The Road to Death

11

“We can’t let Ikar take us,” Kandler said. “We don’t have the time to deal with him. Esprë gets farther away from us every minute.”

“We should take the battle to them,” Sallah said. “If we charge straight at them, we might be able to break through their lines before they can stop us.”

“Might work,” Burch said from where he perched on a table jammed up under one of the shuttered windows, peeking through the gap a ghostbeast had battered there. “If they had a line.”

“How many of them are out there?” Brendis asked, apparently not caring anymore if anyone could hear the tremor in his voice.

Burch bared his teeth as he peered at what he could see of the square. “A score, at least,” he said. “Maybe more.”

“What about the horses?” Xalt said. Kandler had seen the warforged cringe at having to leave the trusty mounts to the nonexistent mercies of the ghostbeasts who had chased them in here.

“Gone. Dead or stolen, but gone just the same.”

“What are we going to do?” The words came from Brendis, but they echoed the thoughts in everyone’s head, Kandler knew. The others’ eyes all fell on him.

“Out back,” he said, already leading the way through the rear rooms of the pub. “They might not have covered it yet.”

Kandler threaded his way through the dark hallways like a cat in the night. Although it was pitch black, except for Brendis’s sword far behind him, he’d spent enough nights in the place that it was still like walking through his own home.

When he reached the back door, he gestured for the others to stay back. Then he reached up and undid the latch that Xalt had fastened just moments ago. It slid back on well-oiled rails.

Kandler cracked the door open a hair and peeked out. The alley led straight away from Ginty’s back door. It was empty, so he opened the door some more.

Litter flittered around the place on a stiff night breeze. Bags of garbage sat piled high along one wall, much higher than Kandler ever remembered them.

“Looks clear,” he said, stepping through the door and motioning for the others to follow him. They filed out right behind him as he prowled toward the open end of the alley, a few dozen yards ahead.

Somewhere, a bird called.

Kandler swore. No birds lived in the Mournland.

“Trap!” Burch shouted. The shifter leaped back toward Ginty’s rear door, but he hauled up short when a load of bricks smashed into the pavement before it, sealing it shut.

Glancing up, Kandler spotted a cackling figure peering over the roof, surveying his handiwork. Others no doubt crouched near the two other doors that opened into the alley, ready with heavy loads of their own. Holding his sword before him, the justicar sprinted toward the free end of the street. Before he covered half the distance, though, a swath of bodies swept in and blocked off the exit.

“Surrender!” a deep-throated voice growled from the center of that mass.

Kandler could see the speaker in the light of an everburning torch a nearby lackey carried. He stood a foot taller than the justicar, or any of those near him, with a chest like a barrel and arms strapped with corded muscles. A black, spiky crest of hair fell back from a low, mean brow that shaded his beady, ebony eyes. He showed all his jagged, yellow teeth in a savage smile that stood out sharply against his wart-crusted, dark gray skin.

“Hello, Ikar,” Kandler said.

The half-orc opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. He grinned at those surrounding him, a malignant pack of muscle as coarse and ugly as the band’s leader. The crew hunkered around him, instinctively protecting him from a bolt from Burch’s crossbow or some other assault.

“My fame precedes me,” Ikar said, clearly pleased. “Then you should know what I want from you.”

“What’s that?” Xalt said earnestly.

“Everything, of course.”

Kandler considered charging straight into battle, perhaps before the bandits were ready, but he suspected it was already too late for that. They’d corralled Kandler and his friends in this alley like rats, and they’d taken the time to plug all the holes.

The justicar didn’t see that he had a choice here. He strode straight up to Ikar and his crew. Without looking back, he knew that Burch would sweep the others forward behind him, keeping them all together in case everything went wrong.

Of course, Kandler couldn’t see any way for it to go right.

“I haven’t got time for this,” Kandler said as he stepped into the bandits’ torchlight. “I’m on a mission for King Boranel. I need transport across the Cyre River. Now.”

Ikar glared down at Kandler for a moment. The Brelander could almost hear the gears whirring in the half-orc’s brain. Then a smile split Ikar’s mug.

“Not even a ‘thank you’ for saving you from the ghostbeasts?” Ikar rumbled, bemused. “That hardly seems polite, justicar. Although after the reception you gave us the last time we were in Mardakine, I don’t suppose I should expect any better.”

“I don’t recall that,” Kandler lied. “I spend so much time running ghouls like you and your crew out of town that they all blend together.”

“Well,” Ikar said with an evil smirk, “you’re in my town now.”

Kandler sighed. “Look,” he said, “we’re both professionals here. Let’s do this the easy way. Let us go on our way, and we’ll be out of your hair for good.”

Ikar raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say there won’t be any problems for us in Mardakine too?”

Kandler shook his head. “Not from me, or Burch either—or any of the rest of us. We have no business here. We’re just passing through.”

Ikar scratched at the scruffy goatee that stuck out from his chin. Then he nodded. “All right,” he said. “I can wrap my head around that.”

“Thank the Flame,” Sallah said solemnly.

Kandler didn’t relax though. He knew that Ikar wasn’t done yet.

“Of course …” the half-orc started. His thugs sniggered at his offhand tone. “Those who pass through Metrol and enjoy the security that we offer them must return the favor with some sort of recompense.”

“What are you talking about?” Sallah said, stepping up beside Kandler and pushing aside the hand he put out to keep her calm. “Speak plainly.”

“A tax,” Ikar said, mischief dancing in his eyes.

“You mean to rob us?” Sallah said, glaring up into the half-orc’s sharklike eyes.

Ikar shook his head sadly at Sallah. “I prefer to call it a toll.” He glanced at Kandler. “I thought you wanted to handle this professionally.”

Kandler put a hand on Sallah’s shoulder to pull her back, but she shrugged it away. When she spoke to Ikar next, she held her tone even.

“How much?” she said. “We have little to spare.”

“Not much,” the half-orc said, his eyes wandering over Sallah and the others like a starving man in a butcher shop. His gaze fell on the blazing sword in Brendis’s hand. “Just all of your blades.”

“Never!” Brendis said, clutching the blade close enough to himself that Kandler could see the young knight starting to sweat. “The sword of a Knight of the Silver Flame is sacred! The twain are not to be parted.”

Ikar nodded, then looked at Sallah with a wolfish grin. “What happened to yours?” The crew around him cackled.

“It’s a long story,” Kandler said.

“Why bargain with these curs?” Brendis said, rattled. “We should cut them down and be done with it.”

Ikar’s lips curled into a sneer. “Look all around you, little knight,” he said cruelly. “Then, if you think you have it in you, do give it your best effort.”

Brendis stared at the half-orc for a moment, then swiveled his neck about. Kandler heard a gasp as the young knight finally spotted the archers stationed around the edges of the roofs overlooking the alley. There had to be a dozen of them at least.

“There were another dozen warriors in the square too,” Xalt said softly.

Brendis flushed red. “My blade will only leave my grasp when the Flame has taken my soul.”

“Don’t tempt them,” Kandler said.

Ikar loosed a throaty laugh. “Fear not, little knight,” he said. “Keep your burning trinket. I’m more interested in something else you have. Hand it over, and I’ll consider it a fair price for escorting you lot from this blasted land.”

“What’s that?” Kandler asked, dreading the answer.

Ikar’s eyes blazed with greed as he spoke. “Why, your warforged there, of course.”