Deepwoods (Book 1) (30 page)

Finally
she was getting the story of how he’d ended
up where he did. “Why not?” she asked, tone coaxing.

“His wife was pregnant.”

Unable to stop herself, she put her free arm around his neck
and drew him in for a hug. He started in surprise, body tense, but she didn’t
let up and whispered against his ear, “Good choice.”

Rune truly didn’t know how to handle this, and stayed stiff
like a hardened plank of wood, obviously uneasy with the embrace. He started
again when a hand settled on his back. Siobhan lifted her eyes enough to see
that at some point, Wolf had come in. He met Rune’s startled eyes with open
approval and repeated Siobhan’s words. “Good choice.”

The former assassin’s mouth parted as if he wanted to say
something only couldn’t find the words.

“It’s alright,” Wolf assured him, as if understanding the
turmoil broiling inside of Rune. “I was saved by her too.”

Rune really didn’t know how to respond to that. He blew out
a breath. “Yer both confusing.”

For some reason, Wolf found this funny, as he chuckled lowly,
like a mountain rumbling. “She is,” he agreed. “But give it time.”

“He included you in that,” Siobhan corrected him, crossing
her arms over her chest and giving him a long look.

“I’m not confusing,” he denied mildly. “I like to hit
things, eat good food, and flirt with pretty women. Nothing complicated in
that.”

“A candle illuminates others and exterminates itself,” Fei
observed factually.

Wolf jerked a thumb at him. “If you want confusing,
he’s
confusing.”

Every person there agreed with emphatic nods, which made Fei
grin mischievously. Siobhan could swear some days that he said cryptic things
just to confuse and irritate people. That expression on his face right now
rather proved it.

From the main deck there came a loud booming voice: “RAISE
ALL SAILS! PREPARE TO LAY ANCHOR!”

“Well, I think that’s our cue.” Siobhan clapped her hands
together. “Grab your gear, people. Let’s get ready to disembark.”

It was a well-known fact throughout the four continents that
Coravine was not a particularly wealthy or prosperous place. Knowing that
intellectually and seeing it with her own eyes were two very different things.
Siobhan’s head turned this way and that as she took in the city, her boots
vibrating on the wooden gangplank leading down to a stone dock. The smell of
the sea was strong here, stronger than it had been while she was crossing the
Dual Channel, and her nose wrinkled in protest. It was more than the salt mixed
in with the wind, but other things—decaying fish, refuse molding in piles under
the docks, the smell of rot. This place made the Sateren shoreline look like a
paradise in comparison.

Just as disturbing to her was the
lack
of sounds. It
felt almost eerie here, the place was so empty. She counted perhaps two dozen
people working and the rest were suspiciously absent. How strange. It took more
people than that to handle the workload here, surely. Unless…unless all
possible manpower had been diverted to help build that bridge? She couldn’t see
it from here. Rows of warehouses, dry docks, and small restaurants blocked her
view.

“Inn first?” Beirly asked her.

“Inn first,” she agreed, not wanting to lug around her bags
any more than she had to. “After that, I think we can split up and meet back at
the inn for dinner. Sylvie, suggestions?”

“I know a good one.” With a wave of the arm, she gestured
for them to follow her as she took the lead.

Rune fell into step beside Siobhan and asked in a low tone,
“She knows the place well?”

“Born and raised here.” Siobhan cast him a quick glance.
“She’s only been in Deepwoods about seven years. Before she went to Robarge,
she’d lived her entire life here.” Hence her amazing trade skills. It took that
level of ability to survive in this city. Sylvie had learned how to negotiate a
rabbit out of its fur when she was only knee-high.

Rune’s head tilted back as he did some quick math. “She
turned guildie same time as Tran?”

“Thereabouts. If memory serves, Sylvie came in about two
months before Tran did.”

“Lucky,” he observed.

“Truly.” If not for Sylvie, she’d never have met Tran. Despite
the headaches he caused her, Siobhan didn’t for one minute regret bringing him
into the guild.

Sylvie led them confidently away from the docks and into a
section of town that made Siobhan’s hand itch for her sword. It reminded her
strongly of that section in Quigg that had sheltered the street rats, the only
difference being there were more signs of life here with people walking about
in the open. If this represented a
good
section of the town, then she
hated to think of what the
bad
section would look like.

As if sensing their unease, Sylvie called back over her
shoulder, “It’s rough here, but the inn’s good.”

Right, so this wasn’t necessarily a decent part of town.
Should she be relieved or not?

Sylvie proved right—she usually was in these matters—and the
inn proved better than Siobhan’s paranoid fantasies. In fact, it was rather on
par with their favorite inn on Island Pass. Siobhan paid for five rooms without
worry, glad to have a good place to lay her head. They threw their bags into
the rooms, locked them, and gathered back down at the main porch.

As soon as Markl joined them, the last to do so, she turned
to him and ordered, “We need information, and you’re the best at gathering that
without raising too much suspicion. Take at least one person with you and just
walk around town, get some intel. Beirly, I want you to take a good look at
that bridge. How solid is it going to be and how long is it going to take to
build?” Each man nodded understanding. “The rest of you divide yourselves up.”

“And you?” Tran asked her.

Siobhan linked her arm with Sylvie’s. “Let’s go for a walk,
shall we?”

“Oh, marvelous idea,” Sylvie agreed easily. She already had
a predatory eye on the street ahead of them.

“Not alone,” Wolf objected.

“You’re not coming with us,” Siobhan said firmly.

He gave a wordless protest.

“You intimidate people just standing there and breathing,”
Sylvie added, backing Siobhan up. “You’ll just be in the way. We’ll be fine.”

Siobhan gave them a little wave as she started off. “Go find
something to do. Something that doesn’t involve bloodshed or broken buildings.”

He didn’t look happy but he stayed where he was. Siobhan
could hear his low voice murmuring something, and Tran’s voice responding.
Hopefully the two of them wouldn’t go somewhere
together,
as that was a
sure fire way of getting into trouble.

She and Sylvie made it all of ten steps when the brunette
murmured for her ears alone, “Rune’s following us, isn’t he?”

“Fei is too.”

“Did Wolf sic them on us?”

“Probably.” Siobhan didn’t have a problem with this, as at
least those two knew how to follow people discreetly. Wolf couldn’t blend in
with his environment if his life depended on it.

Sylvie dismissed this with a shrug. “Are we using our usual
plan?”

“Why not?”

“Excellent.” Sylvie pretended to think about this for a
moment. “I want a new winter cloak. You?”

“Boots would be good. Something knee-high to block this icy
wind.”

“I haven’t seen any good clothing shops yet….” Sylvie raised
a hand to shade her eyes and peer further down the street. They’d finally
walked far enough along to get to a nicer, more business-oriented side of town,
so they actually had choices in front of them. “But I think I see one. That
green sign down there, isn’t that a boot carved into it?”

“It certainly looks like one.” Siobhan had a hard time
seeing it clearly with the sun glaring off of it.

They struck off for the store, for all the world appearing
to be two women on a shopping expedition. Sylvie’s eyes proved right, and the
store had a great quantity of leather boots, work rough and fine in every
possible size. The store seemed fit to burst, in fact, with the quantity of
them. Siobhan quickly discovered that quantity did not equal
quality,
as
the first two boots she picked up were obviously second hand and ill-used. Hmm.
It would take some digging to find anything decent.

As she shopped, Sylvie leaned against the counter where a
middle aged woman was waiting. “I’m looking for a good cloak,” she said with a
warm smile. “Is there any store here you’d recommend?”

“Oh, certainly,” the woman responded, voice slightly nasally.
She leaned over the counter, which creaked under her ponderous weight. “There’s
a shop two down from here on your left side, but don’t go into it. The man’s a shyster.
Go further down, past the old tavern, and there’s another store on your right
with bright purple trim around the door.
That’s
the best place to shop.”

Siobhan glanced at her over one shoulder doubtfully.
Considering the state of the woman’s wares, she had to question her taste in
quality.

Sylvie pretended not to notice. “My friend here is looking
for knee-high boots, something that will keep her legs warm while she’s traveling.
Do you have anything like that?”

“Oh, a few,” she said. “Most of my women’s shoes are only
ankle high, though. Dearie, what size are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three?”

“Twenty-five, actually,” Siobhan admitted.

“Oh my! I won’t have anything that large.”

Yes, so she could see. Siobhan just sighed in resignation.
“It’s fine. Do you have anything like it in men’s shoes?”

“Oh.” The woman stood from her stool to see over the
counter. “Ohhh, you’ve got men’s shoes on, I see. Hard to find your size, eh?
Well, you’re so tall, it’s no wonder. Here, see this back corner near me?
That’s the right area to look.”

“Thank you.” Siobhan turned sideways and eased around one
stack of shoes, carefully stepping to avoid creating a shoe avalanche.

Sylvie recaptured the woman’s attention. “When we came in,
we saw a bridge being constructed on the shoreline. Where’s it going to? I
mean, I don’t think there’s any land out in the channel until you reach
Wynngaard.”

“There isn’t.” The woman leaned in a little closer. “They
told everyone in the city to keep this hushed for as long as we can, although
why they thought that would work, I don’t know. The thing sticks out over the
water like a sore thumb. Eventually enough sailors will spread the word. But
they’re building a bridge to Wynngaard, like the Grey Bridges.”

Sylvie gave a shocked expression that would have made any
credible actor envious. “Oh my! Are you serious?”

“Yes, yes. I don’t remember where it’s supposed to connect…”
the woman trailed off, staring up at the ceiling as if she was trying to
recall. “Somewhere on the continent, anyway.”

“But that’s a long ways!” Sylvie protested, more genuine
this time.

“Oh, I know it. It’s supposed to take another forty years,
they said. Long past when I’m dead and buried, leastways. But can you imagine
what it will do for this city? Why, trade will shoot right up!”

“Who’s behind the building of it? It’ll take a pretty penny
to build something that size.”

“That’s the thing.” The woman leaned forward even more, her
voice lowering to a conspiratory tone. “No one knows.”

Siobhan snapped around to stare at her incredulously.
“What?”

“No one knows,” the woman repeated with a furtive look
toward the door. “We all suspected Fallen Ward, but they’re denying it, and
it’s true—we never see their members working on the bridge. It’s always workers
and masons from other cities that come and do the construction.”

She shared a speaking look with Sylvie. This just got
stranger and stranger. Even the people of this city didn’t know?

After a little more digging, Siobhan found a good pair of
boots that only had light wear to them, and she bought them for a reasonable
price thanks to Sylvie’s bartering. They exited the shop and went ten steps down
the street before daring to speak to each other.

“It’s
not
Fallen Ward?” Siobhan said in confusion.
“How can that be possible?”

“It can’t be,” Sylvie denied. “No way. Can you imagine a
guild coming into Goldschmidt and building something that large without
Blackstone somehow being involved? No, they’re working with someone behind the
scenes. This attitude of ‘not involved’ is camouflage. Why they’re bothering to
act innocent, I don’t know.”

Siobhan rubbed a temple, feeling the pangs of a headache
coming on. “I’m getting more confused, not less. And we’re here so I can be
less confused!”

“I hear you. Cloak?”

“Why are ya shoppi’n anyway?” A familiar male voice asked
from above their heads.

Both women stopped and craned their necks around to look up.
Rune squatted casually on the edge of a nearby roof, looking as comfortable up
there as a cat in a sunny perch.

Sylvie didn’t even look surprised to find him up there when
she explained, “Buying something is the easiest way to loosen a shop owner’s
tongue. Thereby, shopping is the most effective method of gathering
information.”

Rune gave her a look that said he didn’t buy that for one
second. “Ya like ta shop.”

“You bet.” Sylvie winked at him, lips curled in a smirk.
“You don’t have to lurk on the rooftops, you know. You can join us.”

He held up a hand in refusal. One shopping trip with Sylvie
was enough for him, eh? “Ya keep goi’n.”

“Suit yourself.” With a shrug, Sylvie kept walking, Siobhan
keeping pace with her.

“At the rate we’re going, we might need to buy a whole
wardrobe before we find all the information we need,” Siobhan muttered.

“You think Iron Dragain will reimburse us?” Sylvie batted
innocent eyes. “After all, it’s a business expense.”

“I highly doubt it, but can you pitch the idea to Jarnsmor
when we get back? The expression on his face is bound to be priceless.”

“I bet you I can,” Sylvie challenged with a gleam in her
eye.

“Usual bet?”

“Usual bet.”

“You’re on.”