After some consideration, a vague instinct prompted her to visit those locations Aeron had already raided. She didn't know what she might discover there, but thought it would be easy enough to find out. Spread thin, the Red Axes were unlikely to mount much of a guard over a place the red-bearded thief had already attacked.
She hadn't learned anything at the blackened ruin of the floating wine shop. The place had burned down to the waterline. She could only hope the slave market off Dead King's Walk would prove more instructive. As she made her approach, she scanned the busy street for signs that someone was keeping an eye on the place. If so, she couldn't tell it from outside the high fence all a-bristle with nails.
She marched up to the entrance as if she had every right in the world to do so, and no one paid her any mind. The gate was locked, so she whispered a charm of opening. For a split second, she stood in cool shadow, as if a cloud has passed before the sun. The latch clacked, yielding to the magic.
She slipped through the gate and pushed it shut behind her. The hinges squeaked a little. Before her, the enclosure was deserted. Peaceful. At first glance, only the splashes of dried blood and discharged crossbow bolts on the muddy ground gave evidence of the violence that had erupted there the night before.
Well, those and the taunting "A" chalked in bold white strokes on the roof of one of the low, unwalled slave kennels. Sefris surmised that Aeron sar Randal didn't know how to write his name, but could manage his initial.
Once satisfied that none of Kesk's minions was going to leap out and attack her, Sefris prowled around examining the ground. She found the broken fetters and the hammers and chisels the thralls had used to strike them off. On the ground nearby were the distinctive tracks the brass mantis had made as it hopped and scuttled about. The rest of the scene was a muddled confusion that only a ranger might have deciphered.
Sefris felt irritated with herself for even trying. Suppose she could read the tracks. Suppose she could follow the course of the battle from the first flight of quarrels to the final knife thrust. What difference would it make? This was all just a waste of time.
She started to turn to go, and a pang of intuition spun her back around, just in time to glimpse movement inside the window of the tumbledown shack at the back of the yard. Somebody had peeked out at her, then ducked back down under cover, but not quite quickly enough.
Probably just a Red Axe with the good sense to be leery of tackling Sefris by himself. That meant he was no threat at present, but since she and the gang were overt enemies, she saw no point in leaving him alive to get in the way later on. Sefris extracted a chakram from its pocket, charged the shed, and sprang through the doorway, hands poised to deflect a missile or blade.
But it wasn't a weapon that assailed her. Rather, a shrill scream pierced her ears. Huddled on the floor in the far corner, a young woman with an upturned nose and straw-colored hair squinched her eyes shut and shrieked again and again.
The blonde seemed to be rather comely, though it was hard to tell with her features contorted, tears streaming down her cheeks, and snot glistening on her upper lip. She had shackle galls on her ankles, but otherwise appeared relatively free of bruises, scars, or other signs of abuse. She looked well fed, too. Sefris knew what tender young female slaves had to do to earn soft treatment, and felt a surge of contempt directed in equal measure at the wretch before her and the child she herself had been.
The feeling was a distraction, and she stifled it with practiced ease. Viewed properly, the blonde was despicable, but no more so than any other created thing. Which was to say, she was of no importance except as a potential resource to further Sefris's mission.
Assuming the thrall knew something of significance, how best to extract it? Ordinarily, Sefris would have opted for threats and torture, but the blonde was already frightened beyond the point of hysteria. It seemed unlikely that heightening her terror would render her any more coherent. So, distasteful though it was, the monastic rearranged her features into the same sympathetic simper she'd worn while drifting about with Miri.
She tucked the chakram away, crossed the grubby one-room shack with its few sticks of rickety furniture, and kneeled beside the slave. The blonde cringed away from her gentle touch.
"Easy," Sefris said, "I'm not going to hurt you."
The thrall sobbed.
"Really," Sefris added. She took the blonde's chin between her thumb and forefinger and turned her averted face until they were eye to eye, compelling the other woman to take note of her own compassionate expression. "I'd never hurt a slave. I was a slave myself, once upon a time."
"I'm not a runaway!" wailed the thrall.
"It's all right I'm not a slave catcher, and I'm not interested in returning you to your master."
The blonde said, "I have to go back. What else can I do? But they'll blame me. They'll whip me to death."
She was afraid to seize the opportunity Aeron had given her and even try to be free. The realization gave Sefris another twinge of disdain, even though she knew that, ultimately, liberty was as foul as bondage or any other condition or thing to which one could put a name.
In any case, if all the thrall cared about was escaping punishment, then that was the lever Sefris would use to pry some sense out of her.
"If you mean to return to your master," the monastic said, "then maybe I can put in a good word for you. Help you convince him it wasn't your fault."
The blonde snuffled, "You'd do that?"
"I follow the Broken God, and he teaches us to help those in need. The only thing is, I won't be able to persuade another of your innocence until I myself understand exactly what happened. I mean, you say you didn't want to run away, but you did strike off your leg irons."
"All the other slaves were doing it. I was afraid they'd hurt me if I didn't let them break my chains, too. I went off with them for the same reason, but sneaked away as soon as I could. By the time I got back, though, some more of the masters were already here, loading the dead bodies into a wagon. They'd seen everyone was gone, me included, so I was scared to approach them. I hid until they drove away, then came into the shed to try and figure out what to do."
"Well, that explains it to some extent," said Sefris, "but you'd better tell me the whole story from the beginning. How did the red-bearded man get inside?"
"He rang the bell. Or she did, the woman who was with him. When Master Durth went to answer, the man shoved through and clubbed him."
Sefris nodded. Durth, the half-orc Aeron had knocked unconscious but left alive, had only a cloudy memory of the attack, but thought he recalled a woman. The ruffians the thief had ambushed along the docks likewise had a vague impression that Aeron hadn't acted alone, and it certainly seemed unlikely that he'd defeated five Red Axes and an enchanted construct unaided. Sefris had already concluded that he'd found an accomplice foolhardy enough to stand with him against the gang.
"Master Evendur came out to see what was going on," the thrall continued, "and the man and woman killed him. Afterward, they fetched the tools to strike the chains off, and told us to run away. I said it was madness, but nobody would listen to me."
"Then the other Red Axes-the masters with the big metal insect-came to investigate the noise?"
"Yes. I thought that then, everything would be all right I didn't have my shackles off yet, so they wouldn't punish me. But the man, the woman, and Yagan-a hobgoblin, one of us thralls-killed the masters. The man threw knives. The woman shot arrows, then fought with a broadsword and buckler. Yag-"