The Paladin Caper (42 page)

Loch picked up her pace, her walking stick thumping faster as she hurried toward the podium. Kail headed off in his own direction, leaving her alone. She put a determined and faintly worried look on her face, and the other competitors looked at her in confusion but didn’t stop her as she headed for the podium.

Lochenville. That was what Kail had said to her. Lochenville, and that Pyvic might still be alive. Lochenville, where Tahla had died because Loch had shown up.

And as for Pyvic . . . Loch sighed.

She’d been sixteen when her favorite horse had died. Her parents had asked her and Naria if they wanted to see the body. Naria had wanted to. On some level, Naria had needed to see the horse one last time to really
know.

Loch hadn’t. She’d had her share of problems, but false hope had never been one of them, and she’d never seen the point in looking at the dead you hadn’t been able to save. That was the other reason she’d never gone back to Lochenville.

Kail had tried, though. That was something.

She was coming in at an angle, and Cevirt was talking with the nobles. He hadn’t seen her yet. She kept her pace steady, nothing that was fast enough to draw attention.

Ten steps away. Nine.

One of the nobles, chatting idly and pressing buttons on his band, saw her from the corner of his eye and frowned, puzzled, trying to place her.

Eight steps. Seven, six.

Loch smiled and nodded, flipping the charm from one pocket.

Five steps, four. She was into the crowd of nobles, murmuring an excuse as she approached Cevirt.

As she brought her hand up as though about to wave, slim fingers closed over her wrist.

“Ah, Isa,” said Naria as she caught Loch, plucked the elf charm from Loch’s fingers, and danced away, “how can I miss you if you do not stay away?”

“Fool,” Princess Veiled Lightning hissed as Icy Fist curled around the blow, his robes smoking. He spun and landed in a crouch, then parried a chop to his throat. “Her memories tell me of your skills.” He dropped into a crouch, his knee checking a kick to his groin, then rolled away as the Nine-Ringed Dragon sliced through the air where his head had been a moment earlier. “Will you fight her now, or restrain your gifts like the foolish slave you are?”

“Princess!” called a woman with armor and a big sword. “What are your
arching ardor
?” Ululenia, who had flapped off before the first blow had struck, landed on top of the armored woman, except that she was a bear now. The woman grunted somewhere underneath a lot of white fur.

“Icy!” Tern shouted, and threw a flask at Veiled Lightning’s feet. It erupted into billowing smoke. “Icy, time to go!”

She grabbed him from the smoke cloud, and he pushed her down as Veiled Lightning’s blade hissed past. Then she was running, her steel-toed boots tromping as she beat a path through the tents.

“Are they behind us?” Tern said to Icy, who kept pace beside her.

“Not at the moment, but pursuit will likely follow.” Icy leaped nimbly over a tent line. “She was a paladin.”

“I figured that by the way she talked about herself in the third person.” As they came out into an open area, Tern grabbed Icy, made a turn, and headed into a line of people. “And
this
is a line for these fascinating outdoor toilets we use here in the Republic, Your Excellence!” she said as they walked through the group. “It’s very cultural.” They came past the line out into the open area near the cliff edge itself. “And this is . . . probably far enough from people that I can stop tour guiding. Did Veiled Lightning have a thing for you?”

No, she likes girls,
came Ululenia’s voice, and Tern looked up to see the snowy-white bird winging easily overhead,
and as the still-budding flower whose silken petals have yet to—

“And now Ululenia has made it weird with her new sex thing.” Tern jerked her head at the wooden fence marking the cliff they approached. “How do we get down?”

I could simply carry you,
Ululenia offered.

“Decent backup plan,” Tern said, “but if there are guards, maybe we lead with something sneakier than a giant eagle.”

Icy frowned. “The fence is recently constructed. Under such a tight schedule, it is natural that . . . there.” He pointed at a pile of leftover planks, and to the coils of rope where the planks had been bound. “Do you remember the trick I showed you, where you hook your ankle through the rope and use it to gently guide your descent?”

Tern reached into one of the many pockets of her brown crafter’s dress and pulled out a pair of heavy-duty gloves. “Let’s find out.”

Icy was almost as good with ropes as Kail at this point, and Tern had tied a few knots in her time. There were several long coils, and they knotted them together. The large pile of planks was heavy enough to serve as a tie-off point, and in just a minute or two, Icy was hoisting Tern and two very long lines of rope over the fence.

It was an exercise in thinking, in problem-solving. Tern was grateful for it. It was a bright thing to keep spinning in her mind, so that the wrenching useless grief lurking at the edge of every thought didn’t have any reason to creep out of the shadows.

“Right on target. Mine’s below us. Couple hundred feet, I’d guess?” She looped the rope through a hook on her belt, and kicked her legs over the fence. The rope dangled down below her in the distance. “Ready?”

“Go ahead.”

If you slip, I will catch you,
Ululenia added,
unless I have become too depraved due to my weird sex thing
.

“See, it starts with the chocolate-covered apples, and noooobody listens . . .” Tern dropped down from the fence.

The rope hissed as it slid through her boots and belt hook. She kicked off the glowing red wall, dropped down a bit more, and landed with her legs against the wall, the rope biting into her gloved hands as she pulled herself to a stop. “I’m good!”

The rope a few feet to her left shook, and a moment later, Icy slid down beside her effortlessly, the line twining between his legs. “Did you remember how to slow your descent by hooking it through your ankle?”

“I think maybe my rope is made from different materials that make it not work for me,” Tern said.

Icy nodded. “Of course.”

Letting the rope slide through her feet and knees and gloves, Tern eased her way down one smooth and easy foot at a time. Her arms and legs began to ache after only a minute, and she sighed, and then thought about how Hessler had asked if she had wanted him to have abs, and then pushed
that
damn thought out of her head for now because crying was a good way to end up falling to her death and embarrassing herself.

They were perhaps a hundred feet down when Ululenia, flying in lazy circles overhead, said,
We may have a problem
.

“No virgin princesses nearby?” Tern asked.

Then the rope jerked in Tern’s grasp. She looked up.

The scorpion and the troll were coming over the fence high above them.

“We’re sorry,” the troll said.

“Not murderer,” said the scorpion. “No choice.” With one giant pincer, it began sawing at the rope from which Tern was hanging.

Nineteen

L
OCH LOOKED AT
the paladins surrounding Archvoyant Cevirt. They were all men in the prime of their lives, healthy and hearty and well dressed in formal suits of black or subdued gray. Each also wore a pin or pocket kerchief emblazoned with the logo of the Festival of Excellence, as well as a paladin band over his sleeve.

The lone exception was Naria, who wore a long backless gown the color of chocolate, accented with a silk wrap done in the Republic’s colors. She wore no paladin band, but her crystal lenses glinted as she held up the elf charm she’d just plucked from Loch’s hand.

“If you’d like to make a purchase,” the dragon puppet roared on both illusionary screens, “contact one of our staff! Items can be brought right to your seat!”

Archvoyant Cevirt smiled at the crowd and then turned to Loch. “We expected you.”

“Lesaguris?” Loch guessed. “I see you’ve picked a new thrall.”

One of the nobles chuckled, and Loch looked over to see that it was the man Lesaguris had possessed earlier. “You think I’d ride the Archvoyant?” he asked, shaking his head. “Guards watching me all the time, meetings over mortal matters, public-speaking events where I hug your children? Do you know how much power I’d have to
give up
if I became the archvoyant?”

“Actually,” Loch said, “I just wanted to make sure I had the right target.” Her walking stick snaked out, hooked Naria’s hand, and yanked the elf charm free. Loch smashed it open as it hit the ground.

Naria flinched and went stiff, one hand going to her face.

“We did offer you the same upgraded wards we used to protect ourselves, Baroness de Lochenville,” Lesaguris said. “If you’d allowed us to augment your lenses, they’d be working right now.”

Naria turned her head toward Lesaguris. “You understand of course why I chose not to avail myself of your offer.”

Lesaguris nodded in her direction, then turned to Loch. “Mister Lively wasn’t happy when your friend Captain Pyvic used the elf charm against one of us. I’m afraid those are off the table for you now. Congratulations on blinding your sister, though.”

Loch’s grip tightened on her walking stick. “Then we do this the hard way.”

In the stands behind her, the crowd cheered as an athlete did something impressive.

“One against six, Loch? Long odds, even for you.” Lesaguris gave his thoughtful nod. “Besides, it makes for bad visual, half a dozen men beating down one helpless woman. Mister Slant would be so disappointed with me.”

From the corner of her eye, Loch saw movement on the glamour-screens. She looked over to see herself on both of them, looking angry and grim, confronting a group of men who gave her mild and nervous smiles.

“Here’s how this is going to go, Captain Loch,” Lesaguris said in a reasonable voice. “You’re going to get out of the stadium as quickly as you can. If you escape, and that’s unlikely, you can continue your campaign of harassment, and the leaders of the Republic will make sad speeches about crime and bring up tough new legislation that hits Urujar neighborhoods harder than anyone else. If we catch you, everyone in this stadium, and everyone watching the glamour-screens we added to every puppet show in the Republic, will see your reign of terror brought to an end as the dawn of a new, more civilized way of life.”

Loch forced herself to smile and watched as her illusionary self on the screens did the same. “When you put it that way, I’ve got no reason at all to run.”

Lesaguris gave her his thoughtful nod. “I
assumed
you’d want to minimize the fatalities caused by the horrific attack you and your band of monsters orchestrated.”

With an enormous roar, Mister Dragon flapped into view over the stadium, his red scales shining gold with each flap of his rainbow-glowing wings. The crowd screamed as he let loose a brilliant burst of fire that scorched the top rows of seats.

At this distance, it was almost impossible to be sure, but Loch thought she saw chains of silver about his throat.

“Mister Skinner is good with animals,” Lesaguris said. “Now, it’s coming for you, but it’s going to hurt a whole lot of innocent people on the way.”

The ground underneath Loch began to shake.

“Sir,” Naria said, smiling politely, “was the stadium field constructed using earth-daemons?” Her lenses seemed to have recovered.

Lesaguris turned to her as the shaking intensified. “It was, baroness. Why do you ask?”

“Isa, in her never-ending quest to make as many enemies as possible, has a daemon that wants to kill her. She was wearing a daemon-ward charm to hide herself from it,” Naria said, and then held up a small necklace, “but it seems to have come off when she tried to assault you.”

“Naria,” Loch said quietly, “you’re making a mistake.”

“I apologize if this is too forward,” Naria said to Lesaguris, “but is it possible that Loch’s vicious attack on the patriotic people of the Republic included a daemon as well as a dragon?”