The Silver Thief

  

  ALSO BY EDWARD W. ROBERTSON

  THE CYCLE OF ARAWN

  The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Trilogy

  THE CYCLE OF GALAND

  The Red Sea

  The Silver Thief

  THE BREAKERS SERIES

  Breakers

  Melt Down

  Knifepoint

  Reapers

  Cut Off

  Captives

  Relapse

  Blackout

  

  Mallon, Bressel, and the Collen Basin.

  1

  The ship bore the assassins across the sea.

  A storm mustered to the north, black clouds that promised reckless winds. Captain Naran stood on the prow. Swaying with the roll of the ship, he faced the coming darkness.

  Dante clutched the rail. "Is that as bad as it looks?"

  The corner of Naran's mouth twitched. "Are you worried we won't make it? Or that we will?"

  "Gladdic doesn't worry me."

  "You're that sure you'll be able to kill him?"

  "He's extremely dangerous," Dante said. "But everyone has to sleep sometime."

  The waves were larger by the minute, heaving the carrack up and down like children bouncing a ball on a taut sheet. Behind Dante, sailors called to each other from the rigging, trimming the sails to the shifting and strengthening winds. The air smelled of sea spray and rain.

  "How long do you think it will take?" Naran said.

  "A few days to locate him, then a few more to remove him. But there's more to this than Gladdic. Killing him sets things square for the murder of Captain Twill, but we still don't know why Mallon is so interested in the shaden. They've gathered hundreds if not thousands of shells. I don't like to think what they intend to do with them."

  "What do you suspect them of?"

  "Too often," Dante said, "when they've had that kind of power, they've used it to kill people like me."

  The captain nodded. He hadn't wanted his position—it had been thrust upon him when Gladdic executed Twill—but Naran had always borne a sober authority, and he wore his new office well.

  "My crew and I may be able to help you find the shaden," Naran said.

  "Think so?"

  "Over our years in Bressel, we've developed a number of resourceful contacts." He smiled thinly. "After all, we're nefarious pirates."

  As the clouds neared, Dante retreated to the cabin he shared with Blays. Blays was installed in his bunk with a stoppered jug of rum and one of the books from the ship's surprisingly large library of picaroon novels.

  "I've got to tell you," Blays said, swinging his bare feet to the boards and waving about the book. "It's a lot more relaxing to read about these things than to live them."

  "Good news and bad," Dante said. "Storm's on the way."

  "Tell me that's the good news because it's one of those storms that drops live fish on the deck. If I have to eat hard tack and salt cod for one more day, then I'll eat it. I'm not going to starve, after all. But I will complain about it."

  "By all indications, it's a non-fish-bearing storm. But it shouldn't delay us more than a few hours. The good news is that while we're locating Gladdic, Naran's offered to drop some feelers on the black market and try to track down the shaden."

  "That could save us some time." With a hollow plunk, Blays unstoppered his rum and took a swill. The smell of spices mingled with that of the coming rain. "He's not concerned about being spotted? Last time he and his crew were seen in Bressel, they were stealing a piece of the royal navy."

  "We're landing down the coast at Averoy. We'll sneak in overland. Naran has plenty of friends in the city who'll help him keep a low profile."

  "So we slit a throat and then go catch up with some shells. Which should be relatively easy, given that they're snails. Think any of this will blow back on Narashtovik?"

  A sudden swell sent Dante reeling toward the wall. He caught himself on a line running along the ceiling and used it to guide himself to his bunk. "We'll be as careful as we can. But you know as well as anyone that there's nothing harder to clean up than spilled blood."

  The ship plummeted down another swell. Outside, rain began to batter the deck.

  * * *

  The storm abated by morning, leaving them with calm seas and a cool, steady wind. Two days later, a sailor cried out that he'd spotted land.

  They made port that evening. Averoy was a prototypical fishing town. Weatherbeaten seaside cottages, outnumbered by scores of small docks. Boats heading in and out of the bay, anchored around the small, rocky islands. Gulls everywhere. Squadrons of pelicans glided over the low waves. Sometimes, one would break rank, tuck its wings, and plunge straight into the sea, bobbing to the surface a moment later.

  Dante had visited the town a few times as a boy and had always been charmed by its houses. Some stood on short stilts while others had screened slits below the roof and at the base. His dad had told him these features allowed the sea breeze to keep the interiors cool, but Dante had imagined better uses. The slits were there for the passing of secret notes. Meanwhile, when their neighbors annoyed them, the stilted houses stood up and walked away.

  That day, they had no time to take in Averoy's sights. As soon as the Sword of the South made berth, they located a tailor, paying her well to start immediate work on sets of simple trousers and the short-sleeved jerseys favored by rural Mallish folk. With this arranged, Dante and Blays returned to help unload the ship, which had picked up a great deal of goods during its voyages to the Plagued Islands and the lands further south.

  The garments were ready by morning. Five sets in all, enough to accommodate Dante, Blays, Naran, and the two sailors accompanying them to Bressel.

  Blays dressed in his trousers and jersey, then turned in a slow circle, holding one arm slanted up, the other down. "I make a pretty striking peasant!"

  "Good thing," Dante said. "If you screw this up, I'm demoting you to chief potato tiller."

  With funds in short supply, the five of them struck out on foot toward Bressel, which lay over twenty miles up the coast. The remainder of the crew stayed in Averoy, tasked with smuggling some of their goods into Bressel, which shouldn't be any more complicated than hiring another boat. One that wasn't wanted by the Mallish crown.

  The rutted dirt road stretched through a forest. Stumps and clearings indicated the woods were harvested regularly for lumber. So did the thunk of axes. Naran told them to keep an eye out for the baron's men. The trees were far too short for use as masts in the royal navy, and the king had hence ceded the land to the baron of Averoy, who'd found it more profitable (or less work, anyway) to sell his trees to shipwrights and those in need of firewood. That meant a steady presence of baron's men collecting payments and ensuring no one took more than had been agreed. Most likely, these men wouldn't be on the lookout for Naran, Dante, or the Sword of the South, but you could never be too careful.

  Less than half a mile west of the road, the ocean beat against the shore. It was high summer. Cool enough beneath the shade of the trees, but sticky and humid. Which meant Bressel was going to be murder.

  They met a trickle of traffic on the road. Dressed as peasants, but armed like soldiers, Dante and the others drew a number of looks, stirring Dante's paranoia. Yet by late afternoon, no trouble had come to them. Instead, they came to the deforested plains around Bressel.

  Naran left one of his men in the woods, along with all of their swords, which were illegal in Bressel without the proper writs. Dante and Blays strolled into the grassy field surrounding the great city. They were accompanied by Naran and Jona, a sailor with a black and red beard who'd proven more than capable of keeping his head in a tight situation.

  A trait that was about to
be put to the test. The outskirts of the city were a haphazard mash of slums, homestead farmers, and transient markets, all of which ebbed and eddied like the tides and currents where the Chanset flowed into the Aster Sea. Yet the city's interior was blocked by a contiguous and quite permanent wall. Barring more advanced sneakery, the only way inside was to pass through one of the gates, all of which were watched over by Bressel's finest.

  "Remember our story," Dante said, angling through the grass to the dirt road leading to the city. "If questioned, we're sharecroppers from Averoy. We've been saving our money for months in preparation for a trip to Bressel. Now that we're here, we intend to spend every last penny."

  Blays bit his lip, peering at the sprawl of cheap buildings and the walls and spires beyond. "This is a bit slapdash even by our standards, isn't it?"

  "The ship's barber cut our hair short. Got rid of the beards. We're dressed like commoners. What more can we do to disguise ourselves? Beseech Lia to grow us each a pair of breasts?"

  "Does she do that?" Blays motioned to the wall. "The last time we were here, it was to escape from prison and steal a royal vessel. On top of that, you're essentially the king of Narashtovik, Mallon's most ancient of enemies. What are the chances they'll let us through without impaling twenty of their guards on our blades?"

  "It's been weeks since the last time we were here. These guards see thousands of people every day. What's more likely to cause trouble? Walking through the gates like normal people? Or climbing over them like wretched crooks?"

  "All right," Blays said. "But if they spot us, I say we do the honorable thing and run away."

  The stink of leather tanneries wafted nearby. Goats brayed to each other from the yards of single-room homes. A steady flow of pedestrians and the occasional rider passed up and down the dung-thick street. The rich brown hue of Naran's face drew the occasional glance, but none lingered. Bressel was the biggest city for a thousand miles in all directions and home to people of all stripes.

  The sun sat low in the west, pouring yellow light across the ramshackle buildings. The day was cooling and the smell wasn't so bad. Within blocks, the houses stood shoulder to shoulder, newer wooden structures grafted onto the slanted bones of older ones. The wall loomed ahead. The gate was a two-door iron grille, currently open, but occupied by two men in the dark blue of Mallish military. On their shoulders, an embroidered silver ring indicated they were city watch.

  People massed around the entry, waiting to be assessed and let through. Others departed without issue, business in the city done for the day. Dante exchanged looks with Naran and the four of them joined the crowds. With the sun setting, they came before the guards.

  "Business in the city?" asked a man with a thick pale scar that started halfway up his forehead and continued well beyond his hairline.

  "We're from Averoy," Dante said. "Here for a bit of fun. We've been saving for—"

  "Yes, yes." The guard's eyes traveled to Blays' waist and the long knife sheathed on his belt. "That a sword, son?"

  "Why, no," Blays said, the portrait of innocence. "Swords are illegal in Bressel."

  "Then I hope you're not attempting to commit a crime. Give it here."

  Blays unsheathed the dagger, handing it hilt-first to the watchman. "Careful. I hear these things are sharp."

  The man took it, squinting at its point. Dante reached for the nether lurking in the stone walls around him. Shadows winged to his hands. Not enough that anyone untrained would notice, but enough to be ready.

  The guard laid the blade along his forearm, crossbar resting on the inside of his elbow. The tip almost but didn't quite reach his wrist. He tossed it back to Blays, who snagged the hilt mid-air.

  "An inch longer, and it'd be mine," the guard said. "Don't let me see it out of its sheath again."

  Blays smiled brightly. "Frankly, the damn thing frightens me. I only wear one so nobody else will use one on me."

  The guard beckoned them past without looking at them, already losing interest in favor of the next batch of travelers waiting to be let through. Without obvious hurry, the four of them walked west in the general direction of the river splitting the city in two.

  "Close call," Blays said. "For a minute there, I thought he was going to confiscate Matilda."

  Jona glanced away from a young woman at a fruit cart. "You name your knives?"

  "You don't? Then do you call every woman you know 'girl'?"

  Behind the safety of the walls, the buildings leaped to three and four stories in height. Towers and temples dwarfed these. Further west, the spire of the Odeleon seemed to climb halfway to the clouds. It was said that Bressel was home to half a million citizens. That sounded impossible, but after more than a month spent in the sparseness of the Plagued Islands, two more weeks on the featureless sea, and a day in sleepy Averoy, the crush of people made Dante believe it just might be true.

  As it had been in Averoy, however, they weren't there to gawk. Naran led them straight to the wharfs.

  Dante gestured ahead of them. "You said you're friends with an innkeep?"

  "He was fast friends with Captain Twill," Naran said. "After what Gladdic did to her, he'd no sooner turn us in than he'd swallow his own arm."

  The inn was set on a small hill overlooking the river, whose waters were deep gray in the twilight. Lanterns burned from the prows of barges and skiffs. The inn's common room was boisterous and crowded, smelling foully of tallow and sweetly of rosemary. Despite the clamor, the innkeep came over to Naran at once. After a quick talk, the man showed them up to their room.

  He closed their door firmly behind him, pressing his broad back against it. "Tell me you're here to answer what they done."

  "Indeed." Naran nodded to Dante and Blays. "With the aid of my new friends, our answer will thunder like Gashen's axe."

  The innkeep smiled, mustaches bunching. "Any help I can give is yours to take."

  He returned downstairs. Blays clapped his hands to his knees. "So. Shall I remedy our appalling lack of fighting steel?"

  "We should be back before midnight," Dante told Naran. "If you haven't seen us by morning, change lodgings."

  Naran furrowed his brow. "You don't trust my man?"

  "If we're not here, it means we've been taken. And it won't be long before they've tortured us into confessing everything we know."

  "Then might I advise not getting caught?"

  Dante headed downstairs, Blays beside him. They exited the inn, the common room's laughter fading quickly. The wharfs drew drunks aplenty, time-beaten men who tossed dice in the warm night air and argued over whose turn it was to buy the next bottle. The city's soldiers had better things to do than police rowdy laborers who largely only hurt each other. Dante and Blays didn't see their first watchman until they were halfway back to the gate.

  The gate's interior was surrounded by a sprawling plaza of pubs and shops which remained lively despite the fall of night. Blays hooked into a crooked alley that terminated against the twelve-foot wall, leaving the two of them surrounded by blank stone on all sides.

  "Good, right?" Blays tipped back his head to take in the surrounding buildings. "No one's going to be able to see me unless they're standing in my pocket."

  Dante nodded. "See you in an hour."

  Blays departed the alley and Dante headed out after him. As Blays strolled toward the gates, Dante installed himself on the patio of a tavern with a view of both the gate and the alley. He ordered a wheat beer, sipping without hurry. When it was empty, he ordered a second.

  By then, the city lay in full darkness. Shouts and cackles rebounded through the streets. It was strange to sit in Bressel as a common traveler. Mallon's capital was separated from Narashtovik by many hundreds of miles, and the two regions had warred on multiple occasions—most recently, little more than a decade ago, in the conflict that had relocated Dante to the north—yet if you plunked the two cities side by side, the main difference would be the architecture. Beyond that, they could very well be diff
erent neighborhoods of the same settlement.

  An hour after Blays had left the city, guards called out from the wall. Iron squealed. The grilled doors swung shut. A heavy bolt clunked into place.

  Dante stirred, wandering toward the alley. It was presently empty, but it smelled more strongly of urine than the hour before. He summoned the shadows to his hands. The air was thick, humid, hot. With the breeze blocked by the walls, sweat popped out along his brow.

  Shadows stirred. Dante straightened, tightening his grasp on the nether. A figure materialized from nowhere, resolving into Blays. He carried a long bundle of thin sticks of kindling. It was a bulky load. Enough to conceal several swords within it.

  "Any problems?" Dante said.

  Blays shook his head. "Naran's men are on their way. Told them to meet us at the inn. Anything on your end?"

  "Nope. I drank beer the whole time you were gone."

  "How come you get to sit around drinking beer while I'm lugging pounds of metal through a dark forest?"

  "Because you're the one who can walk through walls."

  "Fair enough." Blays narrowed his eyes. He sniffed at the air. "Are you sure drinking beer was the only thing you did?"

  They left the alley and made their way back toward the inn. Between the darkness of the night and the crowds during daylight, it felt as though they would be able to come and go without fear of being recognized, but Dante knew they couldn't grow too bold. If the wrong set of eyes drifted their way, it could botch everything.

  And the closer they got to Gladdic, the sharper the eyes would be.

  Blays shifted his grasp on the clacking bundle of sticks. "Maybe we should forgo all this sneaking around and forge ourselves a writ of arms. Or buy one from the armsman's guilds. I still know some people there."

  "The swords are only for emergencies. I'd rather not carry them at all. It would only draw attention."

  "Yeah, I suppose writs would cost money. After the last few weeks, we're a bit short on the currency of the realm. Or the currency of anywhere else."