The Paladin Caper Read online

  “Understood, sir.” Mirrok tapped a crystal on the wristband of his golden gauntlet.

  A few moments later, the floor came to a halt, revealing a large arched doorway lined in the same glossy black stone as the floor itself, and Westteich stepped through into the enormous underground chamber of the Forge.

  The ceiling, high overhead, was a great dome of gold from which hung countless teardrops of beautifully glowing green crystal. Westteich stood on a walkway of glossy black stone, now ribboned with runes of the same green. The walkway formed a grid of high vantage points, and looking down, he could see the Forge at work. To the left, crystals were growing, bathed in the light from the dome-crystals overhead. Up ahead, a moving belt fed crystal into a great ancient tunnel and half-formed Hunters emerged on the other side. Off to the right, vast blue cylinders held the recaptured essence of the ancient magic, recovered from the fairy creatures and returned to where Westteich knew it belonged. The cylinders glowed healthily. This close to the monthly arrival, they were close to full capacity.

  Westteich’s new assistant bounced over from his office as he looked out across the Forge. She was a short, apple-cheeked young woman with spectacles and a somewhat annoying tendency to say everything as though she was asking a question, but she was also quite good with crystals. “Looks like it’s just you and me and the golems here today, sir? I was worried you caught the cold that’s going around when you weren’t in earlier? I don’t know if it was something in the food or—”

  “I’m fine, Laridae.” Westteich grinned. “Better than fine, in fact. This month has seen many fairy creatures brought back, and I believe we’ll have something more to deliver. Mirrok?”

  “Rirrim, to your business,” Commander Mirrok said. “Kimor, subdue him.”

  One of the two Hunters spun, knocked the birdcage from Hunter Mirrkir’s arms, and drove a fist into the golem’s stomach.

  An actual Hunter would still be doubled over by the simple laws of physics but would recover almost immediately, given that the ancients had designed Hunters to survive long periods with much of their internal components damaged or destroyed. The fairy creatures were savage and unpredictable, after all.

  This Hunter sank to its knees with a grunt.

  “Oh my wow?” Laridae cried out. The birdcage rolled and rattled on the polished stone floor, the dove flapping frantically inside as the other Hunter walked off to tend to its duties.

  “Mister Kail, I believe,” Westteich said with some satisfaction, and pulled the figure’s helmet off. Underneath, an Urujar man coughed and wheezed. “Welcome to the Forge.”

  “There isn’t actually a Kameset Protocol, hunh?” he said, gasping and trying to catch his breath.

  “Not as such,” said Westteich. “You see, Kail, no Hunter would ever take a fairy creature alive, nor would it ever refer to one as ‘she’ rather than ‘it.’ Nor would anyone who knows anything about the ancients expect that an injured Hunter would be sent back to get a new spear, since the spear is far more complex and difficult to create than the Hunter body itself. A Hunter who lost its spear would most likely return any individual consciousness that could benefit the organization’s work, and then allow itself to be stripped down for parts . . . because, unlike you, Mister Kail, the Hunters understand their place in this world.”

  “Hooray for them,” Kail wheezed.

  “I don’t understand, sir?” Laridae said, or possibly asked. “If you knew that this wasn’t really a Hunter, why did you let him inside the Forge? I mean, I haven’t been here very long, but there are security concerns? And maybe—”

  “The thing about Mister Kail,” Westteich said, pointing at the man with his walking stick, “is that he and his little team are fundamentally cheaters. You know what that means, Laridae?”

  “Um?”

  “The Hunters know their place in this world. They don’t complain. I know my place, you know yours, but some people? They just don’t. And Mister Kail was part of a team of thieves that caused a great deal of trouble. Instead of working to earn the things they wanted, they steal, and play tricks, and cheat, because they think that they’re entitled to more, and that they can get away with it. Mirrok, are we ready?”

  Mirrok looked over to where the Hunter who had walked off was now coming back, a small gray wand held ready. “Sir.”

  “Good. Now, Laridae, the reason we let Mister Kail in is that his tricky little team can be nasty customers if you don’t control the environment. If we’d just taken down Mister Kail out on the road, the rest of his team, wherever they were, might have attacked me, or they might have scattered, and we’d never have seen them again. But in here . . . now, Mirrok?”

  Mirrok nodded, and the other Hunter triggered the wand. The air snapped and shimmered around all of them.

  When Westteich’s vision cleared, the main room in which he had descended with Kail and the Hunters had two more people in it. One of them was a pretty auburn-haired woman wearing the pale-green traveling robes of a love priestess, while the other was a gangly man, also robed. Both looked very surprised.

  “In here, Laridae, we can capture all of the late Captain Loch’s infamous band of thieves in one fell swoop,” Westteich said. “Here we have the death priestess, Desidora, whose power is quite dangerous to you and me, but”—as Desidora stepped forward and raised a hand, Commander Mirrok raised his spear to her throat—“useless against Hunters.”

  “The last time a Hunter tried to kill me, it went very poorly for him,” Desidora said coldly, and her robes and hair suddenly darkened to black even as her face went deathly pale.

  Westteich chuckled. “Yes, dear, but when you fought that Hunter—the actual Hunter Mirrkir whose armor your friend Kail is currently wearing—you wielded Ghylspwr, a weapon carrying the soul of the ancients, and since the ancients are—how shall I put this?—my team . . . your threat carries a lot less weight. You might be able to suck my soul out of my body, but according to Ghylspwr, you’re quite fond of this Kail fellow. Mirrok?”

  Commander Mirrok moved his spear to Kail’s throat, and Desidora glared, then slowly stepped back. Her robes slid back to green, and her hair went back to the very pretty auburn Westteich liked, although it still seemed a touch darker than normal.

  “And this,” Westteich said, pointing at the robed man, “is the wizard Hessler, a failed university student who is nevertheless quite good at illusions.”

  “Technically I was reinstated and continued my coursework via correspondence,” Hessler said, “and while I think it’s a travesty that this distance-learning program doesn’t include an honors course—”

  “The bird is of course the unicorn, Ululenia,” Westteich continued, gesturing absently with his walking stick at the white dove that still clung to the perch in the now overturned silver cage. The Hunter who had held the illusion-dispelling wand raised its spear, and the wizard Hessler shut up. “I can only imagine it thought that attacking the Forge of the Ancients must have seemed like an attractive option, a chance to take revenge for the deaths of what it thought of as its family.” The bird held very still. “How brave of it to allow itself to be caged in silver, don’t you think, Laridae, given how much it harms them?”

  “Um?” Laridae said.

  “That is, unless the cage isn’t real silver,” Westteich went on, and gestured. The Hunter who had punched Kail drew out a net of silver that crackled with magical energy and tossed it over the cage without ceremony, and the bird flapped frantically before going still.

  “You trapped them all?” Laridae said, looking very impressed.

  “So it appears,” Westteich agreed. “Or most of them, in any event. They also have an Imperial acrobat who has yet to make an appearance, as well as an alchemist and crystal expert who goes by the name Tern. I’m surprised that she wouldn’t have been part of this little operation, given her expertise with crystals. Doesn’t that surprise you, Laridae?”

  “I think, sir?”

  “Laridae . . . that�
�s sort of a funny name, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t really know what the untitled are calling their children these days, but . . . Laridae . . .” Westteich pursed his lips. “You know, it strikes me that Laridae, in one of the Old Kingdom languages . . . it’s the name of a group of birds.”

  Laridae blinked. “Like a flock, sir?”

  “Like an overarching list of species,” Westteich said, smiling thinly, “including a number of coastal seabirds such as the common gull and the tern.”

  Laridae reached toward her pocket, but the gauntleted hand of a Hunter closed over hers.

  “The alchemist, the death priestess, the illusionist, and the unicorn,” Westteich said, chuckling again. Laridae—or Tern, really—was flanked by Hunters that had come at Mirrok’s signal. “Plus Mister Kail, I suppose. The linchpin of the plan, the man who the rest of you actually expected to get into the Forge of the Ancients, the sacred chamber where we prepare for their return, just by talking convincingly.” Westteich smiled broadly at all of them. “I have to know, and please, you have nothing to lose from being honest here . . . did you actually think this would work? Or . . .” He frowned at the Urujar man who still knelt on the ground, a spear at his throat. “Was he supposed to be a terrible liar, so that we would spend time focusing on him and miss the rest of you? That might actually be up to the standards I was told to expect.”

  “You were told?” Hessler asked, squinting.

  “Ghylspwr.” Desidora went pale again in anger. “He’s with them. Of course he told them all about us.”

  “Bit hard to do when he only has a three-phrase vocabulary,” Kail said.

  “This is what you don’t get, all of you,” Westteich said as more Hunters crossed the walkway to take them all into custody. “You have little tricks, some of them quite cunning in a common sort of way. We have a network of information on all possible enemies. We have a Forge that has been running for hundreds of years, recovering the energy those fairy parasites stole from the artifacts of our masters. We have resources you cannot possibly understand.”

  “We understand more about the ancients than you might think.” Desidora’s voice was cold and hard.

  “Yes, you don’t like that they’re coming back,” Westteich said as more Hunters filed into the room, “and your Captain Loch, a noble in her own right, thought she could stand against them. But then she died, didn’t she?” He smiled and twirled his walking stick, stepping in close and leaning over Kail, who still knelt with a spear at his throat. “Your illustrious thief-captain died of a crossbow bolt through the heart. Do you know what the mark of a weaker mind is, Mister Kail?”

  “Gloating?” Kail asked.

  Westteich shook his head sadly. “Your captain died a common criminal, Mister Kail, and you had the chance to learn from her example, to correct your course and accept the coming of the ancients with dignity. Instead, like all weak minds do, you continue to believe something even when faced with clear evidence to the contrary.”

  Behind Westteich, one of the Forge’s status alarms began to chime.

  “So just as an example of this weak-minds thing,” Kail said, “the way your mother keeps going back to your father even though she knows that I’m better between the sheets, that counts, right?”

  “What?” Westteich turned to the chimes and then back to Kail.

  “Look, I’m just saying your mother deserves better. Deeper.”

  Westteich stepped past Commander Mirrok, who had the foulmouthed thug at spearpoint, and raised his hand to strike. Just then, the Forge status alarms went off again, and this time it was a squealing shriek and not a gentle chime.

  For one moment, Westteich was paralyzed by both rage and confusion, and that was when Kail stood up and punched the nobleman in the face.

  Westteich reeled backward, watching the next few moments in dazed horror.

  Commander Mirrok moved to stab Kail, but his spear had somehow become tangled with the spear of one of the other Hunters. The Hunter who had held Hessler at spearpoint ran the wizard through, only to see Hessler shimmer and vanish as it did.

  “That’s impossible!” Westteich shouted, looking around frantically. More alarms were blaring out in the Forge, and the lights were wrong. Looking up, Westteich saw that the dangling teardrop crystals whose radiance nurtured the growth of crystals below were swinging wildly, and there seemed to be a man-size figure leaping from chain to chain, barely visible so far away.

  “Yes, you did nullify all the illusions with that wand,” came a voice from right beside Westteich. He spun, dimly aware that Commander Mirrok had gone sailing off the walkway and crashed down to the Forge below. “The only way someone could carry on an illusion,” the voice continued as Westteich swung at the empty air with his walking stick, “including the illusion of all his illusions being dispelled, would be if his cute girlfriend had switched out your wand a while back.”

  Bolts of blue-white light crackled across the two Hunters flanking Tern, and the Hunters dropped to the ground as Hessler shimmered into view behind them. “Also, it takes me a bit of time to prepare,” Hessler said to Westteich, “but I can manage a bit more than just illusions.”

  “Surprise!” Tern called. “Also, you’re a terrible boss.”

  “Kill them!” Westteich shouted, not entirely certain who he was shouting at.

  “Mirrok’s going after Ululenia!” Kail shouted, and the Hunter whose spear had tangled up Mirrok’s ran from the room, took a few stuttering steps, and vaulted over the railing down to the Forge below.

  This was insane. Westteich looked up and saw that the man up in the ceiling crystals was still up there. More worryingly, several of the ceiling crystals were no longer glowing green and were instead pulsing an angry red.

  “Kill the unicorn!” Westteich snapped at the Hunter who had tried to stab the illusionary Hessler and was now holding Desidora at spearpoint. The actual Hessler stood between Tern and several Hunters, energy crackling through his fingers.

  The Hunter looked down at the silver birdcage and the dove trapped inside. “This is not a fairy creature. This is an actual bird.”

  Westteich blinked. “But Mirrok would have—”

  “Detected the aura of magic around it?” Desidora finished, smiling brightly. “Yes, unless a death priestess were nearby to manipulate the bird’s aura and generate a false positive.”

  The Hunter turned back to her, and Tern lobbed a pouch at it. It parried the pouch with its spear, which just made the pouch break open and spill some sort of sparkling powder all over the golem, who then stumbled back, twitching and shuddering.

  Kail took the spear from the creature, rammed the butt of the weapon into its helmet, and sent it crashing to the ground. “Icy’s almost done up there!” he shouted. “Ululenia, you got that thing open yet?”

  Westteich saw more Hunters approaching. “Stop them!” he yelled, and stumbled back to the walkway.

  Almost all the ceiling crystals glowed an angry red now. On the conveyor belt, Commander Mirrok now appeared to be fighting the Hunter whose spear had gotten tangled with its own. Mirrok had enhancements far beyond those of a normal Hunter. Its spear could chop through stone, and its reflexes were faster than any human’s.

  It seemed to have the rogue Hunter on the defensive, beating it back with stabs and slashes.

  Then the other Hunter stumbled, Mirrok lunged in, and the Hunter parried the thrust, grabbed Mirrok’s shoulder, and hurled the golem directly into the Hunter-assembly chamber, using its own spear to pin Mirrok inside.

  “No,” Westteich said as a lot of multicolored smoke poured from the chamber along with sparks and bits of crystal.

  “No!” he said again as he looked at the containment cylinders, almost full from a month of capturing fairy creatures. Energy was leaking out, glittering white with swirls and sparkles in all the colors of the rainbow. Standing before the broken cylinders with its horn blazing brilliantly was a snowy-white unicorn.

  “No, no, no!” Westteich ran
along the walkway, shifting his dragon-headed walking stick to a fighting grip. He could fix this. He could stop this.

  Something caught his foot, and he tripped, fell, and slid on the glossy black stone. Shoving himself back to his feet, he turned to see what had grabbed him.

  It was the Hunter who had fought Mirrok, pulling itself over the railing and up onto the walkway.

  “It’s not possible,” Westteich said, his voice ragged. Alarms blared all around him. “She’s dead. There were reports. There were witnesses. She’s dead! She took a crossbow bolt to the heart and died!”

  “A trick bolt, some illusionary blood, and a very convincing death priestess,” said the Hunter, and removed its helmet. The face underneath was that of a dark-skinned woman, her face striking and hard even as she smiled. “What is it that they say about weak minds?”

  “Captain Loch,” Westteich said, and swallowed. “I don’t know what you wanted to do, but you cannot possibly succeed. The ancients are returning—”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “—and you cannot stop that. Your efforts will only hurt the common folk you profess to care about.” Westteich shifted his grip on his walking stick, eyes wide and pleading. “If you cannot put aside your old grudges to help the ancients return, surely you can at least go to ground and live quietly in peace.”

  She seemed to consider it, just as Westteich had hoped.

  His thumb flicked the catch just below the dragon’s head on his walking stick, and the hidden blade slid free from the stick-scabbard as Westteich lunged at Loch’s throat.

  Something hit his wrist, and then something hit his knee, and then something even harder hit his face, and Westteich flopped on the ground with sparks dancing across his vision.