Weapon of Vengeance (Weapon of Flesh Trilogy) (9 page)

The chime sounded, and Lem hurried to answer the
door. 

Sereth kept his attention on his opponent, though
his curiosity was piqued. 
Another new student, maybe
. 
More skilled
than this one, I hope
.  He side-stepped a sword thrust, tapped his foot in
a feint, and parried the expected stop-thrust.  His riposte was deflected, and
the exchanged continued with a quick rattle of steel on steel.

Lem’s voice rose in protest, then quieted. 
Not a
student, then
.  Heavy footsteps clomped across the wooden floor, and
Sereth’s student turned his head toward the interloper.  Sereth took the
opportunity, lunging full extension to thrust the tip of his sword hard into
his opponent’s chest.

“You’re dead, young lord!”

“Damn it!”  The boy pressed a hand to the spot, but
dutifully lowered his rapier and stepped back, breathing hard beneath his wire
mask.

“Never,
ever
let yourself be distracted while
in combat.  That’s a quick way to die.”

“Or get your nuts cut off!”

Sereth bristled at the crude comment and yanked off
his mask.  A burly man wearing the livery of the Royal Guard and a friendly
smile stood just off the practice area.  Sereth ignored the smile, stifled his
response, and turned back to his student.

“That’s all for today, Lord Westin.  I think we’re
doing well here.  You have the basics, but you need to break up your patterns. 
Mix things up.  Fighting isn’t ballroom dancing; if you lead your partner,
you’ll get a blade in your gut.  And remember: concentration is key to
survival.”

“I’ll remember, Master VonBruce.  Thank you.”  The
young noble racked his weapon and accepted Lem’s help with the buckles of his
fencing gear.

Sereth racked his practice sword and hung up his
wire mask before he turned to face his visitor.  “To what do I owe the pleasure
of a visit by the Royal Guard?”  He noted the stripes on the guardsman’s
collar.  “Sergeant…”

“Tamir.”  The sergeant extended a hand.

Sereth removed his fencing gauntlet to shake it, and
found himself automatically assessing the man.  The handshake was firm, but
without the undue pressure of intimidation.  Scars of experience on the man’s
fingers and hand indicated that he was a swordsman, though a cauliflower ear
suggested that he wasn’t a stranger to fisticuffs.  And despite being shorter
than Sereth by several inches, the guardsman outweighed him by at least two
stone.  But what caught Sereth’s attention was the name—
Tamir
.  This was
Norwood’s first sergeant, who, according to Mya, was pursuing the black darts.
What
in the Nine Hells is he doing here
?

“Sereth VonBruce at your service, Sergeant.”   He
loosened the clips of his plastron, and draped it over the rack.  “What can I
help you with?”

“I have a few questions, Master VonBruce.”  He
looked around as if thinking of buying the place.  “You just opened this little
training school, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.” 

The door chime jingled again as the young noble
departed.  Lem began tending to the fencing gear.  Sereth took no overt notice,
but realized that the move put the guardsman between them.  Lem was prepared
for trouble, and inexperienced enough to precipitate it.  The last thing Sereth
needed was a dead guardsman on his hands.  Not only would he have to abandon
the salon, he’d need an entirely new identity. 

“Lem, help me out of my gear while I speak with the
sergeant here.”

“Yes, sir.”  Disappointment flashed across Lem’s
face, but he dutifully did as his master requested.

Sereth turned back to Tamir with a smile.  “To
answer your question more precisely, Sergeant, I opened the salon just over
week ago.  Does the Royal Guard now investigate all new businesses?”

“Not all of them.  So, you’re new to teaching, eh?”

“No.  I sometimes helped train the novice students
for my former master.”

“Horice DeVough.”

“Yes.” 
So that’s it.  Someone must have
identified me as Horice’s bodyguard
.  Sereth turned so Lem could unbuckle
his practice jacket. 

“And Master DeVough died recently, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”  Sereth wasn’t worried.  He had
prepared for this possibility, and his answers came easily.  The Master Blade
shook his head ruefully.  “I also worked as his bodyguard, so you can imagine
how I felt.”

“Yeah, having a bodyguard didn’t seem to help him
much.  I take it you weren’t there when it happened?”

“No.  I didn’t even know he’d gone out that night.”

“So how did you find out he was dead?”

“When I showed up for work the next day, the
household staff told me Horice had gone out and not come back.  The following
day it was all over the city that he was one of those killed in West Crescent,
so I assumed I was out of a job.”

Tamir narrowed his eyes.  “Why didn’t the household
staff mention a bodyguard?”

Sereth shrugged.  “I don’t know, Sergeant.  I guess
you’ll have to ask them.”

Sereth was, in fact, telling the truth.  He had arrived
at Horice’s the day after the battle to establish an alibi, but hadn’t been
back since.  It was curious, though; if the staff hadn’t told the Royal Guard
about him, who had?

“I will.  So, let me get this straight.  He employed
you as his personal bodyguard, then didn’t take you along on the night he was
killed?”  Tamir’s snort of laughter might have been either derision or
disbelief.  “That was stupid of him, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Did Master DeVough often go out without you?”

“How would I know if he did?”

“I don’t know.  That’s why I’m asking.”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“And you went with him everywhere else?”

“I have no way to know that, either.”  Sereth
shrugged out of the stifling jacket and wiped the sweat from his face with a
towel.  “I accompanied Master DeVough a great many places.  At least once, I
wasn’t there to protect him.”

“And where exactly were you when your master was
killed?”

“Home.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“So, you don’t know who he went out to meet?”

“Sergeant, if I didn’t know he’d gone without me,
how would I know who he went to meet?”  Sereth frowned at the guardsman.  The
tactic was old and simple; Tamir was trying to trip him up.  But Sereth was
neither stupid nor unprepared for this line of questioning.  “Do
you
know who killed him?”

“Not yet, but we expect to find out soon.  Do you
know if DeVough had any business with the master of the Bargeman’s Guild?  A
Youtrin Dorfino?”

“No.”

“What about a West Crescent madam by the name of
Patrice DeLaCourse?”

“Horice did go to West Crescent on occasion.  I
don’t know that name, but he had a number of…lady friends.”

“Anyone in particular stand out?”

“Not really, Sergeant.  They were pretty much all
birds of a feather, if you know what I mean.”

“He didn’t tell you about any of these ladies?”

Sereth sighed in feigned exasperation.  “I wasn’t
his
friend
, Sergeant Tamir, I was his employee.  It wasn’t my job to pay
attention to the women he…slept with.  It was my job to keep him alive.”

“And you failed, didn’t you?”

“That’s right, because my master was an idiot.”

“That’s not a very kind thing to say.”

“You didn’t know him, Sergeant.  Horice wasn’t a
very kind person.”

“You apparently didn’t know him very well either if
you didn’t know who he was doing business with.”

Sereth barked a laugh.  The sergeant was no fool. 
“You’re right there.”

“And now you’ve got your own training school.” 
Tamir looked around again.  “Must have put you in debt to set this up.  Is it
paying off?”

“Not yet, of course, but I’ve got other irons in the
fire.”

“Oh?  And those are…”

“I provide personal security for people who can
afford it.  You may know some of my clients.  Most of them live north of the
river.”

“Personal security.  Is that a fancy way of saying
that you hire out bodyguards?”

“Yes.  If you’d like a list of my clients, I’d be
happy to provide it.”

“Do many of them know that your former master died
because you weren’t there to protect him?”

“I wasn’t there to protect him because he didn’t
want me there, Sergeant Tamir.”

“And do you know why he didn’t want you there?”

Sereth rolled his eyes.  “No, Sergeant, Horice
didn’t tell me he was going out late at night without my protection, why he was
going out, or who he was going to meet.  If I knew the answers to any of those
questions, I’d tell you.  I didn’t like Horice much, but I didn’t want him
dead.”

“But, because he’s dead, you’ve got this nice
business.”  One of the sergeant’s thick eyebrows rose.

Sereth narrowed his eyes.  “I resent your
implication, Sergeant.”

“Was I implying something?”  Tamir’s look of
surprise was so utterly false that it would have gotten him a round of laughter
had he been on stage.

Sereth didn’t laugh.  “I gained nothing from
Horice’s death except the impetus to strike out on my own.  I now earn less,
work harder, and am obliged to rely on my reputation with the young gentlemen
who are my students, a reputation that you probably just damaged by barging
into my school in the middle of a session.”

“Don’t take offense, Master VonBruce.  I’m only
trying to solve a murder here.  Several, in fact.”

“I wish I could help you, Sergeant.”  Sereth put
everything he had into the lie.  Fortunately, years as a spy within his own
guild had prepared him well.

“Very well then, Master VonBruce.”  Tamir sketched a
short bow just a shade away from mockery.  “Good luck with your new business. 
I hope the personal security you hire out are better at keeping their charges
alive than you were.”

Sereth was too experienced to fall for Tamir’s
provocative taunt.  “Lem, show the good sergeant out.  We’re done here.”

Tamir smiled, nodded once, and left.

As the ring of the door chime faded away, Sereth
heaved a sigh, pleased with the way the interview had gone.  There was no way
he could be connected with Horice’s death.

“Clean up here, Lem.  I’m going home.”

“Yes, Master.”

Sereth changed his shirt and donned his jacket and
weapons, all the while deep in thought.  He found it interesting that Tamir was
investigating both the Fiveway Fountain killings and a black dart that
apparently matched the one that that had killed Lad’s wife.  Of course, that
was where she was killed.  Had more darts been fired that night?  Regardless,
Lad would want to know about Tamir’s visit.

As Sereth left the studio, he considered Lad.  At
their meeting yesterday, the guildmaster had appeared distracted, though no
less committed to finding Wiggen’s killer.  Even desperate.

I can’t blame him
.  Sereth’s mood plummeted as he
considered his own plight, and his pace quickened. 
At least Jinny’s alive
. 
But for how long, if she remained hostage to Hensen’s growing demands?

Two days, and still no word from
Kiesha
…  They
weren’t taking his ultimatum seriously.  They’d called his bluff, but they
didn’t know that Sereth wasn’t bluffing.  Come hell or high water, he was going
to get his wife back.  And if Hensen wouldn’t give her back, Sereth would just
have to take her.

K
iesha
lurched out of a fitful sleep, the screams from her nightmare fading into the
chiming of a bell.  It was the smallest of the three bells beside her bed,
high-pitched and harsh, announcing a visitor at the door.  A glance at the
clock on her dresser told her that this wasn’t a social call.  It wouldn’t be
the first time one of her spies arrived late with urgent news.  Blinking away
sleep, she pulled on a robe as she trundled downstairs. 

At the bottom step, she jolted to a stop.  “Sereth!”

The assassin squared off with Jamesly, the night
butler, his arms crossed, a determined look on his face…and all his weapons in
place.  Jamesly looked equally determined, and well he might.  He had orders
that Sereth wasn’t allowed one step further into the house without disarming. 
Neither man appeared ready to relent.

At least he’s alone
, Kiesha thought as she noted the
bolted front door.  Even if a dozen Blades lurked outside waiting for Sereth’s
signal to storm the house, they would find no easy access.  Every door and
window was secured with deadly traps, and Jamesly was much more than a butler,
capable and deadly, and within arm’s reach of the bell pull that would summon
the house guards.  The master of the Thieves Guild didn’t sleep unprotected.

Cinching the belt of her robe tighter, she stepped
forward, but stopped well out of the assassin’s reach.

“Good evening, Sereth.”

“It will be if I leave here with my wife.  Now, get
Hensen.”  He issued his command without taking his eyes off Jamesly.

So, it’s to be another bout of
impotent insistence
. 
Hensen had been right; Sereth was upset, but not suicidal.  She could deal with
this.  “I’m sorry, Sereth, but Master Hensen isn’t available right now.  If you
want to talk, just hand your weapons over to Jamesly, and we’ll talk.”

“I’m through talking to you, Kiesha.  It gets me
nowhere.”  He stepped toward her, but Jamesly moved between them.

“Sir, I really must insist—”  The butler’s hand
shifted toward the back of his jacket.

A dagger appeared at Jamesly’s throat.  Sereth had
drawn it so fast that the steel seemed to have materialized in his hand.  The
assassin scraped the edge of the blade along Jamesly’s neck until it rested
under his jaw.

Sereth’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a sneer.
 “Go ahead.  Insist.”

“Sereth, please!”  Throwing caution to the wind,
Kiesha stepped forward, her hands open and unthreatening.  “Just relax.  I’ll
get Hensen for you, but you barging in here with steel in your hand isn’t going
to get you what you want.”

“Oh?  And how do you know that?”  Without moving his
blade from Jamesly’s throat, he reached around and confiscated the dagger
sheathed beneath the butler’s jacket.  Flipping it in his hand, he aimed it at
Kiesha. “Maybe I don’t want what you think I want.”

Kiesha froze.  She had little doubt that he could
bury the blade in her throat with a flick of his wrist.  Was he really so
desperate that he would kill her?  He had to know what would happen to his wife
if he did.  She took a deep breath and girded her nerve. 

“Killing Master Hensen’s
butler
, or even
me
for that matter, is not going to get you Jinny back, Sereth!  If you want to
talk to Hensen, you’re going to have to give up your weapons.  He won’t speak
to you if you’re armed.”

“Wanna bet on that?”

“I don’t—”

Sereth moved.

Before Kiesha could gasp, he snatched her wrist and
jerked her into a hard embrace, a blade resting against her neck.  His other
dagger stood out from Jamesly’s right shoulder, buried hilt-deep.  The butler
staggered back with a grunt.

“I think he’ll talk to me now.”

“Sereth!”  She grasped his wrist with her free hand,
but couldn’t pull the knife from her throat.  Cold steel scored her flesh when
she swallowed.  Her other hand throbbed, clutched so tightly in his grasp that
she thought her bones might snap.

Jamesly drew a second dagger from beneath his coat. 
He ignored the blade in his shoulder, though his right arm hung limp.  “Let her
go!”

“Go piss up a rope, Jamesly.”  Sereth’s grip and
stance remained firm.  “One step and I cut her throat, then I draw this pig
sticker at my hip and put it in your eye.”

“Jamesly, don’t!”  Kiesha swallowed her fear.  She
had never thought that Sereth would go this far to get Jinny back.  Even though
he hadn’t slit Jamesly’s throat when he easily could have, he’d already crossed
the line.  He was desperate enough to risk his life, and probably wouldn’t balk
at taking hers.  But she wasn’t about to give up yet.  “Just pull the bell rope
for Hensen, and—”

“I give the orders here, Kiesha, not you.”  Sereth’s
grip on her wrist tightened even more, pain lancing up her arm as the bones
ground together.  “Touch a rope, Jamesly, and it’ll be the last thing you ever
touch.  Drop the blade and get face down on the floor.  Now!”

“Do it!” Kiesha ordered.  She didn’t want Jamesly to
die on her behalf. 

“I can’t lay flat with your knife in my shoulder,”
Jamesly complained.

“Pull it out then, but drop the other first.”

Steel thumped to the carpet.  Jamesly hissed in pain
as he pulled the knife from his shoulder and dropped the blade.  A dark red
stain began to soak through his immaculate white jacket.  Ripping a pocket off
his shirt, he pressed it into the wound to staunch the bleeding.

“On the floor!”

Jamesly knelt, then lay flat.

“Good.  Now, hands behind your back.”

Sereth snaked a leg around Kiesha’s and flipped her
down onto the floor next to the hapless butler, twisting her arm and pinning
her wrist between her shoulder blades with his knee.  She could barely breathe,
and thought her shoulder might pop out of the socket.  A bloody dagger lay only
inches from her face, but she knew she’d die if she tried to reach it.  Jamesly
grunted, and she heard cloth ripping, but couldn’t turn her head to see. 
Finally, the pressure on her back eased, and Sereth jerked her to her feet, his
knife back at her throat.  Jamesly lay with his forearms tied together behind
his back, a jacket sleeve serving as a gag.

“Sereth, please.”  Kiesha gasped in pain as he
pulled her arm back behind her, locked in his iron grip.  She grasped his other
wrist with her free hand, trying to keep the knife from her neck, but she
couldn’t budge him. 
Gods, he’s strong
!  “This isn’t the way!”

“What
is
the way, then, Kiesha?  I’ve tried
talking.  I’ve tried
begging
!”  He frogmarched her to the stairs.  “Now
I’m going to try a simple trade: you for my wife.  Either I get Jinny tonight,
or you die, and I see how many pieces of your boss I have to cut off before he
sees things my way.  Now, where is he?”

“He’s in bed.” 
Alone, I hope.
  The hostess
from
The Overlook
had attended a small dinner party that evening. 
Kiesha didn’t know if she had stayed.  “Third floor, to the left.”

“Let’s go wake him.”  He pushed her up the stairs
without releasing his hold.  She had to climb or fall, so she climbed.  “Feel
free to scream…once.”

“I won’t scream, Sereth, but I tell you, this won’t
work!  Hensen won’t trade your wife for me.”

“Then your future’s not looking very bright, is it? 
Move!”

They reached the third floor without incident or any
more conversation.  Kiesha, however, was anything but idle in thought.  Sereth
was a professional killer, with the strength and skill of a lifetime of
training.  If she provoked him, he’d slash her throat without a second
thought.  To survive this, she had to distract him and break free, divest him
of the knife, or incapacitate him…before he could cut her throat.

None of those seemed likely to succeed.

At the third floor, Sereth pushed her toward the
double doors at the end of the hall.  Twisting Kiesha to one side, he smashed
the latch with his boot heel.  As splinters flew from the dead bolt, he thrust
her to the fore and strode into Hensen’s bedroom.

The woman’s scream was truly spectacular.

By the time Kiesha’s ears stopped ringing, Hensen
had lifted his hysterical paramour from his lap and flung her aside. 
Fortunately for her, the bed was wide enough for six, and she landed in a
rumple of silk sheets and pillows.  Hensen rolled off the far side of the bed
and leapt up with a short dueling sword in his hand.  Considering his nudity
and state of arousal, the blade seemed the lesser of two weapons.

“Sereth!  What a surprise!”

To Kiesha’s consternation, Hensen dropped the sword
onto the bed and casually tugged his robe off the wall hook.  His smile looked
genuine, and he seemed unperturbed to have his lovemaking interrupted by an
assassin holding his assistant hostage.  He turned to his lover where she cowered
against the headboard, clutching the sheets to her breast.

“Relax my dear.  This won’t take a moment, and then
we’ll get back to where we were.”  With the robe secured about his waist, he
retrieved the sword and addressed the interloper.  “Now, Sereth, I assume you
barged in here for a
reason
.  Did you want something specific?  Did you
bring my assistant along in hopes that we could have a foursome?”

“Shut your filthy mouth and bring me my wife!” 
Sereth pushed Kiesha forward, sidestepping to put the wall at his back.

“Your dear Jinny is no longer here, Sereth.”  Hensen
used the tip of his sword to clean a fingernail.

Kiesha gaped at his blithe lie, but remained
perfectly still in Sereth’s grasp.

“You really should learn not to betray your
intentions with impotent threats.  The moment Kiesha told me you planned to
tell your master of our arrangement, I had your wife moved to a new, albeit slightly
less comfortable, location.  I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree, my
boy.”

“Then you better bring her here, or I’ll stain your
pretty carpet with this whore’s blood!”

Hensen’s benign smile fell and his eyes narrowed,
belying his casual tone.  “Let me explain exactly what will happen if you
murder my assistant, Sereth.  Even if you manage to kill me, which would be
truly foolish of you, since I
alone
can free your wife from her
captivity, the nice men holding Jinny will receive notice.  They will then open
a sealed envelope that contains explicit instructions as to just how your dear
wife is to be brutalized.  If she survives, they’ll then sell her to a slave
merchant who makes regular deliveries to the ogre tribes inhabiting the
Forendell Pass region.  You
do
know that the emperor signed a treaty
with their chieftain that ensures peace between our peoples as long as a
certain number of slaves are delivered every month, don’t you?  It seems they
use them up rather quickly.”

Kiesha marveled at the ease with which her father
lied.  She would have believed him herself if she didn’t know that Jinny was
actually only a hundred feet from where they stood, probably fast asleep in her
plush feather bed.  Even Hensen’s lover’s scream wouldn’t have disturbed her,
since her father had contracted a wizard to place a simple spell of silence
upon the room.  Jinny could no more hear noise from outside, than the neighbors
could hear her cries for freedom.

“You think you can take me, old man?”

“I might surprise you.”  Hensen flourished his sword
with a leer toward the terrified woman in his bed.  “Many are surprised at
my…prowess.”

The double-entendre passed by the hapless woman
without recognition.
 Too scared or too stupid
, Kiesha wondered.

“Regardless of whether
I
can take you, I’m
sure my house guards can.”  As if on cue, the rumble of boots on the stairs
reached them.  “So you see, Sereth, despite the hostage you hold, you wield no
real power here.  I can get a new assistant in a week, a new carpet in less, and
nothing you can do will save your sweet wife.”

Kiesha felt a familiar wrench of pain in her heart. 
Does he really care so little for my life?  His own daughter
?