A Flight of Ravens by John Conroe (thriller books to read TXT) 📗

Mr. Kazilionum inside a wool blanket, the old man still unconscious from my drugged bolter dart; Cort, who was sitting on his bed rubbing his chest where Andru had stiff-armed him; Soshi, who was next to him; and Trell, sitting in the chair at the small table opposite me.

“The Nuk are decidedly real.  The Drodacians have traded with them for a hundred years.  They mostly stay far, far north of where the ice fields begin.  All of their dwellings and communities are deep under the ice and usually underground as well,” I said.

“And you’ve met some?” Trell asked, eyes gleaming.

I nodded. “My first year with Jella.”

“When you were an absolute nightmare,” Jella said from the window.  Kassa jumped and I saw Trell’s eyes twitch, but the rest of us didn’t so much as blink.  We were either used to her stealth or, in my case—and possibly Soshi’s—had heard the slightest sound on the roof to forewarn us.  “You are certain?” Jella asked me.

“That he is of Nuk stock?  Absolutely.”

She stared at me for more than a few seconds, her head tilted in thought.  “You saw him too?” she then asked Drew.

“Yeah, as did Cort when he got run over,” Drew said with a smirk.

Jella turned her hard gaze on our sapper.  Cort is a bit shorter than I am but weighs just as much.  He’s stocky and strong.

“He hit me like a runaway freight wagon,” he admitted, shaking his head.  “Short but wider than I am and really, really strong.  That’s all I had time to see.  Dark hair and a long beard.”

“That is… troubling,” Jella said. “Who’s that?” She nodded at the unconscious tailor.

“We have pretty strong reason to believe he’s the eslling who created the artifacts that are at the heart of this growing problem.”

“Eslling created?” Jella asked, eyebrows going up.

I explained our findings and how the mysterious Mr. Kazilionum had taken down Drew with a touch, which brought a smirk to Cort’s face.

“I still can’t believe the Nuk are real,” Soshi commented.

“Very.  Seldom seen and very reclusive.  They hate most other races, but they will trade with my people,” Jella said.  “Like Drodacians, they have been greatly changed by the diseases of the Punishment.  Very short, extremely dense bones, excellent hearing, not great eyesight, but a better sense of smell than you all.  And strong—wicked strong.”

“I didn’t think anything could live up on the ice fields,” Kassa said.

“There is always life—creatures that have adapted to the cold and bleakness.  But the Nuk have found ways to grow food where it should be impossible.  They farm an amazing variety of fungus in underground chambers, as well as raise blind fish and freshwater crabs.”

“Why would a Nuk be down here, deliberately creating dangerous conflict?” Trell asked.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Jella admitted.  “Too bad you all lost our only lead.”

“Oh, he’s not lost,” Kassa said.  “Just temporarily misplaced,” she added with a nod my way.  I held up the hair tie, hanging from a thin cord.

Jella blinked; I know because I was watching her closely.  We’d surprised her, and that happened so infrequently that I cherish each and every time.  Throwing my mentor off stride was always awesome.

“What the hells have you been doing all this time?” she asked, frowning as she stepped off the windowsill.  Good cover, Jella.

“Waiting on you… Where you been?” I shot back.

She gave me a level look, one I had seen many times before.  The kind that promised a beat down.  I ignored it and just raised a brow.

“I’ve been doing my own recon,” she said archly.  “On the road south of Porye is a contingent from Berkette; an escort for Gawron Tarpinian, the regent of Stoneport.  To the north is another, led by Turgeon Collind, chief magistrate of Kittwell in Mandrigo.”

“Shit!” I said.

“Yeah, so what happens, Shadows, if those two come into conflict?”

“War,” Soshi said.

“That’s just the beginning.  What happens to Porye?”

“Damaged or destroyed, with the victor likely laying claim to it,” I said.  “We can’t let that happen.”

Of the two connected guys’ rooms, the one we were in had a round table just big enough for maybe three people to sit at.  I had already cleared it of everything except for a piece of slate and a stick of chalk.  Now I moved to it and started sketching a rough map of Porye, drawing the main roads into the town, then adding a number of buildings, including our own and Andru’s shop.  The result lacked detail but it was a beginning.

I looked up and found the entire team observing me.  I glanced at our captive, who appeared to be still out cold, then gave Drew a nod toward the other room.  Immediately, he grabbed the top of the blanket and pulled the man into the other room, shutting the door between us when he came back in.

“He’s secure?” I asked, which was perhaps a bit insulting, but both Soshi and Drew nodded.

“Stripped naked, bound hand and foot, then bound inside the blanket and gagged,” Drew said.

“Which is what I did when we stripped him,” Soshi added. “Old men ain’t my thing.”

“All right, let’s see what we can see,” I said, holding the hair tie over the crudely drawn map.

At first it just hung there, twisting a bit from the natural motion of my unsteady human arm.  I shut my eyes and thought about the brief look I had gotten of Andru.  Carefully, I built the image in my mind, pulling up everything I could remember, no matter how fuzzy.  The color of his shirt (brown), the shape of his beard-covered face, the heavy leather boots on his feet. Exact detail wasn’t as important as the overall impression.

Someone, Trell maybe, sucked in a breath and I opened my eyes.  The piece of cloth that had held Andru’s hair was pulling on its string like a dog on a leash, pointing at the northwest section of Porye.

I put down my pendulum and flipped the slate over.  On the other side, I started to draw