The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (29 page)

“Do you know who I am?” Trenan asked.

The big man shook his head once, like a horse shooing a fly.

“I am called Trenan, the king’s master swordsman. Do you know what that means?”

Stirk shook his head again, the muscles in his neck and shoulders loosening as though he might have some sense of what it meant, but Trenan wanted to be sure he understood.

“It means I could kill you before you moved.”

Light shining through the doorway behind Stirk flashed on Godsbane’s blade as the tip flickered through the air with a dangerous whistle. A lock of the big man’s hair fluttered across his shoulder on its way to the floor. The sword returned to its threatening position before Stirk realized it had moved. He jerked back.

A smile tugged at the corner of Trenan’s mouth.

“I’ll ask you once more: where is Prince Teryk?”

Stirk leaned away, his angry posture easing into fearful uncertainty. His gaze flickered toward Bieta again, but Trenan raised Godsbane, using the broad steel blade to block his line of sight.

“Don’t look at her. Look at me.”

Stirk did. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, chewing it as he rubbed the smooth end of his arm against the thigh of his breeches.

“Where is the prince?”

“I…” Stirk hesitated, licked his lips, took a peek at his mother again. “I got rid of him.”

Trenan’s heart jumped in his chest. Did he mean he’d slain the prince? Despair threatened at the back of his mind as he imagined his love’s grief, the thought of her pain seeping into him. He gritted his teeth to hide his emotions and stepped forward, the tip of the sword dangerously close to Stirk’s throat.

“Where?”

Stirk shrugged. “Somewhere near the water, I guess.”

The big man’s lips quivered as though he suppressed a smile, a sliver of confidence finding its way into his demeanor. Perhaps he realized Trenan wouldn’t kill him as long as he didn’t reveal the prince’s location. It made the swordmaster want to grip his windpipe and pull it out.

“Where?” Trenan said again through clenched teeth.

“Don’t know what they call the place.”

“Then you’ll take us.” Trenan tilted his head. “Bring her.”

Dansil removed his axe from Bieta’s neck and Osis and Strylor dragged her toward the door. Stirk looked as though he might reach out to grab her, but Trenan flicked Godsbane, touching the man’s cheek with the flat of the blade and freezing him in place. After the others escorted the woman out, Trenan leaned closer to the man, glowered at him.

“If we don’t find the prince,” he said, his whispered words dripping more threat than if he’d yelled, “the crown sword will taste your blood. And your mother’s.”

***

Stirk glanced at the door of the whore house where he’d stopped to quench his manly needs with the tiny woman on the way home, regretting he’d chosen to do so. If not, he might have made it before the one-armed man and his fellows arrived. They might have gotten away. Then they could’ve come back for the prince and still had a chance at getting a ransom. Now, he didn’t expect they’d escape with their lives.

A block farther ahead, the warehouses of waterside began, and not far beyond they’d find the crate in which he’d dumped the kingdom’s heir. The one-armed man had said what he’d do if they didn’t find the prince, but what if they did?

Instead of continuing straight along the avenue, Stirk went right at the next street, sticking to areas with which he was somewhat familiar. He’d been here before, not just to visit the bordello, but to acquire sour mash or try his hand at gambling the odd time he found a coin in his pocket—a rarity, and usually only after he’d taken it by force out of someone else’s.

They passed a woman crumpled in a doorway, her eyes closed and dress hiked up to mid-thigh, one nipple showing through her ripped bodice. Stirk might have wondered whether she was alive or dead if he cared. He didn’t.

Half a block farther along, he turned the party into an alley wide enough for them to walk two abreast, but he knew it opened into a small courtyard. This was where the denizens of Sunset came to gamble, and their blades were always ready.

“A little farther,” Stirk said keeping his voice low. The one-armed man beside and one step behind him said nothing, but one of the other armored men farther back grunted.

As they neared where the alley spread out into the courtyard, sounds carried along the mud and brick walls—laughter and grumbling as gamblers won or lost their bets. Stirk stepped out of the lane into the wider area and saw nine men in the courtyard. Some knelt over circles strewn with shaking bones while others sat on crates at makeshift tables made of barrels as they flipped cards and traded insults.

Stirk halted, his tongue tingling with anticipation. If he’d read the king’s master swordsman right, he wouldn’t kill them without finding the prince first. Now was the time to take a risk.

Stirk cleared his throat and the closest gambler looked up from his game. The big-bellied man’s eyes widened when he saw the armored men. He took to his feet, hand reaching for the hilt of the sword dangling at his wide, round waist.

“What’s this?” he said loud enough for the other gamblers to hear. They paused in their games and stood, too.

Beside him, Stirk felt the one-armed man tense, his attention fixed on the group of brigands in the courtyard. There’d never be a good time to defy the man, but if there was a best time, this was it. Stirk jerked his elbow toward the master swordsman’s face while grabbing his mother’s sleeve and jerking her forward, away from the others.

Stirk and Bieta bumbled into the courtyard, stumbling and surprised the four soldiers let them go so easily.

“They’re men of the king,” Stirk hollered, yanking his mother aside. “They made me bring them here to kill you all.”

“Did they, now?” the big-bellied man said and pulled his steel, the blade hissing out of its scabbard. The other gamblers followed his lead, pulling swords and axes, maces and war hammers.

“We have no quarrel with you,” Trenan said, his narrowed gaze flickering from one gambler to the next, sizing them up. “We’ve come in search of someone other than yourselves.”

“You may have no quarrel with us,” one of the gamblers said, tapping a club on his palm, “but you be trespassing. Ain’t none of us invited you here.”

Stirk backed away toward the courtyard’s farthest corner, ushering Bieta along behind his back. A satisfied smile crept across his face. Not many people considered him smart or crafty, but it seemed he’d gotten the better of four men of the king, by God.

Tense silence fell in the courtyard, the air heavy with impending violence. The gamblers glowered at the king’s men and the soldiers glared back. Stirk watched and noticed the faces of the armored men lacked the slightest hint of fear, while the gamblers’ showed twitching lips and darting eyes. A chill crawled up his spine when he saw the grin on the face of the big soldier holding the wide-headed axe.

“Give the two kidnappers back to us and we’ll be on our way,” Trenan said nodding in Stirk an Bieta’s direction. “Do it and no one gets hurt.”

The fat gambler barked a laugh that echoed against the walls surrounding them and bounced away down the alley. Deep-throated chuckles rumbled in the chests of his compatriots.

“Come on, boys,” he said waving his hand. “Let’s rid us of some trespassers.”

The gamblers moved toward the soldiers brandishing their weapons but, before they’d gone a full pace, the king’s men fell on them. Stirk hadn’t seen or heard the one-armed swordsman give the command to attack, but they moved as though he had.

Swords flickered and the heavy axe rose and fell. The big-bellied gambler crumpled, innards spilling out of his sliced-open gut; the man with the club’s war cry got cut short when the axe split his head. It took the space of fewer than ten breaths before every one of the evil-meaning gamblers lay on the dirty ground, dead or dying, clutching their wounds as they writhed atop their gambling bones and blood-soaked cards. Stirk gaped, disbelieving the efficiency with which the soldiers dispatched them. His mouth still hung agape when the edge of Trenan’s fancy sword found his throat, touching hard enough to break the skin. He swallowed hard, a drop of blood trickling toward his chest.

Trenan leaned in until his nose nearly touched Stirk’s.

“I should kill you right now,” he hissed.

Stirk stared at him, sensed his mother quivering against his back. He didn’t move or breathe, didn’t even dare risk gulping down the fearful saliva threatening to spill out of his mouth.

“Kill him anyway,” the big soldier said wiping blood from the face of his axe on the fat gambler’s shirt. “The prince is around here somewhere. We’ll find him without this asshole.”

Trenan’s gaze flickered toward the small square of sky visible above, then came back to find Stirk’s wide eyes.

“If we haven’t found the prince by the time the sun is three quarters across the sky, your lives will be worth nothing.”

He backed away a step and lowered his sword. Stirk swallowed, saliva spilling from the corner of his mouth.

“Bind them,” Trenan said slipping the fancy sword back into its sheath. “They are now prisoners of the king.”

***

They looked down at the empty space on the wharf, staring at nothing but oiled wood. The area was big enough a crate the size of a man might have occupied it—several of them, actually—but none remained.

Stirk stirred, shifting one foot to the other, and Trenan’s hand fell to Godsbane’s hilt in case the big man decided to make a run for it. He didn’t, obviously thinking better of it after seeing how the soldiers dispatched the gamblers in the alley. Instead, he raised his head and turned his gaze upon the master swordsman.

“This is where I left him,” Stirk said, eyes watery and lip trembling. “I swear.”

Trenan glanced at the woman. She’d said not a word since they left the store room, and now stood staring at her feet. Her lips moved as she ran her tongue in and out over the space where she’d once had front teeth, but she otherwise neither moved nor spoke.

Has she accepted her fate?

“Have a look around,” Trenan said, nodding toward the dock. “It might have been moved. I’ll watch these two.”

Dansil grunted, then he, Strylor, and Osis fanned out, peering behind coils of hawsers and into crates and barrels. Trenan watched them before returning his attention to the woman and her son.

“Why?” He looked at Stirk, realized the man couldn’t have been the brains behind the abduction, but he didn’t think Bieta could be, either. “Why did you do it? Did you think you’d get away with kidnapping the heir to the throne?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Stirk replied, his voice squeaking through his tight throat.

Trenan waited for him to say more, but he stopped speaking and his gaze fell to the worn boards of the wharf. A moment later, his shoulders shook with sobs. The master swordsman sighed and shook his head.

“We saved him.”

Hearing the woman’s voice caught Trenan off guard. He pivoted to face her, watching the big man out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you mean?”

“He jumped in to something he shouldn’t’ve. Got between me and Teth when Teth wanted a freebie. The prince thought he was helping me out, bless him.”

Trenan pressed his lips together and glared at her, remembering the men in the tavern.

“And this Teth hurt him?”

“Not right away. The prince embarrassed him…by accident. He brought back some of his pals. They beat the lad within a finger’s breadth of his life and ran him through. Me and Stirk found him and took him back to our place.”

“We were just trying to make him better,” Stirk blurted, saliva spraying from his lips. A string of snot dangled out of his nose.

“He was in bad shape,” Bieta agreed. “We got the horse doctor to look at him, but he couldn’t do nothing, so he brought in a healer.”

“That’s why I ain’t got no hand no more.”

Stirk raised his arm and waved the shiny stump in front of his tear-streaked face. Trenan took a half-step back, sword poised, but he didn’t think Stirk was stupid enough to jump him.

A chill crawled across the master swordsman’s flesh as he considered what he’d heard. First, his suspicion about the horse doctor had been correct, but they’d also involved a healer. While Trenan suspected many of the healers who charged for their services were nothing but a sham, he couldn’t deny Stirk’s hand had been removed in some way other than by force.

They’d exposed the prince to dark arts.

Trenan suppressed a shudder. First the scroll, now the healer. What effect would being in contact with magic twice have on the prince? Anger swirled into the bottom of his gut.

“Why didn’t you tell someone?”

“We didn’t realize who he was until Enin came and told us the king’s men were out looking,” Bieta said. Her head swung side to side as though she thought denying things might yet save her. “And we needed him to be better. He might’ve died.”

“We weren’t gonna keep him and ask for ransom,” Stirk blubbered.

“Shut up,” the woman snapped.

Trenan stepped up in front of the woman, peered into her one eye. Her eyelid fluttered, but she didn’t wilt under his glare. He pursed his lips and swallowed, concentrating on containing his temper.

“If all this is true,” Trenan said, drawing out his words and glancing sideways at Stirk. “Why did you hide him when you knew we searched for him?”

Bieta dropped her gaze and he put the hilt of his sword under her chin, raised her face. Stirk shifted as though he might take exception, but Trenan shot him a threatening glare and the big man wiped tears and snot from his face on his sleeve, holding his ground. The soldier returned his attention to the woman.

“Why. Did. You. Hide. Him?”

The woman stared, lips moving as her tongue worked her gums behind them, but she said nothing. Trenan’s pressed harder against chin, soliciting a squeak from the back of her throat.

“We didn’t find anything,” Osis said, returning from the search with Strylor and Dansil trailing behind him. “If the prince was here, he’s gone now.”