"Unless I get him first."
"Funny you should say that; it's exactly what I was thinking. He and I have some unfinished business, you know."
"I wish I could say I was surprised." She got up, wincing. "If you know where he'll be, you can take me to him. I want to know who hired him and I want to kill the bastard. For Erak."
"Me too," Crowe muttered. "Just not for Erak." He cleared his throat. "I doubt Batsen will be talkative."
"He'd better be. If he was hired by who I think hired him, we're going to have a chat before I cut his bollocks off and feed them to him."
A rogue Shadowmage was all Gabriella needed. Somehow she knew she ought to be more afraid of such a person and she found herself wondering why she wasn't. She had never been sure what to think of magic. Oh, there were Healers among the Enlightened Ones and a few with other talents had found a home in the hierarchy of the Final Faith, so magic itself couldn't be totally unholy. Having said that, if the talent was a gift from the Lord of All, to be used as a tool in His name, then using it for any other purpose was a sin.
She supposed it was much the same as the moral turpitude that led to whoring; wasting something that was meant for a higher purpose in bringing Man closer to being one with God. Grimacing, she reached for her armour.
"Leave him to me, Dez. You're wounded." Crowe said.
"I have a duty, sinner," she reminded him. "And you need to redeem yourself."
"You'd be surprised," Crowe said with a glower.
"Let's go, or by all that's holy, I'll burn you for supplying... whatever you supplied to the Huntress."
"All right," he relented at last. "But let's not get you any more mangled than you are, at least while so many of your friends are around. We'll do this my way: I'll draw him out and make him safe, then you get your turn."
"Oh, I'll be having my turn all right," she vowed and Crowe shivered. "And Erak's turn too."
CHAPTER 13
It was just a tumbledown old church with grass for a floor and plants and flowers sprouting from the walls.
It was shaded with every colour daylight could bring and full of the richest textures an artist could dream of. Then Crowe looked up, where the roof-beams hung down like broken teeth, and felt the church's beauty fade into intimidation. He nodded to himself. This was just like Batsen. Hired to kill a member of the Faith, he would hide out in one of their old buildings.
There was not much left of the town that this church, a league east of Solnos, had served. There was a dried-up watercourse at the west end and Crowe suspected that the township had dried up with it. Most of the surrounding buildings had collapsed and rotted, but the church, built of stone, had survived the decades. He idly wondered whether Batsen had come across the place by chance, or somehow already knew it was here.
Either way, he had made it an ideal camp. The crypt even still had an intact roof, so Batsen needed no tent.
Crowe had been watching for a couple of hours before Batsen finally deigned to show himself, appearing up out of the crypt like a bloodsucker in some old Gargas tale. He had lit the braziers and begun to assemble breakfast.
Crowe slipped out from behind a pillar and whipped his arm around Batsen's neck. Batsen immediately tried to throw him over his shoulder, but Crowe had expected that and kicked Batsen's knees out from under him. Erak dropped to maintain the choke-hold and soon the assassin was unconscious.
Crowe swiftly searched him for concealed weapons and found a pair of long bodkins and a couple of knives, before tying Batsen's hands.
"Hello Dai. Thought I'd find you here." Batsen started, his eyes darting to either side in anticipation. He outstretched his hands, his brow knitting in concentration. "Your taste in accommodations hasn't changed much, has it?"
"I know where I'm safe. You don't, Travis. You never did, or you never would have come looking for me."
"I have my reasons."
"What do you want with me?"
"There's a man in Turnitia who takes a vested interest in certain things associated with members of your jolly little profession."
"Pro or con?"
"Both, depending on the circumstances."
"And he's interested in me?"
"Not unless you were in Kalten for the Ducal wedding."
"Ah," Batsen said with a smile. "Ludwig Rhodon."
"Was that you?"
"If it was, it would be between me and my paymaster. But, as it happens, no. Not my doing."
Crowe heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Gabriella.
"What did you say about Eminence Rhodon, scum?" She said, rushing over to Batsen. "Were you behind it? Is that why came after me and Erak?"
"I've no idea why I was hired to kill you. It doesn't matter in any case; all that matters is that I complete my contract and collect my fee." Batsen said blandly, then he exploded into action, a spinning kick sending Crowe's blade flying. The rope binding his wrists burned to ashes in a second. Eyes closed, Batsen leapt high into the air, hurling a sizzling blizzard of sharp hail from his body. The ice storm coiled its way to Crowe, who lashed out at a brazier with one foot. The ice flashed into steam as the hot coals met it head-on.
Batsen cupped a small flame between his hands before hurling it at Gabriella.
She turned her head away instinctively, but too late to stop the fire from hitting her. She didn't feel a thing, though green and purple spots danced in front of her eyes when the brightness of the flame disappeared. Cursing herself for being taken in by some mere distraction, she lunged for him.
Batsen skipped backwards as she attacked.
"What are you?" he hissed. "The darkness, the fire -"
A punch in the face ended his question, but he rolled with it, spinning away and coming into a guarded stance.
He gathered his powers around himself, rising into the air as it crackled with energy. Gabriella ran, stretching up one hand to grab at his ankle. The instant her fingertips brushed the cloth of his trews, he plummeted down onto the ground.
Gabriella wasn't going to give him a chance to use any more magic, but immediately rammed her blade through him.
Batsen, looking utterly surprised, spat out blood. Breathing seemed to make him wince and Gabriella could tell he was barely managing to cling to each second of life. He would be lucky to draw more than half a dozen more breaths.
"I know you're working for Goran Kell" Gabriella snarled. Batsen only laughed, an agonised, bubbling sound. "But you're not going to stop me finding him."
Batsen struggled for another breath. "Who would have... thought? Brotherhood and Faith, working together. You and Travis."
"What?"
"Sister DeZantez... and Brother Crowe. It won't last." Batsen's laughter dissolved into bubbling coughs. "Give my... regards... to Kell..." With a final cough of thick, almost black blood, he fell silent.
Gabriella stood and wiped the blood from her blade before turning to Crowe.
"So, 'Brother' Crowe?"
"You're making a big mistake."
"No." She stalked towards him. "You did that."
He backed off. "Don't do this, pet. I've almost gotten to like you. There aren't many people who get to there and it'd be a shame to have to keep their numbers down, even by one."
"I wish I didn't have to do this."
"You don't."
"I have a duty to God."
"God never asked you to kill me."
"He just did." She stepped into his path, one blade going for his sword hand, the other, drawn quickly, for his throat. He deflected the shot at his throat and suddenly the blade heading for his hand was slashing across his shirt at gut-level.
They danced back and forth, he trying to use his longer sword to block both of hers, she trying to get around his from two directions at once. They were quite evenly matched, but Crowe could already see blood seeping though her surplice from her earlier wounds. Quick as a flash, he shouldered forward. He struck home accurately, causing pain to explode across her body.
"Then do it," she snarled. "I'm your enemy and you're the self-proclaimed murderer. Get on with it."
"I'm no more a Brother of the Divine Path than I'm an Enlightened One of the Final Faith."
"That's not what your Shadowmage friend said."
"You're going to take the word of a man who's tried to kill both of us over mine?" Crowe shrugged. "All right, love. I never claimed to be the world's most trustworthy man. But neither is your average hired assassin. Think about this one, right? This bloke was hired to kill you, and failed. With his dying breath, he got you into another fight, against a man who was a better fighter than he was." He paused to let that sink in. "Against a man who, being a better fighter than him, might have more chance of killing you than he did." He could see in her eyes that this was making sense to her. "Not many people get recruited as a willing participant in their enemy's revenge, Dez. But it is a pretty bloody good trick if you can manage it."
"And what's this speech meant to do?"
"Save your life. I will kill you if I have to, but I'd rather not have to."
"Why? Don't you want me off your back?"
"Sure I do. But that bastard just did his damnedest to kill me as well as you and I'm in no mood do him any bloody favours." He spat on Batsen's corpse.
Gabriella relaxed slightly. "All right, so you're not a Brother, but you've worked with them."
"Their money's as good as anyone's. I've worked with the Faith too. That's why they call it being a mercenary, love. The clue's in the name."
"And are you working for the Brotherhood now?"
"If I'm not working for them I'll say no and if I am working for them I wouldn't want you to know, so I'd still have to say no."
"So, someone, who may or may not belong to some religious organisation of which I can't approve, paid you to do a job..."
"I ain't in the habit of risking my life for free, Dez. Or fraternising with members of the Faith's military order for free. Actually I should have charged double for that."
"What sort of job?"
"I was hired to find out who hired the man that shot Ludwig Rhodon. I'm told Goran Kell's the one who wants to know, for some reason."
"You're working for Kell?" She was astonished and reached for her sword.
"I'm not working for Goran Kell, Dez. Not directly, anyway. I'm working for a man who Kell went to, to try to find out who's making him look like an arse. Sandor Feyn," Crowe went on. "You won't know him. He usually goes by aliases.
Gabriella grimaced. "I've heard enough bedtime stories, sinner. Karel Scarra already told us that he and Kell -"
"Hired a bloke called Lukas Bertam to off an Eminence? I heard that too. What you don't seem to have heard is that Lukas Bertam isn't the assassin who took the shot and isn't the bloke you and Brand killed."
"Of course he is!"
Crowe radiated smugness. "Did you get a relative to identify the body? Didn't think so. Bertam got himself fished out of Turnitia's harbour two weeks before the big day and someone took his place. Anyway, so Kell's worried that someone is setting him up and he goes to his opposite number in Turnitia. Kell asked him to find out who hired the assassin that took the shot and Feyn asked me, as I do a run between Turnitia and the Huntress. Apparently Kell wanted to ask me himself, but Feyn isn't stupid enough to put us together. Kell doesn't know who I am and I don't know any more about him."
"Can you arrange a meeting with Sandor Feyn?"
"Why?"
"Maybe I can help him out."
Crowe laughed. "You? Help the naughty Brotherhood types? Bollocks, love."
"It's not unknown. We both worship the same God and sometimes we share a common enemy."
He scanned her face, trying to analyse her expression. "No... There's something else, God-girl."
She nodded slowly, as if admitting defeat. "I still want to find Kell. Perhaps Feyn can point me on the way."
Crowe didn't know that she had good cause to place Kell at the Glass Mountain so recently cleared of goblin-kind. He knew she had an ulterior motive for wanting to see Feyn, so she gave him an ulterior motive; one which anyone among the Swords at Solnos could confirm.
Crowe thought about it. "And what are you offering?"
"The face of the assassin from Kalten."
They buried Erak the next day, under a flagstone in the plaza. Crowe hung back, because it just wasn't his place to be in a Final Faith ceremony. It wasn't that he didn't believe in God - like most soldiers, so likely to meet the Lord of All at any moment, he had his beliefs - but Makennon's rules were another matter.
When the funeral party broke up and the Knights relieved their fellows on guard duty, Gabriella stayed where she was, by the fountain. She dropped to her knees, but when she tried to summon the words of a prayer, she couldn't think of a single one. Oh, she could have recited any of the Faith's standard prayers easily, but she realised that she simply didn't know what she wanted to pray for. For Erak to survive? Too late. For his resurrection? The Lord of All didn't work that way. For him to be with the Lord of All, flying through the clouds of Kerberos? That went without saying and to pray for it would be to insult Erak by suggesting that he had not been a worthy enough man, to have achieved that. Pray for the strength to carry on without him, or to bear the loss? She was strong enough, or she would never have been confirmed as a Knight of the Swords.
So, what to pray for? Nothing, she realised. She didn't need to pray for anything, she just needed to pray and to know that she could always feel that connection to the Lord of All. Perhaps, she thought, her prayer had been answered before she even recognised its nature herself.
"I miss him," she said softly. And she felt that the Lord of All had somehow responded that He knew and that He understood and that Gabriella shouldn't be ashamed.
Crowe appeared beside her.
"I'm sorry, you know." He said.
Gabriella nodded. "I know. We'd made the Pact, Erak and me."
Crowe looked blank. "Pact? You mean like a marriage Binding?"
"More or less. Whatever branch of Faith the faithful work in it is the duty of each couple to produce one child between them."
"One?"
Gabriella nodded. "One only. One to carry on God's work and spread His word."
"Wouldn't a whole brood do that more?"
"More would distract from God's work."
"Too much pleasure, eh?"
"You mock my grief! What do you know about grief, anyway?"
"If you think I haven't lost a loved one before, you're wrong. You don't grow up in my business without that happening a few times."
"Why are you still here?" she asked at last.
"There are two things nobody should do alone. Nobody should die alone and nobody should grieve alone."
DeBarres came over and Crowe nodded to him before leaving the Knight and Preceptor in private.
"I don't know what to say. 'I'm sorry' is just nowhere near enough. Nowhere near." DeBarres said, putting a hand on Gabriella's shoulder.
"Seeing you helps."
DeBarres hesitated. "This Travis Crowe... Who is he?"
Gabriella held her tongue. Crowe. Crowe the heretic. Crowe the immoral. Crowe the murder and corruptor. Crowe the man who knew such a high figure in the Brotherhood.
"He's a mercenary who helped with the defence of Solnos."
"Good man?"
"Professional. Good fighter."
"Then he has the thanks of the Order. Now..."
She looked at DeBarres sadly. "No rest for the... Well, anyway. I have a lead on Goran Kell. Sandor Feyn."
"Feyn? DeBarres was either shocked or impressed, but Gabriella wasn't sure which it was. A mixture, perhaps. "One of the legends, Gabriella, equal in notoriety to Kell. We've wanted to bring him down for year
s."
"I remembered his name. Apparently he's in Turnitia. Crowe and I will be following that up in the morning."
"Do you need any reinforcements?"
"I don't think so."
"If you insist. Excellent work, as always." He straightened out a crick in his back. "What about Kell?"
"We'll have to deal with the goblins first to get near him. I know where I can probably find a map to his more precise location. I'll be fetching that after I've visited Feyn. Also, Feyn apparently has been in contact with Kell. If he still has a contact, I'd prefer that contact to stop before we get near Kell."
"Good thinking. The Lord go with you."
A few days later, after a long and painful ride northwards, Gabriella was wearing nondescript black and grey armour. Some of it, including the cloak, had belonged to Kannis' fallen man. Beside her, Crowe wore the same colours as they rode westward through the southern end of the Anclas territories. Gabriella scowled, her nose wrinkling as the stench of rotten fish rolled from the Turnitia docks as they entered the city.
They dismounted outside a tavern squeezed between two ship owner's offices. The ruffians lounging outside let them through without a word, as soon as Crowe said: "It's raining blood out here."
Gabriella tried to keep her emotions in check. As the equivalent of an Eminence in the Brotherhood of the Divine Path, Sandor Feyn had been responsible for more heresy than she could possibly imagine. A great urge to step forward and cut him down where he stood was barely tempered by a sense of satisfaction at having tracked him down and tricked her way into his confidence. The Faith had been looking for him for years. Now she was standing right in front of him. At heart, only the thought of the information he could supply was saving him right now.
"So," Sandor Feyn said, eyeing Gabriella appreciatively as she sat before him, "who's she?"
Crowe looked casually at Gabriella. "Who, the skirt? She's just a Knight of the Swords Of Dawn who's walked right through all your security by the clever scheme of not wearing a big sign over her chest."
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