climbing down from the cart. “Need to see the Aspect. Stay here.” With that he stomped off towards the Aspect’s chambers. Vaelin managed to wait a full ten seconds before hastening after him.
Master Hutril was in the Aspect’s rooms for several long minutes before he emerged, walking past Vaelin without a glance, ignoring his questions. The Aspect’s door remained firmly closed and Vaelin found himself stepping forward to knock.
“ No!” Nortah’s hand was on his wrist. “Are you mad?”
“ I need to know.”
“ You have to wait.”
“ Wait for what? Silence? No sign that he had ever been here? Like Mikehl or Jennis? Light a fire, say some words and it’s another one of us gone, forgotten.”
“ The Test of the Wild is hard, brother…”
“ Not for him! For him it was nothing…”
“ You don’t know that. You don’t know what could have happened beyond the walls.”
“ I know hunger and cold would never have laid him low. He was too strong.”
“ For all his strength he was but a boy. As we were when they sent us out into the cold and the dark to fend for ourselves.”
Vaelin tore his wrist away, smoothing his hands through his hair in frustration. “I don’t think he was ever a boy.”
The sound of boots on stone snapped their attention to the corridor, seeing Master Sollis striding towards them. “What are you two doing here?” he demanded, halting before the Aspect’s door.
“ Waiting for news of our brother, master,” Vaelin replied evenly.
Sollis showed a brief spasm of anger before he reached for the door handle. “Then wait.” With that he went inside.
It was only five minutes or so but seemed like an hour. Abruptly the door opened and Master Sollis jerked his head indicating leave to enter. They found the Aspect behind his desk, his long face as inexpressive as ever but there was a calculation in the gaze he levelled at Vaelin, as if what was about to transpire had more import than he could know.
“ Brother Vaelin,” he said. “Do you know if Brother Frentis has any enemies outside these walls?”
Enemies… Vaelin felt his heart plummet. He found him. I couldn’t protect him. “There is a man, Aspect,” he replied, his tone heavy with sorrow. “The leader of Varinshold’s criminal fraternity. Before Brother Frentis joined us he put a knife in his eye. I have heard that he still bears a grudge.”
Master Sollis gave a snort of exasperation and Nortah, for once, appeared lost for words.
“ And it didn’t occur to you,” the Aspect said, “to share this information with myself or Master Sollis?”
Vaelin could only shake his head in numb silence.
“ You arrogant idiot,” Master Sollis said, very precisely.
“ Yes master.”
“ What’s done is done,” the Aspect said. “Do you have any notion of where this man with one eye might take our brother?”
Vaelin’s head snapped up. “He’s alive?”
“ Master Hutril found a body, but it wasn’t Brother Frentis, although the unfortunate fellow had one of our Order’s hunting knives buried in his chest. There were signs of a fierce struggle, several blood trails, but no Brother Frentis.”
Somehow they knew he was here. So stupid to think One Eye’s servants wouldn’t find him. They must have followed the cart, took him alive. The words of Gallis the Climber came back to him: One Eye says he’s gonna take a year to skin him alive when he finds him…
“ I will recover him,” he told the Aspect, his voice cold with certainty. “I will kill those who took him and bring him back to the Order. Living or dead.”
The Aspect’s eyes flicked to Master Sollis.
“ What do you need?” Sollis asked.
“ Half a day outside the walls, my brothers, and my dog.”
Scratch followed them to the city gate willingly enough, his initial joy at the novelty of being outside the Order House muted by the evident gravity of their mood. He seemed to know what was expected of him, sniffing the sock they had found under Frentis’s bunk and immediately sprinting for the gate with a brief yelp. They ran after him, labouring to keep him in sight. The slave-hound set a killing pace as they traced a winding route through the city’s back streets. It was no surprise to Vaelin that he soon led them to the southern quarter.
The streets were mostly deserted save for the usual assortment of drunks and whores, most of whom found somewhere else to be when they saw five brothers from the Sixth Order running behind a very large dog. Eventually Scratch stopped, standing tensed and still as he did when he was pointing out a trail when they hunted together. His nose pointed directly at a tavern nestled in a shadowed alley way. The sign hanging over the door marked it as the Black Boar. Lamplight glowed dimly through the windows and they could hear the raucous babble of liquor induced merriment.
Scratch began to growl, a soft but chilling rumble.
Vaelin knelt down, patting him gently on the head. “Stay,” he commanded.
The hound gave a plaintive whine as they moved towards the inn but did as he was told.
“ What’s the plan?” Dentos asked as they paused at the doorway.
“ I thought I’d ask them where Frentis is,” Vaelin replied. “After that I expect we’ll find out if we’re as well taught as we think we are.”
The vocal good humour of the inn’s patrons died instantly at the sight of them. A room of mostly unwashed and prematurely aged faces stared at them with a mixture of fear or palpable hatred. The man behind the bar was large, bald and clearly less than happy to see them.
“ Good evening sir!” Nortah greeted him, striding towards the bar. “A fine establishment you have here.”
“ Order ain’t welcome ‘ere,” the barman said. Vaelin noted the thin sheen of sweat on his top lip. “Ain’t right you comin’ in ‘ere. ‘Snot your place.”
“ Oh don’t fret my fine fellow.” Nortah clapped the man on the shoulder. “We want no trouble. All we want is our brother. The one who stuck a knife in your master’s eye a few years ago. Be a good fellow and tell us where he is and we won’t kill you or any of your customers.”
A rumble of anger ran through the crowd and the barman licked his lips, his bald head now shining with sweat. For the briefest second his eyes flicked to his right before snapping back to Nortah. “No brothers here,” he said.
Nortah gave one of his best smiles. “Oh I beg to differ. Tell me, did you know a man can live for several hours, in agonising pain of course, after his stomach has been slit open?”
Vaelin followed the line of the barman’s brief glance, seeing little but the shuffling feet of nervous patrons and a dusty floor, except for a clean patch near the fireplace, a patch about a yard square. As he moved forward to take a closer look a man rose from a table, a muscular man with the broad knuckles and indented nose common to prize fighters.
“ Where’re d’you think you’re go-”
Vaelin punched him in the throat without breaking stride, leaving him choking on the dusty floorboards. There was a cacophony of scraping chairs as other patrons rose, a murmur of anger building in the crowd. Vaelin crouched to inspect the patch of dust free floorboards which quickly revealed itself as a trap door. Well made, he judged, his fingers tracing the joins.
“ Got no right here!” the barman was shouting as he straightened. “Comin’ in here hitting customers, making threats. Ain’t right.”
There was a loud growl of assent from the inn’s patrons, most now on their feet, many holding a variety of knives and cudgels.
“ Order bastards,” one of them spat, brandishing a broad bladed knife. “Ventured where you shouldn’t. Need cutting down to size.”
Nortah’s sword came free of its scabbard in a blur, the man with the knife staring at his severed fingers as the blade clattered to the floor.
