Chapter 26 #2
“Probably only some of the ale was poisoned,” Rylana said.
“The ale in my storeroom?” Now, Jildarin was the one aghast. “That someone dared. Should I find the culprit, I will incinerate him.”
“It might be a her,” Rylana said, but she didn’t know. Had the poisoning occurred at the same time as the earlier ransacking? Or just now? “Rolf, which dwarf was it who you saw in the storeroom?”
“Uhm.” Rolf leaned out from behind Jildarin and peered around the dining room.
Ekton stuffed a piece of his scone into the horn. He probably trusted Mya, but with his troops bent over, grabbing their stomachs, he would be foolish not to test his food. The mugs did not glow. Good.
Rylana tipped the horn out over a table to remove the soggy contents.
“I don’t think it was one of these people, but…” Rolf lowered his voice to a whisper. “Dwarves all look alike to me.”
“I’ve had the same thought about goblins,” Ekton murmured.
“Let’s check the storeroom.” Rylana spoke the words to Jildarin, but Ekton and half the dining room occupants followed her and the horn down the hallway. And was that one of the food critics trailing after the dwarves with a notepad and pen? “Who doesn’t love a show with dinner?” she muttered.
Rylana eyed the kegs of ale stacked three deep and two high along the storeroom wall. The thought of testing the liquids in each was daunting, but only three or four looked to have been opened. The poisoned ale had to have come from one of them.
Ah, and there was a half-mopped up puddle under one of the kegs. Had someone been trying to dump out the contents when Rolf had chanced into the storeroom?
The carriage doors in the rear swung open, one banging against the wall and startling Rylana.
She’d leaned the lance she’d acquired in the valley near that wall and thought about rushing over to grab it before noticing that Jildarin had stepped into the storeroom and stood at her side.
He would protect them all from whatever threat entered.
Sylin walked into view, pushing a blonde-haired female dwarf ahead of her, a blade resting against her throat.
Rylana recognized her as their tail from the market.
Noticing a drop of blood on the dwarf’s neck, Rylana glanced over her shoulder to make sure there weren’t any peacekeepers in the crowd of diners who’d followed her down the hallway.
Some would inevitably arrive, but they hadn’t yet.
“This is the dwarf who was skulking about near the premises.” Sylin stopped a few steps inside the door with her prisoner.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” the dwarf growled, but when she spotted King Ekton, she swore and looked away.
“She isn’t carrying vials of poison on her, is she?” Rylana walked forward with the horn. Was this dwarf also the black-market dealer that Captain Laridon had hired Sylin to find?
“I didn’t search her,” Sylin said. “I merely apprehended her.”
“What, searches aren’t included in your fee?” Rylana asked.
“They are not. You’re not paying me enough to grope dwarves.”
Rylana stopped in front of her captive and started patting pockets. Sylin’s prisoner glowered at her and also gave the horn a long look.
“This is going back to its rightful owner,” Rylana told her quietly.
The dwarf only glowered further.
Jildarin started to walk over, probably to offer help or protect Rylana, but someone in the back of the crowd called, “The peacekeepers are here,” and he paused, looking in that direction.
“Chef Jildarin?” a gnomish voice called from the dining room. “Violence has been reported here. Are you present?”
“Rolf?” Rylana asked when her search didn’t reveal poison or anything else except a few coins and a pocket watch.
She could barely see the goblin in the crowd that had flowed out of the hallway, but he leaned around someone and met her gaze.
“Is this the dwarf you saw letting ale out of that keg earlier?”
“No, that was a male dwarf.”
“You have a partner in here?” Rylana asked the female. “Is he the one with the poison?”
The dwarf spat at her.
Something struck the ground beside them and shattered. Plumes of smoke filled the air, quickly obscuring the view.
A grunt sounded—Sylin.
“I’ve still got her,” Sylin growled amid rustling clothes.
A faint bump came from the side of the storeroom near Rylana’s bed. With her instincts shouting warnings, she lunged for the lance against the wall.
Almost dropping the horn, she grabbed the weapon and spun as the smoke swirled nearby—someone rushing at her.
A hand reached toward her—toward the horn.
Rylana thrust with the lance. A warning buzz ran through the lance, probably from the tranquility ribbons, but she caught someone with the tip anyway.
A male grunt of pain sounded an instant before Jildarin yelled and ran toward Rylana. Magical wind swept in through the open carriage doors, and the smoke cleared swiftly.
As she’d promised, Sylin still had the female dwarf, who now bled from a deeper cut in her neck and had both arms jerked behind her.
In front of Rylana, a surly male dwarf glowered, a hand to a gouge in his shoulder.
Snarling like the dragon he was, Jildarin grabbed the male by the arms and hefted him into the air.
“I think he was just trying to get the horn,” Rylana blurted, not wanting Jildarin to kill anyone. Especially not with the peacekeepers on the premises.
But Jildarin must have been furious that someone had dared attack her, or maybe had dared start trouble of any kind in his storeroom—his lair. With another snarl, Jildarin heaved the dwarf across the room.
Flailing and shouting, the intruder arced toward the kegs, almost reaching the ceiling on his trajectory. Vials tumbled out of his pocket and shattered on the concrete floor. Vials of poison?
The dwarf landed on the kegs with a great thud and subsequent groan.
As he rolled to the floor, three uniformed peacekeepers stepped to the front of the crowd.
Captain Laridon was one, and he looked from Sylin and her bleeding captive to Rylana, who still gripped the lance, to Jildarin to the limp male dwarf who’d landed near his broken vials.
“Sir, do we arrest them all for violence?” an earnest young peacekeeper on Laridon’s right asked. “Or, uhm?” He pulled one of the notorious fine-issuing devices out of a pouch on his belt.
“For violence?” Laridon asked mildly, looking to his left, where a lieutenant that Rylana had seen before stood. “Did you see any violence, Chatok?”
“No, sir. I believe some dwarven thieves may have entered the diner and run afoul of a perfectly legal security system though.”
“That is what I saw,” King Ekton, who’d witnessed everything, said.
“Yes, I believe that’s what happened.” Laridon nodded at Sylin, then smiled at Rylana and Jildarin, who’d come to stand—loom—at her side. “Let’s apprehend these two dwarves. That female, at the least, has committed crimes in our city. And that male… Are those vials of poison?”
“I believe they are,” Ekton said helpfully.
“No!” the male dwarf protested from the floor. “I mean, I was trying to dump out the ale that was poisoned earlier. When we saw that the king was here, we weren’t going to…”
“Shut up, Bortov,” the female dwarf growled.
“It was just supposed to affect the staff,” the male continued, pleading with the peacekeepers instead of listening to the female. “And it’s not deadly. I swear! We just wanted a chance to get the horn when everyone was sick and distracted. That’s all!”
The female dwarf, looking like she wanted to strangle her chatty colleague, tried to lunge away from Sylin. Maybe she hadn’t been that interested in dumping out the ale and had yet hoped to get the horn when everyone was sick, even if that included the king and his entire retinue.
Fortunately, with her training and elven strength, Sylin didn’t let the dwarf escape or even move an inch.
“Sweep up the broken vials, Hevkinlon,” Laridon said to the young peacekeeper. “We’ll collect all the evidence as well as these dwarves. Ah, there’s our golem assistant.”
One of the stone-skinned golems lumbered up in front of the carriage doors. Laridon and Sylin walked the female dwarf out so it could take custody of her. The other peacekeepers dragged the male out.
Jildarin watched them, his expression more baleful than grateful, but Rylana made sure to thank them for their assistance this evening.
“You were wise to hire me for your security detail,” Sylin told Rylana as the peacekeepers departed with the prisoners.
“I’m often wise,” Rylana said.
Sylin’s eyebrows drifted upward. And did Jildarin’s also lift?
“I’m sometimes wise,” Rylana amended.
Jildarin nodded agreeably.
King Ekton walked across the storeroom toward them. Rylana handed the horn to him before realizing how dirty the inside was now. Having cookies and scones as well as ale dumped into it had left it needing to be washed with the night’s dishes, but the king accepted it.
“Excellent,” Ekton said. “Thank you. Now that I’ve seen it tested, I believe my antiques advisor was correct and that this is the long-lost family heirloom of my ancestors.
It also confirms a hypothesis that some scholars have had, that the heir Vaknorok had poison in his home when the queen visited, and that was why the horn glowed.
Whether she knew that when she chose him will remain a mystery, I suppose. ”
“We read about that piece of history.” Rylana waved to herself and Sylin. “The text said she believed it activated because the gods were choosing him.”