The Thief Who Went to War

by Michael McClung

  Just as soon as I wasn’t tied to a chair and such.

  “Mar,” said Balthaz in a warning tone, and she looked away, then stepped away and sat back down. She left the knife in.

  I tore my eyes from the woman and looked at Balthaz. “You can go the fuck on and kill me now, because I do not know where Holgren is, and wouldn’t fucking help you if I did.”

  “I’ve already told you we aren’t here to kill you,” said Balthaz.

  “Ah, that’s right. I change my mind, then. I’ll make you a deal.”

  Mar spat on the floor. “You’re in no fucking position,” she told me.

  “That’s my floor you just spat on. Granted, it’s filthy as fuck, but that’s not the point. You can leave now.”

  “Fuck you, street trash,” she said, the sneer in her voice perfectly audible.

  “Mar.” Balthaz’s voice had gone deep and cold. “Wait outside.”

  Her head swiveled to him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I won’t say it twice.”

  The woman stood and stalked across the room and out the front door, which she slammed.

  “Mar has issues, I won’t lie,” Eyebrow confided to me in the woman’s wake. “I’m the nice one. You can talk to me, so long as it’s not bullshit.” I tried to not roll my eyes. Mostly because they hurt. One was puffing up nicely.

  “I’m serious, though,” I said, squirming in my seat. “I’ll do you a fucking deal.”

  “What is your proposition, mistress Thetys?” Balthaz asked.

  “It’s very simple. You let me go, right now, and I won’t tell Holgren any of this ever happened. Because if he does find out you lot tried to set him up, your writ won’t fucking save you from his pique, that I can guarantee you. All that’s predicated on the notion I don’t get to you first, though.”

  The man who had been silent the whole time, the one who’d been driving the hack, finally spoke up.

  “Oi, she’s got her hands fr-”

  I had got my hands free, finally. And Mar had left me a weapon, that sweetheart.

  ELEVEN

  THE HOUSE ON UNKIND street was a tottering wreck. It was even money whether it would eventually collapse into the street or into the Ose, which it backed on to. But I hadn’t bought it to pass down to future generations, just for its location.

  It was in the Artist’s Quarter, and it backed onto to the river, and the previous owner had owed a dangerous amount of money to the kind of people you didn’t want to owe anything to, ever. The fact that it was unfit for habitation just meant the price I’d paid was unconscionable, rather than inconceivable. I had a half-dozen other properties more or less like it around the city, bought with the trove we’d brought back from our little jaunt to the Silent Lands, and a fair few plots of land I’d snapped up for cheap in the Charred Quarter. I’d invested in property back when I thought I was going to be a woman of business, rather than running around trying to survive the attentions of the mad shards of the goddess of destruction.

  Well. You know what they say about plans. But if I’d known what was in store for me back then, I would have looked at considerably shorter-term investments.

  Anyway, the house had what I’d guess you’d call a boat house in what would’ve been the cellar somewhere else, complete with a little two-seat narrowboat that didn’t leak. Much. Pretty sure the previous owner had indulged in a bit of petty smuggling in his time, since the boathouse was in far better shape than the rest of it. Or maybe he just liked to be on the water.

  Mar was outside, which meant I had to deal with three instead of four, but it also meant the front door wasn’t what you’d call an ideal escape route. Without the boat, the River Ose would have been worse, since I’d never learned to swim. But anyone from Hardside knew at least a little about boats. I certainly knew enough to row my ass away from danger.

  But first I had to get that fucking crossbow.

  Pulling the knife out of my thigh caused me no joy. Flinging myself out of the chair didn’t, either. Slamming steel into the hand Eyebrow was putting on the crossbow did, though. He let out a curse. The others were already on their feet and reaching for various harmful things. Behind me I heard the front door opening. All this I took in in a flash as I snatched up the crossbow with my free hand and threw myself towards the stairs to the boathouse.

  I’d say it was my plan to fall down them rather than run, it being faster and such, but the truth is my punctured thigh just made running difficult. Whatever, I got to the bottom without breaking anything and forced open the damp-swollen door before any of them had time to clip me, which was the important thing.

  There was no bar, and the lock was rubbish and I had no key for it anyway, but there was a boathook hanging from the wall. Not ideal. I threw the crossbow into the water and then tore the boathook down and jammed the tip into the gap between door and floor. I wedged the haft against a crack in the foundation wall as best I could. It wasn’t going to keep them for long.

  The narrowboat was on the floorboards or dock or whatever, right beside a black rectangle of water. It didn’t leave much space to get to the water door, which was barred from the inside by a thin pole. I bent down and pushed one end of the boat into my own little patch of the Ose, and the rest of it followed. It took on water, but not enough for me to bitch about. While it was doing that, I flung myself at the bar. Well, hobbled really fast towards it, anyway. Behind me the door to upstairs sounded like it had just lost its fight with the gentlemen. Honestly, it could have tried harder.

  I got a hand on the bar. A knife sprouted from the wood beside it. Another one of my fucking knives.

  “Next one goes in your neck,” came the warning from behind me.

  “Kerf’s damp asscrack,” I muttered, and threw myself into the Ose.

  I can’t swim. But I can hang onto stuff real good, and I can be as quiet as death.

  I went down into the black. I knew from when I’d bought the heap that the boathouse was supported by wooden pilings as thick as my thigh, and I had a general idea where they were in relation to where I went in. I fought my way towards where I thought one of them was. The Ose fought back. It almost won, but my flailing hands found slimy wood before my breath ran out, if only barely. The piling guided me back to air. I wanted to take great gasping breaths, but didn’t dare. I hugged the slimy wood and listened.

  They’d found the oars, and Eyebrow and the nameless coach driver were already in the boat. I couldn’t see them, but I could see the boat bobbing as they moved around in it.

  “You’re the better oarsman,” No-name was saying.

  “I’m also the better shot, so you can fucking row.”

  So the crossbow had floated. I’d’ve bet money it would sink.

  The narrowboat was too small to comfortably hold three, and no way was the giant Balthaz going to be climbing in it. Which meant, as they rowed out into the Ose, that Balthaz and Mar were still in the house. Somewhere.

  It turned out they were right above me, or near enough.

  “If that didn’t bring the magus out,” Mar said, “then nothing we do short of killing her is going to.”

  “Perhaps,” Balthaz rumbled.

  “And you’re all right with that?”

  “We do what it takes. You know that.”

  “What I know and what I like are two separate fucking things, Bal.”

  “You like her.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters. It just doesn’t make any difference.” There was a short silence, and then he said “Why exactly did you stab her? That was harsh, even for you.”

  “I- I’m not sure. Something just came over me. I was doing it before I even thought about it.”

  “She does have a mouth on her. But still. Just leaving it in like that.”

  “Ah, leave it alone, Bal.”

  There was silence for a while.

  “Those two fuckwits aren’t going to find her, if they haven’t by now.” Mar finally said. “Call
‘em back.”

  “And then what?”

  “She’ll go to ground. I doubt she’ll return to the Oak, but it’ll bear checking. And we’ve got the list of properties from her man of business.”

  “The file says she’s got boltholes all over the city. You should have tied her properly, Mar.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my fucking job. The point was to flush out Holgren Angrado, not torture his lover to death.”

  “Maybe she really doesn’t know where he is. Maybe he isn’t watching her after all.”

  Fuck me, I thought. They know. But how?

  Mar snorted. “You can take that back to Coroune if you like. No doubt Tuyet will revise his assessment on your say-so.”

  The big man grunted. “Tuyet is an ass.”

  “No argument there. But he’s a clever ass, and more to the point, there’s no way to get rid of him. Call ‘em back, Bal. We’ve got work to do.”

  “We’ll need more manpower,” he said. “This city – there’s too many rocks for people to crawl under.”

  “You want to conscript the watch? No there’s a truly stupid idea.”

  “Didn’t say the watch. But we need bodies on the streets.”

  She didn’t reply, at least not verbally. Balthaz made his heavy way across the boards to the open water door, and let out a piercing whistle.

  Ten minutes later they had cleared out. Ten minutes after that, just to be safe, I dragged my sorry carcass out of the water.

  On the bright side, my clothes no longer smelled much like vomit. The other end of that was they now smelled like the Ose, which in no way was an improvement.

  TWELVE

  I TOTED IT UP IN MY head while I tore a sleeve off my shirt and tied it around my punctured thigh. It wasn’t the first stab wound I’d ever received, or the worst, but it was a hurtful bastard, right in the meat.

  I now had the lord governor and his lapdog Kluge, my former compatriots in the underworld, and the king’s own enforcers after my hide. Well, technically they were all after Holgren, but I was the next best thing. Not bad for, what, three days back in town?

  The funny thing was, I wasn’t all that concerned about any of them, because a far worse enemy was close at hand.

  Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t like being hunted by groups of armed, powerful, and unhesitatingly violent people. It made things needlessly complicated, and also dangerous. I liked complicated and dangerous about as much as I liked rolling in shit. But when an aspect of the goddess of destruction has decided to cross you off her to-do list, it forces a sense of perspective on you. The worst any of these mortal adversaries could do to me was torture me to death.

  Visini, on the other hand, could force me into an eternity of slavery. Or she could just torture me to death as well, I supposed. Or just kill me out of hand. But with a moniker like The Blade That Binds and Blinds, I wasn’t expecting a quick death. And Greytooth had confirmed that, in the past, she’d taken great delight in playing with her victims first.

  Visini was in Lucernis, somewhere. That much I was sure of. That’s why I was here, after all. In fact, Holgren knew where all of the Blades were, with varying degrees of precision and certainty, except Moranos, the Dagger of Desire. The gentlemen were right about Holgren having Lagna’s eye, and when you have the eye of the god of knowledge, turns out you can see most anything if you knew what you were looking for.

  We’d used it to looked for the Blades. Well, Holgren had. It wasn’t like we were passing it back and forth. The eye was a part of him now, and if he wanted it out, he’d have to take something sharp to it and hope for the best. Anyway, we’d worked out a plan, Holgren, Greytooth and I. It was a reasonably good plan, but it hadn’t specifically included the lord governor, the Lucernan underworld or the gentlemen from Coroune sticking an oar in. We’d been sure only that Visini would use mortals to play with me before she dropped the boom.

  Two kinds of luck, and all that.

  Well, there wasn’t much I could do about the kinks and wrinkles just then. What I absolutely had to do was get changed, because one of the things people called the Ose was the Ooze. Bad enough I was dripping with it. If I had to wear the ruins of my outfit until it dried, I was pretty sure I would lose my mind. So naturally I went and woke up my tailor.

  BY THE TIME I’D LIMPED to Marfa’s, there being no chance a hack was going to pick me up, all the decent folks were abed leaving only sketchy fuckers like me on the streets. I knew she had her apartment above the shop, so I threw a few pebbles against the shutters. When that didn’t work, I just started banging on the door. A neighbor popped his head out and threw curses and the contents of his thunder bucket at me. Joke was on him; it smelled better than I did.

  Finally, I saw a light appear inside the shop through the shutters, and then the door opened and the business end of a gods-damned arquebus was shoved in my face. I put my hands up.

  “Isin’s love! What are you doing here, mistress?” She made the weapon disappear.

  “Sartorial emergency. Sorry. Any chance a portion of my order is ready?”

  “Look at the state of you. Come in, then, but don’t touch anything for Isin’s love.”

  I did. I was no longer dripping, but I was still... fragrant. And starting to itch like all hells.

  “Should I ask what happened?” she asked, looking me over and taking note of my battered face.

  “Got into it with the Ose. The Ose won.”

  “Mm. Well, only the charcoal suit is finished, though the others are nearly so. But I’ll not have you wearing it until you’ve bathed. I’ll need your word.”

  “You don’t have to worry. I’m unlucky, not unhygienic.”

  “Stay there, then, and don’t touch anything.”

  “You said that already.”

  “I mean it twice as much as you’d expect.”

  I put a hand up in assent, and she took the lantern and disappeared in the back. She bustled about for a minute or two, then came out with a canvas-wrapped packaged tied up with string.

  “Here you are, mistress. The rest I’ll send to the Oak tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Uh, better you just hold on to the rest. I’ll come by and collect it when I can.”

  I could see her wanting to say something, and the habit of years serving the well-off stopping her.

  “You’ll feel a lot better if you just say whatever it is.”

  “I don’t like to pry.”

  “Oh, live a little.”

  “Are you a criminal, mistress?”

  “Nowadays? Only incidentally. Is that a problem?”

  “Not particularly, no. Are you likely to be hanged?”

  “Gods, I hope not. Why?”

  “Not wishing you ill, but that would be priceless advertising, that would.”

  I stared at her. She stared back at me. Then she started laughing. “The look on your face!”

  Honestly, I was not getting anyone’s sense of humor that night.

  THE GENTLEMEN KNEW every property I had title to. I chewed on that as I walked. It wasn’t really a surprise. If they really were the king’s lackeys then my man of business, an old fart named Kinnik, would have dropped to the floor and shown them his belly – and all my deeds and assorted papers – in about two heartbeats. He didn’t mind skirting the law, because it meant a fat fee, but he wasn’t the type to keep confidences if it meant trouble.

  It hadn’t bothered me when I’d retained him. I knew his reputation, both for institutional cleverness and abject cowardice. At the time, I couldn’t imagine a situation where the latter would matter much.

  Surprise.

  But the bastards had been right about one thing – I did have boltholes scattered all around the city.

  I guess you could blame it on how I’d grown up, but I could never rest easy if I had only one place to lay my head. The Purge had left deep and lasting marks on me, and not only physical ones. I wasn’t the only one. I’d known a girl who wouldn’t sleep in the same place tw
o nights in a row. If she was still alive, I’d lay money down that that hadn’t changed.

  The Blacksleeves’d mostly come for us when we were sleeping, you see. It made killing you that much easier.

  Some of my boltholes I’d let lapse, like the storeroom behind the herbalist’s shop. Some I didn’t have to pay rent on, like the derelict room above Traitor’s Gate. But I needed some place with something approaching clean water, and preferably with food and drink in the vicinity. Someplace with as few people around as possible was also desirable. So I walked my intolerably itchy ass to Loathewater.

  It was deep in the night when I finally got to the villa. The place was probably a hundred years old, and falling apart, the way all the best haunted houses should be. The story was, some rich bastard had built the place in what had to be the highest ground in the neighborhood. Then he’d gone utterly ratfuck insane and killed his whole family and then himself. It had stayed vacant because of that, and because anybody who could’ve afforded to purchase it would never voluntarily live in Loathewater.

  Sure, there were transients who would set up there for a time, but they never stayed long. I’m not what you would call superstitious, but even I would readily admit that there was something about the villa that was... oppressive. Unwelcoming. And the longer you stayed there, the worse it got.

  Fortunately, for better or worse, I wouldn’t have to put up there for long.

  I gave the place a quick scout to make sure I wouldn’t be interrupting young lovers doing the kinds of things young lovers do in dark and haunted places, or be interrupted by some random vagabond as I stripped and washed by the well in the courtyard. There was nobody home. Except the ghosts, I guess, and they could ogle all they wanted, for the life of me.

  The well was a century old, like the rest of the place. But the chain and bucket weren’t. I’d replaced them about four years before, not long before Corbin had been murdered, actually. They were still there, and were still fit for purpose. I stripped down and started sluicing myself off, bucket by bucket. I’d’ve paid handsomely for some soap. I made do, scrubbing myself raw with one of the handkerchiefs Marfa had included in my package and abrading my scalp with my fingernails. I spent a while clearing the dried blood and snot out of my nose, and decided during the process that it wasn’t actually broken, which was something at least. I sacrificed a kerchief, cutting it into strips and binding the hole in my thigh. Mar hadn’t cut anything life-ending, but she’d done me no favors beyond that. I would be slower and stiffer, and I’d have to watch out for infection – especially after going into the Ose. The pain was something I could ignore, for the most part.