Page 65 of Dishonor Among Thieves
“Haeloc?” I asked.
“Aye.” Syndrian slung a long, thick leg over the back of his horse and adjusted a menacing-looking flanged mace in the scabbard at his waist. “Ready?”
“Give me a moment,” I said. “There’s something I need to bring.”
I ran back inside and raced upstairs, praying that Neo had left the goblin dagger someplace I could find it. I did not have to look far. He’d left it on top of a small table beside the bed. I checked the fittings on my throwing knives and held the goblin dagger in my hands. I needed a way to carry it. I searched the room for the scabbard that Neo had used for it and, finding it, spent a moment fumbling with the pommel and tilting the blade back and forth in my hand. The long yellowing fangs slipped from the hidden compartment into my hand. The tips were pointy but surprisingly dull, perhaps from so much handling. But the opposite end, the side that retracted from the jaw itself was irregularly shaped and chipped, as if someone had tried very hard to make sure Haeloc suffered every second those things were being torn from his mouth.
With the scabbard and dagger secure under my cloak and my throwing knives tight around my leg, I tucked the teeth into my tunic. I wasn’t sure why I felt so strongly about this, but I believed that if the fangs inside that dagger were important, separating the fangs from the dagger was doubly so. Once they were secure between my underclothes and my skin, tucked close to my heart, I ran back to the grassy field, shouting for Flynn.
He dragged himself toward me, panting and drenched in sweat. “Did you want to play, Lady O?” he asked. “The kids are…”
“Not now, Flynn, and please—” I wrinkled my nose “—don’t call me Lady O. I need to leave the manor with Syndrian, and I’m not sure where Rain and Gia are. Can you take the children inside and keep them safe? Let Antonia and Dale know we left and our patient is upstairs alone.”
“Will do,” Flynn said, giving his brother a saucy wave.
“And Flynn,” I said, gripping the boy by the shoulder. “Secure the house. Let no one in or out who isn’t family. If we’re not back by nightfall, send word to the shire-reeve.”
“Lady Brex…” The boy swallowed hard, the knob in his throat bobbing up and down. “Is everything all right?”
“It will be,” I said. “Keep the children safe. Promise me.”
He nodded, and Syndrian and I took off.
* * *
I explainedto Syndrian what I knew as we approached the property that must have at one time been a fine manor. But there was nothing fine about the scene before us now. The low, rolling hills that surrounded Haeloc’s manor looked dead. As if years had passed without a bit of rain, the tall grasses were stiff and brown, hollowed out tinder just waiting for a stray ember to burn. I shivered as I thought about how the property around the foundling house must have looked like this now. All the healthy, green plants met their deaths because of the evil contained in that home, but here… It looked as if evil had marked every tree, every shrub, every blade of grass unlucky enough to grow within the Haeloc estate.
Syndrian slung a leg over his horse and sniffed the air. “This place has been touched by dark magic,” he said, stepping heavily on the dusty earth. “I can smell it.”
He tied his horse to a leafless tree, its brittle branches like dead vines sagging toward the barren soil below. He motioned for me to do the same.
“Let’s go on foot from here,” he said, his voice low. “Don’t wanna give ’em any cause to expect us.”
We crept along the scorched path that led to a crumbling wall. Syndrian peered over the scattered boulders and stones, dry straw and mud clinging to the fallen rocks. He climbed over the lowest point in the wall and jumped behind it, his shoulders and bright-white hair visible above the highest pile of intact stones.
He extended a hand over the wall. “Climb on the loose rocks,” he urged. “They’re steady.”
I stepped onto a boulder as big as my head and grabbed Syndrian’s hand. With his help, I too jumped over the wall and landed roughly on the ground on the other side. He crouched low, scanning the property for movement. He pointed to me with a finger and then nodded at the door.
The door of the manor wasn’t open inward, as if carelessly left open by the last one to pass through it. The center of the ornately carved wooden door had splintered all the way through the middle, sharp shards breaking through the exterior as if something had burst through the door from inside. As we crept closer, familiar voices echoed from the hallway.
“I did this for you, Neo.Becausewe’re friends.” The sound of Trond’s greasy voice made my skin pebble like plucked gooseflesh.
Syndrian and I listened a moment, unable to hear anything but the faint, deep rumbling of Neo’s response. I couldn’t make out his words and tiptoed closer, desperate for a glimpse of what was happening.
“Oy! We have company, love.” A third voice had me squinting with the tug of memory. I’d heard her voice before but couldn’t remember where or who she was. “Ya might as well come on in, girlie. We ain’t gonna bite.” A hideous laugh grated my ears. “Although Haeloc would, if he had the teeth fer it.”
Haeloc.
As soon as I heard that name, my feet took control of my body. I sprinted past the broken door, roughly shoving my shoulder into the fractured wood. Syndrian followed, his heavy footfalls thundering through the quiet.
The manor itself looked far less wrecked than the land outside but still reeked of death and decay. The stale air was rank like fetid breath and spoiled lard. Dust motes big as horseflies fluttered through the weak shafts of coming through the broken panels. No lamps or candles burned, and the chill in the air made the place feel still and empty as a tomb.
“Is this everyone, Lady Oderisi?” Trond said my name like it was distasteful in his mouth. He punctuated the greeting by spitting a wet mass from his mouth onto the floor. “Come in, then. We’re just doin’ a little business here.”
“Brex… Stay back. Do not come closer.” Neo’s voice was painfully tight, like threads pulled taut just before they snapped.
Syndrian stood beside me, his steady presence silently agreeing with Neo’s warning. Next to Trond was the woman whose voice I hadn’t been able to place.
