by Lucas Thorn
“Ain’t entirely sure,” he admitted. Scratched at the short brown beard crawling across his jaw. Streaked with grey. “Just took a look at her, and you were standin’ there like that. Weren’t sure she weren’t fucking with you is all.”
“Take a seat, Jim. This is Nysta. We were just talking. She’s like you. Thinks we should have someone out front.”
He grunted. “Looks more like the type you should kick out of here. What gang you from, long-ear? You don’t look like Claw.”
“Ain’t from any gang, feller.”
“Loner? Well. You won’t last long, then.”
“Everyone keeps saying that. I ain’t dead yet.”
“Yet is a big word in this part of town.”
“Quit it, Jim,” Ana-Marie said. “She’s been polite. Don’t come hassling everyone you don’t like the look of. Jim’s a smith, Nysta. He works the shop two doors down. He’s known all over for making the best tools for the city’s stonecutters. Without him, they say no new levels would go up.”
“I can speak for myself.” The big man looked to struggle between pride and irritation. “Ain’t no need to tell strangers our business.”
“You want to walk outside and come back in, Jim? Maybe bring your smile with you this time?”
The big man placed heavy hands on the table. Fidgeted with his callouses. “Sorry, Ana. I didn’t mean nothin’.”
“Ain’t me you want to apologise to.”
“You’re right.” He looked sideways to the elf. “Sorry, long-ear. I ain’t much of a mornin’ person. Need a hot mug before I get goin’. How about it, Ana? Or you gonna be so sore at me I gotta go slave over a hot forge with sleep still stuck in my eye?”
“While I’m getting it, don’t you go acting like an asshole.”
His smile was broad.
“Asshole, is it?” Showed a chipped tooth turning grey. “You know me. I can’t promise nothin’.” When she was gone, he turned to look at Nysta, how was staring at her own mug thinking about a knife she’d left with a smith and had forgotten to retrieve. “Hey, long-ear? You lookin’ for a job? You don’t look like much, but maybe you’re better than nothin’. I could maybe pay you a little to keep an eye on this place?”
“Maybe if you’d got me a day ago, I might’ve taken you up on that, feller. As it is, I got another job right now.”
“Sure.” His gaze slithered over the hilts of her blades. Mouth warped into a sour line. “But is it respectable work?”
“Profitable.”
“Fair enough.”
Sharing his irritation, she growled; “What about you, feller? You’re big enough. Ugly enough. Sit out front yourself.”
“Don’t think I can’t. I keep an eye on things as best I can. But my hearin’ ain’t too good. Too much time hammering shit. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. Heavy metal does that to your hearing,” she said. Let her lip curl slightly, twisting the scar on her cheek. She raised an eyebrow at how his stomach curved into the table in front of him. “And maybe a little too much cheap wine?”
“You think I’m too old.” Thick knuckles cracked as he flexed fists, sensing mockery in her tone. “Think I’m useless. Maybe I do drink too much, so I know when you look at me you see an old feller past his prime. But you don’t just grow arms like these. You gotta build ‘em. And maintain ‘em with work. Don’t think because I got some grey in my beard and some fat in my guts that I’m a weak old bastard who’ll drop at the first sign of trouble. I can still break skulls! And if these old hands of mine ain’t got it in them to squeeze brains out through eye sockets, then I still got my tools.”
The blacksmith patted his leather belt and metal clinked against his leg.
“Never doubted you, Jimmy,” she said, turning away from him. “Figured the moment you walked in you could rock a mob with cold chisel.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By the time Fludd arrived, the sun was struggling to push light into the gloom-drenched streets. Nebulous fog resisted its glare for as long as it could and still clung to the posts and pillars outside.
Ana-Marie busied herself with customers more interested in talk than the elf. Had stopped glancing at Nysta with any kind of nervousness in her eyes.
He was a small man.
Only a touch taller than her. Back slightly hunched. Dragged his left leg. Walked with a sturdy cane which bent a little when he leaned on it.
Hands a little too big for his arms showed a lifetime of service to meaningless violence. Violence which rewarded him with a broken body and wan brown eyes void of hope.
Bulbous nose looked like it had been injected with jelly. Rough warty skin hung flaccid across a skull whose bones looked to have been shifted slightly out of place.
Dry peeling lips pulled back as he saw Ana-Marie. Showed teeth yellow with age. More than a couple missing from their slots in his gums.
He wiped at bloodshot cheeks with the back of his hand, scrubbing sweat from his brow. Lifted an arm in greeting. Called; “Morning, love. Thought you’d be in bed by now.”
Voice a rasping wheeze, but it carried through the small teahouse.
“Rojer,” the young woman wrapped her fingers tight around a small cloth. “Pa had to go to market this morning. So it’s a long night for me, I guess. You’ve got a visitor. She was asking for you. Been here a long while.”
“Oh?” The old man turned to look where Ana was nodding. Saw the elf. “Well, now. Don’t rightly know if I ever met an elf since coming to Dragonclaw. Course, I knew a few in Icespike. Plenty of elfs up there. You from Icespike?”
“No, feller,” she said. Shifted on the seat to lose some of the numbness which had been building in her lower back. “I ain’t from there.”
“Oh.” Tried a wizened smile. “Probably a good thing. I didn’t leave on good terms, and you’re carrying a lot of steel. Few years ago, maybe I’d have cared. But with this rotten old body of mine? Well. Could be you’d be doing me a favour.”
“Seems everyone’s making that mistake. I ain’t here to kill you, old timer. Just wanted to ask a few questions is all.”
“Talk, is it? That makes me thirsty.” Turned back to Ana, who was watching closely. “Give us some of that lemon tea you’ve got, Ana. Please? I’ll take it over here today.”
“You want some honey in it?”
“Sure.” Grinned at the elf as he sat down opposite her. “If I don’t have honey, I begin to get a bit sour.”
The elf winced as the stink of him rippled toward her. “Already smell it, feller.”
“Well, I ain’t sorry about that.” He chuckled, taking no offence. “Lot of things I can’t do much about anymore. When you get to my age, you’ll begin to see why.” He lifted his hands in front of her. They smelled of smoke and dirt. “I killed more than twenty men with these, long-ear. No stick or staff. No knife. Just these hands of mine. Wrapped them right around their fucking necks and squeezed until their eyes popped right out, seemed like. These days, I have a hard enough time trying to squeeze my dick when I need to piss. Which is about all it’s good for. Now, you didn’t come just to make me feel like shit for being old. No. You came to squeeze my brain with those pretty little hands of yours. Lucky for you, I don’t mind talking. Keeps my mind off the fact I’m dying so slow I can hear grass growing right out front of the Shadowed Halls. Listen. Hear it? Course you don’t. You’re too young. Well? What is it you want to know? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m one foot in the grave so if you don’t get your answers now, you might not get them at all…”
“Looking to know about a bunch of fellers I’m told you used to run with. Called themselves the Three-Point Gang.”
Old Rojer Fludd gave a low whistle, which turned into an appreciative grunt as Ana stepped up with a small pot and cup.
She placed each carefully on the table and handed him a small bowl of honey. Didn’t seem worried about interrupting. “You want to tell me how sweet you want it today?”
“Just leave it
here, love. I’ll sort myself out. Pay you for it when I’m done?”
“Of course.” Hesitated.
“It’s okay, Ana. I’ll be fine. I’m sure the young lass here will help me out.”
“If you say so.” And she left without looking at Nysta.
Fludd smiled at the elf. Old hands working with familiar awkwardness as he tried to get a good grip on the pot. “Would you mind?”
She sucked on a tooth and sat straighter. Reached for the pot and lifted it easily.
Poured.
The soft trickle of brew collapsing into his cup.
Meanwhile, he had to use both fists pressed together to keep hold of the spoon. Couldn’t hold it with his crooked fingers.
Scooped a drooling portion of dark honey. Held it for a moment above the freshly-poured tea and watched as it drizzled down.
“You know, they make mead out of this stuff? Can’t drink mead anymore. Alchemist says I’ll die in more pain if I do. Ain’t no more potions in the world to keep my liver working. Right now, it’s barely holding on. Drink tea, he told me. Drink tea or die. I ain’t ready to die, long-ear. Even though I’m mostly useless, I just don’t want to go. Not yet.”
“No one does, feller.”
“No. Of course they don’t.” He stirred with difficulty as he tried not to knock the cup over. “What’d you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.”
“You always this ornery?”
“Actually, right now I’m being polite.”
“If you were being polite, you’d tell me your name.” Lifted the cup with both hands. It wobbled in his grip. Leaned his mouth over the top. Blew the steam toward her.
“You can call me Nysta,” she said. “And I’ve been waiting here for a few more hours than I’d have liked. I’m here to talk about the Three-Point Gang.”
“That,” he said. “Was a very long time ago.”
“How long?”
The old man’s eyes closed lazily. “First, you tell me what you want with them. What you want with Wisehead?”
“Who?”
“Ah. So, you’re starting at the beginning, are you?”
“Reckon maybe you mistook me for someone with patience. That’s okay. I get that sometimes. Usually when I’m being polite like this. But before you continue, maybe it’s best you know I ain’t known for being nice when some feller wants to answer my questions with riddles.” The elf sighed. Pulled A Flaw in the Glass from its sheath and lay it on the table between them. “So, if you want to save time, we can start at the end if you prefer.”
“No trouble,” Ana-Marie called in a strangled voice as the sound of Nysta’s knife sliding across the table drew her attention. “Not in my place!”
“Won’t be no trouble,” Nysta said. Kept her eyes on the old man. “Will there?”
“No.” He waved a hand, still smiling, toward the pale-faced waitress. “It’s okay, love. The elf and I were just checking each other out is all. I reckon we know where we stand now.”
The elf returned his smile with one whose edges were cruel. “Good to see you got my point, feller.” Sat a little straighter, violet eyes glinting. “How about you show how sharp you are and tell me what I want to know.”
“At my age, those kinds of threats don’t mean much,” he said. Shrugged. “But it’s not like I wouldn’t tell you anything. I mean, there’s fuck all to tell. It was all a long time ago. Shit, long-ear, in a city like this, even yesterday is ancient history. This ain’t some little country fuckhole town like wherever the fuck you crawled from. Why be so impatient?”
Her finger tapped a quick rhythm on the table. Eyes shivered dangerous.
Didn’t bother to correct his assumptions. Just clenched her jaw.
“Because you’re old enough you might not make it to breakfast, feller.”
“Where were you fifteen years ago?” Grinned even wider than before. “We could’ve used someone like you, long-ear. Those kind of guts only mean one of two things. Either you’re a fucking idiot with a mouth too big for her face. Or you’re as good with those knives as you think you are. Either way, you’d have fit right in with the Pointers.”
“Fifteen years ago, I was making raids into Leibersland,” she said. “Hunting Caspiellans. Slitting their throats while they slept.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. You long-ears live a long time.” He sobered quickly. Eyes dulling as he looked down at his hands. Old hands. Hands which hadn’t held a blade in years and would probably never do so again. “Envy you that. When you’re young, it’s like you have all the time in the world. Then you get old. And there ain’t enough of it. One day you’re running in the street. The next, you can’t even get out of bed on your own. Funny thing, though. As you get older, you get more patience when you should be getting less. Should be me sitting here telling you to hurry the fuck up so I can get on with the one thing I got left in my life. But here I am. Enduring your threats with the patience of a one-legged troll. Ever seen a one-legged troll? They’re patient. Have to be. Takes them a week just to cross one side of an alley to the other.”
Nysta rolled her eyes. Tried to pull him back to what she wanted to talk about. “The Three-Point Gang. They ran the streets near here. Where the Red Claws are now.”
“Yeah. We did that. We owned this part of Dragonclaw. Owned it good. People used to see our mark and get right out of our fucking way. Even the Shivs didn’t bother us, and Filth really wanted to get his hands on Zwack. Man, he foamed at the mouth just thinking about Zwacky running around these streets with his head high. Telling everyone about how he’d cut Filth real bad. Yeah, no one fucked with us. No one. We were like the fucking Duke himself. For a little while.”
“But Noster beat you.”
“No, not him!” The old man slammed a hand down in irritation. “Never was. No, that’s just the fucking story he told. Told it so much everyone took it as truth after a while. Made himself his own legend. No. It weren’t Noster. He’s a sly cunt, I’ll give him that. But he weren’t smart enough to take us down. No, Wisehead was too smart for that little prick. What brought us down was we got too smart. Too good at what we were doing. Got some unwanted attention, we did. How new are you to the city, long-ear?”
“Couple of months.”
“Ah. And you’ve heard about the Four?”
“Not really.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said. Not too drily. “It ain’t something many people talk about. You don’t want to rouse the Four’s interest, you see.”
“They’re a gang?”
“Nah. His Dukeship’s heirs, they are. Finest examples of demonspawned offal you’ll ever find. Three sons and one daughter.” He counted them off on his old fingers. “Four. Now, in other cities, that’d make them upstanding members of royalty. Give them a life of luxury, right? Pretty clothes. Castles in all corners. As many whores as they want. The high class kind, of course. Booze. Whatever they want. But the Duke never married, see. So there ain’t one of them who’s legitimate. Means when he finally falls over dead, someone’s gonna get his chair. And what happens to the others, hmm? Well. My guess is Alley Rats’ll be picking over their guts the morning after.”
“What’ve they got to do with the Three-Point Gang?”
“I’m getting to that. Back then, there were only two of them active on the streets. Anglek and Vor. The others were still in swaddling. Shame they weren’t drowned at birth. When we started taking over the docks, we got our fingers pretty deep into the slave trade. Which was Anglek’s bag, you see. We didn’t know that, of course. So, when he comes round all swish and cool, we hear him out. He made an offer. Said he’d let us keep two of our fingers in the trade, but if we tried sticking any more in, he’d cut them all off. You get my drift?”
“I get you.”
The old man’s eyes glazed as he lost himself to his memories. “He was a big man, Anglek. Carried axes on his hips. Not pretty ones, either. No decoration. Notches on them. It’s said he got those notches
carving ork necks. I believed it. So did Wisehead. He went along with what Anglek wanted. Gave him his cut. To the last fucking coin. See, it wasn’t just the axes. It’s the power. Though they’re bastard sons, they’ve built empires of their own. Anglek’s got himself an army of mercenaries. And has some tight grips on the Bodyguard guild, too. You don’t mess with him. And Vor, well. He ran the east side then, and he runs it now. Got practically every street punk in his pocket. No gang runs out of there without paying him. Even the guards jump when he snaps his fingers.”
“Wisehead get greedy?”
“Nah. The opposite. He tried to pull back. I didn’t get it at the time. Thought he was being a coward. But then a couple of our boys ended up dead on the docks. Inside one of Anglek’s warehouses. His fellers caught ours going in.” The old man’s face grew slack. He sipped tea. Winced as he put the cup down and rubbed at arthritic fingers. “Took Anglek’s mercs two days to track most of us down. Nailed us to walls. Slit our throats. Burnt our houses out. Killed families. The works. I lost a few kids. Sons. Jak and Ollie. And a wife I hardly spoke to. Grim’s teeth, she was beautiful. We used to fight so much. But she meant something to me, right? In here. Didn’t notice until she was gone, of course. You never do. Treated her like shit when she was alive and now all I do is walk around wishing I could tell her I was sorry. Just once. Shit. Now you’ve got me going place I don’t wanna go. And you ain’t interested in that anyway. Just want to know what happened next, right?”
“We’ve all lost someone, feller.”
“Yeah. And I reckon we deal with it in different ways.”
She looked down at her fingers. Thought she could see a few flakes of dried blood in her knuckles. “What happened next?”
“Not much, really. I mean, there were only about ten of us left after that, and Anglek figured to leave us alive as a warning. No other gang would take us in. Didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Four. We drifted apart, mostly. I kept my head down as much as I could. I figure Wisehead got it right from the beginning. So whatever Zwack thought he could do about it, I didn’t want to get involved in. The whole thing was shit. Want to know the worst thing?”