Assassin of Dragonclaw (Nysta Book 7)

by Lucas Thorn

  Each building was a citadel of stone and makeshift clutter. Apartments and shops burrowing deep into the guts of towers and the arteries of citadels. Strung between, walkways and ropes laden with washing.

  Streets glistened with water dripping from above as the morning fog dissipated to leave upper caged balconies wet. Slime crept the cervices. Mould smeared the walls.

  Narrow streams cut a path toward the bay, fed by rivers and sewers with equal measure. Disgorging their putrid contents into the harbour.

  Dogs and cats ghosted through trash.

  Rats scurried where they could, avoiding booted feet.

  Walking through the slitted streets, it’d be easy to think Dragonclaw was a dead city.

  But it wasn’t.

  It was a hive.

  People moved like insects through the streets in chains of activity. They lived and worked in the high towers. Their shops filled every corner as hawkers rang the air with promises of bargains more ludicrous than the last.

  Caged balconies above bore signs advertising their wares. Their services.

  Everything from food to clothing.

  Weapons to trinkets. Alchemists, barbers, bankers, and whores in the same buildings. Sometimes the same shop.

  There was nothing which couldn’t be bought. Which couldn’t be sold. Even lives had a price if you knew how to find a broker.

  Many Fnords talked of Doom’s Rach as though it was the centre of the world, but those who lived in Dragonclaw claimed they were more exotic. And, given the markets were supplied by an endless flow of ships, it was hard to argue the point.

  Among the squalid press of the city’s towers and blockhouses, the tallest buildings were also the smoothest. They rose high above the rest, their featureless walls and crisp edges cutting at the air. Strong and brutal exteriors which hid the hollow rancid hearts as apartments opened to a wide inner atrium.

  Chimneys funneled to the ceiling to spew thick plumes of smoke into the sky. Plumes lit by the magelights and lanterns which infected the city with a permanent phosphorescent glow.

  When the Dark Lord first saw the gang towers prodding at the horizon, he called them manmade volcanoes. A term which, given in jest, became more common.

  Each volcano was a pinpoint on a map. A map of Dragonclaw’s many gangs. A map constantly evolving as they fought for turf.

  Because turf was power.

  Turf was profit.

  In the dank city streets, those with desperate dreams of more would seek to rise. And there were, it was said, only three ways to rise.

  The first was most common. Join a gang. Rise in rank and live off the fruits of violence and intimidation. Sell addictive alchemist potions to those who seek them. Bacha to those who wanted something more herbal. Control the gambling. The brothels. Teahouses and inns. Take your cut with fist. With club. With knife.

  It was the easiest way, and the street had legends of success and failure alike.

  It was a hard road to the top. The wars fought as gangs struggled for turf were violent. Spiteful. But if you were tough, you might make it.

  Of course, then you had to protect it.

  The second way was to join the Bodyguard’s Guild. Sell your skills to those who’d pay. And there were many who’d spill coin to a good bodyguard. One who could be trusted.

  It wasn’t an easy road, and the chances of getting killed were high because no one hired a bodyguard who didn’t need one.

  Finally, there was the third way.

  More mysterious and alluring to those with cold hearts, the Assassins of the Iron Day lurked somewhere in the shadows. You didn’t find them. They found you. Whether to kill or recruit, their attention was mostly unwanted.

  Many gang members dreamed of joining the Iron Day.

  It was a path which lived off legends of huge sums paid for quick murders.

  Few survived long enough to claim their reward.

  The city guard patrolled the street with less enthusiasm than the gangs which controlled them. They’d watch with boredom as men beat each other in an alley. Shrug as shopkeepers cried for help when they couldn’t afford the gang’s protection pay.

  But they’d swarm the streets if an assassin was at work. Because assassins seldom killed the poor. There was no profit in that.

  The Duke demanded the head of every assassin and the guard worked to provide.

  In the centre of the city, the Duke’s palace pushed the slums aside and spread casually across a wave of green to bask in sunlight. Walled by stone, its intricate spires needled the clouds. A single jewel of opulence within a rotten carcass.

  A carcass whose narrow alleys and crooked laneways promised cruelty in abundance.

  At night, buried in the dark beneath a crawling blanket of fog, people gathered in taverns. In teahouses. Gambling dens and playhouses. Gathered to forget the fear which dogged their heels as they existed within the Fnordic Land’s most enigmatic city.

  Trolls and orks. Goblins and a few elfs.

  Humans from both north and south.

  Crouching across drinks. Eyeing strangers with suspicion and each other with guarded grins.

  Drunks and prostitutes exchanged vows. Broke them all before the hour’s end.

  Thieves crept and climbed, faces obscured and hands gloved in black.

  And the gangs were all around them. Like cockroaches picking and feeding on streets with monstrous yawning hunger. Not a single cobblestone in Dragonclaw hadn’t tasted blood at least once.

  They scuffled with each other.

  Tested for turf.

  Gained it. Lost it.

  The strongest survived. The weakest were consumed.

  It was a city of submerged horror draped in permanent night. A city of seething hate. Violent madness. A city drilled to distrust.

  It was, the elf called Nysta thought, the most beautiful city she’d ever seen.

  Alone in the doorway, she could feel the heat of the blacksmith’s forge at her back and smell the burning coal and scorched metal. She leaned against the old wooden frame and lifted a mug of dark ale in both hands.

  Sipped slowly, almost warily.

  She was shorter than most of her kind, but with powerful shoulders and wiry strength hinting at an intimate relationship with dealing death. A relationship further defined by the glittering violet slits of her eyes which scanned the street as though expecting a burst of violence to come stabbing from the dark.

  Violence she was more than prepared to counter.

  Neither beautiful nor ugly, her face was marred by a deep scar which began at the corner of her mouth and tore to a point just below her eye before jagging out toward her ear.

  Framing her face, her hair was long and black. Twisted into thick ropes. Scraps of cloth knotted into the locks which casual observers sometimes mistook for a vain and crude attempt to pretty herself.

  But they had a more grisly reason for being there.

  Trophies of battles hard-won.

  Deaths savagely taken.

  She was dressed in battered black and green wyrmskin roughly patched so many times it was hard to recognise the original uniform beneath. She wore bracers on her forearms, the left tied loose. Covering the uniform were dozens of pouches and sheaths, some of which were empty but most of them were not.

  The knives resting in their sheaths were each more different than the other. Some exotic. Some fit for a single purpose. But each carried a name. A name given soon after her hand wrapped around their hilt for the first time.

  A childish superstition, she allowed, but she believed to name them gave them life. No longer tools, they became something more.

  Something personal.

  Which is why she was at Gatson’s forge.

  His reputation was almost as big as he was. Known as the best when working with knives and small blades. She’d come straight after Slow Walk Through a Ghost Town lost its tip in the chest of a muscular gang member.

  Half an inch of the treasured blade lost when, working
the blade free of the youth’s stubborn ribs, a flaw in the steel had caused it to snap.

  She’d spat in the dead face. Roared curses at his soulless stare.

  Wished she could kill him again.

  Kicked his corpse a few times before leaving him on his back, slack-mouthed and staring at the moon.

  The ringing of the smith’s hammer was strangely soothing, and she rolled her shoulders. Looked at her hands circling the mug and felt a shiver as she remembered how painful they’d been only a few months before.

  Even now, the scars were still puckered and bright.

  Sometimes they itched.

  But the strength had returned even if her fingers weren’t yet as nimble as they’d been before.

  Rockjaw had watched with growing suspicion as the elf healed.

  Red eyes making her uncomfortable enough that she spent less and less time in the small blockhouse Nearne had worked to rent. The young girl’s dedication, spurred by the death of her lover, seemed more solid than the stones which built Gatson’s forge.

  While the elf survived on the last scraps of her own coin and a few cheap gems, Nearne started with nothing and quickly managed to open a stall in one of the market plazas. At first, she sold junk collected in alleys with Rockjaw. The huge ork working to keep the gangs from interfering.

  Most of them, anyway.

  He’d earned a few new scars.

  Lately, she was trading with raiders, relying on relationships formed during childhood in the Crossbones.

  “Please stay,” Nearne had begged. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

  Two days ago, that was.

  Now, Nysta stood in the glow of Gatson’s forge and wondered if she’d ever go back. Only hours ago, she’d broken her knife on some over-eager kid who’d thought she was small enough to roll into an alley.

  Sipping ale, the elf closed her eyes for a moment and stretched her neck. Felt skin ripple as if insects were crawling down the base of her skull. But they weren’t insects.

  They were something else.

  Something darker.

  Something released from a small wooden box she still carried in one of her pouches. A box which served as the only physical tie to a husband she’d buried in the Deadlands.

  Talek.

  Tightening her jaw, the elf looked over her shoulder to where Gatson wiped sweat from his gleaming face. Beard, red shot through with grey, was stiff against his chin. Chest covered with a thick leather apron. Tools in his belt.

  Grey eyes focussed firm on the glowing knife he was working.

  “This gonna take all night?” Her voice was sour, but he took no offence. She’d been here more than once before.

  Just shrugged without look up.

  Tapped the blade again with a gentleness he didn’t look capable of.

  “Be as long as it fucking takes. You want it quicker, you could’ve taken it to someone else. Plenty of bastards out there will just shave you a point and kick you out the fucking door.”

  “I came here because you’re the best.” Couldn’t resist adding with a sneer; “At least, that’s what they say.”

  “Ah, shut your gob and let me work in peace.” Another tap. “Better yet, fuck off and come back tomorrow.”

  “I can’t,” she said. Turned her face back to the street. “I might need it tonight.”

  “Girl, you’ve got more knives on you than fleas. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve seen you scratchin’. Anyway, no matter how much of a pain in the ass you are, I’m sure even you can go a day or so without killing any more fellers in the street. Surely.”

  She gave a reluctant grunt. “I like that knife. It’s good with ribs.”

  “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to fucking know what you do with it. Bad enough you didn’t even clean it properly before you got it here.” He shook his head in disgust. “In any case, I won’t fucking lose it. You know me. I ain’t got to where I got by losing everyone’s shit. You come back tomorrow and I’ll have it ready for you. But you stand there fucking whining at me for doing my job, and I’ll land this hammer right between your fucking eyes and you can fucking well go find someone else to do the work for you.”

  The elf drained the last of the ale in one long swallow. Set the mug on a small table near the door. Rubbed the scars on her hands to ease the memory of stiffness in them. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’ll be ready?”

  “I swear to the Dark Lord’s ghost, girl, if you keep pissing me off like this, I’ll never work for you again.”

  “You surprise me, Gatson,” she said. Drawled; “A feller in your line of work should be used to having his temper tested.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The thought of enduring Rockjaw’s stare made her kick her heels down a street she’d never been before. A threaded street of long warehouses bolted for the night. Water dripped down from iron mesh draped above.

  A few people lived above the warehouses and magelights flickered behind draped windows. Hinting at a normal life which was alien to her.

  Someone shouted.

  Someone was always shouting.

  Dog whined as she passed where it rested with its head on front paws. Didn’t do more than watch as she passed. A few guards stood loose around some of the more interesting doors.

  A couple of the armed men glared at her, pushing themselves from their part of the wall to thrust out chests and show a snarl. Young bucks eager to prove something to themselves.

  Hungry for a brief flash of violence to take boredom away.

  The older ones didn’t even look up. They didn’t get paid enough to care.

  She ignored them all.

  The narrow street cut into one of the slightly-wider main roads and it was on that road the elf found what she was looking for. A small inn, windows shut but door wide open. Two yellow magelights slung from rope out front.

  A burly bouncer, meaty fists ravaged by old fights. An axe in his belt.

  Gnarled face beat on one too many times so his left eye sort of peered off a little too far off-centre.

  Nose seemed to follow it.

  There was a risk a normal person would look at him and think him stupid, but the elf wasn’t fooled.

  He’d been around too long. Seen too much. And didn’t even bother to flex his shoulders as she stepped out of the street and made to enter. Just looked her up and down and said through teeth; “You’re welcome here, long-ear, but you make trouble and you’ll be wearing your knives on the inside. Get me?”

  She believed he’d try and offered only a curt grunt before drifting into the mellow light.

  Was washed immediately by sour stink of old booze, bacha smoke, and unwashed bodies. Bodies which spent too much time engaged in manual labour.

  This wasn’t a hangout for local gang members. Most looked young. Some had never felt a razor to their jaw. Apprentices, mostly. Probably to builders and masons. Exhausted from their daily chores, they forced an air of cheerfulness but more sat on benches and stools than stood.

  An elbow grazed her rib, but she ignored it. Felt no malice in the gesture.

  Just a kid not looking where he was going.

  Someone blew smoke in front of her as she passed, thick green fog making her flinch.

  She held her breath, not wanting its effects. Knew from a few experiences it made her slow. Made her think about things she preferred left buried.

  Alcohol was bad enough, but bacha was potent.

  Not as potent as the brews some alchemists traded in, but still more than she wanted to feel.

  At the bar, an ork of uncertain age worked to fill and refill mugs. He had a scar running from his ear right down the side of his neck. An ugly scar. It divided a thick black tattoo cleanly in half. The tattoo she recognised. A gang from the docklands.

  It didn’t worry her.

  She knew if you stripped down everyone in the room, pretty much all of them would have a mark of some kind
from one of Dragonclaw’s many gangs.

  He gave her a similar up-and-down look as the bouncer had given. Looked like he couldn’t decide what to do with her. Then threw his towel down and jerked a nod. “What you want?”

  She dropped a few small coins on the bar.

  Returned his gaze with a smile. Kind of smile which didn’t reflect humour in her eyes. “Give me some of that black shit you fellers call ale around here.”

  “Call ale?” He rolled the words on his big tongue, a mischievous gleam shivered in his red eyes. Sneered as he poured. “Call, is it? I tell you, long-ear, there ain’t no fucking better ale in the whole of the motherfucking Fnordic Lands, no there ain’t. Ale ain’t supposed to be yellow now, is it? Around here, we call that piss. And if you don’t like it, it ain’t the ale’s fault you’re a fucking unschooled wet-ass.”

  Someone grabbed her arm. “Hey. Hey.” Giggled. “What’s a long-ear like you doin’ in a shithole like this?”

  “Stabbing you in the belly before strangling you with your fucking intestines if you don’t get your hand off me.”

  “Hey, no need to-” He couldn’t find his sentence. Finished lamely; “Hey…”

  She pulled free, grabbed the drink offered by the ork as he scooped coin.

  Pushed away from the bar and from whoever had grabbed her.

  He didn’t give chase, his drunken mind not yet reduced to abject stupidity.

  A hawkish-looking man hunched across the table she figured to use, head in one hand as he studied a book. Studied it with an intensity which made the elf think he’d keep his mouth shut if she sat near him.

  She dropped down on an unsteady stool and kicked her legs out into free space. Leaned against the wall and looked up at the stained ceiling.

  A few cracks in the plaster. Spider webs in the corners.

  Let her mind slowly settle.

  He spoke, not quite irritated. Sourly; “I didn’t ask for company.”

  “Neither did I,” she said, not looking at him. “Shove your nose back into your papers, feller. Ain’t interested in you. Just need a seat is all. Need, you hear? Not want.”

  “Oh.” He frowned, not quite believing her. “Do I know you?”

  “No. But you will if you don’t shut up. Said I weren’t interested, and I ain’t.”