Oh, Caids. I know that look. She’d seen it on Parno Lionsmane’s face when he looked at Dhulyn Wolfshead. She’d wanted someone to look at her that way. The blood hammered in her ears and her hands shook, even as a small flower of joy bloomed under her heart.
“We can’t go on like this much longer,” Mar said, keeping her eyes on the ties to her pack, the knowledge of what she’d seen on Gundaron’s face too new, too fresh to acknowledge. “Money’s not all we can run out of. So far we’ve been lucky, no one’s cared enough about us to steal from us or to turn us in, but how long will that last?” She groped into her pack for the metal cup they shared. “We need help, and we need it soon.”
“It’s a judgment on us,” Gun said.
Mar’s hand stilled. “What do you mean?”
“We’re surrounded by people we can’t trust,” he said, looking up from the small lamp he was refilling with the last of their scrounged oil. “Maybe it’s because we can’t be trusted.”
“I’m trusting you,” she said, touching his forearm lightly with her fingertips. It felt just as hard as the metal cup in her other hand. “And you’re trusting me. And… we were used by the people we did trust, both of us,” she added. “That makes a difference.”
Gundaron rubbed his face with both hands, the corners of his mouth turned down. “I don’t think the Mercenary Brotherhood are going to feel that way about me.”
Mar pressed her lips together. She did trust him, just as he trusted her. And yet there was still something Gun wasn’t telling her. What could be worse than what she’d done, betraying people who had saved her life? Maybe it was because she hadn’t read the stories Gun had, maybe it was because she’d spent so much time with the Mercenaries, but she honestly didn’t believe she or Gun were in any danger from the Curse of Pasillon.
“Gun,” she said finally, handing him the cup. “Maybe we should try to get out of the city.”
He looked at her, their fingers touching on the cold metal of the cup. “But you wanted to tell them, the Wolfshead, I mean, and Lionsmane.”
She nodded, lower lip caught between her teeth. “We’ve been sent away from Mercenary House twice now,” she said. “What if we don’t get a chance to tell them?”
“Tell them what, Lady Mar?”
Interesting, Karlyn thought once the cup had been picked up and they’d made room for him in the only corner high enough to let them all sit upright. They’d dropped the only thing that they might possibly have used as a weapon, to cling to each other. He wondered if they’d realized it themselves. Judging from the way they carefully avoided touching in the confined space, Karlyn rather thought they had.
Like anyone who’d commanded troops, he was a good judge of character. The girl looked nervous, he thought, and a little too pale. But her jaw was firm, and her mouth a resolute line. She was tougher than her noble birth and her town fostering might lead some to believe. After all, she’d come over the Antedichas Mountains with two Mercenaries, met the Cloud People, and lived to tell of it-not to mention surviving those particular four days in Tenebro House. Karlyn looked to the Scholar.
Though he was a few years older than Mar-eMar, Gundaron was likely the younger in experience-that being the trouble with book learning. The boy was frankly terrified, in Karlyn’s opinion. Where the girl was pale, the boy was white-faced; where she was firm and resolute, he held himself so stiffly he had a slight tremor in his hands. And he blinked too much. But for all that, Karlyn thought, impressed almost against his will, Gundaron was keeping his fear firmly in check. What could have frightened him so badly? This was the first real emotion Karlyn had ever seen in the boy. What had woken him from his Scholar’s daydream? Was it the girl? Or something more sinister?
“We didn’t harm the House,” Lady Mar said, breaking into his thoughts. “I know you have no reason to believe us, but we didn’t.”
“Perhaps I have no reason,” Karlyn said, “but I believe you. What decided you to leave when you did?”
Lady Mar took a deep breath. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d arrived with the Mercenary brothers, now much creased and dirty. But she seemed not to notice any discomfort. “I’d been used,” she said, a bitter twist to her mouth. “I didn’t know how badly just at first. I knew I’d been lied to, though, and I couldn’t stay where there was no one I could trust.”
Tough, all right. Tougher than some other cousins of the House he could name. Karlyn turned to Gundaron. The Scholar clamped his jaw, not like someone determined not to speak, Karlyn thought, but like someone who expected the words to burn on their way out. The Lady Mar put her dust-grimed hand on the Scholar’s arm.
“I know you have no reason to believe me,” Karlyn said, deliberately echoing Mar-eMar’s words. “But you can trust me. I did not choose to leave Tenebro House, I have been Cast Out for refusing to hunt for Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane. I believe we are allies.” The two youngsters glanced at each other before looking back at him. Was there hope in their eyes? “What is this you were saying about Mercenary House,” he asked them.
“We’ve amends to make,” Lady Mar said, her eyes flicking toward the Scholar. “And information to give. But we can’t get anyone to listen to us.”
Karlyn nodded. “I believe I can,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up. I believe they might listen to me.”
Parno turned the Tarkin’s sword gently out of the way, using the palm of his hand against the flat of the blade, and, letting his own sword drop to the floor, poked Tek-aKet in the sternum with the forefinger of his right hand. Both men, the Tarkin red-faced but smiling, stepped back from one another.
“You’re not afraid of the blade, which is good,” Dhulyn said, stepping forward as Parno retrieved his sword. “But you kept your own too low, and too far off the central line. Watch.” She took the Tarkin’s place and came at Parno slowly, her movements exaggerated in such a way that Tek-aKet Tarkin would have no trouble following. She held her sword so that the sharpened tip sagged below her waist. As she advanced on Parno, he once again turned the blade aside with the palm of his hand.
“Do you see?” Dhulyn said. “Your blade was off-center, and at an angle that made it easy for him to turn it aside, even without another weapon of his own. Now watch where I have mine.” Dhulyn executed almost the identical move, except this time Parno was able to turn her blade aside only by sacrificing his own forward momentum, and losing any chance to turn the move to his advantage. She and Parno lifted their points and stepped back.
“Did you see, Lord Tarkin?”
Tek-aKet nodded, brow furrowed. “I thought I’d had good teachers, but you’ve shown me things-” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I didn’t think to watch his bare hand.”
Dhulyn sheathed her sword and extended both her hands to show the fine scars on the palms. “When it’s life and death, and not for show, everything is a weapon. Kill or be killed, all battles come down to this.”
“Kill or be killed,” Tek-aKet repeated, his dark brows drawn down into a vee over his clear blue eyes. “I think you have shown me more than a Shora of offense and defense, Dhulyn Wolfshead, I think you have answered a question for me.” He looked up at them, the sheen of sweat drying on his upper lip. “I think I must take back the Carnelian Throne.”
“There was some doubt of this?” Parno’s eyebrows could not raise any higher.
Tek-aKet nodded, his eyes hooded. “I never wanted to be Tarkin,” he said, a half smile playing about his lips. “My brother died of a fever, and I had to take his place. It did actually occur to me that this was my chance to take Zella and the children and go to her sister in Berdana.”