Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2) (31 page)

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like I’m not really alive. Like I’m something from the stories.”

The words were too close to the truth. He searched for words but found none, and at last grew silent. Gray poured his gaze into his dark brew as he waited for the awkwardness to dissolve like thawing ice. It wasn’t that he didn’t have questions. If anything, he had too many, but where to begin? He wanted to ask if the man was immortal, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he asked his next burning curiosity. “The others,” he whispered, “do you miss them?” Maris had left the other Ronin to aid Gray in his path—a path where survival seemed less likely day-by-day, where there was little doubt that the Ronin were gone forever.

But Maris’ answer cut beneath the wind. “I shall see them again… one day.”

The way he said those words… So certain.

The wind picked up, Kail’s litany, as if in answer, and Gray looked back into his dark brew.

He returned to the moment.

That time… so long ago. Gray felt like a different person from the confused, insecure boy, but how long had it really been? Months at most. Now here he sat in Maris’ Luck, an inn named after the legend. He felt an odd vacancy, missing the man, and yet…

He found himself gazing at Darius, and was reminded of Maris’ smile. Yet where Maris’ smile held little warmth, as if hardened over the centuries like weathered stone, Darius’ held mirth.
The Ronin of leaf’s words echoed in his head: “I shall see them again… one day.”

Suddenly, Ayva spoke, drawing him back to the world and the dark inn.

“I don’t like these looks,” she said as the men eyed her. “They are worse than the others.” She was at his side, again feigning drinking. Despite the fact that he sat between her and the rest of the packed inn, lecherous men
still
leered at her. He hated it, wanting to touch Morrowil, but he remembered Darius’ words back in the alley.
A single flame could cause a fire
… or something like that.
Either way, better not to antagonize these men and cause more trouble. Besides, many of them looked like they could fight—again it was Kirin’s knowledge, but he agreed with it, eyeing their surly looks and dark blades. He wondered if he would even win that fight, especially with his power not working. That thought grated on him, but he tried not to think about it as his eyes surveyed their surroundings.

Maris’ Luck was clearly a place where only the darkest thieves congregated, though there was a strange energy in the air. Much of the inn was cast in a fog of pipe-spoke. Beneath that, half-broken tables and chairs crowded the inn. Sordid men filled them, scratching their scruff, exchanging dark whispers. Collectively, it created a drone of noise.

Gray watched as a short little server with a red apron wobbled up to a table, plunking down two dented cups of ale. The dwarfed man had avoided their table entirely. It wasn’t a good sign.
There are no women here,
he realized. Suddenly, Gray felt eyes on him, hot and burning. His neck tingled, and Kirin wanted to touch Morrowil. He looked around, searching for that specific gaze. A cloaked man sat at the black ash bar. Behind it was the innkeeper. He was a wiry old man with a face like a corpse and eyes that looked to have seen more death than a grave keeper. His hand scrubbed at the same dirty spot with an even dirtier rag. His other hand was missing—a smooth stump in its place. All the while the innkeeper watched them with a dark scowl. Was that the gaze he felt?

At least Darius seemed to blend in. He’d pulled his collar high around his neck and wore a sour look. He didn’t seem to be faking it. Still, compared to the rest of the inn, he was a pup in a wolf’s den.

Suddenly, there was a cry and a man crashed to the floor, shattering a chair.

A dagger protruded from his back and dark red blood pooled.

Gray froze in disbelief.

“Is he…?” Ayva breathed.

Darius ribbed him with an elbow and whispered hard.
“Look away, both of you. Just act normal!”

“Normal?” Gray retorted, anger rising. “Are you still drunk? A man was murdered before our eyes!”

Darius let out an even breath. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but this was the plan, remember? Ezrah is waiting. If anyone knows how to enter the Citadel and get him back, we’ll find him in this foul pit.”

“Then we do nothing?” Ayva questioned.

“Not if you want to live,” Darius hissed in reply. “Do you think you can take all these men? If so, then I’m not the one who’s drunk. If we get into a fight, we won’t do Gray’s grandfather any good.”

The other men were already settling back into their chairs, laughing and playing cards as if nothing had happened. The dead man just laid there, the puddle of blood growing.

Ayva sank back into her chair. “It still doesn’t feel right.”

“Then mind telling us your plan?” Gray said, trying to be calm.

“It’s coming right now,” the rogue announced.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ayva asked.

“You lot lost?” A rasping voice asked.

Gray looked over his shoulder to see a man, smaller than he anticipated, but no less threatening. He was a hand or two shorter than himself and slender as a blade. His sleeves were rolled back, exposing lean, muscled arms covered with bright-white scars. He wore simple rags, aside from a fitted black vest with silver trim that Gray figured looked respectable at one time but now was fraying at the seams.
Something he must have stolen,
Gray assumed. On his vest’s upper right corner was a badge—a bloodshot eye on a field of black. At his hip dangled a dozen different shaped daggers—curved, straight, and jagged. The man’s face was lean, as if someone had boiled the fat from it for food, leaving only skin and bones. His sunken jaw muscles worked as he chewed on a long wooden toothpick, and a single hollow eye gauged them like scraps of meat. The other was covered by a red eye patch.

Darius took a long, leisurely sip of his ale. “Lost? Hardly. This is the best ale in town. How could we pass it up?”

“You must be the clown,” the man snarled, one eye squinting. Darius tipped his head as if in thanks. “I’ve a jest for you then. What’re you gonna do when I take that pretty thing at your side and have some fun with her?”

Three more men rose from a nearby table and joined the foul man’s side, looking ready to do the deed right there. Each wore a similar badge, if less ornate. “She is pretty, Adorry. Both my eyes aren’t as keen as your one, but you weren’t lying after all!” said a fat man rubbing his mouth with two fingers—the other three of his fingers were missing.

“Lay off, Bones—she’s mine first,” said a smaller man, sidling forward.

Gray felt his hackles rise. Ayva’s leg touched his. It was shaking. He grabbed her hand. Luckily, her face was smooth, almost indifferent—he didn’t know how she did that. Gray touched Morrowil, but it would be useless in this cramped space. He saw the scene unfold in his mind, imagined kicking the table onto the three men and cutting into the leader first… But what then? They would be swarmed like bits of food beneath a host of ants.

Darius, however, ignored them all.

Adorry raised his hand, stopping the smaller thief before he reached Ayva. “Speak,” he said, leaning forward. Darius said nothing. Adorry slammed his hands down on the table, spilling Ayva and Gray’s ales across the splintered wood. “I’m talking to you,” he hissed.

Still, the rogue remained silent, sipping his drink coolly.

“Seems he ain’t afraid of you like we are, Adorry,” said Bones snidely.

“He should be,” said the third, a tall man.

Adorry’s one eye squinted cruelly, and quicker than light, he bashed Darius’ drink from his hand, knocking it against the nearby wall. “I’m not afraid to kill a man who doesn’t talk. Takes some of the joy out of it, but it’s all the same in the end.”

Gray was about to open his mouth when Darius made a move. Slowly, the rogue drew out his dagger and gestured to the one-eyed man’s belt filled with knives. “That’s a lot of fancy metal. Can you use those or are they just for show?”

As he spoke, the other men burst into laughter. The fat man, with the incongruous name of Bones, dribbled spit, and the shorter, squat one cackled, slapping his leg. The tall lanky man’s mouth fanned wide in a wicked grin, showing jagged teeth and one long, curved tooth. Adorry, however, was expressionless. It was somehow even more terrifying.
“More or less,” the one-eyed man rasped, breathing his rank breath upon them.

Darius spun the dagger in his hand casually, as if pondering. “And are you a betting man?”

“For the right price? Always,” Adorry answered, as if amused.

Kirin was still shouting danger, just as he had done since the moment they entered this place, or, for that matter, the moment they entered Shadow’s Corner—but now Kirin was truly afraid. He felt as if the one-eyed man was hiding something.

Darius raised his arm, pointing. All turned. Twenty paces away, a post held up the roof. On it was a round slab of a tree trunk hung by a thick nail. It had painted rings—green, blue, yellow, and then finally red for the dead center. The wood looked scarred by a thousand knives. “I challenge you to a game of daggers.”

“What’s the wager?” asked the fat man, licking his lips.

“Let’s say a man wanted to get into the Citadel, unscathed, would you know such a thing?”

Daggers and swords loosened in their sheaths all around them.

“The Citadel?” Adorry scoffed. “You truly are a fool.”

“Do you or not?” Darius pressed.

“I know a way,” the man said indifferently.

“Then that’s my wager. Information. If I win, you tell me how to enter the Citadel and leave…
alive
.”

Adorry smirked again. “Valuable information in the right hands, but why would you three weaklings want to enter the Citadel?”

“That’s not part of the deal.”

The one-eyed man laughed coldly. “And what’s in it for me?”

“This,” Darius said, dropping a pouch onto the table. It clanked. It was all their money—the silver Karil had given them back at Death’s Gate, and what little Darius has scrounged from gambling. Beneath the table, Gray elbowed the rogue. If Darius gambled and lost all their money
…
Then he realized—their life was on the line. It really didn’t matter what Darius was gambling.

“Ah, that’s a fat purse!” squawked the stout thief, reaching forward.

Darius pulled it back quickly.

Adorry fingered a blade at his waist as if thinking, then sneered. “No deal.”

“Why not?” Ayva asked.

“Because I’m just going to take that from your cold corpses anyway. You have nothing to offer me I can’t already take—and
will
,” the man said, then his hollow eye panned to Ayva suggestively. Tension mounted, and Gray’s palms began to sweat, gripping Morrowil until it hurt. He reached for the nexus but again it flickered, sputtering and dying like a flame with too little wick. “Kill them,” Adorry commanded abruptly, and metal rung as his men unsheathed their swords, stalking forward with the lust for blood in their eyes.

Gray pleaded, searching for his power, watching the men approach.
Listen to me!
He bellowed in his mind. But there was no answer.

“Wait!”
Darius shouted, rising. The men didn’t slow. Gray gripped the bottom of the table, preparing himself. “If you kill us now, you’ll never get the true bounty!” the rogue yelled. The men hesitated. Behind them, Gray saw a good portion of the nearby patrons were watching curiously.

“What true bounty?” Bones asked with greed in his eyes.

“Cormacs,” Darius answered quickly.

“Elvin steeds?” the short one whispered. “Adorry, those be worth a fortune! Two hundred, no three hundred Farbian gold coins at least!”

“He’s lying,” the tall man said, moving forward and raising his blade.

Adorry lifted a finger. “Wait.” The tall man stopped reluctantly. “Let them live for a moment, Snaggle. You have one last chance, boy. Explain quickly.”

“We have cormacs,” Darius said. “Three of them. But if you kill us now, you’ll never know where we stashed them. If you win, however, we’ll tell you. You’ll get the cormacs
and
the coin. If we win, the information.”

“And your lives I suppose?”

“Naturally,” Darius said with a shrug.

“Congratulations,” replied the one-eyed man. “You have yourself a deal.”

What in the seven hells of remwar had gotten into the rogue? He was gambling their lives with this man like trading a bushel of wheat for a jug of milk! But somehow Gray couldn’t
really
be mad. Fearful, surely, but not angry. Somehow, he felt that was the best deal they were going to get from this man. Now, light just send that Darius wins.

The commotion resolved, the rest of the inn gradually went back to their previous rabblerousing. The clank of cheap coin and the grate of laughter and dark talk returned to its normal hum.