The grey-haired fellow screwed up one bloodshot eye to squint at her. ‘Aye.’
‘Any Napans show up here?’
He shook his long hound’s head. ‘No.’
‘Fine.’ She motioned to Went. ‘You stay here and watch the gate with your boys.’
‘Not necessary,’ Lubben objected, but lazily, without even stirring in his chair.
Lee dismissed him with a wave and headed onward into the dark and empty bailey. She crossed the wet cobbles to the doors to the main keep and found them ajar. Donner, next to her, had his light crossbow readied and she took it from him and motioned for him to push open the stained iron-bound door. This he did, then jumped back while she stepped in, crossbow raised.
She faced a long main hall, empty, but lit brightly from far within by what must be a roaring fire. Donner and his toughs readied their knives and clubs. Fresh wet mud marred the fieldstone flags. She crept inward, a finger on the crossbow’s tiller-bar.
Raucous laughter sounded from beyond; a godsdamned celebration. She crept up to the end of the hall and leaned into the room, sighting down the crossbow stock, then let the weapon fall.
The main audience chamber was crowded with Geffen’s toughs. They’d cracked open kegs and were now at the long tables carousing. Sighting her, a number cheered and waved her in.
‘What in the Abyss is this?’ she snarled, and cuffed away a proffered tumbler of wine.
‘We won, didn’t we?’ Two-ton answered, laughing loudly.
‘Won?’ Lee said, scowling. ‘Won what?’
Their biggest enforcer lifted his thick shoulders. ‘Well … the fight, a’ course.’
‘Not that there was much a’ one,’ Leath put in, and tossed back her glass. ‘Mock’s boys just put up their weapons and walked away.’
‘Said they wouldn’t die for him,’ offered a new hiresword whose name she couldn’t remember. ‘The cowards.’
‘I’d say they just made a sensible calculation,’ Lee answered, and she took up a glass to sniff the wine, found it excellent. She sipped it and was amazed by how fine it truly was. She ruefully considered the jugs of godsawful plonk she’d been consuming all her life.
The new hiresword, a waterfront layabout by the look of his tattered canvas pants and tarred hair, frowned up at her, irritated by her answer. ‘What d’you mean, calculation?’
‘I mean they calculated that when Mock comes back you’ll be doing it instead.’
The hireling swore and knocked the glass from her hand. ‘I’ll be doing no such thing, you damned bitch – and who in the Abyss are you anyway?’
With her other hand she raised the crossbow and jammed its business end into his chest until she could feel it grating against his ribs. ‘I’m your boss, dim-wit.’ She eyed Two-ton. ‘Where’s Geffen?’
The giant fellow had thrown up his hands and now he mutely pointed upwards. She raised the crossbow to rest it on her shoulder, snatched up the wine, and headed for the wide stone staircase. ‘Thanks.’
She couldn’t find Geffen immediately, but the occasional noise of overturning furniture or crashing ceramics on the fourth floor eventually led her to him. She tracked him down to one of the many bedrooms. He was tossing the place, and she leaned against the doorjamb, crossbow cradled at her chest, and enquired, sweetly, ‘Whatcha doing?’
Geffen started, bent over as he was to inspect beneath a large armoire of some dark exotic wood. He straightened to his considerable lean height. ‘What the fuck does it look like?’
‘Searching for enemy dust-bunnies?’
He ignored her comment. ‘He’s got to have a stash hidden here somewhere.’
‘You ain’t gonna find it. Not like this.’
‘Thank you for your support. So, what happened at the bar?’
She shrugged. ‘They ran off. No one there ’cept the youngest – that girl – dead. Knifed in the back. Did you order that?’
To her immense frustration, her boss was hardly listening; he was studying the woodwork of the ceiling, frowning. ‘No.’
‘No? Well, she’s dead.’
He shrugged his bony shoulders. ‘So? She’s dead.’
Lee finished the wine, shaking her head. ‘So they’re gonna think you ordered it. That it’s a blood-feud now.’
He lowered his gaze, the frown deepening into a dark scowl of anger. ‘I’ve taken the Hold and you’re whining about a few Napans?’ He waved her off. ‘Get down there and sort out the lads and lasses. Do your job.’
She raised the crossbow to her shoulder, almost gaping at the fellow. Taken the Hold? So what? Keeping it was what worried her.
But he’d already dismissed her and was now running his hands along the room’s rich wooden panelling, searching, no doubt, for some hidden cavity or latch. She pushed away from the jamb, shaking her head, and turned back to the circular stairs down to the third floor. If Geffen didn’t have an answer for that pet mage then this was going to be the shortest occupancy in history.
On the way down, she stopped. She could hear voices. Geffen talking with someone. Carefully, she crept back up the curve of the stairs and ducked into the first side room to listen. Yes, definitely. He was talking to someone. A woman.
Gently, she pressed the tip of the crossbow to the stone-flagged floor, set her weight on the iron lever until it cocked, then raised the weapon and adjusted the quarrel in its channel. Taking a steadying breath, she started up the hall.
The voices led her to a meeting chamber. Stairs to an overhanging balcony led off from the side, and she padded up them. Slowly, she edged forward until she could see over the edge of the balcony, and down the runnel of the raised weapon.
With some satisfaction – and no small relief – she saw that it was that damned Napan bitch, Surly.
She and Geffen were facing off.
Well … we have no time for this. She sighted on the woman’s back and slipped her fingers over the weapon’s trigger tiller to squeeze.
A cold blade pressed itself to her neck and a voice whispered from behind, close and wet in one ear, ‘That wouldn’t be fair, would it?’
The fucking knifer, Cowl.
He whispered, ‘Drop it.’
She eased her fingers from the tiller, lowered the weapon. ‘Why?’ she answered, just as faint.
‘I want to see what she can do, of course.’
‘No – why kill the girl?’
‘What girl?’
‘The Napan scout.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about – ah!’
Lee knew he was lying but didn’t answer as Geffen and the woman, Surly, were finished talking and he’d drawn his knives. Surly, for her part, faced him unarmed, striking some sort of ready stance, one leg ahead of the other, side on.
A grunt of appreciation sounded from the lad behind as he seemed to recognize what she was doing. He rested his chin on her shoulder and whispered in her ear, ‘Now let’s see how good she really is.’
Damn stupid is what she is, Lee thought. Geffen was a ferocious knife-fighter; had climbed through the ranks of the freebooters on his skills. She didn’t think the woman stood a chance.
Geffen obviously thought so too, as he came on swirling and spinning, switching grips and slashing high and low. Yet somehow the woman managed to slip all attacks, blocking with hands and feet and counter-punching, driving him backwards to a wall where he rebounded, spat up a mouthful of blood, snarled and raised his razor-slim blades once more.
Cowl grunted. ‘Good…’
Geffen kicked a table at Surly that she somehow leapt, bringing a heel down on his shoulder. Even from the balcony Lee heard the snap of bone. Yet he slashed at her as she spun away and both staggered backwards, Geffen’s left arm hanging limp, his collarbone broken certainly, while the woman’s side was opened up in a long cut from shoulder blade to hip that now gushed blood down her leg, smearing her bare foot.
Yet she pressed forward, hands raised in loose fists. She left behind wet red footprints as she came.