Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (32 page)

She enjoyed her own role in that effort, much to her surprise  – from setting up the scrying and observation spells to coordinating the efforts of the squadron to the clandestine spying she did in disguise, it had been an exciting departure from her public life.  And it proved professionally gratifying.  She had done good, practical work for the first time in awhile.  The magic was elementary, but helpful to remind her of basic technique.  Envisioning and directing their new clandestine service against the rats satisfied a bizarre artistic urge, as well as the pure joy of performing a nasty surprise on people who were undeniably bad. 

But it was those times where she was masquerading as a laundry woman or a nun or a matron going to market in order to learn something of value to the effort had given her a better perspective on Vorone and the people who lived here.

The people in the Market quarter were good folk, in desperate times.  They wanted to be friendly and helpful, but had grown too used to the perils of doing so.  Some were considering flight, most had nowhere else to go.  In the absence of their accustomed trade, they’d made do with whatever manner of business they could.  That occasionally led to bargains with the Crew, particularly high-interest loans and protection money.  That kind of social submission to gangsters cast a pall over the ward, and by extension the entire city. 

It had also inspired Pentandra in her unorthodox duties with the fictitious gang she and Vemas had set up, to be known as the “Woodsmen”.  They’d agreed that a rustic motif would likely inspire uncertainty in the minds of the southern Rats, and invoke superstitious dread in the minds of Wilderlands gangsters.  They were working on the details, now - none of which she would share with the Great Council, for security reasons -- but they were preparing their first round of activity, and she was eager to see the result.

But not just for her own aggrandizement.  When she had lent her ideas to the operation she did so in consideration of the people of the ward, not necessarily in opposition to the Rat Crew.  It was a subtle distinction, but she was a mage – subtlety was part of the job. 

It had borne fruit.  Using the excellent intelligence they’d gathered for weeks, both magically and personally, the Woodsmen had located and identified two different buildings the Crew used as their headquarters in the district.  One was the back room of a lower-class inn, the
Randy Doe
, which functioned as a working space and gathering place for the thugs.  The other was the upper floor of a scribe and bookseller who was acting as a legitimate front for the Crew, and served as office and command center for the gang.  That was where their captain, Opilio the Knife, worked from.

Their initial operation was simple.  Every business they’d identified as being beholden to the Crew was marked with a glyph of Pentandra’s own design.  She’d spent an entire day wandering through the Market ward in the garb of a burgher’s wife shopping, with her baculus disguised as a common staff to ward off dogs or betters.  The glyphs she quietly cast with her rod were invisible . . . until activated. 

Meanwhile, her rough-looking guardsmen made themselves look even less reputable than normal.  Instead of returning to the inns and taverns they were used to haunting in an effort to gain information, she had them switch to places where their faces were not so familiar.  There they each told a tale, after buying the hall a round in gratitude for their fortunes.  Though the details differed greatly, by design, the bones of the story was the same:

Deep in the backcountry of the Wilderlands, in some remote vale untouched by the hated gurvani, was a peaceful hamlet, six -- or eight -- or four -- or nine -- families of woodcutters, freeholders who farmed and hunted and dwelt in blissful ignorance of events beyond the horizon. 

They were protected from harm by a reclusive hermit, an old woodland sorcerer who - it was said - had some teaching from the gurvani.  Or the Alka Alon.  Or still stranger powers.  He used his magic to protect the folk and considered them like family.

The story ran that the old man was away from the settlement, deep in the wilds, when a pair of brigands came to the village.  The folk were unused to strangers, but friendly. In accordance with the laws of hospitality they took them in and treated them as travelers.  But in the night the two brigands conspired to steal what little wealth the woodsmen had, and then despoil the place where there was no lawful lord to hold them to account.

Then (the dramatic pause, she’d instructed the guardsmen, that was essential) the two clubbed their hosts in their sleep, and bound them in their beds.  They made sport with the prettiest of the maids, and cruelly tortured the noblest of the men in front of their families.  Pentandra left the details to the tellers, but emphasized to the guardsmen that the lurid character of the tale was what was important.  She did not doubt that the seasoned watchmen knew just how to inflate the tale to the tastes of their audience.

When the brigands were done with their sport, they set fire to the homes and stole away over the horizon . . . south, toward their home.  They’d left behind few survivors, but in their brutish delight they’d buried one of their blades in the belly of a maid (or a boy . . . or an old woman . . .) and left it there to torment the poor soul until she (he) died. 

When the Master of the Wild returned to his folk, he was too late to save all but a few.  He saw the knife - of simple iron manufacture, with a sharp point and little blade - the sorcerer became so enraged he’d vowed revenge against the evil men who did the crime.  As there was no lord over the place to seek justice, as the gods prefer, the Master of the Wild took matters into his own hands.

Using his great powers, he took the beaten and tattered survivors of the massacre and mixed them with the animals of the forest, using their strength and the natural powers so abundant in the backcountry to transform them.  The Woodsmen, some with their limbs replaced by claw or hoof, rose at the call of their master, and were marching south toward Vorone. 

Indeed, the clandestine guardsmen assured them, they were already here.

With enough coin to buy enough drink - and therefore attention -- in the public houses of the quarter, the tale spread like a dose of pox through a whorehouse. 

A few days later Sir Vemas arranged, through his long and surprising acquaintance with the minstrels who worked the inns, to have a song in verse made of the episode.  Within days, everyone in the Market quarter was singing the tune:
The Rise Of the Woodsmen
.

That’s when the first sighting of the mysterious animal-headed figures were reported, as the guardsmen began to venture forth in the very latest hours of night. 

The effect on the Crew had been gratifying.  At first they scoffed at the tale, and then boasted of the deeds they’d done that were far worse.  But as the dire prediction Sir Vemas had tagged at the end of the song promised, the Master of the Wild was coming to kill all the rats in Vorone, the gangsters began to get resentful.  Then surly.  Then aggressive, as they shouted down or threatened anyone in a tavern who dared so much as whistle the tune in their presence.

For the townsfolk of the quarter, the little ditty offered at least a hint of hope.  They’d suffered with the arrogant Rats for long enough to want to believe that they would, someday, be free of their yoke.  An avenging wild mage from the sticks sounded like a gods-sent answer to their oppression.

And that’s exactly how Pentandra and Vemas designed the story, over a bottle of Wenshari spirits, one evening in Spellmonger’s Hall.

When the Market ward was properly prepared, and the interest in the tale began to wane, that was when Pentandra activated her spell.  In one night, every business she’d enchanted with the glyph sprouted a dark but unmistakable sign on its door: a rat, next to its head, its feet in the air.

The stir the spell caused was instantaneous.  Neighbors were suddenly revealed, it seemed, as agents of the Crew.  The signs could not be scrubbed off, being magic, and while some folk attempted to cover the disturbing symbol, it became all too apparent to the entire ward who was involved with the Rats.  A small riot broke out, but thanks to Sir Vemas’ foresight the town guardsmen were ready to break it up almost as soon as it began.

The Rat Crew, on the other hand, responded by quietly threatening every “client” of theirs in the ward in an attempt to uncover the mysterious vandal.  The first real signs of uncertainty began to set into the gang, at that point.

That’s when Sir Vemas chose to act, while the Rats were still confused.  Instead of merely raiding the two sites in the ward, the secret crew of animal-masked guardsmen tracked the comings and goings to the two urban strongholds and discovered several members of the clandestine organization who they might never have suspected. 

Just before dusk, five nondescript men made their way through the Market ward, stopping regularly to collect the week’s take from the Crew’s clients.  At each stop the merchant dutifully handed over their hard-earn silver to the grim faced courier, because they had learned the value of cooperation with the corrupt organization.   In fact, the merchants’ cooperation led to a decidedly complacent attitude among the Rats.  So easily went the evening’s collections that none of them noticed the shadowy figures who trailed them until it was too late.

Pentandra had surprisingly little feeling as she oversaw the assassinations.  Sir Vemas and the men had objectified the Rats so much that it barely felt like condemning a man to death – more like having the servants butcher a chicken.  She understood, intellectually, that each of those men was a human being with a mother and father, and possible with daughters and sons.  But when the time came, and she oversaw the killings by magically tracking them, their deaths barely registered to her mind.  She had to remind herself that they weren’t playing a game that first night as the Woodsmen reported back, each team with a bag of silver in hand. 

All five gangsters were murdered by the mysterious figures, all had tried to fight off their surprise attacker, and all had died.  All were attacked within five hundred feet of their destination.  In each case  large bag of money was lifted from their bodies.  The night guards had spoken to two eyewitnesses, but they had little to offer save that neither attacker had looked quite . . . human.

That didn’t deter Opilio the Knife one bit, of course.  The scandal of having his men attacked, killed, and robbed of his money –
his
money! – in the middle of normal business weighed heavily on the gangster.  Jokes at his expense began to be made, undermining his credibility.   The rumors the guardsmen picked up in their vagabond disguises were a glorious tale of a gang in a state of chaos.

They always prepared carefully, striking at the Rats when they were alone.  In two nights the surprise assassinations dwindled the ranks of Opilio’s thugs, with no clear foe in sight.  More importantly, the store of silver each of them carried on behalf of their master was taken.  Disappearing after an attack was easy - the Woodsmen, as the guardsmen on Vemas’ secret force called themselves in homage to the myth, merely had to remove their masks and robes to fade into the ward.

More, the Woodsmen had proven their existence to the merchants owed money to the Crew. That brought some hope, as well as some fear, to the folk of the Market ward.

“Surprisingly well, Excellency,” Pentandra said, optimistically.  “In the last few weeks we have shattered the calm of our foes, and in the last few days we have dispatched at least nine.”

“Nine?”
gasped coinsister Saltia.  “Really?  Nine?”

“Nine who we know are affiliated with the organization,” Pentandra said, evenly.  “Three more who were in their favor.”

“Luin’s staff!  How are you doing it?” Angrial asked, surprised.

“My company has adopted disguises,” explained Pentandra.  “Masks, designed to conceal and inspire dismay among our foe.  For the first few days, they were but shadows who haunted the Market ward, gathering intelligence.  A week ago we revealed ourselves – well, our disguised selves – and took action by robbing the robbers.  Five large bags of silver were taken. 

“But instead of returning them to the Treasury, or keeping them for ourselves,” Pentandra said, proudly – for it had been her idea— “we redistributed the monies to the merchants, allowing them to pay off their debts to the Crew—“

“You gave the money away?” Threanas asked, dismayed.

“They paid their debts with the Crew’s
own money!
” Saltia gasped.  “That’s brilliant!”

“If there is no debt, there is no reason for the Crew to harass and murder the townsfolk,” agreed Salgo.  “That’s a wise strategy.”

“We chose the merchants who owed the very least amounts to Opilio and his lackeys.  A hundred ounces of silver or less.  This morning they dutifully paid off the criminals at our behest, leaving only a few of their largest debtors for them to focus on.  And
this
evening,” she said with a satisfied smile, “all of that silver that they have collected and applied against their clients’ debts shall mysteriously disappear from their coffers . . . the result of a spell that I cast upon one of the silver coins.  Their books will be balanced, but their cash in their coffers will decidedly
not
be.”

“And whence the coin?” asked Angrial, amused.

“To our purse – again,” smiled Pentandra.  “All but the enchanted coin.  I shall summon it tomorrow, and for the second time we will have robbed the robbers.  And this time the other half of Opilio’s major clients will be able to pay the Crew what they owe, courtesy of the crew’s own treasury.  Of course they will be screaming and hollering about the robbery, for the only ones capable of stealing from the Market quarter Crew are one of the other crews, according to their doctrine.  That should sow
plenty
of dissention in the groups.