by Will Panzo
“Boss wants you to start earning your keep, then?”
“I’m not officially part of his organization.”
“I know it, boy. Why do you think he keeps me near you?”
“I thought you just liked my company.”
“In this plaza, you sleep in the midst of a hundred and a half of the Republic’s most vile cutthroats. And yet you don’t share our brand. Lucky for you, I’m here. If not, you wouldn’t last a single night.”
“Maybe. Although the business with Servilius might have changed a few minds.”
“Servilius vouches for you, and that carries weight with some. But we’re talking about men who think with their dicks or their blades. Hard to change their minds because their minds don’t make their decisions.”
“Those are exactly the kind of men we need right now. We have license to march into Hightown. We should take advantage of that. There’s a fortune to be made up there in loot and scalps. In a matter of days, we could earn enough to live on for a year.”
“Like those last night?” Hoka asked.
“They were ill prepared. Most likely they walked right into one of Cinna’s patrols. Or else hit a target that wasn’t vulnerable.”
“But you’d be able to plan better?”
“I know the lay of the land,” Cassius said. “Places where Cinna is unguarded.”
“Well, you’ve caught me at a bad time, boy. Today’s my day off. And, anyway, if Servilius is such a good friend, why don’t you bother him with your schemes of theft and murder.”
“I’ll need help. And so I need someone the men will follow. Servilius doesn’t command the respect you do.”
“How many do you need?”
“Six.”
“Us and four more?” Hoka asked.
“Us and six more.”
“I call that eight, boy.”
“Eight, then. Eight total.”
“And what would be our haul?”
“We could take ten scalps,” Cassius said. “With little resistance. It’s a gambling hall, so there’d be opportunity for looting as well.”
Hoka considered this. He mumbled to himself as he calculated the potential haul spread out over eight participants.
“I get two shares to everyone else’s one and first pick of all loot. And a share of any spells recovered.”
“Fine.”
“And half of your share.” Hoka sat forward, pulled himself up to his full height. “That’s nonnegotiable. I don’t like to haggle, and I’m hungover besides. If you don’t like my terms, you can find someone else to help.”
“I don’t have a problem with any of that.”
“Good.”
Across the plaza, two children mimed a spellcaster’s duel. They waved their hands at one another and made noises with their mouths, then one clutched his chest and collapsed and lay twitching in the dirt.
• • •
He met Sulla by the docks. She stood in the center of a near-deserted lane, brandishing her knife and yelling at a stray pig that was trying to bite her dress. She caught Cassius’s eye and motioned toward a pub across the street with a tilt of her head.
He walked past her to the pub, which was damp and nearly empty. He took a seat in the corner and ordered wine and a dish of potatoes fried in chicken fat and spiced with black pepper. His food arrived and he began to eat and he finished the entire meal and a second glass of wine before Sulla arrived.
She ordered a drink and paid for it, pressing the coin into the bartender’s hand and holding it there while speaking to him, an obvious bribe. She made her way to his table.
“You didn’t order the potatoes, did you?” she asked.
“I did.”
She shook her head. “You’re a brave man, Cassius.”
“I have to be, in my line of work.”
“Always talking business. That’s what I like about you.”
“I spoke with Hoka earlier.”
“He’s quite the conversationalist, I’m sure.”
“He’s going to help me handle your problem.”
“You didn’t tell him it was a job for me, did you?” Her voice hovered just above a whisper, despite the empty bar.
“I’m not an idiot. I told him what he needed to know and nothing else.”
“I’m sure he’ll be a help in the fight. Did you give any thought to what it is you need me to do in return?”
“A little.”
“You going to tell me? Or make me drag it the hell out of you one question at a time?”
Cassius drained his mug and set down his cup. “I want you to burn one of the storefronts that line the Market.”
“You should know that me and Piso have exactly one thing in common,” she said. “A deathly fear of fire.”
“Find someone to do it. I wasn’t asking for you personally.”
“Which storefront?”
“I don’t care.”
“You do want it to be one of Cinna’s, though.”
“Damn it, I don’t care about that, either,” he yelled. The sound of his own voice seemed to startle him. He took a deep breath, raised his hand as a gesture of reconciliation. When he spoke again, his voice was low and weary. “Just make sure it’s near the Market.”
“Why?”
“What does that matter?”
“It matters. I’m not Hoka, to do a thing without question.” Her voice was firm without being confrontational. She had seen men near to breaking before, men who had wagered their last copper on a roll of dice and lost it and lost their future as well. They were dangerous. And although she had never seen Cassius place a bet, she knew he was risking everything here nonetheless.
“I have my reasons. Besides, we had a deal.”
“I came to you because I needed help. Because there was no one else to ask.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said. “You know plenty of people on this island. Why come to me?”
“You tell me why.” Sulla leaned in close. “Since you have all the damn answers anyway.”
“Because you know I’m up to something, and you want to help.”
“At the risk of sounding cruel, you should know I don’t care for you very much, Cassius. Don’t take it personally, though. There aren’t many I do care about. My purse, on the other hand, that’s something I do—”
“This is bigger than money. If it wasn’t, if it was just a job, you wouldn’t concern yourself with my reasons. And anyway, can’t you figure it out for yourself? You’re smart. What would happen if a storefront in the Market burned down?”
“Stores in the Market are practically built on top of each other. The collateral damage would be huge. The legion would have to fight the fires. If he thought it was arson, Vorenicus would be furious. He’s already on edge about this war.”
“And maybe a legionnaire or two would get killed in the process.” Cassius looked to her again. “I bet that wouldn’t make him too happy, either.”
“And what does that net you? Vorenicus and the legion being angry with the bosses?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe something. It doesn’t concern your purse, so what do you care?”
• • •
They dressed in the barracks house after dinner. The men who owned armor helped one another with shirts of iron mail and shirts of scale, with the buckles and straps of cuirasses and greaves. One man had kept his centurion armor after deserting the legion, and his top of segmented steel plate was an object of considerable envy. Each man produced his blades and compared them with the blades on display, short, stabbing swords, long-handled knives, throwing axes, a pair of spiked cesti. They talked of the kills attributed to each weapon, lying to one another as though all were strangers.
There was a spellcaster with them as well, a man only a few years older than Cassi
us. His gauntlets were set with nearly fifty jewels, and Cassius could tell by sight alone that most of these were fakes. He was a squint-eyed man, a pale mouth-breather who stared openly at Cassius’s gauntlets, a covetous look that lacked any real nerve.
Once dressed and armed, they waited until the midnight bell, then they left the plaza in a pack, Hoka in the lead, Cassius at his side, the six men fanned behind. They headed north.
They walked to the southern edge of the Grand Market, then doubled back and cut along the periphery of the square. The streets were sparsely peopled, and they walked in silence and were well into Hightown before any man realized Cassius was now leading.
The gaming hall stood near a strip of houses gone to rot and squatted by beggars and the abject poor. Along the way, it began to rain and the rain was heavy and warm and the streets flooded. They waded through running water that reached to midcalf. Their boots sank in loose mud, and the water was dark and smelled foul as people emptied chamber pots from overhead windows.
“Scipio,” Hoka cried. “A city that simmers in its own gravy.”
• • •
The front room of the hall was long and had a low ceiling. It smelled of stifled air, hot from a lit fireplace. Torches sputtered along the walls, and Cassius had to squint to discern shapes in the near dark. In the center of the room, he saw a man lying with his hands clasped to his belly and Hoka stood over this man, his sword slick with blood.
The rest of Piso’s men entered the room in a rush. They kicked over chairs, toppled tables. An old man behind the bar lifted a crossbow to his hip and fired. The bolt loosed with a loud snap, glanced off a table, and skidded clattering to the floor.
Hoka slapped the bow from the man’s hand with the flat of his sword and the man raised his arms over his head and shouted please. Hoka made a furtive stab with the knife he held in his off hand, and the man folded to the floor.
The room was still now. Hoka moved off to the hallway and shouted for Cassius to keep up. They came to stairs that led to the second floor and climbed the steps at a run. Halfway to the top, Cassius felt a faint tug in his chest.
Hoka shouldered into the door at the top of the steps, and it exploded off its hinges. In the center of the room, two tables were set on their sides to serve as fortification. Dice and coins lay strewn about the floor, and two men stood behind the tables, each armed with a dagger. Hoka advanced with a shout. He kicked at the tables and swung his sword and caught one of the men on his forearm.
The man screamed and dropped his dagger. Hoka stabbed at the other man’s belly.
Cassius stopped at the door. The rest of the men charged past him, screaming.
The smell of brimstone carried through the air.
Cassius covered his ears and crouched low, and still the explosion stunned him. The cloud of fire mushroomed out from the far corner of the room, the rush of air a physical blow. Shrapnel stung his arms and face, wooden splinters, chips of earthenware cups, glass.
The flame spilled over him, curling like surf, and he did not feel it though the air grew hot, and he smelled burned hair and burned flesh, and around him, men screamed and died. The flame dissipated in a flash, and the air rang with the force of the explosion and then settled. Cassius stood and brushed himself. A cold pain worked its way up his arms. His forearms were shredded and bloodied, pitted with bits of rock and splinters. His eyes watered. The sight of his ravaged flesh made him nauseous.
Before him, the men were laid low, slumped motionless, like sated bodies at an orgy. Soot powdered the floor.
The young spellcaster who had followed him up the steps sat with his back pressed against the wall, face upturned and eyes open, a broken chair leg buried in his chest.
Cassius caught sight of movement on his periphery. Across the room were two shuttered windows, and in the space between these windows rose a short, balding man. His face was gaunt, and he had a long, aquiline nose perched above plump lips. He wore a tan tunic and leather sandals and wore also a pair of gauntlets.
He was covered in dust from the explosion but he bore no mark of the flame, and Cassius stared at him as a man in a foreign land will stare at a countryman he has chanced upon, feeling somehow connected and yet still strangers for all that link. There was a brief acknowledgment between them, a silent thing that arrived and passed and was never visible. They were spellcasters, and they shared in their blood secrets that most men would never know, and this bound them to one another and to what would inevitably follow.
• • •
In the vision, Cassius saw himself sitting in the dark room, hunched forward. He saw this from behind, as though viewing himself over the shoulder of another. When the voice spoke, it was a stranger’s voice, although it was familiar.
“Rise, boy.” The voice seemed to come from nearby and below him, as though he were a small bird perched on the speaker’s shoulder. “This is no safe place for you.”
He watched himself stir.
“Rise, boy. And continue about your work.”
And suddenly the vision was gone, and he saw nothing and heard only a low whine that was very distant. After some time, he realized this was the sound of his own scream, and he woke then.
He opened his eyes and blinked away tears. He dragged himself into a sitting position. Across from him lay the body of the bald-headed spellcaster, twisted over the corpse of a jackal called from the nameless void, their limbs entwined so that they might have been sleeping companions from some illustrated storybook rather than instrument and object of murder each.
His head was heavy with numb pressure, and his jaw ached from grinding his teeth. He was aware now of sharp pain in both arms.
It took a minute to recognize his surroundings and his purpose there and to understand the danger he was in now. It took another minute for words to return to him. When they did, he told himself to get up, calling himself by his true name, which was the one he had used most infrequently in his short life although he had spoken it to the blind man in the Market the day before so that it was fresh in his mind and the first name that came to him.
He stood slowly, clomping heavy-footed. When he had steadied himself, he scanned the room for any bit of clothing that could serve as a shroud. He found a hooded, short cloak and donned this and made his way to the exit. He checked himself at the door and looked out over the room again. The gaming tables were overturned, some burned nearly to ash. Coins and a few singed banknotes lay scattered everywhere.
Fire covered the far wall, and its smoke rose through the massive hole torn in the ceiling. The flickering light seemed to animate the faces of the dead.
Lightning flashed in the sky outside.
He searched the room until he found Hoka’s knife, then he was in that place for another half hour, and by the time he finished, he had vomited again, and his hands had begun to shake. Through this, he told himself to be strong.
• • •
The sun had risen by the time he reached Piso’s hall, but the sky was still overcast, the small plaza filled with men. People stood gawking. Cassius had shed the hooded, short cloak, and as he moved through the press, men drew out of his path, staring as though he were a plague victim. He asked no man for help.
“By the gods, are you all right, stranger?” The crowd parted as Servilius, the one-eyed spellcaster, stepped forward. He hooked his arm under Cassius’s arm and walked with him to the hall.
It took two hours to remove the shrapnel from his wounds. Cassius lay on the table in Piso’s quarters, arms spread cruciform, while a physician and his two assistants worked with tweezers to pluck the shards of wood from his flesh, root out the bits of rock and broken pottery. He bled so much, he stained the tabletop.
Afterward, they soaked his arms in hot, soapy water, coated them with pig fat and honey, and then wrapped them, from elbow to wrist, in strips of clean linen. All the while, Piso ate his b
reakfast of fried eggs and sausage.
“Wound rot will be a problem,” the physician said. He spoke to Piso, as though consulting a parent on the treatment of a child. “No matter how clean he keeps them, there will be complications. I recommend healing by spell.”
“No,” Cassius said. “I don’t like healers.”
“You won’t like losing both your arms, either.”
“Leave us,” Piso said.
The physician gathered his instruments and his wraps, jars of salve and soap powder, and departed with his assistants.
Alone, Cassius and Piso sat in silence. Cassius listened for cries from the adjacent room, but heard none.
“What happened?” Piso asked.
“We attacked a gaming hall.”
“I know that part. The part I don’t know, and the part I need you to tell me about, is the part where eight of my men leave for Hightown and only one of them comes back.”
“We made it to the hall without any problems.”
“Who was leading?” Piso stood and began to pace. He carried his plate in one hand, scooped eggs into his mouth with the other.
“Hoka. Before we broke into the hall, I cautioned him to watch for killers lying in ambush. But he said he didn’t give a damn about spellcasters. That there wasn’t a spell in all the world that could protect a man from a sword in his belly.”
“Now that has the ring of truth to it. Go on.”
“We cleared the bottom floor and made our way upstairs,” Cassius said. “There was a killer up there. First spell he cast cooked everyone in the room, even his own men.”
“Everyone but you.”
“And him.”
“Then you two fought. And you managed to beat him?” Piso dropped his plate onto the desk. It clattered and settled. He crossed the room to stand over Cassius, trailing musk.
“That’s right.”
“That must have been one hell of an ambush.” Piso looked over Cassius’s arms. “You didn’t feel anything before it happened? Don’t all you freaks have some sort of extra sense, that you can feel when another of your godforsaken kind is doing whatever the hell it is that you all do?”