Sourcethief (Book 3) (37 page)

When the bridge had filled with his dead troops,
Jinzan and his disciples fell in behind them, ready to clean up the remains of
the Kadrin force, and loot the city of whatever riches they found a need for.

* * * * * * *
*

There are creatures that nature sends to cleanse a
battlefield: the crow, the vulture, the wolf, the worm. Nature has no place at
a necromancer's feast. The dead are consumed, stolen away from worm, wolf,
vulture, and crow.

Though history had yet to mark it, the Fourth
Necromancer War had begun.

Though they told him thrice, it took looking at it
on a map for Brannis to puzzle out the name of the city they were visiting.
Kjalljhal's people were as mixed as the rest of northern Khesh. The gate guards
were a comedic troupe by the standards of most cities: a large, gaunt,
black-skinned skeleton of a man with a companion who came only to Soria's
shoulder and was shaped like a pumpkin. The squat man's head bobbed, causing
his beaded hair to rattle as he laughed and joked with Soria. Brannis could
follow none of the discussion, but it seemed amiable enough that he was not
worried over it. It ended with Soria handing the guards a small pile of coins
and them waving Brannis, Soria, and Rakashi through the gates with their horses
in tow.

"What did you tell them?" Brannis asked
when they were out of earshot.

"Nothing much. I know those two. The governor's
coffers pay them to keep folk like me and Rakashi out. We pay them better to
let us in. They eat well working against their orders," Soria said. Their
horses bracketed them as they walked, providing a bit of privacy.

"Oh, they have Juliana's job," Brannis
observed, receiving a narrowed glare but no denial for the comment. "Did
they say anything about Tomas and Abbiley coming through here?" Brannis
glanced all about, as if the mere mention of those names might have alerted
vigilant ears to their quest.

"No, but I think they're here. Chobi danced
around with crooked answers, told me to find a piper by the name of Trann. The
gate guards try to keep the graft to just taking bribes. Selling information
would draw too much attention to them. Just getting the piper's name was a
favor from old friends."

"So this Trann will know where they are,"
Brannis said. "But where is Trann?"

"He's a piper, so we ask around. He'll be on
the streets somewhere, we just have to find where. First thing though, we need
to be rid of these horses."

The steeds they had brought had been ridden hard.
With rest they would be fine, but rest was a commodity that Brannis's little
rescue party had in short supply. If Kjalljhal was not the end of their search,
they would need fresh horses before nightfall. Rakashi found a dealer willing
to take the exhausted creatures off their hands for roughly a quarter of what
they had paid for them just days before.

As they wandered the streets of Kjalljhal in search
of the piper, Brannis marveled at the city around him. It was not the size of
the city but the atmosphere that amazed him. As they wove their way through the
twisting streets, peddlers with carts plied their trades on the move. Open
fires served as cooking hearths for makeshift restaurants, with vagrant chefs
doling out meats and vegetables both seared and served on wooden spits. Folks
went about armed wherever Brannis looked, and not one of them appeared to be
any sort of authority figure. A two-piece band consisting of a stringed
instrument and a drum played a rhythmic, repetitive tune that mirrored the pace
of the street markets, or perhaps set it.

"Are cities like this common in Khesh?"
Brannis asked.

"What, you mean so wedge-packed full of people
you wouldn’t see a seated piper if he was two paces in front of you?"
Soria asked in reply. Her head swiveled about as she tried to advance through
the throng at a pace faster than the flow was currently allowing.

"No, I mean so ... wild."

"This is a free city," Rakashi said.
"It is ruled, but lightly. Those two guards at the gate might be the only
sign of law we see until we depart, unless there is great commotion."

"Not sure where we might find that sort of
trouble," Brannis replied, fixing Rakashi with his best incredulous look.
The Takalish scholar gave a little shrug. "I'm just surprised there isn't
blood running in the streets with so many people carrying blades."

"Folks aren't usually looking to die when they
go to market, armed or not," Soria commented. "Come on, keep moving.
As long as these two musicians are in earshot, this is their turf. We need to
get clear of them and listen for pipe music."

The slog through the marketplace was clearly a chore
to Soria and an inconvenience for Rakashi to accept and endure. Brannis found
himself quite enjoying the scene despite the urgency of their mission. Until
Soria or Rakashi puzzled out their next move, Brannis's only task was to keep
them in sight and not hinder the search.

As they pressed through the glut of humanity
clogging the streets, Brannis held one advantage over most of the crowd:
height. Soria would have been considered above average height, even for a man,
but Brannis could see over her and the rest of the crowd with ease. He could
hear over them as well.

"Wait, I hear something off to the right,"
Brannis called ahead to his companions. While he was no connoisseur of music,
he recognized the windy melody of pipe music carrying across the market and
mixing with the nearer sounds of the string and drum performers.

Brannis slowed to keep the melody from drifting
away, but neither Soria nor Rakashi seemed to have heard him. He drew breath to
shout above the din of the marketplace as he watched them carried away from him
in the current of pedestrians, but reconsidered. Instead, he stopped
completely. Foot traffic grudgingly accepted that he was rather too large to
shove out of the way, and flowed around him. He shook his head and turned to
find the piper on his own.
They will find me much more easily than I could
find them again, anyway
.

Brannis set off on his own course, using his bulk to
move against the prevailing current until he got himself among a crowd heading
the direction he too desired. From there he had only to listen, and to make
sure that the merry, lilting melody had not faded from hearing.

When finally the market crowd parted, it revealed a
pocket of space reserved for a musician. A young man sat cross-legged in the
gutter, bowl in his lap, playing a set of pipes. By the contents of the bowl,
it looked as if it had been a difficult day.

"Excuse me, are you Trann?" Brannis asked,
leaning down so that he did not have to yell to make himself heard.

The piper played on, giving just a slight shrug as
the only indication that the question had been heard at all. Brannis smiled to
himself and reached into his coinpurse.

The piper looked up at Brannis then, and the melody
changed briefly to something a bit livelier. Brannis had not realized just how
repetitive the song was until then, but guessed that the same few bars were
played over and over, flowing from end into new beginning for as long as the
piper had breath.

"Are you ... Trann?" Brannis asked again,
pointing with emphasis on speaking the name. He doubted the piper spoke
Acardian, but hoped that at least he spoke "Trann".

The piper paused in his song between measures, and
took the pipes from his lips. "Hojan," he said, and pointed to
himself. "Trann," he pointed to himself again and shook his head.

Brannis nodded to the piper, and pushed his way to
the edge of the crowd. He found a building to lean against and settled in to
await retrieval. He looked up to the sky and wondered why the one time in Khesh
when he took the initiative, he made a botch of it.

* * * * * * *
*

"Ah, there you are. I am astounded how well
such a large man hides," said Rakashi as he emerged from the throng. He
was alone, or as alone as one might be among thousands of market-goers.

"I have not moved this past hour and more,
waiting for one of you to happen by," Brannis replied. "If that
counts as hiding, our quarry has nothing to fear from us."

"I hear why you might have come this way, now
that I am here. Were you able to inquire about our piper friend?" Rakashi
asked.

"Yeah, fifty eckles bought me the fact that
he's not Trann," Brannis said. He spread his hands helplessly. "I
figured: how many pipers could there be in one city?"

"The answer might surprise you. I might ask him
myself, but since we must wait for Soria in any event, we should let her handle
the negotiation. She is ... quite good at it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Brannis
asked, narrowing his eyes at the Takalish warrior.

"She has a reputation. Let us leave it at that
for now. In the meanwhile, we have had little time to get to know one another
without Soria present. She most understandably occupies much of your time when
she is present."

"Even when she is not, I think," Brannis
said, eyes drifting off toward the marketplace, focusing on nothing.

"I understand you have been studying notes left
for you by the Acardian lord. Is Kyrus learning the spells contained therein as
you read them?" Rakashi asked.

"You're just wondering whether I'm going to be
able to kill Rashan, so your side doesn't have to," Brannis replied.
"Suppose I can't blame you."

"Wars are not won, losses merely cease. I would
rather the Kadrin Empire claim victory than press on until the last of your
people faces the last of mine, and one civilization is wiped from history. The
death of Rashan Solaran, I think, would end the war." Rakashi stroked his
beard, pinching it between his fingers.

"Well, I have no plan to attack Rashan anytime
soon, I'll tell you that much. Kyrus is learning as much as I can stuff into
his head each night, but I figure the longer the wait, the better my odds of
prevailing. What's another year's wisdom to a demon? To Kyrus, that's twice
what he knows already. I only get one chance at him, I think. I have to make
sure it counts."

"Quite understandable, of course. I only ask
because it is a great many lives that hang on the far side of your hesitation.
There are children and grandchildren who will never be born because their
ancestors die childless in this war. Untold generations lost, never to be
recovered," Rakashi said.

"What are you doing about it?" Brannis
asked. "You seem pretty sure of yourself around here, and Soria told me
you're a lot stronger in Veydrus. You ever consider trying to save them? What
have you been doing all this time? Your kind isn't known for shying from
battle."

"I could only buy moments of time for my
people. I would, at best, be an amusement for him, I think; a departure from
the slaughter of the helpless. I have fled before him as he retook northern
Kadrin and Megrenn. These days I have been removed from the war," Rakashi
said.

"Removed?" Brannis asked. His attentions
pulled back from the market, and he turned to meet Rakashi's eye.

"You took Juliana from the war, and hid her
away on an airship of her own. She did the same favor for me," Rakashi
said. "The twinborn are with you in this endeavor of yours, on both sides
of the war. You are our champion, our hope."

"I think this is why we don't talk much,"
Brannis replied. He turned his attention back to the marketplace, thankful that
Rakashi did not continue speaking.

When Soria finally discovered them, they were
waiting together with their arms crossed, looking away from one another. “Well,
don't you two make a nice couple," she greeted them. "Was there a
fight?" She seemed to find the thought amusing.

"We finished what we needed to say,  between
the two of us," Rakashi answered.

"I thought I had found our piper, but the two
of you had gotten too far ahead. I thought maybe I could manage on my own for a
bit. Figured you'd find me eventually," Brannis said.

"Well, looks like you got the last part right
at least, since here we all are again. You talk to this fella back here?"
Soria asked, tilting her head in the direction of the piper as he continued
playing.

"His name is Hoyin, or something, not
Trann," Brannis said. "I paid him and everything."

Brannis saw from the corner of his eye that Rakashi
was shaking his head with his eyes closed.

"How much?" Soria asked.

"Fifty eckles, he said," Rakashi replied.
Soria grinned. "I told him you would handle it when you found us. If you
would not mind ..." Rakashi swept a hand in the direction of the musician.

Soria walked over and began speaking with the man in
Kheshi. Immediately, the music stopped. Brannis watched. The first words the
piper spoke were ones Brannis had heard a few Kheshi say when first speaking to
Soria. He still had no idea their meaning—or spelling, for that matter—but they
had to mean something more than "hello." The conversation was brief
and ended with Soria dropping a fistful of coins into the piper's bowl.

"Let's go find a room, somewhere," Soria
said when she returned. "We have plans to make." She turned to leave,
but Brannis caught her by the arm.

"What was that everyone calls you?"
Brannis asked. He tried to mimic the Kheshi words. Soria winced.

"Assuming you hadn't just made the Six Dead
Princes cry with your butchery of their language, it would mean ‘red lady.’
What you actually said was ‘far cook,’ which I'm pretty sure is
gibberish," Soria said. She started off into the crowd, and Brannis and
Rakashi fell in behind.

"Her hair isn't that red, to make a name of it,
is it?" Brannis asked.