Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm (18 page)

Taziar returned to the fire, trying to find direction and solace in the dancing flames.
Allerum’s only trying to help.
The Climber would never have believed any cause could drive him to incaution and irrational rage, but the combination of ignorance, helplessness, and concern had done just that.

Silme rose, her manner casual, seeming out of place after Larson’s and Taziar’s savage display. “You two stay here. I’m going to talk to Allerum.”

Taziar nodded absently as Silme slipped through the crack. The door clicked closed behind her.

Outside the inn room, Al Larson dropped all pretense of rage. He moved to the end of the hallway at a brisk, stomping walk consistent with the mood he had tried to create, down the staircase, and out the weathered back door into the alley. There, he slowed, pressing his chest to the spongy moss that coated the wall in patches. Not wanting his companions to spot him through the window, he clung to the stone, edging toward the southwest corner of the building. A loam smell filled his nostrils, and dislodged moss clung to his tunic like hair.

Inches from the turn, Larson back-stepped. He patted dirt and clinging plant matter from his clothing before stepping into the morning traffic of Cullinsberg’s main street. A pair of elderly women shied from the tall, oddly-featured stranger who appeared suddenly from an alleyway; they skittered to the opposite curb and quickened their pace. Otherwise, the sparse groups of passersby seemed to take little notice of Larson.

Once on the cobbled roadway, Larson paused to get his bearings. Buildings of varying shapes and sizes surrounded him, a miniature panorama of New York City’s colossal skyline. To the south, cottages dotted the landscape, gray and faceless, a monotonous series of identical dwellings. Larson turned. Eastward, the towering structures of the inn and Mardain’s temple blocked his view; far to the north, a forbidding wall enclosed a structure with several proud, crenellated spires. It reminded Larson of the chipped, wooden rooks of his grandfather’s ancient chess set.
That’s got to be the baron’s castle.
He headed toward it.

Instinctively, Larson adopted the natural protections born city dwellers learn. Though the streets were unfamiliar, he kept his attention fixed straight ahead, never glancing directly to either side nor meeting any person’s gaze. He avoided alleys and darkened side streets, favoring the central areas of the main thoroughfares where the crowds tended to cluster. He kept his gait striding and purposeful, trying to indicate to would-be muggers that he had a specific destination and was more than willing to fight to get there.

In truth, the dangerous posture came easily to Larson. His failure to make a point to Taziar that seemed ridiculously obvious annoyed him. As much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, he felt responsible for Taziar’s beating.
My unyielding cruelty, my insistence on humiliating street kids whom Shadow identifies with distracted him.
The image of Larson’s grandfather rose unbidden, his kindly features swollen around a frown, his eyes moist, as if the city he loved, the one that had welcomed him from war-torn Europe, had betrayed him.

Larson caught himself grinding his teeth, and realized his jaw had begun to ache. He banished the memory, concentrating on keeping his facial muscles loose, forcing his thoughts to other matters. He remembered a day from distant childhood when he was barely five years old. The recollection came in vague and hazy detail, a day with his parents on the beach in Coney Island. High-pitched shrieks and giggles drowned the lazy lap of surf, and the ocean faded to an infinity of fog and water. As before, he heard his mother screaming his two-year-old sister’s name again and again, first in question, then in abject panic. He recalled how his father had gone off to search while his mother clutched her son’s arm with a grip so tight it pinched, terrified she might lose her other child as well.

Larson’s reflection softened his manner. He recalled the husky, uniformed policeman who had returned with his sister, Pam, the child happily licking at an ice cream cone while his mother laughed and cried and wet her pants, too relieved to care who saw. There followed years of lectures on “your friend, the policeman,” a concept pounded and etched so deeply that even years of unjust war could not make Larson forget.
Shadow’s too much a hero for his own good. He’s so afraid of risking any life but his own, he’s not thinking straight. He can’t go to the baron himself, not with a bounty on his head. But I can. I’ve finally found something I can do to help, and I’m not going to let Shadow’s bias and paranoia take it from me.

The intensity of Larson’s thoughts caused him to drop the city manner he had not needed in the evergreen forests and tiny towns that dotted Norway. Jarred back to reality, he found himself glancing down a narrow, crooked alleyway, a more direct route to the wall-enclosed structure he believed was the baron’s keep. For an instant, he hesitated, torn between the desire for safety and a natural urge to shorten his course. Then his sense of fairness prevailed.
I’d like to believe that Shadow uses as much discretion as possible when he’s off by himself. I have a wife and a child coming. It’s not fair for me to take unnecessary chances.
Responsibility crushed in on Larson, but he forced deep contemplations away. Delay of even a few hours might cost Taziar his friends’ lives, and, on the wild streets of Cullins-berg, Larson did not want to get caught daydreaming.

Larson started to turn back toward the main street. Before he could pivot, the sound of footsteps reached his ears, and three men appeared from around a curve in the alleyway. Larson went still. Learned caution immediately set him to assessing the group of people emerging from a side road behind him. He stared at a trio of men, two portly and muscularly robust, the third lean and hard as a special forces ranger. Each wore the black and red uniform of Cullinsberg’s guardsmen. Swords hung at their hips, and the thinner one clutched a spear.

Larson smiled in relief.
If the cops just swept through there, the alley’s probably safe.
He remembered Taziar’s stories of torture at the hands of the baron’s soldiers, but his current thoughts of policemen and their ancient equivalents were positive.
Besides, Shadow was a criminal, a prisoner, and, to their minds, a traitor’s son. And Shadow said the cruelest guards take prison duties. These are just normal sentries, pacing a beat.

Still, Taziar’s warnings of corruption and brutality rang clear. Not fully convinced by his own logic, Larson slipped into the alley but kept his attention locked on the guardsmen.

The guards watched Larson, too. Their conversation dropped to silence. But when he passed them, halfway between the main thoroughfare and the bend in the alleyway, they made no hostile gestures. The heaviest of the three nodded in wordless warning or greeting, Larson could not tell which, but no one challenged him.

Not wanting to arouse the guards’ suspicions, Larson resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder and watch their progress. He continued onward, trusting his jungle-inspired instincts to alert him to any sudden movements behind him. When nothing untoward happened, Larson relaxed.
Great. Now the little thief s got me jumping at shadows, too.
He groaned at his unintentional pun.

Shortly after the curve, the alleyway ended in another large, cobbled street. Larson stepped out into it, glancing to his right, and the sight of a walled-in structure with four, thin towers froze him in his tracks.
Shit! Is that the baron’s castle?
He looked back to the multispired hulk he had been steering toward for the last ten minutes.
Or that?
Frustration sent him into another a cycle of teeth grinding, and thoughts rose of his high school girlfriend chastising him for the “male character flaw of driving in random circles in the hope that sometime in the next bazillion years you’ll just happen to run into wherever you’re trying to go.” Larson could not help smiling at the memory. He studied the passing crowds, seeking someone harmless-looking to stop for directions.

While Larson stood in silent indecision, male voices wafted to him from the alleyway. The neighboring buildings muffled their words to echoes, but their tone came through clearly, the mocking, half-shouted taunts of construction workers ogling a pretty woman.

Larson whirled, tensing.
It’s none of my business. Let the cops handle it.
Even as the thought surfaced, he knew the guardsmen were the cause, not the solution. The brief realization that Taziar did, indeed, know his city well flashed through Larson’s mind, raising an irritation that blazed to anger. His jaw clenched.
Calm. A little teasing never hurt anyone. This is civilization. A real city with real laws. I can’t go off half-cocked over nothing.

The guards’ exhortations rose in volume, indecipherable, but goading.

Larson imagined some wide-eyed, teenaged girl who had chosen to walk through the alley, reassured by the presence of the guardsmen, only to have them leer and slobber at her.
Jerks.
He waited, wondering why the woman had not just fled.

Then, the voice of one man rang over the din. “Hey, wench. How’d you like to be stracked by a guard?” He used a crude, local euphemism for sex that Larson had never heard, but its meaning came through clearly enough.

Though soft, the woman’s reply cut distinctly above the chaos. “No, thank you,” she said simply, and her voice sounded too familiar.

Silme?
Larson’s heart quickened.
It can’t be. Why would she follow me? How could she risk the baby?
Realization tightened his muscles to knots.
She’s got no magic!
Outrage cut through him.
If they so much as touch her, I’ll rip their goddamned lungs out!
He tensed to charge, delayed by another thought.
Back in the alley with the street gang, Shadow had the situation under control, and I almost turned it into a slaughter. If I go bounding in there like some rabid knight in shining armor, I might get Silme killed.
With caution befitting his combat training, Larson crept toward the bend in the alleyway.

“You don’t understand,” the same man said, his voice gaining a dangerous edge that made it obvious he no longer considered it a game. “We run this town. We don’t have to ask, we take what we want.”

Larson’s hand crushed down on his sword hilt. He whipped around the curve just in time to see the guards separate and move to the walls, as if to let Silme pass unmolested. As far as he could tell, Silme had done or said nothing to defuse the situation, yet the guards appeared to have decided to let the matter drop.
What the hell?

Despite the danger, Larson could not help but notice how the morning sun glazed Silme’s hair like metallic gold, and her stance as she moved between the guards seemed regal and menacing. She held her dragonstaff in whitened knuckles, with the security of a king’s scepter in his own court. Her gaze found Larson, and her frown deepened, warning him not to start trouble where it did not yet exist. But she must have taken some comfort from his presence because her manner relaxed slightly and the blood returned to her fingers.

Larson hesitated, wrestling his anger.

Attentive to Silme and partially turned away from the elf, the guards apparently did not notice Larson waiting deeper in the thoroughfare. Even as she strode past the two portly soldiers, the spear-wielder tossed back a shock of frizzled, dark hair and stepped into the center of the alley, blocking her path. “You might want to stay here where we can protect you from the unsavories out there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder blindly indicating Larson.

Silme stopped. Her expression did not change. “I can take care of myself.”

Suddenly, the man leaped for Silme. She back-stepped. Catching his hand against her arm, she snapped her staff upward. The brass-bound base slammed into his groin.

The guard pitched forward amid his companions’ howls of laughter. His knees buckled. The spear thumped to the dirt. His hands clenched to his genitals, but he managed to keep his feet.

Her pathway still blocked by the guard, Silme waited with patient composure.

That should cool his lust a bit.
Larson indulged in a smile, but familiar with violent men who became enraged rather than muddled by pain, he silently edged closer.

Gradually, the injured man straightened. Several more seconds passed before he managed to speak beneath his friends’ snickers. When he did, rage deepened his tone. “I was going to make it nice for you. Now I’ll pin you down, and we’ll all rape you till you scream.”

The laughter stopped as if cut. Encouraged by their companion, the other three guards closed in on Silme at once.

Now, nothing could stay Larson. He sprang at the guard’s back.

One of the others shouted a warning, but it came too late. Larson grabbed the spearman’s right wrist, yanking the arm behind the man’s back. His free hand crashed against the base of the guard’s skull. Larson pivoted. Drawing up on the arm and shoving down on the head, he whipped the guard off his feet, driving his face into the packed earth roadway.

The guard screamed. Twisting from Larson’s grip, he rolled beyond reach. He pawed at his face, blood from abrasions staining his fingers. Luck alone had saved his nose and cheekbones.

The other sentries froze. Larson crouched. Sidestepping the Cullinsbergens with dignified composure, Silme started toward Larson.

But the frizzle-haired guard regained his feet and bullied between them. “You stay out of this, stranger.” He jabbed a finger at Larson, keeping his distance and apparently trusting to his companions to guard his back from Silme. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

One of us doesn’t know.
Fury boiled through Larson. His hand fell to his sword, and he kneaded the hilt.

Despite the violence and the guard between them, Silme spoke gently. “Calm down, Allerum. It’s not worth it.”

Larson settled into a fighting stance, his eyes locked on the man before him. “I’ll calm down when they’re all dead.”

The guard’s hand dropped to his own hilt, and blood smeared the split leather grip. The other two pressed forward, copying their leader’s martial gesture.