Fallen Blade 04 - Blade Reforged (11 page)

“How about if I just tell you where she is, and you take care of that part yourself?”
I said with some exasperation.

“Hmm, yes, that would work. We’ll do that. Where is she?”

So I gave him detailed instructions as to how to contact Jax and Faran. He didn’t
bother to write them down, but somehow I wasn’t worried that he’d forget.

“Now,” he said, when I’d finished, “you never got around to telling me why you came
in. Are you here for a book, or just conversation?”

“I’m actually here to ask a favor. I need a quiet place to talk to Captain Fei.”

“Well, there’s no place quieter than my library. Go and fetch her.”

So I set out to do just that, taking the chimney road upriver a brief way from the
top of the Ismere to the roof of a once-grand tenement overlooking Sanjin Island Road.
I was perhaps a quarter hour ahead of the time Fei was supposed to meet me, so I slipped
into the shadow of the building’s little water tank, where I had good view of the
north bridge, and settled down to wait.

Do you think Harad can really help Faran?
asked Triss.

I don’t know, I hope so. He is a very powerful sorcerer and…
I trailed off then as I spied Fei coming through the square on the island below. Her
face was hidden and she’d changed her clothes, but I recognized the walk….
Now that’s odd.

What is?
asked Triss, whose ability to distinguish things over distances was somewhat limited.

There’s half a dozen young jackals trailing along in Fei’s wake.

Do you think they’re going to try a bit of grab and stab?
His mental voice came through somewhere between worried and amused.

I shared the sentiment.
Wouldn’t they regret that!

Fei was a jindu master as well as a vicious street fighter.
Any petty criminal who thought she’d make an easy mark was in for a brief and brutal
education in the consequences of choosing the wrong game. However, that didn’t feel
like what was going on.

I don’t think that’s the play,
I sent.
They’re not sticking close enough together for a simple mobbing, but they’re not really
placed for anything more complex either. I’m not even sure they’d register as following
her if we were down at street level. There’s a lot of churn up and down the street
like they’re on someone else’s turf and trying to keep from getting blindsided or
looking scared.

Professional hounds then? Playing at looking like a gutterside gang that’s out to
build a rep by turf skating?

I nodded.
That’s what I’d say if it was anyone but Fei they were following.

But?
asked Triss.

But it suggests a major player on the shadowside making a move on Fei, and short of
them expecting that she’s not going to be a factor in the near future that’d be seriously
stupid.

Which means someone thinks she’s on her way out.

Or they’re planning on giving her a shove, yeah. Hang on.
I pulled a slip of paper out of one of my pockets and scrawled “You’re being followed—I’ll
take care of it—Ismere—side door—knock.”
Now, shroud me up and let’s go down and politely explain what a bad idea that is.
Once I was hidden in shadow, I quickly climbed down the side of the building and
headed for Fei and her followers.

T
here
is a joy to doing something difficult really well, a joy that no other experience
can touch, not alcohol, not drugs, not sex. Nothing comes close. I had forgotten the
sheer pleasure of being good at something in the years since the fall of the temple,
drowned it in booze and buried it with so many of my friends.

In the midst of all my other losses I hadn’t even realized it was gone. Not till now,
the very moment it returned. Having it come back to me all in an instant, totally
unexpected and unlooked for, felt like taking a knife to the heart, a knife forged
from purest happiness. I can’t really express it any other way. There I was, slipping
along the edge of the street, preparing to hand off my little note to Captain Fei,
and suddenly I remembered what it felt like to do what I had been born to do, and
to
know
that it was what I had been born to do. Not just remembered it, but fell suddenly
and completely back into it.

This! This was why I existed, to become a part of the night, to do the work of a Blade.
Even with my goddess slain and my compatriots mostly gone into the grave or over to
the forces that had destroyed us, this was why I was. Without thought or will, tears
suddenly wet my cheeks.

Are you all right?
Triss sent, his voice caught halfway between worried and hopeful.

No. I’m not. I’m good! For the first time in seven years, I’m good.

Triss didn’t say anything in response to that, but I could feel his love and his support
flowing silently through the link that bound us as his worry subsided. I could also
feel his curiosity and hope.

It’s complicated. I’ll tell you more about it later,
I sent.

I can wait.

My experiences at the abbey had burned away big pieces of my soul. At the time, it
had nearly destroyed me, and I had thought I might never recover. I
still
thought that. But, if my almost destruction was the price I paid for the gift that
had just been given back to me, I would count the injuries I had taken to my soul
a fair trade and more than fair. It had been a very long time since I was last whole,
and I was no longer certain that such a thing was even possible for me.

Perhaps I had become something like a jar in the shape of Aral, a jar that held some
of the pieces of the man I had once been, but not all. Never all. If that was my new
truth—and I had begun to suspect that it was—then what I had to hope for was to find
and hold on to the best pieces, and this joy-in-action was one of those.

As I slid along the street, moving toward Fei and the hounds that hunted her, I found
myself aware of my surroundings and the night as I had not been since my goddess died.
No detail that might affect what I was doing, no matter how small, seemed beneath
my notice.

That bit of pavement had more grit on it than the one just to its left and would make
more noise if I stepped there. So, place the foot just there…. The illumination from
the bridgehead magelight fell like so. By angling my torso back and to the left I
could use the natural slant of the light to help conceal the darkness that I wore
as a second skin within the greater darkness of the night. Twist and…Fei’s left
hand, hanging just above the hilt of her dagger, was perfectly placed for me to slip
the note unseen between her fingers. I barely had to think, my body picked up the
cues from my senses and acted as needed to make things happen without my conscious
direction.

Recognition, intention, action. I
was
the flow of one into the other. I
needed
this, and I had forgotten it even existed.

Fei didn’t see me coming, of course. She jerked slightly when she realized that she
had something in her hand, but covered it well. I was already past her by then, seeing
her reaction through Triss’s unvision, as she slipped farther and farther behind.
While she paused under the magelight to glance seemingly casually at her hand, I moved
on, heading toward the trailing hunters.

My original intent—formed as I had climbed down the building to the street—was to
create a distraction that would draw the attention of the little group’s foremost
members. Then I could slip around to grab one of the stragglers and ask a few questions.
Instead, as I approached the front pair, I reached under the back of my poncho and
put my hands on the hilts of the swords hanging on either side of my spine. Before
I had time to think, the blades were free of their sheaths and dropping down and around
to clear them fully.

It wasn’t until I swung double beheading strokes as I passed between them that my
thinking mind fully caught up to my acting mind. From above, I had seen Fei’s hunters
as a collective entity, a group creature following her with the intent of seeing what
she was up to and possibly waylaying her. From the street, I could see the way the
individuals held their bodies and how they moved, recognize some of them, even though
I couldn’t make out faces through the dark curtain of my shroud.

The man leading the pack on the left was Dian, a black jack in training and lieutenant
to the woman second from the back. Rehira was her name and she was one of Tien’s better
hired killers, perhaps the best of the ones who had no magic of their own. The man
just in front of her didn’t move
like the others. Not a hunter, but some other kind of shadowsider. There was something
familiar about him, but I couldn’t name him right away. The first pair hadn’t finished
falling when I ran the third through. That’s when I finally recognized the fourth
as Ru-jin Eight Dogs, a minor nail-puller—sort of a freelance version of Thauvik’s
officers of agony. I snapped his right knee with a kick as I passed to keep him from
legging it.

Rehira was every bit as good as her reputation. She had a pair of short axes in her
hands by the time I got to her. She even managed to turn in the right direction when
I slid to one side to come at her from another angle. She died facing me, slowing
me down enough that between her and dealing with number five, the tail guard had time
to turn and run. I picked up one of Rehira’s axes and aimed at his fleeing back, but
at the last moment I changed my mind and threw it into a door frame instead. Then,
I returned to Eight Dogs, keeping my shroud in place.

“I’m going to ask you this once, and only once. Who hired you and Rehira?”

He was sweating and shaking, holding his knee and clearly terrified. “Rehira hired
me. I don’t know who hired her. She always kept her cards facedown and never brought
you farther into the play than she had to. She said it was a big noble and if this
went well we’d be living in the fat, but that’s all I’ve got. Please don’t kill me.”

“I won’t. Not today. But I’d suggest you find a new line of work between now and the
next time I see you, because this is a onetime opportunity to build a new and potentially
much longer life.”

He said something else, but I was already jogging silently away and I didn’t bother
to listen. Fei would be waiting.

You let two of them live.
Triss sounded more confused than concerned.

The runner wasn’t a threat anymore.

What if he tells people that he was attacked by a Blade?

I snorted.
I doubt he’s got any idea that’s what happened.
Even if he figures it out, who’s going to believe he went up against a Blade and lived?
I suspect he’ll say they ran into bad magic and leave it there.

All right, but what about Eight Dogs? He’s a torturer, not all that different from
the one back at Darkwater Island. Why treat him differently?
From his increasingly puzzled mental tone I could tell that this was one of those
times where Triss was genuinely baffled by my behavior and wondering if he’d missed
something about the way humans thought.

Eight Dogs answered the question. He’s also not going to be hurting anyone else anytime
soon. Not until that knee heals a bit. Who knows, maybe he’ll take my advice and find
a new line of work once he can walk again.

Do you really believe that?

I’d like to. People change. I’ve changed. Maybe he will, too.

What if he doesn’t?
asked Triss.

Then, the next time I see him, I’ll kill him.

Oh well, that makes sense then. Good.

We caught up to Fei about a half block short of the Ismere, but I didn’t yet drop
my shroud. I was still taking too much pleasure in concealment. I waited silently
while Fei knocked on the side door. Harad opened it at once. I slipped in right on
Fei’s heels, stepping to one side as Harad latched the door behind us.

As he was doing that, Fei turned and looked right at me. “Would you please stop that?
It’s seriously creepy.”

Triss collapsed back down into my shadow and I canted my head to one side. “How did
you know I was there?”

“You might be invisible, but I imagine that you still stir the air when you move,”
said Harad.

“Scheroc,” I said.

“Just so,” agreed Harad. “I was, of course, alerted by the wards as soon as you arrived
on the doorstep with our good captain. Go along now, I’ve brewed a pot of tea for
the two of you and left it in the third floor reading room that you
favor, Aral.” Then he turned and headed back for his apartments.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Fei glared at me. “How does he know about Scheroc?
You didn’t tell him I was a mage, did you?”

“Of course not.” I started toward the back stairs and the reading room. “That’s your
secret, I wouldn’t give it away. Not for free anyway, and no I haven’t. Harad’s a
librarian. He knows lots of things.”