by Cory Herndon
The elderly potential victim emerged from a nearby alley, his hooves clopping against the dry stone. The old centaur beggar’s forelimbs creaked as Trijiro stepped like a cautious foal from what had probably been the safest place he could find to sleep that night—outside a livery stocked with riding dromads for rent. Kos could hear the nervous dromads shuffling and whinnying inside, reacting instinctively to the scene outside their stables that they could no doubt hear, if not see.
“Good evening, Officer,” Trijiro chuckled. His voice was as deep and sturdy as his body was ancient and tired.
“Good evening, Chief,” Kos said.
“Don’t call me that. You know full well I was thrown out by my tribe,” Trijiro objected. He might have convinced a Haazda that he was sincere, but Kos had known too many liars. Besides, it wasn’t the first time they’d had this exchange, nor was it the first time Kos had been forced to rescue the old Gruul from thugs.
“And I quit the ’jeks a long time ago. It’s ‘Mr. Kos,’ if it’s anything. What keeps you up this late?”
“These old bones. The ache, it comes and goes—when it pleases, not when I do.” Trijiro winked. “I suspect I’m not the only one feeling the pangs of age this evening, Mr.-not-Officer Kos?”
“No, Trijiro,” Kos said, “you are most certainly not. Saw that little performance, did you?”
“Indeed I did,” Trijiro said. He swung a satchel around his shoulder and flipped open the top, poking a hand inside. “Perhaps I could offer you a genuine tonic of yarbulb extract, with remarkable healing properties? Only two zibs and a real bargain at that.”
Kos raised his hand in objection. “No, Chief. But I can spare a couple of zibs if you need them.” Trijiro, of course, knew that Kos would not accept any medical aid, but the offer of a sale gave him honorable cover to accept charity. Kos placed a pair of coins in the centaur’s open hand, and Trijiro dropped them into the satchel where they clinked against a few others.
Then Kos let the old curiosity finally take control. There was something that had been bothering him ever since he’d left the Imp Wing.
“Trijiro, you didn’t happen to see an odd-looking group come down the thoroughfare, say, maybe an hour ago? Headed toward Pivlic’s place? There would have been a man, a woman, and some thrulls carrying a big, fat fellow on a floating chair. If they came this way, you couldn’t have missed them.”
“I did see an odd-looking group, but you just chased them away.”
“Trijiro …” Kos said.
“Yes, yes, perhaps I did, not-Officer Kos.”
Two more zibs went into the centaur’s satchel, and Kos arched an eyebrow. “Did you say ‘Did not, Officer,’ or ‘Did, not-Officer’?”
“Yes, I saw them,” Trijiro said, his deep voice now a whisper. “Did they murder him?”
“Murder who?”
“The big, fat fellow,” Trijiro said. “He was talking about how the other two would benefit from his death.”
“Wait, the big, fat—the big fellow was alive when you saw them?”
“Most certainly,” Trijiro said, “at least, there were three voices. I never did actually see the big one’s mouth move, but his face was covered in a mask. I assumed the wheezing voice was his.”
A mask. The patriarch had been wearing a mask when Kos had opened the Imp Wing’s doors to the attendant’s face.
“Not-Officer, you seem intrigued,” the centaur said. “Would you like to hear more?”
I am intrigued, Kos thought. But that’s not my job anymore. I work at a place where, on the good days, the patrons beat each other up for fun and, on really good days, the patrons kill and eat each other in the pits. Intrigue was no good for Pivlic’s business, and like it or not the imp was right. Kos did work for him, and frankly the old ’jek was lucky Pivlic had taken him on. You couldn’t eat fame or live under the roof of celebrity.
“Trijiro, if you’re as sharp as I suspect you are, you know the answer to that,” Kos finally said. “But I’m still going to say no. It’s been a long day.”
“Then why did you ask about those hurried, secretive Orzhov travelers?” Trijiro said.
“Because I like you, you old coot, and I thought you should know—that fat bastard was murdered by Gruul. At least, that’s the story the other two gave my boss,” Kos said.
“I would agree that was the most likely thing,” the centaur said, “if not for the fact that I heard a third voice speaking. And it was not thrulls. Your patriarch was not killed by Gruul. He was alive.”
“Not anymore, I’d guess. The point is that however the old guy ended up dead he’s dead now, and the ones who are going to make that news public are saying it’s your people,” Kos said, irritation creeping into his voice. “I know they ‘threw you out,’ but I suspect you still see them from time to time?”
“Beggars passing beggars, yes,” Trijiro said. “It happens. And you believe these new arrivals mean the Utvar Gruul harm?”
“Count on it,” Kos said, turning to go.
“Kos!” the old centaur said, stopping the retired wojek in his tracks with a commanding tone Kos wasn’t sure he liked. He turned back to face Trijiro slowly.
“Yes?”
“From what you tell me, my people may be in danger,” Trijiro said.
“Sounds like it,” Kos said. “That just now sunk in?”
“And yet you go back to work for those that would endanger us,” the centaur said. “Despite the fact that you just saved my life. You make a curious Orzhov, my friend.”
“Look, I warned you,” Kos said, even more irritated now. “Go warn them. Beyond that, it’s not my business and you didn’t hear it from me.” He scowled and added, “And I’m not an Orzhov. I don’t have a guild anymore.”
“But even if this were the work of Gruul, you know, the Utvar Gruul is made up of many tribes, and just because one has committed a crime does not mean all should pay,” Trijiro said. “You, perhaps, could get this through to them. What about justice, Kos? What if they are lying?”
“Everybody lies,” Kos said. “And I don’t do justice anymore. I just don’t like street thugs getting in my way. Good night, Chief.”
After half a minute, Kos heard brisk hoofbeats headed in the opposite direction, toward a road that led into the heart of the Husk.
* * * * *
Crix had suspected the Husk would be an unpleasant place, and she was not disappointed. The long-fallow area had degenerated into something like a landscape instead of a cityscape. It looked dusty, dangerous, and diseased. She had a long time to take in her surroundings while riding, strapped tight as she was to the back of a hulking Gruul that her nose said was human but her eyes told her had to be ogre or troll. The brute’s furry back was making the goblin itch like mad, but there was no way to reach it. Nor did it do any good to try to use the straps against the Gruul as a garrote. Tugging on one arm just made another strap wrench her leg around sideways. She was more or less a goblin backpack.
Crix thanked the magelord that she’d taken an inoculation against the plague. At least her physical proximity to the bandit chief, or whatever he was, wouldn’t pose much risk of the kuga infection. For a time. A week of protection remained at most, she estimated. The lokopede ride itself had taken almost a week, and the shot was good for two.
After the first hour of painful, bouncing travel pinned to this creature, she’d begged to be allowed to walk. The Gruul ignored her. She’d continued for another hour, pleading, trying to reason, appealing to fear, responsibility, to decency. The Gruul spoke, but only to bark orders to others in a guttural tongue that the multilingual goblin could not quite place. All couriers had to be conversant in numerous languages, and she definitely heard some immediately familiar sounds, if not full words, in the orders. Maybe it was some kind of dialect run wild in this wasteland, or a code language perhaps. A few of the words were Ogrish in origin, others Centaur, some definitely a variant of Goblin.
The Gruul hadn’t said much, but what he had said she pic
ked apart and analyzed as the small raiding party made its way through the rusty, ruined hills. It kept her from dwelling on the many gaping sinkholes and jagged edges that lined the path. The Husk was not a place to walk without an able guide, from the look of it. She wondered at first why there were no warnings or signs around the bigger sinkholes, but on second thought it made sense—the Gruul knew right where they were, and the rough and dangerous landscape made an excellent natural defense against intrusion. It was a wonder the road the lokopede had taken existed at all.
The first order the bandit leader barked had been to a small, agile scout who rode a wiry Husk-cat. Crix could make out a word close to Centaur for “tell” or “teach.” There was something like ghrak, the common Goblin word for “prisoner.” That would be her, presumably. Then “ask,” “kill,” and “courier.” Was it possible they recognized her station by the tattoos on her arms?
Crix had just worked out the first order—definitely “Tell the shaman (or perhaps chief) that the prisoner is a courier”—when she heard growling off to the left, and the bandit carrying her froze and raised a fist to bring the entire gang to a stop. Though the straps cut into her wrists and ankles, she wrenched her head and body to the left to get a better look at where the sound had come from—no doubt from somewhere near the seven sets of glowing, canine eyes obscured by thick shadows.
This had gone on long enough. She was entitled to study this strange Utvar Gruul subculture, so long cut off from the rest of Ravnica by the fallow quarantine over the Husk and everything it encircled. She guessed that on foot the Gruul couldn’t possibly be making more than five or six miles every hour. But to study the tribe, they’d have to last long enough to get her to their camp, village, tents, caves, or wherever these primitives called home. She could tolerate a little discomfort, and the show of begging and pleading had been an act, mostly. But if Crix didn’t speak now, a pack of wild somethings was going to strike their flank without warning.
She didn’t dare try the barking Gruul tongue yet, though she was pretty sure she could follow along. Instead she tried common Ravi, which even these isolated barbarians should have been able to comprehend in some small way.
“I think—” she began.
The bandit carrying her whistled, and the pack of hulking, black dog-lizards emerged into the dim moonlight. Their scaly heads were roughly canine in shape, with forward-facing binocular vision—though she suspected things tended to look reddish through their glowing, scarlet orbs—and a slobbering muzzle filled with the teeth of a mammalian predator. From the neck down, they were more reptilian, with squat, wide legs and long, whiplike tails lined with tiny barbed quills. Not counting the tail, each one was easily a horse’s length from snout to hindquarters, and the tail added the body’s length again. Their hides reflected shades of indigo, blue, and green in blotchy patterns, each one marred by a branding scar in the shape of a V.
The reflection of light off the creatures made her wish she’d gone ahead and freed herself. She’d love to get a reading on their auras. Even her unaided eyes could see that they seethed with inner fire that her magelord might well be able to use. Something to catalog for the report. The magelord had given her a fair amount of time to deliver the message, trusting her to get it there, and now she could use those months to better her studies. Surely this would please Zomaj Hauc, who valued information as much as he valued loyalty.
Might as well keep hanging around, Crix mused. Freeing herself would give away much of the extent of her own abilities, and she preferred to let these Gruul know as little as possible. They were fascinating, and she did not fear them exactly. But she definitely did not trust them.
Despite the addition of more than a half-dozen giant lizard-dogs to the raiding party, the group was moving even more quietly now. The beasts were curiously attentive. To Crix’s dismay she felt a trickle of nervous sweat run down her captor’s neck and onto her head. From there it tortured her all the way down to the back of her own neck, and somehow she fought the urge to scream.
When the threat finally came, it came not from the reptilian canines.
A rank, overgrown junkpile to her right stood up and flattened two of the lizard-dogs with one swipe of an arm as big as a lokopede car. The bandit chief turned to face this new danger, which spun the goblin around to face the rest of the gang. Whatever was under the junkpile was now behind her, and all Crix saw were more Gruul. They looked over her shoulder at something casting a shadow over the entire group, blocking what light the predawn sky provided.
The Gruul looked terrified. And considering how terrifying she found the Gruul, Crix considered herself fortunate to be looking the other way.
You demean your family when you negotiate in good faith with the lieutenants of one who dares to oppose you. You demean yourself when you accept the word of lackeys, for it means your family accepts the word of lackeys. If the opposing party does not respect you enough to show you his throat, find it and cut it out.
—Patriarch Xil Xaxosz
(b. 3882, d. 4211 Z.C., Obzedat member 4211-present)
31 PAUJAL 10012 Z.C.
Teysa’s first instinct had been to summon the local guild representatives—or their equivalents—as soon as the business with the mirror had been completed. Melisk had counseled her to wait until at least dawn, and she’d reluctantly agreed. In the few hours before the first light of morning broke through the corroded skyline of the Husk, she set about adjusting Pivlic’s saferoom into an office. The imp’s second saferoom, which he’d foolishly tried to conceal from Melisk, would serve as her living quarters until she had her own residence in place. Two Grugg brothers stood watch outside the door, while Bephel, the smartest and the one who had been given leave to speak, monitored the reception line for assassins and weapons their mistress would want to know about. His replacement head had grown in quickly, though he tended to veer a little to the left when he walked.
She invited the head of the local slave unions first. Not technically a guild, though many of the workers in the area were captured and tamed Gruul, the slave unions had enough pull that their collective owner, a fat half-demon who called himself “Wageboss Aradoz,” had earned a face-to-face with the new ruler of Utvara. For Teysa, he would serve as a test subject for the way she intended to handle the local luminaries, such as they were.
The slave boss leered at Teysa across the table. He favored his human half, though his demonic ancestry was hard to miss. He was of average height and bore a pronounced hump on his right shoulder. Small ram’s horns curled about either ear. Teysa’s carefully chosen attire made him lean to the side and a little bit forward.
Teysa had tuned Pivlic’s saferoom décor enchantments to create a simple wood-paneled office, with a dining table that would do until she had a proper desk. She sat in an approximation of her Uncle’s favorite chair, facing three smaller chairs that were designed with the comfort of the user in mind. Beneath it all, only the table was unaltered by the enchantments, though the office, chairs, and occupants were all real enough. She’d considered something more intimidating, but she decided to use a generally neutral backdrop for these initial meetings. In her practice it had never served her wrong. A neutral background ensured you kept the client focused. This would serve until Teysa had a better handle on how she was going to, well, handle these people.
Wageboss Aradoz barely qualified as “people,” at least in her hastily forming opinion. When his leer drew no response, he leaned further forward to pick at a blister on the inside of his big toe and grab a lingering look at her décolletage. After a few seconds she reached across the table, grabbed him by his left ram’s horn, and twisted. The wageboss squealed a distinctly unramlike squeal.
“Wageboss, we will get along better if you keep your eyes on the future,” Teysa said, then shoved the half-demon back into his seat, driving the horn into Aradoz’s forehead in what she hoped was a moderately painful way. She sat back in her own chair and waved a hand over one shoulder at Melisk
, who stood patiently by. “This is Melisk. Do you like your eyes the way they are? I imagine Melisk could get you an amazing deal on necrotic surgery.”
The half-demon scowled, growled, and massaged his skull.
“I think at the very least you like them in your head and not in tonight’s soup. We’ve hired a local chef. I hear he likes to experiment,” Teysa said.
“All right!” Aradoz said.
“Splendid,” Teysa said. “Now let’s talk about how the unions are going to pay their dues this year. I was thinking we might start with a proper mansion. Have you ever built a seat of power, Wageboss? It’s a bit of an honor, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Mistress—”
“‘Baroness,’ or some other suitable honorific will do, Wageboss, but certainly not that vulgar term,” Teysa said. She snapped her fingers, and Melisk produced a tightly bound roll of parchment that Teysa handed to the sputtering wageboss. He took it and placed his thumb against the seal, but the new baroness raised her hand. “Not yet. I do not have time to hold your hand through this process. Take those blueprints and build it.”
“Where?” the wageboss managed.
Teysa sighed but kept Melisk at bay. She stood and leaned across the table, snatched the roll of blueprints, and snapped the seal with her thumb. She bid Aradoz to pin down the opposite corners and circled a rough area in the southwest quarter of the ovoid Utvara area with her index finger.
“What’s here?” she said.
“That is—Let me see …” A corner of the map curled up when he reached into his pocket and slipped a blue monocle over his eye. Melisk waved a hand, and the entire thing flattened out against the table and glowed faintly.
“Thank you, Melisk,” Teysa said. “That quarter—what’s there?”
“A small beggar’s warren. That’s Gruul country, of course. That there is a zombie colony—Golgari labor mostly. And those are guildless slums,” Aradoz said. He pointed at three distinct blocks of the quarter. “There, there, and there. Well, the slums are pretty much everywhere between those two areas.”
