“I’ll be wanting those back.” Sebastian nodded at his weapons.
The big man tossed the blades and pistol into the dust. “They’ll be waiting here for you when you’re done.”
Other Bazira snickered and then Sebastian was led inside the fortress.
It was small, enclosed, airless. Three guards flanked him while the big shadow adherent tromped behind. They led him past a rounded entry hall and down a side stairway. Beneath the dust, the assassin could detect the scents of the piss and offal of the vagrants who had lived here and were now piled up and rotting outside.
The narrow pathway canted down and became narrower, and still the Bazira did not stop. Sebastian was beginning to wonder if they were walking circles, the journey was taking so long. His steps slowed, and when the doors on either side of the stony hall began bearing bars, he stopped.
“If you think to imprison me, you’re bloody well mistaken.”
The Bazira only chuckled, but Sebastian sensed the man tense, ready for conflict.
Sebastian studied the four shadow adherents in the narrow hallway, measured the space, their size, his speed. Lightning fast, his dagger was in his hand so when the huge shadow adherent clapped a hand around the back of Sebastian’s neck, the assassin was ready.
He twisted like a snake, spun around, and jabbed the pommel of his dagger under the big man’s chin. The shadow adherent made a gurgling sound and clutched his throat. Sebastian slipped behind him, using him as a shield, and laid the tip of his blade under the man’s ear.
“No ice,” Sebastian warned, and pressed his dagger into the man’s flesh for emphasis. A fat red drop of blood welled up. The other Bazira lowered their open palms, the words to call their magic dying on their lips.
“It’s just until night,” the big man wheezed. “The High Vicar…he doesn’t like the sun.”
“Then he should have arranged for me to come at twilight.” Sebastian jerked his dagger down the hallway they had come. “Outside.”
They walked the path back out. His scimitars and pistol had been pissed on. By more than one man. Sebastian shoved the big shadow adherent away from him and sat on his heels beside his weapons. He lit a cigarillo.
“I should kill you,” the Bazira seethed.
“But you won’t.” Sebastian rose to his feet. “You can’t, to be more plain.” He strode over to a barrel of water that rested against the curve of the fortress, in the shade. He sat upon it and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll have my weapons cleaned. I’ll be needing new powder for my pistol since what’s there is now…damp.”
“Fuck you.” The big adherent spat.
“You’ll do as he says,” said a voice. A female voice.
A beautiful woman clothed in black and with hair the color of flame, sauntered out of the fortress to stand before the big adherent.
“We don’t treat our guests so poorly,” she said. She turned and raked her gaze up and down Sebastian’s form. “Especially not guests of such high esteem.” A scowl twisted her face as she turned back to the shadow adherent. “The High Vicar will be displeased, Gregor.”
“High esteem,” Gregor snarled. “He’s a bilge rat—”
Faster than a striking snake, the woman’s hand shot out and she slapped Gregor across the face. The sound was flat and loud in the still air.
“Clean his weapons,” she seethed. “You may use a cloth. Disobey me again, and you’ll use your tongue.”
Gregor’s face reddened and Sebastian was sure the big man was going to strike the woman, and when he did, her neck would snap like a yard in a fierce wind. But he swallowed hard and strode away, barking orders at the Bazira who stood watching to clean the weapons. The men scattered like flies to do his bidding.
The woman turned to Sebastian, a placid smile on her face. “Captain Tergus, was it?”
“As far as they need to know,” Sebastian said with a nod at the Bazira men.
The woman inclined her head. “Of course. My name is Jude Gracus. I apologize for the misunderstanding. The High Vicar will see you now.”
The chamber must have once been a meeting room of sorts. The shadows were thick but Sebastian could feel the emptiness around him. Its lone window, set high on one wall, was small and had been draped with a swath of velvet so that the narrow spill of sunlight appearing on the table formed the shape of a crescent moon. His hooded face hidden in shadow, Zolin, High Vicar of the Bazira, sat with his elbows planted, his fingers steepled.
The red-haired woman, Jude, shut the door behind Sebastian and took her place behind the High Vicar’s chair, beside another Bazira guard whose face was lost to shadow.
“Sebastian Vaas,” Jude said. “He wears a dagger, my lord.”
The High Vicar waved a gaunt hand. “I’m sure he does. How do the songs go? Bloody, bloody Bastian, killed the captain…” Zolin’s voice sounded old and dry from inside the black cowl. “The man of song and legend in this very room.”
Sebastian sneered and took the chair in front of the table without being asked to sit. “Try to lock me up again and I’ll give the bards another song.”
The old man chuckled and reached for the decanter of red wine that stood between them on the stone slab of a table. The wine looked like old blood. “Insolent, aren’t you?” He drank from a crystal goblet. “But deadly, and so useful to me.”
Sebastian kept his face placid. He’d had clients who considered him merely their tool. He supposed that was true in a way but it always chafed him.
I’m a dagger with no handle; I cut both ways.
“You’re useful to me, Zolin, if your coin is the right color and there’s enough of it. I don’t come cheap.”
“Aye, but I wonder for how much longer that will be true?” Zolin replied. “With all the unrest on the Eastern Edge, it’s a short matter of time before your particular services—and their high cost—will no longer be as valued as they once were. Assassination is a burgeoning trade.”
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
The High Vicar smiled. “Indeed, when the time comes. And it will come, I can assure you. But in any event, I didn’t send for you to mince words.”
“True enough. You sent for me.” Sebastian kicked his boots onto the table, tucked a cigarillo into the corner of his mouth and struck a match on the table. The sweet-smelling smoke hung in a gray haze in the airless chamber. “I guess that means time is still on my side.”
“Insolent,” Zolin said again. He leaned back in his seat. “And not what I expected. I imagined a monstrous, hairy beast of a man with madness in his eyes and blood lust dripping from every pore, such as the stories paint you. But no, you’re a comely man and young. Thirty? Thirty-two?”
“Close enough.”