Deepwoods (Book 1) (21 page)

But whenever she hit a low point, Wolf always seemed to
appear in that moment, and he would wrap her up in his arms like this. For just
a few selfish moments, she leaned against his strength and let him support her
completely. Siobhan let her eyes fall closed as she entrusted her body weight
to him. She took in a deep breath, letting the scent of him fill her head,
mixed in with the cool night air. Then she took another, and when she opened
her eyes, she felt strong enough to face the world again.

"Something’s not adding up,” Wolf murmured to her
lowly. “It’s troubling you.”

“And you,” she acknowledged. “If trade monopolies were
really what scared them into action, then why do it this way? It doesn’t make
sense. I mean, even if the plan succeeded, it would only be short term. In the
long run, Blackstone and Iron Dragain would have figured out the truth. When
they did, Orin would be in an even worse situation, as I can’t imagine that
either guild wouldn’t exact revenge.”

He grunted agreement. “Delaying tactics, that’s what this
feels like to me.”

She couldn’t help but think the same. “But delaying for
what?”

“Wish I knew. This I can tell you—it has to be strong
enough, somehow, to turn the tides. Orin has to think it’ll give ‘em an upper
hand so no other guild can harm ‘em.”

Yes, it was that unquantified potential for power that made
the marrow in her bones tremble. She cuddled in a little harder and tried not
to think about it.

“Siobhan, I have to ask, what do you intend to do with
Rune?”

She blinked at this question, coming from nowhere. “Do with
him? Am I supposed to do something with him?”

Wolf let out a gusty sigh. “You really adopted an assassin
without thinking it through? He has bad habits, dangerous habits, y’know. His
first instinct will be to ignore trouble as long as it won’t have anything to
do with him. His second instinct will be to kill anything that
does
trouble
him.”

“That’s—” she closed her mouth on the instinctive denial and
frowned when she realized he was right. In fact, that was exactly how Wolf had
been at first. Oh, not with her, but he owed her a huge debt for buying him out
of a terrible life. He’d felt duty-bound to protect her, at the very least. But
Rune…how did Rune perceive her? “Is that why you don’t trust him? You think
he’ll cause trouble?”

“And that,” he rumbled darkly. “You don’t see it, because he
acts differently around you, but the
only
person that boy responds to in
this guild is you. He ignores everyone else.”

“Because I named him?” she hazarded.

“And you fed him. And bargained for his freedom. He has
little idea how to respond to kindness, and only reacts to what we do for him
out of bewildered obligation.” Wolf let out another sigh, this one longer than
the first. “He’s the type to do things to please others without any true
emotion behind it. I don’t trust a man like that.”

Ohhh. So he
did
have a concrete reason to distrust
Rune. True, Siobhan had noticed that as well. If she suggested something, Rune
did it without hesitation or complaint. Even when cutting his hair he hadn’t
done more than be sure she wanted it done. This willingness to blindly obey her
had disturbed her, but Wolf had been the same at first, afraid of upsetting
her. She’d hoped that with time and patience, Rune would work his way through
it.

But if he was only responding that way in her presence and
ignoring the rest of the guild…that was not a good sign. Not at all.

“Keep an eye on him,” she requested slowly. “Interfere if
you see his old habits kicking in.”

“I will, but the question still stands: what do you intend
to do with him?”

Siobhan rubbed at the bridge of her nose with one hand,
feeling a headache coming on. “I wish I knew.”

Siobhan barely had her boots on when there came a quick rap
on the door. Without waiting for a response, Conli stuck his head inside the
room. “Siobhan, I need to borrow Rune.”

“Good morning to you as well, Conli,” she responded
mock-genially. “I slept well, thank you for asking.”

He shoved the door aside impatiently, toe tapping. “I don’t
have time for pleasantries, Siobhan. They don’t have the necessary medical
supplies here for me to properly treat people. I used up the last of my supply last
night. I need to go shopping in the city, expeditiously, and I need a guide to
do it.”

“Hence why you want Rune,” she finished, setting aside her
teasing. “But why ask my permission? Go get him yourself.”

Conli was shaking his head before she finished speaking.
“That boy doesn’t want to move unless he knows
you
ordered it done. I’m
not about to start an argument with him about it. It’s easier if you just tell
him yourself.”

Again. Again someone had told her that Rune only followed
what she said. Siobhan’s forehead crinkled into a disturbed frown. She needed
to do something about this, somehow break this distance that Rune was keeping
from the guild, or trouble would certainly follow. As she had no business to
attend to, it would behoove her to start working on that problem today.

“Fine. I’ll track down Rune. You go fetch Sylvie.”

With a thankful nod, he turned and disappeared into the
hallway.

Still frowning, she laced up her boots and grabbed her jacket
before heading out of the bedroom. As she went, she called out in arbitrary
directions, “Rune! Rune?”

Sure enough, just as she turned a corner, he appeared from
seemingly thin air. He asked no questions, just looked at her steadily, as if
awaiting orders.

Oh yes. This needed to be fixed.

“Conli needs to go shopping for medical supplies,” she
informed him. “He requests that you guide him through the city.”

“Sure, sure,” he responded with a lackadaisical shrug.

Taking him in from head to toe, she belatedly realized that
he was dressed in the mismatched clothes that Beirly had scrounged for him.
“Actually, while we’re out, do you want to shop for you? Those clothes don’t
really fit right.”

He glanced down at himself. “That’s fine.”

Not that she expected him to disagree about that, but…if the
clothes really had bothered him, wouldn’t he have already fixed the situation
himself? He knew this city and where to go to shop, after all. Again, the
impression that he was just doing whatever she wished. Suppressing a sigh, she
waved her hand, gesturing for him to follow her.

They all met at the main entrance to Iron Dragain’s
compound. To Siobhan’s surprise, it wasn’t just Conli and Sylvie waiting on
them, but Denney and Wolf as well. Well, no, she should have expected the other
two to show up. If Conli went out, Denney normally went with him. Those two
were nigh inseparable. And Wolf, after hearing that she and Conli would be
going out alone with Rune, likely panicked at the thought and joined to keep an
eye on the assassin.

Not caring about the extra additions to the party—they could
all do as they wished, after all—she waved Rune to lead them. He did so without
a word, taking them to the main street and immediately to the left, into a
section of the city that she had never been to before.

Wolf fell into step beside her, and as he did, gave a
significant look at the back of Rune’s head. She nodded grim agreement,
indicating that she finally understood what he had meant last night.

The party was unusually subdued as they wound their way
through the morning crowd and into the market. Siobhan quickly found that the
only way to press through the throng was to hide behind Wolf, as he made a
marvelous trailblazer. She glanced back and found that Sylvie and Denney were
using Conli to the same purpose. Part of the trouble came from the narrow,
winding street they were on—with the kiosks, street stalls, and such, the path
became significantly smaller. People were crushed together and walking at a
shuffle, trying to force their way through.

“Rune!” she called around Wolf’s arm. “Do we have to go this
way?”

“Only medicine stalls are farther down this way,” he
explained, voice barely loud enough to carry over the din. “Gets less crowded
in a bit.”

So if they could survive long enough, they’d be able to
escape? She clung to that thought and stayed at Wolf’s back as much as
possible.

Rune’s words became nearly prophetic, as moments later they
crossed an intersection and the traffic abruptly thinned out. She went from
being nearly pressed like a grape in a wine press to having more than enough
room to dance in the street if she felt like it. Heaving out a breath of
relief, she came around to walk at Wolf’s side.

Conli stepped around her, stretching his legs to a fast
walk. “Rune, I need a variety of herbs, ointments, and bandages. Where should I
go?”

Rune pointed to a row of shops ahead and to the right of the
street. “There.”

With a nod of thanks, he went ahead of the group and ducked
into a shop that had clearly not seen a fresh coat of paint in well over three
decades. Siobhan took one look at the dark, confining interior of the place and
decided she’d wait outside. Denney, Wolf and Sylvie all must have come to the
same conclusion, as no one braved the doorway.

“Sylvie,” Siobhan waited until the woman turned to face her,
“I think while we’re out, we should find Rune some better fitting clothes. He
needs more than what he has on anyway.”

“That’s fine.” Sylvie lifted her shoulder in a shrug, not
troubled by the idea of more shopping. “Rune, what’s your preference?”

He gave her the blankest expression Siobhan had ever seen
from him. “Preference?”

“What kind of clothes do you like to wear?” Sylvie explained
patiently. “Things like what Wolf wears? Or more of the traditional
Wynngaardian style that we’ve seen here in the city? I know you are wearing
these clothes because it was the only thing that Beirly could find that would
mostly fit you. So what do you choose to wear?”

Rune seemed nonplussed and not sure how to answer this,
which Siobhan found somewhat strange. Did he not pay attention to his wardrobe
at all?

“Close-fitti’n clothes,” he finally answered. “Not heavy
material, but flexible.”

In other words, good clothes to skulk in. She should have
guessed.

Sylvie seemed to realize that was the best answer she was
going to get, so smiled and pointed back the way they had come. “Then while
Conli is shopping, why don’t we go back to that store on the corner? I saw some
things displayed outside that might work on you.”

Rune looked to Siobhan for permission, which she gave,
urging him silently to go with her. Wolf, unsettled by the idea of Sylvie going
off alone with Rune, took an instinctive step to follow before glancing back at
Siobhan and Denney. Then he stopped dead, clearly torn between which group he
should be protecting.

True, leaving Denney alone outside the shop with Siobhan was
likely not a good choice. They were still in Wynngaard, after all. To make it
easier on her enforcer, Siobhan stuck her head into the store and called to
Conli, “We’ll be at the clothing store on the corner!”

“Fine!” Conli called back from some dingy recess in the
back.

He likely wouldn’t miss them for a good hour anyway, not
with that shopping list of supplies.

That sorted, she led the other two and caught up with Sylvie
and Rune just as they entered the clothing store. In terms of lighting and
such, this store was in much better condition. It contained every variety of
clothing imaginable crammed inside, with shirts and pants in a wide range of
sizes hung up on nails all the way to the ceiling. Dresses, skirts, and
traditional women’s clothing were in the back of the store, while men’s
clothing took up the front.

Siobhan belatedly realized that quite a bit of gear had been
lost or damaged in Lirah’s party during their mad escape from the assassins who’d
attacked them. She’d been so focused on getting them to a safe place that she
hadn’t really thought about that until just now. “Denney, help me pick out some
shirts and pants that might fit our Blackstone group,” she requested. “I don’t
think they have much left after everything that happened.”

“Oh!” Denney said, snapping her fingers. “That’s a good
thought. I’m not sure of everyone’s sizes, though.”

“They’ll need looser clothing to cover the bandages and
splints anyway,” Sylvie called over her shoulder, already arm-deep in a stack
of shirts. “Just guess and then go a little bigger.”

“Sound advice,” Siobhan approved. “Wolf, you wear a
thirty-two or so in shirts?”

“About that,” he agreed.

“Isn’t Luvaas about your size?”

“A mite smaller, more like Conli’s size.”

“Conli is a thirty,” Denney offered. “Well, he’s actually a
twenty-nine, but he prefers a looser fit.”

“Then let’s get a thirty for Luvaas.”

Siobhan lost track of time as they browsed and picked up
shirts, sweaters, and pants, discussing and guessing what size people wore. At
some point, Wolf started taking things out of her hands and carrying them to
the counter, where the woman there started folding and figuring up the total so
that the girls weren’t forced to carry the whole lot of it around and start a
clothing avalanche.

Denney paused in her browsing and looked up through the
store window. “There’s Conli. Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh?” Siobhan repeated, looking up to see what the
trouble was.

Conli was tottering their direction with arms overflowing in
packages, bundles, and bags. It seemed only a matter of seconds before
something would slip and fall to the street.

“Denney, go rescue him,” Siobhan urged. Her words were
unnecessary, as the young woman was already moving, heading quickly out the
door at a half-lope, the fastest pace she could manage through the crowd
outside.

But her progress abruptly stopped when two men grabbed her
by the arm, dragging her to a halt. Siobhan recognized the situation for what
it was within a heartbeat. Once again, because of Denney’s obviously
half-Teheranian heritage, she’d been mistaken as a prostitute. Siobhan waited
three seconds, just to see if Denney could reason her way out of it. But the
cheap flasks in the men’s hands were half-consumed and they were obviously too
drunk to understand ‘no.’

Growling under her breath, she looked back toward the
counter. “Wolf. Denney.”

Wolf pushed forward, an angry tic in his jaw. “What, again?”

“Conli’s in no position to help her, either. His hands are
full.” She almost said, ‘go help her,’ when she caught sight of Rune’s face.
The assassin hadn’t even looked up at their exchange, but was examining the
shirt Sylvie had pressed into his hands. His complete disinterest in what was
happening disturbed her. Wolf hadn’t exaggerated the matter—if trouble arose,
and it didn’t affect Rune, he truly wouldn’t respond.

Making a snap decision, she ordered, “Rune. Go help Denney.”

With nothing more than a glance to show that he had heard
her, he passed the shirt back to Sylvie before leaving the store in a quick
stride.

Wolf came in close and murmured, “Is that a good idea?”

“I’ve got to get him in the habit of thinking of the guild
as
his
guild,” she muttered back. “Otherwise trouble is going to arise.
But go after him and step in if things get out of hand.”

“Right.” Wolf lengthened his stride and left the store in
little more than a blink of an eye.

Siobhan, worried that things might go from bad to worse,
followed after him but couldn’t quite keep up as the crowd outside blocked her.
She had to use her elbows and sheer brute force to carve a path toward Denney.

Because of that, she missed what happened when Rune first
reached Denney. All she knew was that the crowd abruptly shied away from the
middle of the street, scattering all directions, and left her a clear view.
Wolf had Rune by the arm, his iron right hand blocking the assassin completely
from what appeared to be a lethal strike toward one of the drunks. Denney was
on her knees, arms over her head, although she was peeking upward. The drunks
were flat on their backs nearby, hands also held protectively over their heads,
their eyes squeezed tight in fear.

What by the four winds…?!

“Easy, kiō,” Wolf rumbled, his stance as solid as a
mountain. “Don’t kill the poor blighters.”

Rune’s head cocked in puzzlement as he looked up at Wolf.
“Isn’t that what she wanted me to do?”

“No,” Wolf denied patiently. “We don’t kill people unless we
absolutely have to. Breaking bones is one thing, ending lives another.”

Rune slowly extracted his hands, which Wolf allowed without
fuss. Seeing her nearby, Rune gave her that same puzzled, uncomprehending
frown. “Didn’t you send me out here to take care of the situation?”