The Shadowed Path (39 page)

“We need to get out of here before someone comes back,” Jonmarc said. He had regained the feeling in his hands, and his legs were steady enough to walk without stumbling.

“It’s not your fight.”

“It is now.”

After a moment, Harrtuck swore and turned away. “Suit yourself.” He eased the door open to the next room, with a knife in his hand that had appeared from somewhere in his clothing. Jonmarc held his shiv at the ready. The room where they had been held was mostly empty except for a washstand and a small bed. Jonmarc managed to pick the lock on the door. Beyond it was an outer room that held a table and two chairs, a chest, and a fireplace.

Harrtuck looked around the room, went to the chest, and gave a grim smile as he opened it. “Our weapons, at least,” he said, bending to retrieve their blades. Jonmarc nodded his thanks as he returned his swords to their scabbards, and once he had his long knives back, he returned the shiv to his boot.

Harrtuck headed for the door. “This is your last chance to turn away,” he warned.

“Get moving,” Jonmarc said. “We’ve got to find your people.”

Principality City’s dodgier quarters were a warren of narrow alleys and tight ginnels, but Harrtuck moved through them like a native. Only a few blocks over, the sound of fighting carried on the air, down near the waterfront in a section of the city that looked like it had seen far better days.

The open area might once have been a grand square, but its beauty had been sullied long ago. A cracked, broken fountain sat dry and filled with refuse along one side of the space. The large stone buildings that flanked the square were covered in soot, their columns scarred and covered with vandals’ messages, their steps smelling of urine. Any vagrants that had made their lodgings there were smart enough to scatter at the first sign of trouble.

Two small armed gangs fought their way back and forth across the soiled paving stones, swords clanging, blades flashing in the sun. Given the neighborhood, Jonmarc doubted the king’s guards would care what happened down here, so long as it did not burn down the city. The two warring sides pushed each other back and forth through the open courtyard, and to Jonmarc’s eyes, they appeared evenly matched.

He nearly asked Harrtuck how to tell one group from the other before he spotted a man who fit Steen’s description of Captain Valjan. Valjan was a tall man with a patch over one eye, tanned from years outdoors and scarred from decades of soldiering. He was laying-to with a broadsword in one hand and a shorter blade in the other, driving his opponent back with pounding blows that sounded as if they might shatter steel. Like the rest of his men, Valjan wore a black armband emblazoned with the face of a snarling dog.

“Let’s go!” Harrtuck shouted, as he and Jonmarc waded into the fray.

There could easily have been a hundred men in the fight, more or less evenly split between the two warring sides. Harrtuck wore a War Dogs arm band, but Jonmarc did not, and realized the lack as soon as he followed Harrtuck into the fight. He glanced around, spotted a fallen mercenary, and stripped off his arm band, doing the best he could to secure it around his own arm before one of the enemy mercs closed on him.

“Fresh meat,” Jonmarc’s attacker said with a toothy grin as he came at Jonmarc, sword raised.

Jonmarc dropped low, bringing his own blade across the man’s knees, then swung up, knocking aside the attacker’s sword, planting his boot squarely in the man’s chest. “Your mistake,” Jonmarc muttered as he drove forward, slipping his sword into the downed man’s gut before the astonished merc had time to react. Hot blood spattered across Jonmarc’s face and arms.

So much was going on that everything seemed a blur. Yet as Jonmarc watched and waited for another opening in the fight, his eyes widened as he spotted a familiar face: the man with the cut nose from The Wobbly Goat. Jonmarc gave a cry and tried to head toward the man, sure he was one of the enemy fighters, but the battle surged and a sea of bodies cut Jonmarc off from his quarry. By the time he had fought his way clear, the man had disappeared.

The whistle of a blade nearby made Jonmarc duck, barely missing the sword that nearly took off one ear, he spun to meet the challenge. A big man cursed his mistake, and his two-handed swing came at Jonmarc hard enough to slice through bone. Jonmarc deflected the blow, having no desire for the powerful swing to break his wrist, and then slashed with the short sword in his left hand, scoring a slice across the big man’s tunic. The enemy mercenary’s cuirass kept the blow from doing damage, but the man’s face reddened at the insult and he came at Jonmarc with a bellow like a wounded bull.

Jonmarc dropped and rolled, barely managing not to be kicked or stepped on in the crowded plaza, and came up in a squat just behind the giant, slashing through the merc’s boots and across his hamstrings. The huge man gave a shout of pain and let loose with a torrent of obscenities, then staggered and fell to his knees. He growled like a feral beast and took a last, desperate swing at Jonmarc, managing to get in a deep gash on Jonmarc’s left arm before he could run him through from behind.

The battle gave him no leeway to bind up his wound. A few steps away, Jonmarc saw Harrtuck fighting not far from where Valjan had cleared a path for others of the War Dogs to follow. While Jonmarc had been busy with his opponents, it looked as if the fighting had turned in the favor the Dogs, though their enemies were far from ceding defeat.

The knife slid into Jonmarc’s side before he saw it coming, and he gasped with pain but kept his feet, even as hot blood trickled down his skin. Anger fueled him as much as courage, and perhaps a dose of fear. Maybe his attacker expected Jonmarc to go down quickly, but one thing was certain: he was not prepared for Jonmarc’s crashing blow that slid along his blade to the hilt, or for the tip of a short sword ripping into his ribs.

The enemy merc’s face twisted into an ugly mask as he raised his sword for a death blow. But before he could bring down his strike, the merc’s body jerked and he stiffened, as a bloody blade poked through his belly. The big man fell to his knees with a garbled cry, and Harrtuck pulled his blade loose.

“By the Dark Lady! You look hard used,” he observed. “Can you walk?”

Jonmarc nodded, following on sheer willpower, ignoring the sharp pain in his side although it threatened to black him out. By now, the square was definitely less crowded with fighters, though bodies littered the paving stones and the ground was red with blood. He staggered, fixing his gaze on where the War Dogs rallied near the center of the plaza. Most of the fighting had moved off to the edges of the square, and it looked like the War Dogs were running off the last of their enemies.

Valjan and Harrtuck were bloodied, as were the other Dogs, but there looked to be more of them standing than fallen. Jonmarc gritted his teeth, determined he would not give in to the blackness that edged his vision. He sheathed his sword and clapped his hand to his side. His shirt was soaked, and warm, wet blood covered his hand.

Valjan shouted orders to the War Dogs giving chase to the quickly retreating attackers. Harrtuck was just off to one side, already shouting for soldiers to gather the wounded and dispatch the dying. A handful of other War Dogs were nearby, but their attention was on the square’s perimeter, alert for another attack. That was when Jonmarc spotted the man behind Valjan, and saw the glint of a knife raised behind the Captain’s back.

“Stop!” Jonmarc shouted, still a few steps too far away to reach the attacker in time. The man glanced his way, just enough for Jonmarc to see that he was missing the end of his nose.

Jonmarc’s reaction came before he had time to think. He threw his short sword at the man with all his remaining might, a move he had often practiced but never perfected. His aim went wide, but the blade caught the noseless man in the shoulder instead of the chest and he staggered backward with a grunt, enough of a warning for Valjan to turn. His sword batted away the assassin’s knife, then drove forward into the man’s chest. Only then did Jonmarc realize that the man with the cut nose wore the armband of a War Dog.

Valjan’s sword sank hilt-deep between the assassin’s ribs. The man gave a choked cry, blood leaked from his open mouth, and then his body jerked and sagged, sliding down the crimson length of Valjan’s blade.

Jonmarc felt the world tilt around him and sank to his knees. Everyone was shouting, and two War Dogs grabbed Jonmarc by the shoulders as Valjan strode over.

“This is the man! He tried to kill you with his short sword!” one of the mercs said, giving Jonmarc a hard shake.

“You idiot!” Harrtuck barreled through the fray. “Ekstan was the traitor. He was about to knife the Captain from behind. Jonmarc threw his sword to stop him. I saw it all—I was just too far away to do anything about it,” he said, glowering at the men who held Jonmarc.

“Who are you? And how did you suspect Ekstan?” Valjan snapped, turning his attention to Jonmarc, who was sure that only the guards holding him upright were keeping him from collapsing onto the bloodied paving stones.

“I saw him… in the tavern. He was with Hagen.”

“He told me earlier about spotting Hagen,” Harrtuck said, after a few creative curses. “This is Jonmarc Vahanian. Steen recommended him. Came from Linton’s caravan.”

“I want to be a War Dog,” Jonmarc managed. His mouth was dry, and his sight was dimming. Valjan might have said something in reply, and Harrtuck was yelling at the guards, but Jonmarc could not make out the words, and all around him, the bloody square faded to black.

“Y
OU CERTAINLY TOOK
your time about waking up.” Harrtuck’s voice was a growl, but Jonmarc thought he heard a hint of relief in the words. He tried to move, grimaced at the tenderness in his side, and lay still.

“Yeah, it’ll be sore for a while,” Harrtuck said. “You were

lucky the one who knifed you wasn’t a few inches to the side, or you’d have been even harder for the healer to fix. As it was, you gave them a hard go of it.”

“How long was I out?” Jonmarc managed.

“Most of a day,” Harrtuck replied, and it sounded as if he had a mouthful of food. Jonmarc opened his eyes, and saw that Harrtuck was chewing on a biscuit. “Don’t worry,” He said with a chuckle. “There’s enough for both of us—and a flask of whiskey beside the bed, if your side still pains you.” He grinned. “Or even if it doesn’t.”

“Valjan—”

“The Captain sends his regards,” Harrtuck said, spraying crumbs as he talked. “Made me go over the story three times of who you were and why you were there, but in the end he agreed to take you on.”

“I’m in?” Despite his weariness and the discomfort of his healing wound, Jonmarc felt relieved.

“Conditionally,” Harrtuck said, raising a hand as if to slow him down. “You have a month to prove yourself. Although I think you’ve done some of that already.”

“Hagen?”

“The whore-spawned son of a bitch ran off,” Harrtuck replied. “We’ll find him. My bet is he was behind the attack on the house, and you saw him with the men who jumped us in the alley. Good observation, spotting those eyes of his.” He sighed. “Ah well. Valjan’s a patient hunter. He’ll find Hagen, and make him pay.” Harrtuck raised an eyebrow. “Another point for you, since you’re the one who tipped us off to him.”

“What now?” Jonmarc asked. Despite the healer’s magic, he felt awful, and he suspected it would be several days before he was ready for another fight. But he was alive, healing, and at least conditionally a War Dog. It was a good day.

“Now, we regroup, get people patched up, and line up more work, like we always do,” Harrtuck replied. “We put a dent into the Black Wolves they won’t forget, so I don’t think we’ll have anything to worry about from them for a while.”

Harrtuck tore off another hunk of bread and washed it down with ale. “So for the moment, get some sleep. Heal up. Rest while you can. There’ll be new trouble, soon enough. There always is.”

G
AIL
Z. M
ARTIN
writes epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and steampunk. She is the author of The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (
The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven, Dark Lady’s Chosen
) from Solaris and The Fallen Kings Cycle (
The Sworn
,
The Dread
) from Orbit. The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga is her postapocalyptic medieval epic fantasy series, with
Ice Forged, Reign of Ash, War of Shadows, and Shadow and Flame
from Orbit.

Iron and Blood
:
The Jake Desmet Adventures
a new steampunk series (Solaris) was co-authored with Larry N. Martin.
Deadly Curiosities
and
Vendetta: A Deadly Curiosities Novel
are her urban fantasy series set in Charleston, SC; and Gail writes four series of ebook short stories/novellas:
The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures, The Deadly Curiosities Adventures, The Blaine McFadden Adventures
and
The Storm and Fury Adventures
(coauthored with Larry N. Martin). Her work has appeared in over 20 US/UK anthologies. Newest anthologies include:
The Big Bad 2, Athena’s Daughters, Heroes, Space, Contact Light, With Great Power, The Weird Wild West, The Side of Good/The Side of Evil, Alien Artifacts, The Shadowed Path, Realms of Imagination, Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens
.

Find her at
www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com
, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on
Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms
, at
DisquietingVisions.com
blog and
MagicalWords.net
blogs, on
GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com
, on Goodreads
goodreads.com/GailZMartin
and free excerpts on Wattpad: 
wattpad.com/GailZMartin
. Join Gail’s street team, The Shadow Alliance, on Facebook for exclusive sneak peek excerpts and more!