Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 (15 page)

She glared at him.

“Some people should learn to mind their own business,” she said in ire. Her thoughts, in this case, were her own.

“If you two are done bickering,” Thanar said while nodding his head forward, “we have company.”

Ciardis and Sebastian turned to see the doors on the ramshackle warehouse creaking open. Two burly men came into the opening they created. Between them stood a third man. He strode forward out of the darkness that cloaked him. 

He was thin, but naturally so, with a pointed chin, small head, and thin fingers. His face was clear of the disease and old age that weathered the other men surrounding them. He stood staring at them for a moment, his hands in his pockets. His demeanor was fierce but wary. When he reached them he threw his lit cigar to the ground and flashed a smile, displaying an impressive array of brown and missing teeth. To their right a scuffle broke out among the old sailors over the fresh cigar on the ground.

The thin man’s glance barely flickered over to the rabble.

His eyes assessed each of them in turn. He clearly didn’t recognize Sebastian, dressed as he was in plain garments, and he dismissed him with little thought except for a wary glance at his swords. His gaze lingered appreciatively over Ciardis’s assets, but her hooded face hid the telling golden gaze of a Weathervane. That left Thanar as the most prominent of their group. A winged mage of undetermined race.

Kith
were legally the equals of all humans in Algardis, in practice that meant another thing entirely. But strength-for-strength, nothing beat an inhuman mage, and when you worked with mercenaries, strength was king. His gaze settled on Thanar as the leader of their motley crew.

“What do the three of you want?” he said.

“Is that any way to treat a guest?” Thanar said mildly.

“Guests are rare in these parts. For a reason.”

“We won’t be long.”

The thin man cocked his head. “I wouldn’t mind you staying longer if you share.”

“Share?” Thanar’s wings ruffled a little bit.

Ciardis felt dread on her neck as she felt the stares of the surrounding men on their backs.

He gave a greasy smile. “You’re here for my business, right? Booty, strengths, women – whatever you fancy and we’ll split it.”

And the feeling of dread at the back of her neck intensified as she realized the stares were just on
her
back. She stepped forward, “This woman isn’t for sale, my men’s strengths aren’t yours to barter for, and my coins are the spoils of my group alone.”

She had caught his attention. The thin man’s eyes focused directly on her hooded form.

“And the true leader speaks.”

“Be careful, next time I won’t be so nice about correcting your assumptions,” said Ciardis.

She knew he had been testing them, gauging their interest when his lascivious tone wasn’t reflected in the steely gaze of his eyes.

But will he do business with us?

She narrowed her own eyes as she thought about it.

You caught him off guard. He might,
was the thought that came back to her from Sebastian.

The air had dropped ten degrees around them and Ciardis was fairly sure she saw dark mist forming in the sky above. It was hard to tell with the morning fog coming in from the sea but she was fairly sure Thanar was gathering up his power.

They didn’t have forever and the thin man wasn’t opening up.

“We’re here for a mercenary,” Ciardis said with determination in her voice.

“I have a lot of mercenaries here. You’ll have to more specific.” The men around them rustled as if they would step forward and volunteer for the cause—and the fat purse that came with it.

Ciardis gave the old men in the surrounding yard a contemptuous glance. “They say you’re the man to hire if we want a person of specific skills. I guess they were wrong.”

She turned aside as if to leave.

Rat man raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Out of the doorway behind him poured two-dozen men armed with sabers, swords, axes, and huge muscles. They surrounded the party of three quickly and silently.

That’s more like it
, Ciardis thought to herself.

“You were saying?” the rat man said.

“What do you know about dragon mercenaries?” Her voice was pleased.

He cocked his head and looked over at one of his men off to the right who wore a curious set of arm braces, one on each forearm. The braces were silver and extended from his elbow to his wrist. They had curious openings along the middle and straps along the inside of each arm. When he fisted his hands and turned them so that she could see the back of his arms, she paled. Those braces were loaded with black arrows. Short and small but lethal, and each hand had a trigger mechanism in the palm.

“Enough,” rat man said shortly. “Why do you ask? Do you need a dragon mercenary?”

“We’re in the market.”

“Going to cost you.”

“We can pay,” Thanar said.

“I’ll need more than your assurances.”

Sebastian threw a gold purse at the man’s feet. A few coins spilled out, gleaming delightfully in the mud. Ciardis heard anxious groans from the old men hovering over the cast iron barrels. But not one of them moved toward the coins. They wouldn’t dare.

The thin man drew a finger across his mouth in thought.

“That was a good start,” he said, “but I need more
exotic
payment, shall we say. I can get gold from anywhere. But mages of your caliber, well...that only comes along once in a blue moon.”

This time Sebastian spoke. “We don’t trade services with your kind.”

“My kind?” said the thin man with harsh laughter. “My
kind
purveys goods from across the high seas. Often going places your whey-faced merchants can’t or won’t go.”

Thanar stepped forward. “
Sucher
have always been such a touchy lot. Especially during the Initiate Wars.”

“We had a damn right to be,” the thin man said, spitting to the side. “We got all the goods those blasted mages wanted. The
Sucher
guild did more for them during the war than any other. What did we get in the end? Shafted.”

“And a lot of gold,” Thanar said dryly.

The man grimaced. “We were promised a whole city. Instead we got a shithole on the edge of the western empire. Damn Algardis emperors went back on their word.”

“I very much doubt that,” said Sebastian.

“What do you know, boy? You weren’t there,” the rat man hissed.

Sebastian blinked, but he apparently decided that he didn’t want to debate historical accuracies at the moment.

“The gold now,” Sebastian said, “and another item of your choice once the contact is made.”

“Which item?” the rat man said, rubbing his chin.

“Feathers,” Thanar said shortly. “My feathers.”

The rat man’s eyes widened in glee that he didn’t try to hide. She realized he wasn’t as oblivious as he seemed. He clearly knew what sort of
kith
Thanar was.

“And in exchange?”

Ciardis smiled in anticipation, “Everything you know about the under-dragon hired by the princess heir.”

“That sort of information ain’t cheap,” complained the rat man.

“Neither are my feathers.”

The rat man cursed and spit over his shoulder. Ciardis guessed that was his way of agreeing and displaying his displeasure at the same time.

Ciardis looked over at Thanar in confusion. His wings were as smooth as silken leather. Not a feather in sight. More directly she said to Thanar, “What feathers? And what’s so special about them?”

“You don’t want to know,” Thanar said.

“No, really, I do.” Thanar clammed up.

She turned to Sebastian. He gave a brief shrug. “Later.”

Irritated, she turned back to the rat man. “So I take it you agree. We’ll have that contact now.”

He shrugged, picked up the gold, and pointed a finger at the mercenary with a bow and arrow set grafted to each arm. “You’ll want to talk to Shiv—he’s our resident dragon-hunter.”

Ciardis crossed her arms. “And I suppose that’s included in the price?”

“Of course, my lady,” the man said greasily. “Wouldn’t consider otherwise.”

They turned to Shiv but stopped when the rat man continued, “I’ll be taking that daemoni’s payment
before
you get your information, though. You understand, right?”

“You’ll get it after,” said Sebastian curtly. “And only if we deem the information worth our time.”

“Now that’s not fair,” the rat man whined.

“What’s not fair is that I’m giving you two of my feathers at all. They’re worth a lot more on the open market,” said Thanar. “So shut your mouth or I’ll curse them, as well.”

The man paled but he quickly stopped talking. From the look on his face, the threat to curse the feathers wasn’t to be taken lightly. It made Ciardis want to see them that much more.

They turned to Shiv and the men surrounding them melted into the night. Only the old men surrounding the fire canisters and the thin man remained.

Shiv came forward from the darkness, the scruff of a new growth beard darkening his cheeks and chin while his bald head gleamed in firelight. He grunted at them, “What kind of under-dragon you need? Alive or dead?”

Thanar shook his head impatiently. “We don’t want one. Just want to know who hired you to find one.”

“Don’t know the details on the buyer,” said Shiv with a shrug. “Even Haden over there doesn’t know. Do know about the under-dragon, though. It was a vile creature, like all of them. Didn’t talk...at all. Even the trainer barely got two words out of it.”

They exchanged glances. Ciardis said, “Well, it died yesterday and we need to know what the original buyer was doing with it.”

Shiv stroked his beard. “Yesterday?”

The thin man intervened, “We can’t help you with that.”

“Can you at least confirm who the first buyer was?” said Sebastian.

Shiv and the mercenary wrangler exchanged hard glances. The thin man said, “You be understanding it’s a sensitive topic...can’t be getting out that we rat on our clients. Besides, don’t know nothing about the buyer. Do know the handler we gave it to, though.”

“Yes, of course,” said Thanar. “We have no interest in tattling on you. The handler—what more do you know of them?”

“Short. Young. Dark as they come,” said Shiv.

A shiver went down Ciardis’s back.

“Can you describe him more?” said Sebastian with impatience.

“Nah,” said Shiv. “Kept the hood up the whole time. But was male. That I know. And always twitching. Slow with the words, too.”

“Great,” muttered Thanar. “That narrows it down.”

Shiv gave him a sharp look. “Was good and fast with the payment for assignments, too. Quick with the first. Hadn’t heard back about the second yet.”

“Assignments?” echoed Sebastian sharply, “Tell us about them.”

“Sent him to meet the under-dragon in the dark forest up north.”

“Ameles?” murmured Thanar.

“Yeah, that was it,” said Shiv, “Slim pickings there. No rich holdings or an easy road. No idea why’d you go up there, but that’s where the original buyer wanted them sent.”

Sebastian and Thanar exchanged glances. They were all thinking the same thing. They’d found the princess heir’s trail.

“And the second time?” asked Ciardis.

“Different buyer. They wanted the under-dragon to attack some city manor. No survivors,” said Shiv gruffly.

Ciardis sucked in a sharp breath. “Who hired the under-dragon this time?”

“New people. Don’t know who they were. I just make sure the under-dragon and the handler know their orders.”

Sebastian turned to the thin man.

“Don’t ask me. The bastards are as shifty as eels. Notes sent by a different messenger each time. Burns to a crisp within a few seconds of reading it.”

Frustrated, Sebastian said, “You must have
some
way of contacting them to let them know you’ll take the job.”

The thin man shrugged in the cold wind. “I put out a lantern saying ‘message received,’ and the next morning a sack of gold was on my windowsill. That was that.”

Thanar cursed a blue streak.

“Well,” said the thin man, “that’s all we know. Now payment, if you please.”

He held out his hand.

Thanar glared at him. Ciardis was half afraid he’d kill the man on the spot.

Instead he called in his power to form dark mist in the palm of his hand. As the mist solidified two black ebony feathers appeared in their place. They were straight and sharp like black daggers.

Ciardis watched them in awe.

The thin man grinned in appreciation, pulled out a dirt-caked handkerchief from his pocket, and carefully picked up the two feathers from Thanar’s hand. They were sharp enough to cut his palm. Ciardis could see that from where she stood.

With no more information forthcoming Ciardis, Sebastian and Thanar turned to leave.

As they walked up the docks Shiv called out, “One more thing.”

They turned slightly to hear him out. As he faded into the darkness with his master, he said, “The boy. The handler, that is. He had a stutter. A big one.”

As darkness loomed above them, the old men surrounding them cackled in the moonlight and Ciardis shivered in understanding.

“N
ot a word until we get out of here,” Sebastian commanded softly.

“Let’s go somewhere private. We need to talk,” agreed Thanar.

Ciardis said, “No, we
need
to get back to the mansion. If what he said is true, Thomas is a threat. A threat that is sleeping in our home with my mother and my brother at this very moment.”

“And Vana,” responded Sebastian, reminding her of the member of their group most able to combat a threat.

“Two Weathervanes and a trigger-happy assassin, then,” snapped Ciardis.

“Lest you forget, Ciardis,” said Thanar, “your mother and brother are more than capable of taking care of themselves.”

Ciardis looked them both in the eye firmly. “Thanar, we have no idea what Thomas is capable of. And we shouldn’t assume that he can be neutralized without casualties.”