by Tom Lloyd
6
The slight scuff of cloth on stone jerked Toil back to alertness. She blinked and realised she had been staring blankly out over the wharves, seeing nothing as the nag of her injury and a dull ache in her head sapped her wits. She’d spotted one other watcher of the gaming house and had been trying to find a third when she’d slowly drifted.
They come in threes if they’re following a suit of cards, she reminded herself, biting her lip to wake herself up. There’s one more you’ve not yet found.
She turned slowly. The sound came again, from the east wall. The midnight bell had been rung a while back; there should be no priests out or around the temple at this time of night.
Maybe the third has come to me.
She assessed the shadows of the bell platform. Aside from the three bell ropes evenly spaced across it, nothing looked out of place. The corpse was tucked into the darkest corner, effectively invisible to anyone standing in the moonlight.
Toil had removed the dead man’s cloak a little earlier, replacing her priest’s robe with a mind to walk out on the wharves and lure the third assassin out. But now she could clearly hear someone climbing the wall – quietly and expertly, but it was a calm night and only the gaming house saw celebrations anywhere near here. A dark, still hush. Toil’s instincts had been bred for just such conditions. She slid a blade free even as she kept her vigil at the window-slit.
Eventually the figure crawled over the top of the wall and crept, cat-like, to the entrance. ‘Where are you?’ a woman whispered uncertainly.
‘Here,’ Toil breathed as softly as she could. Too late did she remember the corpse was a man. She hurled her knife, but the other woman was already moving. Toil caught a flash of her mask, half white, half black, as the assassin darted to one side, lunging with her own knife.
The corpse saved Toil as the woman trod on an outstretched leg and rolled her ankle. She slewed sideways into the wall, her blade clattering to the ground as she yelped and grabbed for support. Toil didn’t wait, just hurled herself forward and smashed a fist into the newcomer’s face. The blow rocked her back, but even as the woman fell she seemed to bounce straight up again. She was so quick and nimble that her kick to Toil’s bad leg was a complete surprise.
Toil buckled, biting back a scream, and only just managed to catch the other’s second knife in her cloak to tangle it. She turned into the blow to get behind the blade before it could slice free, trusting she would be the stronger of the two. Stars burst before her eyes as she head-butted the woman then out of habit followed it up with a knee to the crotch. The power behind the blows staggered the assassin and Toil continued forward, slamming her against the back wall then down to the ground.
They struggled for a few moments, Toil riding four or five hasty blows as she fought for position. Sensing the woman’s face closer to hers she ducked her head and worked it forward against the woman’s mask. It opened her to elbows to the gut, but in the next instant Toil worked her way around the mask and felt flesh. She bit down as hard as she could.
The woman shrieked as her ear was snagged, slapping and scratching at Toil’s already-ringing head. The moment of distraction was enough. The let-up from the blows and frantic grappling allowed Toil to twist and wrap both arms around her opponent’s neck, legs around her waist. With all her remaining strength she hauled up and twisted, arching her back to put her whole body into the movement and force the neck to twist upwards. She felt it snap under the pressure and the woman went limp.
Toil held her in that embrace for a long while, panting with pain and weariness, waiting for the stars and smeared blurs of light to fade from her vision. Eventually she managed to unpeel herself from around the dead woman and set her down, pulling the black and white mask off to reveal the rosebud mouth and hooded eyes of a woman a few years younger than Toil. A ragged, bloody tear at the bottom of her left ear showed where Toil had bitten her, On her chest was another pair of badges; one was the now familiar crumbling moon, and the other showed a kneeling figure with no face – a frowning white mask in one hand and a smiling black one in the other.
The Faceless, eh? Toil thought to herself. So they really are using the Suit of Dark from a diviner’s deck?
She glanced towards the window from which she’d observed the last – she hoped – of the trio detailed to the gaming house.
I’ve killed four with one more waiting down there. Must have been a third holding back at my house if they come in threes, probably watching the door in case I ran. At least whoever betrayed me didn’t know about the tunnel. But that’s still thirteen left after I pay a visit to my watching friend. Most of the toughest probably still to come. Shattered gods, how does the suit run again? Warlord, Mage, Assassin, Faceless, Brawler, Beggar? Let’s hope the third of this little set is in a talkative mood.
She touched her fingers to her injured leg, the wound sharp and hot, and tried to blink away the ache in her head. The stars in her vision faded only slowly each time.
And the toughest ones still to come. It wasn’t the cold of night that provoked a rare chill in her bones. Out-gunned, out-numbered, weak and hurt. Might be I’ve not got the strength left to win this fight. What else do I have?
Outside the Billhook the dancing had become more frenetic as the drink continued to flow. More than one couple had retired to benches, wrapped in each other’s embrace and oblivious to those around them. Lynx hardly noticed. Even the faint perfume of jasmine drifting fitfully across the courtyard barely touched him, he was too lost in his thoughts.
A spirit of retribution, he thought to himself. Sanctioned by her employer, or some protection racket on the side? He’d seen it before, more often than he could bother to count. Soldiers and mercenaries, watchmen and guardsmen – authority or power twisted some, but most never gave a shit to start with. Any way they could make money with the skills they had, they’d do it. It was the way of this world. Laws were fragile things and faded like mist before wealth and power.
Demanding protection money was as old as money itself. Building a little myth into the game was just window dressing so far as Lynx was concerned, but he knew most would gladly swallow any bullshit that made the world a little less mundane.
At least she doesn’t live like a crime lord, he reflected, grasping at any straw he could.
Toil’s rooms were comfortable, certainly, but modest enough. They reflected the woman who, Lynx suspected, felt more alive in the terrifying depths of a Duegar city-ruin than drinking the finest wines and watching the fear in the eyes of others.
Is this just how she funds those trips? She more in love with the deepest black than any of us realised?
He headed out to the street. Leaving the revelry far behind, he lost himself in the quiet of a city that had mostly drunk itself into oblivion. At a junction of roads exposed to the wind off the lake, the cobbles glistened faintly in the moonlight. Lynx paused and looked up at the glowing striated bands of the Skyriver as the moon pursued its solstice course behind it.
Currently the moon was lurking behind one of the largest bodies to stud the Skyriver, the one named after the Great God Insar. The light of the moon made Insar look grey and dull compared to normal, a closer shade to the smaller dot that followed it across the sky.
That’s Atul, right? Insar’s consort and the patron o’ night – source of Sitain’s magic too, if you believe some folk. And there’s my problem with this Red Lady and our costumed assassins – where does folklore end and the real world begin? How blurred is the boundary?
A shape in the darkness moved ahead of him. His hand darted towards his pistol, but in the next instant he felt the unmistakable cold kiss of metal against his neck.
Shitting gods! Where did they come from?
Lynx froze and waited for the dark shape ahead to unfold from the shelter of a house’s eaves. A man, he guessed from the height, with a pistol-bow levelled. As he came, the man stowed his weapon, clearly confident in his comrade’s ability with a knife and Lynx did
n’t test it. It was one thing to react and fight when the choice was death, but he knew now they didn’t want him dead – not straight away, anyway. The knife tip stayed where it was, a pleasant scratch against his skin compared to the all-too-easily-imagined slicing of a jugular.
‘Knight of Blood,’ the man approaching chuckled. ‘We might have called you “brother” on another night.’
Lynx croaked and had to swallow to clear his dry throat. ‘I wouldn’t be wearing this damn stupid thing on any other night,’ he said.
‘You picked the wrong costume for keeping a low profile, I admit. Still, the advantage of a costume is that it’s all people see. They’ve little idea about who is underneath it.’
‘I’d have picked a costume folk can recognise more easily if I were you,’ Lynx replied, keen to keep talking. ‘The Suit of Dark, is it? No deck o’ cards carries that one round here.’ He paused. ‘But then, you’re not from round here. Somewhere further south? The Claw Bays? The Mage Islands?’
‘Ah, the costume focuses the mind on accent, does it? Not to matter. In the Claw Bays, Dark is a much more common suit, yes, and round there it pays to advertise.’
‘So you’re just the hired help?’
A deeper voice hissed in his ear. ‘Shut the fuck up, or I’ll cut you.’
The knife-holder’s comrade laughed. ‘He doesn’t like to talk much,’ he explained. ‘Prefers the cutting to the wit, as it were. That’s why I’m standing here and he’s holding the knife.’
‘Reckon we’re just waiting for your boss anyway, so I’m with chuckles. Shut the fuck up.’
The man tilted his head to the side. His mask was white with three fat black diagonal lines across it, like the claw marks of a bear. ‘Boss?’
Lynx fought the urge to shrug. ‘Looks like the number you’re wearing is a thirteen. My money’s on our friend here being the fourteen and there’s a Knight o’ Dark somewhere nearby giving the orders.’
‘Oh ho, he’s sharp this one,’ the man said to his comrade, sounding amused. ‘He’s not right, but points for effort all the same, don’t you think?’
A grunt from behind Lynx’s ear was all the supposed fourteen had to add on the subject. The slight increase in pressure against Lynx’s throat was also a sharp one.
‘Our friend agrees,’ the man continued. ‘He’s particularly impressed, I can tell. But he also impresses a reminder that we have questions of our own. You can answer them nice and quick here with only modest risk of slicing – or elsewhere, with more in the way of shears, hammers and splinters.’
‘You want to know where the Red Lady is?’
‘We do.’
‘Why?’
Thirteen cocked his head. ‘I don’t think you quite get the way this situation goes, Knight of Blood. Unless you enjoy seeing your own blood out in the moonlight? It’s got a certain quality, I grant, shining black like that, but the novelty pales when it’s your own.’
‘I get how this goes,’ Lynx replied, ‘and you’re getting shit-all from me.’
‘Merciful Insar, save us from idiots and their honour.’
‘My honour’s all I got; you ain’t taking that away.’
‘Honour?’ the man spat. ‘It’s got no colour under moonlight, not black, not nothing. Heroes are made in the daylight and honour’s only useful then. In the dark, honour vanishes while heroes get dead – men like me standing over their corpse.’
‘Honour might only shine bright in the daylight, but in the dark is when it’s most needed,’ Lynx insisted. ‘You need me to talk, good luck with that.’
‘Everyone talks, there’s no denying it – no shame in it, either. Only a question of how many fingers you want to live the rest of your life with. How many feet, eyes? A tongue? Decide your limit now; it’ll save time in the long run.’
Lynx forced a hoarse laugh and his anger rose easily to the surface. ‘Is that supposed to be scary? Fuck you and the carnival-carriage you rode in on. Some prick in a festival costume is going to make me give up my secrets? You ain’t scary, you ain’t nowhere fucking near. Spent days underground in a Duegar city-ruin, have you? Spent years in a So Han prison-camp? Run through a field of limbs and guts and explosions?’
The man just gave a tilt of the head, assessing Lynx’s manner for a while before replying.
‘Hard way it is, then. Just remember I gave you the option—’ He broke off abruptly as drunken singing cut through the air from around the corner.
Under pressure from the knife at his throat Lynx was forced back until they were at the side of the road. He felt a second blade appear round his other side, slicing a shallow furrow through the cloth at his ribs until the tip was nestled under his armpit – out of sight from the road but in good position to drive straight into his lung. Only then did the first blade leave his throat.
With a touch more pressure in his armpit, the man kept Lynx stock still while he undid the clasp on each of Lynx’s mage-pistols, pulling them free and tossing them aside. The knife didn’t reappear at his throat, but Lynx doubted it had wandered far.
The voices got louder as three incongruous figures staggered around the corner – two men and a woman. In the lead was a thin man with creased white cheeks and grey hair spilling out from under a tall hat. He was dressed like a dandy in white and grey silk, weighed down by the sheer quantity of silver braid, glass baubles, shining buttons and engraved collar studs decorating his garb. His voice was the strongest and he waved his arms as he went, using a silver-topped cane as a conductor’s baton.
The man behind him was younger and darker but dressed just as finely in a kilt of dark swirling patterns picked out by gold. He wore a scarf around his head fixed with a glittering twisted band and a half-dozen gold charms hung from his neck, but it was the curving claws of an ornate hilt-guard at his hip that drew the eye. The woman was less noticeable, not dressed so finely and almost hiding under her oversized hat, but singing and lurching with a drunk’s gusto.
‘Look!’ the pale man roared, pointing at the Thirteen of Dark. ‘What’s wrong wi’ folk here? Shit fer brains an’ morons fer tailors! I told ya, din’t I?’
‘It’s the same costume!’ the woman cackled as she barged her way closer and the assassin edged back. ‘You two brothers? What you s’posed to be?’
‘Fuck off, the three of you,’ the man advised, slipping his pistol-bow free of the folds of his cloak.
‘Wassat? Hey, shit, not seen one o’ them in years!’
By fits and starts the three ground to a halt, making up precious final yards as they did so. The assassin levelled the pistol-bow at the woman, who’d got closest, and she stopped dead, hands raised and hiccupping. When she started to giggle quietly, however, the assassin took a step forward and growled a curse in a language Lynx didn’t recognise.
Sitain apparently took that as her cue to be noisily sick on the cobbles. The assassin watched her in disgusted fascination as the young woman coughed out a lumpy stream of dark vomit over her own boots. He didn’t even see the cane move as Llaith flicked it up in a practised motion and smashed the pistol-bow from his hands.
‘Not polite, my good man,’ Llaith announced, prodding the assassin hard in the chest.
With remarkable speed the assassin snatched at the cane and caught hold, wrenching it back and out of Llaith’s hands.
‘Not clever, old man,’ he hissed as he tossed the cane aside and drew a pair of long daggers.
‘Oh sod,’ said Llaith, somewhat surprised by his sudden lack of weapons.
He backed quickly away, dragging Sitain with him, and the assassin would have pursued them but for Safir stepping forward. The easterner was the highest-ranked of the company there. On another day he’d have been wearing a badge bearing the Knight of Snow and, like all the other Knights, Anatin considered him excellent value for money.
‘Hello, my friends, I am a stranger to your shores!’ he announced in such an over-thick accent Lynx half-expected him to try and sell them some camels.
He ran for Safir but was forced to check his advance as the easterner whipped his rapier free. Before Lynx saw either strike a blow he felt something explode against the side of his head and he dropped to the ground with stars bursting before his eyes.
Lynx drunkenly watched the man who’d been holding him advance. The man had a knife in each hand, rounded metal pommels at the base of each. Lynx touched shaky fingers to the side of his head and groaned in pain. He tried to reach for his mage-pistols, but the man had hit him hard enough that crawling over to them was beyond him.
Unencumbered, the stocky Fourteen of Dark – or whatever he was – stalked purposely forward. His friend advanced with him, the pair clearly used to working in concert, but Safir merely drew a parrying blade and waited. One, then the other, feinted in quick succession, feet darting forward and back as if it had been choreographed. Safir barely moved in response, but as the taller man feinted again he exploded into movement. Two rapid steps produced a slash at the other one just as he was advancing. The rapier whipped through the air and jabbed once, neatly puncturing the shorter assassin’s shoulder before slashing across the face of the taller.
Lynx blinked in surprise and confusion, wits so scrambled he could barely follow Safir’s movements. Llaith moved towards the injured assassin, keeping well clear but providing a distraction for the wounded man’s knife. It was all Safir needed and he almost skipped forward to thrust his parrying blade into the assassin’s heart.
Again he used the longer blade to ward off the Thirteen, his rapier tip darting like a fly. Safir evaded the frantic slashing daggers with ease and as the shorter man gurgled and sank backwards, the taller realised he stood no chance and backed well off. With no pistol-bow to hand and Lynx’s guns on the floor the assassin swore under his breath and sprinted for the nearest alley.
Safir looked down at the dying man, gasping his last on the floor. Knives abandoned, he clutched at his chest where blood was welling up through his fingers.