'Oh, yes, I do, and you can't talk me out of it. So why don't you turn that twisty mind to yours to the task of laying a trap that Aeron can't possibly escape?'
Aeron kept quickening his pace despite the fact that even under normal circumstances, it could be dangerous to race headlong through the Underways. You could blunder into a strong-arm robber lying in wait for easy prey or intrude on plotters willing to kill to keep their palavering a secret.
Thus, whenever he caught himself, he forced himself to slow down, but it was hard. After fleeing Kesk's mansion, he and Miri had slept aboard an unattended skiff moored at one of the docks. Restless, anguished over their failure to rescue Nicos, he woke first and rose to prowl the streets. It was then that he overheard a team of thieves, two pickpockets, a bag man, and a lookout, discussing Kesk's well-publicized threat to murder his hostage at midnight unless Aeron gave him what he wanted. Since then, he'd felt a seething urgency that made him want to hurry every instant, whether it was sensible or not.
'Do you really think,' said Miri, striding along beside him with her bow slung over her shoulder, 'our allies are likely to do more than they have already?'
'We won't know until we ask.'
'Actually,' said the scout, 'I already did ask, when we talked to Om-their chief the first time. If you recall, he said he'd snipe at the Red Axes on the sly, but not risk open war.'
Squinting against the darkness, Aeron peered down the passage. Three people stood murmuring to one another at the next intersection. He recognized one of them, and once more had to quash the impulse to rush.
'Then I'll just have to change his mind,' the thief said.
'I tell you, visiting him again is just a waste of precious time. Let's go to my employer.'
'We had this talk already.'
The trio ahead were good at their trade. They didn't even glance up as Aeron and Miri drew nearer.
'We had it hours ago,' said the scout, 'and you promised to come up with a new strategy. This desperate notion won't do, and if it's all you can think of, then we need to try things my way. Fury's Heart, try behaving like a decent, law-abiding person for once in your life. You might like it.'
'I might like it all the way up the gallows steps.'
The loiterers were just a couple paces away. Aeron's heartbeat quickened.
'I swear by the Forest Queen,' said Miri, 'I'll make sure you aren't punished. My employer doesn't care about you. He only wants his property retur-'
Aeron pivoted and threw a punch.
Miri must have seen him swing, for she reacted with the quickness of a trained warrior. She dodged, and he only struck her a glancing blow.
She sprang back and reached for the hilt of her broadsword. The problem was that, by retreating from Aeron, she'd merely shifted closer to his three confederates. The largest of them, a half-orc with a broken nose, lashed its cudgel against her back. The blow slapped her leather armor, and she lurched forward.
The other two ruffians lunged at her, bludgeons flailing. She swept her buckler in a backhand stroke that held them off long enough for her sword to clear the scabbard. She cut, the half-orc recoiled, and her blade missed its torso by a finger-length. A passerby who'd stopped to watch the show cried out in excitement.
Aeron edged in on her flank, then faked a leap into the distance. She turned and thrust, and that gave the half-orc a chance to give her another blow from behind. It knocked her to one knee, and the creature's human partners swarmed over her. Her sword was useless at such close quarters. After a few moments of frantic struggling, they pummeled her into submission, then lashed her hands behind her back with rawhide.
'When I said you were learning to think like an Oeblaun native,' Aeron said to her, 'I gave you too much credit. You told me how one fellow led you into a trap here in the tunnels, and now you've let exactly the same thing happen again. I don't think Sefris will save you this time around.'
Miri glared up at him. Blood trickled from her split lip.
'Why are you doing this?' she asked.
'You can't help me rescue my father. Maybe if you had the rest of your precious guild behind you, but not by yourself. I gave you your chance, but you aren't skilled or brave enough.'
'Shall we get her moving?' asked the half-orc.
'Yes,' Aeron said.
His confederates hauled Miri to her feet and relieved her of her belt pouch and remaining weapons. The half- orc shoved her to set her stumbling in the right direction.
'I'm a better fighter than you,' she said, still focused on Aeron. 'I still don't see the point of this.'
'It's simple enough. I can't trust Kesk to hold to any deal we make. You and I alone can't fight all the Red Axes, or sneak into their lair a second time. So I've decided to save my father with gold. I'll bribe one of the gang to smuggle him out.'
'Maybe that would work,' she said, 'but…'
The half-orc gave her another push.
'Unfortunately,' Aeron said, 'the Axes are all afraid of their chief, and they live pretty well already. That means it's going to take a lot of coin to tempt one of them. More than I've got, and more than I can steal in the time remaining. I wouldn't be able to sell The Black Bouquet quickly enough, either, or use the book itself as a bribe. Kesk's cutthroats wouldn't understand what it is or why it's valuable any more than I did until you explained it to me.'
'But you decided what you could do,' Miri said, 'is sell me.'
Aeron grinned and replied, 'I found out who wanted all those yuan-ti to capture you, then asked him if he was still interested. It turned out he is, so we arranged the details.'
'Listen to me,' she said. 'You don't have to do this. If you want to try bribery, I can get the gold from my employer. I won't even have to mention your name.'
He shook his head and told her, 'I feel safer dealing with my own kind.'
'Curse you for a liar and a traitor! You have rat's blood in your veins!'
'What did you expect?' Aeron asked. 'You're the one who said I'm just a common thief, with no notion what honor means.'
'I didn't truly want to believe that.'
'Well, believe this,' he said. 'Folk like you and me are natural enemies, you killed my friends, and even if none of that was true, I'd sell out you and a hundred like you to save my father. Look, it's your new home.'
They marched her onward, through the entrance to Melder's Door.
Even at that hour, when so many of Oeble's rogues were snoring in their beds, the stone-walled common room held a motley assortment of travelers and waiters, and as usual, tiny dragons flitted everywhere. Most everyone, whether human, goblin-kin, or reptile, eyed Miri with curiosity, some with malicious amusement, and none, so far as Aeron could judge, with sympathy.
Smiling, handsomely clad in a red silk shirt and a black suede jerkin laced with scarlet cord, Melder sauntered up to inspect his prize. Miri spat at him, and a dozen of the little wyrms hurtled at her like bees defending a violated hive.
Melder raised a swarthy hand, and the dragons veered off.
'Please,' he said to Miri. 'It can all be quite pleasant, if you'll only allow it to be.'
'I'll kill you for this,' she said, 'and even if I fail, the Red Hart Guild will avenge me.'
'As your own experience demonstrates,' Melder said, 'your friends had better stick to their forests and mountains. Oeble will eat them alive.' He looked at the half-orc. 'Why don't you lock her away, then I'll pay you?'
The creature and its fellow kidnappers manhandled Miri across the common room. She struggled every step of the way, but with her hands bound, to no avail. She and her captors disappeared through a doorway.
'I'd like to get paid, too,' Aeron said.
'Surely,' Melder said. 'Vlint?'
A hobgoblin appeared at his elbow with a clinking pigskin purse in hand.
Aeron untied the laces, lifted the flap, and stirred the coins inside with his fingertip, which afforded him a glimpse of the ones at the bottom.
'Thanks,' Aeron breathed.
