Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey Page B

murder.
    “Rest assured,” Torgon said, “I may have cooperated in some less-than-honorable deeds at Jhasko’s orders in the past, but murder ...” His face hardened. “I refused. It wasn’t the response Jhasko expected. He ordered me a second time, and again I refused.”
    Something cold unwrapped itself from Sosha’s heart. This man was no murderer. She bent her head, stared at her hands crossed in her lap, then looked up. “Be you serious? He asked you to kill someone just because they angered him?”
    Torgon snorted. “Angered him? It was less and more than that. His chief rival threatened to take business away from Jhasko. And that could not be tolerated. Jhasko had tried different schemes to undermine this rival, but they hadn’t worked. As far as he could see, the only remedy was to remove the rival and bring down the competing house.”
    “Ain’t right!” Sosha murmured. “Vkandis Sunlord don’t take kindly to murder.”
    “And?” Beckor prompted.
    “And he dismissed me from his service. Told me to be gone from Sunhame before dawn of the following day.” Torgon drew a deep breath. “I’d not only lost my livelihood but doomed myself. I knew too much. I’d participated in deeds that could have imprisoned me for years. My only thought was to gather what belongings I could take and leave Sunhame as quickly as possible. Of course,” he added, “Jhasko couldn’t let it go at that. He’d have me chased down and killed. He feared I’d tell those in power what he’d done in the past.”
    Sosha glanced at Beckor and saw a change of expression cross his face. “Then those men you told of—”
    “Assassins,” Torgon said, glancing her way. “Professional killers. They followed me out of Sunhame. I thought I had enough of a lead on them, that I’d disguised my trail well enough. Obviously, I was wrong. They caught up to me by a field and left me as you, Sosha, found me.” He grinned slightly. “However, one of them now goes with a sword stroke to his right leg, though unfortunately not enough to cripple him.”
    Sosha looked up at the sky, darkening now with approaching clouds. “Where be these men now?”
    “Vkandis only knows. With luck, they’ll believe they killed me. I think what saved my life was six or seven men coming down the road. They looked like farmers or hired hands. Even two assassins wouldn’t want to chance their luck against that many burly fellows armed with the God only knows what.”
    A cold shiver ran down Sosha’s spine. “Be they still ’round here?”
    Torgon shrugged. “Likely,” he admitted.
    Sosha looked to Beckor, hoping he would relieve her fears with a few words of comfort.
    “Now I see,” the priest said softly, dashing those hopes, “why you warned us of the risk we take in helping you.” He straightened, set his shoulders, and smiled briefly. “Well, what’s done is done. There are places we can hide you until the danger passes.”
    “They’ll go looking for my body,” Torgon objected. “If they want to be hired by Jhasko again, they can’t return to Sunhame without some proof they killed me.”
    Beckor nodded. “Then we’ll give them proof you died.”
    “But that be lying!” Sosha exclaimed.
    “There are worse things than lying in the Sunlord’s sight. Murder and attempted murder offend him far more than a lie spoken to protect another person from death.”
     
    The following morning, Zaltos’s parents still asleep and her attendance at the rising sun celebration over, Sosha gathered up grain for her chickens. The sun rose in a sky rinsed clear by nighttime rain. She opened the door to the henhouse and slipped inside, greeted by happy clucking and rustling of feathers. Scattering the feed, she picked up her wooden pail, shut the door, and eased inside the barn. Her horse lifted its head and nickered softly from its stall.
    “Torgon?” she called softly. “Be you awake?”
    “I am,” came his voice from the shadows. He crawled