The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  Yet going underground had merely left them cornered. The Khovura had found every cell, every rat’s nest, every warren that held a Jackal. In mere days, two hundred-sixty-seven had been killed.

  They were sure of the exact number because the Khovura took immense pains to have every mutilated corpse strung up, sent back, or otherwise delivered to the Jackals.

  Treason was the only answer. For the Khovura to have known the location of each den and the movement of every Jackal foot soldier, someone had to have been feeding them information. Denaos had no doubt that the saccarii strapped to the table could have given them the informant’s name, appearance, and favorite fucking color, if he had wanted to.

  But Denaos had said he hadn’t been ready to break.

  Silence had not been the first lady to caress Denaos’s palm, her blade not the first he had shown a man’s throat. Numbers, he found, he could forget when he closed his eyes and saw them flash before him. He couldn’t remember how many men he had taken from the shadows, how many bright-red ribbons he had painted across flesh, how many had lain twitching before him as he slunk away.

  The eyes, though, he could never forget.

  He knew what a man ready to die looked like.

  No need to tell her that, of course. No need to dwell on those eyes. He would see them again, as soon as he went to sleep. He stepped past Anielle, moved toward the dimly lit staircase at the end of the narrow hall. But as soon as he did, he felt her hand clamp upon his arm.

  “I didn’t bring you down here just to be nice,” she said. Her dark-eyed gaze was hard and even. “We’re losing this war to rats and you’re the last man we brought in. People are talking, Ramaniel.”

  He paused. For a moment he had forgotten that was his real name. Or one of them, anyway.

  “Yeah?” he asked. “Think they might let me go home early, then?”

  She wasn’t smiling. He couldn’t help it. The joke was too funny.

  No one left the Jackals. No one but him, anyway. And what were the chances of that happening twice?

  Anielle offered no resistance as he pulled away from her and trudged wearily up the cramped spiral staircase and into the dark corridor above. Sightless, he counted his steps: five paces forward, left turn, three paces forward, right turn. He spotted the thinnest halo of light, an orange ring as tall as a man, at the edge of the darkness. He approached it, knelt down, and groped blindly, the reek of cheap, ancient wine filling his nostrils.

  His fingers found a handle, jerked it sharply to the right, and then pushed. The door creaked open, the wine cellar’s dim lantern light greeting him as he crawled out of an immense wine cask, muttering curses.

  As far as hidden entrances went, this had been one of the Jackals’ better ideas, but it wasn’t without its downsides. The stink, he thought, would never get out of his clothes.

  Yet in an instant, the reek of cheap wine was overwhelmed by the reek of cheap tobacco, and Denaos knew that he had bigger problems.

  Yerk, tall and thin as a knife, stood at the cellar’s door. His hood was pulled up over his face, every feature shrouded in darkness but for the glow of his burning cigarillo. Yet Denaos had known this rogue long enough to know when he was staring, just as he knew that Yerk’s stare was never, ever a good thing.

  “Rezca has requested our presence in the usual place.” Yerk’s fondness for cigarillos did not make for a melodious voice in the best of times. Of late the stress of war had made him about as pleasant to listen to as a rusty nail being hammered into a cat’s paw. “We have a visitor.”

  All the same, Denaos did not miss the change in Yerk’s tone. He canted his head to the side, curious.

  “We have a visitor?” he asked. “Or we have a problem?”

  Yerk took a long drag, exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  “Yes.”

  Problem, Denaos decided, was a word Yerk understood poorly.

  A problem was another den struck by the Khovura. A problem was another gang of Jackals executed by a Karnerian priest or Sainite military court. A problem was another merchant getting brave and refusing to pay protection money.

  Denaos had dealt with problems before. Denaos could deal with problems.

  The woman sitting at the table at the center of the room was not a problem. She was punishment sent by a vengeful god for one of the numerous sins he had committed.

  Someday he hoped to figure out which one.

  “Asper.” He greeted her with a curt nod as he strode into the room; no use trying to hide, she already had that steely gaze locked upon him.

  “Denaos,” she replied, gesturing to the only empty chair at the table. “Join us.”

  It was decidedly audacious for any outsider to speak with such authority at a meeting of the Jackals’ heads, let alone a priestess. The offense did not go unnoticed. Anielle made no effort to disguise her scowl, Yerk passively blew a cloud of cigarillo smoke in her direction.

  Only Rezca, his eyes hidden behind the glare the lantern cast on his spectacles, said nothing. He merely ran a hand over the hairless flesh of his scalp, steepled his fingers before him, and mimicked her gesture.

  Denaos picked his way through the empty tables of the bar. The windows had long ago been boarded up, the doors nailed shut. The sole light was from the lantern hanging over the lone occupied table, where the last leaders of the Jackals currently sat with a decidedly enterprising interloper.

  “So I assume you’re going to tell me what we’re doing here.” Denaos eyed Asper as he sat down. “I trust you have a dramatic monologue prepared?”

  “Start with how you found us,” Anielle snapped before Asper could say a word. “Who squealed?”

  “No one squealed,” Asper replied tersely. “The Temple of Talanas takes in all the wounded we can, including former members of your…” She paused, likely searching for a word better than gang of murderous thugs. “Organization. One of them told me where to find you.”

  “It is common practice to take the tongue, eyes, and ears of those who involve outsiders in the game,” Yerk muttered, putting out his cigarillo and drawing a fresh one. “They are left only with their nose, that they might smell the shit they’re in.”

  “You’d not find a hairbreadth of flesh on the man that wasn’t cut, burned, or torn off,” Asper said. “We found him in an alley after the Khovura were through with him.”

  “Then he should have been ours to pick up,” Anielle said.

  “Should have.” Asper turned her gaze upon Anielle. “But wasn’t.”

  Among Asper’s many gifts as a priestess was a tone that could convey an overwhelming sense of moral superiority with even a few words. And among Anielle’s many talents as a rogue was the ability to slip a knife into someone’s kidneys with the barest of movements. That being the case, Denaos slid a hand under the table to place it over Anielle’s just as her blade had come free of its sheath.

  “Whatever you did for him was obviously enough to get him to tell you where to find us,” he said. “So I’m assuming whatever you need must be immense for you to seek us out.”

  At this she flinched—or perhaps cringed—as though it had just now dawned on her what manner of people she had sought out. She stared down at her hands, perfectly flat upon the table.

  “Like I said, we took in a lot of people,” she said. “Beggars, soldiers, guardsmen, other priests… there’s no end to the names because there’s no end to the victims. Every day the Karnerians and Sainites find a new place to fight and we come through and pick up the pieces. And…” A sigh that contained all the exhaustion of a hundred years came free. “It’s not working.

  “The Temple of Ancaa is taking some of our overflow, but they’re making demands. They want supplies, food, wine. We’ve taken every spare building we can muster, rallied every gutter-priest we can find, and it’s still not enough. So long as the Karnerians and Sainites keep fighting, we’ll eventually be overwhelmed.”

  She rested her head in her hands, drew in a shuddering breath. />
  “Something has to change,” she said, “and soon.”

  Ah, there’s the monologue. Nice lead-in, too.

  Certainly this would have worked on the kind of broken-down, bent-backed rabble she was used to ministering to at her temple. But even by the standards of thieves, the Jackals were a practical sort. No one who knew them asked them for a favor, no one who knew them appealed to their sense of mercy, and no one, no one conned them.

  And even the best religions had all the makings of a very good con.

  Asper’s suffering, so thick as to suffocate, was met with unimpressed stares across the table.

  Sensing this, she moved her eyes quickly to Denaos, who offered a pointed glare. It had been days since they had seen each other, but years since they had been apart. One didn’t go through what they had gone through without learning how to convey oneself through eyes alone.

  And Denaos’s eyes intended to remind her keenly that she was speaking to thieves.

  “The fashas have more coin,” Yerk muttered.

  “Silktown is locked down.” Asper slammed her hands onto the table. “With Ghoukha dead, some upstart—Mejina, I think his name is—is trying to step into his shoes. He’s keeping everyone out of the district and killing anyone who tries. There’s no way you didn’t know that.”

  “And so you came to us?” Anielle chuckled darkly.

  “Look, I wouldn’t have come to you if I didn’t think you’d benefit from this.” Asper turned her attentions back to the other rogues. “And you wouldn’t have met with me if you weren’t desperate.” The table tensed collectively. She leaned forward. “The Khovura are winning this footwar.”

  “You are not a Jackal. You’re not even Djaalic, shkainai.” Anielle sneered at the woman. “What would a foreigner know of the footwar? Or was the pig you rescued free with his squealing?”

  “I’ve been here almost a month, and in that time I have spoken to damn near every man, woman, and child that hasn’t been killed,” Asper snapped in response. “But I could have had a day and talked to a drunk baby and still figured out what’s going on. The Khovura are smoking out your rat’s nests and stomping on whatever comes scurrying out.”

  “The traitor is of no concern to you, shkainai,” Yerk said.

  “Yerk, you dumbshit,” Anielle growled.

  “If she’s here, she knows already.” The hooded man waved a hand. “She merely does not know it’s none of her business.”

  “I’m not asking to make it my business,” Asper said. “My concern is for the people and they should be yours, as well.” She swept a glare around the table. “Or hadn’t you noticed they’re not on your side?”

  “That the common man resents the rules of the game is not what one calls a revelation,” Yerk said. He was already on his third cigarillo, betraying the stress his voice strove to hide. “We are, after all, in the business of thievery and murder.”

  “And yet,” Denaos muttered, “that wasn’t always the case.”

  Asper looked at him intently. Yerk’s cigarillo burned bright as he drew in a sudden breath. Anielle shot him a glare that she’d likely shown the saccarii they had left bleeding out. And Rezca…

  Rezca merely sat in silence.

  “This is Cier’Djaal, after all,” he continued, clearing his throat. “Thievery and murder were the stones they built this city on. The people have been used to it since long before the Jackals wiped out the other guilds. And the reason we were able to do that is because we had the people cooperating.”

  “I recall breaking hands, burning houses, and writing ransom notes,” Anielle said coldly. “Not cooperation.”

  “One hand broken meant a hundred others were throwing coins to us,” Denaos replied. “It wasn’t fear that kept them paying. It was the trust that we could keep things in the city under control.”

  “The commoners view you as the boots on the fashas’ feet,” Asper said. “The Khovura are offering them a way out from under the heel, even if it’s through massacre. You need to show them that it’s you who runs this city. Not the men with all the coin or the men with none of the coin, but the men who can take it at will.”

  “You have a suggestion, then.”

  Rezca’s voice, when he finally spoke, was not loud. Yet every gaze immediately went toward him as he looked over the rims of his spectacles at Asper.

  “I do,” Asper said. “Thieves are no longer the city’s concern. The Karnerians and Sainites are ripping every neighborhood apart. The approval of the people will go to whoever can drive them out.”

  “We’re Jackals, not soldiers,” Anielle said. “Even if we weren’t reeling, we’re not cut out to fight a conventional war.”

  “The war has long since become unconventional,” Asper said. “The Karnerians took the Sainites’ garrison when the fighting broke out. The Sainites have been launching sneak attacks from bases hidden around the city. You can sniff them out, sabotage them, break weapons, and poison supplies. Convince them that this war will cost them too much to make it worthwhile.”

  “And then, when the dust clears, let it be known that the Jackals were the ones to do it.” Denaos sniffed, glanced to Rezca. “The merchants start showing their gratitude. We get more supplies. We turn the tide of this war. It’s not a bad idea.”

  “It’s suicide,” Anielle piped up. “We’re down leaders, weapons, and men and you want to spend the rest of our energy on fighting a war? A real war? The Khovura will overrun us while our backs are turned.”

  “They’re doing that already,” Denaos replied, voice harsh. “Do you have a better idea?”

  If Anielle’s glare had been sharp before, now it was keen enough to decapitate him where he sat. Understandable, he thought: She hadn’t clawed her way through the ranks of the Jackals just to be second-guessed in front of a shkainai.

  “This plan, of course, neglects that it takes two to fight a war,” Yerk muttered.

  “I’ve got a plan to handle the Karnerians,” Asper said. “Trust me on that.”

  “Trust a foreigner.” Anielle’s voice dragged out like a blade. “A foreigner who doesn’t know the Jackals, doesn’t know the game, doesn’t know the city. She’s an outsider’s outsider. What right does she have to speak for the people?”

  “No more than we do,” Yerk muttered, puffing contemplatively. “How long has it been since a Jackal was seen on the streets? How long has it been since we showed our faces to the sun?”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you’re buying into this shit.” Anielle gestured to Asper. “Two weeks cleaning puke and she thinks she’s not pale as snow? She’s not a Djaalic, she doesn’t speak for them, she never will.”

  “I’m not Djaalic, either.” Denaos gestured to his own face. “Yet you trust me to sit at this table.”

  “That’s different, Ramaniel”—she spit his true name—“and you know it.”

  “It is,” Denaos replied. “Because we’re thieves, not a bunch of pious morons tonguing a god’s feathered ass.” He caught Asper’s glare, made an apologetic nod. “No offense. But this isn’t about the people’s hearts, it’s about their money.”

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” Anielle shot to her feet, her chair clattering to the floor behind her. “Both of you? After all the shit we’ve seen, you’re so scared that you’ll let a shkainai order you around?”

  “This isn’t about orders, it’s—”

  “No, it’s about pride. It’s about having—”

  “No other way, of course. If there were—”

  “Vote.”

  This time Rezca did speak loudly. His voice was echoed by the thump of the wooden idol he slammed down upon the table and pushed toward the center. The two-faced image of Silf, carved from ebonwood and holding out a bowl, leered at everyone at once.

  “This isn’t how it’s done. There are rules,” Anielle growled. “Not all the heads are present.”

  “We are the last,” Rezca said. “We vote now.”

  He reached into his vest, pro
duced a gold coin, and tossed it into the idol’s bowl. A vote in favor of Asper’s plan, Denaos noted with some surprise. Usually Rezca was keenest to observe protocol, something that listening to an outsider certainly didn’t fall under.

  What’s changed, then, old man?

  Anielle spit curses as she fished out a coin from her pocket and threw it into the bowl. A copper coin lay flat and dull, a firm vote against. Unsurprising.

  Less surprising was Yerk’s toss of a silver coin, indicating a vote abstained or withheld. Much, much less surprising was the firmness with which every set of eyes settled upon Denaos. Being unable to see either Yerk’s or Rezca’s, Denaos was intent on the two women, both rapt in him, anticipating his next move with an almost predatory tension.

  He had had a dream like this once.

  Of course, he’d been naked in that one and there had been a goat in it somewhere.

  He reached into his pocket, felt the cold metal of coin as keenly as he felt the heat of Anielle’s stare.

  She wasn’t wrong, of course; trusting a priestess to understand the politics of thieves wasn’t the best idea even in the best of situations. And she was far from wrong in stating that the Jackals could hardly spare dwindling resources and men to fight an enemy that didn’t refer to war as a game.

  Denaos couldn’t fault her practicality, instinct, or coldness—one didn’t become a head of the Jackals without ample amounts of all three. And Asper’s plan was lacking in all of those.

  And even when he tossed a gold coin into the bowl, he still wasn’t quite sure why he had done it.

  Desperate circumstances, he told himself. Desperate circumstances called for desperate measures and desperate hope alike. Or perhaps he couldn’t think of a better plan himself.

  Yeah, sure, he chuckled inwardly. That’s it.

  “You’re fucking joking.” It was a cold contempt that slid out on Anielle’s voice, mirrored in the scowl she swept across the table before settling upon Denaos. “We used to run this town and now we’re so scared that we’re taking orders from shkainai heretics?” She shoved the table as she rose, tipping Silf’s idol and spilling the coins. “We deserve to burn.”