Theft Of Swords: The Riyria Revelations (40 page)

Price turned to leave and his mocking tone returned. “It’s actually a shame you can’t stay around; the theatre is showing a play about a couple of thieves lured into being accused of murdering the King of Medford. It’s loosely based on the real murder of Amrath several years ago.” Price shook his head. “Completely unrealistic. Can you imagine a seasoned thief being lured into a castle to steal a sword to save a man from a duel? Authors!”

Price continued to shake his head as he and the other thieves left Hadrian and Royce on the bridge and headed down the streets on the far bank.

“Well, that was pleasant, don’t you think?” Hadrian said as they retraced their steps, heading back up the hill toward Capital Boulevard. “Nice bunch of guys. I feel a little disappointed they only sent four.”

“Trust me, they were plenty dangerous. Price is the Diamond’s First Officer, and the other two quiet ones were bucket men. There were also six more, three on each side of the bridge, hiding under the ambush lip, just in case. They weren’t taking any chances with us. Does that make you feel better?”

“Much, thanks.” Hadrian rolled his eyes. “Duster, huh?”

“Don’t call me that,” Royce said, his tone serious. “Don’t ever call me that.”

“Call you what?” Hadrian asked innocently.

Royce sighed, then smiled at him. “Walk faster; apparently, we have a client waiting.”

She awoke to a rough hand on her thigh.

“Whatcha got in the purse, honey?”

Disoriented and confused, the girl wiped her eyes. She was in the gutter beneath the Tradesmen’s Arch. Her hair was a filthy tangle of leaves and twigs, her dress a tattered rag. She clutched a tiny purse to her chest, the drawstring tied around her neck. To most passing by, she might appear as a bundle of trash discarded on the side of the road, or a pile of cloth and twigs absently left behind by the street sweepers. Still, there were those who were interested even in piles of trash.

The first thing she saw when her eyes could focus was the dark, haggard face and gaping mouth of a man crouching over her. She squealed and tried to crawl away. A hand grabbed her by the hair. Strong arms forced her down, pinning her wrists to her sides.

She felt his hot breath on her face and it smelled of liquor and smoke. He tore the tiny purse from her fingers and pulled it from around her neck.

“No!” She wrenched a hand free and reached out for it. “I need that.”

“So do I.” The man cackled, slapping her hand aside. Feeling the weight of coins in the bag, he smiled and stuffed the small pouch in his breast pocket.

“No!” she protested.

He sat on her, pinning her to the ground, and ran his fingers down her face, along her lips, stopping at her neck. Slowly they circled her throat and he gave a little squeeze. She gasped, struggling to breathe. He pressed his lips hard against hers, so hard she could tell he was missing teeth. The rough stubble of his whiskers scratched her chin and cheeks.

“Shush,” he whispered. “We’re only getting started. You need ta save your strength.” He lifted off, pushing himself up to his knees, and reached for the buttons of his britches.

She struggled, clawing at him, kicking. He pinned her arms under his knees and her feet found only air. She screamed. The man replied by slapping her hard across the face. The shock left her stunned, staring blindly while he returned to work on his buttons. The pain did not hit her yet, not fully. It was there welling up, fire hot on her cheek. Through watering eyes, she saw him on top of her as if viewing the scene from a distance. Individual sounds were lost, replaced by a dull hum. She saw his cracked, peeling lips moving, his throat muscles shifting, long gangly cords, but never heard the words. She freed one arm, but it was captured and stuffed back down out of sight once more.

Behind him, she could see two figures approaching. Somewhere inside her, a thread of hope came alive, and she managed a weak whisper: “Help me.”

The foremost man drew a massive sword and, holding it by the blade, swung the pommel. Her attacker fell sprawling across the gutter.

The man with the sword knelt down beside her. He was merely an outline against the charcoal sky, a phantom in the dark.

“May I be of assistance, milady?” She heard his voice—a nice voice. His hand found hers and he pulled her to her feet.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Hadrian Blackwater.”

She stared at him. “Really?” she managed, refusing to let go of his hands. Before she realized it, she began to cry.

“What’d you do to her?” the other man asked, coming up behind them.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Are you squeezing her hand too hard? Let her go.”

“I’m not holding her. She’s holding me.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Her voice quavered. “I just never thought I would ever find you.”

“Oh, okay. Well, you did.” He smiled at her. “And this fellow here is Royce Melborn.”

She gasped and threw her arms around the smaller man’s neck, hugging him tight and crying even harder. Royce stood awkward and stiff while Hadrian peeled her off.

“So I get the impression you’re glad to see us; that’s good,” Hadrian told her. “Now, who are you?”

“I’m Thrace Wood of Dahlgren Village.” She was smiling. She could not help herself. “I have been looking for you for a very long time.”

She staggered.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m a little dizzy.”

“When was the last time you had anything to eat?”

Thrace stood thinking, her eyes shifting back and forth as she tried to remember.

“Never mind.” Hadrian turned to Royce. “This was once your city. Any ideas where we can get help for a young woman in the middle of the night?”

“It’s a shame we aren’t in Medford. Gwen would be great for this sort of thing.”

“Well, isn’t there a brothel here? After all, we’re in the trade capital of the world. Don’t tell me they don’t sell
that
.”

“Yeah, there’s a nice one on South Street.”

“Okay, Thrace is it? Come with us, we’ll see if we can get you cleaned up and perhaps a bit of food in you.”

“Wait.” She knelt down beside the unconscious man and pulled her purse from his pocket.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“Doubt it. Didn’t hit him that hard.”

Rising, she felt light-headed and darkness crept in from the edges of her vision. She hovered a moment like a drunk, began to sway, and finally collapsed. She woke only briefly and felt arms gently lifting her. Through a dull buzzing she heard the sound of a chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she heard one of them say.

“This is the first time, I suspect, anyone has ever visited a whorehouse and brought his own woman.”

S
hines up purty as a new copper piece, that one does,” Clarisse noted as the three looked through the doorway at Thrace, waiting in the parlor. Clarisse was a large rotund woman with rosy cheeks and short pudgy fingers that had a habit of playing with the pleats of her skirt. She and the other women of the Bawdy Bottom Brothel had done wonders with the girl. Thrace was clothed in a new dress. It was cheap and simple—a brown linen kirtle over a white smock with a starched brown bodice—but still decidedly more fetching than the rag she had worn. She hardly resembled the ragamuffin they had met the night before. In addition to giving her a bed to sleep in, the women had scrubbed, combed, and fed her. Her lips and eyes were even painted and the results were stunning. She was a young beauty with startling blue eyes and golden hair.

“Poor girl was in awful shape when you dropped her off. Where’d you find her?” Clarisse asked.

“Under the Tradesmen’s Arch,” Hadrian replied.

“Poor thing.” The large woman shook her head sadly. “You know, if she needs a place, I’m sure we could put her on the roster. She’d get a bed to sleep in, three meals a day, and with her looks she could do well for herself.”

“Something tells me she’s not a prostitute,” Hadrian told her.

“None of us are, honey. Not until you find yourself sleeping under the Tradesmen’s Arch, that is. You shoulda seen her at breakfast. She ate like a starved dog. Course she wouldn’t touch a thing till we convinced her that the food was free, given by the chamber ’a commerce to visitors of the city as a welcome. Maggie came up with that one. She’s a hoot, she is. That reminds me, the bill for the room, dress, food, and general cleanup comes to sixty-five silver. We threw in the makeup for free, ’cause Delia just wanted to see how she’d look, on account she says she’s never worn it ’afore.”

Royce handed her a gold tenent.

“Well, well, you two really need to drop by more often, and next time without the girl, eh?” She winked. “Seriously, though, what’s the story with this one?”

“That’s just it; we don’t know,” Hadrian replied.

“But I think it’s time we found out,” Royce added.

Not nearly as nice as Medford House back home, the Bawdy Bottom Brothel was decorated with gaudy red drapes, rickety furniture, pink lampshades, and dozens of pillows. Everything had tassels and fringe, from the threadbare carpets to the cloth edging adorning the top of the walls. It was old, weathered, and worn but at least it was clean.

The parlor was a small oval room just off the main hall with two bay windows that looked out on the street. It contained two love seats, a few tables crowded with ceramic figures, and a small fireplace. Seated on one of the love seats, Thrace waited, her eyes darting about as if she were a rabbit in an open field. The moment the two men entered, she leapt from her seat, knelt, and bowed her head.

“Hey! Watch it, that’s a new dress,” Hadrian said with a smile.

“Oh!” She scrambled to her feet, blushing, then curtsied and bowed her head once more.

“What’s she doing?” Royce whispered to Hadrian.

“Not sure,” he whispered back.

“I’m trying to show the proper reverence, Your Lordships,” she whispered to both of them while keeping her head down. “I’m sorry if I’m not very good at it.”

Royce rolled his eyes and Hadrian began to laugh.

“Why are you whispering?” Hadrian asked her.

“Because you two were.”

Hadrian chuckled again. “Sorry, Thrace—ah, your name is Thrace, right?”

“Yes, my lord, Thrace Annabell Wood of Dahlgren Village.” She awkwardly curtsied again.

“Okay, well—Thrace.” Hadrian struggled to continue with a straight face. “Royce and I are not lords, so there is no need to bow or curtsy.”

The girl looked up.

“You saved my life,” she told them in such a solemn tone Hadrian stopped laughing. “I don’t remember a lot of last night, but I remember that much. And for that you deserve my gratitude.”

“I would settle for an explanation,” Royce said, moving to the windows. He began closing the drapes. “Straighten up, for Maribor’s sake, before a sweeper sees you, thinks we’re noble, and marks us. We’re already on thin ice here as it is. Let’s not add to it.”

She stood up straight, and Hadrian could not help staring. Her long yellow hair, now free of twigs and leaves, shimmered in waves over her shoulders. She was a vision of youthful beauty and Hadrian guessed she could not be more than seventeen.

“Now, why have you been looking for us?” Royce asked, closing the last curtain.

“To hire you to save my father,” she said, untying the purse from around her neck and holding it up with a smile. “Here. I
have twenty-five silver tenents. Solid silver stamped with the Dunmore crown.”

Royce and Hadrian exchanged looks.

“Isn’t it enough?” she asked, her lips starting to tremble.

“How long did it take you to save up this money?” Hadrian asked.

“All my life. I saved every copper I was ever given, or earned. It was my dowry.”

“Your dowry?”

She lowered her head, looking at her feet. “My father is a poor farmer. He would never—I decided to save for myself. It’s not enough, is it? I didn’t realize. I’m from a very small village. I thought it was a lot of money; everyone said so, but …” She looked around at the battered love seat and faded curtains. “We don’t have palaces like this.”

“Well, we really don’t—” Royce began in his usual insensitive tone.

“What Royce is about to say,” Hadrian interrupted, “is we really don’t know yet. It depends on what you want us to do.”

Thrace looked up, her eyes hopeful.

Royce just glared at him.

“Well, it does, doesn’t it?” Hadrian shrugged. “Now, Thrace, you say you want us to save your father. Has he been kidnapped or something?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. As far as I know he’s fine. Although I have been away a long time looking for you. So I’m not sure.”

“I don’t understand. What do you need us for?”

“I need you to open a lock for me.”

“A lock? To what?”

“A tower.”

“You want us to break into a tower?”

“No. I mean—well, yes, but it isn’t like—it’s not illegal.
The tower isn’t occupied; it has been deserted for years. At least I think so.”

“So you just want us to open a door to an empty tower?”

“Yes!” she said, nodding vigorously so that her hair bounced.

“Doesn’t sound too hard.” Hadrian looked at Royce.

“Where is this tower?” Royce asked.

“Near my village on the west bank of the Nidwalden River. Dahlgren is very small and has only been there a short time. It’s in the new province of Westbank, in Dunmore.”

“I’ve heard about that place. It’s supposedly being attacked by elven raiders.”

“Oh, it’s not the elves. The elves have never caused us any trouble.”

“I knew it,” Royce said to no one in particular.

“Leastways, I don’t think so,” Thrace went on. “We think it’s a beast of some kind. No one has ever seen it. Deacon Tomas says it’s a demon, a minion of Uberlin.”

“And your father?” Hadrian asked. “How does he fit into this?”

“He’s going to try and kill the beast, only …” She faltered and looked at her feet once more.

“Only you think it will kill him instead?”

“It has killed fifteen people and over eighty head of livestock.”

A freckle-faced woman with wild red hair entered the parlor dragging a short potbellied man who looked like he had shaved for the occasion, his face nicked raw. The woman was laughing, walking backward as she hauled him along with both hands. The man stopped short when he saw them. His hands slipped through hers and she fell to the wooden floor with a hollow thud. The man looked from the woman to them and back, frozen in place. The woman glanced over her shoulder and laughed.

“Oops,” was all she could manage. “Didn’t know it was taken. Give us a hand up, Rubis.”

The man helped her to her feet. She paused to give Thrace a long appraising look, then winked at them. “We do good work, don’t we?”

“That was Maggie,” Thrace told them after the woman hauled her man back out again.

Hadrian moved to the sofa and gestured for Thrace to sit. She sat gingerly and straight, not allowing her back to touch the rear of the sofa, and carefully smoothed out her skirt.

Royce remained on his feet. “Does Westbank have a lord? Why isn’t he doing something about this?”

“We had a fine margrave,” she said. “A brave man with three good knights.”

“Had?”

“He and his knights rode out to fight the beast one evening. Later, all that was found was bits and pieces of armor.”

“Why don’t you just leave?” Royce asked.

Thrace’s head drooped and her shoulders slouched a bit. “Two nights before I left to come here, the beast killed everyone in my family except for me and my father. We weren’t home. My father had worked late in the fields and I went to look for him. I—I accidentally left the door open. Light attracts it. It went right for our house. My brother, Thad, his wife, and their son were all killed.

“Thad—he was the joy of my father’s life. He was the reason we moved to Dahlgren in the first place—so he could become the town’s first cooper.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Now they’re all gone and my father has nothing left but his grief and the beast that brought it. He’ll see it dead, or die himself before the month is out. If I had only closed the door … If I had just checked the latch …”

Her hands covered her face and her slender body quivered. Royce gave Hadrian a stern look, shaking his head very slightly and mouthing the word
no
.

Hadrian scowled and placed his hand on her shoulder and brushed the hair away from her eyes. “You’re going to ruin all your pretty makeup,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I really don’t want to be such a bother. These aren’t your problems. It is just that my father is all I have left and I can’t bear the thought of losing him too. I can’t reason with him. I asked him to leave, but he won’t listen.”

“I can see your problem, but why us?” Royce asked coldly. “And how does a farmer’s daughter from the frontier know our names and how to find us in Colnora?”

“A crippled man told me. He sent me here. He said you could open the tower.”

“A cripple?”

“Yes. Mr. Haddon told me the beast can’t—”

“Mr. Haddon?” Royce interrupted.

“Uh-huh.”

“This Mr. Haddon … he wouldn’t be missing his hands, would he?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

Royce and Hadrian exchanged glances.

“What exactly did he say?”

“He said the beast can’t be harmed by weapons made by man, but inside Avempartha there is a sword that can kill it.”

“So, a man with no hands told you to find us in Colnora and hire us to get a sword for your father from a tower called
Avempartha
?” Royce asked.

The girl nodded.

Hadrian looked at his partner. “Don’t tell me … it’s a dwarven tower?”

“No …” Royce replied, “it’s elvish.” He turned away with a thoughtful expression.

Hadrian returned his attention to the girl. He felt awful. It was bad enough that her village was so far away, but now they faced an elven tower. Even if she offered them a hundred gold tenents, he would not be able to convince Royce to take the job. She was so desperate, so in need of help. His stomach knotted as he considered the words he would say next.

“Well,” Hadrian began reluctantly, “the Nidwalden River is several days’ travel over rough ground. We’d need supplies, for what—a six-, seven-day trip? That’s two weeks there and back. We’d need food and grain for the horses. Then you’d have to add in time at the tower. That’s time we could be doing other jobs, so that right there is money lost. Then there is the danger involved. Risk of any kind can bump our price and a mass-murdering phantom-demon-beast that can’t be harmed by weapons has got to be classified as a risk.”

Hadrian looked into her eyes and shook his head. “I hate to say it, and I’m very sorry, but we can’t take—”