you give me some bandages, please, Bran?” he asked calmly.
Bran fumbled in his pocket and handed over a roll of white cloth. Arren bound it around his arm, and then turned to Craddick. For a moment he was still, watching him with a cold calculating expression, just like the one Eluna had worn a few moments before. Then he stepped forward and punched the man in the jaw. Craddick reeled backward, only to be righted by his guards.
“All right,” Arren snarled, “how about you start telling us the truth, smuggler? How many other people are down there?”
The last of Craddick’s defiance had gone. “There’s no-one,” he mumbled. “The others don’t come here much. Just when—to bring in the new stuff, and when—”
“You will give us their names,” said Arren. “And anything else you know about them. But first you’re going to show me your cellar and everything that’s in it.” He picked up his sword from the floor. “And I’m going to be right behind you.”
Craddick went with considerable reluctance. He led Arren down into the cellar, picking up the fallen lantern along the way.
He had been telling the truth; there were no other people in the cellar. But there were boxes. Hundreds of them. They were stacked everywhere. And among them were sacks and baskets, and barrels, enough goods to stock a fair chunk of the marketplace.
Once Arren and Bran had explored the cellar and made sure there were no people hiding there, they summoned the rest of the guards down. They came, carrying lanterns and torches, many uttering exclamations of astonishment when they saw the contents.
“Search the place,” Bran told them. “We want to know what we’re dealin’ with here.”
Craddick stood by resignedly as the boxes were levered open and sacks were slit. There were all kinds of things in the cellar. Grain, dried meat, fruit and vegetables, clothes, wine and beer, herbs, pots and pans, even a bag of illegal whiteleaf, hidden in a hole in the wall.
“Well,” said Arren. “Seems you’ve got a pretty sweet business running down here. I’m surprised you managed to keep it going as long as you did. Would you care to tell me a little about your methods? I’m always happy to learn. Especially from the best.”
Craddick spat. “Go back to the North, blackrobe.”
Bran hit him. “Shut up!”
Arren laughed. “I’d rather be a Northerner than a criminal, Craddick. Last time I checked, it was smugglers who went to prison, not blackrobes.” He nodded to the guards. “Take him away.”
The guards started to haul Craddick away. But as they did, Arren thought he caught something odd. Some expression in his face. Something not quite right.
He froze.
“What is it, sir?” said Bran.
Arren held up a hand to silence him. He was listening intently. Then, suddenly, he turned and crossed the room in two long strides, to a spot in the corner, where there was a box draped in cloth. He pulled it away.
“Oh my gods.”
It was not a box. It was a cage. Inside, a pair of yellow eyes peered out at him. There was a rustle of wings, and a beak poked through the bars. “Food?” it said.
Arren turned slowly to look at Craddick. “Craddick Arnson, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
4
Rannagon
The rest of the raid was fairly straightforward. Once Craddick and Rose had been escorted out and taken to the prison district, Arren helped the guards to empty out the cellar. They carried the goods into the dining room, shoving the furniture out of the way, but in the end there were so many they had to carry a lot of them into the front garden. A crowd of people gathered to watch, and Bran sensibly posted a pair of guards to stop them looting the contents of the crates. Eluna stayed with them, watching the onlookers menacingly. Two other guards bundled up the dead man in a pair of sacks and quietly removed him through the back door. His body would go to the prison district to be searched and then kept safely until his family came to collect him.
The cage containing the griffin chick was one of the last things to be carried out. Arren insisted on taking it personally. The chick looked well enough: undernourished and sensitive to the light, but uninjured. He fed it some dried meat from a sack and watched as it gulped it down. “How long have they been keeping you down there?” he muttered.
Bran noticed the blood soaking through the bandage on Arren’s