The screams echoed nearer as Jusson walked to Laurel’s side. “The sorcerer that attacked Rabbit during the play?” he asked the Faena.
“His minions, honored king,” Laurel replied, flexing his claws.
“Minions,” Jusson repeated. “Coming down that alleyway?”
“Even as we speak.”
“Good,” Jusson said. “I want to meet them. Badly.”
Under Thadro and Ebner’s direction, royal guards and troopers moved in front, creating a barrier that was three and four bodies thick. I remained behind them, more than happy to let others be first in line. Jeff and Arlis stayed with me, as did several from the Mountain Patrol. All hell had broken loose the last time Suiden let me out of his sight and I figured that he wasn’t about to do so again. Beollan and Ranulf also seemed to have had enough excitement and took up stances next to us, the space around the naked lord and his uncle widening. Wyln stayed with me too, though it seemed that was more because he was still distrustful of Laurel than because of any desire for a peaceful life. However, both Dyfrig and Chadde went to the front, the peacekeeper also deploying her watchmen, bunching them up near the street’s mouth.
The screams grew louder and a moment later Gawell and Ednoth careened out of the alleyway.
Jusson sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
Ebner’s mustache points rose further. “They’re sorcerers?” he asked, incredulous.
“Stooges, honored commander,” Laurel said. “Though Gawell does have the talent in some measure.”
The mayor and head merchant showed more wear and tear than when they’d left the town hall portico: Ednoth’s coat was torn and his trousers were ripped at one knee, while several of the tiny jewels were missing from Gawell’s smeared and stained robe. The mayor still wore the sunburst medallion, though, and it bounced on his belly as he ran. They both came to a halt as they saw us, their terror changing to bone-melting relief, the drying blood on Gawell’s face crusty red against the pallor of his skin.
“Oh, thank God,” Gawell said, blubbering. He ran to Dyfrig, his wet and begrimed shoes slapping against the paving stones, his gloved hands clutching at the doyen’s robes. “Thank God you’re here!”
Dyfrig gently pushed Gawell away. “Why? Didn’t you declare me a false doyen?”
“We were wrong,” Ednoth said, also grabbing at the doyen. “Where’s your chest of blessings? We need blessed water. That’ll stop it. Or fire. Light the holy fire, quick!”
“Stop what?” Jusson asked, mildly curious. There was a sound of uneven footsteps approaching and something flashed white in the shadowed alleyway opening. Then the head jailer, Menck, lurched into view.
“That,” Laurel said over the gasps of the troopers and the tired groans of everyone else.
The banishment of the demon hadn’t affected whatever animated the dead man and, recalling the faces I’d seen in the sea, I realized Menck’s hadn’t been one of them. The jailer’s corpse was still naked and the ritual wounds on its chest were frozen, glittering bright red against its fish-belly-white skin and the thin burn lines from the wardings. It paused for a moment, its head jerkily turning until it found Gawell and Ednoth, and it resumed its leering lurch towards the merchant and the mayor.
Crying out, Ednoth and Gawell did their best to dive into the crowd, but none were in the mood to let either hide behind them, and the thin merchant bounced just as far off the solid wall of bodies as the rotund mayor did. Both stumbled back into the small clearing with the dead jailer staggering towards them.
“But neither of them can be the sorcerer,” I said from where I stood with Wyln and my mates. “I broke the wrist of the one that tried to bind me.”
“They’re stooges, Rabbit,” Laurel repeated. “Remember? Tools?”
I scowled at the Faena. Even dead he’d been eavesdropping on on my conversations.
“They already have the entire valley in their pocket,” Ebner said as he watched Gawell and Ednoth skitter around the clearing, the revenant on their tails. “And most of the mountain villages too. Why risk excommunication and a witch’s death?”
“The same reason why anyone does, honored commander,” Laurel said. “They wanted more. In their case, a kingdom was dangled before them.”
“And they believed that they could have it?” Jusson asked. “How stupid. Who dangled—”
“Save us!” Gawell screamed, not caring that he interrupted the king.
“You created it, kinslayer,” Laurel growled as the mayor and head merchant once again dodged the corpse. “You get rid of it.”
“I see,” Jusson said into the sudden silence.
“Menck always was an embarrassment to his cousin the mayor, sire,” Chadde said, “even as the mayor found Menck’s uncouth connections useful.”
“It wasn’t me,” Ednoth said, quickly separating himself from his life-long friend. “I had nothing to do with killing Menck.”
“You had everything to do with it, buyer and seller of lives,” Laurel said. “You helped lure the jailer to the warehouse, you stood by as he was murdered and you directed the disposal of the body afterwards.”
“Laurel suddenly knows much about events he took no part in,” Wyln murmured to me, a line between his brows.
“Probably eavesdropped on them,” I muttered back.
“He chose to dump it in their cohort’s backyard?” Thadro asked, watching the corpse waver between Gawell and Ednoth. “That wasn’t wise.”
“Who would associate the mayor and the head merchant with the owner of a seedy tavern?” Chadde asked back.
“You did, Keeper of my Peace,” Jusson pointed out.
“But no one was paying any attention to me, sire,” Chadde said. “Ednoth and friends probably thought that it would be assumed that Menck fell afoul of the Pig’s equally seedy patrons. Which it would have, if Master Laurel Faena hadn’t been here to examine the corpse.”
“The best-laid plans going sideways,” Jusson remarked. “Still, we cannot allow this abomination to kill people while we watch, no matter how despicable they are.”
“I don’t see why not, honored king,” Laurel said. “In the Border we let those who engage in the dark arts reap the consequences of their actions. As a salutary lesson.”
His mustache now flat against his cheeks, Ebner muttered something about how Gawell should reap the whole blooming harvest and eat it too, while Javes, Suiden and the rest of the troopers watched bright-eyed as Menck chose to lurch after the mayor. The garrison didn’t seem any more inclined to help his honor than the townspeople were.
That was left to the king. “This is not the Border,” Jusson said, drawing his sword. “And however poetic it might be to let Gawell and Ednoth suffer justice from one they betrayed and murdered, heaven knows who it’ll go after next. It’s better to destroy it now while it’s focused on one of them. Then we can focus on who has been so free and easy with my kingdom.”
Thadro also drew his sword. “You heard His Majesty, people. Let’s go—not you, Rabbit,” he added as I began to move towards the clearing. His face briefly flickered before smoothing out. “You’ve done enough.”
Faced with a direct command, the garrison troopers followed the Own and Thadro towards the revenant. Not to be left out, so did the aristos and their armsmen, though Beollan headed in a slightly different direction. Slipping around Menck, he went to the sobbing Gawell.
“This way, Mayor,” Beollan said, taking Gawell’s arm. But he immediately snatched his hand back, his silver eyes wide. “What the flaming hell is that?”
Gawell’s pale face flushed purple, the hue clashing with the dried blood, and he backed away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”