CHAPTER 9

I had headed for the opulent tent intending to take a hostage. Given that assassins were generally working stiffs, someone was probably paying them to be out here. The presence of a too-luxurious carriage and tent were obvious signs that their employer was along for the ride. And really, the best way to stop an assassin from doing anything is to threaten the source of his pay.

The fact that a dozen men had emerged from the tents around the campsite and none made a move toward me was a pretty good sign that my theory was sound.

I’d just never given consideration to exactly who might have been paying these guys. I backed my hostage up toward the carriage, keeping him in front of me. I whispered into his ear, “Now, good prince, if we’re all calm and businesslike, we can all avoid a lot of pain. Understand?”

“Y-Yes.”

“You hold the purse strings, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re going to order all these men back into their tents to wait quietly for your return.”

“They will come after me,” he said, an almost admirable note of royal steel returning to his voice.

“That’s the point of a hostage, isn’t it? If they do, their paymaster ends with a slit throat. That wouldn’t be in their best interest, would it? Unless you hauled their gold with you all the way from Dermonica, and you don’t appear to be that stupid.”

“You won’t get away with this.”

“And you want to survive to see justice done, don’t you?”

I felt him tense under my grip and I prodded him with the dagger.

“Do it. Things are messy enough.”

For a moment I thought he was angry enough to risk his life just so his assassins would have a chance to take me out. But he shouted, “Everyone, back in your tents! Await my return. Do not interfere!”

They did as they were told, though they stared at me unnervingly as they did so. Each one of them was looking for some sort of opening. No way was I going to get that second horse. I kept from showing my back until everyone was back in their tents. Then I pushed Prince Oliver up into the carriage and followed him into the driver’s seat.

“Pick up the reins.”

He stared at me.

“Pick them up!” I prodded with the dagger.

He reached down and grabbed the reins for the one horse and held them up between us.

“Now drive us out of here!”

“How?”

We stared at each other. For a moment I was speechless.

After that moment I said, “You’re kidding, right?”

He wasn’t.

Of course the bloody prince has no idea how to drive a horse-drawn carriage.

Amazing how quickly a hostage can go from indispensable to completely useless. I reached up to his collar and yanked the robe down to his elbows, restraining his arms. Then I grabbed his nightcap and pulled it tightly over his eyes.

“Hey.”

“Shut up and don’t move.” I grabbed the reins from him and did my best to drive our lone steed out on the road without putting the dagger away.

 • • • 

The question arises at this point, why didn’t I just run?

I had safely disengaged myself from the group of feral teens, Weasel’s crew, and a score of Dermonica-employed assassins. My first priority was getting back to Lendowyn to sort out the mess caused by my drunken decision to use the Dark Lord Nâtlac’s jewel. I didn’t owe anything to Fearless Leader and crew.

Well, I owed them for the clothes, but I figured that was outweighed by them pointing a crossbow in my direction.

Really, any thief worth his fingers would have been long gone by now.

But I was never a particularly good thief.

I stopped the carriage on the road over the hill from the assassins’ campsite, and the girls emerged from the forest. Grace directed the other six silently to board the carriage and climbed up next to me. As the weight shifted below us, Fearless Leader paid me her first compliment, “That was impressive.”

“Who’s there?” Prince Oliver said.

“You don’t want to know, Your Highness,” I said.

I got the horse moving, but he strained against the weight.

“Your Highness?” Grace asked.

“Yes.” I bent down to talk into the carriage. “We’re overloaded, toss anything down there that isn’t nailed down.”

“Who is he?” Grace asked.

“Crown Prince Oliver of Dermonica.”

“Prince? What is he doing here?”

“Other than weighing us down? Good question.”

Below us the carriage doors opened and tapestries, cushions, and open chests sailed out into the road.

“What are you doing here?” she asked the prince.

“You know very well,” he whispered.

“Bringing yourself and a score of hired assassins across the border,” I said. “It looks like an act of war to me.”

“Harboring you is an act of war.”

The way Prince Oliver said that gave me a chill unrelated to the winter air. I knew I had a couple of thieves’ guilds after me, but the prince implied something a slight bit more significant than conning a group of provincial outlaws out of their own ill-gotten gains.

“What did he do to you?” Grace asked.

“Ask your friend.”

Way to put me on the spot, Your Highness.

I summoned up Snake’s most intimidating tone and said, “She was asking you.”

“Fine,” he muttered with something like resignation. “I can think of worse uses for my last words than to condemn this villain for his crimes.”

Grace snorted. “Don’t preach to me the evils of thievery. I know the way the world works. You men in pretty robes are as much the thief as us, no less so because you do so at the point of a sword and some king’s ‘law.’”

Prince Oliver laughed, and there was so little humor in it that it began to terrify me what he might say next. I didn’t want to hear.

I didn’t want Grace to hear.

“This man is no simple thief, and his crimes extend far beyond the simple taking of property. Dermonica is peaceful, our people were prosperous from trade, trade that came through Fellhaven, our one navigable ocean port. For decades we had an agreement with the pirates of Darkblood Reef.”

I knew where this was going, the use of the past tense was a big clue—as was the sudden diplomatic interest in trade routes through Lendowyn.

“Tribute,” I whispered.

“You are aptly named,” Prince Oliver said.

“What happened?” Grace asked.

“The legendary Snake won’t elaborate for you?” The prince waited me to fill the silence. When I didn’t, he continued. “For the safety of Fellhaven we paid the pirates a third of the gold from trade in a year. In return, we had safe passage, and our enemies did not. But this prior year, our diplomats left on a ship bearing gold, and arrived on a ship bearing lead.”

“A whole ship full of gold?” I heard a tone of awe in Grace’s voice. Enough so that I knew that she hadn’t yet thought through the consequences of such an act.

“Five days later, our ship returned to Fellhaven Bay. They had tied the crew to the masts, and once it reached the inner harbor, they set it aflame. As that ship crashed aground on the docks, the pirates came.”

“What did they—”

“Fellhaven was sacked, burned to the ground. Thousands dead.”

“You had no defenders?” I snapped.

“After five decades of peace, and no sign of the pirates breaking it? There was only the city watch, who massed to battle the fire on the docks. Every death there is on your hands.” He turned toward me, nightcap still pulled over his eyes. “Do the courtesy of at least having the courage to look me in the eyes when you kill me.”

“Yeah, about that?” I said. “Not going to happen.”

I pushed him, and he tumbled off the bench into a snowdrift by the side of the road. We rode off to the sounds of him cursing Snake’s name.

Grace stared at me with wide eyes, “Why did you do that?”

“He was weighing us down,” I said. “And I can’t kill him. Against the rules, right?”