The Executioner's Right (The Executioner's Song Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Slowly, the Archer moved away, heading toward the gate. The crowd separated to let him pass, though not nearly as much as before the sound of the procession started coming through the streets.

  Finn smiled to himself. He’d gotten away.

  So long as he didn’t run into the same Archer, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting questioned. Seeing as how he rarely spent any time in that part of the city, and never in the palace where the Archer would be stationed, he didn’t have to worry about that.

  He turned his attention to the Blood Court.

  All of the condemned were known as Poor Bastards, and this one had to be about the same age as Oscar. He had a lean, almost haggard appearance, and followed the executioner with a halting gait. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, a haunted expression to his dark eyes.

  Finn knew the man.

  Knew might be a bit strong. He’d seen him. Heard of him. Dalton Pegg, a man he knew to be an incredibly skilled thief from the city's Unlear section. Finn hadn’t known he’d been caught. He really was a Poor Bastard.

  The priest trailing after him continued his steady chanting from the Book of Heleth.

  The sound of it was much more musical than the song he’d used to draw the Archer’s attention, though as it droned toward him, Finn didn’t feel the urgency within it he knew he was supposed to.

  The Blood Court moved past.

  The crowd veered after, peeling off and heading alongside.

  A tomato came hurtling out of the crowd and struck Pegg in the chest. A chunk of it broke off and struck the executioner, staining his gray jacket and leaving a trail of juice dripping down toward his heavy boots.

  Were that Finn, he would have reacted more than the executioner did. He marched forward, his eyes straight ahead, a look of concentration on his face that was not all that different from the one he saw on Pegg’s face.

  Finn had met the executioner once. He’d been caught and accused of stealing meat from a pig butcher. He’d claimed innocence—though he was not—but the executioner hadn’t been swayed. The flogging had been terrifyingly painful—he still had the two scars on his back to remind him—but nothing like what Pegg was about to endure.

  The priests passed.

  Finn fell into the crowd.

  A boy in front of him slipped his hand inside the satchel of the man next to him and fished out a few coins before moving on, sliding along the crowd. He grabbed another few coins from a woman clutching a bag, and when he accidentally bumped into another person, he reached into their pocket to pilfer still more.

  One of the vendors caught sight of the boy and started toward him.

  Finn grabbed him, shaking his head, and pointed at the vendor. “You don’t want to end up like Pegg, now do you?” he asked, before pushing him off and into the crowd.

  The boy’s eyes widened, and he darted off, dropping the coins.

  Finn scooped them quickly off the ground, stuffing them into his pocket.

  When they reached the Teller Gate, Finn followed the crowd out.

  In much of Verendal, buildings sprawled beyond the gate and past the wall, with the neighboring forest just visible. There were no buildings near the Teller Gate. Finn suspected the executioner had something to do with that—he’d seen him making preparations near the Raven Stone a few times—but there were still more shacks built closer to the stone than he would have thought would be comfortable.

  The crowd slowed as the procession neared the Raven Stone, and the executioner forced Pegg to climb the stone.

  Finn didn’t even know what kind of punishment Pegg had been given. Probably hanging, befitting a dishonorable like Pegg. The viscount and his lackeys wouldn’t offer a thief—even one of renown like Pegg—the honor of a quick death by sword.

  The day had grown late, and he knew he should return to the tavern. He’d been gone long enough, and by now, he suspected Oscar and Rock would have returned. If he didn’t get back, the King would be annoyed at his delay, but then Finn hoped Oscar would regale him with the story about how he’d helped him escape. Maybe then Finn would be given the opportunity to be more involved with the next job. That was all he really wanted, anyway.

  A murmuring overtook the crowd, and Finn looked over. In the distance, atop the raised stone platform the people of the city called the Raven Stone, the executioner had brought Pegg. A rope hung around his neck, and the chanting from the priests began to build.

  Finn didn’t want to watch, but at the same time, he didn’t know if he could even look away. There was something strangely compelling about the whole ordeal.

  Pegg began to argue.

  It was the first time that he’d seen any sort of emotion out of Pegg, and as he watched, he couldn’t help but want to be closer to see what he might do.

  The crowd around him didn’t let him get away. If he made a wrong move, messed up on a job—worse than had happened today—something like this might be his fate. Take the wrong job, upset the wrong wealthy merchant, and it would be the noose and not a flogging.

  All for what? Taking a little from someone who had more?

  The executioner probably enjoyed it, though from a distance, Finn couldn’t tell.

  One of the priests came closer, ceremonially raising his hand, and Pegg leaned back before spitting in his face.

  A gasp fell across the crowd.

  The executioner started forward, wrapped the noose around his neck, and pushed away the small stool as he sent Pegg spiraling from the gallows, hanging. He kicked for a moment. The crowd remained silent, only speaking again when he went still.

  Finn couldn’t take his eyes off of him, though disgust filled him. What had Pegg done that had warranted such a fate? The King probably knew, given the connections he had, though he might not tell Finn. He’d have to ask Oscar and hope that Oscar had heard something enough that he might find the answers.

  Tearing his gaze away, he headed back toward the gate. A chance glimpse of an Archer sent his heart hammering, though he didn’t think it was the same Archer as before. He squeezed the silver sculpture in his pocket, the coins he’d taken from the pickpocket, and kept his head low to avoid attention.

  When he reached the gate, he paused before heading in. A woman stood at the gallows, looking up at Pegg. She wiped her eyes, and one of the priests came over as if to console her.

  He tried to think of someone who felt that way about him. His sister wouldn’t feel that way, and his mother was too sick to care. That left only his crew.

  Would they feel that way about me were that my fate?

  A flash of maroon caught his attention before he could think too deeply on that—another Archer—and Finn darted back through the gate and into the city. It was time for him to disappear.

  Chapter Two

  Finn always found it strange that the city would hold a festival when someone was sentenced to die, but it did have its advantages. He sneaked away, knowing he’d have to get to the others soon enough, but it wasn’t the meeting time yet.

  The streets in the Brinder section were narrower than those where he and Oscar had wandered earlier in the day, with buildings and run-down shops lining them, and tall homes scrunched together on others. Not only were they narrower, but they stank in ways that part of the city didn’t. There was the stench of the pigs corralled near the slaughterhouse, a foul odor that permeated everything in this part of the city. It mingled with that of refuse and waste, both human and other. No chain gangs were assigned to this part of the city to keep it clean like there were in other sections.

  It was home. Or had been before he’d lost his father, and his mother had sunk into illness. Finn had given up thinking that his father would ever be released, which meant he had to provide for his mother. Someone did.

  As he’d been leaving the execution site, he’d considered heading toward the tavern with the others, but the King had specified a specific time to meet—four bells—and it would be too early. A better use of his time was to stop at his hom
e and drop off some of the coin the boy had snatched then dropped. Knowing his sister, Lena wouldn’t even want the money, as if she were too good for it. She hadn’t been too good for it when it had come from their father.

  The homes out there were small and crammed together. There weren’t the same alleys as there were in other parts of the city, and when there were, they were even narrower than those higher up in the city. He stepped over a puddle of water—or piss; he couldn’t tell with the angle of the sun reflecting off the surface—and nearly slipped in something else.

  What he wouldn’t give to get out of there. It was the reason he preferred to sleep at the tavern as much as possible these days.

  Three small children ran along the street, chasing each other. Their clothing was tattered, and all had wild hair. One of them carried a rope, chasing the others. Their high-pitched voices carried, and in the distance, someone shouted at them, but the boys ignored it.

  Finn nodded to a pair of men about his age. Bruisers, given their size and the leathers they wore, and he would have expected them to have been more discreet about the role they played, but one of them even carried his club in hand, leaving it dangling at his side.

  Ducking to the side of the road, he let them pass. It was better to stay out of the way of bruisers. Who knew who they worked for? Anger the wrong boss and there could be repercussions—the kind Finn tried to avoid. He needed to stay in good with the King; he worked with one of the best crews in the city and didn’t want to mess that up.

  When the bruisers were past, Finn hurried onward. Though this wasn’t the nicest section of the city—or even close to it—it was uncommon for there to be bruisers. There must be a crew working here.

  Turning the corner, he practically ran into Helda. She was a year or so younger than him and friends with his sister. She had a pretty face and rich brown eyes he could imagine swallowing him when she looked at him.

  Helda and Lena had been friends for as long as Finn could remember, though Helda had the advantage that her father was a baker and had more connections than Finn and Lena’s parents had. Besides that, she was pretty and nice and didn’t really belong in Brinder.

  Before becoming the thief, his father had been honorable like Helda’s father. As an assistant to a cartwright, there had always been the possibility that he would learn the trade himself, even if he was not formally apprenticed. When Finn’s mother got sick, his father had needed money that working as a cartwright’s assistant wouldn’t provide.

  “Finn? I heard you got yourself a crew. What are you doing working outside your section?”

  “I’m not working. Just coming to see my mother.”

  She tugged on her drab green dress. When she saw him looking at the flash of cleavage, she flushed briefly. “I figured you’d be outside the Teller Gate, watching.”

  “Most people enjoy the festivals, Helda. I could go with you sometime.”

  “My father doesn’t like me going out there. He says it’s too dangerous.”

  Finn started to smile before realizing that she didn’t. “You could stay inside the wall and enjoy the festivities. You don’t have to go out and watch it.”

  “I couldn’t imagine watching,” she said with a shiver.

  “Watching is bad enough. I can’t imagine pushing a man to his death.”

  Helda offered a hint of a smile. “That’s because you wanted to be a surgeon.”

  “That was a long time ago,” he said.

  “Not that long.” She frowned at him. “You can’t run with a crew your whole life, Finn. I bet you could still find a guild to take you in.”

  “The guilds don’t pay as well as the crew.”

  “That’s all that matters to you?”

  “Shouldn’t it?”

  Helda looked as if she wanted to say something but bit it back. “Good day, Finn.”

  He nodded as he watched her go, wishing he knew a way to better talk to her. He could try another time. Right now, he needed to keep going before it got too late.

  When he reached the door to his old home, he paused.

  The paint had long since faded. In this section of the city, paint didn’t last long on many of the doors. It was almost as if something about the city repelled it, turning everything into streaks of faded color, giving it a sad and dreary appearance. At least the door remained solid. Finn had spent everything he’d collected since their father had disappeared to ensure the door and the home were as protected as he could make them. Seeing the bruisers out on the street, he knew that was the right thing for him to have done.

  Fishing a key from the band he had tied around his neck, he unlocked the door and hurriedly stepped inside before closing and locking it behind him again. A dim lantern glowed in the small entrance, but there wasn’t much light otherwise.

  The home smelled musty.

  Hadn’t my sister been here recently?

  Finn didn’t spend that much time here any longer. Most of the time, he caught a rest in one of the rooms in the tavern, but on the occasion when he did return, he didn’t usually find it like this.

  “Mother?” he called out, heading along the hall, before stopping at her room. Finn tested the door, and it swung open with a creak.

  His mother rested on the bed, snoring softly.

  She was thin, possibly even thinner than she had been when he’d last seen her. Color had drained from her face, and she breathed irregularly.

  As much as he’d wanted to, there wasn’t anything he could do for her. Before his father had gotten pinched, Finn had entertained approaching one of the guilds to learn healing to help her. But that was long ago, and he was a different person now.

  She rolled over at the sound, and he tensed. He didn’t want to wake her. She needed her rest, and he didn’t know if she’d been sleeping that well lately.

  He pulled a fistful of coins from his pocket and stacked them on the table next to her bed, where she’d find them when she awoke. It was where he left them each time he came to visit. Finn didn’t know how she spent them, or whether she was the one to do so, but the coins always disappeared, so he made a point of bringing more each time he came. This time, he left the sculpture he’d taken as well. He couldn’t move that without Oscar realizing what he’d done, so it was better to just leave it here for now.

  Back in the entryway, he started to head back out before hesitating. There wasn’t any real urgency to leaving. His mother rested, and he didn’t have to get to the tavern until later. He could take a few moments and truly make sure his mother had what she needed. Lena should be taking care of her, but what if she used the coin on herself?

  The thought of that made him smile.

  Not Lena.

  She might live in this bleak part of the city, but there had always been something so dignified about his sister. It was almost as if she were there because she chose to be, not because she had no other choice.

  The small kitchen was a mess.

  The lantern there had been dimmed to barely more than a glowing ember, and he brightened it, pushing back the darkness. The musty odor that he’d noticed seemed to come from there. Dishes were piled in the washbasin, some with food still caked on them. A loaf of bread rested on one of the counters, barely touched. He squeezed it, finding the bread too hard. He pulled open the cupboards. Potatoes and some carrots but no other food.

  What was my sister doing?

  This wasn’t like her.

  Not only wasn’t it like her to have so little food around, but it wasn’t like her to leave the dishes a mess in this way.

  If there had been trouble, Helda would have said something to him.

  Finn pulled the dishes from the basin and stacked them on the counter. He carried the basin out the back of the house to the small pump shared by everyone along the street and worked at the smooth wooden handle until water poured out of the spigot, filling the basin. When he was done, he carried it back into the house.

  This wasn’t how he envisioned spending his af
ternoon, but it had to be done.

  Tossing some wood into the oven, he used a flint to get the wood lit and glowing, coaxing the fire until it burned brightly. When it did, he placed the basin of water on the stovetop to heat it.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here. Nor did I expect to find you cleaning the dishes.”

  Finn turned to see his sister standing in the doorway. Her blue eyes were drawn and weary. She tucked her auburn hair behind her ears.

  “It looked as if it needed to be done,” he said.

  He picked up the bar of soap from the counter and set it into the basin, stirring it around until suds formed.

  “I was going to get to it.”

  “I’m sure you were.” Finn set the soap down, dropping it onto the counter before turning to his sister. “Where have you been, anyway?”

  She shot him a stern look. “You’ve been gone for the last week, and you come in and ask where I’ve been?”

  Had it been a week?

  He was usually better about stopping by, but perhaps he’d been distracted with the job. “Shouldn’t I?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I left some money for supplies.”

  His sister pulled a faded leather sack off her shoulder and set it on the small table near the back wall. “You don’t have to leave any money for us. I’d rather not take your tainted coin, anyway.”

  “Come on, Lena. It’s not tainted.”

  “I’m taking care of Mother. We don’t need you putting us at risk.”

  “I’m not putting you at risk.”

  She started to pull a few items from the sack and set them on the table. Most were food. One was a small vial with a dark powder inside. “You are if we come to depend on you and your contribution to the family.” Lena pushed past him and headed to the cabinet where he’d found the potatoes and carrots. She set some of the food inside and closed it before turning to him. “You haven’t said why you came by today.”