Night guild 3, p.4
Night Guild 3, page 4
But there was worse to come.
“I’m awaiting trial for treason against the High Guild Council. Treason against my order, the order of the Night Guild, and, by extension, against the High Guild Council of the Twelve Isles.”
“But Guildmaster Tarquin, this is terrible!” Ronan exclaimed. “The penalty for high treason is…”
“The penalty is death, my boy,” Tarquin finished. “There’s no other option for one who has betrayed his guild and betrayed the High Guild Council of the Twelve Isles.”
“How have you betrayed your guild?” Ronan asked, his anger rising.
“I have not, of course,” Tarquin said, “but there are people who have infiltrated the High Guild Council. They have maneuvered into influential positions. The High Guild Council ordered that the dragon eggs be returned to the Silent Brotherhood and no more questions asked, but I have facilitated your escape with the eggs instead. There’s been a terrible fuss made over the incident. It seems that the Silent Brotherhood had large interests in the Twelve Isles – and particularly large investments in the Bank of Gold and the other financial guilds. They have made large deposits – very large deposits — of gold and silver bullion extracted from the mines of Ghennet. The financial guilds have relied heavily on this gold as collateral for large loans. Now, word has come from the agents of the Silent Brotherhood that they want their precious metals deposits back — all of them. The financial guilds face ruin, and it’s my actions in allowing the dragon eggs to slip out of Trentum in your hands that have caused the strife.”
“I see,” Ronan said. “And when is your trial to be held?”
“How could I know?” Tarquin said. “I believe that the Night Guild has hired some of the best talents that the Guilds of Justice have to offer to argue my case. If I know the justice guild lawyers, they’ll be playing for time. The trial of a guildmaster for treason has not happened in living memory, and it’s something of an outrageous proposition. Added to that, rumor has spread throughout the city of outside influences guiding the decisions of the High Guild Council. There are mercenaries in the city, hired from Lithia by the Bank of Gold, and you know how little the Twelve Island people like to see armed outsiders on the streets.”
“How do you know all this?” Ronan asked. “Do you have a contact on the outside?”
“I know through this power of farseeing, Ronan,” Tarquin replied. “I’ve used this power to walk the corridors of my prison and even spy on the guards and the members of the High Council when they are not meeting in a place with magical wards. But it’s very unsatisfactory, and I’ve been greatly missing talking to someone. It’s good to have you here.”
“No one else from the guild can join you here? No one else has the power of farseeing?”
“There are some members of the Night Guild Council who could use it if they wished, but they do not wish to. I’m afraid that they, too, have been influenced by some outside force. Our list of allies in the city has grown thin.”
“I must try to rescue you,” Ronan said. “I must return to the Twelve Isles and—”
“You must continue upon your fated road!” Tarquin said firmly. “Do not be swayed! Your path has consequences that none of us can know of, that much is abundantly clear to me now. If you were to come back, abandoning the hatching of the ice dragon egg, that would be a consequence of the actions of those who have conspired to imprison me, don’t you see? You must — must — stick to your path. Pray to the Night God daily, look out for your friends, and do not scruple to do whatever is necessary to advance yourself along your path. That is the most important thing!”
“Very well,” Ronan said reluctantly. “Very well. But I’ll come and check in with you here regularly if I can.”
Even as he spoke, he felt his concentration wobble. His awareness of his physical body, still lying in the bed back at the inn, obtruded itself suddenly on his mind.
“I must go,” he said. “I think this has been more power than I should have used all at once.”
“Go then,” Tarquin said. “But remember what I said. Look out for yourself, look out for your friends, and stick to the path.”
“I will, Guildmaster,” Ronan said humbly.
“Good luck to you, then,” Tarquin said. “And may the Night God be with you.”
Ronan gave in to the call of the wide-open space that was opening up below him. There was a clear line back to his body, and he let himself fall back down that line, tumbling through a space that was not a space until his awareness of his physical body shimmered back into place around him. He felt his hands, his feet, his torso rising and falling with steady breath. He blinked, seeing the ceiling of the dark inn above him.
Then he was fully present again, awake, lying flat in the bed, his body and mind feeling rested and revived after his session of farseeing. The first light of dawn was staining the sky outside the window. He lay quiet for a long time as the light grew brighter, thinking of what he had seen.
“I will stick to the path,” he said to himself. “Whatever happens, I will do what needs to be done.”
At breakfast, the landlord acted as if nothing untoward had happened the night before. When the companions had eaten, the landlord quietly gave them directions to the yard where Master Deshyor had his base. The companions walked there slowly together, choosing to keep their stealth fields in place this time so that they didn’t draw attention.
The streets were busy, and though most of the locals of Saon did not seem interested in tourists, Ronan figured that, for now, it would be best to be as discreet as possible. If Kaishog indeed had some power that could detect them, he would have done so by now. Ronan was content enough that the use of the stealth field was safer than otherwise.
The yard where Deshyor’s base was located lay in a quiet street given over to industrial buildings — large warehouses for the most part, and here and there a building that spewed black smoke. These, Diana informed them, were the ironworks for the city. A dirty, polluting industry that was deliberately kept as far as possible from the residential areas.
Not far off, the pungent reek of a leather tannery told of another distasteful industry. Ronan was not surprised that this was an area where Deshyor could keep his business discreet.
“Here we are,” he said, coming to the red-painted door they had been directed to by the landlord. He pushed it open and stepped inside, dropping his stealth field as he did so.
“Ah, you’ve arrived!” It was Jallor who spoke, standing up from the low table he’d been sitting at in one corner of the open yard. “Thank you for coming. We’re all eager to know what you can teach us!”
Chapter 3
Jallor and his four colleagues were all looking much better than they had the previous night. They were not bad people, not really, just brawlers whose lot in life it was to act as enforcers for the gangster Deshyor. They were paid well enough, and their role was mainly to look out for merchants who paid Deshyor for protection or to fight bouts in the ring as Deshyor’s challengers.
“If you can teach us a few tricks,” Jallor said, “we’ll be better able to keep the peace when Deshyor needs us. The city guard is corrupt in Saon, and the merchants who pay Deshyor for protection usually need protecting against the guards.”
Ronan frowned. He did not like the sound of that, and it made him feel better about training these men to fight. While he had no desire to empower an extortionist, it seemed that Deshyor’s business was needed because of the corruption of the city guard, and if that was the case, then how else were merchants to move their goods?
So, Ronan and his companions set about training the four goons in new moves they could use and new ways they could approach fighting. The three Night Guild acolytes concentrated on stances and small weapons — grapples, throws, and pressure points that could be used to take down an opponent with minimum damage. Tanya, meanwhile, found a set of staves in one corner and taught the men a series of drills they could use to improve their ability with both staves and swords.
By mid-afternoon, the men were getting the knack of the tricks, and by evening, they had all mastered the techniques well enough for Ronan’s satisfaction.
“It’s been a useful day,” he said. “Are you satisfied? Tomorrow, my friends and I must fight our bout, and after that, I’m not sure we’ll have time for this kind of fun.”
“I’m satisfied,” Jallor said with a smile. “And to say thank you, why not join us for our evening meal? It’s nothing fancy, but we’re happy to share.”
The four companions joined the men gladly and ate a hearty meal of stew and bread, washed down with weak beer. The assassins did not normally take alcohol, but Ronan and his companions decided to stretch a point for once. Jallor and his friends were content not to ask any questions about Ronan’s backstory, and that suited him just fine. Instead, the fighters entertained their guests with tales of life in Saon.
It seemed that the city was something of a den of corruption, and Deshyor’s gang was just one of many criminal organizations that controlled territory within the city. Saon saw a great deal of importing and exporting goods, particularly precious metals from the great mining operations in the northern mountains, and these trade routes were ripe for exploitation by the city guards.
“You four are going to be impersonating a group who refused to pay bribes to the city guard,” Jallor said. “They paid Master Deshyor for protection, so they weren’t going to pay the guards anything more. But the guards caught them outside the city and arrested them before we, or any other of any of Deshyor’s men, could get to them. You’re doing everyone a good turn by helping them get free.”
Ronan shook his head and smiled at the blatant corruption in the city. At least in the Twelve Isles, the control of the guilds meant that, usually, no one had to pay anyone else off to move goods. Bribery was still a feature of life in Trentum, of course, but it was nowhere near as ingrained as it seemed to be here in Saon.
As night fell, Jallor stood up. “We should get ready to go,” he said. “You’ll want to stash your baggage here, I guess?”
Ronan looked at him. “I guess we shouldn’t take our packs or our weapons into the arena with us. You have a safe place here?”
“We do,” Jallor said. “And you’re right; anything you take into the arena risks being stolen by the guards. Even small, concealed items. You may leave your stuff here. You can trust us, don’t worry. We won’t look in your packs. It’s more than our jobs are worth. Deshyor’s honor is the most important thing here, make no mistake. We’re not going to compromise that.”
Ronan stood and looked for a long moment into the man’s single eye. There was no trace of a lie in his gaze or in his voice, and Ronan, a man of the Night Guild, could tell a liar when he saw one.
“Very well,” he said. “Eric, Tanya, Diana, let’s stash our bags here with these good folk and get ready to undertake this mission.”
Less than an hour later, they were standing outside an imposing, windowless building near the castle. Next to the building, a large, circular stone arena was where they would fight their bout. Jallor was with them, but the other goons had remained behind back at Deshyor’s yard. It was dark by now, and though they could hear revelry and activity in other parts of the city, the street outside the arena jail was empty.
Jallor tapped at a door. “The guard has been well paid to allow the swap to happen,” he explained in a whisper. “You don’t need to say anything, just slip inside when the others have left. Tomorrow, you’ll win the bout and be freed immediately, and you can come straight back to the yard to collect your bags. Deshyor will be there and will have calculated the winnings. He’ll pay you, and then you can be on your way as soon as you like.”
“That sounds fine,” Ronan said. “We’ll probably want to get away immediately… or at least as soon as we’ve had the chance to buy some supplies.”
“We can show you the best places to get supplies,” Jallor assured him. “You can get just about anything you need here in Saon if you know where to look— Ah, here’s the guard.”
The door swung open, and a small, ferret-faced man in the uniform of the king’s guard peered out. He gave them a cursory glance, then spoke to Jallor in swift Ghennetian dialect.
“Are these the substitutes? All right then, come this way, quickly now.”
“No,” Jallor said, “bring the others out first.”
“You don’t trust me?” the guard said, offended.
“Not as far as I could throw you,” Jallor replied pleasantly. “Prisoners out first, then these replacements. That was the deal.”
Grumbling, the guard pulled the door closed and then reappeared a few moments later with a small group of people in tow. They looked much the worse for wear, and they glanced with frightened eyes at Jallor, Ronan, and his friends.
“There you go,” the guard snapped. “Now, come on you lot, quickly, before anyone sees.”
Ronan nodded to Jallor, then gestured to his friends to follow him, slipping through the door into the darkness of the corridor. The nervous guard led them down a dark hallway to where the door to a cell stood open.
“You won’t have long to wait,” he said. “I’d get some sleep if you can. Good luck tomorrow. All my money is riding on you.”
Ronan smiled. So, it was not only Deshyor who had placed large bets on the unlikely victory of the “prisoners” against the champions.
The four companions settled down to an uncomfortable wait. The cell was small, dingy, and dark — a damp and foul-smelling space where there was little room to stretch. Eric curled up on the floor in a corner and went into the assassins’ sleep, and a little later, Tanya did the same. Ronan and Diana sat close to each other, awake, not speaking, but taking comfort in each other’s presence.
After an interminable wait, they heard heavy boots in the corridor outside. Hours had passed; Ronan was not sure how many hours, but he felt sure that night must have passed into morning in the world above.
“Prisoners, up!” a guard’s voice outside shouted. The door clanged open, and a harsh, bright torchlight glared into the little room.
“Out, out!” the guard roared. “Come on, I don’t have all day!” He was a big, heavy man with sandy hair. There was no sign of the man from the night before.
The four companions got up and hurried out of the cell, making a show of looking scared and intimidated by the guard’s bullying tone. He hustled them down the corridor until they reached a flight of stairs. Here, they became aware of noise from above.
It was the sound of a crowd chanting, several hundred voices at least.
Apparently, this man was one who had not chosen to bet on the prisoners. “Your audience is eager,” he said in a mocking voice. “Make sure not to die too quickly!”
With these encouraging words, he shoved open a door and ushered them through.
Bright sunlight blazed down on them from between the bars of a hatchway above, reached by a short flight of stairs. The room below the hatch was long and narrow, and the only furniture was a bench running the length of one side of the room. On the bench, an assortment of poor-quality weapons lay: swords, shields, a spear, and a couple of heavy staves.
From above, they could hear the indistinct voice of a ringmaster announcing what was about to happen.
The four friends looked at each other, and Eric suddenly grinned. “I’d never have expected that my guild training would lead me here!” he said. “But I feel in the mood for a good fight. I guess these weapons will do well enough until we can take better ones from the enemies we kill!”
The light of battle gleamed in his eyes, and his confidence was infectious. Ronan laughed and picked up a rusty short sword with a leaf-shaped blade.
“This will do for the moment,” he said. “And I’ll take this one, too.” He picked up another sword of a similar size and shape. There was not much choice, it was true, but he would do his best with what he had, and two blades were better than one.
The others were picking up weapons, too, Tanya opting for a long straight sword of the Twelve Isles style, and Diana picking up a short battle-axe. Eric opted for the long spear and also took up a short sword and stuck it in his belt.
“We have no idea what we’re going to be up against when we get out there,” Ronan said, “so let’s just wait before we make any plans. We have enough fighting skills that I’m confident we’ll be able to handle whatever they throw at us. Just stick together, look out for each other, and be ready to use any trick in the book to defeat them.”
“Even magic if we have to?” Diana asked.
“If we have to. When we’re done, we’ll be out of here quickly enough so that if there are any questions raised by our fighting style, we should be able to get away with our reward before anyone catches up to us.”
“Right,” Diana said. She and Eric took up positions at the bottom of the long ladder, and Ronan and Tanya took up positions behind them.
Above, a deep bass drum now beat a steady rhythm.
Suddenly, the hatch clanged open, and a great roar went up from the waiting crowd.
The four companions charged up the stairs and burst out into the arena.
“On me!” Ronan shouted, peeling away from the opening as soon as he gained the ground level. The sunlight was blinding after the dimness of the chamber below, and it took him a moment to get his bearings.
He looked around. He and his friends were in a wide, circular arena floored with sand, and around them, in rising tiers of seating, a baying crowd was stamping and chanting for the show.
“Barbarians,” he heard Eric mutter, glaring at the audience as the four of them moved away from the hatchway. They were, for now, alone in the arena, but two tall double doors on the opposite side looked like they were ready to disgorge a host of enemies at any moment.
“Stay ready,” Ronan said, “and keep moving.”
