Brother Thief (Song of the Aura, Book One) (19 page)

  
When he came, he was dressed in a weather-beaten green coat thrown over what looked like hunting garb; a curious contraption weighed down his belt, and a dull, well-used longsword was in his hand. Two men in similar array followed closely behind him, hoods masking their faces.

  
Lauro, volatile as ever, immediately leaped up with sword in hand. Gribly snorted.

  
“If he'd wanted to kill us or capture us, he could've done it a long time ago, Lauro.” The prince didn't acknowledge the comment, but kept staring daggers at Byorne.

  
“Relax, soldier,” chuckled the grizzled fighter, stabbing his sword into the hard-packed ground by the bonfire and sitting heavily down beside it with a
thud
. “It's bain quite th' long year since I picked up this ole thing. T'aint even sharp.”

  
Muttering under his breath, Lauro sat down again uneasily. “Then why have you brought it, and who are these men with you?”

  
Byorne chuckled. “Yuh should know yerself, m' prince. Yer from Vastion, aren't yuh? Yuh mean t' tell me yuh haven't seen a Kingsman before?” Reaching inside his coat, he removed several loops of silver chain with a heavy round medallion on the end. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it over the tops of the flames to Lauro, who caught it deftly and stared at it in utter astonishment.

  
Lying prone on her blanket, Shadow suddenly lifted her head in interest. One of Byorne's companions seemed to notice her only then, and was soon by her side. In a few minutes he had treated her broken bone and was hard at work constructing a rough litter. After a moment, his fellow disappeared back into the night.

  
Gribly could bear the strange silence no more. “Well,” he asked, “what is it, Lauro?”

  
The prince opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. “It's a white hawk: the symbol of my father's realm.” The prince's face was raised now, and the firelight sent ghostly patterns across his serious face as he scrutinized first Byorne, then his companions. “These men are Vastic Rangers.”

  
Gribly stayed silent for as long as he could, but when the ranger and the prince did nothing more than stare at each other intently, he had to speak.

  
“And a ranger is...?”

  
Byorne broke of the staring match and smiled roguishly. “Scouts, mostly. Spies, of'n as not. Thieves, sometimes, jus' like you. But we've ties to th' king of Vastion...”

  
-“Not very strong ties...” Lauro mused sourly-

  
“...But ties none th' less,” Byorne countered. “The separation 'tween Vastion an' th' order of rangers is significant nowadays, but 'twas stronger of old.”

  
“So which are you?” Gribly asked, “Spy? Scout? Soldier? Thief?”

  
Byorne grinned, tugging absently at a silver ring in his ear. “Fightin' champion, is what... and I don't think yuh'll deny it?”

  
“Certainly not,” Gribly said, “But I still don't see how that relates you to Old Murie... and you said that was the reason you'd help us, didn't you?”

  
Byorne frowned. “Didn't th' ole girl wear her white-hawk medal 'round the shop, boy?”

  
Gribly's jaw dropped open in surprise- partly at Murie being called something as familiar as “ole girl,” but mostly because he suddenly understood what Byorne was talking about.

  
“She
did
have a medallion like that! Wait... are you saying she was a ranger?”

  
Byorne considered the question a moment before answering. “Well, she was an odd 'un, Murie was... not 'xactly one of us... but she knew us better 'n most...” his voice drifted off, and for the first time that night Gribly realized that somehow, the news of Old Murie's death was not a shock to the ranger.

  
The morose silence that followed lasted more than a minute, when Lauro finally ventured to break it.

  
“So you'll help us, Byorne Longstrider? The fate of Vastion could be in your hands.” Gribly thought the prince's voice sounded wrong somehow, but he couldn't tell exactly why. The gray-haired ranger stared intently at Lauro from across the fire, then nodded slowly.

  
“Aye, I will. But a price'll have t' be paid... Dunelord Ymorio 'asn't made life h'easy these past years.”

  
At that moment, two things happened simultaneously. Shadow, silent up until now, struggled to rise, her mouth open, about to speak. At the same time, the third ranger reappeared and whispered something into Byorne's ear that made him frown darkly.

  
“Show me,” he urged in a low voice, rising smoothly from his seat by the fire. His ally nodded and stalked away. Byorne followed without a word.

  
Gribly stared in curiosity and confusion after the two departing figures, who were soon lost in the shadows. Lauro muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, and when the thief turned to raise an eyebrow at him, he sucked in his breath with surprise instead.

  
“Shadow?” he exclaimed, “Are you all right?”

  
The woman was trembling, but not from fear or embarrassment... rather, from anger. Gribly was worried, and something prickled in the back of his mind. Did he know this woman?

  
“My
brother
,” the injured woman spat, but Gribly barely heard her. The word
uncle
had sprung into his mind.

  
“What in...” the thief began, but suddenly there was a loud crash from the shadows at the far end of the rangers' hideout, followed by sounds of a tussle and loud cursing in a voice Gribly thought he recognized. He shook his head in astonishment at Shadow's anger-twisted face. “It can't be...”

  
Suddenly Byorne and his companion were back, dragging a large, groaning man between them. Byorne wore a smug smile, but the other ranger was snarling and wore an ugly bruise over one eye.

  
“Well, well, well,” sneered Lauro, standing in tandem with Gribly as they both recognized the rangers' captive, “If it isn't the man who bets on the lives of children...”

  
The burly man looked up with two streaming punch-swollen eyes, but his hateful glare went straight past the two friends to rest on Shadow, who stared back with equal venom.

  
“Had t' knock 'is two friends out an' leave 'em behind,” Byorne called across the bonfire to Shadow. “Ee kept askin' for yuh, so I figured bringin' 'im couldn't hurt... now.”

  
“No... I can't thank you enough,” the injured woman-warrior said, voice shaking with emotion before she could control herself enough to address the captured man. “I can't believe you were stupid enough to come looking for me, Crutus,” she told him, lip curling in disgust.

  
Crutus.
Gribly searched his mind for to scratch the itch in his memory. He
knew
that name... where was it from?

  
“I should have died back there,” Shadow continued, “if these men weren't decent enough to help me. Were you wanting to get rid of me, too- like you did to my daughter? She was fourteen, you fool! You knew I couldn't win that fight! Where is she?
Where is she?
” The woman was so enraged that she tried to rise again, failing to succeed with a sharp cry of pain.

  
Daughter... uncle... brother...
So this man the rangers had captured really was the one who had bet his niece on Shadow winning the fight against Longstrider... and Shadow was the girl's mother!

  
“Burn in Ker-” Crutus began, but Byorne's companion cuffed him hard in the side of the head, cutting off his oath. The black-jowled ruffian spat out a tooth, snarling. “The poor l'ttle urchin's already gone, Shele.”

  
“So 'Shadow' has a name,” Lauro mused from the side, still frowning irritatedly at Crutus.
 
   
“What exactly is going on here?” Gribly interrupted, trying desperately to figure out how he knew the man.

  
“I owe this brute
everything
,” Shadow- or Shele- said bitterly. “After my husband died... I'm
 
a thief, not a warrior... the
others
wouldn't help me... and now he's made me fight, because I can...” she fell into a fit of coughing and flopped back down on her rough litter, cursing through her pain. The third ranger frowned, but still said nothing.

  
With the lost girl's mother admitting defeat, Crutus began to laugh darkly. “There ain't no knowin' where the ol' pickpocket I lost 'er to'll take 'er,” he said. “In a city so big? Who knows?” his laugh ended abruptly as Byorne and the other ranger dropped him face-first in the dirt.

  
The old pickpocket?!?

  
Snapping his fingers, Gribly nearly leaped in the air. “You're lying, scum!” he laughed in Crutus's face as the fat man scrambled to his feet. “I know you... you guard the pickpocket's wine-house!
That's
where the girl is!”

  
“You know where my daughter is?” exclaimed Shadow.

  
“You know what he means?” Byorne said at the same time.

  
“Ha! I think I follow you!” Lauro added.

  
Excited, Gribly reached into his satchel, which still hung at his side, and removed a handful of golden dune-coins, much like the ones he had insisted he didn't have to the guards of the fight pit alley.

  
Shadow's eyes grew wide as the thief leaped right over the bonfire, Sand Striding to aid his gymnastics, and knelt next to her in the same movement. “What are those for?” she whispered quietly.

  
“I know where your daughter is, Shadow... er, Shele,” Gribly said, “And I have the money to set her free.”

~

  
One ranger took Shadow-Shele immediately to find and reclaim her daughter. The other was tasked with binding and gagging Crutus and his companions somewhere where the bronzeguard would be likely to pick him up on their morning rounds. Both were told to take care of their business swiftly, then rendezvous with Byorne, Gribly, and Lauro at Blast Palace.

  
“By the time your men reach it,” the prince assured Byorne, “We'll have been there at least an hour- more than long enough to convince Argoz to accept the rangers as an official part of Ymeer's soldiery- just as you want.”

  
“Indeed,” the weathered veteran mused. After giving low-voiced instructions to his two men, he turned back to Lauro. “Well, young Striders... what're we waitin' for?”

  
Nodding silently, the prince turned to Gribly. “Lead the way, friend,” he said.

  
The Sand Strider could tell it was an effort for Lauro to unbend his pride enough to admit he didn't know the way.