Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 40 of 57

The captured woman knelt in the grass, hands tied, her horse blown and shaking. Damian held the name she had given him. But a name meant nothing if the man behind it slipped away. "He'll hear you're taken," Damian said. "Soon. Then he vanishes." The woman looked at the ground. Damian knew the truth in it. Every hour cost him his last lead. He knelt and gripped her chin. "How does he learn things?" "A rider," she said. "Every dusk. If I miss the mark, he runs." Damian looked at the sky. Gray light, fading. Dusk was close. If the rider reached the man first, the chain broke for good. He pulled the bird from his shoulder. Its feathers caught blue and purple in the low light. "Find the house she named," he told it. "Watch the road in." He threw his arm up. The raven climbed and turned north, black against the clouds. Rolo crouched beside the woman. "We ride now, or we lose him." "His guards?" Damian asked. "Few," the woman said quickly. "He trusts the marks to keep men away. He doesn't fight." Damian believed her. Men who paid for killers rarely bled themselves. They rode hard. The woman came bound across Rolo's saddle. The raven led them the way it had before, dropping and circling to mark the turns. Damian read each signal as his master had taught him. The road narrowed. Then he saw the house, low and shuttered, one lamp lit inside. The bird dove past a window and back to Damian's arm. It had seen no rider leave. They were still ahead. Damian left the horses in the trees and drew the cane. He kept the gemmed sword wrapped. Speed mattered more than steel now. Rolo went to the back. Damian crossed to the door. He heard a chair scrape inside, then quick feet. The man had seen the bird. Damian kicked the door and went in low. A thin man in a dark coat lunged for the far window. Damian threw the cane. It cracked across his shins and dropped him. The man rolled and reached inside his coat. Damian saw the shape of darts, bright green. He pinned the wrist with his boot before the hand cleared the cloth. Rolo dropped through the back window and knocked the darts loose. They skittered under the table. Damian pressed his knee to the man's chest. "You paid for the marks," he said. "You fund the swords." The man's face went slack. "I only pass orders," he gasped. "Same as her. There's a house above me. A ledger. It names them all." He gave a place, near, and a strongbox behind a false wall. Damian bound him. He had moved fast enough. The last link in this chain was caught, and the man's own words pointed higher still. A ledger waited, close by, holding every name that had ever bought a mark against him.