Scion of Cyador

CXXXVI

In the near-black purple of night, Lorn and Ryalth walk down the wide marble steps of Tyrsal’s dwelling to the waiting carriage, followed by Tyrsal and Aleyar. The driver sitting on the coach box is younger, harder-faced than the gray-haired man who had brought them to Tyrsal’s.

Lorn stares at the man for a moment, then asks, quietly, “What happened to the other driver?”

“He had a touch of the flux, ser…asked if I’d spell him, ser.”

Lorn can sense the lie. “Oh…I see.” He casts his chaos-senses around the carriage, but can sense no one hiding within. He turns to Tyrsal, still standing on the white marble steps behind the mounting block. “Do you sense it?”

Tyrsal nods.

The coachman looks puzzled, and leans forward slightly. The pose is a lie, as well, one which Lorn ignores.

“Here…” Lorn points to the rear wheel. “Best you come look. The axle-post is splitting in half.”

“Ser?”

“Come look for yourself.” Lorn motions to Ryalth. “You’d better step back…if that fails here…”

“Yes, dearest.” While the redhead’s voice is demure, her eyes are hard as she steps back from the mounting block.

The driver clambers down, clearly puzzled. As he steps toward the rear wheel, the Brystan sabre is at his neck.

“One move and you’re dead,” Lorn says pleasantly.

“Ser…” The driver freezes.

Tyrsal appears, and his cupridium sabre is also bared.

“You’re lying, and you’re not very smart,” Lorn continues. “My friend there is a first-level magus. No one told you that, I am sure, but he could tell you were lying. Now…you can tell the truth, or you can die.”

The man’s eyes widen. “They…just told me that all I had to do was drive you back to your dwelling except stop short of the gate…maybe a hundred cubits…and look the other way.”

“That’s the truth,” Tyrsal says quietly. “But there’s more.”

The driver’s eyes flick down toward the shimmering blade at his neck. He swallows.

“Who hired you?” asks Lorn.

“Benylt…does work for…. for whoever has the golds…”

“Who hired him?”

“Ser…I don’t know…”

“You know more than that,” Tyrsal says.

“Which merchanter?” Lorn questions.

“Ser…I can’t say…. I mean…he’s been around…His name…No one said…”

“Benylt didn’t tell you…but you’d seen the merchanter before?”

“Yes, ser.”

“And you weren’t supposed to know?”

The hard-faced man swallows. “No, ser.”

“What does he look like?”

“Dark-haired, like, but he wore a cloak…only remembered him ’cause one of his front teeth be gold…Seen him once ’afore when I was first on the piers…as a loader…came two, three times to the same ship. Wore one of those blue cloaks with a hood all the time, same as when he hired Benylt.”

“What ship?

“The Hippo-something.”

Lorn can sense both Tyrsal and Ryalth stiffening. “How tall was he?”

“Middling, ser…not too tall, not too short.”

“Did you hear him speak?”

“No, ser.”

“How many men will Benylt have?” Lorn’s eyes flick to Aleyar, who watches the bravo as closely as Tyrsal does, then back to the pseudo coachman.

“Six, perchance eight. Be not calling more than that, not Benylt.”

Lorn looks at Tyrsal, who nods. “Can you handle four or five?” Lorn asks his friend in a low voice.

“If they don’t know it.”

“What about a shield? Can you sit next to the driver?”

“Be easier if I sat up on the roof, in the baggage rack,” Tyrsal points out. “Then I’m behind him.”

“Good idea.”

Aleyar’s mouth opens, then closes, as Tyrsal turns to her and says, “It’s more than just Lorn’s problem, dear.”

Ryalth offers the smallest of nods to her consort.

“You’re going to drive us home,” Lorn tells the would-be driver. “Just the way you were told.”

The man swallows. “Ser…?”

“Unless you’d prefer I use this sabre here and now.”

“I’ll drive, ser. I’ll drive.”

“And the magus will be behind you. He’s very good with both a sabre and a firebolt.”

“I’ll drive right careful, ser. I will.”

Lorn addresses Tyrsal, his eyes still on the bravo. “Can Ryalth stay here?”

“Of course,” the magus replies. Behind him, Aleyar nods.

“What about Kerial?” asks Ryalth.

“I’ll bring him back…after we deal with this difficulty. We can’t get there any sooner.”

The redhead clamps her lips together. “You’ll be careful. Both of you.”

“Very careful.” Lorn motions to the driver. “Back up to your seat.”

“Ah…yes, ser.”

As the driver mounts and Tyrsal climbs up on top from the footman’s station, Lorn steps back toward Ryalth and lowers his voice. “That ship…it’s a Hyshrah vessel, isn’t it?”

“How did you know?”

“Because it wouldn’t have made sense any other way. No other house is a threat to Tasjan, except you. See if you can think about who or how Tasjan would use that to hurt both us and Vyanat.”

She nods.

Lorn looks up at Tyrsal, sitting in the baggage rack.

“I’m ready. I’m glad it’s not that long a drive.”

After a last glance at Ryalth, Lorn climbs into the carriage, his sabre still unsheathed.

The carriage lurches forward, then settles into a even motion. Lorn continues to hold the unsheathed sabre, if loosely, as the driver follows the roads that lead northward and east into the merchanter quarter.

“Just drive up exactly as you’re supposed to,” Tyrsal orders the driver as the carriage turns off the main way.

“Yes, ser.”

The carriage halts beside a torch set in a bracket in the dark low wall more than a hundred cubits east of the iron gate to his own dwelling. Lorn can sense a number of figures, on both sides of the carriage, concealed in the shadows. With several on the wall to the right, Lorn opens the right door from inside. He does not exit, instead, sensing the four men in the shadows, he slides back to the other side, holding the blur-shield for long enough to step clear of the carriage.

Thunk! Thunk!

Two arrows go through the driver’s chest.

“Bast…” the man gurgles as he slumps.

Hssstt! Hssstt! Two quick firebolts from Tyrsal incinerate the pair of archers who stand in the darkness atop the flat wall adjoining the wall that surrounds Ryalth and Lorn’s dwelling.

Lorn does not drop the vision-blurring shield until his chaos-aided sabre slices through the neck of the bravo who steps out of the deeper shadows on the left side of the lane. He then pivots, and steps back toward the second assailant-the one approaching from the rear.

“Where are they?” mutters someone.

Hssstt! A scream begins and dies almost immediately after Tyrsal’s firebolt.

Lorn parries a lancerlike slash by a figure nearly a head taller than he is, and then a second, and several more before he has an opening-but the one is all he needs.

Another firebolt hisses through the night as Lorn turns from the second fallen bravo.

“Got a fire-magus there!”

Lorn hurries around the back of the carriage and steps silently behind the rearmost bravo, the one he suspects is Benylt. The chaos-aided Brystan sabre slides through bone and muscle like a red-hot poker through water, sizzling and steaming.

“Got Benylt! Run!”

Two sets of boots begin to run.

Neither makes it a dozen cubits before Tyrsal’s firebolts bring them down.

Lorn casts his chaos-senses around, but can find no hint of anyone besides the chaos-shimmering figure of Tyrsal. “There isn’t anyone else, is there?”

“Not alive,” Tyrsal replies dryly. He slowly climbs down from the carriage box, holding a sabre he has not used.

Lorn studies the figure of Benylt sprawled on the stones.

Tyrsal looks from one sprawled figure to another, shaking his head. “I don’t know as I could do what you do all the time.”

“I could do it with types like these every day.” Lorn snorts, bending and wiping his blade clean on Benylt’s cloak.

“What do we do with all these bodies?” asks Tyrsal, blotting his forehead.

“I don’t think there ought to be any,” Lorn suggests. “If bravos just vanish every time they take on Ryalor House…in time…perchance…”

“You are an optimist, my friend, but I can muster enough chaos, I think.”

“Good. After that we’ll check on Kerial, and go back to your house, if you don’t mind.” Lorn smiles grimly.

“You’re welcome…Can you put a stop to this?”

“I have some ideas.” Lorn begins to gather up the fallen blades. “They might even work.”