Friendly Fire

by Dale Lucas

  “Too pretty for the likes of you,” Rem shot back, knowing well that Sliviwit’s jest was offered with affection. There was no subtlety in him, but he was always quick to laugh or offer a joke, and had a special knack for using that humor to mollify tense situations.

  “Next time we spar,” Emacca said, “we should wear these. It’ll make us stronger, doing our blade work in all this junk.”

  “That’s assuming we ever find time to spar again,” Rem said. He turned to find Torval.

  The dwarf was nearby, strapping himself into a fine, intricately banded leather cuirass—far superior to the blue-gray cast-offs they normally wore—made for, and probably by, a dwarf. The thick, hard, red-brown leather was supplemented by a mail shirt that fell all the way to Torval’s knees, a mismatched pair of battered steel rerebraces sporting rust at their scalloped edges, and greaves—also mismatched and tarnished with long disuse—for Torval’s shins. Torval’s ever-present maul was joined by a hand ax he’d found among the stockpiled arms and a pair of broad-bladed dwarven daggers, one of them shoved in his left boot.

  “Fearsome indeed, old stump,” Rem said.

  Torval grunted, still busily adjusting the straps of his various armor pieces and making sure everything was well situated and perfectly balanced. “I don’t plan to be taken by surprise a second time,” the dwarf said, then looked up at Rem. “Next time they come, I promise you, they won’t all leave on their feet.”

  Rem nodded and surveyed the room again. Looking around the armory as his companions hunted among the castoffs, trying on and throwing down pieces that didn’t fit or would not protect them, Rem idly wondered how many of those present had real combat experience. Several of them did for a fact, he knew—Sliviwit had told stories of his mercenary days, as had Blein and Blotstaff, Djubal and Klutch. Likewise, Rem supposed both Emacca and Brogila—both being from the steppe folk, whose lives were marked by intertribal wars and raids on undefended settlements—had probably seen their share of bloody battle in their time. But who among the rest? How many of these scrapping, hard-faced law dogs had even worn armor before, let alone donned it in preparation for true, potentially lethal combat?

  Well, if one’s talking about true, potentially lethal combat, Rem thought, I suppose that leaves me out. Of course, I’ve owned armor and worn it—usually just for ceremony or tourneys—but I’ve never had to rely on it to save my life.

  And here they were, preparing themselves as though Yenara’s streets were about to become a bloody war zone, desperate to prove that they could keep the peace, and that the city guard need not step in to do their work for them. How long could it all go on? How bad would it have to get before Eldgrim’s dwarves and their mysterious masked adversaries finally decided that it just wasn’t worth it? That whatever they were fighting over wasn’t worth dying over?

  If the whole of history was any indicator, only when it was too late, and the terrors had progressed so far that they could never be atoned for.

  Three days passed. Each day Rem and Torval arrived for their midday shift at the work site, accepted their assigned guard post, and spent the day milling about on the same little plot of ground, as the dwarves continued their labors on the Panoply temple and passersby stared at the now-armored watchwardens as if they were some alien occupying force. Every night the watchwardens escorted the dwarves back to their homes and guildhalls in the Warrens, then spent the remainder of their shifts on patrol in and around the dwarven quarter itself.

  Two or three times they broke up potential brawls between humans and dwarves, none of which had progressed beyond the lobbing of insults when interrupted. A half dozen times they dispersed suspicious gatherings of tall folk on the edge of the quarter, those parties all lingering street side or in the courtyard of some tavern facing the Warrens just across the street, seemingly whispering among themselves and clearly up to no good. What they talked about or planned or discussed, neither Rem nor Torval could ever tease out. But they knew troublemakers when they saw them, and when they saw them, they broke up their little conclaves and chased them all away.

  The worst, though, was the graffiti. Four times in three days, they came across words scrawled on walls in chalk or charcoal, or, once, painted in bright, dripping green—words that boded ill for human-dwarf relations in Yenara.

  Fire and sword, one of them said.

  Another, probably written by a dwarf, based on its low placement on the wall: We weren’t here first, but we’ll be here last.

  Another dwarven retort to human enmity: Outlive them, outlast them.

  And, perhaps the worst, clearly written by human hands: Tonkers die, scrawled coal black on a wall in the Warrens for all to see. Those two words were so blunt, so ugly, that, if Rem had caught the man or woman who’d written them, he probably would have beat them bloody.

  Torval took it all in stride, though—not so much optimistic as grimly resigned.

  “No shortage of cunts in the world, eh?” he’d mutter. “Come on, let’s wash it off.”

  Every night they checked in with Hirk or Ondego to both report on and learn about the progress of the temple fire investigation. Rem had enlisted Indilen for an early-morning visit to the city archives, to peruse the temple construction contracts as Ondego had ordered. Rem wanted not only to take advantage of Indilen’s helpful associates at the archives, but also to glean her impressions of the contracts as written. She was a scribe and notary, after all, and had a better grasp of legal rhetoric and written contracts than Rem himself, so while he was capable of doing his own review and drawing his own conclusions, he thought her more experienced eye would be invaluable. Unfortunately, their reviews offered no insights.

  “Clean as could be,” Rem told Ondego. “No hidden details, nothing to contradict or reframe what we know of the situation.”

  Regarding the Stonemasons’ Guildhall: watchers had been posted in rotating shifts, day and night. In the three days that they had been watching, while Rem and Torval cooled their heels on temple guard duty, nothing out of the ordinary had been reported.

  “They know they’re being watched,” Torval surmised. “If they’re up to something, they’re up to it secretly.”

  “Shouldn’t we question them again?” Rem asked in frustration.

  Ondego shook his head sadly. “Orders from on high,” he’d said with a sigh. “We made our first foray—asked routine questions and the like. Now the council and the tribunal don’t want us to go back in there and stir the pot or bust heads unless we’ve got clear cause.”

  “So it’s a stalemate, then,” Rem muttered to himself. “Everyone just staring down everyone else over the hedges.”

  “Not a stalemate,” Torval said. “The calm before the storm. Mark my words, something will touch it all off again.”

  As it happened, the old stump was right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Hrissif sped his pace, then realized Foelker was falling behind. The night was bitterly cold, and his younger brother seemed to lag with startling regularity, as if keeping warm and keeping up could not be accomplished at once. For the third time that evening, Hrissif stopped and waited for the younger man to catch up.

  “You sure you’re all right?” he asked as Foelker approached.

  Foelker nodded. “Fine,” he said, a little impatiently. “It’s just bloody cold out here.”

  Hrissif stepped nearer and peered at the bandage wrapped around Foelker’s crown. The wound on his right temple wasn’t seeping, nor did Foelker seem unusually dazed or confused. Hrissif had been worried about his brother ever since he’d taken those double thumps to the head a few nights earlier, first brained by that dwarven priestess’s blasted stave, then hitting the ground so hard that everyone nearby heard the crack of his skull on the flagstones. Truth be told, in those first moments, Hrissif had been terrified Foelker wouldn’t last the night. There’d been so much blood, after all.

  Though not as much blood as that priestess lost when I stabbed her, eh? Fooli
sh bitch. If she hadn’t fought so hard—hadn’t hurt Foelker—she’d probably still be alive.

  And I’d probably still be in Valaric’s good graces.

  To Hrissif’s great relief, after returning to the guildhall that night, they’d called in Frendel’s wife, Molla—a barber-surgeon by trade—and she’d taken care of the poor bastard. She stitched Foelker up nicely, then pronounced that he’d likely suffer headaches for a few days, perhaps a little wooziness, but that none of it would persist. Soon enough he’d be right as rain.

  So, Hrissif told himself, maybe there’s nothing wrong. Maybe I just walk faster than he does. Just like when we were young—always yanking him along.

  “Keep walking,” Foelker said, sounding a little annoyed. “I know where I’m going. I’m not a babe in these woods.”

  “Well,” Hrissif said, “keep up. We need to get home.”

  Foelker gave an impatient nod and Hrissif turned and led the way, doing his best not to look back over his shoulder every few breaths to make sure his little brother kept up.

  They’d just come from the Hammer and the Square, a workingman’s tavern on the edge of the Fifth, where they’d met with some allies from the distant Fourth Ward, Thorven and Irenus. A Fourth Ward watchman and carpenter, respectively, the two men had expressed an interest in opening brother chapters of the Sons of Edath after Hrissif had told them of their operations. In retrospect, Hrissif supposed it had been a dicey move, letting anyone outside the masons’ guild in on their secret activities. But Thorven and Irenus were very old mates, with hearts and minds equal to Hrissif’s own. If the Sons were to grow—to become a force of power and purpose in the city and not just a momentary stir of ancient pride and primacy—it would need to grow beyond its founding circle.

  Especially after Valaric’s pronouncement when last he and Hrissif spoke, three days ago, in the aftermath of the temple desecration.

  It’s over, Valaric had said. The Sons of Edath retire, here and now.

  Hrissif hadn’t bothered to argue at the time … but he’d already known his plans for the Sons involved the very opposite of retirement. No, from where he sat, it was time to expand.

  That’s what their clandestine meeting at the Hammer and the Square had addressed: how Thorven and Irenus and their eager cohorts could further the mission and swell the ranks. They’d been so awed by Hrissif’s account of the temple operation, so eager to undertake missions of their own in the name of the Sons, they’d treated Hrissif like a bloody general—a hero out of some old bedtime story who rode a big white charger at the head of a shining army.

  Hrissif smiled to himself in spite of the bitter cold. He liked that feeling: being powerful, being renowned and respected. He’d spent most of his life in the shadow of bigger men like Valaric or men who were better at giving stirring speeches or men who had basically inherited their influence and positions from more famous parents. But now he had something to offer. He was at the tip of a spear, on the boss of a shield, and men such as Thorven and Irenus—friends to their cause, patriots—were eager to cultivate the seed that he had planted. If only his dead, drunken, belligerent father could see him now.

  You’ll never amount to a speck of shite on a cow’s rump, the old man had said when he was young. Too scrawny, too sneaky, too cowardly. You’ll be arse-raped by a drunken Kosterman and left for dead before you’ve even got curlies on your sack.

  But, of course, that hadn’t happened. Hrissif’s and Foelker’s lives had changed immensely—and for the better—when their father was found dead in a dung pile on a side street near the wharves. Terrible accident, that … fell on someone’s knife a dozen times. Even managed to cut his own throat. They never did catch the bloke who did it …

  If he’d just lifted us up, once in a while, instead of beating us down, Hrissif thought, completely free of remorse, it wouldn’t have come to that. Didn’t I deserve better? Didn’t Foelker?

  “Aemon Almighty,” Foelker swore, shrinking from a freezing gust.

  “Hang this,” Hrissif said. “It’s no good for either of us to be out in this. Let’s take a shortcut, shall we?”

  Foelker shrugged in his cloak. “Lead the way, Brother.”

  Hrissif changed course and Foelker followed. The wind blew hard around them—savage, probing, greedy. It seemed to swirl through every tiny little gap in Hrissif’s clothing, over every inch of uncovered skin, searing his lungs and make his extremities ache toward numbness. Such a bitter night! He hated the winter. Summers in Yenara could be chilly enough, what with all the winds and fog from the bay. Going about in winter and braving the wind-racked streets was positively torturous. He’d have to build them a good fire in the little iron stove that graced his chamber when he got home. He had no wood to burn, but if memory served, there were a few dark kernels lying at the bottom of their coal bucket. Those should help them through the night. Too bad he couldn’t afford a pair of buxom ladies to do the warming, so he could save the coal, but there was nothing for it. It was too late to go buy companionship, anyway. No telling how long he’d have to search around in this infernal rime for a molly to rent. And hadn’t he already indulged himself a little too often this month? Wasn’t that the whole reason they had no wood to burn and only a handful of coal remaining? These were lean times, after all—their combined severance from the Panoply job had been spent almost to the last copper. No, Hrissif and Foelker would just have to make do with the dregs of their coal tonight, then go buy some more—along with a cord of wood or two—in the morning.

  There was the wind again—biting, clawing, snarling. Caught off guard by its lurching attack, Hrissif stopped right in the middle of the street, shrank against the gale that scoured him, and cursed all the saints and angels. Foelker stamped his feet and muttered something that Hrissif couldn’t hear above the wind. The gust subsided. Hrissif carried on.

  “We’re going through here,” Hrissif said, indicating the dark alley looming before them, black and hungry. “Keep your eyes peeled for some scraps of wood. Anything that’ll burn.”

  “I’m cold, Brother,” Foelker said, and though he was well past thirty years old, something in his voice still sounded like the little boy who’d always followed Hrissif around, or fled to him for comfort when dear old da was on the rampage.

  “Almost home,” Hrissif said, and then the darkness closed in around them.

  It was dark—painfully so—but there was just enough starlight that the alley wasn’t completely black. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Hrissif noted that they could still navigate safely, avoiding most of the larger obstacles—refuse piles and the like—during their passage. With any luck the closeness of the tenements and row houses back this way would give them some shelter, so they wouldn’t be so vulnerable to the damnable freezing winds that kept attacking them. More rubbish in alleyways, too, of course. That improved their chances of finding some fuel.

  The wind had, mercifully, subsided now that they were threading the alley.

  “A vast improvement,” Hrissif muttered aloud, and marched on.

  “It stinks,” Foelker said.

  Hrissif only grunted in response. He couldn’t argue.

  One of those nights, I suppose, he thought. Cold, lonely, nothing to look forward to and nothing of import to bask in the glow of. Good news about Thorven’s and Irenus’s people, though. Once I tell the boys in the guild—the dedicated sorts who’ve gathered around me—they’ll be pleased to know the Sons of Edath need not retire just because old Valaric’s lost his kingly jewels. We’re onto something with this—discovered a need in this city, a hunger that’s long been ignored. I’d wager if we can swell our ranks and do our work in the coming months, we might soon rival the wardwatch as the most fearsome keepers of law and order in this stinking, infested old city.

  Hrissif felt a pang of warmth at that—satisfaction, perhaps. Or smug assurance. He’d always known he was destined for better things than his father allowed, better things than his street-urchin childhood
and almost-career as a sneak thief and accidental apprenticeship with the stonemasons would have allowed. He knew he was a man of humble origins and limited means, and even that he sometimes rubbed people the wrong way with his arrogance or eccentricities. But he was cunning, ambitious, adaptable, and, in the right setting, with the right audience, charismatic and capable of leading. No one would have guessed so based on his younger years, but he’d always known, even if no one else did. Hells, Foelker could have told them. Hadn’t his big brother always done his best to keep them both safe, housed, and gainfully employed? Had Hrissif ever once tried to cut his simple brother loose or run out on him? No. Hrissif was loyal, to the bloody end. Where he went, Foelker went. What bounty he reaped, Foelker shared in.

  The problem was men like Valaric. Habit and tradition led everyone to look to the big men, the strong men, the impressive men, to be leaders. That’s why men like Hrissif had to work so hard to ingratiate themselves with their potential allies, to prove their worth, to earn their trust and deliver on their promises. Some people just had to work harder to be respected and elevated, that was all. It was a bitter truth, but one Hrissif had never ducked once he’d learned and accepted it.

  They were almost to the end of the alleyway now, after interminable twists and turns. Once they were back on an open street, they’d have only a block left before they arrived at the little boardinghouse they called home. The men of the guild often asked him about that—why he and his brother still lived like students or errant troubadours when he was an officer of the guild and gainfully employed (usually, anyway). Hrissif’s answer was simple: he had no wife, no children, and no responsibilities or ties other than Foelker, his brothers in the guild, and his work. Why build a house or waste coin on lavish accommodations? All he needed was a bed, a piss pot, and a little warmth, after all. That left more coin for the finer things: food, drink, whores, a roll of the dice, weekly wagers at the pit fights, maybe even a few hours in a witchweed parlor if it’d been a hard month.