The Executioner's Right (The Executioner's Song Book 1) Read online

  A light in the house came on.

  One of the upper windows, but that was unexpected, especially at this time of the night. There shouldn’t be anyone up yet.

  Had the howling dog alerted someone?

  He whistled softly, with a slight rise at the end. Once. Twice. A third time.

  A warning.

  Looking behind him, he found Rock frowning.

  Finn motioned toward the light in the window. Rock stared at him, mouth open, as if he couldn’t imagine what Finn was trying to get at.

  Whistling again, he tried to alert them inside.

  Someone should be inside and ready for the alert.

  He expected a door to open. A window. Something.

  There was nothing.

  Finn whistled again.

  Still nothing.

  The light moved inside.

  Now he saw it in a nearby window.

  How much time did we have before the lantern shifted even more?

  Looking back at Rock, the large man still hadn’t moved. It was almost as if he didn’t see the trouble with the lantern shifting locations within the house at this hour. Finn would have to get to the others and hope Rock didn’t run into trouble.

  Finn headed toward the house.

  When he reached the door, he tested the lock and found it open. Pushing the door open, he whistled three times.

  Everything seemed to stop. The energy in the air faded. A stillness hung over everything. He lingered there a moment, holding on to the door, waiting for someone to appear.

  Finn whistled again.

  The lantern would be moving. In his mind, he could envision it shifting from one room to the next, heading toward stairs—and then down.

  They’d get caught.

  Getting caught there at the viscount’s manor would mean certain punishment. Probably a flogging. Maybe exile. It was doubtful it would be anything less than that.

  A dark form moved toward the door.

  Finn froze.

  “Get moving, Shuffles,” the King hissed as he hurried past him.

  “Where’s the Hand? Wolf?”

  “Get moving! Need to get out of here.”

  The King raced past, clutching something in hand.

  Finn couldn’t tell what he had, only that he held it up against his body. The King ran straight across the yard. Thankfully, Rock was there.

  He whistled again.

  The others had to be warned. They didn’t deserve to get caught there.

  Suddenly, Wolf burst past him.

  That left only Oscar.

  Finn should go. Do the smart thing as the King said. Stay with the crew and pass his testing. He’d be in then.

  Where was Oscar?

  He waited for another moment. Two. Still no Oscar.

  Finn ran inside.

  The home was dark. It made navigating difficult. He couldn’t see anything, though the smell of cut flowers seemed to lead him. A thick rug running the length of the hall provided cushion under his feet. Portraits hung on the wall, though Finn couldn’t make anything out in the darkness.

  Finn remembered the map the King had given them. He’d studied it, even though he hadn’t anticipated coming into the home. There wouldn’t have been any reason for him to have come into the home—he was the scout only. He did have to know which rooms to watch, though.

  Racing along the hall, he glanced into each of the rooms.

  One was an enormous sitting room. A table. A pair of chairs. A hearth. Shelves shadowed against the night.

  The next looked to be similar.

  How many sitting rooms did the viscount need?

  By the time he reached the third room, his heart racing, he worried that he’d been here too long already. The person with the lantern would have to be coming down the stairs by now. He could imagine them finding their way toward him. He’d whistled for the crew, after all. That would draw attention.

  The next room was smaller.

  A body lay unmoving on the ground.

  Dressed in darks.

  Oscar?

  He ran into the room and rolled him over.

  He moaned softly.

  At least he lived.

  What had happened there?

  Finn pulled on him. “You’ve got to get up!”

  Oscar didn’t move. Only moaned.

  “Come on, dammit!”

  He stirred.

  The sound of footsteps came along the hall near him. Muted.

  The carpet helped with that.

  Finn looked around. They’d either have to find a place to hide or find another way to escape. Within this room, he wasn’t sure where they could go to hide. It was a plain room. A small table with three chairs surrounding it. A checkered game board rested on the table. A wall with a painting hung behind him. That was it.

  The footsteps sounded closer.

  Finn looked back. A faint light surrounded the door.

  Gods!

  Wolf and the King should have dragged him out with them—unless they hadn’t known Oscar had been out. Someone else might be in the home.

  He looked over to the window.

  That might be his only bet.

  He dragged Oscar toward the window. The Hand was heavier than he looked. With his lithe frame, Finn wouldn’t have expected him to be this heavy.

  When he reached the window, he pushed to open it.

  The light seemed closer.

  That can’t be good.

  The footsteps that he’d heard had fallen silent as well.

  He shoved on the window. It squealed.

  Everything within him tensed.

  Finn acted as quickly as he could. He forced the window up a little higher, then grabbed for Oscar, dragging him toward the window. When he got him resting on the bottom part of the frame, he moaned again.

  “You could help, you shit,” he wheezed, heaving against him. He continued to push on Oscar, throwing his shoulder into his backside to shove him up and over the window.

  Finally, he started to slide out the window.

  It wasn’t a long drop, but long enough. Maybe it would wake him up, even. When he’d been watching outside, he had seen a row of hedges along the manor, so hopefully Oscar would end up in the hedges. The King might even see him, if Finn were lucky, though he probably had bolted from the yard, not wanting to get pinched.

  Finn would have to be the one to drag him out.

  He threw his leg toward the window, starting the climb, when the door flung open and bright light glowed from the other side.

  Everything within him went still.

  Panic set in.

  Finn ducked under the window but saw Oscar lying there. He still hadn’t moved.

  Were Finn to jump, he’d end up next to Oscar, but they’d still have to escape the yard.

  There wouldn’t be time for that.

  Oscar had prior convictions. His punishment would be harsh. Flogging and exile, most likely.

  Finn had only been sentenced to a chain gang once and had been flogged with two blows one other time, though it had been excruciating.

  But he didn’t have Oscar’s past.

  The solution was simple. Protect the crew. He had to take the blame.

  Finn pulled his leg back in the window and turned.

  The viscount stood before him.

  Finn had seen him during festivals and recognized him immediately. His gray hair was neatly groomed despite the late hour, and with his maroon robe, it gave off the impression that he’d been waiting for them. Anger contorted his thin face.

  “Take him,” the viscount said.

  Finn’s shoulders sagged. There was no getting out of this.

  With that, two Archers rushed into the room.

  When they grabbed him, Finn barely had a chance to react. He looked behind him, down toward the hedge, and thought Oscar had gotten away, but couldn’t be sure.

  They pinned his arms to his sides and marched him away.

  Chapter Six

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nbsp; A rat scurried across the floor before disappearing into the shadows. Finn thought he’d seen the rat earlier but didn’t know if it was the same one or different. No one other than the rat had been in to see him since he’d first been brought to the prison. The Archers had dragged him in—he hadn’t fought, knowing it would have been worse if he had—and then left him.

  The room was barely a few paces in either direction. Small enough that he couldn’t even stretch out to lie down, not that he wanted to do that. He didn’t have any idea what he’d lie in were he to do so. Better to stand.

  Finn tried to cover his nose to ignore the stench, but it seemed to infiltrate everything around him. It was foul. Rot. Piss. Shit. The stench of death. Even cut flowers from the viscount’s garden wouldn’t be enough to cover that stink.

  This wasn’t where he’d expected to be brought.

  When he’d been sentenced to the chain gang, they’d thrown him into the Volthan prison. The cells were small, but they were mostly clean. The guards in the prison weren’t bad men, either. Most lived in the Olin section, and he’d even seen a few of them in the Wenderwolf. Finn didn’t have any idea which prison they’d brought him to, and so far, he hadn’t seen any sign of the guards who ran it.

  At least he’d have a story for the crew when he got out. He and Rock could drink about it when he saw him next.

  He didn’t know how he might be sentenced. He had some history, though not as much as anyone else on the crew. Maybe it was best he’d been grabbed. Better than Oscar, anyway.

  Hopefully, the Hand had gotten away. Finn hadn’t seen any sign of anyone else when he’d been dragged through the streets, so he didn’t know if they’d found him. He’d tried to stay in front of the window long enough that they wouldn’t see Oscar on the ground outside the window, but if he were hurt badly enough, it might not have mattered.

  Something had gone sideways with the job. Like the one they’d pulled when Finn had almost gotten pinched. And like Pegg.

  Bad luck, or was it something more?

  Finn looked around the inside of the cell again. Walls of stone on all sides surrounded him. Iron bars blocked him from escaping. There was no window. The only light came from a lantern along the end of the hall, though he couldn’t see it.

  He stayed near the back of the cell, his arms wrapped around himself while he tried to think through what he’d experienced. They’d started the job around four bells. If it hadn’t taken longer than an hour, that meant it was barely five bells now. It would take several hours for the rest of the city to come around, and then the magister would summon him to sentence him.

  Still hours before he was given his fate. Longer after that to know when he could get out.

  It might be a few days there.

  The rat scurried outside of his cell, pausing and peering into the cell at him. Finn held his hand out, wiggling a finger at the rat before it scurried off. He grunted to himself.

  Crouching along the wall, he tucked his heels back, resting as carefully as he could so that he stayed off the floor. Finn closed his eyes, drifting.

  He was tired. Having been up for most of the night, all he wanted was the opportunity to sleep, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to sleep in this place or in this position. The only thing that he could do was try to let his mind wander.

  And it did.

  His mind went back to a different time, back when his father had still been with them, working as a cartwright, when they’d been a family, before his mother had gotten sick. It seemed as if it were so long ago, though it really wasn’t. Dreams came to him, drifting through his mind before fading again, until one stuck with him longer than the others.

  A tall, thin man leaned toward his father. They spoke quietly, and from where Finn stood on the street, he wasn’t able to make out much of their conversation, though the smile on his father’s face told him all he needed. This was someone he knew—and knew well. Not that Finn needed that smile to recognize Oscar. His father’s oldest friend had been around the house a few times, though not as often of late, ever since Finn’s mother started getting sick.

  The two men started off through the street, and they moved quickly. Oscar had a way of moving that struck Finn as more graceful than his father. They headed out of this section, over a narrow bridge, and toward the center of the city.

  At one point, the city opened up briefly. There weren’t many places from within the city where the palace could be seen. Not like it could from outside of the city. The narrow buildings on either side of the street blocked it from sight, but there in the small square on the far side of the river, Finn saw the majestic palace towering high into the sky. It had to be nearly six hundred feet long, and much taller than even the nearby Elia Tower—and that was supposed to strain toward the god of the sky.

  A patchwork of steep roofs surrounded the castle where it rose on the hillside, hundreds of houses and shops crowding around the palace, though never able to get much closer than where they were. A wide street surrounded the palace, one Finn rarely had the opportunity to visit. His parents preferred that he stay away from the palace, a warning to avoid his betters. Spires from the main churches twisted into the sky, one for each of the gods celebrated within Verendal. In addition to the Elia Tower, there was that of the Loren—an enormous structure with three separate spires that framed a central tower. He could almost imagine the bells tolling within those spires, a steady ringing during the Festival of Summer. As the god of harvest, Loren had an honored place within the city. Not far from that was the tower for Ihalth, one that wasn’t nearly as majestic as some, a stout circular structure without any obvious windows, and whose bells rang with an almost angry tone.

  His father and Oscar moved away from the square, heading along the street. He fingered a piece of paper in hand, though it looked small, almost like a card. They passed shops with hawkers outside, calling out to the crowd mingling along the street. An armored Archer patrolled, and his father and Oscar veered away from him before entering a nearby building, leaving Finn’s father on the far side of the street, watching.

  He noticed the slight tension in his father’s face and in the way he stood. He barely nodded to the people passing, ignoring them as they moved along the street, staring instead at the building Oscar had entered. Every so often, he fingered the paper he held.

  The crowd jostled him, sending him staggering forward.

  The movement put him out into the open, and with as alert as his father was, he glanced over, his eyes widening slightly when he saw Finn before shaking his head.

  A warning.

  Somebody else bumped into him.

  Finn turned, and he looked up at a palace Archer. The Archer shoved him off to the side.

  He watched as the Archer approached his father. His father whistled once, then a second time. Finally, his father turned away, heading down the street, moving as if he had always been heading in that direction.

  After watching for a while, the crowd swallowing his father once more, he turned back. When he got to the bridge's far side, he turned toward home, and someone grabbed him on the shoulder.

  He spun to see his father watching him. The tension Finn had seen from a distance had faded, and the twinkle in his blue eyes when he looked at Finn had returned. He flashed a wide grin.

  “What were you doing over there?” his father asked. “It’s not always safe to head beyond the river.”

  “What were you and Oscar doing over there?”

  “We were just looking for some supplies.” His father looked all around him, his gaze darting from side to side before settling again on Finn. “If you see me with Oscar, I don’t want you to follow me. You understand?”

  His father started away, and Finn hurried up to him. “Why was there a palace Archer out there?”

  “I don’t think there was,” his father said.

  Finn tapped his shoulder. “I saw him. Well, I bumped into him.” His father’s frowned slightly, and Finn shook his head. “N
ot on purpose. It was after you saw me. I knew you wanted me to head back.”

  “He was probably out shopping, much like Oscar and I were.” His father glanced behind him, looking along the street. “If there was a palace Archer, you need to stay clear of them. The palace Archers can be the worst.”

  He reached his hand into his pocket, fingering something. Probably the paper Finn had seen. Did it have his father’s list?

  A thudding came from somewhere near him, and Finn jerked awake.

  That had been the last time he’d seen his father as a free man. The last time he’d spoken to him without someone else around. Why have that dream now?

  The thudding came from down the hall.

  He turned toward the sound, trying to understand why he would hear it so loudly now.

  Finn got to his feet. His knees ached from how he’d been crouching, but he still hadn’t touched the ground. And he wouldn’t.

  Could I have rested long enough that the magister would have come?

  The thudding moved past him.

  At first, he thought it was one of the guards, but that wasn’t what he saw.

  Dressed in dark clothing—though not darks like he still wore—the man who passed down the hall had a dangerous step. He stared straight ahead, marching quickly. Two other guards followed.

  They stopped not far from him.

  Finn didn’t move.

  A rat raced into his cell before disappearing into the darkness away from him, as if leaving Finn to his fate. Every so often, he would hear the scurrying sounds of a rat moving throughout the prison, but rarely did they come close enough for him to see.

  Within the small cell, any step toward the front would bring him close to the guards. At least standing where he was, he remained out of reach. A door opened with a squeal of metal on metal. Someone shouted though it was quickly muted.

  The guards started back along the hall, passing his cell and dragging a thin, bearded man with them. His face was gaunt, and his eyes had a hollow expression in them. The first man he’d seen followed. When he passed Finn’s cell, he glanced in his direction briefly. A darkness passed over the man’s face as he looked at Finn, but then he continued down the hall and away.