Rebels and Fools (The Renegade Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

He
thought that maybe it was time to move on, to leave Capricon altogether.

Arthur
remained at the docks even after all of the other dockhands had cleared out.
Staring at a nearby ship, he considered sneaking aboard and leaving Port Town,
with its pirates, Renegades, and cruel mayor, far behind.

*
         
*
         
*

Klye
listened patiently as Leslie interrogated Scout. While he was convinced that
Leslie and Scout were close friends—and maybe even more than friends—Leslie was
suddenly all about business. Her voice had lost its causal tone, and Scout
answered her questions as succinctly as possible, allowing himself to be
interrupted when Leslie deemed it necessary to direct him in a different
direction.

Klye
could hardly believe that this was the same woman who had been on the edge of
tears not an hour ago.

And
what was all this talk of pirates? He wanted to ask Leslie why she was so
preoccupied with the subject but decided not to draw attention to himself.
Perhaps she feared the pirates would destroy Port Town, burn it to the ground—a
legitimate concern, Klye conceded. Silently, he watched watch Leslie Beryl,
studying her serious expression and decidedly fierce green eyes.

His
speculating came to an abrupt end with two quick, loud raps at the door.

Crinkling
her brow, Leslie said, “Come in.”

Resisting
the urge to draw his boot knife, Klye twisted in his chair to see who it was.
Scout did the same, though the hooded Renegade
did
reach for the knife
at his belt.

A
woman burst into the room, not bothering to close the door behind her. She was
out of breath.

“Maeve?
What is it?” Leslie asked.

The
woman took a moment to catch her breath. While Maeve—whoever she was—did not
wear any weapons openly, there were countless places for her to hide blades of
varying lengths in the long, billowy coat she wore.

Like
Leslie, Maeve was dressed more like a man than a woman. She was taller than
Leslie, but she was also slimmer and had less of a figure. If not for Maeve’s long
eyelashes and full lips, he might have mistaken her for a man.

“The
pirates have been spotted,” she told Leslie. “Three coastal guard ships are
heading to where the two pirate vessels are moored, and the city guards are
planning to surround the inn.”

Leslie
let off a string of curses that would have made a sailor proud. Scout looked as
confused as Klye felt.

“I
don’t get it,” Klye finally said. “Why do you care about the fate of these
pirates? If nothing else, they’ll take the pressure off you and your Renegades…and
reduce the number of city guards in the process.”

“It’s
not that simple, Klye,” Leslie said, rising to her feet. She wore a slightly
curved blade at her hip. “I was in the middle of negotiating with this
particular gang of pirates. They were going to help me finally get to the
bottom of my father’s plans.”

“How?”
Klye wondered aloud, but Scout was louder.

“You’ve
been dealing with pirates?” he demanded, his voice cracking on the last word.
“When did this come about? Why didn’t you tell
me
about it?” The last
part was accompanied by a glance at Maeve.

Leslie
sighed. “I don’t have time to explain it all to you now, Scout. You had already
left Port Town by the time the pirates arrived. It’s not like they sent me any
word of their coming.”

“They
sought you out?” Scout asked.

Leslie
chewed at her lower lip. “Not exactly. Look, Scout, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you
about it, but I wasn’t even sure the pirates were going to come. I acted on my
own, without addressing any of the other Renegades.

“Maeve
has since presented me with an unending list of the disadvantages of working
with pirates, but if you think of anything she missed, I’ll be glad to listen
to your concerns later. Right now, we have to warn the pirates that are still
in Port Town.”

Scout
opened his mouth as though to further protest, but then he drew his lips into a
mischievous grin and said, “What do you need me to do, Les?”

Leslie
flashed the man a brief smile before asking, “Maeve, when are the guards going
to ambush Oars and Omens?”

“What?”
Klye said, though he must have misheard the woman.

Maeve
shrugged. “I don’t know. The guards are already gathering. They might attack in
an hour, or they could be there already.”

“Did
you say
Oars and Omens
? The inn near the northern harbor?” Klye asked, a
sinking feeling in his stomach.

“We
have to warn them,” Leslie said. “They may be pirates, but I brought them here.
They’re my responsibility.”

“I’ll
go,” Maeve volunteered.

“No,”
Leslie argued. “They’re a suspicious lot. They’ve already dealt with me. I’ll
go myself.”

“Then
I’m coming with,” Scout insisted, jumping to his feet.

Leslie
nodded, but Maeve put her hands on her hips. “If you insist upon going in
person, Leslie, at least allow me to assemble a proper entourage.”

“There’s
no time,” Leslie said. “You and Scout will have to be enough, not that I can’t
protect myself.”

“Hold
on!” Klye shouted as he stood up. “Did you say the pirates were staying at Oars
and Omens?”

Leslie
blinked, as though noticing Klye for the first time. “Oh. Yeah. Why?”

Now
it was Klye’s turn to swear. “That’s where my Renegades are staying.”

“Looks
like you’ll be coming along then,” Scout said, and Klye wanted nothing more
than to slap the man’s silly grin right off his face.

“Bad
news.”

Klye,
Leslie, Scout, and Maeve all turned at the sound of a new voice. Elezar stood
in the doorway, his face as white as his robe.

“City
guardsmen have positioned themselves around the Cathedral,” he said. “They’re
not doing anything yet, but I’m certain they were sent to watch the church.”

“So
we’re stuck here?” Scout asked.

“No,”
Klye and Leslie replied in unison.

The
room grew silent as the five of them stared at one another, trying to come up
with a plan.

“I
got it,” Scout said with a snap of his fingers. “We’ll take the sewers. There
has to be a way into them from down here.”

“Yes,”
Elezar replied after a moment of thought. There’s a grate behind the stairs, if
I’m not mistaken. I don’t know where it leads though…”

“I’ve
been in Port Town’s sewers before. I’ll figure it out,” Scout promised. “Come
on, let’s get going.”

The
hooded Renegade pushed past Maeve and Elezar into the hallway.

“I
must return to the upper levels lest anyone grow suspicious.” Elezar gave them
an apologetic look before disappearing back down the hall.

“I
have an idea.” Leslie grabbed a gray cloak from somewhere under her desk and
shoved the letter she had been writing into a drawer. Covering herself with the
coat, she said, “Maeve, I want you to try to sneak out of the Cathedral’s
ground level without being seen. If you are followed, try to lose your tail and
head for Oars and Omens. If we don’t make it to the inn, it’s up to you to get
the pirates out of there.”

Giving
Leslie a steely look, Maeve hesitated only a second before agreeing. “Don’t do
anything foolish!” she called over her shoulder as she ran down the hall. She
took the stairs two at a time and was gone. Klye didn’t know if she had
directed her warning at Leslie or Scout, whom she had passed in the corridor.

They
found Scout crouched near a circular drain behind the stairs. He put his
fingers through the holes and pulled upward with all his might. The grate
didn’t budge. The hooded Renegade then used his knife to trace all around the
grating, hoping to disrupt whatever grime had bonded the steel to the stone
floor around it.

His
next attempt moved the grate a fraction of an inch. With Klye’s help, the third
try yielded success. Setting the drain cover to the side, Scout immediately
lowered himself down into the dark, reeking hole. Leslie hesitated.

One
hand on his stomach and other outstretched before him, Klye bowed and said,
“Ladies first.”

Passage VIII

When
the men in red-and-white uniforms began filing in through the inn’s main
entrance as well as from the kitchen, all sound ceased in the common room.
Plake’s first thought was that they were here for him and the other Renegades.

Klye
must have gotten caught and spilled the beans, the rancher concluded with a
frown.

Plake
was already considering the best place to hide when one of the guards—a
familiar-looking man who wore a triangular hat and yellow tassels on his
shoulders—drew his sword and announced, “I am Roland DeGrange, Captain of the
Three Guards. The inn is surrounded. Your ships have abandoned you. There is no
hope of escape. Surrender is your only option.”

At
first Plake was relieved. They were not here for him. But one look at his new
drinking buddy—a friendly chap who had introduced himself as Crooker—told him
that he wasn’t out of danger yet.

Crooker’s
hand moved to the hilt of the curved sword hanging from his belt.

The
man on the other side of Crooker, a rough-looking fellow with a patch over one
eye, drew his own weapon and shouted, “The Pirates of the Fractured Skull are
no cowards. You’ll not take us so easily!”

The
volume of supporting shouts and cries nearly deafened Plake, as just about
everybody in the common room rallied to that one pirate’s call. A few
frightened patrons scrambled toward the exit and were escorted from the inn by
guards. But everyone else, apparently, was a pirate.

He
thought he saw Ragellan, but then the mass of pirates surged forward, and the
knight was lost from view.

*
         
*
         
*

 
“Watch your step,” Scout warned, though his
warning was all but impossible to obey.

The
sewers were nearly pitch black and slick with moisture, moss, and mold. Once
they got out from under the Cathedral, sunlight would filter down through the
various grates in the streets, providing a little bit of illumination.

Truth
be told, Scout had only been in Port Town’s sewers once before, and that was
years ago. He tried to remember how he had ended up down there, but one
adventure always seemed to flow right into another. His missions for the
Renegades and earlier capers all became muddled together in his mind.

When
he finally reached a place where some light streamed down from a hole in the
stone ceiling, he called back to his companions. “Are you guys still back
there?”

“Yeah,
we’re here,” Klye replied.

Scout
wondered if the Renegade Leader was always so terse. If so, it was bound to be
a long and boring trip to Fort Faith. He did have to give the man some credit,
though. Not once had Klye complained about walking through the sewers. Then
again, Klye did not seem to be much of a talker at all.

“How
much father is it?” Leslie asked.

“Not
too far,” Scout estimated, “though I suppose it depends on how far you think
‘far’ is.”

“Is
it just my imagination, or is the water rising?”

“Your
imagination,” Scout said. “But it’s a good thing that it hasn’t rained much
lately. Otherwise, we would find ourselves knee-deep…or worse…in this muck.

“But
we probably wouldn’t have had to swim, even in the most extreme circumstances,”
he added. “I mean, the water can’t get too deep up here on this lip. Remember,
these sewers were built by the dwarves who lived here long before Port Town
existed, when this island was their colony, back before Glenning invaded it and
won it for us humans.”

“He’s
a walking history tome,” he heard Klye say to
Leslie.            

Smiling
to himself, Scout said, “Can I help it if I’m intelligent?”

Scout
had lived in Capricon all his life and had never left the island in all of his
twenty-two years. When he and his father used to travel together, Gaereth Aegis
would tell his son about the island’s history.

Elves
had been the first inhabitants of Capricon, long before the first dwarf
arrived. Scout had met a few elves—every once in a while, one would come to
Port Town to see the Cathedral—and several half-elves resided in the city. But
those elves were all from Ristidae, which was not the true elven homeland, so
they seldom had the answers to Scout’s many questions.

Such
as why the elves had abandoned Capricon centuries ago.

Scout
theorized that the dwarves had displaced them, invaded the island with force,
but his father had always scoffed at the thought. “Why, back then, Solomon, the
dwarves wielded weapons of stone and wore bone armor. The elves were far more
advanced. The Cathedral is evidence of that.”

Scout
supposed he might never learn what caused the elves to leave the island. It had
all happened so long ago that just thinking about it made his head spin.

His
reverie was interrupted by a splash.

He
drew his knife, and peered in the blackness behind him. “What was that?”

Leslie
swore, and Klye said, “Here, take my hand.”

“What
happened?” Scout asked as he rejoined the Renegade Leaders, whom he had once
again outpaced.

“I
didn’t watch my step,” Leslie said acerbically.

Scout
watched as Leslie tried to squeeze the dirty water from shirt. She was a mess,
her hair plastered to her forehead and her pants clinging to her legs. Knowing
he couldn’t keep the smile from his face and knowing that his old friend would
probably attack him if she saw it, Scout turned away to study the tunnel before
them.

“Hey,
I think I know where we are now,” he told them.

“Let’s
hope so,” said Klye, sounding startled. “Were we lost earlier?”

Scout
gave the man a hurt look. “I’ve never been lost in my life. It’s not my fault that
we started our trip from a place I’ve never been before. I can’t be expected to
know the layout of places I haven’t explored yet. Besides, you can’t be lost if
you know the general direction you’re going.”

Leslie
laughed, though she didn’t sound happy. Smoothing out her drenched vest, she
asked, “Can things get any worse?”

Scout
flinched as something whizzed past his head. When a second arrow ricocheted off
the wall beside him, he ducked.

“That’s
a question I never
ever
ask,” Klye groaned.

*
         
*
         
*

Ragellan
was knocked to the floor as the pirates shoved their way to the guards. He
feared he would be trampled, but there was Horcalus, helping him to his feet
while using his body to block the charging pirates.

The
common room had become a battlefield in an instant. Two large groups of pirates
were overwhelming the guards near the exits, using the narrow passageways to
their advantages. Only one or two guards could squeeze through the main
entrance or kitchen doorway at a time, and in both places, the pirates were attempting
to cut them down as quickly as they arrived.

Most
of the windows were already broken, but whether the pirates had done it to
create more ways out or the guards to make new ways in, Ragellan did not know.

As
a Knight of Superius, Ragellan had participated in more than a few battles, and
he knew that this one was bound to be long and bloody. He and Horcalus were
unarmed and in the midst of the melee. Fortunately, for the moment, the
scrimmages were confined to the perimeter of the common room, but should the
city’s soldiers push the pirates back…

“Where
is Plake?” Horcalus shouted.

When
Ragellan looked back at the bar, he could not believe his eyes. Plake was gone.
Too frustrated to even swear, Ragellan frantically looked all around, hoping to
catch a glimpse of the familiar ram-skin tunic and dung-stained pants. He
looked back toward the stairs, thinking that perhaps Plake had wisely retreated
back up to their rooms.

Instead,
he saw Othello descending them and making his way to them. The archer had his
bow strewn over one shoulder and carried two scabbards in his hands.
Wordlessly, Othello thrust the covered weapons at the knights.

“Did
you see Plake on your way down?” Ragellan asked the forester.

“No,”
Othello said and then pointed to the group of pirates who had rushed the
Captain of the Three Guards. “He fights beside the man we saw leaving Leslie
Beryl’s office.”

Ragellan
didn’t fully understand what Othello was saying, but a second look proved that
Plake was indeed among the pirates harassing the guards near the inn’s
entrance. The rancher had acquired a club and was doing his best to bat at the
guards without getting too near their blades.

Alongside
Plake fought a dark-haired pirate with a gleaming cutlass. Klye had mentioned
seeing someone leaving Leslie’s office when he and the others had entered it,
but he hadn’t gotten a good look at him. Ragellan didn’t doubt Othello’s
words—though he couldn’t fathom what the pirates had to do with Leslie Beryl.

“We
have to flee!” Horcalus urged. “Plake can fend for himself. Let him join the
pirates, if he wishes.”

Ragellan
was tempted to do just that, but Klye had entrusted the rancher to his care. If
Plake were captured, he would undoubtedly tell the guards everything he knew
about the Renegades. Besides, as angry as he was with Plake at that moment,
Ragellan could not bring himself to simply abandon him.

As
a Superian Commander, he had never left a man behind, and he would not do so
now.

“We
get Plake first. Then we leave.” He knew Horcalus would never question his
orders; he could only hope that the forester would follow suit. “Othello, go up
and get the rest of our supplies. We’ll grab Plake and rendezvous with you at
the docks.”

It
was the first place that came to mind. It was also the only place in Port Town
he knew how to get to. As the archer made his way back to the stairs, Ragellan
turned back to where he had last seen Plake and his pirate friend, but Plake
was gone.

“Feol’s
fools,” Ragellan swore. “Did you see where Plake wandered off to?”

But
before Horcalus could answer, three guardsmen approached, having broken through
the barricade of pirate bodies.

“Drop
your weapons and surrender!” one of the guards commanded.

He
and Horcalus were not pirates, but they were rogue knights. Ragellan had no
intention of being taken by the law, and since there was nothing he could say
right then that to convince the soldiers to leave them alone, he decided to let
his weapon do the talking for him.

Drawing
his broadsword, Ragellan lunged forward at the guard, startling his opponents
and Horcalus alike.

*
         
*
         
*

Three
more arrows bounced off the tunnel wall, all of them perilously close to their
intended targets. Klye yanked Leslie down to her knees. The unknown archers were
firing from farther back and from the opposite side of the canal. He could make
out nothing but vague shapes moving along the other ledge.

“Where
did all this fog come from?” Scout asked, but they had no time to ponder the
mysteries of weather.

Klye
could hear footsteps coming from the way they had come—from
their
side
of the canal. He reflexively reached for a sword but found only air.

“We
have to run,” Leslie said, voicing his own thoughts.

Their
assailants would have a much harder time hitting a moving target, especially in
the fog…

“Follow
me,” Scout said, “and try not to get lost.”

A
few arrows plinked past them as they ran. He kept a hand on Leslie’s upper arm
because he knew he was the more surefooted of the two. She didn’t object.

The
archers following them on the other side of the water must have found it too
difficult to shoot and run at the same time, for soon the arrows stopped
altogether. But Klye could hear them shouting, calling across the canal to one
another.

They
spoke in a language he didn’t recognize. The harsh syllables were even more
angry-sounding than the Korekish tongue. He thought he even heard a few growls,
but it must have been his imagination. Klye wondered if Scout, who had boasted
of his intelligence earlier, could identify the language, but he was breathing
too hard to pose the sarcastic question.

After
a few more turns, Klye was sure they had lost the archers, for the opposite
ledge had disappeared, branching off into another tunnel. There hadn’t been a
bridge or any other way for their pursuers to cross over, except through the
water itself.

To
his chagrin, Klye thought he heard splashing somewhere behind him.

What
could these people want? he wondered. Were they city guards, hunting for
Renegades? That didn’t explain the strange language they spoke or how they
would have known he and his companions were Renegades to begin to with.