“It’s agreed, then,” his pa said, as if the matter were settled and that was that. He began to rise from his chair.
But Rolan said, “I haven’t agreed to anything.”
Rabb froze, his expression darkening. Then he turned and spread his hand on the table, looming over Rolan once again. His other hand lifted, shaking the metal head of his cane at his son.
“Do not,” he said through his teeth, “play with me, boy.”
“I won’t help you,” Rolan declared. He stood too, planting his hands on the table and matching his father’s glare. “You’d be an idiot to try it anyway. Luc would chop you up and feed you to the Cryptics! He’s a proper warrior, with a proper sword and everything. What are you going to do, bash him withthat?”
He tried to grab the cane, but his father snarled and yanked it back, then shoved Rolan hard in the chest. Rolan hit his chair with an“Oof!”
When he tried to jump up again, Cabbot’s hands closed on his shoulders, pinning him down.
“I didn’t want it to come to this,” Rabb said. “But you can’t ever say I don’t properly prepare. Spin him around, Cabbot.”
Rolan gripped the sides of his chair as he was roughly turned to face the back wall. There was another door, and now the man with the heart earring opened it just a crack.
Just enough for Rolan to see Anaya on the other side, tied to a chair with a gag around her mouth.
- CHAPTER 35 -TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS
They set out in the gray dawn, beneath a sky streaked with red, needling clouds like the bloody gouges left by a Cryptic’s claws. Rolan looked up, shuddered, and then kept his gaze trained on the ground. The track to the Arcanist’s house cut a pale scar through the high, yellow grass, bending and twisting through the hills.
He hadn’t spoken a word to Anaya. They hadn’t given him the chance. One glimpse of her, that was all they’d allowed. One glimpse to break him to his pa’s will.
Now here he was, tramping along at the head of an awful procession. His pa walked beside him, with Cabbot behind them. A half dozen more followed, some from Rabb’s gang, some associates of Cabbot. The only person who seemed as repulsed by the companyas Rolan was Hoff, who brought up the rear. The man was walking strangely, moving with a lumbering, uneven gate, as if he were injured. He kept his hood pulled low over his face and avoided talking with anyone.
From what Rolan had gathered, the former guard captain hated Luc only a little less than he hated Rabb Strider. He wondered if, when they were done with their business today, the two might turn on each other like dogs loosed from their leashes. If they did, he didn’t want to be caught in the middle.
He had to go back for Anaya. That was all that mattered. He couldn’t think about anything else. Luc would have to look after himself. Eight men had to be roughly equal to one large Cryptic, right? Surely Luc could handle them. If he was recovered from his injuries, that was. Rolan had left him in pretty bad shape.
He pressed his lips together and told himself to stop thinking about the Arcanist. Luc wasn’t his concern anymore, the man had made that clear. It was Anaya who needed him now.
“I knew you’d come around,” Rabb said, his arm sliding over Rolan’s shoulders. “See? Isn’t this nice? Father and son working side by side. The way I always knew we would. When we’re done here and we go back, we’ll put this business behind us and start fresh.”
Rolan shrugged off his father’s arm. “Don’t touch me.”
“Your problem, my boy, is that you’ve gotten too uppity for your own good. It’s that Arcanist’s fault, of course. Well, when you see him humbled before me today, you’ll change your tune. You’ll see who the biggest man in Crisanth is.”
We’re not in Crisanth anymore,Rolan thought. Aloud he asked, “Why did you murder Luc’s family?”
His father stiffened, raising his cane to his chest. Rolan flinched away instinctively, but Rabb didn’t move to strike. Instead he drove the cane into the dirt, stabbing at the ground. “So the Arcanist knows. He’s the one who told you, I assume? I figured that’s what this was all about. Him taking you as an apprentice was just to get to me.”
Rolan bit his tongue, hating that his father was right.
“I was warned he was getting wise to the truth,” Rabb said.
“Is that why you’re doing all this? Posting secrets around the city, getting Luc blamed for it, now hunting him down? Because you’re scared he’ll come after you?”
His pa stopped dead and gripped Rolan’s collar, dragging him up to his toes. “Listen to me, boy,” he snarled. “I ain’t scared ofnobody. I’m just finishing a job, that’s all.”
“To protect your own skin,” Rolan growled.
His pa released him, his lip curling in disgust. “Maybe I was wrong about you, boy. Maybe you’re not ready for this life. You’re as weak and cowardly as a whipped pup.”
“I’m not the one going around murdering children!”
“That was a long time ago, before you were born. It was a nasty business and I didn’t enjoy it, if you must know. But a man has his work, and when it comes down to it, he buttons his lip and gets on with it.”
