Return to Honor

  “They’re Tamas’s soldiers,” Karin blurted.

  Vlora spun, raising her pistol as Captain Wohler hurled the pie at Vlora and jumped backward out the door. Vlora dodged the flying pastry and pulled her finger off the trigger as Wohler disappeared into the noonday traffic on the street. Without looking back, she flung herself after him.

  The wind and impending storm had everyone carrying umbrellas and wearing hats and greatcoats, and Vlora would have lost Wohler immediately if she hadn’t seen the hem of his coat disappearing around the corner into the alleyway to her left. She sprinted after him, fumbling for a hit of powder, and skidded around the corner in time to see Wohler run into traffic on the next street over.

  She sprinted after him, keeping an eye on his hat and greatcoat. He might have lost her if he had stopped and tried to blend in, but he had elected to run.

  And he was fast, she had to give it to him. He maneuvered through the press of bodies with the learned deftness of a bodyguard, barely slowing despite the shoulder-to-shoulder traffic. Vlora bowled her way through with the strength of a powder mage, curses following her.

  She gained on Wohler until she was right on his heels. Just one more person to shove out of the way and…

  Wohler whirled so quickly that only an instinctual jump backward saved Vlora’s life. The tip of his sword whooshed inches from her throat in three quick slices. He pulled back on the third slice, and Vlora took the chance to draw her own sword and attack.

  Wohler parried her thrust, then performed a riposte that nearly skewered her. They exchanged a flurry of blows, Vlora’s frustration growing as her advantage in strength and speed only barely kept her even with him. A woman screamed and men shouted as she and Wohler hacked at each other, ignoring the widening circle of onlookers around them.

  Tamas had once told her that a sufficiently skilled fencer could hold off a powder mage, but she’d never believed him. Now she had the chance to witness it firsthand. She kept trying for the pistol in her belt, but every time her off hand wandered too close, Wohler would press the attack.

  Vlora tried to read his patterns, learn his tells, seek out some kind of weakness. It didn’t work. Wohler’s technique seemed to change every few heartbeats, and it was the only thing she could do to keep up. She could feel herself weakening, the days without sleep fouling her speed and concentration. Any second he would get the better of her.

  Wohler’s foot moved back and she saw the same riposte he had used a moment ago. She would let him follow through and then counter his thrust. She almost barked out a victorious shout as he batted aside her attack and pushed forward.

  The bark came out a cry as Wohler’s blade sliced up the side of her hand to the hilt of her smallsword and neatly disarmed her. She stumbled back, forced to dodge as he followed with a thrust and then a second. Her off hand snatched for her pistol and drew it as she fell.

  Wohler threw himself sideways into the crowd of spectators that had grown around them. Vlora hurled a curse and lowered her pistol, forcing herself into the crowd after him, snatching for a handkerchief to wrap around her bleeding hand.

  She leapt onto a nearby sidewalk and hooked her good hand around a lamppost, pulling herself up to look around. No flutter of a greatcoat, no hats moving violently to reveal a hasty retreat.

  She had lost him.

  * * *

  Back at Karin’s cobbler shop, Vlora found Olem picking strawberry pie off the front of his greatcoat. He had a fresh palm print on his cheek and a sour look on his face. Shoes had been thrown everywhere, display benches knocked over. It looked like there had been a wrestling match.

  Karin sat in the corner sulking, hands tied behind her back, the rope looped around the leg of a workbench.

  “What happened here?” Vlora asked.

  “She leapt on my back the moment you took off after Wohler,” Olem said. He picked up a shoe and used the sole to scrape pie filling off his shoulder. “And thanks for dodging that pie, by the way. I caught it with my chest. Wohler?”

  “Lost him,” Vlora said.

  “And I’m glad you did,” Karin said. “He’s a good man.”

  Vlora held up her hand, wrapped in a bloody handkerchief. “Your good man just attacked an Adran soldier. If I see him again, I’m going to put a bullet through his eye.” She began pacing the room, kicking discarded shoes out of her way. “Where will he have gone?” she demanded.

  Karin shrugged.

  Vlora wanted to go slap the smug look off her face. She looked at Olem.

  He picked up the pie pan with the remnants of the pie still in the bottom and dug out a chunk of it with his finger. He chewed thoughtfully before offering the pie to her. Vlora shook her head.

  “We’ll have to start from scratch,” Olem said.

  Vlora paused in her pacing. Maybe not, she thought, going over and taking the pie pan out of Olem’s hands. “Hold me back,” she said in a whisper.

  She whirled, hurling the pie against the wall. “No, we don’t,” she said angrily. She pointed at Karin. “We have her. We’ll take her to the nearest barracks and let the soldiers go to work on her.” She began to advance on Karin.

  Olem threw an arm across her chest. “Back off, Captain,” he said.

  “We’ll find out where he is,” Vlora said. “She knows. She must know.”

  “That’s not how we do things.” Olem set his shoulder and shoved her back roughly, putting himself in between her and Karin.

  Vlora bore her teeth at him. “Then I’m going to tear this place apart until I find those files.”

  “No,” Olem said, shaking his head. He seemed to get what she was up to. “We need another warrant for that.”

  “Piss on the warrant. She attacked you!”

  “Just a little scuffle,” Olem said. “Nothing to throw her to the wolves over. No sense in ruining someone’s life for protecting their lover.”

  Vlora barked a laugh. “That lover is endangering Adran lives. Out of my way.”

  “Outside!” Olem said. “Now.”

  Vlora locked gazes with him, forcing every bit of anger onto her face. She held the pose for a few moments before looking over Olem’s shoulder at Karin. “We’ll be back in a few hours with that warrant, and the city police. We’ll see how you like this place torn apart brick by brick.” She whirled around and stalked out into the street.

  She waited out there for about five minutes before Olem joined her. He took her by the arm and led her away as if by force, keeping his grip until they had gone around the corner.

  “You know,” he said, “I was eating that pie.”

  “Sorry. Do you think she fell for it?”

  “Shit, probably. I thought you were going to go through me to get to her for a moment.”

  “We better hope she did too,” Vlora said.

  They doubled back and entered a milliner’s shop across the street from the cobbler’s. Vlora took up a position by the front window and watched for Karin.

  “Can I help you?” the milliner asked.

  “Just waiting for a friend,” Olem said, pulling out a pocketbook and handing the hatter several bills.

  “I see,” the milliner responded. He made himself busy in the back of the shop, keeping an eye on them.

  Olem came up beside Vlora and hooked a thumb in his belt loop, a new cigarette clenched in his lips. “That intelligence might be inside the building,” he said. “Our best bet is to get some men and ransack the place.”

  “I thought you said we needed a warrant?”

  “I was just playing along. The warrant we have already covers a search.”

  Vlora bit her lip. It was tempting. A partial victory was still a victory. “Tamas wants the intelligence and Wohler,” she said. “I’m not gonna hand him just one.”

  “And if we lose them both?”

  “Then I’m in deeper shit than before.” Vlora shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t think I can get much deeper.”

  Olem took the cigarette out of his mouth a
nd blew a smoke ring. “Yeah, I think you can,” he said with a wry smile.

  “That’s really not reassuring.” Vlora resisted the urge to ask him what Tamas had said about her, and if there was anything else she could do to win back his trust. If Olem had anything to say, he’d say it when he was ready. Until then, Vlora could only hope she was making a good impression.

  Not that she had any confidence that she was.

  “How’s the hand?” Olem asked.

  Vlora lifted the handkerchief. “Superficial cut. Lots of blood at first, but it won’t slow me down.”

  “Have a surgeon take a look at it, make sure it doesn’t need stitches.”

  “It won’t.”

  “Better safe,” Olem countered.

  They fell into a comfortable silence for the next twenty minutes. Olem watched the street, and she watched him chain-smoke through several cigarettes.

  “It would be awfully lucky if he decided to come back,” Olem said, breaking the silence.

  “And stupid,” Vlora said. “He’s not that dumb, and I’m not that lucky.”

  “He a good fighter?” Olem asked.

  “Damn good with a sword. Didn’t have an ounce of powder on him, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Maybe lead with a bullet next time.”

  “I plan on it.”

  “Good,” Olem said. “Wait. Karin’s looking out the window.”

  Vlora sidled up to the front window of the hat shop and took a peek. “She see you?”

  “I don’t think so. There she is.”

  Karin emerged from her shop with a large, black bundle under one arm. She was wearing a green dress and a matching hat pulled down to hide her eyes. She stopped outside her shop just long enough to lock the front door, then looked both ways before heading down the street.

  Vlora and Olem followed at a distance.

  Karin hailed a hackney cab at the next corner. Vlora kept after it on foot until Olem caught up with a cab of his own, and she jumped onto the running board, head up so as not to lose Karin.

  They crossed the river and wound through the dock district, taking a few erratic turns before heading north along the riverbank, up past Kresim Cathedral. They continued north to the outskirts of the city, stopping in front of a small chapel about a quarter of a mile from the river.

  Karin left her cab, still clutching the bundle, and went inside the front door of the chapel.

  “Think that’s the hiding spot?” Olem asked.

  Vlora watched the chapel for several moments. A man in a bicorn and overcoat loitered on the street beside the door to the chapel, smoking a pipe, a wine bottle on the ground beside him. “Only one way to find out,” she said. “Roll me a cigarette. And give me your hat and coat.”

  “Should I ask why?” Olem asked, already removing his coat.

  “Because they’re older than mine, and bigger. Pit, give me your shirt too. Baggy is better. Driver!” she called. “Take us around the corner.”

  She had the cab drop her several blocks from the chapel, well out of sight, leaving her weapons inside with Olem. She hunched her shoulders and tucked her hair up, then, armed with Olem’s hat and cigarette, headed back toward the chapel.

  She approached slowly, walking without a purpose, pausing every few moments to look up at the sky and mutter angrily to herself until she came up even with the man sitting outside the chapel with his pipe and wine bottle.

  “Hey, mister.” She coughed, pulling the cigarette out of her pocket. “You have a match?”

  The man had watched her approach, eyes intent, but at her request he looked past her, up and down the street. He took a swig from his wine bottle. “No. Get out of here.”

  “Come on,” Vlora whined. “Don’t be all high an’ mighty. Yer smokin’ a pipe. I’m not sober, but I’m not stupid either.” He didn’t respond, so she reached for the front door of the chapel. “Maybe ’em damn priests’ll have un.”

  “Wait, wait.” The man sniffed once, then patted his pockets. She caught a glimpse of a brass belt buckle and a flash of purple, then the polished butt of a pistol, before he came up with a match.

  “Thank ya,” Vlora said, striking it on the brick of the chapel before heading slowly on her way. She took a long drag at the cigarette, hoping the man didn’t see her shake and stumble as she held in a lung full of smoke. She blew it into the air over her head, trying to look nonchalant.

  The cab picked her up three blocks later, and she discarded the cigarette before getting inside, wiping her mouth. “How the pit do you smoke those things?”

  “Habit,” Olem said.

  “Maybe I should ask why.”

  “It relaxes me. Find anything out?”

  Vlora stripped off Olem’s jacket and shirt. He had the decency to blush when she caught his eye as she buttoned up her own shirt. He turned quickly to look out the window. Vlora snorted a laugh. “The man outside is a lookout. He’s wearing a Kresim church belt buckle.”

  “Our missing Prielight guards, eh?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Think Wohler will be inside?”

  “Well, Karin went in there with something. That’s gotta be it. Now that we’ve spooked Wohler out of his hiding place, it seems likely he’ll come here for safety in numbers.”

  “Agreed,” Olem said.

  “And now he’s going to be surrounded by Kresimir knows how many of his fellow Prielights.”

  “Sounds like we have a problem,” Olem said.

  Vlora smiled at the way he said we. It felt nice to have someone on her side. Seemed like ages since that had happened. “Right,” she said. “I think our best bet is to spook him, get him to run. Flush him into the open so I can get a shot at him.”

  “Even if we succeed,” Olem said, “It won’t take long for his friends to figure out there’s only two of us. We won’t be able to recover either him or the intelligence.”

  Vlora sucked on her teeth, forcing herself to think. She could feel the lure of the easy way out—giving up—tugging gently but persistently at the back of her mind. She fought it down. She needed this victory for when she arrived at the front.

  To the pit with the victory and Tamas’s approval. This was about catching the man who caused Sabon’s death. She would do this for the late commander and all the other men who died in the ambush.

  “Would you be able to bring anyone else into this?” Vlora asked.

  “How many?” Olem asked.

  “As many as you can. I know what I’m asking, and if you can’t, I perfectly understand.”

  Olem seemed to mull this over for a few moments. “Prielight guards are excellent fighters,” he said. “Some of the best in the Nine.”

  “I know.”

  “We don’t know how many are inside.”

  “I know that too.”

  “Nor do we know if there are any civilians inside. Spouses, mistresses, diocels, or even children.”

  “We’ll have to go in through every entrance,” Vlora said. “Surprise them, keep them at bayonet’s length until we can disarm the lot. They’re not protecting anyone, just hiding out. They have no reason to die in a fight.”

  Olem began to roll a new cigarette. He was quiet for a time before meeting Vlora’s eyes and giving a sigh. “Well. What the pit is the use of forming an elite fighting unit if we don’t give them some practice?”

  * * *

  Vlora kept watch on the chapel from a safe distance while Olem was gone. She could feel the weight of the air, see the rolling storm clouds moving in off the Adsea. The long-delayed storm would be here any minute.

  Just in time to foul gunpowder and make the cobbles slippery. Perfect weather for a fight.

  Olem returned two hours later, leaping from a hackney cab. Inside, Vlora counted three more faces, and two more hackney cabs had pulled to the side of the road to wait with the first one. It was beginning to get dark, and it was drizzling lightly.

  “He’s in there,” she r
eported to Olem. “Came in about twenty minutes ago. Karin left ten minutes later, but Wohler is still around.”

  “Unless he went out the back,” Olem said.

  “True,” Vlora conceded. “Did you bring me a rifle?”

  “I did.”

  “How many men do you have?”

  “Thirteen was all I could gather on short notice. I couldn’t find Verundish, but she’s supposed to be staying out of sight.” Olem snapped off a salute that was half mocking. “Orders, Captain?”

  “Send four men around back to take care of the lookout they’ll have there,” Vlora said. “Tell them to do it quietly, and to be ready for anyone who makes a run for it.”

  “My boys are a bit conspicuous. Either lookout is going to see us a mile away.”

  “That’s what we’re for.” Vlora hitched her belt up so that the tip of her sword wasn’t visible beneath the hem of her greatcoat, then took one pistol and slid it up the sleeve of her coat, barrel first. “I want them to be in position around back in three minutes,” she said. “Tell your men to start counting.”

  Olem snapped off a barrage of quiet orders to the men in one of the cabs, and it headed to the next street over, behind the chapel.

  Vlora gave them a minute and a half before she took a deep breath. “Take my arm,” she said.

  Olem raised an eyebrow and put his arm out for her to loop hers around. Together, they walked around the corner and headed toward the front door of the chapel.

  The rain began to fall a little heavier, and Vlora drew herself closer to Olem, feeling the warmth of his body beneath his greatcoat. “Lower your head,” she said. “Pretend you’re talking to me.”

  “But I am talking to you,” Olem said.

  Vlora punched him lightly on the shoulder.

  “If you get any of my men killed,” Olem said, “I’m going to be very cross.”

  “I’ll do my best not to,” Vlora said.

  The lookout had spotted them. He was watching their approach, but he hadn’t gotten up from his spot near the door.

  “This is nice,” Olem said, looking up at the sky. “I mean, the weather could be better. But the company’s not so bad.”

  “Contrary to popular opinion,” Vlora said.