Ryle couldn’t agree more. This was exactly the kind of place he pictured himself and Lastrahn ransacking so they could haul someone like Hartvau before the authorities. That was, if any honest judges remained in Del’atre.
“Aren’t you glad you did,” Lastrahn said.
Hartvau’s face didn’t look like he was glad for much. “You’ll forgive me cutting through the smallclothes, but I only have so much time to spare. What brings you into my not so humble home? I don’t think you came down here to swap titles, or measure cocks. I doubt that’d be your scene.”
The veiled woman stroked her fingers through Hartvau’s hair in a way that was both innocuous, and indecent. It might’ve been the way she licked her lips while she did it.
Who were these people?
“Or maybe you just wanted to take in the atmosphere?” Hartvau sucked his pipe again, and let the smoke out through a yellowed smile. A few more minutes in here, and Ryle wouldn’t need a pipe. His nostrils already felt like they were shoved full of nettles.
Lastrahn ignored Hartvau’s comment. “I heard you were having a get together tonight. Thought I’d swing by, check out the local culture.”
The party Lastrahn was looking for was here? Sweat broke out along Ryle’s ribs.
Hartvau smiled indolently. “I suppose you want to find out if the rumors are true. The ones about the food, the wine, and the women.” He ran a nail along the veiled woman’s hand. “You want to know happens when the lights go out?”
Her black lips parted a fraction. Her other hand traced the edge of her corset. The crawling feeling on Ryle’s skin grew stronger.
“Something like that,” Lastrahn said, looking nonplussed.
Hartvau nodded. “That might prove interesting, but sadly, you’re not on the guest list, Mr. Champion.”
“That’s too bad,” Lastrahn replied. “But, from what I heard it’s probably for the best.”
Hartvau puffed a ring of smoke. The woman in white kept stroking his hair. That had gotten no less creepy. “And what exactly did you hear?”
“That Lady Nerengall throws better parties, and she has better guests.” Lastrahn produced a folded sheet of parchment he’d received from the children, and tapped it against his open palm. The broken blue seal on the letter stood out against the creamy paper. “I’ll have to take her up on her invitation.”
Ryle glanced at Lastrahn and tried to keep his features composed. In his experience, walking into the house of someone who was most likely a crime lord, and insulting him, was not a great idea. Especially unarmed.
Hartvau’s eyes darted to the sheet of paper. They looked almost interested now, and Simeon’s description of smaller things making bigger differences came back. “Really. And in what hole did you pick up such a slanderous rumor?”
“Not sure it’s a rumor when all the Council members attend her events.”
Hartvau blinked. “The Council isn’t everything.”
“No, but they still sit in the Anvil’s shadow.”
Ryle heard an unstated and not down here in Lastrahn’s tone. He thought Hartvau heard it too. The pale skinned man twitched his head to the side and the woman in white jerked her hand away as if burned.
For a solid minute Hartvau stared at Lastrahn from under hooded lids. The knuckles of his clenched hand shone whiter than the rest of his skin. The corner of his onyx eye, twitched. In that look was a shadow of Judith’s fright; a glimpse of greater darkness.
Ryle froze. Were the lamps in the room dimming?
He did his best to look without turning his head. The lights on the walls were down to small orbs amidst growing dark. His rib cage tightened around his heart. What the hex new terrible chaff was this?
Lastrahn didn’t move as shadows lengthened, stretched, and drew toward them. Ryle kept his damp hands tight on his sword belt.
As the dark enveloped them, and his pulse and breath fought for equal attention in his ears, Hartvau suddenly looked away, and light flared back into existence.
Ryle stopped himself from wiping his sweating palms on his torn pants.
Lastrahn’s face still didn’t change.
Sure because nothing weird had just happened.
“Rutting whore.” Hartvau took a long draw from his pipe. When he looked at them again his eyes were even redder. “Lady I can’t even entertain drunken sailors Nerengall. Boring her guests with her dry tales of no one gives a shit. Old power wasted on the old.”
The veiled woman drew into herself. Her hands went to her stomach. Mawren’s lips curved into something that might’ve been a smile if it didn’t look so malicious.
At least someone was enjoying this.
Ryle was right to worry about her. Her body language said she was unconcerned, even about Lastrahn. He tried to gauge if he’d be able to grab his center before she made it across the table.
Hartvau muttered something, then glared at Lastrahn. “Is there a point to this visit?”
“You have something I want. I get that, perhaps I can liven up your evening.”
“Nothing for nothing, eh? And thus the world goes round,” Hartvau said. “And what, pray tell, do you want from me?”
“You have a recent guest. A gift from an acquaintance in the west. I want to talk to him.”
The veiled woman’s head came up. Ryle’s pulse raced.
One of Hartvau’s wispy black eyebrows rose. “And what’s your interest in that one?”
“The man’s a thief, he’s stolen from many people. I’m sure people have questions for him, myself included.”
Ryle willed Hartvau to make some quip, to give some clue about his “guest.” He didn’t as much as blink.
Ragged puffs of smoke rose as he tapped his pipe against the table. “I suppose you show up at my party, press a few palms, kiss a few cheeks and save my event. Is that it?”
Lastrahn shook his head. “No, he will.” His thumb was pointing at Ryle.
Ryle’s brain went off cog. He wanted to turn, to see if the champion was pointing at someone behind him. He didn’t. His stomach crawled up inside his chest instead.
“Him?” The word was an unspecified mix of incredulity and disdain.
Lastrahn nodded.
“Color me bored, Mr. Lastrahn. How will he do anything?”
Ryle wanted to know that himself.
Lastrahn shrugged. “If you don’t think a duel will liven things up, we can go now.”
Ryle’s disgust with the practice aside, nothing he’d seen so far disputed the tales he’d heard. The duelists from this city were legends the realm over. Like the ones he’d just seen. Oh, mucking muck.
The blood in Ryle’s veins heated. Lastrahn had planned this whole thing.
Was this why he’d brought him along? To use him in this way?
“A duel? Mr. Lastrahn, you’ve been in the Blasts too long. Duels are a dozen a night. Blood flows through every den from here to the Hill. I can find a hundred duelists within a block of my door.”
“I’m sure, but none of them are a protégé of High Swordsman Mero.”
Hartvau rubbed a finger across his thin lips. “He’s one of the Maelstrom’s?”
“Show him,” Lastrahn said.
Ryle’s body felt disconnected, his head tight with anger. He brought his right hand up as requested., felt the itch as the black bar spread into Mero’s emblem. Revealing the symbol had never felt so unpleasant.
Hartvau’s lips pursed. “And who would you have him fight?”
An ache throbbed behind Ryle’s eyes.
“I heard this fellow Balrod is the current Challenger.”
Hartvau’s disinterest melted further with each passing moment. “Balrod’s competing for Nerengall. Besides, he’d never fight anyone unranked.”
“I believe he’s come available.”
The memory of Ibor tucking that key inside his shirt made it hard to breathe.
“And I think a couple matches with his stable mates beforehand would give him reason.”
Not a fight, but fights.
Mawren smiled. Ryle felt sick.
“You’re saying he’ll square off against one of the top stables in the city, and you’ll stand by and watch?”
“That should make things entertaining for a while,” Lastrahn said.
Wheels were turning, the idea was gaining steam. Ryle saw it in Hartvau’s shifting eyes. “You’re serious,” Hartvau said. “What did your man do? Forget to polish your boots one too many times? Sleep with your woman? Your mother? Both at the same time?”
The desire to punch Hartvau square in the face washed over Ryle like a tidal wave. He clenched his fists. Mawren’s smile widened, showing all her teeth. They were filed to sharp points.
“Interesting, but if you want to talk to my guest so badly, why don’t you fight, Mr. Champion?” Hartvau asked.
That was an excellent mucking point.
“Blood on the floor is blood on the floor. Besides, I can’t escort Lady Volvare to your party, and fight a duel at the same time. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
Hartvau’s eyes locked on Lastrahn with feverish intensity. “Volvare? I’m sure she has other plans.”
“I believe you’ll find her arriving soon. And asking for me.” Lastrahn’s smirk was just short of insulting. “I need an answer.”
Hartvau licked his lips. “You and Volvare please my guests, and he fights Balrod’s stable. If my guests go home happy, you can have your conversation.”
Ryle wanted to say something. Hex, he wanted to curse out everyone in the room. The words swelled in the back of his throat. But he wouldn’t. Sure, the realm hung in the balance, a woman was held prisoner in the west, and Praeter forces prepared to invade, but at that moment, the only reason he pressed his lips closed, and shoved down the rage in his chest was that somewhere nearby, his bastard of a father might be waiting.
Long ago he had vowed he’d do anything it took to reach him. To pay Kilgren back for his ruined childhood, his broken family, and his dead mother. He’d gone through misery with the Professor to get ready. He’d left Casyne behind for a thin chance. If it took a million muck sucking duels beneath this hex blasted city, then he’d run through whoever they put in front of him.
Ryle let the moment go. His anger turned cold and hard in his chest. Lastrahn nodded his acceptance.
“Well then,” Hartvau said with a wicked smile, “let’s see what your man can do.”
CHAPTER 33
Blast, Ryle hated waiting.
Exotic music and sounds of conversation filtered through the wooden door of the small room. Water dripped from the brick ceiling. A tallow candle, flickering on the table before him, cast leaping shadows across the moldering walls. A sheathed sword lay beside the candle.
Ryle wiped his damp palms on his torn pants. A pale scar, and a black bar. His past and his present, but his future? That all depended on whatever happened next. If they ever got this fight going.
He resumed pacing back and forth across the short width of the room, hearing the slap of his boots on stone, smelling the damp, ancient walls. His shoulder throbbed, his empty stomach ached. Every scrape and bruise now imparted a constant background noise of pain. That he’d felt worse before, and could ignore most of it, was the current high point of his situation. The thought was too depressing to consider.
He was still somewhere under Del’atre. Chaff knew where after all the passages and doorways, but they’d never climbed through any of them. Only descended deeper into the endless bowels of the city. If they left him down here, he doubted he’d get out before his hair turned gray.
And he was still waiting.
If he got through this, he had to have a serious conversation with Lastrahn. Probably while he was armed. Keeping this plan to himself was one thing, but Lastrahn should’ve warned him. Let him get ready for this insane idea. Ryle had come up with some stupid plans, but this was beyond ridiculous. Especially with everything they had on the line.
There had to be a better way to talk to Hartvau’s prisoner. Bribery perhaps? An assault with siege weapons? He didn’t understand how this was Lastrahn’s best strategy.
The champion’s advice after they’d left Hartvau’s chamber lay in Ryle’s mind like a heavy, rough, stone.
“Be entertaining or you’re through.”
And then he was gone, whisked away down a different passage to press palms with Lady Volvare and Hartvau’s special guests.
Ryle ran the words through his head again, but all they did was stoke the cold fire in his chest. He clenched his jaw and continued pacing.
He’d hung his redemption on this chance with the champion. Now he was stuck down here under Del’atre, about to fight a duel on Binding Night. The thought dragged him to a stop.
Back in Pyhrec, the final duels would be taking place. The duels to determine the top graduate. That night the Houses would make their decisions, offer contracts. Set the course of lives. He’d fled the madness of those contests for something more valuable, and escaped none of it.
He wanted to laugh and sob, and instead just shoved every feeling away. None of that would help him a blasted bit. He focused on what waited on the other side of the door.
Before he was dumped in the small room Ryle had caught a glimpse of an enormous echoing space constructed of arched stone ceilings and pillars hung with yellow and black pennants. Probably the remnants of an ancient underground cistern.
By the volume of the sounds rolling through the ancient door, quite a crowd had gathered. Muffled voices and fragments of laughter pierced the cold silence more often as each minute slipped past.
He looked at the sword on the table beside the candle, then turned to pacing again.
With the party ramping up, their only stop had been at a small armory Hartvau kept nearby. Ryle had settled on the best of what they had: A curved, single-edged blade, one hand span longer than he would’ve preferred. He didn’t like the balance of it, but it’s what he had. At least it was of a better quality than the blasted hunk of iron he’d been hauling around for two days. Barely.
He shook his head again. Lastrahn hadn’t even given him a proper weapon.
Minutes passed. A plate of congealing mutton lay abandoned on the floor. One of Hartvau’s men had delivered it, but there was no chaff sucking way he was going to touch it. Who the hex knew what they’d done to it. His stomach ached a little more. He was so desperate he would’ve settled for a shot of Drailey’s brew. The stuff had tasted like salted lamp oil, but it had woken him up. Hex knew he could use that. He ignored his complaining belly and gritty eyes and paced some more.
Shortly before he wore out his boots, a knock rattled the door. One of the big, tattooed men stuck his head into the room. This one bore blue tattoos. “Ready?” he asked in a similarly high voice to his green-tattooed comrade.
Ryle picked up the sword, and followed him out the door into a wall of noise.
Strange alien music, unlike anything he’d heard, reverberated through the chamber, undercutting the endless, babble of too many voices shouting at once.
Hundreds of partiers overfilled the space, crowding shoulder to shoulder amongst the pillars. Their combined, writhing mass, and more than a dozen braziers had turned the room into an oven. Ryle sweated beneath his jacket as he followed the big man into the crowd.
Scents of sweat, musk, perfume, and wine scraped the back of his throat. Cutting through it all was that same sickly sweet smoke that permeated Hartvau’s office. He pushed through a cloud of the stuff and coughed.
Men and women crowded close. All well dressed, most in the traditional yellow and black for the festivities, but like nothing in the city above. Those fashions he’d glimpsed on the underground Satin Road were in full effect here. Leather and steel scales mixed with sheer silk, satin, and materials he couldn’t identify. Brass rings shone in noses and lips, jewels and gold flashed time and again. And there was skin. Everywhere.
Within a few steps, he passed a bare chested
man bound with strands of rope. Then a bare chested woman her skin gleaming with sweat. Ryle almost stumbled at that, but she’d already disappeared into the crowd.
Hartvau’s big man kept shouldering his way forward.
The sights grew more bizarre. A flutter of silk, and feathered cheeks with jeweled lips slid past. Dark locks braided through drilled coins surrounding a tattooed face followed, then a pair of women linked by gold chains connected to rings that pierced their cheeks and other . . . bare parts.
He turned away as heat flooded his skin, and stared into the face of a long haired man. His lips were sewn shut with dark thread.
He’d been wrong about the Road. That place flaunted lust, abandon, excess, but this was madness. The room was full of a hot, desperate energy that flowed through the crowd. This crowd craved release, and the hard knot in his gut was the reality of where they would find it.
He stayed close behind Hartvau’s guard until the man slid sideways and he stepped out of the crowd. Murmurs rolled outward as people caught sight of him.
They’d cleared an area thirty paces across between four thick pillars. A hand’s breadth of water, pooled across the space, and lapped against his boots.
Sure, add poor footing to the mix. Why not?
His head spun from the journey through the menagerie. Sweat ran down his cheeks. The air hung hot, clinging, suffocating. Only the water might offer any relief. He squatted, cupped a handful, and splashed it across his neck. Its cooling touch soothed the gnawing edge of the mad moment.
Focusing through the noise and confusion, he trailed his fingers in the water, trying to picture the battle to come. The floor felt smooth but not slippery beneath the surface. That was something. Maybe more than something.
He stripped out of his jacket and his shirt. Some voices murmured appreciation in the crowd. Others gasped. He didn’t bother checking how many scabs and bruises had joined his scars. He focused on his disgust for these people, and ignored the flushing in his cheeks as he pulled his boots off. Lastrahn had said to entertain them, maybe this counted?
He handed everything to Hartvau’s guard then unsheathed the sword and tossed him the scabbard. The tattooed man gave Ryle a brief nod before he returned to the crowd.
Gearspire: Advent Page 29