Circle of Thieves: Legends of Dimmingwood (8 page)

Appalled, it took me a moment to tear my gaze away from the
corpses, but when I did, I was unsurprised to discover our prisoner absent,
only the empty ropes that had bound him left behind.

I ordered a widespread search for the Skeltai, turning out
every available member of our circle who could be spared without creating
suspicion. As for our dead fellows, I had their corpses removed from the shed
and all sign of their existence sponged away. Much as I would have liked to
give our brothers a distinguished burial, that wish had to take second place to
our need for secrecy. I was no longer the foolish Hound who had risked so much
for the dignity of one man’s corpse.

Because of the unique carvings etched into the flesh of the
bodies, there was no chance of making their deaths look like a random act from
a roaming rival band. I had them carried off and buried in a far corner of
Dimmingwood where the outlaws seldom ventured. Heavy rocks were piled over the
graves to prevent wild animals digging up the remains and dragging them closer
to camp.

After one day, I called off the search for the escaped
Skeltai warrior. Our best efforts had proved unsuccessful, even as I had known
they would be before they had begun. He had vanished into thin air.

Chapter
Nine

“Silver again?” I asked when Kipp dropped the jingling purse
at my feet.

He nodded. “Twenty pieces. I tell you I don’t know which is
more painful, being bribed by the Praetor or selling out for so little. You’d
think by now the greedy old man would see we’re worth our weight in gold.”

I tossed the purse back to him. “Take it, Kipp, and divide
it evenly among the others. I trust you.”

Grinning, he snatched the bag from the air with the skill of
one who has been pocketing other people’s money for a lifetime. “I’m glad
someone trusts me. There’s a rumor to the effect that I’m a thief. My little
brother has been accusing me of stealing his share of the earnings.”

The earnings and how we came by them were something I
preferred not to think about. It had been two months ago, immediately after the
escape of the Skeltai prisoner, that I first put before the others the idea of
passing information about the Skeltai on to Selbius. Our questioning of the
warrior had turned up nothing, but I felt the spot where he had been captured
near a little settlement along the Dimming Road to be of importance. For the
sakes of the villagers there, I felt it was our duty to send the Praetor word
that an enemy scout had been found in the area, so he could have his Fists on
hand in the event of another attack.

Of course, in any dealing with Selbius and our longtime
enemy, the Praetor, we outlaws had to take measures for our protection. Word
needed to be passed anonymously through an intermediary. I told the others in
the circle that I had a friend already in place within the city, one I was
confident we could trust, and who was experienced in matters of subterfuge. I
didn’t tell them Fleet’s experience usually ran along the lines of thievery and
blackmail. As it was, I had enough of a fight on my hands convincing them at
all.

Initially, no one stood in favor of contacting Praetor
Tarius. He had been our enemy for so long, was still technically our enemy, it
was difficult to countenance the thought of a temporary alliance with him. In
the end, it took a force of persuasion to rival the powers of Rideon himself to
convince them there was reason behind my mad scheme.

It was simple enough once I broke it down for them. The
inevitable day was coming when we were going to have to fight the Skeltai
raiders in all their numbers, and if we hoped to succeed against them, we had
to bring the Praetor into knowledge of the true situation with the savages.
However bitter the truth tasted, it remained a fact that we needed the strength
of the Praetor’s Iron Fists behind us if victory were to be accomplished.

When the opposition gave way, we made contact with Fleet in
Selbius, and through him, Praetor Tarius. I didn’t question how the clever
thief had achieved an audience with such a powerful man. What mattered to me
was the end result of the meeting. Failure. The Praetor gave no credence to our
warning and more or less had the impudent Fleet tossed out on his ear.

Within days the Skeltai had struck again. Unsurprisingly,
the Dimming Road settlement all but disappeared into the night. When we scouted
its perimeter, all that remained were the bodies of those who had attempted to
fight or flee and the burned-out shells of a few homes. We sent Fleet again
with word of the destruction. Fists were dispatched to verify our findings and
shortly afterward came the word via Fleet. The Praetor commanded us to fulfill
our duty to the province in continuing to supply him with information on the
mysterious happenings within Dimmingwood.

He also demanded we step forward to identify ourselves and
explain how we came by this uncanny knowledge of the enemies’ intentions. There
had been a general hoot of laughter over that, but no one had laughed at the
fat pouch of silver accompanying the bearer of the message. We kept our
anonymity, pocketed the silver, and from that day forward were, by a strange
twist of fate, under the employ of our old enemy.

Shaking my head, I returned my thoughts to the present.
“Give your brother whatever extra it takes to make him happy,” I told Kipp. “We
cannot afford to lose our runner.”

The young man opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him
off. “Just do it. He risks his life in helping us and is worth his hire. I
don’t know about you, but I’d as soon not think of myself as living off the
Praetor’s generosity anyway.”

He shrugged. “You won’t find me giving up my share of the
coin. I don’t care where it comes from.”

He must have sensed my response was going to be something
unpleasant because he said the words over his shoulder, already moving away. I
glared at his back, then quickly stiffened as another pair of outlaws strolled
past the sheltered nook among the rocks where our exchange had taken place. On
their way to some errand, they never glanced at me and soon moved out of sight,
but I made a mental note to warn Kipp about being too open in his reports
around camp. How many times had I told him circle business wasn’t to be
discussed here? There were too many others in the band who might report to
Rideon.

I sighed and leaned back against a sun-warmed boulder,
trying to regain the relaxed mood I’d been in before I was interrupted. The bow
dug painfully into my back, and I had to shift to slip it off and let it rest
on the rocky ground beside me. Now here at least was one content with our
current situation. Sometimes I believed it was the bow in the first place that
had driven me to form the circle, just as I half gave it credit for my actions
to save the villagers at Hammond’s Bend. I couldn’t remember ever worrying too
much about other people’s welfare before. Now, thanks to the subtle prodding of
the bow, I found myself risking everything I valued most for the sake of
strangers.

Not that I was fooled for a moment into thinking the bow
actually cared for the woods villagers or their fates. It merely hungered for
blood and death. I had realized that long ago. I could well imagine what Hadrian
or even Terrac—the
old
Terrac—would have had to say about that. But I
didn’t believe the bow was evil, so much as mischievous. Or maybe I gave it the
benefit of the doubt because I had, as Hadrian would say, been under its
influence for so long.

Even now, I stroked the smoothly grained wood of the bow’s
limb and regarded it with mingled affection and frustration.

What are you, barra-banac?
What is it you want
from me
?

I thought I felt faint warmth seeping through the wood
beneath my fingers at my use of the Skeltai name, but other than that, there
was nothing. The bow was silent today. Smugly silent, I thought, and resisted a
sudden temptation to snatch it up and smash it into kindling, an action I knew
I would immediately regret.

“Hound.”

I snapped out of my musings.

“What is it, Pelt?” I asked the outlaw who had appeared
seemingly from nowhere.

“Kinsley’s sending us out on a hunt,” he informed me. “Want
to come?”

That aspect of my life hadn’t changed with the forming of
the circle. I was still an outlaw. Sometimes in the midst of our secret
activities in the circle it was easy to forget our other functions as members
of Rideon the Red Hand’s band.

I agreed, following him to where the others were
congregating and was pleased to see on arriving that Dradac would be with us.
We had always been friends, but since the forming of the circle, our
relationship had changed subtly and we were no longer at ease with one another
as we had once been. I often sensed he was trying to keep a distance between us
and that he held himself back from the friendly advice and criticism he had
given so freely in my youth.

I didn’t know if this was a reflection of my new status as
circle leader or if he was just coming to realize my maturity and trying to
give it room to grow. After all, he’d been there to watch Brig’s mistakes when
he’d tried to hold me back for so long. Either way, I hoped the familiar
routine ahead would allow us to slip back into our old roles, if only for the
day.

Only we never made it that far. En route to the location
we’d chosen for our hunt, we stumbled over a disturbing scene. We were
following a path that led us near one of the many small, single-family wood
holdings scattered throughout Dimming’s expanse. Our party skirted the area
cautiously to avoid being spotted by the inhabiting family, for just as many of
the woods folk were friends to us, there were others with less trust for
thieves.

I kept a thick screen of greenery between me and the hold
yard, so that only small snatches of the cabin and surrounding buildings were
visible to me. I heard none of the ordinary sounds of bustling livestock or of
the family laboring around the yard at their chores. Such silence at midday
struck me as unusual, but I didn’t spare it much thought, trailing along behind
Dradac. Intent on keeping pace with my companion while eluding the eyes and
ears of the hold family, I spared little attention for the woods around me.

When Dradac released the low branch of a tree and it swung
back to smack me sharply in the face, I shoved it aside without thought, only
swiping at the sticky trail the leaves left across my face. What was the stuff
anyway? Tree sap? I glanced at my fingers. Red tree sap. And with a globular
consistency I had learned to associate with congealed blood. I looked back at
the tree but there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Even so…blood
didn’t just drip from trees. I doubled back for a closer look.

At closer examination, I found more blood spattered across a
lower limb of the sapling, and when I swept a foot through the tall weeds
below, there it was. The object of my search. He must have been taken by
surprise when it happened, for the eyes in his decapitated head bulged wide
open. The disgusting sight evoked memories of the way Terrac and I had once
found outlaws of our band decapitated by the Fists in a similar manner. But
this wasn’t anyone I knew, I reminded myself, swallowing hard. Just a stranger.

I glanced around for a body to go with the head, but there
was none in sight. If it was here, it was hidden. Hidden just as cleverly as
the ones who had worked this violence might be hiding even now. I pictured them
crouching in the bushes nearby, studying my reaction, biding their time.
Reaching deep inside for the magic lurking within me, I prepared to cast my
talent out to search for other life senses.

A twig snapped behind me, making me start and release the
magic. I’d been so engrossed in my discovery I had forgotten about Dradac and
had been too rattled to notice his approach.

“Fist’s work, do you think?” he asked. “Looks like their
favorite method of execution.”

I said, “Let’s not jump to conclusions yet. Could well be
another explanation. Don’t forget the Fists have eased up on persecuting the
woods folk lately. They’ve got enough else on their minds these days. And this
man could have had a personal enemy who wanted to be rid of him. For that
matter, it could have been a simple robbery that ended in murder. There
are
brigands roaming these woods, you know.”

Dradac grunted. I guessed neither of us was in a mood for
quipping, not with the dead man’s eyes staring sightlessly up at us.

“Let’s go into the holding and have a look around,” I
suggested.

“Rideon would want us to look to our own concerns and keep
out of this.”

“Then it’s a good thing Rideon isn’t here. Anyway, rot him
and the consequences; I need to know what’s happened here.”

“If you say so.”

Dradac trilled a bird call that brought in our companions,
and when they were clustered around, I explained the change in plans.

Stealthily, we all crept in on the holding until the cabin
and outbuildings came into view. I was jolted at first sight of the hold yard.
Parts of the cabin had been pulled down, the eve posts torn away so a large
portion of the roof had collapsed to sag inward. The animal pens and out-sheds
were still standing, but the livestock were gone. Not so much as a hen feather
remained.

I noted these details in a glance, but they didn’t hold my
attention. Instead, my eyes were fastened on the bloody spectacle in the center
of the hold yard. All thought of staying within the shadows of the trees fled
my mind, and I felt myself drawn forward to approach the spot. I was vaguely
aware of my companions following at a cautious distance.

The soil was stained red. A wide circle of dark blood spread
outward from a large flat stone at the center of the yard. Down its sides ran a
stream of crimson, and beneath a shifting mass of black flies, I saw what was
only vaguely recognizable as the remains of more than one human. An arch
constructed of slender sapling limbs stood over the alter-stone—I immediately
thought of it as such—rising to about my height, its narrow limbs twisted and
interwoven. Gruesome as the offerings beneath it were, the arch itself was a
work of careful skill, a piece I might have admired but for the bloodied hair
and feathers woven between its supple branches.

I was drawn out of my thoughts by the sounds of retching and
realized a number of the outlaws who had followed me to view the gory sight
were now doubled over, emptying their bellies onto their boots.

Mouth watering ominously, I felt close to joining them.

But instead I selected the two men who seemed least effected
by the scene, Dradac and another, to accompany me around the yard. We first examined
the hold house. The dwelling was a shambles, and our halfhearted search for
survivors was impeded by fallen rafters and a caving roof. It was unsettling
poking around in the ruins of the house, seeing the broken and overturned
belongings of those unfortunate folk who had already died so violently. We
didn’t find anything of interest buried within the rubble, and a quick search
of the out-sheds revealed them deserted. Even the livestock had disappeared,
possibly stolen away.