River of Thieves

by Clayton Snyder

  "Really unpleasant," Cord said.

  I helped him into his armor, making sure his swords hung right, attaching the orbs to a harness he pulled from the bottom of the chest. When he was finally geared out, he looked every inch a fearsome warrior. With Cord's face, so it was a bit of a wash. Finally, he reached into the pack he'd been carrying, and removed a sack, handing it to Clane.

  "What's this shit?" Clane asked.

  He opened the sack, the jingle of coins giving it away.

  "Payment for storage. Buy yourself a nice house in the country."

  He pulled one more item from his pack, then let it drop. It was a small silver vial.

  "Is that the bottle from Midian?" I asked.

  Clane cackled. "Always said the fucker's a pack rat."

  He stood, and Cord shook his hand. We left the way we'd come in, taking the long way through town. The plan was to hit Blackgate at night, when the guard count would be lowest.

  "Hey Nenn," Cord said.

  "Yeah?"

  "What's brown and sticky?"

  "Is this a poop joke?"

  "No, really. What's brown and sticky?"

  "Rek's dick?"

  "A stick, Nenn. A stick. Holy shit. That is fucked up."

  "I'm not the one who told the joke."

  "You are severely damaged."

  "Says the lunatic storming a five-story prison."

  "Context matters, Nenn."

  I Seem to be Bleeding from the Everywhere

  We halted just outside the tower. A small army of corpses, armed and armored to the gills were arrayed in neat rows before the gate.

  “They really don’t want us in there,” I said. “Why? I thought he wanted this eye.”

  “If they kill us, they can just take the eye, and they don’t have to fight.”

  “I hate logic.”

  “And it hates you.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. How are we gonna get through this?”

  “Cord?” the voice came from the back ranks of the soldiers.

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” I said.

  The soldiers shifted, the rows moving like corn in the wind, finally disgorging the owner of the voice. Tug came into view, grinning widely.

  “Tug?” Cord said. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Freelancin’ and necromancin’,” he said.

  “What about your amusement park?” Cord asked.

  Tug shrugged. “They unionized.”

  “The dead. Unionized. For what? An increase in brains?” I asked.

  Tug shook his head. “Some bigwig showed up. Jesh? Yosah? Jesah? Said he was their king. Got them all together, had them picket the city.”

  “So you just left?” I asked.

  “Well, not at first. Then someone threw a rock, and well…”

  “Well, what?” Cord asked.

  “City’s dead. Rampaging horde of undead. Had to make a getaway.”

  “What about Elvis?” I asked.

  “Oh, he’s uh…”

  “Right here,” the golem said, hoving into view. He tossed his head toward the undead army, sending his dick eyes wobbling. Cord giggled, and I elbowed him. “They’re getting restless, boss,” Elvis said.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He turned back to Cord. “Anyway, what’s up?”

  “I have to get in there.”

  “In there? They hired me to keep someone out. That’s weird.”

  “That’s me, Tug.”

  “Well, shit. I can’t kill you.”

  “So you’ll let us in?”

  Tug rubbed his chin. “They’re paying pretty good.”

  “I’ll pay better,” Cord said. “I just need you to be a bit flexible.”

  “Aw man, you know I’m flexible.”

  “Not that. I need you to slow down anyone who tries to follow.”

  Tug rubbed his chin again, looked at Elvis. The golem shrugged.

  “Whatever,” Elvis said.

  “Okay,” Tug said.

  Cord shook his hand, then pulled him into an embrace. He whispered in the necromancer’s ear, and when they parted, Tug wore a grin. I assumed Cord just gave him the address of a stash.

  “Go on then,” Tug said.

  Cord nodded, and we passed him, brushing past the undead ranks.

  “What’d you tell him?” I asked once out of earshot.

  “I told him that if I lived through this, we’d get away to a nice island for a while.”

  “You know we’re probably not going to.”

  Cord shrugged. “I also told him that if he finds the old man, there’s some cash in the closet. Assuming he isn’t cut to ribbons first. Clane hates necromancers.”

  “You’re a shit.”

  “I’m bad at goodbyes.”

  ***

  Cord had been right. The guard station was practically unmanned, and once the acid from Midian ate through the locks "Like shit through a small angry badger", Cord commented, it was little work to cut down the three guards eating their midnight porridge. Cord milled about for a moment, digging through sheaves of papers. Finally, he gave a nod and joined me.

  "I'd always thought that shit was going to be the death of someone. Does anyone even know what's in it? The consistency's like ground-up babies."

  "See a lot of ground-up babies?"

  "Not a lot, no."

  We made our way up the stairs to the second level and arrived at the landing, opening the door slowly. A long hallway greeted us, lined on each side by cells. At the end was another two doors.

  "The one on the right is for the guards. The left are the stairs. Keep an eye out."

  I squatted beside the door while he moved to each cell, peering inside, pouring a little dribble of the acid on some, leaving others locked. The ones he freed, he ushered to my end of the hall, where I let them know the way ahead was clear. He came back and stood beside me.

  "How is this thwarting Oros' plans?"

  "Most of these guys are slated for execution. I let the best of the worst out, to hopefully keep living. Besides, if we create enough chaos, we keep the city guard busy enough to get our friends back."

  "And the others?"

  He grimaced. "Gren can have them. Some people are just beyond saving."

  "I still don't see how this relates outside of that."

  "The guard room. Paperwork marked with the seal of the Warden. Every death here is a sacrifice."

  I nodded. "All right then. Let's go."

  Cord picked up a stone from one of the cells, whipping it at the guard's door. It swung open, disgorging three Harrowers, thin bastards with cruel faces and brown robes. Each held their particular fetish—a severed jaw, a loop of dried intestine, several vertebrae connected by a cord. They raised their hands, a high-pitched whine issuing from their mouths. Cord grinned and pulled one of the orbs from his harness, tossing it lightly.

  It crashed to the stones, the globe shattering and causing the Harrowers to leave off their screeching. They leaned in as yellow smoke swirled from the remains, coalescing into a cloud that wrapped itself around their ankles.

  "What the fu—"

  Something leaped from the miasma, yellow and shaggy. It had teeth the size of small daggers, and claws black as onyx. It ripped the eyes from the first, sending him screaming and spraying blood across his companions as two more of the beasts emerged, ripping bellies and groins open, spilling liters of crimson across the flagstones. Then they were gone, and the room was silent, the Harrowers nothing more than inert meat.

  "That was..." I said.

  Cord nodded. "Fuckin' awesome, I know."

  "I don't know if that's the word I was looking for."

  "Spectacular? Astounding?"

  "Sure. Not horrifying."

  We opened the door on the left and climbed to the next floor.

  ***

  I could tell you about how we cleared each floor in much the same way. I could tell you about the gore and the horror—things came from that mist I'd rath
er not remember. Children with flat expanses of skin instead of faces, and where they touched you, your flesh decomposed on the bone. A snake covered in barbs that entered in one end and exited the other in a shower of viscera. A whirring crown of sentient thorns that dismembered its victims limb by limb.

  I could tell you about the human guards we put down, blades in their guts or their spines, knives in their eyes, or under their ribs, and into their hearts. About the way a man chokes when blood fills his lungs or clots his airway. About the way piss mixes with blood at a man's last, and everything stinks. About the way some of them wept, pleaded for their mothers or their children or their wives, the sound like a saw on a fiddle, because they knew the last time they'd see them was the last time forever.

  I could tell you about how death isn't a glorious or a clean business, but when it comes down to it, some people need to die in order for you to live. About how no one in a story is an extra, how everyone has a life, and no matter whose is snuffed, you were never the star of their story, just the villain. About the small hours years later, when you wake in the night and they stand by your bed, and you can't sleep again for a long while because you're shaking so hard you worry your heart might burst.

  I could tell you all these things, but I won't. Because this isn't that kind of story.

  ***

  We stood on the last floor, and in the center, Rook. Someone finally raised the alarm, and we could hear the pounding of footsteps as cultist and guard came, eager to kill. Lux laid out on a table against the wall, her insides open to the world. Somehow she’d kept her promise to not burn the city down, despite the cost. I thought of a cottage in the country that would stay empty, of fields of gold that would never know our boots. I thought of a dog that would never be pet, and a laugh that would never leave a throat. Rook held a long silver knife in his hand, the edge stained red, his mask impassive. I looked to Lux, and my heart sent up an ache, a perfect silver note of sorrow. That note turned sour, and rage blossomed in my chest like the spark of a wildfire. I flicked a glance at Cord.

  "Hold the door."

  He nodded and stood before it, blades still slick with the deaths before. I held my own knives akimbo, and Rook watched as I approached.

  "You've chosen poorly, Cord," Oros' voice echoed from behind the mask.

  "He usually does," I said.

  "I usually do," Cord agreed over his shoulder.

  Rook tilted his head like a bird.

  "Hey Cord. This asshole thinks he's a bird."

  "Really? What kind?"

  "Some sort of fuckwarbler, I think."

  Rook feinted, and I stepped back. He tilted his head to the other side as the door burst open. The sounds of battle began, Cord cutting would-be complications down as they tried to enter.

  "You know what we do with birds, Nenn."

  "Yep. Gut 'em, roast 'em, and eat 'em."

  I moved forward, bringing the blades around with a series of quick jabs, forcing Rook back. The sounds of battle ebbed for a behind me as my focus narrowed.

  "You know what I miss, Nenn?" Cord asked.

  "Not having to deal with insane dickbags every weekend?"

  I moved to Rook's right and swept a blade out, watching for him to duck. When he did, I brought the second up and under his mask, cutting it away from him face. It peeled off, along with a line of flesh, and I stepped back in sharp recognition.

  "Holy fucking shitballs," I said. "Ferd?"

  Rook stood before me, unmasked. A ragged scar ran from one side of his neck to the other, a souvenir from our encounter in Tremaire. It made sense why he hadn't used his magic against us since our last encounter. I'd damaged his ability to create the Harrower sound, and he'd broken it completely calling his spider mount.

  "Ooh, nice twist," Cord called out as a second group of cultists approached.

  The former Harrower's face twisted in rage, and he lunged at me, blade out.

  There are moments you have to make a decision. You know the big ones, because time seems to slow, like the universe is giving you a chance. Left or right. Up or down. Life or death. I saw the blade coming for my ribs, and knew that if this went on much longer, I'd likely die of old age before I killed this dickhead. As Cord had taught me over the years, sometimes you have to make the wrong decision for the right outcome. I moved into the blade. I immediately regretted it because holy shit, a knife in the ribs hurts, but it got me close and trapped his weapon, and that was what counted.

  I winced and heard myself cry out, then slammed both my blades into his skull with a crack of bone and a scalding rush of blood. I let the hilts go, and his knife clattered to the floor as it fell from nerveless fingers. Ferd followed, boneless. He hit the stone with the finality of a single drumbeat.

  "Did you get him?" Cord asked.

  I kicked the body. "Yeah."

  "Is he dead for sure this time?"

  I pulled another blade from my tunic and rammed it into his spine. "Extra dead, yeah."

  Cord came to stand beside me. He looked tired, and blood covered him from head to toe.

  "Holy shit," I said.

  "Don't worry. Most of it's mine."

  "That eye didn't do much, did it?"

  "You think I did all that? I'm good, Nenn, but I'm a terrible soldier. That's why I gave it up. I mean, look."

  I saw the gaping hole in his ribs where a blade opened him like a pig for slaughter. He staggered to the window, pushing me along until he'd forced me to the sill. I heard another round of boots coming up the stairs. Cord left a good-sized pile of bodies behind, but it wouldn't slow them for long. He pulled another globe from an inside pocket and grinned.

  "Get the fuck out of here," he said.

  Far below, in a small courtyard, a pool of water shimmered. I turned back.

  "What about you?"

  "We'll be fine. You know how it is. Hard to kill." he paused. "Almost forgot."

  He rummaged around in his tunic, pulling out a small wooden object. I took it, and saw it was a dick-shaped whistle.

  "If you ever need me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, right?"

  "You're the worst."

  "Yeah, but you love me."

  "I do."

  I looked down, at the water far below, and wondered how many bones I'd break. I wondered if my heart would recover. I wondered what would happen if I missed the water, and none of that mattered anyway. Just a splat on the stones some poor pimple-faced kid had to shovel up while puking in the bushes. My hands trembled, and I almost slipped. Cord brought me back to the present.

  "Hey Nenn?"

  "Yeah, Cord?"

  "I still like the Kingkillers."

  "Yeah, me too."

  The din of voices broke into the room, angry cries and threats. Cord chuckled once and gave me a wink, eye glittering, and I felt something in the air, like a powerful gaze turned our way. He shoved me. Not long after, a great explosion came from above, the stones of the tower blasting outward, and I was falling, falling, and then—black.

  I Am Not Putting My Lips On That

  I'd like to say I know how this story ends. I know how that story ends. Rek pulled me from the water. He was terrible about taking orders, and I was thankful for it. Fire gutted the tower, but worse, the loss of half my family gutted me. We spent some time sailing down aimless tributaries while I recovered, but after six weeks of moping about, Rek finally picked a direction and sailed us toward gods knew what, guiding the boat from the river to the sea.

  I'm not sure there's a lesson here. Maybe it's don't steal. Maybe it's don't make friends with strangers in bars. Maybe it's never trust a god. But to be honest, following those rules never made life any more interesting. What did was the little family I'd made what felt like a thousand miles and years ago. We were the worst kind of people. For the best reasons. We understood that, even if no one else did.

  I recalled a conversation Cord and I had that first night away from Midian. I'd asked him how dooming an entire country to a long hard
winter because its ruler was a tyrant made sense in light of Camor’s first rule. He said it was because even if he didn’t wish harm on the Veldt’s people, they failed it as much as Mane had. You didn’t suffer tyrants to place their boot on your neck, to hold you down in the mud. You fought back. Even if the last bit of mud was made from spilled blood, you fought. To do anything less was a disservice to the gift of life given to you.

  He’d said something then, and it stuck with me, lodging in my brain like a knife in the heart. “Love is simple, Nenn. The truth isn’t. Sometimes you have to draw a little blood to wake the dreamer.”

  That was Camor’s second rule. The third? Cord never told me that one. Gods were ineffable, after all.

  When I described that to Cord, he just winked.

  “You’d think that,” he said, and laid on the deck with his hands folded behind his head.

  I felt a bemused expression cross my face and wondered if he knew what that word meant. I decided it didn’t matter, and joined him.

  Whenever I asked Rek about it, he just shrugged and told me that Cord worked in mysterious ways. Which sounds like a great heap of bullshit, but I knew it to be the truth. Wherever the fucker ended up—either as a carpet of meat across Orlecht, a star beside his god, or in some dirty backwater, winding up the locals, I think it didn't matter. Any of those things would have been good enough for him. Any of those things would have bored him, and he would have found a way to make them interesting.

  There's a hole cored in my heart from the loss of Lux, and sometimes I wish I'd had the chance to know her better. We'd had something good, or maybe the start of something good. Maybe when I see her again, in that place beyond the deadlands, we can pick back up, and it won't be so lonely.

  Still, the water rushes against the hull, and the orcas swim beside us. Sometimes they're fucking, sometimes just guiding us. The ocean is big, and the world larger than that. I know there's a plan in mind here, but for once, I wasn't let in on it. Are we ever, though? The best you can do is hope to notice as the universe sets you up, then act like you'd meant for everything to happen the way it did when it does.

  I still wondered what might happen between Oros and Camor. There was history there, but sometimes you don't get all the answers. Maybe it's the universe's way of keeping you on your toes. Maybe that's just how life works out. Shit like that will keep you up at night if you let it.