A Dance of Chaos: Book 6 of Shadowdance (13 page)

The remaining three moved to surround her, a man named Renley shouting orders to the others in a frantic attempt to coordinate. This was it, Muzien knew. Zusa’s advantage of surprise was lost, and the rest had positioning as well. Forming a triangle, they closed in as Zusa separated herself from the dead woman’s bleeding corpse.

“Which of you three is the bravest?” Zusa asked, head constantly on a swivel.

“Don’t need to be,” said Renley. “Just need you to make a mistake.”

Zusa smiled his way.

“You’ll die last,” she said.

At his smirk she dove into a roll, directly toward the table. The two men she dove between swung, their blades slashing the air above her. Shouting out cries to follow, the three rushed the table, hoping to trap her underneath. Muzien thought she might spin about, perhaps attempt to hamstring one, but instead he saw her reach the center of the table … and then fall straight into the shadowed floor, vanishing completely.

Instead of confusion, Muzien felt only elation as Zusa reappeared, falling from the very ceiling. Her opponents had no idea she’d even vanished as she came crashing down, one dagger jamming into a man’s back. As he screamed, Zusa yanked it free, dashed two steps, and slammed both blades into another’s chest as he turned to see the reason for the scream. He toppled, and Zusa twisted her daggers on their way out, then faced the lone survivor: Renley.

“You got anything besides tricks?” he asked, holding his short sword up in defense. “Come on. Let’s see you kill at least one man face-to-face.”

With no urgency, Zusa carefully stalked Renley. She feinted an attack, just a quick flinch, but enough to make Renley hop backward. Muzien laughed in open mockery of the final survivor. At the start Zusa had resembled a wild panther unleashed. Now she was a cat playing with a mouse. Zusa swung a single dagger, hitting the short sword, making its metal sing. Then came the other, back and forth, each stroke accompanied by a step forward. With every block Renley retreated, her attacks coming with such a maddeningly consistent yet rapid pace he found no chance to counter, no way to break her cycle. There were ways, of course. Muzien could list off several solutions to take control of the battle. But Renley was not Muzien.

When his back touched the wall, Renley panicked, at last attempting to counter one of the cuts during the brief window between it and the next. His sword chopped for Zusa’s head, but she twisted her body, the sharpened edge swishing through the air. A step, a thrust, and Zusa’s dagger plunged to the hilt in the man’s chest, piercing his heart. As Renley let out a pained gasp, she put a foot on his sternum and kicked him off her weapon so he could tumble down and die.

From his wall, Muzien clapped in approval.

“A splendid display,” he said.

“I do only what must be done,” Zusa said, cleaning blood off her daggers using one of the dead women’s coats.

“Tell me, the trick you used to vanish and reappear … you both came and went from the darkest parts of the room, where the sunlight could not reach through the windows. Is that a power Karak granted you, a way to make doorways of the darkness?”

Zusa eyed him from across the room. Her hesitance lasted but a moment before she stood and jammed her daggers into her belt.

“It is,” she said, elaborating no further.

Muzien grinned at her as he thought of their first meeting.

“You could have left the chair I bound you to at any time,” he said.

“Yet I didn’t.”

Muzien nodded.

“Indeed, you didn’t. I shall remember that, Zusa.”

As I shall remember your trick should you ever turn against me.

Muzien walked to the door of the guildhouse, stepping carefully around the bodies so no blood stained his boots, and opened it. Owen waited outside, back purposefully to the entrance as if he was trying to show he’d been in no way listening to the carnage within.

“Back inside,” Muzien said, and Owen followed. Returning to the bodies, he gestured to the seven dead.

“Hang them somewhere public,” he told Owen. “For every one Thren kills, I shall send him seven in return.”

“The rest who belonged to the Spider Guild won’t be happy with this,” said Owen. “Getting killed for something Thren does? They won’t see it as fair.”

“Then they best pray that when Thren inevitably comes recruiting, they turn him in to me before anyone else might die.” Muzien let out a bitter chuckle. “Fair? When in any of their miserable lives has the world been
fair
?”

As Owen left to gather men to help him carry out the order, another man entered, one of his veteran members, named Cole. He was on the shorter side, face covered with an uneven growth of blond hair.

“Muzien,” he said, bowing low.

“What is it?” Muzien asked.

The man cleared his throat, and the troubled look on his face put a damper on Muzien’s fragile good mood.

“We need you outside the city,” he said.

“For what?”

Cole pointedly glanced to Zusa.

“I think it best that only your ears hear this for now,” he said. “I assure you, Muzien, I’m not wasting your time.”

That serious?
Muzien let out a sigh, and he beckoned Zusa over. When she came, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Thank you for a brief moment of sunshine this morning,” he said, kissing her across the knuckles. “Wash the blood off you, and find yourself a change of clothes. Once you’re done, see if you can hunt down Thren Felhorn for me so that these seven are the last who must die because of his stubbornness.”

A quick nod was her answer, and bracing himself for more bad news, Muzien turned to Cole and gestured for him to lead the way.

“I’ll explain when we’re free of the city,” Cole said as they shut the door to the guildhouse behind them. “I mean it when I say your ears should be the only ones hearing this.”

“Your confidence in the importance of this matter is admirable,” Muzien said as they walked down the main street toward the western entrance through the wall surrounding the city. “For your sake, I hope you are right.”

“I think in this matter, I’d rather be wrong than right,” Cole said.

Muzien raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not kind to those who waste my time.”

At that, Cole let out a laugh.

“Well aware, Muzien, but when you see what I’m afraid of, I think even you will be relieved to find out I’m worrying over nothing.”

Suddenly the last vestiges of his good mood from Zusa’s display were gone. Cole wasn’t nervous over something minor. No, this had him worried down to the bone. Not good. Not good at all.

They kept to themselves as they neared the gate, and they passed through without inspection, the star on their clothes all that was necessary to prevent questioning. Down the well-worn dirt path they walked, putting the city behind them.

“Would you consider us alone?” Cole asked, giving one last glance around. There were a few walking the same road, but they were either several hundred feet behind and falling farther, or much too far ahead to hear anything but shouting.

“Safe enough,” Muzien said. “Now tell me where we’re going, and why the secrecy?”

As they crested a shallow hill, Cole pointed up ahead, to where a covered wagon remained stationary a quarter mile away.

“We were bringing in the final shipment Luther sent us,” Cole began. “Was the smallest by far, just four of the tiles bearing our mark. Because of it, we loaded up some crates of crimleaf along with it before leaving Ker, hid ’em beneath stacks of wheat. Filled up the wagon pretty good, probably too much given the shitty condition that rotting piece of junk is in. Broke an axle coming down the hill, and we didn’t have a replacement seeing how it was the third damn time it’d broken on the trip here. Anyway, since Veldaren was so close, we just sat tight and sent Daryl out to get us what we needed to fix it.”

“All of this is fascinating,” Muzien said, his patience starting to thin. “But I hope you did not bring me out here because of a broken wagon.”

“Give me more credit than that, Muzien. While we were waiting, we decided to unload everything to make it easier to lift up the wagon and get it fixed. That meant dropping a couple of those tiles onto the dirt, and there they stayed for a good hour while Daryl wasted all our time haggling, no doubt hoping to pocket whatever coin he saved. Well, he came back, we fixed our wagon, and then started loading everything back up … and that’s when we stumbled upon our little discovery.”

Muzien didn’t like where this was going in the slightest, but he asked anyway.

“Luther’s tiles,” he guessed. “Something’s not right with them.”

“That’s right,” Cole said. “The one that’d been pushed into the dirt by the weight of the others atop it, to be specific. We couldn’t get the damn thing out. Tried prying it up, digging it out, but nothing. Wasn’t budging. Lifting it was like trying to lift a boulder. Last we got ourselves a long bar of iron and jammed it underneath real good. Daryl’s the biggest of all of us, so we had him give it a nice strong push.”

“What happened?”

“Daryl collapsed to the ground, flopping like a fish out of water.” Cole shook his head. “He didn’t seem hurt too bad, just real surprised. Said it felt like his hands got stung by bees, only it went through his entire body. Wasn’t but a few seconds before he was able to hold himself still. No mark on his hands, no injury that we can tell, but given the circumstances, we figured it best we go and bring you over to handle the matter yourself, all things considered.”

All 337, you mean
, thought Muzien, the number of tiles they’d buried throughout the city at Luther’s behest.

“It may just be a simple protection,” Muzien said as they approached the wagon. Three men waited there, sitting in the grass or in the back, and they hopped to their feet once Muzien was only a minute away.

“Protection?” asked Cole. “By who?”

Muzien glared at him.

“No more questions,” he said, refusing to answer. Things were already spiraling out of control. The last thing he wanted was Cole’s wagging tongue making it worse. Given Luther’s secrecy, and how the burial of the tiles had been his only requirement for aiding the Sun Guild in taking over Veldaren, he’d known the man had ulterior motives. The question was what exactly they were. His assumption had been that the tiles bore some use against Ashhur’s faithful, perhaps weakening their power or alerting Karak’s priests to their presence should they pass by. That the tiles had protections built into them to prevent removal, while displeasing him, did not surprise him.

Still, now that he knew for certain magic was involved, it was time to discover what exactly those tiles might do.

“Has anything changed with the tile during Cole’s absence?” Muzien asked as he stopped before the three.

“Not a thing,” said the biggest of them.

“Are you Daryl?” Muzien asked.

“I am.”

“Good. You still have that piece of iron?”

“That I do. You want to take a crack at it?”

Muzien shook his head.

“No, but someone else will.”

Looking none too pleased, Daryl followed him around to the back of the wagon, where in the grass not far off the road was one of the tiles bearing the mark of the Sun Guild. Muzien stared at it, starting to regret ever agreeing to cooperate with Luther. At the time, invading Veldaren had looked to be an incredibly difficult task. When Grayson had died, that pushed him into agreeing with Luther’s plan. Being able to smuggle in so many goods and men, all with the city guard turning a blind eye at the gates, had given him the initial foothold he’d needed. How did the placing of a few stone tiles bearing his own symbol compare to that? Easy work, and though he’d known there was more to them, he’d considered it a mild curiosity, something pertaining to gods and faith and other matters he could not care about in the slightest. But now? Now he’d get to find out how greatly he should regret that decision.

“Cole, head back to Veldaren,” he said. “Find yourself some hired labor, the dimmer the better, and then bring him back here. Just one man, you understand? If anyone asks, you need help getting the wagon fixed and loaded. Oh, and procure a nice heavy sledge, too.”

“Understood,” said Cole.

As the man returned to the city, Muzien found himself a comfortable patch of grass a suitable distance away from the other men, lay down, and waited for Cole’s return. It took over half an hour, and all the while Muzien ran through scenarios of what the tiles could do, and how he would react when he knew for certain. He could challenge Luther about it, act furious, or pretend he knew nothing at all. It depended on the game the priest played, and how that game affected him.

When Cole returned, a gargantuan of a man walked alongside him. His arms stayed in a locked position as he walked, his footsteps strangely stiff and uneven. As he walked, his eyes remained focused on the ground, his head slightly bent.

“So who is this?” Muzien asked, rising from the grass to meet the two on the road.

“Caretaker said to just call him Boy,” Cole said. Boy looked up, and he smiled once in greeting. “The guy said he’ll do whatever we ask so long as it don’t hurt him.”

“That’ll work,” Muzien said. Boy seemed an appropriate-enough name, for the way the big man looked about, Muzien doubted he had intelligence beyond that of a five- or six-year-old human child. “Give him the sledge.”

Cole did, and leading the way, they circled around the wagon to where the tile lay buried in the grass.

“See that?” Muzien told Boy. “When I yell for you to start, I want you to break that thing into as many pieces as you can. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Boy said, each word slow and carefully spoken.

“Excellent.”

Muzien turned and walked back toward the road. He had enough experience around magic to know that the best way to observe unknown occurrences of it was at a very, very safe distance. His hope was that it all meant nothing, and that even if the tiles were protected, it’d just break a few bones or give Boy a nasty shock. Cole followed him, hands in his pockets and a frown on his face. Meanwhile the other three lingered at the wagon, watching.