131 Days [Book 2]_House of Pain

by Keith C. Blackmore

  “She’ll be back,” Targus declared with a confident nod.

  “It’s her job to be back.”

  “No, I know, but she’ll be back anyway. She liked me.”

  “Ah yes,” Halm agreed. “I see her talking to her friends about you right now.”

  Targus waved a hand at three ladies, who all turned away. “Agh, a man needs his lad to be dipped in gold in this place.”

  He reached for a new pitcher and looked puzzled when he realized he still had his mug in hand. Halm chuckled again. It was fast approaching time to hold onto drinks with both hands. The women serving the crowds were attractive, and one in particular caught Halm’s eye, a fair server with her dark hair tied back in a familiar knot. Miki. He blinked, disappointment suddenly burning his insides. The woman wasn’t her.

  “Not the prettiest about,” Targus commented, focusing on the center of Halm’s attention. “But then again, neither are you.”

  “You get braver with each mug,” Halm said with a friendly frown, absorbing the not-so-friendly jab.

  “So who is she?”

  “Her? I don’t know. But she reminds me of another woman. Outside of Sunja.”

  “A wife?”

  That startled the Zhiberian. “Lords above, no. Not that. I don’t believe I’m the marrying type.”

  “Why?”

  Halm glared questioningly at his drinking companion but then saw no harm in answering and palm-wiped his brow. “No. Not for me. My hide’s too unfit for a wife.”

  “But it’s fine for the Pit?”

  “For now, it is.”

  “You can’t keep fighting forever.”

  Halm chuckled. “None of us can.”

  Targus scoffed at that and took a steadying breath. “I fully expect to perish in the Pit. If not, I’m still young. If I’m not pressed into the defense of the city, and by Seddon’s blessing survive the games, I’ll leave this place and travel east. Or… south. One of those directions. You, however, how many years you have left in you for this?”

  Halm scratched at an ear. “Not long. But I have plans.”

  Targus scoffed again, spraying flecks of beer. “What?”

  “Some lads and I have just started our own house,” Halm said, the drink softening his tolerance for such a crude reaction.

  “Free Trained?”

  “Aye that.”

  “The other houses will punish you for that, you know. Even I know that.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Targus shook his head and grinned, swaying in his seat. “You’re different, Zhiberian. I’ll say that… that for you. You’re different.”

  “My friends say the same thing.”

  “Make many of them here?”

  Halm shrugged. “I have, actually, which saddens me. All of them are sliced to bits. Either in the Pit or out of it. Harsh business, lad. Harsh.”

  “Lesson to be learned there.”

  “Aye that.” Halm snickered. “Don’t make any friends of gladiators while the games are in session.”

  Targus didn’t join his laughter but rather regarded him oddly.

  Drunk, Halm continued, his ugly smile beaming. “You paid heed to that bit of advice. Keep to yourself while in the games. That way, you’ll never have to meet one on the sands. And there’ll be no hesitation if you have to put four hands of steel into him. ”

  “Like you’ve done?”

  “Like I’ve done,” Halm nodded, the room beginning to spin. “Only I fought a man and won a friend. Unfit, eh?”

  Targus’s mouth hung open in a drooling gash, but he didn’t respond to that. His beady eyes focused unsteadily on Halm. Then Targus grasped his pitcher and chugged it down, the apple of his throat working furiously. When he finished, he slammed it down hard enough to draw the attention of those nearby and thrust out his fist. Halm reluctantly pressed his own into it. Targus shoved it back hard and smiled with drunken superiority.

  “How’s that for brave?” the Sunjan slurred and precariously managed to stand, leaving Halm momentarily speechless.

  “I’m off, then,” Targus announced and slapped Halm on the shoulder as he walked by. “Luck to you, young man. You and your house. Luck to you all.”

  Targus staggered away, leaving Halm still feeling the sting on his shoulder. He didn’t like the Sunjan’s last few remarks, feeling them too personal for someone he’d only just met, despite his resemblance to Pig Knot. In the end, Halm shook his head and finished his beer. The alcohol hadn’t worked its spell entirely over him just yet, and if he saw Targus again, he wouldn’t be so dull as to react to a strong push of the fist. Or so he told himself.

  Right then, he felt like sleeping.

  The bench he’d been sitting on fell over as he stood, and he awkwardly smiled his apologies at the patrons nearby. Beer. More like sorcerous piss. Still, he enjoyed its magic far too much to give it up. Those and other thoughts swirled in his mind as he walked to the bar and got his key from a busy barkeep.

  On his way to the stairs, the server with her dark hair tied back caught his eye. This time, she felt the weight of his stare and caught him with a look of her own. Halm blinked and smiled, keeping his teeth hidden with his lips, and gave a nod.

  And to his surprise, she nodded back, her fine figure setting his heart to skip. A good sign, but Halm didn’t act on it. His spirits soared, however, as he reached the stairs. A man doesn’t need his topper dipped in gold after all.

  A friendly smile did it best.

  With that, the Zhiberian labored toward the second floor. When he disappeared from sight, a man who had been following him for most of the evening lowered his warm drink. He straightened up from where he had been leaning against a thick timber and placed his mug on a nearby table. Then he left the crowded confines of the drinking establishment, intent on making his report on the one known as Halm.

  Only three beats after he’d gone, another man rose from another table. They were unknown to each other, but both had been charged with watching the Zhiberian by different masters. Mindful of avoiding fights with the patrons, he threaded a path to the latrine, already aware that Halm had rented a room––that information had come straight from the barkeep at no cost. The Zhiberian lout was probably finished for the night.

  Thoughts of emptying the bull and then making his own report filled the mind of the second spy.

  *

  Caro stepped out into the night air and looked about.

  He saw the back of the staggering man, weaving an unsteady line up the lamplit street. Caro quickly caught up with the drunk pit fighter. When he came within a few paces, Targus’s legs gave out, and he plopped into the street.

  Caro stopped and put on a friendly face. “Well, you can’t stay there for the night.”

  “Uh?” Targus grunted, bewildered by the other man’s appearance.

  Shaking his head, Caro extended his hand, and Targus took it after seeing it was indeed empty.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled.

  “Not at all,” Caro said. “You’re the one called Targus, yes?”

  Targus nodded, his eyes bleary. “You know me?”

  Caro’s smile was genuine.

  15

  In another part of the city, in another alehouse, Brakuss crossed the threshold and approached the bar. Glass lamps perched on shelves attached to round support beams, revealing a crowd of customers smoking pipes, eating, and drinking. Serving wenches moved amongst them with huge platters of mugs or roasted pork that spiced the air. Brakuss’s boots scuffed on the clean-swept floor. He didn’t expect the place to gleam so in the smoky lamplight. Based on Grisholt’s description and instructions, he thought the establishment would be more… sinister.

  The dizzying aroma of a freshly roasted haunch of pork caught his attention, distracting him just for a second. He waded through the evening’s customers. A young man, his white shirt still clean, stood behind the counter and arranged brass mugs. Brakuss stopped in front of him and glowered with his one good eye,
daring the barkeep to ignore him.

  The man didn’t try. “Yes?”

  Brakuss’s fist rested on the pommel of his shortsword, sheathed at his waist. “I’m looking for a lad called Linfur.”

  The barkeep’s expression became sympathetic. “Perhaps you’re in the wrong place. There’s no Linfur here.”

  “I was told that if I wanted to purchase wares from the Sons to come here.”

  The smile on the barkeep wilted at the edges. He composed himself and leaned forward. “What sons are you talking about?”

  Brakuss chewed on half his lip and adjusted his eye patch. “Cholla’s, of course.”

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  “I’ll probably say the same thing when I’m pulling a foot of steel out of your gullet.”

  The barkeep blinked and straightened. “Wait here,” he said and quickly vanished behind a red curtain.

  Brakuss gazed about the bar. Rich tapestries depicting boar and bear hunts hung above a row of barrels laid on their sides, reminding him of his father’s den. Some of the spouts dripped steadily onto the floor, and Brakuss frowned. He enjoyed a drink as much as the next bastard, and seeing it go to waste bothered him. A table of patrons near the center of the room exploded into laughter over at a joke he hadn’t heard. A young woman with deep lines underneath her eyes skirted the length of the bar from behind it, taking orders from the serving wenches. She took coin at times and tossed them underneath the counter, where Brakuss thought he heard the rattle and slide of metal on metal. Two burly enforcers appeared at either end of the bar, massive arms folded. They weren’t the biggest men, but the years had raked scars across their flesh, making them hard looking, intimidating. One even had black ink drawn into the shapes of wrestling serpents on his upper arm, writhing all the way to his chin.

  Someone tapped on Brakuss’s shoulder, and he turned around.

  There stood a stick of a fellow with flesh the color of a fish belly. The sickly lad wore sandals and tight black breeches and nothing else from the waist up, revealing a torso that looked nothing more than bones with skin stretched drum-tight over the frame. Eerie black eyes that seemed unnaturally wide met the once-gladiator, rendering Brakuss speechless. Tattoos covered the man’s shoulders in evil-looking twirls and patterns, and about his wrists were inked shackles.

  Then the odd fellow smiled, revealing a maw of needles beneath those unnerving eyes, as if he’d had his previous teeth smashed out with a hammer. “Follow me,” the mouth whispered. With that, he walked around the bar and out of sight. Brakuss followed, seeing how more ink lashed the fellow’s back.

  Brakuss wasn’t one to scare easily, however, which was why he had elected to come to the city––alone––on behalf of Grisholt. Now, however, he saw the mistake for what it was. He wished he’d brought along a handful of the lads, armed to the teeth, just for appearances. And to crack some heads if needed.

  The unusual guide slipped through a door at the back of the alehouse, leaving the way open. Brakuss closed it upon entering, eyeing the little man now at the end of a lamp-lit hall. Closed doors lined either side, and the air was redolent with unwashed sweat. The emaciated bastard turned and smiled his nightmarish grin once more, which from a distance appeared as wet, stretching stitches. He opened another door, the hinges squealing weakly, and went into a dark room.

  Brakuss stopped not three strides away. Something warned him not to enter that beckoning vat of blackness, to forget about it all and any sense of loyalty he might have for Grisholt… to turn around right then and leave while he still could.

  “Enter or be gone.” The whisper floated from that ebony opening. The distant sounds of merry drinking tempted the once-gladiator to leave and join it more than he imagined, but in the end, he gripped the hilt of his sword for courage and stepped forward.

  The door slapped closed. Someone giggled.

  Brakuss spun around with his sword half pulled when bodies slammed into him and braced him against a wall, rendering him helpless. A length of steel pressed against his chin and lifted it, turning his head and making him grimace in anger and fear.

  A beam of light from a bull’s-eye lantern shone into his contorted features.

  “Relax,” a voice spoke. “Relax. That dagger isn’t going to cut anything unless I say so. So relax.”

  Huffing, Brakuss stopped struggling and side-eyed the darkness.

  “Fear,” the voice went on. “You can smell it, you know. Sickening. Ripe and pungent. As fragrant as unwashed flesh. Especially when a man has a blade at his throat, held by an unknown foe. As you do now. A man’s pores virtually open up and heave that stench into the air. Like… like mouths trying to scream. Now, relax. Relax, I said. I have some questions for you, and I assure you nothing will happen if you give me my answers. Agreed?”

  “Aye that,” Brakuss got out, practically foaming at the mouth.

  “Excellent. Ah. I see you only have the one eye. You lose that where? In a fight?”

  Brakuss struggled with his breathing. “The Pit.”

  “Oh, you’re a pit fighter?”

  “Once.”

  “No longer? A shame. Why is there is no penalty, no punishment, for the years which so brazenly rob us of our youth and pleasure? I’m assuming, of course, you enjoyed being a gladiator?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it left you half blind! A shame. Like a one-sided love, I suppose. But then, we don’t always choose our talents. Our professions. They reveal themselves to us, and we must only recognize them for what they are, no matter how… painful. To ourselves or at the expense of others. Tragic. Now then, tell me…” A hand, thick with veins, came forth and gripped Brakuss’s jaw while another dagger, this one sharpened down to almost the width of a blade of grass, grazed the baggy flesh under his remaining right eye. “And let it be the truth. If I scoop out your other eye, what might become of you?”

  “What?”

  The tip of that tanner’s nightmare licked his tired skin. Pain lanced his face. Blood beaded and flowed. Brakuss grimaced, holding his tongue.

  “Don’t make me repeat my questions,” the voice warned.

  “Nothing. I’d do nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No.”

  “Not even beg in the streets?”

  “Maybe?”

  “Maybe?” the voice chided. “For one looking for the Sons, you seem quite shortsighted. You really haven’t thought any of this out, have you? Unless you’re the messenger for someone else. Are you a messenger?”

  “I am!”

  “Whose?”

  “Grisholt!”

  “Grisholt? He’s still alive?”

  “Yes. Yes! He wishes to talk with… with the Sons of Cholla. He wishes to purchase their services.”

  “This is the same Grisholt who owns a gladiator house? Outside the city?”

  “Yes.” Brakuss panted, feeling his muscles cramp. He’d forgotten to relax, and the knives at his eye and throat weren’t helping.

  “What is it he wants?” the voice asked, interested now.

  “He wants… he wants…” Brakuss grunted and squeezed his eye shut. Another bead of blood dribbled down his cheek, dangling at the curve of his chin before falling away. “He wants to win. At any cost. He wants you to help him. For our mutual… profit.”

  A dark, wheezy chuckle then, wicked with mirth. “Ah, dear me. You had me concerned for a moment. I truly thought you might have been something else. Well, no matter. My apologies for the dramatics, it isn’t every day a person seeks out the Sons of Cholla. Especially here. Usually we’re the ones seeking. Well. You’re here to talk business.”

  Brakuss was very much aware that the knives at his face weren’t removed. “I am.”

  “Grisholt wishes to win a fight?”

  The once pit fighter closed his eye and swallowed. His gullet made a clicking sound, so dry had it become. “Yes. Well, no––he wants to win most of them.”

  “Ahhh. Most
of them. I see.”

  “Are you willing to––”

  “Make such things happen?” the voice finished for him. “Yes. I’m in a position to say so. The Sons are always willing to look for new opportunities. And thinking on it, yes, this does have the makings of something very profitable, yessss. We’ve been involved with the Pit before, actually. Blood sport isn’t something new to us. Even arranged our own fights––in an arena of our choosing, of course. You might have heard about it.”

  Brakuss couldn’t see anything beyond the blinding glare of the lantern. “Yes.”

  “I thought so. But we only bring in a beggar’s hand of coins compared with the great Pit! Oh, we’ve managed to persuade the odd pit fighter to battle on our behalf on those golden, golden sands, but such arrangements never really worked out in the end, and always a one-time affair. Oftentimes, people had to be punished. Not that we had any qualms about punishing people, you understand. Don’t mistake me in that regard. We… delight in making such examples, but ultimately it isn’t good for business. Drunk tongues wag. Trails are left. The Sons wish to remain in the dark. The Sons wish to remain hidden. It’s best that way. For all.”

  Brakuss licked his lips. His face continued to bleed.

  The voice cleared his throat. “So, Grisholt wishes our help, does he?”

  “He does.”

  “I commend you on your negotiation skills. He wishes to win his future battles in the Pit? It can be done, I can assure you. It will be done. Easily done, when one thinks of it. The Sons have many ways about them, all which can attain victory on the sands. Go back to your master and tell him the Sons accept his offer. We’ll let you know our price later.”

  “Price?” Brakuss’s eye widened. These dogs would make a fortune on wagers alone once they had a gladiator willing to work with them.

  “Yes, price. Always a price to pay. You remember that. You tell him that. We’ll talk again about the sum. And about how we’ll deliver victory. To you.”

  “When?” Brakuss gasped.

  “Anxious, are we?”

  “He’ll want to know.”

  “Agreed. He will. When is it your next match?”