The Shadow Within (34 page)
“Perhaps if you stood up to them more,” Abramm said sharply, “they’d be afraid to come back.”
“We’ll never be afraid of the likes of
you,
” the graycloak muttered, glaring at him.
“That’s because you don’t know me very well,” Abramm said with a wicked grin.
“Stop it!” Tarker snapped. “You have no idea what’s going on here,
Alaric
.” He turned to the stocky captive. “These men are strangers to us, Mr. Skurlek. We’ve never seen them before tonight, and we certainly didn’t ask for their help.”
Abramm stared in astonishment as Tarker passed Skurlek off to one of his associates and another took possession of Trap’s man. Then the two were escorted—still bound, at least—out the door under the rear loft. Tarker lingered, his dark-eyed gaze flicking between his two befuddled listeners.
“One thing taught among us is the importance of not meddling in affairs you know nothing about. Thanks to you, it’ll be days before we can gather again. Maybe weeks. And now we’ll have to find another place to meet, too.”
“And another after that if you keep caving before them,” Abramm said, gripped by a rising anger of his own. “They’re nothing but bullies and lawbreakers, and they’ll never stop taking from you if you don’t stand up to them.”
Tarker’s frown deepened into a scowl. He started to speak, but apparently thought better of it and closed his mouth again. Finally he shook his head and stepped back from them. “Please do not try to find us again. You will not be welcome if you do.”
And with that he took his leave.
“Well,” Abramm said some moments after the sounds of Tarker’s passage had faded. “That certainly did not go as I had hoped.”
He was still in shock. To find himself deprived of his opportunity to speak to Kesrin and forbidden even to try again was bad enough, but to have it come as punishment for just action against the unlawful persecutions of the self-righteous Gadrielites was infuriating. It also showed him how much he had settled into the role of king, for he was having a very hard time accepting the fact that he’d just been ordered not to do something by a commoner.
“So what do we do now?” Trap asked, breaking into his mental tirade. His liegeman was looking around the small yard with obvious unease, and the recollection that both their lives and reputations remained in peril jolted Abramm back to the present.
“Go back, I guess.” He shook his head. “They had blades themselves and were using them! So it’s all right to fight, just not to win? What kind of sense does that make?”
“None. Which only underscores the truth of Tarker’s words. We really don’t know what’s going on down here.” He paused. “As I understand it, the last time some of them stood against their enemies, a good number ended up in the royal dungeons for their trouble.”
“There was nothing that could be done about that,” Abramm protested quietly. “None of them would testify.”
“I know, sir. I’m not casting blame, merely pointing out the complexity of it all.”
They reentered the square where the fire had been, finding it silent and deserted now. Even the boardinghouse stood dark and still.
Abramm sighed. “This is a fine fix I’ve gotten us into. One I have no idea how to get out of.”
“Eidon will make us a way.”
“I thought he already had.” Abramm grimaced at the boardinghouse and the Bunman Bridge looming behind it, tendrils of fog drifting in front of its dark bulk. When no brilliant solutions presented themselves, they headed back down the alley through which they’d originally come. Halfway along the narrow passage, Abramm laid a hand on his liegeman’s shoulder. “You don’t happen to know where the Westland Shipping Company is, do you?”
Meridon’s face was hidden in the shadows beneath his hat and he was a moment replying. “The office or the warehouse?”
“Both, I guess.”
The warehouse stood along Springerlan’s waterfront and at this hour was, not surprisingly, locked up for the night. An overseer supervising the unloading of a nearby merchantman gave them directions to the company offices, of which there were two—one along prestigious Banker’s Row, way up in the hills off the Avenue of the Keep, the other on Hyde Street, only three streets up from the waterfront. They had to follow it some ways around, though, and back into the outskirts of Southdock.
By then the fog was thickening rapidly, curling around the tops of buildings and piercing their cloaks with its damp chill. An increasing number of taverns made for more activity, the narrow streets alive with revelers recently come ashore. The smell of liquor mingled with that of vomit, garbage, and tobacco smoke. They walked into two private duels and had to detour around a square of brawling sailors before they reached the company office, only to find it also closed for the night.
Abramm stood in front of it scowling, even as he berated himself for his disappointment.
What did you expect?
he asked himself.
It’s nearly midnight. Of course there’d be no one here
.
Beside him Trap muttered, “They’re still after us, sir.”
“I know,” Abramm said irritably. They’d been shadowed by graycloaks since leaving the stable, and he did not doubt Skurlek was among them, eager to avenge his wounded pride. Right now he almost wished the man would attack him again, just so he could release some of this frustration.
“I’ve seen six of them now.”
And they’d have to lose all six before they dared to return to the palace. Finally conceding defeat, Abramm glanced down the street to his left where store and office fronts lined the narrow way, their darkness highlighting the activity swarming around the inn they’d passed coming up. Ruddy light spilled from its open door and windows across the damp cobbled street and illumined a weathered sign whose peeling paint proclaimed it the
Golden
Loaf
. Laughter, loud singing, and the wheedling of a reed pipe echoed faintly up the street.
Not the most reputable establishment perhaps, but it looked crowded and chaotic enough to serve their purpose. He pressed through the crowd outside the door and into the smoky stone-floored room beyond, Trap on his heels.
Oil lanterns hung on chains from the rafters, adding their smoke to that of tobacco and the great crackling hearth fire on the left, a haunch of mutton spitted over its flames. Wooden tables packed with patrons filled the floor space, a fact Abramm noted peripherally as his eye went first to the only two exits besides the door they’d just come in—the mouth of a hallway at the top of a short bank of steps leading leftward beyond the hearth, and a swinging door just beyond the long bar to the right. No guarantees on the hall, but the swinging door clearly led to the kitchen.
They found a space at the bar’s far end, hidden from the entrance by the other patrons. The innkeeper attended them swiftly, and they arranged to rent his last room for the night, then ordered themselves each a slice of the mutton with cups of mulled cider. As the man went off to get them, Abramm glanced over his shoulder at the crowd. Though no one was looking at him, he knew every person in the room was focused on him and his companion, being strangers
and
Esurhites. Anyone coming in to ask about them later would certainly be rewarded, although hopefully it wouldn’t matter.
He did not expect the Gadrielites to follow them in here. Despite Tarker’s claims to the contrary, invasion, kidnapping, and assault were still illegal, and Abramm doubted they’d be so bold as to act with this many non-Terstan witnesses. More than that, he did not believe the others would stand by and do nothing should they try. Most of these people, while common and rough, looked like decent folk. Anyway, they wouldn’t be here that long. They’d eat, go up to their room, and in a little bit, slip away out the back door. Or the window, if need be.
The barkeep returned with two mugs of steaming cider, and shortly thereafter a girl brought their mutton, pink and hot in its own juices with a thick slab of dark bread beside it. She looked vaguely familiar, but as she was already regarding Abramm with far too much interest for his comfort, he didn’t feel free to return her stares. Trap paid her with a half crown and she went away.
They had barely started to eat, however, when the crowd at the door stirred and muttered, finally parting to admit four men in Gadrielite gray. Their cowls were pushed back, their faces boldly revealed—it
was
Skurlek and his cronies—and with their arrival every head swiveled toward them and silence gripped the room. As they scanned the crowd with narrowed eyes, Abramm saw the others flinch, avert their gazes, and almost sink into their own tunics. So much for his prediction of Gadrielite timidity and civilian boldness.
Still mostly hidden from view, Trap leaned close against his side and said, “Might be time to leave, sir.”
To reach the hallway where the stairs led up to their room, they’d be spotted for sure, and considering the way the Gadrielites had barged in here, and the way they had the others cowed, he wasn’t sure going to the room would solve anything anyway. There were four of them in here now, which left only two to guard the back door. He and Trap could easily handle two.
The Gadrielites fanned out, peering at individual patrons as conversation started up again. Abramm and his liegeman could stand and fight, of course, but recalling Tarker’s fear of retribution, Abramm was reluctant to bring trouble on the innocent innkeeper.
As the serving girl passed by again, carrying a stack of dirty plates, Abramm stopped her and asked if there was a back door through the kitchen. Her gray-blue eyes flicked up to his, then darted toward the Gadrielites in immediate comprehension. Her mouth tightened, but she gave a quick nod, then hurried on her way.
Abramm glanced at Trap, and together they pushed casually away from the bar and slid around it. They were noticed immediately, Skurlek’s rough voice barking a command to halt. Which Abramm would have ignored had not the other two graycloaks pressed through the swinging kitchen doorway at the same moment to block their exit. They stopped together as the room quieted again, the silence broken only by the crackle of the hearth fire and the hissing sizzle of the meat juices dripping into it. All along the wall between them and the hallway, men had gone stiff and alert, eyes flicking from quarry to pursuers and back again.
“These men are Terstans!” Skurlek declared, his booted feet loud on the stone floor as he approached. “They have profaned the Flames and Hands of Eidon, and will be held accountable—as will any who dare to aid them.”
With a sigh, Abramm turned back to face his accuser, partly regretful and partly rather pleased. Flicking his cloak over his right shoulder, he checked his immediate periphery to be sure nothing would hinder the draw of his sword as Skurlek now drew up before him, his breath sour with rotten teeth.
“Mr. Skurlek,” Abramm said. “We meet again.”
Skurlek puffed out his chest, drawing Abramm’s eyes to the little tongue of flame stitched to the breast of his cloak. His hand patted the leatherwrapped hilt of sword he now wore belted to his hip. “Except this time we’re evenly matched.”
Abramm looked the man up and down. Skurlek was stout with muscle but carried more fat on him than Abramm did. He showed no sign of the injury he’d received earlier, though Abramm had stabbed his left shoulder, and it appeared Skurlek was right-handed. No matter. The greater injury by far was his wounded pride, for the man was clearly consumed by his need to avenge it. And convinced of his ability to do so. It was a combination that could be easily goaded into the mindless fury that bred mistakes.
Abramm smiled. “I’m afraid it will take a good deal more than that pigsticker at your side to make us evenly matched, sir.”
He watched the pocked face redden as the other patrons, divining what was to happen, scrambled up and out of range, tables and chairs screeching and chattering as they were shoved aside and a ring cleared for the combatants. As the sound of murmured wagers hissed around him, Abramm felt the mood of the place shift from fear to flickering hope.
“We’ll see what Eidon has to say about that, Shadow lover,” Skurlek grated, yanking his sword from its scabbard and lunging for Abramm’s heart. Abramm’s own blade sprang to hand in the same moment, sweeping the other’s blade aside in a looping stroke that let him come in left-handed with the dagger. Skurlek barely dodged it, the short blade slicing his leather tunic and grating along his ribs.
A susurration of surprised approval arose from the onlookers, and the combatants began to circle one another. Then Skurlek flung the end of his cloak at him, the heavy folds entangling Abramm’s rapier as the fabric flapped up into his face. He dodged to the left, out of the line of attack, let the cloak fall as he blocked another strike with the dagger, then lunged with the rapier before his opponent could recover, slicing the tendon at the base of the man’s thumb and loosing his grip on the blade. Skurlek watched it clatter to the floor in disbelief, his hand bleeding freely, dangling at his side, thumb no longer useful for holding anything.
There were times Abramm felt regret at dealing an opponent a blow that could cripple him for life. This wasn’t one of them. He was starting to relax and straighten from his crouch when the Gadrielite sprang at him, a hidden blade flashing in his hand. Abramm’s sword flicked back, driving through his assailant’s throat and into his brain almost before he realized what had happened. Skurlek stiffened and stepped back, his face slack with disbelief. Then he crumpled lifeless to the floor.
The inn was so quiet Abramm could hear the hiss of the oil lamps and the jingle of his harness as he wiped his sword clean on his cloak and sheathed it. The gazes of the others were like a burning on his skin. He felt cold now, and mildly nauseated, for though he hadn’t hesitated to cripple, he also hadn’t intended to kill. Which surprised him, considering how many times he had killed in Esurhite arenas. But this was one of his own subjects.
Skurlek’s companions stood over the body, staring down at it. It had been at the back of Abramm’s mind that cutting off the head might paralyze the body, and that seemed to be what had happened. With Skurlek dead, his followers seemed lost.
