The Black Bouquet

"It's all right," the ranger said. "We're here to free you. Where do the overseers keep the tools?"

An underfed, half-naked hobgoblin, its back and shoulders striped with whip marks, pointed at the shack. Miri stepped over the corpse in the doorway, then reappeared with mallets and chisels. Some of the slaves clamored for them.

"Keep quiet!" she hissed.

Once they obeyed, she passed out the tools, and they started striking off their leg irons.

"Kesk will puke blood when he finds out all this coin has grown wings and flown away," Aeron said with a grin.

"Coin?" Miri repeated. "Is that all they are to you? I suppose if it was practical, you wouldn't free them, but simply steal them to sell yourself."

"You're wrong," Aeron said. He didn't know why he should care about her opinion of him, but her scorn was starting to rankle. "In my time I've stolen copper ingots, bales of silk, pots of jam, and as it turns out, a formulary. Why not? They're just things. What difference does it make whose pocket they wind up in? But I've never tried my hand at slaving-or kidnapping, or killing for hire. I don't have the stomach for any of that."

"But you do hurt people, in the course of committing your outrages. You and your accomplices killed some of my mercenaries."

"At least killing isn't the very heart of our trade. Unlike yours. A ranger's a warrior and manhunter, right? I don't suppose you would have joined your Red Hart Guild unless you liked shooting people."

"I like defending the i

"This is madness!" one of the thralls, a rather pretty blond woman with an upturned nose, suddenly wailed. "We can't escape! They'll only punish us, maybe kill us, if we try."

"Not if you're smart," Aeron said. "If you were enslaved illegally and can prove it, run to your families or the Gray Blades. The rest of you, sneak out of town before dawn, stay off the roads, and head for the Barony of the Great Oak. It's not far, and they don't traffic in slaves there. They won't send you back." He opened his belt pouch and handed one of the slaves a few coins. Miri probably suspected the funds he was spending were the same coins she'd been carrying before her fall, but so far, she hadn't made an issue of it. "This will buy food, or pay a bribe if need be."

"It won't help," the blond thrall said.

"You gutless bitch," snarled the hobgoblin with all the lash scars. "Always whining, or tattling on the rest of us."

The hobgoblin had already freed itself, and it lunged at her, swinging a length of broken chain like a morning star.

Aeron and Miri sprang forward and grabbed the goblin-kin, which, biting and thrashing, struggled madly to break free. It was surprisingly strong despite the mistreatment it had endured.

"Easy!" Aeron said. "Take it easy!"

So intent was he on restraining the creature that when the other thralls cried out, it took a split second for the warning to register.

When it did, Aeron looked over his shoulder, just in time to see the Red Axes pull the triggers of their crossbows. The weapons clacked, and he dived forward with all his strength, bulling Miri and the hobgoblin down to the ground.

The goblin-kin grunted as one of the bolts pierced its body. Aeron was unscathed. He hoped Miri was, too, but didn't have time to check on her. It was more important to assess the threat. He scrambled around to orient on the marksmen.

He saw five Red Axes, three human, one long-legged, hyena-faced gnoll, and an orc. Perhaps they'd been prowling around the city hunting him, or else some other business had called them forth from the mansion on the river. Either way, they must have heard the clank of the thralls breaking their fetters and come to investigate, entering through the gate Miri had closed but neglected to relock.

A couple ruffians reached for their quivers.

A big man with a boil on his neck shouted, "Don't shoot! That's him, Aeron sar Randal. Take him alive."

His companions obediently dropped the crossbows and readied their cudgels.

Aeron was glad of that, at least. Their reluctance to kill the one person who could lead them to The Black Bouquet was the only advantage he had. As he scrambled up, he plucked a throwing knife from his boot. He faked a cast at the gnoll, whose eyes widened in alarm, then he pivoted and flung the dagger at a human wearing a foppish slashed doublet and fancy sash instead. The knife plunged into the bravo's chest, and he reeled backward.

At the same moment, however, the orc lifted a tiny metal bottle, threw back its head, and gulped the contents. The man with the boil tossed what looked like a little brass toy to the ground. It scuttled forward under its own power, and as it advanced, it grew larger, swelling into a clattering metal preying mantis two heads taller than Aeron himself.

The slaves kept on screaming. He didn't blame them.

Aeron couldn't imagine a throwing blade damaging the enchanted apparatus, so retreating, he reached for his heavy fighting knife instead. That wasn't likely to do much good either, but if was the best weapon he had.

Miri shot the mantis twice. The first arrow glanced off its long, thin body. The second stuck for a second, then drooped and fell away, leaving a shallow pock mark in the brass. She nocked a third shaft, registered the foes of flesh and blood rushing in at her, pivoted, and let fly at them instead. The arrow plunged so deeply into the torso of a human Red Axe that half of it popped out of his back. The outlaw dropped.

Her next arrow flew at the orc, whose flesh emitted a sickly greenish light-a product, no doubt, of the potion it had consumed. The shaft hit the creature squarely in the neck, but simply snapped in two without even slowing its target.

The orc had figured out that the Red Axes didn't need to take anyone but Aeron alive. It still carried a long club in its left hand, but had drawn its scimitar with its right, and as it scrambled into the distance, it slashed at Miri's knee. She retreated, avoiding the cut, tossed the longbow away, and snatched for the hilt of her new broadsword.

Aeron watched it all from the corner of his eye, directing most of his attention to the metal insect mincing toward him, graceful despite its size and the clanking that attended its every move.

The mantis leaped, its long hind legs straightening explosively and hurling it through the air.

Even though Aeron had his eye on it, the move caught him by surprise. If the mechanism landed on him, the shock would break bone, and the sheer weight of it would pin him to the ground even if it didn't crush him outright. He sprang desperately backward.

Even so, the mantis crashed down right in front of him, the impact jolting the ground. Up close, it smelled of oil. Long serrated pincers opened to snatch him up.

He dodged one set of claws and riposted with a stab. The Arthyn fang grated along brass, merely scratching it. The other forelimb leaped at him, and a hand shoved him out of the way. The pincers snapped shut on empty air.

He glanced at his rescuer. It was the gaunt hobgoblin with the whip marks. The creature had a crossbow quarrel sticking in its left shoulder, but apparently wasn't too badly wounded to fight. It lashed the mantis with its chain. The construct twisted its head, evidently considering the thrall through its bulbous faceted eyes, then it returned its attention to Aeron.

It chased him across the yard, snatching for him relentlessly, occasionally dipping its head lower in an effort to seize him in its mandibles. The other slaves scurried to stay clear. Aeron thrust and hacked with the knife when he could, which wasn't often. It was hard enough just to stay out of the constructs clutches and keep it from cornering him against the fence. He supposed the lack of offense didn't much matter. As predicted, the blade wasn't doing the device any real damage, any more than was the hobgoblin still gamely flailing away at its flank.