Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm (20 page)

Larson heard the rustle of uniforms as the court guards returned to their posts in the baron’s audience chamber, leaving Haimfrid and his two companions to escort them from the yard.

In the wake of Larson’s failure with the baron, Haimfrid’s threats in the alleyway seemed to lose all significance.
Maybe we can talk this damned thing out
, Larson thought, seeing the need to parley, but in no mood to try. He tromped over the drawbridge, footsteps echoing along the moat and shoved through the milling crowds. The same sentries stood aside to let Larson, Silme, and their accompanying guards through the gates in the enclosing walls.

Once in the main street, Larson considered the best arguments to defuse a situation that had grown beyond all proportion.

But Haimfrid prodded Larson’s spine with his spear. “All right, hero ...”

The touch rekindled Larson’s rage, but Haimfrid’s words sent him over the edge. Kensei Gaelinar had always referred to Larson as “hero,” and, from Haimfrid, the taunt mocked not only Larson, but the only man who had ever fully gained his respect.

Oblivious to the depth of his harassment, Haimfrid continued, “... you delivered your message. Let’s the five of us go for a little walk. We’ll take care of you first and save her for dessert.”

Larson’s control snapped. His vision washed red. “Fine,” he screamed. “You want to go someplace. Let’s go, right now!” He took two striding steps forward, no destination in mind.

Silme gripped his forearm. “Calm down, Allerum.” Her touched radiated concern as well as warning.“ She addressed Haimfrid. ”You’re making a big mistake.“

One of the two robust guards behind Silme whispered, “Nice, very pretty. This won’t be so bad.”

Larson shook free of Silme’s hand. “They started it. By damn, I’m going to finish it.”

Haimfrid laughed. “Go ahead, talk loud. We’ll see how loud you scream.” He chuckled again. “We’ll see how loud
she
screams.” He poked Larson a few more times to hurry him away from the baron’s keep. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Larson whirled to face Haimfrid, glaring, his hands tensed on his hips. The other two guards were giving Silme as much space, though they held no spears.

Haimfrid back-stepped, spear readied.

Shaking his head with contempt, Larson turned to face forward again. He waited only until Haimfrid stepped in and jabbed him one more time. The instant the point touched him, Larson spun. He batted the spear aside with his left hand, pivoted along the shaft, and smashed his right fist into Haimfrid’s temple. Haimfrid crumpled without a cry. His spear clattered to the cobbles.

It was a sucker punch, but, accustomed to street fighting, Larson did not trouble himself with ethics. The speed of his strike pooled the blood into his hand until it ached. Ignoring the pain, he sprang between Silme and Haimfrid’s startled companions. One reached for his sword hilt, but too slowly. The sword had come only halfway free when Larson snapped a kick that struck the man’s fingers. The sword fell back into its sheath.

Larson saw his own anger mirrored on his opponent’s face. Again, the fat guard reached for his sword. Quick as thought, Larson knocked the hand away and slapped the ruddy cheeks. The other guard leaped for Silme. Larson hesitated, and his own opponent lunged for his throat. Larson responded naturally. He drove his hands between the guard’s arms, back-stepping to draw the guard forward. Seizing a handful of greasy, sand-colored hair, Larson used the guard’s momentum to drive his knee into the jowly face. Cartilage crumbled. Blood trickled, warm on Larson’s skin, and the man crumpled, moaning, to the cobbles.

Larson looked over in time to see Silme tear the last guard’s grip from her sleeve and bar his arm behind him. Larson charged, shoving between them. Before he could raise a fist, Silme hissed a warning from between gritted teeth. “Allerum, hold. Look up. Please, look up now.”

Shoving the guard aside, Larson followed the direction of Silme’s gaze. A half dozen crossbowmen perched on the curtain wall of the baron’s keep, every bow drawn and aimed at Larson.

Silme made a wordless sound of outrage. The sapphire in her staff flared, staining the masonry inky blue. A column of flame sprang to life at the crossbowmen’s feet. Flickers of blue and white danced like ghosts through the fire.

Shouts of surprise wafted from the wall top. The cross-bowmen scattered. Three loosed bolts that went wild, their metal tips clicking on the cobbles.

Silme grasped Larson’s arm. “Run!” She whirled, dragging Larson through the startled crowd and down the stand-lined street.

Muddled by a wash of rising and dispersing emotions, Larson followed without comprehension. Only after they had ducked beyond sight and sound of the baron’s keep did he dare to question. “That spell you used. It didn’t tap you?”

Silme brushed aside a man hawking jewelry. “I used the sapphire.”

Larson pressed. “I thought you only stored a small amount of energy. That spell seemed so powerful.”

“A light show.” Silme ducked down a side street to avoid a milling crowd. “Harmless. Those flames had no heat. The guards were just too stupid to notice.”

Larson frowned, thinking that in the crossbowmen’s position, he might make the same assumptions. He studied the roadways to get his bearings. “You followed me from the inn, didn’t you?”

Silme nodded.

“Why?”

“I wanted ...” Silme started. She grinned, the humor striking her even before she spoke the words. “I wanted to keep you out of trouble.”

“To keep me out of trouble, huh?” Larson thought about the guard’s taunts in the alleyway and how much more easily his audience with the baron could have gone without Haimfrid’s interference. “Well, thank God for that.”

Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.

—Theodore Roosevelt
Letter

Lantern light gleamed from the upper room of the baron’s southern tower. Amidst midmorning sunshine, the glow diffused to pale invisibility; but, from his study in Shylar’s whorehouse, Harriman recognized the summons.
Meet now? The old fool.
Harriman slammed his ledger closed, and dust swam through sun rays in a crazy pattern. Not a number in his book was fact; it served only for show and, eventually, for the baron’s eyes. The true tallies remained recorded only in Harriman’s head.

Slouched near the door of Harriman’s workroom, Halden and Skereye had been arguing sword-sharpening techniques since daybreak, their exchange gradually rising in volume and intensity. Harriman interrupted their discussion before it turned to violence. “We need to make another trip to Wilsberg.” Without further explanation, he opened the door to the hallway and executed a broad, silent gesture. Skereye abandoned his point with obvious reluctance. Obediently, he trotted off toward the eastern storage chamber to light a lantern in answer to the baron’s signal.

Halden flung a whetstone at his companion’s retreating back. It bounced from Skereye’s thick shoulder and struck the floor with a sharp click. Skereye turned, but Halden pulled the door shut before his companion could retaliate.

Ignoring his guards’ antics, Harriman fingered the silks stretched over the back of his chair, gaze focused on the light burning steadily through the baron’s window. Shortly, the flare winked out, acknowledging receipt of Harriman’s consent. “The old fool,” Harriman repeated, this time aloud. Turning, he peeled his plain woolen shirt off over his head and exchanged it for the frayed blue and white silk of his diplomatic uniform. Before Harriman had fully laced his collar, Skereye returned.

Harriman pulled the knots into place and strapped on his sword belt, its buckle and scabbard crusted with diamonds. “Let’s go.”

Harriman and his Norse entourage wandered past rows of bedrooms. This early, most of the doors lay propped open to indicate vacancy; the few clients would be night thieves, off-duty guardsmen, and men of leisure. At the end of the hallway, a staircase led to the meeting and bargaining areas as well as the kitchen, bath, and living quarters that kept this house as much a home as a workplace for the women.

One of Harriman’s three privileged officers stood, partway up the stairs, but Harriman made no allowances. He trotted down the steps, flanked by Halden and Skereye. The thief hesitated briefly. With an exaggerated flourish of respect, he gave ground, waiting for Harriman to pass at the base of the stairs.

Harriman acknowledged the sacrifice with a gruff, partial explanation. “We’ll return shortly.”

The thief nodded once. He made an undulating motion with his fingers to indicate he would see to it things ran smoothly in Harriman’s absence, then continued his climb to the upper level.

The staircase ended in an open assembly chamber where seven well-groomed prostitutes reclined on chests, padded benches, or the floor. The instant Harriman appeared, all conversation ceased. Disinterested in the girls’ discomfort, he wandered between them to the door. One shrank away from Halden’s disfigured, leering face, and Harriman smiled in amusement. He caught the knob, wrenched the door open, and led his bodyguards through the entry hall to the outer door. Unfastening the lock, he pulled the panel ajar, and they emerged into the sunlight. He slammed the door behind them.

Harriman received little attention as he threaded through the thoroughfares of Cullinsberg, but the citizens gawked at his scarred and lumbering bodyguards. He knew that the underground and the street urchins on its fringes would ignore him. It had become common knowledge that Harriman visited the ruins of Wilsberg on occasion or knelt in the forests facing south to mourn family and friends. And, though accepted as truth, the information was spurious, its distribution well-planned. Early on, before he had gained the trust of the underground, he had led their spies to the devastated farm town. Later, as Bolverkr wore himself down constructing his fortress, Harriman steered his curious pursuers into the Kielwald Forest for a phony session of laments and vowed vengeance against Cullinsberg’s baron.

The remembrance lasted until Harriman passed through the opened front gates of Cullinsberg. He crossed the fire-cleared plain without a backward glance and guided Halden and Skereye into the forest. Once lost between the trees, he waited. Whenever the baron called a meeting, he stationed one of his most trusted guards on the parapets. If anyone followed Harriman from the city, the sentry would signal by simulating the call of a fox. Harriman frowned at the thought. The majority of these conferences occurred at night or in the early morning when foxes normally prowled the woods. Now, the whirring imitation would sound nearly as suspicious as a shouted warning. But neither noise disturbed the stillness, and Harriman slipped deeper between the trees, certain no one had bothered to trail him.

Sun rays filtered through branches heavy with multicolored leaves; thick overgrowth trapped the light into a glow, revealing landmarks Harriman knew blind. He traversed the route without even thinking about it, fallen leaves crunching beneath his boots. Behind him, Skereye and Halden crashed like oxen through boughs, scurrying over deadfalls with an ease that belied their bulk. At length, Harriman brushed through a line of towering pines into a clearing blotted gray by overhanging branches. There Baron Dietrich waited, perched upon a stump. The gold medallion of office at his throat contrasted starkly with a tunic and breeks of untooled leather. At either hand, a sword- and spear-armed guard stood, proudly dressed in a uniform of red and black. A scrap of linen hung from one’s knee where a briar had torn the fabric, exposing scratched flesh. Though large, the baron’s faithful sentries were dwarfed by Harriman’s berserks.