The Paladin Caper (25 page)

Lesaguris smiled. “All of that is one reason, Westteich,” he said, and as Westteich let out a small relieved breath, he added, “and the other reason is that according to the message I just received on the band, Loch’s people broke the mother out of custody down on Ros-Oanki fifteen minutes ago.”

Westteich executed a mental pivot that impressed even himself. “I knew trusting Arikayurichi’s trackers was a mistake, but I wanted to give them a chance to prove me wrong. I take full responsibility for their failure, my lord, and if you believe it’s necessary to have them killed, I can’t really argue with you. What’s important now is what we’ve learned.”

Lesaguris’s smile broadened. “And what have we learned?”

“That everything we’ve been doing is right,” Westteich said without hesitation, making direct eye contact and nodding as he went on. “I was right about how Loch would take immediate action, and about how personal connections would be a useful tool against her. You were right to be skeptical about our normal forces’ ability to react to threats of this nature. We need to adjust individual stratagems, of course, but with what we’ve learned here, we should only be
more
confident now that our next steps will be successful.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Mister Slant, “
our
next steps?”

Westteich continued nodding and kept his eyes on Lesaguris at all times. “If you planned to kill me, my lord, there’s nothing I could do to stop you, but I am an asset to your team, and I don’t see you wasting resources at such a critical point in your operation. You could put a band on me, but you have Archvoyant Cevirt banded already, so you clearly don’t lack for political power. Killing me for the failure of the subordinates you assigned me would be like killing you for Arikayurichi and Ghylspwr’s failure to destroy the Republic a few months ago.”

Lesaguris let him hang for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. “Not bad, Westteich. Not bad at all. You are quite correct. As for Arikayurichi and Ghylspwr . . .” He sighed. “Arikayurichi was too bloodthirsty, and he has paid for it. Ghylspwr was a great fighter and a true patriot, but he always lacked the conviction necessary to make the difficult decisions. You have heard the story about him at the last days of the ancients?”

“They say he was a king who held off the Glimmering Folk while the last of his people fled to the realm of the ancients.” Westteich shook his head. “They also say he gave up some of his own essence to heal the wounds of the warrior wielding him. The legends say that it was his son, but I assume that was time and misunderstanding affecting the telling of the tale.”

“He was a general, not a king,” Lesaguris said quietly, “and he had fought the Glimmering Folk for years. His forces were to hold position while the rest of us retreated back to our realm. Ghylspwr himself was to retreat, leaving a small group to sacrifice themselves.” Lesaguris looked down, and one hand balled itself into a fist.

“It was an excellent plan,” said Mister Slant, “and we left enough thralls to fight the Glimmering Folk to cover the retreat. It was really astonishingly well managed, coordinating that kind of effort with so few losses of our people. Just astonishing.”

“But then,” Lesaguris went on, “he sent the rest back and chose
himself
as sacrifice. Even when the Glimmering Folk overwhelmed him, when he could have had his thrall throw him through the gateway, Ghylspwr chose to give up what he was, that brilliant mind, to heal the human who had carried him.” His face twisted into something that was either a frown or a snarl. “Can you
imagine
what a selfish, weak-minded waste of talent that was?”

“It is far beyond me, my lord.” Westteich ducked his head. “Suffice it to say that I am glad you are here now to lead us.”

“Thank you, Westteich.” Lesaguris lifted his head, and the snarl was gone, replaced with the same genial smile he usually wore. “For now, you should know that Archvoyant Cevirt has yielded some very useful information. If our course is, as you say, correct . . . what would you do with the knowledge that Justicar Captain Pyvic is Loch’s lover?”

Loch, Ululenia, and Icy stepped off the treeship the elves had let them borrow and hunkered down in the bushes, not far from the walls surrounding the Westteich family estate.

“Wards?” Loch asked, pointing at the walls with her walking stick.

“I am but the dove to Desidora’s falcon,” Ululenia said, looking carefully at the walls, “but I do sense something.” She stepped forward carefully. “It seems warded against active magic.”

Loch frowned. “Can you break it without triggering an alarm?”

“No. But as the fox creeps across the frozen pond, I will step lightly and swiftly and leave no trace.” She shimmered and shifted into a snowy-white dove and flew off toward the wall.

“I carry no magic,” Icy said, looking over at Loch. “I do not believe I shall have any difficulty.”

“Right.” Loch reached under her leather jacket, pulled the daemon-ward necklace over her head, and tossed it back by the treeship. “No magic.”

She and Icy reached the wall, which was cut stone and fifteen feet high, half covered with long growing vines. Icy, smaller and lighter, stepped up without hesitation, grabbed what looked to Loch like a completely sheer surface, and pulled himself up.

Loch tucked her walking stick into the back of her belt, ran her fingers along the wall until she found a handhold, and then pulled herself up.

“Do you require assistance?” Icy said from atop the wall.

“I was a scout,” Loch muttered, launching herself up and grabbing another handhold. “I know how to climb.”

“As you say,” Icy said politely, still perched atop the wall and looking down at her.

Loch slipped on a bit of vine, swore to herself, pulled herself up by her fingers until her feet found purchase, and finally took the hand Icy wordlessly offered and pulled herself up the rest of the way.

“Show-off,” she muttered.

“Someone must keep you humble while Kail is otherwise occupied,” Icy said, smiling faintly as he dropped from the wall into the estate.

Loch dropped down after him, rolled, and winced at the ache in her still-healing ribs. The yard inside was ruthlessly trimmed, with a single path leading to the manor from the main gate, and hedges and statues scattered across the otherwise-bare expanse of green. “Ululenia, guards?” she asked as she moved behind an ornamental hedge trimmed into a perfect teardrop shape. Icy stepped in beside her.

A snowy-white dove flew up and landed atop the hedge. Ululenia looked down at them and cooed.

“I believe she fears that speaking in our minds would activate the alarms,” Icy said.

“I got that.” Loch nodded to Ululenia. “Go. We’ll follow your lead.”

The dove cooed again, waited a moment, and then flapped to a hedge a dozen yards away. Loch and Icy darted after her. In the distance, Loch saw guards at the gate, and more pacing near the front entrance to the manor.

“You are not worried for Kail?” Icy asked, while Ululenia waited and pecked at the hedge.

“He and Hessler and Dairy will be fine. Besides, he’d be no good to me worrying about his mother in the middle of a job. That thinking gets a scout killed.” Loch snuck a glance out from the hedge, saw one of the guards coming their way, and ducked back. “He was right. He warned me, and I didn’t listen.”

“You made the correct decision in drawing them out,” Icy said quietly. “You are not responsible for the actions of your enemy.”

“Doesn’t matter who’s responsible for it. It happened, and we’re fixing it.” Loch looked over at him. “You’re not worried about your family?”

“I lost my family some time ago,” Icy said.

“Sorry.”

Icy nodded in acknowledgment. “Ululenia has no family, Hessler’s mother has passed away, Desidora was raised by priests of Jairyur after her mother died giving birth, and Dairy is an orphan. You and Tern are the only other members of the team with close living relatives.”

Loch winced. Of course they would have talked it out. “The
Lapitemperum
is in Tern’s hometown.” Ululenia fluttered to another hedge, and Loch and Icy crept out after her, and then darted quickly to another hedge, keeping their bodies low as the manor came closer. “She checking in with her family while she and Desidora hit it?”

“Presumably,” Icy said as Ululenia flapped to another hedge, then rapidly turned and came back. Loch and Icy ducked back. “Which leaves only the question of Pyvic and your sister.”

“Pyvic is one of us. He can handle himself.”

“And that means you do not worry about him?”

“It means he doesn’t need me,” Loch said quietly, “to save him.”

“You have not yet mentioned Naria,” Icy said.

“Nope.”

Ululenia flapped out to the hedge again, and flapped her wings anxiously. Loch and Icy darted in behind her. They were almost to the manor now, and the guards were within earshot. Loch and Icy circled the hedge carefully, keeping it between them and the nearest guard, and Ululenia flitted up onto a low balcony overlooking the yard.

Loch went first, making no noise as she leaped up, caught the balcony, and pulled herself over. Icy landed beside her a moment later, flattening himself so that the guards on the ground could not see him.

The balcony was a small half circle with a single love seat and a tray where one of the presumed lovers could rest a drink while watching the sunset. A double-glass door led into the manor itself, and Loch looked at Ululenia, who flapped to the door, landed, and cooed again.

Keeping low, Loch tried the door handle. It opened under her grip. No massive alarm sounded. She crept in.

The first thing that struck Loch was a sense of having been in this manor before. The carpet was the same outdated dark green it had been in the noble manors she had visited as a child and played in while her parents drank and talked politics with the adults. The same bronze busts of old generals lined the hallway. The same paintings lined the walls—expensive and famous works, but not originals, because the hallway would get sun in the afternoon, and even if you had fading-wards built into the frames, you didn’t put the good paintings in a hallway people would walk
past.

A classic old painting of the gods, and an emotive portrait of proud Ael-meseth that happened to have the face of an old archvoyant, and a modern piece that was considered popular these days: all of them were jumbled together with no thought of style or pacing or grouping or anything except, “Here, look at how many of these I could afford.”

We may safely use magic now that we are inside,
Ululenia said, and then proved it by shifting back into human form. She looked at Loch in concern. “Is something wrong, Little One?”

“Nobles,” Loch said. “Come on. We want the study. Westteich felt safe here. It’ll be hidden, but in a room where he can look at it any time he wants to feel smart.”

“Can you locate the study?” Icy asked.

“Could Ululenia find water if you dropped her in a forest? Come on.” Loch started walking.

They moved quietly but without hiding. The hallway was open enough that running from doorway to doorway would be pointless, anyway. Loch reached a corner, peeked around, saw no one, and crossed.

“You should warn your sister,” Icy said behind her as she passed a doorway.

“Still got her hooks in you, huh?” Loch checked a corner, saw an old servant carrying linens down the hall, and raised a hand. The servant stepped into a side room, and Loch nodded and kept moving. “Naria always was good at getting boys to do what she wanted.”

“As the lioness swishes her tail while walking away,” Ululenia added.

“She is a baroness,” Icy said, “who was once Archvoyant Silestin’s First Blade.”

“She is a baroness,” Loch shot back, “who is in charge of our family’s land, and does not need me to come cause trouble.”

“So you
are
concerned,” Icy said, “and are remaining distant to protect her?”

“I . . . damn it, do we really have to do this now?” Loch glared at him as they crossed an intersection. “If I go to Pyvic, it endangers him. If I go to Naria, it endangers her. He doesn’t need me there; she wouldn’t want me there.”

“You speak of what they need or want, Little One. What of you?”

“Someone has to focus on saving the damn world while the rest of you think about virgins and my sister,” Loch muttered with a little wave, passing an open doorway into a dining hall.

Icy sighed. “Even beyond her value as a lure for you, Naria’s time as an assassin may have left her with information the ancients would find valuable.”

“Naria can take care of herself,” Loch said, and turned a corner to find a guard standing watch a few yards away. The guard, a gargantuan bearded man wearing heavy armor and a large open-faced helmet, looked at Loch in alarm, and his hand wrapped around a whistle he wore on a necklace.

Loch caught his hand with the hook of the walking stick, checking the whistle just shy of his mouth and yanking it back. Then she kicked him in the side of the knee, grabbed his whistle-blowing hand with her own free hand, and cracked the walking stick against his face smartly. The guard went down, groaning, and didn’t move.