Chapter 8: Chapter seven

Rumours would have it that the Shadows are everywhere, lurking in our very homes and poised to strike. But, as with all rumours spread by lesser men, this is nothing more than a lot of talk. If they were indeed an omnipresent force, as the fops would have it, then I would have no doubt been killed in my sleep long ago. Therefore, it is with no trepidation that I march on Inveritus. Those ivory tower bastards have denied me for the last time.

• Journal of Lord Janus Bannigan. Final entry before Lord Bannigan was found dead in his home.

 

Kalissa was in a foul mood.

The Yarrls had been spotted in the village of Borlaug outside of Inveritus which served as a popular waystation to replenish supplies among travellers between Inveritus and Salitos. Naturally the Shadows had a lightshaper there as part of their light network, so word had gotten back to Vondash quickly.

Once they were there, they got in touch with local contacts and found that a man in a brown cloak with a delkin woman had come through sometime before the Yarrls, and that both groups had headed north after getting supplies. They had ridden into Salitos, taking their best guess on the destination of their quarry and taking turns using a spyglass to watch for more messages in the light network at night. They hadn’t found their quarry, but eventually they saw the series of long and short flashes which translated to Yarrls sighted location nineteen.

Location nineteen was apparently a town called Fairwater, which was some considerable distance away from their position at the time. So, for the past two days she and Carlton had ridden as hard as they could push their horses without killing them for as long as they could see the road in front of their faces. It had left Kalissa feeling exhausted and more than a little sore. Plus, since it had been two days since they were spotted there, and they had no particular reason to think this was their final destination, it was reasonably likely that no one they were looking for would still be there when they arrived. Hence the mood.

Her mood was further fouled as she saw three rough-looking men approaching them on the other side of the road. Two brandished swords and the remaining one had a crossbow in his hands and a cruel sneer on his face.

“Pay or fight?” Kalissa asked, deferring to Carlton’s command.

“Let’s see how professional they are,” he said.

Kalissa nodded and kept her horse moving forward at the same steady pace. Best not to give the guy with the crossbow any reason to put a quarrel in one of them.

Up close, the three men looked terrible and smelled even worse. Their clothes were little more than rags and, by Kalissa’s guess, none of them had seen a decent meal or a proper bed in months.

“Why hello there,” one of the thugs said. “What have we here then?”

 “Just a man travelling with his daughter,” Carlton said, holding up his hands. The thug with the crossbow held it trained on him and hadn’t said a word, just smiled nastily. “We don’t want any trouble.”

The other thug inspected Carlton, looking back and forth between him and Kalissa. “Musta knocked up her mudder when you was just a wee lad.”

“Ah,” Carlton said. “Thank you?”

“Never mind about that,” the first thug said. He seemed to be the one in charge. “We’ll be taking those horses of yours. And any coin you’ve got on you besides. Come on, empty your pockets.”

The Shadows did as they were told, dismounting and handing over a small percentage of their coin while leaving most stashed in hidden pockets or sewn into their clothes.

“Boss,” the crossbowman said, his voice sounding a little crazy round the edges. “Boss, can I?”

The lead thug rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

The crossbowman grinned piggily and sighted down his weapon at Kalissa.

Before he could fire, a knife sprouted from his eye and he dropped the crossbow, clutching his face and screaming.

Carlton had barely moved, drawing the knife and throwing it in one smooth motion. Kalissa took that as a signal and drew a knife of her own, moving for the lead thug.

The man had his sword in front of him, but he looked like he knew how to use it about as well as Kalissa knew how to knit. He made a clumsy attempt to skewer her with the blade, but Kalissa moved around the blow and flicked her knife out, scoring a shallow cut along his arm.

The thug cursed and swung his sword wildly at her, using such obvious attacks that Kalissa could barely believe it. Her Shadow training had prepared her for what to do when you enemy gives you obvious openings however, and that was to punish them with all possible severity.

Kalissa ducked under the swing and came in close, driving her knife into the thug’s gut.

Remember to finish your opponent quickly, she thought, remembering her old combat master’s words. When a man is fatally wounded, he is often more dangerous, not less.

Kalissa withdrew her knife and instantly plunged it back into the man, stabbing him again and again as his mind caught up with what was happening. Some Shadows would have finished the thug with a single blow, but Kalissa was more spy than assassin and she stabbed him six times before she hit something vital and shoved him to the ground.

She turned to see Carlton slitting the crossbowman’s throat, having already dispatched his opponent.

Kalissa looked down at her hands. They were covered in the blood of a man she had just killed. She set to washing them off with water from her waterskin and making sure she hadn’t gotten any on her clothes. They left the bodies in the road where they had fallen. They didn’t have a good way of covering them up, so their best move was just to get far away before anyone saw them.

Carlton watched Kalissa as they mounted back up and rode on to Fairwater, making sure she wasn’t going to have a breakdown or anything.

Joke’s on him, she thought. That’s not the first man I’ve killed.

Carlton seemed to conclude that she would be fine, because he said, “See, I told you I’m not old enough to believably be your father. I suggest we come up with a new cover before we get into town.”

Kalissa laughed at the idea that that was what he had taken from that encounter. “Well I’m too young and too pretty to believably be your wife. Unless you want to go in as a noble or wealthy merchant, and that isn’t exactly going to go unnoticed.”

“You could be my niece,” Carlton suggested. “Unless you think you’re too pretty for that too.”

Kalissa smirked. “I can live with niece. So, what’s our plan here?”

“I figure I’ll check in with our contacts here and then go talk to the city guard. You should stake out the biggest tavern you can find and listen for rumours and gossip. This town is still relatively small. Anything out of place is likely to be talked about for a while.”

“Suits me,” Kalissa said. “It’s been far too long since I’ve had a decent meal.”

“If you don’t like my cooking, you could always make the food,” Carlton pointed out.

“Can’t discuss that now,” Kalissa said with a grin. “Mission to complete. Come find me when you’re done.”

The town only had two taverns, and the Bull’s Head was significantly larger and the more central of the two, so that was where Kalissa planted herself to listen. It didn’t take long. She had barely gotten two bites into her bowl of stew before she heard some people discussing something that sounded promising.

“You fools would see a cow and think it a unicorn,” one was saying derisively. “Ain’t no one can shoot like that, elf or no.”

“You’re the fool Tuck. Everyone what was in town saw it. You can ask ‘em. Not our fault you were fishing the day of the contest.”

“True,” another chimed in. “Like she was straight out of a story.”

The group continued bickering but didn’t say anything new. That a female delkin had done some impressive archery recently was interesting, as Saladeen had definitely had some number of archers backing him up.

A pair of young men sat down at Kalissa’s table.

“Hello,” one said, putting a half-drunk beer down in front of him. “I’m Sandros and this is my cousin Lars.”

“Hi,” Kalissa said between bites of stew. These two could be useful for gossip if properly handled, that was almost certainly why Carlton had sent her to the tavern in the first place, but that didn’t mean she needed to skip dinner to talk to them.

“You new in town?” Lars asked.

“Yeah, me and my uncle just got here,” Kalissa said, looking the boys over. Lars looked a tad brutish, but Sandros might have been handsome if he scrubbed up a bit. And they both looked like they would spend their entire lives within a day’s ride of where they now sat.

“Where did you come from?” Lars asked.

“Little town near the Del,” Kalissa said, sticking to their agreed-upon backstory. “Not much work there. We’re looking for a new place to live. Somewhere with work.” It was plausible enough, a lot of the smaller Salitian towns weren’t doing so well. Plus convincing her to stay in town might be motivation enough for a couple of horny boys to tell her anything.

“There might be some work here on the fishing boats,” Sandros said. “How’s your uncle on the water?”

“Fair,” she said. “How’s life in Fairwater? Much excitement?”

“I can show you some excitement if you like,” Lars suggested.

Kalissa made a face that gave the impression of being taken aback and offended.

“Show you around like, I mean,” Lars said awkwardly.

Sandros shot him a dirty look. “It’s your round Lars. I’ll take another beer.”

Lars looked like he was going to argue for a moment, but he capitulated to his cousin and went off to the bar.

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“Sorry about him,” Sandros said once Lars was gone.

“That’s okay,” Kalissa said, mopping up the last of her stew with the last of her bread. “So, what kind of excitement can a town like Fairwater offer?”

“Well, just last week we had an archery contest. The elf girl who won shattered all the records, it was a thing to see. Then that night there was a big dust up right here in the bar, apparently some guy was cheating people out of their money on the betting.”

“Wow,” Kalissa said, using the same higher-pitched voice she had used with that moron professor and doing her best to look impressed. “You must get all sorts of interesting people passing through here. I feel terribly boring by comparison.”

“I don’t think you’re boring at all,” Sandros said, staring intently at her.

Good, keep the blood out of his head and he won’t get suspicious. Kalissa made an effort to direct some extra blood to her cheeks and cause a blush.

“Do you ever get dangerous folks here?” she asked.

“Don’t worry,” Sandros said, puffing out his chest a little. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Kalissa fought the urge to roll her eyes and tried to look afraid instead. “But I’ve heard of bands of Yarrls roaming these parts. Nobody can fight them.”

“We can,” Sandros said with bravado. “Three Yarrls came through here just a couple of days ago. Bunch of us got together and ran them out of town. Living on the water breeds strong folks round here. Even Yarrls don’t want to pick a fight with that.”

Kalissa held back a snort at that lot of nonsense. She was pretty pleased with her intelligence-gathering abilities though. If the Yarrls had been through here, then it was likely that Saladeen had been too. Also, given Saladeen’s criminal reputation, the fact he had an unknown number of skilled archers backing him up and his forceshaping abilities, it seems likely he was the person swindling the locals in the archery contest.

 “Wow,” she said again, widening her eyes and moving her hand closer to Sandros’s on the table. “Where did they go?”

“Not sure, but they aren’t around these parts no more.”

“But which direction?” she asked, then added, “If my uncle can’t find a job here, we’ll have to look elsewhere. I don’t want to run into Yarrls on the road.”

“I think they went east,” Sandros said absently. “But I’m sure your uncle will find something here. in the meantime, care to have a drink with me? Seeing as my cousin seems to have abandoned me.”

Kalissa agreed as it would be suspicious if she kept sitting at her table without a drink, and allowed Sandros to buy her a mug of what passed for beer in this town.

A few hours and a few drinks later Sandros seemed about ready to propose and Kalissa was thoroughly bored with him. She supposed someone a lot less intelligent might find him charming, but he took himself far too seriously and seemed to be entirely devoid of wit. When Carlton finally showed up to meet her, her relief was similar to what she felt when finishing a double-length accounting class.

“Uncle,” she called, excusing herself from the table and making her way over to him.

“Kally,” he said, using the name they had decided on for her cover. He embraced her to give her a chance to pass intel covertly.

“This guy is a bore” she whispered. “Get me out of here.”

Carlton nodded and approached the table. “Hello son,” he said gruffly, extending his hand. “I hear you’ve been keeping my Kally company while I saw to business.”

“Yes sir,” Sandros said, shaking Carlton’s hand. “It was a pleasure.”

“Yes, thank you. Now I’m afraid Kally needs to help me with the horses.”

“Of course. Goodbye Kally. I hope to see you again.”

“Me too,” she said with feigned enthusiasm, smiling shyly. She turned to leave with Carlton and the smile dropped immediately.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“Last week someone was apparently cheating in the archery contest with the help of a skilled delkin woman. Could be our targets. Yarrls came through a couple of days after that and left heading east, presumably following our targets.”

Carlton nodded. “That fits with what I’ve found. We should have our lightshaper send up a light updating Vondash on our progress, and another asking for any further sightings, then move east tomorrow morning.”

“Agreed.”

“Slymon!” a man in a black silk vest exclaimed. “What are you doing out here? And why are you dressed so plainly?”

Kalissa shot Carlton a worried look, this wasn’t good for their cover. Luckily, Carlton had it handled.

“Marcel darling,” he said, slipping easily back into Slymon’s voice. “Do try to keep it down. As you can see, I’m here incognito.”

He wiggled his eyebrows as he said incognito. It was quite the performance.

“I do see that, but why?” Marcel asked.

“I always travel like this,” Carlton said with a wave of his hand to indicate his appearance. “When the world knows who you are, it only shows you one face. Like this, I can see others.”

“Is that what you’re doing here, seeing the world’s faces?”

Carlton smiled and waved his hand like he was presenting something. “Sometimes the city is too small for me and I have to get out. Find new inspiration, feel the wind on my face. With my latest collection finished, the time was right.”

“You finished Celebration of the Three Races? How did it turn out?”

Carlton smiled broadly. “Wonderfully, but who would expect any less. And what brings you all the way to Fairwater?”

“I’m being hosted by Baron Fairwater. Only came down here to see whether any of the local taverns were of sufficient quality to import my wine. Alas, twas not so.”

“Yes, I’m afraid the locals may be a bit unsophisticated for your merchandise. I fear to use the chamber pot here lest they bottle it and sell it by the glass. Would you care to share a drink with me and Kally here anyway?”

“But of course,” Marcel said, seemingly only just now noticing Kalissa and bowing at the waist. “I’m sorry miss, where are my manners? Marcel, of Marcel’s Fine Wines.”

“Kally,” Kalissa said. “Assistant to the great Slymon Askance and aspiring artist.”

“Ah, an artist as well. Would you do me the honor of showing me your work?”

That was the problem with picking a cover that had skills that you didn’t, sometimes you got asked to demonstrate them. If they had planned this out earlier, she wouldn’t have gone with the aspiring artist thing. She was really going to have to work on her improvisation.

“I couldn’t possibly. Not until it’s ready,” she said, figuring that sounded sufficiently ridiculous to pass for something Slymon’s assistant would say.

“You artists,” Marcel said with a roll of his eyes.

They ordered drinks and spent an hour or so chatting amicably. It was strange to see Carlton pretending to be Slymon after spending time with him on the road, it really was quite the transformation, even without the garish clothes and makeup. Marcel was nice enough though, especially for one of Slymon’s friends who Kalissa was fairly sure were mostly tedious in the extreme. After a couple of drinks Carlton made their excuses and they went to rent some rooms from the tavern owner.

“He seems nice,” Kalissa said as they climbed the stairs to the guest rooms.

“He is,” Carlton agreed. “His wine is overpriced swill, but I rather like him.”

Their rooms were next to each other and Kalissa followed Carlton into his to finish debriefing before they retired. They quickly came to the conclusion that they should get out of town first thing in the morning before anyone got too suspicious about the clearly rich merchant seen sitting and drinking with the poor man and his niece who were traveling the countryside looking for work, but that one night in a proper bed wouldn’t hurt.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” Kalissa said before she left to go to her own room. “Both here and in Borlaug there was no mention of the Yarrls asking around. Even if they did, not many people round here are likely to talk to Yarrls. They aren’t just randomly roaming the Salitian countryside, so they have to be tracking Saladeen somehow. I’m not very familiar with tomology, but could one of them have some kind of tracking ability?”

“I’m not sure,” Carlton said, considering. “Our intelligence on what tomology can do is limited and I’m no expert. I hope that’s not the case though. Three Yarrls looking for a thief could be mercenaries or just thugs looking to steal something valuable. But if one of them has had tomological enhancement, then they are either very expensive mercenaries or they are working for Yarrl itself. Neither of those would be good news.”

“It would make sense though,” Kalissa said. “This is the Frozen Dagger after all. It’s hardly a leap that Yarrl would want it, even just to trade it back to Lhint for better rates on wine and cheese.”

“I didn’t say I thought you were wrong, I said I hoped it. Ultimately, it doesn’t change our mission. But we will proceed with additional caution where these Yarrls are concerned.”

“I think that’s wise,” Kalissa said, trying to hide the fact she was almost unreasonably pleased that her observations were being taken seriously. It wasn’t all that long ago that she was being constantly ignored or condescended to by people who might be half as smart as her on their best day. She had been training to be a Shadow for years, and her expectations were high. So far, it had been a lot more frustrating, boring, and smelly than she had expected, but in the most important ways, it wasn’t disappointing.

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