The Shadowed Path (33 page)

“The attacks seem to have happened since we’ve pitched camp here,” Zane said. “Can’t we just strike the tents and go? Maybe if we put some distance between us and this place, whoever’s behind this won’t bother to follow.”

Linton shook his head. “We need the money,” he replied. “It’s been a couple of weeks since our last set of performances, and it’s expensive to keep this show on the road. Food alone goes through quite a bit of coin, not counting what we need for the animals, supplies, repairs... Whether we go on to Principality or double back across Margolan, we need money to go anywhere.”

“We need to summon the messenger who brought you the basket and find out where he bought your provisions,” Trent said.

Linton and Ada exchanged glances. “We already thought of that,” Ada replied. “It seems that the messenger has gone missing. No one’s seen him since he left on his errand for Linton.”

“Someone had to deliver the basket,” Trent pointed out.

“But not necessarily the man I sent,” Linton answered. “It would be easy enough for someone dressed as a messenger to find my tent. All he’d need to do is ask around.” He shook his head. “It’s likely that whoever sent the basket eliminated my man and substituted his own man in his place.”

“We need Alyzza,” Corbin said. “Perhaps she can read something from the omens to figure out who’s behind this.”

“I’ll get her,” Jonmarc said, and headed out of the tent.

Nighttime was deceptively quiet in the caravan. After the hectic activity of the day, the campgrounds seemed relatively deserted, the activity less manic. Yet behind the scenes, dozens of people labored to keep the caravan and its crew functioning. Cooks and bakers prepared for the next meal. Animal trainers fed and cared for their charges, as did the other members of the crew who kept chickens, horses, goats, or sheep. Riggers mended tents, seamstresses and tailors made garments to sell or mended costumes for performances, craftsmen created more wares and parents put children to bed. The small number of
vayash moru
caravaners went out to hunt, then set about their evening chores, while the
vyrkin
shapeshifters spotted game to help stretch the caravan’s resources.

Campfires dotted the night. People sat and talked as they worked around the fire, or shared their ale or wine and told tales. Over to one side, the caravan’s musicians played together, either for practice or for the sheer joy of it. Smoke hung on the night air, mingled with the scent of horses and livestock, pine trees and dinner. Jonmarc took a deep breath. This was one of his favorite things about Linton’s caravan, one of the many things he knew he would miss.

It didn’t surprise him that Alyzza seemed to be waiting for him. The old woman was much more powerful than most members of the caravan believed, and not as crazy as she liked to appear. She made it easy to underestimate her, and Jonmarc guessed that was intentional.

“I expected you sooner,” Alyzza chided. Her long gray hair fell unkempt to her shoulders, greasy and tangled. It was impossible to guess her age. Her face was lined but her eyes were clear, though sometimes, Jonmarc had seen madness dancing in them. The air around her tent smelled of candle smoke and incense.

Jonmarc knew better than to smudge the salt circle that surrounded Alyzza’s tent. A willow staff topped with feathers and animal skulls had been plunged into the ground next to the tent’s opening. “We’ve had a couple of murders, and we think someone was trying to kill Linton,” Jonmarc said. “Linton and Ada sent me to ask you to come.”

Alyzza chuckled to herself. “Did they now? Ahh. Late. Things already set in motion are difficult to stop.” It did not seem to matter to Alyzza whether anyone else could make sense of her musing.

Without hurrying, Alyzza got to her feet. She wore a mismatched array of faded and torn garments that had seen better days. Around her neck hung several charms and amulets, and while Jonmarc had no magic of his own, he had seen the power Alyzza took pains to hide. Like so many of the caravan’s members, the old woman was more than she appeared.

“Hurrying won’t make a difference; not now,” Alyzza murmured, as if answering Jonmarc’s unspoken comment. “The enemy is planning. We have time to think.”

Jonmarc waited as Alyzza gathered some items and placed them in a canvas bag. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The others looked up expectantly when they entered Linton’s tent. While Jonmarc had been gone, someone had retrieved the basket of green stalks and the poisoned bottle of wine. They sat in the middle of the tent floor, set off by themselves.

“Hello, Alyzza.” Linton’s voice sounded tired. “I figure Jonmarc told you what happened. I’m hoping you can give us a clue to who’s behind all this before more people die.”

Alyzza nodded and turned her attention to the basket and bottle. Everyone scooted back from where they sat to give her room to work. Alyzza chanted under her breath, her voice rising and falling. She let her hands hover just above the items, careful not to touch them. Then she used a knife from her belt to mark a circle on the ground around the two objects, and before she closed the circle, she added a candle from a pouch on her belt. She lit the candle, and sprinkled the flames with herbs from the satchel she carried, “Show me,” she murmured, and said more in a language Jonmarc did not understand. “Show me.”

The thin veil of candle smoke shimmered, and Jonmarc glimpsed a man’s face, a stranger. He saw the back of another man’s head, and two more people he recognized immediately.

“Chessis and Vakkis,” Trent muttered as if the names were a curse. “Why are they back on your trail?” The two bounty hunters had caused plenty of problems for the caravan in the past, but they usually had a patron for any mayhem they caused, no matter how much they disliked someone.

“If they’re involved, someone’s paying them,” Corbin said. “They don’t work for free.”

Linton swore. “I thought we were rid of those two.”

“Apparently not,” Trent replied. “And from what they’ve done, it seems more likely that someone put a death mark on your head than a bounty. Who have you pissed off lately?”

Linton shrugged, palms up. “No one, at least not enough to warrant something like this.”

“Can you pick up anything else from the objects?” Ada asked, looking to Alyzza.

Alyzza frowned, then concentrated on the smoke once more. Jonmarc strained to see the face of the fourth man, but the person did not turn. Alyzza stopped chanting, and the smoke dissipated.

“Whoever hired the two men you recognized also hired a third—the one who stole your goods and poisoned them,” Alyzza said, dispelling the circle and extinguishing the candle. “He has means. There will be others sent until he achieves his goal.”

“Killing Linton?” Corbin asked.

Alyzza nodded. “It is not an issue of recompense,” she said. “It’s a matter of pride.”

“How long has it been since the caravan last passed this way?” Jonmarc asked.

“More than a year,” Linton answered. “The last time we crossed into Principality, we went north and took the bridge. We weren’t carrying cargo that the king’s soldiers might dispute.”

“Could it be someone nursing a grudge from the last time you came through these parts?” Ada asked. “I was new with the caravan back then, so I probably didn’t hear all the inside gossip. Did something happen that might have stung someone enough to remember it this long?”

Linton shook his head, looking mystified. “I can’t think of anyone on this side of Margolan who would have reason to see me dead,” he replied. “One or two might recall a few gambling debts, a hard negotiation over terms on a shipment perhaps, but nothing to warrant more than a thorough beating.”

Linton was a shrewd businessman, but keeping the caravan solvent often meant deals with smugglers or other shadowy folks whose approach to commerce was bare-knuckled. Jonmarc and the others had helped the caravan master out of more than one tight situation, but poison and assassins seemed extreme, even for Linton’s dissatisfied customers.

“Until we figure this out, I think we need to make sure you’ve got a bodyguard at all times,” Steen said. “Guards around your tent would be a good idea, too. And let’s make certain that the caravan guards are on the lookout for outsiders near the camp.”

Trent and Corbin nodded. “We’ve tangled with Chessis and Vakkis before,” Trent said. “I’m betting that some of our
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
remember their scent. We can alert them.”

“I don’t think they’ll show up in person,” Ada added. “They probably know people here might recognize their faces or their scent. That’s why they used the messenger to deliver the poisoned items. Odds are, whoever the man was, he’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere. They can always get another.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Linton fretted. “I’d always gotten on tolerably well with Duke Ostenhas.”

“Who?” Steen asked.

“The man who controls most of the area between that last creek we crossed and the Nu River,” Linton replied. “Duke Horgan Ostenhas. He’s a small fish when it comes to Margolan politics. No one very important, although I think his wife might be the sister of someone with money. A rather portly and boring sort, without a mind for much else than his ledgers.”

“You didn’t happen to have a bit of fun with his wife the last time the caravan passed this way, did you?” Trent asked, raising an eyebrow.

Linton stared at him with a horrified expression. “By the goddess, no! His wife has the looks and temperament of an addled goat. I’m not a celibate man, but I assure you, that’s one case where I was not tempted in the least.”

“Well, we can rule that out,” Trent said. “Unless you somehow offended the Duke—or Duchess—by not attempting a seduction? You know, maybe he took it as a slight that you didn’t find his wife worthy of a dalliance?”

Linton shuddered. “By the Crone! I hope not.”

A man cleared his throat loudly at the tent entrance. Ada rose and pulled back the flap to reveal Elian and Gil. Elian was blond and slim, a
vayash moru
who helped with patrols and did chores at night. Gil was a
vyrkin
, a shapeshifter who had taken refuge with the caravan and helped out where he could. At any time, several
vayash moru
and
vyrkin
traveled with the group, and Linton’s people did their best to hide them from those who would do them harm.

“Thank you for coming,” Ada said. It was crowded in Linton’s tent, but everyone moved aside to allow the newcomers to enter.

“I asked Elian and Gil here because their senses are keener than ours,” Ada continued. “I was hoping that one of them might pick something up from the basket and bottle, and that would allow us to track the poisoner.”

Ada gestured toward where the items sat, and the group parted to allow Elian and Gil to approach the pieces. Jonmarc knew that Gil had a wolf’s sharp senses of smell and hearing, and Elian’s
vayash moru
senses and reflexes would be many times sharper than those of mortals. The two stood silently, eyes closed, moving around the bottle and basket, bending near and breathing deeply, careful not to touch the items.

Finally, they stood. Elian looked at Gil, and the two men nodded. “I think we’ve got something,” Elian said.

“Hard to get much from the bottle, but the basket definitely has a scent, and it matches what I can pick up from the bottle,” Gil agreed.

“It’s only been a few candlemarks,” Steen said. “Can you track the scent?”

Gil nodded. “I think so. How far do you want us to go?”

Steen’s eyes glinted. “If you can find the person to whom the scent belongs, we can question him and figure out who he’s working for.”

“We can do that,” Gil said. “Do you want us to capture him?”

They looked at Steen, who thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. We might learn something from his location. Just find out where he is, and we’ll take it from there.”

The two men nodded and left silently. Linton sighed, and stared at the basket and bottle. “So now what?” he asked.

“We wait,” Trent replied.

T
HE NEXT EVENING
, Steen, Zane, and Jonmarc slipped quietly into the city of Dobarton. Despite being the home of Duke Horgan Ostenhas, the city itself was unremarkable. It appeared to be middling prosperous, though not wealthy. Its location near the main trade route of the Nu River likely afforded it many opportunities for commerce, both legal and not. Having grown up in a coastal town, Jonmarc was quite aware of how many upstanding merchants skirted the king’s taxes whenever the opportunity presented itself.

“All in all, not much to look at,” Steen muttered as the three men moved in the shadows. They had managed to get by the guards at the gate without remark. Jonmarc only hoped that their return journey would be as uneventful.

“Stay sharp,” Zane said. “Just because the city looks sleepy, doesn’t mean it is. We already know we’ve got enemies.”

And we know that Chessis and Vakkis are out there, somewhere
, Jonmarc added silently. He was quite certain that both of the bounty hunters would gladly slit his throat for his role in thwarting their plans.

They quickly left the better parts of city behind them, and wound their way through Dobarton’s narrow, twisting streets to a section of seedy inns and run-down rooming houses. Laundry hung out to dry, still stained and torn despite its washing. Dirty children and filthy stray dogs watched them pass with a baleful eye.

“There it is,” Steen murmured, with a nod toward one of the buildings. It was difficult to tell color in the darkness, but the place might have been painted blue once upon a time. Faded by the sun, stained by water and soot, the whole building seemed to hunch against its neighbor as if its supporting beams had sagged under the weight of desperation.

“It could be a trap,” Zane warned.

Jonmarc shook his head. “Elian and Gil checked it out. They didn’t see anything that made them worry—more than usual.”

More than any sane person—mortal or immortal—should worry about confronting a poisoner who likely worked for the highest bidder.

“I’ll watch the door,” Zane said. He had throwing knives hidden all over his body, tucked away discreetly so as not to alarm the guards, accessible in a second if needed. “You know the signal.”