Weapon of Flesh (Weapon of Flesh Trilogy)

by Jackson, Chris A.

  “Both of us will escape the Grandfather the same way.” He sampled the porridge. It was sweetened with fruit and sugar. It was nowhere near as good as Forbish’s porridge.

  “You will never escape the Grandfather, Lad. Not unless you are—” Her eyes flared with anger and she whirled away, storming toward the door without looking back.

  “Not unless I am killed,” he said before the door slammed. Lad stopped eating and let the false smile fade from his mouth, wondering if his taunt would prove all-too-accurate in the end.

  Chapter XVII

  High upon the Bluff, amid the opulent estates and townhouses of the neighborhood known as Duke’s Court, a shadow moved across a sliver of moonlight. It moved without sound, without a scuff of boot or creak of leather, flickering from darkness to darkness like a wraith. It moved with such stealth that one of the many patrolling Royal Guard walked within two feet of it without knowing. Never had ignorance saved a life with such certainty.

  Lad watched the guard until the noisy fellow disappeared around a corner, then he listened. When the sound of the man’s footsteps faded away, he moved to the spot Mya had told him to seek. Here, just like she had said, the stone was rough and the two walls were set against one another at a sufficiently acute angle to allow easier climbing. He listened for a moment to make sure the next guard was not near, and then scaled the two adjoining walls like a spider climbing a cellar door.

  At the top there was nowhere to go; the edge of the roof was adorned with a decorative crenellation that would not support his weight, though how Mya had learned this, he had no idea. He was forced by the magic to follow her instructions, so he didn’t even consider testing her information. The nearest window was fifteen feet away. Lad remained perfectly still, hands and toes gripping the stone easily, his breathing steady and silent.

  The second guard passed without looking up.

  When the man was gone, Lad leapt without the slightest hesitation, aiming for the stone sill below the window. It did not occur to him that if Mya’s information was slightly off, and the sill didn’t support his weight, he would fall fifty feet to the cobbled street. He had been told to accept her instructions, and though his mind was still free, the magic would not allow him to disobey.

  His outstretched fingers snatched the window’s narrow ledge and gripped it like a vise, his legs dangling freely. The stone showed no sign of giving way. He easily chinned himself up and contorted into a braced position in the window’s frame, leaving his hands free to work. The window was just as Mya had described it: two bronze-framed panels made up from small panes of thick leaded glass. It was made to be opened inward and was secured with a simple turn latch. The hooked pick that had been secreted in the collar of Lad’s dark shirt slipped through the crack and lifted the latch without a sound. He pushed gently, listening with every ounce of concentration he could muster for the faintest squeak.

  The near-silent grating of the old bronze hinges might have gone unnoticed even to an astute observer, but to Lad the sound was deafening. He had been ordered to be silent, and obey he must, so with the window only a hand’s width open, he stopped. He could hear rhythmic breathing from those within the darkened chamber, and could easily discern the two sleeping shapes, but he could not reach them through the partially opened window.

  Well, he thought, I cannot just sit here forever! The magic compels me, but it restrains me, so... An idea came to him finally, though whether from some magical compulsion or his own agile mind, he knew not. He had a single weapon that he had been instructed to use for a single purpose, but that did not preclude his using it for other purposes.

  He slipped the slim stiletto from its sheath and placed the tip through the minute crack onto one of the offending hinges. Then he slipped his finger slowly down the razor edge, letting his blood slide down the blade in thick droplets onto the squeaky bronze. Blood is a poor lubricant, but when none other is available it makes metal slide against metal more easily, the memory said in his mind, as if his old instructor were perched invisibly over his shoulder. After treating each hinge similarly, he sheathed the blade and carefully pushed the window. His ears still caught the faintest of noises, but he knew that no other human could have heard it.

  He slipped through the open portal like black water poured from a pitcher and lay upon the floor of the chamber, a shadow amid darkness.

  He remained still for some time, ensuring that both of the people in the bed were indeed sleeping peacefully. When he was sure, he stood and looked upon his unwary victim. Regret, sorrow and remorse were not part of him, but Wiggen’s words rang in his mind as he retrieved the stiletto from its sheath and moved to the side of the bed. He knew she had told him the truth: what he was about to do was evil. He did not want to be evil, but the magic made him comply. He stood for a moment and looked down at the face of the one he was going to kill, and he felt a tension in his stomach that he knew was his friendship for Wiggen telling him that what he was doing was wrong. There was something akin to pain in that feeling, for he knew he was betraying that friendship, even though it was not of his own volition.

  With a single lightning stroke, he thrust the blade into its intended sheath. Lad left it there as he had been instructed. He also took the ribbon-bound parchment from inside his shirt and placed it where he’d been told. He then turned to go, his grim task complete.

  But then Lad stopped.

  His appointed task was finished; his only remaining orders were to return directly to the Grandfather’s keep without being detected. There was no compulsion to hurry, so the magic that bound him left only a vague desire to return to the Grandfather’s estate sometime that evening. He was free to act within the bounds of those orders, and decided to exercise that small spark of freedom.

  He returned to the bedside, remembering something Wiggen had said to him once. He then did something that he knew might put his life at risk in the future, but he had not been instructed not to do this specific thing, so the magic had no compulsion over him.

  When he was finished, he turned to go, closing the window behind him with the same care he had used while breaking in. He perched on the window’s sill for several long breaths, listening and timing the passage of the guard patrols. When everything was quiet, he simply stepped off the sill into fifty feet of empty air. There were three more windows between the one he’d left and the street, and he used each to slow his descent. With no more noise than a leaf falling from a tree, he landed in a crouch. He stepped into the shadows and listened carefully again, before becoming one with the darkness that had enveloped him.

  “Good to see you, Toby!” Forbish said with a genuine smile. He gripped the hand of his old friend and perched his bulk on one of the tiny bar stools.

  “Likewise, Forbish.” The man was thin, his dark hair somewhat gray around the ears, with an open smile and eyes brimming with mirth. He placed a tankard of ale in front of the larger man without having been asked. “How’s business?”

  “Can’t say good, but I’m still makin’ a go of it.” Forbish sipped the ale and restrained a grimace of distaste. It was nowhere near up to the standards of the Tap and Kettle, but people didn’t come to Toby’s to drink fine ale. “There’s just me and Wiggen now, you know.”

  “Yeah, I heard about Tam.” Toby pulled a pipe from his pocket and began stuffing the bowl with sweet-smelling tobacco. “Sorry.” He lit it and exhaled a plume of smoke into the already smoky air.

  “Nobody’s fault but my own,” Forbish said solemnly, sipping his ale. “You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.”

  “Well, never you mind about that now, my friend. I got your note, and I’ve called him in.” He nodded past the tables where patrons were playing various games of chance, to a corner booth usually reserved for private card games. “He’s over there.”

  But as Forbish rose from his stool, Toby reached across the bar and gripped his forearm, holding him back.

  “Just be careful what you get yourself int
o, Forbish.” His tone screamed a warning, which Forbish knew was sincere. “He owns the note on this place, and always will. They get their hooks into you, they never let go.”

  “Don’t worry, Toby. I just need his help to find something. Nothing complicated.”

  “Nothing ever starts out complicated. Always seems to end up that way, though.”

  Forbish could tell that his friend was bitter about his interminable relationship with these people, but he was also sure that Toby was speaking from long experience. These were the same type of people who had taken Forbish’s son away from him. He clenched his jaw and nodded. “I’ll be careful, Toby.”

  “You do that.”

  Forbish turned from his friend and worked his way through the busy gambling hall’s main floor. There were tables with cards, tables with dice, tables with blocks of ivory with dots in strange patterns on one side, and even a table with a great flat wheel and several colored balls that rattled around the slotted surface as it spun. Forbish was never one to gamble, unless you considered running an inn a gamble of sorts. He was far too tight-fisted to put money on a table and watch as it was whisked away at the whim of chance or luck.

  Forbish didn’t believe in luck. He believed in hard work. He also believed in his family, or more precisely, his daughter, who was the only family he had left.

  He reached the corner table where he was immediately faced with two dangerous-looking men wearing weapons, their arms crossed in defiance. Forbish would have laughed at their stern demeanors if his mood had been lighter; that they considered him a potential threat in a room that was full of half-drunk dock workers and bargemen was almost funny.

  “I’ve come to speak with your master about some business.” He tucked his thumbs in his belt and hitched up his trousers, setting his formidable belly jiggling in a most non-threatening manner. “I’m not armed.”

  “Let him through, gentlemen,” the fellow at the table said, his voice calm and as slick as a greased cobblestone. “We didn’t come down here for the wine, after all.”

  “Thank you,” Forbish said as the two goons parted and his host waved one immaculate, bejeweled hand across the table. He took the proffered seat, struggling slightly with his girth in the narrow booth.

  “May I buy you a drink, Mister Forbish?” the man asked, now waving his hand in the direction of the bar. The gesture summoned one of the busy barmaids in a flash.

  “Yes, milord?” she said with a curtsey and a patently false smile. “You want something else?”

  Her dress was cut low, as were those of all the serving staff and the “ladies” who were paid to keep the gamblers company. The displayed cleavage drew stares from neither of the two men, however. They were too busy watching one another to have time to show interest in her. Her smile faded like a watercolor in rain.

  “I’ll have another glass of wine, something better than this swill if you can manage, and my associate will have...”

  “Just a mug of water, if you please, Master Hensen.” Forbish had gauged his order carefully, not wanting to appear either rude or beholden to his host.

  “Water then.” The man smiled thinly, twitching his cuffs into perfection as the woman bowed again and left.

  “So,” Hensen said, sipping his wine, “my friend Toby tells me that you require my help in finding something. Something you’ve lost.”

  “Not exactly require, if you please, sir. I would welcome your help and will pay you for the service, but it is not a requirement. Also, it is not something so much as someone who has gone missing.”

  “You choose your words carefully, Mister Forbish,” he said, nodding to the barmaid as his new glass of wine and Forbish’s water were delivered. “I find that both refreshing and somewhat worrisome. You speak as though you are afraid I am trying to trick you with words.”

  “I’m just a careful sort, sir. No insult was intended.”

  “That is good.” Hensen sipped, and then raised his eyebrows, either in warning or in appreciation of the wine. “My associates don’t like it when people insult me.”

  “Then your associates and I should get along just fine.” Forbish sipped his water, more for something to do with his hands than from thirst.

  “So this person who has gone missing. Are you sure they did not simply wander away, get lost in the city perhaps? Or maybe they fell victim to the common thugs that prey on the unaware.”

  “No, sir. He didn’t just get lost, and he was quite capable of defending himself.” Forbish sipped again, choosing his next words with extreme care. “I’m sure that he was taken. Abducted, that is.”

  “Abducted?” Hensen’s eyebrows shot up as if they were attached to strings. “Was this friend of yours so valuable that he is being ransomed?”

  “No, sir. There won’t be a ransom. Lad had only been working for me for just over a fortnight. He’s just a boy.”

  “Have you no idea why the boy might have been taken? Slavers, perhaps?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. As I said, Lad was more than able to defend himself from common thugs. In fact,” Forbish paused, unsure how much he should tell this man of Lad’s abilities, “it may have been those very skills for which he was taken.”

  “What skills exactly do you mean?” Hensen was showing far too much interest for Forbish’s comfort, but there was no way to avoid the question.

  “He’s quite an amazing young man, Lad is, sir. He can move fast and do things with his hands and feet that I’ve never seen nor thought could be done.”

  “He’s trained in fighting then? As a swordsman?”

  “No, sir, not with a sword, though I did see him use a hand axe once. Lad didn’t need a sword.”

  “Didn’t need a sword? What do you mean?”

  Forbish took a deep breath and another sip of water, wishing it was ale after all. “What I mean, sir, is that I watched the boy kill four armed men without a weapon in his hand. He saved my daughter’s life, he did. Them men would have killed us all, and Lad saved us. Now he’s gone missin’, and I think it was because he could do those things.”

  He did not want to tell this man Lad’s entire story, not unless it was necessary, but Hensen’s eyes were narrowing now, as if the thoughts behind them were making connections that he didn’t particularly care for. He stared at Forbish hard, as if willing more information out of him, but the innkeeper feared that he had already said too much. He sipped his water and let his eyes explore the patterns of wood grain in the table’s surface.

  “I will tell you something, Mister Forbish,” Hensen said finally, sipping his wine and returning to his carefully neutral mien. “This is the second time in as many weeks that I have been approached to aid in finding a young man.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” His tone blatantly implied that he did not care for interruptions. “The previous search was much more vague in some respects and much more direct in others. I was not given any information about this boy, but a very accurate description. That search was called off yesterday morning, and here I have you asking me to look for a young man who has gone missing the very next day.”

  Forbish kept his mouth carefully shut.

  “I am not one to believe in coincidence, Mister Forbish, but the occurrence could have happened by chance, so I will ask you to give me a description of this young man, and we will see if it matches the one of my previous employer.”

  “Yes, sir. He was not so tall as me, maybe a hand shorter. Thin, though not what you’d call skinny. More like wiry, I guess you’d say. He had sandy hair, fair skin, though he’d been out in the sun and was a bit tan, and his eyes were a very light color, almost like fresh-cut oak.” He shrugged, wondering what else to add. “He wore a simple homespun tunic of blue, the last I saw him, and trousers of brown. He never wore shoes.”

  “I see.” Hensen appeared to lapse into silence for a long, uncomfortable time during which Forbish kept his eyes down. He knew it would not be healthy to attempt to pressure the man, bu
t after a while his gaze drifted up. Hensen was staring right at him, but his eyes were glazed over as if he were staring at a distant scene. Forbish looked back down at the table, sipped his water and concentrated on the endless spirals of grain in its surface, trying to ignore the man’s relentless stare. Finally, after minutes of discomfort, Hensen reached inside his cloak and retrieved a roll of parchment. He handed it to Forbish and smiled thinly.

  “Please have a look at that and tell me if this is the young man you seek.”

  Forbish’s fingers trembled as they untied the thin ribbon that bound the parchment. His thoughts whirled in chaotic circles. Why would this man have a portrait of Lad? Who was it who had been searching for him? Why was Hensen being so cagey? He unrolled the parchment and found himself staring into features that were all too familiar.

  “That’s his very image, sir.”

  “I thought so.” He took the parchment back and made it vanish into his cloak. He then took another, deeper drink from his glass and stood up from the table.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Forbish, but I cannot help you recover your friend.”

  “Why not?” Forbish started to rise, but sat back down at the man’s gesture. “I’m willing to pay you!”

  “Money is not the issue. I know precisely who took your friend from you, and let me assure you, no amount of money could induce me to attempt to recover him.” He fished two gold coins from his pocket and placed them on the table. “Have a drink on me, Mister Forbish. Have several. But forget your young friend. He is either dead or so far beyond your reach that he may as well be.”

  With that, the man and his two bodyguards turned and left Forbish to sit and stare at the gold on the table. A day’s profits lay there for the taking, but he would have rather touched a viper. He sat and stared a long time, thinking of the words that Hensen had used, thinking of Lad and thinking of his daughter.

  “Would you like anything else, sir?”

  The barmaid’s return jolted him out of his reverie. Forbish looked up at her and shook his head, then worked his way out from the narrow booth.