was exiting the broken window of a shop, a handful of copper coins clutched to his chest. He ran, and Haern followed.
The boy tried to vary his pattern, as he’d no doubt been trained to do, but against someone like Haern it was a minor inconvenience, nothing more. Haern kept far out of sight, not wanting to alert him to his presence. Twice he’d tracked Brann’s child-thieves, but one had spotted him, abandoned his ill-gotten coin, and fled. The other had been killed by a different thief guild before he could question him. Children bled out on the streets of Veldaren. The Watcher’s wrath would be terrible.
Haern turned a corner, and watched the child slip inside a warehouse. Approaching the door, Haern slipped into the shadows and looked through the crack near the hinges. A faint lantern burned inside, and from what he could make out, two other children were within. Hoping it was Brann’s hideout, and not a simple gang of orphans, he drew his sabers. There would be no stealthy entrance. This wasn’t a time for quiet deaths in the night.
He slammed the door open with his shoulder at full charge. Without slowing he took in the surroundings, his finely honed instincts guiding him. The storehouse was full of crates and bags of grains, limiting his maneuverability. At least twenty children gathered together in a circle, and before them, his dirty face covered with a beard, was Brann. The man looked up. His jaw dropped, and then he turned to run.
“Stop him!” Brann shouted to the children. Haern swore as they drew small knives and daggers. He leapt between them, twirling his cloak as a distraction. A sweeping kick took out three, and then he pushed through the opening. The storehouse was divided in two by a high wall, and Brann vanished through the doorway in the center. Haern raced after, again slamming aside the door with his shoulder. To his surprise, Brann was not the coward he’d believed. His sword lashed out from behind the door. Haern’s speed was too great, though, and he leapt beyond Brann’s reach, pivoted on his heels, and jumped again.
Brann was only a gutter snake, vermin who bullied with numbers and stabbed from shadows. Haern had fought his kind, knew their tactics. With three strikes Brann’s sword fell from a bleeding wrist. Two kicks shattered a kneecap, and then he fell. Haern clutched his hair and lifted it back, his saber pressing against Brann’s throat.
“How dare you,” Haern whispered. His hood hung low over his face, and he shook his head to knock it back. He wanted Brann to see the fury in his eyes.
“You hold this city prisoner and yet ask me that?” said Brann.
Haern struck him in the mouth with the hilt of a saber. As Brann spat out a tooth, the children rushed through the door, surrounding them both.
“Stay back,” Brann said to them, and he grinned at Haern, his yellow teeth stained red with blood. There was a wild look in his eyes that made Haern uncomfortable. This wasn’t a man who cared about life, not his own, nor others.
“What game is this?” Haern asked, his voice a cold whisper. “Why the children? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“The others are scared of you,” Brann said, laughing. “But I know what you are. They think you’re as bad as us, but you’re not; not yet. Once the thief guilds find out, they’ll have your head on a spike.”
He gestured to the children, all prepared to attack. Haern didn’t want to imagine what Brann had put them through to achieve such a level of control.
“Kill me,” Brann said. “Do it, and they’ll swarm you. You won’t die, you’re too good for them, but you won’t escape without killing at least one. So what’ll it be, Watcher? Can you take my life if it means taking the life of a child?”
Haern looked at the twenty. Some were as young as seven, but others were maybe eleven or twelve. All it’d take was one lucky stab by any of them and he might go down.
His saber pressed harder against Brann’s skin. He leaned closer, so he might whisper into his ear.
“Nothing, Brann. You know nothing about me. You die, they go free. This was never a choice.”
Haern slashed, spilling blood across his clothes. Hoping to move before the children reacted, he turned and leapt, vaulting over their circle. They gave chase, not at all bothered by the death of their master. Haern rolled to his feet, his sabers crossed to block their weak stabs. A quick glance showed no exits except the door he’d come through. Doing everything he could to fight down his combat instincts, he shoved through the group’s center. His cloaks whirled and twisted, pushing aside feeble attacks.
Pulling out of the spin, he lunged for the door. One of the older boys was there, and Haern felt panic rise in his chest as he saw the deadly angle of the boy’s thrust. He reacted on instinct, blocking hard enough to knock the dagger free, then following it up with a kick to send the boy flying. Breaking back into a run, he kicked off a pile of crates to vault into the air, catching a rafter with one hand. Swinging himself up onto a perch, he stared down at the children, several of whom gathered around the body of the one he’d kicked.
“Listen to me,” Haern said to them, trying to forgive the children’s attack. They didn’t know any better. “You’re master is dead. You have no hope of winning this fight.”
“Fuck you,” said one of the kids. Haern swallowed down his anger at such disrespect. They were frightened punks living in a world Haern knew all too well. If reason would not work, he knew what would.
“Say that again, and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
The boy stepped back, as if stunned by the coldness in his voice. The rest looked up at him, some ready to cry, some angry, but most were heartbreakingly indifferent. Haern pointed to Brann Goodfinger’s corpse.
“Take his coin,” he said. “Go, and make better lives than this. Remain thieves, and you’ll fall to the guilds, or to me. I don’t want to kill you, but I will. There is no future for you, not in this.”
“None for you, either,” said another, but Haern could not tell who. With practiced efficiency the children took everything of value from Brann’s corpse and vanished into the streets. Haern didn’t know where they went, nor did he care. He only felt fury. Brann had died quick, hardly the example Haern desired to set. As for the boy he’d kicked…
He dropped from the rafter, landing lightly on his feet. With a lump in his throat, he knelt down and rolled the child over onto his back, then pressed his fingers against his neck. He waited, and waited, but no matter how long he stayed there hoping, it never happened. No pulse.
“Damn you, Brann,” Haern whispered. “I hope you burn forever.”
Leaving the body there was not an option. Haern considered himself better than that. Lifting him onto his shoulder, he rushed out to the streets, praying no gutsy member of a thief guild spotted him and tried something incredibly heroic and stupid. There were several gravekeepers in Veldaren, plus another who burned bodies instead of burying them. Haern went to the burner, picked the lock of his door, and went inside. The owner was asleep on a cot in a small room, and Haern woke him with a firm prod of his saber.
“What? Who are…oh, you.”
The elderly man, Willard, rubbed his eyes, then reopened them when Haern dropped a handful of coins onto his lap.
“Spare no expense, and bury his ashes.”
“What was his name?” asked Willard, looking over the boy’s body as Haern set him down on the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“Then what shall I engrave on his urn?”
Haern went to the door, then looked back over his shoulder.
“Victim,” he said.
In a foul mood, he raced off for the Gemcroft estate, wishing he could put the prior events out of his mind, and knowing there’d be no such luck.
Scaling the fence was easy enough, though avoiding the guards was another matter. There was a secondary building in the back, where he’d been told the meeting would take place. Most of the patrols kept close to the mansion, which helped tremendously. Haern lurked beside the gate, running along it when outside the patrols’ vision, and lying flat amid the shadows when they passed. At last he reached the small building. Timing the patrols, he knew he had about thirty seconds to slip in and out without being seen. Faint light burned within. He pressed his ear against the door and heard no discussion.
Too late, or too early? The door was unlocked, so he opened it and slipped inside. The room was surprisingly bare, containing only a single bed atop a padded floor. Hardly the servants’ quarters he’d expected. The lone lantern kept the place dimly lit, with plenty of shadows in the far corners. So far, it appeared empty.
“Damn,” he whispered.
