EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (10 page)

“Tell you what, Ezekiel. You answer my question, I answer one of yours.”

He turned around with a fur cap in his hands. “All right. So…”

“No.” She held up a warning finger. “You already had your turn. I told you about the guilds. Now you answer my question.”

Wariness crossed his face. “What’s the question?”

Ah-ha
, she thought internally.
Now that the tables are turned, someone isn’t so open.

She leaned on the wall and said, “What did Edgar mean when he called you a treasure hunter?”

Chapter VIII

S
HE
’
D
GIVE
HIM
CREDIT
. H
E
didn’t flinch or evade the query. He faced it head-on.

“I was an old city excavator for a long time. Mostly graves,” he said with a shrug. “I didn’t have much of a choice. I studied for years as a historian of ancient Emres society and Algardian culture.”

Then he gave a self-deprecating smile. “If you’re not aware, being a curator is not the most profitable occupation. Even before I finished my studies, finding a patron to help me was almost impossible.”

Her interest was piqued, as was her confusion. “I understood about half of what you just said.”

“It’s not really important,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Just know that the war changed my fortunes. Soldiers and mercenaries began looting. They would come across new finds in the countryside. When they traded it to a wealthy buyer, everyone involved in the transaction from the soldier to the estate manager needed to know its value. That’s where I came in.”

Outwardly, Sara waved a flippant hand. Inwardly, she flinched. Up until now, she had successfully avoided thinking about the civil war going on in the ‘countryside’ by pushing it out of her mind.
 

Countryside
, she thought ruefully.
If I wasn’t in Sandrin, I wouldn’t think it so far away. In truth? This civil war is supposedly devastating the entire northern half of our empire. But as a citizen of Sandrin I don’t feel it. People go, soldiers come back, and life goes on. At least that’s what we’re supposed to think. But how do you go on when your father doesn’t come back? Or worse, he comes back in an urn?

 
Sara shivered and snapped out of her thoughts. She wasn’t going to let dark thoughts about a war she’d never see or experience ruin another moment of her day.
 

With sarcasm in her tone, she said to Ezekiel, “All right, fine. But what’s an Emres?”

“Nope, now it’s your turn,” he said with a devious smile.

She leaned back against the wall. “Well, well, well. Our curator isn’t a pushover after all.”

He blushed red but didn’t back down.

Sara rolled her eyes and said, “Repeat the question, please.” It was said a little stiffly. She knew what the question was, but she needed another a second, another minute, another moment of time where she didn’t have to answer another’s person inquiries about her personal life. But she owed him this answer. A Fairchild didn’t forget their promises.

Ezekiel looked at her as if he sensed the tension in her tone. Still he asked the question. “Why would your father become a deserter? He was commander of the imperial forces on the war front. A renowned fighter. Even I had heard of the great Commander Fairchild, and as you have probably surmised, I’ve never been the type to venerate fighters.”

“Really, I hadn’t noticed,” she said dryly. She thought about their first conversation outside of Cormar’s office. It had started with him falling to the ground because of her and had ended with him gaining a healthy respect for her knowledge of dragon rulers but not necessarily for fighters as a whole.

Without pause, Sara answered. “I don’t know why he deserted.”

She held up a hand to forestall his protests.

“I honestly don’t,” she said, “but I do know my father was the most honorable man I knew. He would
never
abandon his command. Not unless he was forced to for the greater good of his men.”

The pain of her words was evident in the tone even if her face was expressionless.

He nodded. “I’m sorry. It must be hard not to know how or why your father chose that.”

She looked away, her mind off in the distance before she snapped back to the present.

“It is and was. I guess it always will be. He chose to be a military commander. Under his leadership were the mage companies, the empire’s soldiers and three of the premier mercenary companies in the land – including both the Corcoran guard and the Red Lion guard. But because he chose to serve so far away I’ll never know. I’ll never know what he died for, what was going through his mind in those last few days or even
how
he died.”

Ezekiel looked at her. “What do you mean how he died?”

She looked at him. Irritation grew on her face.

“I wasn’t trying to dig the knife into your pain or even get in a question that time,” he said, walking forward with both hands upraised. “I really mean it. How can you not know?”

She humored him. “Because the military didn’t tell me,” she said.

He frowned. “But it’s public record. The Empress’s forces are required by imperial law to notify families of the officers about how they died—on or off the field of battle. Often it’s more of a question if they can ever really know for sure if the body was too badly damaged for complete analysis. In that case, they would tell you something like he perished in the first charge of the battle of whatever. But this, this is a question of how could they
not
know? Especially if they executed him.”

As usual he talked too much. Slowing down, Ezekiel asked, “Did you ask them?”

“My military contacts weren’t very receptive to our inquiries,” she said tensely. “Even getting my father’s ashes back was a battle, and we had to pay to get them transported here ourselves.”

Ezekiel looked the most upset she had ever seen him. “Do you
want
to know?”

“Of course I want to know,” she said. “How can you ask that?”

He said, “It’s not an easy matter for most people to learn their family member was hanged, drawn and quartered, or dismembered on a wheel.”

“I want to know. I need to know.”
 

He nodded. “Then I know a way you can find out.”

Her crossed arms fell to her sides. “Tell me.”

He looked away. “The mercenaries keep all the records for the imperial guards. Death records. Benefit records. Even deployment records.”

She scoffed. “Why would they have the imperial files?”

“Because of the war,” he explained, going over to his satchel. “The Empress has had her armed militia deployed upon the field of battle for months now. Everything she’s got is there—from her palace guard to the city watch. She needed protection and to keep the capital city of Sandrin secure, so she outsourced the work of her missing men.”

Ezekiel stopped and dug deeper in that red bag of his.

“Go on,” she urged.

“Got it,” said Ezekiel, holding up a sheath of papers in the air in excitement. He began thumbing through while Sara watched in mounting frustration.

“Ezekiel!” she shouted. It was the first time she had lost her cool. The first time he turned to look at her and was able to see emotion on her face. Predominantly frustration, but there was some excitement in there.

“Right,” he said with a delighted smile that he couldn’t hide plastered on his face. “It’s the mercenaries. He outsourced the work of the city guard, the imperial guard, and the garrison staff to the mercenaries. One company in particular controls every single piece of military paperwork—the Corcoran guard.
They
would know how your father died.”
She stared at him. “Then the Corcoran guard is who I’m going to see.”

She turned to leave.

“Wait!” Ezekiel said, running to stand in front of her. “Where are you going?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“All right, stupid question,” he muttered, “but what do you think you’re going to do when you get there?”

“I would think it would be self-explanatory.”

He shook his head. “You can’t just walk into the mercenary guild’s headquarters and ask to see the private files of their most elite company.”

She said, “They’re my father’s files, and if they won’t give them to me, I will take them.”

“You and what army?” he snapped.

Anger crossed her face and he stepped back.

“I’m just trying to help. They’re not going to like you walking in there and demanding their information. You certainly won’t just walk back out. You think you can take on
at least
five other battle mages by yourself? Because you’re not the only one, you know.”

She said, “I can try. If I don’t, my father’s memory is nothing.”

He shook his head. “What if I said I had a plan to get you those files?”

“How?”

He rattled the sheath of papers still in his left hand. “This is how.”

“I’m listening.”

He let out a slow breath. “Mind if we clear the doorway?”

She looked at the door inches from his back. Then she walked over and sat down on a bench they had used to rest supplies on. He hurriedly sat down opposite her with his legs on either side of the bench. Putting the sheath of paper in the middle between them, he launched into his explanation.

“This is documentation from Cormar stating I have the legal right to acquire and hire a new mercenary for the protection of his warehouse.”

She picked up the paper in interest. Not reading it but noting a gold seal in the corner with an anchor and the pole of the fishery’s wharf on it. Cormar’s seal.

“He was looking for a new watcher before you walked in his door this morning,” he said hurriedly. “I was supposed to go this afternoon, but then you showed up. The hiring form is good for two days. We could go to the guild tomorrow just as planned.”

She pulled up a leg and rested her chin on her knee as she watched him with wary eyes. “I don’t understand how this helps me find out about my father’s death.”

He nodded. “I guess I wouldn’t either if I’d never been through the mercenary guild’s hiring process.”

She said, “So why don’t you tell me how that goes?”

“It’s simple,” he explained. “A nobleman, business owner, or caravan chief will usually go in looking for a mercenary with a specific skill set. The guild itself has the documentation on thousands of men and women spread throughout Algardis and some in the far kingdoms. Many of them don’t even live near here. What the guild does is match the preferences of the hirer with a specific mercenary. If the hirer needs the person immediately, the guild will assign someone within the city.”

She stared at him. “How do you know all this?”

“I took a temporary job there once,” he admitted.

“You?” she said with surprise in her voice.

He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, in my experience with one caravan leader, he was looking for someone to journey with his crew through the winter vales in the north for two months and the guild rounded up the most likely candidates. Those with experience with deep snow, caravan beasts, and long but slow journeys. They also looked for someone who could be away for long periods of time.”

He continued on in excitement, “We had all of that information on file. Every candidate’s personal life and professional history is there. From their weapons specialties to the location of their domiciles is in those records.”

She stared at him. That was all fine and dandy, but she needed him to get to the point.

“But here’s the important part,” said Ezekiel, realizing he had gone off on a tangent. “The documentation for each mercenary is in the
same
room as the death records. Partly, I think, because mercenaries tend to die fairly often.”

She blinked. “So we get into the records room in the search for our candidate and find my father’s file instead?”

“Yes!” he said. “Well, except we really do need a new candidate to replace you, so it’s a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing.”

“I like how you think, Ezekiel.”

“It’s a pleasure to be of service, my lady.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Right, sure.”

She sighed. “I guess you came through, curator.”

He nodded.

Then something distracted her. The sound of steps outside echoed with her enhanced hearing. Sara stood up abruptly while pulling her knife from her sheath.

There were two sets of boots walking this way. No voices. Yet.

“What?” Ezekiel said.
“Shhh, I heard something,” she said, staring at the door.

Then Cormar strode back in with the grin of a happy man on his face.

It was the most disturbing thing she’d seen that day. No man like him should ever be happy. And if he was, she feared for whoever had just made his day. She doubted they had survived the experience.

But still she relaxed. Although she was honestly getting quite tired of him barging into the warehouse throughout the day.
 

Behind him Wainwright came through the door, tugging on the reins of two braying pack mules.

Sara almost felt sorry for him. He seemed to do everything for Cormar except fetch his lunch and she doubted he was that highly compensated for his work either. Cormar looked around and gave a grudging nod. “Good work.”

“Thank you, Cormar,” said Ezekiel respectfully.

Sara said nothing. Cormar didn’t seem to mind.
 

She watched as Ezekiel went to the pack mules that occasionally shifted and brayed. Each had a wooden crate atop its back.

“Sara, can you help me?” Ezekiel asked as he stood on one side of the crate.

She came forward, careful to take her knife out only when she was on the far side of the mule and out of its eyesight. She knew that the quickest way to scare an animal was to pull a blade in front of it. She put a hand on her side of the rectangular crate and called out to Ezekiel, “Brace yourself. I’m about to cut the rope.”

From the mule’s other side she heard him speak. “I’m ready.”

She smoothly cut the rope holding the crate in place.
 

“Got it,” she heard Ezekiel say with a grunt.