Shards of a Broken Crown (44 page)

He crept through
an open building, a small former business on the edge of the Poor
Quarter. He hung inside, staying hidden in shadow, while watching the
view out in the quarter.

Men and women
moved through the tents and shacks, dealing trade goods and food, as
well as illicit goods. Dash was looking for a certain face and would
be content to wait until he saw it.

Near sundown, a
small man came hurrying toward the building, intent on some errand,
lost in thought. As he passed the open door, Dash reached out and
grabbed him by the collar of his dingy shirt, hauling him inside.

The man yelped
in terror, and started to beg, “Don’t kill me! I didn’t
do it!”

Dash put his
hand over the little man’s mouth and said, “Didn’t
do what, Kirby?”

When he saw he
wasn’t going to be instantly killed, the little man relaxed.
Dash removed his hand. “Whatever it was you think I did,”
said the little man.

“Kirby
Dokins,” said Dash, “the only thing you do is trade in
information. If you weren’t so useful, I’d squash you
like the bug you are.”

The
vile-smelling little man grinned. His face was a patchwork of scars
and blemishes. He was a beggar by trade, and an informant when
opportunity presented himself. Like the cockroach he was, he had
crawled into a crack in the stones and survived the destruction of
the city. “But you have use of me, don’t you?”

“For the
moment,” conceded Dash. “Two of my men were dumped on the
jail steps last night, their throats cut. I want those who did it.”

“No one’s
bragging.”

“See what
you can find out, but at midnight tonight, I’ll be here, and
you better be as well, with names.”

“That
might prove difficult,” said the snitch.

“Make it
happen,” said Dash, hauling the little man up so that Dash’s
nose almost touched Kirby’s. “I don’t need to make
up crimes to get you hung. Keep me happy.”

“I live to
keep you happy, Sheriff.”

“Exactly.”
He let go of the little man’s shirt. “And pass word back
to that old man.”

“What old
man?” asked Kirby, feigning ignorance.

“I don’t
have to tell you who,” said Dash. “Tell him if this
murder lands at his feet, any faint affection I might feel toward his
merry band of mummers will be gone forever. If they’re his
pranksters cutting throats, he better serve them up to me, or the
Mockers will be crushed, root and branch.”

Kirby swallowed
hard. “I’ll pass that along, if it becomes appropriate.”

Dash pushed the
little man outside the door. “Go. Midnight,” he ordered.

Dash saw that he
still had an hour of daylight and imagined there were many tasks
waiting for him back at headquarters. He turned to retrace his steps
back to the New Market Jail, and cursed Patrick for giving him this
thankless task of beating obedience into his subjects. But as long as
it was his job, vowed Dash, he would do it properly. And that started
with keeping his constables alive.

Dash hurried
through the failing light into the shadows of Krondor.

Owen squirmed.

He didn’t
seem able to find a comfortable position in his camp chair, and yet
the situation demanded he sit for hours reviewing reports and
communiques.

Erik approached,
looming up out of the evening darkness against the campfires burning
in every direction. He saluted. “We’ve interrogated the
captains, and they’re as ignorant as the swordsmen they’ve
hired.”

“There’s
a pattern here, somewhere,” said Owen. “I’m just
too stupid to see it.” He indicated that Erik should sit.

“Not
stupid,” said Erik, sitting next to his commander. “Just
tired.”

“Not that
tired,” said Owen. His old leathery face wrinkled in a smile.
“I’ve gotten three good nights’ sleep, truth to
tell, since you opened the gates. In fact, it’s been too good.”
He leaned forward, looking at the map as if there was something in
there to see, if he just stared at it long enough.

Companies of
regular soldiers were arriving from the south. The prisoners were
being kept in a makeshift compound, fashioned of freshly felled
trees. Erik said, “The best I can come up with is Fadawah has
some men he wasn’t really happy with, so he thought he’d
turn them over to us to feed.”

“Well, if
you hadn’t opened that gate, we would have bled a bit getting
over that wall,” said Owen, hiking his thumb over his shoulder
at the large earthen breastwork behind his command pavilion.

“True, but
we would have taken it in a day or two.”

“I’m
wondering why Fadawah is going to all the trouble of making us think
he’s down here and then letting us discover he isn’t.”

“I’m
guessing,” said Erik, “but if he’s taken LaMut, he
might be moving south of Ylith now, getting ready for a
counterattack.”

“He can’t
ignore Yabon,” said Owen. “As long as Duke Carl is up
there with his army, Fadawah has to keep a strong face northward.
Carl can get men in and out of there if Fadawah doesn’t keep
the pressure on. Even so, there are Hadati hillmen still up there who
can probably sneak through his lines at will. And I’m sure the
dwarves and elves aren’t proving hospitable neighbors if his
patrols wander too far from their current position. No, he must take
all of Yabon before he turns south.”

“Well, he
can’t hope to slow us down with these little sham positions.”

Owen’s
face showed concern. “I don’t know if these are shams as
much as they’re just. . . irritations, to make us proceed
slowly.”

Erik’s
eyes narrowed. “Or maybe they’re designed to make us go
fast.”

“What do
you mean?”

“Say we
find one or two more of these lightly defended positions?”

“Okay, so
we do.”

Erik pointed to
the map. “Let’s say we hit Quester’s View and find
another fortification like this. We get all excited and strike out
toward Ylith.”

“And run
into a meat grinder?”

Erik nodded. He
pointed to details on the map. “There’s this line of
unforgiving ridges north of the road from Quester’s View to
Hawk’s Hollow. He holds both ends of the road, and if he keeps
us off the ridge, he can dig in here.” Erik’s finger
showed a particularly narrow point in the road about twenty miles
south of Ylith. “Let say he sets up a series of fortifications,
tunnels, catapults, arrow towers, the entire bag of tricks. We stick
a boot into that mess too fast and we may draw back a bloody stump.”
His finger traced a line from that point up to the dot on the map
representing Ylith. “He’s got thirty-foot-high walls, and
a single weak point, an eastern gate by the docks. That he can
fortify, and if he sinks ships in the harbor mouth, he can sit inside
the city like a turtle in its shell.” The more he spoke, the
more Erik was certain of his analysis. “We can’t land on
the western shore; that’s Free Cities land, and if we try it,
Patrick risks alienating the only neutral party left on the Bitter
Sea. Besides, to get there we’d probably run up against
whatever warships Queg has in the area.”

Owen sighed.
“More to the point, our fleet needs to support the army on its
western flank to make sure we’re supplied and to carry the
wounded south to Sarth and Krondor.”

Erik scratched
at his chin. “I’m willing to bet if we had the eyes of a
bird we’d see a very heavy set of fortifications being built
along that stretch right now.”

“It all
makes sense,” said Owen. “But then I’ve seen too
many things in war that make no sense to count too heavily on theory.
We’ll have to wait to see what Subai says when he gets word
back to us.”

“If he
gets word back,” said Erik.

“Let’s
cover our bet,” said Owen.

“What?”
asked Erik.

“I’m
going to send an order to Admiral Reeves to send a fast cutter up the
coast from Sarth. I want to see how far north he can get before
someone tries to discourage him.”

Erik sat
forward. “Care to bet it’s about there?” he said,
his finger stabbing at a point on the coast due west of Quester’s
View.

“No bet,”
said Owen. “I’ve come to appreciate your instincts.”

Erik sat back in
the chair. “I actually hope I’m wrong and Fadawah’s
all tied up outside of Yabon. I can imagine what I would do if I was
building defensive fortifications along that route.”

Owen said, “You
have too much imagination. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

Erik looked at
his old friend and said, “Not often enough.” He stood and
said, “I have things to see to. I’ll report in when I’ve
done talking to the rest of the prisoners.”

“Supper is
ready. Get back here before it’s all gone.” Owen added,
“I’ll be here,” and went back to his reports as
Erik walked off.

Dash waited, and
as the darkness deepened, he began to fume. It was already a quarter
hour past midnight and Kirby hadn’t put in an appearance. He
was about to start looking for him when he sensed someone was behind
him. He slipped his hand over the hilt of his dagger and moved with a
feigned casual motion, walking back toward the rear entrance of the
burned-out building.

As soon as he
supped through the door, he stepped sideways, reaching toward an
exposed roof beam with both hands, pulling himself up with a single
fluid motion. Out came the dagger and he waited.

A moment later a
figure emerged from the door and glanced around. Dash waited. The
cloaked figure below him took a step forward and Dash dropped to the
ground, his dagger going to the lurker’s throat.

From beneath the
hood, a voice said, “Going to bite me, Puppy?”

Dash spun the
figure around. “Trina!”

The young woman
smiled. “It’s nice to be remembered.”

“What are
you doing here?”

“Put down
that toothpick and I’ll tell you.”

Dash grinned.
“Sorry, but I’ll bet you’re as dangerous as you are
beautiful.”

The woman pouted
theatrically. “You flatterer.”

Dash lost his
smile. “I’ve got dead men and I want some answers.
Where’s Kirby Dokins?”

“Dead,”
said the women.

Dash put away
his dagger.

“Am I
suddenly less dangerous?”

“No,”
said Dash, pulling the woman back inside the building. “But you
wouldn’t have been sent to tell me the Mockers killed my
snitch.”

“And?”

“That
means you didn’t kill my men.”

“Very
good, Puppy.”

“Who did?”

“An old
acquaintance of yours thinks there’s a new gang moving into the
city. Smugglers, maybe, though there doesn’t seem to be a lot
of new goods in the market, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,”
said Dash. The woman meant there wasn’t a noticeable increase
in drugs, stolen goods, or other contraband.

“Another
Crawler?”

“You know
your history, Puppy.”

“That’s
Sheriff Puppy, to you,” said Dash.

She laughed. It
was the first time he had heard her laugh without mockery. It was a
sweet sound. She said, “We’re left alone, so if someone
is planning on moving into our territory, they’re not ready to
try yet.

“Our old
friend said to tell you we don’t know who killed your two lads,
but you should know they weren’t altar boys from the Temple of
Sung. Find out who Nolan and Riggs were working for before they
joined your gang and you might have a clue.”

Dash was silent,
then said, “So the Upright Man thinks these two knew their
killers.”

“Maybe. Or
maybe they just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time,
but either way, once the deed was done, someone wanted you to think
was done it to defy your authority. That’s why they were dumped
on your doorstep. Had the Mockers killed those men, they would have
been dumped in the harbor.”

“Who
killed Kirby?”

“We don’t
know,” said Trina. “He was snooping around, being his
usually pesky self, then suddenly about two hours ago, he turns up
floating in the sewer.”

“Where?”

“Five
Points, near the big outfall below Stinky Street.” Stinky
Street was Poor Quarter’s slang for Tanners Road, where many
odorous businesses had resided before the war.

Five Points was
the name of a large confluence of sewers, three big ones, two small
ones. Dash had never been there, but he knew where it was.

“You
working Five Points?”

“We’re
not up there, but don’t ask me where we’re working.”

Dash grinned in
the darkness. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Not ever,
Sheriff Puppy, not ever.”

Dash said,
“Anything else?”

“No,”
said Trina.

“Tell the
old man thanks.”

Trina said, “He
didn’t do it from love, Sheriff Puppy. We’re just not
ready to take on the crown. But he did tell me one other thing to
tell you.”

“What?”

“Don’t
make threats. The day you declare war on the Mockers, take your sword
to bed with you.”

Dash said, “Then
tell my uncle that advice works both ways.”

“Then good
night.”

“Lovely to
see you again, Trina.”

“Always a
pleasure, Sheriff Puppy,” said the woman thief. Then she ducked
through the door and was gone.

Dash allowed her
the courtesy of not leaving for five minutes, so she could be sure
she wasn’t being followed. Besides, he could find her any time
he wanted. And more to the point, his mind was wrestling with the
question: Who killed his men?

He slipped into
the darkness, heading back to his headquarters.

Roo chuckled at
the sight before him. Nakor was jumping around like a grasshopper,
shouting orders at the workers as they tried to wrestle the statue
upright. Roo moved his own wagon over to the side of the road and let
those carts and wagons behind him pass. He jumped down and crossed
the road to where Nakor’s wagon was parked.