On the Matter of the Red Hand

by JM Guillen

  I cocked my head at the men. “I do know Brendan. I know Brendan is a guildman with the Twilight Blades. My assumption, therefore, has to be that you gentles are Twilight Blades as well.” I cleared my throat and took another step back. “I obviously know far too much to live.”

  At that moment, the fight seemed to explode around me.

  I don’t know what their prearranged signal was, but they apparently had one. Without giving any true indication as to their intentions, the men on my far right, the opposite arc of Brendan Drôs, burst forward, both of them simultaneously. I whirled, and the moment I did, Brendan himself leapt at me, knife in hand.

  Overhead, I heard Ely’s device sing again, and one of the men screamed. I did not have time to look however, as I was trying to draw the brassbow back down on Brendan. He was rushing me, every bit the enraged bull. My shot entirely missed his center, but tore through the muscle at his shoulder, burying the quarrel deeply. Brendan cried out and was thrown back, but I had no time to pay him much heed. Two other men were enclosing upon me.

  I dropped the brassbow and switched my stave to my right hand. I crouched low, falling into the second stanza just as I had the night before, when I didn’t have Scoundrel.

  Single feather floats

  The spinning cyclone awaits

  Cannot pass a wall

  The men slowed as they approached me, obviously wary. In the background, Brendan was grunting, trying to see how bad the shot had been.

  On the ground, the slender man was screaming, “Kill him! Kill the judicar!”

  I wondered that he wasn’t raising everyone in the street.

  “I didn’t bring you here to be fecking cowards! Kill him!”

  Ely had shot the one man that I hadn’t paid much heed. Unlike me, she had struck centri corpus. That barbed pin was embedded in the right side of his chest. Just a glance was enough to tell me that the man probably did not have long for this world. He was crying out, frantically working at the pin, but he was lung shot, bleeding from the mouth and nose, and one way or the other, wouldn’t live long.

  Of course, the crank on the cliffcaster was still just as relentless as it had been before. Because Ely was above me, she was actually drawing the man toward me. Of course, in his frantic throes, he didn’t have much mind for me, but the problem was he didn’t have much mind for anyone. His terror was so overwhelming that in trying to get the pin from his chest, he stumbled across the slender man on the ground.

  He stumbled and fell. It took me a long moment to realize what that fall meant.

  All I heard was the tinkling of broken glass.

  “Jarôme!” The slender man was horrified. “Stop—”

  But of course, it was already too late.

  Apparently, my slender friend had more of the Ferric Rime than he had thrown in the window. Perhaps he felt he hadn’t needed all of it, but his reasoning scarcely mattered now. The man that Ely had hooked had stumbled across my slender friend’s bag and had apparently shattered at least one container of the stuff.

  Both men screamed in agony. There was a flash of hungry, azure light.

  This of course horrified everyone present, but only the brave judicar had the presence of mind to use this particular catastrophe.

  With all the salt in me, I spun toward one of the remaining standing men. I swung my stave and connected solidly with the side of the man’s face.

  It crunched beneath my stave with a sound that was both wet and agonizing. His cry was as much a gurgle, coming as it did through the blood he was currently gagging upon. The man crumpled like he was made from wet straw.

  That left one man standing.

  “Friend, you might pay attention to your options. By my tally you just dropped from five-on-one to one-on-two over the course of a few heartbeats.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps this isn’t your fight.”

  The man looked around wildly, first at the man that I had dropped with a single stroke, then at Brendan with his entire left side soaked in blood from his shoulder, then to the two men in the center who were still screaming. The slender man was frantically trying to scurry away from the Ferric Rime while his friend who had stumbled was inexorably being dragged toward me as the Rime ate at him where he had fallen into it.

  Their clothing had become brittle and shattered where it had touched the Rime. Just as Ely had said, the skin beneath was black, burned by the intense cold.

  The man I was facing took two steps back. His eyes were wild, casting all about.

  I kept my gaze upon him. “Here’s the deal, chum. As of late last night I knew that someone was hunting for me, but I didn’t know who. Now, thanks to my good friend Brendan I know that it’s the Blades.”

  The Ferric Rime was spreading from where it had broken. It was hungry and quicker than I had thought it would be. Already it had spread into a circle about three strides across. The slender man’s eyes were wild as he looked upon it, backing away from it as one might hungry wolf.

  I looked Brendan square. “My lady friend is going to come down. You are shot in the shoulder. Your slender gentleman is shot through, as well as your friend here.” I tapped the ever tightening cordage with my stave, and the man on the other end of it cried out. “One of your men is down, and the fight has gone out of another.” I glanced between the man I had dropped and the one who was backing off. Then I fixed him with a dark look. “Cry off.”

  Brendan seemed to realize that, simply by virtue of me knowing him, I had granted him the right to make the call. Obviously, the slender man was the one who was actually in charge. However, that particular gentleman was currently scrambling away from alchemical horror and had much of his left side burned away from the frigid substance, both clothing and flesh. He did not look well.

  Brendan glanced at his comrades, but only took a nonce to make the call. He looked down and nodded.

  “I could kill you all where you stand.” I took a step toward him, my stave strongly in hand “There aren’t enough nearby stocks for me to hold you until I could try you before a legate. For what you have done to me and to my friend’s place of business, I could slaughter you like sheep in the streets.”

  “Judicar. Please.” Brendan looked up at me. For the first time, he seemed legitimately afraid.

  “Don’t.” I took another step. “Don’t you dare beg me. Don’t you dare pretend that anything you could possibly say or do would sway my decision.” I nodded at him. “I’m sending you scurrying back to Sebaste. I’m sending the five of you limping home, bloody and beat. That’s the mercy you get. You failed, and I’m letting you live. You five can be my little runner boys.”

  Ely had stopped the crank on the one that she had shot through. I glanced at him over my shoulder. He was sinking to his knees, trying to breathe. I didn’t have high hopes for him. His breaths gurgled.

  I then glanced back to Brendan. “Four. You four.” Then I saw the slender man had stopped moving and slumped over. It was clear that the Rime had frozen over half his body. “Maybe three.”

  Brendan nodded.

  I kept my gaze on him. “You will be my message to Sebaste: If the Twilight Blades are coming for a judicar, then I will know why. I will know why, and I and mine will come for him. That’s all he needs to know.”

  “Yes, Judicar.” He was almost meek, holding his hand over the place where the quarrel was still inside him. He looked pale from blood loss.

  It was amazing how quickly the fight went out of a man when you thoroughly thrashed him and four of his fellows.

  I looked up at Ely. “Ely, can you come down here?” My question was almost nonchalant. “I may need your professional assistance in dealing with the alchemy these gentlemen have brought.” Behind us, the odd blue light crackled and sang as it spread.

  Ely climbed down the ladder, feigning a calm assurance. I noticed how much her hands were trembling, but I was certain that the Blades did not. She looked at the blue flickering light, her face a passive mask.

  “It depe
nds on how much of the substance was in those containers.” She looked up at me. “It will burn itself out. It can’t go on forever.”

  I sighed. I turned my gaze back to Brendan. “Do you know how many there were?”

  Ely stepped forward. “Not the bottles. How many drachms of the substance were there?”

  Brendan shook his head “I—”

  Ely barked a short laugh. “You don’t even know. You were carrying around deadly alchemy, and you don’t even know how much of it there was.”

  “We—that is, I wasn’t handling it—”

  “You’re…” Ely looked at them with wonder. “You’re an imbecile. You’re all imbeciles.” She looked to me, at a loss.

  I sighed. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

  “Well, yes.” She nodded thoughtfully. “It can be smothered, just like a fire can. I’ve got some chemical suppressant in the back of the shop. I was using it for a project, but…”

  “Sounds like we can take care of it.”

  “We can,” she nodded again, seeming far more certain. “I’ll step around to the back entrance. I don’t think the Rime reached that door.”

  “That just leaves you,” I gave Brendan a sharp look. “You need to get your men and get out of here. Tell Sebaste I’ll be seeing him soon. He may expect a bill for damages.”

  “Judicar, I…” Brendan looked as if he had more to say, but then he saw the look on my face. “I will.” He nodded.

  The one man who hadn’t been injured helped another to his feet, the man who I’d smashed in the face with my stave. The man who Ely had lung-shot was still, as was the slender man who had been in my flat the night before.

  I sighed. I’d have to get the Cryptmen up here. There would be forms to sign and reports to file. I’d have to make a statement to Legate Madigan before this was over.

  Ugh.

  For now, I went to see if I could help Ely with the chemical suppressant. The glowing Rime seemed to be fading, but we needed to be certain. Besides, if the choice was between helping Ely deal with dangerous, life threatening alchemy or filing paperwork with the city…

  Well, that was no choice at all.

  3

  Almost two bells later, Ely sat with me at a small table along the outer edge of Ashe Court. I had already enjoyed my first cup of coffe in the day, and she was picking at a small pastry.

  Of course, I had bought her the pastry. It was the least I could do after having a small gang of undesirables attack her shop.

  “It will mostly be fine.” She blew a strand of brown hair out of her face. “I mean, there will be some damage. I am certain that some of the more brittle alloys that I work with will be cracked and some of the chemicals that I work with may have degraded, but for the most part, cold doesn’t ruin gears and cogs.”

  “It almost ruined us.” I smiled at Rissa, our young waitress as she brought me another coffe. “I was truly worried there for a moment.”

  “Only because you didn’t think I would be of help.” She gave me a sour look. “Honestly, Thom, you always underestimate me.”

  “I just don’t expect you to have had as much training dealing with scraps as I have.” I nudged her. “Besides, you’re so small. How can anyone guess that you’d have it in you to spear them with a cliffcaster?”

  She laughed, her smirk tracing up the side of her face. “If a girl doesn’t keep a few surprises lying around, then she’s not interesting company.” Her smirk softened. She leaned closer to me. “Seriously, Thom, you’ve got to tell me…” Genuine concern furrowed her brow. “Why are the Twilight Blades after you? Why do they want you so badly that they would attack someone’s shop?”

  “You should bill Sebaste, you know.” I sighed, setting down my coffe. “Are you being straight with me? Are you certain that your shop isn’t badly damaged?”

  “Ferric Rime is dangerous.” She made certain I could see the seriousness in her face. “It’s heavily regulated. I’d say that the Twilight Blades would have to go far out of their way to get some…”

  “How far out of their way?” I mused on that for a moment. Why attack me with rare alchemy? What did it mean that they came at me that way?

  “Quite far out of their way. It’s a secret. You can’t make wintersteel without Ferric Rime.” She held her hands out, palms up. “You simply can’t. It’s so very heavily regulated because it’s quite dangerous. It’s been used to kill people before.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t ever heard anything about this.

  She nodded “Think about it. Your mark is alone in their home. Someone breaks a bottle of Ferric Rime in the room. They can’t get out. As the Rime burns itself out, the person is frozen to death. Their skin is black, the worst kind of frostbite you can imagine. Some things in the room might have become so brittle that if you tried to move them while frozen, they would shatter. But over the next couple of hours? The temperature will return to normal fairly quickly. Most objects are completely undamaged by the Rime.”

  I nodded. It made sense. As a judicar, if I were to find a corpse with blackened skin while the room was otherwise undamaged, I would have more than two questions. It was certainly a unique way to kill them.

  “Still,” I mused. “Seems like a fairly expensive weapon.”

  “Lost gods, yes!” She nodded vigorously. “They probably could have made twenty salt notes on what they threw through my windows tonight.”

  That was a sobering thought.

  “What have you done to the Twilight Blades?” Ely was returning to her original point. “Do you think I need to watch out for the next few days?”

  “No.” I shook my head slightly. “Of course, I didn’t think you needed to look out tonight. But I’m certain they were after me. Men came to my home last night as well.”

  “Last night as well?” She leaned forward, anger flashing. “Where is Wil Sommers while armed thugs are sneaking into your house and throwing alchemical weapons through my windows?”

  “Wil isn’t responsible for everything in my life.” I took another sip of my coffe. “I’m a judicar too, Ely. It’s a dangerous job.”

  “I can’t possibly believe that every judicar is attacked nightly, particularly not by thugs wielding alchemical marvels.” She leveled a hard look at me. “Thom, seriously, I worry sometimes that you don’t recognize the kind of trouble you get into.”

  I worried the exact same thing.

  “The good news is, even though I don’t know the exact interests of the Blades, I know the man who might.” I leveled my eyes. “Booker Dox.”

  “Booker Dox?” She sighed. “I don’t know that that’s any better. You know that he is in the pocket of the Red Marquis right?” Ely seemed intently serious.

  I laughed.

  I was fairly certain that I was as well.

  Wyndward

  Riddling, Sixth Bell Dawning

  The Wyndhause was on the far winterside of the Warrens, so I had a little bit of a walk. Now that I was absolutely certain that the Twilight Blades were somehow involved, it was even more important that I learned what Booker had to say.

  However, I had one thing to attend to first.

  Yesterday had obviously set me behind a little bit, being laid up on Ely’s couch all day, but it wasn’t going to do me any good to begin today’s adventures without the assistance of a certain curious and ever hungry girl. As soon as I could, I hired a young boy from the Runner’s Guild to get a message to the Rookery.

  Send Scoundrel to the Masque and Moon, I’ll meet her there.

  Tomas das Judicas

  I set it with my seal, pushing the imprint of my judicar token into the wax.

  Of course, there were various locations my girl could be sent to; her training was quite cunning. There were seven different food boxes scattered across the Warrens, boxes that had simple locking mechanisms, as long as one had the proper implement. These implements, or “rook—keys,” were things that the birds were well trained with. Once Scoundrel was given the
proper rook—key, she knew exactly which food box she could open. She would happily carry the key across the city, hawk the lock, and then eat like a queen.

  This system served us quite well. I have to admit, I didn’t use it as much as I should have. My mentor, a judicar by the name of Alejandro, was always grousing at me how I didn’t carry all my rook-keys.

  If my girl showed up at the Masque and Moon and I wasn’t there, she would even wait about for me for a bit, gorging on dried corn. If she got too bored, she would take a couple of loops around the Warrens or check at my home before winging back to the Rookery.

  This way, I knew that the dark-feathered, young troublemaker would find me, no matter what happened.

  As I had a little time, I took a short patrol while on my way to retrieve Scoundrel. I meandered my way through the city streets, doing my best to deal with matters of small import and helping citizenry with the myriad tiny calamities that plagued them. In a way, this job was actually as important as anything I might do on the serum—the citizenry needed to see us as present and beneficial forces in their lives.

  Of course, it never felt as important. Instead, it felt like every citizen in the Warrens wanted a judicar’s opinion on every bit of minutiae in their lives. Just while waiting on my girl, I counseled a young guildman as to the protocols for handling an undesirable, discussed with a salon owner where she might pay her back taxes, and had a lengthy discussion with a couple of older gentlemen about Alejandro, the judicar who had patrolled this borough before me.

  Finally, I saw Scoundrel in front of the Masque and Moon.

  She was buried up to the beak in dried corn, standing inside the raven’s iron feed station. I smiled at my good girl and gave a sharp whistle, my fingers between my teeth.

  Immediately, she looked up. I gestured.

  Good bird.

  “Good Thom.” She packed in another few kernels, happily clucking and cawing to herself.