The Ways of Khrem

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  He had black hair and blacker eyes, and currently dressed himself like some moderately successful merchant from the east. Even his accent sounded perfect as he directed the tavern keeper to see we weren’t to be disturbed.

  What I had been to thieves, this man was to assassins.

  If you had a whole lot of money, the very top connections, and you absolutely wanted to be sure that somebody ended up dead, he made all others pale in comparison. The denizens of my old world knew him by a score of names, with a significant portion not sure if he were one man or a group. Many without the right connections didn’t believe he even existed, thinking him to be some kind of storied devil invoked to frighten those lower on the criminal scale.

  “Cargill, you look like hell,” he said sociably. “The bookseller business must be tougher than I thought.”

  I must bring out the comedian in everybody.

  “It’s got its moments,” I grunted. “You’ve done well for yourself. Ever think about retiring?”

  “Judging by the look of you,” he drawled with a grin, “I’ll just keep doing what I do. It’s safer.”

  I chuckled, then winced and grabbed my shoulder. He was up and behind me immediately, probing my shoulder.

  I fought back the instinct to reach for my knife.

  “Well, it’s not popped out of its joint,” he reported as he administered excruciating pain, “but it must have come close. Judging by the swelling, you have strained the very hells out of it.”

  He held up my arm and stared at the perfect hand-shaped bruise near my elbow and then looked askance at me.

  “Have you ever considered a career as an apothecary?” I grumbled. “You’ve got the talent, and the same mastery of inflicting pain.”

  “It’s a related profession, but I have my principles. You ought to put a steak on that eye. Speaking of which, does your current condition have something to do with our hasty meeting tonight? You know, it’s been a while.”

  Nearly a year.

  I winced and reached into my money pouch. My body hurt all over. Pulling out a half penny piece, I laid it on the table.

  His manner turned professional, and he seated himself across the table from me again.

  “What is the name?”

  Six years ago, I had been commissioned to steal a very special dagger from a minor nobleman’s private museum. I had charged him a half penny for the job, claiming it as my special rate for fellow elite professionals.

  “Chappett the Toymaker. The one in Stoneforest Market.”

  Chappett was now a dead man—he just didn’t know it, yet.

  “But,” I continued, “I’m hiring you as a contingency only, in case I don’t get him myself. If I fail, there will be some parchments in an oilcloth bag. You will find it under the small statue of a bog sprite in my garden. It will be important information you will need to know before going after him.”

  He looked at me with mild surprise. Leaning forward, he lowered his voice.

  “You are going to hunt down and kill a man?”

  “I’ve killed before. You know that.”

  “Yes,” he agreed with a shrug, “but that was when your back was against the wall. When you had no choice and had to act in an instant. Trust me, this is different. Planning and executing an assassination requires a whole different type of mindset than fighting for your life, Cargill. No offense, but you have never been the type who would be very good at that.”

  I thought I had been doing a rather good job of it tonight…

  …at least until I got to the whole getting beat up by a naked woman part.

  “Well, this time I’m going to be good at it.”

  He looked across the small table at me with curiosity, then reached out and pulled the coin toward him.

  “So,” he asked, “does this fall under ‘none of my business’, or can I ask why you have suddenly committed yourself to the annihilation of this old toymaker?”

  Now came the moment I had been dreading. I debated whether or not to tell him for a second, and then decided on the truth. He had a right to know.

  I hoped it wouldn’t backfire on me.

  “I discovered,” I whispered, leaning forward and looking him in the eyes, “beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he is the Cordwood Killer.”

  For a moment, he looked at me as if judging my seriousness, then those cool black eyes went colder than the bleakest wastelands of the blackest hells. He pushed the half penny back across the table to me.

  “No charge,” he whispered back savagely. “And you know that. Just tell me what I need to know now, and he won’t see the sun rise.”

  He started to stand.

  “Keris, no!” I whispered fiercely

  “She was one of us,” he hissed back. “She was one of us! You think I didn’t love her too?”

  I caught his arm and urged him back to his seat.

  “I know that,” I replied, “and as unbelievable as this sounds, she may still need your help—especially if I fail. But you have to let me try first. I’m going to try again tomorrow night. I stole some things that are going to make him very nervous, so he may not be in town a whole lot longer, and it’s important that I do this tomorrow night, anyway. You have the resources to go after him if he leaves, and I don’t. I have to make my move now.”

  “Then let me help you.”

  “That’s not a good idea. Over the past couple of months, I’ve gotten into some entanglements that would be better for you to stay far away from. And the plan I’m putting together could involve those said entanglements. What’s important is that you be around to go after him if I don’t succeed. Not just for me, but maybe for Camber, too.”

  He stared at me a moment, then sat back down.

  “Okay, fair enough,” he relented. “I’ll stay back and let you do this your way, on one condition…”

  “And that is?”

  “You sit here and tell me everything that has happened, and exactly what is going on—and that includes whatever theories you have.”

  He motioned to the tavern keeper and ordered two full beef dinners with onions, and a couple of spiced klavets. He then leaned back, folded his arms, and looked at me expectantly.

  I was in no position to refuse, but at least I knew he would keep his word and hang back until I had the opportunity to follow through with my vengeance.

  I also knew that if I survived this, he would never let me live down my encounter with Nocce.

  Chapter Nine

  “I am now as an arrow, fired by grief and righteous rage, and aimed at this very moment.” — Couldreck’s Song of the Assassin

  When we entered Stoneforest Square in the stolen coach the next evening, I was still working on the best way for the three of us to quickly storm the toymaker’s shop and grab Chappett.

  Keris had directed me to two young freelance thugs, Pollic and Tembol, who were working to establish a reputation in order to join one of the larger gangs. Keris had used them before and assured me they were competent and followed orders. And best of all, Pollic could drive a coach.

  I had told them we were going to do a basic smash and grab style kidnapping.

  They would enter the store, like any customer, and grab the toymaker when he came up to serve them. They would throw him into the coach with me, deliver us to a specific place, and then they would dump us and leave. This would be basic stuff to them. The two of them had merely nodded when I warned them about his “female bodyguard”, Nocce. There were none of the expected snorts or derisive rolls of eyes at the thought of a threat from that quarter. If they were ordered to be careful of Nocce, they would be careful of Nocce.

  This boded well for their future.

  Competent thugs are a rarity, and ones that actually listen are worth their weight in gold. If one of them had been able to cook, Grabel would have been out of a job.

  Pollic said he knew the way to Candlewalk Lane, and an alternative route for arriving at the destination.

  As it turned ou
t, word arrived that Candlewalk Lane had been closed for the evening by the City Watch. Captain Drayton was serious about preventing any further deaths at the hands of Maddy.

  After putting our heads together for a moment, we worked out a way to get where we wanted to go. Now it would be just a matter of waiting until the best opportunity presented itself.

  There was a knock, and a little window in the front of the cab slid open.

  “Mr. Chance,” Tembol said, “that toymaker we were supposed to break in and grab…well, he just left his shop and it looks like he’s walking across the market to the pub on the other corner. Truth is, he’s alone, and it doesn’t look like he’s expecting trouble.

  It just couldn’t be this easy.

  I stuck my head out the window and looked for myself.

  Sure enough, Chappett limped his way down the lantern-lit road between the shops and first line of columns, about a third of the way toward the The Gilded Sparrow. Nocce was nowhere to be seen, but since he had left the shop door opened, she must be running the store. This meant my worries about him leaving town had been unfounded. He had misunderstood the situation.

  He thought last night’s escapades had been a robbery, not an attempt on his life. Considering I had only managed to complete the part of making it look like a robbery, and had not even gotten a step up the stairs toward him, I could see how he had made such an error.

  “Mr. Chance?” Tembol continued, “We could time it, grab him when he gets close to that last column, and then be lined up to make a straight run out the square if you want to do it that way. We would be halfway down Rugbarker Street inside of a minute. It’s your call.”

  I looked this gift horse long and hard in the mouth, but couldn’t find a flaw. If the situation was what it appeared, then my odds of surviving this night had improved. Time was flying, and a decision needed to be made.

  “Get him,” I ordered.

  The little window slid shut, and I felt the coach start forward.

  I pulled a pair of iron thumb shackles out of my pocket. They went on a peg beside the small enclosed candle alighting the interior of the coach.

  The coach started to pick up speed, and knowing the moment approached, I slipped on my tight leather gloves and clenched my fists. Then, with my eyes shut tightly, I summoned whatever image of Camber I could muster, anything to remind myself of what this was all about, and harden my resolve.

  Oddly, the picture that appeared was of her much younger than she had been at the time of her death, maybe fourteen. She was crouched by a fire in a cellar, along with Allurd and Delly, looking up at Keris and I as we came down the stairs with whatever we had scrounged up for the day. It had been a lean time that winter. She had her thick mane of hair tied back with a scarf and her eyes were huge in her thin face. Delly had gotten up to embrace Keris, and Allurd had put another plank on the fire to help drive out the cold we had let in.

  I don’t remember much else of that scene, just her looking up at us and evaluating how to divvy up the portions for what was left of our little tribe. There were only five of us by then, less than half of our original number. Sometimes she went out with us and sometimes she stayed behind. She had always been our lynchpin… and yet, she had also counted on us.

  Now the time had come to stop letting her down in one small, final, and far too late way.

  I felt the coach slow and the door flew open.

  With a yell, the toymaker landed on the floor at my feet. In an instant, I had a knee in his back and a knife at his throat. The coach picked up speed again rapidly, almost tipping on to two wheels as it went around the last column of the market and charged toward Rugbarker Street.

  The toymaker had quit resisting when he became aware of the knife.

  With the thumb shackles in easy reach, it posed no problem to pull his arms behind him and have his thumbs cuffed within moments. Once I had him securely restrained, I sat him up and slammed him into the seat of the coach opposite me. Then I held up one of the smaller portrait sketches he had done of Camber.

  “Who was she?” I demanded.

  “What?” he stammered. “I don’t understand!”

  I hit him with the best right cross I could muster in that enclosed space.

  With the coach moving rapidly, moving was a little precarious. Hauling him back to a seated position, I put the picture in front of him again.

  “Who was she?” I repeated more forcefully.

  “Ah…err…she was Midnight Adell!”

  I hit him again.

  “Who was she?” I shouted.

  “I don’t know!” he babbled. “She was just some whore who had the right qualities! You already stole the diagrams, what do you need me for?”

  The next three punches were pure pleasure. I was cocking back for number four when the little door between me and driver slid open.

  “Mr. Chance,” Tembol called, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but way back behind us there is a woman chasing us…on foot.”

  Nocce.

  “Tembol,” I said, “tell Pollic he needs to run like that’s all the devils of the purple hells on our heels. We need to get as far ahead of her as we can or none of us are going to get out of this alive. Do you understand?”

  He must have, because he slid the door shut and I felt the coach lurch as the horses thundered down the street. Shouts and curses faded behind us, as Pollic must have been doing some creative driving to get us down the street this fast. It was night, but the streets weren’t empty.

  Suddenly, a loud crash split the air and the coach jolted as if it had been rammed from behind.

  I pitched forward, almost on top of Chappett. The candle guttered for an instant, and almost went out. The coach rocked hard for a few seconds, making it difficult to regain my seat. When I did, I struggled for a moment with the little sliding door before getting it open.

  “What in all the hells was that?!” I yelled out to the two men in front.

  “I know this sounds even crazier, Mr. Chance,” Tembol yelled back, “but I think she just threw a barrel at us!”

  “Then I think we’d better go even faster!” I shouted. I closed the little door again. Amazingly, the coach accelerated as Pollic apparently found a way to get even more speed out of the horse.

  “She’s going to kill you,” I heard Chappett gasp from the floor of the coach. “No matter where you take me, she is going to find us. And when she does, she is going to rip out your organs, one at a time, and show them to you as you die.”

  I grabbed the toymaker and pulled him face-to face-with me.

  “Just so you don’t get any false hopes,” I growled “if she catches us, cutting your throat will be my first move before facing her.”

  The coach tilted wildly again as it went around another corner at breakneck speed.

  Pollic had obviously missed his calling—he would have been great at the chariot and coach races at the coliseum. The screams and sounds of pottery breaking told me we were at the small, open air ceramic market on the corner of Potter’s Lane and Old Nur March. We were getting closer to our destination. After the lights of the market faded behind, the window of the coach went black with night again.

  Falling back onto all four wheels, the coach shot down the Old Nur March toward the river and the Belltide Bridge.

  Regaining my balance, I pushed Chappett back against his seat and held up the little portrait again. He cowered as best he could with his hands restrained behind him when I raised my fist again.

  Time to get back on subject.

  “Her name was Camber,” I hissed, “and she had a life, and a future, and friends…and worst of all for you, she had me.”

  I lost his garbled reply as the coach rattled violently down the columned tunnel of the Belltide Bridge. A few fading curses and shouts revealed the street traffic had already gotten light enough that pedestrians were walking on the lower level, in the main road of the bridge. The little door to the driver opened again and Tembol yelled back t
hat we were minutes from our destination.

  “You got my stuff ready up there?” I yelled.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Chance,” came the prompt reply. “I’ll carry it to the warehouse door while you get your man there, and then hand it to you once you get the door open.”

  “Any sign of pursuit behind us, Tembol?”

  “No, sir,” came the reply. “That woman was running hard, and damn fast, but we left her behind. We lost her, Mr. Chance.”

  I didn’t believe that was true for a minute.

  “Okay, but I want to do this drop off quickly, and then you two get out of here. Understand?”

  The coach took a sharp turn again, as Pollic continued his frantic pace through the dark streets of Khrem. He must have had the eyes of a cat, because for most of the trip, only blackness showed through the window of the coach.

  The coach whipped around another corner and then immediately turned back the other way and clattered to a stop. I kicked the door open and grabbed the toymaker. Snatching him by the collar, I drug him out of the carriage door and into the darkened courtyard. We headed toward a dark alleyway Tembol had already entered with a lit lantern. Following Tembol into the alleyway, I saw him up ahead, fumbling with the lock of a reinforced door, the lantern at his feet.

  We didn’t have time.

  “Tembol,” I hissed, “I got it. You hold this guy.”

  Pushing the toymaker in the direction of the young thug, I whipped out my picks and went to work on the lock. Tembol caught Chappet and held him with practiced ease.

  “This is a Fabog Lock,” I told him. “The third tumbler always sticks.”

  Ten seconds later, I pulled open the door.

  With a low whistle of admiration for my lock picking skills, Tembol unslung the heavy crossbow he had over his shoulder and passed it to me. I checked the bolt and catch, and then draped it over my own shoulder. Setting the lantern inside the door, I then grabbed the toymaker and pushed him to the floor inside. Tembol watched with professional interest as I knotted a short cord through a side ring on the thumb shackles, and then hauled Chappett to his feet.