enough to stash a dead body in, secured with no less than five impressive locks. Vocho almost drooled just looking at it. Whatever was in this chest, it was very valuable to someone – bodyguards, locks and a possible magician to guard it, a thought that made sweat prickle on Vocho’s scalp. But they’d made it out of the debacle alive, the winners, and they had this too. That was the important thing.
He could hardly wait to open it. If they got away before that magician recovered from a sword through the throat, whoever owned it would never find it.
It took the three of them to get the chest up onto the back of Vocho’s horse, which sank into the mud and groaned under the weight. Vocho gave him a pat and decided that seeing as his boots were covered in mud already, he could probably walk back. It wasn’t like he wasn’t already soaked.
Once they were done, Cospel too stripped off. Vocho tied him up on the driver’s seat and left him to a shivering wet drive, with a “We’ll leave your share in the usual place.” He thought for a moment. “Where were you headed anyway?”
Cospel shrugged. “A town just along the valley – that’s as far as this coach goes.”
Hmm. A long way from Reyes and Egimont’s usual stamping grounds. Never mind, he could think on that later. Vocho and Kacha manhandled the limp and muddy men into the carriage and Cospel clucked the horses on.
They watched the carriage until it disappeared around a bend and all they could make out was a faint light through the rain. Kacha forced a laugh and took Vocho’s arm as they led the horses off the road and into the darkness of the woods. Vocho wasn’t fooled. Her hand shook, ever so slightly. He knew why too – she’d almost killed Flashy, and it had been a miracle she hadn’t. She’d never say it, but she didn’t like the killing part. Things happened in the heat of the moment, it was true – a slip, a stray thrust, an unexpected movement and she couldn’t avoid that – but she avoided killing if she could. Too merciful, without that ruthless instinct. It was her one weakness as a duellist, as far as Vocho could make out, which meant obviously it was the one he ragged her about as often as he could. A duellist might have to kill, to protect whoever he was guarding, to finish the job, though they were expected to refrain whenever possible. Just as well he managed for them both when it was necessary, mostly.
That’s what was making her edgy perhaps; not that Petri had popped up, like a bloody jack-in-the-box, just at the worst possible moment.
He sidled a look her way. No, it was Petri that had her rattled with that “please”, damn the suave bastard.
They stopped to watch the carriage light disappear behind another line of trees.
“The respected Egimont sent off in his drawers, displaying the only jewels he has left,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Well, if that doesn’t make you your precious new name, nothing will.”
“Bugger.”
“What?”
“I forgot to tell him our new names.”
Chapter Two
The next morning was cold still, though the rain had let up. This was small comfort to Vocho as he squelched across the yard.
Nights out robbing were all well and good, but the days were grey and boring lately. Ever since that accident with the priest, after which no one wanted to employ them. Not to mention the arrest warrant. He supposed they would have been unemployed sooner or later anyway – guns were the coming thing, no matter how long the guild tried to hold out against them. It’d taken a while for them to gain popularity because for a long time only the very rich or the clockers, men and women who owned the clockwork factories, could afford them. Then something – he didn’t know what because he didn’t pay much attention – had happened, and all of a sudden almost everyone in the capital, Reyes, had one. He’d heard all the guards, employed by the prelate’s council and otherwise, used them now. Mostly they were cheap things, liable to spring apart into a thousand pieces the moment anyone tried to fire them, probably knocked up by some clocker looking to make a quick bull or ten, but still.
As Kacha had amply demonstrated last night, they were not cut out for guns. At least out here in