by J. M. Martin
#
The day they beheaded the legendary bandit called the Laughing Wind was clear and warm, without a single cloud to be seen. A huge crowd had gathered in the city square to see it. Some even camped overnight by the execution block, just so that they could get the best view. Executions were already a popular event in Ol-Oloum, but the beheading of Baldos ber Baldos was more like a public holiday, leaving every business in the city empty.
The guards brought him out just before noon, his wrists and ankles shackled together so he had to shuffle towards his doom. People strained against rows of soldiers to get a look at him and were shocked to see how old he looked: gray of beard, hair long and unwashed, face wrinkled, and his clothes in tatters. In the stories they told, the Laughing Wind was always a young man, a bright-eyed trickster with a quick mind and a sharp tongue. It had never mattered that many had heard the stories from their parents as children—the Laughing Wind was a young man, even if Baldos ber Baldos was not.
A priest of the highest order stood on the block while Baldos was forced to kneel beside him. The priest had a shaved head, robes so blue they blended into the sky behind him, and a strong voice that carried over the throng gathered around them. “Baldos ber Baldos stands here condemned of the following crimes: banditry, murder, kidnapping, arson, blasphemy, and treason. The punishment for these crimes is death. Do you have any final words?”
The crowd went silent, eager to hear the last thing that Baldos said. The old man lifted his head up and smiled without showing his teeth. Those closest to the block heard him speak, and laughter rippled outwards until nearly everybody in the square was laughing, though they weren’t sure what about. Later, nobody would be able to agree on exactly what he said. The most common theory was `You forgot to mention sodomy.’
Whatever he said, the priest was clearly apoplectic. “Very well,” he shouted, once the din had died down. “May your ancestors guide you to whatever fate the gods have waiting for you.” The priest nodded to the executioner, a burly man who wielded a sword nearly as tall as he was.
Baldos laid his head down on the block, without prompting or protest, and closed his eyes. His mouth moved, but nobody could tell what he was saying, if anything. When the executioner laid his blade over the nape of his neck, he began to laugh, a full-throated belly laugh that carried over the entire square and beyond. Baldos ber Baldos laughed and laughed, even as the steel blade fell and severed his head from his shoulders. Even as his blood sprayed onto the execution block, his voice echoed between the buildings.
“Thus ends all evil-doers,” boomed the priest, pointing to the bandit’s severed head on the ground. “Learn from this man’s death. From the justice of Ol-Oloum, there is no escape.” The crowd stood silently, looking at the corpse of the man who used to be the Laughing Wind.
And then something happened. Although it was a cloudless morning, a great howling gale blew over the crowd, blowing the priests robes all about him. Above the shriek of the wind could be heard laughter of all kinds: the joyous giggle of a child, the sinister chuckle of a thief, and the sad laughter of a man who dares not cry.
Those closest to the execution block would later swear all their lives that what they said they saw next was true. First Baldos’s body, and then his head, dissolved into bright sand of all colors. The sand was caught up in the gale and briefly coalesced into the shape of a young man with bright eyes and a wicked smile. Then it blew up and away on the wind.
Nobody could agree on what happened, and arguing about it became something of a hobby for the people of Ol-Oloum. The one absolute fact was that nobody, man or woman, young or old, would ever forget the day that Baldos ber Baldos died.
Bloody Gratitude
Mike Theodorsson
Mike Theodorsson is a short story author and aspiring novelist specializing in dark fantasy and grim tales. He is currently working on a bleak fantasy epic set in the same Broken City as his Blackguards contribution. When he is not busy trying to orchestrate his characters’ demise in new and appalling ways, he puts his writing talents to use composing website code or trying to ride out the harsh Nordic winter.
~
Fuck it, I don’t kill children on principle—but today I’m going to make an exception.
The day started in such a wonderful way, too—far away from slavers and sorcerous crones. First a couple of rounds down at the Breakback, spending the glowshards I had been cracking skulls for all week, and then on to dabble around Madame Sari’s establishment. Of course, the day turned sour about the time I got yanked to visit the Big Boss’ office down in the filthiest little corner of the lower ward.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fancy fellow, but that district makes me cringe all the way down my hairy ass. I couldn’t care less about the rows of whorehouses that are dime-a-dozen down there, if they didn’t also cater to the sickest, most twisted minds in the Eternal City, all wards included. Cages filled with boys and girls, all smuggled in off the books, courtesy of the men in red, the slavers and their cronies. That’s probably why I didn’t mind screwing them over so much, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The boss has an eerie way of calling me out of whatever watering hole I have crawled into, no matter where in the city, and summoning me down to that cesspool of degenerates that he calls his turf whenever he needs something done that requires a bit of head-smashing. Pay is usually between good and excellent, so I don’t complain too much, even if I’d rather be sleeping one off between a weathered old whore and a fistful of spirits. This morning being no exception, I walked into that office like a god among men, nudging his thralls out of the way and settling in the big, brown leather armchair he’s earmarked for his special guests.
Everyone calls him Big Boss, but he’s really a mousy-looking fellow with wandering eyes, nearly disappearing behind his huge wood-carved desk, stolen from some upper ward administrator’s study. But, I learned early on not to underestimate him—or his ruthlessness. There was always a plan brewing behind those yellow-tinted eyes, and it usually ended with some poor fool with his innards ground into sausage.
The moment I reclined I noticed that tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth— the suppressed grin— that told me I wouldn’t like what he had to say.
“Nice job on the turf thing last cycle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tyza scum run that fast before. You pulling the arms off their muscle must’ve really spooked them.”
I narrowed my eyes and nodded slowly. Compliments are nice, but not when they tend be followed by a less-than-gentle ramming.
“Now that we’ve cleared your schedule, I’d like you to look into something else for me. High profile.”
There it was. Sometimes I hate it when I am right.
“High profile only means one thing—the fucking knights are involved.”
“Well—” he began, silver-tongue already working on making the bitter medicine go down.
“Listen, Boss—” I tried not to snort derisively, but somehow it just slipped out anyway. “I’m not some rent-a-thug halfwit that can’t put it together, like half the guys you have on your payroll up in here. I want to know what the fuck is going on before I go in, so don’t sugarcoat it like I’m a five year-old or I’m going to be a very pissed off skull crusher. I am not going anywhere near this if the fucking knights of the fucking conclave are involved. I like my head where it is—attached firmly to my shoulders. No way I’m bringing it anywhere near any armored jerks with a hard-on for slitting throats and chopping off heads in the name of justice.”
He just sat there, letting me go off on my little rant with his expression blank, embodying infinite patience.
“Easy, Vakkour. We’ve got more enemies than just the knights around here.” Not a shred of appeasement, just smooth authority.
That tone put a pause on my temper. I may not look like a genius, what with my balding head, face split from way too many scars and shoulders wide enough that I have to walk through most doors sideways, but I am easily
twice as bright as anyone else he has dragged off the street, including the flop-sweating mountains of men he keeps on retainer for when he needs to crack some heads. But while I can outwit his goons, the boss still outsmart me, even on a bad day.
“Spit it out, Boss.’” I bit off a sigh. “We both knew you were going to push this on me as soon as I walked in the door, so might as well play it candid, yeah?”
“I got some ladies down in Hag Hearth who wants a quarry delivered.”
Hag Hearth, home of every witch in the lower ward with any kind of nasty reputation. If the boss’ turf included the ass-end of the ward, then Hag Hearth was the roiling, boiling stomach. I waited for him to get to the details, trying to read that pale, unflinching face.
“The quarry they need is locked up tight down in the slave markets. Thing is, he’s already been sold and about to get carted out of the city. No refunds, no re-sales, that kind of deal.”
“So you want me to steal a slave from right under the slavers and their army of sellswords? Are you trying to start a war, or is there something you are not telling me? What are the witches paying you that you’re willing to take this kind of risk?”
“The particulars of this arrangement has already been taken care of, and they are not a concern of yours—”
“It kind of feels like it should be, though.”
“Enough, Vakkour.” There was the slightest noise of grinding teeth. “This is important. I can’t risk handing it off to anyone else. You’re smart enough not to leave any trace behind that will lead back to us. All you have to do is kill a couple of guards and shuffle off with a kid.”
“Stop right the fuck there.” I snarled, I couldn’t help it. There was an awkward pause and I could feel his gaze bore into me.
“I kill men, I kill women, old people, stupid people—” I counted them off on my fingers like a shopping list, “—but I do not kill children. A guy’s got to have some limits.”
“Stop claiming moral superiority. You are much more useful without redeeming qualities.”
He stated it flatly and I winced. It stung a bit too much to be untrue.
“I am not asking you to kill him. Just grab the little bastard and deliver him to the hags.”
“And they are going to do what to him exactly?”
“Does it matter? Just drop him off and retrieve the payment and then courier it straight back here.’
“The whole thing has a bad stink to it, Boss.”
“I don’t need you to argue this—or perhaps you would like to go back to breaking arms in taverns and waking up in the gutters? You’re not a teen anymore, Vakkour. And you’re not pretty enough for the brothels, either.”
Ouch. I could almost taste the venom. He was right, of course—there’s only so much an old thug like me can be doing—not that there’d ever be a shortage of crush-work in the lower ward, mind, but the boss could make it more than just a little bit difficult for me if he was ready to stop pulling his punches. The last thing I needed was to look over my shoulder in every slimy back alley for some poor first-timer’s attempt at shoving a shiv in my back over some two-piece glowshard reward.
“Right, right.” I tried my best to look pacified, but the boss did not seem entirely convinced.
“Pull this off without a hitch and I’ll double your usual amount—and add some gravy on-top.” He tapped a glowing crystal on the desk, what goes for currency in the city. “Enough for you to take some time off, maybe dip your bit in one of the pricier establishments down the street, eh?”
I guess if you have to open wide and take it, at last a bit of hard currency will dull that aching jaw.
#
Unpleasant is a word that very aptly describes the Slavers’ Court. You can smell it from a mile away, a mixture of fear, blood and slaves soiling themselves while they are herded off like cattle, their destination either a nobleman’s underground harem or a dark, choking mine somewhere. Besides being an affront to your senses, the court is a maze. It is squeezed in on several parallel streets near the southern end of the lower ward, right where the floating shard that houses the ward ends, so the slavers can toss the unsold and unwanted merchandise into the gaping void beneath. It is also far enough from the crossing that if any of the knights roll in from the other shards, the slavers can just up and move before any crackdown can take place. A moot point since the knights haven’t bothered to come knocking down any doors in the lower ward for years, they tend to just leave us to our constructive anarchy as long as we cut each other’s throats instead of any precious nobles.”
Heat and noise rose from the court, like every sleazy scrap of humanity—and otherwise—had decided to crawl out into the light and go shopping among the tents and metal cages that dotted the streets. Passing among them were the slavers in their red robes, peddling men and women, boys and girls and even the occasional inhuman thing, most of the captives scared out of their minds.
The boss had given me a fairly good description of the slavers who were trying to cash in on the kid I was here to collect, so it did not take me long to locate the place where they had set up shop. It was a stringy old canvas tent at the very edge of the district, well-guarded and off limits to strangers. No chance I could just wander in off the street and snatch the boy before anyone was the wiser, I would have to act smarter than that.
Or I could just smash some faces.
The latter approach had a certain elegance to it. Ducking off the street, I circled the tent and the wary eyes that guarded it until I found a spot in the alley that was unguarded. It always amazes me how people tend to perceive tents as impenetrable constructions when all it takes is one sharp knife to make a whole new doorway. Past the veil, I had no trouble spotting my target. He was squatting inside a rusty old cage, sullenly poking about in the straw and the dirt.
The boy looked like he was in dire need of a bath, but he was definitely not some lower ward street urchin—his hair was a platinum blond, slightly curly and he had the sharp, pureblood blue eyes that you almost never see outside of the upper ward and its silver spires.
Maybe it was the less than discreet way I had torn the tent, but before I could take a single step I had a couple of red-robed slaver guards on me. They had been drinking in a corner, I could tell from their breath and the way they kept trying to step on each other’s toes when they wobbled to attack me.
I stepped on one of those ridiculously long robes and pushed the idiot’s sword away. While he scrambled to regain his balance, the other one swung at me. I promptly grabbed the stumbling moron and yanked him into the path of his buddy’s sword. There was a nasty squelching noise and blood blossomed. I tossed the gurgling corpse at the other guy and stepped in to smash his face with my fist while he tried to nudge his dying buddy out of the way. I never saw the point of denting your sword if you can just smash a guy’s nose into his skull. Then you get the added pleasure of watching him try to breathe out the shattered pulp where his nose used to be.
The whole thing unfolded in the span of a few heartbeats and when it was done, and I had crushed the still twitching guards with a few well-placed stomps of my iron-plated boots, I noticed the brat was watching me from the cage. Blue eyes stared hungrily at the crumbled men, the boy’s entire body as tense as a bowstring. The chain clipped to his heavy metal collar shook and clinked all the way to the wood post in the middle of the cage.
I paused for a moment, hoping the guards outside would write off the brief scuffle as a drunken argument. I was either right, or the guards were more inattentive than their dead peers, because no one stepped through the tent flap to challenge me. With a brief nod to myself, I grabbed the keys off one of the dead slavers.
“Hey, let me out already.” The boy was right up at the edge of the cage, as far as his chain would let him go, fingers tightly wrapped around the bars.
I signaled at him to shut up while I absently rummaged through the guards’ pockets. Unfortunately they had nothing but beer money.
“Thi
s is the worst rescue ever.”
Two minutes in and the kid had already rubbed me the wrong way. I popped the key in the lock and nudged the boy off the bars so I could crack the cage open. He turned his head so I could stick the next key in the lock to his collar. It groaned, exhaling a cloud of rust when it snapped open.
A moment later, the little shit tries to shiv me.
He gets my blade out of its sheath—a nasty little thing I bought off a toothless Tyza for twice what it’s worth, all jagged and saw-toothed on one side and smooth, razor-sharp steel on the other side—and tries to jab it into my gut. Luckily anger is a good motivator. I managed to sidestep the haphazard assault, only getting a shallow line sliced down across my hip. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the boy’s arm and twisted it violently, watching the kid gasp and spit in pain, dropping the sword. I caught it with my other hand and shoved it back in its sheath while pulling the boy’s arm up over his head, forcing him up on his tiptoes.
“Ow! Fuck!” he hollered loud enough that I knew someone was going to come in and check on him.
“Shut up, you little prick.”
“What the hell was that thing you just did?”
Another time I might have been flattered by his curiosity, but it was neither the right time nor the right place. I grabbed him and did the cliché thing, tossing him over my shoulder, hearing him groan when my shoulder dug into his stomach. I suppressed the urge to smack the flat end of my sword across his bottom, as justified as it would have been.
Ducking out of the tent, I heard a commotion explode behind me. Time to hightail it. I figured that if I was fast enough no one should be able to peg me for one of the Boss’ grunts. The whole thing I said about starting a war popped back into my head. I hadn’t just been cracking a joke, it was a very real possibility. The slavers and the gangs had an uneasy truce going where they avoided encroaching on each other’s backyard. It was just bad for business, cutting up each other when they both had a common enemy in the knights—not to mention the other four of the five factions treating the city like their own personal sandbox.