by Jackson Lear
Runaway said, “Either way, we shouldn’t go anywhere near Kasera’s family.”
“Before we get ahead of ourselves, does Castor have a daughter of the appropriate age?” I asked.
No one knew. It wasn’t the sort of knowledge we kept on hand or had any reason to look into. None of us had ever realistically considered kidnapping someone from the city watch or their family. I mean, all right, we did consider it and occasionally plan it but the Captain never put his best thinkers to the task, it was more about keeping the idiots around us busy with planning instead of brawling. This was new territory for us.
Lieutenant cautioned us against our own hubris. “Before we do this, let’s say the worst happens and we have to kill the kid. That puts us all in danger. The other companies as well. Castor will demand justice and he’ll start with people like us, the ones who can actually kidnap a kid out of their bed without being caught.”
Greaser nodded. “If we have to kill the kid, make no mistake: we’ll need to leave Erast for good.”
“Which makes us look guilty,” said Runaway. “Moving to a new city and trying to start from scratch … we’re looking at an instant turf war. We’re going to lose people.”
“And Castor will hunt us down,” said Greaser. “He could easily get Kasera or Renair to lend him a few hundred troops to box us in.”
“So we don’t kill the kid, no matter what happens,” I said.
“Sometimes though, no matter how you plan it, the wrong person dies,” said Lieutenant. “It could be by accident. Someone might not realize we have the kid with us and they start hurling arrows or magic at us. The kid gets hit, or we leave her behind and one of the watchmen thinks it’s us and isn’t willing to take the chance of being killed himself. Or someone’s been up for three days already and isn’t thinking straight. They push the girl out the window, stab her with a spear, whatever. Through any number of unfortunate ways, the girl dies.” Lieutenant stared me down, reaching deep inside me. “These girls, Kiera and Día, they’re not your daughters but you’re ready to wage a war on whoever took them, no matter what the cost. If we screw this up, if the plan goes anything but perfectly, then one of Castor’s kids might die because of us. You’ve been holding onto this for twenty years, biding your time for revenge. He’ll do nothing less than the same. Even if everything goes perfectly, he’ll still come after you.”
It took some time to absorb the idea. The Captain wasn’t going to look the other way for long and he’d sure as hell figure out who messed with Castor’s family.
“We need to be ready to clean this up,” said Greaser. “If the girl dies, we’ll have no other choice but to kill Castor as well. Maybe even his whole family. Make it look like anything other than a botched kidnapping.”
“I agree,” I said. “We’ll also need someone to look after her.”
“You’re going to stash her somewhere?” asked Greaser.
“We’ll have to. Can’t have one of us standing guard with all of this mess is going on.”
Lieutenant shook his head, biting back on a sigh. “It’s a … not quite a plan … an idea. It’s a decent idea. But it’s too much for one orphan.”
“It’s about a lot of orphans,” I said. “This thing has been going on for a long time. People are targeting kids and killing them. For the first time in decades, one of them might be able to come back.” I looked around them, watching them work through the nightmare that lay ahead of us. Not one of us had an idyllic start in this world. We had all tasted the kiss of starvation, the endless nights of sleeping on steps and in doorways, holding our hand out to some passerby, hoping for a coin or two. We may have hated every other orphan at the time and the sestas who whipped us but they were our people. And one of them needed our help.
“Castor’s going to ask for reinforcements,” said Runaway. “Kasera’s troops will respond first. Renair’s will get here in a day or two.”
“Then we better have this wrapped up before Renair can respond,” I said. “It’s much easier dealing with just the city watch and Kasera’s army without Renair’s and the governor’s being added to the mix.”
Greaser wrapped his gnarled fingers over his hands. “Aside from leaving the note behind, how exactly are we going to frame a group of people we know nothing about?”
“We use the Eyeless Ghost,” I said.
Chapter Seventeen
It was weird thinking that some kid laid their head down that evening, safe and secure with no one plotting their abduction. An hour later, four mercenaries had targeted her for no other reason than because her dad could scare the shit out of people who liked to kidnap girls.
We headed back to the compound to suit up. Runaway stripped the curtains belonging to Shank’s room. “He snores. Fuck him.” Shank was also on night shifts for the rest of the year, forcing him to sleep during the day. Luckily for him the year was over in a couple of days.
Runaway had worked fabric as a kid. I guess most of us did, even if dumping us with spindle duty was not the first option for a boy. Boys tended to sweep the floors of lumber mills and blacksmiths. Those who were good at thanking their masters got to stay there. The ones who weren’t as grateful were moved to the next ideal option, then the next, and so on, until you ended up with a company of mercenaries who had all swept floors, shoveled shit, worked fabric, and had their hands stained beyond repair thanks to dye houses and abattoirs.
Lieutenant got me a pouch of broken glass and a sprig of Childer’s Kiss. We then spent some time squeezing misshapen nails through two short lengths of rope so they could be wrapped around my face.
I wasn’t exactly the perfect image of a blue, eyeless ghost, but with every layer of curtain wrapped around me, distorting my features, I was getting close.
Runaway stepped back, uncertain of his handiwork. “It’s not … great.”
I could just about see through a gap in the curtains around my face.
“I’ve got it,” said Lieutenant. He grabbed a handful of ash and pressed it against my face and body. “Stop moving. And don’t sneeze.”
Easier said than done. There were two ropes full of old nails perilously close to skewering me and this idiot was throwing soot into my face.
“That’s better,” said Runaway.
Lieutenant admired his artistic skills from afar. “At least you’re a patchy and dirty ghost, instead of something that looks like it had been thrown together from rope and curtains. If the kid’s young enough, it’ll work.”
Greaser came in and froze at the door. “Shit, that … that better be you in there.”
Beside him was an eleven year old boy by the name of Qin. “What the fuck is all this?”
“A disguise. How do I look?”
“Smaller than I remember,” said Greaser. He kept a safe distance from me which was a relief as I could barely see him. “You do know the girl is going to be heavily protected, right? And moving in that thing ain’t going to be easy.”
“Not to mention stupid,” said Lieutenant. “All those rusty nails pointing right at your face? One slip because you’re as blind as a badger in heat and you’re going to lose that pretty mug of yours. Might even kill you if it gets infected.”
I was groggy, running on nothing but retribution. Losing my balance was an all too real possibility.
“Just … don’t get those nails near the kid, okay?”
Qin stared at each of us quickly. “You’re going to do what near my face?”
“Not you,” I said.
“He just said the nails were going near the kid. Who else is there?”
“Someone else. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Oh.”
“Do we even know if there is a kid?” asked Runaway.
Greaser nodded. “I hate to say it but it’s our lucky day. Castor has four of them. Three girls, one son. The son is the eldest. Ox reckons he’s about sixteen or so.”
“Ox told you this?” I asked.
“Yeah. Don’t worry, he d
oesn’t know what we’re up to.”
“He will soon enough.”
“Better I asked him then rather than the Lady. He said the three girls are all betrothed but not yet married. Since the oldest one is betrothed to someone serving in Flortium, I’m guessing she still has a ways to go, age wise.”
Betrothed but not yet married. That would put them anywhere between seven and fifteen. It wasn’t ideal information but by the sound of it I had my pick of abductees.
Qin was the best chance we had at keeping our hostage alive. Every so often we needed to hire a kid to help us out. The Lady had a full blown gaggle in the boarding house. Most of them were bastards fathered by our members. Others were beggar children who never made it to an orphanage. The women working under the Lady were discreet and fairly accepting that one of their little darlings had to be used as a diversion from time to time. Just as long as we returned them with as much food and money as they could carry and okayed it with the Lady.
Qin was eleven. We’d used him before but there was no telling how a kid changed as they got older. “So, who am I following?”
“No one.”
“No one? Granddad said I was following someone.”
“That’s what I told the Lady,” said Greaser. “And you’re going to want to lay off calling me ‘granddad’ especially because I know who is your granddad.”
I dropped down in front of Qin, testing him to see how scary I looked in this disguise. “In a few hours you’re going to meet a girl about your age. She’s going to be scared, she’s not going to know where she is or why this is happening to her. You’re going to have to protect her. Keep her safe. But you also need to keep her quiet and in the same room. You’re not a guard though. You’re going to be her friend. Not a friend who’s actually a guard but an actual friend. You’re going to try to escape with her. But you can’t. Not for a few days. You’re going to tell her that you were taken as well. You’re in this together, you and her. As far as you know, a ghost took you. You certainly did not sneak through the city in the middle of the night to help someone do this, okay?”
Qin shrugged. “Will there be food?”
“Some.”
“Bucket?”
“For water, yes.”
“So I’m going to be bored?”
“Yeah. And the best part, you’re going to have to let her get out of her ropes first.”
Qin groaned. “All right, yeah. I get it. What am I supposed to find out from her?”
Once in a while we did use kids like this. Trap them in a room as though they were a prisoner as well and they’ll use the experience as some kind of bonding moment. Only, the kids we used were there for two reasons: to keep an eye on our victim, and to learn all there was about the victim’s family so we could blackmail them later on.
There was no point in telling Qin that he was there purely to keep this girl safe. That would bore the snot out of him. We had to tell him something to make him feel like a part of the team.
“Her dad has a woman on the side,” I said. “We need to know if this girl’s mom knows about it. Do they fight? How happy is their marriage? And we want to know more about the dad’s job in the future. What are his plans? Does he want to stay in Erast or move closer to Ispar?”
Qin peered at me like I had grown a second head. “Ispar?”
“It’s not likely, but if he’s mentioned anything about a promotion we want to know.”
With a quick nod, the kid accepted. Maybe his information would help us later on, maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, he was going to keep an abducted girl as safe as possible.
“Where’s the note?” I asked.
Lieutenant pushed it into my hand.
“All right, take this shit off me. Let’s bring some spare ash. I’ll need some rope and a hook. And something that will keep her asleep.”
Lieutenant caught me from falling on the spot. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe you need to sleep before you go.”
“Can’t risk it.” I stared up at the moon through the window. The more I thought about it, the more ways I could see this plan of mine going horribly wrong.
Chapter Eighteen
We had a fire in Erast earlier that year. It brought down a couple of streets before dying out, leaving the buildings crumbling, scorched, and largely abandoned. You keep track of these things in case you’re ever in the wrong part of town and need somewhere to hide. The problem was, every company like ours knew of these buildings as well.
Runaway took Qin to the burnt-out quarter to look for a basement. It was in the heart of Ispar’s territory. Word had it they had just formed a pact with Vanguard. They were pushing the Peace Keepers out and trying to claim as much of the south as possible. If anyone else came in and caused trouble, Vanguard and Ispar would band together. That made things a little tricky since in a few hours they would each send a messenger to the other asking, ‘Did anyone from here kidnap Castor’s daughter last night? Because no one from our company did.’
They both outnumbered us. None of the companies in the north were likely to put up much resistance if the southerners asked for entry to exact their revenge. I wasn’t sure what the Captain would do if two companies asked for my head. I mean, there was only so much sway Greaser had with him. It would eventually become a simple equation – was it worth risking the entire company to keep me alive?
Lieutenant, Greaser, and I made our way to High Road. We didn’t know exactly where Castor and his family lived but we knew where he worked and figured he wouldn’t live far from there. The clouds were up that night, allowing some of the moonlight in but not much else. That gave us some advantage in moving around. The city watch walked with lanterns. You could see the flecks of light coming at you from a good distance. Normally you could climb up a wall or two but not around High Road. Here the walls were twice as high. You needed a friend to help boost you up. If you were on your own, being chased by the watch, you would just have to run until your lungs burst. Thankfully the watch seemed to abhor physical exertion of any kind and running with a spear while in armored clothing drained them.
The same could not be said for Ispar or Vanguard. They didn’t walk around with lanterns, nor with weapons that would tire them out. They relied on knowing the streets better than the city watch and using their night eyes to their advantage. They knew which roads were curfewed. Sometimes the curfew was put in place by the city watch, sometimes by the company itself as a show of strength. If you stumbled along the wrong road on the wrong night, the penalty was losing everything you carried on you.
We slipped out of Ispar territory in the middle of the city and returned to Vanguard’s land. The roads dipped and rose, snaked and kinked, and every one of us had to keep an eye on the windows above, pausing whenever we came across one without a curtain drawn. We’d wait, watching for smoke being puffed out the window or talking coming from inside.
Then it came; the smell of tobacco. We threw ourselves into the doorway of some merchant’s home, hiding from the dim moonlight overhead.
The smell faded then returned. We waited, curious to see if our presence had been noted.
A doorway ten yards away held our attention. We couldn’t see whoever stood there. They might’ve lived there and came outside for a smoke. They might’ve been the guy on watch for a team robbing the inside of someone’s home.
This time we saw it; a puff of smoke filtering into the road.
Greaser growled into my ear. There was no need to say it out loud since the three of us were thinking the same thing. Whoever was in that doorway belonged to the Vanguard Company. I ran through the most likely of options. It was almost dawn meaning that whoever stood in that doorway was either about to head off to bed after a night of drinking or they were on duty. If they were on duty at that hour then they were either in deep shit with their captain or they were low on the pecking order. One lowly guy against three of us. Manageable.
I glanced back to Greaser
and Lieutenant, cocking an eyebrow. Greaser added a glare to his growl. We still didn’t know where Castor lived. Whoever was in that doorway probably did. Greaser gripped my shoulder tightly, pulling me back.
I conceded. As dumb an idea as it was to kidnap one of Castor’s daughters, it was an even dumber idea to convince one of Vanguard’s watchmen to tell us where Castor lived, especially if convincing him required me to punch him while he was in shouting distance of a hundred thugs who would happily kill us. We pulled back, retreating to a safer area.
“I think we can rule out that street,” said Lieutenant.
Greaser’s growl hadn’t left him. “We can’t stumble through the entire area hoping to find an obvious sign, like, ‘Here lives Castor, the captain of the city watch.’ At this point we might as well swing a dead cat at a front door to help us locate him.”
I agreed. “Let’s split up, each take a couple of streets and see if there are any signs of Castor. At best, we’ll be able to figure out where he doesn’t live.”
They didn’t look all that optimistic. We each went a different way.
I came to a narrow road. A young man, still with a youthful thinness about him, stood in one of the doorways, facing the corner, relieving himself. I wasn’t sure which was more overpowering at that stage, the stench of urine or wine. I checked his sandals. Expensive. No weapons. I checked his belt and his waist. A dagger hung next to his money pouch. Both were clasped at the top. Even from under the faded light of the moon I could tell that his hair had been recently washed. Whatever he did for a living, it paid well and wasn’t physically exerting. Or, more likely, whatever his parents did for a living, it paid well.
I poked him in the back. “Do you have any idea whose house you’re pissing on?”
The guy spluttered, turned, would’ve doused me as well if a combination of me poking him in the chest and a nervous clenching ceased all activity south of his naval. “Wha … wha …?”
