The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  But even in darkness, he couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened. He couldn’t pretend it had even been a conversation.

  He could still hear her voice in his ears, demanding to know who this priestess was who presumed to command the Jackals, why he had agreed to her plan. He could still hear himself arguing back, telling her that her idea was a good one, that it might be the only thing that could save Cier’Djaal.

  He could still hear her black, unpleasant laughter as she looked at him and spoke.

  “Given all the ‘help’ you’ve given it, perhaps the kindest thing you could do for Cier’Djaal is leave, Ramaniel.”

  Denaos opened his eyes. He looked from his left to his right. He looked above him.

  That had been this morning, hadn’t it?

  It was hard to tell down here. The darkness was no longer darkness, it hadn’t been for at least two hours. This far in, it was something alive, something that expanded with every breath and pressed up against him. He knew the ground beneath his feet and the walls around his head only as a theory, things he suspected might be there but couldn’t know about for sure. The darkness’s breath robbed all the air down here, made his head feel light and his legs feel bloodless.

  He felt a hand press just between his shoulder blades. His hand had already been around his knife, but he held it, and his breath. He counted the fingers on his back: big finger, little finger. As they had discussed.

  “Junction’s two hundred paces behind you,” a voice whispered in his ear. “Three-way intersection. We’ve got knives in the east and west tunnels, we’re taking the south.”

  He nodded.

  Of course she wouldn’t be able to see that, so he shuffled awkwardly around to where he thought she was standing and muttered back, “Got it.”

  It was dark. The smell of stagnant water and weeks-old shit cloyed his nostrils. He could barely hear for the blood pounding in his ears. Yet somehow he still had sense enough to know she was smiling at him with that shit-eating grin.

  “’S dark,” she said. “You wanna hold my hand?”

  “Just move,” he said. “I’ll follow by scent.”

  “Smells like shit down here.”

  “Don’t make me say it, Scarecrow.”

  She chortled blackly. She would. She had always been comfortable with this sort of thing, all the way back to when they were both pulling low-man work.

  But him? He had taken the task of shaking down orphans just so he could avoid sewer jobs.

  It had been worse back then, of course.

  Back then the guards had given more of a shit and the fashas had promised the people that they’d clean up crime. Back then the Jackals had been just one gang of criminals among a hundred, and they’d all had need of the tunnels for the same reasons. Back then footwars were done dirty and in the dark.

  The actual use of the tunnels—the smuggling, the transport, and the healthy payoffs that came with those things—was reserved for the heads and higher-ups in the gang. The job of going down there and cleaning out the tunnels of other gangs was given to the low-men, along with a dagger and a scented mask.

  No lantern, of course. That’d give away their position. So every low-man who managed to pull sewer duty would wander around in the lightless labyrinth, going off of feel and memory, to clean the path for the smugglers, hoping they would bump into someone with their pointy bits before someone else did it to them first.

  Scarecrow, back before they had started calling her that, had been one of the few who had earned their rank down here in the dark, hearing others’ gurgling cries as she jammed her blade into them.

  But she had never seen them.

  While those experiences had made her one of the most uncomfortable people to share a drink with, he could think of worse people to take down into the sewers.

  The sewers under the newer parts of the city were elegant, streamlined affairs full of right angles and walkways. It didn’t take too many turns for them to start hearing the sound of voices thick with Sainite accent echoing off the walls. A distant light grew brighter at the end of the tunnel, illuminating Scarecrow’s slender form and the giant crossbow strapped to her back. They slowed their pace, careful to move quietly as they made their way to the corner.

  Sandal was hunched there. His short, stocky frame was swaddled in leather and his head was wrapped in a thick cloth, the sole gap being where a wooden visor with a thin slit for his eyes peered out. Clad as he was, he might have looked comical, even with the bandolier of fireflasks strapped across his chest. Denaos didn’t dare make fun of him, though.

  Sandal the Candle had done even worse than sewer work to earn his rank.

  Denaos crouched down beside him, muttered lowly, “How’s it look?”

  Sandal glanced over his head, replied through the muffle of his head wrap, “Wfll, thfrf’s mhtbf tfn hr sf. Bffn khhpfng fn fyf fhr mhrh, bht’s hll clhfr nfw.”

  Denaos met the man’s gaze, consideration etched across his face. He scratched his chin, gave a thoughtful hum, and nodded slowly.

  “Sandal,” he said, “I hate you so fucking much.”

  He edged past the stocky man and peered around the corner.

  The tunnel opened up after about another twenty feet into a large chamber that formed the nexus of three tunnels. Originally built large enough for work crews to get their equipment into, this one had apparently found a new purpose and a new crew.

  One with far more sinister equipment.

  Ten of them, maybe twelve; it was hard to tell. Some men, some women, all in the blue coats and tricornered hats of Saine. By the light of several lanterns, some stacked crates of supplies, some unpacked weapons, some made the barest effort to stand guard, lounging on stacks with crossbows in their laps as they traded bawdy jokes. Makeshift barricades had been erected at the mouths of the tunnels, with more Sainites guarding the ones that reached east and west.

  Denaos had to give the Sainites credit: Moving supplies down into the sewers was not a terrible idea. The Karnerians had the advantage on the ground, making it impossible to hold a conventional base. But then, one never accused the scraw-riding Sainites of being conventional.

  No room for the beasts down here, though. Had scraws been part of the deal, Denaos never would have come down here. While he’d never seen a scraw, he’d seen the aftermath of the Karnerians who had fought them.

  Accessing secret caches of weapons and supplies across the city, such as this one, would be trivial for an army so mobile.

  Likewise, eliminating a few gangs of paltry thieves would be as petty a task for those birds as plucking worms from the earth. Should the Sainites decide to turn their full might against the Jackals…

  He closed his eyes, drew in a breath.

  Easy there, he cautioned himself. Now’s not the time to go listening to reason.

  He eased back behind the corner. Scarecrow looked at him expectantly. He just had to trust that Sandal did, too.

  “I count twelve,” he muttered. “There’s a lot of cover for them, though, so there might have been more.” He glanced to Scarecrow. “Who do we have in the other tunnels?”

  “Lowbrow and his boys’re in the east,” Scarecrow grunted. “The Cado twins and their sister are taking the west.” She grinned as she pulled her crossbow off her back. “Just waitin’ for us to start the music.”

  “They know this isn’t a shakedown, right? No eyes left open. If this gets back to the Sainite command—”

  “Ain’t gonna,” Scarecrow said as she loaded a bolt and cranked her weapon back.

  Sandal offered a gesture that might have been meant to be reassuring. “Yff lfhvf thfs th fs. Gfnnh bf fnf hfll ff h shftshfw.”

  “All right, then.” The dagger slid into his palm. “We do this dirty.”

  They filed out around the corner, as smoothly now as all those years ago when they had first started doing this. Noses to the ground, eyes on the target, hands on their steel.

  Scarecrow took point, sliding down to
one knee and aiming her crossbow down the hall. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sandal broke into a run. He tore a pair of fireflasks from his bandolier, snapped his index and ring fingers. The flint and steel bands around the digits sent sparks kissing the oil-soaked fuses of the flasks. They burst into flame, tiny pyres blossoming in his hands as he charged down the tunnel, silent but for the crackle of his fire.

  “Oi! OI!” one of the Sainites called out, leaping off a crate and aiming his crossbow. “Foreigners have breached the—”

  Denaos felt the wind cut past his cheek. He saw Scarecrow’s bolt jutting from the Sainite’s throat an instant later. The soldier groped at it feebly, trying to gasp out a last word.

  If they hadn’t heard his cries of alarm, though, his compatriots certainly noticed him slumping to the ground. They scrambled for weapons, some grabbing swords and shields, other seizing crossbows to be loaded.

  But it was all too little. In just one more moment, as he came within spitting distance of the barricades, Sandal the Candle showed them how he’d gotten his name.

  They flew from his hands, the fires from their fuses painting red serpents in the darkness. They struck a shield, a crate; targets didn’t matter. The fireflasks exploded in a spray of black glass and black oil. Flaming globs sizzled upon coats, upon hats, upon wood and stone and hair and skin.

  And then, with a hundred red mouths, they began to chew.

  Whatever facade of a defense the Sainites had been forming dissolved into a dozen screams straining to be heard over the roar of flame. They fought to tear off flaming coats, to pull the oil from their hair, to throw blankets over their comrades who’d gotten the worst of it.

  It was for those gentle and compassionate souls that Denaos drew his blade.

  He let Sandal hurl another flask over the barricade to explode in a cloud of flame before he followed it. He vaulted over the barricade and launched headlong into a tackle toward one of the Sainites who had been busy trying to extinguish a comrade. The man looked up, reached for the sword at his hip, but found Denaos’s forearm pressed against his chest, pinning his arm and driving him back into the wall.

  His knife worked a quick, messy romance upon the soldier: three steel kisses to the belly, one to the throat. He let the man drop, whirled about to see another one rushing at him with blade and buckler. The blade lashed out, a thrust made desperate by the surrounding flame and screams, easy enough to avoid. The shield that caught him in the back, less so.

  The shock of a steel rim smashing between his shoulder blades sent him to the ground. He rolled with the blow, tumbling out of the way before an arcing sword could find him. Without looking he swept out a long leg and found an ankle. One of the soldiers fell to the stones before a comrade, tangling them up and giving Denaos a chance to leap to his feet.

  How the fuck are there two of them still standing? he asked himself. Who the fuck was supposed to take care of them?

  He stared down the east tunnel. Neither Lowbrow nor a single Jackal hood could be seen through the darkness. Either they were taking their sweet time or—

  Sword. SWORD.

  The one still on his feet leapt over his prone comrade, pulling a blade out and taking a wild swing at Denaos. He darted back, but the Sainite refused to give him an opening. Each stroke was followed by another and another, driving Denaos back a step each time, until he felt his foot catch on something.

  He glanced down and saw a smoldering corpse of one of the less lucky Sainites, skin red and clothes black. He glanced back up, but the delay had cost him. He narrowly caught the soldier’s arm as he came in for another swing. The Sainite lashed out with his shield, catching him on the chin and sending his head swimming.

  But he didn’t need to think for this next part. Now that he’d done it for as long as he had, murder had become just another reflex.

  In and out, six times each, as quick as an eye could blink. Past the coat, past the leather beneath, past the flesh and into the belly. His dagger left dark-red smears upon the soldier’s clothing, and the glassy-eyed, wide-mouthed look of a dead fish on the soldier’s face.

  Before the body could go totally limp, Denaos spun it about and shoved it toward his companion struggling to his feet. The other Sainite caught the weight of his dead comrade full-on and staggered back with the corpse, struggling between holding it and holding his weapon.

  Denaos capitalized on that before he could make up his mind, rushing up and reaching around the body to deliver four quick stabs to the soldier’s side. He let out a shriek, slumped to the ground with his dead companion bearing down upon him. Whatever strength he might have had to push the corpse off was ebbing with every breath out of the many wounds in his flank.

  It would have been kinder to lean down and finish it, Denaos knew. But it was more practical to let the man bleed out and avoid the possibility of a stray blow’s catching him.

  To watch him, though, as his life wept out…

  That was neither kind nor practical.

  Yet Denaos did it, all the same.

  The fires died alongside the soldiers, chewing through the crates and cloth and settling to smoldering cinders in a matter of moments. Denaos crouched low to the ground as the smoky belches of their feast wafted overhead and spread throughout the tunnels. When the air tasted a little less foul, he rose to survey the damage.

  Or the mess, at any rate.

  What supplies could be consumed by flame had been rent to cinders and ash. The weapons had been blackened and stained by fire. The Sainites themselves lay prone upon the ground. A fortunate few had bled out from Denaos’s handiwork or Scarecrow’s bolts lodged in chests and throats.

  The unlucky ones bore Sandal’s signature, their sloughed skin left in tarry black-and-red patches upon the stones.

  Denaos let loose two short whistles, the agreed-upon signal.

  Sandal came shuffling up in response. He carried a short blade wet with blood, though that was nothing compared to the blood seeping between his fingers as he clutched a wound in his side.

  “Ouch.” Denaos winced. “Got careless, did we?”

  “Nf mhrf thhn yff,” Sandal mumbled. “Hfs fnyhnf fvfr nhtfcf thht yfh hnlf hvfr sffm tf shfffr glfncfng blhws whflf lhss fmphrtfnt pffplh ght mhthlftfd?”

  Denaos narrowed his eyes at Sandal before glancing over his head. “Did I need to know any of that?”

  “Specifics, nah,” Scarecrow grunted as she came shambling up a tunnel to join them. “He ain’t pleased, though.”

  “He can add his name to the fucking list.” Denaos wiped his blade clean, replaced it in its sheath. “Where the hell were the others? Drunk or just stupid?”

  “Wouldn’t-a grabbed the stupid ones for this one,” Scarecrow grunted. “And the one’s that I chose wouldn’t-a disappointed me by showin’ up drunk.”

  Sandal sighed from behind his head wrap. “Fsn’t ft hbvfhfs?”

  “The Candle’s right,” Scarecrow grunted. “Smells like a rat.”

  “That can’t be the case,” Denaos replied. “Only the heads even know about this idea. And none of them knew who I was choosing for this job.” He eyed Scarecrow. “You, on the other hand?”

  “Ain’t got rats.” Scarecrow stroked the butt of her crossbow with the sort of intensity that suggested she thought it might just reach out and stroke her right back. “I run clean.”

  “You run with people named Lowbrow.”

  “Ain’t. Got. Rats,” she grunted emphatically.

  Denaos’s ire slipped through clenched teeth. “Well, how else do you explain it?”

  Scarecrow’s lips stiffened as she looked down her nose at Denaos. Sandal stared at him intently, the glistening of his eyes visible beneath the slits of his visor. He felt himself take a step back.

  Accusations—like courtrooms and lawyers—were luxuries for common men who never found their way into the dark places under Cier’Djaal. Those people could afford to throw them around like seed to birds, content that gods or laws would protect them
.

  But among proper folk, like the Jackals, whose gods were silent and whose laws carried only one sentence, accusations were sharp and weighty as any dagger. And, as with a dagger, one threw them only if one was damn sure one wanted someone to bleed.

  They said nothing. They made no accusation. The only thing Scarecrow and Sandal showed, in the tension of their stances and the rigidity of their postures, was a suggestion.

  But one did not just suggest that one of the heads of the Jackals might be a traitor.

  Not unless one was comfortable with the possibility of hanging from the Harbor Gate by one’s throat.

  Scarecrow and Sandal were veterans. They did their duties, followed their orders, earned their ranks like good soldiers. They knew the rules. They knew the sentences. They knew he could gut them then and there and not a soul would say a word against him for doing so.

  And he might have on principle—or from paranoia—had a sound not caught his ear.

  “Hurts…”

  A whisper. No, something softer than that. Something wet and weak that had crawled out of a dead mother lying in the gutter. A whimper, oozing through the eastern tunnel toward them.

  The woman arrived a moment later.

  He had only a feeling that the figure at the mouth of the tunnel was a woman, just as he had only a feeling that it was a human. The figure, slight and wispy as a shadow in the orange-red glow of the smoldering fires, stood with a bowed head and arms hanging limp from stooped shoulders. She would have looked like any of Cier’Djaal’s destitute and pathetic.

  If she hadn’t been wearing Khovura black.

  “In my body,” she whispered. Her voice slid out of her throat on a thin trail of drool. “It hurts.”

  Denaos signaled to Scarecrow. Her crossbow was up and loaded in an instant, fired an instant later. Weak and waif-like the woman might have been, but that was no cause for pause.