Topal

  “Here’s your reward,” the Honor at the Vor estate’s front gate said almost immediately after Lovu was out of earshot. Although Topal had locked him into a stare down, he completely dropped his guard once they were alone, handing her a bag full almost to bursting. It was filled with 100 fuvre coins – the kind that she had only ever seen merchants use when paying for goods in bulk. By a quick estimate of weight, it had to be somewhere over 10,000 fuvre in total.

  “I-I’m sorry. What is this?” she asked, the air knocked out of her lungs.

  “I just said it was your reward, didn’t I?” the Honor said. “And the Lord offers her sincerest gratitude, but unfortunately she will be unable to meet with you directly.”

  “Her gratitude? I thought it was one of the Vor sons?”

  “What difference does it make? You got what your bounty?” The weight in her hand suddenly turned from tantalizing to unbearable. “Now, move on. We don’t have anything against your kind, but it’ll make the locals restless if they see you hanging around the old-city.”

  “What’s gonna happen to him?” she asked, barely able to hear her own voice over the pounding in her ears.

  “He’ll get what he deserves and then some, but you don’t have to worry about that.” His demeanor became more serious as he studied her face. “After all, his family has never given a damn about Scars. You wouldn’t be sympathetic to the old Voice, would you?”

  Even in a stunned state, she was smart enough to recognize a threat. “Nah, money’s money,” she said, doing her best to sound relaxed. “Just curious. Y’all did a good job of covering your tracks, so it caught me off guard.”

  “Damn right,” the Honor said, his guarded expression replaced by a cocky smile. “Took a lot of work, but it was worth it. Lord Tama was always a few steps ahead of the rest of the Lords and it’s finally paying off.”

  “Well, it was a pleasure working with you,” she said, slipping the pouch into her pockets and giving him a nod. Then she turned back to the drunkard who had guided her there. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Well, ain’t you a sweetheart,” he slurred as they turned to leave.

  Once they were safely out of the old-city without trouble and halfway back to the Taphouse, Topal pulled him aside into a small alley by an abandoned building with as few people around as possible.

  “Look, you’re lovely ‘n all, but I ain’t that easy. Start with that drink,” he said as she practically dragged him by the arm.

  “Not where this is going,” she said, pushing him against the wall. “How’d you know the Honors at the gate?”

  “I dunno what you’re-”

  Before he could finish his sentence, she pulled out one of the 100 fuvre coins and held it in front of his face. The metal felt red hot in her fingers. “Answer my questions and this is yours. Might even throw more your way if it turns out you’re useful.”

  “Used to work the old-city walls,” he said instantly, all hesitation and restraint vanishing. “Been doin’ it since I was chosen by Yol. On pretty good terms with the Vor Honors ‘til this week.”

  “Since the person in the estate came into town?”

  “Mmm hmm. They relieved me and pretty much everyone else from their posts and replaced ‘em with new Honors. Fuckin’ pricks.”

  “Do you know who ‘Lord Tama’ is?”

  “Who?”

  “The person the Honor mentioned just now. They’re not one of Lord Vor’s family?”

  “Oh… not that I know of. Swear to Yol, I thought it was the kid Lord Vor kept in the capital. Was honestly pissed that he decided to fire me like that. Makes sense it was someone from outside though. The normal Honors never woulda made that mistake.”

  “Oh?” she said, immediately smelling a lead. “And why’s that?”

  At that, the Honors straightened. He was still obviously smashed, but he was at least putting on a front of sobriety now. “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”

  She flashed another coin. “If it’s really that valuable, this should cover it.”

  His eyes widened, but just as quickly his eagerness retreated into apprehension. “I shouldn’t. They’d kill me if I told anyone.”

  Two more coins came out. Under any other circumstance, she never would have paid 400 fuvre for this kind of information, but she didn’t feel a strong attachment to the coins. If anything, she was struggling to hold onto them as it was and if her hunch was right, she didn’t exactly have the time to waste.

  “I know the estate’s hidden exit,” he said, his final wall dropping. “Most Lords’ve got one, but they keep ‘em super secret. Back when Kefi was a kid, he used it to sneak out and wander the forest. The Lord freaked out ‘n got a couple of us to search for him. I caught him just on the edge of the wildlands and dragged him back. When I asked how he got so far without anyone seein’, he told me about it.”

  “The first 100 fuvre was just for telling me. Show me where it is, and the rest is yours.”

  “Deal.”

  They made a quick detour to grab the weapons she stashed before looping around to where the Honor claimed the secret tunnel was. It took a bit of searching, but they found it just as the sun started to fully vanish behind the horizon.

  At first glance, it looked like just a small alcove in the mountainside covered in crawling ivy, but past its cover was a heavy iron door. It took a moment to clear off enough to open, but it scraped open with a heavy squeal. Once she made sure there were no traps to worry about, she stepped back out to where the Honor was waiting.

  “Looks good,” she said, tossing the coins his way. His hands came up a second too late, letting them clatter to the ground. “You said it leads into a kitchen?”

  “Yup,” he said as he gathered them back up. “A lever opens it from inside the tunnel. Secret keyhole bottom right of the stove does it from the outside. Use a poker.”

  “Got it,” she said, eyeing him a bit longer. He pocketed the coins, slipping each one into a different fold in his clothes, but she stopped him before he could leave. “I’ll need directions once I get back. If you wait here until then, I’ll throw in another 500.”

  It was a lie that would have normally been obvious enough for anyone to pick up on. While she didn’t expect him to move fast enough to warn the Honors at the estate before she was in and out, she couldn’t risk him betraying her. So long as she could keep him there until she was safely out of the estate, that would buy them time to get back into the wildlands.

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  “Absolutely,” he said, his greedy eyes locking in on her pocket. Luckily, in his drunken state, he bought it no problem at all.

  “Good. Won’t be more than an hour,” she said, leaving him there as he sat down, back against a tree.

  The tunnel was pitch dark, but it was a straight shot and her eyes adapted quickly. Running as fast and safely as possible, she reached the ladder in just a few minutes. Prowling up, she reached the top and felt the lever he mentioned. However, she felt something more troubling – heat.

  Radiating from the stone wall that opened into the kitchen was the warmth of a cooking fire. It wasn’t intense enough to be unpleasant, but it meant someone was using or had used the stove recently. Pressing her ear against it, she couldn’t hear the crackling of fire and it felt relatively cool. There was no sound of talking or moving around, but that didn’t rule anything out either.

  Her hand hovered over the lever. No matter how long she sat there, she couldn’t force it downward.

  I’m going in blind. One wrong move and I’m dead on the spot. I already got my reward, so is there really a reason for me to do this? I don’t even know if he’s in trouble. Sure, the Honors were kind of dicks, but they could have just been trying to get me to leave. He’s back with his own kind now and they could be sipping tea right now, laughing about ditching me. I don’t owe him anything.

  As she dug for an excuse to justify turning around, the sickening twist in her stomach overwhelmed everything. No matter how much the pouch of coins weighed, it felt like a feather compared to Lovu’s ring in her pocket. It dragged her down like lead with every thought.

  Fuck it.

  The stone bricks split in front of her, pulling back into the wall on either side and blasting her in the face with a wave of heat. She was right about the stove only having embers left, but they were fresh. More importantly, there was a face looking back at her.

  “What the fuck?” an older man with a huge cauldron in hand asked as he knelt down to look in the hearth. As he met her eyes, realization dawned and he started to pull back.

  Topal was quicker. Tucking and rolling through the embers, she sprang from the hidden door, putting him in a headlock and covering his mouth as the cauldron clattered to the ground, dousing the embers with soup. He managed to get a few quick shouts out before she secured him.

  “Shhhh,” she said, dragging him over into the corner next to the door where they’d be hidden from sight once it opened. No matter how much she tried to calm him down, he never stopped fighting. “If you answer my questions without screaming, I won’t hurt you,” she said, pulling her sword up and pressing it against his throat. That finally made him go still.

  Now that he wasn’t fighting, she took the time to fully assess him. He wore simple but refined clothes and lacked any strength to speak of. At a glance, he was probably a servant and – based on his location – a chef.

  “Your master welcomed someone into the estate tonight,” she said, whispering into his ear but paying attention to how his body reacted. “What does your master want from him?”

  “T-the bounty,” he said as she pulled her hand back just enough to let him speak, ready to replace it the second he acted like he was going to scream. “She wants to turn him into the Emperor.”

  “Is he still alive?” she asked, her own body tensing as she asked.

  “Yes! She just finished talking to him a minute ago.”

  “Where is he?”

  “The grand dining hall by the entrance.”

  “Good,” she said, faintly relaxing the blade. “Last question. Is he unharmed?”

  This time, his body froze up. Up until then, there was still some ambiguity in Topal’s mind about the estate residents’ relation to Lovu. He must have realized the connection she was making, because he took that moment to try and break free from her grip instead of answering. No matter how much she relaxed her weapon, there was no world where he beat her in a fight.

  Blade met flesh and blood spilled from the chef’s throat. Wasting no time, she scooped him up as he sputtered through his own blood and tossed him back into the hole at the back of the hearth. The sound of his body slamming into the walls and rungs of the ladder ended abruptly with one final wet thud.

  She was now on a time limit. As soon as somebody came to check on the chef, they’d see the mess and know something was wrong. Pulling a poker from the rack next to the hearth, she found the hidden keyhole the Honor mentioned and sealed the door back up, then brushed the embers back into the fireplace to cover her tracks as best as possible. There were some blood drops on the floor, but most of it was in the corner behind the door and in the low torchlight – they were barely noticeable. The only obvious problem was the spilled soup, but a random observer could easily discount that as an accident, at least for a little while.

  Content with that, she poked her head out of the door to find a mind-numbingly long hallway. There was nobody in sight, but she still felt utterly lost.

  How do I know which door is the dining hall?

  At each door, she pressed her ear to it and if she couldn’t hear anything, looked inside. While she was disgusted by the absurdity of each room and was forced to wonder what some of their purposes were, she could definitively tell none of them were meant for dining.

  Then she started to notice the smell. It was always faintly there, but it became overwhelming as she reached the furthest point of the hallway. At the door where it grew strongest, she looked down to see the faint trails of dried blood streaking underneath it.

  She creaked the door open and was slapped in the face by putrid rot. What was once a sitting room had a pile of bodies as tall as Topal heaped at its center. They were ripe with decay but still largely intact.

  Most of the bodies were wearing nice, but not noble clothing – attendants and servants. A handful were wearing heavily damaged Honor armor, but the rest were stripped naked. The fact that there were none with intact armor made it clear that the naked bodies were also Honors, just killed non-violently enough to leave their armor salvageable.

  A wretched sight, but not what she was looking for. As she was about to leave, she heard footsteps approaching from the end of the hallway. With no other options, she slipped into the corpse-room and closed the door as quietly as possible. It must not have been enough, as she heard the footsteps pause.

  They slowly approached the room as she pressed herself against the wall directly behind the door and drew her sword. Whoever it was stood silently outside for a few moments before jiggling the handle. The door swung open and their shadow cast across the floor in the moonlight. From the silhouette, they were an Honor with sword in hand.

  Topal gripped her own weapon firmly as she wound up to strike. Despite all of her misgivings about Honors, she knew the one thing they were good at was fighting. She was confident in her ability to beat one if she got the drop on them, but this one was braced for a fight already. Her odds still weren’t bad, but it turned a sure victory into a coin toss, even worse if the fight caught someone else’s attention.

  Gotta end it in one move.

  The Honor stepped into the room, slowly scanning it. For some reason, instead of using the door for cover as they cleared each corner, they stepped all the way inside before even starting their sweep. Before their eyes reached her, she struck, aiming for their exposed throat. Her blade passed smoothly through skin, piercing all the way through. Just to be safe, she used her free hand to catch the Honor’s arm and hold their weapon in place.

  However, they didn’t even try to attack in return. Sputtering, the Honors hands leapt to their throat, dropping the weapon entirely as they clutched at the wound. Despite her surprise at how easily it went, she finished the job with a quick twist of her blade. Catching the limp body, she dragged it all the way into the room and dumped it onto the pile, right on top of one of the nude bodies.

  “Huh,” she chuckled under her breath as she realized why they hadn’t been a challenge. Even if the intruders had extra suits of Honor armor, that didn’t mean they had the Honors to actually make use of them. That didn’t mean there were no Honors in the estate, but the fact that she ran into one of the non-Honors first was an unbelievable stroke of luck.

  She crept to the end of the hallway, cracking open the final door. It opened into some sort of large hall, but her view was blocked by a staircase overhead. Sneaking out enough to look around it, she saw a single Honor standing guard in front of a huge set of double doors.

  She couldn’t count on them being another fraud and they were standing with their back to a wall on the opposite end of a huge, wide open chamber. There was no way to win in a direct fight. Although she hadn’t expected to need her bow in such closed quarters, she was glad she chose to bring it anyway. The slight creak of the wood as she drew it back caught the guard’s attention the split second before she fired.

  It was subtle enough that only a real Honor would have noticed, meaning she made the right choice by not approaching. Even though they managed to draw their sword in the brief moment between the arrow loosing and lodging itself in their eye, their reactions weren’t fast enough to stop it. They collapsed in a heap, the clatter of metal on marble floors echoing through the empty chamber.

  She stayed in the shadows until she was sure nobody heard, but launched into action as soon as she felt it was safe. As quickly as possible, she dragged the body into the room they were guarding. The weight in her pockets and knot in her stomach all vanished as she found Lovu, tied up and staring down at the table in front of him in dismay.