Blood and Honor

The half-orc gave a curt nod of thanks as he half-dragged his prisoner inside the building. They followed the Ministry clerk up several flights of stairs and along a long, narrow passage, finally reaching a stout-looking door of iron-bound oak. Taking a ring of keys from his belt, he unlocked it. As he did so, the half-orc officer released his prisoner, who pulled a scroll from inside his shirt, muttered a few words, and made a swift gesture. The clerk turned at the sound.

“I need you to do me a favor,” said Tarrel in a friendly voice.

The clerk blinked a couple of times, looking from the half-elf to the half-orc, who stood by silently. “What?” he asked uncertainly.

“Nothing much,” answered Tarrel. “I just want you to show me where you’re keeping Falko. You know, the man who was brought in this morning.”

The clerk blinked again, as if trying to clear his head. Then his mouth opened, and he started to run. He didn’t get far; the half-orc tripped him and his head hit the stone floor hard. The two wrestled him through the door, and closed it behind them.

“I thought you said this would work?” said the half-orc, in Solly’s voice. He had one hand over the clerk’s mouth.

“Magic isn’t infallible,” Tarrel replied, quickly tying the clerk’s hands and feet. “Sometimes people can resist it.” He pulled a rag out of his breeches and stuffed it in the man’s mouth.

“See if there’s somewhere we can hide him,” he added. Solly nodded, and trotted ahead, listening at doors and looking through keyholes. After a few moments, he opened one of the doors and beckoned.

“Broom closet,” he said. Tarrel half-carried the groaning clerk into the small room and leaned him against one wall. Closing the door behind them, the two carried on.

“What now?” asked Solly.

“Same plan,” said Tarrel. “I’m your prisoner, and you have orders to put me in with Falko.” He offered his wrists to Solly, who tied them loosely with a short length of cord, and they walked on.

Mordan hurried along the waterfront, hoping he would reach Hintram before the authorities did. If they caught him, if they realized that he was one of the officially dead Vedykar Lancers, if there was a cover-up—Mordan would lose the only lead he had to show for six months of searching. That all depended on how quickly they made the connection from Falko to Hintram.

He wondered how much Falko had told his captors—how much he really knew. With luck, it was no more than he had already told Mordan: an anonymous seller and no questions asked. But he knew the Ministry of the Dead had magical resources. Maybe they would be able to track Hintram through the swords, or by some other means. There was no shortage of rumors about the necromantic power wielded by the Ministry, and only the Ministry itself knew for sure how much was true.

He wondered, too, why Hintram was trading stolen undead weapons in Karrlakton. It was a far cry from the proud tradition of the Lancers, and further still from any kind of secret mission. What if the official line was true, and the Lancers had really been wiped out on the Day of Mourning? Perhaps Hintram had left the regiment before their final posting—deserted, or even been thrown out? Mordan decided he would worry about that when he heard it from Hintram himself. At least Hintram should be able to shed some light on the Lancers’ fate.

As Mordan walked, he became aware of a commotion coming from a few streets away. Looking up, he saw a column of dense black smoke rising into the air. People were running toward it—some were carrying buckets. Falko’s warehouse was in that direction, and his heart sank. Quickening his pace, he headed towards the smoke, and his fears were realized. Falko’s warehouse was on fire.

A crowd had gathered round the building. Some were trying to put the fire out, using everything from magic to buckets of river water, while others were risking the smoke and flames to save what they could. The front door had either been broken down or burned off its hinges, and people were throwing weapons and armor into the street, or running off with arms full of whatever they could salvage. Knowing the waterfront district, it was unlikely that anyone was acting out of neighborly concern, but—as Mordan observed with a wry smile—most of it had already been stolen at least once before Falko acquired it.

He headed east again. The fire probably wasn’t a coincidence, and he suspected that Hintram had something to do with it. If he knew that Falko had been questioned by the Ministry of the Dead, he was probably as nervous about them finding him as Mordan was. The fire could have been set to destroy anything linking the two of them. Mordan remembered what Tarrel had seen in the Good As Gold; perhaps the messenger had been one of Dabo’s men bringing the news that Falko had been picked up.