Thieves of Islar: Book One of The Heirs of Bormeer (36 page)

H
ours later Matteo was sitting at the small table with Jaeron again. Avrilla put together a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and fried fish and sat quietly with them. They said a prayer for the fallen priest and then picked at the food, mainly for her benefit, she thought.

Avrilla had brought him a washbasin and pitcher of water. The priest had cleaned up and changed into a set of spare clothes borrowed from Jaeron’s meager closet. Chazd had produced a small clay bottle of malt whiskey. Neither Jaeron nor Matteo usually drank hard liquor, but both finished the small glasses Chazd poured without comment.

As the daylight filtering through the kitchen window crossed to the tabletop, Jaeron started in his chair.

“No bells,” Matteo said. “They have found him.” His voice was calm, detached. “I’ll need to get back soon.”

“Not too soon,” a voice from the hall commented.

Avrilla turned to see Coatie Shaels standing in the hall outside the kitchen. He looked tired. Grim.

“Chazd came to get me,” he said in response to her unasked question.

He came over to the table and sat down with them.

“You going to eat that?”

He slid Jaeron’s plate in front of him and dug into the cold food.

“I seem to be missing more breakfasts lately.”

If Coatie noticed the lack of reaction to the droll humor, he gave no sign. He ate Jaeron’s breakfast and then sat back in his chair.

“So, Gerlido’s anger got the better of him. Striking on Church grounds was a bad decision, even if the Church isn’t going to be allowed to strike back.”

Coatie looked at Matteo directly as he spoke and Avrilla saw the anger rise up in both Matteo and her brother.

“How do you intend to stop it?” Matteo asked.

Coatie shook his head. “You don’t understand. Right now, your brothers at the Cathedral are reporting the incident to the City Guard. One of the Guard Captains on the Grandmaster’s payroll will show up soon, if he’s not there already. Someone will make sure that any sight of Black Fang involvement will disappear.”

Coatie paused, considering, and then asked, “I take it there was some sign?”

Matteo nodded. “Yes… there was a mark – on the door.”

Matteo went on to describe the symbol he saw written in blood.

Coatie frowned. “That obvious?... Stupid.

“Anyway, it will be washed away and ignored. The Guard will investigate. Weeks, months, whatever it takes to assure the good people of Islar and the majority of the Cathedral brethren that the government has done all it can to find the murderer. In the meantime, money will change hands. The High Bishop will be given enough to fund another statue of Teichmar, or a monastery, or feed and clothe the Islar orphans for a year.

“Blame will be assigned to members of Undeified faith. A subversive group or cult. They might even find someone to put to trial and hang. The question of Guild involvement won’t ever come up.”

Avrilla saw the simple logic in it, and she was scared at the implications. Until now she saw the Guilds operating on the periphery of Islar society. She finally comprehended just how deeply the Thieves of Islar were ingrained in the city’s operation. Matteo was not so easily convinced.

“The Church will want proof. The High Bishop won’t be so easily bribed. And there’s a witness to the Black Fang involvement!” Matteo stood up, looming over the Guild advisor.

Coatie was unperturbed. He poured himself a half-glass of the whiskey Chazd had left out and took a sip.

“Eh. Too early,” he said. Looking hopefully at Avrilla, he asked, “Coffee?”

Avrilla stared at him, feeling her brother also tensing to rise from his seat.

Coatie turned to Jaeron and said, “Think, deAlto. And tell him.”

Jaeron froze, gazing across the table. Avrilla could see the concentration on his face, and the sudden despair.

“The Grandmaster’s Guard Captain. He’ll try to discredit you. Your relationship with me would come up. A man previously wanted for patricide and found innocent mostly due to testimony by the deceased Father Nojel.

“You disappeared immediately after the attack,” Jaeron continued and his gaze strayed back to the hallway. “And you attempted to steal his warhammer, a holy relic. You could become the suspect they need, the scapegoat.”

Avrilla felt sick. She watched Coatie nodding as Jaeron spoke, the words slowly coming out pushing Matteo back into his chair. She needed a drink herself and finished off Coatie’s glass. It helped rinse away the increasingly bitter taste in her mouth.

“What else?” Coatie prodded him.

Avrilla understood Coatie’s approach. Matteo might not have listened to the analysis coming from Shaels, a relative stranger. However, coming from Jaeron, a fellow believer and Matteo’s best friend, the words sunk in. Now he wanted to drive in the final nail.

Avrilla waited, but Jaeron did not say anything.

“What else, Jaeron?” Matteo asked.

Jaeron’s eyes dropped to the table. Coatie pushed the whiskey across the table toward him, but Jaeron shook his head. Avrilla could see the silent prayer on her brother’s lips. Jaeron needed strength for this, but it was the strength of faith. Not from a bottle.

“They’ll kill you, Matt. If you persisted, got the Bishop to believe you… they’d just kill you.”

“They might find that I’m hard to kill.”

Jaeron nodded, and Avrilla heard the conviction in the priest’s voice. She knew that Matteo had trained with the Temple Defenders, a warrior sect of Teichmar. He had stopped that training over a year ago, but he was probably still a capable fighter. Jaeron mentioned once that the split was due to a difference in philosophies, but Avrilla was not sure what that meant.

“Matteo,” Jaeron said. “They won’t come for a fight.”

“No,” Coatie interrupted. “They will poison your food. Hide a needle in your Book of Justice. Maybe just have an old, widowed parishioner cut your throat during private prayer.

“It won’t really matter how they accomplish it. You will still be dead.”

Silence stretched through the kitchen until the discomfort was unbearable. Avrilla cleared her throat.

“What are our options, Coatie?” she asked.

“That depends. How do you want it to end?”

“What do you mean,” Jaeron asked.

“How much of a threat do you want to be within the Guilds?”

Jaeron now rose to his feet, slamming the chair to the floor behind him. “Shaels, I don’t care about the thrice-damned Guilds or what they think of me! This isn’t a competition to ingratiate myself to the Grandmaster.

“This is about my father. Maybe my mother. Ardo Tabbil and Father Nojel. I want Gerlido’s head!”

“Okay,” Shaels sighed. “I had to ask. Like I said – the Black Fangs made a mistake. The Grandmaster can, and will, cover up Guild involvement in the attack at the Cathedral. But he won’t be happy about it. We can use that.”

“How?” Avrilla spoke in unison with her brother.

“Let me handle that. In the meantime, you better prepare your guild to take this war back to Gerlido.”

T
he morning of the deAlto assault on Gerlido’s guild headquarters opened with a sweltering summer heat. A haze rose off the sparse grass between the wooded vale where Chazd crouched and the rear door of the log cabin’s lower floor. He felt Danine’s presence to his left, like him hidden amongst the thick laurel. Karl was behind them and Bolvar was ahead, the latter hidden so well Chazd could not see him.

The Hinterland woman continued to disturb him. It was bad enough that his own sister was a more capable fighter than he was, but this woman rivaled Jaeron’s skill with her weapons. In addition, Danine seemed to wear as little as she could without causing outright scandal. Chazd was no prude. The flash of a calf, the emphasis of cleavage from a well-fitted bodice. These were sights worth viewing. But she flaunted her scars and tattoos across her lean, tanned skin. He avoided looking at her as much as possible.

Shaels had done it. Chazd had to admit that he never really liked the man. It seemed like he kept butting in with his opinions and constantly reminding them that he knew more about the guilds than they did. Chazd also conceded to himself that he disliked the fact that Jaeron actually listened to Shaels, sometimes more than he listened to him.

In the end, though, Coatie had brought them Gerlido’s location. Jaeron had pulled everyone in for another guild meeting in the basement. This time, Matteo attended. When Shaels arrived, he got right to the point.

“With the warrant out for his arrest, Gerlido has gone to ground. The Grandmaster is as unhappy as I expected, but he wants this over. Henri’s Hands has one chance at finishing this, then he will take action. Whatever your plan, now is the time.”

“We’re ready,” Jaeron said.

Coatie handed Jaeron a roll of parchment.

“Good luck,” Coatie turned and climbed back up the stairs. Halfway to the top, he stopped.

“Teichmar protect and preserve.”

The scroll depicted a map to Gerlido’s safe house, a cabin in the woods at the base of the Riordan Hills. Jaeron unrolled the scroll and held it down with candles and knives. Then his brother asked their guild to help him finish making their plan.

Now they were waiting on his sister. Chazd felt the wind pick up, accompanied by a darkening overhead. Even under the canopy of the evergreens, he could tell that the sky had turned gray. Thick cloud formations that had hovered over the edge of Riordan Hills just an hour before were moving south toward Islar. A cool, fresh scent swept away the sharper, thicker odor of pine needles and decaying wood. It smelled green and cool and dangerous. A storm was coming. Chazd felt sure that it meant something that the storm would arrive now on the verge of their attack on Gerlido’s log cabin.

~

Avrilla walked nervously alongside the Islar Guard patrol. So far she did not have any trouble keeping the patrol leader, Sergeant deVricks, under her influence. But she was not used to keeping her talent active for such an extended period. The remainder of the patrol, six Islar Guardsmen, followed deVrick
s
’ orders. If his belief faltered, they would all turn to her for an explanation. She would have to try to charm all of them; she had no idea if she could.

What the men-at-arms thought about her leading their patrol out of the city gates, Teichmar only knew. But she guessed they were loyal guardsmen. If any of them were on the Black Fang payroll, they had not shown it yet.

The road disintegrated into little more than a wagon trail that ran away from Islar along a northeast fork of the Targu Mares River. By the time they had reached the foothills and entered the airy woods, it was not much more than a footpath that had once been a gravel walkway. Avrilla watched the woods as they turned from the main trail and made their way up a gentle slope toward the log cottage. The small house had been built on a bluff, affording those within a good view of the trail to the road and an overlook into the pine forest in the valley behind. Her brothers should be in position amongst those trees.
They better be
. But she saw no sign of them.

The hard crunch of the guardsmen’s boots became muffled as they approached the cabin door. No one maintained the gravel here. Weeds and moss grew through it everywhere except a thin strip at the center where a decade of footsteps had kicked the stones aside and only bare earth remained. Thunder rumbled as they reached the door. Avrilla stepped aside to allow deVricks and his men to work.

The Sergeant pounded on the door while his men fanned out behind him. Four remained nearby but the other two made for the corners of the building.
Good training. Good enough to spoil our plan
.

Not getting an answer, the Sergeant knocked again. The metal reinforcements in his gauntlets dented the wood.

“Gerlido Krosch!” he shouted. “We have a warrant for your arrest. Come peaceably or we will take you by force!”

DeVricks gave the thieves less time than Avrilla expected. He stepped back and motioned to of his two men. “Take it down,” he said.

The two guards jumped into action. From the trailside they picked up the heavy beam that the patrol had carried with them from the Islar gatehouse. It was a log, hewn into a square cross-section, except for the ends which had been left round. These were banded in half-inch studded iron. Rope handles attached to the sides of the beam made it easier to move and carry.

The men moved to the door and positioned the small battering ram. A pair of well-practiced swings was followed by a quick thrust forward and the force of the ram burst the door cleanly off its hinges. The men dropped back out of the way while their companions, swords in hand, swept by them to enter the building.

J
aeron felt the first small spatters of rain as he watched the guards move on the door and enter the Gerlido’s secret house. He was not happy to see Avrilla go in with them, deVricks at her side. But they needed the distraction that the city guard was providing. His sister needed to stay with the sergeant, ensuring he would stick with the plan.

Gerlido’s cottage had been constructed on the slope such that while the front entry was on the first floor, the rear entry was a level lower. If their plan worked, the Guard’s entry at the front of the building meant the rear windows were unwatched. Downhill toward the rear of the house, his brother’s complement was performing their role. Chazd and Karl were working on the locks while Danine and Bolvar stood guard. Jaeron just had to wait.

The plan for their use of the Islar Guard had been Avrilla’s idea. He hated to think that he was using Sergeant deVricks and his men as fodder. If Coatie’s reconnaissance could be trusted, Gerlido was inside the cottage with at least a half-dozen Fangs, plus Brale and Sukul. It was possible that, seeing the warrant, Gerlido would give up without a fight. But Jaeron doubted it. And though the Guard were well trained, half of them appeared to be new recruits. DeVricks could be quickly outmatched.

The ring of metal on metal brought Jaeron’s worries to life. The Guards were in it now. And his sister was not signaling for help. Chazd’s team was already inside the building. It was Jaeron’s turn. He waved to Matteo and Petra and slipped through the trees to make his way down the shallow slope to the subterranean door.

It was quiet in the basement. He gave a silent prayer to Teichmar and went in. He felt the strength of faith coursing through his body, stronger than it had been in months. Despite everything else, perhaps in disregard of everything that he and his guild had done prior to this point, today was about justice. For Henri, for Ardo, for all the wrongs committed by Gerlido.

The air in the basement was cool against his skin, cutting off the muggy atmosphere outside. The room remained in deep shadow, with little of what remained of the morning sunlight filtering through the tall pines and slatted windows. Jaeron’s eyes adjusted enough to see Bolvar standing guard at the base of a stairway leading to the floor above. The rest of Chazd’s team had moved deeper into the basement.

Footfalls shook the rafters, but the sound of fighting began dying out. Then the door above burst open and a trio of figures barreled down the steps. Bolvar stepped back from the bottom step, long dagger in hand. Jaeron drew his sword and moved out into the room as the second figure dropped off the side of the stone stairs to flank his guildmate. The thief on the steps paused to smile at Bolvar. She was an unattractive woman, but her shirt was open and she used her two assets to advantage. She thrust out her cleavage before making her lunge, taking Bolvar off guard.

The lunge failed midstride when a dagger appeared, embedded in the woman’s left nipple. She stumbled, missed a step, and landed in a heap at Bolvar’s feet.

“Thanks, Petra,” he said, and turned his attention to the third of Gerlido’s guildsmen on the stairway.

Jaeron engaged his own opponent. He drove him back with several hawk wing strikes and then flowed into a cross-cut that took two fingers and knocked the dagger from his right hand. He drove his Pevaran blade into the thief’s chest, backing the Black Fang’s body up until it hit the far wall. When Jaeron reversed his grip to pull the blade free, he saw Matteo shatter the hips of their third opponent with an inward swing of Father Nojel’s warhammer.

“Jaeron?” Avrilla called from the top of the stairs.

“Down here.”

His sister came down the steps, weapons drawn but not blooded. She stepped over the body at the bottom and approached him.

“What’s going on with the Guard?”

“They killed four and captured two. No sign of Gerlido. I have deVricks keeping them occupied. They are tearing the place apart looking for evidence.”

“I hope it gives us enough time.” Jaeron pointed to the open door on the far side of the cellar. “Let’s find Chazd.”

The next room was a wine cellar. Years of cobwebs and dust powdered wooden wine racks that stood empty and were beginning to show signs of wood rot. Shards of green glass peppered the floor. The room smelled sour, vinegar sprinkled over decay.

Light flickered from across the room, followed by a murmur of hushed conversation. Jaeron moved into a ready stance before recognizing Chazd with Karl and Danine on his heels.

“Jaeron,” Chazd whispered a greeting.

“What’s going on?”

Chazd bit his lower lip.

“They’ve set up a defensive line back there. Some sort of smuggler’s tunnels. I am sure I saw Brale for an instant and then they took off. I’d figure on Gerlido being with them.”

“How many?”

“Half dozen. A couple of them from the ambush on Wright’s. The room is a jumble of crates, shelves… they’re wedged in pretty tight.”

“Where did Brale go?”

Chazd shrugged. “I didn’t get a good look, but I think there’s a passage off to the side.”

“There’s a heavy oak door that leads north off the right-hand wall, about twenty paces in,” Karl said.

Jaeron and Chazd looked at him. He smiled, the way one would about a family curse. “Don’t ask. I have a strange sense of the placement of things. I can see the room.”

“Okay,” said Jaeron. “What are we dealing with?”

Karl knelt and began scratching on the floor with his dagger. Within a few moments, he had completed a fair sketch of the room beyond the wine cellar.

“There’s a clear path from the doorway here, left and right. But if they have missile weapons, we will take fire either way. This leads to a broken maze of boxes. Chazd had it right. It’s a jumble.

“This would be a great defensive point for us, but if they are already in place there… it will be bad for us. Two rows of shelves are blocking the way to that door.”

Karl stopped and looked at Jaeron.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have a good sense of where the Fangs are.”

Chazd pointed. “Two here. Another here or close. And someone went back this way after Sukul and Brale left.”

Jaeron looked at Danine and Matteo. Of everyone in the guild, she had the most combat experience and Matteo had the advantage of the Cathedral’s strategy training.

“If they are spread out, our advantage is to stay together and overwhelm one position at a time. But as Karl pointed out, we will be targets for ranged weapons,” Matteo said. “Would have helped if we had shields.”

“We should move fast and low from here to here,” Danine said. “We can’t be slow and cautious. That will just give them more time to aim. They know we’re coming anyway.”

Jaeron agreed, thinking. “Gerlido is sacrificing his guild. To us, the Guard. This is just a means to delay us while he gets away. I need to get here and get through this door.

“Chazd, I’ll need your help. Can the rest of you follow Danine and Matteo’s plan?”

“I’m going with you, Jaeron,” Avrilla said, conviction in her voice preempting any debate. “If Brale and Sukul are as dangerous as Coatie said, you will need me.”

Jaeron sighed and let out a breath. His sister could be right.

“So, we split up. Danine, Matteo, lead the obvious fight. Make noise, get their attention focused on you, and take them down. Give us time to get to that door, and then get out of here before the guards come. Teichmar, protect and preserve.”

“Teichmar be praised,” Matteo added.

~

Jaeron tried to swallow away the thickness in his throat, the bitter acid rising from his stomach. His feelings of guilt as Matteo rushed forward with his group. Danine let out a war cry that reverberated down his spine and then the room erupted into chaos. Amidst the cacophony, Jaeron recognized the sound of a bowstring release, the crashing collapse of a shattering crate, and a male exclamation of pain. He distanced himself from the noise and moved down the wall to the right.

Avrilla and Chazd moved with him, the three of them crouched low, trying to stay in the shadows below the wall sconces. By the time the deAltos made it to the floor-to-ceiling shelves, the sounds of battle were directly across the room. A single clear path led back toward the middle of the room, closer to the fight.

Chazd sidled in next to him, tapped his shoulder, and pointed up. He reached up to the second shelf and Jaeron saw what he was doing. Together, they pulled the wooden crate down from the shelf creating a hole they could crawl through.

Chazd went through first. Jaeron helped Avrilla through and then he followed. There was a break between the next shelf and the wall. It was tight and Chazd had to flatten himself against the wall to squeeze through. Avrilla wedged herself in next when a throwing dagger pinned her tunic to the plaster.

Jaeron’s ducked in time to avoid a second dagger that flew through the space just occupied by his head. It glanced off the wall behind him and ricocheted into shadows. He charged, blade out, but the attacker had slipped back out of sight. Jaeron stopped his run at the end of the shelving and took a blind cut around the corner at waist height. His blade was blocked by a late parry and he felt the shelf shudder next to him.

He moved around the corner in defensive water stance to face a swordsman also on her guard. She leered at him, exposing black teeth, and launched into a three part sequence with her short sword. Jaeron recognized the basic Bormeeran army training and countered. He saw that he could keep up the defensive, but his Pevaran blade was a detriment in the confined space. He could not see a way to press his advantage and attack.

Jaeron heard a sharp sound and the woman got a strange look on her face. She collapsed to the floor.

“Come on,” Chazd whispered.

As Jaeron stepped over the body, he noted the quarrel in the base of the woman’s neck. They gathered at the door and Chazd tested the latch. It was locked. Jaeron ignored the sounds of melee from the other side of the room and took a guarding position with Avrilla while their brother pulled out his lock picks.