Rebels and Fools (The Renegade Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

As
the five men left the ship, crossed the docks, and made their way toward the
city proper, Klye looked around, making sure that no one was going to intercept
them from ahead or follow them from behind.

He
tried to remain inconspicuous, not turning his head too often. Then again, he
wasn’t sure if it was possible for them to be anything but suspicious. It
wasn’t as though any other groups of priests were walking the docks.

But
the sailors and workers paid them not the slightest attention. Perhaps Captain
Toeburry had told his men to ignore the monks. More likely, the tired, sweaty
men were concerned only with finishing their work.

Rum
and women were on their minds, not priests.

“Where
to now, Brother Klye?” one of his men asked.

Klye
didn’t answer. Before leaving
Stalwart Mariner
, he had told them to let
him do all of the talking. If anyone posed a question to one of them, Klye
would explain that his fellow monks had taken vows of silence.

“When
Othello told us that someone had seen him, I thought we’d have to fight our way
out for sure,” Plake continued. When neither Klye nor any of the others
replied, Plake muttered something under his breath and kicked a stone.

Klye
surreptitiously studied the faces of the guards they passed, but none of them
gave him or his men a second glance. Bored and underpaid, the pier guards would
act only if the harbor were in obvious danger, Klye supposed.

As
they walked, the wharves and warehouses were gradually replaced by a dozen or
more pubs crammed one right after the other. Judging by the pictures on their
signs and names like Gambler’s Grotto, these establishments were nothing more
than places to drink cheap ale and gamble away one’s pay.

But
Klye could see larger buildings farther down the road, establishments where a
traveler could get a bite to eat as well as find a room for the night. Deciding
one inn was as good as another, he stopped in front of an inn called Oars and
Omens.

“We’ll
stay here,” Klye told his men, “but I want to meet with our contact yet
tonight. Ragellan, you and Horcalus get us two rooms. Use the aliases we agreed
upon.”

Chester
Ragellan nodded and took the small leather purse Klye handed to him. Although
Ragellan, at age forty-four, was the oldest of the group, he did not bristle at
being told what to do by someone almost two decades his junior.

“Othello
and Plake, you will come with me,” Klye continued. “It would probably be easier
if I went alone, but Othello’s eyes may come in handy.” That he personally
wanted to keep an eye on Plake, he did not say aloud.

“I’d
rather see the city than just sit around some inn,” Plake said, flashing a
triumphant smile at Ragellan and Horcalus, who did not respond one way or another.

Glancing
around once more to be sure no one was watching them, Klye told Ragellan, “I’ll
try to be back before the moon is fully risen. If we’re not back before
midmorning tomorrow, you’d best get the hell out of Port Town.”

Klye
turned to leave, but then Ragellan seized him by the shoulder.

Extending
his arm, the knight said, “Good luck, Klye.”

Klye
imitated the friendly gesture, smiled, and said, “I don’t believe in luck.”

Passage II

The
grubby, old innkeeper glared at them. One scrutinizing eye lingered on their
brown robes while the other, which moved independently of the first, roamed
first to the left and then to the right. Finally, he asked, “You ain’t
spell-casters, are ya?”

“No,
good sir,” Ragellan replied. “We are humble servants of Gnuren the Wise. Ours
is the power of knowledge, nothing more.”

Scratching
his balding head, the innkeeper regarded the two monks a while longer. The
errant eye ceased its wayward journey and settled on a point far above the two
monks’ heads. Ragellan imagined the master of Oars and Omens was recalling
everything he had ever heard about wizards.

True,
he and Horcalus wore long robes, but they had neither the pointy hats nor such
notorious oddities as eye of newt or pickled ogre toes on their persons, which
the stories demanded from a proper spell-caster.

Apparently
deciding that the two men lacked the necessary prerequisites of wizardkind, the
innkeeper chuckled—or coughed—and scooped up their coins. He then got up to fetch
the keys to their rooms. When the man returned to the counter a few seconds
later, he dabbed an old, frayed quill into a jar of ink and squinted his good
eye myopically at the page. That other unseeing eye came to rest on the two
monks, which Ragellan found more than a little unnerving.

“What’re
yer names?”

“I
am Brother Wade. This is Brother Armand.” Once the innkeeper had finished with
his meticulous task of scribbling the aliases in his book, Ragellan added,
“Three other monks will be joining us later. Please tell them where we can be
found when they arrive. We will need three extra cots.”

“Two
rooms for five men,” replied the innkeeper, frowning more than ever. “That’ll
cost extra, ya know.”

Ragellan
set another coin on the counter.

The
innkeeper swiped it up with a vein-riddled hand. “I’ll tell yer friends where
to find ya.”

The
man then turned his full attention to the flagon of beer he had been nursing
when they first walked in the door. Interpreting this as a sign their business
was through, Ragellan took the keys from the countertop and wandered into the
common room, which was heavy with the stench of sweat and spilled ale.

The
noise of a poorly trained piper and the shouts of rowdy drinkers accosted their
ears as they squirmed their way through the throng of merrymakers, ignoring the
many stares they got from people who had likely never seen a priest in Oars and
Omens. Or maybe, thought Ragellan, they had never seen a priest at all.

Finally,
he and Horcalus emerged at the far end of the room where a wide stairway
provided the only path up to the next level. While the second floor was far
less boisterous than the one below, they nevertheless had to edge past a
particularly amorous couple and an incoherent drunkard as they navigated the
narrow hallway.

When
they finally made it to their rooms, Ragellan locked the door behind them and
exhaled a breath he had not realized he was holding.

“Brother
Wade and Brother Armand,” Horcalus mumbled.

Still
leaning against the door, Ragellan opened his eyes to find his friend seated on
one of the two beds in the small room.

“That
bed looks older than the one my grandfather made for my father,” Ragellan said,
“but after sleeping in a bunk aboard a rocking ship for the better part of a
month, it looks like a small piece of Paradise.”

“You
are welcome to it,” Horcalus said with a sigh. “I likely won’t sleep more than
a few hours tonight anyway.”

“I
don’t think we will need to post a guard. We are as safe here as we can expect
to be anywhere,” Ragellan said, though he knew his friend had meant something
else.

Horcalus
rose suddenly and removed his brown robe in a single motion. He looked down at
himself and barked a mirthless laugh. “We pose as monks, telling our lies anew
every day, and under these scratchy robes are garments stolen from some honest
family.”

Shaking
his head, Dominic Horcalus cast the shapeless mass of brown cloth to the floor
and sat down once more, his gray eyes fixed on the worn floorboards at his
feet.

Ragellan
removed his own disguise and regarded it for a moment before draping it over
the edge of the bed.

“It
is true we have seen better days,” Ragellan began. “I don’t enjoy this
deception any more than you do, my friend. I pray for forgiveness every night.
I also pray for direction and guidance.”

“As
do I.” Horcalus sighed. “I pray even though I feel abandoned by the Good Gods
above. Have we failed them somehow?”

The
question was rhetorical, or so Ragellan presumed. He certainly could not speak
for the gods. But he knew had had to say something to his young friend and
former subordinate. Horcalus had not spoken much during their flight from
Continae—except when he was voicing a complaint—and he had said even less
during their time aboard
Stalwart Mariner
.

After
a short silence, Horcalus said, “I do not say this lightly, Ragellan, and I
would not question your judgment, but are we doing the right thing?”

Ragellan
rested a hand on Horcalus’s shoulder. “The Knights of Superius, our former
friends and comrades, thought beheading us was the right thing to do, but my
outlook differs. We had no choice but to escape, Horcalus. Our only other
option would have been to stay and be executed.”

Just
then, Horcalus looked as though he thought dying might have been the better alternative.
“Someone has made a very big mistake, but maybe we could have reasoned with our
captors or appealed to the King Edward himself. Instead we fled the continent
with the very criminals with whom we were accused of consorting!”

“Had
we remained in Superius, we would now be dead,” Ragellan said matter-of-factly.
“I am quite certain of that. This was no simple misunderstanding. Someone
wanted us to die.”

Horcalus
glanced up at him. “But we did not have to come to Capricon with Klye and the
others. I realize that we are in his debt, but would we not be safer far away
from him? We could have hidden ourselves in Glenning or Shadrach or even Korek.

“Instead,
we are serving as accomplices on a misguided mission, traveling with a thief, a
murderer, and a…a…halfwit!”

Ragellan
studied his friend carefully. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and
calm. “I never asked you to come with me, my dear friend, though I have ever
been grateful for your companionship. You remained loyal to me when everyone
else was thrown into doubt. My oldest friends…the men under my command…they all
turned their backs on me, but you tried to defend me, which doomed you to share
my fate.

“We
are alive only because Klye Tristan was bold and generous enough to come to our
aid. And while Klye doesn’t follow the Knights of Superius’s code of virtue, I
believe he is doing what he thinks is right. He has turned his back on his old
profession and is trying to redeem himself the only way he knows how.

“You
and I may not agree with all he stands for, but I, for one, think that Klye is
essentially a good man.”

Horcalus
clenched his fists. “So we redeem ourselves by becoming the very traitors we
were accused of being in the first place? We were once Superius’s…nay,
Continae’s finest! We were Knights of Superius, Ragellan, and like my father
before me, that is all I ever wanted to be. Now we’re no better than…than…”

“I
never asked you to follow this path,” Ragellan repeated with a sad smile. “We
are in Klye’s debt, but that is not the entire reason why I stay with him.
Neither of us wishes to cross our former allies in battle, but if we stay with
Klye, perhaps we will gain a better understanding of the circumstances. We may
even find a way to solve our dilemma along the way.”

Horcalus’s
expression told Ragellan how likely he thought that was, but the younger man’s
countenance improved a bit as he said, “I have always trusted your judgment,
Ragellan, and I shall continue to follow you and, consequently, Klye Tristan
until my conscience can bear it no longer. However, you should know that if it
comes down to it, I shall stab all three of them in the back before I stand by
and watch them kill an innocent man.”

Ragellan
nodded. As much as he valued Horcalus’s company, he would have done just about
anything to undo the past few months—or at least arrange it so that his loyal
friend had not been caught up in the conspiracy that had landed them both in
the Citadel Dungeon.

At
twenty-five, Horcalus was still so young a man and still so fresh a Knight. But
throughout his twenty-some years in the Knighthood, Ragellan had learned many
harsh lessons, but Horcalus was not yet prepared to even consider that the
Knights of Superius—or the Alliance of Nations, for that matter—could be
anything less than altruistic in its practices.

All
too soon, Ragellan knew, the idealistic knight would either have to learn to
bend with life’s hard lessons, or the discrepancies between his blind faith and
cold reality would tear him apart.

*
         
*
         
*

The
three would-be monks made their way through Port Town’s marketplace. Portable
carts and crudely built booths lined the widening street. The place stank of
fish, but after a while they began passing better-dressed merchants, who hawked
less odorous wares. Those men and women advertised such utilitarian items as
hemp ropes, empty barrels, and plain earthen jars.

Klye’s
fingers began to itch as they approached a smithy’s stall. He eyed the blades
on display but forced himself to keep walking.

In
order to make their disguises as authentic as possible, he and his men had
abandoned their larger weapons before boarding
Stalwart Mariner
. He felt
vulnerable with only a single dagger concealed beneath his robe. Despite his
lack of recent practice, he knew he could lift at least several more knives and
possibly a sword without getting caught.

Tearing
his gaze from the source of temptation, Klye trained his eyes forward, focusing
on the white stone monolith that towered above the rest of the city. At the
same time, he was taking in everything that was going on around them out the
corner of his eye.

Though
he wanted to get to the Cathedral as quickly as possible, he nevertheless
stopped occasionally to admire this merchant’s straw goods and that one’s
jewelry. Instinctively, Klye kept his ears open, too, picking up fragments of
conversations as he, Plake, and Othello meandered through the market.

It
was all reflexive: seeing more than you appeared to see, hearing more than you
were meant to hear.

When
he noticed a pair of true clerics in robes of silvery white, bargaining at a
booth that sold ink, Klye was quick to cross to the other side of the street.
He supposed that the priests had come from Aladon’s Cathedral but had no way of
knowing for sure. Anyway, he would not risk talking to them, even though it
might make their task easier. Better to keep encounters at a minimum.

And,
in Klye’s mind, avoiding the clergy of any faith was usually a good idea,
especially when you were impersonating a man of the cloth yourself.

Klye
quickened his pace. He had no fear of losing Othello. Back in Continae, the
archer had proven that his eyesight was as sharp as any arrow. With his long
legs, Othello was far more likely to outpace Klye than the other way around.

Plake,
on the other hand…

Klye
glanced over his shoulder. The younger man remained a few paces behind, wearing
an annoyed look on his face. Now, Plake Nelway was not a child—he was in his
early twenties, Klye’s junior by only a few years—but Plake was undeniably the
least mature of the group. If Plake had wandered off, for whatever reason, Klye
wondered if he would have bothered looking for him. In all likelihood, Klye
would be better off if Plake quit the group as capriciously as he had joined
it.

With
the marketplace at their backs, they were surrounded on either side by rows of
single-story houses, the upkeep of which improved the farther inland they
walked. The Cathedral remained directly in front of them, though it was not so
far in the distance now.

By
Klye’s estimations, they would reach the church in a few minutes. He took that
time to mull over some of the things he had heard in the marketplace. Most of
the chatter had been useless conversations about personal matters, but Klye had
overheard some things of interest.

Many
of Port Town’s citizens were whispering about the local band of Renegades,
including Leslie Beryl, their leader and the mayor’s own daughter. Some
speculated that Leslie was a double agent while others claimed that Mayor Beryl
himself was the true traitor in Port Town. He had heard one middle-aged woman
confiding to a friend that there were pirates in the area.