The Hidden City (15 page)

‘Peasants are an excitable lot, aren't they?' Ulath laughed, draining his tankard. ‘We were out on a training exercise once, and this peasant came running up to us claiming that he was being chased by a pack of wolves. When we went out to take a look, it turned out to be one lone fox. The size and number of any wild animal a peasant sees seems to grow with each passing hour.'

‘Or each tankard of ale,' Tynian added.

They talked with the now-polite official for a while longer, and then the man wished them a good journey and left.

‘Well, it's nice to know that the Trolls made it this far south,' Ulath said. ‘I'd hate to have to go looking for them.'

‘Their Gods were guiding them, Ulath,' Tynian pointed out.

‘You've never talked with the Troll-Gods, I see,' Ulath laughed. ‘Their sense of direction is a little vague – probably because their compass only has two directions on it.'

‘Oh?'

‘North and not-north. It makes finding places a little difficult.'

The storm was one of those short, savage gales that seem to come out of nowhere in the late autumn. Khalad had dismissed the possibility of finding any kind of shelter in the salt marshes and had turned instead to the beach. At the head of a shallow inlet he had found the mountain of driftwood he'd been seeking. A couple of hours of fairly intense labor had produced a snug, even cozy little shelter on the leeward side of the pile. The gale struck just as the last light was fading. The
wind screamed through the huge pile of driftwood. The surf crashed and thundered against the beach, and the rain sheeted horizontally across the ground in the driving wind.

Khalad and Berit, however, were warm and dry. They sat with their backs against the huge, bleached-white log that formed the rear wall of their shelter and their feet stretched out toward their crackling fire.

‘You always amaze me, Khalad,' Berit said. ‘How did you know that there'd be boards mixed in amongst all this driftwood?'

‘There always are,' Khalad shrugged. ‘Any time you find one of these big heaps of driftwood, you're going to find sawed lumber as well. Men make ships out of boards, and ships get wrecked. The boards float around until the wind and currents and tides push them to the same sheltered places where the sticks and the logs have been accumulating.' He reached up and patted the ceiling. ‘Finding this hatch-cover all in one piece was a stroke of luck, though, I'll grant you that.' He rose to his feet and went to the front of the shelter. ‘It's really blowing out there,' he noted. He extended his hands toward the fire. ‘Cold, too. The rain's probably going to turn to sleet before midnight.'

‘Yes,' Berit agreed pleasantly. ‘I certainly pity anybody caught out in the open on a night like this.' He grinned.

‘Me too,' Khalad grinned back. He lowered his voice, although there was no real need. ‘Can you get any sense of what he's thinking?'

‘Nothing specific,' Berit replied. ‘He's seriously uncomfortable, though.'

‘What a shame.'

‘There's something else, though. He's going to come and talk with us. He has a message of some kind for us.'

‘Is he likely to come in here tonight?'

Berit shook his head. ‘He has orders not to make contact until tomorrow morning. He's very much afraid of whoever told him what to do and when to do it, so he'll obey those orders to the letter. How's that ham coming?'

Khalad drew his dagger and used its point to lift the lid of the iron pot half-buried in embers at the edge of the fire. The steam that came boiling out smelled positively delicious. ‘It's ready. As soon as the beans are done, we can eat.'

‘If our friend out there is down-wind of us, that smell should add to his misery just a bit.' Berit chuckled.

‘I sort of doubt it, Sparhawk. He's a Styric, and he's not allowed to eat pork.'

‘Oh, yes. I'd forgotten about that. He's a renegade, though. Maybe he's discarded his dietary prejudices.'

‘We'll find out in the morning. When he comes to us tomorrow, I'll offer him a piece. Why don't you saw off a few slices of that loaf of bread? I'll toast them on the pot-lid here.'

The wind had abated somewhat the following morning, and the rain had slacked off to a few fitful spatters stuttering on the hatch-cover roof. They had more of the ham and beans for breakfast and began to get things ready to pack. ‘What do you think?' Berit asked.

‘Let's make him come to us. Sitting tight until the last of the rain passes wouldn't be all that unusual.' Khalad looked speculatively at his friend. ‘Would you be offended by a bit of advice, my Lord?' he asked.

‘Of course not.'

‘You
look
like Sparhawk, but you don't
sound
very much like him, and your mannerisms aren't quite right. When the Styric comes, make your face colder and harder. Keep your eyes narrow. Sparhawk squints. You'll also want to keep your voice low and level.
Sparhawk's voice gets very quiet when he's angry – and he calls people “neighbor” a lot. He can put all sorts of meaning into that one word.'

‘That's right, he does call just about everybody “neighbor”, doesn't he? I'd almost forgotten that. You've got my permission to correct me any time I start to lose my grip on the real Sparhawk, Khalad.'

‘Permission?'

‘Poor choice of words there, I suppose.'

‘You might say that, yes.'

‘The climate got a little too warm for us back in Matherion,' Caalador said, leaning back in his chair. He looked directly at the hard-faced man seated across from him. ‘I'm sure you take my meaning, Orden.'

The hard-faced man laughed. ‘Oh, yes,' he replied. ‘I've left a few places about one jump ahead of the law a time or two myself.' Orden was an Elene from Vardenaise who ran a seedy tavern on the waterfront in Delo. He was a burly ruffian who prospered here because Elene criminals felt comfortable in the familiar surroundings of an Elene tavern
and
because Orden was willing to buy things from them – at about a tenth of their real value – without asking questions.

‘What we really need is a new line of work.' Caalador gestured at Kalten and Bevier, disguised with new faces and rough, mismatched clothing. ‘A fairly high personage in the Ministry of the Interior was in charge of the group of policemen who stopped by to ask us some embarrassing questions.' He grinned at Bevier, who wore the face of one of his brother Cyrinics, an evil-looking knight who had lost an eye in a skirmish in Rendor and covered the empty socket with a black patch. ‘My one-eyed friend there didn't care for the fellow's attitude, so he lopped his head off with that funny-looking hatchet of his.'

Orden looked at the weapon Bevier had laid on the table beside his ale-tankard. That's a lochaber axe, isn't it?' he asked.

Bevier grunted. Kalten felt that Bevier's flair for dramatics was pushing him a little far. The black eye-patch was probably enough, but Bevier's participation in amateur theatricals as a student made him seem to want to go to extremes. His intent was obviously to appear dangerously competent. What he was achieving, however, was the appearance of a homicidal maniac.

‘Doesn't a lochaber usually have a longer handle?' Orden asked.

‘It wouldn't fit under my tunic,' Bevier growled, ‘so I sawed a couple of feet off the handle. It works well enough – if you keep chopping with it. The screaming and the blood don't bother me all that much, so it suits me just fine.'

Orden shuddered and looked slightly sick. ‘That's the meanest-looking weapon I've ever seen,' he confessed.

‘Maybe that's why I like it so much,' Bevier told him.

Orden looked at Caalador. ‘What line were you and your friends thinking of taking up, Ezek?' he asked.

‘We thought we might try our hand at highway robbery or something along those lines,' Caalador said. ‘You know, fresh air, exercise, wholesome food, no policemen in the neighborhood – that sort of thing. We've got some fairly substantial prices on our heads, and now that the Emperor's disbanded Interior, all the policing is being done by the Atans. Did you know that you can't bribe an Aran?'

Orden nodded glumly. ‘Oh, yes,' he said. ‘It's shocking.' He squinted speculatively at ‘Ezek', who appeared to be a middle-aged Deiran. ‘Why don't you describe Caalador to me, Ezek? I'm not doubting your word, mind. It's just that things are a little topsy-turvy right
now, what with all the policemen we used to bribe either in jail or dead, so we
all
have to be careful.'

‘No offense taken at all, Orden,' Caalador assured him. ‘I wouldn't trust a man who wasn't careful these days. Caalador's a Cammorian, and he's got curly hair and a red face. He's sort of blocky – you know, big shoulders, thick neck, and a little stout around the middle.'

Orden's eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘What did he tell you? Repeat his exact words.'

‘Wal, sir,' Caalador replied, exaggerating the dialect just a bit, ‘Ol' Caalador, he tole us t' come down yere t' Delo an' look up a feller name o' Orden – on accounta this yere Orden, he's th' one ez knows whut's whut in the shadowy world o' crime herebouts.'

Orden relaxed and laughed. ‘That's Caalador, all right,' he said. ‘I knew you were telling me the truth before you'd said three words.'

‘He certainly mangles the language,' Caalador agreed. ‘He's not as stupid as he sounds, though.'

Kalten covered a smile with his hand.

‘Not by a dang sight, he ain't,' Orden agreed, imitating the dialect. ‘I think you'll find that highway robbery isn't very profitable around here, Ezek, mainly because there aren't that many highways. It's
safe
enough out in the jungle – not even the Atans can find anybody in all that underbrush – but pickings are slim. Three men alone in the bush won't be able to make ends meet. I think you'll have to join one of the bands out there. They make a fair living robbing isolated estates and raiding various towns and villages. That takes quite a number of men, so there are always job openings.' He sat back and tapped one finger thoughtfully against his chin. ‘Do you want to go a
long
way from town?' he asked.

‘The further out the better,' Caalador replied.

‘Narstil's operating down by the ruins of Natayos. I
can
guarantee
that the police won't bother you
there.
A fellow named Scarpa's got an army stationed in the ruins. He's a crazy revolutionary who wants to overthrow the Tamul government. Narstil has quite a few dealings with him. There's some risk involved, but there's a lot of profit to be made in that neighborhood.'

‘I think you've found just what we're looking for, Orden,' Caalador said eagerly.

Kalten carefully let out a long sigh of relief. Orden had come up with the exact answer they'd been looking for without even being prompted. If they joined this particular band of robbers, they'd be close enough to Natayos to smell the smoke from the chimneys, and that was a better stroke of luck than they'd even dared to hope for.

‘I'll tell you what, Ezek,' Orden said, ‘why don't I write a letter to Narstil introducing you and your friends?'

‘We'd definitely appreciate it, Orden.'

‘But before I waste all that ink and paper, why don't we have a talk about how much you're going to pay me to write that letter?'

The Styric was wet and muddy and very nearly blue with the cold. He was shivering so violently that his voice quavered as he hailed their camp. ‘I have a message for you,' he called. ‘Don't get excited and do something foolish.' He spoke in Elenic, and that made Berit quite thankful, since his own Styric was not all that good. It was the one major flaw in his disguise.

‘Come on in, neighbor,' he called out to the miserable-looking fellow at the upper end of the beach. ‘Just keep your hands out in plain sight.'

‘Don't order me around, Elene,' the Styric snapped. ‘I'm the one who's giving the orders here.'

‘Deliver your message from right there then,
neighbor,' Berit said coldly. ‘Take your time, if you want. I'm warm and dry in here, so waiting while you make up your mind won't be all that unpleasant for me.'

‘It's a
written
message,' the man said in Styric. At least Berit
thought
that was what he said.

‘Friend,' Khalad said, stepping in quickly, ‘we've got a slightly touchy situation here. There are all sorts of chances for misunderstandings, so don't make me nervous by talking in a language I don't understand. Sir Sparhawk here understands Styric, but
I
don't, and
my
knife in your belly will kill you just as quick as his will. I'll be very sorry afterward, of course, but you'll still be dead.'

‘Can I come in?' the Styric asked, speaking in Elenic.

‘Come ahead, neighbor,' Berit told him.

The lumpy-faced messenger approached the front of their shelter, looking longingly at the fire.

‘You
really
look uncomfortable, old boy,' Berit noted. ‘Couldn't you think of a spell to keep the rain off?'

The Styric ignored that. ‘I'm instructed to give you this,' he said, reaching inside his homespun smock and drawing out an oilskin-covered packet.

Tell me what you're going to do before you stick your hand inside your clothes like that, neighbor,' Berit cautioned him in a low voice and squinting at him as he said it. ‘As my friend just pointed out, we've got some wonderful opportunities for misunderstandings here. Startling me when I'm this close to you isn't a good way to keep your guts on the inside.'

The Styric swallowed hard and stepped back as soon as Berit took the packet.

‘Would you care for a slice of ham while my Lord Sparhawk reads his mail, friend?' Khalad offered. ‘It's nice and greasy, so it'll lubricate your innards.'