Stephen Deas - Warlock's shadow

Berren shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Said it was too dangerous. Said there was no prize in it and I’d just get myself killed and he had something else to be getting on with.’

‘Aye.’ Kol looked troubled. ‘Well, he might have a point or two there. But what’s this other thing he’s got to be getting on with?’

‘I …’ Berren bit his lip. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say.’

‘He’s after whoever killed Kasmin, right?’ Berren tried not to say anything but his face must have spoken for him. Kol nodded. ‘Thought so. Been doing some digging around that myself. Not sure he should be the one telling you about getting their fingers burned. He’s stalking a sea-captain from Kalda who calls himself the Headsman, right?’ Again, Berren’s face must have given him away. ‘Kelm’s Teeth, boy, remind me not to trust you with any of my secrets — it’s like reading a bloody book. Anyway, that warehouse where you had your little fracas, I looked into that. The Headsman’s renting a part of it. You know who else rents a space there? Saffran Kuy. The warlock.’

‘The witch-doctor from the House of Cats and Gulls?’ For a moment, Berren couldn’t contain himself.

‘Call him that if you want. Not my cup of tea, even if Syannis gets along with him somehow. You know what the Headsman’s got up there?’

Berren shook his head.

‘Neither do I. When you find out, make sure I get to hear about it. I don’t care which one of you tells me, but one of you better had. Got it?’

Berren nodded quickly and almost jumped out of his chair. ‘I’d better go. It’s late. Swords in the morning. Supposed to be at temple for dawn still.’ At the door, Berren paused. ‘That purse you left for us. There was more in it than was owed. So what’s Master Sy doing for you ?’

For a long time the justicar sat and stared at Berren. Then he took a deep breath. ‘I’ve known Syannis for ten years, Berren, and I knew Kasmin for longer. I know you all think I’m a heartless bastard who wouldn’t part with a single penny unless there was something in it for me, and for three hundred and eleven days of the year you might well be right. That was the three hundred and twelfth. Staying alive, that’s what he’s doing for me. Now get lost before I ask for it back.’

Berren ran outside, past the fountain and up the street into Four Winds Square. He was already yawning. Good food and plenty of it, a day full of hard work and he was ready for bed and a good night’s sleep. There’d be a few sharp words from Master Sy on messing with matters that didn’t concern him when he got home, no doubt.

He was two streets away from the thief-taker’s house when a silhouette stepped out of an alley in front of him. Berren skittered to a stop on the wet stones of the street. He froze there for a second. The silhouette was of a shortish man with two swords over his back. The man who’d murdered two imperial guardsmen, who’d had the audacity to try and take the life of the imperial prince himself. Now he was standing in the street, only a dozen paces away.

The assassin slowly drew his swords, one in each hand. For that first moment, Berren was sure he was about to die.

‘I know who you are, Berren.’

The moment passed. Other thoughts followed: that it was dark but still long short of midnight and others might come this way at any moment; that he’d beaten this man once before, in the scent garden; that he wasn’t far from home and Master Sy; and then a last thought came along, slower than the others yet more pressing. Why step out in front of him? Why be seen at all? Why not a shadow in the dark with a short curved knife and a throat-slitting flick of the wrist and away into the night, unseen? So he held his ground.

The assassin growled. ‘There’s no purse to killing you, boy. Do you want to live?’ The man’s face was lost in the shadow of a deep hood. ‘If you do want to live, put your justicar off my scent. I’ll be watching both of you. If you don’t, the next time I see you, I’ll kill you. Do you understand? Now run!’ The assassin’s voice was thick and guttural, a bit like the archer from the warehouse roof. Berren took two steps backwards and then stopped.

‘No.’ He drew out his waster. This wasn’t right at all. ‘Who are you?’

‘Your death, curse you boy!’ The assassin hesitated an instant before he charged, both swords raised. Berren knew he ought to run, that Master Sy would tell him he was mad to stand fast; but he’d fought against sword-monks now; he’d beaten this man once before, and there was something … something wrong about the way this assassin held his swords, something about the way the assassin came at him that wasn’t right, as though it was all a bluff. The swords whirled at Berren’s face but with no real skill; Berren jumped sideways and poked his waster at the man’s head as he went past. He missed, but the wooden tip caught the cloth of the man’s cloak and pulled back his hood, and now Berren could see who it was.

‘Master Velgian?’ He stopped, stunned. It all made sense! Velgian being mugged and getting a bloody nose — that hadn’t ever happened, it had been Berren’s waster that marked him! And the smell, the black-powder smell in the scent garden and the look on Velgian’s face when Kol had said he meant to go after the assassin! But why? Velgian, of all of them, a killer?

The poet thief-taker turned and stopped and looked at Berren with sad eyes. ‘Why couldn’t you just run, lad? Why couldn’t you leave it be?’

Berren glanced up and down the street but there was no one else in sight.

‘Path of fire! You were supposed to be asleep! I didn’t want to hurt you. I liked you. Sun knows there was enough sleeping draft in your breakfast to fell a horse! I could have killed you like I killed the others, but I would have let you be. Why did you have to chose that one night not to be hungry, eh?’

Berren knew exactly. Too excited about seeing the sword-monks the next day, too full of left-overs from the feast of the night before. ‘Why did you do it, Master Velgian?’

‘Why do you think, boy? For the purse and the fistful of golden emperors inside it, that’s why. Damn your eyes! I didn’t want it to come to this, but now what choice have I got?’ He took a deep breath. The way he held himself changed. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but it’s you or me now.’ He came at Berren again and now all the bluff was gone and Berren knew for sure that if he tried to fight, this time he’d die. He turned and bolted and Velgian was right on his heels.

‘I promise not to tell!’ yelled Berren over his shoulder.

‘And I wish I could believe you!’

He sprinted into the little yard outside Master Sy’s door. ‘Master Sy! Master thief-taker! Help!’ He reached the door and kicked it as he passed but it stayed shut and then he had to keep running because Velgian was right there and he couldn’t even stop to open his own door. ‘Master! Velgian! It’s Velgian!’ He darted down a little alley instead, the one that went round to Master Sy’s back yard; he bounded up onto the back of an old empty chest the thief-taker kept by his back door and then up onto Master Sy’s kitchen and on to his roof. If that didn’t get Master Sy’s attention, nothing would.

‘A pox on you, boy!’ shrieked Velgian behind him.

From Master Sy’s roof there was only one way to go, but Berren knew the rooftops here as well as he knew the streets. They were his home as much as anywhere and even in the dark he knew exactly which way to go — straight over the top, double back across the alley, around the side of the yard …

‘Give it up, boy!’ Velgian wasn’t dropping back. He was a thief-taker too, after all.