Fallen Blade 04 - Blade Reforged (34 page)

“I’ll have to do it myself then, because there’s no way I’m letting you do that neck
squeezing thing Kaman taught you as a substitute.”

“I’ve never killed anyone with that yet.” I replied. “Not accidentally anyway.”

“No.”

“Fine, but I’m not going to mourn if you fry your brains by casting something like
that on yourself.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Devin. “Can you make sure the city guard finds
me before I wake up? That’ll make things a lot more convincing.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Anything else?”

“No. But we’d better nail down the details of how we’re going to communicate once
I’m inside Kao-li.”

So we did that to the extent we could, given the uncertainties. When we were done,
I flicked a wrist to put a knife in my hand. It was time.

“I’ll start with the head.” That would give him more time to recover his faculties
before trying a spell.

I threw the first punch with my knife hand, hitting him above the point of his right
eyebrow with the pommel and skidding the steel knob from there up and back toward
his hairline. It opened a long ragged tear over his temple that immediately started
bleeding. Devin clenched his teeth and grunted but didn’t cry out. Next, I reversed
the knife and put a shallow cut in his left cheek, nicking his ear. Devin hissed and
glared hate at me. I punched him in the nose, though I found that every blow made
me feel sicker. He touched the right side of his mouth and nodded, so I hit him there
as well, though not so hard this time—I wanted to split his lip, not knock out any
teeth.

After that, I alternated knife and fist work on his body, aiming for lots of light
bleeding and superficial bruises. There’s a skill to doing that well. To my shame,
I’d learned it back at the Gryphon’s Head while playing the shadow
jack—freelancing on the wrong side of the law. I’d tried to mostly stick to bodyguarding
and courier work, the kind of stuff I could do and still look at myself in the mirror,
but I’d taken less savory jobs when I got desperate enough for whiskey money.

That included collecting on loans for the nastier sort of moneylenders, which involved
very precise beatings. You wanted the slip scared and hurting, but not injured so
bad they couldn’t earn. That meant lots of mess and pain, but nothing broken, at least
not right out of the gate. I refused to get involved with what they did to people
they’d written off completely.

I had enough stains on my soul without that, and even the first-pass work made me
drink myself into a stupor after. Not that I didn’t drink myself flat most nights
in those days, but after working for the moneylenders, I drank with intent. Triss
hid himself in my shadow while I worked on Devin, just as he had in the bad old days.
I did as thorough a job on Devin as I’d ever done on any debt slip, and when I was
finished, I turned and vomited over the side of the boat.

Devin laughed through bleeding lips. “You always were too sentimental, Aral. I don’t
know why Namara favored you so.”

“Fuck you, Devin.”

“Truth hurts, huh?”

“Perhaps she favored him
because
he was sentimental,” said Zass, completely surprising me and causing Devin to turn
and glare at his shadow.

“You still want me to stab you in the thigh?” I asked after a long uncomfortable silence.

“You’d better,” Devin said quietly.

So, I did. Then Devin knocked himself out and I sculled us back to the docks, where
I dumped him and made a ruckus. I shrouded up and hung around long enough to make
sure he didn’t get rolled and dumped back into the bay, then headed for Fei’s office.
We needed a talk.

Aral?
Triss sent as soon as we had left Devin behind.

Yes?

I spoke with Zass about Thiussus and the Kitsune while you and Devin were chewing
on each other. In fact, we talked of little else, since Zass is even more frightened
of her than I am. We compared our encounters with her.

And?

I think it might be possible to lessen the effect she has on me, though I won’t know
for certain until we meet again.

How?
I remembered how raw and powerful Thiussus had felt through Triss’s senses and wondered
what you could do to fight that.

It’s hard to express in human speech. Thiussus is
—Triss hissed something in Shade—
of the everdark. Touching her is like touching the heart of shadow. What I feel is
powerful by itself, but it’s not the strength of her that’s so overwhelming, it’s
the everdarkness of it…the sense of being home rather than here in the sunlands. That…nostalgia?
Homecoming? I don’t know the right term, but it is very hard to be here-now, at the
same time I feel so there-then.

All right, I think I can see that, but how do you fight it?

By anchoring myself to this world and to you. Maybe. I must think on it, and then
we will have to see if my thinking is right.

He kind of slipped away at that point and I took over maintenance of the shroud while
he did his thinking. As we had been talking, I could feel the swords of my goddess
slopping around in the too-loose sheaths on my back and I resolved to ask Fei if she
had any rivets.

But once we got closer to Fei’s office, I realized I had to change my plans. Crown
Guard had put a cordon around the area, locking out everyone,
including
the city watch, a fact that had the latter visibly enraged. They were buzzing around
the edges of the cordon in angry little groups of yellow and black. Never had the
Stingers’ nickname seemed more apt.

What’s happening?
asked Triss.

I haven’t the slightest…oh.
A nasty thought had occurred to me.

What?

We cut our outgoing shadow trail when we went into the river with Devin….

Triss let out a little mental hiss.
But if the Kitsune followed our backtrail, it would have led her straight to Fei’s
office. We need to find the captain, fast!

Fei was nowhere in evidence, so I looked around for any of her personal command. I
was hoping for Sergeant Zishin, but couldn’t find him. Nor any of Fei’s other senior
people either—a very bad sign. I did finally spot a familiar face standing at the
mouth of a small alley: Corporal Anjir. He was with a couple of other low-ranking
Mufflers and looked very nervous. They all did, passing a little flask around to bolster
their courage. As always, the regular members of the watch were giving them a wide
berth. I went up over the rooftops and down into the alley so that I could come up
behind them unseen.

“Anjir,” I said quietly, though I maintained my shroud.

He and his fellows started, but none of them bolted. Anjir tucked the flask into his
shirt, then turned and leaned against the wall. Moving slowly and casually, he glanced
sidelong into the alley. “Who’s there?”

“I won’t say my name here, but we met once before, nearly a year ago in Captain Fei’s
office. You were delivering a poster and—don’t run!” I hissed the last when I saw
the memory hit him—he paled visibly. “You won’t like the results.”

“Are you threatening our corporal?” one of the privates asked angrily, stepping closer
to the alley mouth.

“Don’t,” said Anjir, touching the woman on the shoulder. “It wouldn’t go well. I need
a moment to talk with an old…acquaintance. Keep an eye out for the Crownies and give
a whisper if any of ’em start coming this way. We don’t want to get scooped up like
Zishin did.”

“All right, Corp, it’s your call, but I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I, Private, neither do I.” Then he stepped into the deeper dark of the
alley and I backed up to give him room.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Don’t know, something up at the main office.” He jerked his head back toward the
others. “We were doing a little job for the captain, and when we came back things
was all stirred up.”

“Dammit! I need to know where Fei is.”

“Couldn’t say, though Sergeant Zishin told us she rabbited when things went bollocks.”

“You talked to Zishin?”

Anjir nodded. “But only for a minute or two. He told us to rabbit, too, when a bunch
of Crownies came our way. We went, but not too far, and we saw them scoop him up.
That almost started a riot out there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Most
Stingers hate our guts, but when it comes to the yellow and black against the Crownies,
we’re all on the same side. Especially these days.”

“Did Zishin tell you anything else I might want to know?” I asked.

“’Fraid not. He just told us the captain had pulled a fade and warned us to do the
same. Said we should go deep and dark and wait for the war to sort itself out and
see who ended up in Fei’s office after.”

“That’s good advice, especially now.” I tried not to blame myself for leading the
Kitsune straight to Fei’s office. Cutting Scheroc loose probably balanced the scales
there for the captain, but it did nothing for the rest of the Mufflers. “If you’ve
got a retirement plan, you might want to be thinking about it.” I pictured the risen
crusade that might be brewing and shuddered. “Hell, if I were you, I’d be thinking
about relocating to Radewald for the duration. Things could go very wrong very fast.”

“We was just discussing that when you arrived. Captain made sure every one of us had
backup plans in case someone up the line decided Silent Branch was a liability. Made
us think both in-country and out. Paid for a fair bit of it out of her own purse even.
Good thing there’s not that many of us. You think this could really go bad enough
that we need to get out of Tien? I’ve got a little place I bought outside of Ar….”

“That’s a good start, but if this goes wrong, the Magelands might not be far enough
to run.”

Nor anyplace else this side of the mountains,
Triss added mentally.

“Oh. The Crownies closed the palace up tight after that thing on the bridge, but—”
Anjir tilted his head to one side. “That was you, wasn’t it, trying to mark another
crown on your sword hilt?”

“Something like that.”

“Wish you’d gotten steel into him, then.”

“I did.”

“Funny, I wouldn’t expect a guy like you to only do half the job when you got that
close.” He paused, and I could practically see him thinking. “Or did you? I was about
to tell you the Crownies had shut all the doors in the palace and threw away the bells,
but that we were still hearing some really crazy rumors out of there. Now I’m thinking
they might not be so crazy. And that’s all I’ve got. Guess I’ll be taking the next
boat to the Magelands and waiting to hear how it all settles. Give me a tick to get
the kids a running?”

“All right.”

Anjir turned and walked back to the little knot of Mufflers. I didn’t listen to what
he told them, but the discussion was short and they all faded immediately after. While
he was doing that, I took a moment just to breathe. It felt good.

“So why are you still here?” he asked when he came back. “I mean, if what I’m hearing
in between what you’re actually saying is true, Zhan’s about to go in the shitter
and ain’t nobody gonna be able to stop it.”

“Without getting into the sort of specifics that someone might wring out of you later,
I’m not quite convinced that I can’t put another crown on my hilt.”

If there’s a way, we’ll find it,
Triss agreed silently.

Anjir paused and I could see him thinking again. Finally, he said, “I don’t know if
it’s my place to tell you this, you being what you are and me being what I am, but
I’m gonna say it anyway. Let it go. I was a kid when you done for
Ashvik, and like most kids back then I resented the idea of someone killing our king.
I even rooted for the Son when his people put down yours.”

I hissed angrily, and Anjir held up a hand. “Please, let me finish, because I was
wrong. I joined the Mufflers because I cared about what happened to this city and
I was from the wrong kind of family for the regular Stingers—my people mostly ply
the cinders trade, selling hot goods. Back when you ghosted Ashvik, I didn’t understand
what a monster on the throne really meant. This last year, as Thauvik’s gotten worse
and worse, I started seeing how much the world needed something like your order. If
he’s what they say he is, you don’t have much of a shot.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then walk away. I don’t know much about mages, not the nitty-gritty anyway, but instead
of throwing your life away on this, wouldn’t it be better for you to start a new order,
carry on the mission, that kind of thing? You did us a hell of a good turn once. I’d
hate to see you die trying to do us another one.”

His words hurt…in a good way. “I have to try.”

You mean,
we
have to try,
Triss corrected mentally.

The corporal nodded. “Well then, good luck to you, and if I don’t see you again…”
Anjir drew himself up, straightened his shoulders, and gave me a parade ground salute.
Then he turned and walked away.