Mirya motioned to Brun, Rost, and Lodharrun. The three loyalists crept closer to the alley mouth. Heavy footsteps, the jingle of mail, and a coarse drunken jest announced the approaching Jannarsk men. The armsmen walked unsteadily past the alley mouth with hardly a glance at the shadows-and Mirya’s fighters struck. A quick, stealthy rush brought the three Hulburgans into the street behind the mercenaries, with cudgels gripped in strong hands. Mirya, Halla, and Vannarshel followed after them, spreading out to cover the streets to either side.
“What is this?” the Jannarsk sergeant snarled, reaching for the sword at his belt.
“You’re not welcome here,” Mirya spat.
The other armsmen started to turn, reaching for their own weapons. They were too slow. In a dark, furious tide, the Hulburgans swarmed over them with their cudgels rising and falling. The sergeant managed to draw his sword, and stayed on his feet long enough to line up a thrust at Rost as the carpenter bludgeoned one of the other sellswords to the ground. Mirya raised her crossbow, sighting for a shot-but Brun Osting stepped close and neatly rapped the sergeant’s sword from his hand with a sharp blow of his club that likely broke the man’s thumb. Then all three of the sellswords were on the ground, and the Hulburgans fell to beating and kicking them furiously.
Mirya winced at the violent assault, but she refused to look away. There’d be worse than this if she meant to see things all the way through. “Leave them alive!” she hissed to her neighbors. “We’ll not spill blood until we have to.” She had no particular concern for sparing Hulburg’s enemies, but she hoped that leaving the Jannarsks alive would bring less of a reprisal than cold-blooded murder.
In the space of ten heartbeats, it was over. Mirya motioned for Brun and Therndon to drag the mercenaries back into the alleyway, pausing for one more look up and down the street. No one was close enough to pay them any attention; the fog was their friend tonight, or so it seemed. She stooped by the battered mercenaries, searching for signs of life. All of them were breathing, but if she was any judge, they’d be in slings or casts for tendays. Well, it wasn’t anything more than they’d inflicted on poor Perremon. “Take their weapons,” she told Therndon. The carpenter quickly gathered up their swords and daggers in a sack, throwing it over his shoulder.
“Anything else for these villains?” Vannarshel asked.
“Leave them for their friends to find,” Mirya answered. “We’ll see if the lesson takes or not. Now, let’s be on our way before the Council Guard or their gray guardians come by. We’ll have more work soon enough.” There was a Veruna supply train bound for their mining camps in a day or two; Mirya was already thinking of how she and her small company might waylay it.
“Not a word to anyone,” Lodharrun grunted. The dwarf held out his thick fist; Mirya set her hand on top of his. The others joined them.
“Not a word,” she repeated. “Now, away with all of you!” Briefly, the Hulburgans clasped hands before parting ways and silently vanishing into the night fog.
FOUR
10 Hammer, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)
Geran’s mother arrived at Lasparhall the morning of the day before Grigor’s funeral. A Hulmaster chamberlain summoned Geran from the garden where he’d been practicing his forms, a refuge of exercise that he’d used more than once over the last few days to lose himself for an hour without thought. Quickly toweling off, he drew on a dove gray doublet and hurried down to the manor’s front hall, where two footmen waited to help Serise Hulmaster out of her heavy winter cloak and hood. Serise was a tall, sparely built woman of fifty-five years, graceful and reserved; Geran had gained much of his height and quickness from her. Beneath the furs she wore the rich blue gown and ivory corset of a Selunite initiate, and a pearl-studded comb of silver to keep her long hair-still more black than gray-in its elegant coiffure. She’d retired to Moonsilver Hall, a temple of Selune a few miles west of Thentia, several years earlier, having grown weary of Hulburg after Bernov Hulmaster’s death and Geran’s departure on his long travels.
“Mother!” Geran hurried over to clasp her hands in his and kiss her on the cheek. “How was your journey?”
“Fair enough, but colder than I would have liked,” Serise answered with a shiver. The carriage ride from Moonsilver Hall was the better part of six or seven miles, and usually took well over an hour. With the bitter temperatures the roads were frozen hard and Geran knew from experience that a carriage ride on a hard-frozen road was likely a ride full of sharp jolts and painful bounces. “The high priestess insisted that I should use her coach, for which I’m grateful, since it was well supplied with blankets. I would have been much more uncomfortable if I’d had to hire a coach from town.”
Geran extended his arm. “Well, come on inside. There’s a fine fire in the great room, and I’m sure that Mistress Laren will be happy to find something warm for you to drink.”
His mother took his arm and allowed him to guide her from the foyer. She looked around the hall with interest. “Lasparhall was empty for fifteen years or more,” she said. “Strange to see the place with so many people keeping busy! Your father and I used to bring you here when you were just a lad, usually when your father was restless and took it into his head to get away from Hulburg for a few tendays.”
“I remember.”
“I’m sure you do. We never had more than a dozen people in this whole great house in those days. Now … so many people, so much going on!”
They came to the study, and Geran asked the first footman he saw to fetch some warm cider or mulled wine for his mother. They took seats in the chairs by the hearth, as close to the roaring fire as they could stand. “I’m glad you came,” he said. “It’s good to see you, Mother.”
“And you, Geran. I only wish it was a happier occasion.” Serise sighed, and leaned forward to peer critically at him. “Your neck is scored! Were you hurt in the fighting? Are you all right?”
He waved away her concern, glad that she couldn’t see the mess of scabs and bandages under his shirt. “Scratched and cut in quite a few places, but nothing serious. Ilmater knows I’ve had worse. And I survived, which is more than many of the Shieldsworn can say. We lost eleven, not counting Uncle Grigor.”
She paled. “That’s terrible! I only heard that there’d been an attack, and that poor Grigor was dead. What happened, Geran?”
“A Cyricist priestess hired sellswords and conjured devils to attack Lasparhall,” he answered. He recounted the awful events of the evening, making an effort to downplay the exact amount of danger he’d been in-Serise Hulmaster was no shrinking violet, but there was no point in giving her more cause to worry than she doubtless already had. “When we searched her body, we found correspondence from Valdarsel, the high prelate in Hulburg,” he concluded. Of course, that could have been planted, but Geran doubted it; he’d seen the hateful fanaticism in the woman’s eyes. “It seems that he directed the priestess to strike at us.”
“I haven’t heard much of this Valdarsel. Who is he?”
“A priest of Cyric. A few months earlier Mirya discovered that he was leading the Cinderfists-gangs of poor foreign folk who’ve fetched up in Hulburg over the last few years. Many of those are decent people simply trying to get by, but there are all too many criminals and slavers mixed up with them.” He made a sour face. “Valdarsel’s been stirring up the foreign folk and their gangs for months, although we didn’t know it at the time. They backed Marstel when he overthrew Uncle Grigor. Marstel rewarded him by giving him a seat on the Harmach’s Council.”
Serise glanced toward the window, painted white by the heavy frost. “It’s been six days now,” she murmured, thinking aloud. “Counting three days to Hulburg for the hard weather, it seems likely that this Valdarsel-and Marstel, too, I suppose-knows by now that poor Grigor is dead, but he also knows that his attack was not completely successful. You’ll have to be careful, Geran. They very well may try again.”