Fool's Quest

Chade shot me a look that silenced me. “What did he look like, the man who offered the money?”



“My legs hurt so bad, I can’t think. I want a healer before I talk any more. Sweet Eda!” He lifted his head a short way and then let it fall back in the snow. “You killed everyone? All four of them?”



“What did he look like?” Chade was relentless. The man was bleeding to death. Chade and I knew it, but Crafty seemed unaware of it.



“A tall man, but not thin. Tall, but with a stomach like a barrel. Just a Buckman, like any other. I don’t know. It was an easy deal. Bring the hand with your ring on it, the innkeeper at the Bawdy Trout gives us the money. When you showed up, it was like the gods handed you to us. So damned easy. If the captain had said yes, you’d be a dead man, and him, too.”



“Tell me about his teeth.”



“I’m not saying nothing more until you take me to a healer. I’m getting cold, so cold. What did you do to my legs?”



Chade set the tip of his knife to the man’s nostril. “Talk to me, or I cut your nose,” he said coldly. He inserted the blade up the man’s nostril until he felt the edge of it.



Crafty’s eyes went very wide. “His tooth, one of the front ones, was gray. Is that what you meant?



Chade nodded to himself. “Did he mention a girl?”



“The girl you stole. Yah. Said if we found her with you, we could have her. Or if we could make you tell us where she was. Said she’d make a good whore. Aaaaah!”



The nose is sensitive. Very sensitive. Chade had always maintained it was as good a target for torment as a man’s genitals—or better. Not only is there pain, but disfiguring a man’s face will affect him for the rest of his life. Crafty was writhing in the snow, one of his nostrils sliced open and bleeding profusely. He began to weep. Abruptly, I wanted this to be over.



“He said it.” The blood and the pain of his sliced nose thickened his voice. “Not me. And no one even saw the girl, so no one did her. Eda, help me!” He called on the goddess, as I doubted he’d ever done before, and snorted wildly, spraying blood.



I was fairly certain this was all about Shun, and Chade’s vendetta with her stepfather, but I would be certain. “Did he mention a little girl?” I demanded of him. “A child?”



He halted his thrashing and stared up at me. “A little girl? No. Gods, we’re not monsters!”



“Liar,” Chade said. Crafty had thrashed away from him. Chade hitched himself closer, and very slowly, almost gently, drew his blade across the man’s throat. Crafty’s eyes flew wide open in the sudden knowledge that he was dead. His mouth worked but the sounds were not words. Cutting a man’s throat isn’t an instant death for him, but it’s a certain one. Chade knew that. So did Crafty. He was still moving when Chade said to me, “Give me a hand up.”



I held my hand out to him. “All of that to confirm what you already knew?”



“I got a bit extra. The name of the inn.” He took my hand. His was slippery with blood. I stooped, slid my arm around him, and pulled him upright. He grunted with pain as he came to his feet. “It wasn’t about information, Fitz. It was payback. For Captain Stout. Treachery deserves great pain.” He made a bad sound. I stood very still until he could catch his breath. “And daring to think he could try to kill me.”



My bared hand felt the warmth of the blood on his clothing. “I’ll sit you down and catch a horse. There’s a healer in—”



“The stone,” Chade said decisively. “Better healers in Buckkeep.”



Nettle once compared having the Skill to having a sense of smell. One does not mean to intrude on people any more than one wants to sniff someone, but in proximity, you sense the smell of someone. Or Skill tells you of his pain. In this case, the Wit that told me Chade was a creature in desperate need of healing. And he was right. The best healers would be in Buckkeep. I reached out to Nettle. We were attacked. Chade is injured. Coming through the stones in a few moments. Please have a healer ready to tend him. He’s taken a sword wound to his side.



We knew of the attack. And then you both blocked us out! What is going on? Were they Bee’s kidnappers? Have you found her, is she safe? Anger and frantic questions that I had no time for.



No Bee. We are coming through the stones. Our attackers are dead. I’ll explain when I get there.



This time the block I threw up against the Skill was deliberate. King Verity had always complained that whenever I became fully engaged in battle or any dangerous activity, I blocked my Skill. Evidently Chade did the same. Interesting. But not as compelling as the blood that had now soaked my hand and sleeve, nor my own blood that was still dripping down my brow and gumming up my eyes.