Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity (22 page)

Bunji sat beside the w
agon with his wrists bound and watched Morlan drag the slaver back to the group like a hunter hauling a deer. The other soldiers rushed to aid the Imperial bodyguard. Someone tied the slaver’s hand to stem the heavy bleeding. The loose ends of the bandage were used to bind him to the wagon wheel, arms above his head. All of the corpses were loaded into the back of the wagon, and the dead ox was hauled off the road. One ois own oarchers had training with wounds and dressed the bodyguard’s injuries properly. Once all was taken care of and the men reassembled, Navara reported, “We lost two men and captured three swords, sir.”

Morlan pointed to his own hilt. “No sir, none of them came from House Kragen.”

Then they began the interrogation with Bunji. The whole affair had the grim air of a field court-martial. “Sergeant, you stand accused of collusion, and carrying a foreign Honor, betraying your lord,” Navara sneered. “What should your punishment be? You have one bit to beg for your life.”

Navara was as ambitious as he was slender. He had the worst reputation for cruelty among any of Kragen’s lieutenants, dealing in blood so often that he had the bottoms of his capes trimmed in crimson so the stains would not show. Kragen had unleashed him most often with the words, “Find out.” Navara always ferreted out the answers and quite often returned with a signed confession. Indeed, his narrow features, almost-black eyes, and his taste for blood earned him the nickname of ‘the Ferret’ among his peers.

“P-pardon, sir, but you jump too quickly to punishment when you have not established a c-crime,” Bunji stuttered.

Navara scoffed, waving his arm in a grand gesture. “It is plain for all to see!”

“Not so plain, sir. The members of the Brotherhood are our allies against the northern menace; this eliminates both the collusion and foreign charges,” Bunji blurted. The smug expression on the lead inquisitor’s face faded. “And as far as I knew, the death of Kragen ended my obligation; I had no way to know about the heir. There were other extenuating circumstances that I will be glad to explain in detail if you give me the chance, good sir. Note that I have helped you in every way I could. I surrendered when they could’ve won with my aid. I even saved Sir Morlan’s life back at the island. Surely, that should buy me some leniency.” Most of the men observing nodded, including the bodyguard himself.

Navara was not so easily placated. Leaning close over the bound prisoner, he growled, “Your failure to intervene still cost our lord his life. I see a pattern of cowardice in each of your actions. That sickens me. In the Imperial Army where I trained, cowardice was punished by a long, slow death, usually by starved rats.”

Bunji lost his temper at the threats. Oddly enough, this lapse in judgment was enough to prove his bravery in the eyes of most of the soldiers watching. “Our lord ordered us not to interfere in the duel. I could do nothing until the moment of his murder. What then would you have had me do? I can’t raise the dead.”

Navara began choking the insolent sergeant into silence. “You could’ve killed your new friends in their sleep! It would’ve been a fitting end for assassins.” Bunji kicked futilely and gurgled. After a moment, Morlan laid a hand on the Inquisitor’s shoulder to stop the violence. Navara released him and strode a short distance away to cool off.

Sulandhurka awoke during this by-play. From his prone position, Bunji saw the slaver open his eye a crack and close it again. The executioner was either feigning unconsciousness, or deep in shock. Either way, he wouldn’t be talking. Navara prodded the man a few times with his boot, firing basic, military questions for any captive, but soon gave up in frustration.

“Bah,” spat Navara, turning his narrowing gaze once more onto Bunji. “You. Sergeant Helpful. You’ve been with these curlong enough that you can answer for them. We have our own sources, but we need you to confirm the story we have so far. Tell us in your own words what happened the day of the battle.”

Bunji described from his point of view the charge that the executioners made against the palace wall while the defenders were distracted by the wizard battle. He even managed to get his hands untied so that he could draw a map on the road for better illustration. Navara scribbled notes on a piece of parchment, interrupting frequently for clarification. None of the other soldiers were permitted to speak. At first, Bunji tried to confine his replies to the precise questions asked for fear of strengthening the case against himself. Speaking ill of Kragen’s apprentice seemed to generate a high degree of nonverbal approval among the lord’s supporters. Therefore, as the tale progressed, he placed even more of the blame for the fiasco on Tumberlin. Eventually, he started drawing out the main narrative itself, hoping to stop short of the incriminating issue of the bell.

Morlan grew impatient at the endless stream of trivia and nudged the Inquisitor to interrupt. The bodyguard poked himself twice in the chest as with arrows and held out his hands questioningly. Navara sighed, and said, “Very well, we shall go straight for the vein of ore. Why was Lord Kragen assassinated?” His words were well enunciated and had the no-nonsense tone of a teacher delivering a final exam.

Navara held the dagger to his upper lip pensively. “Something he was willing to tear the palace apart to get?” Bunji nodded. “Describe him, please. Spare no detail.”

The captive complied with the order to the best of his ability, beginning with the obvious uniform, and tattoos. “The others called him Tashi, but this information won’t do you any good; the man is dead.”

The soldiers exchanged glances. Had this revenge effort been for nothing?

“And you witnessed this?”

“No, but I saw the giant he challenged. The sheriff didn’t act like he was coming back, either; he even gave the others his Honor to take back to his family.”

“If that is the case, we shall find a body.”

“Maybe not. Remember the ground tremors and that blast of light? He was at its center. Judging from his social status, they wouldn’t have abandoned him unless they were certain. They spoke of his death often on the road and debated long about what they should tell his sister.”

Navara arched an eyebrow. “So the object of his obsession destroyed him, hardly unusual. Yet, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned his prominent family. Just who was the architect of our lord’s demise?” Sulandhurka freed his still-bound arms from the wheel and slowly pulled his feet under him so that he could sacrifice himself to strangle the informant. However, the guards had stepped closer to hear the answers and now intervened.

“He’s related by marriage to the guildmaster Dhagmurna.”

A low whistle escaped the slaver’s guard, a clerk named Antioch. “Our lady was right to declare a blood feud.” Bunji paled, realizing the magnitude of the implication he had just made. Although he had not thought it possible, Bunji’s fear level rose again, sweat dampening his armpits.

Morlan poked himself again, harder. Navara jumped to the next question on the final exam. “Which one of these cretins killed our lord?”

Bunji pointed to the dead archer in the back of the wagon, and babbled, “The man you just killed. His name was Gallatin. The Brotherhood was his only family, and he dreamed of owning a vineyard with his share of the payment.” Everyone was shocked when, before the accusation was even finished, Morlan strode over and chopped the corpse’s head off. It made a sickening sound, like wood on a stump being split, making Bunji shudder. With no more fuss than picking a cabbage, the bodyguard put the head into a coarse burlap sack and slung it over his shoulder.

Bunji began to hyperventilate. Before long, they would ask what happened to the signet ring, and that would be the end of him. He had to find a way to hide the ring before they got there. He needed a diversion. Then he saw the hate in the slaver’s eyes. Without conscious thought, Bunji raised a finger and shouted, “That one decapitated the Mill wizard. He bragged about cutting up every wizard he met, just to be safe.”

Sulandhurka sprang up, wrapping his bandage bonds around the throat of the closest enemy of rank, the Inquisitor’s personal clerk. Bunji continued to incite the crowd, focusing their gazes.

Navara saw Morlan approach and warned, “Be careful; we need to question him about the defenses of Tamarind Pass. We’ll want to get maps, and the names of commanders susceptible to bribes.”

Sulandhurka was a dangerous opponent, even now, using the clerk as a shield against the archers. The slaver limped toward the trees, leaning on the red-faced Antioch to be his crutch. The clerk helped him in exchange for an occasional breath of precious air. While all eyes watched this drama, Bunji extracted the ring and stuffed it into the coin purse of the headless body. His heart couldn’t beat any louder and live.

“You coward,” Navara shouted at his soldier, the hostage. “Stop him!” When Antioch failed to resist effectively, the Inquisitor ordered his archers to shoot their comrade in the leg. When his crutch collapsed, Sulandhurka fell hard and inadvertently crushed the hostage’s windpipe. This proved his undoing, for he could not disentangle himself from the dying man, and the man’s weight dragged him to the road. Morlan’s shadow fell over them both.

Sulandhurka tried to make a deal. “Gentlemen, there’s no need to do this! I can make you all rich, give you anything you want.”

“Unfortunately, he wants his voice and his master’s life back,” Navara said.

The swing was inevitable and unstoppable. Bunji covered his ears to avoid the wet sound. Navara made another notation on his parchment and resumed his interrogation of the captive while a second head entered the burlap sack. “You’re not soldier material, are you, boy?” the Inquisitor sneeredd the hoshy didn’t you do anything to stop your master’s mutilation?”

Bunji was shaking. He was rather surprised at himself for feeling no guilt about the slaver. In fact, Bunji’s only emotion, other than fear, was gratitude that the wizard hadn’t survived. His next small lie would go undetected. “I was tending to his injured bodyguard and didn’t see their intent until the signet ring was cut off. They thought it would help with their escape. That one has it now,” the captive said, pointing to the dead archer.

Navara scratched his sideburns while one of his aids searched the body to come up with the evidence. “Truly, this one died too quickly. We must apologize to Lady Kragen for that.

“Continue your story. What happened next?”

“The sheriff ordered them to destroy the Mandala center. I confess that after seeing the magic battle, this relieved me,” Bunji said, risking brutal honesty. All of the soldiers who had seen the aftermath of the spells nodded in agreement. “The wizard glass was stronger than they thought. That’s how they broke the smith’s hammer and the sheriff’s sword.”

Eyes blazing, Morlan grabbed the sole remaining prisoner by his vest and lifted him in the air. Navara interpreted for him. “You mean you stood by and
let
them do this to a man’s Honor?”

“You don’t understand,” Bunji began. He considered explaining the source of the confusion, the difference between the Imperial Sword of Miracles and the Kragen blade. Instead, he decided on some subtle misdirection. Later, he could claim that the Inquisitor kept interrupting his explanation. For now, he needed another target for the wolves. “The sheriff used it to destroy three stones before the metal shattered into pieces. I thought the blade to be one of the Honors of legend. I was too astonished to move.”

Morlan, mollified by his dissembling, released the defendant. Navara was not so quick to drop the subject. “Our search found no such fragments, nor the hilt.”

In a heartbeat, Bunji supplied the reason. “That’s because the sheriff gave them to their smith. The slaver said that they could be used as proof that the contract had been completed, and repaired as a trophy. I’m sure you can find the shards on the smith’s crushed body. Our cart ran him over at the start of your ambush.”

Navara snapped his fingers, and even Morlan joined the search, all in vain. “We found the broken hammer, but no smith, sir,” said the aide. The Inquisitor glared at Bunji.

Bunji still managed to sound confident. “He can’t have crawled far in his condition. You heard that scream.”

****

As anticipated, the smith reached the rocky beach and his enemy’s craft before his adrenaline had worn off. The rune-warded boat was concealed beneath a pile of hastily cut branches, but he wasn’t fooled. Due to the intensity of the interrogation, the smith had ample time alone with the boat. Because it was designed to carry eight, he couldn’t row it alone. Therefore, he decided to sabotage the boat to delay his pursuers and perhaps injure more of them. Using his tools, he snapped off the rudder, defaced one of the runes on the stern, and created a sizable leak in the bow of the craft. Within a quarter hour, despite the heat, the smith was running toward Innisport.

****

Bunji filled in the ld. of the details while the rest of the men searched. When one man returned with news about the boat, Navara said, “It seems this smith is a bit more hardy, or far less injured, than you imagined. But don’t worry; we’ll hunt him down again. Tell me everything you know about this man.”

By now, Bunji was even familiar enough with the rate, order, and amount the Inquisitor recorded, that he was able to recite every physical and character trait without a single interruption. He finished with the name of Anna, the indentured woman that the smith wanted to free and marry. “But he’ll visit the Guild fortress first.” In his glibness, Bunji made his first real slip. “Dhagmurna won’t rest until he gets the Sword of Miracles.”