Maybe there was a way that he could fix the other sword to his back along with the one he already had sheathed.
Fes took a moment to work on the sword, getting into a position where he could manage both blades, and ended up having them crossed behind his back, making it so that they would both be easily accessible. It was an awkward feeling, but he could reach over either shoulder and grab for a sword, which left him somewhat reassured. When he was done, he slipped his cloak back over his shoulders. It would look awkward, but hopefully it didn’t draw too much attention.
Heading toward the capital took several days. During that time, Fes continued to try to reach for his Deshazl connection, focusing on the power within him, trying to reach it, but wasn’t able to access it quite as easily as he wanted. There had to be some trick that he could have learned had he only stayed with Arudis, but that would have taken him away from what he needed to do. Even this, traveling to the capital to see if he could find help, felt as if he were taking too much of a detour.
It was midday when he first saw the city stretched out in the distance.
Anuhr was enormous. The outer sections of the city were smaller homes, most of them with space between, more than were found more centrally within the city. As he made his way into the city, he began to pass parts of it that were smashed together, the buildings growing off each other, one after another.
The sounds of the city welcomed him, familiar sounds that he had known during his time in the city. He had a particular appreciation for those sounds. There was the welcome call of voices echoing along the streets. Some came from street vendors selling their wares, others came from people shouting at others, and still others came from children laughing as they chased each other. There was a sense of vibrancy and life. Everything here in the capital was alive.
Towering above everything else rose the palace. It was an enormous structure set in the middle of the city, and Fes had been there often enough that he knew his way around it. With this visit to the city, he would have to stay clear of it. He didn’t want to head there and draw the attention of the Dragon Guard—or the emperor. All he wanted was to see if he could find some way of reaching Alison and the rebellion.
It was possible that there wouldn’t be any way to reach them. Had he missed out on that opportunity? When he had last left the rebellion, he had done so by deceiving them, and he wasn’t sure whether or not Alison would welcome him back. It was probable that she wouldn’t, but if nothing else, he wanted to use them the way they had used him.
Then again, he wasn’t even sure that he would find any word of her in the capital.
But then, before she’d gone looking for the dragon heart, she had always been here. This was the heart of the empire, and there was no reason for her to leave, especially if she wanted information.
Something pressed into his back. “Fes. I didn’t think I’d see you back here.”
“Carter,” he said, twisting around quickly and grabbing her wrist. Carter was a short but powerful woman. Compact and muscular, time spent on the streets had made her fearless, but it was her skill with weapons—and her leadership—that had solidified her place. She—like Fes—had been one of Azithan’s favored collectors. “I didn’t expect to find you back here, either.”
Carter eyed him for a long moment. Sunlight reflected off her fiery red hair. “I’m not the one who betrayed the empire.”
“I didn’t betray the empire.”
“From what I hear, you certainly don’t have most favored status anymore. Or has that changed?”
Fes turned his attention briefly to the palace. He looked up at the towering spires, thinking about how he had barely managed to escape the last time. It had involved Azithan helping, and perhaps a betrayal. Either way, Carter wasn’t wrong in that he might not be welcomed back.
“Rumors have a way of being nothing more than that.”
Carter smiled. There was something dangerous about her smile, and though she was a lovely woman, Fes had never entertained the idea of trying anything with her. She was far too unstable for him.
“Is that right? From what I hear, the Dragon Guard themselves are after you.”
“What type of rumors have you heard besides that?”
“Besides that?” She laughed and looked around, and Fes followed the direction of her gaze. Was she looking for help? Had she summoned one of the Dragon Guards? Or, more likely, it was possible that she called for help from her people. Carter wasn’t helpless. She had enough people working with her that she never would be helpless. “I think having the Dragon Guard after you is dangerous enough.”
“I can deal with the Dragon Guard,” Fes said.
“So I’ve heard. Now tell me, Fes, how is that?”
“Oh, you know me, I’m not entirely helpless.”
She flashed a wolfish smile. “And neither am I.”
Six people converged on him. They stepped out of alleys, and they made no effort to conceal the fact that they were mercenaries, men hired by Carter who would be loyal to her. These six might be the ones that he saw, but it was the ones he didn’t see that he worried about. How many more would be here?
“What are you after?”
“I’m after a reward,” she said.
“How much?” He wasn’t entirely surprised that there would be a reward for him. After the way that he had attacked Jaken, he couldn’t be surprised. The price of the reward would tell him how valuable he was to the empire, and until he knew that, he wasn’t sure how hard he needed to push.
“High enough that it’s worth my time to bring you to the palace,” she said.
“And what’s it worth to you to let me go?”
Carter grinned. “More than you can afford, Fezarn.”
“You don’t know what I can afford.”
“I know what it cost to purchase your services before. I seem to recall what I took off your hands the last time.”
He frowned. Could the price on him be more than thirty gold? If that were the case, then he would have to deal with countless others trying to bring him in while in the city.
“Just because I needed your money before doesn’t mean that I need it now,” Fes said. “And I will have my money back from you.”
“Oh, Fes. You are a terrible liar.”
The men continued to approach, and he tried to figure out what he would need to do to escape. There would be a fight, that much was certain, but how bloody would it be?
“This is it?” Fes asked.
“You don’t think this is enough?”
“To bring me in? No. I don’t think this is enough.”
He considered reaching for one of the swords, but doing so would slow him down. Instead, he grabbed his daggers, pulling them from their sheaths, and crossed them in front of himself.
It wasn’t uncommon for him to feel the surge of anger within him, and certainly, he expected it when confronted by Carter, but the ease with which it came to him was new. He wasn’t accustomed to having it flow to him quite this quickly. It filled him, burning up from deep within, and when the first attacker reached him, Fes slashed at him and sent him flying back to crash into the wall of a nearby building.
Carter took a step back, watching.
If he had more time, Fes knew he needed to try to understand what it was that Carter was trying to understand, knowing that her mind was calculating, looking at what he was doing and coming up with a plan, but two attackers reached him, both men larger than him, and both armed with swords.
There was a time when he would’ve feared men armed with swords, knowing that his daggers weren’t well equipped for facing that, but with the combination of the Deshazl power within him and the speed it granted, he didn’t fear an attack. The first man swung toward him, and Fes ducked, jabbing his dagger back and catching the other attacker in the middle of his belly. He spun around and kicked, striking the other man in his knee, and he collapsed.
Three remained standing.
They came at him all
at once. Perhaps if they had attacked together, working in unison, they might have been enough to overpower him, but coming individually gave him an opportunity to assess their weaknesses, and it gave him a chance to prepare. He kicked, snapping one man’s ankle as he spun around, jabbing his left dagger into the shoulder of another man, and brought his arm up, twisting as he caught the sword of the third. His dagger slid along the blade, sparks flying, and the blade snapped.
The man’s eyes widened.
“Dragonglass,” Fes said.
He punched, catching the man in the stomach, and then brought his knee up when he doubled over, sending him flying back.
When it was done, Fes turned to Carter, but she was gone.
People on the street had given them space, and now that the fight was over, they continued to give space. Fes slipped his daggers into his sheath, hurrying forward and into the crowd, wanting to disappear before any of the Dragon Guard came to investigate.
It wouldn’t be long before the Dragon Guard knew he was in the city.
How much was the price on his head?
He ought to know that before he went to search for the rebellion. Without knowing how much he was worth, he would put himself in danger.
Fes took familiar streets and headed toward the shop of Tracen, his blacksmith friend. When he reached it, he looked in the window for a moment to ensure that he was alone, and when he was comfortable that the shop was otherwise empty, he pulled open the door.
Tracen leaned over a bench, using a metal file to smooth the surface of whatever he was working on. “I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said without looking up.
Fes lingered near the back of his shop, waiting. There came the steady sound of metal on metal as Tracen filed the surface of his project, smoothing it. He had a steady hand, and there was a rhythmic quality, something almost musical, to the way that he worked on the metal. When he was done, he dusted his hands on his apron and looked up, his eyes narrowing.
“Fes. You shouldn’t have come back here.”
“That’s quite the greeting for a friend,” he said.
“You should know better.”
“Is it because of the price on my head, or is it because you didn’t want me here?”
Tracen leaned on his table. He was a muscular man, as many blacksmiths were. What made him unique was that he was tall, filling the space in his small shop. Dark hair matched the soot staining his cheeks and his forearms. Heat radiated from the back of the shop where he kept his forge. “You know that it’s not that I don’t want you here,” Tracen said.
“How much?”
Tracen frowned.
“How much is the price on me?”
“You heard?”
“I ran into Carter on my way into the city.”
“Carter,” he breathed out in a sigh. “She has been quite angry since her return. I don’t know what you did to her, but she blames you for whatever it was. And she’s been spending considerable resources looking for you. Even more since the price on your head has gone up.”
“How much?”
“A thousand gold,” Tracen said.
Fes whistled. Carter wasn’t kidding when she had said he wouldn’t be able to afford the price. It was enough gold that anyone would be compelled to turn him in.
“Whose order?”
“Does it matter? When it’s a price like that, the order could’ve come from anyone, and you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“It matters,” Fes said. “Whose order?”
“The order came from the emperor himself.” Tracen watched him for a while before shaking his head and coming around the table to greet Fes at the door. He clasped him on the shoulder. “I’m glad to see you alive. With the price they put on your head, I figured you were either captured or dead.”
“Not dead, and I’ve only been captured a few times.”
“A few?”
“That’s part of why Carter’s angry with me. I managed to get away from her plan.”
“With as angry as she is, I suspect it’s more than that.”
Fes shrugged. “Maybe a little. She’s upset that I interfered.”
“That’s all you’re going to give me?”
“It’s all that would make sense.” Tracen had lived in the city his entire life, and his connection to dragon relics consisted of things that he had seen at the Great Market, nothing like the connection to the fire mages that Fes had witnessed. It wasn’t so much that Tracen wouldn’t believe him, but explaining the outside world, including Toulen and the Priests of the Flame, might be more than what Tracen needed.
“Why did you come back?” he asked.
“I need help.”
“And you came to me?” He arched a brow, looking around his empty shop. “I think you’re putting a lot of faith in a blacksmith being able to help.”
Fes regarded Tracen for a moment. He was strong, and Fes suspected he would be reasonably competent in a fight, but more than that? He couldn’t imagine a blacksmith being of much use. He didn’t have the street savvy and the fighting skills that Fes had honed over the years, skills that now seem to be as much a part of his Deshazl heritage as anything else.
“I came to you to see how safe it was in the city. After I learned that there was a price on my head, I figured I should find out just how much before I went risking myself in the next place I was going to go.”
“And where is that?”
“Horus.”
“Fes—”
Fes shook his head. “I don’t have a whole lot of choice. There’s someone I need to help, and I can’t do it without him. You’ve already told me that you didn’t think you’d be of much help.”
“I didn’t tell you anything; you just assumed that.”
“Do you want to help?”
Tracen shook his head. “You know that I can’t leave my shop. Business has been increasing lately, and I have too many assignments that I have yet to complete. If I let them go now…”
Fes smiled tightly. He knew what would happen if Tracen let those jobs go now. They had spoken about his friend’s attempt to increase his connections and sales throughout the city ever since they first met each other. In all that time, Tracen wanted nothing more than to be known as a prosperous blacksmith, and as far as Fes knew, he was one of the most skilled who wasn’t directly under the emperor’s employ.
“I know,” he said to Tracen. “And that’s why I didn’t come to try to make you feel bad.”
“Who is it that you need to help?”
“A woman.”
“A woman? That’s all you’re going to give me?”
“Her name is Jayell.”
“And how did you to meet?”
“On the last mission that I took for Carter. It was after Carter’s employer tried to kill me.”
“It sounds like there’s a story in that.”
“More than you could imagine,” Fes said. “Jayell helped me. She and the others with her rescued me, and together we were able to help someone else.”
Tracen watched him for a moment, the hint of a smile lingering on his lips. “You know, when I first met you, I believed that you were a scavenger.”
“It’s more than scavenging,” Fes said. “I was hired to collect for the emperor.”
“Fine. Collect and not scavenge. Either way, I believed that you collected things and not people.”
“That was what I did.”
“Why does it seem that lately all of the trouble you have been getting into has been related to the people you have collected in your life?”
Fes frowned. “You’re not giving me trouble.”
“Not that you know, but for a thousand gold…”
Fes frowned. “Don’t tell me that you intend to double-cross me.” He had known Tracen practically since he had first come to the city. They had met while Fes was little more than a street thief, growing into what he was now. Tracen had always been respectable, apprenticed to another blacksmith until he had develop
ed enough skill to venture out on his own. There were some who thought that Tracen should have remained with his master, but only because his master worked for the emperor. Had Tracen remained with him, it was likely that he would be working for the emperor directly.
“You know I wouldn’t do that. We’ve been through enough together that even a thousand gold wouldn’t be enough.”
“How much would, then?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. You start getting into several thousand and it would be pretty hard to refuse.” He smiled. “But then, even the emperor has never wanted somebody so badly to put so much gold on their head.”
Fes sighed. He hadn’t thought that he would be able to attract that much attention. Had someone a price on their head worth a thousand gold coins, Fes would have been more than happy to try and collect them for the emperor. He understood why Carter had come after him. Which meant that there would be others—countless others.
And maybe even the members of the rebellion.
Especially after what he had done to them.
“Keep yourself safe,” Fes said.
“I think you’re the one we need to worry about,” Tracen said.
Fes shook his head. “I will be safe enough.”
Fes had turned to leave, pulling open the door when he heard Tracen call after him.
“You need to be careful. There have been other people looking for you.”
“Have they come in here?”
“Not here, but I’ve heard your name whispered enough on the streets. That and a description of your daggers. They’re after you, and though I always thought you were skilled, there are limits to what even you can do.”
Fes smiled tightly. “I don’t intend to remain in the city for too long. Once I arrange for help, I’ll be heading back out.”
“That’s it, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? I mean that I won’t see you again?”
Fes pushed the door back closed, turning to look at Tracen. Fes wasn’t one to have many friends, but Tracen had been someone he could trust. Could this be it?
Dragon Rise (The Dragonwalker Book 3) Page 11