Thieves' War

by Clayton Snyder

  “Valet, sir,” Elvis interrupted with an apologetic nod.

  “What?”

  “Valet, sir. A butler performs household duties. My responsibilities are most varied and far more weighty, sir. In fact, I’ll have you know-”

  I cleared my throat. “Ixnay on the oisonpay evealray,” I said, and ran a finger across my throat.

  “Very good sir.”

  The Lord of Whispers blinked at us and opened his mouth to interrupt, but only a whisper escaped. Already, Bumfry’s face had taken on a light blue sheen, and his lips puckered and opened, puckered and opened, looking like nothing more than a winking asshole. I made a mental note to have Elvis turn in his resignation to the head of household when the time came. Bumfry’s hands beat a tattoo on the desktop, sending the paper floating to the floor, panicked wheezing escaping his throat. His eyes bulged, and with one last gasp he toppled from the chair and landed on an exquisite Inixian rug with a muffled thump. A tremendous fart followed a moment later, like punctuation on the sentence of death.

  I turned to Elvis. “That your handiwork?”

  “Yes, sir. Thought it a fitting cap for a shit of a man.”

  Doubtless you’re wondering what the conflict between us was. What horrible things had passed between us to force my hand to drastic measures. We don’t really have time for that. This is a story about me, after all. Not that dead asshole.

  I stepped over his cooling corpse and rummaged through the cubbies behind his desk. After a few long minutes of frantic searching, I emerged triumphant with a scroll. A map of the Barrow of the Iron King.

  “Ah, very good, sir,” Elvis said. “Onwards, then?”

  I grinned at him. “Onwards, Elvis.”

  A thought struck me. “Come give me a hand.”

  A sigh from behind, but dutiful as always, Elvis bent to lend help.

  “Get his pants.”

  “His pants, sir?”

  “Trust me.”

  We stripped the man’s pants off, then propped him in the chair. Some artful arrangement, and Bumfry held his cock in his dead hand.

  “Is this something other than performance art, sir?” Elvis asked.

  “Revenge,” I replied.

  A simple cantrip, and the muscles animated, the corpse slowly stroking itself. It’d do that til someone either dismembered the thing or broke the spell. Either way, someone was going to get a show. Sure, the Association was going to have opinions about what we’d done. But what’re they gonna do to a man who can cheat death?

  “Okay, now we can go, Elvis.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  He pulled the door shut behind us, our footfalls echoing down the tile hall.

  “What next, sir?”

  “We’ll need a crew. No more than three, I think.”

  “Very good sir. I’ll check the usual places.”

  Elvis has a tattoo on his arm. It’s in old Literian, which just happened to be an elective of mine in the University. It reads Skullfuck your heroes. I don’t really know what that means, and granted, I could have fucked up the translation, but I expect it means those you worship are worth as much as a warm hole. Live your own life, in other words. Dark words for a man old enough to have possibly fucked Death when they were teens, but who knows what kind of life men live in their youth? The door to the study opened, pulling me from my thoughts, and Elvis entered with two men and a woman in tow.

  I looked them over. The woman, lithe and dark-haired, the men of similar build. The men carried a thick blade and a buckler, the woman two hammers that could be easily wielded in each hand. They wore studded leather cuirasses, bracers, and greaves over tall boots. A bird perched on one man’s shoulder, a dirty-brown hawk, its eyes surveying the room. The woman stepped forward and took my hand in greeting.

  “Nia. The two over there are Hin and Bin.”

  “Twins?” I asked. They looked similar enough.

  “You’d think that,” she said. “But Bin has the bird.”

  “What’s the bird’s name?”

  “Ahh!”

  “Ahh?”

  “No, Ahh!, with an exclamation mark.”

  “Ah.”

  “No, Ahh!,” Bin snipped.

  I nodded at him. “Nice bird, asshole.”

  “Sir, you should know something…” Elvis began.

  I missed the warning however, as Bin and Hin had begun to strip weapon and armor off and stood naked in record time. Hin took Ahh! from Bin’s shoulder and placed the bird on the man’s already-engorged penis, then took to his knees. I flashed a look at Nia. She favored me with a nervous smile.

  “Sorry, short notice,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  I turned to ask Elvis what the hell was going on, but grew distracted again as Hin wrapped his lips around Bin’s cock and bobbed back and forth, back and forth, Ahh! leaping onto Hin’s head each time he reached the base of Bin’s shaft.

  Bin groaned, and the bird—look, I’m not going to tell you the rest. It went on for some time. The bird disappeared. There were positions, acrobatic and profane. At the climax, everyone moaned as if in practiced unison, caught in the throes of orgasm, and at the peak, Ahh! popped from Bin’s ass with a scream, flapping to the hearth, spraying shit across the carpet. I stared at them, stunned. I felt the tendons in my neck creak as I turned my head to fix Elvis with a glare.

  “What the fuck was that?” I asked.

  “I believe they call it the Aristocrats, sir. I tried to warn you. Best I could find on short notice.”

  I turned back to the group, slowly donning their gear again. I cleared my throat. Tried to find something to say. The best I could produce was “I stand corrected. Nice asshole bird.”

  We stood in front of a copper door set in a hillside, somewhere south of the Hestian fortress of Wa’Mar. The earth had lain untouched for centuries around the elder kings’ barrows, and as such, had grown thick with gorse and… things that look like gorse. I’m not a botanist. Shitload of plants.

  I poked the verdigris-encrusted door.

  “I thought he was the Iron King?”

  “You know men, sir,” Elvis said. “Look at how long this is. Look at how hard this is. No perspective.”

  Nia snorted behind us. I turned to the performers cum mercenaries.

  “Right, open it.”

  Hin stepped forward and squared his shoulders, stretched his neck. A panel sat in the center of the door, and he pressed it, both hands on the plate, leaning in. A click sounded from some hidden mechanism, and foot-long spikes erupted from the door, impaling the man in a spray of gore. Bin gave an impressive shriek, like that of a, well, shit-covered hawk.

  “Right. That didn’t work,” I said. “Now we got a dead guy on a stick.”

  Bin wailed from behind me, and I glared at Elvis. “Do something about that, would you?”

  Elvis sighed. “Yes, sir.”

  He trudged over while I inspected the door. The wail cut off suddenly, followed by the flap of wings, and I shot a look over my shoulder. Bin lay in a heap, face purple. Elvis stood over him with a thin needle, Nia a few feet away, one hand on a hammer, one eye glaring askance at the old man.

  “Gods, you’re a lunatic,” I said, and turned back to the door.

  “As you say, sir.”

  I stared a little longer at the door. A panel, half-hidden by overgrowth flashed in the sun, and I pulled the weeds away. It was etched in runes of High Gentian.

  “What’s it say?” Nia asked.

  “Please use side entrance.” We all shot a guilty glance at the corpses of Bin and Hin and trudged around the side of the barrow. There, a simple wooden door of fine make stood in the hill.

  “Whose turn?” I asked.

  “I believe it’s yours, sir,” Elvis said.

  “Turncoat,” I said.

  I grabbed the handle and pulled. It opened easily, hung up only by the thick weeds. Inside, it was cool and dark, the scents of loam and dust greeting us in a lazy wave. Thick
cobwebs hung over the entrance, and an angry buzzing sounded from nearby. Gods only knew what else had made the barrow its home.

  “Elvis,” I said.

  The valet produced a glass vial and shook it, the liquid inside blazing to light. We stepped into the barrow, the light revealing alcoves set with fat candles, wax built up at their base. Kneeling benches ran the length of the room, and at the center, a lifesize statue of the Iron King. He was about five-foot-tall, and wide around the middle. A sword hung from his belt, and a circlet of iron enclosed his brow. As we approached, the buzzing intensified.

  “An altar to himself. How… unsurprising,” Elvis said.

  “Yep,” I said, only half-listening. I inspected the king’s upraised hand and cursed.

  “What?” Nia asked.

  “The Blackheart’s missing.”

  “Think someone took it?”

  “Maybe.”

  I looked at the door at the back of the room. “We’ll have to go deeper.”

  “That’s what she said, sir,” Elvis replied.

  Nia snickered, and we moved on, pushing the door open. A long hallway led to another door. The bones of rodents littered the floor, and the smell of blood hung heavy on the air.

  “Trap?” I asked.

  “Trap, sir,” Elvis replied.

  “Anyone got any ideas?”

  “We could push Nia in, sir.”

  “Fuck you, you toothless scrotum,” Nia replied.

  “I like her, sir.”

  “Yeah, me too. Nia, give me a hammer.”

  She handed one over, and I strolled to the king’s statue. Somewhere in the barrow, the buzzing echoed.

  “Sorry about this, your Highness,” I said, and took a swing with the hammer.

  It struck the stone of his skull with a resounding crack, splinters of rock and a small cloud of dust exploding into the room. Along with…

  “BEES!” I screamed. The statue was hollow. Some people’s rulers. I dropped the hammer and ran toward the door of the barrow, nearly braining myself on the lintel. I tripped across a kneeling bench, skinning palms and knees, and rolling over in time to see Nia swinging her hammer at the swarm.

  “No! Don’t!” I shouted in vain.

  The hammer connected with Elvis’ skull with a meaty thwack, and the old man went down, urine staining his trousers. Nia screamed again and fled into the tunnel beyond. A whickering sound echoed down the passage, and a massive blade scythed from the wall, separating her top from her bottom. The two halves fell to the ground with a wet splat. The bees, seemingly satisfied at their capacity for murder, happily buzzed out the door, leaving me with the aftermath.

  I pushed myself to my feet and made my way to a black orb glittering in the vial’s light. I picked it up. It was cold to the touch, with a feeling like I was being drawn into it. A moan behind me, and I turned. Elvis blinked up at the ceiling, and I limped over to him.

  “Ah, Elvis. You were a good man.”

  “I’m not dead yet, sir.”

  “Shh. Save your strength.”

  “Really, sir. I’m fine. Just a mild concussion.”

  “I’ll mourn you,” I said.

  Elvis sighed, and I placed the Blackheart on his chest. “Ah, the death rattle, a shame.”

  “I feel fine!”

  I chanted the required incantation, and the light in Elvis’ eyes winked out.

  “Vengeance!” I said to no one in particular.

  Then I stood, and gathered the dead.

  Life. Life and light. Elvis awoke with a start. He sighed.

  “I suppose you’ve given me penises for eyes, sir?”

  “Indeed,” I said.

  “May I ask why, sir?”

  “To better see our purpose,” I said.

  “And that is?”

  “Mancin’, my friend. Mancin’.”

  “What the fuck does that have to do with clowns?” Cord asked.

  Tug shrugged. “Well, you see, a clow—"

  A rumbling sound echoed down the boardwalk, cutting off his explanation. I looked around for the source of the sound as the rumbling grew louder, joined by a CLACK CLACK CLACK. Pedestrians rushed by, crying out in alarm.

  "What the fu..." I said.

  The tall wheel at the end of the boardwalk had come unhinged from its moorings. As the thing rolled across sand and wood, it cleared a path across the boardwalk, those unfortunate enough to fall, or too slow to move involuntarily becoming one with it. As it went it left red and green and black stains on the wood.

  Those still alive in its bucket like seats cried out, prayed to deaf gods, or simply vomited, the spinning of the wheels sending it in arc like jets. As it rolled, the buckets smashed with bone-jarring force into the ground, bodies left behind like mangled footprints. Others fountained blood and gore from the spinning seats. Still others ejected limbs like a deranged float in a parade, its passengers throwing flesh instead of candy. Cord pressed us back, ankle-deep in the water as it passed. We watched it go, and he grunted, turning to look at Tug.

  The man shrugged. "This is what happens when you deregulate the dangerous amusements industry. I'm a necromancer. Not an engineer."

  “Yeah. That escalated rather quickly, Tug. You should probably lay low for a while.”

  The necromancer nodded and slipped off into the crowd.

  “Think he’s gonna be okay?” I asked.

  “The Gentians have a saying, Nenn. ‘An unhinged Ferris wheel is really just a windmill full of corpses.’”

  “So, this happens a lot here?”

  “More often than you’d think,” he said.

  “I honestly didn’t expect it to happen this time. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t expect it to happen a nonzero number of times,” I said.

  “See? That’s one more time than you’d think.”

  A wave of exhaustion crept over me, and I swayed on Rek’s back. I ached, and felt the fever fighting to take over again. My stomach heaved, and I fought the nausea off, though it made my ribs scream. Rek adjusted to keep me up, and Lux helped, placing a hand on my arm to steady me, a look of concern on her face.

  “We should probably get back,” Rek said.

  Cord nodded, lips set in a grim line. I laid my head on the big man’s shoulder and let sleep overtake me.

  Oh Good, That Smells Like Gangrene

  Days stuttered by. Light and dark. Light and dark. The passage of a rider through a glade, the canopy keeping sunlight like a jealous lover, shafts escaping in bursts of gleeful freedom. When I woke, it was to shake with cold, piling covers on myself like a waif in a snowstorm. Other times sweat rolled off me, bedclothes clinging, and I struggled to tear everything free, fighting like I’d been accosted by highwaymen, phantoms, to rid myself of the sour scents of body odor and infection. And that too. I could feel it. Despite the Aunties’ efforts, it raged through me like a summer storm. Bright as fire. Swift as a wind. Pulsing, eating. As if hate had been given teeth and a purpose. End Nenn.

  If there was a world outside that little room, I knew of it only through the light that entered through the window, the taste of the broth spooned down my throat, and the scents of my friends as they came and went. I struggled. I fought. I knew only two things: A part of me ached for finally finding my father and losing him again, and that if I survived, I was likely to lose the arm as well.

  What use was a one-armed thief? It felt like the start of a bad joke. One Cord would probably know the answer to. Knock-knock. Who’s there? Your severed arm. It was in Rek’s ass. Har har har.

  I coughed, a wracking thing that tore at my lungs and left my ribs aching. A trickle of blood slid from the corner of my lip. A gentle hand wiped it away with a soft cloth. I turned too-hot eyes to the beside. Cord sat on the chair. Nighttime, and rain hammered into the cottage glass. He leaned back.

  “The Aunties are gone. Fucked off somewhere. Rek and Lux wanted to be here, but I had to give them something to do.” He sighed, watched the rain.

  I knew then that
life was winding around me. The sands in my hourglass were running out. I hitched a breath, felt a throb in my shoulder. I knew they’d taken the arm anyway. I didn’t care. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

  “Tell me a story,” I told him.

  Cord took a deep breath. “Okay, then. Listen close. This is a story of a parent that would do anything for their children.”

  Her paws were cold, and her feet crunched in the snow as she walked. The crust under her claws was unreliable, sometimes holding her weight, sometimes punching through and sending her into an uneven gait that caused her to sink into powder as high as her chest. When it happened, she would blow it away from her face with a snort, the ends of her whiskers tingling as ice crystals brushed against them, and dig in, her back legs kicking until she was on top again. It would tire her, and she'd stop when she reached a solid point, panting gently, stopping to lap at the powder until enough melted in her mouth, and she could ease the aching itch in her throat.

  Wind stirred the powder, sending it swirling and spiraling in whorls and eddies, and shaking the boughs above her. Fat clods of snow fell from the branches and hit the ground with thick plopping sounds. Above her, a black bird shifted on its branch and fluttered its wings, trying to settle. It sighed.

  "Will you not rest, Old Mother?"

  It was the birds' name for her, though she had been known by many. Waabishki-ma'iingan by the tall hunters in the summers, Long Fang by her packmates, and Ingashi by her litter, though they were long grown and in packs of their own these days. To the moon she had always simply been Grey, sister and daughter; mother, maiden, and crone. She craned her neck, catching the scents of deer and rabbit on the wind, and stared at the bird. She knew him only as Ebon.

  "Over this next rise. We need to make better time. Maybe if you fly ahead. You can see if the pack is there."

  Ebon sighed again and fluttered his wings, then launched himself from the branch, sending more snow pattering to the ground. For a moment, the flap of his wings was loud in the clearing, and then they were gone. Grey settled on her haunches, watching the moon filter through the boughs overhead, sending skeletal fingers reaching into the white, a chiaroscuro sketch of murky futures. She lifted her head and sniffed, thinking maybe she would smell the dry dusting of Ebon's feathers, or the carrion scent that clung to the hook of his beak, the points of his talons.