Ogrif swallowed hard. His guard’s eyes widened but they stood frozen, waiting for a command from their employer. Ryle held his kenten ready.
Ogrif licked his lips. “Debt, jug, and twenty-five coins.”
Ryle marveled at the man. Facing the tension of the moment, still he negotiated.
“Deal.” Drailey didn’t hesitate. The charge in the air vanished in a heartbeat.
Ryle and the guards sagged in unison.
Ogrif tried to slide the disk out from under Drailey’s finger, and she cocked an eyebrow. He grumbled but released the disk to retrieve a small bag that he sat on the counter. Beside the bag he slapped down a slip of paper.
Drailey swayed back as if the paper offended her. “What the hell is that?” she asked.
Ogrif’s smile returned. “You wanted nagilene. Here.” He pushed the paper closer.
She peered down, and her eyes widened enough to make Ryle concerned.
“You think I keep such shit here in my place of business?” Ogrif asked. “Shrewd I may be, but not so crazy.”
Drailey didn’t look pleased, but she let her finger up from the disk. It vanished under the counter. She scooped the bag of coins into her satchel and pocketed the scrap of paper.
“It is my pleasure to do business with you once more,” Ogrif said. “Do return if you find other items of such a desirable quality.”
Drailey turned for the door. She looked wounded by how the transaction had ended. The guards eyed them, but stepped back. The big one pulled the door open.
In the stinking alley outside the door, Drailey stood frozen for so long that Ryle became concerned. “Drailey?”
She roused herself, looked at him, then down again where she patted her jacket pocket. The pocket where the note resided. “Come on.”
“What’s wrong” Ryle asked.
She ignored him and continued up the alley. Not knowing what else to do, he followed.
When they got back to the street, she turned west and strode off. A block later, the air filled with scents of coal and ash, and Ryle saw the black shapes of smokestacks rising against the cloudy sky. It was his first glimpse of Del’atre’s factories, but once again, he had no time to take in the sights.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To somewhere worse.” She turned down another alley, and led them underground.
CHAPTER 24
Beneath Del’atre, Ryle and Drailey crouched in the dark stench of a rotting second floor room. Warped floorboards creaked under his boots. The warm air smelled of piss and decay.
When Lastrahn had first led Ryle below ground, he thought he’d seen rundown ruins, but Drailey had opened his eyes to a new reality. A land of slumped houses, fallen walls, and rubble piled higher than Ryle’s head surrounded them. All of it cracked and blackened as if scorched by an enormous fire. Atop this grime, every vertical surface was smeared with words and sigils painted by rough hands in bright colors. Markers for gangs he was sure.
A rundown, three-story building stood across the narrow street. Two figures lounged before its dark front door.
Drailey watched the pair intently.
Ryle’s own discomfort about being down here aside, the air sang with tension. He felt it in his neck and shoulders. Tasted it on the fetid air. All of it radiated from this corpse of a building across the street. Squeezed below the vaulted stone of the street overhead, and sandwiched between a pair of similar structures, Ryle wasn’t sure how it remained standing.
The place looked like the king of this sagging pit. Each of its windows were boarded over. Not a speck of light leaked around any of them. The doorway on the street gaped like an open wound.
The people out front remained indistinct in the poor light of a torch burning beside the door, but they were thin, and he’d spotted knives at their belts and on their thighs. The occasional glow of a smoke lit one of their faces. A pale-faced man. Painted perhaps?
More upstanding citizens, he was sure.
Drailey sighed and slipped farther into the room. Her face carried every bit of the strain it had held since they left Ogrif’s shop. Ryle crouched next to her against a titled, rusting iron column.
“I have to go in there,” she said in a hushed voice.
“Who are they?” Ryle asked.
“The Wanton Skivers.”
“A gang?”
“Sort of.” She rubbed a hand across her face. “They’re a bunch of unpredictable bastards. Always sauced out of their minds with their faces painted like laughing corpses. They think it’s hilarious.” Her face twisted up. “Damn I hate them.”
“Sauced? Like drunk?”
“I wish. Sauce is a vile concoction some screwed up chemist in the ass end of Flats mixed up last year. Made of factory dregs and slaughterhouse runoff. Nasty shit. Eats the brain like acid. Destroys impulse control. Most people hallucinate, and experience euphoria. Eventually you don’t want anything else, not food, water, nothing. You can imagine how it ends.”
Ryle’s stomach turned over. “You can’t go somewhere else?”
“Thanks to Ogrif, no. Sauce is made with nag, and it isn’t exactly stable. No one else is crazy enough to keep it around for long.”
Just once, Ryle really wanted some good news. Even just a little bit. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard any. Her comment also raised a more concerning possibility.
He raised his eyebrows and she waved him off. “No! I’m not making sauce. Don’t be disgusting.” The face she’d made quickly crumbed. “I need it for something else.”
She looked at the floor for a moment, and when she raised her head, her gaze had turned serious. “No matter what Lastrahn said, I won’t force you to go over there. Not against the Skivers.”
She swallowed and he felt the words build in her throat like an imminent storm.
Muck.
“But I can’t go in there alone. Not with them. Who the hell knows what they’ll do.” Her eyes were wide, desperate. “So I’m asking for your help, Aiden. I need you to back me up.”
Ryle tried to keep his face still while thoughts and emotions took up arms and charged each other in his head. He had Ogrif’s location, and she’d all but released him from Lastrahn’s agreement. The champion would want him to return immediately. Hex, Ogrif might still be in his shop for a few more hours. They could go talk to him before sunrise and be done with it.
Besides, who knew what blasted chaff he’d be walking into across the street. If what Drailey said was true, these weren’t folks he wanted to screw with. Not if it meant risking a chance to find his father. He’d done enough to earn Ogrif’s location. He should go. It’s what Lastrahn would want. That’s what he told himself, but he didn’t believe it in the slightest. Drailey’s eyes were the only thing he needed to see.
She desperately needed his help, and after how everything went down in Shelling, he owed her something.
“My name’s Ryle,” he said, and smiled.
After a moment, Drailey’s face broke into a small smile as well. “Pleased to meet you, Ryle.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
Relief filled her eyes. “Get in, get the jug, and get out. Simple.”
“I’m sure. What are you actually expecting?”
She shifted her satchel uncomfortably. “Impossible to say. Even with Ogrif’s script they may be disinclined to cooperate. Or worse.”
“Guessing a rush inside is out of the question.”
“Unless you can handle a hundred sauced up freaks trying to rip us new orifices. I’m sure there are at least that many Skivers tucked up in there. They congregate where they find sauce.”
What a lovely thought. “Well, you know these muck suckers. I’ll trust that it’s a bad idea.”
Drailey snorted a laugh.
“What?” he asked.
“You curse like a frontier farmer.”
Ryle frowned. “I can’t help it, I’m a walking contradiction.”
She grinned, and
adjusted her collar. “Yeah. But who isn’t today. Especially in Del’atre. Are you ready?”
Except for wanting a real sword before they waded into some kind of drug fueled den of mad killers. And about a day’s worth of sleep.
He scrubbed a hand across his face and blinked a couple times. “After you.”
Drailey pursed her lips then pulled a silver object from inside her jacket. She popped the top of what turned out to be a flask, took a swig, and then passed it to him. “Here.”
He waved her off. “I’m fine.” Memories of Taggerloft still heated his ears with shame.
She leveled a flat look at him and pushed the flask closer. “Unless you look like hell all the time, I doubt you are.”
Ryle reluctantly took the flask. The last thing he needed was a drink, but he could take a small sip to humor her. As he put the flask to his lips burning fumes swept up his nose. His head snapped back, and he shoved the flask out to arm’s length. “What in the plow sucking hex is that?”
Drailey snickered, and waved for him to stay quiet. “Just take a sip.”
“I wouldn’t clean my sword with that.”
“It’s like the strongest tea you’ve ever drunk. With a couple extra ingredients.”
He eyed her skeptically.
“Oh, suck it up. We don’t have all night.”
If he hadn’t already seen her drink it, he wouldn’t have allowed the stuff to touch his skin, but she hadn’t passed out yet. Or melted.
He squinted and tipped back the smallest sip he could manage.
Fire poured through his mouth, down his throat. Vapors swept up through his sinuses, through places in his skull he didn’t know existed. He wanted to cough and gag at the same time, and he managed to do both. Drailey chuckled and took the flask from him.
The stuff hit his stomach, lit that on fire too. A wave of nausea swept through him. He clenched his teeth as saliva pooled at the back of his throat. And then it was gone. The fire collapsed into warmth that rushed out through his limbs, and spread through his head like the warmth of hearth fire on a cold morning. Tingling followed like a wave of adrenaline, but softer, more sustained. His head cleared, his limbs lightened. Ryle coughed again and looked up, surprised.
Drailey smiled and tucked the flask away.
“What is that?” he managed to ask.
“Call it brew,” she said.
“Brewed what? Snake venom?”
“Just brew. Or battle brew I suppose. Battlefield medikers invented it. Keeps your head up, and your eyes sharp. Keeps you thinking and moving even when you’re tired or hurt.” She patted her jacket over the flask. “You’ll regret it in the morning, but it’ll get you through to the other side.”
Ryle shook his head. “You make that stuff?”
“I get it from Glad.”
“It always that strong? Felt like I got punched.”
She stood. “I always found her batches a little weak. Gerad’s mix really kicks you in the ass.”
That sounded simply frightening. Ryle rose to his feet. He was amazed. Every twinge was gone; every bit of sleepiness had fallen from his shoulders. Her brew had certainly done the job. He adjusted his sword and nodded for the back of the room.
They exited the way they’d come and circled a block away before turning for the Skiver’s lair.
“How do we get in?” he asked. “Can you show them Ogrif’s note?”
“They aren’t usually the talking sort.”
In the bad light Ryle could just make out the pair of guards ahead. That gave him a terrible thought, but at least this one had worked before. Mostly.
“I have an idea,” he said.
“A good one?”
“Probably not. You a good actor?”
She grimaced.
“That’s fine. Probably won’t matter.”
He pulled up his hood, hating the smell of the thing as it enveloped him.
“Come closer,” he said, and slouched toward her, recalling how he’d felt back in Taggerloft with ale sloshing in his gut.
She snickered at the face he made, but understanding dawned in her eyes. She took a step closer and paused, sniffing the air. “What is that smell!?” Her eyes widened. “It’s you! Where did you get this cloak?”
Even if it was a disguise his cheeks heated. “You don’t want to know.”
“I guess not.” She blew through her nose but moved in beside him. He leaned against her, and she took his weight.
“You know these bastards, so you talk and I’ll follow your lead, he said. “We just need to get close without alerting them.”
“You’re right, this is not a good plan,” she said, but they set off.
And so, slouching and staggering, they approached the Skiver’s front door.
At a dozen paces away, he saw the guards notice them from under the edge of his hood.
At half that distance one of them pushed up from the wall of the building, and Drailey spoke.
“Hey, hey you.” Her voice sounded panicked. She probably didn’t have to fake that feeling.
A smoke gleamed orange in the lips of the taller man who still slouched against the wall. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow. Black smears of makeup distorted his features.
His shorter companion peered at them both suspiciously. “What?” he snapped.
“This a kitchen?” Drailey asked, her voice now slurred. “My friend needs a sip.”
She jabbed Ryle in the side under the cloak, and mumbled, “Addicts twitch.”
He dutifully twitched his shoulder and let his head loll around while keeping the guards in sight.
“Don’t know you,” the short Skiver said, moving a step closer.
Ryle got a look at him, and wished he hadn’t. The man’s right eye twitched, his left eyelid drooped. Fresh pockmarks and scabs dotted his cheeks and forehead. Blood seeped from his cracked, blackened lips. As if he’d been guzzling tar. Maybe he had for all Ryle knew. A smeared mixture of white and black makeup was caked across his face, lending him a cheap, creepy appearance.
“Ogrif sent us. Said you brewed a batch,” Drailey said.
Shorty was still peering at them. With this comment his lip twisted revealing slimy, rotten teeth.
Ryle tasted bile, and regretted the idea of getting so close.
“Ass face ain’t supposed to send people down here. We deal with him. That’s it.”
Drailey shuffled them closer. “Please, just a sip. A tiny one. My friend’s in a bad way.” Another jab. Ryle twitched more strongly, and added a moan.
No sympathy graced the Skiver’s ruined visage. “Ain’t that too bloody bad. Scram.”
“Please. We can pay.” She fumbled with her satchel with her free hand.
“I said—”
“How much?” the taller man said from against the wall.
“Birt!”
“Shut up, Kirt! Chel said I’m in charge. How much you got?” He pushed off from the wall.
“Um,” Drailey said and dropped her hand into the satchel.
Ryle took a steadying breath.
Kirt’s angry eyes swept between them and his approaching partner. The taller man flicked his smoke away, and stopped before them. Swaying, and oozing. The black pit of his left eye didn’t change with his proximity. A sickening combination of fluids oozed from the gaping socket and over his pasty sunken cheek.
You have to be sucking kidding. He didn’t want to stand near this muckraker, much less touch him. This would soon present a problem.
“How much?” Birt snapped.
“Um,” Drailey said again, but shifted enough so Ryle was no longer leaning against her. She kept rustling through her satchel.
“Coins, or screw off!” the tall Skiver shouted and pressed closer.
The rank, warm cloud of his breath washed over Ryle. It stank of vinegar and rotting meat. The kind maggots crawl through on sweltering summer days. He swallowed hard to stop himself from re-experiencing all the food he’d eaten in the pa
st day.
“Yeah, screw off!” Kirt echoed.
“Wait I have it, I do.”
Birt dropped a bony, scab coated hand to the knife strapped across his waistband. “Now, bitch.”
“Here,” Drailey said and the slur was gone from her voice.
Ryle swept the cloak into Birt’s face and kicked him in the forearm. It snapped like dry kindling. He gasped and doubled over. His knife clattered into the street.
Kirt snarled and whipped out a knife of his own. The smaller man was surprisingly fast. Alarm rushed through Ryle as he turned, knowing he was too slow. But before the smaller man completed the attack, he shrieked as his whole body went rigid at once. The Skiver’s eyes fluttered violently.
Drailey stood beside Kirt, her face hard. She held the metal rod from her shop pressed against the man’s neck. Sparks crackled where the tip of the device contacted the Skiver’s skin. It was then Ryle noticed the hairs on his own scalp prickling. Blasted ongines. With every passing moment he was learning to regard that title with a bit more dread and wonder.
She jerked the rod away and Kirt hit the street with a loose, meaty thud.
Beside him, Birt cursed and tried to stand while holding his broken arm. Ryle laid a boot against his temple and put an end to that.
After a couple deep breaths Ryle turned to Drailey. “Ta da.”
She looked slightly sick, but gave him a small smirk. “Told you the note wouldn’t work. They wouldn’t have even looked it.”
“Probably couldn’t read anyway,” Ryle said and gestured to the rod in her hand. “That’s a hex of a thing. You couldn’t just do that from across the street?”
She slipped the rod back into her pocket. “Would be nice, but no. Except for the most powerful ongines, everything we do requires contact. Against the skin is best.”
“What? And you’re not powerful?”
She shrugged. “I do all right.” She toed one of the unconscious Skivers with her boot. “What about them?”
Ryle recoiled. “You want to move them?”
Gearspire: Advent Page 21