The Eighth Warden Ch. 023-024

"It seems so inefficient to have this many people just to do whatever the Assembly wants."

Enna laughed again. "Governments are big. This place isn't any busier than the ducal palace back in Tyrsall. Kirla showed me around the last time I visited home."

"I didn't realize," Treya said. The Duke of Tyrsall had thousands of workers, but she'd always thought of them as being the street cleaners, lamplighters, constables, and tax men. With that many people, though, it made sense that there'd have to be another layer between them and the duke.

"Are you staying at the chapter house? Are they expecting you back for supper?"

"We didn't discuss it."

"Then you should come with us! Rufus has a lovely home overlooking the harbor, and an excellent cook. I think we're having roast lamb tonight, and you can tell me stories about your journeying."

"I do have some stories."

#

Circle Bay's prison, in the south side of the city, was one of the few buildings that wasn't whitewashed. The natural gray of the stone stood out starkly from the neighboring buildings. Katrin stared at it and shivered, though the late afternoon sun was warm.

"Why do I feel like I'm about to go to prison, rather than get my brother out?" she asked.

"You haven't done anything in Circle Bay that you'd be wanted for, have you?" Corec asked.

"No. Well, not in years. When we first moved here, Barz fell in with a better crew than Dallo's gang back in Tyrsall. There were a few girls my age, so I worked some pickpocketing jobs with them, but I wasn't very good at it so I was usually the distraction. But then one of the girls got caught, and the guy she was trying to rob knifed her. Felix had taught me more about music by then, so when one of my friends almost died on the street, I decided to get out of that life. I'm still friends with some of them, but I haven't worked a job in five years. I don't think the city guard knows about me."

"I could go in by myself, if you want."

"No, I'll be fine. I was nervous the last time we got him out, too."

"Are you sure this is where we pay the fee?"

"Yes. During the day, there's a magistrate on duty that handles releases and new prisoners. I think I remember where his office is."

They had to wait for an hour, but the magistrate got to them before his workday ended.

"How may I help you?" he asked.

"I'd like to pay my brother's penalty fee," Katrin said.

"Name of the prisoner?"

"Barz."

The magistrate nodded to his assistant, who left the room, then returned shortly with a handful of papers. The magistrate read them over, then looked up at Katrin.

"Age twenty-four, in for burglary?" he asked.

"Yes."

"This was his fourth time. Do you really think he's going to change?" He didn't wait for an answer. "You realize he'll need to come see me every week and show me that he's working a real job? If he misses a week, or if he doesn't find work within the first month, he'll go back in and you'll forfeit the fee."

Katrin hadn't known that. Could she really justify spending so much of Corec's money when it was likely to be wasted? She glanced his way, but he just nodded.

"I understand," she told the magistrate.

"And, of course, if he returns to his old ways, he'll end up in front of me again. For a fifth offense, I don't have to allow a penalty fee."

Katrin nodded. She couldn't afford another one anyway.

"All right, then," he said. "The fee is forty gold pieces."

Katrin paid, then the assistant left the room again. While they waited, the magistrate took care of his next case, releasing a ship's captain who'd been caught smuggling. The man had chosen two years in prison rather than having his ship seized.

Once that was done, a guard led Barz to the center of the room. Katrin's brother had grown a wild, bushy beard since the last time she'd seen him. He looked at her in surprise.

The magistrate described the terms of his probation, but Barz just nodded along, not saying much in return.

Finally, it was over, and they had a chance to speak to him privately while the paperwork was being completed.

His first words to her were, "What are you doing here? Felix told me you were caught by a bounty hunter up near Tyrsall."

"That's all you can say? At least the last time I got you out, you thanked me."

"You shouldn't have wasted your money. Who's your friend?"

Barz was trying to act indifferent, but Katrin could see his unease when he eyed the sword hilt poking up behind Corec's shoulder.

Katrin said, "His name is Corec. I wanted you to meet him. He was the one that paid to get you out."

"Then I guess she wasted your money," he said, facing Corec.

Corec shrugged. "That's not my problem anymore. It's your problem now. Are you going to waste it?"

Barz glared at him, then turned back to Katrin. "What happened with the bounty hunter?"

It was Corec that replied. "It turns out, I wasn't a very good bounty hunter. But everything's taken care of. She's no longer wanted in Tyrsall."

"Do you even know what I was doing there?" Katrin asked her brother.

"Felix said you had some fool notion to pickpocket enough to pay my penalty. I thought you wanted to stay clean! I don't want you ending up in prison, too!"

Even though he was mad at her, Katrin smiled. The old Barz was still in there, still trying to watch out for her.

"I'm done with it now," she said. "I'm going to find a bard teacher, and Corec and I are moving to Tyrsall."

"You're going away with some stranger?" He looked at Corec suspiciously.

"He's not a stranger, Barz. We've been traveling together for months. And I can't keep doing this! I'm tired of putting up with Felix, and I'm tired of watching you get in trouble! I need to live my own life."

"So you're leaving Circle Bay? Just like that?"

"Tyrsall isn't far away by ship. It only took us eight days to get here. I'll be able to visit, and we can send letters, too. We're going to do some traveling first, with a friend, but I'll let you know when we find a place to live."

Barz frowned, and tried another tack. "I thought the bards wouldn't take you."

"The northern schools won't accept girls as students, but some of the southern schools will, and a lot of bards travel. I'm going to try to find one who's willing to teach me."

He looked down. "When are you leaving?"

"I don't know. We've got a few other things to do here in Circle Bay, and then however long it takes to find a ship. I'll see you again before I go. Do you know where Felix is living now?"

"He said he'd moved back to the docks."

"Yes, he's two buildings west of where he was when we first found him. The one with the tavern on the ground floor."

Barz nodded but didn't speak. He'd been quieter than usual ever since the guard had first brought him before the magistrate, and the news that she was leaving hadn't helped. His earlier stints in prison hadn't changed him, but this time, he seemed less full of life than she remembered. Maybe he just needed some time to recover. She decided not to tell him about Felix abandoning her or spending the money they'd been saving for him. With her leaving the city, the two of them might need each other, and she didn't want to create a rift between them.

#

"We should have looked for that mapmaker today," Ellerie said as she and Boktar walked back to the inn where they'd taken rooms.

"There's plenty of time for that," he replied. "We needed a few days of rest. We'll buy supplies and look for some maps tomorrow."

Ellerie sighed. They'd reached Circle Bay well behind her original schedule, after they'd heard rumors of some old ruins to the east of South Corner. The structures couldn't have been the remains of she was looking for, unless there was a mountain range nearby she didn't know about, but the age of the ruins and their proximity to the Terril Forest led her to think they might have been Ancient in origin. She'd decided they should take the trip to explore—eight days out of their way—in case they could find any further clues about the location of Tir Yadar.

Unfortunately, the ruins had been well explored already, and they hadn't found anything useful. The stone buildings that still stood were blank and unadorned, unlike what she'd read about Ancient ruins. Boktar thought the area might once have been a human military structure, built either to threaten the dorvasta or to defend against a feared dorvasta incursion south. The cousins had never shown any sign of wishing to expand beyond the forest's borders, but there'd still been a few small wars with the surrounding lands over the centuries. No outside force had ever managed to hold part of Terril for long, though—humans didn't understand the truths hidden within the forest.

The trip had been pointless, but on the morning they'd planned to leave, Ellerie couldn't resist looking through an underground storage area, just in case. Unlike the structures above the ground, the storage area wasn't completely barren, though on closer examination, she'd realized that the only things left were empty barrels and bare weapon racks. She'd been looking behind a row of half-rotted oak wine casks when she came face to face with a giant spider that apparently decided she was food. Boktar killed it before it could bite her a second time, but it had taken her nearly five days to recover well enough that they could travel. She'd still been weak, and they'd had to keep to a slow pace until they found a village with a priestess who was able to heal her and eliminate the last of the poison from her body.

"I just hate losing time," she said. "At this rate, it'll be winter before we reach the Storm Heights, if we still plan to look at the Coastal Range first."

"Well, going north for the winter isn't the stupidest thing we've ever done. Remember when we were hired to guard that seaborn dignitary, but he had that elven advisor who figured out who you were and that you hadn't turned a hundred and eleven yet? She wanted to send you back to your mother as a present."

Ellerie blushed at the memory. She was almost a hundred and twelve now, but she'd left Terevas several years before she reached adulthood, as her people counted it. She'd been young and foolish, and had had a few close scrapes for those first years.

She said, "Why, when you're talking about stupid things we've done, do you always pick the ones that make me look bad?"

"I'm just playing the odds, Elle. If we do something stupid, chances are..." He trailed off with a grin.

She gave him a dirty look, but decided to let that pass without comment. Instead, she said, "If we're going south to the Coastal Range, should we just keep heading south afterward, then come back to the Storm Heights in the summer?"

"I suppose we can see what the mapmaker says about the mountain ranges down south. The north will have snow, the south will have lizardfolk. I've traveled in snow, but I've never had any dealings with the lizards."

"Is there fighting going on?"

"Last I heard, the war ended twenty-some years ago, and hasn't started back up again yet. My cousin's in Sanvar, and he says market day is a mix of stoneborn, humans, and lizardfolk all trading together, and only occasionally stabbing each other."

"I'm not sure whether that was supposed to be a yes or a no."

Boktar laughed. "Neither am I."

The sun had just dipped below the horizon, but there was still plenty of light to see the two men who suddenly stepped out in front of them, loaded crossbows in their hands. Without warning, both men loosed their shots. Ellerie's arrow shield spell flared to life, then died, but not before removing all the momentum from the bolt that had been aimed at her. It fell to the ground.

Boktar wasn't so lucky. After having been on the road for so long, he'd decided to spend the day without his heavy armor. His only protection was a gambeson, which hadn't been strong enough to block the bolt that now protruded from his stomach. He tried to reach for his hammer but his arms weren't working right, and while Ellerie watched, he fell to his knees.

The attackers cursed. They'd seen the light from her shield spell, and they hurriedly tried to cock their crossbows once again, as people around them realized what had happened. The crowd began shouting and running away.

Ellerie needed to move fast if she was going to get Boktar to a healer on time. She thought she could kill both crossbowmen before they reloaded. She drew her rapier and began muttering the words to a spell, but as she spoke, three more men came from out of nowhere and advanced on her. One of the men was nilvasta, dressed in nicer clothing than the others and carrying a rapier like her own. As she finished casting the spell, she changed its target.

A white beam of light shot from her hand and hit the elf's chest, burning a hole. He collapsed lifelessly.

Boktar would yell at her for not taking the man prisoner to question him, but she couldn't handle five men by herself, and if there was any chance the elf had hired the others, then perhaps the rest of them would stop with him dead.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The two crossbowmen were still reloading, but the other two rushed her. The beam spell had taken most of her magic, but it didn't matter because she was too busy dodging and blocking to try to cast anything else.