King's Exile: Chronicles of the Dragon-Bound: Book 1

by William Culbertson

  When they were through, Dax thanked Hammer and stumbled to his cot. He was almost dead on his feet from fatigue, and his eyes refused to stay open.

  #

  In the morning, Dax heard that Bubbles and Spike had found Weasel unconscious, but alive. They had come back for Hammer’s help, and the three of them had managed to drag Weasel out of the area. At Hammer’s insistence, they had used an old blanket to bind his crotch in a diaper to make sure he did not bleed to death. At sunup, Hammer had gone back to check on him, and the man was gone. Either he had managed to get himself off somewhere or someone else had taken care of him.

  The boys were still frisky that morning, but they gradually settled into their usual routine. It helped that business was brisk that day. They all had to focus on their work, and time passed quickly.

  That evening, back in the bunkie, Hammer took Dax aside. “I wanted to warn you that this is going to get back to Holder.”

  Dax was silent for a time and finally asked, “So what does that mean?”

  The boy shrugged. “Weasel was wicked, but Holder, well, he’s pure evil, I guess.”

  “In what way?”

  “You know he runs all the business around here?”

  “Business, like what?” Dax knew Hammer was talking about criminal enterprises, but this had not been a topic Evnissyen had covered in his lessons. He wanted to hear what Hammer had to say.

  “Look, there’s some pretty rough people work for Holder, and they do some pretty nasty stuff,” Hammer said. “He’s involved in a lot of bad shit, but round here it’s mainly the tax he makes shopkeepers pay to stay in business.”

  “What about the king’s tax?”

  Hammer smiled indulgently. “Well, there’s that too, but shopkeepers have to pay Holder, or someone comes in the night and throws all their stuff into the street.”

  “So it’s rent?”

  “Nah, even if they own the place, the have to pay Holder’s ‘business tax.’” Hammer scowled and looked down. “They don’t get a second chance neither. If they don’t pay after that, they just disappear.”

  Hammer waved a hand toward the door. “Old Jake down the way used to run a pastry shop and used to send us some day-old tarts or somethin’ from time to time.” He lowered his voice. “Old Jake had retired from the guard and didn’t take to people tellin’ him what to do, so he went to the guard instead of payin’ the tax.” Hammer shuddered. “They found him three days later up on a stake alongside the North Road.” After a pause, he said. “At least they think it was Old Jake. Parts was missing, but he had a big loaf of bread stuffed in his mouth.”

  For a long time Dax was quiet. He wasn’t sure what Hammer’s message was. Finally he asked, “Are you telling me to run?”

  Hammer did not answer right away, but eventually he shrugged. “I don’t think so. Weasel was trouble, and Holder knows it. But maybe Weasel was somebody’s brother . . . that kind of thing.” Hammer scratched his head. “No, maybe not run, but walk light for a while.”

  #

  Two weeks later during an afternoon lull, Dax looked up and noticed a cold-eyed man talking with Hammer. The man had the same look of hard competence Dax had seen in veterans of the guard—only this man was no guardsman. He did not have on a uniform, but the dark clothes he wore were well cut and made with expensive fabrics. No guardsman could afford a belted tabard like that. His dark-brown hair was neatly groomed, and he was clean-shaven. The man might have been a court dandy except for his menacing air of cool, reserved confidence.

  Hammer gestured toward Dax. The man locked eyes on Dax and headed toward his stool. Every move the man made was unthinkingly precise. Dax knew without question, this was a very dangerous man.

  “You Bug?”

  Dax stood up. “That’s what they call me, sir.”

  “Well, good. Now let’s take your manners and go see Mr. Holder. He wants a word with you.”

  Dax looked around and saw all the boys watching. Bubbles had the stool next to Dax’s today. Bubbles patted him on the shoulder. “Go on, Bug. I’ll look after your stuff if you don’t get back before we quit for the day.”

  The man turned and walked away, clearly expecting Dax to follow. Dax glanced at Hammer, who gave him the boys’ sign for luck, and Dax hurried on after the man.

  Dax trotted up closer to the man. “Excuse me, sir. What did you say your name was?”

  “Didn’t” was the terse reply. The man stopped and turned to Dax. “Look, kid. Save the nice words for Mr. Holder. I don’t know what you did.” He shrugged. “Don’t care, really.” He gave Dax a half of a thin smile and turned to walk on. “Nope. Mr. Holder just said, ‘Snake, go find the boy who hurt Weasel.’”

  Snake? Well, that name fits, Dax thought. He wondered how difficult a situation he was in. The man had not acted like Dax was in serious trouble, but Snake did not appear to have much in the way of feelings. This was an errand for him and nothing more. Dax decided to be reassured by the fact that the man had told him his name—in a roundabout sort of way.

  They walked on in silence. Dax trailed a step behind Snake and studied the way the man moved. Every step was balanced and regular, a man poised for action. Snake always seemed to avoid the puddles and dirt that littered the city’s roadways. His cuffs had none of the spatters and splashes that everyone else wore as a matter of course. At one point in their trip, a carriage rumbled by and sent a slurry of mud in their direction. Without appearing to notice, Snake stepped to the side just far enough to avoid the wave, then resumed his path. Dax glanced at the mud on the side of his own boot and envied Snake’s casual adeptness.

  Snake led him to a large, plain-faced building with no windows. The back butted up against the city wall. From the outside, it looked dark and forbidding. The wooden walls were weathered and worn but solid. A door of solid planks blocked a wide, arched opening. Snake went to the door and did something with both hands. His body blocked Dax’s view. Dax guessed he used a key to free a latch. Whatever Snake did, he opened the door and gestured for Dax to step inside.

  Once through the door, Dax saw that what he had taken to be a large building was instead a wall surrounding an inner courtyard with several small buildings. Inside the door the setting was as opulent as the outside was plain. In the courtyard the normal smells of the city disappeared, replaced by the scent of the balm bushes that grew there.

  Snake led him to the largest, most elegantly appointed structure. Inside, the interior was light and airy. Woven tapestries, worthy of any noble’s house, graced the walls. Carved door arches had decorative gilded trim. Snake led the way down a hallway. Outside one door with a relief carving of an eagle in flight, he stopped and knocked. Dax heard a faint word from inside, and Snake opened the door and motioned for Dax to go inside. Snake stayed outside and closed the door.

  A desk dominated the center of the room, but a large man sat on a richly upholstered divan near a fireplace on one wall. Holder was an older man, and he wore his thinning gray hair brushed carefully over the top of his head. Casually dressed, he had his feet propped up on a low stool and held a long pipe in his hand. His eyes followed Dax into the room. If Snake’s eyes had been cold, this man’s eyes were a wall of ice. Dax met his flat stare and turned to face him.

  The man laid aside a paper he had been studying and stared at Dax for a minute before he took a puff on his pipe. “I’m Holder. You hurt one of my men.”

  “Yes, sir. Weasel.” The man said nothing for a moment. Dax was uncertain what else he should say.

  “You know I don’t like it when someone hurts one of my men.” Holder shifted and set his pipe on a small silver tray. After he leaned back in place, he looked at Dax again. “It makes the whole organization look as if we can’t protect ourselves.”

  “I can understand that, sir.”

  “So why aren’t you on your knees, begging me for mercy?”

  Dax paused to think. The man did not appear angry, but his untroubled tones were no less threatening th
an if he had been raging. Hammer had said the man was dangerous, and Dax believed that explicitly. “Well, sir”—Dax had to clear his throat before he went on—“in a way, I’m your man too, working at the bootblack business like I do. Weasel was going to do something nasty—something I didn’t want him to do to me. He threatened me with a knife, and I defended myself.”

  Holder looked at him, showing no expression. Dax decided to add one more chip to his wager. “I’m betting you don’t like your men doing that stuff to us young boys,” he continued. “That would make your organization look bad. Besides, if I were in that much trouble, I figure I wouldn’t be here. Snake would have left my body in a dark alley somewhere.”

  Holder continued to stare at him, and the pause grew awkward. Dax’s father had told him about this tactic. Silence could be a weapon in a disciplinary hearing. Let the accused stew, and often the person would say something damning. Dax was determined not to do that, but Holder could still order him killed. Dax used all his training for formal ceremonies to force himself to continue to stand erect and meet Holder’s eyes. He carefully loosened the muscles of his right knee, which had started to tremble slightly.

  Finally, Dax saw the corners of the man’s lips tighten in what might have been the start of a smile. “You are a cocky little bastard, aren’t you?”

  Dax started to reply, but found himself in a mental tangle. Cocky? Maybe from where Holder sat. Bastard? Not in the least. At last he found his voice. “I’m not a bastard, sir. My parents were married.”

  Now there was more than a trace of a smile as Holder looked at him. “You’re Bug, right?”

  Dax hesitated. What was the truth? “That’s what they call me, sir.”

  “You’ve been doing boots for how long now? A month?”

  “About three weeks, sir,” Dax replied.

  Although it took some obvious effort, Holder gathered his feet under him and stood. He approached Dax, studying him carefully from all sides before leaning against his desk. “Weasel was a problem I was going to have to see to before long. I think maybe you did me a favor putting him out of action.” He smiled at that. “And from what I’ve heard, out of action in more than one way.”

  Dax offered a tentative smile in return. “I don’t like to hurt people, sir.” He stopped without trying to justify his actions. He was sure Holder had already judged him.

  “Well, I think you were right.” Holder clapped a hand on Dax’s shoulder and turned him slightly left then right, studying him. “You appear to be a boy with some possibilities. I’m going to have to keep my eye on you. One of the things I like to do is bring my own people along in my organization. Keep the best ones happy and moving up. Makes a lot of things simpler.”

  “Loyalty.”

  “That’s right. I do right by them. They do right by me. By the time they get to the top, we’re nothing but one big happy family.” Holder smiled, but it was a smile with no warmth. He took his hand off Dax’s shoulder. “Besides,” he went on, “it keeps me, shall we say, informed about what is going on.”

  Dax nodded but did not say anything. He recognized the idea. A ruler had to be sure his top aides and advisors were all working toward the same goals.

  “So, you work with the bootblacks for a while. Get your feet on the ground. Learn the system. Once we get to know you, we’ll see where we can use your abilities. Sound reasonable?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. That’s settled,” Holder said. “Now give me fresh news. What is going on at the bootblacks? What have you heard?”

  Dax thought carefully about the last few days. “The other boys say a lot more people are going into the castle than usual.” He shrugged. “It seems that way to me too, sir, but I haven’t been there that long.”

  “I’ve heard that things have gotten busy. My people in the castle tell me a noble’s son was kidnapped a while ago.” Holder said nothing for a moment. “Maybe there’s more. That Sun-Blaze Guard thing makes me wonder what they’re up to. Anyway, it’s quite a turmoil up there, and I haven’t heard from my man lately.”

  Man? What man? Did Holder have someone in the guard or elsewhere in the castle feeding him information? Dax hoped for more specific information about how Holder got his information, but he dared not ask. Holder sat there in silent thought for a time. Finally he asked, “How about the guard? Are they leaving you boys alone?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve only seen a few, and those were regulars who don’t like to polish their own boots.”

  Holder grunted an acknowledgment and rubbed a meaty hand across his forehead, scratching through the hairs on his head. “Good. When this all started, I sent word up to my people to have the guard stay away from the bootblacks as well as my stable boys and wood ticks.”

  Dax did not react, but his mind whirled. Holder’s reach was much larger than he had realized if he could arrange to have guard orders changed. That the city’s stable boys were part of Holder’s organization did not surprise Dax, but he had not heard anything about the countless boys who stoked and tended fires at businesses across the city. The castle’s wood ticks? He would have to check on that when . . . That thought petered out as he remembered his position. When would he ever get to check?

  At that point Holder dismissed him. Holder’s attitude and demeanor had warmed from the start of the meeting to being genial and almost friendly—sort of like a kindly uncle. If Dax had not seen that those flat, deadly eyes never changed, he might have been reassured. This kindly uncle killed people as part of his business. Still, Dax had learned a lot from his visit with Holder. This was a look at a side of Tazzelton he had ever heard of from Evnissyen.

  #

  Snake escorted him back to the bootblack stall. While still not talkative, Snake did make one statement as they left Holder’s headquarters. He was blunt and to the point. “We don’t talk about Mr. Holder and where Mr. Holder does business.”

  “Then Mr. Holder doesn’t live there?”

  Snake looked at him and arched an eyebrow. “Where Mr. Holder lives is even less of your business, now isn’t it?”

  Dax tried another tack. “Mr. Holder says he likes to move people up within the organization. Have you been with him a long time?”

  For the longest time, Snake didn’t say a thing, and Dax thought he had just ignored the question. “One hundred and twenty-eight,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  Snake looked at him and smiled thinly. “One hundred and twenty-eight—the record for the number of boots polished in one day.”

  “One hundred twenty-eight? The most I’ve ever done is less than half of that. How did you do that many?”

  Snake shrugged, and they walked on farther before he replied. “Years ago. We had a fight with another gang trying to cut out some of our customers. At the end of the day, there were only four of us left.”

  “What about the other gang?”

  The man bobbed his head in a soundless snort. “Nobody. Leastwise nobody able to work the next day.”

  “And you four?”

  “Opened shop like usual. It was the day of Spring Festival. We worked steady all day. I was the fastest—and least hurt.”

  They went on a little farther before Dax tried again. “I haven’t seen anyone else trying to move in on us, but I haven’t been here long. Does that happen often?”

  “That was why Mr. Holder took over the operation. Tiff-taffs like that are bad for our other businesses.”

  Dax wanted to ask about those other businesses, but he decided not to press any further. Snake was silent for the rest of the return trip.

  #

  Back at the bunkie the bootblack boys peppered him with questions all through supper. Dax did not want to talk for several reasons. He took Snake at his word that Holder would not be pleased to have details of their conversation made public. Besides, Dax did not want to give any information about himself that might lead to more questions. Since he could not lie, he would have to refuse to answer direct ques
tions about his background. By refusing to answer, he would appear even more unusual and raise more questions. All Dax really wanted to do was fade into the background of their lives. Standing out, getting noticed—that was dangerous.

  “They say guys go in there but never come out,” said Bubbles with and awed tone.

  “Now that wouldn’t make much sense, would it?” Hammer interjected. “That would lead the guard right to his front door.”

  “Yeah, but doesn’t Holder own the guard?” asked Weepy.

  “How could that be? The king pays the guard,” Hammer said. “Lilly told me there’s just a few special guardsmen that Holder helps out.”

  Pigeon jumped in. “Lilly! How does she know anything?”

  Hammer gave a knowing smile. “Lilly knows a lot of things. She’s smart.”

  “Excuse me,” Dax interrupted. “Who’s Lilly?”

  That set the boys off in a paroxysm of hoots and hollers. “She’s Hammer’s sweetie, she is. Stops by every now and then to talk.” For the first time, Dax saw that Hammer did not know what to say. His face flushed, and he looked angry.

  Spike poked Hammer. “Yeah, she wants you, and you want her.” Spike turned to Dax. “That’s what he’s been savin’ up his money for.”

  “You pups are too young to understand . . . ,” Hammer started, but the boys shouted him down.

  With that, talk turned to a series of monologues on sex, the boys’ usual favorite subject during after-supper bull sessions. Dax was more than happy to have their attention elsewhere. Although his job at the bootblacks seemed relatively safe for the moment, the less attention he attracted the better. He was not sorry for what he had done to Weasel. The thought of the slovenly man made his skin prickle with a fresh flare of savage anger, which frightened him. He remembered only a little of what he had done. Blind, out of control with anger . . . he could not afford that. Dax had to stay hidden. He had to survive.