could for the most part walk uninhibited.
Despite the fact that the majority of thefts and murders occurred in this section of the city, this gave him a sense of freedom. For reasons he couldn’t say, he felt safer here than amongst the other soldiers.
Perhaps, it was the integrity that these streets maintained. The boarded up and barred windows warned off intruders. No welcome wreaths hung on doors, but the shadows held no secrets here. Predators lurked in them. The darkness held an unspoken truth known by all living here.
Given the chance, I will devour you.
But few were those that would descend upon a man with raqii dath, the two curved blades on Wilton’s belt. He gave the hilts a familiar stroke. Wilton hated them. But he also knew he would not part with them.
“I’ll die wielding them.” He could hear the challenge in his voice as the words echoed back to him.
Fool, he thought. You don’t need a fight this night.
He strode passed the Ravenous Fray, a tavern known for its bawdy crowd. Light made dull from pipe smoke spilled from the windows and open door. A dozen men and half as many women made a circle around two men at their center. Sounds of wet slaps resounded over the cheers of the crowd. When he got his first good view of the fighters, Wilton shook his head.
The smoke had a sour smell, like burning ale. But, Wilton didn’t need the odd smell to tell him the clouds surrounding the gathering hadn’t come from a legal leaf like sweetweed. Only men japed-up on dragon tail or wyvern juice, dueled with rotten fish in place of swords. Though he gave the gathering a wide berth, Wilton studied the people as he walked by.
The women wore dresses cut to reveal enough bosom and leg to wonder why they bothered to wear anything at all. Most of the men wore tattered tunics, stained from wear. A few wore roped sandals and trousers, tight about the waist and ankles but baggy around the legs. Those men wore no shirts and had ink tattooed into their flesh. The tattoos varied from scripts in a foreign tongue on arms, chests, and backs to swords or beasts of other lands.
Sailors, Wilton guessed.
One of the dueling men had the tattoo of a black, serpentine creature with outstretched wings. Its long tail wrapped around the man’s right arm, and the head rested on the left shoulder, blowing a spout of red-orange fire, down his arm.
A dragon.
Few decent men would have openly worn a dragon. No decent man would have permanently scribed a dragon into his flesh. Then again, no decent man would have smoked dragon tail or drunk wyvern juice.
Wilton almost laughed. As if he was an authority on decency. He may not wear a sign welcoming the Awakening to destroy the world, but he could no longer consider himself decent. He passed the japed-up brawl, watching the crowd from his periphery.
Upon seeing Wilton and his raqii dath, a couple of the men hid their pipes. One man emptied his pipe on the heel of his boot.
Wilton did not slow. He strode past them into the comfort of the dark alley next to the Ravenous Fray. His eyes took only a moment to readjust. The light from the tavern had been too deluded to damage his night vision.
He moved down the alley to the road, emerging onto a street with no lanterns that pitched him into utter darkness. On light feet, he ran in the center of the road, moving east. He entered another random alley, crossed to another road and turned north. He never stopped moving as he crossed dark roads and darker alleys, until he came to a road with a lamp.
Rather than moving up the road, he crossed the street to another alley.
Movement at the end of the path pulled his attention. A large man carrying a cudgel lumbered toward Wilton. At this distance, he couldn’t determine if his size was due to muscle or portly girth. His overcloak made it impossible to determine. Either way, the width of the alley would be just large enough for Wilton to squeeze by the man. Whether fat or muscle padded his cloak, close quarters would allow the man to use his size to the advantage.
Glancing behind him, Wilton saw he had already halfway committed to the path. If this was an ambush, there would be someone blocking his retreat. The roof was too high to make efficient use of arrows, but not so high as to prevent droppin
g from rope into the alley. If it was not an ambush, then a retreat would place his sole attacker at his back.
Through him, then.
Wilton stopped walking and shifted the bulk of his weight to his rear leg, while placing his right hand across his chest. His left forearm rested on the hilt of his left blade. From this position, he could quickly draw both blades and assume any form.
The man still advanced.
“I do not wish to harm you,” Wilton said, “but if you take another step, it will be your last.”
The man stopped, but his head made a subtle shift toward the roofline.
Not alone, then.
Wilton’s swords marked him as a thief-catcher. Not speaking the language of the Children of Nature, he wasn’t sure what the words meant, but the blades were called raqii dath and were the style of the Chai Tu Naruo. When not at war, the twin blades of his profession would prowl these streets in search of known criminals. Any person who carried the blades had an understood reputation. Even the most foolish of criminals would bring larger numbers for an ambush.
Part of training as a thief-catcher had forced Wilton to prowl the streets before he left for the northern isles. He had likely made a few enemies during that short time, but being his first night back and the nature of his unofficial mission, he doubted anyone had planned this ambush for him.
Besides, he would have noticed any movement trailing him for an ambush.
He must have wandered into a known criminal’s domain. Which meant if there was one man on the roof, there were half a dozen. Probably waiting for a victim, rather than planning for one.
“And tell your friends on the roof,” Wilton said, “the same goes for them. Any man who moves against me will draw his last breath. Last warning, drop your weapon and move aside. I am not here to make examples, but I will do what I must.”
The man stood watching the roofline. After a moment, he dropped his cudgel and stepped to the right side. It was a muscular form hidden by his overcoat. The loose fit made him appear less honed at a distance, but seeing him up close made his size clear. The man was a bruiser.
He did not make eye contact with Wilton, and he kept glancing at the roofline, likely waiting for a change in orders. Wilton stopped next to the man and thumbed the blade on the right side.
“Look at me,” Wilton said.
It took obvious effort for him to look away from the roof, but his eyes were wide and alert as they regarded Wilton.
“You realize that had you attacked me, you would have been the first to die?”
The man gave him a flat gaze. His left hand was held out of Wilton’s sight, behind the bruiser’s leg. If the man gave the slightest movement with that shoulder, Wilton was ready to intercept any hidden dagger with his right blade. He would slice the man at his wrist with an upward blow and the edge of his blades would continue upward to the man’s throat.
“I was raised in a small, farming community,” Wilton said. “One summer, a wolf appeared from the forest nearby. It was killing sheep and cattle, and it had to be stopped. One of the farmers, a man named Drenen, devised a plan for catching the wolf. He used a rabbit for bait. In the end, they captured and killed the wolf.”
Wilton leaned closer to the man and lowered his voice, “But, do you know what happened to the rabbit?”
The man shook his head. Wilton stared at the man for several seconds. He began to shift back and forth, and the bruiser didn’t blink or look a way. Sweat began to appear on the man’s forehead.
Wilton spoke in a soft voice. “Before springing the trap, the wolf bit the rabbit’s neck with such force that its neck snapped, nearly severing the head. I was young, but I learned a valuable lesson that day.” Wilton glanced at the man’s concealed hand and back to the bruiser’s eyes. “The proper bait may catch a predator, but the bait is unlikely to survive. In the end the wolf went down, but how much do you think that mattered to the rabbit?”
Wilton thumbed the hilts of his raqii dath, pulling the bruiser’s gaze to the blades. His eyes widened and the sound of metal clanked onto the cobblestones at the man’s feet. A small dagger glinted in the moonlight. The bruiser held his hands up in a show of surrender and glanced to the roofline, giving a slight shake of his head.
Stepping up next to the man, Wilton said, “Perhaps you would be wise to change your profession.”
He walked by, watching for movement in his periphery. The man stood rigid, keeping his hands out in front of him. As Wilton exited the alley, he heard heavy footsteps running in the opposite direction.
Wilton continued his course, moving north and east, but for several streets, most of his attention watched for signs of pursuit. When none came, he allowed himself to relax somewhat. As much as anyone should relax in the Commons at night.
Wilton felt a half-smile make its way to his lips.
The story he had told the man was true. His father had purchased the wolf skin from Drenen Escari. It was still in front of the hearth at his father’s home. When they were young, he and Feffer would sit on the rug by the fire and listen to their father’s stories.
The smile faded.
His fondest memories as a child had been sitting on the carcass of a predator. It seemed like there could be a lesson in all of this somewhere. As he reached the darkened building in the farthest corner of Justice, it came to him.
Sometimes it was better to be seen as a rabbit than a wolf, but whatever it took, don’t be someone’s bait.
Chapter 14
Haven
The light pounded against Feffer’s eyes and face with each step of his horse. Every clank of the sword at his side felt like a hammer on an anvil inside his skull. What coin he had saved in drink the previous night, he had spent on the horse. His head had been too sore to barter a better deal with the thieving stableman. But the dapple mare was his.
He would have to give her a proper name.
Just not today …
Thinking, moving, or breathing was painful. But worst of all was the cursed light.
He squinted against the noonday sun. Wilton was just ten paces ahead of him, heading east toward Benedict. It took several days by horse, but it was better than walking it for a tenday. Feffer covered his eyes, leaving just a slit in his fingers. He looked up and around for Elwin and shivered when he thought about what his friend was doing.
But, Elwin was not in sight.
“I am sure he can see us,” Wilton said.
His brother had stopped. Feffer only realized it because he had spoken. Had Wilton not said anything, he would have passed him.
Feffer pulled on the bridle to stop his mare and closed his eyes.
“Are you alright, Feffer?”
Feffer groaned, “I am never drinking again.”
Wilton’s laugh didn’t seem quite so forced. “I have made that claim a time or two. Well, hop down. Let’s break for lunch.”
Feffer leaned forward on his mare and slid from the saddle, still hanging onto the pommel. That and the saddle bags had cost almost as much as the horse. He really did get robbed.
Wilton guided his horse to a small tree just off the road. Feffer followed him and tied his mare off next to Wilton’s. His horse was mostly white with speckles of black around the ears, while Wilton’s was mostly black with speckles of white on the nose.
“Here,” Wilton offered him a waterskin. “This will make you feel better.”
Feffer took the skin and eased down to the grass next to the road. He took several large gulps before noticing Elwin several dozen paces above him. He choked off a drink and stared at his friend. Elwin’s head faced the ground and his eyes squinted with his hands held tightly to his sides. It took Feffer a moment to realize Elwin wasn’t slowing down.
“What in the abyss?” Feffer said.
A rush of air gushed around Feffer as he rolled to the side. A pace ab
ove him, Elwin hovered in the air with a full-toothed smile painted on his face. Feffer felt a steady breeze as white embers of light appeared and disappeared around Elwin.
Feffer forced the awe from his face and threw the waterskin at him. “What in the abyss is wrong with you?”
Elwin caught the waterskin, laughing. “I was just having a bit of fun. Now we’re even.”
“For what?”
He eased to the ground as if by some invisible hand. The breeze and lights vanished when Elwin’s feet were firmly planted on the ground. Feffer suppressed a shiver.
“If I remember correctly,” Elwin said, “I owed you from dumping water on my head.”
The excitement was passed, but Feffer’s heart still raced. Each beat felt like a hammer branding the inside of his skull. He thought he might lose his stomach.
“That was a year ago,” he said as he massaged his temples. “And, I don’t do that sort of thing anymore.”
“Well then, I guess we are even for good.”
“Eat up,” Wilton said, then gave them both some dried bread.
Elwin and Wilton sat across from Feffer and began to munch on their lunch.
Feffer tongued the dried bread until he could swallow it. He closed his eyes and pretended the dried crumbs to be Mrs. Escari’s famous pastries. Maybe she would have some already baking.
“Feffer,” Wilton said, “do you still have the lock picks I gave you?”
Feffer opened his eyes. The sun was just as bright as it had been. He squinted at Wilton. “Hidden in my belt compartment,” Feffer touched his belt, “like you suggested. I have been practicing as often as I can with the heavy lock you gave me, too. I think I could move on to shackles next.”
“Good,” Wilton said. “You never know when that skill will be useful. It might save your life some day.”
Finally, the opening Feffer had been waiting for. He just wished that his brain didn’t throb.