by C. L. Werner
Taryn glared at the whining creature. “First, I wouldn’t believe you if you told me the moons were up. Second,” she cast a demure glance at Rutger. “Second, I’m not Rutger’s woman. I am Taryn di la Rovissi, and I suggest you remember it!”
“To my dying day!” Marko promised in a shrill squeak. He wagged a finger in the direction of the magelock. “Which I hope is a long ways off.”
“Taryn, what’s done is done,” Rutger said. “What good will killing Marko do?”
With a disgusted groan, Taryn holstered her pistol. The earl groaned beneath her hand. Forgetting the thief, she began to open the noble’s shirt, to check the dressing of his wound. As she pulled open the shirt, the earl’s jeweled medallion sparkled in the starlight. Marko perked up when he spotted the gleam.
“Who’s he?” the thief asked. “Some Llaelese moorgrav or baron? Good money smuggling them into the city.”
“Just a friend,” Rutger said, a warning note in his voice.
Taryn was more direct. Rising from the ground, she shook her fist at Marko. “Say one word about us to anyone and you’ll wish Rutger had let me finish you here!”
Marko bobbed his head in understanding. There was a greedy gleam in his eye, a gleam that lingered even under her hostile gaze. “It looks like your friend is hurt,” Marko stated. “I know this island like the back of my hand. I could take you somewhere you can hide until he’s better.”
“Who said anything about hiding?” Taryn demanded.
A sly grin spread across Marko’s face. “Folks don’t go wandering about dark alleys with wounded men unless they are trying to hide from someone,” he said.
“He could help us,” Rutger said. He helped Taryn lift the earl from the ground, supporting him in his arms. The ruckus had left Alessandro looking even paler than when they had disembarked. “He certainly knows Five Fingers better than we do.”
Taryn shook her head. She didn’t like it, not in the slightest. She knew Marko’s type, greasy little underworld weasels who would do anything if there was a chance at a quick crown. Whatever their past relationship, Rutger was naïve to think friendship was more important than gold to a creature like Marko. At the same time, she had to concede that they could use the rogue’s help. They couldn’t drag the earl through these alleys forever. If Marko could lead them someplace they could rest…
“Alright,” Taryn decided. “We’ll put ourselves in your hands.” Her hand brushed against the holster of her magelock and her eyes were like steel as they bore down upon Marko. “Any tricks, and I promise you’ll be the first to pay.”
Marko ignored the threat and clapped his hands together. “Any friend of Rutger’s is a friend of mine, and no one can say Marko Vane wasn’t true to his friends!” He rose from the ground and started down the narrow alley. “First thing we do is get out of Hurley’s Purse. This district is too noisy. Too many unscrupulous people about. We’ll slip into Dag-end. Things are much quieter there.
“An easy place for people to disappear.”
The hideout Marko found for them was a spider-hole in the rafters of an old tenement building that creaked and shuddered every time a good wind hit it. It was dilapidated and filthy, the sort of structure that would have been demolished as an eyesore in a more respectable community. There was little respectable about Dag’s Ward, however. Never in her experience had Taryn set foot in a place that had a more villainous atmosphere. Every crooked street seemed to have been designed with an eye towards ambush and evasion. The buildings were grimy and caked in soot and brine, the expanses above the narrow byways choked with great swaths of rope rigging so that every ray of sunshine was forced to fight its way to earth. The denizens of the district were furtive and hostile, their eyes filled with either suspicion or avarice.
There wasn’t the faintest semblance or law and order about Dag’s Ward. In making their way to Marko’s hideout, Taryn had been witness to three assaults and a knifing. They’d been forced to walk around a pitch-covered body dangling from the overhead rigging by a noose (a victim of the Driftwolves, Marko had explained with a shudder). Once, Taryn had even experienced the disturbing sight of a tall man in a black cloak stalking down the lanes, Telgesh runes embroidered on his clothes and a jade icon of Scion Drayce hanging about his neck. If anything spoke of how far this part of the city had slipped from decency, the spectacle of a Thamarite priest walking about in the open was enough to damn it as a pit of crime and depravity.
Earl Alessandro now lay upon a cot, his face pale and drawn, sweat dripping from his pores. There was little clean water in Five Fingers, and what little there was too expensive for the inhabitants of Dag’s Ward to possess. To keep their employer hydrated, Taryn reluctantly accepted the vile ale and cheap sangre wine Marko offered them. It was another condemnation of Five Fingers that alcohol should be more readily available than water.
After a time, the earl’s condition began to worsen. Once more, he slipped into delirium. The crazed murmurs brought shouts from the rooms beside and below their hideout and Taryn could see Marko’s growing uneasiness with each new outburst. The earl seemed to be reliving past battles and lost loves, sometimes delving into them with embarrassing detail.
Several times Marko suggested he could go abroad and find a discreet physician, his offers seconded by Rutger. Taryn would have none of it. She didn’t want the thief out of her sight.
When the earl again started to rave about “the Wolf” and Five Fingers, Taryn glanced quickly at Marko. “Go and get your doctor,” she told him. The thief bowed to her and scurried out the door. Taryn wasn’t sure he’d come back, but for now that was the least of her concerns.
“You should have sent him hours ago,” Rutger grumbled, raising a mug of sangre to the earl’s lips. “Why relent now?”
Taryn stared keenly at the earl, listening as he started to ramble once more. “I have a feeling there are some things your friend doesn’t need to be hearing.”
“The Wolf…” Earl Alessandro gasped. “Cargo… for Cathor… Passenger… from Martyn…”
Taryn and Rutger stared at one another. “Cathor and Martyn,” Taryn mused. “The royal houses of Ord and Llael. Two kings…”
Rutger shook his head. “Whoever this Wolf is, he must be the key. The key to the earl’s secret.”
“A secret that involves royals,” Taryn said, feeling the cold hand of dread close about her heart.
Whatever they had gotten themselves into, it was far bigger than she had imagined.
And more dangerous.
PART THREE
Taryn was pacing across the tiny room, drumming her nails against the ivory grips of her magelocks, a habit she’d developed when she was feeling anxious. Rutger was certain the reason for her state of nerves was worrying about Marko.
“How long do we wait?” Taryn asked Rutger for what seemed the hundredth time. The distant clamor of a clock tower brought Taryn stalking towards the tiny window that offered the room’s only vantage. She grimaced as she saw cramped the streets were, the tall buildings blocking all view of the sky above.
Rutger mopped the sweat from the earl’s forehead with a rag. “I wanted to send Marko off hours ago,” he reminded her. “You were the one that wanted to keep him close.”
Taryn glared daggers at him. “Okay, I admit I didn’t catch your signals, but how was I supposed to know you weren’t falling for his line of drivel? You and all your talk about old friends.”
“Give me some credit,” Rutger said. “I’m at least a half-wit. Even in the old days, you couldn’t trust Marko further than you can throw him. That’s why I wanted to send him away and slip out while it was still dark.”
“Because you think he has somebody watching us,” Taryn stated. She tapped her magelocks as she decided on the fact. “Yes, a little rat like that would have somebody keeping tabs on us.” She stared hard at Rutger. “We can’t stay here.”
Rutger shook his head. “We don’t know this city. Marko and his cronies do. The only
chance we have of losing them is when it’s dark.” He sighed and stared down at the earl. “Until then, we have to wait. Who knows, maybe he really will bring back a doctor.”
Taryn opened her mouth to voice some snide reply, but before she could speak there was a knock at the door; tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, the code they’d agreed upon hours before Marko left. Rutger rose from beside the cot and marched to the door, hesitating just long enough to direct a warning look at Taryn. The gun mage drew one of the magelocks from its holster.
As soon as he lifted the latch, Rutger was bowled backwards, the door flung into his face by a tremendous force. Sent tumbling across the room, he had only a blurred impression of something huge bursting into the hideout. It uttered a savage roar and went charging across towards Taryn.
In a panic, Rutger dragged Jackknife from its sheath and lurched to his feet. His gaze was bleary from striking his head, but not so bleary that he didn’t recognize the thing rushing at Taryn as a trollkin, massive creatures twice the size of a man and three times as strong. The gun mage’s shot slammed into the brute, savaging its craggy blue hide. Even with half its jaw and one side of its scalp reduced to bloody pulp, the trollkin kept coming.
Rutger started towards the trollkin, activating the runes on Jackknife’s blade. He had gone no more than a few steps before he saw the gilded pommel of a trench knife flashing into the edge of his vision. The blow caught him just above the temple, felling him as though he’d been pole-axed. Jackknife went tumbling from his fingers, the glowing blade clattering across the floor. As he struck the ground, he heard a hideous din of splintering wood, roaring trollkin and a scream he recognized with horror as belonging to Taryn. Caught between the monster and the wall, Taryn was thrust ahead of it. The trollkin’s bulk caused the thin layer of wood to disintegrate. Both the brute and its foe were propelled onwards, through the gaping hole. The street, Rutger remembered, was hundreds of feet below.
Uttering an anguished howl, the mercenary rushed towards the hole, unable to think of anything except the woman who had been hurled to her death. Again, the trench knife’s pommel smashed against his skull, knocking him down. A hard boot kicked savagely against his ribs as he tried to crawl onward, his eyes unable to look away from where Taryn had made her final stand. A second kick cracked against his jaw, pitching him over onto his back, almost stunning him.
The next instant rough hands were raising him from the floor. He struggled vainly in their grip, almost pulling away before someone buried a fist in his gut and doubled him over. The man who struck him was the burly thug from the train and there was a smile on his face when he delivered a second punch to the mercenary’s belly.
“You said you wouldn’t kill them!” a shrill whine raked across Rutger’s ears. Rage boiled up inside him and he renewed his struggles when he recognized that voice. Marko Vane, the treacherous gutter rat of Five Fingers.
A figure in black stalked across the room, gloved hands folded behind him. Arisztid Olt paused beside the gaping hole where the window had been. The impact of the trollkin’s mass had practically blown out the entire wall, pitching both it and its adversary out into the smoggy sky. Olt shook his head and turned away, fixing his icy eyes on Rutger and the man beating him.
“Janos,” Olt snarled. “I wanted all of them alive. The girl is lost to us now, so you need to be careful with him.”
Janos nodded, dropping an arm that was already poised to deliver another blow. As he turned away to join his master, Rutger saw that the leg Taryn had shot was bound into a steel frame and that the thug favored it noticeably.
Across the room, an elderly man in spectacles was examining the earl, supervised by a trio of Olt’s men. The black hat and leather bag the old man bore pronounced him a physician. His face was grim when he finished his examination, and he was trembling when he made his report to Olt.
“You needn’t have dragged me here,” the doctor announced. “This man won’t last more than a few hours.”
Arisztid Olt’s expression remained chillingly passionless. “A few hours are all I need him for,” he said. He raised one of his hands and snapped his fingers. The thugs by the cot started to lift it from the floor. The doctor glared at the villains, then rushed towards Olt.
“This man can’t be moved!” he protested. “You’ll kill him if you move him!”
Olt’s voice lashed at the old physician. “You won’t let him die, doctor,” he declared. “Because if you do then I won’t have any further use for you.”
It took only a second for the import of those words to sink in. With a moan of terror, the doctor rushed back to attend the earl as Olt’s men carried the cot from the room.
Olt watched them go, then turned towards Rutger. The mercenary had seen undead with more warmth in their expression than the one Olt directed at him. “What can you tell me about the Wolf?” The villain laughed when he saw Rutger start at mention of the word. “Don’t feel bad, that much I was able to learn from your treacherous comrade,” Olt waved one of his gloved hands towards Marko who flinched under the attention. “He overheard a bit of the earl’s ramblings. I am guessing you heard a bit more than he did.” The gaunt face pulled back in a hideous smile. “If His Lordship doesn’t tell me what I want to know, perhaps you will be able to fill in the gaps.”
Rutger spat at the cutthroat. “Better kill me now” he growled, “or I’m going to feed you your heart.” The murderous vow brought Janos’s fist slamming into his spine. Rutger barely felt the pain, already crippled by grief for Taryn. His glaring eyes stayed locked on Olt. Somehow, by Morrow, by any god who would listen, he was going to make good his threat.
Olt snapped his fingers and the men holding Rutger dragged him from the room. “Everyone talks,” Olt promised him. “You will save yourself much pain by making that choice before I get impatient.”
Marko hurried after Olt as he marched from the hideout. Janos limped along behind the two men. Olt motioned for the thug to wait. “Janos, the walls in this place are very thin. Somebody may have heard things they shouldn’t have. Fortunately, a place like this should burn quite quickly. See to it.”
Janos bowed his head, hiding the horror in his eyes, and shuffled off to carry out his master’s murderous orders. Olt turned his cold blue eyes on Marko. “There are two sorts of people in my world. Assets and liabilities. I protect assets. I eliminate liabilities. A word of advice: don’t become a liability.”
The color drained from Marko’s face. “I… I can still be valuable… Lord Olt! I know people… I have contacts in… well… everywhere! Right up to the High Captains! Need to send a bribe or fence some loot and I can find you precisely the man to talk to!”
Olt turned away and resumed his march towards the stairs. “See, isn’t it better to be an asset?”
Marko shuddered as he followed Olt down the rickety stairway. Behind them, Rutger could hear the crackle of flames and the first screams of those who had been condemned because they were inconvenient to the plans of a monster.
The hideout of Arisztid Olt and his men was an abandoned foundry on Captain’s Island, the largest of the islands that composed Five Fingers. Situated in the middle of the city, Captain’s Island boasted the most development, the highest towers and the greatest industry. Refineries, distilleries, even a factory for steamjack production were all nestled within the urban sprawl. Here were the estates of the wealthy, the palaces of the Lord Governor, and even a suite for King Baird II for those times when that royal personage was away from his castle in Merin.
The derelict foundry was situated on the starboard cliffs overlooking the imposing hulk of the Old Colossal, a towering titan of rusted metal, its upper mass blasted open long ago in the rebellion that finally pushed the Orgoth from their island fortress to flee in their black ships to whatever unknown lands had spawned them. Lost amidst the confusion of steam engine shops, warehouses and sugar refineries, the abandoned foundry looked as though it hadn’t been operational for decades. Every exposed beam in it
s roof, every crack in its brick walls, every corroded iron lantern groaning in the sea breeze, each and all added to the atmosphere of neglect and ruin.
In truth, it was as operational as its owners intended, an unobtrusive headquarters for Arisztid Olt when in Five Fingers. Within the vast sprawl of the foundry and its grounds were a catacomb of hidden barracks and dungeons, caches of weapons and strong-rooms to conceal plunder as well as “liabilities.”
Olt’s crew used the fire in Dag’s Ward to cover their excursion to Captain’s Island. Amidst the turmoil and chaos of the fire – which threatened to erupt into a raging conflagration in the narrow streets – no one paid any attention to a small clutch of refugees hurrying away with injured comrades. The small incidence of innocent casualties was of no concern to Olt, and his minions knew better than to voice any qualms of their own.
Rutger and the earl were taken into a large chamber where one of the old smelters had once been housed. The concrete drum of a furnace dominated one corner of the room while a tangle of rusty chains swung from the ceiling. Arms bound behind his back, legs lashed together with leather tongs, Rutger was fastened to one of the chains and hoisted into the air, left to dangle until Olt had need of him.
From his position, Rutger could see the earl, the physician scurrying about him at a frantic pace. The old doctor had given up trying to restore the earl to any sort of health. Now he was simply trying to induce enough lucidity for Olt to extract whatever information he needed.
Janos limped about the hall, snarling orders to the other thugs and sometimes turning a spiteful glance Rutger’s way. Marko kept at the fringes of the group, trying to escape anyone’s notice. His position with Olt’s gang was precarious, and the little traitor knew it.
Arisztid Olt himself, upon seeing that Rutger and the earl were secure, had immediately entered into conference with a short, stocky man who spoke in the cultured inflections of the Llaelese court. Rutger had seen enough of the Llaelese nobility over the years to recognize that this man was from the upper echelon of the Llael aristocracy, or at least an intimate of that blue-blooded class. From the way he spoke with Olt, it was obvious he wasn’t one of the cutthroat’s subordinates, but a highly agitated accomplice. Rutger wondered if the betrayer of Earl Alessandro’s mission was down there in the flesh.