One Man

by Harry Connolly

  “By the fallen gods,” Tin said, holding her lit lamp high. “It’s dark in here.”

  Dirty Straw stepped toward her. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “That’s Tin Pail,” Black Apricot said. “Harl was planning to move you up in his organization, wasn’t he? You brought the beetle system to Koh-Salash. But you fucked up the deal he set up for you. And that was after I told him word on the street was that you were pretty sharp.” She clucked her tongue in disappointment.

  Cotton Stair folded his massive arms across his chest. Dirty Straw narrowed his eyes. “Why did Harl call us here in secret? And why are you here?”

  Tin smiled. “I’m here to bring Harl to the meeting.”

  At that, Wooden stepped forward and overturned the bag. Harl’s rotting head made a sickening noise as it struck the floorboards. Then Wooden kicked it, sending it rolling across the floor to the Carrig gangsters.

  The tallest and ugliest looked down at that gray sagging face and cried, “Uncle Harl!”

  That was the one. Tin threw the clay lamp with all her strength. It broke against his chest, flooding his throat and face with burning oil. Pain and shock made him inhale raw flame, and that was it. Once the fire had bent inward to his throat, nothing could save him short of a portion of glitterkind.

  Wooden burst out laughing. She was a little envious of his ability to enjoy this sort of thing. To her it meant nothing, but it made him wildly happy. Maybe, when things were settled, she’d light people on fire for him just for fun.

  When the heavies drew their weapons, so did Tin’s bodyguard. Black Apricot immediately raised her hand. “Hold!” she commanded, and they did.

  The Salashi gangsters did, at least. The three Carrig heavies screamed in rage and drew their hatchets. They did not take orders from Salashi.

  Two threw their hatchets at Tin, and she just stood there while her bodyguard struck both out of the air with a swing of the handle of his glaive. Then, in one motion, he joined the two halves into one.

  Knives in hand, the three Carrig heavies charged. Her bodyguard made short work of them.

  The only sound in the room was the crackling of flames and the thrashing of Harl’s nephew as he died. Cotton nudged one of his heavies, who put the man out of his misery with the blunt end of a hatchet.

  Black Apricot chuckled. “Three killed with two strokes. So, it’s true, then? You hired a foreigner with godkind magic?”

  Black’s own heavies stepped back in surprise, and so did the others. Dirty’s lip was curled as though he smelled something awful. “How did you manage that?”

  “Planning,” Tin answered. “Here’s the deal. The people of Koh-Salash are proud of the fact that they’ve never been conquered, and they say that because they don’t know about assholes like Harl. The criminal underworld in this city was conquered decades ago, and our Carrig masters have been bleeding us white. No longer. I won’t allow it.”

  Cotton snorted, then spoke for the first time. “You won’t allow it? Are you taking over for Harl, then? I wouldn’t follow this stripling here”—he pointed at Dirty with his thumb—“and you’re even younger. If someone’s taking over, it should be one of us.”

  “Yeah,” Tin said. “It should have been one of you. Years ago. But you didn’t, and now your chance is gone.”

  Dirty glanced at the burning body. The flames had spread to the floor around him and begun to climb the wall to the tarred roof. “We should have this conversation somewhere else.”

  “Why?” Tin asked mildly.

  Black laughed harder. “Planning, eh?”

  Tin shrugged and glanced at Wooden. He was grinning, but she only felt annoyed and impatient. “Let me make it simple. My people killed Harl. I have his latest shipment of white tar, and I have already taken control of his black-market medical operation.” The lieutenants glanced at each other. Clearly, they had tried to find that information for themselves and failed. “I also have the support of his parsu, who will continue to watch over us as usual. If one of you really wanted to take over, you should have done all this for yourself.”

  “I couldn’t,” Dirty said. “I don’t have enough heavies to take on Harl, not to mention the Amber Throne he represents. The Ancient Kings built that chair.”

  “And the Amber Throne has its Clutching Hand,” Black said quietly. “Deadly assassins that can walk through walls, carrying blades no one can see. Have you planned a way to defy them, too?”

  Tin shrugged. “I don’t explain myself to my lieutenants…or to charred corpses”

  Dirty and Cotton glanced nervously at the spreading flames. Time was running out.

  “What do you want from us?” Black asked.

  “First, I want to know who hired that pawnbroker to attack my people.” Dirty, Cotton, and Black all exchanged confused looks. Whoever it was, they hid it well. “Scarred face? Worked at a pawnshop in Woodgarden? He exposed the site of Harl’s black market doctors to the cosh.”

  Black pointed at the spreading flames. “He ran Woodgarden. You should have asked him. Besides, none of us would unleash the cosh on that scam. Take it over, sure. Hand it to the eye, never. We like money.”

  Tin shrugged. The fire was bright now, and the hole in the roof couldn’t evacuate all the billowing black smoke. “In that case, we should do whatever it takes to keep business running as smoothly as possible. All you have to do is pledge your loyalty to me and make me believe it.”

  * * *

  Onderishta could scarcely believe it.

  Rumors were spreading among the constables that Harl was dead. Someone was walking around, showing his head to his people and demanding their loyalty.

  Then they’d heard about this place.

  It was a weaver’s workshop. A family of half a dozen men and women lived and worked in the back and sold their cloth in the front. They were in The Folly, one of the city’s “safe” neighborhoods. In fact, at that moment, Onderishta was standing only four blocks from her own little house. Just around the corner was Zetinna’s favorite dumpling shop, and they walked right by this building to go there.

  The workshop’s front door was splashed with blood, and the rooms inside were a charnel house.

  She sent four constables through the building to make sure it was safe, and their faces were ashen when they emerged. No one wanted to estimate the number of dead, but some, she was told, resembled Harl’s top people.

  Their first job was to reattach all those body parts and figure out if one of them was Harl himself.

  Fay hurried around the corner, a doctor’s assistant in tow. Onderishta knew her well. She was tall, athletic, and gorgeous, but she rarely looked anyone in the eye, and nothing seemed to upset her.

  “Found her,” Fay said, breathing hard.

  The assistant, Adleri, child of Adlassa, spoke quietly. “You need me to put some bodies back together, right?”

  “That’s right. I’m going to come inside with you. Forgive me if I find it difficult.”

  Adleri took a lantern from Fay, then started toward the entrance. It didn’t matter to her if someone else was uncomfortable.

  Onderishta moved through the building slowly. There was no point in trying to count the bodies. Adleri would take care of that. Besides, it wasn’t just limbs and heads lying about. Some of these people had been cut clean through their midsection. Some had been split collarbone to crotch.

  What sort of weapon could cut through every bone in a man’s ribcage in a single stroke? Only a ghostkind blade, and as far as she knew, there were none in the city. The last one had sailed away eight years earlier, in the hands of one of the guards of the Safroy heir, never to return.

  As horrible as the smell and the sights were, the sound of rats crawling among the shadows was even worse.

  Onderishta had not seen death like this since the invasion.

  After studying six dead, graying faces, she had no doubt. Some were foreign friends, some Salashi, but these were Harl’s most trusted
bodyguards. The weavers who lived and worked here were nowhere in sight.

  Onderishta surveyed the interior. The building was larger than she’d thought. What looked like a second warehouse next door was actually part of the same building. She found a small dining area and a row of beds—all mercifully empty—along with a dozen looms packed close together.

  Beyond that was an open area with little to show how it had been used. There were pools of drying blood on the floor, but in several places, those irregular shapes had a long straight edge, as though the blood had spread against an object—like a crate—that had been removed later. She also found bloody bootprints near the loading bay. Something had been carried out of here. But what?

  In a shadowy corner by the back wall, a small crate rested atop a stool. Onderishta pulled a hatchet from a support beam. There was no blood on the blade. Whoever had swung it had not had much luck. Onderishta levered the lid of the crate open with it.

  Inside was a stack of oiled leather scraps, probably goatskin. She recognized them immediately—tar heads carried their drug of choice inside folded leather just like this.

  “Shit.”

  Adleri glanced up. Onderishta shook her head, and the woman ignored her again.

  Onderishta pushed open the loading dock door and stepped into the fresh air. Passersby craned their necks to see inside, so she slid the door shut quickly.

  Her two apprentices run to her. Mirishiya grinned, showing her crooked teeth. “Can I go inside to investigate too? I’ve seen dead bodies before.”

  If she’d grown up an orphan and child burglar, Onderishta did not doubt it. “No, you can’t. And stop smiling. Some of these onlookers might have family inside. You don’t want them to think you’re happy they’ve been cut apart, do you?”

  Mirishiya blushed. “I don’t want that.”

  “Good. Find Fay and bring him here.” She ran off. To Trillistin, Onderishta said, “What about you? Do you want to go inside?”

  “If you think it would help, I will.”

  He looked anxious, as though his reluctance might get him fired. She laid a hand on his shoulder to reassure him, then sent him into the crowd to seek witnesses.

  Onderishta scanned the crowd. She saw a few familiar faces among the onlookers and knew the coming days would be full of neighbors carefully approaching her in cafes and on street corners, saying, What was that the other day…

  Then she saw something she didn’t expect. At the back of the crowd was a tall foreign man with a green scarf tied around his head and face. With his size, Onderishta thought he might have been a bodyguard. More than a few nobles lived on this deck, after all.

  He might have been Bedler of Koh-Alzij, but Onderishta couldn’t figure why he would be there.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Mirishiya returned with Fay. He asked, “What did you find?”

  “What we found, aside from the corpses of Harl’s top assholes, is his distribution point for white tar.”

  Fay’s eyes went wide, while Mirishiya’s narrowed. He was surprised. She was fascinated. “Here?” he exclaimed, then quickly lowered his voice. “In The Folly?”

  The big guy with the green scarf was gone. “We’re…” four blocks from my house, she almost said. It was appalling to think that Harl’s people distributed their drugs from her safe, comfortable neighborhood, but who was she to be safe from his influence? Who was she to think his poison and his heavies would be quarantined in the poorer decks? She took a breath to compose herself. “We’re lucky to have found this at all, considering that we’ve been searching everywhere from Low Apricot to Mudside for this fucking building. Except the contraband has already been moved out.”

  Fay scratched his head. “If there was a big fight here, Harl’s first thought would be to hide his shit someplace else.”

  “If we’re lucky,” Onderishta said. Fay had heard the rumors, but he was still thinking about Harl as if he were untouchable. “If we’re lucky, he’s still out there for us to catch.”

  If not, there was more bloodshed on the way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kyrioc felt hands clutching him and lashed out.

  “Hey! Shh. Enough of that, now. We’re trying to help.”

  He didn’t recognize the voice, but no one put a knife into his belly or bashed his head, so he let his arms drop. They felt heavy and worthless, like long stockings full of mud.

  Streams of sunlight shone onto the street beside him. When had daylight come? He was being helped out of a cart he did not recognize on a street that… He looked at the nearby buildings, but his vision was too blurry to make out details. “Who are you? Where…” His voice sounded dry and rasping.

  “Never mind who I am,” the strange voice said. “We’re in Woodgarden. Don’t you remember asking me to take you here?”

  Kyrioc did not, in fact, remember that. He had lost a lot of blood. His heart fluttered and his head felt light. He wondered what else he’d said in his delirium and what secrets he’d revealed.

  “Come on, Broken. I’ve got you.”

  That was the landlady’s nephew. Kyrioc couldn’t remember the boy’s name.

  The woman in the cart said, “All right, then,” and clicked her tongue. Her cart started to roll away. Kyrioc tried to thank her, but his voice was too weak to be heard. The landlady’s nephew relayed the message.

  The boy helped him into the lobby. Several people called out, “Broken!” then asked what had happened. He needed a few seconds to realize they were referring to him.

  Kyrioc’s vision began to dim. Someone said, “He’ll never make it to the third floor.”

  When Kyrioc woke again, he was lying on his back, being carried toward the pawnshop door. Eyalmati’s rough voice echoed in the hallway. “Kyrioc is here? Kyrioc, you let them steal my—” Then his tone changed completely. “Oh, my poor boy. Bring him inside! Bring him in!”

  Kyrioc was carried into his room, then set on the floor. It took him a moment to realize all of the furniture was gone.

  Eyalmati crouched over him, his flushed, puffy face twisted with concern. “By the fallen gods, this doesn’t look good. A few inches one way, they would have missed you entirely. A few inches the other, and…well, I would never have found out what happened to you.”

  There was a crowd of people at Eyalmati’s shoulder. They were mostly men with dirty faces and ragged clothes, but their expressions showed only concern.

  “Should have taken him to the hospital,” someone said.

  “And paid with what? The place has been ransacked.”

  “No charity places nearby.”

  “Gotta clean him out and stitch him up.”

  Eyalmati sighed. “Can’t. I used to have needle and stitches in that drawer, but…”

  “My aunt’s got some.” That was the nephew again. Kyrioc saw the crowd ripple as he pushed his way through.

  “Broth,” Kyrioc said, and the others took up the call. The boy promised to return with a warm bowl.

  “What can I do?” Eyalmati asked.

  “I don’t want,” Kyrioc said, “to die with an audience.”

  The watching faces nodded and backed away, muttering in agreement.

  He had never said a kind word to any of them. Not once. He had never even thought kindly of them. Every day, he’d walked through the crowd of unwashed men and thought they were just like him: broken, angry, and lost.

  “Thank you,” he croaked.

  When they were gone, Eyalmati returned to his side. With trembling hands, he peeled back Kyrioc’s vest and tunic, wiping at the sticky blood. “If I had a jug of something, I could disinfect this, but…”

  Kyrioc grabbed his wrist. “There’s a hidden panel in the sideboard beneath the counter. Right side. Take out the bundle inside and bring it to me, but whatever you do, don’t open it.”

  Eyalmati stared at him a moment, his mouth working, as though he was about to protest. Instead, he stood and stumbled into the other room. Kyrioc could he
ar him fumbling around for far too long, while waves of pain flowed through him. He tried to press his hand against the wound, but his strength was fading.

  Finally, an exclamation came from the next room, and Eyalmati shuffled back toward him, his trembling fingers picking at the laces. “They found all of my—”

  “No,” Kyrioc rasped. “Let me.”

  It took all of his willpower to focus on the way his fingers moved and the knot he needed to pick apart. Eyalmati held his own hands out, waggling his fingers as though he could help through sympathetic magic. Then it was open.

  First, Kyrioc drew out a slender iron bar as long as the distance between the tip of his middle finger and the pulse point on his wrist. It was as black as an old skillet, but the surface was covered with rounded, oblong bumps that made it easy to grip. He set it onto his chest. Then he took out a piece of thin black leather and unfolded it.

  Inside, no larger than a quarter of a grain of rice, was his last piece of glitterkind flesh.

  Kyrioc pinched it between his bloody thumb and finger. It wouldn’t be enough, but—

  Eyalmati grabbed his wrist. “What is that?”

  Kyrioc stared until he let go, then pushed the tiny grain deep into his wound. A flood of pleasure ran through him, followed by a pleasant stinging sensation as his flesh knitted together.

  “How…” Eyalmati had a question but didn’t seem to know how to ask it. “Where did that come from?”

  “I brought it with me when I arrived in Koh-Salash,” Kyrioc said. “I would never buy magic at the counter. Besides, we never had that much petty cash.”

  Eyalmati exhaled sharply. “This much is true. Now we have nothing.”

  “Floorboard,” Kyrioc said. “Beneath the petty cash drawer.”

  The old man’s eyes widened, and he practically leaped out of the room. After considerably less fumbling, he returned triumphant with a sack of coins in his trembling hands. “There must be a silver anchor’s worth here! Did you know we were going to be robbed?”