by M. A. Ray
A hand came down on his shoulder, and he damn near stabbed Haakon in the ribs, he was that jumpy.
The sailor caught his knife wrist like it was nothing. “Come on, Yatan,” Haakon said, moving the weapon aside. “This isn’t necessary. We—”
Yatan snapped, “What are you doing here?”
“My job,” Haakon told him, sounding easy, but he gripped Dingus’s shoulder hard.
“You’ve no right to operate in my territory!” Yatan shrilled. Behind Dingus’s back, he heard Kessa whispering, and a rustling in the pines: the Ishlings climbing up.
Haakon made an apathetic gesture. “I’m not earning. My boss sent me to watch over the boy. How was she to know you had a bone to pick with him?”
“She should know better than to send her little messenger boys to dick with my income stream!”
“He’s not acting for Wynn. She sent me as a favor to a friend—but I’ll write her. Maybe she’ll come, or I’ll sit down with you. Let’s clear this up now, between us.” Haakon went into his purse and brought out a handful of tiny coins.
Dingus couldn’t stand it—that all this was happening in front of the kids like he’d said he didn’t want—that he’d been cut out of the discussion, dismissed as “the boy”—that Yatan was getting paid at all. He pulled free of Haakon’s grip and slapped the money out of the sailor’s hand. Silvery disks scattered onto the pine needles, the real thing, shining platinum emperors. “He’s not owed a damn thing!”
Yatan hissed. “I don’t want your cunt boss’s money. I want yours, boy. It’s a matter of principle.”
“Then you should understand why you won’t see shit from me! Even if those kids were making money, it wouldn’t be yours to take! You can’t—”
“I have many fine things that say I most certainly can.”
“No, you can’t!” Dingus yelled. “I won’t let you!” It was hot all of a sudden, so hot, and his feet carried him forward to lean over and roar into Yatan’s wizened face. “They don’t know how to tell you no—so I’ll say it for ’em! You—”
“Hey, fuck off the boss!” said one of the heavies, and made a grab for him. Dingus stepped back quick, into a springy stance, with the knife ready in his hand: blade out, pointing to the ground. Sweet fire raced along his veins from the base of his neck. His muscles screamed for air. His chest worked like a bellows, and there was Yatan with lips peeled back off his teeth.
Dingus lunged. One of the goons loomed up in his way, screaming monkey sounds. He opened the son of a bitch, crotch to sternum, one hard upward slash, and when the blood hit his face, he laughed. Behind him, the low stream of a human voice, angry and biting. He’d deal with it—Yatan first. He jammed the knife down into the next one’s face, once, again. Bones split, and he caught that sweetish brain-fluid smell. Laughing, he flung the knife aside, dug his fingers into the rent, all unheeding the goon’s last twitches.
He flexed, cracking the skull wide, and all the brains spilled out and he laughed, he licked blood off his lips. The smell of old-man piss came to his nose. He felt so fucking good, and, when he pounced and took the next, better still, his whole body singing with the motion. His teeth sank through fur and skin; his mouth filled with hot blood. The Ish writhed and shrieked under him, beating at his head. He tore away the skin, spat, bit deeper. Shivered head to toe with rapture at the taste pulsing over his tongue.
A hand twisted in his hair, pulled him away, up. It didn’t hurt, but he didn’t like being controlled. A hard arm locked around his throat, pressure at the back of his neck. His body bent, and he fought, clawing desperately at the arm. Panic bolted through his brain, smashed against his anger. Bloody flesh under his nails. He thrashed, but the arm held firm, and that man-voice came again, loud. He slammed himself back and back, but then—
Dingus came to with blood in his mouth, half on top of a corpse. He smelled death, but the first thing he saw was Tai, huddled on the ground with his knees up around his ears, and watching.
“Hi, Dingus,” he peeped.
Dingus groaned. He felt like shit, but he pushed himself up on the heels of his hands and sat back on his knees. His shirt stuck to his skin, wet and chilly.
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Haakon raged, a short distance away. Behind, in the camp.
“What could you do about it?” Kessa asked, shaken but reasonable.
“Dammit all to hell! Nothing!” The heavy footfalls came, Haakon pacing a little. “Your brother is a fool! Do you hear me, Dingus?”
But Dingus gave no sign that he’d heard. He laid his hands in his lap, staring at the palms and feeling all sideways, muzzy, fucked up. The kids had seen him—that was all he could think. The kids had seen him lose his mind, and now nothing would ever be the same.
“Your brother is an idiot!” Haakon repeated. “He is fast approaching the end of his road! If he won’t turn aside, all he’ll find is death. It’s too late already, I’m thinking, killing Yatan’s men like that!”
“We don’t have any money.” Kessa’s voice was small and shaky now, like she’d cry, and Dingus’s eyes burned. What had he done? So much he’d put on her. All he’d wanted to do was help. He’d wanted to keep his Oath. More than anything, he’d wanted that, and now everything had come apart in his hands.
He wanted Vandis. Like never before, he wanted Vandis to come and help him, and now—the thought pressed him down into a little ball—he’d never see Vandis again. He’d die here, die failing his Ishlings.
“I know that, girl,” Haakon was saying. “I’ll make him a loan, but you have to convince him to beg Yatan’s forgiveness and for pity’s sake, pay the old nithing!”
“He won’t.”
Even to the cost of my life, Dingus thought.
“Then all of us are as good as dead! Talk to him!”
Silence. Not even the kids stirred, except for Tai, creeping close. Dingus heard the Ishling move, and in a moment, felt a tiny hand’s touch on his shoulder blade. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a shuddering cry. He wrapped his arms over his head.
“Guys, we’re moving,” Kessa said, in a clear voice. “I’ve got something I need to do. When I get back, I want everything ready to go.”
Zeeta said, “Yes, Kessa, yes. We is do that.”
“Good.”
Her steps passed him a moment later and receded off the peninsula. Haakon came close then, and started dragging something away through the needles. A body.
“Time to clean up your mess,” he said, his voice a stinging lash.
“You let him go,” Dingus said dully, and pulled in tighter, ignoring the sounds of Ishlings breaking camp. He could do no more. Tai leaned a warm, furry back against his side, and they were there for a long time.
The Take
Windish
Haakon couldn’t help Dingus. Vandis couldn’t help Dingus. Not even Dingus could—or would—help Dingus. It fell to Kessa to do something about this mess. Dingus was doing something real good, she knew it, something the Lady would be right behind all the way. It was even in the Oath.
Lucky thing, she knew just where to go. This was Treehopper trouble, Captain Dar trouble, partly because Dar was a Hop, and partly because she had a thing for Dingus, which Kessa could see plain even if Dar and Dingus didn’t have a clue between ’em. Dar didn’t turn friendly eyes on Kessa’s brother; those eyes said she wanted to get Dingus alone and pantsless.
Well, it was weird. But Kessa would use it if she could. She strode through the park to Veeler Street, right where it met Koob. The main Hopper station overlooked the crossroads, taking up no fewer than seven trees: a lacework of rope bridges and stacked floors, decks, and chimney-pipes trailing quills of smoke across the sky.
She took the staircase that led to the bottom deck. The steps were built with Ish in mind, and Kessa skipped up three at a time. When she reached the deck, she paused at the top of the stairs to look around. She’d never been up here before. Captain Dar always came over to
the camp, and Kessa didn’t have the first clue where to look for her.
Should’ve thought of that before. Her mouth twisted down as she watched the Treehoppers hurrying, moving back and forth, leading other Ish with manacles on or carrying big armfuls of papers, some with truncheons, some with swords. She’d come here with the idea that once she got here it would be easy: she’d talk to Dar, Dar would help her fix everything, and she’d return to camp accomplished. But it wasn’t going to be that way.
Kessa smoothed her jerkin, squared her shoulders, and marched across the deck to the building in the middle. Hops dodged her, circled her, even shot under her legs a couple of times, but she didn’t stop or break stride until she reached the overhang from the smaller deck above and had to duck her head. She couldn’t stand up straight underneath. Vandis would’ve been able to, but Kessa had to shuffle to the side to keep from scraping her head. To get inside the building she had to bend almost double, and even inside she couldn’t stand up straight. It put an apprehensive flutter in her stomach. Bad start, she thought.
There was a little desk in the front room of the building. An old lady sat behind it in a J-shaped Ish chair, meant for the sitter to straddle. Her crest was done up in sausage curls that snugged across her head. Different-colored cords hung through holes in the ceiling all around her. “May I help you?” she asked, peering at Kessa through tiny spectacles.
“Yes, ma’am, please,” Kessa said, as confidently as she could, given her awkward position against the ceiling. “I’d like to talk to Captain Dar.”
“I see.” The old lady pursed Ish lips. “And what may I tell the captain this is regarding?”
“It’s about my brother. Dingus. He’s in bad trouble, ma’am, with Yatan and all.”
“Mm-hmm, I see.” The lady leaned over and pulled one of the cords, yellow and blue braided together. “I’ll have some help for you in just a moment, miss.”
Kessa waited with cramping shoulders and a crick in her neck, and when finally a Hopper came to fetch her, it wasn’t the one she’d expected. “Where’s Captain Dar?” she asked of the tall Ish woman with brown fur.
“I’m Lieutenant Coo,” the female said. “I’m going to help you. Just come with me now.”
Kessa chewed her lip, but she nodded and followed Lieutenant Coo into the back of the building. The lieutenant ushered her into a tiny room, dim and, she realized when the door shut behind them, windowless. There were three other Hoppers in the shadows thrown by the single candle, and her breath sped. This wasn’t right.
“What happened, sweetheart?” one of them asked.
She tried not to let her voice shake. A little way into her story she didn’t have to try anymore; they were listening to her, at least, they heard what she had to say about Yatan. But at the end of it, by the time she’d explained what Yatan had said and how he was threatening them, there was a silence so deep she could’ve heard a pine needle fall.
“Oh, no, Kessa,” said Lieutenant Coo. Kessa didn’t remember giving her name. “No, no. We can’t have this. Yatan is a fine, upstanding male of Windish, and this slander is unacceptable. We can’t have you running around telling lies.”
“But—”
“I’m afraid we can’t have you running around at all.”
“What?” She backed up, sliding her shoulders along the ceiling to the door. How had she not noticed them throwing the lock? Dingus would have. Her fingers couldn’t even find it. “You can’t do this. I’m telling the truth!”
Three truncheons came off three belts—the lieutenant pulled a sword. Kessa’s scrabbling fingers touched metal. She threw the bolt, burst backward into the corridor, sprawled on her ass. Her breathing sawed in and out, and she scrambled up as far as she could, struggling to gain speed. It wasn’t enough.
She went down yelping under the weight of Ish, the bashing of truncheons on the backs of her legs. “Stop!” She writhed along the floor. Turned out all those pushups were good for something besides swinging her sword; she popped free and shot along the floor, wincing when a sliver jabbed her arm, and when she picked herself up and got the balls of her feet beneath her, she looked right into Dar’s liquid eyes. “Captain Dar! I need help!”
“
“
“
“
“
“But Dingus is in trouble,” Kessa said, turning when Dar prodded her toward the stairs. “What am I supposed to do? Captain Dar, he’s going to—”
“Not here! Listen, I’ll come by tomorrow. That’s my day off.”
“That’s too late!” Kessa cried, but Dar gave her a gentle push.
“Go,” she said. “It’s not safe to talk here. Go.”
Kessa limped down the steps, trying not to cry. Nobody would help—only she was left now. I won’t let him hurt you, she thought at Dingus, and set her jaw. She set off for the park, eyes stinging.
Up on the deck, Dar sought out two she could trust. “
Dar watched the orange blaze of Kessa’s hair until the girl disappeared into the park, then went back into the office. She couldn’t settle to paperwork. Worry for Kessa—for Sir Dingus—gnawed at her insides. But Kaylee and Hoop were steady. If anything went down, she’d know it.
She sighed and pulled a stack of reports in front of her. No use panicking. Raven’s eye had been on Sir Dingus as long as she’d known him. It was probably useless to try to deny a spirit so great, but she’d do the best she could.
Another Letter, Late
the same day
Vandis strode up the stairs to his office, in a better mood than usual these days, even if he had spent the morning down at the Watch house, going around and around about what had happened on the lift—had it been a month already? It seemed cut-and-dried to him, but the Watch was taking plenty of time to be sure of itself. The incident at HQ had been resolved two weeks ago; but people had died on the lift, one of them by Vandis’s own lightning hand, and that complicated things. Menyoral complicated things. They’d sent him away with the same thanks-for-your-time, the same don’t-leave-town, as ever.
He’d had a fruitful dinner with Zoltan in the mess hall just now, though. Vard’s High Priest knew people, the kind Vandis would prefer to contact indirectly. He might’ve asked Wynn for another favor, but he felt a little sick when he thought of what he’d let her do for him, what he’d told her. Together, seated in a small alcove, they had begun on the problem of Lech Valitchka, and Vandis thought they’d made a start on solving it, maybe for good. He wouldn’t get his hopes up, but maybe.
He went inside, checking that his sleeves were still rolled up from dinner. He didn’t want to get ink on another tunic. “Afternoon, Jimmy,” he said, lifting the latch on his door.
“Vandis,” Jimmy said, sounding nothing like Jimmy.
Vandis turned to look and blinked at the miserable expression on his secretary’s wrinkled face. “What’s the matter?”
Jimmy wrung his hands. “Vandis, I’m sorry, but one of your letters fell between my desk and the wall. I’ve only just found it.” He swallowed hard. “It’s from Windish.”
“I’m sure it’s okay,” Vandis said. “How old is the frank?”
“A month.” Jimmy handed over a cheap sheet of paper: pauper’s seal, red wax. It was addressed in Dingus’s untidy scrawl.
A cold heavy something fell into Vandis’s stomach. The frank stamp was the harbormaster’s; the letter would’ve been posted several miles from Tikka’s house, around the same time Vandis had written his own letter to Dingus. He pushed his thumb under the flap and broke the seal on the single sheet.
“Vandis,” the letter said,
I think I’m in over my head. Some shit happened, which is most definitely probably sort of all my fault, and we aren’t staying on Tikka’s land anymore. I know you’re busy and all but I could really use your advice.
–Dingus
He lowered the letter, seeing nothing in front of his eyes, and it slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the carpet. A month! he thought. A month since he wrote this! A goddamned month since—since—
He lifted his head. “Cancel everything.”
“Oh,” Jimmy squeaked, “that bad?”
Vandis’s eyes bulged. Jimmy lunged for the datebook on his desk, and Vandis spun to fling open the office door, seizing his cloak from the peg on the way.
Tell me they’re all right.
They’re doing just as they ought, My own, She snipped. Dingus could use a little guidance from his Master, though, the poor lad. He’s probably thinking you’ve forgotten all about him, and Kessa, too!
You couldn’t have said something? he thought savagely, flicking the latch on the shutters and tossing them wide.
Oh, so it’s Me you’ll hold responsible for your nonsense now? Go on wi’ y’!
He set his foot on the sill, scowling into the snow that flurried in on the breeze. No, but it would’ve been nice if You’d told me they were in trouble. He jumped out the window. Loud noises be damned; he shot up through the clouds with all the speed he could muster, breaking through the invisible barrier like tissue. The pressure around his body couldn’t match the pressure of the fist clamped around his heart.
