Wicked Bronze Ambition

55

Moonblight headed for the Al-Khar, to that same entrance I’d used before. We found the watch post womaned by the usual greeter. Helenia looked “rode hard and put away wet.” I couldn’t help saying, “I hope you had half as much fun as it looks like.”

“I’m hoping with you. But I’m not holding out much. I don’t remember much after you turned up. I woke up in my own bed, alone, and don’t remember how I got there. I don’t know what happened to Merry. He didn’t show up for work. Why are you here?”

“Barnacles?”

“Huh?”

Tara Chayne watched and listened and didn’t say anything. Odd. Her mouth had run nonstop till now. I told He — lenia about the folks slowing us down without mentioning our destination. I said I thought that the Guard might be interested in some of them. I was still explaining when Target and half a dozen heavyweights stopped to gather relevant points before charging out into the weather. How had Helenia summoned them? A capability worth keeping in mind. And why, before she heard my full tale of woe? Because she knew Moonblight was accustomed to premium service?

That I doubted.

This was Relway ground.

The devil himself turned up. I had to go back over the high points. Meanwhile, Target and his playmates exfiltrated to the street.

I was wrapping my sad tale when the prisoners arrived, three men and a woman. Target announced, “The rat men scattered like rats, boss,” ever so proud of his wit. “Just being close to our place had them spooked.”

I reminded Relway, “They were grays. Not John Stretch’s people.”

The little thug’s brushy eyebrows leapt up. “Yes?”

He assumed he was about to hear a confession.

“I need somebody to run a message to Pular Singe.” That smelled like a way around an admission of trafficking with undesirables.

“Certainly. Target, see to that. Helenia, give Mr. Garrett what he needs to write his note.” He struggled with a self-satisfied smirk. “And you two.” He wheeled on the captives, isolated a man and the woman. “I thought I made myself clear yesterday.”

At which point I penetrated Preston Womble’s excellent disguise. The woman, then, must be his habitual associate, Elona Muriat. She was tricked out as a homeless immigrant. I could get no fix on the real her inside the rags. She wouldn’t stand out on a busy street.

How come she hadn’t lived up to her reputation for being elusive?

Which wakened a curiosity as to how people were tracking me so easily.

So. Pals Womble and Muriat had been tagged, without noticing it, while they were in custody before. I had been tagged, too, somehow, probably more than once, since Strafa and I made our first visit to Shadowslinger’s place.

Had that little blonde gotten close enough? No. Little Moo? She’d been all over me twice, but I had Shadowslinger’s guarantee that she wasn’t part of the tournament mess. I checked the dogs, all staying close and low-key. I wouldn’t be able to blame anything on Brownie, either.

When or how didn’t matter. Neutralization would be good enough.

Helenia showed me where I could scribble a note to Singe, which I did assuming that Target would sneak a peek. I stated the facts. Unknown rat men were following me. They were grays who did not seem friendly.

John Stretch would be interested. The sneakers weren’t his people. That meant that someone out there dared risk his wrath.

John Stretch hadn’t been challenged since he became top rat. Rat people liked his ways.

Moonblight went on not saying much but stared hard at Relway. Her self-satisfied smile assured everyone that the Director was an open book. Relway himself showed discomfort, so even he could be intimidated by Hill folk who were there to look him in the eye.

He took it out on Womble and Muriat, who had made bail by agreeing to sneak for the Unpublished Committee.

Tara Chayne smirked at Relway’s back.

I folded my message and handed it to Target, no seal. No point making the Guard’s specialists bust their butts to make it look like it hadn’t been opened. Target understood. So did the Director. There would be no rowdy secrets hidden in there.

Hell, knowing that, there was no point to looking.

But he would, just to make sure that I wasn’t counting on him not to because it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Thinking so much makes my brain swell up and the backs of my eyes hurt.

Relway asked, “Want a couple of my men along while you wander?” not being the least thoughtful except toward his own people. They wouldn’t have to work as hard if they could just tag along.

Preston and Elona hadn’t been freelancing. They had made the mistake of letting themselves be noticed.

“Not necessary,” Tara Chayne said, lapsing fully into Moonblight mode. “Show us an exit point away from where we entered.”

“An excellent strategy, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Really? That got my attention, and Tara Chayne’s even more. I was startled and amused. She was. . One eyebrow began to twitch. Relway’s eyeballs were about to get boiled in their sockets.

He looked as bland as milk soup.

Tara Chayne had the lastest, biggest, and stinkiest laugh.

Relway told Helenia to take us across the heart of the Al-Khar to an exit opposite her home post, a level down because the Al-Khar stood on sloping ground. Our critters made the journey with us. Both horses insisted on delivering proof of their innate evil by leaving handsome piles in the busiest work areas.

Tara Chayne, being what she was, dared tell Helenia, “Be glad the dogs are all bitches.” She glared at the oddly built red top, perhaps suspecting unauthorized thought-usage of a female descriptive/pejorative in a nearby Civil Guard mind.

Good boy me, I kept a straight face.