Whisper of Waves

6

2 Kythorn, the Year of the Wanderer (1338 DR)

FOURTH QUARTER, INNARLITH

After having missed Pristoleph’s right ear by the width of two fingers, the arrow sank into the soft wood of a rain barrel, burying itself two thirds the length of its shaft. Water sprayed then trickled out from around it.

Pristoleph ran as fast as he could for the closest open door. Once again, he had found himself in a dark alley at night, deep in the city’s poorest precinct, running for his life. If he’d bothered to keep count, it would have been the one hundred and forty-seventh time, and he was only twenty.

Flickering firelight painted the damp flagstones in front of the door, and the clang and clatter of a busy kitchen harmonized with the clap of his boots. Pristoleph knew that he’d be an easy target silhouetted in the light of the doorway, but there was nothing for it. There was nowhere else to go. He would just have to rely on the pursuing whychfinder’s human eyesight and fatigue from the long chase to save his life. The arrows had grown increasingly less frequent, and even less accurate, over the past few minutes.

He passed through the doorway and an arrow sprouted from the door frame.

Pristoleph thought he could hear the whychfinder curse his poor aim, but the noise of the kitchen covered any further sounds from behind. Only a few of the dozen or so scullery maids bothered to even glance at the young man as he sprinted through their workspace. Pristoleph gave them no more of his attention than was necessary to avoid their knives, elbows, cleavers, and the cats, rats, and assorted urban game they were butchering for their guests.

The curtain that separated the kitchen from the common room didn’t slow him at all, but he had to quickly side step in order not to collide with a serving wench carrying a tray of brim-full flagons. The tray seemed too heavy for the slim young girl, but she carried it just the same and with such dexterity that she could spin out of Pristoleph’s way as he brushed past.

The inn was crowded and reeked of stale mead, mold, burned meat, and sweat. Tables ringed by men all shouting at once over games of dice filled the center of the huge room, while private booths along the walls revealed suspicious glances, nearly public intimacies, and the Fourth Quarter’s regular trade in flesh, fantasy, and intoxicants.

“Pristoleph?” a female voice called over the din.

He didn’t stop running, snaking a course through the tightly packed revelers, but he turned his head at the voice and saw a familiar face.

“Nyla,” he said between panting breaths.

It had been two years since he’d last seen Nyla, and they hadn’t parted on the most amicable terms. The woman insisted that Pristoleph owed her a tidy sum of gold that wasn’t due her. Harsh words had been exchanged, and she’d ended up in the tent of a rival of Pristoleph’s, serving the artillerymen mostly, after their hard days at practice with their trebuchets.

Until, that is, Pristoleph killed said rival and sent Nyla on her way with a threat he couldn’t quite remember just then, but of which he’d meant every word.

“Stop that son of a-” she shrieked, then stopped abruptly when someone barreled into her from behind.

Something made Pristoleph stutter-step to a halt and turn.

Nyla went down face-first and hard, the too-heavy tray in front of her, and the man who’d run into her sent her down even harder, having lost his footing and come up full onto her slim back. They both fell faster than gravity alone would have mustered, impacting with a deafening clatter of broken clay flagons, tearing fabric, and snapping bones. The last thing Pristoleph saw of them was the bottom of the whychfinder’s boots as he finished his ungraceful arc and sprawled all arms and legs amongst the rapidly withdrawing crowd.

Mead went everywhere, dousing more than a handful of men, none of whom were terribly happy about it. A few of them bent to grab up the sprawling soldier, and all eyes went to the source of the ruckus.

Pristoleph was fairly sure no one but he saw a bow slide along the sawdust-covered floor to end up at his feet. He bent to retrieve it, then moved toward the center of the disturbance, dodging the elbows and legs of the men who were delivering a wild but sound beating to the fallen whychfinder.

“Hold!” Pristoleph shouted.

All but two of the men stopped, turned quickly, and blanched at the sight of Pristoleph, who swaggered into their midst. The other two got a couple more solid blows in before their fellows grabbed them by the elbows and turned them away.

“Pristoleph,” one of the men said, nodding, his eyes on the floor.

Pristoleph ignored the man-a stevedore and part-time rapist named Rorgan-and didn’t bother identifying any of the other men, all of whom were quickly going back about their business.

He stopped and looked down at the young soldier writhing on the floor. His tabard was soaked with blood and mead, and his chain mail scraped the worn wood floor. He fumbled for a dagger at his belt, which Pristoleph quickly relieved him of. He grabbed the whychfinder by the collar and dragged him, arms and legs twitching, mumbling through broken teeth and swollen lips, in a beeline for the front door.

“My eye!” Nyla screamed from behind him. “For the love of all that’s holy, my eye!”

Pristoleph paid the shrieking, pain-crazed woman no mind. Instead, he pushed the wounded soldier through the door and into the relative quiet of the late-night street. The few passersby might have been momentarily startled, but in the Fourth Quarter, no one got into the middle of fights that spilled out of inns. It was too easy a way to end up dead, maimed, or worse.

He laid the man out on the floor of the alley next to the inn, leaned up against the wall, and worked to calm his breathing. The whychfinder opened the one eye not swollen shut and regarded Pristoleph without the slightest hint of recognition at first. By the time Pristoleph was able to breathe easily again, the soldier stared at him with undisguised fury, though he didn’t try to rise from the alley floor.

“Why?” Pristoleph asked the man. “After a year and a half, why?”

“I don’t know why,” the soldier said.

“Why me?”

“You deserted,” the soldier answered.

“They don’t send a whychfinder after every conscript who chooses life over lord,” Pristoleph said. “You know why you were sent after me.”

The whychfinder managed a crooked smile and Pristoleph could tell that the expression pained him.

“The captain misses his whores,” said the soldier, “and if you kill me, he’ll send another right after me. He’s got more whychfinders than camp-followers these days.”

“I’m out of that line of work,” Pristoleph said. “I’ll let you live so you can tell him that.”

“He won’t care, but I’ll let you spare me just the same.”

Pristoleph forced a smile and said, “You won’t find me in this neighborhood again. You won’t find me on the streets.”

“Going somewhere?”

Pristoleph’s smile faded as the soldier started to laugh. He reached down to his belt and drew the whychfinder’s dagger.

“Yes,” he said, and the whychfinder stopped laughing. “I’m going somewhere.”

Pristoleph killed the man with his own dagger, left it waving slowly back and forth in his chest, and disappeared into the shadows.