Blood and Honor

One of the Swords was quick enough to get out of the way, but the other was taken by surprise. He raised an arm to protect himself as the pikes clattered off his head and shoulders. Mordan ducked behind a stack of boxes and began to edge toward the door. He had no intention of fighting the Royal Swords if he could get away. King Kaius had kept Karrnath under martial law despite the peace, and royal justice was both harsh and summary—especially for those who killed the King’s officers.

Peering out from underneath a set of barding on a horseshaped stand, Mordan saw three pairs of feet heading toward the door. The middle pair moved clumsily and still bore traces of the magical web; the other two were heavily booted. Falko was protesting feebly, but his captors ignored him. A sideways glance told Mordan that the other two Swords were still looking for him.

Carefully pulling a light mace from a barrel of weapons beside him, he threw it in a high arc across the warehouse. It came down with a crash on a stack of helmets, spilling them noisily across the floor. Falko’s captors continued half-dragging him toward the door, but the other two turned round and looked toward the source of the noise. He found a pouch of sling bullets under a table, and threw it after the mace as he moved into the cover of a group of barrels. It landed close by the helmets with a soft rattle. One of the officers took a step toward the sound.

Falko and his captors were outside now, leaving Mordan and the two others in the crowded warehouse. Chancing a glance over the barrels, he saw that one was moving toward the upset helmets, but he had lost sight of the other. He listened for footsteps but heard nothing.

He had a clear path to the door, and decided to run for it—but the other Royal Sword had anticipated his move. Stepping out from behind a rack of armor, he blocked Mordan’s way.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, raising his sword with a vicious smile.

As Mordan twisted away from the slashing blade, he heard the footsteps of the second officer approaching at a run. He backed away from the first, tipping over a barrel to slow him down, and snatched up a leather harness from a pile of horse-trappings beside him. Spinning round, he threw it at the second officer’s legs, tripping him. He only had a second to act before the officer regained his feet.

Mordan leaped over the prone body of the fallen officer and ran toward the back of the warehouse. Glancing up, he saw the pale square of a grimy skylight; he vaulted onto Falko’s table, and from there to the rafters. Holding his cloak over his head, he punched through the filthy glass with the stump of his left arm, then launched himself upward, through the skylight and onto the roof.

Without waiting to see if the Royal Swords followed, he ran along the roof and jumped across the narrow alley to an adjoining building. Crouching on the roof, he listened for sounds of pursuit, but heard nothing. The Royal Swords must have come for Falko; he just happened to be there at the wrong time, and they weren’t going to waste their effort chasing him—especially since he didn’t draw steel on them.

Dropping softly to the cobbles, Mordan headed back to the Black Dragon. He didn’t follow the Royal Swords, because he knew where they would be taking Falko—to the Palace of Justice in the city center. What he didn’t know, yet, was what he was going to do next.

Stifling a gasp, Tarrel stepped aside. Hintram had almost collided with him as he came out. He froze, certain that he must have been spotted, but the human simply exchanged a few words with his half-orc lookout and strode back into the city. Tarrel ducked between two warehouses and found a secluded spot where there was a large puddle. Crouching over it, he waited until he could see his own reflection in the scummy water. Then he set off after Hintram. He threaded his way through the back-alleys, roughly paralleling the man’s course and catching an occasional glimpse of him between buildings. As the street became busier at the western end of the waterfront, Tarrel felt safe to drop back and mingle with the crowd, keeping his quarry in sight.

The waterfront was not the only part of Karrlakton to have suffered destruction. As an industrial center and Karrnath’s second city, it had endured constant attacks from Cyran forces across the river. Karrnathi architecture was solid and imposing, but nearly every building in the city was either damaged, recently repaired, or in the process of being repaired. In some places, entire groups of buildings had been destroyed, leaving fragments of walls and chimneys standing out above piles of rubble. As he followed the wagon, Tarrel passed several sites that were being cleared of debris, and a number of new structures under construction. The laborers were a mixed bunch, and as well as native Karrns he saw Cyran exiles, warforged, and even an occasional hobgoblin from Darguun in the south.