The Ghalian Code: Space Assassins 3 Read online

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hozark walked as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself. At least, not any more than his appearance already did. He was disguised as a fancy man, but this was almost certainly going to call for far less foppish behavior.

  Unfortunately, he found himself constrained by their recent operation’s disguise. Looking as he did, he simply could not be seen engaging in violence. Not after the show he and Demelza had just put on.

  It would ruin their cover, and not only in this city, but potentially the others they visited as well. Word would get out, and no one else looked like they did.

  Hozark casually veered across the marketplace toward the animal and food vendors. As he passed, he cast a little spell. One that knocked free the gate of the Bundabist pen in the closest market stall. On top of that, he threw in a quaint little spell he rarely had use of. The one that gave the sensation of stinging insects.

  He quickly applied it to the animals, and the agitated beasts wasted no time making a raucous escape. It was what he needed. Attentions shifted, even if just for a few moments, and in the confusion, Hozark lifted a long, filthy cloak from one of the animal herders’ stands.

  He had made sure none were looking his way, of course, then slid it on in a flash, and in an instant, he had vanished down the alleyway, his makeshift disguise in place as well as it could be.

  The sound of racing boots was close, but less in number now. Whoever they were chasing must have either been cornered or caught, and the pursuit had finally come to an end.

  Close ahead, around just a few more turns of the alleyway, a deep voice was saying something in a very angry tone. Judging by the grunts of the owners of the other boots, what he was saying rang true with them all.

  Henni, what have you done? Hozark wondered as he came upon the group of angry men.

  The violet-haired girl was there at the far end of the tiny dead-end alley, her back to the wall, a small, yet dangerous-looking blade flashing in her hand. She was waving it in front of her, keeping the men at bay, though the stench of her clothing might have served the purpose just as well. At least, in most circumstances.

  Whatever she had done, it must have been bad, because these fellows were more than ready to get up close and personal. Hell, they were even looking forward to it.

  The most vocal of the angry mob seemed to speak for the rest of them when he quite loudly voiced his outrage.

  “Bitch, give me back my blade. That was my father’s!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Henni shot back. “What blade?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? You’re waving it around in your hand, you little whore.”

  “I am not a whore,” she shrieked, slashing at the man.

  Apparently, he had touched a nerve, but the others quickly jumped in, all yelling at once about the things of value that had gone missing from their persons.

  The thing about Henni was, she was an exceptional pickpocket. Possibly better than Hozark, even. But she lacked the restraint to know when not to take something. She was impulsive, and that led to bad choices. But a crowd this size? There was no way she had stolen all the items she was being accused of taking.

  Somewhere in the city, more than one thief was resting easy now that their crimes had been foisted off on the offworld criminal. A brutish man lurched forward and swung a stout club at the violet-haired girl. It missed her blade hand, but it caught her other arm with a sickening crunch.

  Henni shrieked in pain, but the man moved in for the kill.

  “I’ll take that,” Hozark said, snatching the cudgel from the man’s hand just as he was about to deliver another blow.

  “You with her?” the man growled, his and the crowd’s anger rising.

  “No. But this is merely a girl, and surely––”

  A hot spray of blood splashed across the nearest attackers. The club wielder had tried to land a surprise attack on the interloper with a hidden blade. A hidden blade Hozark had seen before the man had even reached for it. When it had finally been drawn and swung at the newcomer, simply taking it from him and turning it against its owner had been child’s play.

  And now the man lay bleeding on the ground. Nothing fatal. Hozark did not want to kill any of these men and women. But an example had been made.

  Unfortunately, the mob had the mentality of, well, a mob, and rather than back off in realization they were up against someone who would actually fight back, and efficiently at that, they only ramped up their aggression.

  Henni shrieked as another man grabbed her roughly by the broken arm. He was dead before he hit the ground, the blade taken from the previous assailant lodged hilt-deep in his eye.

  “Enough! Leave now, while you still can,” Hozark growled.

  “He’s with the thief! Get him!” an outraged woman yelled in a shrill cry.

  “Damn it,” Hozark sighed, then set to work, fending off attackers from all sides, and coming at him with a wide assortment of weapons.

  Two large men charged with makeshift pikes. Really, they were just broom handles that had been snapped to a point, but the effect would be the same. Namely, a big hole in you if you misjudged their trajectory.

  Hozark spun aside, breaking one in half with his boot, and pivoting sharply, grabbing and driving the other length into a woman attacking him from the other side. She dropped in a screaming heap, the rod protruding from her belly.

  She would live. Probably. But Hozark still had a great deal of attackers to handle, and in a very tight space.

  Elbows flew, and debilitating knees dropped into oncoming attackers’ thighs, cramping them painfully and taking them out of the equation. But still more came, believing that they had the advantage because of their numbers.

  They couldn’t have been more wrong. But Hozark was doing all he could to spare the poor yokels, but with odds like these, it was taking much of his skill to avoid landing fatal blows.

  Then a pair of hands managed to grab his cloak, tearing it free with a sickening rip, revealing his disguise.

  “It’s the offworlder!” someone called out.

  “Damn,” was all the Wampeh said.

  He could not be found out. Their mission depended on it. And that meant one thing.

  Hozark yanked the weapons from the nearest attackers’ hands and ended them immediately with them, spinning into the others with no hesitation or hint of fear. He moved quickly, shifting his position to block the lone exit to the alleyway. It took a moment for the angry mob to realize what was happening. And by the time they had, it was far too late.

  The master assassin moved in a blur, blades slicing through the vital parts of man and woman alike until only two in the alley remained standing among a sea of dead and dying. With the help of his practiced hands, the wounded quickly joined their friends on the other side.

  Hozark yanked a relatively blood-free cloak from a corpse and covered himself. “Come.”

  The taller man ushered the filthy street urchin from the alleyway as fast as they could move, and once they were clear, they vanished into the crowded marketplace. Hozark stole a few more cloaks and coverings as they moved, changing his appearance and the girl’s several times before they turned toward their ship.

  “My arm,” Henni sobbed. “He broke my arm.”

  “And you are fortunate that is all. It could just as easily have been your skull.”

  “Bastard!” she said, spitting on the ground as if it were the man’s corpse.

  Hozark grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, taking care to avoid her injured arm.

  “Henni, you cannot steal like that. Those people did not have to die.”

  “They attacked me!”

  “And with cause,” he replied with an exasperated sigh. “Listen, and listen well. You must be careful.”

  “I am.”

  “You were not. I understand your habits, and you are indeed a talented thief. But you must be cautious.”

  “I
almost never get caught.”

  “And yet, you were. But I am not talking about your being caught. While that is bad, what you have done is worse. You could have put our marks on guard. You could have even cost us all the work we’ve put in on this world. Do you understand?”

  Henni grumbled like a moody tween, but she wasn’t a foolish girl. She did understand.

  “And when you do steal, never take anything your mark will miss. If you do, they will be on guard, and that makes doing anything far more difficult.”

  Henni was willful and proud, but after a long moment, she quietly apologized.

  “This is water under the bridge,” Hozark said. “But learn from it, and do not repeat your mistakes. Now, we must separate. I will cause a little diversion that will allow you to enter the ship. I shall then join you shortly.”

  Hozark ducked into a doorway and shed his cloak, then stepped into the nearest stall and began haggling over a gift for his wife. He got loud. The merchant got louder. Soon it looked like it might devolve into a brawl, but the offworlder was pathetic in his fear and quickly scurried back to his ship.

  A ship that a smelly young woman had just snuck back aboard.

  Demelza immediately saw the specks of blood on his boots. Others had missed the detail in the commotion outside, but she was a Ghalian.

  “Trouble, I take it?”

  “Henni,” he replied. “We will have some work to do with that one.”

  “I feared as much. So, what now?”

  “We rendezvous with Bud and Laskar.”

  “It will be good to have their skills backing our attempts. But we need to plan our next steps. The boy is still missing, after all.”

  Hozark sat and eased back in his seat, a little smile tickling the corner of his lips.

  “I do have an idea,” he said. “But I fear our poor friends will not like it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The flight to the rendezvous point with the former pirate and his gregarious copilot was a relatively uneventful one. At least, it was after Demelza had decontaminated Henni’s filthy attire and sealed it in a sturdy storage bin in the cargo bay.

  She hadn’t killed it with fire, though she’d threatened to. Hozark had joked that clothing wasn’t alive anyway, so there was nothing to kill, though Demelza’s point about Henni’s garb possibly being an exception to that rule had been one he couldn’t really argue. In any case, once they had cleaned up their impulsive little guest, they set their course to meet up with the others.

  Henni was a bit quieter once she had bathed and settled into the growing comfort of her familiar quarters aboard the ship. Demelza had sat her down for a girl-to-girl talk in hopes perhaps a bit of female camaraderie might help put her more at ease.

  But that wasn’t her strong suit, and neither was it Henni’s. The girl did show an understanding of what she’d done wrong though, and even more surprisingly, a bit of remorse at the lives lost because of it. Perhaps the little rapscallion wasn’t such a feral beast after all.

  “We shall be with you in three hours,” Hozark skreed their friend. “We have a new destination and will be departing for it shortly after we join up. And a little heads-up, we are now traveling plus one.”

  “New crew?” Bud asked.

  “Not exactly. You will see when we dock,” Hozark replied.

  “Way to be mysterious, man.”

  “Trust me, Bud, it is easier than explaining.”

  “Whatever. See ya in a few hours.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  Hozark cut the skree conversation and plotted their final two jumps. Soon enough his poor friend would have to deal with the difficult young woman in person.

  The rendezvous point Hozark had relayed in his coded message to Uzabud was a small moon in the Londrus system. It was an unpopulated solar system consisting of rather hostile planets that were utterly uninhabitable. And the sun’s rays were draining to magic users. For that reason, no one ever visited the region.

  But Hozark and Bud had discovered a small moon at the outskirts that had a convenient orbital path. One that kept the dark side permanently facing away from the sun and its draining rays. It was a perfect meeting point, and one they’d used plenty of times.

  “There he is,” Hozark said to his companions as they exited their final jump.

  “Where? I can’t see anything,” Henni said.

  “There. The dot on that moon,” Hozark said, pointing out the tiniest of reflections revealing the craft.

  “Oh, wait. Now I see it. Wow, that’s a beat-up ship.”

  “Do not let Uzabud hear you disparage his craft,” Demelza said with a chuckle. “He is quite fond of it.”

  “I don’t know why. It’s hideous.”

  “And has served us well for some time,” Hozark noted. “Now, come. Let us introduce you to the others.”

  He took the shimmer ship in low and landed atop the much larger craft, applying his magical docking and umbilical spells that would bind them to the ship and provide a safe, breathable accessway aboard.

  There were several other small ships fastened to its hull, as was Bud’s usual practice. You never knew what you might need, and aside from landing and battle craft, there were also a couple of junkers as well. Sacrificial vessels, should the need arise.

  Bud was a firm believer in the adage that it was better to have it and not need it than to need it but not have it.

  “All right. Follow me,” Hozark said, leading the way into the waiting ship.

  They found their friend waiting for them on their arrival.

  “Hey, you guys! You made it!” Bud said, welcoming his friends with open arms. His eyes shifted to the violet-haired woman skulking between Hozark and Demelza. “Who’s the new girl?”

  Henni ignored him and pushed right past, nearly knocking Laskar down as he joined the new arrivals. Moments later, the sound of food storage bins being flung open rang out from the galley.

  “Uh, did I miss something, or is there a small, violet-haired person apparently ransacking our foodstores?”

  “Henni is her name,” Demelza said. “And she is with us now.”

  “New crewmember, then?”

  “Not exactly. But she is flying with us for the time being.”

  A loud crash rang out.

  “What the hell is she doing?” Lasker grumbled, taking off for the galley.

  The others followed close behind. Henni, it seemed, had found the supply of dried Maringus fruit and was happily stuffing her face. The novelty of easily accessible food was not wearing off. Not by a long shot.

  “Is she going to be earning her keep?” Laskar asked, aghast at the way she was devouring their supplies. “She’s tiny, but damn, look at that.”

  “Seriously,” Bud agreed. “Hey, slow down before you choke to death.”

  “I’ve been eating my whole life. I’m not going to choke, weirdo.”

  “Eating your whole life? Ha! Could have fooled me. You’re skin and bones,” Bud shot back.

  Laskar seemed skeptical of the new addition. “You have any skills, girl? You gotta earn your keep if you’re flying with us.”

  “I’ve got skills coming out my ears. What about you, pretty boy?”

  “I’m the best damn pilot in forty systems.”

  “Second best,” Bud corrected.

  Henni rolled her eyes. “Is that one always so self-aggrandizing?”

  “Hey, I’m just telling the truth,” Bud replied with a broad grin.

  Demelza leaned in. “You had better, Uzabud. She’s an intuit.”

  “Really?”

  “Look at her eyes.”

  Bud and Laskar looked closer and realized that, indeed, she might actually be a very unusual and rare variety of power user.

  “She can read my mind?” Laskar asked, clearly a bit freaked out.

  “No. Not exactly. But she does possess a strong intuitive power,” Hozark noted. “It is hit and miss, though.”

  “Huh,” Las
kar said, relaxing a bit.

  Bud, however, was transfixed. Once he’d taken a proper look at her eyes, he couldn’t look away.

  “What are you staring at, creep?”

  “Your eyes.”

  “Creeper.”

  “I am not. It’s just, I’ve never seen anything like them. Did your parents have the same thing?”

  “I don’t know. I was taken when I was really little.”

  “Taken? Like, by slave traders?”

  Hozark tried desperately to make eye contact with his friend to signal him to stop this line of questioning, but Bud blustered ahead, going so far as to reach out and pull open her collar, displaying the burn around her neck.

  “Hey! Hands off, creeper!” she said, smacking his wrist.

  Bud turned uncharacteristically serious. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  The intuitive young woman could sense he truly was.

  “But how did you get the collar off? How did you get free?”

  “I don’t remember, exactly.”

  “Well, you know, we can get that healed, if you––”

  “No. It’s a part of me. And no one changes me. No one.”

  “Okay, okay. It was just an offer,” he said, retreating as best he could.

  “Enough, you two,” Hozark interjected. “We have a great deal of work to do. And I am truly sorry, Bud, but you are definitely not going to like it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bud hated the cold, and Moolar was, using his particularly colorful description, “A fucking cold and desolate ball of pure misery.”

  Naturally, he was thrilled when he learned it was their destination.

  Yet, when they arrived, it wasn’t the pilot who griped the most. He was bundled from head to toe in the warmest garb he possessed, and in his instance, the expression, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing,” truly applied.

  His dislike of being cold had previously led to the acquisition of a fair amount of the finest, warmest garb available. Hozark had even contributed a fair amount of coin to their purchase, as it had been one of his prior jobs that required them, which had made the pricey expenditure somewhat less painful.