Brutus nodded at this. “How would it look if you were escorting me?”
Lorinal mulled this a moment. “Like you was a prisoner? You keep your arms behind you like they was tied?”
Brutus nodded. “What about my weapons?”
Lorinal shrugged. “Might as well keep ‘em on your back. Anybody looks too closely, we’re screwed anyway.”
“We’re not getting through any of those gates like that. Leaving the city with a prisoner doesn’t make sense.”
Lorinal gave a sly smile. “There’s a smugglers’ tunnel not far from here. The crooks that run it owe me.”
Brutus shrugged. “Sounds like our best bet.”
The two set out, Brutus holding his hands behind his back and Lorinal holding one of Brutus’s arms. Lorinal’s knowledge of the undercity streets was the sort that could only be gained by decades of experience. He guided them through a maze of streets, cutting down alleys that Brutus didn’t even realize were there, carefully avoiding high traffic areas. The few guards they ran across were harried, occupied with the chaos of the rioting, and passed by with little more than a nod of recognition. They encountered even fewer locals, and those took one look at them and found other places to be.
Lorinal pointed to a small building ahead, near the wall. “There. That’s the place.”
Brutus was about to allow himself a sigh of relief when he heard the sound of heavy footfalls. He spun to see a group of seven guards moving toward them at a brisk pace. For a moment, Brutus thought they would pass by like the rest, but the group’s leader raised a hand and called a halt, then addressed Lorinal. “You there! We’re abandoning the undercity to focus our efforts on the access points up top. Fall in. We’ll escort you and your prisoner to safety.”
Brutus had no idea how to respond, except with violence. Nothing else made sense; no reasonable person would refuse the escort, not in this situation. He kept his hands behind his back, hoping Lorinal had a play.
Lorinal simply continued moving toward the building, as if he hadn’t heard. The leader shouted out, “Halt! Identify yourself!”
Lorinal turned slowly and answered, “Sorry, sir. I got hit in the head. I’m not feeling so good. Name’s Dranner, zone three, second squad.”
The officer nodded and waved to one of his men. “Restlin, see to his wounds.” He turned to another and ordered, “Sarath and Bralon, keep an eye on the prisoner. He looks like trouble.”
“Aye, Captain,” one, presumably Restlin, called as he moved toward Lorinal.
Brutus did his best to look as if his hands were bound behind his back as the other two guards approached him. He stared at the ground, hoping against hope that the guards would miss a hundred different clues. Brutus did not relish killing these men, not when their only motivation was to help a comrade in arms, but he had his orders directly from the prince. He had to get back to his ship, and if that meant some well-meaning unfortunates had to die, it was Ilaweh’s will.
Sarath and Bralon eyed Brutus warily as Restlin gently guided Lorinal to a sitting position. The medic began easing Lorinal’s helmet off. “There’s a lot of blood here. What happened?”
Brutus tensed. If they recognized Lorinal, the game was over.
Lorinal sighed and mumbled, “Can’t rightly say. I just remember getting hit. I don’t even know how I got here.”
The medic ran a hand over Lorinal’s head. “I’m not finding a wound here.”
The captain’s eyes grew wide as he stared at Lorinal, and Brutus took a deep breath. Here it comes.
“Lorinal!” the captain shouted, pointing a finger at the grizzled veteran. “Secure the prisoner and arrest that man! He’s wanted for murder!”
Lorinal shoved the medic aside and leaped to his feet. “You bunch of fucking pussies! Prosin slaughtered nearly a hundred of our brothers and you dick lickers want to arrest me for defending myself?” He drew his blade in a fluid motion and swept it about in a warning arc. “Fuck the lot of you if you think I’ll go easy!”
“Drop your weapon!” the captain ordered, as he drew his own. All of the rest of the guards likewise drew their blades, except for Restlin, who was still struggling to his feet.
“Fucking traitor!” Lorinal shot back. He called to the rest, “Just walk away! Go home to your families!”
The two guards nearest Brutus were wavering back and forth between the two targets, uncertain which to engage. Restlin put a hand on his weapon but didn’t draw. “Is it true? There were a lot of men missing from muster this morning, about eighty.”
The captain’s eyes flickered toward his medic, then back to Lorinal. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I have my orders.”
Lorinal spat on the ground. “Then this ends hard, boy.”
Yes, it does.
Brutus swept his blade around, slashing Sarath’s throat deep enough to nearly decapitate him. The man’s head lolled backward on his shoulder, wide eyes seeming to stare longingly toward the lit spires of the city above, blood jetting over Bralon’s shocked face. He and Restlin staggered backward, raising their hands reflexively as Brutus unslung his shield and positioned it to his front.
Lorinal charged the captain, battered the other man’s blade aside, and tackled him. The captain hit the cobblestones with a thud and whoosh of outrushing breath, and Lorinal jerked a dagger from his belt and buried it in the man’s chest.
One of the four nearest the captain shouted, “Fuck if I’m dying for House Prosin!” He turned and fled down the dark street, and after the briefest of hesitations, his three companions followed.
Bralon blew out a breath he had been holding for several seconds, spraying blood from his lips. He, too, turned and staggered off towards his companions.
Lorinal rose slowly to find Restlin still standing, wary, hand on hilt. The old veteran glared at him and said, “Don’t tell me you’re gonna be stupid.”
“I have to know if it’s true,” the medic sighed, his voice quavering.
Lorinal sheathed his sword and bent to retrieve his dagger from the captain’s corpse. “Yeah,” he answered. “They came for me, too, but I knew something wasn’t right, and it didn’t end well for them.”
“But why?” Restlin asked, voice quavering.
Lorinal pointed toward Brutus. “To keep people from knowing about him and his.”
The medic, seeming to only really notice Brutus for the first time, gaped. “Mei! Is he—”
“A Southlander,” Lorinal told him.
Brutus grunted at this. “We call ourselves Xanthians.”
Restlin stared at Brutus a moment, then turned back to Lorinal. “I had a cousin with your unit. He didn’t show up for muster, either. His name is Harwin. Harwin Luvox.”
Lorinal shook his head slowly. “I knew him. Good man. But I reckon he’s dead, boy. As far as I know, I’m the only one they missed, and they’re on my trail.”
Restlin blinked rapidly as he nodded his understanding. “Very well, and thank you for telling me.” He set off after his fellows, calling over his shoulder, “I never saw either of you. Gods be with you.”
Brutus tore a strip of cloth from the dead guard’s blouse and wiped his blade clean. “That was a goatfuck.”
Lorinal jammed his blade back into his belt. “Aye. Well, they wanted it that way. We did what we had to.” He began rifling through the captain’s pockets. “He won’t have no use for money anymore, but we sure as shit might.”
“What’s next?”
Lorinal pointed to the building he had been about to enter before the fight and said sarcastically, “It’s still in the same place I reckon.”
Brutus glanced at the two corpses on the ground. “Leave them?”
Lorinal nodded glumly. “I hate it, but somebody will find them soon enough. Neither one of ‘em deserved it, but it is what it is. Let’s go. I hate looking at it. It’s just a damned shame is what it is. Fucking evil nobles are the ones at fault.” He waved at Brutus to follow. “It ain’t far now.”
<
br /> From the outside, the hovel looked abandoned, windows boarded, the mortar between its bricks dark and crumbling. The interior was little better. The wooden floor was collapsed in several places, and cobwebs hung from exposed rafters. Brutus suppressed an impulse to sneeze as Lorinal reached down to haul on an iron ring embedded in the floor. The door opened in silence that belied its unused appearance, revealing a dark, hand-dug tunnel with crude stairs vanishing into the darkness. The ceiling was lower than he would have liked, but it was comfortably wide—at least six feet. The better to move illicit cargo through, presumably.
Lorinal pulled a small, glowing crystal from his pocket. The stone was clear, almost glasslike, similar to a rectangular prism. It cast a dim, yellow light, enough to see only a couple of feet ahead, but it would keep them from tripping over anything if they moved slowly.
Brutus followed Lorinal and the dim some thirty or forty feet below ground, where the tunnel leveled off. Ahead in the distance, Brutus could see the glow of lamplight.
Lorinal paused and whispered, “Listen, blackie, keep quiet from here, and let me do the talking. I got an arrangement with these boys down here.”
Brutus grinned. “Brutus,” he said.
“Huh?”
“My name. Brutus Samir.”
Lorinal raised an eyebrow. “I guess we never got around to that, huh? Well, you already know my name, Brutus, on account of people screaming it out, so I reckon we’re proper introduced now. You ready?”
“Indeed.”
The passage widened into a cavern as they approached the light. By the time Brutus could make out individual people, it was a full twenty feet wide. Crates and boxes of all sorts lined the walls, along with a few sparse pieces of furniture.
Brutus counted thirteen men huddled about a fire in the middle of the tunnel, some on chairs, others sprawled in the dirt. As he and Lorinal approached, the men rose and turned toward them.
“Who the fuck are you?” called a squat man as he reached for the hilt of his sword.
“Lorinal, and a friend,” Lorinal answered.
Several voices murmured, and the short man stepped toward them, more visible now as he approached. “The fucking guard?”
“One and the same,” Lorinal answered. “Just passing through.”
“The fuck you are!” he spat, with all of the attitude a short stature tended to induce in a man who desperately wanted to seem large and imposing.
Lorinal glared at him. “I got an arrangement with you boys.”
“You had an arrangement with Smotts. New management, new arrangements. You want to pass through this tunnel, you pay me.”
“What’s your name, you little bitch?” Lorinal demanded.
“They call me Troll, old man. You’d best remember it. Toll’s a hundred nobles up front.”
“You little shit!” Lorinal sneered. “I paid you a hundred times over by not hauling the lot of you in!”
“That was then. The Troll will have his toll, now. It’s a hundred nobles in gold, or you can march you and your black-skinned friend the fuck back the way you came.”
Brutus grinned at Lorinal, finding the old guard’s growing rage tremendously amusing. Lorinal’s eyes bugged as he shouted, “If we had a hundred nobles, we wouldn’t be down here in the first place!”
Troll shrugged. “Not my problem. This is business.”
“We’re as good as dead if we turn back!”
“You’re dead for sure if you keep coming without paying me.”
Brutus eyed the rest of the men in the cavern. None of them seemed very excited. Their hearts didn’t really seem to be with the little man. Ilaweh, I will see you or my men soon.
He struck swiftly, grabbed Troll by the throat, hauled him close, and clamped an arm about his neck like a steel band. “Then it is a good day to die. Do you feel like dying, dog?”
The rest of the men in the room began to laugh, some whistling or stomping their feet in approval.
“Fuck you, Troll!” one yelled.
“Twist his head off, blackie!” another shouted.
Troll turned wide, pleading eyes up at Brutus. Brutus grinned back at him. “You talk much for a man with no friends.”
Lorinal began to sidle to the edge of the tunnel, and Brutus followed, dragging Troll by his head, to hoots, whistles, and peals of laughter from his men.
One stepped forward, a younger man with a cruel smile. “Do it. You’d be doing us a favor.”
Brutus laughed out loud as he reached the other side of the cavern and began backing down the tunnel there. He squeezed Troll’s neck until the man’s eyes bulged and his face went deep red, then shoved him away. “I’m a soldier, not an assassin.”
The younger thug knelt next to Troll, while the short man rubbed his neck and shouted in a raspy voice, “You’re fucking dead men, you hear—” His threats ended with a gurgle.
Brutus watched the younger man’s smile grow even more cruel as he withdrew a bloodied blade from Troll’s back to even more cheers.
“You owe me, Lorinal,” the young man called.
“Doubt I’ll come back this way, Mohen, but I’ll buy you a beer if I do.”
“Make that two.”
Lorinal laughed. “Two it is!”
They moved quickly, back into the darkness on the other side, once again using Lorina’s crystal for light.
Brutus looked over his shoulder but saw nothing save blackness. “Will they follow?”
“Doubt it,” Lorinal answered. “Troll is a new thing. Word on the streets is he was a tyrant. Mohen is solid, for a crook. He understands the rules. He’s likely in charge now.”
The passage narrowed and ascended again, and Brutus followed Lorinal through yet another door, which opened into a small shack. It held little in the way of furniture, but it was cover from prying eyes, and shelter from the wind. Lorinal sat on the ground in a corner and closed his eyes a moment.
Brutus spat in his palm and wiped at a dingy window. His spirits lifted to see he was indeed outside the city wall. He turned to Lorinal and asked, “Where will you go now?”
Lorinal shrugged. “I dunno. Away from here. You?”
“To my ship, and back to my prince. This is not over.”
Lorinal laughed at this. “Give ‘em some for me. Does a man have to be a blackie to fight with you, or would you take the likes of me?”
Brutus shook his head and laughed. “As long as you don’t cry when we make fun of how ugly you are. Your sword arm is what matters. I’d fight with you at my side anytime.”
Lorinal gave him a snaggle-toothed grin. “I got some business to tend to. I might not even come back, but if I do, and you make it back with an army, I’ll sign on. I never did nothing but follow my orders and try to stay alive, and they’d kill me for it. I reckon I’d be happy to kill them first, just like I did with them Prosin snakes.”
Brutus reached and grasped Lorinal’s forearm. “You’re a good man. I won’t be hard to miss when I return, I promise. Good luck.”
Brutus hauled open the shack door and set out through the deepening snow. It wasn’t the worst forced march he had done, but it would be twenty hard miles, for all that.
One foot in front of the other, just like any other march.
Chapter 9
Judgment
Kariana sat alone at her desk in her private reading room, taking stock of her situation, desperate to work out a plan to move forward. The early morning sun shone from a window, blinded her briefly, until she rose and closed the heavy purple curtain against it.
Ordinarily, she wouldn’t even be awake this early, but the events of last night both made sleep difficult and demanded immediate attention.
She was to hold court in less than an hour, a closed session with the house elders. It was her plan to call for the unthinkable, Aiul’s execution, along with the lone surviving foreigner. How had this happened? Murders, assassination attempts, convoluted plots, madness! And somehow, here she was, right in the midd
le of it. Life was supposed to be simpler. It was supposed to be fun and carefree, not a nightmare of mistrust, intrigue, and death. What had she done to deserve this?
Nothing, of course. Nothing but be born. And for that sin, there was no forgiveness, nothing but misery and constant ratcheting of pressure. She felt as if her head would implode from it. There was no one to trust, no one at all. Well, perhaps the stone-faced, stone-hearted Commander of her Guard. He could be trusted to do his duty and to stare at her with loathing and disapproval. Even now, he stood watch over her outside the study door, doubtless praying a bolt of lightning would make an end of her and free him, but until then, still loyal.
It was, all things considered, a paltry showing.
She wracked her brain for a plan. What would she do, or say? Mei, Nihlos was a city of monsters, spiders spinning webs, and she was a fat, tasty fly buzzing about, oblivious, defenseless.
But no more.
She would find a way. She could be a monster, too. She would be the most fearsome monster of all. Fear was the true currency of Nihlos, and she would find a way to spread the wealth generously.
A knock upon the door startled her from her ruminations. Caelwen entered, casting his usual non-smirk her way. “You’ve a visitor, Empress. Lady Maralena of House Prosin.”
Kariana felt her bowels fill with ice, but rage warmed her quickly. That bitch has the gall to come here? “Send her in.”
Caelwen scowled, then swung the door wide, gesturing to the stately woman behind him. “You may enter.”
Maralena Prosin was a pretentious elder, well-heeled and well-dressed in expensive silks and furs. She held her head high, allowing sun from the skylight to sparkle on her array of expensive chains and baubles.
Fond of diamonds, are we? Kariana glared at her, saying nothing. Wretched bitch! I should push you in a river. You’d surely be dragged to the bottom by all of your stones.
Maralena looked at Caelwen a moment, then sighed and turned to Kariana. “I asked for a private meeting.”
Caelwen gave her a stone-faced stare. “Over my dead body.”
Maralena stiffened and pursed her lips. “That could be arranged.”
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