The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (15 page)

He would have gone after them to turn them back towards the road and to safety, but the slip of his own tongue had not gone unnoticed. Behind him, he heard sounds, and turned to see one of the highwaymen kicking the other awake. Gully turned back to where the two unfortunate souls had run, but he could no longer see them at all. It was like they had disappeared and become nothing more than shadows and pale moonlight.

A split second later, he heard heavy footfalls as both of the criminals were now up and scrambling towards him. Without any more time to wonder what to do, Gully ran. He grabbed his pack and sprinted as fast as he could along the path he had picked out earlier as the best way to escape. Behind him the yells of the two robbers were closer than he preferred and he no longer worried about running silently. He ran for his life and he didn’t care who heard him.

The path he had chosen took him parallel to where the South Pass Road would be, and then he began to veer away from the road slightly. He also tried to place his feet more quietly as he ran, making it harder for the robbers to follow. His bluff seemed to be working as the robbers veered the other way, assuming he had run towards the road instead of away from it.

Just as Gully thought he was safe, he tripped in a shallow creek that he couldn’t see in the dark, falling and splashing in the water with a pained grunt. The angry shouts of the abductors changed direction and came back after him, realizing their mistake. Gully pushed his bag onto his back again and set off running wildly, completely ignoring whatever escape plans he had originally made. The voices behind him separated as he ran; the men were trying to come up on either side of him, trying to flank him. He put on a burst of speed, dangerous in the dark forest, but he would be in far more danger if they overtook him and caught him. He pulled ahead of his pursuers enough to where he thought he might be able to escape, but he tripped yet again, this time on a small bush tangled with wild vines.

Gully began to panic when he heard the two men begin to converge on him. His hand found a fallen limb as he stood, so he grabbed it and began running again, having given away almost all of his lead and with the two men uncomfortably close behind him. He cut to one side, towards a large tree he picked out. At the last second, he ducked behind the trunk of the tree and threw the limb in the other direction. The sound pulled the men away from him and sent them off the wrong way.

His heart beating and a cold sweat covering him from fear, Gully silently ran off in a different direction, choosing a perpendicular route to the men rather than the opposite direction. A moment later, he heard their voices again, now realizing they had lost him and doubling back the way they had come. Gully slowed to be even quieter, to where he was almost walking away from the voices.

After a sufficient distance, rather than continue and risk the men hearing him again and the chase resuming, Gully found a dense stand of buckthorn. He pulled his dark surcoat tight around him, pulled the hood over his head and turned himself into a shadow inside the thick bush. Then he waited, hoping the thunderous beating of his own heart in his chest and the heaving of his breath would not give him away. In his mind, he could see the mouths of the poor victims, black crusted scars where their tongues should have been. Gully shivered at the sight and knew they must have had their tongues cut in only the last few days. The dread and fear at what those two poor men had been through, now running wildly through the forest with no clothing and no aid, made Gully lean over and spit up the wild bear pears and the little bit of greens he had eaten for his dinner earlier.

As he leaned over, emptying his stomach onto the dark floor of the forest, the truth turned even grimmer for him. He sat up on his knees and trembled at the realization, his blood turning cold in his veins.

His mind showed him again the note he had found in veBasstrolle’s bag that spoke of bindings of silver and tongues cut out, and he understood it now. The note wasn’t referring to animals. It was people! They, including the Noblesir Chelders veBasstrolle, were stealing people! They were mutilating them and selling them to Maqara, probably as slaves! Gully desperately wanted to believe that even the most uncaring nobleman would not be so evil towards the citizens of Iisen, but there was no way to avoid the connection. It was too clear. These men by the fire were not highwaymen after all. They were veBasstrolle’s men in disguise, guardsmen almost certainly by the tactics they had used in chasing him. This was being done to the people of Iisen to line veBasstrolle’s pockets with the profits from a slave trade!

This was where people had been disappearing for more years than he had been alive.

What these evil, black-hearted people were doing was almost inconceivable, and now they were chasing after him.

The Domo Regent paced back and forth between the tall, timber-cased windows of veBasstrolle’s private offices. His mouth snarled every few steps and he calculated that in five more round trips of the study, his patience and his visit would be at an end. He glanced out through the windows, the late afternoon sun illuminating the city of East End which sprawled out below the rise that the manor house occupied. Beyond the city was the massive range of the Sheard Mountains farther to the east, clouds gathering and approaching for what looked like a bruising storm.
Perfectly apt
, he thought to himself as the bile boiled further up into his throat. He stopped and laid his hand on the scarlet leather of a high-backed chair for a moment. He counted silently to ten and then turned to leave, unwilling to wait a moment more for the corpulent nobleman to finally grace him with his presence.

Krayell turned on his heels only to see the door of the study swing open and the Noblesir Chelders veBasstrolle himself enter, his round body layered in breeches and expensive leggings, a lavender tunic, a pale gold ruffled doublet covered by an embroidered jerkin. Krayell wondered how the man didn’t sweat himself to death in all the finery within minutes of completing his wardrobe for the day.

Krayell could only force himself to offer the tiniest inkling of a bow in the direction of the head of the veBasstrolle line as he entered his office.

He remarked snidely, “Kind of you to join me, noblesir.”

veBasstrolle threw himself onto a large couch that creaked with the sudden stress and said plaintively, “Oh, you have no idea what today has been! The kitchen is fixing a lamb for dinner, and invariably, the cook gets the gravy too runny. If I don’t see to it myself before dinner, it might as well be a weak broth. What does it take to get them to do it right? It’s as if their minds function above the level of a groundworm only when I’m within thirty paces of them.”

Krayell frowned at the sweating form on the couch as veBasstrolle added, “You know all this well enough — you’re a servant yourself. You are the chamberlain of the Folly, after all.” And then, as if offering a slight consideration, he said, “A highly elevated servant, though.”

Krayell ignored the insult and his eyes darted at the valet that had followed the nobleman in. “I must speak to you about a pressing matter, Chelders. Privately.”

Chelders veBasstrolle waved his hand in the air laconically, without even looking in the direction of the valet. The valet bowed low and scurried from the room before the command could be rescinded or have various errands attached to it.

Chelders grunted as he attempted to sit up more properly on the couch and said, “Oh, I already know the wedding is off, my dear man. The real question is what are
we
going to do—”

Krayell hissed at him to be quiet. He crossed the room quickly to the door through which the valet had exited and peeked beyond it to make sure no one was listening.

Chelders chided him, “I won’t be talked to that way, Krayell. Don’t confuse acting in the place of the king with
being
king, no matter how long you’ve been play-acting. The two are entirely different, and quite frankly, I’m surprised I have to remind you of it.”

Krayell shut the door carefully again, his hand gripping the large iron handle so tightly he felt he would surely snap it off.

“So the news travels even faster than I can with one of the best horses in the kingdom and having just left the prince’s caravan no more than a few hours ago?” asked the Domo.

Chelders chuckled, “My dear, naive man! Nothing in this world travels faster than words of gossip on the tongues of peasants and servants! You can count on it! The account is true, then?”

Krayell, satisfied that they were not being eavesdropped upon, sat himself on the edge of a chair close to the nobleman. “It is true. That sodden fool of a king could have let me know his intentions so I could have prepared the boy, but I suppose that would have been too easy and too obvious. And now those plans are trampled beneath a Belder’s careless feet.”

Chelders seemed genuinely alarmed now. “But, will this interfere with our trade? I’ve come to depend on this income, Krayell! We cannot allow this to end our relations with the Maqarans when we were expecting this marriage to lead to more.”

Krayell bit at his tongue. He was about to have to do something that truly galled him, but it would guarantee veBasstrolle would agree to the alternate plan he would propose. At least the version of it he had specifically tailored for veBasstrolle in the carriage ride from Daum Maqa.

“It
has
interfered,” said Krayell as he stroked the silver beard on his chin. “You were right, Chelders.” The very words burned his tongue like stomach acid.

“Marrying Thaybrill to Quannah was always a timid plan,” continued Krayell, setting the stage a little despite how the words tasted bitter, “born of the necessity of not arousing suspicion after both Colnor’s and Sophrienne’s deaths. But with me acting as Domo Regent in the meantime, we’ve all been able to profit handsomely from the trade of stock with Maqara.” Chelders had always been in favor of simply killing the prince so that he could ascend the throne himself, no matter how ridiculously suspicious it would had been. No matter how, at the time, it would have all been an obvious plot by veBasstrolle to steal the throne, one for which the other, more faithful noble families of the Iisendom would never have stood.

“But I spoke with Azi. The dissolution of the engagement does not impede the demand they have for more slaves. Their appetite for slaves is as strong as ever,” he continued.

Chelders relaxed slightly and said, “That is a relief. I’m glad the boy didn’t ruin
everything
for us.”

Krayell nodded and said, “But we cannot allow the boy to attain the throne without Quannah there to occupy him. We’d never be able to maintain the supply of slaves to Maqara without inviting disaster. And now we find that the next option left to us is more drastic, Chelders, more reckless. I must know if you’re prepared for it as you were in the past.”

Chelders formed an enraptured grin on his face like he smelled the lamb cooking off in the kitchens even from his study. “Say it, Domo! The words are like a balm to me!”

“The Lord Marshal and I will see to it that the prince disappears. Your men will take His Highness and sell him to the Maqarans. Azi seemed interested in having him as a slave since having Thaybrill as a son-in-law is out of the question.”

“Yes,” sang Chelders, eyes closed as he drank the words in.

Even as they were sweet to Chelders, the next words were bitter ones for Krayell to speak, despite their being lies, “You will be king of the Iisendom, noblesir! And we will be free to trade the peasantry to Maqara with impunity if we like.”

“I must say, I like hearing you tell me I was right all along, Krayell!”

“Do not mistake the danger, Chelders! Once we set foot down this path, there is no going back!”

“My dear Domo, I wanted to run as fast as possible down this path years ago! I will finally be king! Just think of it! And I’m sure you’ll be delighted to finally lay down the burden of being Domo Regent. You’ll be able to go back to merely running the Folly! Come to think of it, you’ll be working for me! And it will remind you of your younger, less complicated days! We will all be where we should rightly be with this plan!”

Chelders veBasstrolle had sat up on the edge of the couch, stars in his eyes at the thought of what would soon be his.

He was so caught up in his own fantasizing that Krayell didn’t even bother to disguise the angry flaring of his nostrils at the repulsive prospect of working for the lout.

Krayell said, “Send two of your guards with me, ones that are trusted to deal with transporting slaves and trading with the Maqarans. Soon, the Lord Marshal and I will arrange for the prince to disappear and your men will take him to the woods to... prepare him... for the trade. Once his mouth has healed sufficiently, they will take him into Maqara to sell him to Azi.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Chelders, happy to hear the specifics.

“Now, the next part is critical,” said the Domo Regent. “As soon as the prince disappears, there must be a huge uproar in the kingdom over it. I will ensure that virtually all of the Kingdom Guard in Lohrdanwuld is involved in searching for the crown prince, sparing no effort to recover him. Lord Marshal Jahnstlerr will also direct your Fief Guard to join in the search, directing them away from the South Pass. It is critical that we make this effort believable, sending out the Guard to search for the prince more times than merely what it takes to sneak him through the South Pass. Is it perfectly clear, Chelders, that you
must
send your battalion wherever we direct, whenever we demand it, to make the recovery efforts believable?”

“Of course,” said Chelders, barely listening while his mind still daydreamed of the throne.

Krayell repeated, “Again, Chelders, it is
critical
that you send your battalion off wherever we request, whenever we request that you do so. You understand that completely, yes?”

“Yes, yes, yes, Krayell,” said Chelders, losing his patience at being forced to dwell on trivial details. “I’ll send them on whatever goose-chases you think up if it will make it all convincing. I’ll even shout the loudest of all the noble families, demanding we spare no effort at recovering our beloved Prince Thaybrill!”