Covenant's End (9 page)

“Well, well. Taskmaster Remy Privott, himself. I guess not
all
the gods are annoyed with me yet.”

She merely sniffed, then, at her own god's response, which translated roughly to
Give them time
.

It really
was
a stroke of luck, though. Second only to the Shrouded Lord—or the woman who'd taken his place, presuming Lisette hadn't drastically rearranged the Finders' hierarchy—the Taskmaster would be privy to nearly everything happening within the Guild. She just needed the opportunity to ask the right questions….

She grinned, wide and vicious, as a thought occurred. “Your ears are still better than mine,” she whispered. “Are there any Guard or house patrols nearby?”

Considering how many she'd seen the prior night, she'd have been surprised if he told her there weren't.

She was not surprised.

“All right. Wait for it…”

At Remy's gruff instruction, several of the Finders moved deep into niches between buildings, kneeling to check on their injured compatriots. Several others stood at the mouth of the alleyway, hands dropping to the hilts of daggers, swords…or flintlocks.

“That one,” she whispered.

The weapon all but detonated, the catastrophic misfire warping metal and splitting the wooden stock clear from end to end. The explosive
crack
echoed through the Davillon night, as did the piercing shriek—more startled than pained but certainly made up of both—from the man who owned the gun.

Every man and woman in the alley had spun about or leapt to their feet, weapons drawn and hearts pounding. Remy wasn't even remotely finished cursing when, even without the divine aid that Widdershins enjoyed, the lot of them could clearly hear the shouts and rapid steps of an approaching patrol, drawn by the gunfire.

Shins knew exactly what was coming next. She was counting on it.

“Scatter!” the taskmaster hissed. The Finders obeyed, vanishing—alone or in pairs—in every direction. And it was, indeed,
every
direction. While most of the group remained on the streets, several of them began scaling the sides of nearby structures, as others sought shelter within.

Only one of them mattered.

Remy scrambled up the building next to the one on which Shins was perched, accompanied by a scraggly, unshaven thief who would have to clean up to aspire to “weaselly.” With impressive stealth, they jogged along the rooftops at a low crouch, hopping the narrow gaps between neighboring eaves, leaving the scene rapidly behind.

Widdershins found it laughably easy to keep up.

It would have been nice if the taskmaster had scampered off alone, but apparently her luck wasn't to be
that
good. Now she'd have to
make
him alone.

“Ah, well. What's one more injured thief? Safer streets, yes?”

Olgun pointed out that she really didn't need any
more
enemies in the Guild, but since she was already quite well aware of that, she ignored it. Instead, she said, “Going to need some extra speed and a boost here.”

The next obstacle Remy and his companion would have to clear was a street, not an alleyway, albeit a narrow one. It was a tricky jump to make, but not
too
difficult, certainly not for men with their training and experience.

Just as the two of them neared that edge, Widdershins's run turned into an impossible sprint. Inhumanly steady on the rickety roof, hair and hood flying behind her in the wind of her own motion, she closed the distance in a matter of heartbeats. When her quarry leapt, she was only steps behind them.

She felt Olgun's presence beneath her, propelling her up and out with her last step so that she soared through the open air, higher and far faster, than the others. She tucked her knees tight to her chest, giving herself just enough room to pass over the head of Remy's companion.

Then, still in midair, she kicked down hard with both feet.

The not-quite-weasel screamed at the sharp impact on his shoulders, the bone-shaking jolt as he was suddenly propelled downward. Shins's kick did
not
, of course, substantially alter his forward momentum, so that same scream ceased just as abruptly as he slammed face-first into the wall just below his intended landing point.

Neither that impact, nor the subsequent fall, should prove fatal, but when he finally woke up, he was going to seriously envy his friends back in the alley, who had merely been stabbed a few times.

Given the Guild's recent activities and behavior, Shins found herself remarkably guilt-free regarding the whole endeavor.

Thanks to Olgun's divine boost, Shins landed on the far roof a fraction of a second ahead of Remy. It was more than enough, especially since his brain still hadn't fully processed what was happening. The young woman dropped into a low crouch and spun, one leg extended, sweeping the larger man's ankles out from under him even as they had just begun to touch down. The taskmaster toppled forward—no, more than toppled, practically pivoted in space, so that he slammed to the roof face and chest down, his legs protruding over the edge. Shins gave him a helpful nudge with the toe of her boot; not enough to send him over, just to make him slide, forcing him to clutch at the rooftop with both hands to keep himself from a painful plummet.

He could, of course, have hauled himself back up—Remy was nothing if not a powerful man—had he not looked up to find the tip of Widdershins's rapier hovering about two inches from his nose.

“As I don't actually have any plans to stab you tonight,” she told him, “I'm going to be very put out if you impale your face on my sword. Talk about rude.”

“Well,” he wheezed, wincing at what she had to assume was a spreading pain in his ribs, “I wouldn't want to put you out, would I?”

“Exactly! It's so nice to understand one's colleagues.”

“I'm sure. When did
you
get back in town?”

Widdershins's gawp of disbelief was only partly exaggerated. “Really?
That's
the question you want to lead with under these circumstances?”

Remy started to shrug, then froze as he slid a few more inches back with the gesture. “I don't figure threatening you's gonna do me any good right now—though you
are
going to regret this—and you're going to tell me what you want when you damn well feel like it, anyway.”

“Fair.” Widdershins dropped to her haunches, her blade still steady. “I think you know my first question.”

He didn't even bother to equivocate. “Yes, Lisette's back. And yes, she's in charge now.”

“What happened to the old Shrouded Lord?”

“Gods only know. I…. Look, if this is going to be a long talk, can I pull myself up? My arms hurt.”

“I guess you'd better make sure it's
not
a long talk, then.”

The taskmaster growled at that, but they both knew it was empty.

“The Shrouded Lord?” she prompted.

“Yeah, don't know. She says he's dead, but…she's avoided talking about who was under the mask, and she gets pissy—pissier—if he comes up in conversation. So maybe he's not as dead as she wants.

“Might as well be, though. He's out, and she's already purged most of the Finders who were specifically loyal to him.”

“Uh-huh.” The tip of the rapier twitched. “I can't help notice that didn't include
you
.”

Somehow, without shifting his grip, Remy managed to look as though he wanted to shrug again. “I do my job. I'm loyal to the Guild, not any one person.”

“Uh-huh,” Shins said again. “Also you didn't want her to open you up like a chest of drawers and reorganize your insides by color and size.”

“There was that,” he admitted.

“So she took the Shroud, then?”

“Nah. Seems happy enough running shit as herself.”

For the first time in the conversation, Shins found herself taken aback. “I thought the priests would've mandated it. It's a requirement, yes? To honor the Shrouded God?”

“Yeah, about that? Lisette's also purged the ranks of senior priests. Thinks she's got her own way of doing things in mind.”

She wanted to turn to Olgun, ask him what the frogs was going on, but she could feel his confusion as intensely as hers. Lisette had always been a fanatical worshipper of the Shrouded God, a zealous follower of his teachings. What could have changed?

A faint groan, clearly unintentional, pulled her thoughts back to Remy. “Almost done,” she told him, sympathy just
dripping
from every word. “Why all the bloodshed all of a sudden?”

“Orders.” His breath grew more labored with every word. “She wants…people afraid of us…wants bodies in the street. Seems to be trying…to stir up the Guard and…the Houses both. No idea why.”

“Because she's nuttier than a squirrel's larder.” Even as she said it, though, something about it nagged at her. Lisette
was
crazy, always had been, but there was always purpose behind her actions. “All right, last question. Maybe. What are your orders regarding
me
?”

“Locate…follow and watch. Nothing…else.”

Makes sense, given that the posters offered a reward for information about me, not body parts.

“You think Lisette wants to kill me herself, yes?”

“Maybe. Or she's got…some other scheme in mind. Either way, she wants you alive…for
something
.”

“Well…” Shins stepped back from the ledge, instinct and divine intervention all but painting her in shadow, leaving enough clear space for an exhausted, shaking Remy to haul himself up. “It'd be seriously inconsiderate to keep her waiting.”

Thick blankets of fog rolled in, but by the time Widdershins approached the Ragway District, they'd begun to dissipate. All that remained were thin tendrils and small accumulations of a lighter mist, seeping up from between the cobblestones. The ghosts, perhaps, of yesterday's storm-drenched passersby.

The shops and houses grew steadily more worn, more rickety, in some cases absent entirely. It was rather like walking through a mouth of bad teeth. Didn't smell much better, either. No sewers, here. No street cleaning. No comfort. No hope. Not in Ragway.

Widdershins didn't notice. She'd been through the district too many times before.

The building was an old, brick-shaped thing, supposedly the home of insurers and pawnbrokers barely breaking even. More or less everyone in the city knew the place's true purpose, though.

She knew she was watched by at least three separate sentries, even if she hadn't spotted them yet. It didn't stop her from striding right to the front door and knocking like the gods' own tax-collector.

“It's called being
confident
!” she breathed in reply to Olgun's observation. “Not
cocky
. Well, yeah, that's because I'm
not
worried.”

I'm
not.
This isn't the Apostle and his demon, or Iruoch, or even Fingerbone with his weird goops. It's just Lisette!

Footsteps sounded behind the door, followed by the sound of a latch disengaging.

I'm not worried.
Then, aloud, “Uh, but be ready to run anyway.”

A panel in the door slid open, granting Shins a view of deeply shadowed eyeballs—and them, in turn, a view of her.

Given their sudden, almost comical growth, the young thief had to assume she'd been recognized.

“Widdershins,” she announced casually. “To see Lisette Suvagne. I have an appointment.”

The panel slammed shut, and for some time there was silence nearby. Thunder and a howling wind both cracked that stillness at one point, but far in the distance, well beyond the walls of Davillon.

“Sounds like tomorrow's going to be unpleasant,” she casually observed. Her partner didn't reply.

Footsteps again, and for all her bravado, Shins tensed. It wasn't impossible that the door would open onto a bristling array of flintlocks and crossbows, and she needed to be ready to…

But no. The door
did
open, revealing only two young thieves, similar enough in appearance that they might have been brother and sister. He wore mostly browns and grays, she deep blues and crimson, but both were heavily armed—and both kept their weapons sheathed.

“Follow us,” the woman said. “We'll take you to her. You're going to have to surrender your blade, though.”

“Only if you're prepared to accept it handed over point first and very, very fast,” Shins replied, smiling prettily. “Possibly more than once. Not saying you're clumsy, but it can be a tricky sort of thing to hang onto.”

After which, following a minute's energetic discussion between the two Finders, Shins was ushered
back outside
and left to wait while the sentinels returned to Lisette for additional instructions. She managed to wait until she'd heard the door latch and the footsteps move away before she cackled aloud.

“I don't think the old snake's going to like having to repeat herself,” she told Olgun.

Indeed, when the door opened once more some minutes later, the woman was holding a hand tight to a bloody nose and lips, while her partner, or brother, or whatever, sported what was already proving to be a dark and nasty black eye.

“I'm not sure your new boss is a very nice person,” Shins observed. The others merely glared and turned their backs, confident that—or else not caring if—Widdershins would follow.

“And you called
me
cocky!” she quietly crowed—yes, she'd learned how to do that—to her god. “Look at Lisette's arrogance! The only way she even had a chance was if we had to fight our way through the whole hopping Guild to reach her! Now? Ha!”

Indeed, Shins was feeling better than she had at any moment since she discovered her flat had been…profaned. She'd handily beaten Lisette once already, and she and Olgun hadn't worked together as smoothly then as they did now. Even if Lisette had spent every intervening minute practicing, she didn't stand a chance.

Alert for trap or ambush, just in case—though she was fairly sure she'd encounter no such thing—Widdershins followed her guides into the winding tunnels that were the true headquarters of the Finders' Guild.

And toward one of the few violent clashes, in a lifetime full of them, she was actually looking forward to.

Onward and downward. Through a complex of deliberately twisting passageways, as though someone had dropped a platter of wet noodles; past chambers both open and sealed, of purposes both blatant and hidden. Shins couldn't help but glance sidelong at the darkened chapel, that oddly shaped room with the heavy portals and the fabric-masked idol of the Shrouded God. Glance, and shiver at the memories of the statue's awful curse.

And all of it swimming in a miasma of breath and sweat, wrapped in a chorus of whispers and snickers, beneath the fascinated stares of scores of Finders. Some moved cleanly aside, some bristled and threatened first, but all cleared the path walked by her two guides.
Most recognized her, either personally or by description. Many of those offered vicious grins or contemptuous sneers; Shins never had been one of the more popular members of the Guild. Some, however, couldn't quite seem to meet her eyes, or cast their looks with a furtive discomfort.

They're afraid. And not of me.

An ember of doubt tried to ignite in the primal reaches of Widdershins's mind. She swiftly crushed it out.

It's just Lisette.

Still, “You
are
memorizing the way out of here, yes? This place still confuses me.”

Olgun assured her that he was, which meant the uncertainty she felt in him had to be caused by something else. “What's bothering you?”

But to that, he could offer no clear answer.

The door to which the two thieves finally led her surprised Widdershins not at all. This was the audience chamber of the Shrouded Lord, or at least it had been. Of course the usurper would rule from here.

“I think I can find my own way from here, thanks,” she said to her guides. She was a tad taken aback when they both nodded and stepped aside. Shrugging, she pushed the door ajar and slipped through.

The most notable aspect of the room was that she could
see
the room. The Shrouded Lord had always kept it full of rolling, incense-perfumed smoke; vapors that blended to near perfection with the tattered storm-cloud fabrics that made up his own uniform, as well as the sheets draped over the desk. The effect had been a ghostly—if also scratchy and irritating—fume wherein the Shrouded Lord was only another partially formed apparition.

Now? It was just a room, an office much like any other in the Finders' Guild's upper ranks. The walls were a bit soot-stained,
perhaps, but the massive hardwood desk was a thing of art, the chairs arrayed about it soft and welcoming, the single bookcase loaded to groaning with stacks of papers and parchments. The braziers, which had once spewed that thick incense, now served as the resting places of pricey oil lanterns, brightening the room rather more evenly and cleanly than torches ever could.

And that was everything, really. Everything save the office's lone occupant.

“Took you long enough,” Lisette complained, rising to her feet behind the desk. “Hello, little scab.”

If anything, she looked even meaner than Shins remembered. Her face had hardened and sunken with age; the younger thief likened it to a plow protruding from her thick mass of crimson hair. Her lips were thin, her teeth exposed in a tight smile that had nothing whatsoever to do with friendliness. Otherwise she looked normal enough, clad in greens and blacks, topped with a vest that so perfectly matched her hair it
must
have been custom made.

She wore no weapon to be seen, but Shins wasn't foolish enough to assume she had none ready behind that monstrosity of a desk.

“I'm surprised, Lisette. I figured you'd have spruced this place up once it was finally yours, make it more you. This…” She indicated the desk and bookcase. “This doesn't even come
close
to tasteless.”

“Oh, and I'm so
deeply
sorry to have disappointed you,” Lisette replied. “I did
think
of doing a more substantial redecorating, but it didn't seem worth the effort. I don't intend the heart of my domain to remain here for too long.”

“And where do you expect to be ruling from, Your Malignancy?”

“Wherever I choose. City Hall, perhaps. Or maybe Luchene Manor? I've always rather liked the look of that place.”

Widdershins felt her grip on the conversation beginning to slide, or at least cause rope burns. “You—”

“Honestly, though, at the moment I'm thinking the Basilica. It's
such a nice place, and it would certainly send a message, don't you think?”

“You think you're going to run the whole
city
?” It was almost a squawk, so incredulous was Widdershins. Then, at the other woman's casual shrug, “You're even crazier than when you left! For pastry's sake, you couldn't even run a conspiracy within the Guild without being exposed.”

For the first time, Lisette's false smile slipped into a more honest sneer. “Yes, and whose fault was that?”

“It's about to be mine again, you dog!” The lingering shreds of Olgun's unease vanished beneath a surge of fury; Shins had her rapier in her hand without ever consciously choosing to draw it. “You should have stayed away, Lisette. You should
not
. Have touched. My friends.”

“The living or the dead?” the former taskmaster asked dryly.

“And you
really
shouldn't have just let me walk in here.” Widdershins's tone could have frozen the remaining oil in the lanterns.

“The truth is,” Lisette continued, “I gave serious thought to torturing you for a few months after you got home. You have so many weaknesses, little scab. But, well, I have a
lot
to do, still. So, alas, I decided to deny myself the pleasure of a slow revenge.

“That does
not
mean,” and now that tight, ugly smile was back, “I wasn't going to allow myself a
personal
one. Really, you think I'd have gone to all that trouble to extend my invitation with Genevieve's, Alexandre's, and Julien's rotting, vermin-eaten carcasses if I was just going to have one of my people kill you? You. Are
mine
.”

The room had been clearer, under its old cloud of smoke, than it was now beyond the blazing red in Shins's vision. “You didn't have a chance against me even
before
the limp, you snake!”

“Whose limp? Mine? Or Robin's?”

Shins lunged.

The sharp tingle of Olgun's power and she was airborne, clearing the space between herself and her enemy in a single leaping step. Her
front foot landed atop the desk as she thrust, the tip of her rapier a bolt of steel lightning, tracing a line between the two women faster than the human eye could possibly register.

It never even came close.

Lisette
folded
out of the way, leaning far enough at the waist that the blade passed only through empty space. Then, whipping her body around so she now bent forward rather than back—without straightening in between!—she slammed a backhanded fist into Widdershins's ankle.

The impact knocked the young thief's foot completely out from under her. She crashed down on the desk, chest first, a burst of air blasted from her lungs. It was sheer luck, or perhaps quick thinking from Olgun, that kept her fist clenched around her rapier.

She wasn't sure what had just happened, only that she had no time to ponder it. Her god screaming a warning at her, she punched down with both fists—one empty, one wrapped about the sword hilt—propelling herself back and upward, off the desk to land in the center of the chamber.