Weapon of Flesh (11 page)

“The golden cockerel?  What is that?”

“It’s a pub, but the innkeeper rents rooms upstairs.”  She kicked her mount into a prancing trot and shouted over her shoulder.  “Anyway, just ask for Mya!” She waved and kicked her mount again, surprised again when the boy hesitantly raised his hand in a poor attempt at a wave.  He really
was
strange!  She rode at a conservative pace until she was out of sight then dug her heels in hard.  If she got to the Grandfather soon enough, they could lay a trap on the road for the boy, but if he reached the city, finding him would be virtually impossible.

Lad let his hand drop to his side, continuing his loose-limbed gait and wondering why he had refused the girl’s offer.  If he had joined her, he may well have shortened his traveling time by half a day.  But there were some things about the girl that did not fit.  With a short sword and dagger at her belt, and another dagger in her boot, she wore more weapons than seemed needful of a messenger, and although she rode well enough, her clothes looked worn more from walking than from sitting a horse.  That she had been riding hard all night was the truth, at least, for he could see the mount’s lather and smell the girl’s sweat as well.  He also wondered why she wore such a poorly fitting tunic.  He’d worn less for most of his life, but if she found the garment so constricting that she felt the need to loosen the lacings until it was almost falling off, why not just go without?

Well, the meeting had not been a complete waste; he now knew exactly how far he had to travel before reaching his destiny.  Lad reached into his bag and took out the slab of jerky.  He bit off a mouthful and chewed the tough, smoked meat into submission before swallowing.  Another bite, followed by two bites of hard tack, and his belly was less empty.  After the impromptu meal, he quickened his pace slightly, easing into a mile-eating jog.  His food would last the trip easily, and he would reach the city of Twailin well before the following morning.

Lad had no illusions that his destiny would be easy to find in a city of twenty thousand people, but he knew that he could earn his way without creating trouble now.  He would find somewhere he could work for food and a place to sleep and search the city from there.  Perhaps he would also find this girl Mya and find out what she knew of the city.

 Chapter
VIII

“C
lear the road!”  Mya yelled at the top of her lungs, lashing her exhausted mount with the reins and kicking him with her weary legs.  “Out of my way!”  She ignored the yelps and shouts of protest from the late evening throngs walking the narrow streets near the Grandfather’s estate.  She’d run them all down if she had to!

She clattered around a corner and her horse skittered on the cobbles, losing its footing.  She jerked the reins and kicked hard, trying to straighten the gelding out, but the shod hooves just threw sparks from the smooth stones, finding no purchase.  With a squeal of terror the horse went down, and she barely got her foot out of the stirrup in time to avoid being crushed.   She flung out a hand and tried to roll, but the unyielding street slapped her hard; her left wrist bent at a bad angle and pain lanced up her arm.  Then her head struck a cobble, dimming her vision for a moment.

Shouts from the crowd lashed at her wavering consciousness, the groping hands of strangers jerking her to wakefulness.

“Get away from me!” she shouted, lashing out with her uninjured hand.  Her fist hit something yielding, and she heard more shouts.

“She’s crazy!”

“Gotta be drunk!”

“Look at that poor horse!  Why it’s rode out!”

“Get away, damn you all!”  Mya lurched unsteadily to her feet, cradling her injured arm.  One glance told her that something was broken, but it didn’t matter.  She stumbled to her mount, shoving the crowd aside.   The gelding heaved ragged breaths, convulsing in shudders that told her it was dying.  She’d ridden it to death, but that didn’t matter either.  She was but a few blocks from the Grandfather’s estate.  She only needed it for a few more minutes.

“Get up!” she shouted, grabbing the reins and lashing at the curdled froth of the beast’s withers.  “UP, damn you!”  The spent horse tried to comply, its legs churning, the broad neck bowing as it tried to right itself, but it couldn’t.

“Leave be, Girl!” a man’s voice shouted from behind her.  A broad hand landed on her shoulder, and she swept her sword out and around in a slow broad arc.  He jumped back quickly enough to save himself from being gutted, but just barely.

“Back off!” she yelled, glaring the crowd into submission.  “This is no affair of yours!  I’m a messenger for
The Guild
!”  The tone she used implied exactly which guild she meant, and that, if nothing else, brought fear into the eyes of the ugly throng.

She turned back to her horse, but its eyes had already glazed over, and its breaths were the shuddering convulsions of its last death throes.  Cursing, she cut loose her saddlebags and started to turn away.  The horse’s dying eyes drew hers as if by some magical impulse, and a sliver of pity surfaced in her mind.  She looked at the blade in her hand, and with one stroke ended the animal’s suffering.  The crowd let out a collective gasp at the death stroke, but she just glared at them, turned, and ran up the street toward the looming spire of the Grandfather’s estate.

“Hold up there!” a voice called though the dimness of the foggy evening darkness.  The glow of a torch lit only poorly the man who had spoken, but Targus knew there were more; he could hear the hooves of at least four more horses, and the creaking of a wagon or cart through the fog that was playing tricks with the sounds.  He pulled back on his mount’s rein, hissing a warning to Jax to do the same.

“Ware, travelers!” the half-elfin hunter called out, limbering up his short hornbow from its scabbard as a precaution.  “We’re searching for a friend of ours, long overdue in the city.  He was to have come this way and may have met trouble.”

“Well, if one of these be your friend,” the speaker said wearily, moving his short column of horsemen into clearer view, “methinks he found trouble.”  Two men were leading a two-wheeled cart by the reins, the bed piled high with canvas-wrapped bodies.

“Good Gods, Man!  What in the names of the Nine Hells happened here?”  Targas really didn’t expect a coherent account, but he thought this response would be more believable than a more calculated one.

“I’m Constable Burk, from Thistledown and I’ll have your name before I answer any of your questions, Sir,” the man said as three more horsemen pulled up to flank him closely.

“My name is Targus, if that means anything to you, and if that’s the cart I think I recognize, there are two among those piled upon it that I may know.  One was a man who was to have delivered something to my guildmaster; the other would be his nephew, a boy of sixteen summers.”  Truth mixed with falsehood was always more believable than falsehood alone, Targus knew.  He could not have described Corillian, so withheld any attempt to depict him.  He also knew that the weapon would not be found among the dead, so any description of the boy that he might think up would mean nothing.

“Come into the light, then, Mister Targus.  Have a look, and tell me if there are any here you know,” the man said, raising his torch high.  “We had a disturbance there that I’m sure you heard about if you stopped for the night at the Inn of the Copper Pot.  We traveled this way to find the cause of that disturbance, but only found seven people slain and lying in the road, and an old man slumped in his cart with an arrow wound through his neck.  Looks to me like bandits attacked him, but we couldn’t tell the outlaws from their victims.  If your friends are among them, I’d appreciate any explanation you could provide.”

Targus kicked his mount forward, placing his bow back in the scabbard.  “I would wager that the old man you describe is the one we seek.  His name was Corillian, and he was an artisan of no small skill.”  As he approached, the smell of the seven aging corpses hit Targus like a slap in the face, even thought the bodies were wrapped in canvas.  He raised his hand to his face to ward off the stench.  “That’s his cart surely enough, but I’d rather not try to identify them at this point, if you don’t mind.”  He noted the two additional horsemen riding behind the wagon, and the three horses they trailed.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, we found no half-grown boy among the dead.  Mayhaps your friend decided not to bring his nephew along on this trip.”  Burk moved his horse back to shed light on the laden wagon.  “And the old man gave a good accounting of himself if he was alone, though how he felled seven brigands before falling himself is a mystery to me.”

“Master Corillian was more than an artisan, good Constable.”  Targas kept his mount at such a distance that he did not have to endure so much of the stench.  He couldn’t blame the men for trailing the team along by their traces instead of driving them properly.  “He knew more than a little magic, and could use it well when it came to protecting himself.”

“Magic didn’t kill these men.  The old man and two of the others died from arrows, one from a dagger in his heart and four from, well, something I can’t quite explain.”  The man looked uncomfortable, as if he’d found something that scared him a lot more than a simple bandit attack.

“Such was his skill, to send arrows flying where he wanted,” Targus lied.  ”But you say you found no boy among the dead?  That is good news among the ruin, at least.”  He peered into the cart, stifling the smell with a kerchief.  “If the bandits didn’t take everything...”

“Didn’t look like they took
anything
, to my eye,” the constable said, motioning the entire entourage forward again.  “Good weapons lying around, money still in the old man’s belt pouch...  Some strange stuff in that cart, mind you.  Scrolls and pots of dust that don’t smell like anything I know of, but if you say he was a magician, that explains a lot.  Don’t know how he managed to kill all the bandits and then end up dead himself, though.”

“A tale we would all like to hear, but never will.”  Targus kicked his horse away from the stinking cart, motioning Jax to follow.  “If you would, good Constable, please keep the cart and its contents secure in Thistledown.  The Guild will send a representative to see what may be salvaged.”

“What guild do you mean?  And why shouldn’t we search through the magician’s things?  We found it deserted, and by law anything in it belongs to Thistledown.”

“By law you may be correct, Sir.  Take what weapons and money you found as your compensation; we have no need of those.  But unless you have a competent wizard in residence in Thistledown, I would suggest that you not go poking into things best left untouched by those without mage-skill.”  He kicked his mount into a canter and shouted back.  “And what guild would you think has dealings with wizards?”

Targus and Jax rode back the way they had come, ignoring the muttered curses of the motley group behind.  They had at least confirmed that Corillian was dead and that the weapon was roaming loose somewhere.  They settled into an energy-conserving pace; Twailin was three days away, and Targus felt that he would need that long to think up an adequate explanation for his failure to the Grandfather of Assassins.