FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Did he now?”

  Sara turned her attention back to the wall and gathered her power for the burst. “When I say ‘go,’ run out of the building as fast as you can.”

  “Are you going to blast us to smithereens again?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” she said, turning a wry glance on him.

  He paled and raced toward the door.

  “Don’t go through yet!” she shouted.

  “Why the hell not?” he shouted back, inches from making his exit.

  She sighed in irritation. “What I’m about to do will lock both of our physical signatures into the building. After I do it, the only way to get back in to the place without dying will be for a person to be with one of us. Since you’ll be alone, you’ll need this coded to you to get back inside.”

  “Oh,” he said. “What happens if I don’t have it?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Get ready, but don’t move out that door until I say so.”

  She looked at him fiercely and he nodded. As she turned back toward the wall, she noted with amusement that he was bouncing on his feet like a runner about to take off in a sprint, straight for the door.

  Sara turned her concentration inward and counted down in her thoughts. Each count was set off by a distinct pulse as she thrust her battle magic into the heart of the warehouse.

  Five. Pulse.

  Four. Pulse.

  Three. Pulse.

  Two. Pulse. She hurried to grab a piece of Ezekiel’s aura and tied it together with her own. Setting her battle magic countdown to the last pulse, she knew she was no longer needed inside the building.

  It would spread like a shock wave.

  Whirling toward Ezekiel, she started running and shouted, “Now! Get out.”

  One. Pulse.

  He needed no further warning and shot out of the building like a rabbit. By the time she’d crossed the threshold, he was halfway to the fishery.

  She stopped five feet from the doorway and screamed his name. “Ezekiel, come back!”

  He didn’t stop until he felt flat on his face. When he got up and turned around to look, she thought his nose was bleeding, but she couldn’t tell for sure. She waved a hand to summon him back and turned back toward the warehouse from where she stood. Using her mage sight, she saw the whole building pulse brilliantly with a wave of color, the blue of her own battle magic, and a dark, muddy brown that she assumed was Ezekiel’s essence. The wave subsumed the whole building and came together like a bubble closing on the center of the front door.

  As the bubble closed, a panting and bleeding Ezekiel came to rest by her side.

  Breathing hard, he rested his hands on his knees and looked at the door. “What did you do?”

  “Sealed the building to anyone, magical or mundane, except us.”

  “You can do that?” he sounded mildly impressed.

  “It’s an arcane war tactic,” she admitted. “And not usually sanctioned in civilian life.”

  “Why not?” he said, standing up. “It’s just a residence protection shield, right?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s known as death’s touch.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it flatly. “You put death’s touch on a warehouse?”

  “Yes,” she said, not sorry. “Anyone else who touches that door and tries to get into that building will die immediately.”

  She turned to walk down the path. Ezekiel followed behind her stumbling, “Anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Including Cormar?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not going to like this.”

  “Nope.”

  “Think he’ll touch it accidently and die anyway?” Ezekiel sounded hopeful.

  “It’s a spell with a distinct feel; any mage worth half their salt will know what it is. There’s a warning keyed to the door, too. It’ll give off a light buzz and a feeling of dread will overcome the intruder. If that doesn’t stop them, then they’re idiots.”

  “Right,” Ezekiel said, shouldering his backpack and they waded into the street. “So, where’d you learn how to do it?’

  “My father.”

  “Your father sounds like he was awesome.”

  “He was,” she said with a smile in her voice.

  “So what’s the plan?” he said as they dodged a rather shady looking lump of fur, teeth, and dirt.

  “We get in, get the files, hire a replacement, and get out before midday,” she said simply.

  “I knew that,” he whined. “I meant how do you plan on getting in through the mercenary guild’s doors? You basically said you’re persona non-grata amongst the fighters, and, well, they don’t really like me anymore.”

  That statement set off warning bells in her head.

  They had turned on to a street heading east. She stopped abruptly and slammed a hand into Ezekiel’s chest. Pushing back until he stumbled against the wall behind him, she stared up into his face.

  “What are you doing?” he gasped. He didn’t look panicked, just shocked. It probably helped that she hadn’t pulled out any weapons or threatened him. Yet.

  Passersby flowed behind her as her dark orange eyes met his helpless brown ones.

  “I need to know exactly why they hate you so much and if they would recognize you on sight,” she said tensely.

  He spluttered.

  She cut him off. “No ifs, ands, or buts about it, Ezekiel. This plan to infiltrate their compound and get the files will not work if you don’t come clean. What’s more—I will not risk getting thrown into the stocks for not knowing that you’re a wanted criminal.”

  “I’m not a criminal,” he squeaked.

  She narrowed her eyes at him as the wind whipped her long black curls, currently pulled back into a ponytail, into her face.

  He stared at her with a cross look.

  She wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled. And she would if he didn’t speak up soon.

  “Ezekiel,” she snapped, “I do not have all morning.”

  He pursed his lips and said, “I might have stolen something from them.”

  She let him go and stepped back. That was it. They were parting ways. She didn’t need this.

  But still she didn’t move as his pleading eyes met hers.

  “What did you steal?” she finally asked.

  “A playbook,” he said guiltily.

  “What kind of playbook?”

  “The kind that lists all military troop movements across the empire.” His voice was quiet as he looked around nervously.

  She stared at him as if he was a man possessed. No one was that stupid. No one.

  “What in the seven gods did you want with a military playbook?”

  He fell back against the wall with his shoulders slumped. “I told you I was hard up for cash a few years back. I sold it to the mages.”

  A million thoughts were running through her head at the moment.

  “That’s treason. You know that, right? Giving the playbook to the Kade mages is treason.”

  He stuck his lower lip out. “I never said I gave it to the Kade mages.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, staring at him aghast. “Why would the empress’s mages buy a playbook of their own troops’ movements?”

  “Because it’s like I said before,” he said flatly. “The empress is resource poor. She’s hired militia and mercenary personnel to fill a lot of empty slots. Empty slots that include officer positions on the warfront. Let’s just say the empress’s mages aren’t too happy about that. They don’t trust the mercenaries one bit.”

  She let out an irritated sigh. “Tell me one thing.”

  He looked at her hopefully.

  “Why aren’t you dead? You live in the same city from where you stole the bloody handbook, and from what you’ve told me, the mercenaries would recognize you. You worked there for some time, after all.”

  “Might recognize me. I was only there long enough to case
the place. A few weeks at most. Besides…the mercenaries never caught me stealing their precious handbook. I was too good. I just happened to leave at the same time it disappeared, so they suspected me a little more.”

  “Why would you do that?” Her voice sounded mystified.

  He shrugged. “I had other problems at the moment.”

  “More problems than a thousand mercenaries raining fire and brimstone down on your head for stealing their intelligence?”

  “You could say that.”

  She stepped back. “My, my. Ezekiel the mysterious thief.”

  He shrugged. “Anyway, the mercenary’s guild has the same turnover rate as the silk weaver’s hall.”

  She got the reference. Silk weavers were notorious perfectionists and the head of the silk weaver’s hall in Sandrin was excessive in that trait. A lot of young lads and ladies went into the trade and left weeping in the first week after bearing the brunt of her harsh teachings. Which meant Ezekiel had probably left his job at the same time as half a dozen other mercenary staffers.

  Focusing back on the present, Sara wished she had a new partner go in with her. But they didn’t have time, and there wasn’t anyone in this city she trusted to help her anyway.

  “Fine, let’s just try to avoid anyone who recognizes you.”

  He nodded quickly. “Easily done. I worked in the supplies and maintenance department. We’re going to records. It’s on the other side of the guild hall.”

  She had a bad feeling about this. But they were too far in and she needed her father’s records too much to turn back now. They kept going.

  Chapter XII

  SOON ENOUGH THEY WERE JUST outside the central plaza of Sandrin. It was so named not because it lay directly in the center of the city, but because it was the largest plaza in the capital city and housed the organizations central to the city’s governance.

  As she entered the plaza from the people’s street, Sara walked up a long ramp until she reached the pinnacle of the incline. While standing on the broad marble pathway, she looked down at the apex of power. The plaza was a rectangle-shaped depression in the ground with a promenade of columns to the left and right. Beyond the columns the stairs arced up from the base toward the triad of power in the empire. On the right was the mercenary’s guild, an imposing structure with towering colonnades. Directly across from it and to the left was the magistrate’s court. Staring straight ahead, Sara watched the morning sun light the palace of the empress in red, gold, and orange rays.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Ezekiel.

  “Stunning,” said Sara with a voice like stone.

  Ezekiel caught the tension in her voice. “What is it?”

  She stared down at the base of the stairs to where a single pole with chains lay in the distance.

  “This is where they proclaim traitors to the empire,” she said. “This is where my mother and I heard the citywide pronouncement that my father had been executed for his crimes.”

  Ezekiel was silent. For a moment longer she took it all in. Then they turned to go along the broad pathways to reach the petitioners’ entrance to the mercenary guild.

  When they got there, a normal-looking man with a helmet on and a bored expression in place said, “Name?’

  “Sara Fairchild.”

  “Occupation?”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “Occupation?” he repeated impatiently.

  “Fisherwoman,” Ezekiel exclaimed from beside her while studiously avoiding looking up. With his head hanging down and his shoulders slumped, he looked like a depressed stork. But the lackey didn’t question him.

  “Purpose for entering the mercenary’s guild?”

  “Hire of a new watcher for the fishery,” she said.

  He nodded and scribbled it down. Then he handed her two medallions on a rope. One was painted red. The other red with blue stripes.

  “Here, this will grant you access to the guild records room for hiring purposes. Nowhere else. If you are found without those medallions or outside of those areas, you will be detained.”

  The way he said “detained” made it sound a lot like “tortured and killed.”

  He looked down at her impatiently. “Got it?”

  “Got it.” She was quick to confirm.

  “The red one is for you, as the primary party responsible. The man with you is your charge. If he gets into trouble, it will be on your head. Do you understand?”

  Still Ezekiel didn’t look up.

  “Yes,” Sara said.

  “Yes,” squeaked Ezekiel.

  The man said, “Put them on now. Yours first, and you put his over his head.”

  She didn’t ask why. She knew why. It was a military tactic used on prisoners. The medallions were objects called symbiotic rings. The wardens liked to make sure prisoners behaved well. Each prisoner wore one that was linked to the others about their necks. If one prisoner was punished for a transgression, they all felt it. But the symbiotic rings had an even more sinister purpose in their design. They could be used to kill. Ezekiel was now beholden to her. Anything he did wrong, she would suffer for from the moment she put that medallion around his neck to the moment they left the mercenaries’ headquarters.

  Her hands didn’t tremble as she put them on.

  The man watched her carefully. Satisfied, he nodded her through the gate. Sara stepped forward into the training yard and marble halls of the empire’s most famous guild. The hall of men and women with the power and the skills to protect the empire. She knew that more battle mages resided under this one roof than resided in the whole of the rest of the empire. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying. Not the thought that she could meet more people like her. She already had. No, the thought that had her quaking in her boots was the fact that if something went wrong, she might have to face two or more battle mages in a fight to get out of here.

  “It won’t go wrong,” she whispered to herself.

  “What?” said Ezekiel, coming up by her side.

  She amended her statement. “I said it’s time to go.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Do you know where the records room is?” she finally asked.

  “Right,” said Ezekiel guiltily. “I forgot you’ve never been here before.”

  I wouldn’t say that, she thought in her mind. But now wasn’t really time to reminisce about the past. She just hoped she didn’t run into anyone she had known. Ezekiel wasn’t the only one with a past they wanted to avoid.

  She cleared her throat. He started moving. They quickly exited the training field through a side door and weaved in and out of packed hallways to get into a long line for the records room. When they finally reached the front after a half-hour of waiting, Sara was eager to get inside.

  She presented her medallion and the request to hire a mercenary for a local assignment to the older woman in charge. The woman had the battle scars of a soldier who’d seen the field firsthand. With a lick of her thumb, she scrolled through a book as she worked.

  “You’re in luck,” she told Sara. “We’re just about to send a company out, but the Red Lion garrison is still here and can do some freelance merc work for you.”

  “Great,” said Sara as Ezekiel unsuccessfully tried to hide behind her. She got the feeling he knew this woman just as well as he had the medallion man. She’d seen the flash of recognition cross his face before he ducked down.

  “What hours are you looking for?”

  “Twenty-four hours a day, with three one hour breaks daily plus a temporary person to rotate in once every two weeks for our primary watcher’s two days off.”

  “Hmm,” murmured the woman. “I think we can do that.”

  Opening the drawer next to her she took out three chips—two red and one green.

  “Give these to the man inside,” she said strictly, pointing her thumb at the ajar door to the records room. “He’ll give you the files for the men and woman that fit your specifications.”

  Sara nodded
and said, “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” said the woman as she waved them inside.

  As they walked through that door, Sara breathed a sigh of relief. They were in. That was easier than she’d thought it be.

  Ezekiel caught her arm and pointed off to the right when she turned to look at him. A man stood at podium with a bunch of baskets filled with the assorted chips in front of him. Walking over to him silently, she handed him the three that she had.

  He took the green one and held it up first. “Let’s start with this one. You’re looking for a temporary worker?”

  She nodded.

  “How many days or hours?’

  “Two days every two weeks to relieve our primary watcher. The shift will be for the full twenty-four hours with three one-hour breaks each day.”

  He scribbled that down and dropped the chip in the green basket. “Okay.”

  He picked up the red chips next. “And these. You need two mercenaries as watchers?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “One.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How many hours? How many days?”

  “Twenty-four hours, seven days a week, with two days off every two weeks.”

  He nodded. “That’s why she gave you two. Mercenary Guild policy states that our workers get one day off a week if based locally.”

  She started to protest, but he interrupted. “Those are the rules, or you can hire two mercenaries with split shifts.”

  Sara and Ezekiel exchanged glances. Then Ezekiel stepped forward to take over negotiations.

  “What if we had one guy that worked for one and a half weeks with a day off every eleven days?” he asked the young man, eagerly leaning forward.

  As she backed away from the conversation and hurried to disappear in the meandering crowd she heard the mercenary guild official say, “Well, that won’t work because…”

  After she slipped into the crowd, Sara looked back and forth. Hoping to see a sign that said “Death Records” in bright lettering. No such luck.