Rebels and Fools (The Renegade Chronicles Book 1) (21 page)

“Have
you ever come across goblins before?” Klye asked. “Before the skirmish in the
sewers, I mean.”

“Nope.”
Scout bent down to retrieve one of Othello’s arrows from a goblin corpse. “If
the goblins have been in Capricon all along, they’ve done a heck of a good job
hiding it. I’ve been from one coast to the other more times than I can recall,
and I don’t remember anyone saying anything about goblins.

“I
hope Leslie’s all right,” he added. “If they came after us, they might do the
same with her.”

The
pirates joined the group then.

“We
searched every damn one of ’em, and not a single coin,” Pistol muttered. “And
other than a few daggers, their blades are too large and unwieldly to be
useful.”

By
the time Scout finished picking up as many of Othello’s arrows as he could
find, Plake had still not woken up, and Horcalus continued to shiver despite
the bedroll they had wrapped him in.

Othello
returned to the meadow, carrying some herbs that looked like nothing more than
grass to Scout. The forester told them that in order to concoct the tea for
Horcalus, he would need a fire to brew it.

“We
can’t stay here any longer,” Klye announced, shaking his head. “We’ll make a
fire after we put some distance between us and Pillars.”

“I
agree that we must be on our way,” Ragellan said, “but neither Plake nor
Horcalus are fit to travel. Perhaps I should take them to Pillars and seek the
villagers’ aid.”

“If
the messengers from Port Town are still around, you and Horcalus would only be
arrested again,” Klye argued.

Ragellan
looked as though he would argue the point but merely sighed. “We will need to
construct a litter for the wounded.”

“There’s
no time. We’ll have to carry them.” Klye’s tone did not leave room for
objections.

Before
the melancholy crew began their hike anew, Klye introduced the newcomer, Lilac.
Despite his obvious exhaustion, Klye volunteered to help Ragellan carry
Horcalus through the woods. The pirates were in charge of transporting Plake,
and since Scout was assigned to the vanguard and Othello to the rear, that left
Lilac and Arthur with the task of carrying the supplies.

“This
path will curve northward after a few more miles,” Scout told Klye. “I know of
another trail, though, that will take us due east. We’ll reach the Temple of
Mystel in about a day. I’ve been there before, Klye. The healers are really
nice. They’ll help Horcalus and Plake and not ask for a thing in return. And
you don’t have to worry about them reporting us to the Knights or anybody
because the healers help
anyone
who comes to them looking for help.”

Klye
did not answer immediately.

“When
we reach the point where this path begins to turn to the north, we’ll stop and
set up camp,” Klye said a few minutes later. “Maybe Othello can do something
for Horcalus, and hopefully Plake will be awake by then. I don’t want to have
to stop at the temple unless we have to.”

Scout
shrugged. Klye was the boss, after all.

Passage VI

As
the Renegades renewed their hike, Dark Lily had no fear of being detected by
the man in the black hood who led the way or the archer, who kept watch from
the rear. She wasn’t sneaking around the woods; the wizardess walked among
them.

She
was disappointed only two of the Renegades had been seriously injured in the
fray. The goblins might have taken out a few more, leaving fewer opponents for
her to worry about when she made her move against Ragellan and Horcalus. But
she was not overly concerned.

In
fact, if she weren’t so exhausted, she might have revealed herself right then
and there, destroying the motley band with a tempest of lightning and fire. Or
not…

Over
the years, Dark Lily had learned to wait for the right moment to strike. She
was not currently at her best, and the Renegades had proven their mettle
against the goblins. Even if she were at full strength, one of the archer’s
arrows or the hooded man’s knife could find its way into her heart. She was
outnumbered and possibly outmatched.

She
decided to wait until the advantage was hers and cursed herself for a fool for
considering doing otherwise. She mustn’t be too eager to reap her reward. The
goblins might well return to finish the Renegades off, or maybe they would
encounter another foe on their merry little trek to Fort Faith. They were
outlaws, after all.

Dark
Lily would pick her moment carefully, and in the meantime, she would learn all
she could about their weaknesses.

*
         
*
         
*

They
were forced to stop once the sun had fully set. Klye estimated they had covered
less than ten miles. While he would have preferred to put even more space
between them and the bloody meadow, walking long into the night if need be, it
just wasn’t possible. It was a small miracle that they had made it this far.

Scout
led them a little way off the road to a place flanked by a copse of pines. By
the time Klye and Ragellan lowered Horcalus to the ground and wrapped him in a
bedroll, Klye’s arms were trembling from the strain of the knight’s weight. The
pirates placed Plake near Horcalus, and Othello began searching the area for
firewood. Without being asked, Arthur joined the archer in his quest.

Horcalus’s
condition had not improved. He continued to twitch and moan, haunted
alternately by fever and chills. Plake had awoken once during the hike, but the
rancher had immediately passed out again. His heartbeat was strong, however,
and his breathing, regular. When Othello and Arthur returned to the cramped
campsite, the archer wasted no time in starting a fire.

Everyone
was spent. They were bruised and battered, but above these discomforts, Klye
felt a ravenous hunger well up from his empty stomach. When Lilac volunteered
to take Othello’s bow to hunt for their supper, the pirates heartily approved
the plan. Klye would rather have had Othello, a proven marksman, take her
place, but the archer was the only one who knew how to make the fever-breaking
concoction. Othello handed his longbow and the quiver of green-fletched arrows
to Lilac.

“It’ll
have to be a small fire,” Scout said, as Othello struck a bit of flint against
the steel of his hunting knife. “Fort Miloásterôn is only a few miles to the
north of here, and the road that connects the fort to the Temple of Mystel is
not far ahead. A lot of smoke and light will bring the Knights to us quicker
than a hound to dropped table scraps.”

By
the time he was finished, Othello had produced a modest flame with very little
smoke. Next, he busied himself with cutting up the herb-grass and placing the
small bits of green into a canteen.

As
Othello prepared the tea that would hopefully cure Horcalus’s ailment, Scout
hummed a tuneless ditty and added twigs to the fire at random intervals.
Crooker and Pistol stared glumly into the flames while Ragellan used what
little water they had left to moisten the rag for Horcalus’s brow. Klye joined
the pirates in gazing into the crackling fire, finding some relaxation in its
hypnotic dance.

*
         
*
         
*

From
behind a wall of pines, Dark Lily spied upon the Renegades but quickly grew
bored with their inactivity. She was as tired as any of them and arguably
hungrier. She knew nothing of hunting. Honing the craft of wizardry occupied
almost all of her time, and so Dark Lily had never bothered with fishing or
trapping, depending on her magic to earn coin for her next meal.

The
assassin was far too weary to go traipsing through the woods, looking for game,
and she doubted she had the strength left to toss even a small fireball at an
unsuspecting hare. There was always the wand she had stolen off the body of the
old mage, but a single blast from that talisman would likely splatter any
potential meal across the forest floor.

And
so she resigned herself to fast for the night. Like the Renegades, she would go
without. After a good night’s sleep, she would regain much of her strength, and
gods willing, the morrow would provide an opportunity to complete her mission.
Then she could feast on whatever she desired at the best establishment in
Superius.

Her
thoughts drifting once more to the spell book of Braiseph Harrow, Dark Lily
wandered farther from the Renegades’ camp. She knew she had become obsessed
with the tome but didn’t care. It was the discovery of a lifetime, and—

She
stopped suddenly. Movement out of the corner of her eye had drawn her from her
fantasies. Enshrouded in an incantation of invisibility, the woman moved as quietly
as she could toward whatever had attracted her attention. As she squeezed
between the trunks of the conifers, she realized she was heading back in the
direction from whence she and the Renegades had come.

A
figure clad entirely in some drab color that might have been gray but in the
darkness, appeared as dark as the wizardess’s own robe.

A
jolt of fear coursed through her, knotting her stomach and bringing a most
unwomanly curse to her lips. If she were to come face to face with another
assassin—spell-caster or otherwise—she knew she would lose. Even a drunken
gnome could have defeated her in her present condition.

Frozen
in alarm and not wanting to alert the stalker to her presence by making any
movement whatsoever, she could only stare as the shadowy figure paused to
crouch down and study the trail at his feet. His head and face were completely
covered by a mask that bore but a thin slit through which the man peered, first
to the left, then the right. After another quick glance behind him, he renewed
his purposeful pace in the direction of the Renegade camp.

Dark
Lily let out a sigh of relief. A fellow magus might have sensed the powerful
enchantment that made her as transparent as the air—though not necessarily.
Nevertheless, she was almost certain the man wasn’t a wizard because she
thought she recognized his garb, not to mention how gracefully he moved through
the woods.

By
nature, assassins tended to be loners, though Dark Lily had heard of
organizations that worked like guilds, training promising recruits and
assigning the work in the most appropriate manner. The individual received a
set wage for his services, and the guild as a whole took a percentage of the
pay for the whole group. It was a sensible way to make a living, Dark Lily
supposed, though she would never consider dividing her spoils with anyone.

This
stealthy assassin whom she now followed—at a safe distance, despite her
invisibility spell—was a
sai-morí
, a sect of professional killers born,
bred, and trained in Huiyah. They were rumored to be the best of the best and
were commonly hired to fight Huiyah’s secret clan wars, perpetuating blood
feuds that had existed in that nation for centuries.

Sometimes,
when the profit was great enough,
sai-morí
could be persuaded to take
jobs outside of their country…

Dark
Lily didn’t doubt the truth of their reputation. During her days as an
apprentice, a
sai-morí
had been hired to steal into the tower she called
home and murder her teacher. The assassin had nearly succeeded, and only with
her help had the master magus stopped the
sai-morí
’s deadly work. She
remembered being intrigued by the concept of getting paid a small fortune to do
something as simple as kill another person.

Perhaps
she owed her path in life to that unsuccessful
sai-morí
—at least in
part—but whatever the Stranger had promised her newest rival, she had no
intention of allowing this
sai-morí
to collect his reward.

*
         
*
         
*

Crooker
was already lying on his back with his eyes closed, so Pistol thought very
little of it when the pirate twitched, figuring his friend was reacting to a
dream. But when Scout, who had been standing nearby, pitched forward and almost
landed on the fire, the former pirate king knew something was amiss.

Drawing
the sword he had taken from one of Port Town’s prison guards, a curve-bladed
weapon not so unlike the old cutlass he had lost at Oars and Omens, Pistol
sprang to his feet and kicked Crooker none too gently with his boot.

Crooker
didn’t move.

“We’re
under attack!” Pistol shouted.

Klye
dragged Scout away from the flames and removed a tiny dart from the unconscious
man’s neck.

“Now
what?” Klye demanded, turning around in a circle and glaring at the trees
surrounding them. “What do you want from us?”

His
answer came in the form of another dart, which narrowly missed his face as it
flew past. By this time Ragellan, Othello, and Arthur, were on their feet with
weapons drawn, facing the direction from which the last tiny missile had
emerged.

“Gods
damn you,” Klye spat and charged into the woods.

Pistol
was right behind him, eager to cut down this new enemy—whoever it happened to
be. For all he knew, Crooker was dead.

Crooker,
the only one of his men who had stayed behind in Port Town in the hopes of
rescuing him.

Crooker,
a brother-in-arms since his early days of pirating and the only man Pistol had
ever implicitly trusted with his life.

Crooker,
his only friend in all of Altaerra.

Expecting
to find the campsite surrounded by an army, Pistol was surprised to see a
single person darting through the trees, away from the edge of the camp. Klye
stopped and looked around, no doubt searching for other foes, but Pistol kept
on running toward the retreating figure.

“Pistol,
stop,” Klye called. “He’s alone!”

But
Pistol didn’t stop. He wanted to paint the forest red with the blood of the man
who had dispatched Crooker in such a cowardly manner.

“Come
back!” Klye yelled. “He’s trying to separate the group!”

Pistol
ignored him, and if Klye made any further attempts to call him back, he didn’t
hear them. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the Renegade Leader was not
following, and he figured Klye had headed back to camp. Pistol didn’t care. He
would take down the bastard by himself.

“Yer
a quick one. I’ll grant you that,” he muttered. It was all he could do to keep
up with his prey, who moved through the darkened forest as though it were day.
Soon Pistol lost sight of him and stopped, breathing heavily and looking around
for clues.

He
heard an unusual sound, something cutting through the air at a great speed, and
was nearly knocked to the ground when something struck him in his shoulder.
Pistol fell to one knee, sparing a quick glance down at his shoulder. A
star-shaped blade protruded from his flesh. He pulled out the strange weapon, cutting
his thumb in the process. Every point of the star was razor sharp.

Several
more of the stars whizzed through the air, but only one came close to where
Pistol crouched.

“Come
on out an’ fight me, you gutless bilge rat!”

To
Pistol’s surprise, the attacker did just that. A living shadow, the man burst
out of a bunch of trees, unexpectedly coming from Pistol’s left side—his blind
side. But the one-eyed pirate heard the man coming and pulling up his sword in
time to parry the steel that came at him in a downward slash.

Unfortunately,
the man fought with two swords, and as Pistol blocked one of them, the other
came from one side, nearly slicing the pirate in half. He jumped back just in
time, and only the tip of the weapon caught his midsection. A red stain bloomed
across his belly, and though the wound was not very deep, Pistol felt tears
welling up in his good eye.

He
blinked them and the pain away.

The
masked assailant moved quicker than any foe Pistol had ever fought, and it took
all his skill to deflect and dodge the man’s long, thin blades. He quickly
tired, his aches from travel and the prior battle wearing him down as
effectively as the masked man’s well-placed strokes.