Cadryn napped through most of the next day, doing his best to avoid Silence’s jabs about being kept up all night. Sefton was pleased with Mareth’s apparent overcoming of her fears of the dark, and location of the missing alchemy supplies, but not as pleased as Korbinian.

Late in the afternoon, an Imperial shipment arrived, some type of new Semaphore system that would need to be installed on one of the spire’s the following day. Gita spent the evening complaining bitterly over it at Amber’s. For his own part, Cadryn was too busy thinking of how he would deal with the stranger the barkeeper had asked him to stop . . . or the revelation of Silence’s unnatural youth.

He decided to sleep on it, alone.

The following day began with a pleasant surprise: the new Semaphore system had been installed overnight on the side of Beacon’s spire. Cadryn made a mental note to thank Mareth when he saw her next. Gita soared happily amid the flags before joining him on the roof of the Citadel.

“It all seems to be in working order,” Gita reported cheerily.

“Excellent,” Cadryn said, and made for Sefton’s office to report their success. Maybe they’d get the day off, that hope, was soon dashed by a simple question.

“How does it work?” Sefton asked over his crossed hands. “I won’t question the rapidity of the task’s completion, but we need to make sure the desired outcome is in place.”

“I’m not much on signaling,” Cadryn admitted.

“We’re there instructions, in the crates?” Sefton asked of Gita.

The Batsel quirked her head left, and right, as if suddenly unable to speak.

“So we have no idea what the flags say?” Sefton asked, anger beginning to creep into his tone.

“Apparently, not.” Cadryn replied, having now learned not to offer definitive explanations for events.

Sefton rubbed his temples, “Very well, report to Toll duty, send Silence to me, maybe she can make something of it.”

“Right away!” Gita replied, darting out the window.

Cadryn took the long way around, and in so doing, managed to avoid passing Silence, whom had noticed his attempts at avoiding her and reacted, well, reasonably given his lack of explanation. Manning the Guard Post alone, he fell into the mindless routine of taking payments, checking papers, and sending people on their way. That was, until a man with amulet of a caged heart walked into the courtyard.

At a glance, Cadryn knew the man for a foreigner, from the cut of his clothing to the heraldry painted on his breastplate. One of the smaller southern kingdoms he guessed, perhaps even one in the orbit of the Gravanik States. The man’s features were sharp and weather worn, and a knife scar traced from one ear to the bridge of his nose. The smell of spice filled the air at his approach.

“Please state the nature of your travel,” Cadryn said, attempting to appear disinterested.

“My travels are long, and arduous, but what, of worth traveling to, is not worth some discomfort?” the man said in barely accented Provalian, he smiled, revealing silver capped teeth.

“Your business, then?” Cadryn asked.

“Is my own,” the man answered, “but I understand the need of asking. If it soothes your mind, Guardsmen, I travel this way in pursuit of a dangerous fugitive from my lands.”

Cadryn’s guts began to twist. “Is that so?” he asked.

“Just so,” the man said, and angled his hat to better block the noon sun. “A murderess and worse . . . last report I had, placed her in one of the frontier towns beyond this Tower. You wouldn’t happen to have seen anyone, well, of your kind of mix.”

“We’re not that uncommon,” Cadryn replied.

“True,” the man answered, “Another question then; what can you tell me of the nearest town? That cart-master over there says Kellen’s Veld is a nice place to rest one’s feet.”

Amber’s words wormed around his skull, but, seeing Silence returning to the Guard post, Cadryn decided on another path. “It is, it makes the off-hours enjoyable.”

“Ahh-hah, I’ll spend the night for sure then,” the man said, and, paying his toll, began to walk for the gate.

Cadryn watched him, noting the well used hand ax and shortsword at his belt. He flagged down Silence and took the steps up to the watch post two at a time.

“So now you’re talking to me?” She asked, a hand on her hip in the doorway.

“Yes, well, I was before, but listen: There’s something I need to check out. Cover for me?”

“I’d rather not,” she said, “but you can owe me.”

A quick trip to his room allowed Cadryn to change out of his guard’s tunic, and into plain traveling clothes. He strapped on his longword and dagger, then added a boot knife for good measure. He’d decided that looking the other way on his sworn duty wasn’t something he could do. That being so, he felt Amber’s plea, and refused to allow it to fall on deaf ears.

Catching a ride on the back of a fast carriage, for a tenth-piece, he arrive at Kellen’s Veld in time to see the Manhunter enter the first of the main street establishments.

Wanting to avoid his notice, and be as close to the expected target of his search as possible, Cadryn took up a vigil at the Toast’s second story balcony, their usual place being reserved for others in the daytime.

As the afternoon wore on, he drank as little as he could without being ousted by the daytime staff. The man, for his part, was thorough, exiting one drinking hole, and crossing the street to the next. There was long gap where Cadryn was sure he’d missed him, but then, two hours after dark, he appeared, right there in the main hall of Amber’s Toast.

And he’d seen Amber. The Manhunter crossed the open space between the tables like a filling to a lodestone. For a heart’s beat Cadryn thought he might be trying to take Amber right there in the middle of her own bar, but the man was smarter than that.

Amber turned, and seeing him, her face fell. They shared a brief exchange of words and the man handed her a rolled parchment, tipped his hat, and walked for the door. As she stared into the space he’d occupied, her eyes flashed up to the balcony to see Cadryn.

In that moment, he knew he’d made a grave mistake. “Wait!” he called, but Amber either didn’t hear him over the din or did not care to hear. By the time he landed heavily on the boards of the first floor, she was gone, the doors to the tap room swinging. Barreling through them he found her packing.

“How could you do it?” she demanded through tears, “Money?” she pulled aside a false shelf-back and tossed a bulging sack of coins at his feet.

“No,” Cadryn said, “I had to know why.” Hearing himself say it, he felt a wave of shame.

“If I wanted people to know where my mother came from, do you think I would be leaving?”

Cadryn stepped close, letting the door close behind him. “Did your father—“

The hand caught him hard across the cheek, and left his lip stinging. “How dare you,” she hissed, “My Father served honorably, he, he helped my mother escape Gravanik lands.”

“Ahh, so he’s a debt collector then . . . come to lay claim to her child?” Cadryn said.

“Not just me, my property, and he is just their scout,” Amber said, and began packing again, “that’s why I’m leaving, I don’t want to bring dishonor on myself by being dragged out of here by a gang of slavers.”

“This town loves your family—“

“I know!” Amber yelled, “And I won’t bring violence upon them for my pride! I have money, I’ll find a new life, a new . . . “but she couldn’t finish the thought.

Cadryn made a choice then, and putting a hand on Amber’s shoulder, looked in her in the eyes. “I’ll make this right.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, fear filling her voice.

Cadryn however, was already out the doors to the drinking hall, at a run, he exited the front of the Toast, eyes roving for the Gravanik Manhunter. He spotted him, at the end of the street, taking the turn to the cheaper part of town and its accommodations. Slowing to a jog as he rounded the corner, Cadryn came up short, the man was gone.

“Shit,” he whispered, his voice loud in the quiet of the night. A dog started barking in a nearby alley, and his hands leapt to weapons. He relaxed, too soon, as it turned out.

“You’re a jumpy one, Guardsman,” came the rasped jeer of the Manhunter, from the alley now at his back.

Cadryn dove on instinct, avoiding the darting blur of a crossbow bolt. The Manhunter had already discarded the weapon, rising from where he’d crouched in the shadows, his two weapons, blades blackened, flashed into his hands, the light of the Neeft’s Beacon reflecting from their honed edges.

“Sometimes being jumpy keeps you breathing,” Cadryn replied, drawing his sword and dagger.

“Sometimes,” the Manhunter said, and retreated slowly into the deeper shadows of the buildings.

Cadryn knew his foe did not have the time to set any kind of snares, and that he could not allow him to escape. Moving swiftly, weapons at mid-guard, he followed. There had been less time for his eyes to adjust to the night than the Manhunter’s, a fact that proved a painful lesson as the first, barely avoided, Ax’s swing came, the blade grazing his shoulder.

Cadryn blocked across his body with his dagger, diverting the deadly thrust of the shortsword that followed. He lashed out with his own longsword, felt the tip catch on fabric, flesh, then the blade rebounded off of the steel of the man’s breastplate.

The Manhunter cursed, the silver of his teeth gleaming.

Cadryn’s vision centered and he could clearly see his opponent as a grey outline against the shadowed night.

The Ax swung down, seeking his foot, and Cadryn sidestepped it. Matched the crosscutting shortsword with his longsword, and drove his dagger for the man’s face.

The Manhunter howled as the blade pierced flesh, ground into the bone below. A heavy booted foot lashed out, connecting solidly with Cadryn’s hip and sending him into the leaf litter and worse of the alley, he lost his dagger in the fall.

With a curse in Gravanik, the Manhunter hurled the Ax for Cadryn’s head, narrowly missing, it sank heavily into the soft earth with a squelch. Then he lunged forward, leading with his shortsword.

Cadryn flicked the tip of his longsword up, just quickly enough, to arrest the Manhunter’s charge, blade point sinking into his groin.

The Manhunter tipped over the sword as it caught on his pelvis, his shortsword diving wildly.

Cadryn seized the man’s wrist with a free hand, then pulled him to crash down beside him. Pressing with both arms, he levered himself into a sitting position, keeping his sword buried in the Manhunter, and preventing the man’s shortsword from finding his own flesh. He released the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in a burst, and sucked in cool lung-fulls of air as the Manhunter began to weaken from blood loss.

It was as his body slackened, and the shortsword slipped free of his hand, that Amber Kellen slid to a halt in the mouth of the alley. Her mouth made words, but she clapped a hand over it to still their escape.

“It’s fine,” Cadryn said, nodding. “It’s over,” he said, repeating the words until he felt calmed by them.

Amber looked around as she collected herself, finding no one watching, se slipped into the alley and helped Cadryn up. As he rose, he pulled her close, and they hugged. Shock giving way to reason, Cadryn pulled back.

“We need to hide the body,” he said. “The town might understand, but . . .”

“The less people that have to lie to anyone who comes looking, the better.” Amber said, and collected the Gravanik’s weapons. “I’ll take his feet, I know a place to stash him for tonight, and then I can take him to my uncle’s pigs.”

As Cadryn bent down to grab the man’s arm, he thought, not for the first time, that this place was more dangerous than he’d hoped . . . at least his request for re-assignment had finally gone out.