Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (58 page)

The noble took the comment at face value, unaware of
the acid gilding Marik’s words.  “In fact I have been engaging in several
intellectual debates with the Lady Vashti.  Fascinating enough that we
attracted several others who took an interest in our points of view.”

“Yes, I’m sure your point is of particular interest to
these…ladies.”

Hilliard took no further notice of that than of the
harsh tone, though Marik peripherally noticed Dietrik raising his eyebrows in
surprise.  This registered only partially with Marik since he also noticed
Ilona’s eyes narrowing like a wolf’s.  Vashti twinkled silent humor from her
own dark brown orbs.

“I must apologize,” Hilliard directed to the madam,
oblivious to the new tension passing behind his back.  “I believe the time has
come to take my leave.  I know not what Marik and the others have learned, but
I am sure we must return to the confines of our inn.”  He returned his
questioning gaze to Marik.  “Yes?”

“Yeah,” Marik grunted.  Ilona seemed less angry as
much as hoping to peel him apart with her gaze alone, intent on examining his
inner soul.  Leaving before she could rescind her offer to come see her later
sounded like an excellent idea.  “Come on then.  Enough fun for one night.”

He placed a hand flat against Hilliard’s back and
steered him into the entranceway, closed for the night to the normal
clientele.  Once beyond the women’s hearing, Hilliard greatly surprised Marik
by slumping like a weary man after a hard day’s labor.  “Thank all the Twelve,”
he murmured.  “I was nearly finished in there.”

“Finished?  What finished?”  Marik glanced back
sharply, wondering if a new assassin had wormed her way into the ranks of the
Standing Spell’s courtesans.

“After all the evening, I nearly exhausted my entire
repertoire over which I command easy fluency.”  A haunted gaze met his
bodyguard’s.  “I fear I was becoming increasingly distracted and would soon
begin to behave in a most ungentlemanly manner.”

“Ungentlemanly?”  Marik reexamined the scene in which
he’d found Hilliard.  In this light, he could see that the young man’s fervent
stare stemmed as much from his ridged refusal to allow his eyes to wander over
such enticements as Corissa’s cleavage as from his heartfelt discourse.  He
felt the ire at his charge melt away.  “Well, Hilliard, I don’t think they
would have minded you taking a closer look at them.”

Hilliard stiffened his back.  “Such a crude act in the
house of our kind hostess would reach far beyond rudeness!”  He shook his head.

Marik let the issue die, deciding that pointing out
that little else ever occurred behind these walls, and by bluebloods holding
rank far above his future station no less, would serve no purpose.  Hilliard
surely knew the truth of that already, but deep in his mind a distinction had
been drawn between the realities of the domicile and the notion that Vashti
offered him a refuge during his travails.  A lady in his mind, and never a
madam, she must be accorded the respect he would give due to his own mother.

A hint of a smile broke through his dour expression. 
Marik looked for the others, seeing Landon mere feet behind him.  Kerwin,
resurrecting all the previous annoyance Marik had only moments before throttled
into submission, entered the Spell’s foyer in conversation with Ilona.

Apparently the efficient design of the Spell’s rooms
compacted around the hallways impressed the gambler.  He took advantage of the
opportunity to ask Ilona about the original designer.  Though Kerwin always
stole every opening he saw to ask locals about respected architects in Thoenar,
it grated on Marik how Ilona responded with unabashed interested in his
conversation.  Where had the caustic ire he was so familiar with vanished to?

Before he could react to Kerwin’s trespass, Hilliard
stepped through the doorway into the darkened street beyond.  Marik followed
with visions of what might transpire with their charge alone in the city’s open
roadways.  The others joined him moments later.  Ilona locked the door without
so much as a nod of farewell.  He threw an irritated glance at Kerwin, who
missed seeing it through the gloom.

Marik spent the entire walk back to the Swan’s Down in
a futile attempt to concentrate on the discussion about what to do next, trying
to shake the distraction of Ilona from his mind.

“I’d say this could grow ugly in the legendary blink
of an eye.”

Marik agreed with Dietrik.  “If we only knew where
Sloan and Kineta’s groups were…damn!”

“Sloan would get that quirk on his face and come in a
heartbeat,” Kerwin stated.  “But I doubt she would leave her charge to come
help us with our troubles.”

“There is little to be gained by wishing for beef when
all one has is fowl,” Landon observed.  “Marik, I think most of these people
will leave by nightfall.  Whoever is left afterward should either prove to be a
handful of night watchmen or the ones we seek.”

Marik nodded.  “I’ll mark them all.  You three study
what you can see and I’ll describe what I can of the rest.”

Shielded from the refinery workers’ view by an oak
tree copse, the four mercenaries gazed at their objective.  They had hoped to
find a hill overlooking the refinery.  This slight rise provided the only
elevation near at hand.

They had departed Thoenar in the early noontime
candlemarks, arriving at the refinery three marks before sunset.  In his
naivete, Marik had expected an open yard where a family labored at their
business like the wagon makers near the One Soul’s chapter house, or a
warehouse enclosing a dozen workers such as Minta ran in Tattersfield.  Instead
they found no less than nine buildings, all dirty brick and shuttered windows. 
No two buildings matched each other in size or shape.  Several were long and
narrow, others were squarish while one was a two story, squat cylinder. 
Looming over all from the northernmost perimeter rose a fifty foot brick tower.

The purpose behind most buildings remained a mystery. 
On the other hand, one less mystery was why the refinery had been relegated to
Thoenar’s outer reaches.  Not even the sickening stench wafting from the
renderer a quarter-mile away, where men stirred massive vats with long oars
while masking their faces with heavily perfumed cloth, could completely
overpower the chemical fumes.  Rotten-egg sulfur, the acrid bite of ammonia
familiar from the army latrine trenches, and several other unidentifiable odors
assailed their nostrils.

Though six miles distant from the city walls, Marik
assumed the housing on Thoenar’s westernmost fringes must fetch low prices.  If
the wind blew to the east, the populace living in those districts must awaken
to a pestilence of ill smells.  Healers must make regular visits to those
quarters.

Yet it was more than the stench alone that made him
believe this place refined pestilence.  Galemar’s usually vibrant greenery had
revolted.  Barren ground surrounded all the businesses, not merely the
refinery.  Hard-packed earth was stained unhealthy colors in many places. 
Ragged patches of struggling grass wilted in brown desiccation.  The summer’s
heat could not be blamed for the poisoned wastes Marik saw with his eyes and
felt with his mage senses.  These evil smelling manufactories leached the life
from the soil.

In a place where he would have expected no humans
could remain long, Marik instead found a teeming throng of workers.  Throughout
the refinery, easily two-hundred backs labored.  Marik studied them under his
magesight while the small party sheltered within the trees whose leaves had
turned a sickly yellow far too soon in the season.

He hoped Landon, with his veteran’s experience, had
the right of it.  If the thieves from Spirratta were sheltering at the
refinery, they could be any of the few hundred auras moving about.  They had no
wish to assault an innocent worker whose only crime was being in the wrong
place at the wrong time.

Marik spent the next candlemarks carefully describing
the land’s lay behind walls blocking the other three’s sight.  He drifted above
the buildings, floated along the paths, all the while speaking words he could
not hear despite being their author.  Every few minutes he would return his
consciousness to his physical body in order to field questions or ask his own
to make sure his friends had understood his descriptions.

When the day waned, the auras throughout the refinery
lessened.  Men returned home or angled north to cross the Pinedock, intent on
wading the northern ford to visit Tourney Town after a hard day’s work.  The
number of roaming auras thinned to the point where Marik could make a rough count.

“Say about twenty left moving around the buildings,”
he reported.  “I see almost as many staying still.”

“All as a group or scattered?” Landon wanted to know.

“Three groups and a few solitaries,” Marik answered.

“Mark those three.  If our thieves are hiding here, I
doubt they wish it known by those who work there honestly.”

Kerwin gazed on his longtime friend.  “You’re betting
they’re holed up in a back room all day?”

“It seems likely.  The owner may have ties to the dark
guilds, but the workers must be honest men laboring for their wages.  I doubt
any know what mischief their employer has been about.”

“There go another four,” Marik told them, watching a
small group of auras walk along the dirt road that would only become paved near
the city’s edge.

They waited patiently for two marks, the sun far off
behind the refinery, the cloudy summer sky glowing in burnished hues.  Marik
watched the auras steadily decrease in number until only one stationary group
remained while five solitary auras moved about in the early evening darkness.

“I’d say the group should be our men,” Landon mused. 
“The others must be night guards.”

“They aren’t following any pattern,” Marik informed
them in irritation.  “Sometimes they walk around, and at others they sit still
for long stretches.”

“Typical behavior for hired guardsmen,” Dietrik
decided.  “They have little in common with either soldiers or mercenaries.  I
rather doubt any of them have ever encountered a serious challenge while about
their rounds, and never expect to.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone else feels like leaving.” 
Marik left them for a brief moment to drift closer, quickly inspecting the
clustered auras.  “I’d say they’re in an office.  I see four of them and they
all look to have swords.”

“Swords, do they?” Dietrik said thoughtfully.  “I
recall that first night in the alleys.  Do you remember?”

“Hard to forget having to run for our skins through a
pitch black maze,” Kerwin replied sarcastically.

Dietrik threw a pebble that struck the gambler on the
forehead.  “I was referring to the order of events.  All the blighters in the
initial ambush bore long knives, but while we fled, I remember the new arrivals
running down the side alleys held swords.”

“Yeah,” Marik agreed.  “In fact, wasn’t there a woman
shouting at them?”

“Yes,” Landon affirmed.  “I thought, at the time, that
they were a local gang suffering from poor planning, but I see Dietrik’s mind. 
They were two groups working in coordination.  The locals from Thoenar’s dark
guilds and the Spirrattans sent to oversee the operation.”

“The Spirrattans must have sent genuine fighters,”
Marik thought aloud.  “They must have wanted to make sure the locals didn’t
botch the job with sloppy cutthroats.”

“Which they seem to have done regardless,” Dietrik
returned.  “The first group leapt at us before the swordsmen arrived to direct
the assault.  And I’ll lay two to Kerwin’s five that the woman you heard is
Hilliard’s would-be assassin.”

Kerwin grimaced.  “No chance we’ll ever find that out
for certain.  Still, the numbers sound right.  A half-dozen showed up at
Jenni’s shop.  We collared the woman, and Marik splattered a swordsman against
the kitchen wall.  Leaves one for each of us.”

Marik grimaced at Kerwin’s crudely accurate
description.  He still had not come to terms with using his power in such
a…a…non-warrior
way.  About to mention that soonest begun meant the
soonest their mission would be done, he instead muttered, “Uh-oh.”

“What?” Landon immediately demanded.

“There,” Marik pointed at the roadway.  “A group of
six just showed up.”

Darkness shrouded the new arrivals from the others. 
They relied on Marik to inform them of the going-ons.  He ran a commentary
while watching the new group walk into the refinery, then angle straight toward
the building housing the four auras.

“They joined together,” he reveled, watching the
glowing auras meld when the new arrivals entered the room.

“Anything unusual about them?” Kerwin asked.

“Not that I could tell.”

“Must be the locals,” Landon decided.  “Coming out to
meet with the Spirrattans.  Perhaps they have formulated a new plan of attack.”

Dietrik stood, squatting several times to work out the
kinks.  “Then I suppose there’s little to be garnered by standing around like
village idiots.”

Marik rose as well.  “There’s an outside door on the
western wall of that room.  The other door opens on the building’s interior,
but you need to go through a maze of hallways to get there.”  They began
walking for the refinery.

“I favor the outer door,” stated Landon.  “ How does
this sound?  If we charge in, our maneuverability may be hampered as it was for
them when they broke into the chapter house.  What if we break in, then step
back outside?”

Dietrik nodded.  “Having to run through the doorway
will slow them down, and only one can step though at a time.”

“But,” Kerwin countered, “what’s to stop them from
turning tail and running through the building to escape?”

“No choice then,” Marik declared.  “My blade is too
big for that hallway.  What about you, Dietrik?  You back up to speed?”

Dietrik raised the arm that had taken the wound in the
warehouse.  He flexed it while gripping it with his free hand, testing the
muscle underneath.  “Right as rain!  The stiffness has even decided I suffered
enough and departed.”

“Fine.  Your rapier is best suited to hallway combat. 
You wait inside in case any flee.”  He dithered a moment, deep in thought. 
Would Dietrik be able to fend for himself alone?  Landon had brought his sword
as well as his bow, but Marik thought that if too few of them were visible to
the thieves when they broke in, the killers might guess they had split their
forces.  “Kerwin and I will break in through the door, and Landon will wait
back to take down any who slip past us.”

“Sounds as good as anything else,” Kerwin allowed. 
“What about the watchmen?”

Marik had forgotten about them.  “Try not to kill any
of them.  If the cityguard comes down on us, they might not mind so much if the
watchmen are still alive.  Knock them out if you need to.”

They reached the first building.  From there on
silence would be essential.  Marik halted them only once when a guard strolled
past, taking little interest in his surroundings.  Once at the correct
building, they paused a second time while Marik brought Dietrik around to the
main doorway.  Thankfully the door contained no locks.  They never would have
been able to break it in without being heard.

“Don’t rush in,” he whispered to Dietrik.  “Wait in
the hallway in case any run by.  I’m going to get close to listen before we
charge in.”

Dietrik nodded.  “Would be our bloody luck to attack
the wrong chaps, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m sure you’ll hear us.  But stay ready.”  His
friend scowled, that last remark an insult to his intelligence.  Marik’s nerves
were jittering.  If anything went wrong, Janus would surely see to it that
Marik’s neck would receive whatever axe fell down from above.

While Dietrik crept through the darkened building,
following Marik’s directions, the remaining three followed the outer walls to
the other side.  Voices could be heard behind the doorway, audible because they
were raised in heated anger.

Landon readied his bow several yards back from the
wall.  The two swordsmen crept up on the door.  Their hinges were on the
inside, thank goodness.  He signaled for Kerwin to pause before the two bent
their ears to listen.

Two voices apparently belonged to the primary speakers
for each party.  Other voices muttered, if keeping out from the fray.  Most
words were muffled by the thick wood.  Only occasional phrases drifted through
that they could understand.  After a full minute crouching they both heard, in
a loud, accusing tone, “I’ll be damned by Shiconn before I’ll ever consider
such foolishness!  You’ve already cost us too many lives!”

A half-articulated response followed, interrupted by
the louder voice.  “I don’t care
what
he says!  This was supposed to be
quick and clean!”

Kerwin moved his mouth to Marik’s ear.  “Sounds like
whatever agreement the dark guilds had with each other is falling apart.”

Marik nodded.  He briefly considered leaving the
refinery.  Without support, the Spirrattan thieves would likely return in
disgrace.  But that left too many open possibilities.  Killing them here and
now might make the dark guilds consider a new assault on the fosterlings too
expensive an option in both coins and lives.  If they left, Hilliard, and the
other fosterlings also, would remain in danger for as long as they quartered
with Duke Tilus.