by K. T. Davies
“Decima Leaky Tits has left,” said the sorcerer. “Shit. The Senator’s leaving too.”
I bit down on a curse when Sweaty sighed with relief. “Ah. Forget that, he’s just closed the door and locked it.”
I waited for Stefan to continue but he didn’t so I poked him in the ribs. “What’s he doing? Come on Sweaty, what’s he up to?”
“He’s tugging his old man, all right? And stop calling me Sweaty.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I don’t like it. I can’t help having a perspiration problem. There was this duel you see. I was forced beyond the Paradox of Power and have had this problem ever since. I just can’t seem to get rid of it.”
“No. Not that. I mean is he polishing his staff?”
“Of course not. He’s just standing in the middle of the room, drinking brandy and grimacing. Now he’s going over to the desk.” It was odd watching Sweaty staring into space with his dust-filled eyes. “There looks to be a catch on the front. I think it's in the center of the second flower in the carved border around the top. I think. It’s hard to see.” He made a clawing gesture echoing the scrabbling claws of the homunculus as it attempted to get a better look. “Aha. Got you, you lovely bastard. The safe’s in the desk, under the blotter. Don’t know why it's not in a wall. What if there’s a fire? Anyway, we’ve got it.” He grinned. “I told you I was worth the gold.”
“All you’ve done is sit on your arse.”
“Come on, admit it. You’d never have looked there.”
“Yes, I would.” He was right, I would have torn every brick out of the wall and ripped up every floorboard, before searching the desk. I wasn’t going to admit that though. Sweaty summoned the beast back to his hand where it curled up and once again became a pile of dust. Exhausted, he lay back against the roof and closed his clouded eyes.
* * *
While I waited for Sweaty to recover his strength, Rublis and his grooms rode out. The household quietened. The suns began to set, and shadows lengthened. Wood smoke mingled with the smell of bread and meat as evening meals were prepared. Lights pearled in windows, shutters were closed, and I got ready to do what I do best.
I cracked my knuckles and prepared to lift the first tile from the roof. This was the moment that I’d find out if Mother’s information was worth a bag of powdered dragon bone. Sweaty watched anxiously, his eyes had returned to their usual, bloodshot brown.
“Go on,” he urged. I wedged my claws under the tile, half expecting an alarm to ring out and shatter the bucolic peace. According to the disgruntled sorcerer, Rublis had only paid for the door and the window of his study to be warded, and even then, he’d withheld a portion of the sorcerer’s fee on some apparently unjustified pretext.
I lifted the tile. Nothing happened. Sweaty exhaled as relieved as I was. I drew my knife, reached down through the rafters, and began to saw through the plaster-covered ceiling board. It rained paintwork onto the patterned carpet, but no alarms sounded. After I’d finished cutting a me-sized piece out of the ceiling, I carefully removed the board and handed it to Sweaty. “Don’t say I never give you anything.”
“You’re too generous.”
I sheathed my blade, squeezed between the rafters, and dropped onto the carpet. Many lovely shiny things caught my eye, and I was momentarily blinded by glitter and greed. As I was fond of my head being attached to my shoulders, I ignored the chink and found the catch in the flower and pressed it. There was a satisfying click, and then unexpectedly, the button yielded a fraction more. Being half thoasa my body has a mind of its own when it comes to self-preservation, and I was already twisting sideways as the dart flew past my thigh and embedded itself in the door with a solid thunk. “Who puts a poison dart in a desk?”
Sweaty’s leering face appeared through the hole in the roof. “It’s irresponsible if you ask me.”
“I agree, Stefan. Very irresponsible.” While we talked, I traced the seam of the secret compartment under the blotter with the tip of a claw. I found the catch and levered it open. Inside was a pile of official-looking documents and the bone scroll case that Mother had described in exacting detail. I tucked the case into my doublet and replaced the blotter. In my extensive experience on the rob, I’d learned that if you tidied up after a job, it could take a while for a cull to even notice they’d been done over.
With that in mind, I swept the plaster flakes under the carpet and pulled the dart out of the door before hauling myself back onto the roof with no one in the house any the wiser. The evening was settling in now, beginning to layer the land in shades of soft purple and dusky blue. My capricious friend the moon was doing us a kindness and remained discretely hidden behind a bank of cloud.
“Gimme that.” I pointed at the neat rectangle of plaster ceiling. Sweaty handed it back. I set it at a slight angle in the hole from which it had been cut. There were gaps, and the pattern would be off, but only if you looked up, and very few people ever look up. I’d wager that the Senator wouldn’t even know he’d been burgled until he opened the secret compartment again, by which time we’d be back at the Guild’s headquarters enjoying a frothy mug or two of ale. I re-laid the tile. “Sweet as.”
“Let me see the case.” Sweaty asked. I handed it over. He turned it in his hand, checked the seal and smiled his amber smile. “Nice work. I’ll see you back at The Mouse’s Nest.”
I grabbed his arm. “What do you mean, ‘you’ll see me back at the Nest’? You’re not thinking of apporting without me, are you, Sweaty?”
The sorcerer grinned. “Nooo,” he said and then vanished. My hand closed on air.
“Flat-faced, barnacle-arsed, fucknubbin.” I hissed at the space he’d occupied a moment earlier, still redolent with the smell of his greasy sweat.
2
I retraced my route over the rooftops of the sprawling country retreat and climbed down the same way I’d climbed up. I had to dodge a group of stable hands and slip past a couple of women who were sharing a pipe by the kitchen door.
I don’t recall what they were talking about because I was entirely focused on escaping and planning how badly and when I was going to beat the crap out of Sweaty. One tiny lapse in concentration had caused me to hand over the scroll case. It was beyond stupid, but I didn’t scold myself too much, not now. I’d have plenty of time to beat myself up over it as I plodded back to Appleton. Mother would laugh her arse off as she verbally flayed me in front of the entire Guild. She was a sorcerer and like Sweaty could have apported home in a blink. Even at a run, it would take me days to get back to Appleton, by which time that amber-toothed cock-knuckle Stefan would have claimed all the credit for the job.
“Treacherous, fucking cockroach,” I muttered as I hoofed it from the manor, my claws churning up the mulchy loam of the tree-shaded road. I wanted to wring Sweaty Stefan’s neck so much it made my teeth ache. I’d wait until he’d forgotten the slight and then, when he’d dropped his guard, I’d settle his account. In the meantime, I’d have to endure the mockery of my fellow Guild Blades. The thud of horses’ hooves distracted me from thoughts of vengeance. Without waiting to see who it was, I dived into a fern-shaded ditch and waited. A minute passed before a contingent of green-clad guards cantered along the road. It might have been a coincidence that they were heading in the same direction as me, or it might have been that the senator had more influence than we’d given him credit for. Either way, I would have to make a detour to avoid them— another notch on the stick I’d use to beat Sweaty to death.
Instead of heading east along the road, I cut north through the woods towards an old packhorse trail that ran just below the Scathblight hills. It wasn’t used much by common culls, not since an ogren warband had wiped out a group of urux herders a few years earlier. Since then the trail had become the favored highway of smugglers which was how I knew about it. There were a few farms and isolated villages scattered here and there, but I was confident that I could slip past without alerting any locals to my presence. Friend
Night fell like a comforting shroud as I made my way through the forest and soft pine needle loam deadened what sound I made. I looked back from the steep rake of the hillside down to the road where torchlight flashed back and forth. Someone was searching for something, and I guessed that something was me.
When the glittering gold threads of torchlight began to weave through the weft of the trees, I quickened my pace. The hunters were going to a lot of effort for a failed burglary. Could it be that the real theft had already been discovered? But even if it had, this seemed like a lot of effort to go to for something I’d been told was of little intrinsic value. Mother had brushed off the question when I’d asked her what we were stealing. “A small thing,” she’d said as she gnawed on a butter-drenched pigroach leg, the hot, dark juice running down her chin as she chewed on the delicacy. “A worthlittle trinket,” she’d said before cracking open another leg and sucking out the marrow, offering me nothing but a meat-flecked smile.
I put it to her that if it was indeed a ‘worthlittle’ why send me and Sweaty Stefan after it? Why not send some snot-nosed coves, eager to make a name for themselves? She stopped smiling then and fixed me with a cold stare before spitting out a piece of bone which caught in her perfectly curled black hair. “Put it this way,” she said. “If you value your hide you will consider it worthless. Now get the fuck out of my sight.” And that was that. The memory of past thrashings and the bone throne on which she sat reminded me that dear mama was as mean as death and not even her own flesh and blood should cross her.
Much to my dismay the packhorse trail was stamped with fresh, heavy warhorse looking hoofprints. The faint taste of blade oil was tangled with the sweet aroma of pine and loam that warmed the shadows. Again, it could have been a coincidence that warriors were on the smugglers’ trail, but below me, scattered torchlight blazed like meteors in the amorphous darkness. Back and forth they went, combing the length and breadth of the sweeping valley.
I found a deer track and hiked higher into the bones of the foothills. As I scrambled over rocks, avoiding treacherous scree and slithering things, it dawned on me that Sweaty must have known all along that he would pull a swifty. In fact, Mother had probably told him to do it, which made sense, in a coldly calculating sort of way. While the senator and the local guards were busy searching the area for me, she would quietly sell whatever it was she’d had me steal. “I’m such an idiot.” Something the size of a dinner plate scuttled away from me, the rub of its wing case and the scrape of chitin on rock echoed like laughter.
I continued to climb for another hour or so until I came across another path that cut athwart the animal path, east to west. The tracks on this road were old, rain scarred, and windblown into near obscurity. I decided to take it and head east. It was more of a detour than I’d planned, but I’d be able to drop down on Appleton from the north, thereby avoiding the risk of bumping into any of the search party. They would have to give up before riding into the next magisterial jurisdiction which made me smile. You have to love the law when it works in your favor.
The track shone silver in the moonlight and widened into a road. It was flanked here and there by the remains of a low retaining wall that had been overgrown by leathery ferns and constricting snake vine. A few hundred yards further on the skeletal outline of a deserted watermill stood silently beside a deep river race. The wheel lay on its side, a splintered reminder that nothing lasts forever. Something that sounded like the scrape of metal on leather froze me in a crouch. The spoor of beasts, and the scent of humans floated on the air. A heartbeat later the scrape of metal became the clash of steel. The commotion was coming from between the gutted bones of homesteads somewhere up ahead. As I wasn’t being ambushed I should have left whoever to whatever bloody-handed work they were about, but curiosity got the better of me. I crept through the undergrowth, climbed onto the roof of a dead-eyed building, and slid along the bones of the rafters.
I inched forward so I could get a better view of the action, spilling a fine drizzle of rotten thatch onto the fungus that had colonized the shell of the building. Standing on its hind legs, with its back to a well was what at first glance I took to be a rearing bear. On a second, closer look I realized it was a human. He smelled of pickled cabbage, mead, and bear grease somewhat vindicating my initial mistake.
He was being out-flanked by two coves who were half his size. Two other miscreants were stalking him head-on, the four of them closing him down like a pack of wolves. Brigands didn’t usually pick on someone like the bear man, someone who might prove a challenge so I could only assume that pickings were thin or, more likely given their occupation, they were stupid and lazy. Whatever the reason for the attack, they were going to win. They might take some lumps, but they had the weight of numbers on their side. Only in stories could one, heroic human beat four. A thoasa or an arrachid would hand these fools their arses, a sorcerer likewise, but an ordinary human was unlikely to win out. Given his size, I didn’t think the fellow would go down easy, which would make for an exciting contest.
As I was a gambler, I decided to stay and enjoy a low-risk bet with myself. I reasoned that even if the noise drew the attention of the greenshanks, the fight would be over, and I’d be long gone by the time they got here. The bear spat out a mouthful of blood that stained the tails of his pale mustache. He was wielding a pair of what looked like climbing axes. They had narrow heads and iron-bound shafts that were as long as his arms, but they weren’t weapons as such. A big ax was lying about eight feet away beside a slashed backpack. Beyond the pack, a figure lay in a fetal curl, save that her head was facing in the opposite direction to her body, unusual for a human even one with above average flexibility. A long knife gleamed in her dead hand.
In my professional opinion, I estimated that he’d take one more, and maybe wound another before they brought him down. Not the best odds for the attackers, but then if your career choice was ‘brigand’ you probably didn’t spend much time contemplating the consequences of your actions. One of the thugs, a lanky cull whose eyes were too close together, made an obvious feint. Predictably, the barbarian blocked it. He was ponderous and clumsy and stupid to have been drawn so easily. This is going to be over sooner than I thought. As though to confirm my assessment, one of the attackers on his flank darted in, his blade a flash of silver in the moonlight. The barbarian didn’t even look as he hurled an ax at the sneak with surprising speed and unsurprising power. It hit him square in the face, splaying his nose and taking him off his feet. The bandit crashed to the ground. Limbs unstrung, he twitched and gurgled but didn’t rise.
The others froze, shocked at the sudden and fatally explosive counter. Expressions of grim determination replaced the smug grins that had hitherto been etched on their faces. This is it. I edged closer to get a better view of the barbarian’s last stand. A soft, almost imperceptible groan gave a warning that all wasn’t right beneath me. It was quickly followed by a loud crack as the joists on which I was laying snapped. I was moving as soon as the wood sighed. I grabbed the edge of the wall, pulled myself forward, and flipped off the roof as the rotten beams collapsed.
I landed in a crouch near the fellow who’d just had his face split open and drew my blades. It was an entirely reflex action, but as far as they were concerned, it looked like I’d intended to join the fray. Now, given a choice, I would have thrown my lot in with the bandits. They had the advantage in numbers, and I probably had more in common with them than the bearish cove. He had about him the look of a warrior, one of those dangerous coves armored from sense by a ‘code of honor’. Warriors swore all manner of noble oaths until some princeling or other cast the spell of gold that turned heroes into butchers. At least the bandits murdered honestly without the need of pretexts. You knew where you were with scum.
“Evening.” I smiled.
The oldest bandit backed away from me. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed, quite naturally surprised by my dramatic entrance. I was about to introduce myself and give my bona f
ides as a member of the Midnight Court when the small-eyed fellow stabbed his blade into the ground and drew a hand bow. “Don’t just stand there,” he snapped at his remaining comrades as he fumbled a bolt into the flight groove before wrenching the string back. He chinned at the barbarian. “Kill the fuck out of him. I’ll deal with snake face.”
“Well, that’s just rude,” I said. “I was only going to—” The string clicked in place, Small-eyes leveled the bow at me. Following the barbarian’s lead, I hurled one of my blades. It flew true and took a chunk out of his arm. The bandit yelled and dropped the bow but not before pulling the trigger. The bolt zipped past my head and shattered against the wall of the building I’d just fallen off.
“You freakish bastard.” He snarled and clutched his bleeding arm. “I’m going to fucking skin you for this.”
His words were an unpleasant reminder of Mother’s threat and the senator’s promise. “Why is everyone so intent on skinning?” I stalked towards the fellow.
“I’m not intent on skinning you,” the barbarian offered all friendly like as he snatched the bucket from the well, presumably to use as a shield since he’d partially disarmed himself. The fellow who’d had his face split groped blindly towards me as I advanced on his comrades. I ended his pain with a thrust through the heart and left my sword sheathed in his chest while I tugged the ax from his ruined face.
“Oi, catch.” I tossed it to the barbarian. He grinned, hurled the bucket at the nearest attacker, and caught the ax. I retrieved my weapon from the corpse. Small Eyes backed away from me, deciding much too late that discretion was the better part of living to rob another day. I chuckled. “Do you seriously think you can back away far enough that I’ll get bored? Or perhaps you think I might forget what I’m doing and wander off?” I flicked the blood from my blade. “You might as well stand your ground and die fighting because I am going to kill you.” To underscore my grim promise, the barbarian bellowed a war cry and charged the remaining bandits. Seeing the shift in fortunes, one of them wisely turned tail and ran like hell, leaving his erstwhile comrade to face the great hairy one’s wrath alone.