Caracara's Hunt

All a.s.sa.s.sin guilds were being hit. It had started with b.l.o.o.d.y Hatchet, then Cloaked Dagger followed, and so did all the other guilds of any note. Even the smallest ones weren"t exempt from the annihilation. It almost seemed like the king had finally decided to clean up the thriving a.s.sa.s.sination business.

But that didn"t make any sense. He would have done that ages ago if he had felt threatened, or if he could have done it at all. Even he didn"t find it fun to work hard to win over some n.o.ble only to find the person dead the next morning.

It was frustrating to say the least. More than once, Corwal had felt like going on a killing spree after things like that happened.

a.s.sa.s.sins weren"t simple people, however. Their business was sneaking into people"s homes and slitting their throats or poisoning them, so they were well aware of the dangers of unprotected hideouts. All but the most ostentatious, like b.l.o.o.d.y Hatchet, lived hidden lives without anyone knowing their whereabouts.

Besides, if the hounds attacked any one group, the rest would dig so deep into the ground, they could never be found. It was because of that and that hounds had more tasks than stalking the streets for nuisances that the a.s.sa.s.sins had been running free.

Corwal looked around again. A sudden thought had entered his mind. If a.s.sa.s.sins were so good at hiding, why had Moon Slayers not done any such thing? He was in their original base, where they had supposedly been found and exterminated.

The room was trashed, with broken tables and chairs lying everywhere. Blood stained the ground, walls, and even the ceiling while pieces of torn clothing littered the ground. The right corner of the room was badly scorched.

Corwal had been told that the city guard had removed the corpses earlier that morning, but he didn"t care about that.

Why were Moon Slayers still in their base despite someone betraying all the a.s.sa.s.sin guilds? And it had to have been someone important in their circles for them to have known everyone and where they hide.

It almost looked like…

"He"s leaving only one guild functioning—that must"ve been their deal. Once the chaos calms down, Moon Slayers will return at full power and suppress all other factions from arising. For that, they"ll become the king"s go-to clean up crew to keep his hounds in check."

Corwal cursed under his breath and turned on his heel to leave. There was nothing more to see. His thinking had been too simple. He had underestimated the ambitions of Moon Slayers" leader.

It was past midnight, the darkest time of the night, when he left the bas.e.m.e.nt. He surrept.i.tiously scanned his surroundings, but there didn"t seem to be anyone watching him.

Relieved, he returned to his safehouse and changed back into his old clothes and made his way toward the castle. A few hours of sleep were necessary even for him.

But he wasn"t sure he was going to get any rest. Worry for Eliot ate at his heart. Mutallu was a certified a.s.sa.s.sin himself, so anyone who went after him should write down their will first. Only brute force could tie him down.

Arawn wasn"t as strong or as knowledgeable, but he was as close to an immortal being as one could get. His life might become a lot more miserable if his ether form was released and killed everyone around him, but he would survive, and that was all that mattered to Corwal. There were too many people in the world for him to mind everyone"s death.

Only Eliot had nothing to protect him. He was a normal kid with no special powers. His connection to the ether was weak, and the fire he could summon was shaky at best. It didn"t work at all when he was nervous or frightened.

The only thing helping him was that he was a n.o.body and had no way to become a somebody. He had nothing to identify him from thousands of other children at his age.

It made tracking him a challenge. Corwal hoped it would be impossible to do, but he couldn"t convince himself of that. During the chaos from Arawn"s self-destruction, the kid had been among the survivors from the arena. It was a good bet that he would have stayed with one of them, or at least traveled with them for some time.

If someone looked for everyone who had been convicted at that time…

"And if I can think of this, those a.s.sa.s.sins can too. I need to send someone to protect him."

Corwal ran through everyone he knew that wouldn"t cave in under the pressure of opposing the king and came up with a very short list. What was even worse, all those people weren"t in the capital. Because of their quality for disliking and opposing the king, they lived at a distance that gave them a certain amount of safety.

A low song reached Corwal"s ears, and he looked up in surprise. He was walking through one of the uncountable tunnels in the castle in the middle of the night, so what was with the singing.

As he walked forward, the voice got louder. Corwal would have pa.s.sed it with a shrug and thrown it out of his head the next minute, but the voice sounded familiar. He stopped and listened for a time, trying to figure out where he had heard it before.

When nothing came to mind, he bent down and opened a small eyehole to look inside. He was already in his wing, so it had to be someone the king didn"t want to be seen nor heard from. Only the unmentionables were sent to this place.

Inside the room, a middle-aged man was sitting on his bed while staring out the window. In a low and rumbling voice, he was singing to himself about the vicissitudes of life. It was quite normal for prisoners, so Corwal didn"t pay it much attention.

Instead, in the dim light of the room, he tried to see the man"s features. But the small window provided almost no light, and the person was no different from a shadow in the dark room.

"To prisons and dungeons I"ve been

Lands of fire and ice I"ve seen

All in search of the greenest green."

The man"s impromptu lyrics struck Corwal like invisible bees. He knew where he had seen the prisoner before! Back when he had been thrown into the Gutter, this person had almost killed him! If not for Arawn, he might not have made it out of that h.e.l.lhole.

As Corwal recalled that event, his mind already worked on plans how to use this new knowledge. Based on previous actions, Feist, or at least that"s what he called himself in the Gutter, liked Arawn and wanted him to live. So if he was freed, he might go to him, and if he did, Corwal could send Arawn a message.

The likeliness of Feist being the king"s agent were minimal. If he had been one, there would have been no need to throw Corwal into the mix. Feist himself could have found a reason and a way to bring Arawn out, if he had only wanted it

Everything would have proceeded much more smoothly then. While Corwal had helped Arawn keep his powers under control, Feist could have had them go loose. That was what the king had really wanted.

With a low whistle, Corwal attracted the man"s attention. Feist instantly stopped murmuring the song to himself and looked around in alertness. Despite the late hour and the cuffs on his hands, he seemed ready to fight.

"Do you want to see Arawn again?" Corwal asked once silence settled into the room.

"Who are you?" Feist demanded, standing up. "Where are you speaking from?"

But even as he asked that, he zeroed in on the spot where the eyehole was. He strode over and tore the painting away to reveal the round hole in the wall.

"You left him in my care, but things happened. He"s far from here now," Corwal said while sitting down by the wall. "Do you want to see him again?"

The man hesitated for a moment, then his breath hitched. "You! You"re that brat! Arawn died because of you! I"ll—"

Corwal scoffed. "I admire your trust in my abilities, but you"re overestimating me. Arawn is well and good. With his self-healing, I don"t think he even has a scratch left."

"Don"t try to lie to me. I know what happened," the man said in a growl. "He was forced to self-destruct because you brought him here."

As he said that, he struck the wall with his cuffs. It produced a loud noise that shook the whole west wing. Corwal could hear the wall cracking under its force.

It seemed like the man really wanted to break through and kill him. At least that meant Feist truly cared about Arawn.

The only problem was convincing him that he wasn"t dead.

"And you believed the king? Are you that stupid to believe whatever you"re told by a man who kept a child imprisoned for over a decade with lies that it was for his own good?"

That slowed the man and the second punch froze in the air before reaching the wall. "How did he survive?" he asked suspiciously.

"Turned into a beast. I"ve had reports of him escaping the city and going on a killing spree on a detachment of soldiers, but we"ve lost track of him after that. He"s been steadily going toward Mairya though."

After a moment of silence, Feist leaned against the wall and asked, "Why are you telling me all this? And who are you really?"

"For you it"s Corwal, the unlucky idiot who got thrown into the Gutter for his stupidity." He took a deep breath. "And I want you to pa.s.s a message to Arawn. Will you do it if I help you escape?"

"Why me?" There was obvious suspicion in the man"s voice. "You don"t even know me."

"Because I"m desperate," Corwal said in his mind, but it sounded too pathetic to be said aloud. He wanted to keep at least a semblance of pride.

"He knows you and will trust the message better than if I send someone unknown. If you were in his place, would you trust a random stranger when the king and all his hounds are after you?"

The man was silent again, which Corwal was starting to realize was a habit of his. "What is the message? I will deliver it, but that"s it. I won"t help you steer Arawn into any danger."

Corwal clapped and rose to his feet. "Perfect! Tell him that Eliot is in danger and that I can"t get to him. He"s the kid"s only hope."

"That"s it?"

"Yes," Corwal said and ran off.

There wasn"t much time left, and there was still some distance to the next exit out of the secret pa.s.sageway. He could think of a dozen convoluted and intricate ways to free Feist, but in the end, who would be blamed for his escape? The west wing seemed unguarded, but hounds prowled all over it, and they were the best defence.

They could release prisoners at will or turn a blind eye to their escape, but they knew better than that. The punishment for letting anyone leave was as heavy as they got. Only someone who wanted a painful death would bring it upon themselves.

But Corwal was cornered. His plans to endanger the a.s.sa.s.sin guild and make them pull back had been foiled, and he couldn"t leave the capital himself. Eliot"s best chance to survive was to have Arawn come help him…

Corwal had no idea until when. Maybe forever, but it wasn"t something he could change. He had to do what he could, and if that was opening the door and unlocking the handcuffs of a person he barely knew, it was what he was going to do. Besides Arawn, no one else would care about the life of a single insignificant boy.

When Corwal opened the door and let Feist out, he didn"t answer any more questions. He simply repeated his words from before and led the man out while avoiding the other hounds.

It wasn"t hard since it was like a trust game for hounds. Freeing people was made extremely easy for them, but it was a trap. The prisoners brought to the west wing weren"t the strongest mages, so they were bound to be caught again in no time, while the hound who failed the trust test would be punished with a fate worse than death.

Still, Corwal told himself that it was worth it. If he could protect Eliot, any price was worth paying.

As he turned around, a thought entered his mind. "Kyla is gonna be furious with me... It"s actions like this that she warned me against…"