by Rob J. Hayes
Today was different though. Today they were getting out of this shit hole of a free city. The Boss had all the details and they were just waiting for him to give the order. So when the southerner appeared from his and Henry's room all dressed for leaving, Betrim was about ready to whoop for joy.
“Time we got ourselves gone,” the Boss said flashing his shiny metal teeth at his assembled group of sell-swords. “Boat should be leavin' within the hour an' anyone not on it is gonna be missin' out on the job in Chade so...”
There was the unmistakeable tramp of boots on earth outside the hovel and the door burst open. A Korral guard attempted to rush in, another man just behind him but Swift was too quick. A throwing knife flew past Betrim and embedded itself in the guard's neck. Betrim was only a moment behind and he pushed the guard hard, forcing the bleeding man back out of the door and then slammed it shut.
Silence.
“Weapons down and come out now. By order of the Korral guard.” Came the shout from outside the hovel. At least they weren't trying to storm it any more.
Green peeked through a hole in the wall. “Shit.”
“How many, Green?” the Boss asked.
“I dunno,” the boy answered with a shaky voice. “Can't count that high.”
Swift shouldered him out the way and peered through the hole himself. “Green's right, Boss. We're fucked. Must be least twenty out there. More out o' sight no doubt.”
The Boss nodded, a grave look in his eyes. “Free city laws. If we can make it ta the boat and pay the Cap'n not ta throw us off, the guard can't take us. Bones, the back wall. Split up; make fer the docks as best ya can. Boat's called The Whipped Gull. Anyone not there by the time it leaves is on their own.”
By then Bones had done a damned fine job of taking the back wall apart. There was plenty of space for even the big man to squeeze through. Without another word they all went through the gap and started walking away in separate directions.
“I'm with you, Black Thorn. Lead the way.” Again Green had used his name and again he'd said it loud enough for folk nearby to hear. It was too damned much.
The Black Thorn grabbed Green by his hair and waved his axe in the boy's face. “If you even try ta fuckin' follow me I will take your damned foot off an' leave ya fer the guards. Get it?” he hissed into Green's face.
In reply Green only nodded, mute fear plain in his eyes. Betrim gave the boy a shove, took a quick look around; there were people staring but no guards, not yet anyway. With that he sauntered off as if he hadn't a care in the world leaving Green behind him to do as he would.
It didn't take the guard long to find him, didn't help that the people who had witnessed his little scene with Green were still staring at him. Betrim hadn't quite gotten to the end of the street before three guards wearing the yellow and red of Korral and wielding nasty-looking iron tipped spears spotted him and gave out a cry to raise more of their friends.
Betrim wasted no time, he turned and fled. His feet pounded on the packed earth and he was glad of the boots he wore, the boots he'd stolen last time he was in the free city. He turned into an alleyway breathing heavy with the exertion of running. The Black Thorn was built for killing folk not running around. He could hear the guards close behind him, sounded like more than three now, and that made his blood pump even faster.
Dead end. Who the hell built alleyways with dead ends? A high wall, near twenty foot, he reckoned, thrust up in front of him. There was a closed door to his left, no idea where it led, and no time to think about it. Betrim thrust his full weight against the door and it snapped open with a crash, the lock bursting apart. Fact was Betrim Thorn was not a small man and that had been a very flimsy door.
A small man in an apron screamed when the door crashed open, a high girlish shriek that didn't belong in a man's throat at all. The smell of fresh baked bread assaulted Betrim's nose, a wonderful smell. At any other time Betrim would have snatched up a loaf and kept running but right now food was the least of his worries. The need to live was a far more pressing concern.
He spied a door at the back of the bakery and went for it. Jumping over a table, scattering knifes and rolling pins and other things he couldn't even name. Kicking in the door Betrim found himself confronted by stairs. The shouts of the guards were too close. A figure appeared in the doorway to the bakery and the little baker screamed as high as a girl again and pointed at Betrim.
Up the stairs and there was a window leading out the back of the shop. Betrim ripped the wooden shutters open and looked out. A ten foot drop, good way to break a leg, he reckoned. Still, needs must. He threw his pack out the window, heard the horrifying smash of glass as it landed on his bottle of spirits, and then followed the pack out. He landed heavy on his feet and rolled to a stop. His knees protested as he stood back up but they didn't give. Betrim scooped up his pack and started running again just as a guard poked his head out of the bakery window and started shouting.
Problem was he was still being chased and that meant he needed to run but running down a busy street was not the most inconspicuous of getaways. Add the fact that his little escape had taken him away from the docks and there was no doubt he was in trouble. Betrim decided he needed to hide, at least until most of the guards had decided he'd run off.
He started away from the docks again, ducked into another alley and then out the other side. To his left lay the docks, still a fair way away and the guards still hot on his trail. To his right he could see the market square. This time of year the market square was packed tight with folk. Those with meat and leather and ivory from the great herd and the constant supply of fish into Korral made it a near impenetrable, seething mass of human flesh as sellers looked to make as much money from their stock as possible and buyers looked to buy as cheaply as they could manage.
Betrim wasted no time in deciding. He sprinted off towards market square and with a great deal of pushing, shoving, elbowing and growling insinuated himself into the masses. A man could barely find his own nose in such chaos; let the guards try to find him. Still, he didn't have too long before the boat left and Betrim had no desire to be left behind in Korral. He'd wait in the market for a time, but not too long.
There it was, The Whipped Gull; a small shipping vessel if truth be told. Sat low in the water with two masts and a fat wallowing hull. Fact was Betrim could think of a hundred reasons not to get on a boat like that but none were so pressing as the reason to get on it.
He had waited in the ever moving mass of people that was the market for near thirty minutes as best he could tell. The guards had given up but he'd wanted to make sure. Now he saw where the guards had gone. Thirty men stood between him and the boat he was supposed to be on. Thirty armed men with dangerous intent.
The Boss was standing on the boat within sight of the guards, not goading them, just watching. That meant Henry was there too, Betrim couldn't see any of the others though. The sergeant of the guard was standing closer to the boat than the others, calling to the ship's captain but there was nothing the man could do. Without the captain's say so the guards couldn't step foot on the boat. Those were the rules of the free city of Korral.
All Betrim had to do now was get his way past all thirty men and make it onto the boat and he was free. Sounded like a hard job in his head and he had no doubt it was even harder to put into practice. So Betrim waited, watched, hoped that an opening would appear. All the while he was all too aware that he was fast running out of time.
As Betrim watched, the sailors finished loading the cargo and started preparing the ship to set sail. He was out of time. Ropes were untied, the gang plank was removed and the boat started to move backwards, fighting to gain momentum as it was pulled by a little skiff. He was out of time.
He pulled his hood over his head and started walking forwards. Still thirty guards between him and the boat, still a stretch of pier, still no way to get on board with a ramp. Still he walked.
A guardsman with a bored expression turned and saw Betrim
coming. Betrim stumbled on his feet and began to sway a little as he walked, trying to look drunk. The guard just stared at him for a moment before nudging one of his companions. The other guard was not fooled, he raised a shout and thirty faces started to turn towards the Black Thorn.
Betrim broke into a pounding run. He was on the guards in moments brushing aside their spears and shouldering through a gap between two men. The sergeant was struggling to get his sword out of his scabbard and Betrim threw a bony elbow into the man's face as he passed. Still running for the end of the pier. The Boss was watching, shouting something to someone nearby. A spear thudded into the pier just beside Betrim. It was close, too close.
The boat was still moving, faster now, gaining speed, it was almost past the pier and then it was. Betrim's foot hit the final post of the wooden pier and he leapt. For a brief and terrifying moment he was in the air with only the murky green waters of Korral bay below him. Then he hit the side of the boat, rough wood slapping him full in the body. And he was falling. His fingers managed to find purchase, the barest lip to hold onto. His feet swung below him, unable to find anything to stand on along the rounded hull of the ship.
Another spear flew at him and splashed into the water. Betrim clung on for all he was worth but he could feel his fingers slipping. Then something big gripped around his right wrist like iron and started pulling. A moment later and something grabbed his left wrist and Betrim found himself rising.
First the deck then the railing passed before Betrim's eyes and then the straining, red face of Bones as he lifted. Then Betrim was over the railing and falling forwards. He found himself lying on top of Bones and rolled off to the side breathing heavy and shaking despite himself. The Black Thorn may never admit fear to others but he'd admit it to himself and he was sweating terror through every pore of his body.
Then the Boss was standing over him and offering Betrim a hand. Bones was standing close by breathing heavy and grinning from ear to ear. Swift was perched on the railing with his trousers down showing his arse to Korral and Henry was there with a wolfish grin and the devil glinting in her eyes.
“Good of ya ta make it, Black Thorn,” the Boss said as he slapped Betrim on the shoulder.
Betrim just nodded and looked to Bones. The big man was still grinning. Betrim had no idea a man could be that strong. “Thanks,” he said in a heavy voice.
“Ya looked like ya needed a hand,” Bones shot back between breaths.
The most worrying thing was they all looked happy to see him. All except Green. The boy stood at the edge of the group of sell-swords staring at Betrim with dark, murderous eyes.
The BladeMaster
Jezzet arrived in the free city of Chade just short of two weeks after the battle at Eirik's fort. The trip over the mountain pass took her a little longer than she'd hoped and she'd almost walked straight into a camp of dirty, rotten-toothed bandits. Though she couldn't say she had looked or smelled any better than them at that point she gave them a wide birth all the same. She did have to kill one of their scouts who was patrolling during the night but Jezzet knew many ways to kill a man silently, especially if you could get up behind them with a nice long knife. After that she'd scrambled down the mountain pass at double speed with the fear of an angry group of bandits riding on her heels.
The trip across the plains had taken longer as well. Jez had decided to head first for the coast and follow it along until she reached the free city. She wagered they'd be more food closer to the coast, never a shortage of giant land crabs the size of a dog, on the beaches in the wilds. They weren't the easiest of things to catch with eyes that swivelled on stalks to watch you and pincers as big as a hand that could crush bone, and not to mention the rock hard armour they all possessed but Jezzet had long ago been taught the secret to killing them; flip them onto their backs and stab them in their softer underbellies.
So with giant crabs and plenty of driftwood Jezzet didn't go hungry. The smoke from the fires was a small danger but she kept her fires to night time when the darkness would hide the smoke. The danger of starving to death seemed a lot more pressing than attracting the wrong kind of attention with a fire.
Jez had even risked stripping off and bathing in the sea. It was a terrifying ordeal. Standing in the water with sea coming up to her breasts and the vastness of it stretching out before her endlessly blue, endlessly unknown. Anything could have been underneath those waters. Jezzet had heard stories of giant fish, with teeth as big as a hand that could bite even an armoured man clean in two. Other stories of huge jelly-like creatures with hooked tentacles that would drag a person down into the depths.
So, with those stories in mind, Jez had washed herself, staying in the water just long enough to wash the blood and sweat and shit off her skin and out of her hair before wading, in something close to a panic, back to shore, checking over her shoulder for sea monsters all the while with her heart pounding loud in her ears.
When Jezzet reached Chade she looked almost as bad as when she had left Eirik's fort. Her skin was dirty and darkened by exposure to the sun, her hair was lank with sweat and grease. Her clothing stank like a bog and looked little more than filthy rags and she was weary beyond belief. Jez had but one thing going for her as she walked through the gates into the free city. She was still alive.
The guards on the gate watched her through smiling eyes but they wouldn't stop her. They'd seen it all before and worse. Anyone could walk into the free city but if the guard patrols found homeless scum squatting or begging those same homeless scum had a habit of disappearing. The free cities lived on gold and trade, anyone without money was wasting space but there was always money to be made from slaves.
Chade was the first free city of the wilds and the largest. It was the second largest city Jezzet had ever been to. The first being that giant sprawling mess that the people of the Five Kingdoms called a capital. Walls ringed the entire city and all near a hundred foot high and built of stone with more than enough guards to hold off even a determined army.
The free city was ruled by a council of four and those four were some of the most powerful and richest in all the wilds. The only way onto the council was to buy your way on and replace one of the existing members, not many would have the money for such a thing as the city’s laws didn't allow blooded folk to sit.
All the free cities in the wilds were neutral islands in a sea of warring states. They abided by their own laws and played no part in the politics of the blooded. At least that was the official statement though Jezzet had long ago learned that the rich and powerful rarely stayed neutral in anything. Never had she met a more opinionated lot than those with enough money to buy the opinions of others.
So the guards watched her with dangerous interest, people moved out of her way with wary suspicion and even the merchants who camped by the gates hoping to sell their wares to new comers fell silent as she trudged past. All could see Jez had no money and all guessed she be locked up in irons with a metal collar by the end of the day.
There were plenty of jobs Jez wouldn't do of course; she wouldn't rob folk for one and she would like to stay clear of whoring too but she knew where to go. Jezzet Vel'urn still had a friend or two in the wilds and one such friend happened to own an inn in Chade and happened to be fixer. He'd have a job or two lined up that Jez could join. The good people of Chade always needed sell-swords.
Guards lined the streets everywhere. Brutish looking men for the most part with metal cuirass' over red doublets and swords by their sides and clubs in their hands. Crime was done in secret in Chade because if you were caught you'd wake up a slave and, if you were a man, a eunuch. There were a few women guards but they were as mean looking as the men and no more sympathetic. People grew up hard and fast in the wilds.
There were thieving gangs in Chade though. Jezzet could spot them a mile away. Groups of folk standing around with thinly veiled purposes sharing slight nods and glances, trying to decide who best to pickpocket or pull down an alley and rob. On
e and all they ignored Jez and she was all the more glad for it.
By the time she reached her destination the sun was starting to dip and her feet felt as if they were starting to drop off. She'd been walking for weeks, her boots were holy and reduced to leather held together by string and the blisters on her feet had developed blisters of their own. Still she stopped outside and watched the inn for a time. An old friend had long ago taught her to be cautious. He'd stop outside everywhere he went and watch for hours, making sure there wasn't anyone he knew inside. Jezzet didn't quite have his patience so she waited for all of twenty minutes, leaning against a wall and watching.
Twenty minutes and no one she knew, not that that was surprising, most of the people she knew were already dead.
Except my good old friend Constance. What a lovely surprise that would be to find her waiting for me. Might be she'd buy me a drink before killing me.
Jez pushed the thought aside and strode with feigned confidence towards the door to the inn and noticed the name had changed just as she pushed her way through the door into the waiting warmth on the other side.
The inn had been called The Two Bronze Bits but had undergone a name change and the sign outside now read The Serpent's Tooth. Safe to say Jez had a bad feeling about the whole situation but it was just an inn, if her friend wasn't there she'd just go looking for work elsewhere.
Inside, the common room wasn't much changed. It was as large as it had ever been though a little less populate. A group of five sailors sat over by the hearth laughing and clashing their tankards at every jest. Two men sat alone, one looked drunk with red cheeks and a red nose, and the other wore a hood covering his face and sat in shadows. Four guards populated the table farthest from the entrance, they gave Jez a quick glance as she entered then went back to ignoring everyone as the biggest of them told some story about how he'd fought three men at once in unarmed combat and beaten them all. A huge tooth adorned the wall above the fire place; it was easily half as big as Jez and had vicious looking serrated edges.