Angel's Deceit (Angelwar Book 2) Read online

  Footsteps were pounding the street behind him as Tol jinked left, one palm slapping off the alley’s narrow wall as he fought to control his balance. At least one man, he realised as the footsteps behind him continued. He raced out of the alley, veering right onto another broad avenue which was leading him steadily away from the city’s centre towards the outer wall. Tol risked a glance back, and saw two men sprinting out of the alley after him. Not good.

  He carried on, eyes darting left, looking for a side-street that would lead him back towards the river. Have to get off the main road. Stay on it too long and the city watch would find him in minutes.

  There!

  Tol angled towards the alley’s entrance, a tiny little gap between two estates, and threw himself between the two high walls. The guards were catching up now, only a dozen yards behind as Tol’s earlier exertions began to tell.

  I’m not going to make it.

  He reached the mouth of the alley, fingers unsheathing his other knife. It wasn’t weighted for throwing, but Tol had practiced, and if you knew a knife well enough you could make it behave. He twisted from the waist as he exited the alley and hurled the dagger back towards his pursuers, aiming for the leading guard’s thighs. There was no time to see if it struck, but as Tol resumed his run he heard the man clatter to the ground. Probably not fatal, but it would slow down the man behind him and maybe give Tol a chance to lose him before he reached his destination.

  The road opened into one of the district’s main avenues, and Tol swung left towards the river. The last guard was still behind him, and Tol realised he wouldn’t shake him before reaching the boat. He reached the junction at the end of the avenue, swinging left and trying to make out the estates on his right. Behind them lay the river and escape, but only if Tol could remember the right one.

  A dozen estates passed by, their shapes so similar that Tol thought he’d never recognise the one he and Kartane had come out of. It must be one of these. Half a dozen more passed by as heavy footsteps hounded Tol. There! A small tree next to the front wall. That’s the one.

  He vaulted over the low wall and raced towards the furthest corner of the manor house. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the guard following, twenty feet behind as Tol ran around the side of the building. Kartane had better be here.

  Tol came out into the rear garden – no guards in this lord’s property – and put on a last burst of pace as he spied a dark shape bobbing up and down on the river. Something brushed past Tol’s cheek, and a moment later the heavy thump of a guard falling echoed from behind like distant thunder. Tol covered the last twenty yards, slithering down the bank and stumbling into the boat – his momentum nearly taking him onward and into the river.

  He teetered there for a moment, wobbling as the boat rocked. A firm hand grabbed him, steadied him.

  ‘Idiot.’

  Kartane let go, and the two of them both dropped to their rumps, pushing the boat away from the bank in unison. Tol rested his arms on his knees, panting heavily and trying to catch his breath. ‘Not dead,’ he wheezed.

  ‘Think of it as temporary,’ Kartane grunted quietly, focusing on paddling silently. He didn’t seem impressed with Tol’s escape from Borleia’s estate. Can’t say I blame him, Tol thought. I shouldn’t have forgotten that guard. All in all, he had been lucky. Tol looked up, and realised what had been bothering him.

  ‘We’re going the wrong way.’

  Kartane looked at Tol like he was simple, and carried on paddling with the single oar.

  ‘There’s still Drayken to deal with,’ Tol said. ‘We have to go back.’

  ‘No time,’ Kartane said bluntly. ‘’Less you think a dawn assault’s a good thing? ’Cause it’ll be light by the time you get there.’ He spared Tol a withering glance. ‘Dead men can’t kill. Now shut up, the bridge is coming up.’

  Kartane put up his oar and let the current take them back under the bridge and towards the bay. Once they had passed safely beyond, Kartane guided them west and south around the bay towards the docks and the poor district. Tol sulked in silence, stewing over his predicament. Two of the three lords were now dead, but if he didn’t reach Fel Drayken soon then the security would get even tighter – and it was already enough to make Tol think that killing the traitor would be a one-way trip. More guards – and alert ones, certain their lord would be next – made a difficult proposition near impossible, and even with Kartane at his side Tol doubted they could reach Drayken, kill him and then escape with their skins intact.

  Kartane guided the boat to a small quay, tying it up at the end of a long row of identical boats, laid out side-by-side like a series of pier planks.

  ‘Ain’t your fault, lad,’ he said as his fingers worked the rope. ‘Difficult job for any knight.’

  Tol grabbed the neighbouring boat and held them steady against it as Kartane – drunk fingers ill-suited for the task – continued fiddling with the rope. ‘Drayken will know. Tomorrow he’ll have twice the guards, and they’ll be expecting us. It has to be tonight.’

  Kartane finished the knot, rising to a crouch and clambering onto the next boat. ‘We go tonight, we die,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It’s that simple.’

  Tol clambered over beside him, Kartane’s slender fingers digging into his shoulder. ‘Don’t go it alone, boy,’ Kartane warned him. ‘We do it tomorrow night, and we do it properly.’ He climbed over to the next boat and turned back, a smile on his lips. ‘Besides, it ain’t that simple. Only a fool would do the most predictable thing and try tomorrow, right?’ Kartane hopped over to the next boat, and Tol followed in his wake, the pair leapfrogging from one to the next.

  ‘Yeah, really stupid,’ Tol replied.

  ‘And you killed two lords in their own homes, which shows you aren’t entirely stupid. Mad, maybe, but not stupid.’ There were only a few more boats to cross to reach the quay now. ‘So maybe they’ll start thinking “Well, that’s such a dumb move that this fellow who killed the others isn’t going to try it.”’ Kartane stepped onto the quay, turning around and helping Tol onto the dry land. ‘Sometimes,’ Kartane said, ‘doing the stupidest thing you can think of is real smart, so that’s what we’re going to do.’ He gave Tol a hard look, his grip tightening. ‘And we’re going to do it tomorrow.’ He released Tol’s arm, and grinned broadly. ‘Fortunately, I don’t think they realise how utterly stupid you are, so with a bit of luck this might even work.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  Kartane shrugged. ‘Then I guess we’ll end up like those two lords.’

  *

  The door opened soundlessly, and Tol found himself staring at the innkeeper’s sour face, a huge scowl plastered across it.

  ‘You’re lucky the lady asked me to wait for you,’ she said, pulling the door open wide and stepping back. ‘Else you’d be sleeping in the streets tonight.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tol muttered. He stepped over the threshold, and turned his head towards her as he entered the inn. ‘I got held up.’

  He saw her expression change, an O of surprise birthed, and heard the soft tap of a footstep on the cobbles. Tol spun, instinctively shoving the scrawny innkeeper aside. She stumbled sideways as a dark shape barrelled into the inn, a gleaming dagger brushing Tol’s arm as it filled the space where the innkeeper had been a moment earlier. They were practically touching as the intruder lunged past, and Tol shifted his weight, right foot snapping out to lash at the man’s knee. His right hand followed through with a punch that caught the man’s temple as he came crashing past.

  Another man rushed in behind him, but Tol was already in motion, the arcing swing of his punch bringing his hand back to where Illis’Andiev nestled against his hip. The sword came free as the second assassin crossed the threshold, hesitating for a moment as he realised he faced several feet of steel. The upward swing of Illis’Andiev lanced across the man’s chest as Tol’s left hand joined his right on the hilt, reversing the swing and bringing his full strength into the stroke.


  The assassin collapsed, a gaping canyon etched in his chest. Tol turned to face the first man, and felt the room tilt. He blinked, saw the dazed assassin staggering to his feet.

  Practicality over honour.

  Illis’Andiev flicked out, severing the man’s jugular and cutting deep into his neck. Tol blinked. He glanced at the entrance, but all was quiet and nobody else rushed in. Just the two of them, then.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  The innkeeper’s voice sounded far away and as Tol looked up his vision blurred. A dull thud sounded and he tried to follow her gaze. Something long and shiny was lying between them on the floor, a dark stain at its tip.

  Something’s wrong.

  Tol ran a stranger’s hands over his body, but couldn’t find any holes, and nothing hurt except his arm. He held up the offending limb and stared at the hole in his sleeve. It’s just a scratch. His gaze bobbed erratically down to the floor and he noticed the faint sheen of something coating the assassin’s dagger. Tol wobbled unsteadily, the realisation slowly dawning in his sluggish mind.

  Oh.

  The floor came rushing up to meet him.

  27.

  Katarina awoke to a pounding at the door, the hissing whisper of her name that accompanied it redundant, and nearly drowned out by the frantic tattoo.

  Estella, she realised as she hurled back the sheets and stumbled out of bed. She snagged a nightgown – more summer-wear than early spring but it was the closest to hand – and slipped her arms through the sleeves as the knocking stopped. A moment later it began anew.

  ‘I’m coming,’ she snapped at the door, removing the dagger from under her pillow.

  ‘Hurry,’ the innkeeper hissed outside.

  Katarina crossed the room in seconds, fumbling to adjust her gown at the same time as drawing the dagger. She yanked the door open, all thoughts of castigating the innkeeper disappearing as she saw the expression on the woman’s pale face.

  ‘Come quickly,’ Estella said. ‘He’s hurt.’

  The innkeeper hurried towards the stairs, and Katarina followed in her wake. I give the man one simple task, she thought, board a ship and make sure they deliver a message to Father. Is that so much to ask? She shook herself; Stetch, for all his many and varied flaws, was beyond competent in a fight – fair or otherwise – and if someone had injured him… Katarina shivered. It was the middle-of-the-night cold, really, not the blossoming of fear, she told herself. She drew herself upright, forced one foot in front of the other and trundled down the stairs behind Estella.

  He said morning, she remembered as they reached the ground floor and Estella jittered towards the inn’s entrance. He shouldn’t be back yet…

  There were bodies on the floor, she saw as Estella slowed to a halt; bodies and a rich claret pool.

  ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  Katarina took a deep breath and stepped around the innkeeper. Two intruders, definitively dead; a weapon naked on the floor; and a body. She stepped closer towards the third body, realised it wasn’t Stetch at all – his hair was far too light and the man’s build was all wrong. Wrong, but familiar. The butterflies returned as Katarina knelt down, ignoring the sticky dampness that wrapped itself around her knee. He was face down, and Estella was between the room’s lone candle and him, but the solid body – bloody and dirty – was familiar. Katarina reached down, grunting with effort as she rolled the body onto its back.

  ‘I can’t see,’ she snapped at the innkeeper, a brisk slapping gesture chivvying the woman aside. The candle flame flickered, crazy shadows stretching, then snapped back, the face on the floor slowly resolving itself into a shape she recognised.

  ‘Steven!’

  His eyes opened, heavy-lidded, as thunder roared down the stairs and stormed across the inn to join them. A trace of a smile twisted his mouth as he peered up at Katarina with unfocused eyes. ‘Kalashadria?’

  ‘Idiot,’ she muttered as Steven’s eyes closed. She ran her hands over his torso, feeling for injuries but finding nothing serious enough to topple him.

  ‘Is he alive?’

  That childhood friend of his had joined them, running over and dropping to the sticky floor beside Katarina. ‘What happened?’

  Katarina ignored the woman, instead concentrating on Steven and the search for his wound. His body was surprisingly firm, even unconscious. Rugged, too, Katarina realised as her fingertips began to trace the tiny ridges of old scars. He was breathing still, his chest rising and falling erratically. Not dead, she thought, but not far from it.

  ‘He’s alive for now,’ Katarina told Vixen. She looked back to the innkeeper. ‘What happened?’

  The innkeeper swallowed. ‘He saved my life.’

  Estella sounded like she couldn’t quite believe it, but that was just because she didn’t really know him. Katarina nodded. ‘He does that,’ she said. ‘Even when it isn’t wise. Tell me everything.’

  ‘I let him in,’ Estella said after moment, her body trembling. ‘Then someone charged through after him. He slashed at me, but your friend shoved him out of the way, knocked him down. Another came in, and the northerner drew his sword and killed him, then finished off the first one. He… he fought like one of the Sworn.’ The innkeeper took a deep breath, and something of a Sworn man’s wife showed itself. ‘He fell after they were down. The knife that came at me, that might have brushed him, but neither man landed a solid strike.’

  Poison. That was the only thing that made any sense. ‘Get some more candles,’ Katarina told Estella, ‘we need light.’ She searched the long wavering shadows around the corpses as Vixen held Steven’s limp hand, kneeling over him like she was going to protect him. Stupid, Katarina thought as her eyes roamed the floor. Unless we can work out which poison was used, he’s as good as dead. It was the truth – Katarina knew it - but she wished it was otherwise. A frustrating, stubborn man, but one with a good heart. There!

  She reached over towards one of the corpses, left palm landing in something wet and sticky. She picked up the dagger carefully, held it up to the wan candlelight. There was a faint sheen around the edge and tip. Poison.

  Katarina picked it up carefully and sniffed, the aroma unmistakable.

  ‘Poison?’ Vixen asked, her voice rough and unsteady. ‘Which one? How do we counter it?’

  Katarina put the dagger back on the floor and closed her eyes. ‘Hanwell root.’ She heard the innkeeper gasp; Estella knew what it meant. Vixen’s eyes were pleading for good news, news Katarina couldn’t give. ‘There’s no cure,’ she said quietly. ‘and it’s nearly always fatal.’

  ‘There… there must be something we can do.’

  The two women were looking to her for guidance now, both stunned. ‘We will take him up to his room,’ Katarina told them. ‘Then you two will take the bodies out back and dump them in the river.’

  Estella scowled. ‘I don’t like this, val Sharvina. This isn’t my mess.’

  ‘It is now. He saved your life; the least you can do is make sure it isn’t for nothing. And it’s Lady val Sharvina to you.’ Katarina turned her attention to Steven’s friend. ‘There’s no cure for hanwell root, but a few survive. We will take Steven up to his room and I’ll do what I can for him; the rest will depend on making sure no-one else comes after him – and dead bodies on the floor will bring half the watch running.’

  Vixen nodded sharply, grabbing Estella by the arm and dragging her close. ‘We’re going to take Tol upstairs then you’re going to help me get rid of those bodies. If you don’t’ – Katarina saw Estella wince as Vixen’s fingers dug deeper into her arm – ‘then you’ll be joining them.’ The blonde warrior towered over the innkeeper, her eyes flint-hard. ‘You got a problem with that?’

  *

  You foolish, foolish boy.

  Katarina stomped back up the stairs, an unopened bottle of brandy in her angry hands. I tried to warn you that the cause comes first, that everything else is secondary to the mission before you, but you had to go and play the her
o. She shook her head as she walked along the landing. So you saved some stupid Meracian woman, and look where it got you: hunted down by a powerful lord’s assassins. Katarina slipped into his room and closed the door behind her, anger rising as she strode over to the limp form on the bed. Two of them – only two! You damned stupid man. The only thing worse than Steven’s initial stupidity was the stubbornness that accompanied it. The idiot had saved Estella – not realising that Meracian assassins favoured poisoned blades. Why? She was nothing but rude and surly, yet still you saved her. A bitter, broken woman who turned her back on her own country. You should have let her die.

  Katarina sat down on the bed next to Steven. She uncorked the brandy with her teeth and picked up a clean shirt she had brought. I hope you appreciate this, Steven. I do not dismantle my wardrobe for just anyone. A single controlled breath expelled the cork, the projectile plopping onto the bed next to Steven’s knee as the scent of home wafted out of the bottle. She placed the bottle on the bedside table and stared one last time at the green cotton shirt. It was the shirt, Katarina remembered, that she had been wearing on the day she left home, bound for Norve with another surly, troublesome man. Goodbye, old friend. She ripped the fabric into strips then began soaking it in the brandy.

  ‘This is going to hurt,’ she said as she widened the tear in Steven’s sleeve.

  ‘It serves you right.’

  Steven’s body twitched as the brandy touched the wound, but his eyes didn’t open. Katarina dabbed at the wound again, but this time his body remained still.

  ‘You have to wake up,’ she told him as she began scrubbing the wound. ‘I need to tell you how stupid you were in saving that innkeeper. So you need to wake up. You need to get well.’