The Hekamon (33 page)

Hayden thought it preferable to leave this way.
These properties backed onto the glades and it would mean he could
travel through the forest for part the way. It would keep him off the
roads and out of sight for the journey to the bridge.

On reaching the exit, the innkeeper slid the bolts,
unlocked the door and opened it, before stepping to one side to let
him through. Hayden stepped outside, and nodded his appreciation.

"Thank you, and goodbye," he said, turning
right and taking a few steps.

"Have a safe journey, sir." The innkeeper
said, closing the door.

At the sound of the bolts sliding shut, Hayden slowed
and stopped. Once he was sure the innkeeper was finished locking up,
he turned and walked back. Past the now closed door and the
alleyway beyond it.

To his left and further into the mine, Tregarron saw the
glow of three lanterns, each one illuminating the immediate area
around it and carried by a guardsman.

It seemed that his men had
found some miners' lamps so as to better carry out their search. Their blue
uniforms, helmets and halberds making for unmistakable shapes and
colors in the gloom of the mine. And while Tregarron was pleased to
see the search being done correctly, he was now sure it would not be
necessary.

"Where's Phelan?" he asked, walking over to
the nearest guard.

"Over there," Mountfield said, pointing
further into the mine and to a guard searching some of the darker
recesses. Phelan turned on hearing his name, and when he spoke, his
voice echoed around the void.

"Captain?"

"You haven't found anything, have you,"
Tregarron said, more telling than asking.

"No, not yet," Phelan replied, beginning to
walk back toward him, "You sound as if you don't expect me to."

"I don't. I think our man did come this way, but
he's left already, we're forty minutes behind him. Tell me what you
know about a boy called Galvyn," Tregarron said. Carefully
picking his way further in to the dark mine, while the other guards
stopped their searches and began falling in.

"Galvyn?" Phelan frowned, thrown by his sudden
change of questioning. "Well, he lodges in Tivitay," eyes
flickering with realization in the light of the miners lamp, "and
now you come to mention it, he's an apprentice—"

"Of Croneygee, I know. Where in Tivitay does he
lodge?"

"I'm pretty sure it's Willard's. He's been there a
few months if memory serves. Quiet lad, no trouble."

"Not until now anyway," he said, meeting
Phelan halfway.

Just then, Collis and Hackett, the two guards he'd
whistled over from north of the fort arrived, both out of breath.

"Are we needed?" Collis asked, sweating and
gasping, his uniform better suited for standing guard than for running
pursuits.

"Yes," he said, doing a quick head count, "the
six of us should be fine and Teague will bring more shortly," he
added, looking around and surveying the layout of the mine. "We're
going up through Croneygee's workshop, which of these stairs would
you say is the right one?"

The guards starting looking around too, but before any
could answer, Tregarron was on the move.

"Bring some light," he said, stepping toward
some nearby stairs, next to which rested an empty and uncoupled a
coal tub.

Tregarron knew that the armorer was one of the few
craftsmen to still bring up coal from this part of the seam. Deciding
that this had to be the one, he started climbing, with Phelan and the
other guards following him up the stairs.

"Do you think Galvyn's involved, Captain?" Phelan
asked, as they ascended.

"Yes, but whether he is complicit or in danger
himself, I don't know."

Tregarron thought back to his conversation with the
apprentice earlier. At the time he had thought the young man had been
answering his questions truthfully, yet he'd suspected there was
something else. The young man had been protecting somebody, but who
and why? He didn't know. He had assumed taking possession of the
necklace would bring matters to him, but that's not how things were
working out.

Well, if matters wouldn't come to him…

After making sure that nobody was paying them any
attention, Alyssa leaned close to the person she had now become
intensely interested in, and, placing her lips close to his ear, she
whispered to him.

"There's an alley behind us, we're going to go
there, and then you're going to tell me everything you know, aren't
you?"

The boy nodded and slowly started moving toward the
alleyway, while Alyssa followed him, looking back along the street as
she did so, keeping her dagger pressed against his flesh the whole
time. When they were a few steps into the alleyway, the boy started
to turn, fear etched on his face.

"Please, I haven't done anything—"

In one movement, Alyssa took the blade from his back,
turned him toward her and held it to his throat. While backing him
further into the alleyway, out of sight and earshot of the street.

"You've seen it though haven't you? My necklace,
you've seen it and you know where I can find it."

"If you think something of yours is stolen, maybe
you should go and see the captain of the guard," the young man
stammered.

"I didn't say it was stolen. I might have simply
lost it," she said, holding the blade more firmly to his throat
and scrutinizing him.

For a moment the boy's eyes lost their look of panic and
instead took on a more knowing look and she returned it. Had she
caught him in a lie? Or had he revealed a truth that she herself had
not been certain of, something that he had gleaned from the Ettinshel
itself.

"What else do you know about it?" she
demanded.

"I…" but before he could continue,
there came the sound of sliding bolts and a door unlocking at the
rear.

Alyssa immediately pushed the boy against the wall of
the inn and put her hand over his mouth. Holding the dagger so firmly
to his neck that she was very nearly drawing blood. There was the
sound of two men's voices, one expressing appreciation, the other
wishing for a safe journey, followed by the door closing and locks
fastening again.

Alyssa pressed herself against her captive. Forcing him
against the wall, not just to trap him, but to conceal them both as
much as she could. She looked to the end of the alley, just few yards
away, waiting and hardly breathing.

Expecting a man to round the
corner and enter the alley at any moment, but none did. A second
passed, then two, nothing. Then the sounds of footsteps moving away,
or were they getting closer? Her senses conflicted, and then a
silhouette.

A man, tall, muscular and with shoulder length hair,
walked by the space between the two buildings. The man's body shape
suggested he was looking down the alleyway, but his eyes and
features could not be seen. He didn't stop and, if he saw them, he
didn't react.

Then the man was gone, as quickly as he'd appeared.

Alyssa
turned to look into her captives eyes, her stare conveyed a silent
message,
don't make
a sound
.

She looked
again at the back of the alleyway and then all around her. At the
walls, the floor, her own clothes. Evaluating the degree of their
concealment. Their surroundings were shadier than street but it was
daytime, it was dim at best and certainly not dark. They were
visible.

Alyssa
recognized the feeling. It was one she had felt before, and had seen manifested in countless
prey. The glint in the eye, the twitch of an ear, the flair of the
nostrils and quiver of the muscles. Sometimes they just
knew
.
They'd
been seen.

The man re-appeared and was moving fast, but Alyssa was
ready for him and was moving fast, too. Her hand switched from the
boy's mouth to his hair, pulling him away from the wall and putting
him between herself and the silhouette. As she did, she brought the
dagger around and up again, yanking his head back and twisting him to
face away from her, with the blade once more at his exposed throat.

The speed of her movement was enough to stop the man in his tracks.
Her expert handling of the dagger, an uppercutting, stabbing motion,
a statement in itself.

"One more step and it's him, and the next step it's
you," she intoned, calmly but with menace. There was no attempt
to disguise her accent now, she wanted the man to know where she was
from.

As the man took one small step towards her, Alyssa
intimated she would follow through with her threat, but she had no
more room for maneuver. She was at the limit her threat posture would
allow. It was either start drawing blood, or back away.

Alyssa took a
small step backwards, pulling the boy with her. The man
had claimed some of the initiative, he sought to claim some more.

"What do you want with him?" The man said, "If
you want money, he doesn't have any, you're wasting your time."

"It's not money I want, he has something of mine,
or he knows where it is," she said defiantly, the awkward
position of the boy's neck causing him to struggle in her grip.

"Galvyn, don't move, she won't hurt if you have
information that she needs."

"I
knew it was you,
I
knew it
. Now you're
going to tell me where I can retrieve what's mine."

"I, er, sorry Galvyn, I didn't realize that she
didn't—" the man said sheepishly, before adopting a more
conciliatory tone, "Galvyn, maybe you could tell her what she
wants to know. Then we could all go our separate ways, nothing more
needs to be said and no harm done."

"She's looking for the necklace," Galvyn
gasped, "and I already told her where it is."

Alyssa's eyes grew wide, "You liar!" she said,
as vociferously as the situation permitted.

Twisting and pushing the boy back against the other wall
so she could face him once more. Astounded that he would lie so
brazenly given the position he was in. Yet he wasn't lying.

"Captain Tregarron has it, he took it from me,"
Galvyn said, gasping for breath, "he said to tell whoever it
belongs to, to go and claim it," another deep breath, "So
if you want it, you need to ask the captain of the guard."

It was Alyssa's turn to gasp.

"No! How could you let him just take it? Even when
you knew—" she said, her mind now consumed with the
difficulty of getting it back. Distractedly she dropped her hand to
her side and before she could recover her composure, there was a
sudden movement by the silhouetted man and the dagger was gone from
her grasp. In her intense despondency, she didn't care, before sensing
herself in a far from safe situation.

"Give it back," she said, trying to summon
some anger into her demand but only managing to sound plaintive.

"You're joking right?" The man said, but by
way of a disarmingly friendly gesture, placed the dagger in the
scabbard on his belt.

"Please, it's mine."

"No, you're dangerous."

"Perhaps you should return it," Galvyn
suggested, reaching up and rubbing his neck.

"And you're crazy," the man said, incredulous,
"It's the second time today someone's tried to kill you for that
necklace, next time, you're on your own."

Alyssa let go of Galvyn and tried to make sense of what
the man had said.

"What do you mean, the second time? Who else is
looking for it?" Alyssa's mind immediately turned to her
brother, had he come back to help her? But this thought was quickly
dashed.

"A Coralainian called Decarius," Galvyn said,
"He was furious when he heard it had been taken to the fort."

I know the feeling,

"Hayden here saved me from him," Galvyn
continued, "or else Decarius might have killed me."

"Galvyn, your promise not to mention my name to
anyone lasted five minutes." Hayden said, with an air of
resignation.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Anyway, you told her
my name."

"Yes, that was careless of me, I'm sorry."

"It's just that, nobodies held a knife to my throat
before, it has unnerved me a little."

"Yes," Hayden replied, "but someone's
tried to strangle you before, so you should be getting used to it by
now."

"Well I'm not," Galvyn said miserably,
soothing his sore neck some more.

Alyssa looked at him apologetically, "Perhaps I
shouldn't have done that but I don't have much time, when I realized
you had recognized the symbol and knew something—" she
said, trailing off as a thought occurred to her. "How did this
Decarius know you had it?" she asked, thinking of the
Coralainians at Tansley's trading post and wondering if there was a
connection.

"I don't know," Galvyn said, "maybe
Tansley, a merchant I know, told him. He gave me the necklace to
repair so he knew I had it. He left the workshop with my boss, Mr.
Croneygee and a short time later Decarius arrived."

"Yes, that could be it," Alyssa nodded, "I
overheard that someone called Croneygee had been attacked."

"What?" Galvyn said, with a look of shock on
his face.

"Hit about the head and taken to something, or
someone, called the pryor."

"Pryor Jervay, he helps the sick," the young
man said quietly, as he digested the news. Alyssa
considered the new information, too.

"This man, Decarius you said his name was, he must
have somehow known Tansley had it, followed him to the workshop and
then attacked Croneygee sometime after they left," Alyssa said,
still curious as to why the Coralainian would be looking for her
necklace. It was valuable, maybe that was enough of a reason.

Galvyn continued her chain of thought, "Tansley
must then have told Decarius it was with me, or else the man guessed
as much when he couldn't find it," Galvyn said, his face ashen.

Alyssa could tell he was shaken with the news about his
boss.