A Land of Glass and Fire (Haymaker Adventures Book 4) Read online

  Lysander turned to Reshem and smiled.

  Reshem gave a nod. “We cannot heal your illness, but we can help you destroy what’s coming.”

  Nagé came forward and handed Lysander a new, shining sword with a blue aura about it. “My husband’s favorite sword, he thought you might want to borrow it for a time.”

  Lysander smiled and gripped the handle. Lightning crashed down to the sword and then smaller bolts coursed over the god’s body. “Let us beat back the darkness one more time.”

  Then Jonathan awoke, finding himself lying on his back and staring up at the blue sky. The spell was finished, and he had seen all that Orin had wanted him to see.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Welcome back,” Orin said as he helped Jonathan up. “We can talk about what you saw a little later. Morgan has finished up and is on her way back. Here, I have some coffee and biscuits for you.”

  Jonathan put his left hand to his aching head and took the biscuits with his right hand. “Thanks,” he said.

  “All finished,” Morgan said as she patted the satchel. “Shall we be going?”

  “Coffee and biscuits,” Orin said as he rose and handed her some food. “Jonathan and I were just having a chat,” he told her.

  “Has he admitted to treason yet?” Morgan quipped.

  Jonathan shook his head and stood up. “Actually, he was just telling me that the whole naked interrogation was your idea,” he said with a wink.

  “That was—I mean…” Morgan took a bite of her biscuit and turned away.

  Orin shot Jonathan a disapproving look.

  “You knew I wasn’t going to let that go,” Jonathan said with a shrug.

  Morgan took a quick drink and then handed the half-full cup back to Orin. “You agreed to the idea,” Morgan said.

  Orin nodded. “I thought it was an interesting strategy,” he admitted.

  “So you both wanted to see me without my shirt, is that it?” Jonathan jabbed as he tossed the rest of his biscuit to Griff. The large lizard gobbled it in one bite, then trotted alongside Jonathan as the young soldier went back to his horse.

  “Don’t start in with me,” Orin said. “Did you ever think that perhaps your arrogance might be more responsible for the nature of the interview?”

  Jonathan saw his point, but he wasn’t about to dignify it with an answer. “I think perhaps I should keep the bow,” he said.

  “Fair enough, just don’t pull it out unless I tell you to. You are still in my custody. This isn’t a sight-seeing venture.”

  “Why is the sword on the ground?” Morgan asked.

  Jonathan stiffened, only just now realizing he hadn’t picked Myrskyn off the ground.

  “I was inspecting it,” Orin said. “I thought while you were busy with the preliminary reports, I would ask our ward about the weapon a bit more.”

  “And could he demonstrate its powers this time?”

  “No,” Orin said.

  “Still having performance issues?” Morgan poked.

  Orin laughed and shrugged. “Either that, or it is simply a very detailed forgery. Unfortunately, I am no closer to understanding why Tray Maloy sent this sword to Jonathan in the first place.”

  “Perhaps I can take another run at him when we stop for camp tonight,” Morgan said.

  Perfect. Jonathan thought to himself. He walked over and picked the weapon off the ground, sliding it back into the harness and then made a smooth turn that put him right in Morgan’s face. “You’re welcome to run at me as often as you like, but you shouldn’t hold your breath on finding much luck.” He took care to place a special inflection on his words just for her benefit, and then turned to Orin before she could overcome her outrage sufficient to find words. “Shall we be going?” He asked pleasantly as he pointed to the road.

  “Yes, I think we have spent enough time here and done all we can for the moment. Let’s be on our way. If the weather holds up and we don’t meet with any more delays, we should arrive in Athenrie tomorrow before lunch.”

  *****

  Lyra exited Daichin Taun’s manor just after sundown, smiling to herself as she walked along the flagstone path toward the side gate in the ten-foot-tall stone wall surrounding the warlord’s home. The guard at the gate leered at her, but she didn’t mind this time. The man could only look after all, for she was as close to the Daichin as his own sister, and the Daichin was not someone worth angering unless you had an army of ten thousand at your back.

  “Goodnight,” the guard said as she exited the compound.

  Lyra nodded. “Yes, yes it is.” She turned and offered him just enough of a wink to elicit a bright smile from the tall, dark-skinned Konnon. She strolled across the street to the arena. The thunderous cheers coming from within the colosseum were so loud it would have made any casual conversation impossible outside the building. The smell of cooked sausages wafted out from one of the many entrances to the building. A pair of large guards looked at her as she approached. For their benefit, she put a little extra swing into her hips, mincing the rest of the way to them and keeping their full attention.

  “Daichin Taun has asked that I pick something up for him,” she told the first guard, a large Kuscan holding a thick staff. “One of his fighters forgot something,” she added, flashing a quick grin.

  “The games have already started for the night,” the guard replied. “You may not want to see what goes on below in the wetworks.

  Lyra smiled. If only the poor fool knew how much blood she had spilled herself. She could likely paint the entire wetworks twice over with the blood of her past enemies. “I have a strong constitution,” she said coyly, twisting a lock of hair around her left index finger.

  “Daichin Taun is a friend of mine,” the other guard said. He was a Konnon by the looks of his complexion and thick muscles. “We can let her have five minutes.”

  The Kuscan nodded. “I can escort you,” he offered. “The fighters can be a bit ill-mannered sometimes.”

  Lyra shook her head. “No, that won’t be necessary. I can handle myself.”

  The Kuscan looked to the Konnon.

  “I have five gold pieces for each of you if you would be so kind as to allow Daichin Taun’s humble servant to retrieve the item.”

  The Kuscan whistled through his teeth. “If you are Daichin Taun’s servant, then I am in the wrong business.”

  Lyra grinned. “A strong man like you, I’m sure you could become a Daichin someday. Why, I heard that Daichin Taun got his start right here in the arena.”

  The Konnon laughed. “Only after he had already inherited his father’s army and holdings. He may have been an arena fighter, but he is not self-made.”

  Lyra shrugged. “Ten gold coins each, and you let me go right now.” Her tone switched from honey-sweet to deathly cold. She was tired of playing with the guards, and she had a strict schedule to keep.

  The guards looked to each other and then agreed. Lyra pulled the coins from a small pouch and divvied up ten to each guard. She then moved past them and into the corridor leading to the arena seating, stopping half way through the corridor and turning to a narrow door set in the stone wall. She opened it to reveal a set of stairs leading down to the wetworks, a series of connected chambers that served as preparation areas for fighters as well as a place for surgeries to be performed after particularly violent fights. If a fighter died, their body was often piled on a table in one of the rooms and allowed to wait until the workers could get around to carting them off to the burial grounds. This particularly savage practice necessitated a network of troughs in the floors that could direct the flow of blood to drains set in each room that sent the blood to some underground cesspool of sorts.

  The rooms were well lit with oil lamps and torches hung throughout, but the area smelled damp, with a hint of copper. Each of the connected chambers were arranged somewhat like prison cells, with three solid walls for privacy, and one open wall facing the main walkway where she was now. Lyra moved past the first chamber
with the pile of bodies on the table. The second room held a large man biting down on a stick while two other men appeared to be preparing to set a broken tibia. For a moment she was tempted to watch, but ultimately she decided to focus on her task. She moved by several more chambers, some empty, others with minor procedures taking place such as the suturing of wounds or removing weapon fragments from a fighter’s body.

  Only when she reached the end of the wetworks did she find what she was after. Lyra smiled and bent down to a small lockbox secured inside a set of square shelves. She pulled a black key from her pocket and double checked the number to make sure she went to the correct box, then she opened the lock and prized the lid back to reveal yet another key inside. Lyra reached in and took the second key out of the box.

  “You sure went to a lot of trouble to keep us at bay, Tray,” Lyra muttered under her breath. Then she stood up and turned around to see a behemoth of a man leaning against the wall nearby and ogling her.

  “Finally,” he said. “They sent me a prize I actually want.”

  Lyra arched a brow and stared back at the letch’s brown eyes. “Win your fight, did you?” she asked.

  The large man nodded his shaved head and pointed to a single cut on his left arm that had already been sewn back together. “I have a small owie. Hows about you come and kiss it better?”

  Lyra laughed and shook her head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea…for you.” She turned to walk away, but the large man was quick, jumping in front of her as effortlessly as a lion might pounce before its prey and separate it from the rest of the herd.

  “You’re not going to refuse me,” he said.

  “Why is that?” Lyra asked. “Is it because you’re tall and ruggedly handsome?”

  The gladiator smiled, revealing a missing tooth on his upper right side. “Something like that, yeah.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lyra said. She took a step forward, but the man stuck his tree trunk of an arm in front of her, blocking her path.

  “It’s either as my prize for fighting well, or to keep me from telling the quarter master that you have been thieving from other fighters, but you will come with me into that chamber.”

  Lyra grinned. “I was given the key and asked to retrieve the contents of that box,” she said. She found it was so much easier to do her kind of work when she could tell the truth, or something that closely aligned with it. In this case, the fighter was dead, and she had been given the key and asked to retrieve the contents, just not by the same person.

  The fighter leaned in and sniffed. “You smell nice, but you spin lies,” he said. “See, I know the fighter who owns that box, and he told me he would never give the contents away. So, the way I see it, you have no choice.”

  “Oh very well,” Lyra huffed. As the fighter grinned wider and came in for a kiss, she reached up and pulled a pointed hair-pin from her fiery hair and jabbed it into the fighter’s newly stitched-up wound. The large man growled, but he held his ground. Lyra had expected that from someone used to the kind of pain a gladiator would go through for money, so she followed up with a quick stomp on the fighter’s left foot. Since the gladiator wasn’t wearing any shoes, his instep snapped easily. Now he howled in pain. Lyra sent a lightning-quick slap to the right side of the fighter’s head, her hand forming a perfect seal over the man’s ear. The force burst the man’s eardrum and the combined pain from the three wounds had him staggering backward.

  By now, other fighters were emerging from their chambers to see what was the matter. Always quick on her feet, Lyra shouted loud enough for all of them to hear. “I said I am NOT that kind of woman!” she hollered. Lyra snapped a quick kick to the fighter’s groin, and then turned to storm out of the wetworks. She knew no one else would dare stop her. Some of the fighters were cheering, others were laughing at her poor victim, but none of them were even looking her way. Their eyes were all focused on the crumpled heap of a fighter who was making noises like a cow birthing a calf.

  Lyra went up the stairs and on out into the night. The two guards nodded to her, but neither of them seemed to have heard the commotion from the wetworks, but then with the waves of cheers from the colosseum, that was to be expected.

  She hurried along the road until she crossed through an open gateway that marked the edge of the New District, where the colosseum had been built several centuries prior. As she crossed into Old Town, the buildings became shorter, but no less elaborate than the fine manors owned by the various Daichins who took residence in New District. She had one stop to make in this part of town, and then she was headed back into the Gray Quarter to find Geno and give him what he was looking for.

  Lyra found the candle maker’s shop with no trouble at all, and then tested the door. It was locked now. She looked around to ensure no one was close by, and then she pulled a lock pick set from her other pocket and went to work. As her fingers worked the fine instruments, she counted off her time.

  “One-thousand-one…one-thousand-two…one-thousand—”

  K-click!

  Lyra smiled and slipped inside. She paused a few moments once she had closed the door, letting her eyes adjust to the dark room. Soon, with moonlight streaming in through several windows, she confidently strode across the floor to the back counter in the shop. She crouched behind the counter, using her fingers to feel along the drawers and find the right one. She took out the key from the wetworks and slid it into the lock on the drawer. The tumblers clicked into place and the drawer came open, sliding effortlessly out to reveal its contents.

  Her confident smile vanished when all she saw was a small notebook off to one side. “Bollocks!” she muttered. “It’s not all here.” She stood up and looked around frantically. Where else would a candle maker have hidden it? All of her sources had led her to this precise location, and it had cost her much more of her five hundred gold piece expense fund than she had planned. To have spent all that time, and all that money, and to only get Tray’s notebook in return was beyond catastrophic.

  “You’re good, Tray, I’ll give you that,” she whispered. “Not many people can keep their secrets from me this long, especially after they’re dead.

  CHAPTER TEN

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