Grumbling, the two men got to their feet.
Deran wasn't stupid enough to walk in front of them; he had never been in the Drunken Dragon before, but he knew its reputation. He directed the two "volunteers" out the door and followed them as they slogged around the corner.
The wounded man was so much dead weight; he showed no sign of life at all as the three men-one taking his feet and the others a shoulder apiece-hauled him into the tavern and dumped him on a table.
That done, Deran dismissed his two assistants, paying them for their trouble by telling them, "I owe you a favor-a small one. If you ever get in trouble with the guards-small trouble- you tell them Deran Wuller's son will speak for you."
The two men grumbled and drifted away, leaving Deran and his prize alone. Deran turned his attention to the bloody figure before him.
There were only two wounds that he could find, both in the fleshy part of the man's thigh-a long, shallow slash and then a deep stab wound that had missed the artery, Deran judged, by no more than an inch. Most of the blood came from the stab; the slash had already started to scab over.
"Are you going to leave him there dripping all over my floor?" demanded a voice from behind Deran. The guardsman turned and found himself facing an aproned figure a bit shorter than himself.
It was the innkeeper, of course-or rather, Deran corrected himself, the innkeeper's night man; Deran doubted that the broad-shouldered fellow with the ferocious mustache was actually the proprietor.
"Until you find me a bandage, that's exactly what I intend," Deran answered. "And a clean rag to wipe the wound first would be a good idea, too."
Grumbling, the night man retreated, while Deran checked the stabbing victim over.
There were no other recent wounds; his heartbeat was strong and regular, his breath steady and reeking of oushka. He was, Deran concluded, unconscious as a result of his drinking, not from the wound. While bloody, the injury just wasn't that serious.
The innkeeper's man returned then with a handful of reasonably clean rags, and Deran set about cleaning the man up a little. As he worked, he questioned the night man and the remaining customers.
Nobody knew the man's name. Nobody knew what had happened to him. He wasn't exactly a regular, but he had been there before. He might have been seen with a girl, a black-haired girl wearing dark clothes.
And that was all anyone would tell him.
When Deran pulled the bandage tight, the drunk opened his eyes.
"Am I dead?" he asked blearily. "Am I going to die?"
"You're fine," Deran said. "You might limp for a while."
The drunk tried to raise his head from the table to look at himself, but couldn't manage it. He moaned.
"What happened?" Deran demanded. "Who stabbed you?"
"Nobody," the wounded man muttered. "Was an accident."
Deran shrugged. "Fine. You owe the Dragon two bits for the bandages and the use of their table. If you change your mind about who stabbed you, tell the magistrate…"He hesitated, turning to the night man. "This is Northangle, right?"
"Grandgate. Northangle starts at the comer."
"All right, tell the magistrate for Grandgate, then. And if you need me to testify, I'm Deran Wuller's son, Third Company, North Barracks." He yawned. "And that's where I'm headed- I need to get some sleep." He waved and departed.
By the time Deran was out the door the night man was trying to get his wounded customer off the table and back on his own feet.
At the north tower he almost headed straight for his bed, but his sense of duty stopped him. He checked the lieutenant's room first.
Sure enough, Lieutenant Senden was waiting up for him.
"Is she all right?" the lieutenant asked anxiously.
"She's fine," Deran said. "No problem at all."
"Then what took so long?"
"When I was on my way back I practically tripped over this boozer lying in an alleyway."
The lieutenant grimaced. "You called the slavers?"
Deran shook his head. "No," he said. "It wasn't entirely his fault. He'd been stabbed. So I hauled him into the nearest tavern and got him bandaged up. Wasn't anything serious, just a flesh wound in the leg."
"Did he say who did it?"
"No. Might've been a girl he was bothering."
"All right. Goodnight, then, Deran-and thanks."
"My pleasure, Lieutenant."
Deran judged that he had no more than three hours until dawn when he finally fell into his bunk.
Senden, too, was quickly asleep.
The following day he was somewhat irritable, as a result of a late night largely spent in worrying, and carried out his duties in perfunctory fashion; his monthly report to Captain Tikri, a recently added requirement that Senden did not care for, was brief and sketchy. He did note down, "Guardsman Deran reports tending to stabbing victim in tavern. No accusations or arrests made."
Late that afternoon, at the overlord's palace, Captain Tikri had just finished going through the reports from all the guard lieutenants when Lady Sarai stepped into his office. The captain leapt up and saluted, hand on chest.
Lady Sarai waved an acknowledgment, and Tikri relaxed somewhat. "Is something wrong, my lady?" he asked.
"No, no; I just wanted to get out of that room for a few minutes," Sarai explained, "so I came myself instead of sending a messenger. I'm here in both my official roles today, Captain, as Minister of Investigation and as Acting Minister of Justice. Is there anything I should know about?"
Captain Tikri looked down at the reports he had just read. He turned up a palm.
"Nothing, my lady," he said. "Nothing of any interest at all."
CHAPTER 10
Tabaea had expected the feeling of strength and power to wear off within a few minutes, like the excitement after a narrow escape.
It didn't.
Instead, the strength stayed with her. The light-headedness faded fairly quickly, but the added strength stayed. If anything, it increased, at least at first.
She had hidden behind a merchant's stall in Grandgate Market, crouched down between a splintery crate and the brick wall of a granary-not a place for long concealment, by any means, but she was out of sight, able to think and plan, until the merchant arrived for the day's business. For the first several minutes, she had just sat, waiting for the weird reeling to pass.
Eventually, though, she had realized that this was not working. She began thinking about it.
She felt strong. Most especially, her left leg seemed to be almost bursting with vitality. She knew she had stabbed the kilted drunk in his left leg, so the connection was obvious. Was it an illusion, though, or was she really, truly stronger than before?
Measuring strength, especially in a leg, was not something that Tabaea had any easy method for doing; she tried out a few kicks at the crate beside her, and then tried hopping, first on her almost-normal right leg, then on her empowered left for comparison.
It was hard to be sure; she knew, from her work as a thief, how people could fool themselves without meaning to. All the same, she concluded at last that yes, the feeling of strength was genuine; somehow, she had become stronger.
And it was fairly obvious how-when she had stabbed that man in the left leg with her dagger, her left leg had become stronger. The connection could hardly be coincidence.
The black dagger, which she had known for four years to be enchanted, had somehow given her that strength because she had stabbed the drunk.
This was serious magic.
Unfortunately, she didn't yet know the details. Was this added strength permanent? Would the magic work again, or had she used it up? Where had the strength come from-the dagger's magic, or the drunk? Had the dagger created it, or only transferred it? And what else did the dagger do? How dangerous was it? Had it stolen the man's soul? Would it eat her soul?