there. Only large group was some women surrounded by a few guards. I thought they was just some mercs taking their whores in to look for beds and drinks.”
“You did good, Tweed,” Thren said, releasing his shoulder. “Hurry back to the gate and watch for any other large groups. Report to me immediately if you do.”
Thren looked about, calling over members of the Spider Guild with his hand. He wished Senke was with him, and he felt foolish for leaving such a sharp-witted man behind to babysit his son while important matters were afoot. There was a chance the group of women and soldiers was nothing, but his gut told him otherwise. Once he had about five men beside him, he gave his orders, trusting them to relay the message throughout the guild.
“Only alive?” one asked when Thren was done.
“Death causes anger and sadness,” Thren told them. “Capture inspires horror and desperation. Cut a blade of her hair, and I’ll scalp you. I want Madelyn Keenan as a hostage, not a corpse.”
19
T hey’d been inside the city for less than a minute when they saw the first sign of riots.
“Look there,” said Susan as she pointed above the houses to their right. “Is that smoke?”
“Looks like someone better be grabbing some buckets,” said Nigel, an older mercenary missing half his teeth. He’d been put in charge of seeing Madelyn safely to her estate.
“What say you, Susie? Shouldn’t you get to running?” he asked, smiling a gapped smile.
“Let their houses burn, long as they aren’t ours,” Susan said with a huff.
“Never let a fire burn, for the next home that catches could be your own,” Madelyn said, feeling light-headed. The walk from their wagons to the city had been long and steep. After so long riding in wagons and on horses, the exercise was unwelcome. The sweat on her fine clothing made it stick to her body, cold and uncomfortable. She’d almost taken a litter, but Laurie had insisted the added attention would be ill-advised with so many thieves and ruffians running loose in the city.
Still, her litter had curtains and walls, something she sorely lacked walking amid her serving women and house guards. Holding a hand to her face, she looked at the smoke curling into the air.
“Several fires,” she said. “Either it spread, or they were started on purpose…”
“Leave it to Thren to give you such a welcome,” said Nigel.
“That’s not our place, is it?” one of the other girl’s asked, suddenly worried. Madelyn rolled her eyes.
“Wrong part of the city. Your mind moves as slow as tree sap. Do you think you’d be the first to realize our home was ablaze?”
The girl blushed and stepped away from Madelyn, toward the outer ring of servants that surrounded her.
“Sorry, milady,” she murmured.
“Lay off the brat,” Nigel said. “I was thinking the same thing myself. Not everyone has been to the estate. It’s been, what, two years since we’ve returned?”
“Four,” Madelyn said, her voice tired. “At least for me. I let Laurie attend the last Kensgold alone. I tired of cloaks and daggers long ago.”
The twelve mercenaries encircled the women as they marched. When they reached the start of Merchant Way, they drew their weapons.
“What in Karak’s name happened here?” one of them asked.
It seemed as if the wind had shifted, so the smoke now blew in their faces. Stalls lay smashed, their signs broken and their boards cracked as if by hammers. The windows of every store were shattered. Fires had consumed a block of five stores on the north side, with three more along the south. Castle guards stood around the smoking wreckage, killing the flames while men and women arrived carrying buckets of water pumped from Veldaren’s wells.
“Not good,” Nigel said. “We’re in the middle of Veldaren with no clue what’s going on. We should have waited, damn it! Should have sent someone to make sure things were calm.”
“Too late for second guessing,” Madelyn said, feeling his nervousness catching. “The estate’s not far, and soldiers are about. But just in case, keep your swords drawn, and take no nonsense from anyone. I do not mind arriving safe at home with blood on my clothes, as long as the blood is not mine!”
They continued traveling down Merchant Way, approaching the wealthy eastern district. The closer they came to the center of the city, the more eyes watched their passing. Madelyn wondered how many were spies of the thief guilds. Half? None? All? She thought ‘all’ the most likely.
“We’re not far now,” she said aloud, trying to calm the girls around her. Most of them were younger than her, and they felt vulnerable despite the soldiers. They were not used to having so many eyes leering angrily at them. Madelyn clutched her hands tight against her waist. Let the peons seethe with jealousy. She had earned her wealth, on her back as much as her feet. Laurie had fought tooth and nail to keep the wealth he had, as had the entire Keenan family line. She would not feel pity or guilt for the standing that was rightfully hers.
“It’s in the eastern district,” Madelyn continued. “Merchant Way ends in a fork at Iron and Cross. Not far up Iron Street is our estate. We’ll be safe there.”
The girls seemed to calm a little, although Madelyn’s mind raced. She had seen several men following them, all wearing cloaks of gray.
“Gray is the Spider Guild?” she whispered to Nigel.
“Believe so,” Nigel said, his eyes darting about as frantic as Madelyn’s. “Your dress might just get that blood you wanted, milady.”
“Not wanted,” she said. “But I’ll endure if I must. Watch the rooftops as well. Spiders cling from rafters just as well as they hide under rocks.”
A few of the gathered men and women shouted insults.
“Whores!”
“Hoarding bastards!”
“Cowards!”
The mercenaries raised their swords and cursed back. The first few skitted away, but more and more gathered to follow them. Madelyn felt the hairs rising on the back of her neck. There was something deliberate about the way the small crowd seemed to stalk them. More curses were hurled their way, but the mercenaries let them be. For the first time they had to push their way through. Nothing serious, nothing overtly deliberate, just a man standing in the center moving away too slowly, or a woman with her wash who refused to budge.
Two men rolled dice in the center of the street. Each wore a gray cloak. They looked up from their game, pulled their cloaks back to reveal their daggers, and then let them fall.
“Push through ‘em?” asked Nigel. Madelyn looked about. She felt as if she walked through a forest of dry tinder, and every person traveling with her carried a blazing torch. A single false move meant fire.
“We’re starving!” shouted a young man in dirty clothes.
“Bread or blood!” was the answer from someone unseen within the crowd.
“Move around them,” Madelyn said, her decision made. “Do it quickly. I can almost see our gate.”
“I see the Reaper’s eyes,” said one of the men as Madelyn’s group passed. She glanced down at the dice. Both showed a one.
They reached the fork at Iron and Cross. The south path on Cross Street seemed bare and quiet, but Iron bustled with a waiting gang of twenty. It seemed a merchant with a load of bread had been assaulted, his cart toppled. He lay unconscious, his face covered with bruises. With shouts of ‘food,’ more and more came their way, jostling the mercenaries and smothering them with noise.
As the people rushed past, one slid a knife through the side of a mercenary. He crumpled, his pained cry the only alert they had. Two more dropped, blood spurting from cut throats.
“Stay back!” Nigel shouted, cutting down a woman who had dared step too close. Her blood coated his armor. “All of you, stay back!”
The rest of the mercenaries took his cue, swinging wildly at any who came too close. Their progress slowed to a crawl, and with one of their own fallen, the mob turned their attention from the bread to the blood.
