The Palace Job (39 page)

Nineteen

When the hallways were wide, Ululenia flew. When they were narrow, she ran.

And still Hunter Mirrkir pursued.

She had lost her way, and now she thought as the deer, panting as it pelted through the forest with the wolf close behind. Eventually the trail would end, and there would be only closed doors and guarded gates before her. Eventually there would only be her and the wolf.

He was tireless, his pace a sprinter's dash, though any mortal man should have grown weary by now.

Ahead of her, a small dining hall far removed from the main palace ballrooms. How many doors would lead away? The Hunter had not lost her trail yet.

Her heart quailed. She cried out in her mind to any soul that might help.

And still Hunter Mirrkir drew closer.

They had been taken not through the large party-filled courtyard but through a small side passage, frequented only by guards and servants, to a cell large enough for the chained forms of Loch, Kail, Dairy, and the unchained Guard Captain Straithe.

"Thought you could sneak in during the Victory Ball?" he asked with a hearty smile. "Thought that old Captain Straithe would be a bit lax on the day of the party?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Kail muttered.

"Thought we'd get a little scratch," Loch said bitterly, "but all we got was pinched."

She was laying it on a bit, but you had to lay it on a bit for folks like Straithe.

"Well, you're at the parry now," Straithe said with an avuncular smile, "with all the important folks! You'll have some wonderful stories to tell at the Cleaners."

Kail made unhappy noises without saying anything that would get Straithe angry. The key was not for Straithe to be angry. The key was for Straithe to be
gone.

"You can't leave us in here!" Loch tried. "We've got rights!"

"Right now you've got the
right
to sit nice and pretty, young lady," the captain said, chuckling, "and I promise to be
right
back, once I've processed the papers."

Loch ducked her head. He was going to leave, any minute now.

"And you, young sir," he added, turning to Dairy, "should pray to Ael-meseth that the judge doesn't throw you into the Cleaners with these two!" He shook his finger in Dairy's face, and Dairy jumped back, flinching.

Something fell from his grasp and tinkled on the floor.

It was the lockpick Kail had passed the kid beforehand.

Hunter Mirrkir knew that the unicorn was his when her path took her back to the dark and unused ballroom.

Several times she had left his view, but each time her unclean aura, the aura that Mirrkir existed to cleanse from the world, led him onward.

His spear would pierce her unclean hide, and her stain would be washed clean. He had slain unicorns before. They were more difficult than satyrs, who foolishly tried to fight, but less difficult than fairies, who could play clever tricks.

She seemed to realize that it was over, for she stumbled in the ballroom, catching her foot on the carpet. She had assumed human form, a flash of bright white cloak ahead of him. It angered Mirrkir when they took human guise. Still, she did not beg. She had the grace to accept her fate.

He halted behind her, raised his spear to plunge it into her white-cloaked back. "Your time is ended, unicorn. What was mislaid shall be recovered."

And the unicorn said a peculiar thing, in a very peculiar voice, as she turned.

"Kutesosh gajair'is!"

Loch shut her eyes and sighed.

"Seems my men missed something while searching you." Guard Captain Straithe snatched up the lockpick. "Maybe you weren't just petty crooks." He stared at them grimly. "Maybe you
wanted
to get caught," he said slyly, "then break out of this cell and make a little trouble from the inside!"

"Dammit, I
knew
bringing the kid was a bad idea!" Kail growled.

"Shut up, Kail."

"No, Captain, I will
not
shut up!" Kail yanked on his chains. "He dropped Iofecyl on thefloor!"

"You named your lockpick?" Straithe asked.

"I'm sorry!" Dairy blurted.

"Kid, you're a lousy thief." Kail glared at Dairy, then at Loch. "I don't know why the captain insisted you come along. This whole mission, you've stuck out like a sore thumb."

"Hear that, boy?" Straithe asked, leaning in toward Dairy. "You got yourselves involved with some nice customers, haven't you? Oh, they talked nice, but now they turn right against you."

"That's not true," Dairy said hotly. "Don't say that about Captain Loch!"

"Son, I hate to speak evil about the Urujar, gods know some of 'em are decent folk, but a certain type, you can just tell that they're no good." He chuckled.

"Don't
say
that about Captain Loch!" Dairy shouted, heaving at his shackles that chained him to the wall, and Straithe wagged a finger.

"You've got a temper like an Urujar, boy. That's why the Urujar don't make good criminals. Too lazy to work, too hotheaded to steal, 'bout all they're good for is fight—"

"Don't say that about my friends!"
shouted Dairy, and swung.

Three very distinct noises occurred in quick succession.

The first noise was the crunching sound that Guard Captain Straithe made when he hit the far wall.

The second noise was the sound of Iofecyl, Kail's lucky lockpick, ringing like a tuning fork as it flew end over end from Straithe's grasp. The noise ended abruptly when it landed in Kail's outstretched hand.

The third noise was a slow metallic squeak, repeating slowly. It was the chain that had secured Dairy's right fist to the wall, now swinging back and forth while hanging from his still-outstretched arm.

"Hunh," said Kail when Dairy's dangling chain stopped squeaking.

"I'm sorry," Dairy said softly.

"Don't worry about it, Dairy." Loch looked at Guard Captain Straithe. "You're doingfine."

Kail got to work on his shackles. "You didn't think I
meant
all that, did you? I was trying to create a distraction. Any time I start yelling, assume I'm just making noise, okay?"

Loch gave him a wry look. "In fact, any time Kail opens his mouth, just assume that."

"But it
was
my fault," Dairy insisted, tugging at the chain that still secured his left arm to the wall. "If I hadn't dropped your pick, the captain would have left."

The cell door opened. Kail palmed Iofecyl. Dairy, showing amazingly quick thinking, raised his right arm so that casual observation would still show him as being chained to the wall. By the grace of the gods, Captain Straithe had landed directly behind where the door opened, so that when the guard stepped inside, he didn't immediately see the man.

"Captain, I'm..." He broke off in confusion. "That's odd. Captain Straithe said he'd be here." Any minute now, Loch thought, he was going to look behind him.

"He had to take care of something," Loch breathed throatily and channeled her sister, who had always daydreamed of seducing young knights while Loch herself was asking the young knights to show her how to swing a sword. "But while you're here, could I just
beg
for some assistance?" She lifted her arms higher than was absolutely necessary.

The guard licked his lips. He stared deep into her eyes, and then he stared a bit lower than that. Kail began quietly working on his shackles again. "W-what do you need?" the guard asked.

"Well, this cell is so
hot,"
Loch breathed, "and Captain Straithe wouldn't let me take
anything
off, and I've started to sweat. There's this one drop of sweat that started at the side of my throat..." She arched her neck. "...and it's
sl0000wly
trickling down to my collarbone..." She rolled her shoulders a little. "...and just making its way down between my... well..." She smiled. "It's just
intolerable,
and if you could just dab me dry, well..." She gave him a sultry half-lidded gaze. "...you'd be my
hero."

"Uhm," said the guard, and fumbled in his pocket for a cloth. "I've got, um, a rag, um."

"Oh, I'm not picky." Loch smiled. "You can use
anything you like
to get it off."

"Uhm," said the guard again.

"Man," said Kail, "that look you've got right now? That must be how I looked with your mother last night." He cold-cocked the hapless guard, who would, upon waking up, spend the rest of his life pondering those few seconds, sometimes paying great sums of money to recreate the experience in local pleasure-houses.

"That's lovely, Kail." Loch held out her hands meaningfully. "Today?"

"Working, working. Nice distraction, Captain. Kid, close your mouth." Kail went through Straithe's pockets and came up with a set of keys. In short order, Loch and Dairy were both free. "If we can get the plan back on track, I believe I'm due for some shouting and running. Captain?"

"Go to it, Kail." Loch dragged Straithe and the guard out of sight from the door, then gestured. "I'll be ably defended by my attendant here if anything else goes wrong."

Kail grinned. Then he stepped out into the hallway, shouted, "You'll never take me alive, you bastards!", and started running.

Loch and Dairy waited for a moment while a number of booted feet thundered past.

"I'm sorry," Dairy said again.

"Kid," Loch said, "no plan goes perfectly. If you hadn't dropped that pick, that other guard would've shown up before we were ready. The whole plan would have been blown at that point."

Dairy frowned. "So... what does that mean?"

"It means that the plan is going well. And if you need to punch your way free of any shackles, go ahead."

He blushed. "It was just loose, I think, Captain Loch. Nobody could pull a chain out of the wall."

"Then just keep getting loose chains, kid." Loch smiled. "You're my lucky charm."

The brigand in the inner palace had led the guards on a lively chase, picking corridors and servant's hallways almost as if he had studied the palace layout. Finally, when half the normal guards and a few of those sullen, silent guards who patrolled the high-security areas were after him, the brigand found himself surrounded outside a sitting room in the eastern wing. A pair of the vicious guards, the ones who didn't talk to anyone but each other, had been stationed outside the room, and they drew their weapons as soon as he arrived.