When he turned west down Copper Road, he paused. Nearby was one of many taverns, and dug into the very ground at its entrance he saw a stone tile. Its newness, as well as its stark gray contrast to the worn brown dirt, made it stand out all the more. Carved into the front of it was a four-pointed star.
“You mark your territory with stone,” Ghost said, and he chuckled. “No wonder you’ve crushed Veldaren’s weak, hollow guilds so easily.”
A scrawny man with a similar emblem sewn onto the front of his vest leaned against the tavern, just shy of the door, and he gestured him closer.
“Leaf, powder, or woman?” the man asked him, and his accent was one Ghost recognized immediately, that of western Mordan, where he himself had grown up.
“Perhaps later, when the night is not so young,” Ghost said.
“Out on business, then?” the man asked, and he pulled up his dagger so that the light from the tavern flickered across it. “Make sure it’s something we wouldn’t mind you doing in our city.”
“Your city?” Ghost asked, and he smirked at the dagger. “You’ll need more than just that little knife to claim a place like Veldaren.”
The scrawny man smirked back.
“You’d be surprised how well these little knives work when wielded in the hands of thousands.”
Ghost purposefully put his back to him and marched on. There’d be no conflict between him and the Sun Guild, not unless he started one, but it annoyed him anyway, just hearing the arrogance in the man’s voice. If there was ever a city in the world where power was ephemeral, it was Veldaren, and it’d take more than a few stone slabs to change that fact.
Down the street he walked, even more brazen than before. This time, he did see a few men tailing him, and he had little doubt as to what guild they belonged.
At last, he reached the sprawling gates to the Gemcroft mansion. A single man remained on guard at the front, standing there with his sword sheathed and his eyes drooping. Ghost remained in the shadows of the other nearby homes, curling around toward the western side. From there, he had a fine view of the expansive garden and green grass that filled the border between the fence and the mansion proper. Climbing the fence wouldn’t have been too difficult, though the sharpened spikes at the top did give him some pause. But entering the complex wasn’t necessary for his task.
If Melody needed Ghost to kill this Zusa, and considered her Alyssa’s loyal watchdog, then he had a hunch she was someone more like him and less like the bored guard out front. Someone skilled, someone capable of wielding a blade like a living extension of themselves. And someone like that would not take long to notice Ghost lurking just outside the fence, his painted face grinning in the moonlight.
Ghost settled in, arms crossed and legs folded beneath him, but the wait was not long.
“You pick a strange place to sit and rest,” said a woman’s voice from above the fence top. Ghost looked up, and his jaw dropped. The woman perched atop the bars of the fence, her legs angled as to keep the pointed tops from piercing her flesh … he recognized her. He recognized that tattered cloak, those dark wrappings, and most of all, that beautiful face with the piercing dark brown eyes.
Ghost rose to his feet, and he kept his hands on the hilts of his swords.
“Forgive me,” he said. “But I was denied the chance to discover your name before, yet today I think I was gifted such knowledge. Zusa?”
The woman tensed at the mention of her name, and he saw her peering down at him with new understanding. When the realization hit her, it might as well have been his fist.
“I remember you,” she said. “You tried to kill me years ago.”
“A simple misunderstanding,” he said. “I thought you were the Watcher, remember?”
Zusa vaulted off the fence and landed light as a feather in front of Ghost. Her daggers were drawn, and she made no attempt to hide that fact.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
Ghost laughed, and he shook his head, hardly able to believe it. The strange woman he’d had but a single exchange with, the one he’d challenged in a race to find and kill the Watcher … she was Zusa, the one Melody needed killed?
How disappointing.
“Forgive me,” Ghost said, “but I do not enjoy this fact any more than you will. I am to kill you, Zusa.”
She froze, her whole body going tense. Those brown eyes widened, and Ghost knew a single quick movement on his part would set her tumbling. So instead, he remained calm, the hilts to his swords still comfortably resting in his large palms.
“It’s a strange assassin who reveals himself and then his plans,” Zusa said, clearly distrusting his statement.
“Look at my face,” Ghost said. “Strangeness and I are welcome bedfellows. But I only wished to speak with you, Zusa, and give you warning. You deserve as much, so consider this a token to make up for my earlier rudeness.”
“I am not one for games,” Zusa said, taking a careful step backward. “If you are to kill me, then draw your swords now and try.”
“I said strangeness and I are welcome bedfellows,” said Ghost. “Not foolishness. We will fight when I am ready, Zusa.” His grip on his swords tightened. “Either that, or you can charge me now and die. The choice is yours.”
He stared her down, the animal instincts of the killer resurfacing with such clarity and familiarity, he was shocked by their strength. This moment, this calm before the bloodshed, was one he’d always cherished. Never more was he so close to death, yet so alive.
Zusa leaped, but it was backward, a vaulting flip that sent her over the spiked tips and onto the grass behind the fence.
“So full of surprises,” Ghost said. “Perhaps you will not be the first to die.”
“Stay away from my family,” Zusa said. “Stay away from my home.”
“I’m only here for you,” Ghost said, deciding to toss her a bone. “If you seek threats to your home and family, look elsewhere.”
Zusa’s eyes narrowed.
“Be gone by morning,” she said, then turned and fled back toward the house.
Ghost let go of a blade and saluted her departure. Yes, she was definitely interesting, the strange wrappings, that intense stare … not to mention her ability to leap through the air as if she were but a sparrow on the wind. He would save her for later, perhaps even for after the Watcher’s death.
He strolled away from the fence, a bounce to his step. If she was to wait and the Watcher was to be last, then that meant the Eschaton Mercenaries would be the first to die.
CHAPTER 6
There were fifteen men, women, and children in the two wagons, and despite the late hour, the group drove to the following hill rather than staying among the corpses of the orcs. Haern kept to the rear of their formation, uncomfortable with the tearful thanks many gave. Following them all like a shadow was Thren.
When at last a new fire burned and the families lay down for sleep, Haern built his own fire beyond the outer ring of the wagons and waited. Part of him was curious who would arrive first, and in the end, it was Delysia.
“They’ll be telling stories of tonight to their children for ages,” she said, crossing her legs and sitting down next to him.
“It was just a few dead orcs.”
“The Watcher of Veldaren saved them on the road to Ker,” she said, nudging him in the side. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have such an experience.”
He chuckled.
“I doubt I’d consider them lucky, other than to have had you with them as well. They’d be long dead if you hadn’t kept them back.”
Delysia inched closer to the fire, and she leaned toward it, her red hair cascading down the side of her face.