The Black Bouquet

She didn't want him to reach the steps. He probably could elude her down in the tu

She gestured, and the shadow of a brown-and-white horse standing in the traces of a parked hay wagon lengthened and deformed into a tentacle, which then reared from the ground. The animal whi

Broadsword in hand, a Gray Blade scrambled out of the crowd to bar her path. With his slender frame, ivory skin, and vivid green eyes, he looked as if he might possess some elf blood.

"Hold it!" he said. "I saw you ca-"

Sefris drove her stiffened fingers at the half-elf's solar plexus. He had excellent reflexes. He jumped back in time and brought his round target shield up to block. His sword leaped in a head cut. She shifted in so close that the stroke fell harmlessly behind her. Sefris rammed the heel of her palm into his jaw, snapped his neck, and raced on toward Aeron.

Maddeningly, a second Gray Blade-middle-aged, stocky, and entirely human-lunged at her. Apparently he'd been hurrying toward Aeron and the tentacle, but had spied his partner's fate and turned back around to avenge him. His sword point streaked at her face. She sought to deflect it with a press, and avoiding the block, it dipped down to threaten her midsection. She had to retreat a step and twist at the hips to keep it from piercing her guts.

She gave him a roundhouse kick to the knee. Bone snapped, and he fell down. She stamped on his chest, breaking ribs and rupturing his heart.

She ran on. People scurried to get out of her way, which afforded her a good view of the conjured tentacle. It writhed and shifted from side to side, clenching and unclenching, its coils empty. The Gray Blades had delayed her long enough for Aeron to wriggle free.

She dashed down the steps into the Underways, cast uselessly about, chose a direction at random, and sprinted that way. After she passed a couple intersections, she realized further pursuit was futile. The thief had escaped her for the time being.

But not forever. She'd eavesdropped on Aeron's conversation with Kesk, and was convinced that the tanarukk was right about his fellow rogue: The redheaded thief would keep on trying to liberate his father. That meant she'd have another chance to catch him, and surely he couldn't be so lucky twice in a row.

Miri woke feeling sore, yet drowsily contented. Judging from the warm covers and medicinal smells, her comrades had carried her to the healers' tent, and she was going to be all right. She could feel it, and in any case, the important thing was that she hadn't disgraced herself.

Standing behind the bramble barricades with the senior rangers and their allies, waiting for her first battle to begin, she'd been frightened she wouldn't be able to bear it, that she'd throw down her bow and run away. And when the enemy-orcs, ogres, and huge, shapeless, crawling masses of mold-appeared among the trees, it was as terrifying as she'd imagined. But somehow she'd stood her ground, loosing arrow after arrow until the foe overran her position, then frantically hacking with her broadsword. She cut down two orcs, turned, and saw an ogre swinging its club at her. The world went dark.

Evidently her side had won the fight. Otherwise, she wouldn't be lying in a clean, soft bed. She realized her throat was dry, opened her eyes fully, and looked about to see if one of the priests had left her some water.

She wasn't in a tent but a small, sparsely furnished candlelit room with bare whitewashed walls. A thin young man with a red beard sat watching her. The sight of him made her snatch for the sword that no longer hung at her side, even as it pierced her confusion.

It wasn't an ogre that had wounded her-that had happened years ago, in the Winterwood-it was a collapsing balcony in Oeble, after which, what? Had Aeron sar Randal found her and decided to make her his prisoner?

As if by magic, a long, heavy fighting knife appeared in the thief's hand.

"Calm down!" he said. "I don't mean to hurt you. If I had, I wouldn't have carried you to Ilmater's house for healing."

She sneered and replied, "Yet you pull a dagger on me, even though I'm injured and unarmed."

"According to the healer who attended you, you're only a little bit hurt at this point." He smiled crookedly and added, "Besides, this afternoon I found out just how tough an unarmed outlander woman could be."

"You met Sefris."

"I did if she shaves her head and moves like… I don't know what. A cat? lightning? Flowing water? Whatever you liken it to, it was scary."

"That's her."

"Who in the Nine Hells is she? How do you know her?"

"How do you? What happened?"

"I'm the one with the knife," said Aeron, "so I'm going to ask the questions."

She glanced surreptitiously around. Her weapons were nowhere in evidence, nor was there anything much she could grab and use for self-defense. Even the pewter candlestick was out of reach. Still, perhaps her plight wasn't all that desperate.

"If this truly is a house of healing," she said, "all I need do is shout, and someone will rush to my aid."

"Faster than I can stick an Arthyn fang between your ribs?" he countered. "Don't count on it."

"Are you ruthless enough? I don't see it in your eyes."

He sighed like a man with a headache and said, "I already said I don't want to do it. I'm just hoping you can tell me something to help me get my father back."

She felt a reluctant twinge of sympathy for him. She remembered how it had felt to lose her own parents, when the white fever took them both within a tenday of one another.

"I saw a gang of ruffians march him away with a sack over his head," she said. "One of them was a tanarukk."

"Right, the Red Axes. I know who kidnapped him, but did you overhear them say anything about exactly where in the house they're holding him, or how he's restrained, or guarded? Anything like that?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"Curse it. Really, I don't even know what I thought you might be able to tell me, but I prayed there'd be something. What were you doing in my garret?"

"Looking for you and the strongbox."

"You can say 'The Black Bouquet.' I know what I've got. Sort of. Were you up there questioning my father when the Red Axes showed up?"

"No," Miri replied. "Sefris and I were just approaching the tower when the Red Axes and your father came out."

His eyes narrowed.

"Then you," he said, "this Sefris woman, and Kesk are all working together?"

"No. I mean, Sefris and I aren't on the same side anymore. It's complicated," Miri answered. She blinked when she absorbed the implications of what he'd just said. "Are you telling me Sefris has joined forces with the Red Axes?"

He frowned, considering, then said, "I assumed so at the time, but now that you ask, I guess I can't be absolutely sure. Anyway, I told you I'll ask the questions, and I think we're going to have to start at the begi

She hesitated, then decided that, since he knew so much already, it wouldn't hurt to tell him. In the course of interrogating her, he was likely to reveal things that she wished to know as well.