131 Days [Book 2]_House of Pain

by Keith C. Blackmore

  The tall reaver with the complexion as dark as pitch withdrew outside. As far as Halm could tell, at least one of them had decided to stay, a small gesture that he appreciated. He took in the motionless form of Pig Knot and, taking a deep reflective breath, settled in for the night.

  The pair of men leaving the infirmary only got halfway into the corridor when Torello stopped and swore.

  “What?” asked Kolo, staring at the other’s scowling face, almost entirely consumed by the dark. Torello wasn’t pleasant to look upon at the best of times, and in the poorly lit stone passage, he appeared capable of cutting the throats of children.

  “There’s no point in going anywhere else,” Torello grated, considering both directions of the corridor. “I’d rather sleep here and see what happens tomorrow than go back to general quarters. At least the damn infirmary doesn’t smell like piss and shite.”

  “Smells like blood though,” Kolo pointed out. He was almost the same height as Torello and roughly the same heavy, muscular build, though not as harsh about the face. “And that slop they smear on your cuts and such.”

  “It smells everywhere near the Pit. Don’t you know that?”

  “Now I do.”

  “This day was bloodier than most,” Torello seethed and stared off. “I tell you. I’m not altogether certain about throwing in with this lot. We might’ve joined up too soon.”

  “We can always leave.”

  “I’ll do the thinking,” Torello informed him with a frown. “You just do… whatever it is you do. And right now, I think it’s best to head back and claim one of them empty cots for the night. One night anyway. We’ll see what comes of it all in the morning. If anything, we can always leave.”

  What Torello said wasn’t lost on Kolo, but he kept his tongue all the same. He knew his friend could be difficult at most times and simply intolerable the rest.

  “Come on, then,” Torello hissed and started back toward the infirmary. Kolo followed.

  Once the pair were out of sight, a shadow detached itself from a pocket of blackness nestled between fluttering torches. He considered the passageway as a snake might before striking. Then he backed away and stealthily exited the bowels of the Pit. Once through the Gate of the Moon he stood in the shade of the arena and breathed the warm night air, casually eyeing passersby. After the stink of the sublevels of the arena, the humid air tasted sweet.

  He wore a vest of leather, complete with tight black leggings and soft padded boots. A scabbarded shortsword of Sujin design hung off his waist. When he felt ready, he struck for a nearby street and followed its fitted stones until he reached a familiar alley. From there, he slipped into the shadows and wove through the city’s formidable maze until he arrived at an oak door to one side of a dead end. Being followed was not a concern, so he rapped on the surface three times.

  When the door opened, he ducked inside.

  A gathering of six men paused in their preparations. A bare lamp burned on a high shelf on the north wall, at times partially blotted by threatening figures. Leather armor appeared like knobby hides. Half-sheathed shortswords and daggers gleamed with menace. The smell of ale and spicy meats lingered on the air. A seventh warrior locked the door with a thick timber and placed his back against its girth.

  “Well?” Toffer asked the visitor, half of his face twisted in a sneer.

  “He’s still there,” the spy reported. “But now the fat one’s back. The Zhiberian. He’s there. And the ones we thought might leave didn’t. All told, there are five men around him now.”

  Toffer caught the sly eye of nearby Klytus, his thumb frozen on a blade’s edge. “We’ll wait another hour, then. Wait until they’re good and sleepy. Then we strike. And gut the lot of them.”

  “It is an infirmary,” one of the other killers pointed out as he buckled a belt that held three daggers around his waist. “There will be others.”

  “I don’t care if Juhn’s royal ass is in there,” Toffer spat. “Pig Knot’s disappointed me twice now. The worst thing about him surviving Skulljigger was surviving Skulljigger. I’ll cut his bells off and sling them from Sunja’s walls after I’ve made him understand no one disappoints me.”

  The others remained silent, not daring to voice their minds. As veteran Sujins, they recognized the need for and strength in maintaining discipline, and in the light of a mysterious attack on a storehouse in their possession––an attack which claimed the lives of four of their brotherhood––Toffer’s promise of violence wasn’t an entirely bad thing. The storehouse destroyed had contained a valuable amount of stolen goods, wares that had taken time to procure, and an example had to be made somewhere. No one simply burned their property to the ground.

  But the gathered soldiers knew the real reason why Toffer was on edge, and it wasn’t because of Pig Knot’s defeat in the Pit.

  It was because no one had a clue as to who had murdered the four Sujins guarding that bit of valuable property and then proceeded to put a torch to it all.

  Pig Knot was merely the nearest target about to experience Toffer’s pent-up frustration at the totality of the day’s events.

  “They’re all pit fighters,” the spy quietly pointed out.

  Toffer’s face went white with suppressed fury, near choking the hilt of his blade.

  Then three hard knocks sounded at the door, silencing all within the room. The warrior at the door peeked through a hidden hole, and his grimace slackened.

  “It’s Rusk,” the Sujin said, already pulling at the timber.

  The murderous feeling permeating the room magically contorted into nervous energy. Even the monstrous Klytus drew himself up to his full height and appeared uncertain. At that one name, they all stopped and studied each other like sewer rats, even Toffer––who was but a cog in a greater wheel, a wheel that rolled upon the command of the man called Two Knife.

  “Open it,” Toffer urged, rubbing his mouth and glancing nervously at the door.

  The Sujin did just that, and a man strutted into their den of knives, oozing enough authority and deadly intent to bring the lot of them to heel. Of the entire pack, he was the shortest but possessed great meaty shoulders and arms that could punch both of the shortswords secured at his waist through an armored man. Blond hair was shorn close to his scalp. A scowl contorted his face as frightening blue eyes located each killer in turn.

  A fearful silence smothered the room as if the men knew their very lives depended on maintaining it. Rusk the Two Knife strode to the middle of the floor without challenge and spread his hands.

  “Well?” he demanded, addressing them all but focusing on Toffer. “Where in Saimon’s blue hell are you maggots going?”

  In the light, Two Knife’s closely cut head of hair appeared as a mat of nails. “Hm? Someone speak. Please. Pull them tongues out of your dog blossoms. What’s all this? Looks to me as if you’re going on a killing. You found the one responsible for cooking our lads, did you?”

  Toffer cleared his throat. “No, we––”

  Two Knife’s eyes narrowed into slits, and Toffer’s voice uncharacteristically took on a pleading quiver. “I was taking them over to the Pit’s infirmary, to kill a man who disobeyed my orders to kill a pit fighter.”

  Toffer blurted all this as if about to choke on the words.

  Two Knife wasn’t impressed. “Someone’s out there burning our lads and our property to the foundations and you’re… doing… what?”

  “Teaching a lesson,” Toffer sputtered.

  “Teaching a lesson? To a pit fighter? This man lose your coin?”

  “He did. He did.”

  “He lost your coin?” Two Knife demanded clarification, raising a finger to Toffer’s face. “Not mine. Correct?”

  “Aye that.”

  “Well,” Rusk softened his tone immediately, “don’t worry about it, then.”

  “What?” Toffer swallowed fearfully, his throat bobbing.

  “I said don’t worry about it. All of you. There’ll be no killing
of any kind this night.”

  “But Rusk…” Toffer pleaded. “There’s––”

  Two Knife cut him off. “Are you questioning me, Toffer? Because if so, I’ll gut you here and coat the floor with what you are.”

  “No.” Toffer straightened his back. “I’m not. Never.”

  “Good. Then listen, all of you.” Two Knife studied the lot of them. “Get a solid night’s sleep. All of you. Before dawn, I want you to rise and report for duty at the Fifth’s barracks. That’s the Fifth, you miserable he-bitches. Remember it, else I’ll paddle your collective bells and sing while doing it. Report to the barracks. While there, you’ll act as a proper Sujin should, and if anyone asks, say it’s on my orders. Nothing more or less. If you get a righteous Koor who gives you gurry for nothing, you remember his name or at least his face and inform me, but you act the proper soldier, understood? If I hear otherwise, I’ll cut the tongue from your head, dry it, and use it later as an ass scrub. Understood? Good. That’s right and proper good. Now listen. In two days, we’re heading to Marrn.”

  “Marrn?” Toffer’s mouth dropped open.

  “Marrn,” Two Knife growled, silencing the man. “Seems there’s a mission being quietly carried out, and that dog blossom Bloor has placed me in charge of handpicking four hundred stout Sujins to guard a koch heading north.” Two Knife’s face brightened for a moment, revealing an oddly disbelieving smile at this stroke of fortune. It appeared for only an instant before the scowl returned and blotted it out. “You, Toffer, have no time for killing sick dogs in infirmaries as I’m about to give you part of a much larger task to complete. And you have to get to work on this now.”

  Toffer blinked, clearly confused.

  “Listen to me, you brazen stain of salted shite. Don’t think, just listen. That’s all you have to do. Gather up every man we know and any extra killer who can handle a blade. Gather up anyone who ever breathed a word of sedition in the past. You do that, and I promise you—I promise you all with every stinking black fiber of my being—very, very soon, we’ll all be as rich as kings. Now then…”

  Despite what might have been planned for Pig Knot this night, Two Knife’s rousing little speech poked the embers of greed inside Toffer’s heart, causing him to pay very close heed to what was said next.

  As Rusk the Two Knife spoke, an executioner’s smile seeped across Toffer’s face, and all thoughts of punishing Pig Knot were forgotten.

  4

  As the evening sky faded to black, Gastillo stood on his balcony and pensively watched servants light the torches of the training yard. The fires turned the sands orange, making Gastillo think of warmer climes, of beaches and salty surf, and of women. He stood at the wooden railing with his palms resting on the hard grain and eyed the two men as they finished. Gastillo’s mouth tried to make a line, but the task was too much for his savaged lips. Even then, he could feel the drool from the evening’s meal bead up on his lower lip, soon to spill over if he allowed it. He nudged his mask out of the way as he dabbed a cloth at the building flood. It was either that or let his water spill onto his clothing, and the last thing he needed was to look the part of a man well into his years. Gastillo wasn’t. In his honest opinion, he felt perhaps just past his prime but still more than able to wield a blade if he had to. If he must.

  He didn’t care to ever again, however.

  “All taken care of, Master Gastillo,” Danshon called to him.

  “Fine dinner this evening, Danshon,” Gastillo complimented his servant. “The fish was agreeable.”

  “I thought you might think so, Master Gastillo. I was a bit tired of chicken and beef myself, though we should be thankful for anything on our plates.”

  Gastillo managed a smirk behind his golden mask. It was just like Danshon to say something and then garnish his words with a melancholy afterthought. He had initially found it annoying, but he found the old man’s words oddly touching and even endearing, though he hated to admit it. He didn’t know what he was going to do when Danshon was finally gone, and he dreaded to think of it.

  “Good evening to you, Danshon,” he said cordially.

  “And to you, Master Gastillo.”

  With that, the old man met another servant, and both disappeared through an archway. Grisholt listened to the distant voices beyond the walls of his compound, too distant for him to identify what was being said. The occasional yell punctuated the night, belonging to someone taking to drink far too early for his taste. It was one of the disadvantages of having one’s house located within the city, but he’d bought it with the riches he’d won when he became champion of the games. He knew then that he didn’t want another season of fighting on the sands, yet he wasn’t ready to separate himself from the terrible excitement of the sport. Owning his own house and training pit fighters seemed an agreeable fit.

  At least, back then.

  Lately, every season weighed upon his shoulders like the logs the taskmasters commanded the men to lift to put muscle on their legs and shoulders. He no longer enjoyed the company of the fighters, sensing an odorless poison clinging to them all in the ultimate tragedy of the games. One wrong move in the Pit could claim the life of any one of them at any moment, and he’d learned that the pain of losing a friend was just as cutting as steel. Faces crowded his memory, a ghostly parade of warriors and their smiling, joking personalities—ironic, given the grim trade they plied—dead or crippled and replaced with new faces, time and time again. Even the daily providing for the men grated on his conscience. The cost of the food for them all kept rising, as well as the price of weapons and armor. Then there was the issue of individual personalities clashing within the ranks––who was the best, the strongest, the fastest, who had the best odds of winning it all… such gurry no longer interested him and secretly taxed his patience. It was all an arduous chore that needed constant managing. The mental toll of handling a group of pit fighters had never occurred to him until he actually had to do it, and by the third year of operation, Grisholt knew he’d had his fill.

  He needed to move on to other things.

  The question was… what?

  He maintained the business aspect of the house with an air of detachment. Mistakes had been made, but he managed to learn from them. He remained frugal with his expenses, repairing weapons and armor where he could instead of forging or purchasing new. If he ever wagered, he did so only on fights with the surest outcome.

  With all of that, he’d kept himself out of debt despite the deepening costs associated with ownership. Though he currently believed himself financially sound, it would not take much to cripple his accounts. One bad string of losses, including deaths and lost wagers, would topple the House of Gastillo. And that was merely the foreseeable, for the unknown added further fear and weight to his shoulders. The constant stress made him long to be free of the games.

  He needed to get out.

  To find something else while he still had time.

  While he was still sane.

  The metal covering his ruined face felt cold, but he was grateful for the protection it granted. His golden mask hid his growing contempt for the Pit, all within it, and everything associated with it. Some owners eventually eased their mental anguish with wine or firewater or some other alcohol, and it was a wonder Gastillo hadn’t taken to drink to alleviate some of that loathing, but he feared the spirits—feared the false confidence the grape gave a man. Furthermore, drinking to excess might release some inner hellion he might be unable to control, one bent on the house’s destruction.

  As much as he now despised the business, he couldn’t allow that.

  Control. Willpower. That was his strength now. His mask of gold was a shield, and soon, very soon, Grisholt would escape this hell. He believed he’d figured out a way.

  Strangely enough, Nexus might be a part of it.

  The notion of considering him as a house owner, an equal in the games, was one Gastillo had to force himself to not ridicule. Curge did enough of that himself. Curg
e was a relic of a much brighter––or darker, depending on whom one spoke to––age of the games, and Gastillo found the man to be a pretentious brute. Nexus, however, was perhaps even more pretentious in believing he could apply his mercantile experience to the Pit, a somewhat different commodity than wine, and bend it to his will. Gastillo’s own dismay at the man’s audacity was balanced by the fiery exchanges between the two men that shared the viewing box. Curge didn’t think Nexus was altogether fit in the head to believe he could master the intricacies of the games from the very beginning. Personal experience was something coin could not buy, despite Nexus’s boasting about employing seasoned taskmasters, trainers, and indubitably agents as well.

  The fact galling both Gastillo and Curge was that Nexus wasn’t doing as badly as either man had hoped. In fact, despite a few initial setbacks, the man wasn’t doing too badly at all.

  And he was a quick learner.

  It all rubbed Gastillo’s nerves a little rawer to see a pup in the ways of the games actually make a go of it while he was secretly hoping to escape with a few coins to rub together. Still, Nexus’s experience in business matters interested him. Perhaps there was an opportunity afoot that might grant him the freedom he desired. Gastillo stroked his golden chin and mulled. The mask was only a feint, to mislead his opponents into thinking he was a prideful man with extravagant tastes and high expectations—perhaps even an expensive sense of worth.

  So far from the truth.

  Pride had long deserted him.

  All that remained was the desire to get out. Such a longing had to be concealed until the time to leave the games behind—to leave it all behind.

  And Nexus could very well be the key to his plans.

  On the glowing sands below, a figure appeared and meandered toward the main gates. Gastillo recognized the arrogant way about him, how he didn’t even bother to keep to the shadows, and mentally sighed. Prajus, whose head of white hair came from his first match in the Pit––or so some said––when a near brush with death leached all the color from his face and locks. Gastillo didn’t know if the story was true or not, as Prajus had entered his house in its fifth year of existence and proved himself by defeating one of the older war dogs on the very ground below. Even then, the way in which he carried himself and the constant smiling all hinted at his true character, all misread and dismissed by Gastillo’s own lying judgment. At the time, he thought the hellpup would bring riches to the house—thought the man could even be champion one day.