“What is it, lad?” he snapped, returning his attention to the younger guard.
“I can’t be certain,” Sivrin said in a distracted near-whisper, “but I thought I saw something moving out there. Many things, actually.”
“It’s probably just some merchant’s caravan,” Horek said with a dismissive wave. “Fool merchants have more greed than sense, to be traveling overland at this hour. Bloody vultures, anyway! I can’t decide if I more want to strangle them or admire them, as prices continue to rise and they all grow fat off the profits of us trapped here-”
“It was not a caravan,” Sivrin interrupted. “It was in the grasses, away from the road. Besides, the trade caravans all come by the western coastal road these days. No one tries the wasteland any more. There is something skulking about out there, like a host of shadows-There! I saw it again!”
Horek rolled his eyes and pushed to his feet, shifting his sword belt as the scabbard rattled against his chair. “What’s this, then, lad? Some kind of joke at my expense, because I have an answer for each of your foolish theories?”
“Just get over here and look for yourself,” Sivrin urged.
The grizzled guard heaved a sigh and crossed the room. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the younger man, craning his neck to stare out the window. The grey of evening had settled over the countryside, made thick and oppressive by the low-hanging storm clouds. The tall grasses rippled and swirled beneath fitful breezes, and the sea of motion served to baffle his vision as he squinted into the twilight gloom. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, though he had to admit that his sight was not what it had once been, for he found a blurring in the distant detail that owed as much to his eyes as to the gathering shroud without.
“There, did you see it?” Sivrin exclaimed.
“I saw nothing,” Horek replied with a frown.
“Keep watching, it will happen again.”
He stared, his eyes beginning to water as he strove to keep them open for fear of missing anything. He kept expecting the youthful guard to elbow him and burst into laughter at his expense, but Sivrin’s attention was focused outside with an unwavering intensity. If this was a joke, the lad was carrying it much too far. He was about to tell him so, in fact, when he saw it.
His gaze caught on a small ripple of the grasses within a larger one, like a riptide moving counter to the crashing waves surrounding it. At first he thought it nothing more than some strange whim of the wind, but then he saw that it was accompanied by a score of shadowy, man-like figures rising from the grass to dart toward the city and then disappear again into the thrashing sward. His breath caught in his throat.
“What are they?” he breathed.
“I do not know,” Sivrin said, vindication and resolve tight in his voice. “But we need to tell the Captain at once.”
“Tell the Cap’n what?” came a raspy drawl.
Both guards whirled, their hands flying to the hilts of their swords. Two men stood casually framed in the doorway. Horek relaxed when he saw that the attire of the newcomers matched that of himself and Sivrin, the armor and tabard of the city guard, but he frowned when he realized he did not recognize either of them. New mercenaries still arrived at Keldrin’s Landing from time to time, and he made a concerted effort to know all the experienced ones by sight. These men looked more hard-edged than most, and yet he was certain he had never met them before.
“Who are you lads?” he asked, his gaze narrowing as he regarded them.
“Funny you should mention the Cap’n,” the fellow in front drawled in a voice that was almost hoarse. The man had an angry scar running from forehead to jawline, just missing his left eye. He stepped into the room, glancing about with a bored expression. “Cap’n wants to see you both. We’re here to relieve you.”
Horek hesitated. “It is not yet time for change of shift. Do you bear anything in Captain Borric’s hand? Or can the men below vouch for you?”
The scar-faced man shrugged. “They were relieved as well. Cap’n said it’s urgent.”
“Why would he send you?” Horek demanded. “You cannot have been with the guard long, or I would know you both. Something is amiss here.”
“We should go, Horek,” Sivrin urged. “Maybe the Captain knows about whatever is out there, and wants to know what we have seen.”
The newcomers exchanged a glance, and the second fellow moved into the room. He was a heavyset man with arms as thick as a blacksmith’s, and his dark, deep-set eyes darted to each of them before settling upon the plate of uneaten food upon the table.
“He’s right, Horek,” the first man rasped. “You risk Borric’s wrath upon all our heads by tarrying overlong, and none of us want that. The Cap’n could flay the bark from a tree at twenty paces with that razor tongue of his, am I right?”
The man’s face split into a lop-sided grin, and Horek found himself relaxing into an answering smile. Borric’s scoldings were indeed things of legend, and it was true that he wanted no part of one directed at him.
“Hell’s breath, but that is true enough,” he said with a chuckle. “Perhaps we had better go at that, lad.” He walked toward the door, and noticed the burly second newcomer still eyeing his plate.
“You are welcome to the food, if you’ve a mind,” Horek told him. “I’ll not have time to finish it, it seems.”
“That’s a good fellow,” the scar-faced man said. He slipped around Horek and strode toward the window. “Before you go, however, can you show me what you saw out there? The Cap’n sure enough was saying something about it, now you mention it, and I’d like to see what all the fuss is about.”
Sivrin turned back toward the window, chattering and pointing. Horek watched them, frowning once more. The nape of his neck prickled with apprehension; the feeling that something was terribly amiss had returned, even more urgent than before. He watched the scar-faced man looking over Sivrin’s shoulder and out the window, heard his friendly murmuring as he conversed with the excited lad. His gaze roved over the man, looking for something out of place, and fell to a bright scarlet dot on the floor by his boot heel.
Horek froze. He found another teardrop of crimson gathered at the bottom of the man’s scabbard, and his eyes traced the rivulet of red up the length of the scabbard to where a thin line of crimson welled from the top, just below the cross-guard of the sword’s hilt. The sound he had heard earlier from below suddenly echoed in his head, the sound that might have been the end of a brief scuffle, the sound that just might have been a well-muffled cry.
“Sivrin, on your guard!” he shouted.
A searing pain ripped through his chest, and he looked down in shock to see a foot of gleaming steel protruding from his chest, streaked with his own blood. As he stared, gaping, the blade slithered back into his chest and was gone. The floor tilted crazily and rose to meet him with a cold, stinging slap. He lay with his check pressed against the stone, amazed at the crushing force that bound him there.
He had landed facing the window, and thus was rewarded with a view of Sivrin’s actions. The lad reacted with remarkable speed, spinning away from the scar-faced man and batting away a dagger thrust. Sivrin drew his blade and lunged to engage the man. The scar-faced man’s bloody sword leapt from its scabbard, and steel rang on steel. Horek felt a thrill of fatherly pride at the young man’s skill; he had trained the lad well.