K
alan Hawksword had discovered a great deal about herself in the past few days. And a great deal about her friends and family, people she thought she knew almost as well as herself. She’d learned her uncle Mahkas had a capacity for cruelty that defied reason and that her brother, Damin, wasn’t nearly as asinine as she’d feared. She had learned her cousin Leila was capable of taking her own life out of despair, and that the coolest head in a crisis that she had ever encountered was Tejay Lionsclaw. She had learned Rorin Mariner’s healing power had severe limits and that if you asked the gods for help, you’d better be prepared for the consequences if they said yes.
But mostly, she’d learned nothing was ever as simple or straightforward as it seemed.
Kalan glanced furtively along the narrow, crooked street before knocking on the door of the safe house. She wore a plain cloak over her silken gown to hide its obvious quality, but she suspected it meant little down here where the very air smelled of watchful suspicion. Although she’d left her horse with its silver-trimmed tack and imported Medalonian saddle back at the stables of the Pickpocket’s Retreat and walked the few streets to the safe house, strangers were noticed down here in the back streets of the Beggar’s Quarter. The locals might not know who she was, but they were certain she didn’t belong here.
Fyora opened the door for her. Wiping her muddy feet on the coir mat, Kalan slipped into the small, unremarkable house as Fee closed and locked the door behind her. The
court’esa’
s face was grim as she pushed past Kalan and the narrow staircase into the dim main room with its barely adequate fire. Two narrow benches were lined up at right angles to the hearth and a rough wooden table with three stools was shoved against the wall on her right, but there was no sign of Starros. For a moment Kalan feared the worst. Before she could say anything, however, she heard something breaking in the other room and raised voices. Turning to Fyora, she raised her brow with a questioning look.
“He’s not happy,” Fee remarked unnecessarily.
“Would you be happy waking up to find the woman you love is dead and your friends have sold your soul to the God of Thieves?”
Fee shrugged. “In Starros’s place, I’m not sure what I’d be feeling right now.”
Fyora didn’t seem all that interested in discussing it further. She left Kalan standing in the small front room, disappearing through another door near the staircase. The smell of something delicious cooking wafted in from the kitchen when she pushed open the door, and then faded again as it swung shut behind her. A few seconds later the door to the other room flew open and slammed against the wall, making the whole house shake. Starros stalked toward the front door, clearly planning to leave the house, but he stopped when he saw Kalan.
“Come to check on your handiwork, I suppose?” he asked, his voice heavy with scorn. “Take a good look, Kalan. You must be feeling very proud of yourself. See! Not a mark! Of course, I don’t seem to own a soul any longer, but what the hell? Who needs a soul, anyway?”
He was right about his remarkable recovery. Three days ago they’d brought him here on a stretcher on the very brink of death—broken, bloodied and barely recognisable. The young man standing before her now was whole and unmarked, showing no sign of Mahkas’s days of torture and beatings. But the cost had been prohibitive. It was obvious Starros was just beginning to understand that.
Wrayan emerged from the other room behind him and stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms crossed. He looked weary. “There’s no point getting angry at Kalan,” he said. “It’s not her fault.”
“You told Leila I was dead!” Starros accused. “She was your friend. How could you do that to her? To
us?”
“I’m so sorry, Starros,” Kalan replied, tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t need Starros to remind her how much of the blame she carried for Leila’s suicide. “Mahkas made me …”
“You should have let me die, too!” he declared.
“We couldn’t!”
“Why not? Because I’m so damned important to the royal house of Wolfblade? Or because none of you wanted the guilt of
two
innocent deaths on your hands?”
“If I’d realised bringing you back from the brink of death was going to turn you into an ungrateful halfwit,” Wrayan remarked, still leaning against the door, “I
would’ve
left well enough alone.”
“Nobody asked you to bring me back, Wrayan!” Starros pointed out furiously, turning on the thief.
“Actually, Damin Wolfblade asked me to bring you back,” Wrayan corrected. “You remember him, don’t you? Big blond chap with the power of life and death over you, me and everyone else in the province? Oh, that’s right … he’s your best friend, too, as I recall.”
“A friend would never have sold my soul to a god!”
“Maybe that’s something you should take up with Damin,” Wrayan suggested. “In the meantime, lay off Kalan. She’s on your side, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Where is my
friend
, then?” Starros demanded. “Where is Damin?”
“He left the city yesterday,” Kalan explained. “Heading for Elasapine.”
“Running away?”
Kalan shook her head, wondering how long Starros could sustain his rage. She’d never seen him like this before. “Hablet of Fardohnya is reportedly massing his troops behind the Sunrise Mountains for an invasion. Damin left with Adham and Rorin and Almodavar and two and a half thousand Raiders. They’re heading to Byamor first, to collect Narvell and all the Elasapine troops Grandpa Charel will let him have, so they can hold Hablet off until Wrayan and I can get to Greenharbour to warn my mother.”
Starros took a deep breath, as if his rage needed fuel to sustain it and it was being starved because nobody would fight with him. “So I was
what
? Just a passing aside? A footnote?” He turned to Wrayan again. “Did he ask you to put me back together again because he didn’t have time to deal with me?”
“That’s surprisingly close to how it happened,” Wrayan agreed.
Starros’s shoulders sagged suddenly. He sat down on the bench near the fire, putting his head in his hands for a time, and then looked up at them, his eyes filled with despair. “Does he know what he’s done to me?”
Wrayan shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Does he care?”
“Probably not.”
“Why did you do it?” Starros asked Wrayan. He sounded more curious than angry now. “And don’t give me any of that
he is my prince
nonsense. You’re a Harshini sorcerer and the head of your own guild. You don’t have to take orders from anybody.”
“Two reasons,” Wrayan replied, pushing off the doorframe. He crossed the room and took a seat opposite Starros on the other wooden bench. “The first was simple patriotism.”
“What?”
“Damin might be arrogant at times and rather arbitrary when he decides to throw his weight around, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right, occasionally. He has a war to fight and it needs his undivided attention. His best friend on the brink of death is a distraction he didn’t need. Now you’re all better and Damin doesn’t have to worry about you.”
“I never picked you for a raving patriot, Wrayan.”
“Which just shows how little you know me.”
“What was the other reason?”
“Selfishness:”
“Selfishness?”
Wrayan smiled. “I’ve been offering you a job in the Thieves’ Guild since you were fifteen, Starros. You’re bright, well-educated and have a good head for politics and organisation. You kept knocking me back. Now you don’t have a choice.”
Starros looked at him, shaking his head in bewilderment. “You sold my soul to Dacendaran so you could recruit me into the Thieves’ Guild?”
“Not the most orthodox way of going about it, I’ll admit. But it is effective.”
“What if I don’t want to be a thief?”
Wrayan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You’re a thief now, whether you want to be or not.”
“And what of my former life? You know … the one I had a few days ago?”
“Your former life ceased the minute Mahkas found you and Leila together,” Kalan reminded him gently. She sat beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, hoping to convey her sympathy. “Even if she wasn’t dead, there’d be no going back. Not now.”
“What happened to Mahkas?”
She hesitated for a moment, and then decided the only thing to do was tell him the truth. “Damin tried to ventilate his windpipe with a battle gauntlet. Did a rather impressive job of it, too. Rorin healed what he could, but Mahkas is still bedridden and likely to be for a while yet. He can’t speak in much more than a hoarse whisper. Xanda’s taken over running the province while he’s ill, but I’m not sure what will happen when he recovers.”
“Why didn’t Damin kill him?”
“Because he’s not that stupid,” Wrayan replied heartlessly.
Starros glared at him. “You think taking vengeance for Leila’s death is stupid?”
“Taking vengeance for anything is stupid, Starros, when that vengeance is liable to do you as much harm as your enemy.”
“So Mahkas is going to be allowed to get away with everything he’s done?” Starros asked bitterly. “Is that what you’re saying? And that I should just accept it?”
“I’m suggesting nothing of the kind.”
“Then what
are
you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting, Starros, that you are now a thief. Your soul belongs to Dacendaran. If you’re planning to get even with Mahkas Damaran, do it in such a way that you hurt Mahkas and honour your god.”
“You think I should
steal
something from him?”
“No, Starros, I think you should steal
every
thing from him.”
Starros looked at Wrayan, a little baffled by what the thief was telling him, but before he had a chance to question him further, Fee came in from the kitchen carrying a large pot. She dumped it on the small table and, after eyeing the three of them curiously, announced that lunch was ready.
Kalan took Starros’s hand and squeezed it, smiling at her foster-brother, hoping to let him know how much she empathised with his pain, but at that moment Starros wasn’t thinking about pain, she suspected. The pain was too raw, his grief too overwhelming, for Starros to be thinking of anything other than revenge.
B
rakandaran the Halfbreed looked down over the plains around the Winter Palace at Qorinipor, shielding his eyes with his forearm against the bright sun resting on the horizon. It was chilly at this altitude, but he was dressed for it in a long, dark, fur-lined coat that reached almost to his ankles. It was a souvenir from a raid on a caravan belonging to a rather pretentious Hythrun merchant about six years ago. The man had cursed loudly as Brak relieved him of his precious coat, seemingly more upset about losing the garment than any other goods the bandits had taken from him in the raid. Brak pulled the coat closed against the bitter wind and scanned the plains below from his vantage point high in the foothills of the Sunrise Mountains on the Fardohnyan side of the border.
“It’s depressing, isn’t it?”
The Halfbreed turned to find Dacendaran, the God of Thieves, perched on a tree stump behind him, dressed in his motley array, seemingly unaffected by the cold wind, but looking just as displeased by the spectacle laid out before them as Brak.
“Hello Dace. What are you doing here?”
“Same as you.” The boy-god shrugged miserably. “Looking at that army down there and cursing Zegarnald in every language I know.”
Brak smiled at his forlorn expression. Jealousy among the gods was always entertaining. “He’s really gone all out for this one, hasn’t he?”
“How many of them do you think there are?”
Brak shrugged and buried his hands in the deep pockets of his coat for warmth. “Multiply the number of camp fires by six,” he instructed the god. “That should give you a rough estimate.”
“I’m the God of Thieves, Brak. I only count stolen property. What do I know about counting fires?”
“The mathematical principle is the same, Divine One. For fires
and
contraband.”
“Easy for you to say,” Dace grumbled. “Anyway, it’s only late afternoon. Isn’t counting camp fires something you can only do at night?”
Brak feigned a look of astonishment. “You mean there’re some things beyond even a
god
?”
“Just answer the question, Brak. There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
The Halfbreed shrugged and turned back to stare down over the camp. “About thirty, maybe forty thousand men, I guess. He’s probably got this many troops again down on the coast at Tambay’s Seat, waiting for a chance at Highcastle, too.”
The God of Thieves sighed. “Do you know what I’d give to be able to gather forty thousand thieves together all in the same place at the same time?”
“You can add that many again for the camp followers.” He turned to the god and smiled. “Kalianah and Jelanna will be having a field day down there. Jondalup’s probably doing a roaring trade, too. Soldiers love to gamble. Even Cheltaran will be licking his lips, given the likelihood of disease and injury that comes with war. Let’s not even begin to talk about what Death is up to …”
“There’s no need to rub it in, Brak.”
He smiled, fairly certain he understood what had prompted this unexpected divine visitation. “Feeling a bit left out are we, Divine One, with the world about to be plunged into war?”
Dacendaran shrugged uncomfortably. “I was doing all right there, for a while. Things were moving along very nicely, even with a war on the way. All those soldiers … all those lovely fat purses … Hablet never forgets to pay his troops, I’ll grant him that. And then the sacrilegious bastards chopped the hands off some poor
court’esa
who stole her customer’s pay in my honour and now there’s barely a larcenous thought in the whole damn war camp.”
“That must have hurt.”
“It
does,
” the god agreed. “You have no idea how much it wounds me to see my followers abandon—”
“I was referring to the poor girl who got her hands chopped off, Divine One,” the Halfbreed cut in. “I really don’t give a fig about your followers.”
Far from being offended, the god smiled knowingly. “You can pretend all you want, Brak, but I know you’re mine.”
“Is that right?”
“You’re a
bandit
, Brakandaran,” the god pointed out with a smug grin. “You have been for years, now. That puts you right up there with the burglars and the pickpockets.”
“I am at the moment,” Brak admitted, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, as if he was torn with indecision. “But there’s a war about to start soon, you know. I can already feel myself being tempted to abandon my life of larceny for the noble pursuit of war.”
“What do you mean?” Dace demanded.
Brak forced himself not to smile. “I’m just saying, Dace … It’s going to be hard to resist swapping the joys of robbing fat merchants in the Widowmaker Pass when the higher calling of dealing out death to the poor, unsuspecting Hythrun beckons. All for the greater glory of Zegarnald, the God of War, of course.”
“I hope you’re joking.”
Brak spun around to find Dace had vanished as Chyler Kantel approached from the trees behind him.
In her own way, Chyler Kantel was a queen and her kingdom was the Sunrise Mountains around the Widowmaker Pass. Admittedly, the bulk of her subjects made their living from robbing caravans in the pass, but there was far more to Chyler’s Children than simple banditry. Every village in the mountains paid homage to her and in return, Chyler and her ragtag band supplied them with the protection Hablet’s army wasn’t interested in providing, along with selling them goods relieved from the caravans raided in the pass.
It was the reason, Brak knew, he’d stayed in the mountains with the bandits for so long. Here, among Chyler’s Children, he could fight regularly and maybe if he was lucky, some young, hot-blooded caravan guard would get the better of him someday, and he might die. In the meantime, along with honouring Dacendaran, he occasionally got a chance to help the villagers in the region. It went some way to making up for what he’d done.
Chyler was bundled up against the cold in a fur-lined coat similar to Brak’s (also stolen from a passing caravan), two layers of wool under her leather trousers and high, sheepskin-lined boots. There were silver streaks in her thick red hair these days, and laughter lines around her eyes that remained even when she wasn’t laughing. Chyler was still as handsome and as lithe as a woman half her age. She was tough, too, in a way Brak found quite beguiling. He had seen her kill as coldly as an assassin and an hour later found her crying like a child when she was forced to put down a sickly dog.
Chyler stopped behind him on the ledge, looked around curiously and then fixed her gaze on Brak. “Who were you talking to?”
“The God of Thieves.”
Chyler smiled. “If anybody else told me that, I’d swear they were crazy. But with you … Did he have anything interesting to say?”
“The gods rarely do,” he said. “Mostly he was just whining about how Zegarnald and the other gods are getting stronger because there’s a war on the way, which means he’s getting weaker.”
“He’s got a point,” Chyler agreed, stepping up next to Brak as she studied the vast war camp below. “We won’t be robbing fat merchants—or any other kind—for quite some time, once that lot starts moving through the pass. I actually feel sorry for the Hythrun.”
“
You
? Pitying the Hythrun? There’s something I never thought I’d live to see.”
She shrugged. “Well, first they get slaughtered by the plague and now, when they’re at their weakest, Hablet’s going to overrun them, and with the borders closed, they don’t know anything about it. Doesn’t seem fair, really.”
“Not a lot about war is fair, Chyler.”
“Do you think someone should warn them?”
“Who? The Hythrun?”
“No,” Chyler replied, rolling her eyes. “The bloody Medalonians! Of course, the Hythrun!”
Brak shook his head emphatically. “Oh, no! Zegarnald would just
love
that.”
Chyler looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Tip off the Hythrun about the invasion and they’ll be waiting for Hablet the moment he breaks through the pass.”
She raised a brow questioningly. “And this is bad
because
… ?”
“Because it’ll give Zegarnald a real war,” he explained. “Right now, the chances are good Hablet will move through the pass as soon as spring arrives and be in Greenharbour before the Hythrun can say ‘Oh my god! We’re being invaded! ’ As you say, they’ve been decimated by plague and Lernen Wolfblade couldn’t win a battle if it was between two toy ships in his own bathtub. With luck, this war might be over by the end of summer.”
“But if the Hythrun get enough warning and find themselves someone capable of actually mounting a defence,” Chyler concluded, “it might drag on for years.”
“And the God of War would like nothing better.”
“I thought you liked the Hythrun, Brak.”
“I do. But I don’t like pandering to Zegarnald’s ego.”
“But the Hythrun are bound to put up some kind of fight. How do you think the Fardohnyans will get past Winternest?”
“Don’t know. Don’t really care, either.”
The bandit leader looked at him curiously. “Are you really going to stand by and do nothing about this war?”
“There’s nothing I
can
do, Chyler.”
“But you’re Brakandaran the Halfbreed.”
“I’m Brak the Bandit,” he corrected. “I wish you’d give up this notion I’m anything more than that. It’s not my responsibility to put the world to rights.”
Chyler sighed. “You’re rather disappointing for a legendary hero; you know that, don’t you?”
“Then stop thinking of me as one. I’m really nothing of the sort.”
Chyler slipped her arm through his and smiled. “I’m happy to keep your little secret, Brak, but no matter how much you try to forget it, you’re still the Halfbreed. You’re a legend, whether you want to be or not.”
“Look, I’ve been here for the better part of twelve years, Chyler …” he began. It sounded a long time but to Brak it meant very little. Twelve years for a man who had lived for more than seven hundred was barely any time at all.
“Ever since I hauled you out of that pile of corpses they tossed over the wall at Westbrook the night we first met,” she reminded him.
“Exactly. And in all that time, have you ever seen me do
anything
that might lead you to believe I have any sort of magical powers?”
“No,” she conceded. “I believe it was releasing all the prisoners in Westbrook while looking for a child rumoured to be a sorcerer that convinced me. Or it might have been you making a hidden gate appear in a solid stone wall that you knew about because apparently you were at Westbrook when they built the place six hundred years ago. Or maybe it was the fact you survived being run through and tossed over the walls of Westbrook? Or the fact you seem to be able to speak to the gods at will. Should I go on?”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” he insisted. “Other people speak to the gods.”
“But you’re the only person I’ve ever met who gets a response.”
“Maybe I don’t,” he suggested with a thin smile. “Maybe I’m just some lunatic who hears voices in his head and
thinks
the gods are talking to him.”
“Maybe. But that wouldn’t account for Wrayan Lightfinger
telling
me you were the Halfbreed.”
“You shouldn’t believe anything a thief tells you, Chyler.”
She laughed. “That’s a bit rich, coming from the man who claims he was just talking to the God of Thieves.”
Brak smiled. “Exactly my point. Never believe
anything
a thief tells you.”
She looked at him curiously. “Does that mean I shouldn’t believe you, when I ask if you’ll keep an eye on things here for a while?”
“You’re going somewhere?”
“I’ve been summoned.”
“By whom?”
“The Plenipotentiary of Westbrook.”
“What does he want with you?”
“He didn’t say.”
Brak was quite alarmed at the prospect. “You’re not seriously thinking of going, are you?”
“Is there some reason you think I shouldn’t?”
“Hmmm …” Brak said, feigning deep thought. “Can I think of a reason why you shouldn’t meet with the Plenipotentiary of Westbrook? It couldn’t possibly be because the last time you visited Westbrook you got arrested, I suppose? Or the fact there’s a price on your head for killing the head of the Qorinipor Thieves’ Guild? Maybe I just don’t like the idea—”
“All right!” she cut in impatiently. “I get your point! And it’s a crazy one. The last Plenipotentiary was killed eight years ago. And on the subject of being wanted for Danyon Caron’s murder … well, that’s all your fault, anyway.”