“I don’t want more,” he said, turning his head and watching her go.
“You don’t have a choice.”
He grunted a small laugh and heard the door close behind her as she left, leaving him in the quiet and all alone. Kam’s apartment was nice. He hadn’t spent much time in anything nice before. There were curtains and rugs. The smell of the room was always good, and things were always in a nice order. Kam had really surprised him when she said he could stay there and that she’d find him some help. He always figured she didn’t like him, being Venir’s bastard son and all. He wondered if his mother Vorla and Kam would have gotten along. They had similar qualities.
Probably kill each other.
He looked down at his legs. One was cocked out of place to one side. He concentrated. Tried to move it. His eyes watered, and his neck swelled up. He didn’t want Jubilee to see him cry again. But she understood. She saw him for who he was: not a man, but an over-sized boy. A tear rolled down his cheek. He must have cried more than most do in Bish. His mother dying almost killed him. Being starved half to death had been even worse. Now this.
Stop crying. You’re too big for this.
He sniffed and snorted. His father’s angry face bothered him. Venir and Billip had argued with each other the entire miserable trek back. It wasn’t a pleasant thing. Each one seemed to be blaming the other. At least Venir had spent some time with him. They had talked as Venir walked by his side while the horses towed him …
***
“I’m sorry about your mother, Brak.” Venir said. A deep frown creased his battle-riddled face. “But Vorla was a good woman to me. And our time was … well, memorable. Did she ever tell you how we met?”
Brak said, “No.”
“Do you want me to?”
Brak nodded.
“All right then. As it goes, long before I became this blood-mad axe-wielding slayer, I was a soldier of sorts. Young and full of as much bull as you could cram into a minotaur—”
“What’s a minotaur?”
“Uh, well, a very large man with horns. Like the ram-faced mintaurs in the City of Three.”
“I see,” Brak said.
“I was what is often called a sword-for-hire, or sell sword. Some call it a mercenary. I’d joined up with a group I met south in the tent city. They called themselves the Steel Picket, which was a fairly renowned organization of its kind. A bunch of sell swords like me and your mother.”
“She was a fighter,” Brak said.
“A good one. Better than me at the time. Back then, I wielded a blade like an orcen pick. I was pretty young, not seasoned, and your mother a bit older and wiser than me. She’d been with the Steel Picket a few years already. She made quite an impression the first time I saw her. Short sandy hair, well-formed and attractive in a bodice of chain and leather armor. She told me to gawk at some of the other ladies, but there weren’t any.” He laughed. “We got to talking after that and stayed pretty close from then on.”
“It was my first journey of the kind. Scouting and protecting the caravan train from brigands and any other strange things this world had to throw at them.”
“Underlings?” Brak asked.
“They weren’t very troublesome back then,” Venir said, slapping a mosquito on his neck. “We fought mostly orcs, kobolds, gnolls, ogres, snakes, giant vultures, and some other strange monsters. We traveled back and forth, between the north and the south. We were together for more than a year. Lost a lot of good men, but never a single caravan. It made a better man out of me, and so did your mother.” His face became distant after that. “I lost track of Vorla after that.”
“What happened?” Brak said.
Venir shrugged.
“I was just getting started, wanted to move on to other things. We argued a bit. It got fierce. She slung words as sharp as swords, and I slung some back. She didn’t want me to go, I guess, but she didn’t say that. She called me some names and stormed away. I left then. Never even said ‘so long.’”
Venir put his hand on Brak’s chest. “Now I know why she was so mad.”
***
… It hadn’t been a long conversation, but it meant the world to Brak. He mattered to Venir. His mother had mattered, too. But he couldn’t help but wonder how things would have turned out if Venir had stuck around.
The apartment door opened. He tried to reach for the tears on his face, but nothing moved.
“You could have at least waited until my tears dried up, Jubilee.”
“It will all be right,” Kam said, taking a seat at the table in front of him. Her face was beautiful, but tired. She held a steaming bowl of stew in her hand and set it down to wipe his tears away with her sleeve. “You’re going to have to be tougher from now on, Brak. The road to healing’s never easy. No more tears.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Then I can’t help you,” she said, taking his chin and looking directly in his eye. “Understand?”
He nodded.
“I’m not a harsh person, Brak. Well, maybe some. But if you cry, I cry. If I cry, Joline cries. Then the girls cry.” She shook her head. “It’s horrible seeing all those crying faces. Just awful, and Joline’s the worst.”
Brak laughed a bit and said, “I know.”
“Tears are for when men come back dead. Be glad you live. There are no friends to entertain you in the grave.”
He nodded.
Kam stuffed some stew in his mouth and rubbed his head.
“I could kill Venir.”
“It’s not his fault. It’s that ogre’s fault. It broke my back,” Brak said, chewing a mouthful. “And I let my guard down.”
She tussled the straw hairs on his head.
“You’re a good boy, Brak. I hate to see this happen to you, but I don’t know that you’ll ever walk again.” She sighed. “You have to be ready for that.”
It was hard to hear. He squeezed his eyes shut.
No more tears. No more tears.
CHAPTER 17
“Twenty pieces!” Billip said, fuming. “That’s less than half what you paid the last time!” He grabbed the leather sack off the work table. “I can get more in the market.”
“That’s illegal,” the sergeant said. He was a royal soldier. A little soft in the belly, but ordinary. “You can only sell to us, or you get nothing at all.”
Billip looked back at Georgio and Nikkel. Their brows were buckled, and their arms crossed over their chests. They didn’t just go into the Outlands to hunt underlings because they hated them, but also because it paid well. Or it had, until now. They both slowly shook their heads.
“You’ll give us sixty pieces. Gold. One for every eye!” Billip said, banging his finger on the counter.
“Twenty,” the man said, his elongated face frowning. He scratched the thin long hairs on his flaky head. “Not a coin more.”
They were less than a mile from the City of Three’s main border, at a small royal outpost. A small tent city. Lots of soldiers and horses. It was the same one they’d been doing business with the entire year. Same long-faced soldier too. They stood inside a large tent with little more inside than a long table, a few chairs, and a dozen crates of supplies. Three soldiers in chainmail with swords belted on their hips had escorted them in and were still there, hands drifting on and off their hilts.
Billip leaned forward on the table.
“Listen, Cappy, we’ve been doing this quite some time. You hired us, remember? What is with all these changes?”
Cappy leaned forward to look down on Billip and said, “There’s been a change in management. They don’t think it’s fair that our soldiers don’t get the same payment you rogue hunters do.”
“Is that so? Well then, why don’t your soldiers leave the outpost? I bet you’d kill a lot more underlings and probably put a quick end to these wars.” He pushed Cappy back with his finger. The other soldiers inched forward. “It’s pretty risky to hunt underlings when you don’t have an outpost over you.
Why don’t you try it sometime, Cappy?”
Cappy stayed the bristling guard with his hand.
“Listen, Billip, just between you and me, because we’ve been doing business for a time?”
Billip nodded.
Cappy said, “They don’t want to use hunters anymore. They want men like you to join the ranks.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Ha!” Billip said. “You chase shadows out there, the few who deign to leave this outpost at all. We’ve seen what’s going on. We’ve offered to scout for you, yet you’ll have none of it. Men, good ones, fall into one death trap after the other. And there’s more of us than them.” He rapped his fist on the table. “The royals should be glad of what we do. At least it’s proof some underlings can die.” He rattled the bag of underling eyes. “As for these, we’ll burn them. That’s what should be done anyway.” He turned and walked away.
“Stop!” Cappy said.
Billip turned.
“I can go as high as twenty five,” Cappy said. He gave a quick nod to his men, who blocked the tent exit. “I suggest you take it.”
Something tickled Billip’s spine.
“Give me forty. That’s half what you used to pay, and you’ll never have to see us again.”
Cappy rubbed his saggy chin and nodded a little. He set a small chest on the table and opened it up. He counted out thirty gold coins and dropped them into a small pouch. He tossed it to Billip.
“Take it,” Cappy said, “and consider that a favor.”
Billip slung his sack of gemstone underling eyes into Cappy’s chest.
“So be it.”
“What did you do that for, Billip? That’s not enough!” Georgio cried.
“Be silent,” Billip said. He shoved Georgio and Nikkel past the guards, through the exit, and didn’t stop until they arrived where the horses waited.
“What’s the hurry?” Georgio said.
“Just get on your horse and be quiet,” Billip told him. The hairs on his neck were bristling. He glanced back at Cappy’s tent. The glum sergeant and his men were leering at him.
“What’s going on?” Nikkel asked. “Aren’t we staying a bit like we always do?”
“Bish, no.” He hopped into the saddle. “Let’s go.”
While we still can.
CHAPTER 18
Venir glowered at the dagger stuck between the span of his fingers. The shining steel brushed the edge of his skin but did not make him bleed. Slowly, he turned. Melegal’s slim-faced dour expression greeted him. His eyes were tired, his movements a little sluggish for some reason.
“I’m already missing two fingers,” he said, “What’s a couple more?”
Still frowning, Melegal took the stool beside him. He plucked his dagger from the bar, and it disappeared in his clothes.
“How did you find me here?”
Venir’s stool groaned when he leaned back.
“I’m not looking for you. I’m avoiding—”
“Responsibility,” Melegal said.
“No.”
“Kam?”
“No, I was just out for a walk and happened into this place.” He took a drink. “No surprise there are rats in here.”
Melegal’s steely eyes narrowed.
“It’s good to see you too.” Melegal drummed his slender fingers on the bar. “I see you bought the robust strumpet a bottle. It’s about time you bought me one as well. Or did you want to be left alone so you could pout.”
“Watch what you say, Me,” Venir warned. “I’m in no dandy mood today.”
“You haven’t been in quite some time.”
“And you have?”
“I never am.”
“Ha.”
Venir dropped a coin on the bar.
“My palate’s finer than that,” Melegal said, lifting a brow. “And I know underling eyes go for more than that. How’s business been the past few months?”
Venir dropped another coin on the bar, and the bartender swept it away.
Melegal pointed to a bottle near the top of the rack and said, “The gold crest will do.” He eyed Venir’s squat bottle of grog. “Must have been a really bad day. Did Kam make you sleep in the stables again?”
Melegal’s barbs didn’t bother Venir. If anything, they made him feel better. He missed his oldest friend’s presence and cold-natured understanding. And it seemed like it had been forever since the pair of them spent time exchanging barbs with one another. He took a long swig and drew his forearm across his mouth.
“You do belong in the stables,” Melegal said.
Venir huffed and spent the next several minutes drinking and explaining to Melegal everything that had happened since he returned.
“A pity for Brak,” Melegal said, removing his cap and holding it to his chest. “I’ve been through some things with that oversized lad.” He scratched his head. “I think you’d have been pretty proud of him the day he skewered that underling to the ceiling with a sword. Cut from the same stone, the two of you are.” He eyed Venir’s pack. “Did you try … you know?”
Venir nodded.
“Sorry,” Melegal said, watching the barkeep pour his wine. “Maybe Kam will think of something.
About then, the one-eyed man covering the door walked over, said, “They’re gone,” and sauntered back. Venir nodded. Some others entered, and a couple left. Melegal fanned smoke from his face. In the back and darkest corner, hefty men and women made haughty giggles.
“It’s not the Octopus, but it will do,” Venir said, taking a sip. “Is there a name for this place? I didn’t notice a sign.”
“The Serpent Pit.”
“Does it have rooms?” Venir asked. He didn’t see any stairs.
“I think not.”
“A basement, perhaps?”
“What am I, an innkeeper?” Melegal snapped.
“My, a little touchy, aren’t you?” Venir looked at Melegal’s belly. “Carrying all that weight around is making your skinny butt grumpy. You look like you lost Quickster.”
Melegal’s smooth forehead creased. Venir felt a tingle in his arms.
“You did lose him.”
“I didn’t lose him,” Melegal said, clenching his fist. “He was taken.”
“By who?”
Melegal’s smooth expressionless face was riddled in notable creases. Nothing ever rattled the sly man. Sleek. Confident. Now there was a restlessness about him. It had first become apparent on the trip back, but it had passed after their encounter with Scorch. Now it was back.
“Well?” Venir said, leaning forward. He reached for his bottle.
Melegal stayed his arm. Keeping his voice low, he said, “At least in Bone, you knew everyone was an arsehole. Here, it’s hard to tell who the arsehole is. I’ve got trouble.”
“What kind?”
“Royals, I believe. Wizards, here.”
“I suppose that’s my fault.”
Melegal shrugged his narrow shoulders and said, “Well, I can’t blame you this time.”
“So how’d this come about?”
“It seems this time they are just interested in me.”
“Good.”
“I might need some help.” His grey eyes flashed. “Do you have it?”
“Have what?”
Melegal lifted his brows.
“Serious?” Venir patted his backpack. “I don’t go anywhere without it anymore. Why?”
“I may need some help.”
***
Jaw muscles clenched and lower back tightened, Melegal choked down his pride.
Can’t believe I’m asking the lout for help.
Venir’s rugged expression didn’t change. Hard and scarred, he offered a single word.
“Sure.”
Melegal’s wiry muscles eased. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t felt relief when Venir walked into the Serpent Pit. He’d been expecting someone else, but he had no idea who. Jaen hadn’t given him a description. She had just said to start here and wait
. Two days ago.
“What kind of trouble?” Venir added.
Still keeping his voice down, Melegal told him everything as the two gazed into the room. The skirmish in the streets. The meeting with Jaen. The trip to the tower. Jaen’s acknowledgement of watchers. The pick-up and delivery he’d been charged with.
Venir soaked it all in, nodding and grunting.
“We should tell Kam,” Venir suggested.
“Did you not hear me say that I was supposed to come straight here? Any diversion, and I’d never see Quickster again?” Melegal whispered.
Venir pointed to his missing ear.
“You can hear fine through that hole,” Melegal hissed, “Just not near as good as me.” He eyed the lout. “And since when do you make excuses?”
Venir shrugged his big shoulders.
He seems bigger than ever. Some of the fires in his sullen eyes are lit again. The hunter is back. And that’s just what I need.
“Melegal, do you think it’s worth it?” Venir said softly.
“Getting Quickster back? Of course it is.”
“I’m certain you don’t want to go through something like you did back in Bone with Lord Almen.” Venir propped his elbows on the bar and leaned back so he could whisper near Melegal’s ear without looking like he was. “You and I both know royals are not to be trusted. And we don’t encounter many that aren’t troublemakers. And truth be told, we don’t know much about this city. And Kam’s pretty prickly whenever I ask her what happened the last time I was gone.”
Melegal’s thoughts drifted to Lorda Almen. She was just as demanding as she was dangerous, yet he’d risked his neck for her anyway. Then there was the other one, Rayal. A fine piece of porcelain and nobility. Untainted by the royals’ hard edge.
I wonder if they live.
“It’s an errand. A test,” he said softly. “It will gain me knowledge of this city and its underworld.” He finished his glass and poured another. “In this case, I’m just as curious as I am greedy.”
“But you said Jaen wasn’t going to pay.”
The Darkslayer: Series 2 Special Edition (Bish and Bone Bundle Books 1-5): Sword and Sorcery Adventures Page 23