On the Matter of the Red Hand

by JM Guillen

  I could not move.

  “I’ve had some reports concerning your activities of late.” The words were clinical, almost musing, even though the tone was sharp enough to cut skin. “I’m afraid we decided, as citizens of this fair city, that your services will no longer be required.”

  I blinked, trying to peer at the face over me. It was simply too dark. It was a man, that much was certain, and he was strong enough to make me fight for breath.

  Why can’t I move?

  It wasn’t like it had been before. This wasn’t the pins and nails of the Warren’s Spider’s toxin. No, this was a lead weight. As I thought, I realized that I could move a bit, but it was the meandering, slow movement of being in a dream, the kind of movement that feels like pushing through cold honey.

  “What?” Just getting out that one word was a cascade of pure willpower. I peered upward at the figure, trying in vain to make out anything, anything that could tell me something about the man.

  No. Nothing.

  “You were told to mind your betters, Judicar.” The voice was positively leering. “I hope that whoever replaces you has a better mind for his own health and safety.”

  That was when I heard the front window, the stained-glass window crafted by Ely’s mother, shatter.

  In a nonce, several things happened at once.

  It seemed as if the moment the window shattered, the man was gone. I could breathe. No one was standing on my chest.

  “Where…?” I sat up, bleary and confused. The serum pulsed in my mind.

  I see the stranger shuffle the cards into another deck. The card on top of the deck has a blade made of ice upon it.

  Then, I heard a second shattering of glass.

  “Thom!?” Ely’s voice sounded equal parts inquisitive and terrified. “What’s happening down there?”

  I stumbled in the darkness, all feeling of lead weight gone from my limbs. I kicked my way through some pile of metallic bits that I was certain that Ely must have carefully sorted and set aside. I heard something crunch and break underneath my feet.

  “Bill the city, Ely.” I stumbled forward, reaching for the table where I knew the small gaslamp sat next to a box of sulfur matches.

  I smelled something. It was sharp, clean. It was like the air before a storm rolls in off the ocean.

  I struck the match, touching it to the wick of Ely’s lantern. I heard her thumping through the wooden ceiling.

  The hatch opened, and she peered at me from atop her ladder.

  “Did you break something?”

  I shook my head, holding a finger to my lips in a shushing motion. My eyes narrowed, focusing upon the door to the front portion of her shop. If I listened carefully, I could hear a strange hissing noise accompanied by something crackling.

  Someone stepping on the broken glass? Maybe.

  I glanced around in the dim light. Ely had set my shirt and stave to the side of the couch. I slipped the shirt on; if there were undesirables in the next room, I did not want them to think I was hurt. Reaching for my stave, I crept to the door. I held my left hand toward Ely, one finger pointing up. Were she Scoundrel, she would have gotten what I was saying:

  Wait.

  Cautiously, I eased toward the closed the door. I pressed an ear to its roughly hewn wood, trying to understand what I was hearing.

  Nothing. Nothing save that strange crackling sound. It was exactly like someone walking on broken glass or perhaps it was the sound of an iced over pond that someone was walking across.

  It made no sense.

  I glanced at Ely, who was easing down the ladder. I frowned at her. That wasn’t what I had wanted. If there were an undesirable on the other side of the store, I knew that Ely was the last person who would be able to handle herself in a fight.

  “What?” Her voice was a sharp hiss. “You think some Warren rats can break into my Da’s shop, my shop, while I stay at the top of the ladder like some pretty little flower?” Her eyes looked like they could cut. “Throw again, Thom Havenkin. The dice don’t like your chances on the first one.”

  I sighed but nodded. There was no talking to Ely once her mind was made up.

  Setting my hand against the door, I slowly cracked it open, trying to peer into the darkness in the next room.

  I heard the rush of air.

  A fist of raw, savage cold punched through the door. It slammed me in the face and knocked me backward, through the detritus on Ely’s floor. I fell flat on my arse, the wind knocked out of me. The lantern fell from my hand, and the glass crashed on the floor.

  The light went out.

  And yet, we could still see. A wicked, brilliantly blue light shone from the room beyond the door. From where I lay, I could see that every surface of the room was wreathed in delicate, sharp, tendrils of frost.

  They were moving.

  The glowing tendrils of frost were meandering across the floor and walls of Ely’s storefront. I could see that the floor was mostly covered with it, and it was clawing its way up the wall, as if hungrily searching out every surface. It moved like it had a will, like a hunting predator.

  It was creeping through the door.

  I heard Ely’s gasp of horror. For a moment she was babbling, almost inarticulate.

  “Thom!” I could hear the fear strangling her voice. “Ferric Rime! You need to—”

  I didn’t know what Ferric Rime was, but Ely’s reaction chilled me more than the odd coldness seeping from the room. I would need about ten more hands to count the things that Ely knew that I did not, and this certainly seemed to fall under that jurisdiction.

  Her fear spoke more than words ever could.

  “Yes. All right.” I scuttled backward, almost mesmerized by how quickly the frost was spreading into the room.

  I scuttled backward, even as it crept into the room. Behind me, I heard Ely moving back up the ladder.

  “Thom!” Her tone was like the tale of a whip. “Quit caper-fooling!” She was almost to the top of the ladder. “Get up here!”

  The frost was spreading over every surface it touched, and that haunting crackling echoed in the darkened room. A wave of bluish light passed through it as it crawled, and I could see my breath.

  I did not wait.

  I was on the ladder in a nonce but apparently not fast enough for Ely. Her eyes were wide, and she extended me an arm.

  Once I was in her bedroom, she pulled the ladder up after us.

  “Ferric Rime is alchemical. It’s used in stalwarting iron after it’s been tempered.” I noticed her breath also came in puffs of frost. “For wintersteel. Handling it is incredibly dangerous.”

  “Does recommended use include throwing it through windows?” I gave her a sideward look.

  “The Rime is naturally frigid, scores of points below freezing.” Her voice was distant, as if reciting. “It’s a hungry element and seeks out oxygen. When you opened the door, you fed it.”

  I cursed beneath my breath. “Can it climb up here?”

  She shrugged. “If there’s enough of it.” She glanced at me. “It will burn where it touches you—it’s that cold. Your skin will turn black and slough off.”

  “Lost gods.” I sighed. “It’s just as I always thought.”

  She canted her head. “What?”

  I looked straight at her. “Your bedroom is the most frigid place in Teredon.”

  I actually thought she might throw me down.

  Teasing aside, I could actually feel the temperature dropping. Holding on to the edge of the floor, I craned my head into the hole and looked at the room I had been sleeping in. Once I saw what was happening, I swore to myself.

  “It’s creeping up the walls.” I turned to her. “Is this place up to fire standards?”

  She gave me a patronizing glance. “You can’t possibly imagine that my father would ever have anything not be up to spec, can you? The man was meticulous.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. Where is your fire ladder?”

  Ely was alr
eady on the move. She picked her way through the darkness of her room and came to the window by her bed. “I keep it here. Standard, really.” She reached down and opened the window.

  For just a moment, I thought it was going to stick.

  It didn’t however. She flicked a small latch, opened the window, and unrolled the ladder outside.

  “This sets down into the street.” Her voice was still distant, oddly distracted. She attached the ladder firmly at the base of her cell and then pushed the window open wider.

  “Careful now. You’re not thinking clearly.” I stepped over to the window and peered into the street. Then, I straightened, and met Ely’s green eyes. “We don’t know who threw the Ferric Rime into your shop.”

  She looked at me for just a moment, not quite comprehending. I watched as understanding dawned on her face.

  “You—you think someone is still outside?”

  “I think it’s quite likely.” I glanced out the window again. “I don’t think someone thought they would kill us with the Rime. I think someone wanted to force us to come outside.”

  “Who would do that?” He eyes searched my face. “Thom?”

  Even as I looked outside, I realized that it must be true. I couldn’t see anyone hiding in the streets, or huddling in one of the alleyways, but it only made sense that someone would be there.

  Someone was waiting for us to stumble out the doors.

  “I’ll step down first.” I winked at her. “I know, I know. Ladies and heirs precedent, I get it. However, in this case, I think that someone with a weapon should step first.”

  Ely wasn’t really with me. I knew it was shock, knew that the combination of being awakened in the middle of the night and having her father’s shop attacked was simply too unbelievable at first to actually grasp. Therefore, I put my hand on her shoulder and made certain to her eyes met mine.

  “Ely? Are you with me? I need to know that you understand.”

  “I understand.” She took a deep breath and then nodded at me. “I understand very well. I agree.”

  I gave her one final nod, and I made my way into the street.

  2

  Of course, the men had seen the moment that Ely had thrown the ladder out the window. They had been waiting, watching. They weren’t stupid, whoever they were. I had my suspicions about that of course; I had been attacked in my own home just the night before, and by my tally, neither of those men were in custody.

  I assume they had left. I assume they had left and gotten friends. The question was…

  How did they know where I was?

  The ruffians in question had an understanding of how to set up an ambush. Apparently, one of them had access to a brassbow.

  As soon as I heard the telltale click of the hammer falling back, I let go of the ladder. I dropped about four armspans to the ground, doing my best to land with a lot of bend in my knees.

  The bolt struck the side of Ely’s shop.

  I turned, stepping sideways before anyone had time to crank the brassbow again. “I need you to desist and submit!” I practically roared the words, screaming into the shadowy darkness of the street. “I have already sent my bird—”

  “You have not.” The voice was smug, certain. “You sent that little bint away hours ago. It’s just you, Judicar.” I could hear footsteps in the darkness as the man walked closer. His voice was familiar. “I think that tonight we’ll finish the business we were about last night.”

  Then I saw the slender man, the same man who had been in my flat, in the mouth of an alleyway.

  “I thought that your business last night centered around telling some soft belly he needed to mind his betters. I think that that message has been delivered.”

  “Apparently it hasn’t. Just because the pork belly ended up being a Judicar doesn’t mean the job was done.” He glanced meaningfully to his left, toward an alleyway that twisted off toward Jahaan’s Street. I followed his glance, and saw man in the shadows there.

  “What, there are four of you? Maybe five?” I scoffed. “I still give you the opportunity to desist. Or, on the other hand, perhaps you can go and roundup some friends.”

  “We understand quite well the value of friends.” The man who had been in my apartment the night before took a few steps forward, out of his alleyway. He held the brassbow, and he was cranking again as he walked. “Unfortunately, it seems as if you do not. Last night, the only person to stand by your side was a woman drunk from a revel. Tonight, it seems as if you stand alone.”

  That was when the metal spike exploded into his leg.

  I know now what it was. Ely had an old cliffcaster, a device designed to fire a spike into stone for surveying, and rock climbing. Powered by small compression cartrodges, it fired equally as hard as the brassbow, only its spiked projectile wasn’t a quarrel.

  It was a barbed climbing pin, a climbing pin with about forty strides worth of cordage attached.

  “Fecking damn!” The man screamed, one hand going to his leg. The strike had been brutal. It was just below the knee, but the climbing pin had torn out the other side.

  While the man screamed, Ely let the machine begin cranking in the climbing pin, drawing the screaming man toward her building.

  Toward me.

  I took a few steps forward, my stave in hand. My stride was confident, my eyes flat. “I believe I offered you the opportunity to desist.” I gave the man a grim smile, and then peered at the shadows in the alleyway. “Is your friend from last night with you?” I strained, trying to see. “We had an appointment this morning, which I’m afraid he failed to attend.”

  “You fecking dare to speak of him?” The man was absolutely livid, torn between pain and fury. “If you knew what you were playing at, Judicar, you would not be so glad. You would know respect is due.”

  “That’s probably not true.” I took another step forward. “I am not known for being a smart man. And you aren’t the first person to tell me that I’m too glib for my own good.”

  “Unfortunately for you, I am fairly certain that I will be the last.” Through his anger and pain, the slender man seemed to remember the brassbow in his hand. He reached up and finished cranking it and then leveled it at my chest.

  I stepped forward and swung my stave. It flashed in a downward arc, but landed nowhere near the man—we were still a good five strides apart after all. There was no way I could hit him.

  The cranking mechanism on the cliffcaster was intended to haul or support the weight of a man. Therefore, no matter how quickly the slender man stepped forward, the device kept a steady pressure on the pin embedded his leg. Even through the pain, he had drawn a bead on me, knowing that he was well outside my reach.

  The cord was not.

  I swung downward, catching the cord and tearing it loose from the man’s leg. He screamed again, sinking down on one knee and completely losing his gait. Quickly, I took a few steps forward and swung my stave at the side of his face.

  There was a sickening, wet crack.

  The men waiting in the alleyway had apparently been doing just that; waiting. There must’ve been awaiting some cue from the slender man before they gave up their shadows. Now, seeing that things had gone desperately awry, they rushed out. They were large, brutish men. From the scars on their faces and knuckles, they were men who knew well their business.

  They were also Twilight Blades.

  I realized it as I heard the cord snap its way back into Ely’s device. Part of my attention was held by the man screaming on the ground, but the rest of it was tracking the faces of the men from the alleyway. I only knew one of them, but I knew him well. His name was Brendan Drôs, and he was a well-known knuckle duster. I’d seen his work before, but I’d just never been able to appreciate it from this perspective.

  “Morning, gentles.” I levied a boot squarely at my slender friend’s leg, and he screamed again before I casually bent and picked up his brassbow. I began winding with one hand. “I suppose you’re here so that I might requisi
tion you to assist with an undesirable?”

  Brendan had an ugly grin. “Afraid not, blackbird. We have some business to discuss, see? We do have us a little understanding.”

  “I, too, have an understanding.” I cocked the brassbow into place with a click. “I understand that this gentleman awoke me from a fairly sound sleep. He did so by attacking my friend’s home.” I gave the downed man another kick, more to make certain he stayed down that anything else. “I also understand that it might be difficult for me to dance with you four fine gentlemen.” I smiled. “Therefore I would like to levy my guarantus that whichever of you gentlemen wishes to step forward first will have an iron cast bolt in his eye.”

  Brendan nodded at the other men. One of them muttered something beneath his breath, but the others were quiet. They began to fan around me.

  Brendan cleared his throat. “You got one shot, Judicar.” His smile was gone. “The moment you take it, the rest of us will be on you.”

  “Two shots!” Ely’s voice was wild, but she had the pin back in her cliffcaster. “I think I can aim better the second time. I have the hang of it now.” I could hear the wild, almost mad grin in her voice.

  I looked back to Brendan. My eyes were stern. “Even without my good right hand I’ll take my odds against two of you.” I looked to the ground and spat. “Hells, even two of you and a wounded third.” I hefted my stave in my left hand, while holding the brassbow with my right. “It may be that you can take me here, Mister Drôs. It is also a good likelihood that two of you will die trying. Is your business worth that?”

  Drôs chuckled darkly to himself. “Our business is every bit worth that.” From within his sleeve, a small knife made a sudden appearance in his hand. “Unless, of course, you’re willing to cry off? Your poking into things that don’t need poked into.”

  There was nothing to say to that. Of course I couldn’t cry off. I took two steps backward toward Ely’s shop, holding my eyes on Drôs, and shaking my head.

  “Kill him!” As I had backed away from him, apparently the slender man had found his voice. “It’s not a choice anymore. He’ll remember me, and apparently he knows you, Brendan.”