Among Thieves

by Hulick, Douglas

  I drew my rapier and turned to duck back behind the curtain. That was when I saw Seri Razor Edge vaulting into the stall over a pile of crates, a nasty grin on her skeletal face.

  Seri didn’t say anything when she landed—couldn’t, for that matter; she’d had her tongue cut out years ago. Rumor had it that her then-husband had done it because she had lied to him. Once she’d recovered, Seri had used the brace of long barber’s razors she still wielded to carve him up and sell him for pig fodder.

  Seri clicked the razors open and closed, open and closed, in a blur of silver steel. Even though I had reach with my sword, I thought twice about attacking her—I’d seen her take apart better swordsmen than I in a matter of seconds.

  “Go ahead, try her,” said a voice. I glanced right and saw another Arm, named Leander, standing outside the stall. He had a broad-bladed infantry sword resting across his shoulder—a souvenir from his days in the Imperial legions.

  Two Arms versus me—I’d seen better odds at a fixed cockfight. If Ioclaudia’s journal hadn’t been filling up my left hand, I would have tried a drop-and-throw with my wrist dagger.

  I saw the curtain shift slightly behind Seri, even though there was no breeze. I resisted the urge to smile.

  I looked over at Leander. “How much?” I demanded.

  His eyes narrowed. “How much what?”

  “How much to let me go?”

  Leander looked at me, dumbfounded for a moment, then laughed. “You mean how much to cross Nicco? I’m not—”

  That was when Mendross’s staff thrust out through the gap in the curtain. It caught Seri behind the ear with an audible crack. Her knees buckled.

  By then, I was already throwing the journal at Leander. I wasn’t happy about it, and my gut tightened as I did it, but it was either throw that or my sword, and I needed the sword more just now.

  The motion caught Leander by surprise. Instinct made him block the book with his sword, which meant he missed the rapier thrust I sent immediately after it. My blade caught him at the base of the jaw. The tip bit deep, his head snapped back, and he was dead.

  I was still recovering from my lunge and turning to thank Mendross when something collided with the side of my head. My first thought was, What the hell are you doing, Mendross? but as I staggered and fell, I saw Mendross still standing in the curtained doorway, a look of surprise on his face. Then I saw Nicco step over me, and I knew who had clicked me.

  Mendross jabbed and swung with his staff, but the stall was too narrow for him to be able to use it effectively. Nicco reached out and took the weapon away from the Ear almost absentmindedly. He then grabbed Mendross by the throat and began to beat him with his own staff.

  I pushed myself up off the ground. It bucked and swayed beneath me, but I didn’t have time to worry about that right now. I reached for where my rapier had fallen, missed once, twice, then got it on the third try. It felt clumsy and heavy in my hand all of a sudden. That couldn’t be a good sign.

  Being this close to Nicco summoned a riot of emotions within me: fear, anxiety, hatred, panic, despair, even, oddly enough, elation. But underneath it all was a dark, seething need for vengeance—vengeance for Kells and his men; vengeance for the beatings I’d suffered; vengeance for what Mendross was suffering; vengeance for Eppyris and Cosima and their girls. I wanted vengeance for everything this bastard had put me through for the last seven years, for everything I had had to take because it was my job. Well, that job was done now, and it was time to take back my pride and pay him back.

  I climbed to my feet.

  As I rose, Nicco turned and let go of Mendross. Without the Upright Man to support him, Mendross collapsed to the floor. He was bleeding freely from more places than I could count, most of them on his head. When he fell, he didn’t move. Nicco dropped the staff across him without a second thought.

  I brought my rapier’s tip up and got into the best stance I could. The world seemed to be leveling out a little bit, for which I was grateful.

  Nicco grinned and slid into a wrestler’s crouch, his hands out before him. He was wearing a pair of Meat and Greets—leather gladiator’s gloves, their backs studded with iron, their palms and inner fingers lined with fine chain mail for grabbing blades. Looking at them, at him, I was surprised I was still conscious.

  “Just us, little man,” rumbled Nicco. “No degans, no Oaks, no Arms, and no fruit peddlers.” He smacked his hands together, making them thump and ring at the same time. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said, and I lunged. Nicco must have been counting on his intimidation to work on me like it had in the past, since he seemed genuinely surprised when I attacked. He jerked his body back from the thrust and barely got a hand up in time to knock the blade away. I advanced, pressing hard with two more thrusts and a low slash in quick succession. Nicco blocked them all, retreating until he felt one of Mendross’s tables behind him. He blocked another cut, then lowered his head and hunched his shoulders. His eyes narrowed.

  I knew that look. It meant I was about to be in trouble.

  Before he could charge and use his greater mass to run me down, I stepped back and dropped to the ground. Two quick rolls and I was under a table and out in the square.

  Nicco swore and came after me, throwing crates and baskets out of his way.

  I glanced quickly around the square. Degan was backed up against the base of Elirokos’s statue, holding off multiple Arms with his two blades. Iron had taken his fight on the run and was ducking in and out of stalls and behind tent backs, using the terrain to keep his attackers off-balance and in pursuit. There were more bodies on the ground than there had been last time I looked, but both degans also seemed to be sporting fresh blood themselves.

  More important, there were no Arms in my immediate vicinity.

  I gave a quick scan of the ground for Ioclaudia’s journal. It was off to my left, not far from Leander’s feet. Not in easy reach, but not too far, either. Then a crate landed between it and me, and I was forced to turn my full attention back to Nicco.

  He was in the square before me, pawing at the air softly, waiting for his moment. I closed up my guard and reached for the fighting dagger at my belt. If Nicco got in past my rapier’s tip, I’d need something to keep him at bay. The fingers of my left hand were just brushing the dagger’s handle when Nicco made his move.

  He reached out for my blade, trying to grab it and push it high as he came in low, his fist at the ready. My hand fell away from the dagger, and I danced back, pulling my rapier in and then thrusting it back out at his eye. Nicco had changed up the timing of his attack, though, slowing himself down after his initial reach. That meant I was backing faster than he was advancing. My tip fell short, waving weakly in the air. Nicco batted at the blade and came on.

  I’d forgotten how long his arms were, how fast he was with his hands. Rapiers aren’t very good for blocking punches in the first place, and with Nicco’s being so adept at protecting himself, I was quickly finding myself on the defensive. It wasn’t supposed to work that way; most times, three-plus feet of steel were enough to keep a brawler like Nicco at bay. Today, though, he seemed more worried about getting his hands on me than collecting a few stray stabs or cuts.

  Worse, he was pressing me so hard, I couldn’t find time to draw my dagger. If he got in before I got it out, I was done for.

  Something needed to change.

  Degan would have doubtlessly done something deadly and flawless; me, I leapt back a pace and squatted down in the street. I thrust my sword out in front of me, ducked my head, and laid my left arm over myself for protection. A second later, I felt an impact along my rapier’s length. Then Nicco collided with me.

  I was knocked sprawling on the cobbles. A sharp pain lanced down my right arm, running from elbow to fingertips and back. My rapier slipped from my hand with a clatter.

  I sat up to find Nicco getting to his knees beside me. One hand was pressed against his right side. There was blo
od flowing out around his glove.

  My left hand went for the dagger on my belt. Nicco leaned over and backhanded me. I fell back, sprawling, the dagger skittering away. I felt the knife taken from my boot, then a painfully heavy weight settle across my left arm just above the wrist sheath. I could feel the texture of the street pressing into my muscles.

  Nicco leaned over from where he was kneeling on my arm. He was grimacing in pain, but still managed to summon up a nasty smile. “Out of toys, Drothe?” he said. “I know you too well—know where you keep all your sharps.” He reached down and punched my right leg, driving the knuckle studs on his gloves deep. “Boot,” he said. Then he punched my stomach. “Belt.” He rocked his knees back and forth on my arm. “Wrist. Did I miss any?”

  I gasped at each new torment but didn’t cry out; I didn’t have the strength.

  The rage was gone. I was hollow inside now, empty of everything, save a growing sense of despair. Eppyris and Cosima, Christiana, Degan, Kells, even Solitude—I’d failed to keep my word to them, failed to deliver on even one promise. I had thought that as long as I was out in the street, as long as I had the journal, I could outmaneuver everyone. That, even when cutting my deal with Solitude, I could somehow sidestep the costs.

  It was arrogance, pure and simple. I only had to look around the square to see the consequences others were suffering because of me: Mendross, beaten and bloodied in his own stall; Degan fighting for his life against not only half a dozen Arms but against Iron as well; Nicco systematically crushing or damaging those people or things I had said I would serve; and all the others. I had been gambling with other people’s lives, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  Fucking Nose.

  Nicco shifted his weight, releasing some of the pressure on my left arm. Blood rushed in, pricking and searing the new bruises. “We’re going to have a nice, long talk, you and I,” he said. “Very long.”

  He looked around the square, making sure neither degan was in a position to interfere, and then stood up. My blade had caught him in the side near the hip, doing little more than cutting flesh and maybe scraping the bone. So much for the hope of taking him with me.

  Nicco reached down, gathered the front of my jerkin in his fist, and hoisted me to my feet. I hugged my sore left arm with my partially numbed right one. The action caused my hand to brush against my belt and the coiled roughness that resided there.

  I felt a sudden surge of something. Not hope—not then, not yet—but maybe desperation; that, and a bit of darkest guile.

  It was enough, though.

  I let the fingers of my right hand trail slowly downward.

  “Come on,” said Nicco. He leaned his face close into mine, smelling of oil and olives. My fingers found their goal and closed around it as best they could. “I have three Brothers of Agony waiting to meet you,” he snarled. “Each one ready to work eight hours at a stretch; each one ready to keep at it until I say it’s over.”

  I looked Nicco dead in the eyes, then. I don’t know what he saw, but it was enough to make him draw his face away from mine. I smiled a jagged smile.

  Now. Now I could feel it coursing through me. Hope. And hate.

  “I hope you paid them in advance,” I said. Then I brought Jelem’s coiled rope up between Nicco’s legs. Hard.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  There was a series of pops so close together, they almost sounded like one. Nicco’s eyes opened wide and rolled up into his head. He fell over. I stood there, swaying on my feet, a smoking coil of rope in my hand. Then I bent down and wrapped the rope around Nicco’s neck.

  The knots in the rope were spaced just right for crushing a victim’s throat—not surprising, considering Jelem’s template had been crafted for an assassin. As I twisted and squeezed, I noticed that three of the paper runes weren’t smoldering like the rest—they were still white and pristine. Glimmer to spare, then.

  Nicco didn’t put up a struggle; in fact, I don’t even think he was aware he was dying. His face went blue, then purple, but I kept tightening the garrote until blood began to well around the edges. Even then, I didn’t stop—couldn’t stop. Deep down, I knew he was dead, but part of me kept saying, Make sure. Make sure! So I did, until my hands began to cramp up, until my arms were trembling with the effort. Even then, I had to consciously tell myself to ease up on the tension, to stop.

  When I finally peeled the rope from around his neck, I had to wipe it on his clothes to remove the excess blood. I knew I should have felt something—relief, disgust, satisfaction—but all I could find was a vague sense of futility. Nicco was dead, but things hadn’t changed—not in any way that mattered.

  I straightened up to find the square empty of the living. It was thick with the gloom of evening now. I blinked and rubbed at my eyes. The darkness felt good.

  I turned to go back to Mendross’s stall and the book. Then I caught sight of Degan and stopped.

  He still had his back to the base of Elirokos’s statue, but now he was leaning against it in exhaustion. A half circle of corpses lay piled around him like some grisly barricade. Not one of the bodies groaned, not one shifted in pain, so thorough had been his slaughter.

  Degan was covered in gore from the chest down and from his biceps to his fingers. His own sword hung limply in his right hand, and it took me a moment to make out a new cut that had laid that arm open between the shoulder and the elbow. He still had Cretin’s blade in his left, but that hand was shaking visibly.

  I looked around the square for Iron. He was nowhere in sight.

  I coiled the rope carefully in my left hand. I retrieved my rapier and walked over to Degan. I stopped short of the ring of carnage.

  “So,” said Degan, his voice coming out low, flat, exhausted. He indicated Nicco’s body with the extra sword. “How was it for you?”

  My hand tightened around the rope until it creaked.

  “You son of a bitch!” I said.

  “Ah, straight to business, then.” Degan looked down at his blood-slicked boots. He flicked a small bit of someone else’s bone off the tip of his foot. “First, let me ask you something,” he said, looking up and meeting my eye. “If I had simply asked you—after you cut your deal with Solitude, after you’d come here to deliver it into Iron’s hands—to give the journal to me instead, would you have?”

  I stared at him. I knew what I desperately wanted to say, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him.

  Degan nodded. “I thought as much. So, given that, you see why I had to invoke the Oath.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Don’t I?” Degan leaned his head back against the stone. “Why not? Because Solitude says so? Because Iron does? Because they think the emperor will somehow destroy an empire he’s gone to amazing lengths to save?” Degan closed his eyes. “Why did you attack Shadow?” he said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Why did you attack a Gray Prince on your own?”

  “Because he threatened Christiana,” I said. “He threatened Kells, the organization, everything. Shadow was going to use them as leverage against me, and sooner or later, when I wasn’t useful anymore, he’d make an example out of them. I realized the best chance for them was my dusting him.”

  “But you must have known you couldn’t win,” said Degan. “That you might have died even before I got there.”

  “I had to try,” I said. “There wasn’t any other option.”

  Degan smiled softly. “It’s the same with me and the journal,” he said. “I can’t let them doom the empire just because they think the emperor is a threat. That’s why I called in your Oath—because it’s the only way to save both the empire and you.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  Degan rolled his head back and forth against the granite, his eyes still closed—a tired man’s head shake. “You don’t think Shadow is going to give up on you, do you? If you haven’t guessed, I didn’t kill him. He’s still out there. And he
’s not going to be happy with you when he finds out that not only did you attack him, but you also delivered the journal to Solitude. I don’t care what she promised you—you can’t hide from Shadow, Drothe.” Degan opened his eyes and looked at me. “Unless . . .”

  “Unless?” I said, knowing I was being led but not caring right now.

  “Unless I take the book from you,” said Degan. “Shadow knows you wouldn’t be able to stop me if it came down to a fight. If I ‘took’ it—however that might end up happening”—a grin here—“he couldn’t blame you for the book not making it to him.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but there would still be my having attacked him. And he’ll be none too pleased with you, either.”

  “Leave that to me,” said Degan. “He’s not as good as he thinks he is.”

  “He was good enough to survive last time.”

  “He won’t always have pocket change handy.”

  I crossed my arms. “So you’re saying he was the one who got away from you after all the Rags were dealt with?” I said.

  “Let’s call it a mutual fade due to extenuating circumstances,” said Degan. “Besides, I had to backtrack and get your rope for you.”

  I ran my thumb along one of the knots. “And you just happened to bring it to Mendross’s stall to deliver it to me? Today? Right now?”

  “If you stake out a place long enough, you’re bound to get lucky. Besides, you tend to check in with your little fruit seller first and last when something is going down.”

  Was I that predictable?

  “Yes, you are,” said Degan.

  I made a face. Then I sighed. “What now?” I said.

  Degan pushed himself to a fully standing position. “I call in your Oath and take the journal,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “No, nothing has,” said Iron Degan.

  I spun around. Iron was stepping out from between two stalls. He was walking easy, his sword lolling in his hand. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and his short hair lay plastered to his head. There were two fresh cuts on his right forearm and a scrape along the knuckles of his left hand. Besides the split Degan had given him on the cheek, he had picked up a shallow gash along his jaw. None of the wounds looked serious.