“Oh, this? Just notes, really. My mind isn’t what it once was, you see. I’ll forget everything soon, and then where will I be? A historian who can’t remember his own name. It really could come to that, you know. Assuming I live that long. Bernie keeps reassuring me I won’t live out this trip. He’s probably right. He’s the expert on such things, after all.”
“Really? What kind of things?”
“Oh, spelunking, of course. I’m told Bernie is an old hand at it. We make a good team, he and I. He digs up the past and I put it down, so to speak.” Antun chuckled to himself until he coughed. Hadrian poured the man a glass of water, which he gratefully accepted.
After he had recovered, Hadrian asked, “Have you ever heard of a man called Merrick Marius?”
Bulard shook his head. “Not unless I have and then forgotten. Was he a king or a hero, perhaps?”
“No, I actually thought he might have been the man who sent you here.”
“Oh no. Our mandate is from the Patriarch himself, though Sentinel Thranic doesn’t tell me much. I’m not complaining, mind you. How often does a priest of Maribor have the opportunity to serve the Patriarch? I can tell you precisely—twice. Once when I was so much younger, and now that I’m nearly dead.”
“I thought you were a historian. You’re also a priest?”
“I know I don’t look much like one, do I? My calling was the pen, not the flock.”
“You’ve written books, then?”
“Oh yes, my best is still The History of Apeladorn, which I’m constantly having to append, of course.”
“I know a monk at the Winds Abbey who’d love to meet you.”
“Is that up north in Melengar? I passed through there once about twenty years ago.” Antun nodded thoughtfully. “They were very helpful, saved my life if I recall correctly.”
“So, you’re on this trip to record what you see?”
“Oh no, that’s only what I’ve been doing so far. As you can imagine, I don’t get out much. I do most of my work in libraries and stuffy cellars, reading old books. I was in Tur Del Fur before setting off on this wonderful trip. This has been an excellent opportunity to record what I see firsthand. The Patriarch knows about my research on ancient imperial history, and that’s why I’m here. Sort of a living, breathing version of my books, you see. I suppose they think that if they put in the right questions, out will pop the correct answers, like an oracle.”
Hadrian was about to ask another question when Grady and Poe poked their heads in.
“Hadrian.” Poe caught his attention.
“Well, isn’t my tent the social center tonight?” Antun remarked.
“I’m kinda busy at the moment. Can this wait?” Hadrian asked.
“I don’t think so. Thranic and Staul just followed Royce and Bernie into the jungle.”
Royce heard the click of the release and began to move even before the hiss of the string indicated the missile’s launch. Still, his reflexes could not move faster than a flying bolt. The metal shaft pierced his side below the rib cage. The impact thrust him backward, where he collapsed in pain.
“Lucky we found you, Bernie,” Thranic told the startled thief as he moved away from Royce’s body. “He would have killed you. Isn’t that what you said bucket men do? Now, don’t you feel foolish for saying I couldn’t protect you?”
“You could have hit me!” Bernie snapped.
“Stop being so dramatic. You’re alive, aren’t you? Besides, I heard the conversation. It didn’t take much for you to give me up. In my profession, lack of faith is a terrible sin.”
“In mine, it’s all too often justified,” Bernie snarled back.
“Get back to the camp before you’re missed.”
Bernie grumbled as he trotted back up the path. Thranic watched his retreat.
“We might have to do something about him,” the sentinel told the Tenkin. “Funny that you, my heathen friend, should be my stalwart ally in all this.”
“Bernie, he thinks too much. Me? I am just greedy, and therefore trustworthy. We going to just leave the body?”
“No, it’s too close to the path we’ll be taking tomorrow, and I can’t count on the animals eating him before we break camp. Drag him away. A few yards should be enough.”
“Royce?” Hadrian shouted from behind them on the trail.
“Quickly, you idiot. They’re coming!”
Staul rushed forward and, planting his torch in the ground, lifted Royce and ran with him into the jungle. He had traveled only a few dozen yards when he cursed.
Royce was still breathing.
“Izuto!” the Tenkin hissed, drawing his dagger.
“Too late,” Royce whispered.
Hadrian led them into the trees the way Royce had gone earlier. Ahead he spotted the glow of a torch and ran toward it. Behind him Wyatt, Poe, Grady, and Derning followed.
“There’s blood here,” Hadrian announced when he got to the burning torch thrust in the ground. “Royce!”
“Spread out!” Wyatt ordered. “Sweep the grass and look for more blood.”
“Over here!” Derning shouted, moving into the ferns. “There, up ahead. Two of them, Staul and Royce!”