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

you like, although my informed prediction is that he won’t care if you do or don’t… at least until he sees how much drinking a good musician can inspire,” I said. “He gets a bonus if the place meets and exceeds its goals.”

“Please—he’s never seen anything like me,” Trell said, setting down his spoon and pulling his lute from its place on his back.  He was strumming before he even stood up, and the other patrons all took note.

Soshi speared his remaining chicken with her belt knife before Drew or Cort could get there, so the boys were left divvying up his potatoes and squash.  Two lines into his song and his plate was already cleared down to the porcelain.

I finished my own dinner out of basic self-preservation, then approached Tubbs for another plate as well as a raw chunk of fatty pork.  Stepping back into the cold night, I let my Talent guide me around back of the inn and into a dark alley.  It was empty, but after standing in place for a few moments, I heard the softest rustle as Jella landed on the ground two paces away.  As I was handing her dinner to her, another even quieter sound came from behind me.  Turning slowly, I found a pair of big green eyes set in a wide head filled with sharp teeth just a span away.  Yawl met my gaze for a moment, then switched her focus to the big block of pig in my left hand.  I held it out and she took it almost gently.  Then she leapt upward, landing on the roof of the one-story building on the right side of the alley, rumbling as she started to bite and chew.

“Anything?”

“Some shady folks watching the western and northern gates.  It’s going to be damned cold tonight,” Jella said, looking up at the clear sky as she sat cross-legged on the ground.

“I’ll leave the window unlatched if either of you decide you want a warm room,” I said.  Jella would never ask for that and would never admit that sleeping outside was any discomfort at all, but I knew my teacher too well.

“Perhaps,” she allowed, picking the chicken up and eating it off the bone with her fingers.

“Alright then.  Goodnight.”

“Savid,” she said as I turned away.

“Yeah?”

“They’ll come for us tomorrow. By then, I imagine all four gates will have watchers.”

“I should hope so.  It’ll spread them out a bit.”

Chapter 32

They hit us as we approached the western gate early the next morning.  It was the most likely exit for us to leave the town and it opened right onto the King’s Highway, which we would take north, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

Cort rode beside me, puffing a fat cigar with a smile on his face.  If you ever meet a Recon trooper and they smell like cigar, they’re probably a sapper.  Just saying.  Trell and Kassa rode in the wagon, the young eslling actually driving it.  Turns out she had plenty of experience with wagons as a child and teenager.  Three cloaked and hooded forms sat upright in the back of the wagon, along with our other bags and gear.  Drew followed behind on his black gelding.

Six men were clustered around the gate, not a one of them wearing a guard’s uniform.  At least three others were loitering to our sides, two on the left, one on the right.  We were eight or nine spans from the gate when the sounds of heavy crossbow bolts hitting cloth and leather came from the wagon bed.

We didn’t look back, instead kicking our horses forward, attacking into the ambush.  The snipers above us would be left in the hands of others.  Cort threw a round, smoking ball at the six by the gate while I lifted my cocked crossbow and triggered my own bolt into the same group.  Behind me, I heard the twang of Drew’s crossbow as well as one from the wagon, but I was mostly focused on charging the remaining men in front of me, releasing the crossbow to drop on its saddle lanyard. My axes slipped free from the saddle mounts as Tipton snorted and lowered his head.

Cort’s smoker started to gush a thick stream of black smoke all around the feet of my targets, causing more than a little panic.  Then I was right in the middle of them, my horse knocking one off his feet, my left axe chopping into the sword arm of another.  A third attempted to spear my horse but Tipton was wearing his chest armor, a thick plate of leather studded with metal rivets, and the point skidded off.  Wearing his armor always puts Tipton into battle mode and this time was no different. He rode over the spearman, deliberately stamping his feet as he went.  I turned the big horse back to the battle in time to see Drew ride up and jab his own spear into the back of the last man standing, who was trading sword strikes with Cort amidst the thick clouds of smelly smoke.  The rest of our would-be attackers were down, either wounded or dead.

The wagon approached, Trell and Kassa looking a bit wide-eyed but unharmed.  The cloaked forms behind them still remained upright despite several heavy bolts jutting from each of them.  Back on the street, people were starting to poke heads out of windows and doors, but the sight of several arrow-shot bodies on the street and at least one that hung over the arm of a shop sign kept them inside.  Soshi and Jella stood upright atop two different buildings, Jella’s position just above the sign decorator.

“Let’s egress out of here before any backup arrives,” I said.  Drew headed through the gate, the wagon rumbling after him while Cort and I waited with the reins of two horses.  Moments later, Jella and Soshi trotted up, mounted their horses, and passed through the gates.

About five t-spans out of town, we stopped the wagon and pulled away