The Tyrant of Tirras and Emperor of the Northern Realms was doing two things unusual: running headlong and cursing outright. His brown robe flapped around his skinny shanks as he dashed with bare feet through dusty alleys and crosswalks. He couldn't believe the fell luck that dogged him. Siccing Jedit on Adira and Hazezon, old friends of Jaeger's, seemed too outlandish a joke not to succeed. But contradictory spells, one to deceive others and one to deceive the self, had conflicted and sputtered out. Now instead of Jedit rending Tamar and Strongheart into bloody gobbets, they'd ceased fighting and dispatched pursuers. Thus Johan ran for his life. He'd been too clever. Better he'd killed Jedit outright and assassinated the twin rulers later.
Craning his neck, pelting along, Johan glimpsed Adira's lackeys hot on his trail. Skidding to a halt at a corner, the mage scooped up a loose stone and rubbed it vigorously between his palms.
He panted, 'No matter. Once free of these clattering clods, I'll order my spies to smuggle me out of town. I can reach Tirras in a fortnight. No matter. Let us end this nonsense!'
Down the alley rushed Adira's pirates, as unalike as comrades could be. A sailor rife with gray streaks that earned him the nickname Badger. A devotee of Lady Caleria, Sister Wilemina, in a blue cloak and blonde braids like a girl's, and in her knotty hand her talisman, an ornate bow of horn and ivory. A buxom woman in every color of clothing, skin black as a cauldron, grinning at the chase, almost singing with joy, who'd earned the name Simone the Siren. Such an odd trio could spring only from Adira's Robaran Mercenaries, whose only credo was a craving for adventure. Heedless and headlong they rushed after Johan, arguably the most dangerous man on Jamuraa.
Johan leaned past the corner. The alley ran straight forty feet between adobe walls. Johan rubbed the stone more briskly, then flicked it into the air.
'Die, gutter trash!'
A flash answered. In mid-air, the stone exploded into a pulsing yellow light too bright to behold. Light sparkled from the sphere like the crackling rays of a shooting star. The light-spiked globe sizzled down the alley toward the pirates, soaring fast as a ball of burning pitch hurled from a catapult.
Forced to avert their eyes, squinting for a way out, Sister Wilemina chirped, 'Call of Caleria! We're trapped!'
Chapter 6
'Dive!'
'Jump!'
The fireball screaming toward them fired reflexes honed in a hundred battles and brawls. Simone, lithe as a panther, bunched her legs and leaped in the air. Skinny Wilemina flopped flat, face in the dust. Only Badger hesitated, panting and fretting. He'd nearly drowned a few months past, and his lungs creaked from all this dratted running. Too, being older, he kept a fatherly eye on Adira's hotheaded youngbloods. So, when he should have leaped or dodged to save himself, instead he flung out both hands, one to knock Wilemina flatter and another to boost Simone higher, assistance neither woman needed.
In a second's fatal hesitation, the spiked force-sphere caught him. Badger had barely twitched aside when the sizzling death clipped his brisket and hurled him against the wall. The ball of ectoplasm streaked out of the alley and smashed a house front across the street, punching a hole big as a bushel basket and instantly igniting paint, lathes, and timbers. The householders dashed outside as someone yelled to form a bucket brigade.
Badger was down, feebly thrashing and slapping at his clothes. His shirt and vest burned and smoked, his formerly hairy chest was seared pink, and now his hands and even beard were scorched from licking flames. He could scarcely breathe. Simone and Wilemina whisked out the flames, then tried to stretch Badger flat to check his wounds.
Angry, sobbing, his hard hands beat them away. 'Never mind me! I'll live! Get after Johan! Don't let him escape!'
Both women objected, but a sturdy kick sent them scampering in pursuit. The sailor crawled painfully to his knees and scrubbed his face with gritty hands. Sticky fluid gummed his eyes, and rubbing his wounds made them flare in agony, but he forced his eyelids open. Thank the stars, he wasn't blind. The pre-dawn world was dim and hazy.
A rumble like thunder over the horizon asked, 'Are you all right?'
'Eh?' The sailor squinted painfully. The blurry figure wore some red- or orange-striped robes. Whoever he was, he was tall as a monox and seemed to steam in the chilly air. Badger was glad this was no enemy.
'Uh, yes. The women went after Johan.'
Like a whisper in the night, the stranger was gone.
'Fish and follies,' Badger asked himself, 'who was that?'
At the mouth of the alley, Simone and Wilemina peeked around for their prey when a rapid padding rang behind. Nerves taut, they spun-and almost fell down. A whirlwind of orange and black stripes charged down the alley like a juggernaut. They barely jumped aside as the tiger-man blew past.
Both yelped, 'Jaeger!'. Jedit didn't contradict them or explain. He'd leave it to Johan to answer a thousand questions, even if Jedit had to skin the man alive.
Dawn cracked the eastern horizon. There were only two ways to go. To the left, the street joined a wider thoroughfare. To the right, it jinked-for no street in Palmyra ran straight- then widened and rose toward the marketplace.
'Likely he went that way, Jaeger! Into the market!' said Simone. 'The other way offers tittle shelter!'
In a crashing hurry, Jedit leaped to all fours as if pouncing on a rabbit. His flat black nose and whiskers snuffled dirt. Launching into space, he landed ten feet farther and sniffed again, then took off running, with the women hard-put to keep up.
In the early morning market, shepherds and melon farmers and leatherworkers greeted neighbors, sipped mint tea, stacked wares, propped awnings, cooed to chickens and lambs, and warmed up singsong calls.
Every eye turned as someone blurted, 'It's Jaeger!'
'Jaeger!' echoed a hundred voices. Palmyrans gawked at the towering figure who appeared as if by magic in the street. 'Look! It's Jaeger! Hurrah!'
Intent on the hunt, Jedit Ojanen jolted to a halt. The chorus of calls and cheers confused him utterly.
Simone and Wilemina crept up beside the tiger-man. Gently the blonde archer touched his furry elbow. 'Jaeger, what's wrong?'
'These people…' murmured the tiger, gazing at the cheering crowd. 'They chant his name like a hero's.'
'Eh?' Simone gazed at her companion, equally fuddled. 'Of course. You're a hero to everyone in Palmyra.'
Jedit's mind reeled. It was true. As that older mage had urged, ask anyone in Palmyra and learn Jaeger was revered. Arrested by new evidence, Jedit fought to work it out. If Jaeger were a hero to Palmyra, he must have been an enemy to 'Johan!' The tiger roared the name like thunder crashing. People stumbled back in fear. 'Where are you, you lying monkey?'
No answer. Frustrated, Jedit gazed at the gathering crowd, a hundred people or more of all sizes and colors: dark-bearded nomads, sleepy-looking barbarians, tiny brown-clad leprechauns, goose girls, solemn Keepers of the Faith, Palmyran city guards in yellow smocks painted with red crescents, black-skinned freighters, hawk-nosed desert elves, dusty dwarves, and more. All jammed around a maze of wares stacked in heaps, piled on carts, hung from racks. Somewhere among them was Johan.
'Impossible! Impossible for the eyes! And the ears!' Jedit Ojanen hissed to himself like a kettle boiling. Coming from the sheltered valley of Efrava, he'd barely adjusted to one human being, then small groups, before he was catapulted into a goggling, gabbling mass of humanity. Furthermore, his rage, never far submerged, had built steadily at the man who'd lied, who must know his father's fate, who might have killed his father.
