He stood and turned around when Talen drew his mothersfather's sword.
"So," Kug said. "You're the other one."
Chapter Twenty One
Kug
Kug kept the fire pit between himself and his guests as they moved out from behind the bar.
Talen's sword was impressive.
"We're… we're here for Ranith, Kug."
The way he held it, less so.
"There are others with a stronger claim," Kug said, "and better means to support it than a stolen sword."
Talen stopped in a huff and whined, "This was my mothersfather's blade!"
The female kept moving. She was trying to flank him. Kug lifted his ax in one hand and pointed it at her, a gesture of intimidation he could hold steady for just long enough. The thing was heavier than it once was.
"Hold your place."
She held up her hands and stayed where she was. "Whatever you're doing," she said, "is not good."
He laughed. "You and your skinny friend are here to make it right, then?" He gripped the ax in both hands and shifted his stance to keep both of them in view. "Such altruists."
Talen lifted his sword. "I don't want to hurt you, Kug." The blade shook. "Not you or Lama."
Kug took a step back to be a stride closer to the stairs. "You're not a fighter, Talen. What was your plan? Distract me while she runs past?" He nodded at Talen's partner. "There's a magn up there who could wrap one hand around your neck. You think you can stick him with that little knife while he squeezes you dead?"
Talen advanced. "Drop your ax, Kug. You can't take us both."
"Boy…" Kug sighed. "I didn't realize you were so stupid."
"I mean it!"
"I'm sure you do. But you're in the tall green now, and you have no idea what's coming for you."
Talen took another step forward. "All I see is an old tavernkeep standing in my way."
Kug almost admired Talen's bravado, tragic as it was. "Put down the sword, run away, and hide, Talen. So long as your friend stays silent, you can outlive this night, at least. After that..?"
The friend was not at all the supportive partner. "None of this is good."
Talen yelled and lunged, swinging the sword with both hands in a wide, low arc; embarrassingly slow.
Kug parried with an easy swing of his ax. The clang of the blades was painfully loud.
Kug saw Talen wince as he struggled to keep hold of his sword. Talen's arms would be aching up to his shoulders from the impact, and he'd be even slower if he tried it again.
Kug let his swing bring him to bear on the female, ready.
She only stood there with her arms well out from her sides, conspicuously away from her still-sheathed knife.
She shook her head.
"That was your chance," Kug said.
Her face was grim and harried. "It's all chance," she muttered.
Whatever reply Kug had in his throat fled when the scream came down from the rooms above: sharp with rage; high, and wet, and abruptly truncated.
Kug knew it for what it was.
He turned his back on the two—they must have been decoys, never the threat—and bounded up the stairs. They followed; he could feel them at his back, feet pounding, but even as he anguished over turning to dispatch them or rushing on, the female said, "Go! Just go!" and so he went, down the hall and hard against the door of Lama's room—
A weight held it shut. He knew what that was, too. He'd seen it all in the dread theatre of his fears, playing again and again while he'd waited in the dark.
Kug put his shoulder against the door and shoved his way in.
The clinging, sharp, smothering tang of blood and offal and urine hit him first, tacky and offensive along the moist flesh lining his nostrils.
His darting, frantic eyes found the window next, shutters hanging loose and broken on the frame.
Something on the bed, but no. Don't look there yet.
Madly delaying, Kug's gaze next discovered Sot's own wide, staring, forever surprised eyes, pale against his face; paler still compared to the dark, ragged, wet tear across his throat and the black pool on the floor around his head.
Kug looked up, vision contracting to exclude all save Lama, arched there across the sleeping platform, arms and legs akimbo, the front of her a gleaming mess of entrails still steaming in the cool night air.
Talen and the female pressed against him, and he stumbled into the room, jerking his foot when it brushed Sot's unyielding shoulder. Kug reached for the support of a wall and found it sticky and cold.
He withdrew his hand automatically and, momentarily free of volition, wiped it on his tunic.
Lama's face was slack, her eyes empty of the indignation, the challenge, to which she'd dedicated her last breath.
Kug heard Talen's partner speak from somewhere far away.
"The child is gone."
Part Three
Chapter Twenty Two
Dennick
Dennick watched the facade of the Steadfast Capful and the drama that played against it from across the street and two doors down, where he lingered in the shadows like the half-somnolent drunk the Shadow District thought him to be.
He saw Talen and the seer, Rajen, bicker before Talen finally scaled the fence and let her into the yard. If Prak and Kug "falling ill" had not been confirmation enough, Talen's slinking presence and the seer's urgent opposition brought all paths down to one. Ranith was within, probably with Kug's heartdaughter, the palace yard servant Lama.
That one had managed to bring ruin to all of Aenik with a few sparks. Now, she was undoubtedly in one of the upstairs rooms, a very defensible position at least for the short term, probably outside of her head with desperation… and she had Kug to protect her.
What did Talen hope to accomplish, armed with a weapon he almost certainly had never used? Kug might not be in his best shape after all these years, but the magn had been something formidable, once. Certainly he could handle those two.
Whatever happened next, it would happen quickly, and it would be ugly.
Dennick waited. He glanced down the silent street. Shadows and stillness.
He thought he saw a certain shadow shifting, as if something concealed beneath upset the unbroken dearth of light.
It was possible he was not alone in his vigil.
Not unexpected. Too many knew, or suspected, what the Capful sheltered. It was reasonable to assume more.
Down the other path, it could simply be his eyes attempting to assign sense where there was only empty darkness.
Then came the scream.
It was full of affronted, pointless fury, cut short.
A death cry.
Dennick ran across the street. There. A glimpse of movement; figures escaping across the rooftops. A wooden clatter as something—a plank?—fell to the ground.
Dennick raced down the narrow space between the Capful's yard and the next building. He had to get to the roof.
He scrambled up a heap of trash, which brought him just close enough to leap for a support beam jutting from the wall.
He hung there and, straining, pulled himself up to the point that he could swing a knee up onto the beam. From there, it was a matter of getting to his feet faster than fear could sap his strength of will or shake his equilibrium.
Standing on the beam allowed him to just reach the rough edge of the roof. He'd have one chance to pull himself up, and little chance of replanting his feet on the beam if he faltered.
It was all the way up, or a long way down.
Dennick heaved, grunting, and got himself up there.
Ahead, five cloaked figures were in full flight across the next rooftop, two already leaping to the one beyond that.
Dennick pounded after them, the roof creaking and crackling threateningly beneath his feet. "Stop!"
The slowest of them hesitated and glanced over their shoulder.
Dennick's limbs and lungs recalled many years of racing across the prairie with his fost
er brothers and sisters. He spanned the gap between buildings and hit the opposite roof without breaking stride before the laggard rediscovered their urgency and took off again.
The prey was no sprinter, and their mottled grey robe was a poor choice for the evening's activities.
A leap, and Dennick was on him. They hit the roof and slid edgeward along the rough, pebbled slabs, the robed figure's shoulder taking the worst of the impact.
Dennick saw a snarling, determined face beneath the hood. He punched it.
The figure took the punch so well, Dennick succumbed to surprise. That was enough for his opponent to twist from under him.
The magn attempted to scramble to his feet, but slipped in detritus—flite droppings, leaves, or something fouler; Dennick couldn't tell and didn't care beyond making sure he avoided it himself—and fell back down, hard.
Distantly, a baby wailed.
Dennick lunged for the magn's slippered feet and readied himself for a kick to the face.
The kick, from the magn's free leg, landed on Dennick's shoulder, off-center and diminished by desperate haste. Dennick was unhurt, but the contact was enough for the magn to push off and wrest his other leg free.
If the magn had realized how close they were to the edge of the roof, he might have put less force into that kick. He slid off, grasping in vain; howling.
Dennick got to the lip of the roof and looked down. The magn lay on his back, still and blinking. Something was wrong with his right arm. At a minimum.
Dennick looked up. The rooftops were empty and silent. The rest of them had made good their escape.
That decided it.
He looked down.
"We're going to talk, you and I. Stay there."
Talen
There was no reason left to fight.
Talen guided mute, unblinking Kug, ax hanging heavy from a limp arm, back down the stairs and into a chair near the fire pit. The older magn took the seat heavily. He stared at nothing.
Talen pulled a second chair out from the table and sat down next to him.
Kug leaned with both hands on the handle of his ax, rocking slightly.
Somewhere within the orange glow of the fire pit behind them both, an ember popped.
Kug blinked. He turned his head toward Talen.
"Could have been you."
Talen didn't understand, but the intensity of Kug's stunned grief kept him from speaking.
Kug elaborated.
"If I hadn't been down here, waiting for Dunak or the magicker or…"
Talen recognized the name, but… magicker..?
Kug shook his head. His lip curled.
"Think you would have survived?" The tavernkeeper barked a single laugh. "You can barely keep your grip on that old sword."
Talen absorbed that. "If we hadn't fought with you, we would have been upstairs when the killers came."
Kug muttered, "You're welcome."
"It's tangled solace," Talen thought about his parents and sister. "Stumbling blind off the path, never realizing it's led off a cliff." He remembered Ragan and the rest of the troupe.
Kug squinted at him and tilted his head. "Sorrow fills the well of song, eh, singer?"
Talen exhaled heavily. "So it's said."
Despite his remorse, he felt a twinge of restlessness. Every wink spent comforting Kug sent Talen's chance of redemption farther away, into the untraceable night.
What could he do? Talen was as responsible for Kug not being alert to the intruders as Kug was for inadvertently saving his and Rajen's lives.
The magn had just lost the last of his family. Talen knew that knife by the track of scars it left on his own heart.
"I am all regret, Kug."
"Swim in it," came the black response.
Talen reckoned he deserved that.
Rajen's descent down the stairs spared him further self-recrimination. Her face was set and grim.
"I found this." She held up a scrap of mottled grey cloth. "I know it."
Kug turned in his chair. "From the assassins."
"Yes. It's the same pattern, the same coarse fabric and dye, as is worn by a…" She seemed engaged in an internal debate. "A practitioner of the Science I'm… acquainted with."
Kug stood up and extended his hand, fingers jerking insistently. Rajen gave him the scrap.
He held it before his eyes.
"Ulthus."
Talen saw Rajen's eyebrows jerk; he could tell she was adjusting her appraisal of the older magn.
"The same," she said. "And others who follow a magicker called Taghesh."
Kug stared at the scrap in his hand, his face bunched in a snarl.
"Idiot…"
Talen had the impression Kug wasn't addressing anyone in the room.
Pounding on the front door of the Capful startled them all. Talen urged his mothersfather's sword from its scabbard. "The guard..?"
Kug tossed the scrap on the table, hefted his ax, and went to the door. He slid the cover from the spy-hole, grunted, shifted his ax to one hand, and lifted the bar with the other.
"Not the guard," he said. "Yet."
He opened the door.
Hatul, the ersatz drunkard, stepped into the common room. He dragged behind him a bloodied, broken, moaning magn wearing a torn and tattered robe of mottled grey.
Hatul half-tossed the magn ahead of him as Kug secured the door. He took in Talen and Rajen with a neutral nod.
"You should have words with this one, Kug," he gestured at the robed magn, "while he still has breath to push them out."
Kug
Kug didn't know how Hatul had come to encounter the assassin, or why the big magn knew to bring him to the Capful. All of that could wait.
He lay his ax on a table and kneeled over the wounded figure, who struggled to flip onto his back.
Kug helped by roughly grabbing the magn's right arm and forcing him over. The magn paled, grimacing in obvious agony, and tried to shift weight off his broken shoulder.
Kug dropped a leg across the magn's chest and dug his knee into that shoulder.
The magn didn't have enough breath in his lungs for a decent scream, but he tried. Pink froth bubbled on his anguished lips.
He was broken inside. Dying. The question was if Kug should draw out that inevitability, and if so, how to make it painful as possible. A little more pressure from his leg…
Talen's "Kug..!" begged restraint.
Extract blood and vengeance, or information? The dilemma squeezed tears from Kug's eyes. He groaned with rage and frustration, but eased his weight on the magn's chest.
"Why kill her?" he growled.
The magn's throat jumped as he swallowed and coughed. "That was the job."
"You're no magicker…" It was more realization than question.
"They're no…" His eyes bulged and he spasmed. "Not equipped…"
Behind Kug, the female said, "They're not fighters. Not killers."
Kug nodded. "Ulthus hired you. Or Taghesh." He didn't wait for an answer; the magn's rapidly darting eyes held final panic. This interview was coming to an end.
He needed to understand.
"Why? Why kill her?"
Hatul, voice uncharacteristically clear and urgent, said, "Not the question. Where are they taking Ranith? That's what we need to know."
The magn convulsed with nearly enough terminal vigor to displace Kug, who automatically jerked back to avoid a weak fountain of bright blood that welled from the mercenary's gaping mouth.
The abandoned corpse went limp.
Talen said, "What now?"
Kug sat heavily on the floor and wondered the same thing.
Hatul came forward and inspected the dead magn. He pulled the hood of the robe back from where it was bunched behind the lolling head, avoiding blood with an economy Kug had only ever seen in those with plenty of practice.
Kug found the behavior almost obscenely inappropriate, incongruous, and surreal. "The robe is a mess," he pointed out. "Why not check h
is boots, scavenger?"
Hatul gave the jibe no more attention than a quick shake of his head.
The female said, "Did you find it?"
Talen said, "Find what?"
Hatul turned over the body, and exposed the nape of the neck. "The mark."
At the base of the assassin's skull was a simple tattoo: a white horizontal oval, pointed on both ends.
A chill stiffened the hairs on Kug's own neck.
Everyone's faces showed they, too, knew the sigil of White Eyes.
The Plain One.
Dennick
Dennick stood and regarded the seer, Rajen. "How'd you know what I'd find?"
The tavernkeeper interjected, "How did you know to look for anything?"
Dennick kept his attention on Rajen for a blink, hopefully communicating to her that he expected an answer, then turned to Kug. "I haven't forgotten everything from my years in the city guard." Quickly back to Rajen. "You know something about," he pointed at the dead magn, "this?"
The sellsong, Talen, stepped forward. "Don't tell this one anything you don't want to, Rajen. He's not what he seems."
Rajen cast Talen a withering look. "I'll speak, or not, to anyone I please." She regarded the corpse with less disgust, but only just. Dennick added the exchange to his assessment of the relationship between the sellsong and the seer.
Rajen said, "I know something of the magn who wear these robes. As he intimated, their skills lie in less… physically violent arenas." He found it interesting she qualified the variety of violence. "Something like this one," her eyes flicked to Kug and back to the body, "they would need to hire."
Kug said, "From White Eyes." He put a hand to the side of his head and closed his eyes for a breath. "But before I think about that…" When he opened them, his attention was on Dennick. "Hatul, I've seen, Shaper pave my eyes, what this… trash… could do. You, down the other path…"
Dennick gave a rueful grin. "I drink?"
Talen said, "Do you, though?"
Dennick ignored him.
"When you closed for the night, I stuck around, just across the way. Wasn't up for walking home. I s'pose I dozed off; it was later, and colder, when a scream woke me. I saw some of these cloaks running across a board they'd dropped between your place and the next." Here's where the lie would fit. "This one slipped. Fell."
Light of the Outsider Page 15