by Dale Lucas
But that wasn’t the only contest on display. Torval led Rem past the bear pit, through the roiling crowd, and deeper into the warehouse’s cavernous bowels. Along the way, Rem saw more pits with more animal contests—albeit some much smaller and simpler than the bear baiting. There was a staked pit wherein cockfights unfolded; another depressed pit where a terrier snapped at a brace of hungry, red-eyed rats; and another pit of similar size to the bear pit, where an orc fought a pair of angry, toothy, bristling boars. The orc was making a good show of it, but even in the fleeting moments that passed as Rem and Torval circled the pit, Rem saw one of the boars charge and knock the huffing orc right off its feet and onto its back. It would only be a matter of time before the orc’s entrails littered the fighting pit, courtesy of the tusks of those two angry, cornered boars. Rem didn’t care to be present when that outcome came to pass.
He leaned toward Torval.
“Who are we looking for?” he asked, having to shout to be heard above the din in the great gaming house.
“Watch the gallery,” Torval said, suggesting the wooden catwalks above them, lined with patrons and gamblers. “The Nightjar’s an ebon Maswari chap. Handsome, with green eyes.”
Rem nodded and started scanning the milling crowd above and around them. Certainly, here in the west, a fellow from Maswari, far to the south, would stand out like a shadow on a white shroud. Rem did not see many southlanders about them—there were not many in Yenara—so surely, locating one couldn’t be too troubling for them.
But no matter where he looked, how deeply he concentrated, he saw nothing. There was no sign of an ebon fellow anywhere in the milling crowd that met Torval’s description. Worse, that orc in the pit off to their left was in trouble now, down on his knees, wrestling with the boars. He wouldn’t last long.
Suddenly, Torval grabbed Rem’s wrist and yanked him close. His grip was so hard that Rem cried out and instinctively yanked his arm away from the dwarf. Torval offered no apologies. He just pointed.
Rem followed the invisible line suggested by Torval’s pointing finger. There, in the crowd, was a familiar, pug-nosed, red-haired thief: Ginger Joss, the very same villain they’d discovered the night before in Freygaf’s chambers and stolen the strange pendant from; the same rogue who’d hired a pair of sellswords to gut them in the street earlier that morning.
Torval waved Rem close. “Circle around him. I’ll approach from the front. When he tries to run, you be ready to stop him.”
Rem nodded and separated from Torval. He went jostling through the crowd beside the boar pit. A sudden roar went up, along with cries of incredulity and disappointment. Rem stole a glance and saw the orc in the pit holding a handful of his own ropy entrails as one of the boars tore into his gut, swinging its head from side to side as though it were snuffling for truffles. The orc tried to beat the beast back with its bare fists, but the fight was over. Already the light was leaving the knuckle dragger’s dark-green eyes.
Money changed hands. Bets were won and lost. On to the next contest.
Rem kept Ginger Joss in his sights. Off to his left, Torval slowly pressed through the crowd, in no hurry, trying to get as close as he could before Joss saw him and bolted. Rem was nearing him rapidly now, only a few yards from the red-haired little thief as the knave collected coin from a nearby gambler and offered his sincerest condolences on the outcome of the fight.
Then Joss glanced up and saw Rem.
He recognized him instantly.
He ran.
“Torval!” Rem cried, but his voice was swallowed in the din. There was no way he would be heard in the noisy warehouse. He tried to press after Joss, but suddenly the crowd was moving against him. They wouldn’t part, and they all seemed to be flowing in another direction, toward the back of the warehouse, away from the blood-littered boar pit. Rem was fighting against the tide, and Joss was getting away.
He saw the shock of red hair bobbing above the crowd, zigzagging this way and that to find the path of least resistance. Joss was making better headway than Rem, and Rem was terrified he would escape.
Then, suddenly, something seemed to yank Joss under the human tide. Down he went with a cry that couldn’t be heard from where Rem stood. A few of the people just around Joss seemed to take notice that there was a man suddenly underfoot, looked perplexed, then flowed on around him. Rem pressed on, trying to reach the spot where Joss had just collapsed.
When he reached it, he realized that Joss had not tripped or fallen: Torval had run right into him, yanked him off his feet, and now straddled Joss’s heaving chest, holding him with his jerkin bunched up in his little dwarven fists, screaming into his face.
“Just where did you think you were going, Joss? Eh? Just where did you think you were off to, you slippery, slimy little eel?”
Joss struggled mightily, but Torval had him well pinned. There was no rising with the dwarf’s concentrated bulk on top of him. Someone tried to bend to Joss’s aid and help him to his feet, but Rem took the initiative and shoved them off.
“Wardwatch business!” he shouted. “Carry on!”
Joss jostled this way and that, doing his damnedest to buck Torval off him. It wasn’t working.
Then, all at once, Rem was aware of a strange silence having fallen. All the movement around them stopped. All eyes turned toward the two watchwardens and their prisoner. Torval didn’t notice right away, still too busy subduing the wriggling Joss, but Rem noted the change and it filled him with fear. He scanned the crowd.
Just a stone’s throw away from them, the crowd parted around two men like waters around a boulder in a rushing river. One was a tall, well-made ebon with skin the color of loamy earth and eyes like two flashing emeralds. Beside him stood a big, broad man made of equal parts fat and muscle, with a shaggy head of gray-flecked red hair and flashing eyes full of playful malice. The man wore a medallion around his throat, a lead likeness of the city of Yenara with a Horunic numeral “4” stamped upon it.
Rem nudged Torval, who finally stopped wrestling with Joss and lifted his gaze. When Torval saw the newcomers, his eyes narrowed and his mouth set stonily.
“Nightjar,” he said with a nod. “Prefect Frennis.”
“This is, indeed, a surprise,” Frennis said with mock amusement. “And, if I’m not mistaken, Watchwarden, I think you are well acquainted with my absolute disdain for surprises.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Well,” Torval said, rising and planting one foot on Joss’s chest, “We came here looking for the two of you, in fact. As it happened, I came across this suspect and decided I’d apprehend him before seeing to the business that brought me.”
“And what’s he suspected of?” Frennis asked.
“Murder,” Torval said. “The murder of a watchwarden, too, if you must know.”
The Nightjar’s eyes widened, as though in surprise. He looked to Frennis. “Those are very serious allegations,” he said, “I suppose we should accommodate these good seekers and answer their questions, and sooner clear our good names and the spotless reputation of this establishment.”
“Aye,” Torval said. “That you should.”
“I have a better idea,” Frennis said to the Nightjar, loud enough so that all could hear him. “What say we bring all of these miscreants into more private quarters and have a little palaver with the lot of them? After all, these two claim to be watchwardens, even though they don’t wear their signets and they’ve clearly broken the rules of their office by pursuing suspects and prosecuting an investigation in a ward not their own.”
The Nightjar gestured toward Joss and spoke to a pair of bodyguards lingering nearby. “Get him up. Take him to the salon. Make sure the other two follow.”
The bodyguards—one a muscled, topknotted Kosterman, the other sporting tight curls and ruddy, angular cheeks that marked him as Loffmaric—did as they were told, shoving Torval off Joss and lifting the little red-headed thief as though he were a rag doll. He fought, but their grip was ironcla
d. Frennis led the way and the guards followed. The Nightjar gestured again, encouraging Torval and Rem to follow the five of them.
“After you, gentlemen,” he said.
Torval did as he was told and cocked his head, indicating that Rem should follow. Rem, not entirely sure he wanted to know what sort of salon this man was inviting them into, dutifully followed. The Nightjar did not join them. He simply stood in silence, among his customers, as Rem and Torval and Joss were led away by Frennis and those two burly bodyguards.
Rem shot an inquisitive glance at Torval. The frown carved onto the dwarf’s face did not inspire confidence.
Frennis led them into a dark and cluttered sanctum at the rear of the warehouse. This was nothing like the Creeper’s lair—no plush Shimzari carpets, no casks of ale or brandy, no friendly golden glow from a bevy of brass lamps and candles. No, the space that Frennis led them into was nothing more than a boathouse appended to the great warehouse, where the crime lord’s animal gladiators fought their battles. It was high-ceilinged, drafty, and filled with strange, shifting light and shadows from the ripples on the water and the wan light of a few torches left burning in the great, cluttered space. On all sides were stacked crates and barrels and casks of gods-knew-what, and every inch of the floor seemed to be littered with something potentially hazardous: old coils of rope or rusty anchor chains, broken glass or splintered wooden planks. Rem disliked the space the moment they entered it, because it felt like the sort of space that might hide an ambush. There were too many nooks and crannies, too many recesses, too many shadows.
As they all traipsed into the great, cluttered space, hulking Frennis turned and spoke to Torval. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” he asked. “Your face and name both seem familiar to me.”
“More than once, Warden, sir,” Torval said, his voice devoid of all courtesy.
“You had another partner, didn’t you? A northman?”
“Freygaf,” Torval said.
“And what became of him?”
Torval shot a glance at Rem. He was clearly impatient, suspecting—if not entirely sure—that Frennis knew damn well who he was and who his partner had been and what became of him. “He was murdered,” Torval growled through gritted teeth.
Frennis stopped at the edge of the dock, staring down into the murky-green waters beneath him. He searched his environs, seeming satisfied when he found a nearby bucket. It was too dark for Rem to see what was in the bucket, but whatever it was, Frennis bent, took out a morsel, and looked once more to the water.
“I’m surprised that knowledge escaped you,” Torval said, with just a touch too much malice in his voice. “I would think that the death of any watchwarden, in any ward of this city, would be cause for a fellow watchman’s grief.”
Frennis tossed whatever he held in his hands into the water. Suddenly, there was a violent roiling as a pair of swirling, shining gray shapes leapt and tumbled and rolled, trying to get at whatever the prefect had thrown them. Rem saw rolling black eyes, snapping jaws full of razor-sharp teeth, and skin like rough gray leather.
Sharks—not so uncommon in the waters of Yenara’s bay. The bucket held chum, and Frennis was summoning his pets for a feeding.
But what did he intend to feed them?
“Not my ward, not my problem,” Frennis said, turning and smiling at them. “As you can imagine, master dwarf, I’m a busy man and can’t afford to muddle my concerns with what goes on outside of my home ground … which leads me to the two of you and your interest in Joss here.”
Joss struggled in the grip of his guardsmen. “Frennis, you know I can repay you, if only—”
“Be quiet, Joss,” Frennis said calmly. “I’ll get to you shortly. Let brothers-in-arms talk now, yes?”
“Clearly, not so brotherly,” Torval muttered.
Frennis moved closer to them. “You know the rules, Torval. In this ward, I’m sovereign. If you wanted to operate here, you should have sought me out first and begged my aid.”
“Let us question him, then,” Torval said, nodding toward Joss.
“No,” Frennis responded. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, these are my men on either side of Joss, so that means he’s my prisoner. And I’d be quite remiss if I let the two of you question my prisoner before I had done so myself.”
“Is it such a trial?” Rem asked, suddenly impatient with all of Frennis’s childish posturing.
Frennis answered him by taking one long step toward Rem and punching him squarely in the gut. The prefect’s fist felt like an iron mace driven deep into Rem’s soft middle, and Rem doubled over under the weight of the jab, dropping to his knees. He couldn’t breathe. His innards felt as though they’d been shattered and liquefied.
Torval shot forward and used all of his strength to shove Frennis away from his partner. Frennis retreated, but only by a single step. Without a word of warning, he snatched up Torval by his tunic and lifted the dwarf off the ground. Rem, watching from where he knelt, struggling for breath and some end to his agony, could not believe his eyes.
A man had just laid hands on Torval in anger, and Torval, instead of fighting him, just hung there in Frennis’s grip, his feet a good arm span off the ground, his fists dangling at his side, white-knuckled.
“You didn’t need to hit him,” Torval spat into Frennis’s face. “He’s new.”
“Then he needs to learn, doesn’t he?” Frennis answered, and shook Torval as though he were a straw-stuffed scarecrow. “Just as you do, you bloody pickmonkey.”
The prefect released Torval and he hit the floorboards beside Rem. Rem was starting to regain the ability to breathe. The agony racking his insides gradually subsided from a raging inferno to a dull, smoldering ache. He looked up at Frennis. He really hated the man, and he counted himself lucky that he had ended up in Ondego’s dungeon and not Frennis’s.
“What brought you here?” Frennis demanded.
“A gambling mark,” Torval answered. “One of the Nightjar’s.”
“And who dropped this gambling mark?” Frennis asked.
“A knife man who tried to murder us while we slept,” Torval answered. “Perhaps he’s one of yours, Prefect, sir?”
Frennis bent closer, hands on his knees. “If he was one of mine, you’d be worm food, master dwarf,” Frennis said. “Now, why would someone be trying to kill you?”
“Because we’re trying to solve the murder of my partner,” Torval said. “And we think we’re getting close to the culprit because no one would be bothering to kill the likes of us otherwise.”
“Do you suspect the Nightjar?” Frennis asked.
Torval didn’t answer. Frennis grabbed one of the dwarf’s ears and twisted it violently. Torval roared and smacked Frennis’s hand away, but made no further move to threaten him. Still, Rem could see in his partner’s eyes the urge to murder the bulky prefect of the Fourth. Truly, Torval hated the man, as well.
“Answer me,” Frennis said.
“He has motive,” Torval said. “Ever since we broke up his little blood-sport ring in the Fifth Ward.”
Frennis seemed to consider that for a moment. “Bygones,” he said finally. “He’s no longer active in your ward.”
“But he’s active in yours, isn’t he?” Torval countered.
Frennis shrugged. “Ends and means, master dwarf. If I choose to maintain order in my district by issuing accomodations to specific business concerns, all in the name of peace and stability …”
Ginger Joss, thinking that maybe his captors had relaxed their grip, suddenly bucked and squirmed. The two bodyguards held him fast. The Loffmari even cuffed him headwise, then slapped his face in a most insulting fashion. Frennis wandered away from his prisoners, pulled another piece of chum from the bucket, and threw it into the waters below the dock.
“So, if you suspected the Nightjar, what’s your business with this piece of offal?” he asked Torval and Rem, gesturing toward Joss.
Torval threw Rem a sour glance. He didn’t
like the fact that Frennis now had their suspect. There was no telling what he might do, or how he might make their lives more difficult.
“He’s a suspect,” Torval said. “We have reason to believe he knows something about Freygaf’s death. He also tried to have us killed this morning, in broad daylight. The fact that we found him here, in your gaming house, bodes not well for the Nightjar, nor for you, Frennis.”
Frennis nodded deferentially. “I suppose it wouldn’t. Nonetheless, let me be frank—I had nothing to do with Freygaf’s death. Nor, I suspect, did Joss here. Will you tell them, Joss?”
“Only if you get me out of this,” Joss answered.
Frennis took another one of those long steps forward and drove one ham fist into Joss’s jaw. Rem thought he heard the mandible joint crack. Joss spat blood and a few teeth. Frennis shook his now-aching hand and spoke quietly. “My goodness, Joss—do you actually think you’re in a position to dictate terms?”
“He’ll kill you for this, Frennis,” Joss suddenly spat, mouth leaking blood and saliva in long, pink ropes. “He’ll not just have your skin, he’ll have your soul—”
That’s when Frennis snatched Joss out of the two bodyguards’ hands and, with a single, roundabout shove, sent the thief headlong into the shark-infested waters below the dock.
Rem and Torval shot forward, instinctually, without hesitation. Only when they came to a rough stop beside each other at the dock’s edge did Rem suddenly realize that they were both now within easy shoving distance of Frennis. With barely an expenditure of energy, the prefect of the Fourth could reach out and send them both tumbling into the waters where Joss now splashed and screamed. Realizing this, Rem took a long step back—clear of the edge, but still close enough to see what unfolded—and silently urged Torval to do the same.