by John Conroe
“Making Savid’s task even more vital and time sensitive,” King Helat said. “Captain, carry out your duties.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said, saluting and turning to leave. As I got to the door, I heard the king behind me.
“Now, Rucian, what’s your beef with my handling of the traitorous Lady Dominick?”
“Well, Sire, it’s the manner of her arrest,” I heard my father say, just before I closed the door and cut off all sound.
Outside, I found Brent half asleep in a chair, waiting in case the king needed something. He struggled awake.
“When are you off duty?” I asked him.
“Six o’clock,” he said.
“Get a few hours’ sleep, then come to the Knife around noon. We’re going to need your help and it involves your family.”
“Yes sir.”
I left, trying to think of how I was going to tell a boy that his uncle was now the kind of monster he was training to fight.
Chapter 12
Hemppe met me at the door to the Knife and Needle. “Is our friend safe and comfortable?” I asked.
He looked majorly disturbed, which on Hemppe is a steady frown and slightly tight shoulders. “Yes,” he said with a nod, his eyes still holding mine.
“Strange, huh?” I said.
“Doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s really him. I didn’t believe it… not really, but he knows us. All of us.” It was like a full-blown speech.
“Yeah, it’s mashed up. But he’s ours and we get to keep him—as long as we don’t lose him. We’re also getting a babysitter from the birds. Female. Probably high-level. When she shows, sit on her. I’m gonna grab a couple of hours, then get back at it. But when we take her in, we gotta put on the whole show, every detail, every act.”
He nodded, a flash of relief crossing his face when I mentioned our custody of Ash. “I’ll start the ball rolling.”
“Have you slept?”
“Just got up. Two hours or so,” he said with a shrug.
“Okay, good. I’m out,” I said, heading to the stairs. We had been trained to forego sleep, but we were only human. For every extra hour we were awake past our natural schedule, our performance would degrade. Sometimes you had to go with that; sometimes you could squeeze in a few hours; and sometimes you could get a full set of winks. This moment in time, right now, required me to catch what I could and hope I was sharp enough to meet my challenges.
Every RRS trooper and most regular soldiers learned to sleep at a moment’s notice. I hit my bed and was out cold.
When I woke again, the sun was very high in the sky but not quite at its peak. So maybe a bit more than two hours. I washed my face, changed my shirt, and headed downstairs.
Terry was coming out of the dining room, carrying a tray of pottery mugs and plates. “Far corner. Usual?” she asked.
“Yes, thanks.”
I stepped into the main room and headed to the bar, careful not to look at the table Terry had mentioned with anything but my peripheral vision. Single occupant, slender, hair in a bun. Most likely female. I pulled a stool between Cort and an older Shadow, Kisen, who did an entirely too realistic a job pretending to be a drunk. In the opposite corner of the room, Bard Trell was dining with an attractive lady friend, a sight that had become quite common since we adopted him.
The spot between my shoulder blades itched but I focused on the mug of dark stout that Hemppe set in front of me. Thirsty, I pulled a long draft from it, about a third of it, and turned to Cort, one eyebrow up.
“It’s bad,” he mumbled around his own slug of ale.
Slinch had indicated his chosen agent was female. We knew his most experienced, reliable agents, and he wouldn’t dare use less than his best for this. There were only two or three people that fit those criteria, and one of those was worse for us than the others. Cort’s assessment told me it was her. Fontina.
Terry came back in and set a plate of hot chicken, mashed chive potatoes, and green beans, all swimming in gravy, in front of me. I dug in.
Behind me, I heard a chair get pushed back. Then the soft click of small, leather-soled shoes approach me.
I ignored her, because it was best to begin as I intended to go.
“This delay is unacceptable,” a soft, well-modulated voice enunciated precisely.
“Then don’t accept it,” I said without turning around.
“You concede defeat so fast?”
“Sure. Run on back to Slinch and make your complaint,” I said, working belt knife and fork at a steady pace.
Raven Fontina was silent, a dark pressure behind me which made every combat instinct I had flare white hot. I kept eating. Hemppe set a mug of caffe in front of me and removed the now empty tankard.
“And leave you… unsupervised?” she said softly. “I think not.” She sighed. “Must we?”
I swallowed my last bite, took a drink of the caffe, and then turned slowly around.
Fontina is a small, dark woman, barely one and half spans tall. Her skin is the color of walnut, her eyes a rich mahogany. When she smiles, which is very, very rare, her teeth are the white of sun-bleached bone. She is neither attractive, nor ugly, but rather… nondescript. When she desires it so, she fades into a crowd, and when she needs to be attended, her forceful personality has a certain quality that gathers the eye.
She’s been a Raven for over fifteen years and before that, she was a citizen of the Republic of Berkette. We still didn’t know what role she had played in that life, but we knew she was scary smart, extremely perceptive, and as tenacious as a royal war hound. She was exactly the agent I didn’t want to have looking over our shoulders.
“Ash Newberry is a decorated hero of Montshire and continues to be loyal even now. King Helot ordered an observer… so you will observe. You will not address him, nor will you attempt to direct his treatment. If you have questions, you may write them down and we will present them. You will be blindfolded and hooded with earplugs when we take you to him. You will carry no weapons or items of any kind, including jewelry. Any attempt at smuggling a Finder’s stone and we will send you back to Slinch as unacceptable,” I said.
She studied me for a moment, a slight smile flickering across her face. I ignored it. Fontina was too skilled an agent for me to allow myself to attempt to read her expressions. Anything I picked up was something she deliberately showed me. I had no doubt she was a deadly killer, but her real danger was in the icy mind that lurked behind her rich brown eyes.
Other Ravens might attempt to bluster or intimidate me. She knew better. She simply nodded once. Without taking my eyes off her, I nodded back at her—once. Immediately, Jella and Soshi appeared on either side of her, one popping earplugs into each ear, the other winding a thick, tight-knit blindfold over her eyes. Cort took the black hood that Hemppe handed him and pulled it over her head while the two women expertly searched her for weapons or artifacts.
Only then, when she was blindfolded with ears plugged, did the rest of the patrons stand and look my way. Game on. I looked first at Trell’s table. His companion, Kassa, gave me a silent nod. Kassa’s signal indicated that she couldn’t detect any interested parties within her personal range and that Fontina wasn’t herself an eslling. My own people were keeping a strict watch across our section of the city for strangers as well.
I ran my gaze over the people in the room: Hemppe, Cort, Jella, Soshi, Trell, Kassa, and a suddenly sober-looking Kisen. I still didn’t speak, but my hand rose and spoke volumes to my people. Shadow sign language for Perfect game, danger close with an index finger point to Fontina. I got silent nods of understanding all around.
Okay. Game on.
Chapter 13
As I stood, Jella and Soshi grabbed Fontina and bodily lifted her off the ground. Drodacians are far stronger than their lean frames look and Soshi would never have graduated Despair without serious muscle, which she still worked hard to keep and even improve.
They hustled the Raven out of the Knife and Needl
e and right into the open door of a shuttered carriage that Drew was driving. I joined the three of them inside the vehicle and we took off at breakneck speed. Immediately, Jella lit a stick of incense and positioned it near Fontina’s nose to block any and all scents that a highly trained operative might use to guess their location. While she did, I used my own abilities to see if I could pick up on a Finder’s stone secreted about her person. I got nothing but since those energized objects are usually extremely personalized by a single Finder, I couldn’t be sure she was absolutely clean.
The next forty minutes were spent driving all over the city with two actual vehicle and driver switches and one fake switch to throw off any observers. We hit every portion of Haven at least once and most of them twice, including the grounds of the castle itself. When our final driver, Urso, brought our last ride to a halt, we were inside the tiny courtyard of a private residence with the gate closed behind us. Urso picked up the small Raven in his arms, spun in place three times, and carried her into the rear door of the home. In the kitchen, he turned into the open root cellar door and proceeded down the stairs into the cold storage cellar, which was currently warm due to multiple torches lining the walls. At the rear of the cellar was an opening in the wall and he took her through and into the tunnel beyond. At every new room or entrance, he performed a new spin to throw off her internal sense of direction.
We turned at multiple intersections in the labyrinth of tunnels before we arrived in a large, open room.
I, myself, removed her hood and blindfold, allowing her to remove the earplugs. Her composure was intact, but I was fairly certain her sense of direction was fooled. We have practiced that routine before, using Jella as our victim, and even her superior senses were jumbled.
“Thorough,” she said, meeting my eyes. Giving her nothing, I turned to face the reason we were here and the reason we went through all that effort.
“Hey, Ash,” I said. He was standing on the other side of the room, a barrier of metal bars that cost a small fortune dividing his half from ours. Massive, clawed, and gnarled hands gripped the bars as he looked at me and then Fontina.
“You remember Raven Fontina?” I asked. “The king insisted we have a watcher from Neil’s people.”
“You believe he understands you?” Fontina said.
“That’s mark one,” I said whipping around. “Two marks and we send you packing, so by all means… do it again.”
Her hard, dark eyes met mine, neither of us flinching or looking away. A rumbling hack came from Ash’s side of the room. I allowed myself to look his way. His red eyes were locked on Fontina and he was… laughing… at her.
“That seems like a clear answer,” Urso said.
“Alright, let’s get down to business,” I said. “Ready to answer some questions?”
Now his scarlet gaze was locked on me. He squeezed the bars and his black claws scratched the metal.
“Well, what exactly did you expect?” I asked. “There’s always a debrief after a mission and evaluation is always a part of it. You come back to us like this and the eval takes on a whole new level of importance, don’t you think?”
His eyes still bored into me, but he blinked once, slowly. Standard signaling. Once of anything meant yes, and twice meant no.
“After all, I can’t very well bring Sissa in here until I know exactly how you’re doing, can I?”
He froze up, muscles locking tight. Behind me, I heard a slight foot shuffle and I hoped, prayed really, that Fontina would take the bait. But the room stayed silent.
I grinned at Ash, but his eyes stayed locked on mine. He blinked again, twice.
“Okay, buddy, let’s get down to it. Saddle up because this is going to be a long one. Let us know when you need anything, alright?”
He blinked once.
“First, the hard one—did anyone else make it?”
Two slow blinks.
“Damn. What about Paddy?”
Two blinks.
“But at least you did.”
Two more blinks.
“Oh? You didn’t make it out?”
Two more.
“Because that shit stain the Paul did this to you?”
A single blink.
“I speak for the entire Shadow team and Princess Brona when I say we all want you back anyway we can get you.”
He growled and turned away sharply.
“Welton already figured it out. We had to about confine him to his house to keep him away. You think Sissa Newberry will stop loving you because you’ve contracted a disease? Have you met the lady?”
He had his thick back to me, the new twists in his spine painfully visible. I let him alone for a few minutes, turning back to study my watcher. Fontina was frowning lightly, which I took to mean absolutely nothing.
“I’d offer you a chair, but I don’t want you here so… there isn’t one,” I told her, turning back to Ash.
He straightened and slowly turned to us. Then he shuffled over to the wide oak bench and sat heavily.
“Alright, Shadow. Comfortable?”
He shrugged, one paw loosely swinging my way. Ash-lish for let’s get on with it.
“Did you penetrate the Paul’s citadel?”
He growled and looked to the side. Then he turned back and blinked once. I started to speak, and he growled and blinked twice.
“Yes and no?”
One blink.
“You got caught?”
One blink.
I turned and looked behind me. Soshi was near the back wall, where we had stored some items that we thought might be useful for this debrief.
“The map please, Soshi.”
She picked up a rigid map made from thin pine planks glued together with a large parchment fastened to it.
“This is our map with what we know to date,” I said, moving close to the bars and holding the map up for him to see.
He looked at it, eyes narrowing. Suddenly his right hand shot out and grabbed the wood frame, yanking it from my hands. A sharp pain in my hand told me the boards hadn’t been well sanded, but I didn’t let on to the splinter’s presence.
Ash was holding the map, which looked much smaller in his enlarged hands, and he hunched over it in concentration. After a moment, he looked up at me and his eyes narrowed again.
It wasn’t our best map, more like our second-best map, and I believe that he knew it. He and his murder had studied the good one long and hard before heading out on their mission. I pointed a finger at the center of my chest, using my own body to block Fontina’s view. He focused on it and then focused past me—behind me. It was my turn to blink once. We don’t bring out our best dishes when the pain in the ass relatives force themselves on us.
He growled and looked back at the map, one big claw scratching idly at the thin parchment.
“So you partially penetrated the fortress, but got caught—where? In the tunnels?”
He growled and blinked at me. Yes.
“Did the Paul try this on the whole murder?” I said, waving at his whole body.
He snarled, loud, but his eyes blinked twice.
“Just you?”
He threw down the map and it skidded to the bars just in front of my feet.
“Did he know you would stay you?”
His growl changed, becoming something uncertain. Then he turned and lurched over to the big bed we had installed in the corner. He collapsed on his side, facing the far wall.
I reached though the bars and retrieved the map, my very quick glance showing the vellum was scratched up as I handed it off, unexamined, to Soshi, who whisked it away from Fontina’s sharp eyes.
My single look had seen a small set of marks at places on the map that our more up-to-date version showed as entrances to the labyrinth under the Paul’s citadel. I had also seen some clawed lines moving inward, so I felt pretty sure that we needed to examine it closely and compare it to our updated version. Ash had just drawn a map on the map.
“Break time. We
’ll go at it again in a few minutes,” I told Ash.
As I turned, Fontina raised her brows in obvious question. I escorted her to the next room over and Soshi followed us out, closing the door behind her.
“You honestly think that that thing understands you?” she asked, incredulous.
“I’d ask if you honestly thought he didn’t, but we both know how far honesty goes in this business. If you believe that he wasn’t communicating, then say the word. We’ll have you back to the Ravens in no time.”
She studied me, expression blank. I waited.
“My job is to observe this fiasco, so that’s what I’ll do.”
“Please. We both know you’re just fishing. You saw what I saw, and you realize what a font of information he is. Don’t patronize me,” I said, turning to Urso, who had followed Soshi out of the room. “Let’s give him a treat, shall we?”
Urso nodded and left through another door.
“He is your avowed comrade in arms and you speak of tossing him food for good behavior,” Fontina said.
She was clearly frustrated, or she would never have made that assumption. It was useful to know where she stood.
“We’re sending his youngest nephew in to visit him,” I said.
I’ll give her this: She was fast on her feet. “That strikes me as incredibly risky.”
“For who?” I asked. “You and the Ravens?”
To her credit, she didn’t continue to press any kind of case. We both knew that she had no moral or emotional interest in the survival of a child she had never met. Probably not even a child that she had met. Fontina had a definitive reputation for ruthlessness.
Her dark eyes bored into me and I could just about hear her brain working overtime. She started to open her mouth but the door opened and Drew stuck his head in.
“Ah, boss. A word?”
I nodded and headed his way. As soon as I was through, he closed the door behind me, almost in Fontina’s face, leaving her under Soshi’s careful watch.
“There’s been a problem at the castle,” he said, pitching his voice low. “Someone took out Lady Dominick right in her cell.”