RuneScape: Return to Canifis (14 page)

“They were here. Both of them,” Velko persisted. “But it ain’t bad luck that’s allowed them to escape you. I know, you see. I travelled from The Wilderness with them after Sulla took charge of our band,
after he tricked Leander, which is something I didn’t think I would live to see.” The bandit stood and laughed eerily. “They have help, you see. Jerrod has
visions.
”

“What visions?” Gar’rth demanded.

Was that fear in his voice?

“I don’t know. But twice in The Wilderness he told us how to avoid trouble. The first time was the very afternoon we left Leander behind. A group of Kinshra horsemen, about two dozen, would have run straight into us if we hadn’t followed Jerrod’s instructions.” Velko laughed. “They must have found Leander though. I wonder what they did with him?”

“We saw them,” Arisha said. “They did have someone with them, but they were too far away for us to identify them. Whether this was Leander or another captive, I cannot say.”

“He’s had dealings with them before. Perhaps they spared him. Perhaps he’s bargained with them for what he knows about Sulla. You see, I know a bit more, as well.”

Pia felt Velko’s eyes fall upon her. The mutilated man drew a hand across his throat in a clear warning to remain silent.

Sulla’s blackmailing
, she knew.
That is what he wants to trade.

“These visions of Jerrod’s concern me,” Kara said. “I never knew he could do that. Did you?” She looked to Gar’rth, who shrugged.

“Maybe Lord Drakan is helping him. From Morytania. Guiding him.”

“But why now?” Arisha asked. “Why not six months ago?” Kara motioned, and the three companions strode back next to the barn to converse in secret. Pia saw Gar’rth shrug again, and shake his head. Finally, Kara sighed.

“Arisha, Gar’rth, find out from Velko the names of his dead companions,” she said resignedly. “I don’t think we can catch up with Sulla—he’ll be in Varrok now, and we are already late. I promised
Theodore we would be there for the Midsummer celebration.”

“Do you have paper, Kara?” Arisha said. “For the names?”

Suddenly Pia felt Jack move at her side.

“I have some, in my bag,” he said eagerly. “You can have it if you would like?”

Jack took the parchment from his bag and handed it to Arisha.

“Where did that come from Jack?” Pia asked her brother.

“You gave it me at the inn. It was the message that was passed on by the innkeeper.”

Pia gasped.

From the squire, Theodore, who so nearly ruined my plan.

Arisha took it and read the first line. Coldly, her blue eyes fell on the siblings.

“Explain this,” she said. “It is addressed to Kara.”

“What? What is it?” Kara strode back from the barn and took it. Her eyes passed over the short message and then fell back to Pia. “It’s from Theodore. You must have read this.”

“I...” Pia looked at the ground. “Neither of us can read,” she admitted.

“What does it say?” Gar’rth asked, his eyes narrowing visibly.

Kara looked at him steadily.

And coldly.

“He is most concerned with you and Arisha. He received Arisha’s letter telling him that we had gone into The Wilderness, and he wonders why neither of you are with me.”

“Is that all?” Gar’rth said.

“He also writes how worried he is that we are pursuing Jerrod, even all three of us.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else, Gar’rth.” Kara folded the paper and put it in her satchel.

Suddenly Velko laughed, and he nodded in Pia’s direction.

“Jerrod? You should ask
her
about him. You cut him, didn’t you, girl? You made him bleed his black blood.” At his words, a look of absolute surprise appeared on the faces of Kara-Meir and her two companions.

“You cut him?” Gar’rth said. “How?”

“I found a dagger in the cellar. A two-bladed one. There is a cupboard there, and I used the knife to cut my bonds, and when I tried to run, Jerrod caught me.”

“And you are still alive? That is a miracle,” Kara said.

“Something happened to him, to Jerrod,” Velko offered. “The dagger made him ill.”

Kara’s eyes fell eagerly upon Pia.

“Show me.”

The girl led Kara back into the barn, but when the smell of blood hit her she wobbled. She felt Kara’s hand steady her.

“Take a moment,” she said calmingly. “It is a horrible sight, even to me, and I have fought in many battles.”

“I have never killed anyone before, Kara,” Pia responded. “How can you do it? They say you killed a hundred men in the siege of Falador.”

But Kara-Meir said nothing.

“And how could you see them, in the dark?” Pia asked as she recovered.

“I grew up with the dwarfs under Ice Mountain,” Kara explained. “My younger years were spent in very dark places. My eyes became attuned to see in such.” She gave Pia another moment to steady herself. “Now, are you ready?”

Pia nodded and found her way to the cellar. Stepping off of the ladder, she moved to the cupboard, where six of the two-bladed daggers still sat on a shelf.

“I heard someone say that Jerrod was a werewolf, Kara,” she said. “Is that true? Do such things truly exist?”

“It is true, Pia. Jerrod is a dreadful enemy, and I don’t understand how you could wound him with such a weapon as this.” Kara examined one of the daggers in detail.

“I saw his face, Kara,” Pia replied. “It was horrible. But then I saw it a few seconds later, and it was human. I thought I was imagining it. He said the dagger was cursed by Saradomin. Even being close to it seemed to make him sick.”

“Interesting, Pia.” Kara said. “Very interesting.” She sniffed the blade, and then, with a wary look up the ladder into the barn, as though she didn’t want to be seen, she tucked one of the knives into her satchel. Then, after a moment of consideration, she took four of the remaining five and did likewise.

“Tell no one of this, Pia. No one. Do you understand?”

“Yes. But Kara, what will happen to me?” Her voice was pleading. “And Jack? He has done nothing wrong. Please Kara, he’s not even nine years old.”

Kara pursed her lips.

“You committed a robbery, Pia, although it seems as if you lost all you gained when Straven caught you.” Pia frowned and Kara saw her look. “Jack told us everything he knew when we found him, bleeding and exhausted on the road. But as for you I have not yet decided what to do. Now, come on.”

“Wait, Kara. We are alone here, and I trust you, for you had no reason to come to my rescue after I abused your reputation,” she said, and she paused a moment to remember. “Sulla has a plan—it was what Velko is keeping to tell you in exchange for a pardon. He’s extorting money from a noble with documents that only he can understand. He said the noble was the first of many.”

“So Sulla becomes a common thief,” Kara said scornfully. “He
was a warlord when I first encountered him, and since then I have reduced him to scraping a living. When I next meet him, Pia, I will do what I should have done six months ago. I shall make him a corpse.”

When they emerged into the daylight they found Jack trying on some new boots. Gar’rth had taken them from one of the corpses, the one with the smallest feet, and Jack smiled, despite the fact that even these were plainly too big.

“I have the names of Velko’s friends, Kara,” Arisha said. “Gar’rth found a scrap of parchment on one of the bodies, and that was enough for me to write them down.”

“Very good,” Kara said. “Then let us start our walk back to Varrock. We should still be in time to enjoy the Midsummer Festival, and at least now we can present King Roald with the gift of justice.”

Never a rope!

The thought echoed through Pia’s mind the nearer they came to Varrock. From the east, the land was pastoral, where dry stone walls divided it into the fiefdoms of influential noblemen.

“It’s a fertile country,” Arisha mused. “But it is quiet. I know my people of the tribes would find life pleasant here.”

Velko laughed derisively from the front of their small group. Of the captives, only he was bound. Pia saw that his subservience had vanished, to be replaced by anger now that his pleas for mercy had been ignored.

“So you are a barbarian?” he asked. “This is the east, woman. Nothing here now except open country all the way to the Salve. That’s why few live here. Even your uncivilized race surely has stories of what goes on across that river.”

“My
uncivilized
people don’t hang others,” Arisha replied. “The
most common punishment for all crimes save murder is for the offender to be ostracised. Perhaps, in the few hours that remain to you, you should dwell on which of our societies is truly the more uncivilised.”

Velko mumbled under his breath. Pia could see that the barbarian’s words had chilled him. And she shared the feeling.

They paused to rest in the shadow of a tall yew tree. Velko began to weep again, shaking his head, as if refusing to believe that he’d been captured.

Perhaps his mind is going.

She took Jack’s hand and moved farther away from the thief. She had seen men hanged before, and knew the sudden burst of strength they could possess when faced with the gallows.

As she sat down, closer to Gar’rth and Kara, she saw that the heroine’s eyes rarely left her prisoner.

“I am unwell, Kara,” she heard Gar’rth say bitterly. “I feel light headed and I cannot smell anything, anything at all! It’s as if I’ve lost my sight.” He lowered his hood to reveal his face, pale and drawn. He breathed deeply, and every time nature made a sound his head would dart toward its source as if in paranoid surprise.

Kara shifted her satchel as she stepped away from him. Her dark eyes found Pia, and held her gaze.

She’s giving me a warning.

“Perhaps you should take Velko on ahead,” Kara suggested to her companion. “We have been tracking Sulla for nearly a month now, and we may be close to locating him. And besides...” Kara lowered her voice, looking at Velko briefly. “I want to separate the prisoners. I want to see if there is anything Pia can add to Velko’s account, to be sure we know everything. Don’t go too far ahead though, not beyond sight.”

Gar’rth nodded and stood. He lifted the bound man to his feet
with a slight grunt of effort and led him in the direction of Varrock.

“I have never seen Gar’rth ill before,” Arisha said. “Not since the monastery.”

“He is his own man now, since the exorcism,” Kara replied. Still, her words were spoken with some doubt.

“Please Kara,” Pia said now that Velko was out of earshot. “What will you do with us? I know I committed a fraud. I admit it. But it was that or die. And I have told you everything I know.”

Kara lowered her head doubtfully.

Pia pressed on.

“We are not wicked people, Kara. I have never killed anybody. I have taken care of Jack since we were young, when our parents died. Last year we left Ardougne in Kandarin and since then we found our way here. If we didn’t steal, we would have starved to death!”

Hot tears sprang to her eyes.

“Kara?” Arisha asked as Pia’s vision blurred. She felt Jack’s hand on her shoulder. “What
do
you propose to do with them?”

A silence fell as Pia cleared the moistness from her eyes. When she could see again she saw Kara looking at her and Jack with a frustrated glare. Quickly, Kara looked to Gar’rth, and then back at them.

“I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “Velko will certainly be handed over to the Varrock guard. By his own admission, he has offended enough to warrant hanging. But you two...” She peered at them for a long moment. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be responsible for hanging children.”

Pia felt her face brighten.

Thank you Kara. Thank you!

“But then, I cannot let you go either. I have given mercy to those who should have been killed, and other lives have suffered because of it. Mercy to the likes of Sulla and Jerrod is a death to others,
and each is a burden to my conscience.” She turned to her friend. “You know what they did to that man who found his way to the monastery, Arisha. And what they did to the rest of his party who were less fortunate.”

Arisha frowned and lowered her head.

“The point is, Pia, I don’t know you,” Kara said. “I don’t know what else you have done. Therefore I cannot let you go free. Even if I did that, you would only thieve again. I just don’t know.”

“They are still just children Kara,” Arisha said. “Children in need of a guide. You should think about the futures you can offer them—either death at the end of a rope, or a life under your tutelage.”

Kara looked startled and turned away, her brow creased in puzzlement.

“I saw the look on your face after you killed the men in the barn, Kara,” Arisha continued. “And Gar’rth and I have talked frequently since our journey began. You are changing. You are not so violent as before, since you defeated Sulla. If you had someone to look after, it would benefit you as much as them.”

Pia saw Kara’s face darken.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, anger in her voice. “I just slew fourteen men!”

“Fourteen men who deserved it. Fourteen men who refused your offer of mercy. You did it, but you didn’t
like
doing it. And now you can offer these two young thieves the chance of a better life.”

“The laws of Misthalin are not mine to make or withhold, Arisha,” Kara countered. “I cannot dare to claim as such. And nor can you.”

When Arisha spoke again, Pia heard a condescending note in her voice.

“I am reminded of a girl I saw once who rode into my village. She had stolen a horse to get there, all the way from Falador. That
certainly would have been a hanging offence if subsequent events hadn’t turned out the way they did.” The barbarian woman looked west, to where Gar’rth walked with his prisoner. “And Gar’rth’s own history is not so different from Pia’s. He stole to survive, and had he found someone without Ebenezer’s humanity he, too, would have been hanged.”

“That was different...” Kara began.

“How?” Jack chirped innocently.

Kara remained silent, staring at the young boy. Then she shrugged.