Blood Ties

  Although I’d probably wait until her back was turned. Face-to-face, she would doubtless relieve me of the knife, then force me to eat it.

  I entered Bowerstone Industrial on foot, having left Clash well stabled back in the village. It seemed easier that way, particularly since personal property was much more likely to disappear if left unattended even for five minutes in Bowerstone Industrial, and the odds were only slightly better in the Market.

  I went to the most logical place I could think of in order to find her: the sewers. But when I arrived and went to what had been the headquarters of the Resistance, I was surprised to find that she wasn’t there. I suppose I shouldn’t have been. She had to leave sometime. It was just lousy timing that it was then.

  I considered waiting around for her return, but somehow that strategy didn’t ring true to me. Even though I had no real plan formed, I was sure that the best way to approach that impossible situation was to appear as casual as possible. A sort of, “Hello, Page, I just happened to be in the area, thought I’d drop by” attitude would be the best one for me to display. That wasn’t going to work if she found me standing there waiting for her. She’d sense something was up, and I was reasonably sure that my ill-conceived plan wasn’t going to be able to stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

  Of course, whenever she showed up, I could pretend that I had just arrived as well, but I wasn’t confident that my limited acting abilities would allow me to carry that off.

  So after a minute or so of pondering, I turned around and headed back out of the sewers. I walked across to the bridge where the gnome had taken up station perched underneath. “Anyone?” I said.

  “A couple of stray dockworkers. I was hoping for more.” He sounded disappointed. I’d left him out on watch to see if any potential spies had swung by and encouraged him to hurl as many insults their way as he could conceive. The dockworkers might well have had every business being there; on the other hand, they could have been more spies. Mentally, I cursed Reaver for putting my mind in such a state.

  “Maybe next time,” I said.

  “Where’s the woman? Was she there? Did you kill her? If you did, I want to go look.”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  Once again, there was disappointment on his face. “Then where is she?”

  “That I do not know. But her minimal belongings are there, so I assume she’s still somewhere in town.”

  I had no choice but to look around and hope that luck was with me.

  As it turned out, for once, it was.

  Simply strolling around Bowerstone Industrial is not the most enjoyable of experiences. There is a distinct and constant stench in the air, most of the residents are indigent, and Reaver’s main factory dwarfs everything else, serving to remind me that I was still not in control of my own destiny. There was a steady stream of beggar children who approached me, and under ordinary circumstances I would have had to be constantly concerned that my wallet was going to be stolen. The gnome, as it turned out, was handy in that regard. He skulked along by my side and hurled insults and sneers at anyone who even looked like he was thinking about coming our way. So we were able to pass through the place with relative ease.

  I didn’t spot Page anywhere in Bowerstone Industrial, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It wasn’t as if I could conduct a room-to-room search of every building in the area. Having nothing to lose, I continued on the path that took me to Bowerstone Market, the shabby and run-down buildings giving way to active shopping and the sounds of money changing hands. I didn’t know that Page had any more reason to be there than anywhere else, but I really wasn’t sure what else I could do.

  I wandered near the Cock in the Crown, and my inclination was to steer clear of it, having no desire to encounter Jennifer again (she of the load-bearing hips and generous breasts) or—even worse—her husband. I doubted Page would be in there anyway. Tossing back brews and socializing wasn’t exactly her sort of thing.

  Even as I started to turn away from it, however, I abruptly heard a crashing sound as if a table had just been knocked over. Then there was the familiar sound of some part of the human anatomy being broken—a jaw was my guess. Then came a roar of outraged voices and one female voice soared above the others. “Who else?” came the shout. “Who else wants to try? Do any more of you piss-drunk, empty-headed louts with no social conscience want to try to grab my breasts?”

  “Found her,” I said.

  The gnome cocked his head in what I could only describe as intrigued interest. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually think I like her.”

  I strode quickly toward the pub, the gnome bringing up the rear and actually chortling with delight to himself, a sound I still found disconcerting, to say the least. Reaching the pub door, I was about to enter when I heard another sharp crack of knuckle against bone and the trajectory of the outcry warned me just in time. I sidestepped as a man came flying backwards out of the pub and crashed to the walk just past me. He lay there, stunned, trying to raise his head.

  “I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” I advised him.

  He made a motion that seemed an attempt to nod, and his head slumped back.

  Then I stepped into the pub and saw a world of chaos.

  Page was at the center of a whirlwind of violence, men coming at her from all directions. What she had going for her was her natural battle skills and the fact that most of the men were hampered by being fairly drunk.

  What she had going against her was that she hadn’t drawn a weapon but instead was using her bare hands against all comers. It was like watching a dancer in motion, an incredibly lethal dancer who was flattening all the other dancers with deadly accurate strikes to the weakest points of the human body. Anyone who drew within range of her was met with a formidable combination of punches and kicks aimed at jaws, throats, kneecaps, and solar plexuses.

  Unfortunately, just like most humans, Page didn’t have eyes in the back of her head. Cramped quarters are not the best venue for fighting a battle, particularly when you’re heavily outnumbered. Tables and chairs had been knocked aside in the melee, but that still didn’t leave a lot of room to maneuver. So it was that even as Page was handling everyone to the front of her and to the sides, I spotted a man coming up behind her wielding a cudgel. In about two seconds, he was going to bring it crashing down on the back of her skull.

  With me, to think is to act, plus it was a blessing to be presented with a situation that didn’t involve a good deal of pondering on my part. Two seconds he might have had, but I had my gun drawn and cocked in half that time, and I fired all in one motion. I would have had no hesitation in blowing his damned head off under the circumstances, but I had no desire to announce my return to Bowerstone by killing someone. Besides, it would have gotten blood all over Page’s nice outfit.

  So, instead, I shot the cudgel out of his hand.

  Everyone froze as the loud report of the gun echoed in the pub. Page looked my way, obviously concerned that a new enemy had presented himself, attempted to shoot her, and simply missed with the first shot. Then she realized who it was, and I saw the first unguarded, genuine smile that I could ever recall adorning Page’s face. Just as quickly as it appeared, however, it promptly vanished, as if she had remembered who she was and who I was.

  The man who had been wielding the cudgel had frozen, his arms looking rather comical poised over his head considering he wasn’t holding anything in his hands anymore. Page glanced behind herself, saw him, and promptly drove an elbow into his face, knocking him off his feet. This prompted, very briefly, a renewed surge toward her.

  I cocked the hammer again. It had the typical effect that the distinctive sound usually had: It paralyzed people in their tracks, much like the child’s game called frozen tag. Plus there was still smoke wafting from the muzzle for added emphasis, and the smell of discharged gunpowder was managing to replace the general fragrance of alcohol. “Well now, this doesn’t exactly seem fair odds,” I sai
d in a lazy way, making it clear from my tone that I was perfectly comfortable with threatening people at gunpoint. “Seems to me we should thin the herd a bit to make it more even. Any volunteers for the thinning? Anyone? Anyone at all? Just raise your hands right up there, and I’ll oblige by shooting you in the face. Come on. Just throw those hands right up there.”

  Imagine my astonishment when no hands went up.

  “This is just shocking,” I said. “I mean, here I thought the citizens of Bowerstone were always willing to give of themselves and volunteer their services when called upon to do so. What has the world come to? Miss? Any thoughts on the matter?”

  “It’s a sad state of affairs,” Page deadpanned.

  “I couldn’t agree more. Tell you what. How about you come with me, and we’ll commiserate on the lack of community spirit these folks are displaying. And maybe later we can come back and shoot a few of them just on general principle.”

  “That sounds like a plan to me.”

  Slowly, she walked toward me as I kept the gun leveled. There was always the possibility one of them might grab her and try to use her as a human shield, but I had a distinct feeling that they’d be quite content to see her leave. It turned out my assessment of the situation was spot-on and, moments later, Page and I were walking the streets of Bowerstone.

  She didn’t seem inclined to volunteer any words, and so I filled the silence for us. “So I see you’ve been keeping busy.”

  “I just wanted a quiet drink.”

  “Really. Drinking alone. That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “What do you know of what I do when I’m alone?”

  “A fair point,” I said. “But if you don’t mind hearing my conjecture—”

  “Are you suggesting I have a choice?”

  “I think you went in there looking for a fight because you’re bored out of your mind.”

  “You don’t know anything about it,” she shot back. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Recently? Saving your neck.”

  She turned to face me, and said testily, “I was handling it just fine myself, thank you very mu—” Then suddenly her eyes widened. Her hand moved toward her flintlock pistol.

  I turned to see what she was reacting to, and the only thing I saw was the gnome perched on a rooftop nearby.

  That’s when I realized.

  “No, wait!” I shouted, just as she brought her gun up to shoot him. I knocked the pistol to one side, and the shot went wide, hurtling harmlessly past the startled gnome.

  She looked at me with round, startled eyes. “What did you do that for? It’s a gnome! They’re like rats with attitude!”

  “He’s with me.”

  “He’s with—?” She looked stunned. “He’s with you? He’s with you?”

  “Does that bother you, sir?” called the gnome.

  “I’m a woman,” she said icily.

  “Are you sure? Never seen a woman with three days’ worth of beard stubble before.”

  “Hey!” I said before she could speak. “I thought you said you liked her.”

  “I liked her more before she tried to shoot me!”

  Passersby were glancing our way, some in confusion, some in amusement. Suddenly worrying that one or more of them might be spies for Reaver, I quickly started walking, guiding Page forward. Under ordinary circumstances, I doubt she would have allowed me to handle her in that way, but I suspected she was still processing the revelation of my traveling companion. “Why in the world are you traveling with a gnome?” she said. “Are you that much of a masochist that you have to have someone at your side to lob insults at you?”

  “If I were, Page, I could have just stayed here with you.”

  “Oh, ha-ha,” she said. “What are you doing back here anyway? I thought you had served your purpose here. That you were going somewhere else to see new adventures.”

  “I did. And—”

  “And what?”

  I thought desperately. There we were, at the moment of decision, and I had no more of a clue what I was going to do than I had had before. I was threading a very delicate needle, trying to come up with a story that had enough of a ring of truth to it that it wouldn’t sound fabricated but at the same time omitted key elements of the situation, such as that it was my job to kill her.

  When I fire a gun, I don’t even have to think about aiming or shooting. It all comes naturally as I allow my reflexes to take over and do what needs to be done. Perhaps the best way to proceed was to do essentially the same thing. Just open my mouth and allow for whatever words came out to guide me.

  “And I found a purpose, and I was serving it, then I thought, ‘I should really go and get Page to help because this would be the exact sort of thing that she would be excellent at.’”

  So apparently my instincts had decided to toss aside the notion that I Just So Happened to be in the area and thought I’d drop by. In retrospect, my instincts were probably dead-on in that regard. There was no way that Page would have fallen for that, and all of her inner warning systems would have been on high alert.

  As it was, there was still some obvious suspicion in her mind, but at least she wasn’t concerned that I posed some sort of threat. At least I hoped that was the case. “The sort of thing that I’m excellent at? And what would that be?”

  “Blackholm.”

  She tilted her head. “Blackholm? What about Blackholm?”

  “It’s under siege.”

  “So?”

  “So Bowerstone isn’t under siege. No matter what your opinion of our leader might be, the fact is that everything here has stabilized. So you can either go where you can be of help, or you can just hang around here, waiting for things to go wrong and meantime getting into pointless bar brawls. Instead, you can come back with me to Blackholm and get into brawls that actually matter.”

  “And why can’t you do that?”

  “I have done that. But there’s only so much that I can do. I’m . . .” I thought fast. “I’m not a leader, Page. I’m not like you. I’m the guy who’s best at carrying out orders, but I don’t like being the one who everyone turns to. That position suits you far better than it does me. They could really use you there.”

  We had been walking, albeit slowly, but she stopped and stared at me. It was like she didn’t quite know what to make of me. “Are you trying to flatter me at your own expense? Because it’s been my experience, Finn, that no one is a bigger fan of you than you are.”

  “I’m a fan of what I can do. But I’m also pretty damned smart, and a man who’s pretty damned smart knows what he’s good at and what he’s . . . well, not ‘bad’ at, in my case, but less good at. You’re simply a better leader than I am, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. And, frankly, I told the people of Blackholm about you, and they expressed much enthusiasm about you. Certainly more than those idiots”—and I gestured behind us in the direction of the pub—“who are just trying to grope you or something like that. But, you know, whatever you decide”—and I shrugged as if it were of no great personal interest to me—“for all I know, Blackholm’s already been overrun, so this entire business might be academic.”

  “You’re pushing awfully hard for some town out in the middle of nowhere that you haven’t been at for all that long.”

  I only had one option left: to pretend that it really didn’t matter if she went with me or not. “Fine,” I said. “Do what you want. I said my piece, and you weren’t interested. As you wish.” I turned on my heel and strode away with as much conviction as I could possibly muster, feeling like the eyes of all Reaver’s unseen watchers were upon me.

  You’ve failed. She didn’t fall for it. And now you have no options because if you go back to her at the sewers, she’ll be even more positive that you’re being insistent for some reason you’re not saying. The only other option left to me is to try to recruit some men and mount a direct attack on Reaver’s mansion. Except how will I know that one or more of the men I recruit aren’t alread
y on Reaver’s payroll? This is so frustrating. What if—?

  It seemed like long minutes had passed, but in point of fact it was only seconds before Page called, “Wait.”

  “Wait for what?”

  “For me,” she said impatiently. “I have a few things back at the headquarters. I’ll get them and bring them back here. Don’t wander away.”

  You mustn’t act too happy. “You don’t have to come along on my account. We can manage just fine without you . . .”

  “Shut up, Finn. I’ll be back within the hour. Don’t wander away if you think you can manage it.”

  “Don’t forget your shaving equipment, milord,” the gnome called sarcastically. “Wouldn’t want you to get too scruffy along the way.”

  She glared at the gnome, and said, “Next time, he’s not going to yank the gun away fast enough.”

  “I’d like to see you try.” He made a rude noise, and she reproduced the noise perfectly and fired it right back at him. Then she strode away, shaking her head in disgust. The moment she was out of earshot, he turned back to me and grinned widely. “She’s a keeper, that one. So: When are you going to kill her?”

  It was an appalling question but, at the same time, a perfectly legitimate one. The gnome knew the true nature of my predicament. When was I going to kill her? Would I even be able to do so? The entire thing seemed utterly hopeless.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Probably in her sleep would be best,” said the gnome. “Because there’s no doubt she’ll kick your ass if you try it while she’s awake.”

  “That’s true,” I said with no enthusiasm.