But he was wrong. The grizzled fight veteran stepped over the unmasked woman before she could get away, but instead of slaying her he merely stabbed his blade into the ground near her head.
Then he bent down and helped her up.
“At least someone has decency here,” Lauro growled in Gribly's ear.
Breathless from the excitement of the fight and the shock of its finale, the thief only nodded. “C'mon, let's get to the edge of the crowd. We need to catch Longstrider before he leaves the palisade- and that'll be hard enough without all these rabid fanatics swarming around.”
Chapter Fourteen: Fortune Favors Rangers
The winning duelist was not swarmed by the crowd, after all. Gribly and Lauro found him moving slowly along towards the gate-like palisade exit from shadow to shadow, shunned by the crowds. They would have missed him, Gribly knew, if it hadn't been for the fact that he was supporting the injured Shadow on his arm.
“Hoi, Longstrider!” called the thief, jogging to catch up with the pair before they left the palisade. The fighter halted, helped Shadow to stand upright, and looked back grimly at the thief.
“What d'you want, boy?” the fighter snarled. “Throw stones at me like yer half-wit friends, an' I swear I'll cut yer throat!”
“No, it's not like that at all,” Lauro interrupted, coming up behind his friend. “We need your help, and we're willing to pay...”
It was the wrong thing to say. Longstrider grimaced and began to walk away with Shadow on his arm. “I've already been 'elping too much, lad... an' look where it's gotten me? Hated by th' idiot mob, 'is what.” Another second, and he was gone in the shadows beyond the palisade.
“But you knew Old Murie,” Gribly protested. “I thought...” he trailed off as the shuffling feet of the two wearied fighters halted immediately.
“Old Murie?” came a voice from the darkness.
“Yes, Old Murie,” Gribly repeated, relieved, “she raised me.”
Silence. Then...
“Follow me- you an' yer friend, too. We may 'ave t' talk.”
“Thank you, Longstrider,” Gribly said, not wanting to kill his chance.
“Byorne,” the man said, stepping back into the torchlight and extending his hand. “You kin' call me Byorne.”
~
The silent fight champion led the thief, the prince, and the woman Shadow past the garbage hills and through the slums, to where he and others like him made their quarters. It was not much more than a wide back-alley walled off by several wooden huts and a lean-to, but it was cleaner and snugger than the majority of the city. Along the way, Gribly and Lauro told him their needs, but he made no reply.
When the companions were seated around a low-burning bonfire, in the middle of a clearing between the shelters, and when the injured woman had been laid down on a rough blanket nearby, Longstrider- or, as he now wished to be called, apparently, Byorne- disappeared. It was several minutes before he returned, during which almost no noise reached the ears of the three silent folk by the fire.
When he came, he was dressed in a weather-beaten green coat thrown over what looked like hunting garb; a curious contraption weighed down his belt, and a dull, well-used longsword was in his hand. Two men in similar array followed closely behind him, hoods masking their faces.
Lauro, volatile as ever, immediately leaped up with sword in hand. Gribly snorted.
“If he'd wanted to kill us or capture us, he could've done it a long time ago, Lauro.” The prince didn't acknowledge the comment, but kept staring daggers at Byorne.
“Relax, soldier,” chuckled the grizzled fighter, stabbing his sword into the hard-packed ground by the bonfire and sitting heavily down beside it with a thud. “It's bain quite th' long year since I picked up this ole thing. T'aint even sharp.”
Muttering under his breath, Lauro sat down again uneasily. “Then why have you brought it, and who are these men with you?”
Byorne chuckled. “Yuh should know yerself, m' prince. Yer from Vastion, aren't yuh? Yuh mean t' tell me yuh haven't seen a Kingsman before?” Reaching inside his coat, he removed several loops of silver chain with a heavy round medallion on the end. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it over the tops of the flames to Lauro, who caught it deftly and stared at it in utter astonishment.
Lying prone on her blanket, Shadow suddenly lifted her head in interest. One of Byorne's companions seemed to notice her only then, and was soon by her side. In a few minutes he had treated her broken bone and was hard at work constructing a rough litter. After a moment, his fellow disappeared back into the night.
Gribly could bear the strange silence no more. “Well,” he asked, “what is it, Lauro?”
The prince opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “It's a white hawk: the symbol of my father's realm.” The prince's face was raised now, and the firelight sent ghostly patterns across his serious face as he scrutinized first Byorne, then his companions. “These men are Vastic Rangers.”
Gribly stayed silent for as long as he could, but when the ranger and the prince did nothing more than stare at each other intently, he had to speak.
“And a ranger is...?”
Byorne broke of the staring match and smiled roguishly. “Scouts, mostly. Spies, of'n as not. Thieves, sometimes, jus' like you. But we've ties to th' king of Vastion...”
-“Not very strong ties...” Lauro mused sourly-
“...But ties none th' less,” Byorne countered. “The separation 'tween Vastion an' th' order of rangers is significant nowadays, but 'twas stronger of old.”
“So which are you?” Gribly asked, “Spy? Scout? Soldier? Thief?”
Byorne grinned, tugging absently at a silver ring in his ear. “Fightin' champion, is what... and I don't think yuh'll deny it?”
“Certainly not,” Gribly said, “But I still don't see how that relates you to Old Murie... and you said that was the reason you'd help us, didn't you?”
Byorne frowned. “Didn't th' ole girl wear her white-hawk medal 'round the shop, boy?”
Gribly's jaw dropped open in surprise- partly at Murie being called something as familiar as “ole girl,” but mostly because he suddenly understood what Byorne was talking about.
“She did have a medallion like that! Wait... are you saying she was a ranger?”
Byorne considered the question a moment before answering. “Well, she was an odd 'un, Murie was... not 'xactly one of us... but she knew us better 'n most...” his voice drifted off, and for the first time that night Gribly realized that somehow, the news of Old Murie's death was not a shock to the ranger.
The morose silence that followed lasted more than a minute, when Lauro finally ventured to break it.
“So you'll help us, Byorne Longstrider? The fate of Vastion could be in your hands.” Gribly thought the prince's voice sounded wrong somehow, but he couldn't tell exactly why. The gray-haired ranger stared intently at Lauro from across the fire, then nodded slowly.
“Aye, I will. But a price'll have t' be paid... Dunelord Ymorio 'asn't made life h'easy these past years.”
At that moment, two things happened simultaneously. Shadow, silent up until now, struggled to rise, her mouth open, about to speak. At the same time, the third ranger reappeared and whispered something into Byorne's ear that made him frown darkly.
“Show me,” he urged in a low voice, rising smoothly from his seat by the fire. His ally nodded and stalked away. Byorne followed without a word.
Gribly stared in curiosity and confusion after the two departing figures, who were soon lost in the shadows. Lauro muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, and when the thief turned to raise an eyebrow at him, he sucked in his breath with surprise instead.
“Shadow?” he exclaimed, “Are you all right?”
The woman was trembling, but not from fear or embarrassment... rather, from anger. Gribly was worried, and something prickled in the back of his mind. Did he know this woman?
“My brother,” the injur
ed woman spat, but Gribly barely heard her. The word uncle had sprung into his mind.
“What in...” the thief began, but suddenly there was a loud crash from the shadows at the far end of the rangers' hideout, followed by sounds of a tussle and loud cursing in a voice Gribly thought he recognized. He shook his head in astonishment at Shadow's anger-twisted face. “It can't be...”
Suddenly Byorne and his companion were back, dragging a large, groaning man between them. Byorne wore a smug smile, but the other ranger was snarling and wore an ugly bruise over one eye.
“Well, well, well,” sneered Lauro, standing in tandem with Gribly as they both recognized the rangers' captive, “If it isn't the man who bets on the lives of children...”
The burly man looked up with two streaming punch-swollen eyes, but his hateful glare went straight past the two friends to rest on Shadow, who stared back with equal venom.
“Had t' knock 'is two friends out an' leave 'em behind,” Byorne called across the bonfire to Shadow. “Ee kept askin' for yuh, so I figured bringin' 'im couldn't hurt... now.”
“No... I can't thank you enough,” the injured woman-warrior said, voice shaking with emotion before she could control herself enough to address the captured man. “I can't believe you were stupid enough to come looking for me, Crutus,” she told him, lip curling in disgust.
Crutus. Gribly searched his mind for to scratch the itch in his memory. He knew that name... where was it from?
“I should have died back there,” Shadow continued, “if these men weren't decent enough to help me. Were you wanting to get rid of me, too- like you did to my daughter? She was fourteen, you fool! You knew I couldn't win that fight! Where is she? Where is she?” The woman was so enraged that she tried to rise again, failing to succeed with a sharp cry of pain.
Daughter... uncle... brother...So this man the rangers had captured really was the one who had bet his niece on Shadow winning the fight against Longstrider... and Shadow was the girl's mother!
“Burn in Ker-” Crutus began, but Byorne's companion cuffed him hard in the side of the head, cutting off his oath. The black-jowled ruffian spat out a tooth, snarling. “The poor l'ttle urchin's already gone, Shele.”
“So 'Shadow' has a name,” Lauro mused from the side, still frowning irritatedly at Crutus. “What exactly is going on here?” Gribly interrupted, trying desperately to figure out how he knew the man.
“I owe this brute everything,” Shadow- or Shele- said bitterly. “After my husband died... I'm a thief, not a warrior... the others wouldn't help me... and now he's made me fight, because I can...” she fell into a fit of coughing and flopped back down on her rough litter, cursing through her pain. The third ranger frowned, but still said nothing.
With the lost girl's mother admitting defeat, Crutus began to laugh darkly. “There ain't no knowin' where the ol' pickpocket I lost 'er to'll take 'er,” he said. “In a city so big? Who knows?” his laugh ended abruptly as Byorne and the other ranger dropped him face-first in the dirt.
The old pickpocket?!?
Snapping his fingers, Gribly nearly leaped in the air. “You're lying, scum!” he laughed in Crutus's face as the fat man scrambled to his feet. “I know you... you guard the pickpocket's wine-house! That's where the girl is!”
“You know where my daughter is?” exclaimed Shadow.
“You know what he means?” Byorne said at the same time.
“Ha! I think I follow you!” Lauro added.
Excited, Gribly reached into his satchel, which still hung at his side, and removed a handful of golden dune-coins, much like the ones he had insisted he didn't have to the guards of the fight pit alley.
Shadow's eyes grew wide as the thief leaped right over the bonfire, Sand Striding to aid his gymnastics, and knelt next to her in the same movement. “What are those for?” she whispered quietly.
“I know where your daughter is, Shadow... er, Shele,” Gribly said, “And I have the money to set her free.”
~
One ranger took Shadow-Shele immediately to find and reclaim her daughter. The other was tasked with binding and gagging Crutus and his companions somewhere where the bronzeguard would be likely to pick him up on their morning rounds. Both were told to take care of their business swiftly, then rendezvous with Byorne, Gribly, and Lauro at Blast Palace.
“By the time your men reach it,” the prince assured Byorne, “We'll have been there at least an hour- more than long enough to convince Argoz to accept the rangers as an official part of Ymeer's soldiery- just as you want.”
“Indeed,” the weathered veteran mused. After giving low-voiced instructions to his two men, he turned back to Lauro. “Well, young Striders... what're we waitin' for?”
Nodding silently, the prince turned to Gribly. “Lead the way, friend,” he said.
The Sand Strider could tell it was an effort for Lauro to unbend his pride enough to admit he didn't know the way.
“Of course.” Winking roguishly, Gribly turned and loped off into the darkness quickly. The ranger and the prince following behind.
~
The night-guard on the ramparts overlooking Ymeer's main gate jolted awake at the muffled curses and rustlings that suddenly burst out below. Shaking his head to clear it, the man yawned widely and nervously hefted his bronze spear. Was he imagining things? The captain of the watch would beat him to a pulp if he...
No, he wasn't imagining things... there was someone or something thrashing around on his side of the gate!
The guard was an experienced man, else he would never have gotten away with dozing on duty for so long. He knew rushing down the wide-hewn stairs would expose him to whoever was at the gate before he could get a glimpse of the miscreant... therefore he crept stealthily to the edge of the battlements, bent over, and hazarded a glimpse down over the steep drop to the shadowy sand below.
What he saw almost made him tip forward and fall right off the rampart to his death. It took him a moment to comprehend, and another to actually believe. When he did, he quickly rose and ran to the top of the wall stairs descending them as quickly as possible, spear clutched in the crook of his arm. It took all his composure not to laugh when he reached the bottom, from sheer confusion at the humorous oddity he witnessed.
The commotion inside the gate came from a hefty, red-faced man, bound and gagged tightly. He hung from a chain twined 'round his bloated stomach that stretched up behind him, where it was secured to the thick wood of the gate by several deeply-embedded crossbow quarrels.
The night-guard shook his head, staring up at the enraged captive, who fumed and shook, trying with all his might to break loose... without success.
“What in Vast...” he wondered.
The gagged man saw him then, and immediately fell silent and still. The guard cautiously checked all the surrounding area for any sign of the culprits (cursing himself inwardly for not doing so sooner), but no sign presented itself.
Turning back to the entangled captive, the guard saw something glinting in the moonlight, hanging from the man's neck. Warily, lest the ruffian lash out at him if he got too near, he put out his spear, lifting the crude necklace with the weapon's tip. The light fell on the design engraved on a large silver medallion.
It was a white hawk.
~
The old pickpocket was slightly worried that Crutus had not returned that night, but he let the other brutish guards of his wine-house leave for home at the usual time.
“Prob'ly jus' off getting' hisself drunk again,” the old man grumbled to himself, moving awkwardly down one of the darker corridors of his establishment on dual crutches. As he passed a large, heavy oaken door, the sounds of piteous weeping could be heard coming from just inside. Frowning, the old pickpocket rapped hard on the wood twice with his crutch, calling out, “Shut yer trap, girl!”
The weeping stopped abruptly.
Chuckling meanly, pickpocket-turned-slave-owner turned to hobble off again. Without warning, a gloved hand shot out of t
he dark, roughly slamming him into the sandstone wall and pinning him by the throat. Gargling in shock and fear, the old pickpocket dropped both crutches and clutched vainly at the hand that strangled him.
“If you ever want to move again,” growled a low man's voice, “You will open that door and release the girl immediately... in the name of the King of Vastion.”
~
Gribly and his companions were two-thirds of the way to Blast Palace when it happened.
Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) Page 12