“Figure out the radius,” Jorgeson snapped. “They might not go back to their base each night, but they won’t ride too many days out.”
“I would.”
“What?”
Shandin spat again and ground the wad of tobacco under his heel into the dust. “There’s a lot of forest out there and plenty of fields. Safer for them to go several days out and camp in between than keep going back, especially if they’ve found a good base. They’ll suspect someone’s looking for them. Since you haven’t caught them, that tells me they’re plenty smart.”
“I’m paying you to be smarter.”
An unpleasant smile tilted Shandin’s lips. “Oh, I will be. I’ve been doin’ my own kind of hunting longer than they’ve been on the run. They’ll slip up, sooner or later.”
“You’d better find them.”
Shandin seemed unfazed by the implied threat. “Did your guards search the kinds of places I told you?”
Jorgeson let out a potent curse. “Do you have any idea how many abandoned buildings there are within a three-month ride of the city walls in every direction? I couldn’t search them all if I had an army!”
“They’ll slip up… leave a clue,” Shandin assured him. “We just have to find it.”
“Maybe they’ve split up, the brothers gone their own way from the rest of them. Harder to hide a big group.”
Shandin frowned. “No. I don’t think so. They’ll want to keep their witches close. They might go hunting in separate teams, but from what you’ve told me, I think these brigands have got some sort of outlaw family.” His smile broadened. “That’s going to be their weak point. They won’t leave each other behind, and that’s going to get them all captured.”
“I don’t care how you do it, just do it,” Jorgeson snapped. “I want results.”
“You’ll have them,” Shandin replied, maddeningly unperturbed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, if there’s nothing else, I’ve got men to hunt.”
Jorgeson watched him go, fighting the urge to send his knife flying past Shandin’s shoulder and into the wall to make a statement. All his sources had told him that Shandin was the bounty hunter with the best kill record in Darkhurst. And as frustrated as Jorgeson was with the man, the truth was, he needed his help—and he was certain Shandin sensed it.
Crown Prince Aliyev had kept his word, giving Jorgeson charge over six guards, two middling witches, a wagon full of weapons and supplies, horses, and enough money to last for another month or two if he was careful. But Aliyev had also made it clear that he expected a quick resolution to the mission. Jorgeson doubted that his master would be as generous if what had been provided was not sufficient.
Then again, if it were easy, Aliyev wouldn’t need me. He’d have sent out a garrison, brought the criminals back in chains, and hanged them in the square months ago.
One night later, Jorgeson slouched at the corner of a building in a crossroads town on the main road from Ravenwood City into the countryside, the road all the merchants and money lenders followed. If he was going to get news out in this gods-forsaken wilderness without backtracking for weeks, it would be here. Even so, he wondered if the outcome would be worth the effort.
Not far from the crossroads, the fanciest building in Debonton loomed against the night sky, three floors tall and made of brick. Nothing else in town—nothing else nearby—looked remotely like it, an outpost of the Bakaran League and the Crown Prince, with some borrowed authority from King Rellan himself.
Word traveled painfully slow out here, which Jorgeson found to be one of the worst parts of his exile. Being banished from the city meant being cut off from news, and since part of winning a stay of execution depended on helping Crown Prince Aliyev regain the status quo, a lack of news amounted to a significant disadvantage.
He had heard through his sources that a delegation from the exchequer’s office in Ravenwood City would be making at stop at the tariff house in Debonton to look over the books. He knew the sort that would be sent; minor functionaries who were not personally acquainted with or known to the Crown Prince, but who lingered on the edges of his circle.
No one who would be missed, but potentially someone who could fill Jorgeson in on the essentials he needed in order to keep his bloody bargain with Aliyev.
If he had not already been exiled, banished, and under a reluctant stay of execution, Jorgeson might have felt put out at doing the dirty work himself. Then again, he thought, perhaps it’s a sign of the times. Everything seems off-balance since those damned gravediggers and their brigand friends ruined everything.
Jorgeson knew his job. Before he had risen in the ranks to head the Lord Mayor’s security at the mayor’s palace, he had been a soldier, and more than once, that job entailed tracking and capturing a witness, a contact—someone his superiors believed to be of interest. Years had passed, but old skills never truly faded. Now that everything else about his world had gone belly up, Jorgeson found cold comfort in that fact. He was still good at this.
His quarry emerged from the tariff building and gave a quick, nervous glance up and down the street. At this time, several candlemarks after dark, businesses and peddlers alike had closed their doors and packed up their wagons to go home. The streets stretched empty in both directions, the darkness broken only by the light from the upstairs apartments over merchant’s shops or the two torches on either side of the tariff house steps.
Jorgeson guessed the nervous little man worked late because he had other errands for his masters, other crossroads towns and tariff houses to audit, filled with endless, dusty ledgers. Jorgeson’s lips quirked upward with a secret smile. He might be doing the man a favor, ending his boredom. Tonight would certainly be far more interesting than the exchequer’s assistant ever dreamed.
Taking him proved pathetically easy. The skinny little bureaucrat had not even looked behind him once he left the building, other than a few furtive glances that were too quick for him to see much. Jorgeson moved quickly, soundlessly, slipping up behind the man when he crossed a darkened street, pressing a hand across nose and mouth while the other arm clenched over his prey’s shoulders.
“Make a noise, fight me, and I’ll snap your scrawny neck,” Jorgeson murmured, his lips close to the man’s ear. He did not move his hand from covering his captive’s mouth, so the only reply was a high, nervous whine Jorgeson took to be assent.
He had learned a choke hold in his army days, a way to make a man unconscious without killing him. He pressed just so, and the bureaucrat slumped in his grip. Jorgeson paused to make certain that his quarry was still breathing, that he could feel a pulse beneath his fingers. Once he had confirmed those essentials, Jorgeson hefted the man over his shoulder and slipped down the alley.
He did not have to go far. Jorgeson had scouted the area beforehand, and the back room of an abandoned store was well suited to the night’s work. Jorgeson dragged the functionary through a door and lit a lantern, then arranged the man in a chair, tying him in securely before he woke.
“What happened?” The prisoner came around slowly, taking in his surroundings with bleary eyes.
“I thought we needed to have a chat,” Jorgeson replied, leaning against a scarred wooden table.
Only then did the man seem to realize that he had been bound. “I don’t have much money. Take it—it’s beneath my vest. Just let me go.”
“I don’t want your money,” Jorgeson said. “I want information.”
The thin man licked his lips nervously. “What type of information?”
Jorgeson gave him a cold smile. “Let’s start with your name.”
“Weston,” the man replied. “Garth Weston.”
Jorgeson nodded. “Good. All right, Garth, tell me how things are in Ravenwood City. Inside the walls.”
Garth licked his lips again. “What ‘things’?”
Jorgeson’s smile slipped a little. “Start talking. Describe how things are since the fire. The guards, the monsters, the Guilds, trade with the rest
of the League—all of it.”
Garth looked at Jorgeson, fearful and confused. “Only that?”
“Only… that.”
Garth flinched, not mistaking the menace in Jorgeson’s voice. “All right then,” he began with a nervous swallow, “since the fire. Well, things don’t work quite right anymore. You know the Lord Mayor is dead?”
Jorgeson nodded, and the look on his face flustered Garth, who glanced away. “The Crown Prince himself came to Ravenwood to sort things out. I don’t see much of him, but I’ve heard he’s quite cross.” He glanced up hurriedly. “Not criticizing, just saying what I’ve heard.”
“Go on.”
“The Guilds are nearly in revolt. They’re upset about the Garenoth agreement; it’s not going well. We—Ravenwood—might still lose our most-favored status because we’re not delivering. There’ve been problems. Everything we import costs more ‘cause everyone’s afraid the agreement will fall apart soon. The Guilds have to pay more and charge more, but they’re selling less.” He made himself slow down and breathe. “They come to the tariff house every day to complain to the Crown Prince about one thing or another. I work down the hallway. I can’t always hear what they say, but voices are raised.”
“Say more.”
Garth took a deep breath. “When I go to the market, everyone’s out of sorts. With the Garenoth agreement being rocky, everyone’s edgy. The Guild trades, the merchants in the markets, even the peddlers—everyone’s unhappy because, with doubt about that agreement, the trading ships aren’t as keen to buy Ravenwood’s exports.”
“What about the monsters—and the hunters?”
Garth looked down. “I don’t know much about that. Just rumors. Everyone says the hunters set the fires the night Lord Mayor Machison died. There’ve been arguments—fights, even—down at the pub about whether the hunters are heroes or criminals. But since that night, the night of the fires, the monsters don’t come around as much, seems like. Not as often and not as many, so some folks say that it was the hunters who fixed things.”
“Interesting. What else?”
“Merchant Prince Gorog killed himself, or so they say,” Garth continued. He seemed unsure whether repeating gossip would extend his life or shorten it, so the words continued in a torrent. “The Crown Prince appointed Gorog’s son to the role. Haven’t heard much about him, but there’s some gossip suggesting the elder Gorog didn’t have much of a choice about killing himself, if you know what I mean.”
“That should keep his son on his toes,” Jorgeson replied.
Garth nodded in agreement, anxious to keep Jorgeson appeased. “The Crown Prince worries about money. Revenue and taxes, since exports are down.” He cleared his throat. “That’s my area, that’s why I’m here. The king won’t take kindly to Ravenwood not bringing in as much to the coffers, regardless of the circumstances, so Crown Prince Aliyev is looking for every copper. Sent a dozen of us out to the countryside, making sure revenues are collected.”
“Predictable,” Jorgeson muttered, more to himself than to Garth.
“But the good news is, the fires are out. Got the wreckage cleared away, and it’s not as bad as you might think, considering how it all looked like it would go up at once,” Garth babbled on.
“What of the other city-states? What have you heard?”
Ravenwood was both a walled city and an independent city-state within the kingdom of Darkhurst. Ten such city-states made up a loose—and competitive—alliance known as the Bakaran League. Each city-state was ruled by a Crown Prince, who in turn reported to the king. Merchant Princes owned the land outside the city walls and controlled the commodities yielded from that land—crops, ore, timber, livestock. Within the cities, Guilds oversaw each hereditary profession.
Jorgeson knew first-hand how nasty the politics could get. The Guild Masters vied with each other for pricing and favors. The Merchant Princes cut deals and competed for favoritism when the trade agreements between each city-state and its neighbors came due. A few percentage points one way or the other in a deal made or lost fortunes for the Merchant Princes and the members of the nobility that served as their financiers, underwriting their expenses and the building and maintenance of the trading fleet, paying for its voyages.
Before the fire, Ravenwood and Garenoth had been the two wealthiest city-states in the League. Favors their carefully-crafted trade agreements gave to one another not only guaranteed a certain level—and profitability—of commerce, but also assured that the favored partner would receive the best commodities, whether food or raw materials. Losing that status would affect everyone in Ravenwood on some level, from the profits of the Merchant Princes and the Guild members to the quantity, price, and quality of food available in the market.
“What do you hear about the rest of the League?” Jorgeson repeated when Garth paused.
“Just bits,” he said, smacking his lips as if he feared this would not be enough to satisfy his captor. “I’m nobody important, so I don’t hear much of anything officially. But people talk, you know? And voices carry.”
And there, Jorgeson knew, lay the most important truth of spy craft. Voices carry. People who should know nothing often heard everything, because the important people forgot that servants were in the room, that functionaries had their door open, and that whores and mistresses were smarter than they pretended to be.
“After things fell apart in Kasten the other city-states all went scrabbling for the pieces,” Garth said. “Especially their neighbors. There’s talk Kasten might be partitioned, no longer be independent. And I think people in Ravenwood—important people—are afraid the same might happen to us if the Garenoth agreement fails and Aliyev isn’t careful, and tricky.”
“Oh?”
Garth’s head bobbed in agreement. “Yeah. Sarolinia and Itara seem to be getting bolder, pushing for a bigger piece of the trade Ravenwood’s on the verge of losing. I heard the Ravenwood ambassador talking with one of the Crown Prince’s men in the corridor—they didn’t know I was still at my desk—and the ambassador said he thought Sarolinia might be looking to ‘help’ Ravenwood fail any way they could.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Jorgeson said. “Did the ambassador offer any proof?”
Garth shook his head. “No. At least, not that I heard. Only rumors. The Crown Prince’s man didn’t speak as loudly—I couldn’t hear everything he said—but I got the impression that he agreed about the threat, and thought Sarolinia might send in troublemakers to stir things up, cause problems with the shipping, that sort of thing. And then there are the pirates—”
“Pirates?” Jorgeson’s eyebrows rose. This was real news.
“Apparently, there have been problems. I had to go down to collect revenues at the wharf side tariff office. Two of the ship captains were waiting for their money, talking about pirates. One said they’d fought back a group that tried to board their ship. The other agreed like he knew firsthand, and said there had been talk about shipments being stolen and sold on the black market. Said that was why there’d been shortages on a few things because the pirates and smugglers stole them from the warehouses and sold them off illegally.”
Jorgeson’s thoughts raced. It’s worse than I thought if pirates and smugglers have gotten a foothold. Aliyev’s really lost control, and Ravenwood’s going to be bleeding revenue. Sooner or later, the king will notice. Sarolinia’s probably meddling to make Ravenwood’s problems even worse. Shit. And Aliyev is expecting me to feed him fresh information about Sarolinia and Itara. Now I know why he seemed so interested.
“What of the Merchant Princes?” Jorgeson pressed. He suspected his captive’s usefulness approached its end, but he did not intend to waste a resource if it might still yield one more unexpected nugget of information.
“I heard Merchant Prince Kadar in the corridor, demanding an audience with Crown Prince Aliyev,” Garth replied. Sweat beaded on his brow, as if he, too, guessed his time was running out. “That’s not uncommon, since the older Go
rog’s death. Merchant Prince Tamar is fairly quiet when he bothers to come to the tariff house, although he’s often quite short with the staff, as if he has a lot on his mind. But Kadar is much more… assertive… than he was before the fire. Not that Kadar didn’t make his opinions known,” Garth added in a tone that suggested there was quite a story behind that comment if Jorgeson cared to ask. “But now, I get the impression he sees an opportunity and nothing is going to get in his way.”
No, Kadar isn’t going to let anyone put him in second place, not again, Jorgeson thought. Clever bastard, rushing to fill the gap. Gorog’s son will be timid, coming in on the heels of a dead man. Tamas has always been a follower. If Aliyev’s attention is elsewhere, Kadar can slip his leash and by the time Aliyev has his house in order—if that happens—Kadar will have grabbed up everything he can.
“Is there more?” Jorgeson regarded his captive, noted the slight tremor that ran through the man’s body. He pushed away from the table and slowly walked a circle around the bound man, stopping behind his chair.
“I’m well situated to hear things,” Garth offered. “I could be your man on the inside, bring you news every few weeks. I won’t breathe a word to anyone.”
“No, you won’t.” Jorgeson brought his knife across Garth’s neck in one swift, brutal arc. He wiped the blood that spattered his hand on the dead man’s jacket.
“Good talking with you,” he murmured, shuttering his lantern.
“We had a deal,” the bearded man said, stalking across the room to stand too close to Jorgeson, intentionally challenging him. “Your guards were to keep their distance.”
“And my guards have kept their part of the bargain,” Jorgeson snapped. He kept his hands down at his sides, though his fingers itched for the handle of his knife. Any other man would have been thrown backward with a solid punch to the jaw, taught manners with fists and blades.
Renvar was not just any man.
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