Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm (11 page)

Shylar’s whorehouse had always served as a safe house and gathering place for Cullinsberg’s male citizens, criminals and guards alike. Taziar had never found reason to enter by any means except the front door and once, after his escape from the baron’s dungeons, through the emergency, black portal set apart from the regular client areas of the whorehouse.
I hate to break in, but, under the circumstances, Shylar could hardly blame me for being careful.

Taziar glanced up the wall to the rows of windows lining the second floor. Dark shutters covered many. Others had their shutters flung wide, and filmy curtains in soft pinks and blues rode the autumn breezes. Taziar knew each window opened into a bedroom; the only sleeping quarters in the whorehouse without one belonged to Shylar. Next door, the madam’s study did have a window, but it overlooked the crowded main street rather than the alleyway. Taziar frowned. The idea of sneaking into a building in broad daylight, even from a deserted throughway, did not appeal to him; but he dared not waste the hours until night in ignorance.

How much trouble is Shylar in? How long did it take her messenger to find me, and what might that delay have cost her?
Taziar shivered. His shoulder jarred the empty water barrel, tipping it precariously. Quickly, Taziar caught it by the base, steadying it and averting the noise that would certainly have drawn guardsmen or curious passersby. He cursed, aware his concern for Shylar was making him sloppy. He knew he would perform better by suppressing the myriad worries and questions that plagued him; he had always managed to do so in the past. But now an image of Shylar’s kindly features was rooted in his mind, unable to be dismissed. The darker portions of Taziar’s consciousness conjured a nebulous, nameless threat against her, pressing him to a restless panic he had not known since the day he had helplessly watched his father hanged and then taken his mother’s life.

Madness pressed Taziar. He rose to his knees, goaded to an action he had not yet planned. It was not his way to act without intense and meticulous research, but the idea of Shylar endangered drove him to do something, anything, no matter how severe the consequences.
The baron’s “justice” took my parents from me. No one is going to hurt Shylar without a fight!

Calm. Calm.
Taziar eased back into a crouch, trying to temper need with reason. The inability to picture a specific threat against Shylar gave him pause to think.
Who would want to harm Shylar?
No answers came. She was the one constant feature in a town that had little of permanence to offer its street orphans and beggars. Her position as madam gained her no enemies. She treated her girls like daughters. Well-paid and fed, they came to her as a reasonable alternative to living hand to mouth on the streets. She kept the underground informed, gave shelter and money or jobs to those down on their luck. And, for every guardsman who suspected and felt obligated to report her connection to Cullinsberg’s criminal element, three superiors were bribed or loyal clients.

This is getting me nowhere. There’s too many things I don’t know. I’ll just have to talk to Shylar.
Having made the decision, Taziar slipped into his calmer, competent routine. He turned to the wall, nestling his fingers into chinks between the stones, and scaled it with the ease of long habit. Drawing himself up to the first unshuttered window, he hesitated. Most of the whorehouse’s bedroom business occurred at night, but it was not unusual for the guards on evening shift or night-stalking thieves to bed Shylar’s prostitutes during the daylight hours. Quietly, ears tuned for any sounds from within, Taziar peeked through the window.

Pale blue curtains tickled his face. Through fabric gauzy as a veil, Taziar studied the room. A bed lay flush with the wall, covered by a disheveled heap of sheets and blankets. Near its foot, a multidrawered dressing table occupied most of the left-hand wall; a crack wound like a spider’s web through a mirror bolted to its surface. Directly across from the window, the door to the hallway stood ajar. Seeing no one in the room, Taziar scrambled inside. Silently, he crept across the floorboards. Pressing his back to the wall that separated the room from the hallway, he listened for footsteps. Hearing none, he peered through the gap.

The unadorned hallway lay empty. Doors on either side led into bedrooms, some shut, some open and some, like the one Taziar peeked out from, ajar. Familiar with the signals, Taziar knew the closed doors indicated active business, the open doors empty rooms ready for use, and the ajar panels tagged dirtied rooms for the cleaning staff. To Taziar’s right, the hallway ended in a staircase leading to the lower floor. At the opposite end of the hallway, a pair of plain, oak doors closed off the storage areas. Kept in perpetual darkness, these closets could be used to spy on the bargaining rooms below. Across the hall and to Taziar’s left, the doors to Shylar’s bedroom and study lay closed. Slipping into the hallway, he crept toward the madam’s office.

Taziar had taken only a few steps when a doorknob clicked. A sandal rasped lightly across the wooden floor. Caught between two closed doors, he whirled, tensed for a wild dash back to the bedroom through which he had entered. He found himself facing Varin, a willowy brunette in her twenties. A purple-black bruise circled her left eye, abrasions striped her calves, and several fingers appeared swollen.

Taziar stared, shocked by Varin’s wounds. Shylar’s rules were strict, protective of her girls almost to a fault. “Varin?” he whispered. Gently, without threat, he shuffled a step toward her.

Varin’s mouth gasped. Surprise crossed her features, and she raised whitened knuckles to her lips. Yet Taziar also read a more welcoming expression in her dark eyes, a sparkle of hope. “Taz?” Her voice emerged softer than his own. Her face lapsed into terrified creases. “You’ve got to get out of here. Go. Go. Quickly.” She jerked her head about, as if seeking an escape, and her hands fluttered frantically. “Get away. Go!”

“Varin, please.” Concerned for the woman, Taziar ignored the question of his own safety. “Calm down. Just tell me what’s going on. Who ... ?”

Varin’s gaze drifted beyond Taziar. Her eyes flared wide, and she screamed. Fixing her stare directly on the Shadow Climber, she screamed again and again, then whirled and raced toward the staircase.

Taziar’s every muscle tightened. He spun to face a burly, dark-haired strong-arm man he knew by sight but not by name. Before the Climber could speak, the larger man lunged for him. Taziar leaped backward, reeling toward the stairs. The man’s hands closed on air, and he lurched after Taziar.

Taziar charged down the hallway, not daring to slow long enough to negotiate a corner into one of the rooms.
If I pause to climb through a window, he’s got me. Have to get downstairs to the doors.

The strong-arm man’s cry rang through the whorehouse. “It’s Taz! The traitor’s in the house!” His bootfalls crashed after the fleeing Climber.

Taziar’s memory sprang to action, mapping the route through the kitchen to the emergency exit.
The open meeting area’s just before the front door. Too many people there. Got to get out the back.
He skidded onto the landing, trying to catch a glimpse of the layout below, prepared to dodge whoever blocked his path to the exit. Below and to his right, a crowd of prostitutes sat bolt upright on gathered couches, benches, and chests. The half dozen men interspersed between them mobilized slowly. Beyond Varin, now nearly down to the lower landing, Taziar saw no one between himself and the door to the kitchen.

The strong-arm man sprang forward, catching a streaming fold of Taziar’s cloak.

Yanked suddenly backward, Taziar lost his footing. He twisted. Cloth tore. He pitched into empty air. His shoulder crashed into the hard edge of steps, and momentum flung him, tumbling, down the stairs. Wildly, he flailed for a handhold, but the cloak tangled about his hands, the soft fabric slipping from the wood as if greased. His head struck the banister, ringing. Each step jolted the breath out of him, stamping bruises into his flesh.

Taziar landed, sprawled, at the foot of the flight. Dazed, he staggered to his feet. A wave of rising enemies filled his vision. Cursing the pain, but glad for the seconds his fall had gained him, he burst through the door into the kitchen.

A middle-aged man sat, composed and alone, at the huge dining table across from the cooking fire. At the far side of the room, the exit stood, slightly ajar, and Taziar knew it led into a small food storage room where Shylar screened whoever pounded on the black door, ignoring anyone who did not use one of the assigned, personal codes of the underground. Relief washed over Taziar. If it came to a race, he knew he could beat the stranger to the door.
Once in the entryway, I’m free.
He quickened his pace.

The stranger did not move. An odd smile graced his features, and he made a loud but wordless noise as Taziar caught the doorknob.

Before Taziar could pull it, the door wrenched open violently. For a startled instant, Taziar stared at a leather tunic stretched taut across a muscled chest. He glanced up to fair features so badly scarred that bands of tissue disrupted golden hair in patches. Pale eyes swiveled, unmistakably glazed from the berserker mushrooms some Vikings took to enhance ferocity in battle. Hands large as melons seized Taziar’s arms. The Norseman dragged Taziar off his feet and through the doorway, then spun and hurled the Climber into the far wall.

Taziar’s shoulder blades crashed into stone. Impact jolted pain along his spine. He heard the door slam shut as he stumbled forward and caught a glimpse of a second Norseman, larger than the first. Then, clenched fists slammed into Taziar’s lower chest with the speed of a galloping horse. Something cracked. Pain jabbed Taziar’s lungs, and momentum reeled him into the wall. His head smacked granite. His vision blurred and spun, and it required a struggle of will to keep from sinking limply to the floor.

A tottering side step regained Taziar his balance. He raised an arm in defense, his other hand pawing desperately for his sword. The scarred Norseman seized him by the wrists and ripped both arms behind him. Taziar struggled madly, but the larger man pinned him as easily as an infant. Through a whirling fog of anguish, Taziar watched the Norseman’s partner approach and recognized the same drug-crazed expression on this man’s features. “Wait!” he gasped. Doubled fists exploded into his abraded cheek. Taziar’s neck snapped sideways. There was a sudden flash of brilliant white; blindness descended on him. For a second, he thought he was dead. Then the huge hands smashed his other cheek, sparking pain that made him scream.

“My turn.” The man holding Taziar used the Scandinavian tongue with selfish eagerness, his grip pinching cruelly. “You’ll kill him before I get a chance.” Suddenly, he let go.

Drained of vigor and direction, Taziar collapsed. Weakly, he struggled to hands and knees, regaining clouded vision just in time to watch the scarred man’s hand speeding for his face. He lurched backward clumsily. Curled fingers caught a glancing blow across the bridge of his nose with a blaze of pain. The follow up from the opposite fist pounded Taziar’s lips against his teeth. Jarred half senseless, he sank to the floor.

“Skereye, enough!” A stranger’s voice scarcely penetrated Taziar’s mental fog. Through bleary, blood-striped vision, he examined the man who had been sitting at the kitchen table and had now entered the room. Dressed in blue and white silks and leather leggings, he stood with a quiet dignity that seemed out of place amidst the Norsemen’s rabid violence. Despite his commanding manner, his eyes revealed gentle confusion, as if he had just escaped from a nightmare and had not quite reoriented to waking reality.

Skereye enwrapped his fingers in Taziar’s hair and hefted the Climber to his feet. The Norseman’s gaze jumped from Taziar to his master and back to Taziar. Robbed of control by the berserker drug, Skereye buried a fist in Taziar’s stomach. The force sprawled the Climber. Air rushed from his lungs, leaving him no breath for a scream. Skereye pressed, hammering wild punches into Taziar’s face until blood splotched his knuckles and Taziar fought for each ragged breath.

Even then, the beating might have continued had the leader not seized Skereye’s wrist on a backswing. “I said enough!” He wrenched with a strength out of proportion to his average build.

Skereye stumbled free of his victim, and, with a bellow of outrage, turned on his master. Blood-slicked fists cocked in threat. Skereye’s drug-mad gaze locked on his leader, but it was the Norseman who backed down. Skereye lowered his hands with a harsh oath. “You said we could kill him,” he accused.

Unable to speak, Taziar raised a hand that shook so intensely he could scarcely control it. He wiped dirt from his eyes, and scarlet rivulets twined between his fingers.

Nonplussed, the silk-clad leader stepped around Skereye, his manner fiercely coiled. “My mind’s been changed.” Momentarily, he cocked his head, as if listening to something no one else could hear. His expression went strained, and he mumbled so softly Taziar was uncertain whether he heard correctly. “No one deserves to die like this.” Then, catching a sleeve, the leader hoisted Taziar to his feet and shoved him into the other bodyguard’s arms. “Halden, let him go. Skereye, disobey me again, and you’ll know worse than death.” Without bothering to clarify his threat, he stormed through the doorway into the whorehouse.

Taziar caught a misty glimpse of curious, female eyes peering through the crack before the leader’s snarl sent them scurrying away. The door whacked shut behind him.

Skereye opened the rear entry while Halden hefted Taziar by the hair and a fold of his cloak. Halden tossed a glance over his shoulder, apparently to ascertain that his master had not returned. Satisfied, he hurled Taziar’s battered form, headfirst, into the warehouse wall across the thoroughfare.

Taziar’s skull slammed against stone. Darkness closed over him, and he crumpled gracelessly to the dirt.

Taziar awoke to a foul liquid that tasted distressingly similar to urine. He choked. The drink burned his windpipe and sent him into a spasm of coughing. Agony jagged through his chest. He splinted breaths, moving air in a rapid, shallow manner that minimized the pain. The cold edge of a mug touched his mouth. A drop splashed the lacerated skin of his lip, stinging. “No more,” he managed hoarsely.