The Warlord's Legacy (42 page)

Corvis turned, first toward Seilloah at his feet, then Irrial behind him. The baroness shrugged, while the cat merely flicked her tail.

‘
You’ve
really
got a way with women, haven’t you? No wonder you can’t seem to keep one.
’ Corvis would, in that moment, have gladly drilled an awl through his own temple if it meant digging out that
damn voice
.

“So what are we thinking, then?” Irrial asked. “Is the whole thing a Cephiran operation? To what end?”

“Distraction,” Seilloah suggested. “Something to keep the Guilds and the nobles from countering their invasion?”

“Maybe.” Corvis didn’t sound convinced. “It seems awfully convoluted, if that’s all it is, though.”

Ellowaine leaned forward, so much as the ropes would allow. “You’re talking about the murders. It wasn’t you, was it?”

Again they glanced at one another, then Corvis nodded.

“I thought so. I couldn’t imagine what you’d have to gain. Now I understand.”

“And does it bother you?” the baroness demanded. “Knowing that you provided information that led to the murder of innocents?”

“Why would it?” the mercenary asked, her tone philosophical. “I’m a soldier; I kill. The Cephirans offered me work when nobody else would—thanks to
him.
” She actually smiled at Irrial. “Whatever he’s promised you for your help, lady, I’d suggest you count it in advance.”

“No,” Corvis said, only half listening. “Think of where the murders occurred, the fact that they targeted so many of the people connected to me.”

Seilloah nodded, her whiskered snout wrinkling. “If the Cephirans could get into the Hall of Meeting like that, they wouldn’t
need
this sort of deception. They could just take the government down and be done with it.”

“They’d have to have Imphallian operatives, then.”

“No,” Irrial said slowly. “Not operatives.
Co-conspirators
. This feels very much like a political maneuver, albeit a bloody one.”

And then she and Corvis turned to each other, the understanding that dawned on their features enough to light up the room.

“Yarrick,” they both said at once.

“He wasn’t just a collaborator,” Corvis continued. “He was a
part
of this—whatever this is.”

Even Ellowaine appeared to have gotten sucked into the discussion. “If you’re right,” she said, “if there is some sort of cross-border conspiracy, it couldn’t just be a local Guildsman, no matter how potent. It’d have to go a lot higher.”

“So what would the Guilds have to gain,” Seilloah mused, “by cooperating with a Cephiran invasion?”

“Not
all
the Guilds,” Corvis interjected. “I’m starting to think that’s what some of these murders were about: Silence anyone who knows about what’s going on but isn’t willing to go along with it.”

“And in the process,” Ellowaine said, “provide a distraction in the form of the vicious ‘Terror of the East.’ Actually pretty neat, when you think about it.” Then, at their expressions, “I know less about this than you do. I’m just speculating.”

“And why,” Corvis said, dark, suddenly suspicious, “might that be?”

The chair creaked as she shrugged. “Something to do while you’ve got me stuck here.”

“I don’t think so.” Fists and jaw clenched as one. “You’re
stalling.
”

Seilloah bounded to the window, peering between the uneven boards. “There’s a squad of soldiers clearing people off the street!” she hissed.

Ellowaine smiled brightly beneath their withering glares. “Oops,” she said.

“I can see the spell,” Seilloah whispered, studying their prisoner, “now that I know to look. Someone’s been watching us through her, Corvis. They’ve known we were here since she opened her eyes. Arhylla damn it all, I
thought
I felt something! I should’ve made sure …”

Corvis nodded bleakly. “Let’s get the hell out of here before they’ve finished assembling, then.”

“We’re not just going to leave her, are we?” Irrial demanded. Corvis actually flinched, startled at the bloodlust in the baroness’s tone—until it struck him just how she must feel about an Imphallian siding with Rahariem’s oppressors.

It was, however, a moot point. Even as he considered Ellowaine, still uncertain as to what he’d do with her, she rose from the chair. Shredded ropes fell from about her chafed wrists, and Corvis saw just a glimpse of a second needle clutched in one fist.

And as clearly as if she’d explained it to him, he understood.
Of course. One in each braid
.

He lunged, but she was already moving. Blood welled up beneath the ropes that wrapped her calves, but the chair legs snapped as she twisted. With her captors mere inches behind, she hit the boarded window at a dead sprint. Corvis was certain that some of the snapping he heard must have been bone as well as wood, but it didn’t stop her. He watched, his lopsided expression settling somewhere between enraged and impressed, as she landed in a shower of splinters, rolled awkwardly across the street, and limped into the nearest alley, dragging a clearly broken leg behind. Just before vanishing into the shadows, she paused long enough to cast an obscene gesture back at the shattered window.

“Can we go after her?” Irrial asked.

“Not unless you want to face the entire Cephiran invasion force on our way out of here. If we leave now,” he added with a sickly grin, “we’ll probably only have to dodge about half of it.”

“Where are we going?” Seilloah asked, leaping into Corvis’s arms as he headed for the flimsy stairs.

“For now, anywhere that’s not here. After that?” He shrugged, checking his headlong dash just enough to prevent the stairs from collapsing beneath him. “If this conspiracy really does involve some of the Guilds, we’ll have to go to them to find out, won’t we?”

“Not Mecepheum again!” Irrial protested.

“Unless we come up with a better idea.” He hit the ground floor and began to run, hoping they could clear the street, hoping they could reach the horses, and the gate …

Hoping against hope that they could, indeed, come up with a better idea.

J
ASSION CROSSED THE ENTRYWAY
at a deliberate pace, Talon at the ready. The thick carpeting muffled any incidental sounds he might have made, while the sundry tapestries, drapes, and patterns hanging on every available inch of wall throttled to death any potential echoes. Across the room and perhaps two strides back, Mellorin crept in a low crouch, heavy dagger clutched in her fist, a fearsome anticipation writ large on her face.

And behind them, emitting frustrated sighs like a depressed bellows and making no effort at stealth whatsoever, Kaleb followed.

“I’m telling you,” he said, giving Jassion a violent start just as the baron had been reaching for the knob on the room’s far door, “he’s not here.”

Jassion glared, and even Mellorin couldn’t help but cast the sorcerer an exasperated look. “Will you
be quiet
?” the baron hissed.

“I rather doubt it. I haven’t so far.”

“Kaleb …,” Mellorin began, then visibly flinched, wilting at the sorcerer’s glare.

They’d been passing through Vorringar when they heard the rumors: muttered tales that Rebaine had targeted the Weavers’ Guild of Kevrireun for his latest rampage. Not merely the local Guildmistress, but most of her lieutenants, had been slaughtered in a quartet of
vicious attacks—three by axe, one when his entire bedchamber was engulfed in roaring flames. And several times, those rumors claimed, passersby had spotted a towering figure in black-and-bone, lurking nearby immediately after the carnage.

It was—Jassion had been utterly convinced—the break they were waiting for. “People wouldn’t just make up stories like this,” he’d insisted. “One murder, perhaps, but
four
?” Even Kaleb’s failure to detect Rebaine’s presence using Mellorin as a focus for his spell hadn’t convinced him otherwise.

“Isn’t it possible,” the baron had asked, “that he’s found a way to block your ‘blood divination’ even once you’ve gotten close?”

“With
his
mastery of magic? I seriously doubt it.”

“But it can be done?”

“Anything
can
be—”

“Then we go.”

So they’d gone, traveling several days to the small and slowly dying city of Kevrireun. Missing stones marred the uneven streets; the buildings peeled and sagged like rotting fruit. Carelessly throwing both money and rank around him, Jassion either bribed or cowed witnesses, guards, even government officials into providing every detail of the murders.

Yes, m’lord, Rebaine had been spotted at two of the scenes
.

No, sir, he’d never attacked his victims in large groups
.

Yes, the victims were all members of the Weavers’ Guild
.

Most of the remaining Guildsmen were now barricaded in their homes, protected by Kevrireun’s ragtag militia. Embran Laphert, now the highest-ranking survivor, had closed down the Guildhouse and told everyone to go home—or into hiding—until further notice.

Despite Kaleb’s continual protestations, Jassion had determined that investigating the Guildhouse itself was their next step. “Perhaps,” he’d argued, “we can find some hint as to why Rebaine chose these poor fools as his latest targets.” Mellorin, though not so quick to dismiss Kaleb’s arguments, was sufficiently swept up in her uncle’s enthusiasm. Once she’d agreed to go, the sorcerer had grudgingly followed.

Now they stood within the foyer of the Weavers’ Guild Hall, one of the few such institutions left in Kevrireun. Jassion once more reached
for the door, hurling it open and dashing into the hallway beyond. Kaleb irritably circled the room, examining the various tapestries—
Mount Derattus doesn’t actually look like that
, he noted while passing one particular landscape.

He knew damn well that these murders weren’t part of the pattern, no matter
what
the witnesses claimed to have seen. But how to convince the simpleton and the brat without explaining
how
he knew,
that
had so far eluded him. Nor was the summons that had been ringing in the confines of his own skull for the past ten minutes, deafening as any church bell, making it any easier to think.

He expected this sort of nonsense from Jassion, but that Mellorin had gone along with it, had refused to heed his words … His fists trembled in frustrated fury, and the nearest tapestry actually began to smolder around the edges. Seething, his thoughts darker than the armor for which they searched, Kaleb moved to catch up with the others.

Their exploration took them through workrooms replete with looms and spinning wheels of every conceivable design, including some that hadn’t seen regular use for centuries. Up thickly carpeted stairs they trod, through heavily locked chambers containing a fortune in textiles and rare yarns and intricately woven garb, and finally into a hallway of opulent offices.

It was here that Jassion insisted they split up, each searching an office for anything even remotely useful. The sorcerer welcomed the opportunity for solitude, however brief, partly to avoid speaking with the baron whose obstinacy was driving him inexorably mad …

And partly because it finally offered the chance to silence that damn summons, even if it meant turning his attentions toward a
different
idiot.

Kaleb slipped into one of the chambers, garishly decorated with an array of mismatched stitchings, and slumped into the thickly upholstered chair behind the desk. “What?” he rasped under his breath.

“
Gods damn it all, Kaleb! I’ve been trying to make contact!
”

“I’m very well aware—Master Nenavar,” he added quickly, as he felt the first stirrings of pain rack his body.

“
I am not accustomed to being ignored.
”

“We can work on that.” Then, before the old coot could grow even
more irritated, “I was with the others. Couldn’t get away. Jassion’s a bit dense, but I think even
he
might notice if I started to talking to myself.”

Nenavar remained silent. Kaleb leaned back in the chair and propped his feet up on the desk.

“I assume you had some reason for contacting me other than just wanting to yell at me?”

“
We’ve found him.
”

Kaleb’s feet hit the floor with a resounding
thud;
he was out of the chair before the echo faded. “
What
? Where?”

“
He triggered the ward that I ordered placed on Ellowaine. Apparently he finally figured out that she was our initial source of intelligence on him.
”

“He’s in Emdimir, then?”

“
No. Nearby, though.
” Kaleb heard the accustomed exasperation in the old voice, but for once it wasn’t directed his way. “
It took the Cephiran sorceress who’d been scrying on Ellowaine over an
hour
to reach me. Godsdamn incompetents. I told Rhykus to let
me
cast the spell, but no, it
had
to be one of his people. Military paranoia at its finest
.

“
Anyway, the Cephirans are dogging his heels, and even if he enchants the horses again, there’s a limit to how far he can push them. We should be able to maintain at least a general idea of his location. Be ready to move swiftly to intercept; I’ll get back to you when we’re certain which way he’s heading.
”

Kaleb nodded, though he knew Nenavar couldn’t see him. “And what would you like me to tell Baron Tantrum and She-Rebaine?”

But there was no answer. Nenavar’s presence was gone from his head.

No worries. He’d find something.