Death Comes To All (Book 1) (22 page)

"Silus,
is there somewhere we can go to talk in private," Malik asked
unexpectedly. "I don't mean you any harm. I'm unarmed. I only
want to ask you a few quick questions."

"Why
should I want to talk with you?"

"I
met a man on the road the other day. He was a merchant; said his name
was Carn. He suggested I should talk with you."

"I
never heard of that name," Silus answered.

"I
would have been surprised if you had," Malik said casually.
"Still, whatever his business was, it has nothing to do with
what I wanted to discuss with you. It will only take a moment of your
time.”

Roland
looked at his friend, but decided to stay silent. Nothing Malik had
just said made even a little bit of sense. When Silus asked the
reason he gave one a useless one, then turned right around and said
that his answer had nothing to do with what he really had to discuss.
He never actually gave any reason at all!

The
bartender appeared thoughtful for a moment. "Fine," He said
finally. "I can spare a few minutes. There's an office in the
back where we can go and talk."

He
turned and headed back toward the kitchens without another word.

"Be
careful not to do anything to give yourself away if you talk to the
girl before I get back Roland, and try not to stick your foot quite
so far into your mouth. Just a suggestion." Malik cautioned,
then followed Silus to disappear beyond the kitchen.

Malik
followed Silus passed the kitchens to a small room just beyond it.

The
kitchens are empty now,
he realized. He hadn't noticed that the
inn had stopped serving meals altogether and was now only serving
drinks.

I
will have to be quick. There are not many customers, but Silus will
be missed if he’s gone for too long.

"So
what is it that you thought was so important that you had to take me
away from my work?" the bartender asked sourly. “I’m
guessing that you don’t want your companions to know what you
wanted to talk to me about. I hope you’re not planning on just
wasting my time. I don’t have time to waste.”

Obviously
not an overly pleasant man,
Malik thought to himself.

"When
Tammie was telling us about her past she mentioned that her mother
remarried," he said, going right to the point. "I thought
it strange that her mother didn't believe her when she told her what
the man had done. Also she said that the authorities wouldn't do
anything to help her. I can see that you care for the girl. I'm
hoping you might be able to tell me a little more about it. Was she
telling us the truth?"

"What
does that have to do with some merchant you met on the road?"
Silus asked, clearly annoyed.

There’s
no distracting this guy.

"Nothing
at all," Malik replied quickly. "I mentioned him so that
the others wouldn't know what I really wanted to talk to you about. I
have my own reasons for wanting to know about what happened to
Tammie. So was she telling the truth? I mean, was she right about the
authorities refusing to help her?"

“
Why
should I tell you anything?”

“
I’m
hoping that I might somehow be able to help,” Malik answered.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do mind
you, but if I know the whole story there’s a chance I might be
able to do something. I know a few influential people.”

Silus
looked at him squarely, as if trying to decide if Malik was really
telling the truth or not. Finally he sighed.

"Well,
there’s no harm in telling you,” he decided at last. “You
could find out most of it from a dozen other people anyway. It
doesn’t matter who you know though, there’s nothing you
can do to help her. She was telling you the truth, to the best of her
knowledge at least. When she first came here I looked into it myself.
Her mother did believe her, but she couldn't do anything about it.
The man she married was Thorin Sloan. He's a mid-level mage who
wouldn't be worth anything on his own, but he's the right hand man of
Bloodheart, the mage that runs this city.

“
More
accurately, he does most of Bloodheart's dirty work, or that’s
the rumor anyway. He could get away with anything, and anyone who
tries to touch him will wind up in a prison cell, or worse. He would
come after Tammie too, if he thought she was any sort of a threat. We
thought he was going to send someone after her anyway, just for
trying to get away from him.

“
He
would have gotten away with that too. Bloodheart doesn't care what
happens to the rest of us as long as he gets his money. Most of his
money is from taxes, but there is plenty of less honest means that
his men employ to get his money for him. It's those funds that Sloan
gathers for him. Sacrificing the happiness of one small girl to keep
Sloan happy is certainly to Bloodheart's benefit, and the bastard
probably couldn't care less."

"Why
didn't you tell her the truth?"

"I
didn't have the heart to," Silus admitted. "Her mother is
just as trapped now as Tammie was before she ran away. The only thing
telling her would do is make her angry about what that creep is doing
to her mother. She wouldn't be able to do anything about it, so why
open old wounds? She's been here with us for five years already, and
it took her most of that time to put what had happened behind her.
Sometimes it's best to leave the past exactly where it is; in the
past."

"And
sometimes it comes back to haunt you," Malik mumbled in reply.

"What
was that?" Silus asked with a sharp look.

"Nothing,"
Malik answered quickly. "We should get back out there before you
are missed."

"That's
all you needed to talk about then?"

Malik
nodded.
That’s all I need to know.

The
two men walked back out through the kitchen, separating right after
they walked through the door. There didn't seem to be anything he was
needed for at the moment, so Silus headed to his position behind the
bar. Malik went back to his table, where Tammie was once again
sitting where she had been before, with her arm once again draped
over Roland's shoulders.

"They
both spent over a minute apologizing to each other right after you
left," Tara whispered into his ear as he sat down next to her.
Her voice tingled with amusement. "I'm starting to think that
she's almost as awkward when dealing with the opposite sex as he is,
though she's certainly not shy. I could watch this all night if they
would let me. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while."

"Tomorrow
we'll be splitting up after a bit,” he told her, completely
ignoring his friend's tasteless sense of humor. While he was often
guilty of the same sort of thoughts, Roland was as close to a friend
as the two had outside of each other for far too long. He didn't like
taking pleasure in his companions distress, even over something as
trivial as a woman's affections.

“
I
have something I want to take care of with Roland. Just the two of
us. Don't worry, I'm sure we can handle things well enough. I'll need
you to come back here and get our things ready to leave at a moment's
notice if we need to. I don't think it will be necessary, but I want
to be prepared just in case."

"Are
you expecting some sort of trouble?"

"I
hope so," he answered with a wolfish grin. "We'll finish
our shopping first, then I want to look into this little problem I
noticed earlier. I'll split with you after the shopping, and I'll let
you know when we get back whether we can stay another night or not.
Don't mention it to Roland. I'll tell him when he needs to know about
it."

Tara
didn't seem happy about being left out of whatever he had planned,
particularly when he was being so cryptic about it, but she knew
better than to ask. Malik would tell her everything he thought she
needed to know, and nothing more. She knew that he could take care of
himself in nearly any situation. If he couldn't handle it, than it
was unlikely she would be able to do much to help.

He
handed her a small, black leather bag that jingled softly. "Pick
us up some dried food on the way back, anything that will keep for a
decent length of time. Depending on how things go tomorrow we might
have to winter in the Hut. Pay more attention to those things that
Roland can eat. You and I can always hunt for more food, but he
doesn't have that option. There won't be much for him once winter
sets in fully. Get us a pack horse. We won't be able to carry
everything we need for the entire winter."

"Are
we really going to need that much?" The packs they normally used
not only carried far more than they appeared to, but also greatly
reduced the weight of whatever was put inside. They almost never
needed more space than what those packs provided. For the two of
them, using a pack horse was almost unheard of.

"He
wants to be trained, to be one of us. I can't think of a better place
than the Hut to go for that training. The horse isn't just for
carrying the packs. It's also a way for us to travel the south road
freely without as many questions. Most of our things we should put
into regular packs to keep up appearances, and we'll need a horse for
that. We won't have to worry as much about appearances once we reach
the Hut. No one will bother us there."

"That's
because no one else wants to go anywhere near there at any time of
year, let alone during the winter," Tara retorted.

"We're
going to have to head up to our rooms," Malik said, ignoring
Tara's barbed comment. "Would you like to do the honors and
inform Roland that it's time for him to leave his friend behind?"

"I'll
leave that up to you," she said lightly. "He only just
managed to get her to come back. I'm not going to be the one to tell
him he has to leave now."

"Wonderful,"
he said sarcastically. "Just remember that the next time you
want me to do something distasteful."

Raising
his voice he informed his companion that it was time for them to
retire. While the sorvinian man knew that he wouldn't be able to
stay, he was still reluctant to leave. Tammie seemed more inclined to
understand the need.

"It's
alright," she said with a bright smile. "We'll still see
each other tomorrow night. I'll be counting the minutes until then."
She leaned over an kissed him hard on the mouth. The kiss lasted only
a few seconds, but to Roland it felt like it would never end. It was
the first time a woman had kissed him, aside from his mother, who
didn't really count. When it finally did end it was all too soon.

"Goodnight,"
she whispered, and skipped away before he had the chance to reply.

Chapter
Eight

The
three companions woke and were out of the inn before the sun had
crested the eastern horizon, finding the streets to be dim but
visible in the predawn light. It was still a bit too dark for Roland
to read the small street signs at each corner they came to, though it
wouldn't have mattered if he could have. He had no idea really where
they were going, and he didn’t know the roads anyway. He
unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn and continued to follow Malik,
who led the way.

His
dreams had been filled with fantasies of the waitress, Tammie, who
had inflamed his heart in ways he never thought possible.

Well
maybe not my heart,
he corrected,
but she had certainly
inflamed something.

It
wasn't love, he knew that. He wasn't foolish enough to really believe
that he could have fallen in love with the girl in only one night,
cut far too short for either of their liking.

She
was, however, the first woman to show even the slightest interest in
him, and she was the first girl he had ever kissed. Even if they
never saw each other again, that alone would give her a place in his
heart forever. He knew that by choosing to stay with Malik and Tara
he had also chosen to leave Tammie behind, but a part of him still
hoped that someday he could return.

He
found himself daydreaming of her as he walked a few steps behind
Malik. Tara followed a few steps behind him, occasionally giving him
a nudge when he started to lag too far behind. He knew what she was
thinking. She thought he was acting like a love sick puppy. Only one
thing kept him from feeling angry or upset. He knew she was right.

The
sun had only just risen, little more than a bright wedge over the
wall too far in the east for any of them to see, when Malik turned
down a street packed with merchants booths. Most of them were still
closed, all of the merchandise either covered with tarps or boarded
up in false walled rooms. Unlike most of this city, several of the
merchants seemed to be selling their wares on the street, reminding
Roland of Port Dayton more than it did the little of this city he had
seen. Malik passed several shops quickly, not giving the slightest
attention to the clothing shop, the herbalist, or the glassblower
they left behind them.

He
finally stopped at a shop with a sign above it that read Baldor's
Swords and Cutlery. Underneath the words was a hand-drawn picture of
two swords crossing each other, for those people who could not read
and write. A huge canis was just bringing out a load of blank
shields, little more than shaped sheets of steel without any sort of
insignia on them. Roland was thankful that the shop was faced away
from the rising sun. The bright steel would certainly have caught the
sun and blinded him had the light been able to reach it.