The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,69

ranging from friendly to hostile. Gathrid could detect no pattern of response.

A King's messenger intercepted them. He bore an offer of royal hospitality. Gathrid glanced at Rogala. The dwarf shook his head. Gathrid refused graciously.

"Don't ever put yourself in the hands of princes," Rogala told him. "That's a good way to get your throat cut. There's a likely looking inn."

The inn refused their custom. They asked in the streets, and were directed to another. The dwarf found it acceptable. Its landlord was willing to take them.

Gathrid walked back outside and looked up. The structure was four storeys tall. A private building. He was amazed.

He went back inside. Something seemed to bore in between his shoulderblades. It became an almost physical ache. He whirled, saw nothing.

"What's the matter?" Rogala demanded.

"I don't know. Just had a funny feeling."

Rogala scrutinized the common room narrowly. "I don't feel anything."

That spot on the youth's back still itched. He glanced round again. "False intuition, I guess. Your senses are better than mine."

"Not necessarily." Rogala kept a hand on his dagger.

That same pain wakened Gathrid in the middle of the night. He did not move immediately. Aarant made warning sounds inside him. Across the room, near the single candle, Rogala was dozing in his chair. Gacioch's box lay on the table, beside the candle. He and the dwarf had been talking when Gathrid had gone to bed. Now the demon was snoring.

There was something badly wrong.

"Sorcery," Aarant told him.

No doubt. Rogala did not sleep. He always took the night watches. Should Gathrid waken, he would be mumbling to himself or, lately, with Gacioch.

Moving slowly, he reached for the Sword.

"Use the other one," Aarant suggested. "They'll be listening for Daubendiek."

Quietly, Gathrid made his bed look occupied. Finished, he scanned the room. Nothing seemed to be happening. He went and crouched in a shadowed corner, leaving Rogala to his slumber.

Whence would they come? The door was locked and barred. The window was sealed against the winter's chill.

A section of wainscotting crept away from the wall.

Ah, he thought. This was why the landlord had insisted they have "the best room in the house."

He had intuited the best lurking place. The swinging wainscotting masked him.

A head popped out, glanced around. The whole man stole forth, reached back, helped another. The first then stalked Rogala with a garrote while the other went toward the bed. He carried a knife which burned a bright blue.

Gathrid took the strangler first.

The new sword was slower than Daubendiek, but devoured a soul as greedily.

The man's name was Fiebig Koziatek. He was a Torun assassin, a freelance. He had no idea who had paid him. His equally ignorant associate, Zais Baukla, died a moment later.

"Behind you," Aarant snarled.

A thin golden rod poked out of the hatchway. Gathrid jumped, evaded pale fire which sliced six inches into the wall behind him. He charged. His blade found flesh.

This was a man who had known something at one time. His mind had been cleansed of all but a command to kill. Even his name had been taken. Gathrid dragged him into the room. He neither wore nor bore anything condemning.

"Someone will be watching for them," Aarant suggested.

Rogala and Gacioch still slept. After checking them, Gathrid entered the hidden passageway. If no one else, he thought, the landlord would do some explaining. He had to be involved.

The passage reached many of the rooms. Gathrid checked each and found it innocent. The hidden way ended in a cellar accessible both from the kitchen and an alley. The horizontal, hatchlike alley door was of rough, weathered lumber with wide gaps between time-shrunken boards. Through these Gathrid spotted a watcher on a nearby rooftop, crouched beside a pot-topped chimney.

How to approach him? The detailed planning of the attack suggested that all exits would be watched.

There had to be a way to trace the principal. Mulenex? Nieroda? Ahlert? Hildreth, trying to frame Mulenex? Or some local entrepreneur trying to obtain Daubendiek for his own use? Torun had an underworld replete with famous names.

The watcher drifted away for a moment, pacing in boredom.

Silent as a weasel, Gathrid slid into the alley. He took cover in a shadow out of view of the roof. He listened for evidence of a trap.

"You're becoming another Rogala," Aarant chided good-naturedly. "It's safe. The sorcery was likely bought."

A dog with an odd bark spoke from the far side of the inn. A cat yowled above Gathrid. A moment later a rope dropped and the watcher clambered down. He kept glancing around