Honor Bound (5 page)

"Best not to mention this," one of
them said at last. "Father Tyme was a good lord, for all his odd
ways. One last bit of madness shouldn't overshadow all. He doesn't
deserve to be remembered for this."

A murmur of agreement rippled
through the room. One of the guards leaned down and used the sleeve
of his tunic to wipe away the impossible claim.

* * *

The thieves regrouped at the boat
and pushed it out to sea, leaving the third would-be assassin tied
on the shore for the adept's men to find.

No wind stirred the cove, so Fox
drew the oars out from under the hold and passed one to
Delgar.

They rowed in silence. Even Vishni
seemed subdued.

"The adept's death was none of our
doing," Avidan said.

Fox huffed. "We were there when
Honor killed Muldonny. We brought her into his stronghold. I'd say
we had something to do with it."

"I was not speaking of
Muldonny."

Avidan pointed to the keep, and the
black banners unfurling from the observatory windows.

Fox's shoulders slumped in defeat.
"The first man to reach the keep! He must have gotten past the
guards, finished what his clockwork assassin started."

He fisted one hand and slammed it
against the side of the boat. "This isn't right. This isn't the way
it was supposed to happen."

"Rebellions seldom follow straight
lines," Avidan observed. "If that is indeed what transpired
here."

"Here it comes," muttered
Delgar.

The alchemist held up the metal
disk. "Given the complexity of this device, it was almost certainly
built by one of your adepts. Rhendish, I would assume, since he and
Muldonny were the most skilled clockwork artisans in Sevrin.
Rhendish may be eliminating rivals under the guise of a popular
uprising. It has also occurred to me that he might have arranged
for the Thorn to be 'stolen' and sold to Muldonny, in order that
Honor might have reason to retrieve it."

Delgar gave his oars a particularly
vicious tug. "The only way Rhendish would do that is if he had no
idea what the Thorn was. And I doubt he's that stupid."

"I knew nothing of this dagger
before Honor asked for our assistance in retrieving it, and no man
has ever accused me of stupidity," Avidan said.

"Just insanity."

The alchemist shrugged, not denying
the charge but not particularly impressed by it.

"But why did Honor kill Muldonny?"
The question burst from Fox like a cry of grief. "The man just
stood there, looking at her like she was the answer to every
question, and she stabbed him in the heart."

"If you were in a position to see
Muldonny's face, you could not have seen Honor's," Avidan said.
"You didn't see her eyes when she killed him, or when she caught
him in her arms and lowered him to the floor. Nor when she saw the
ring Rhendish gave Muldonny the day you and I entered Muldonny's
stronghold."

Delgar's head came up. "A ring? What
ring?"

The alchemist's lips pursed and his
eyes grew slightly unfocused as he flipped the pages of memory. "A
smooth pink stone set in delicate silver filigree. It resembled
elfin craft closely enough to fool someone with a superficial
knowledge. A few runes had been carved into the band. That is all I
recall. I was somewhat occupied at the time, lobbing acid grenades
at clockwork warriors."

"Globes of acid!" Vishni wriggled on
her seat like a happy child. "Wonderful! That's just what the story
needed."

Avidan raised a forefinger, a simple
but peremptory gesture that silenced the fairy in
mid-rapture.

"That's a good trick," Delgar
said.

The alchemist ignored him, as well.
"Even if I'd had the leisure to reflect upon these runes, I lack
the knowledge needed to read them. But if you will loan me paper
and pen, I believe I can reproduce them."

"Oh, that's good," Vishni breathed.
"That's definitely going into the story."

She handed over her book and
produced a quill and ink bottle from a pocket in her cloak. Avidan
dipped the quill and formed several runes with deft, certain
strokes. He blew on the ink to dry it, then handed back the
book.

"These are elfish runes! I know some
of them." The fairy studied the page for a long moment. "Uh-oh,"
she murmured.

Delgar bolted to his feet. For a
moment Fox thought he meant to leap over the side of the
boat.

The dwarf cleared his throat and sat
down. "Basic survival rule: When a fairy says 'uh-oh,'
run."

"Good to know," Vishni said."Because
that would have been a lot more fun if I'd done it on
purpose."

Fox snapped his fingers in front of
her face to get her attention and then tapped the runes on the
page. "What does it say?"

"
Minue took
her
."

Vishni looked from one man to
another, her face expectant. They all shrugged. "Minue? The
dryad?"

"Explain the significance," Avidan
said.

"Trees are like fairy portals to
dryads. They can move from one tree to another. Every now and then,
they take someone with them. But dryads are also fey, so whoever
Minue took could be anywhere.
Anywhere,
" she added in an
uncharacteristically grim tone.

The color drained from Avidan's
face. "The Faerie Realm," he murmured in a tone that mingled dread
and longing.

Vishni nodded. "It's
possible."

"But what does it mean?" Fox said
impatiently.

The alchemist dashed both hands over
his face. When he turned to Fox, his eyes were calm and clear.
"Here's what we know so far," he said. "Rhendish went to see
Muldonny, lost at cards, and offered to pay his debt with a ring of
elfish design. When we infiltrated Muldonny's stronghold to
retrieve the Thorn, Honor killed Muldonny and took the ring from
his hand. It is my opinion that Honor was compelled to kill the
adept, to her deep regret. Her reaction upon discovering the ring
struck me as horror-struck enlightenment followed by murderous
wrath."

"What does he notice, I wonder, when
he's
not
busy
lobbing acid grenades?" Delgar said to no one in
particular.

"My conclusion would be that
Rhendish employed magic to compel Honor to kill. The ring was the
link between his will and her action."

Delgar cleared his throat. "A pink
stone, you said?"

"I did, yes," the alchemist said.
"Apparently the significance of that has escaped me, as does
connection between this Minue and Honor."

"I can answer both questions," the
dwarf said heavily. "There are certain rituals, very old and very
dark, that can bind one sort of magic to another. These rituals
require blood and bone."

Vishni's nose wrinkled in distaste.
"Ick."

"Sometimes those rituals involve
symbols of blood and bone. For dwarves, that means carmite. For
elves, it's . . . something else. I can't say more without
revealing secrets I'm pledged to protect. But this much I can say:
elves carry magic in their blood and bones, so the words on the
ring probably represent the last bit of magic Honor
worked."

"So Honor sent someone to the faerie
realm."

"Possibly," Vishni said, drawing the
word out. "The most we can say with certainty is that Honor called
to Minue and the dryad answered."

"It also tells us that Rhendish, or
someone who answered to him, saw her do it."

Fox huffed. "Problem solved. We'll
just pop on over to Rhendish Manor and ask the adept to fill in the
details."

"You are missing the salient point,"
Avidan said. "Rhendish, or someone in his employ, is
performing magic
."

Silence fell over them, heavy as sea
mist.

Delgar dropped his oar and reached
for the sails. "I've got to warn my people. And then we've got to
find a way to get the Thorn far away from Sevrin."

* * *

A small, slim boat glided onto the
shore, shifting color from north-sea blue to the muted purple of
the sand surrounding this strange and rocky island.

The boat was dwarf crafted, of
course, as was the sword Nimbolk wore on his hip. He carried no
elfin weapons, no elfin armor, no elfin magic, nothing that might
over-sing the Thorn's faint voice.

Assuming he ever came close enough
to hear it.

Two years was nothing to an elf,
especially one as single-minded as he. The few elves who'd survived
the attack on the midwinter tribunal had pulled through largely by
the force of his will. They'd pooled what resources they had to
stay alive, to heal.

To hunt.

Winter snows might have covered the
humans' tracks, but Nimbolk found a trail in the name Honor spoke
that night:

Volgo.

At first, he'd hardly needed the
name. A man who traveled in such company could not stay hidden. A
large party of men traveling the forest would hunt, and light
fires, and build rough shelters. When they left the forest they
would pillage farmsteads and crofters' cottages. They would stop in
villages to buy where things were sold, they would drink and boast
in the smoky halls where humans gathered. And when their trail led
to the edge of the northern sea, the dwarves who dwelt in the sea
caves and knew every ship by its sails had added a destination:
Sevrin.

Sevrin, with its endless scattering
of islands and its hundreds of tall, blond-bearded men. Even the
name-trail cooled, for Volgo was not an uncommon name among the
islands' humans.

Nimbolk rose from the boat,
stretching muscles stiff from long disuse. He paced along the
shore, so intent upon the pleasure of movement that a heartbeat or
two passed before he sensed what he'd sought for so
long.

The Thorn's magic rode the air like
music, like perfume. It had been here, on this island among many
islands, and not long ago.

In the distance, a stone keep rose
above the cliffs. The wind carried the rumble of angry shouts and
grief-edged keening. Something dire had happened there, something
that involved the Thorn.

Nimbolk pulled the hood of his cloak
over his ears and headed for the keep. Someone there would give him
a new name, a new trail.

A new hunt.

Rhendish Manor formed a city within
a city, a fortress town covering most of Crystal Mountain. At the
top stood the adept's home, a white stone mansion surrounded by a
walled garden.

Vine-covered trellises encircled the
adept's garden, and the flowers on them grew so abundantly that
some spilled over the top of the wall. Honor suspected that more
than a few people saw the foliage as a less conspicuous way to
enter Rhendish's estate. She wondered, briefly, what had become of
those who'd survived the green guardians.

She slipped through the garden and
crept along the deep shadows that clung to the wall, past vines
that raised painful welts or left poisonous oils on the skin. Such
plants were well known in the deep woodlands. The forest folk used
them to protect secret places from outsiders, or to warn each other
of hidden dangers.

An arbor crowned with three-fingered
yellow blossoms caught Honor's eye. Memory overtook her, and for a
moment she stood beneath ancient trees, reading the message written
with flowering vines upon the corpse of a fallen pine. Any elf who
saw this vine would know something dangerous had made its den in
the hollow—in this case, a wolverine and her litter of
kits.

Honor's hand moved to her belt, to
the place where her seed bag should hang. Most forest elves carried
seeds and learned a ritual that would speed their growth, so that
they might leave wards and warnings of their own.

How had Rhendish come by these
seeds, this knowledge?

She hoped they hadn't come from her,
but who knows what secrets the adept might have wrested from her in
ten forgotten years?

A troubling thought, but she turned
her mind to more immediate concerns. She took a deep breath and
held it as she passed under the arbor. If a night breeze shook
enough pollen from the little flowers, the adept's guards would
find her asleep under the arbor come morning.

Just ahead, a trellis carried a
profusion of vines and roses to the top of the wall. Fox had
climbed the over-spilling branches just days before. Most humans
would have avoided the thorny plants in favor of a less
painful-looking option, but Fox had been raised at the forest's
edge by a mother who knew nearly as much green lore as the forest
elves.

Climbing the trellis with only one
good hand proved more challenging than Honor had expected. She
moved slowly, easing from rung to rung, from one thorny branch to
the next. When she reached the top of the wall, she rolled over
quickly and hung by one hand as her booted feet sought
footholds.