Fallen Ward (Deepwoods Saga Book 3) (28 page)

Alexander came around the corner, a box of scrap lumber in his hands. He was in charge of hauling away the debris, keeping the area clear so the rest of them could work without having to stop and sweep up. When he saw her fixed attention, he slowed to stand next to her, also looking up. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

Siobhan let out a low growl. “If even a boy with limited building experience can see that, why can’t two full-grown men?”

“Can’t tell you,” Alexander answered cheekily.

Oh? That was the first natural response she had heard from him. Glancing down, she found him watching the men up top. Siobhan had tasked him with Beirly the first few days, and the influence showed, as Alexander sometimes said smart remarks now or used phrases that Beirly did.

His head cocked as something occurred to him and he asked, “Did you tell them to stop?”

“Yes,” she groaned. “But they’re not listening to me. They say they’re almost done, it’s a waste to get down and move the scaffold over.”

Alexander got that perplexed look on his face he often wore around her, as if she had said something incomprehensible. “But you are their guildmaster.”

“They don’t blindly obey me, Alexander,” she explained with forced patience. “No one in this guild does. If I tell them to do something, but they feel like they have a better idea or a different way to go about it, they’ll do that instead. Unless it’s really serious, that is, or dangerous. Then they
do
listen to me.”

“But shouldn’t they always listen to you?”

“In theory. But I’m just as glad they don’t. Sometimes they have better ideas than I do.” She turned a glare on the two still diligently working on top. “And sometimes they don’t.”

“But you won’t stop them?”

“It’s their own fool necks they’re putting in danger.” Siobhan had come to that conclusion years ago, and it was the only way to make peace with herself when they did get hurt. It was entirely their own fault if they broke a bone, as she’d told them better, and they should have known even without her telling them. If they chose to keep doing stupid things, it wasn’t her fault.

Alexander puzzled this out for a long moment. “Markl said before that good leaders don’t tell people exactly what to do. He said, they tell their followers what needs to be done, and let them figure out how.”

Siobhan’s eyebrows arched. They had talked about leadership qualities? When had that happened? “Is that right.”

“He also said you do that. You tell people what you want done, but not how.”

“Often, they know more about how to go about it than I do, y’see.”

“But what if it’s wrong?” Alexander persisted. He couldn’t seem to let this point go.

“Oh, if there’s danger involved, I’ll warn them. Or if there’s something that I want them to avoid doing, I’ll tell them. I’m not sending them off
blind
, kid. But these aren’t greenhorns that are wet behind the ears. My people are veterans in their field. They have a good decade of experience doing their jobs. I don’t have to dictate every little thing to them. Half the time, I don’t even have to give an order. They know what needs to be done, and they go about it on their own.”

Alexander frowned, not disagreeing, but trying to reconcile what she was telling him with what Markl had said. Or so she gathered from that scrunched up nose of his. Trying to sort him out, she expanded, “Alexander, I don’t know what all Markl said to you. Seems like he gave you good advice, from what you’re reciting to me. But I’ll add this in, and take it as you will: a good leader should trust his people. If you feel like you have to dictate every little thing to someone, then he isn’t to be trusted with the job in the first place. Give the job to someone you can trust to do it, do it right, and not be rode herd on. A man that will do a slovenly job as soon as his guildmaster is away is not a man to be trusted.”

That seemed to click in his head as his face smoothed out and he went back to watching the idiots up on the scaffold.

Siobhan kept her eyes on him for a moment more. Markl had mentioned talking in depth to Alexander yesterday but she hadn’t known what about. These questions he was asking them showed an amazing amount of growth on his part. Siobhan had been afraid they’d traumatized the kid with their ghost-ing, but apparently he was made of sterner stuff than that. He’d come back to Goldschmidt as a quieter, more thoughtful child, who was now trying to learn. The questions he aimed at them were often random, with no connection to something he asked before, but he never repeated himself. If he was told an answer, he retained it.

If they could somehow train that intelligent mind, he’d prove to be a formidable guildmaster. But that was Cha Ji An’s job, if she chose to take it on. Speaking of, where was that woman? Siobhan had been given the impression that Cha Ji An was tying up some loose ends in Winziane and Converse before coming, but that was three days ago. Whatever had she been caught up in—

“What?” Wolf yelled. “I can’t hear you, what?”

His voice snapped her attention back to the present and her head jerked up sharply.

It was one of those moments where things played out in slow motion, and even though she could see the inevitable ending, there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it. Wolf, distracted by a question from someone below, had leaned his body out and away from the scaffold, trying to hear better. Of course, doing that shifted his weight on the board holding Tran, just enough that the board went skittering sideways and then down.

Tran, caught by surprise, yelped as the board simply disappeared from underneath his boots. He went straight down, arms above his head, falling eight feet until he made a spectacular
crash
against the boards stacked underneath. With one end of the board going down, the other one automatically came up, and caught Wolf just underneath the chin. He grunted at the impact and flipped sideways, landing nose-first into the side of the building.

Siobhan was running before Tran hit the ground. She hadn’t been far to begin with, and she covered the distance between them in a second. It was just as well she was close, for the board wasn’t done yet. Free from any weight or restraints, it came toppling down, spinning in a corkscrew fashion as it went. She had just enough time to unsheathe a sword before the board appeared right over her head. Teeth bared, she struck it with the flat of her sword and threw it to the side before it could land on top of her and Tran.

It bounced with a hollow sound against the cobblestones before spinning several feet and fetching against the far wall.

Breathing hard, she demanded frantically, “ERIK?!”

“Fine,” he choked back, sounding stuffed. “I thinkh I bwoke my nose. But fine.”

Good enough for now. Spinning on her heels, she dropped down to one knee, reaching for Tran. “Tran? How badly are you hurt?”

He looked back at her in a daze, the fall just now catching up with him. “I’m…fine?”

His lack of confidence did nothing to reassure her. “Alexander, get Conli,” she snapped.

Alexander jerked out a nod before dropping everything in his hands and running as fast as his little legs could carry him, calling for Conli as he went.

Siobhan dropped her sword and reached for Tran with both hands, checking for anything broken. Aside from some major bruising and a gash on his back, she couldn’t find any real injuries.

Conli came around the corner at a dead run, his black bag in hand. “Who’s hurt?”

“Tran and Wolf, Tran is worse off I think,” she answered quickly. Leaving Conli to deal with Tran, she scrambled back to her feet and went for her lover. “Wolf?”

He was already climbing down, awkwardly, as climbing anything with only one good hand was somewhat of a challenge. He thumped the last foot to the ground without any trouble but when he turned to look at her, she saw that his nose was gushing blood and already swelling and discoloring. If he hadn’t broken it, it was likely very bruised. Swearing, she grabbed a handkerchief from her pocket and reached up, stemming the tide.

“Here, sit, tilt your head back a little. We’ve got to get this stopped.”

“Ow, Siobhan, owowowow, gently. I thold you, I thinkh iths bwoken,” Wolf protested, sounding even more stuffed up now with a handkerchief blocking his nose.

“It’s a miracle that’s all that happened,” she snarled. “Why do you two idiots always do this to me? I tell you something’s dangerous, it’s a bad idea, and you don’t listen and then you get hurt, and then
I
somehow end up with bloodstains on my clothes!”

Conli reported to her as he worked, “Tran’s got some beautiful bruises developing, and I think he wrenched his knee, so he’ll need to stay off of that for a few days, but he’ll heal.”

“Good.” Not that she wasn’t tempted to kill both of them later, but she was relieved they’d managed to get through this stunt with minor injuries. “Now, what did we learn from this?”

“Next time, move the scaffold?” Tran offered ingeniously.

“No,” Alexander corrected, voice sounding as if he were trying not to laugh, “listen to your guildmaster.”

“At least one of you gets it,” Siobhan snarked. “Alexander, do the world a favor, don’t become like these two. I’m not sure we can handle more than two.”

Wolf seemed to realize that her words were mere camouflage for hiding her relief, as he snaked an arm around her waist and cuddled her in closer. “And yeth you’re dhathing one of them. Whath thath say abouth you, eh?”

“That I’m a glutton for punishment,” she drawled back, not blinking an eye.

Tran roared with laughter. Even Conli chuckled.

Beirly came around the other end of the building, demanding, “What is going on over here? Did I hear something fall?”

“That’d be me,” Tran answered, raising a hand.

“
You
fell?” Beirly demanded, voice rising.

“Beirly,” Siobhan fixed him with a look a basilisk would envy, “these two are not to work together. Have I not made this clear?”

He gulped nervously. “Ah, sorry?”

“Tran’s not to work at all, not for the next few days. He needs to stay off this knee,” Conli interjected.

“What am I supposed to do sitting around all day?” Tran objected. He hated the idea of not being in motion and was the worst patient out of the entire guild.

“You should have thought of that before doing stupid stunts,” Conli retorted, not the least bit sympathetic. “Beirly, give me a hand.”

Glad to escape the potential tongue lashing from Siobhan, Beirly scooted around her and Wolf and went immediately to help carry Tran away.

Alexander watched them go before asking, “Is rebuilding things always this dangerous?”

Siobhan just sighed.

Cha Ji An came in like a whirlwind, speaking before she was even in sight. “Siobhan-jia, are you here?”

Siobhan looked up from her position on the floor. She had been laying down the new wood floor with Beirly most of the morning, but they only had one corner of the room done. Her knees and lower back were killing her and she was glad for any excuse that would get her off the floor. “I’m here. Welcome, Cha Ji An-jia.”

Cha Ji An, usually one of the most polite people in the world, skipped the pleasantries and went directly to business. “Do you not know of what has happened?”

“The way you are asking that question makes me feel like I should be sitting down.”

“You should,” Cha Ji An agreed but she did not pause long enough to give Siobhan a chance to do so. “Fallen Ward has somehow ascertained that their guildmaster is here.”

“Well, that only took them three weeks.”

Cha Ji An’s head pulled back like a startled bird’s. “You are not surprised?”

“Not really,” Siobhan admitted. “We have been taking Alexander everywhere in the city and while we haven’t told people who he is, it wouldn’t take long for them to figure it out. Especially after those first few days when he was shouting his full name at people and demanding they obey him. I more or less expected Fallen Ward to learn that he was here quickly.”

Cha Ji An’s flustered energy stilled. She had expected a panic when bringing this news and not Siobhan’s calm rationale. “If you knew that, why did you expose him to the public so readily?”