A Game of Tsatsun (The Binders Game Book 1)

by Holmberg, D. K.

  I wondered what would have happened had I attempted to grab her and bring her to Orly like he asked. I doubted that I would have gotten all that far. In addition to the two women by the door, there were nearly a dozen others that I’d seen. If they had half of Carth’s talent, then it would be enough to stop me. I might be skilled, but there was only so far that could take me. A surge of numbers could overwhelm any talent I might have.

  Now I crouched in a nearby alley, watching the front of the building. Before finding it the first time, I’d made a point of scouting around the perimeter. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t another way in, but I wondered if I might have been mistaken. The massive underground room hadn’t been a part of this building, but was still somehow connected. There were likely other buildings like that, other places where Carth could simply get in and out. She would have no reason to necessarily come through this door, nothing other than the fact that most of her women seemed to be focused there.

  It made me wonder if maybe there wasn’t something else she might be hiding.

  If it was simply about getting the women out of the city, they wouldn’t need the numbers that they had. Between the healers and the armed women, there had to be over thirty, and that was only what I’d seen. There would be enough sympathizers within the city that she wouldn’t need that many to help, so what else was she not sharing?

  The questions were the reason I remained hidden.

  If this really was about rescue, then I would not do anything to intervene. Orly would have known that, which made it even stranger that he’d asked me to bring Carth to him. The thief-master had hired me before, and each time, I made it clear that I would only take the job under certain conditions. Agreeing that it needed to be done was only one of them.

  The fog lifted somewhat, enough that I could see more clearly down the street. It was still dark out, though with my Sight that didn’t really matter. The only difficulty I had was trying to work through the fog. As I watched, a few others reached the building, each time pausing to knock and then proceeding inside. Almost all were women. A few were boys, all younger like the one whose arm I set. Each made it inside.

  I waited, counting off the minutes, trying not to let my mind wander. That was a trick of this job. There could be times like this when there was nothing but doldrums, nothing but quiet and watching, when I still needed my mind to be sharp. Anything could change in a moment.

  Like now.

  I heard the scraping behind me and spun.

  The alley was long and narrow, no more than the space between two squat brick buildings. Piles of trash were heaped throughout, the rotting stench of it filling my nostrils. Most of the time I ignored it, but there was another odor to it now that I couldn’t quite place. A rat scurried off into the darkness and a cat chased it. Only one cat, something that meant no luck in my homeland.

  Nothing else moved. Had it only been the creatures that I’d heard?

  Doubtful they would even have registered in my mind. I was accustomed to hearing the rats of Eban as they crawled through the darkness. This had been the scuffing of feet, a steady sound that had drawn my attention, almost like something scraping against the brick…

  I glanced up quickly, a pair of darts in my hand. A hooded figure clung to the nearest wall, creeping along it as if held in place. The hood turned toward me, and dark hollows of eyes stared out at me.

  Too late, I flung a dart. It was tipped with nothing more toxic than coxberry. I wouldn’t kill unless it was necessary, and I still had no explanation about what was going on here in Eban. The dart flew true, but the figure jumped from the building to the next, clinging to that as easily as the one before.

  The next dart left my hand while the person was in the air, sinking through their cloak as they hit the brick. Coxberry worked quickly, but it was not instantaneous. The figure pulled themself up along the wall before it kicked in. The arms gave out first. They hung, somehow suspended by their legs and still attached to the building. Then their legs gave out and they dropped in a heap to the ground, letting out a grunt of air as they landed.

  I unsheathed my sword as I approached. I didn’t want to risk anything more, but I needn’t have worried. The coxberry worked as intended, leaving the figure incapacitated.

  Using my toe, I pushed back the hood. I wasn’t certain what I expected to find. The ability to cling to walls was something new, but then again, I had been attacked by a woman stronger than me and possibly Sighted as well, so I wasn’t in much of a position to have any idea about what was really happening.

  A woman with raven-dark hair stared up at me blankly. Not just any woman, but she had the bright red lips and white-painted cheeks of a prostitute. I peeled back her cloak, checking to see what else she might be wearing, searching for signs of whatever device she might have been using to help her stick to the wall, but found nothing.

  I grabbed her and carried her down the alley, away from Carth and her women. It wouldn’t make much sense for Carth to see me attacking one of her women. There was little doubt in my mind that she was one of Carth’s, and I needed to know how she managed to climb the walls. And why she’d been behind me in the first place. Then I would ask what she knew about Carth. Somehow, I would find out why Orly had hired me for this job.

  When I reached the intersecting street, I glanced down. We were in a part of Eban where there would be few patrols, so I didn’t need to risk the city guard coming across me. What I worried about more were men of one of the thief-masters finding us. This area marked a void in the different territories, though if Orly had his way, he would fill that void. If he had his way, he’d assume complete control over the city. In time, I suspected that he would. That didn’t bode well for me. I needed the diversity of potential employers to help ensure I was paid what I needed.

  The street here was nearly empty. A young couple strolled down the street, holding each other’s hands. They made their way to the south, away from me, toward the row of taverns found in this part of the city. Music drifted from the taverns toward me. It was loud and bawdy music, the kind that would be found in the nearby taverns. To the west were the nicer taverns, places where the more profitable merchants visited, where the more reputable visitors stayed. There was no music from those taverns; though I knew musicians played there, they remained more subdued.

  The couple gave me an idea and I took the woman and propped her up, slipping my arm around her waist as I did and forcing her arm around mine. I left the hood of her cloak down, leaving her face exposed. Let us seem like nothing more than another couple out on the street.

  I strained to keep her upright as we walked, trying to hurry as I did. Coxberry would keep her unconscious, but it would not last longer than an hour. Even before that, it would start to wear off, possibly enough for her to cause me trouble. I could always dose her again, but then I’d have to wait for it to clear, wasting another hour, and I had questions that I intended to ask.

  I’d nearly reached my home when she started to stir.

  I felt her body tensing, her arm attempting to twist and writhe free. The coxberry hadn’t lasted nearly as long as I expected, but given what had happened tonight, I shouldn’t have been all that surprised. Her voice recovered a little more slowly and she moaned softly.

  A trio of men passed as we neared a street lamp, and one of them stared at the woman before arching his brow at me. I forced a smirk, doing my best to make it appear that this was my plan. The man turned back to his friends and said something softly to them, before they all started laughing.

  I turned the corner when I sensed something moving behind me.

  Letting the woman drop, I spun. The men stood there, eyes bouncing from me to the woman. The man in the middle—the one who had made eye contact—leered at the woman. There was no doubting his intention with her.

  “Listen, friend, leave the whore and you won’t need any trouble,” the man said.

  I grunted, glancing down at her. She was moving more than befor
e. Soon the coxberry would be cleared from her system, enough that I needed to act quickly and get her either redosed or bound and to my house, where I could ask her the questions that I had. I’d start with how she managed to cling to the building, but there were other questions, ones about Carth and the other women.

  “Friend?” I asked. “If you were a friend, you would leave the woman alone.”

  Two of the men laughed. The center man pulled out a sword that I hadn’t seen. I’d been too distracted by the woman, trying to get her where I’d be able to get answers, that I hadn’t paid attention as I should. The other men both had long, curved knives.

  That they carried weapons told me that they probably worked for one of the thief-masters. Few went armed in the city openly unless they were tied to the thief-masters. And I doubted they were members of the city guard. None had the uniform and the sword was too ornate, the copper emblem on the hilt more than the simple steel that the city guard carried.

  I sighed and unsheathed my sword. As I did, I flipped another coxberry dart at the woman, not bothering to see if it struck. I didn’t have the time.

  The nearest man slashed at me with his long knife and I countered with a twist of my sword. He danced back, moving with a practiced grace. The other man darted forward, angling toward me with his knife. I blocked this as well.

  The man with the sword stood at the head of the triangle they formed around me. He laughed softly. “Three against one? You would have been smarter to have left the whore,” he said.

  “And you would be smarter not to call her a whore,” I answered.

  The men glanced at each other and laughed.

  “Besides, I think the odds still favor me,” I told him.

  The man to my left barked out laughter. “You seem to know your blade, friend, but you’re outnumbered here. And there isn’t anyone better with a sword than Natash. And at ten silvers each, that whore is valuable.”

  Ten silvers?

  I didn’t have time to consider. The man holding his sword spun, letting the blade whistle through the air. The name tugged on a memory—I’d heard of Natash before—but I didn’t have the time to recall where.

  The two men with knives suddenly sprang forward at the same time.

  I twisted, slipping back and away from them, stepping away from Natash. With the way that they attacked, it was clear that this was not going to end without someone dead.

  One of the men trapped my sword with his knife and twisted. The other lunged toward me. I dropped the sword.

  Someone laughed.

  My hands reached into the pockets of my cloak and I flicked a pair of darts at the two men with knives. This close, there was little way that I would miss. Both darts flew true, one sinking into the man’s throat, paralyzing him instantly with terad, and the other catching the second man in the shoulder. Both fell to the ground.

  Natash stared at me and glanced at his fallen friends. He took a step back, swinging his sword as if it might stop me from flinging a dart his way. He might stop one, but I doubted he was fast enough to stop a second.

  “What will it be, Natash?” I asked. “Ten silvers worth your life?”

  He looked past me, a smirk coming to his face, and then turned and darted down the street.

  I didn’t bother chasing. Instead, I grabbed my sword off the ground and sheathed it, glancing around as I did. The two fallen men would attract attention, and more than I wanted. If I left the darts plunged in them, then there would be little question in certain crowds what had happened. Besides, the darts could be reused.

  I plucked the dart from the man’s neck and the other from the other’s chest. Then I turned, looking for the woman.

  Given where I ended up after confronting the attackers, I should have been no more than a few feet from her. Now that I searched, and found nothing but a dart stuck into the hard-packed dirt road, I realized why Natash had smirked at me before running: the woman was gone.

  Chapter 4

  Orly didn’t bother to hide. Those who searched for him, those who made the mistake of thinking they could barrel in and reach him, knew exactly where to find him. In that, Orly was unlike any of the other thief-masters. Before consolidating his power, he had kept a true underground, a place far beneath the city using a maze of pathways that helped provide layers of protection, but now he operated more openly.

  Part of that came from the near complete freedom he now experienced, the lack of fear that another would rise up and oppose him. There were still other thief-masters in the city—Orly hadn’t managed to completely eliminate the others—but if he was able to accomplish what he was working toward, he eventually would lead the underground.

  The other reason Orly didn’t necessarily fear making his location known was the hidden army stationed along the street, hidden from most. With my Sight, I saw at least two dozen men, though I suspected there were more.

  The bright red door looked like any of the others along the street, at least in the daylight. At night, darkness sent shadows streaking across it, with only my Sight able to peer past it. The shuttered window next to the door had a pair of eyes staring out. I imagined a crossbow aimed at me as well.

  I didn’t even need to knock. The door came open and a tall, muscular man appeared. Tattoos wrapped around his neck, working up to the top of his shaved head. He carried a loop of chain at his waist and a long sword strapped to his back. I’d seen him before.

  “Rolf,” I said.

  The large man grunted. He might be as muscular as a smith, and tall for Eban, but he was still much shorter than me, forcing him to look up. Like many, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Rolf motioned to my sword and I unbuckled it, tilting it against the wall. Orly and his men had learned not to touch my pouch. I might not survive the attempt, but neither would they. The contents of the pouch were valuable, more than simply the supplies. The darts took time to make, but they were easily replaced. The whole narcass leaves were another story. Fresh narcass could heal almost anything. While what I possessed might not be fresh, at least they gave me a chance if I was poisoned.

  “I presume he’s here,” I said.

  Rolf motioned and started down the hall.

  The outer room was simple. A few chairs, a porcelain pot with swords stuffed in it, almost as if it was a collection from those Orly had killed, and a lantern set atop a bench flickering with a smoky light. I didn’t need the lantern, but Rolf would.

  He led me into a hall and then down a long stair. I’d been to Orly’s place a few times, but had never been brought to the lower level. I wondered if he was unhappy that I hadn’t managed to capture Carth quite yet. That was fine with me; I was unhappy that he’d lied about her.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a simple stout oak door. Rolf rapped on it with a solid thud and it came open. Another pair of guards, each carrying a sword, stood on the other side. Even out in the open, Orly still took his security seriously. Then again, the Great Watcher knew he could afford to pay.

  Orly sat in a chair facing the large stone fireplace set along the back wall. It glowed softly, giving the room its only light. A smoky haze hung in the air, probably only visible to me.

  He glanced over at me with a weathered face, flat grey eyes attempting to intimidate. It had not worked before and would not now. He wore a simple dark jacket and pants. His short-cropped hair was peppered with white but his wiry frame remained lithe.

  The office was well appointed, not surprising given Orly’s wealth. Shelves covered the walls, and a few items had been shoved onto them, most seeming little more than decorative. A thick rug, woven with intricate patterns, covered the ground.

  “Galen. You’ve come alone,” he said. Orly had a rough voice, one that sounded like he’d been yelling. He didn’t speak loudly. Usually, he had no need.

  I pulled the chair across from him and sat, making a point of meeting his eyes. “Tell me about Carth,” I said. I didn’t want to waste time, not when it came to Orly.

  He glanced up
at Rolf and waved a hand, dismissing him to return upstairs. The two guards remained, standing on either side of the door. I could probably take both of them and still manage to kill Orly, but I doubted that I would make it beyond the front door if I did. There would be something in place to prevent me from reaching the door. Maybe some signal that would tell those on the street to prevent me from getting away. I wasn’t equipped or interested in fighting my way out.

  When Rolf had left, Orly turned back to face me and casually set aside a stack of papers he’d been reading. I glanced at them but couldn’t make out the lettering. Some sort of code? With Orly, anything was possible. You don’t get to his position without taking risks and causing a little harm, and he wouldn’t leave anything written on paper for anyone to find.

  “Have you found Carth? The price is—”

  I flicked my gaze over to the two guards before cutting him off. “You know what you’ve asked of me?”

  Orly chuckled softly. “You need to ask?”

  “I do.”

  His mouth tightened into a thin line. “I always know.”

  “Then why do you want her?”

  A dark smile pulled at his lips. “So you know, then?”

  “For me to do this job, you knew the requirements. You know how I operate.”

  He shrugged. “I know you hold the courtesans in higher esteem than most. I figured you would be the best equipped to handle this job. It’s one that requires a certain delicacy that others can’t match.”

  “I’m not going to bring courtesans to you for you to kill,” I said, thinking of what I’d heard. Who would offer ten silvers for a simple prostitute? Not Orly; he was far too careful with his coin.

  Orly’s smile faded. “You took the job.”