The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) (23 page)

Leading the way, Magnus rushed from the meeting room and vaulted down the stairs, Lucius and Ambrose in tow, where another thief directed him to one of the rooms used as sleeping quarters. Trotting behind Magnus, Lucius entered the room and gasped.

Tiny though the room was a dozen thieves were gathered in a tightly packed mass that they had to push their way through, some only relinquishing their place when they saw it was Magnus who had entered. Lying on the bed, its sheets already soaked through with his blood, was Caradoc. Helmut, a thief from Vosburg who was versed in some of the arts of healing, was tending to him, fussing over a crossbow bolt that jutted from the lieutenant’s shoulder. Writhing in pain, Caradoc looked up at Magnus as he entered.

“Caught me on Ring Street,” he gasped. “Tried to kill me.”

“Would have done too, but for another three inches to the left,” Helmut muttered to no one in particular.

“Who?” Magnus said, leaning over the bed to catch Caradoc’s words.

“Didn’t see,” he said. “Too dark. But... Guild. Has to be... the Guild. They’ve broken the truce.”

Magnus frowned at that, then laid a hand on Helmut’s shoulder. “Can you help him?”

The Vos man looked at his patient as he thought. “We need to remove that bolt, and that won’t be pleasant. But if he makes it through this evening, I think he will be just fine. So long as no poison was used, of course.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Magnus said quietly to Caradoc. “We’ll find who did this.”

“Guild...” Caradoc started to say again, but Magnus hushed him.

“We’ll find them,” he promised again.

As Magnus left the small, overcrowded room, he pulled Lucius to one side.

“You think it was the Guild?” Lucius asked when they were out of earshot of the others.

“What I am thinking is whether there is a connection between the attack on Caradoc and what happened with you down at the docks.” Magnus said, rubbing his chin in thought. “The timing is... too much of a coincidence.”

“But if we assume that, then we have to also assume the Guild have new allies in these creatures.”

“And that, Lucius, is what really worries me. It is just too incredible to believe. Damn it! We need answers, we cannot carry on operating blind like this. We need to reach out to our contacts outside of the Hands. I have a few ideas on who we can talk to, but it will take time to set things up. You are Turnitia born and bred – do you have anyone on the outside who can help us?”

The image of Adrianna and Forbeck flashed through his mind.

“There may be someone,” Lucius said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

S
TANDING IN THE
centre of the warehouse that had been used for his training, Lucius eyed the scorch marks on the floor ruefully, the evidence of another session that had ended in failure. He had not been able to practice the steering of the flame globes as much as Forbeck had wished for, and he had been chided for it. The Master of Shadows had insisted he try the exercise himself in his own time, but with the events within the Hands of late, that had not been possible.

A tickling at the back of his mind signalled a presence behind him and he whirled round to see Adrianna stalking out of the shadows, her pace measured and confident.

“Well, your training is having at least some effect, I see,” she said. “You can now sense the presence of another Shadowmage within, oh, at least twenty yards.”

“At least you came.”

“It is not often I receive a summons, least of all from you. I was mildly curious.”

“I’m glad to see it worked,” he said. Lucius had been curious as to Forbeck’s ability to sound an alarm in his mind from half-way across the city, and had tried to do the same for Adrianna, concentrating on her disdainful face and willing her to him through the threads of power.

“It was faint, but I sensed it. You need improvement.”

Her remark was no surprise to Lucius, for he never expected an easy compliment from her.

“As it happens, I wanted to see you as well,” she continued.

“Oh?”

“I have a contract, one that may bring us into conflict. By the terms of the Shadowmage charter, I must inform you of this and find a resolution between us.”

He rolled his eyes. “Which, I presume, is Shadowmage language for ‘stay out of my way’?”

“As you say.” She shrugged.

Sighing, Lucius shook his head, then a thought struck him.

“You’ve been contracted by the Guild of Coin and Enterprise, haven’t you?”

“My employers are making some aggressive moves in the city, and you are within their chief target. I recommend you leave the Night Hands and find a more stable contract. Forbeck can help you out there. I might be able to put a word in with my current employers too, if necessary.”

“It’s not going to be that easy, Aidy,” Lucius said, a smile beginning to flicker on his lips. “Your current employers are scum, and I will do everything I can to bring them down.”

“I cannot force you to do one thing or another,” Adrianna said. “But I would advise you to remember the oath you took.”

“I’m not going to attack you, Aidy.”

“It is likely that our current employers will force the issue, one way or another.”

Adrianna’s inhuman attitude was beginning to grate on his nerves once again, and he marvelled at how little time was needed in her presence before anger flared. He briefly wondered whether he was alone in his constant head-butting with her, or if it was common in everyone she met.

“It was the Guild who drew first blood, Aidy,” he said, letting himself ride the wave of anger she had sparked. “There was a truce between us, the city had been carved up – there was an agreement.”

She shook her head carelessly. “That is not my concern. The accord has been broken, and my specific role is to ensure my employer is victorious in the struggle ahead.”

“And your contract is all you care about? There are good men within the Hands, Aidy, they don’t deserve this. The Guild is full of cold-blooded killers.”

“While the thieves of the Hands are entirely honourable? Don’t kid yourself.”

“The Hands are not the ones allying themselves to devils from the sea.”

That checked her, Lucius saw, and her scorn was replaced by a puzzled expression.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re telling me you weren’t there at the docks? Yesterday evening?”

Adrianna frowned, and Lucius was at least gratified to see her stumble when someone was accusing her for a change.

“Lucius, I swear to you, I have not been directly involved in any of the Guild’s operations around the docks. I know they want to take that territory away from the Hands, and I know they planned an ambush there last night, but I had nothing to do with it. I am contracted for specific... duties, no more.”

“It was my operation they ambushed.”

She looked him up and down briefly. “You seem to have survived.”

“Oh, I did, but many of the men I took with me didn’t. Do you have any idea who the Guild is dealing with these days? I’m telling you, they have an alliance with something truly evil.”

“I’m sure you are exaggerating.”

“Really?” he said, moving onto the attack. “Scales, bulging eyes, webbed claws. Hordes of them, Aidy, coming from the sea to tear us apart – and I mean,
tear
us apart. They killed most of us within minutes, and damn well nearly got me.”

Her next words were slow in coming, as she chose them carefully. “Assuming you are not making this up, I have no idea what you are talking about – truly. That the Guild was planning to disrupt the operations of the Hands on the docks as a prelude to taking them over is all I am aware of. I... I can talk to Master Forbeck, perhaps he knows what you are speaking of.”

“Well, that’s something,” Lucius muttered.

“But if you are right, Lucius, you need to be careful. The Guild is not messing around this time, they want the Hands gone. Smashed, broken, the members either dead, fleeing from the city, or on their side. And they can do it. They have the power and the determination. That is not something you want to be caught in the middle of.”

He suppressed a smile. “Well, at least you can spare a thought for me.”

Adrianna closed the distance between them in a single long stride and jabbed a finger, painfully, into his chest.

“What I want, Lucius, is for you to go,” she said adamantly. “To leave this city, to disappear. What I want to avoid is breaking my oath to the Shadowmages. I will be on the front line in this fight, and woe betide anyone who stands between me and the completion of the contract.”

Spinning on a heel, she stalked away, their meeting clearly at an end.

“Well, just ask yourself this, Aidy,” Lucius shouted at her retreating back. “If the Guild are capable enough to hire a Shadowmage when most people haven’t even heard of us, who or what else have they employed, eh? Do you even know what you are fighting for? Just which one of us is the mercenary here?”

His voice still echoing through the empty warehouse, Lucius cursed the shadows into which Adrianna had disappeared. He had known he would not find a friend in her stern glare, but had hoped to discover at least an ally.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HERE WERE NO
smiles among the Council or the senior thieves surrounding the table in the meeting room. Too many deaths had taken place within the Night Hands, and more than a few were thinking about Caradoc. After all, if someone could strike at the lieutenant of the Hands, how safe were the rest of them when they left the guildhouse?

Various theories had been put forward by Council members as to what was happening and who was responsible, but while few doubted the Guild’s involvement, Magnus kept demanding proof. With none of the Council able to provide anything more than rumour, he turned to Lucius.

Lucius was acutely aware that all eyes in the room were now focussed on him, and that not all were waiting for his explanation. He was still, officially, a low-ranking thief within the Hands, and though he had not yet been made a senior, many had taken note of Magnus’ obvious favouritism toward him. It was breeding jealousy, he knew, and Lucius was distinctly conscious of being part of an organisation whose members, while overtly supporting one another, were just as likely to settle a difference or imagined slight with a knife in the back.

He cleared his throat as he marshalled his thoughts.

“The Council is correct – the truce has been broken,” Lucius said to them all. He hoped that by affirming the Council’s thoughts, he might find a friend amongst them or, at least, make it look as though he were paying his proper respects and not trying to subvert anyone’s position. It was a small gesture, but he knew that when the danger to the Hands was over, differences would be settled one way or another.

“Our operation on the docks was disrupted at the Guild’s instigation,” he continued. “And they orchestrated the attack on Caradoc, though I have no information on who exactly was responsible.”

“So it could just be a few troublemakers in the Guild?” asked Nate.

“It hardly matters,” said Elaine, a tall middle-aged woman who controlled the Hands’ concerns around the docks. It had been she who had provided Lucius with information on the
Allantian
Voyager
from her paid contacts among the dockmasters. “Whether it is just a few or the whole Guild, we are still under attack and we must defend ourselves.”

This raised some murmurs of assent from the table.

“Where did you get this information, Lucius?” asked Nate.

Lucius hesitated. “I cannot say,” he said and inwardly winced as a collective look of contempt swept the table, but it was halted by Magnus’ raised hand.

“He does not need to say. Lucius, for now, has my trust,” he said.
That
would create a few enemies, Lucius thought.

“Could he be mistaken?” Elaine asked. “There is always the possibility of another player coming into the city, and starting a war between the existing powers is a good way of getting a foothold. Divide and conquer.”

“We use the information we have,” Magnus said. “I won’t have us jumping at shadows.”