The Fifth Ward--First Watch

by Dale Lucas

  “You can,” Rem said. He meant it.

  “Don’t make me sorry,” Torval said.

  “I won’t,” Rem said.

  Torval stared at him for a long time, studying him, trying his best to wheedle out any weaknesses or secrets. After a time, he seemed to give up, finding none. His face softened.

  “I’m tired,” Torval said.

  “As am I,” Rem offered, starting to rise.

  “You look it,” Torval said.

  “I should go,” Rem said, offering his hand. “Thank you, Torval.”

  “You don’t have to,” Torval said. “Go, that is. The children sleep in a man’s bed. It should fit you.”

  “No, I couldn’t—”

  “Come on!” Torval barked. “You’re dog-tired and I’ve got a place for you to sleep. It’s the least I can do after dragging you here and plying you with ale and mutton.”

  Rem considered. He really didn’t feel like walking home at present. Falling right into a bed sounded rather appealing.

  “And here,” Torval said, leaning forward a little and whispering conspiratorially. “On our way into the watchkeep, what say we swing by the market where you first met her and ask after your missing lady friend?”

  Rem was taken aback by that sudden offer. Torval, however, seemed delighted to make it, as if the search for Indilen were not simply Rem’s obsession but Torval’s own, as well.

  “Fine,” Rem said, working very hard to suppress his gratitude and his eagerness. If he were not so bone-weary and bleary-eyed, he would insist they take to the streets at that very moment. “Show me the bed, and quickly, before I fall on my face.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  While Rem slept, he dreamt of Indilen. She found him in the Pickled Albatross and whispered in his ear. He turned to meet her, to finally draw her into his lap and see what those soft pink lips of hers tasted like, but in the short breath that it took him to turn, she had already stolen away across the room. A sea of patrons well in their cups and rowdy gamblers stood between Rem and his prize. Still, Rem chased her. Always, Indilen was far ahead of him, moving across the room from this corner to that in the blink of an eye, never where he thought she would be, always just out of reach.

  From that unpleasant dream, Rem woke. He felt a deep pang of disappointment and loneliness within him—worse than any he’d ever known, a strange assurance that now and forever, he would always be alone, unloved, and most likely, unremembered. It was a strange feeling—deep and sure and biting and entirely unlike him—but he could not deny it. He chalked it up to being tired and still being new to the city, then turned over in the children’s bed.

  Across the room he saw Torval asleep on his little wooden cot. The dwarf lay on his back, snoring, one hand on his slowly rising chest, the other hanging off the bed beside him.

  A man stood beside Torval’s bed. He wore a dark cape and cowl, and held in his right hand a gleaming, well-honed dagger.

  That wasn’t right.

  Rem searched for his watchman’s stave and saw it, just beyond his reach, hanging from a hook on the adjacent wall. He was reasonably sure he could take the intruder if he were armed, but he wasn’t eager to challenge the cloaked man with the dagger empty-handed. And there was no time to waste—in two breaths, maybe three, that dagger would be at Torval’s throat.

  Rem rolled himself out of bed, tottered upright, then dove for the stick.

  “Torval!” he shouted.

  The intruder spun.

  Torval woke.

  Rem had his hand on his stave now. He yanked it off the hook and turned to face the armed intruder. It had to be late afternoon, because the light had shifted in the little sleeping room and the shadows were deep. He tried to get a good look at his adversary, but he couldn’t see any more than the barest suggestion of a face and the glitter of eyes deep inside the dark cowl. Nonetheless, the figure’s stance and the gleam of his blade suggested that he was a brave fighter with ample experience.

  “Sundry hells!” Torval shouted when he saw the armed intruder towering over him.

  The stranger struck with a fist, smacking Torval right in the face and sending him reeling back onto the little cot. The dwarf, stunned, let loose a string of colorful curses.

  Rem turned his body sideward to make himself a narrower target and put the wooden stave out before him, as though it were a sword on guard. Surely, with this solid, arm-length piece of oak he could take a man with a knife.

  The assassin silently accepted Rem’s challenge and went on guard as well. He then surprised Rem by reaching under his cloak and drawing another blade—a full-length sword. It whispered from its scabbard and the point bobbed low in Rem’s vision, looking entirely too sharp, too lethal. By its grace and fine workmanship, Rem marked the blade as mostly likely Estavari in make. A man who owned a blade like that probably knew well how to use it.

  And here Rem stood, with nothing but a stick.

  He shifted backward and his foot hit something. There was a clatter and a thump. Rem dared only a moment’s glance to see what he’d almost tripped on.

  It was Torval’s maul.

  The assassin took the opening. He lunged forward and thrust with his blade—a full-arc cut being impractical in the tight space of the long, narrow sleeping room. Rem threw his forward shoulder back and brought the stave up in a clumsy parry. Clumsy it may have been, but it worked. The blade was pushed aside by the blow—but the assassin recovered and struck next with the dagger in his other hand. The little blade whistled through the air just inches from Rem’s face.

  Torval was up now. He threw himself on the assassin with a bullish battle cry and tried to get his thick little arms around the assassin’s throat. The assassin avoided being so encumbered, spun, and threw Torval off with a shrug. The dwarf went crashing to the floor in the far corner, smashing the cot as he landed.

  That was Rem’s chance. He dove, snatched up the iron maul, then turned to face his opponent again. Now they were more evenly matched—sword and dagger against maul and stave. The long, narrow bedroom would keep the assassin from making full use of his long blade, but the unbalanced weight of the maul could easily make any attacks Rem attempted with it clumsy and irregular. He choked up his hold on the maul to better balance it, then lunged forward.

  He surprised the assassin, as he’d hoped to, unleashing a fierce bevy of strikes with the stave that the assassin was forced to block with his dagger arm. When the assassin tried to thrust with his sword again, Rem swung the maul around and blocked the strike, sending the point of the blade wide and saving himself from another bleeding wound. He hoped to shatter his opponent’s blade with the heavy bludgeon—but no such luck.

  They fought on, Rem parrying the thrusts and slashes of the sword with stave and maul, deep notches being hacked into his nightstick as he fought, the point of the blade coming dangerously close several times to his rolling shoulder, his striking arm, his bobbing head. He couldn’t keep blocking the sword with the stave forever—sooner or later, the blade would hack right through it. He had to disarm his opponent or unfoot him before that happened.

  In the corner, Torval was just recovering. Doing his best to keep his eye on his opponent, Rem saw the dwarf take up some piece of the cot as a makeshift bludgeon and come charging at the assassin from behind. The assassin saw the charge as well. He thrust with his sword, the point this time slipping right through Rem’s defenses and piercing his left shoulder, then spun to meet Torval and tried to skewer the charging dwarf on his dagger.

  Torval met the dagger with the cot leg in his hand, thrust the assassin’s knife hand aside, then tried to plunge the blunt end of the wooden cot leg into the assassin’s gut. He didn’t see that the sword was high and ready to come crashing down on his bald head.

  Rem charged, throwing down his stave and laying both hands on the long handle of the iron maul. He held the maul horizontally before him and slammed right into the assassin’s undefended right flank, staving off the fall of the
sword and driving his opponent into the back wall of the bedroom, nearest the little door that led into the front chamber. Close by, Rem heard a tear and a clatter of coin. He dared a glance and saw that the sharp, broken end of Torval’s makeshift bludgeon had ensnared a small pouch at the assassin’s belt and torn it open. The clatter Rem heard were the pouch’s contents, spilling onto the floor. Rem redoubled his efforts to immobilize their opponent.

  The assassin was in a frenzy. He fought with Torval, still attacking him from one side, as Rem pressed him hard against the chamber wall. As Rem and the assassin struggled, the spike on Torval’s maul dipped and cut a long, shallow, bloody wound into the assassin’s left bicep. Rem heard a startled growl, then a muttered curse, then felt the assassin’s knee in his groin. The blow was stunning and he doubled over in agony. The assassin then sent Torval reeling with a clumsy blow from the pommel of his sword, broke from the pair of them, ducked through the doorway, and fled.

  Torval tried to give chase, leaping right over Rem—but his trailing foot caught on Rem’s bent shoulder. Torval went sprawling on his face. In his teary-eyed discomfort, Rem saw the assassin rushing right out of Torval’s door and heard his boots go pounding down the stairs in the hall outside.

  Torval rolled off Rem and scurried to his feet. “Are you all right, lad? Did he stick you?”

  “I wish he had,” Rem gasped. “Aemon, I wish he had …”

  “Walk it off, son,” Torval said, patting his shoulder. “Hurts like the sundry hells, I’m sure, but it’s better than being dead. Which I’d be if you didn’t wake me when you did and hold that bastard off.”

  Rem was regaining himself. He managed to sit up but couldn’t quite stretch out his legs. “You’re welcome,” he muttered. His hands were still clasped around his aching family jewels.

  Torval shook his head. “I mean it, boy. That was quick thinking. And fine stave work! I reckon you weren’t lying when you said you were good with a sword. If you’d been so armed here and now, you’d have probably ended that son of a whore where he stood. As it was, he only almost had you because you didn’t have a blade to match him with.”

  “I appreciate it,” Rem said, Torval’s praises falling on pain-deafened ears.

  “That bastard,” Torval growled, pacing the room now like a caged tiger. “Stalking me here, in my gods-damned own home! The nerve! I’ll have him flayed for that bit of villainy, I swear it!”

  Rem managed to get on his feet again. It still hurt, but at least he could stand to be upright now. “We’ve got to catch him first,” he said. “And I didn’t see his face.”

  “Me neither,” Torval said. “But no matter. We know we’re onto something now.”

  “And how do we know that?” Rem asked.

  Torval smiled. “Why else would someone try to hunt and kill us?”

  He had a point, at that.

  Torval now lowered his eyes and studied the mess of detritus that had come raining from the assassin’s torn belt pouch. Rem studied the mess as well. Mostly, it was coin—brass stars, a few large and small silver pieces, a handful of brass and coppers thrown in. There was a sterling-silver broach in the shape of a rearing stallion, a simple and lovely little bauble that looked both antique and expensive. Also, there were a few broken wooden chits with numbers carved into them, the sort used by pawnbrokers as checks for pawned merchandise.

  But Torval seized upon a single item: a wooden disk, a little larger than a coin, painted in bright shades of blue, purple, and yellow and bearing upon it a bright, pale-yellow “500” in old Horunic numerals.

  “What is that?” Rem asked, moving closer to examine it.

  Torval had a satisfied smirk on his face. “It’s a gambling mark. Some of the gaming houses in the city use them on their gaming floors so they can keep all the real coin under lock and key. Tends to cut down on men getting into desperate and fatal contests at their tables, or likewise, trying to rob the place blind.”

  “Well, where’s it from?” Rem pressed, excited that they had such a concrete clue as to their assassin’s recent whereabouts.

  Torval turned the chip over. On the opposite side was a crude icon in the form of a black bird, like a raven or a crow.

  “That’s the sign of the Nightjar,” Torval said. “He’s the thief prince of the Fourth Ward—wealthy, powerful, and all but untouchable thanks to his partnership with the Fourth’s prefect, Frennis.”

  “So, he’d probably be unlikely to talk to us, wouldn’t he?” Rem asked.

  Torval’s smirk became a smile. “Talk? Lad, we’ll make that bastard sing. Come on.”

  They left word with the arkwright downstairs that the rooms had been compromised, and that neither Osma nor the children were to sleep there. Torval instead steered them toward the King’s Ass and told them to ask for Aarna. Then all that remained was for he and Rem to swing by said tavern and leave word that Torval’s family would need a room for the night. Torval didn’t want to waste time on in-depth explanations, but Aarna was more than willing to help, and swore she would see personally to their safety.

  After that, Torval led Rem elsewhere. This time, they tromped through a tangle of back alleys, inns, and taverns, meandering down toward the Fourth Ward waterfront to a rather imposing-looking warehouse guarded by a pair of burly, well-armed, swarthy southerners—Tsauranian or Ferosi, Rem couldn’t tell which. The shabby, muddy square that the warehouse fronted was swathed in unfriendly shadows and had a haunted, gone-to-seed look about it, while the warehouse itself held court over the largely empty crossroads and bled chaotic noise from within.

  Torval paused for a long time, watching the warehouse as hard and desperate men of all sorts meandered in and out, all challenged by the burly doormen but eventually gaining their entry. After a while, the dwarf’s hesitation started to make Rem uneasy.

  “What are we waiting for?” he asked.

  Torval turned and eyed him suspiciously. “I’m having second thoughts, lad.”

  “About what?”

  Torval suggested the warehouse with a jerk of his head. “This is someone else’s ward—someone else’s watch. By rights, we shouldn’t be here without warrants from our prefect or the tacit permission of this district’s prefect.”

  “Do we need to circle back to the watchkeep, then?” Rem asked.

  Torval shook his head. “No. Ondego won’t allow it. He’s a good commander, but he’s learned that keeping the peace and staying out from under the feet of the other prefects is the best way to get along. And Frennis, prefect of the Fourth, is the most territorial among them. He’s a hard man, not to be trifled with.”

  “You said he had some sort of partnership with this Nightjar,” Rem said. “That tells me he’s not just a hard man—he’s a corrupt one as well. Shouldn’t a man like that be challenged?”

  Torval stared at Rem, his face suggesting something like pity. “Maybe in the north, lad … but this is Yenara. The rules are different here.”

  Rem studied the warehouse. Studied Torval. Considered all of their options. “It’s me, isn’t it?” he finally asked. “If you were alone, you’d do this without hesitation, but because I’m a whelp in these woods, and new to the watch, you think I have to be protected.”

  Torval sighed and gave a reticent nod. “That might have something to do with it. If we go in there and start making trouble, asking questions without a by-your-leave from Frennis himself, we could be leaping into a snake pit without a ladder.”

  Rem stared right into Torval’s eyes. He wanted to be sure the dwarf saw his seriousness. “I’m your partner, Torval. Someone just tried to kill us, and we’ve got evidence suggesting they were here, in this place. Considering no one was trying to kill us before we started investigating your former partner’s murder, I’m willing to guess that the information we glean here will carry us a little closer to some answers. You can worry over my well-being all you like, but my life is on the line in this, too.

  “So, what’s it going to be, Old Stump—g
o it alone, or let your partner do his job and watch your back?”

  Torval, to Rem’s great surprise, smiled. He was beaming with an almost fatherly pride. “Into the snake pit, then?”

  Rem swept his arm. “After you, sir.”

  They stowed their watchwarden badges under their shirts and crossed the square under the gaze of the many darkened and empty houses and storefronts that gazed out blankly upon it. It seemed that the warehouse was the only business still operating in this quayside corner of the Fourth. The closer they got, the louder the warehouse became. It was as if an entire spring tournament were being held beneath its ancient rafters and sagging shingles, for Rem picked out intermittent cheers, exhortations, and cries of despair amid the generalized roar of an excited crowd. In moments, they had made the door.

  The bouncers didn’t balk at letting Torval through the front door, despite the fact that he never flashed his watchman’s signet. Either they recognized him for who he was or they had mistaken him for someone else entirely. Either way, they made it easy. They stepped aside in deference and urged him on. Torval led the way. Rem followed.

  Inside, Rem was overwhelmed by a pandemonium of noise and activity. The warehouse’s fringe regions and upper gallery were filled with tables and chairs, a vast and bustling sporting house where games were played, whores plied their wares, and men drank vast quantities of liquor at dark corner tables all alone. But beyond these staid borderlands lay the real attraction of this strange place. Deeper into the warehouse, there were pits dug into the earthen floor. Those pits were surrounded by screaming, cheering patrons whose faces were masks of lust and fury. In those pits were fighting animals, and by their savagery and scars, Rem guessed they fought to the death.

  In the first pit they came to, the contest was between a big brown bear and a trio of snapping, drooling mastiffs. By the look of things, the bear was winning, one hound already lying to the side and bleeding its last while its two fellows continued to charge the bear, snap at its swiping paws or spread legs, then retreat before it could end them. But the bear was chained in place and could move no more than a few feet in any direction. Gradually, even in the few fleeting moments that Rem watched, the mastiffs seemed to sense this. They were testing the bear’s boundaries and area of movement, preparing for a final, coordinated assault. Rem guessed that if one of them could take the beast from the rear while the other dove in to tear at its gut, the bear would not survive.