Night Winds (20 page)

A futile hope, probably. And the room was too small. Kane assumed it was one of the narrow single rooms for wealthy travellers who deigned not to share quarters with other guests. Such accommodations cost dear and were cramped, but at least a well-to-do traveller would not have to share a bed with three hog drovers.

The search was only a few doors away.

And there was no place to bide. Just a bare-timbered room. No chests, no tapestries. Kane's huge frame could never squeeze under Klesst's tiny bed. There was a closet. That in itself marked the room as once a luxury accommodation. Kane swung open its door. The closet was surprisingly large, considering the economy of space that an inn demanded. An oddly dank smell came from within. A few nondescript items of clothing hung from pegs along the interior.

It was worth a chance. At any event, Kane decided, when they opened the door be would hurl himself out, with luck cut down a couple of them before they could meet his rush. It was better than standing there like a condemned man in the middle of his death cell.

"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

"Klesst."

"Well, Klesst, I'm going to step inside your closet. I want you to pull this latch down from outside, and then get back in bed. When the soldiers come in, just tell them no one's been in here. And if they don't believe you and look inside... well, afterwards you can tell them that I said I'd hurt you unless you did as I told you."

Klesst nodded, impressed by the important task he had given her. She smiled uncertainly as she shut tile closet, then quickly shot the latch. She barely had time to scurry back to bed before they came to her door.

"This is the kid's room," someone observed. "Been locked."

"Well, open it, anyway," ordered a gruff voice.

A scraping of the bolt, then suspicious faces peered in from the hall. The gruff voice belonged to a paunchy man with thick shoulders and a rolling gait. He carried an arbalest, his fingers near the trigger. "Hey, kid," he demanded, "anybody come in here?"

"No, sir," Klesst said, being polite to make him trust her.

Their eyes carefully searched the shadows of the room. "You sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"You been awake?"

"Yes, sir."

"You sure you ain't been asleep?"

"No... I mean, yes, sir."

The man with the arbalest entered the room. Several other men followed. Swords were bare in their fists.

A thin-faced mercenary examined the window. "It's locked, Stundorn. No sign of blood or anything," he stated in a nasal voice.

Stundorn shifted his arbalest. Klesst wondered why the steel bow didn't snap its string. "Might have been open before. This room is below Kane's, off to the side only a little. He might have climbed down."

He frowned at Klesst. "You see anything, kid?"

"No, sir."

"You wouldn't lie now, would you?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know what happens to little girls who lie?"

"Yes, sir." Klesst's imagination grappled with the possibilities.

"And you haven't seen any sign of a big bandit with blood just pouring down his ribs where I shot him?"

"No, sir."

"Closet's latched from outside," someone noted.

"Now you aren't hiding my bandit inside your closet, are you?" Stundorn rumbled.

"No, sir." What did happen to little girls who lied?

"Do you know I got an itchy nose?" "No, sir."

"It's a fact. My nose itches every time I hear a lie." Klesst stared in horrid fascination.

"Now why do you suppose it's itching right now?"

"I don't know, sir," she answered shakily.

Stundorn stood back from the closet door. He brought his arbalest to his shoulder, sighted about chest height on the door. His fingers curled over its trigger.

"Now open that door, Profaka," he directed the thin-faced mercenary.

Gingerly Profaka reached across to the latch and drew it back.

He yanked open the door.

The closet was empty.

"This place is clean," Eriall informed his leader. "Been through it from attic to cellar, looked in every hole bigger than a chamber pot. Ain't no Kane, and that's a fact."

Pleddis nodded tiredly. He had overseen most of the work. "Yeah, and no one made a break for the outside; I had men out there watching every block of stone on this inn."

The captain banged his fist on the wall in anger. "Obviously, then, Kane somehow got outside before we realized his trick."

"But how? We pretty well proved he had to be inside."

"Well, we damn well just proved he's not inside! Now you tell me where that leaves us!"

Eriall was silent. He massaged his shaven skull. Pleddis's laugh startled him.

"Sure, I know what he did!" His white teeth flashed in a grin. "You just got to think like Kane thinks. Now Kane's smart, and he's got a lot of tricks. He went out the window, sure, but he didn't climb down. That's what he knew we'd think he'd do. So instead Kane climbed up! He was on the top floor, so getting to the roof was actually easier than climbing all the way to the ground.

"Kane must have worked his way along the roof up to where it abuts the burned-out north wing. Then he just climbed down onto the old walls and groped his way down into the gutted interior, and slipped through the rubble and into the night--while we were standing like fools wondering where his body had got to!"

"Then he's had a good start all this time we been looking under beds!" Eriall growled.

"Maybe," Pleddis admitted, still pleased with his cleverness. "But Kane don't have a horse. Wounded and on foot we'll run him down in an hour. Nattios! Find Ionor and tell her we'll need dogs for tracking! Hurry! What's the matter?"

"We're going to track Kane now?" the mountaineer queried uneasily. "It will soon be midnight. The Demonlord will hunt-"

"Move, damn you!" Pleddis hissed. "Yes, we're going to track him! Do you want the Demonlord to catch him? Lord Tloluvin don't need that gold!"

"Don't speak his name!" Nattios gasped. Seeing the vicious anger rise in Pleddis's eyes, he ran to find Ionor.

Ionor turned on Greshha with thinly checked fury. "Why did you come back? I told you to take tonight off."

They were alone in the inn's great kitchen. Shouts close by told of Pleddis's fast-moving search of the rambling structure. The two drovers had joined in, and Ionor had ordered Cholos and Mauderas to help the mercenaries--even directing Sele to guide the searchers through the huge inn. Ionor felt certain Kane would be found if he were hiding within the walls of Raven's Eyrie. If not...

Her jaw tightened as she scowled at the older woman. Greshha was avoiding her eyes. "I said, why didn't you stay away?"

The servant woman took a deep breath. Her thick body shook. "I guess I know you didn't want me here," she mumbled, face downcast.

"What did you say?"

Greshha raised her chin; her eyes were shrewd. "I guess I know why you wanted me to stay away tonight," she stated in a louder voice, defiantly.

A hiss escaped Ionor's tightly drawn lips. She started to swing back her hand, then checked her arm. "What are you talking about?" Her voice was like a slap.

"I'm no fool. I can remember," Greshha stolidly told her. "I know you hate the child."

Ionor's long fingers clenched and opened, like a pantheress flexing her claws. She tossed her head, and her loose braid flicked over her shoulder, twitched down her back like an angry black tail.

The stout mountain woman did not quail before her mistress's obvious look of menace. "Poor Klesst. I can't blame you for hating her when she came. But after all these years! I kept taking care of her when it was your place, hoping you'd learn to love her. But you never did, Ionor. There's no loving left in you--only hate. Hate's eaten the soul out of your breast, so you can't even love your own flesh..."

"Shut up, you fat fool! I've tolerated your meddling, but you've overstepped your place this time!"

"I never thought you'd go through with it. All this time I kept thinking you'd soften to her. But you're cold, burned out, Ionor. There's no heart left in you. I know now you mean to do it."

Ionor drew back against the cutting table, her lips twisted in a snarl. "What are you talking about?"

Ducking her head for breath, Greshha plunged on. Her round face took on an aspect of sullen determination. "I was here when you were birthing her, don't forget. I stayed with you when your screams and curses drove everyone else from your bed. I held you down and tried to comfort you when the midwife had to use the knife to bring her forth from your womb. And even while you screamed out things to make the gods turn away from you, I stayed with you and pitied you because no one thought you could live through the night.

"Seven years ago tonight, it was, Ionor. And they all said it was a miracle when both you and the child lived through. But only I knew what kind of miracle it was."

"You're an old fool, Greshha!"

"Old, but no fool. The things you was screaming weren't good to cry out--not with the Demonlord's Moon shining down through your window. They weren't good to hear, and that's why the others drew away from you that night. I'll confess it, I was afraid myself, and when the child was born, and the midwife had done what she could, and we thought the opium would let you ease into sleep... Well, I left you, too, and told myself to look to the child because her mother would be gone by daybreak.

"Then when the dogs began to howl and cringe, and the others all huddled by the fire and prayed... I couldn't leave you alone to die, not when the fires all burned low and blue under the shadows. I crept back to your room, praying each step, and afraid to think what it was we heard snuffling outside the inn.

"And I stopped at your door when I heard your voice, and when I heard that other voice answer, I knew who you was talking with, and I knew it was worse than death to open your door. I just froze there too scared to tremble, and the words you two spoke burned into my memory like hot iron into flesh. And after he left, I still stood there crying and praying and not making a sound. And when I finally took heart to look in the door, I saw you lying there asleep with a black smile on your lips, and I knew your strength would be back in the morning.

"But before the gods, Ionor, I never thought you'd do it! I swear I would have smothered you there as you lay if I had believed that. I kept thinking, she'll learn to love once she's held the child to her breast and she forgets the horror and the shame and the pain. But you never held the child to your breast, and you never learned to love her--because all that's left in you is hate, Ionor.

"So I knew why you wanted me gone tonight, and that's why I wouldn't go. And I'll not go. I'll not let you do it."

"You meddling old fool!" spat Ionor. "If you dare interfere... But what can you do?"

Greshha expanded her shoulders truculently. "There's soldiers here. Captain Pleddis has League authority. He won't let you do this thing."

Ionor laughed. "Pleddis is a cold-blooded bounty killer. His soldiers are hired thugs. He'll not care what I do. He only wants Kane."

"Maybe so. I guess I'll find out what he'll do."

"Don't be a bigger fool!"

Maybe he'll be interested if I tell him he might not get Kane."

"I'm warning you!"

Greshha looked at her livid face and backed away. No longer was there doubt in her mind; instead there was fear. The servant woman started for the door to the Common room; she could hear heavy boots approaching from there.

As she turned, Ionor's hand came away from the cutting table. The sharpening steel in her fist made a rotten crunch as she brought it down over Greshha's skull. The mountain woman crumpled to the floor with no more sound than a dropped sack of grain.

Ignoring the huddled body' Ionor glared at the door. She had acted out of desperate rage, without forethought. And someone was entering the kitchen.

It was Mauderas. He halted at the threshold in surprise. His hulking figure blocked the doorway; behind him stretched the inn's bar, and beyond she could see several of Pleddis s men moving through the common room.

"Close that door!" she hissed. "Lock it!"

Mauderas obeyed, a stunned expression on his dark face. "What happened?"

"Never mind," Ionor told him. "I had to stop her from talking to Pleddis."

"She dead?"

"I think so. We can't let them find her."

Mauderas licked his mustache and surveyed the room. The outer doors were barred, but Pleddis's men were watching from outside. Fortunately the windows were shuttered on the back wall. No one had seen... yet.

"I don't see what Pleddis would care about--" "Don't forget Captain Pleddis is a lawman!" she snapped. "Maybe he wouldn't use his authority, maybe he would. No point in tempting luck. I don't want to fool around with that bounty hunter right now. We'll have to hide her body--tell them she went back to the village, if anyone asks."

"How? She's too big to stuff under something, and Pleddis's men are all over the place. Someone's going to want to come in here any minute. They can't turn up Kane anywhere, and Pleddis was about to tear up the floorboards looking for hiding places."

"I know; they came through here twice before. Does it look like Kane left the inn, then?"

Mauderas nodded. "Pleddis figured out how. They'll be out scouring the ridges next."

Ionor thought carefully for a moment and came to a decision. "Then we'll do it the old way. Take her out the passage and sink her. That way it's certain they won't find her."

Mauderas put a broad hand on her shoulder. "Been a long time since I sunk anyone."

"I feel confident you haven't lost your touch."

"Passage hasn't been opened since the raid. Thought you wanted to forget the old days, keep the passage closed up."

"I know what I said. But I don't want to risk complications with Pleddis."

Mauderas shrugged. "Anyway you call it then, Ionor."

Stooping over the limp body, he arranged the loose limbs with the calm competence of one who knows his task. With a grunt he rose up again, Greshha's lax figure slung across his broad back. "The old woman weighs more than a side of beef," he grumbled.