Sapphire shifted from one foot to the other. She must not have been happy with Spats taking credit for himself.
“Thankfully,” Spats said, “I have a gift for strategy—”
“Strategy?” Cutter leaned forward, his jacket’s brown sleeves on the table. “If it had been up to you, you all would most certainly be dead! All that screaming about cutting people’s feet.” He started to laugh. “The only reason you managed to escape was because one of your people decided to light a fire in the middle of the Maze!”
The others leaned forward in their seats.
I felt a chill. How could he have known Hurricane set the fire? I had one of Avalanche’s white armbands on.
“And he’s the one who done it,” Cutter said, pointing directly at me.
I couldn’t believe it. How did he know I was the one? I could feel Cutter’s gaze boring into the top of my skull like a hot poker. I started running through possible scenarios if they tried to subdue me. Cutter’s falchion was still sitting on the table in front of him, but I could plant a knife in his chest before he had a chance to grab it.
“It’s those eyes. Never seen eyes like that on anyone. Faerie eyes, if you ask me. They reflect the light. I was standing in the building across the street when he set the flame, and even from there, the light reflecting off those eyes was unmistakable.” Cutter sneered. “Now it all makes sense. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why one of my own people would be setting fire to our homes, but now I see that cowardice is how Spats runs his tribe.”
Spats was speechless, probably for the first time in his life.
The others at the table shifted in their seats to get a better look at me.
“Now you tell me,” Cutter said. “What sort of coward sets fire to a building in the Maze in the middle of a summer drought?”
Our fearless chief never said a word. In fact, he was uncharacteristically silent.
“The kind that is trying to keep his tribe from being completely exterminated,” Sapphire said under her breath, but loud enough that everyone in the room heard it.
Cutter hopped to his feet, his chair tipping backwards and landing with a thump on the teal carpet. “How dare you address us without permission!”
Spats’s face had gone from red to purple. He looked like he was about to explode. I only hoped he didn’t do anything stupid, like go for his blade. With his irrational temperament, you never knew. I could sense the movement of the other guards around the table, their hands slowly sliding toward their waists. This was getting out of hand quickly. All I knew was that if this thing turned ugly, Spats was on his own. I was going straight for Red.
Spats sat forward slowly. I readied myself. Here it comes. But instead of letting Cutter have it, he turned in his seat and looked at Sapphire. “Know your place! Keep your mouth shut!”
I blinked. What just happened? Not only did our chief not stick up for his own people, but he actually had the audacity to belittle us for doing what he should have done in the first place. I had half a mind to toss the weasel out the window and see how long it took him to hit the ground.
There was movement to my left. From the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of red heading in my direction. I tempted a peek, but quickly averted when I realized who it was.
I was standing close enough to Sapphire to feel her trembling. Her hand was on the hilt of her sword.
“Look at me, boy,” Red said with that low seductive voice of hers. She took a step closer. “Did you not hear me? I said look this way.”
I figured I had better before Sapphire decided she’d had enough and attacked Red. I raised my head and our eyes met. Red’s lips parted into a smile. “It is you.” She turned to the short, pudgy guard on her left. “Po, look who we have here.”
“That’s him sure enough,” Toothless said as he reached for his sword and growled. I half-expected him to attack, but to his credit, he didn’t draw. By now, both Sapphire and Spats had turned to see what they were talking about. There was a befuddled look on Spats’s face, which was nothing new for him. Sapphire’s eyes were smoldering.
Red took a step back to get a better look at me. “It’s our little tourist from the Lost City. I thought for sure we’d seen the last of you after that embarrassing performance the last time we met.”
I balled my fists, took a deep breath, and tried to count to ten.
“You do have a way of getting around, don’t you? First you try taking on Wildfire, now you’re humiliating Avalanche—”
“Watch your mouth, girl,” Cutter said, in the middle of picking up his chair. “It was Hurricane who was running for their lives, not Avalanche.”
“Yes, but as it’s already been established, it was only because this pretty-eyed tourist set your shorts ablaze.”
“Hah! Just another reason why Hurricane should be punished for all of this,” Cutter said, taking his seat.
Red moved a little closer, staring into my eyes. “Such beautiful eyes. Ayr . . . Ayrion, am I right?”
I didn’t want to respond, but she didn’t exactly leave me with much of a choice, so I nodded.
“I always thought that was a pretty name.” She took a step back. “I have an idea,” she said as she sauntered back around to her seat. “It’s been a while since we’ve had some decent entertainment around here, and since we can’t seem to come to an agreement on who was in the right or who was in the wrong, I vote we settle this in the Pit.”
Sapphire tensed and her fingers found mine.
Red gestured to Cutter. “The best from Avalanche against—” She pointed at me. “—our little tourist over here. The winner determines whose tribe is right.” She reclined in her seat with a wickedly satisfied grin.
Kore straightened the lapel of his green waistcoat and leaned forward. “I like it. This argument will finally be put to rest, and we will have the opportunity to make a little coin on the side with some much needed sport. I second the motion.”
“Aye,” Cutter said as he rubbed his hands together in a greedy sort of way, “and I’ve got just the fighter for the job: Flesh Eater.”
Flesh Eater? What sort of a name was that for a kid? It sounded more like a name given to one of the rabid pigmies in the deep jungles near Cylmar.
“I’ll add my vote,” Noph said, “so long as it allows us to call an end to this meeting. Portabellas are no good cold.”
All eyes were on Spats. I don’t know if they needed a unanimous vote or if it was because half the challenge was put on his tribe, but they seemed to be waiting on him to officially confirm the resolution. Spats finally nodded. He never turned to ask for my opinion, never even hesitated to think it through. He just bobbed his head in silence.
“Well, that’s that,” Red said as she stood from her seat. “Do we call this meeting adjourned?”
The members all agreed with a single “Aye.”
Red and her party left the table and started for the double doors. “By the way,” she said, stopping to turn around. She slowly unbuttoned the top of her shirt and provocatively slid her hand down the middle and pulled out a gold chain. There was something dangling from it.
My eyes widened and I could feel the blood in my veins start to boil. It was my father’s ring.
“Thanks for the jewelry,” she said with a wink. “You definitely know how to treat a girl.” I could hear her laughing all the way out the door.
I started after her but Sapphire pulled me back. “You’ll get your chance soon enough.”
As soon as Red and her entourage had left the Guild, my magic slowly returned. Spats waited for everyone else to leave before finally standing from his seat. His entire body seemed to be shaking as he turned around and looked me in the eyes. “You better be as good as you think you are.” Without saying another word, he turned and left.
Sapphire leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. This time it felt different, more personal. “Don’t worry. You are.”
I was going to be facing someone called F
lesh Eater in someplace called the Pit. I better be.
“The Pit? I leave you alone for one afternoon and the next thing I hear is you’re being sent to the Pit! Sweet spreading fungus! Why is this always happening?” Reevie turned his hard glare on Sapphire. “And you! I thought you had something besides potato mash in that thick skull of yours. How could you have let this happen?”
“I . . . I—” She tugged on her braid.
“You’re cursed!” Reevie said, turning back to me with eyes so bloodshot he looked crazed. He tossed the empty satchel he was holding in the trunk beside his desk and slammed the lid shut. “You have to be. No one is this unlucky.” He picked up a quill and jabbed it in my direction. “Whatever you’ve done, you’d better start asking the Creator for forgiveness and a little common sense and maybe, while you’re at it, a couple more feet in height and a hundred pounds of muscle.” He glanced at Sapphire. “Who’s the challenger?”
She swallowed. “Flesh Eater.”
“Flesh Eater! Oh, hanging toe nails! The Creator hates me.” Reevie threw his arms up in frustration. “I should have left you on the streets, but no, I had to do the right thing and save you.” He finally dropped into his chair and placed two fingers on the side of his neck and started counting. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Who’s this Flesh Eater?” I asked.
Reevie lifted his head. “He’s only the biggest, meanest, ugliest piece of infected scum to ever enter the Pit. No one’s ever beaten him.”
“Why is he called Flesh Eater?” I was hesitant to ask.
Sapphire grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”
“Then what’s the Pit?”
Reevie and Sapphire both exchanged a troubled look before Reevie leaned forward and crossed his arms over the neatly stacked vellum scrolls on his desk. He didn’t seem all that concerned about flattening them. “The Pit is where the Guild holds their games. It’s also where the chiefs send the members of their tribe stupid enough to want to join the Guard.”
Sapphire glared at him but Reevie paid her no mind. “Originally, it was a depository for raw ore. It was eventually swallowed up by Cheapside, so the owners sold it to the Guild and moved north.”
“Where does the Guild get all this gold for repositories, lavish meeting rooms, and dinner parties with stuffed portabellas?”
“Stuffed portabellas? Who said anything about stuffed portabellas?” Reevie looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “And what lavish meeting rooms are you talking about?”
“Haven’t you ever been to the Guild Hall?”
Reevie snorted. “Do I look like someone they’d ever want to take to the Guild?”
He had a point. “You should have seen the place,” I said, describing the building with the aerial crosswalks and the marble floors and walls. Reevie said he knew of it, but he’d never been inside. I told him of the grandeur of the meeting room with its lush furnishings and prearranged trays of drinks and sweets, of the wall of books on the second floor, and the grand window overlooking the city. “How could a bunch of street kids afford such things?” I asked. “I doubt you could pick enough pockets in a lifetime to pay for what I saw up there.”
Reevie sat in silence, absorbing it all. “So what’s all this about stuffed portabellas?”
I rolled my eyes. “Forget the portabellas. I want to know how the Guild is able to rent rooms like that, and purchase warehouses, and wear fancy clothes while we are barely able to feed ourselves.” I looked down at my now scuffed shoes. “Apart from Spats, the three of us are probably the best dressed members of our tribe, and that’s only because some woman gave me a gold piece for saving her child.”
“Ah, and there’s your answer,” Reevie said with a smug look.
Now it was my turn to look at him like he was crazy.
“Favors,” he said. “The Guild, even though looked down on by the aristocracy as nothing more than a nuisance to eradicate, secretly uses our services in exchange for certain favors.”
“Like what? What could a lord or lady possibly need from us that they couldn’t pay anyone else in the city for?”
“Discretion,” Sapphire said, butting into the conversation as she walked over to the examination table and sat down. “They pay for our anonymity, as well as our disposability—”
“Sure,” Reevie said. “The aristocracy are politically motivated. Their currency of choice is secrets. If you want to get ahead of one of your rivals, then you blackmail them. But blackmail requires leverage and that’s where we come in. They hire us to follow their rivals around until we find some dirt on them. Our ability to procure certain items is also of particular value to the upper class.
“In other words, they hire us for spying and thieving.”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but yes,” Sapphire said. “And if we get caught, it can’t get traced back to whoever hired us, ‘cause who would ever believe a street rat?”
I was starting to understand. The picture that Reevie and Sapphire painted was a very corrupt and dangerous one.
“Clearly Hurricane isn’t landing many of those contracts. One look at Spats’s clothing compared to the others and you can tell that we here are seriously dredging the bottom of the barrel. You should have seen the suits that Noph and Kore were wearing, not to mention Red—”
Reevie’s head shot up. “I forgot she’d be there. How did that go?”
“I’m being thrown in the Pit. How do you think it went?”
Reevie grimaced. I fiddled with the blade in my vest. “So why is it that those three tribes are in such better shape than we are?”
“That’s easy,” Sapphire said. “Location. Location is everything. For those of us in the Maze, pickings are pretty slim. The more wealthy districts where the pockets are bulging and the purses carry more than coppers are far away. The other three tribes, except for Avalanche, have been able to establish themselves around the more lucrative picking fields. Wildfire and Rockslide operate out of North Aramoor and Sandstorm out of the east.”
I started to open my mouth but Reevie beat me to it. “The reason no one has managed to set up a territory on the west side, which I’m sure is what you were about to ask, is because it’s too close to the palace. That district not only holds the largest patroller office in Aramoor, but the main branch of the Elondrian Lancer Corps. With our territories being predominantly in the Maze, we don’t exactly attract a lot of those political jobs we were just discussing.”
“Makes sense.”
“Also, we aren’t the only ones holding the short end of the stick,” Reevie said. “Avalanche is even worse off than we are.”
“You wouldn’t know it by the cut of Cutter’s jacket and breeches, not to mention that ridiculous hat.” I pulled out one of the chairs in front of Reevie’s desk, removed the books currently occupying it, and sat down.
“Cutter isn’t known for his generosity. He rules his tribe through fear. Whatever the tribe brings in he deems as his, and only disperses to the members what he believes they need in order to keep them working.”
“And I thought Spats was bad,” I said with a huff. “It’s a wonder anyone stays with him. Why don’t the kids just leave if he’s so terrible?”
Sapphire shared a look with Reevie. “Cutter has a way of making examples out of those who try. It instills fear in the rest.”
I sighed. “I know the type. The only thing they respect is someone bigger and meaner than they are.” I didn’t understand how Spats and Cutter ever came to be chieftains. Both were terrible leaders—though Cutter had Spats beat when it came to nastiness. “What does it take to become the head of a tribe? What makes them so privileged? I mean, Kore I could possibly see. The kid’s bigger than his own guard. I doubt anyone wanted to fight him for the position. And Noph seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. Cutter’s probably the meanest snake in his bunch, and Red, well, what can I say, she’s Red.” Sapphire shot a jealous look my way. “But how in the name of A
ldor did someone like Spats get placed as chief?”
Reevie chuckled but did not sound at all amused. “It was passed on to him. Spats’s older brother, Kerson, was the head of the tribe before being offered a position in the Warrens. Before he left, he handed his title to Spats. No one dared challenge his decision seeing as how he was even bigger than Kore and twice as nasty.” Reevie shrugged. “Who are we to argue? The monarchy has been doing it for thousands of years. The crown is passed from father to son.”
“Or until someone kills the son,” I said.
Reevie and Sapphire both took a moment to ponder my statement.
“So, instead of appointing someone who can actually do the job, we end up with Weasel Face.”
“Shhh,” Sapphire scolded, turning to look at the door. “Keep it down. Someone might hear you.”
“It could have been worse,” Reevie said as he opened one of the scrolls and idly watched it roll back up when he let go. “We could have ended up with someone like Cutter.”
I shuddered at the thought.
No one said anything. I contemplated what it must be like for those living under Cutter’s thumb.
“When’s this fight supposed to take place?” Reevie asked. I looked at Sapphire. I needed to know how much time I had to train.
“There’s no telling.” She hopped down from the table. “Arrangements will have to be made, schedules readjusted, security set up. It’s very difficult—not to mention dangerous—to get all five tribes into the same building without massive casualties.”
“What do you mean all five tribes? I thought this was going to be a simple fight. You know, me versus this Flesh Eater person to determine who gets punished.”
Reevie stood from his seat behind his desk. “You don’t think the Guild is going to go through all the hassle of setting up a challenge for just a single fight, do you? Whenever the Pit is involved, it’s a big deal.”
I was almost afraid to ask. “What are we talking about, ten or fifteen from each tribe in attendance?”
Hurricane Page 13
