Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) (26 page)

“That’s a little vague, y’know.”

“Hmm, it is, isn’t it? For you, at least. Alright, when he’s in danger of life or limb.”

That guideline he could follow. He heard it when Alexander left the inn and started up the street. Rune turned his head just enough to follow the boy’s movements. If they could be called that. He was dragging his feet so much that the toes would be worn through by the time he got to the paint store.

Siobhan put her back to both of them, heading for the guildhall. “You know where to find me if things go really wrong.”

What could possibly go wrong? Really wrong, that was. Rune didn’t expect the kid to obediently fetch the can of paint. Siobhan was right, a blind man could find the store without trouble, but knowing Alexander, he’d find something else more fun to do instead. THAT would be when the trouble would start.

But he knew better than to question her instincts. When it came to people, Siobhan was often more right than wrong. If she thought something would happen to Alexander when he was away from the guild, then it probably would. Rune looked for the nearest foothold, found a chink in the brick on the side of the building, and used it to boost himself up and onto the roof. Once there, he got his bearings, then moved slowly and steadily, keeping pace with his
prey
charge.

It took Alexander all of five minutes to realize that by being sent on this errand, he was out of sight of the guild, and had all of the freedom that entailed. Rune could tell the second that it hit. The boy went from dragging his feet and staring at the ground to head up, face alight, and wagging an invisible tail. Rune snorted. Alright, maybe Siobhan had expected this—if Alexander really did go directly to the store and back, nothing would likely happen. But of course he wouldn’t do that, now that he had the freedom to go anywhere.

Rune found it impossible to predict where Alexander would run off to, though. He’d never had that kind of freedom before, so trying to think back to his own childhood didn’t help. But the last thing that he expected was for Alexander to jog up, over a street, and directly into a bakery that was famous for its sweets.

Hopping from one roof to the next, he found a new perch that let him see into the store windows. “He just had breakfast,” Rune muttered to himself, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It was a
good
breakfast. And he’s going for sweets?” He did not understand ten-year-olds. If Rune had all the freedom in the world, food would not be his first priority.

Alexander made it five steps inside the door and then he just picked things up off the tables and started stuffing them into his mouth. Rune watched this and sighed. Of course. Pampered brat that he was, it wouldn’t occur to him that he would have to
pay
for things.

He had two donuts eaten and was going for a pastry of some sort when the store matron caught up to him. Grabbing him by the collar, she shook him hard, waving an irate finger in his face. From the perplexed expression on Alexander’s face, he hadn’t seen this coming, nor knew how to deal with her. Rune couldn’t hear either of them over the street noise and through the windows, but he didn’t need to hear it to know what was being said.

Lifting his voice in a falsetto, he filled in the missing dialogue, “
See here, you little scamp, you can’t eat things and then not pay for them! Where are your parents or guildmaster?”

Lowering his voice only slightly, he mimicked Alexander, “
I am a guildmaster.”

“Oh is that right. Then, guildmaster, you get to pay for your own bread!”

“But I don’t have money on me.”

“Then who’s responsible for you?”

“No one.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, child. If that’s the way you’ll be, you can work it off.”
Rune grinned evilly when Alexander was hauled to the other end of the room and handed a broom. He probably only had a vague idea of what to do with it. Rune wasn’t about to go down there and help him out, though. Siobhan had been precise in her directions: in danger of life or limb. The store matron wasn’t likely to kill him, or take a hatchet to him, so Alexander would have to get himself out of this fix.

She kept him for over an hour, making him fetch and carry things, sweep up, and even run one errand down the street delivering something for her to another store. Rune watched the whole thing play out, chortling evilly. Stupid kid. If he’d just fetched the paint, as he’d been told, he wouldn’t have had to work this hard. As it stood, he still had the original errand to run on top of it all.

The store matron was eventually satisfied. She drew Alexander aside and gave him a good talking to, no doubt drumming it into his head to pay
first
, then snack, but eventually she let him go. More irritable than he’d been first setting out, Alexander stomped out of the store, returning back to the main street he left, and heading north once again.

Rune had hopes that he’d learned his lesson and was now going to obediently fetch the paint like he’d been told, but Alexander didn’t make it to the next street before something else caught his attention.

At first, Rune couldn’t figure out what it was. Alexander had just stopped dead in the road, his eyes on something to the left, but nothing popped out to Rune. It wasn’t until the boy made a beeline for a group of children gathered near an alley that he realized where the young guildmaster was headed.

Alexander had proven to have atrocious people skills ever since Rune had hauled him out of his guild. Even worse than his own. His survival skills were so low that they were basically nonexistent. But even then, he was apparently drawn to people of his own age.

Again, Rune was just out of earshot, the street level making enough noise that he couldn’t pick up what everyone was saying. But he was getting snatches, a word or three at a time, and he could tell from that puffed up posture of Alexander’s what the kid must be saying. What, he couldn’t order around adults, so he was trying it with children?

Rune closed his eyes at the stupidity of it all.

Of course the kids weren’t going to tolerate some stranger coming up and ordering them about, especially if he were their own age, and it wasn’t long before it got physical. It was nothing more than shoving back and forth, and Rune wasn’t about to interfere with that, because there was no way that scrawny ten-year-olds could pack enough punch to do any real damage. Rune counted it as a good life lesson.

Watching it was educational in its own right, too. “Kid,” he muttered to himself, “you have the fighting prowess of a drowned kitten. What is
wrong
with you? You don’t pick fights that you have no chance of winning. I know I said you don’t have any survival instincts, but still….”

Alexander found some breathing space, enough to back up two paces and scream at the top of his lungs, “I AM GUILDMASTER ALEXANDER ALFRED BERTRAND JONQUILL III, AND YOU WILL NOT TREAT ME LIKE THIS.”

“Oh, that’s the way, scream out your name so that they know you’re an enemy. Brilliant, kid, just brilliant.” Siobhan was right, if the kid couldn’t find trouble, he’d
make
trouble. Rune hated to think that he’d have to intervene to save a brat from other brats, but mercy it was starting to look that way.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement that made his instincts sit up and bellow an alarm. Three grown men had also been listening in on this childish squabble and they had noted that full name. It was half and half odds of them knowing who it actually belonged to—Rune blessed the heavens that Alexander hadn’t screamed out his guild name too—but either way, they recognized a wealthy heir when they saw one. If those three didn’t have ransom on their minds, Rune would eat his boots.

Swearing to himself, he hopped down from the roof and moved to intercept them. What the kids did with Alexander was semi-lost on him, as he focused on the adults instead. They were ten paces from Alexander when Rune stepped into their path. Hands hanging loose at his sides, he met their eyes levelly. “Turn back.”

“Who are you?”

“Think of me as that stupid kid’s bodyguard, if you like.”

All three of them were rough, but didn’t have that murky, cold air about them like dark guildsmen did. Rune put them down as thieves, good ones, and the type to choose their battles. They eyed him up and down, and came to a slow stop, not quite within arm’s reach of him.

Seeing their open hesitation, Rune repeated, “Turn back. Now. And I pretend I don’t see you.”

“Who are you?” the man on his left asked again. But this time, the nuance was different. Not a challenge, but of vague recognition, as if he knew Rune somehow but couldn’t place him.

Their faces didn’t ring any bells with him, but seeing a chance to convince them to quietly go away, Rune answered. “Commander Rune Maley.”

The man in the middle lit up in recognition. “The commander that’s also a Pathmaker?”

“That’s me.”

The only man that hadn’t yet spoken hissed in fear and grabbed his companions by the arms, drawing them back. “He’s a former assassin!” he garbled at his friends. “I’m not tangling with him.”

Oh? Had his reputation spread around the city that much? Rune wasn’t sure whether to be proud of that or not. Either way, the other two apparently agreed, and all three men melted back into the crowd as quietly as they had come.

Never had he thought that using the title Darrens gave him, or saying his name, would make people react like that. Even under his old name, that hadn’t worked. Usually it made people just fight harder or call for reinforcements. Huh. Pleased, Rune turned back to check on Alexander.

Only he wasn’t with the other kids anymore.

Huh? Where did that…oh, there. Rune spotted the head of blond hair moving up the street, weaving in between people. Sighing, he found another foothold in the side of a building and clambered back up to his rooftop perch. As he moved, he studied the kid. A bruise under his eye, but he was moving fine, although there was a dark look to his face and a distinct pout on that mouth of his. In the course of an hour, Alexander had stolen, gotten beat up, and was almost kidnapped for ransom. Rune hated to think what he could manage with
two
hours.

Were all children troublemakers like this?

To Rune’s relief, Alexander had apparently decided that being out alone was not joyful in the least, and he had no desire to try anything else. He went straight to the store, got the paint as ordered, and came promptly back out.

Feeling like he’d better stay closer on the return trip, Rune switched roof tops so that he was directly above Alexander’s head instead of across the street. He watched as Alexander struggled with the paint can, the wooden bucket filling his arms, although it wasn’t so heavy he was in danger of dropping it.

After taking only a few steps, Alexander put the bucket down, face flushed from the exertion. Rune shook his head in pity. Where was the kid’s
stamina
? Paint buckets weren’t that heavy!

Alexander pointed to a man walking nearby and said, “You! Yes, you. Come and carry this bucket for me.”

The man, being an amiable sort, stopped and eyed the kid. “Seems you’re strong enough to carry it on your own.”

“I am a guildmaster, you will do as I say,” Alexander proclaimed at his most haughty.

The man slapped his hand against his thigh and horse laughed him. “A guildmaster, eh! Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll tell the wife about that.” Still laughing, he went on his way.

Alexander stared at the man’s back and growled. “Doesn’t anyone respect a guildmaster in this city?”

“Not one as young as you,” Rune informed the top of his head. His voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard.

Sucking in a huge breath (what for, Rune had no idea), Alexander picked up the bucket and waddled forward. Rune walked apace, watching the kid struggle. Their young guest had no strength, no fighting techniques, a barrel full of arrogance, and the common sense of a fruit fly. Siobhan was supposed to turn this child into a human being worthy of being a guildmaster?

Rune pitied her.

He kept up his shadowing duties until Alexander arrived at Kaye Ruffner’s store. The kid was completely winded and spent by the time he made it. He more or less dropped the bucket and collapsed on top of it, breathing hard. It took several minutes before he found the strength to get up again and fetch Fei.

As soon as Fei had him, Rune felt released from the task of babysitting and went back to working on the guildhall. He didn’t think anything more of Alexander until that night, when he and Fei made it back to the inn.

Fei looked his usual self, although his shirt sleeves were rolled up, which was unusual, and he had smidgeons of green paint still on his hands. Alexander, on the other hand, looked like he had been lifted by his feet and dunked head first into the can.

People looked up from dinner, offering a greeting, only to stop short at seeing Alexander. Tran was the first to laugh out loud at the sight. Alexander’s eyes, the only thing still visible, glared at him.

“What happened?” Siobhan asked Fei in bewilderment.

“He doesn’t know how to paint,” Fei responded, as if that were explanation enough.

“Did you actually get any paint on the building?” Denney asked the boy.

Alexander grumbled something inarticulate.

Tran reached out with a finger and dipped his hand into Alexander’s hair. “Here, you missed a spot.” So saying, he covered the only patch of bare skin left with a flick of the hand. Appreciating his own joke, he sat back and laughed again, the sound rich and full.

Alexander, of course, fumed all the more at the action and stomped for the bathing chambers.

Giving Tran a particularly sweet smile, Siobhan said, “Since you now have paint on you as well, why don’t you go help him wash up?”

Tran stopped laughing abruptly and held up his green finger, nearly wailing, “Just this counts?”

“Go.”

Growling, he pushed back from the table and stalked after Alexander, his boots thumping hard enough to shake the floor.