Ruler of Scoundrels

by Carrie Summers

  She scans the street again. The thief who was shot in the calf is on his feet now and limping backward, blade drawn. Two mercenaries are advancing on him.

  Sixes on top of sixes. Myrrh glances over her shoulder as Warrell and Rattle shove out the workshop door with the other unconscious man.

  “Check behind the building!” she shouts before jumping up beside the injured thief.

  A faint breeze has kicked up, and it lifts shreds of yellow fog from the street, swirling them up higher through the canyon between buildings. A few stragglers come staggering from the fog, hacking and gagging. A woman falls to her knees and vomits on the street before crawling forward.

  Myrrh’s chest seizes as a mercenary leans from a window and aims a crossbow at the woman. Just as he squeezes the trigger, a throwing knife hurled by another of Myrrh’s people strikes his wrist. The string twangs and the bolt skitters harmlessly off the street beside the woman’s knee. She yelps and manages to reach her feet, struggling forward once more.

  Ghost syndicate is almost holding its own. But the small army of mercenaries hasn’t even begun to use their full resources. Farther down the streets and alleys, men and a few women stand with weapons drawn and eyes flashing.

  It’s almost as if the current scuffle is just for show. A distraction so that Myrrh’s people don’t realize they’re surrounded, every exit blocked by hardened killers. A trap…?

  Her dagger guarding against an attack by the pair of advancing fighters, she looks behind her. The street continues past the intersection where she perched atop the tailor’s and climbs a slight rise. Up top stands a line of five burly men.

  Yes. Most definitely a trap.

  “Get together!” she yells. “We need a single point of retreat!”

  With the noise and the chaos, no one seems to hear her. Desperate, she shoots her gaze toward Warrell and Rattle, only to see them backing away from a squad of fighters wielding scimitars and carrying round shields. Myrrh’s never even seen the style of armor they wear. How far did Noble throw his net to get these people?

  A heavy sigh expands Rattle’s chest as he turns to her.

  He shakes his head. Myrrh’s heart sinks. If he’s giving up, it’s no stretch to imagine the rest of her thieves will soon follow. But it would be folly to think that Noble would grant them mercy in exchange for surrender. Better to fight to the death if that’s what this comes to.

  But then Rattle jabs a gloved hand into the padded coat he wears over his leather jerkin. He pulls out a pouch, shakes some of the contents into his palm, then tosses the pouch to her.

  “What’s this?” she shouts.

  The thief beside her grunts as he steps forward to deflect one of the mercenary’s blades. Myrrh flinches as the wind from the strike tickles her face.

  “Not a good time for conversation,” Rattle yells back.

  Myrrh jogs back to gain distance from the pair of mercenaries and tugs at the pouch’s drawstring. Holding her dagger with two fingers, she uses the others to pull the pouch open.

  Her eyes widen at the sparkle of gems.

  “Try not to waste them,” Rattle shouts.

  Understanding comes in a flash. Rattle knows as well as she does that the mercenaries aren’t loyal to Noble. They’re soldiers for hire. And whatever Noble is paying, a pouch of rubies this heavy will surely best it.

  In the narrow corridor where Warrell and Rattle are facing off with the foreigners, Myrrh catches the glint of more gems as Rattle holds out his hand in an offering. The soldiers slow.

  Rattle tosses one of the gems toward their feet. The lead man leans down and picks up the jewel, bringing it in front of his eyes.

  “Half now, the rest once the man who hired you is dead—along with his blind friends.”

  Myrrh realizes she’s staring, and meanwhile, her injured thief is frantically trying to parry strikes from two trained soldiers.

  She jams her dagger into the sheath and tucks the pouch into a pocket to avoid having the whole treasure stolen. Dashing forward, she fishes out a sizable, glittering handful.

  She shouts at the top of her lungs and jumps in front of the injured thief, batting aside a mercenary’s sword strike. The attackers are so stunned at her apparent act of stupidity, they pull up short and stare.

  Myrrh lets the gems spill from her fist into an open palm.

  The men’s eyes widen.

  “Whatever Noble has offered you, I assure we’ll pay more,” she says. “And if you kill him, you can take what he offered you anyway.”

  Myrrh then drops to a crouch and sends the rubies skittering across the cobblestones. The stones are so sixing big—as far as gems go—most don’t even fall into the little cracks where cobbles have split. Both mercenaries instantly drop down and start plucking the gems from the street.

  “Miser’s breath,” the thief behind her says.

  Myrrh nods. This is no sixing joke. She just threw away half a year’s take for an average grubber. But a yelp of pain from one of her people snaps her back to the situation.

  “Tell your friends,” she shouts at the mercenaries. “You’ll get the rest once Noble and his crew are dead or captured. I don’t care which.”

  Without argument, the men run off and shoulder into the nearest of their comrades, shoving them out of the fight. Hissed words fly across the street, and within minutes, the combat stops.

  Myrrh runs around the hideout to see the scimitar-wielders pounding at the door. That answers the question of whether Noble is still inside. He probably sent that squad out just minutes ago, prompting the reaction from her thief on the roof of the cloth seller’s. But clearly, he’s not eager to let them back in.

  One of the assailants turns toward her. “Got a battering ram?” he asks in a thickly accented voice.

  Relief begins to flow through her. It might take a while to get inside, but there’s no escape from the hideout. Noble is trapped. As good as dead.

  All they have to do is wait.

  In the meantime, she and Rattle have a lot to talk about.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  UNFORTUNATELY, RATTLE HAS vanished as mysteriously as he arrived. Warrell was so busy staring at the pile of rubies the one-eyed thief dropped into his palm with instructions to work with Myrrh, he didn’t pay attention to the man’s departure. As the mercenaries batter down the doors to the hideout, Myrrh walks a circuit around the area, searching for signs of Rattle’s passage.

  It’s useless of course. With the kinds of skills he’d need to steal a fortune in gems from another syndicate’s territory, he assuredly knows how to disappear from the site of a chaotic melee without leaving tracks. By the time a representative from the mercenaries reports that the Slivers bosses have been eliminated, the yellow fog has dissipated and she’s turned up nothing. Her shoulders ache with the tension of everything that happened this afternoon.

  Carver volunteers to enter the hideout and verify that Noble and his Whites are dead. Myrrh doesn’t argue. As she waits for his return, she pulls out a pouch of rubies. Not the pouch of rubies, but rather a smaller container she filled with a little less than half of what Rattle tossed her.

  As Carver steps back out of the hideout’s front door and nods, she tosses the pouch to the mercenaries’ representative. Beside her, Warrell stiffens, clearly realizing that’s not the same leather purse. She fights the urge to nudge him into relaxing. Sure, she will give up the rest if she must. But considering the earlier reactions she saw to the gems, she’s betting this is more than enough to please the hired soldiers.

  When the mercenary peers into the pouch, he swallows, clearly shocked at the sum.

  “There’s extra payment in there meant to assure you leave Rat Town before dusk. I don’t want any more trouble in my district.”

  The man inclines his head. “Perhaps I could leave contact information in the event you need hired swords sometime soon?”

  She folds her arms over her chest. “
I suppose that’s acceptable.”

  With a nod, the man turns on his heel and stalks back to the crowd of mercenaries.

  “Come on,” Myrrh whispers, catching Warrell’s arm. “Let’s get out of here before you blow this score.”

  The big man huffs. “Trust you to turn an ambush into a windfall of priceless gems…”

  ***

  The injured members of Ghost syndicate have been sent to a healer that Ivy knows. Myrrh’s particularly concerned for the men who fell unconscious from the poison gas, but as she watched them stagger away with the others, they already seemed to be growing more alert. Most of the rest of her underlings have headed off to Rikson’s Roost to celebrate the final victory over the Slivers syndicate.

  Myrrh can’t bring herself to celebrate someone’s death, not even Noble’s. Not even after he killed so many innocent people. It’s good that he’s gone though, no longer a threat to Rat Town. As she slips through the door to the safe house, she takes a minute to thank the Queen of Nines. They still haven’t located the third thief from the workshop. Maybe—hopefully—he ran when he realized a trap was closing. Otherwise, though, it seems everyone she brought survived, and with good fortune, there won’t be lingering problems from the poison.

  She turns to shut the door behind her and hangs her cloak on the hook beside it. The downstairs is blessedly quiet; though Graves lifted the bar to let her in, he seems to have wandered off.

  Myrrh stiffens when door hinges behind her squeal. She turns, stomach tight. When she glimpses Nab’s tangled hair and large eyes, the tension in her chest uncoils, finally releasing her heart to beat normally again.

  “You’re back, I see.”

  “Yeah, well, I was just exploring for a while. Tep was always telling me I should see the rest of the city.”

  Myrrh taps her toe against the wooden floorboards, trying to decide what to say about his absence. Too much scolding will just chase him away.

  “So where exactly have you been?”

  He crosses the room with what she thinks is supposed to be a swagger. It looks more like he’s trying to dance and doing a poor job of it.

  “I guess you could say I’ve been all over. Seeing what…opportunities might be out there for someone like me.”

  “Yes, I’m sure there are plenty of people desperate for your skills.”

  She isn’t sure he picked up on the sarcasm until he narrows his eyes. “I’ve been learning things, Myrrh. You don’t even know…”

  She sighs. “Why don’t you tell me then, oh thief of thieves.”

  Nab curls his hands into small fists as he stomps toward her, then stops when he seems to realize that will put him in a position to stare up at her. Instead, he saunters to a chair and flops into it.

  “For your information, a friend of yours has been teaching me things.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Who’s that? I thought Glint was busy.”

  “The one-eyed guy. Rattle.”

  The name stops her short. The man never mentioned interacting with Nab beyond his first questions about Myrrh’s history.

  “That’s…interesting. What do you say we find something sweet to eat while we discuss it?”

  Nab pouts. “I already looked. Cupboard’s bare.”

  She raises a finger in a request for patience. “Hey, Graves?”

  The thief steps into the upstairs corridor, clearly having retreated to give her and Nab some privacy.

  “Could you please find someone to fetch a few sweet buns from whatever bakery is still open at this hour?”

  The man answers with a solemn nod. “Right away, Mistress.”

  ***

  With a sweet bun clutched tight in his hands, Nab leans back in his chair and lifts his feet onto the table. Myrrh takes a deep breath and for once doesn’t scold him. He might be an annoying little grub, but she missed him. Those hours when she thought he was dead were some of the worst of her life.

  She gives herself a few minutes to just watch him eat—or maybe devour would be a better term—the first of the sugar-slathered treats. Despite his bravado, fatigue drags at his grubby little face. Between his patched trousers and a tunic that looks to be two parts dirt and one part thread, she can’t imagine anyone took him seriously on his quest for employment. It breaks her heart a little to think that most people probably laughed at him.

  Of course, if they did, he’ll never tell her. It just doesn’t work that way between them.

  “So…” She leans forward and lifts a pastry from the pile.

  Nab stuffs the last third of his current prey into his mouth. Myrrh’s surprised it fits, but somehow, the boy manages to start chewing.

  As he reaches for another bun, he does something strange with his fingers. Myrrh can’t quite follow the motion, and she finds herself blinking away a sudden impulse to open the window shutters and peek into the alley behind the safe house. In fact, she’s halfway out of her chair before she stops.

  Nab snorts. Somehow, he’s gone from lounging with his feet on the table to sitting flat-footed and staring at her intently. His second sweet bun is already half gone. How did that happen?

  “I’ll give you this: you did better than most people.” He tears off another bite of stretchy dough and pops it into his mouth.

  Eyes shifting back and forth as if looking for the source of the potential trickery, Myrrh slowly lowers herself back into her chair. “What just happened, Nab?”

  “You wanted to hear about my skills. I figured it would be better to show you.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Rattle calls it misdirection. Kind of a fancy-pants word for making someone forget about you.”

  “You did something with your fingers,” she says.

  “That’s probably why you’re not over at the window right now looking for the guy that smacked you with the ugly stick.”

  As he laughs, she screws her face up. “What?”

  “You noticed my fingers, which is probably why you didn’t get fully tricked. But you must not have heard me tell you that the reason you’re so funny looking is that an old man just whacked you with an ugly stick and ran into the alley.”

  She shakes her head, blinking. “I didn’t hear you say a sixing thing.”

  He widens his eyes in mock offense. “Language, Myrrh.”

  Myrrh growls and looks down at the sweet bun which she apparently abandoned on the table as she started to make for the window. She picks it up again and pulls off a bite with her fingers.

  “You’re so very funny, Nab. Now will you please explain what’s going on?”

  He sighs as if put upon. “Oh, fine. See, there’s this special set of gestures Rattle knows. Well, gestures and ways of talking. You gotta get both right or the trick doesn’t work. So what I did is I made the motion to distract you—it does something to put your thoughts in a certain state. Rattle calls it making you susceptible, but that’s another fancy word that I figure people like us have no business mucking with. Then, you got a pitch your voice just right and make a suggestion about something that might interest your mark. That’s part of the trick, knowing enough about a person to come up with a good suggestion.”

  She slips the bite into her mouth and chews while she thinks about what he said. “Are you trying to say you told me to go look for the person responsible for my tragically unattractive face because you thought I would believe that suggestion?

  Nab bursts into laughter again. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t the best distraction. You aren’t that hideous. I mean, to some people, anyway. I think you’d give the Rhemmsfest hags a pretty good contest, myself.”

  She glares. “And Rattle taught you this.”

  He nods.

  “When?”

  Nab shrugs. “He comes by when he has time. Sometimes he takes me back to his den so we can practice without people like you bothering us.”

  “You know where he sleeps?”

  “And you don
’t?”

  Myrrh props an elbow on the table and rests her head on her hand. Rattle has been here, but only when she’s away. Not only that, he’s been luring Nab out of the house. The gems she held back from the mercenaries are a hard lump against her ribs. Her thief’s intuition is gnawing at her again.

  Career criminals, whether they’re smugglers or con artists or thieves or assassins, tend not to be forthcoming. Information is power in the underworld. But with Rattle there are just too many questions. It’s not just his secrecy. It’s the fact that many of his actions just don’t make sense.

  “Did Rattle teach you anything else?”

  “He’s said he’s going to, but that I should master misdirection first because it just gets harder.”

  “Did he tell you what he plans to teach you?”

  Mouth full, Nab shakes his head. Myrrh turns the sweet bun over a few times, fiddling while she thinks. Sugar clings to her fingers.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she says, “do you know what that trinket is that’s tacked to your doorjamb?”

  “Yeah.” He takes another bite and starts chewing.

  “Well, are you going to tell me?”

  “Rattle gave it to me,” Nab says around his mouthful of sweet bun. “He said it’s for protection.”

  “Against?”

  Nab shrugs. “Beats me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  MYRRH LEAVES AT dawn, a cloak pulled over her hair. As she sets foot on First Bridge, bound for the east bank of the Ost and a cart ride up to Lower Fringe, birds begin to squawk and circle the fishermen who cast lines from the otherwise silent platforms of First Docks. As obnoxious as the rain has been of late, at least it’s washed the city clean enough that fish are venturing this far downstream without turning belly up from the fetid river water.

  For today—and she hopes this only takes a day because she needs answers if she’s going to keep her sanity—Warrell and Ivy are in charge of Ghost syndicate. They don’t know that yet, but as soon as they wake, they’ll find urchin messengers waiting. Myrrh can deal with their protests later.