by Rob J. Hayes
Jezzet nodded in response.
“I'll be waiting in 'the Golden Fool', it's in Goldtown. I have a room where you can bathe.” He paused. “Maybe two baths.”
Jezzet looked inside the purse and her jaw dropped. That's a lot of gold, Jez. Looked to be close to fifty bits she'd guess.
“How do you know I won't just take your gold and run?”
The Arbiter grinned and turned away. “Because I'd find you and I think the last thing you want is to be hunted by the Inquisition.”
The Black Thorn
The first guard was dead with only a gurgle and soft thud as the body hit the dust and started to bleed. Betrim could say many things about Henry, not all of them good, but one thing he had to admit was the bitch knew how to kill folk. Not all that surprising given that she was one of Chade's most notorious mass murderers.
No one was sure where Henry came from or why she started murdering. A number of years back bodies started appearing in Chade, homeless folk and trash in the beginnings but she soon stepped up to any she could find. Most people had no idea why she did it but Betrim had a theory. Henry loved the sight of blood. Betrim had seen the light in her eyes when she gutted someone and saw a splash of gore, lit her face up like nothing he'd ever seen.
When the guards caught her they ruled out slavery in an instant. People like Henry don't just stop killing because someone slaps some iron round their neck and tells them they're property. She was meant for the noose but the ruling council had bigger plans. Set her free for some job she did. Henry never would give details though, not to Betrim at least.
The second guard died with his shout still trapped in his throat. Swift's throwing dagger had taking him clean in the eye. Damn good shot if truth be told but Betrim sure as hell wasn't about to tell Swift that. Lad already had a big enough ego for three men.
“You see that?” Swift said skipping towards the corpse. He bent down to examine his own handiwork. “Tell me someone saw that. Henry you were standing right next ta him.”
Henry scowled at him.
Swift simpered and reached a tender hand out toward Henry's face. “Don't worry, my love. I'd never hit you.”
Quick as a snake Henry pushed Swift's hand away then swung a heavy punch at his face. Swift didn't dodge, just took the hit and staggered away laughing and spitting blood.
“Quiet,” hissed the Boss. “Both o' ya. Bones, Green get these bodies hid 'fore someone comes round here. Swift, get that grate open. Thorn, come here a sec.”
Betrim moved off to the side away from the others with the Boss. He watched as Swift pulled his throwing knife from the dead guard's face; wiped the blood on his leg and placed it back in its spot. Swift had left his short-bow at the house but he always kept an arsenal of knives. The half-blood blew Henry a kiss and went to work on the grate. Weren't many better than Swift at picking locks. He'd been doing it since he was four, if you believed him. Betrim tended to believe very little that came out of his mouth though.
“Reckon you can squeeze through the chute, Thorn?” the Boss asked, an anxious look on his face. Betrim had never seen the Boss look anxious before. Weren't the most comforting of sights.
“Aye, maybe. Be tight though. Green is smaller 'an me.”
“Green is green an' his bark ain't got no bite. I need someone with a name down there; I need the Black Thorn down there.”
“Aye?”
“Ta stop those two from killin' each other,” the Boss said with a nod towards Henry and Swift.
“Reckon they'll cause trouble?”
“I reckon this job is too important ta risk findin' out. Swift don't think much o' women, not even Henry an' she'd gut him 'fore letting him touch her. I need the Black Thorn down there ta keep the peace.”
“Ain't exactly one o' my strengths but I got ya. I'll keep 'em civil.” Fact was Betrim Thorn was not the type to lead folk and those he had led in the past had a poor survival rate but he reckoned he could keep those two from each other's throats for a short while. He didn't much like the idea of squeezing through the grate though. If he got stuck halfway down they might not get him out. To be stuck there, near encased in stone, unable to move and just waiting to die. The thought scared the shit out of him, not that he'd ever admit it.
Swift finished with the lock and pulled the grate up, it made a horrible rusty scraping noise that seemed to echo around the darkness. Betrim couldn't see how a noise such as that could not have been heard, he was expecting a whole city worth of guards to come running any second and he wasn't alone in that. Most of the crew stopped and waited, looking around the street,
“Don't jus' stand around lookin’ guilty. Get down there, Swift,” the Boss ordered. Even in the dark he still looked anxious.
Swift grinned, stuck both legs down the chute and was gone. Betrim moved closer and looked down into the pitch-black nothing surrounded by hard, unyielding stone. Then he looked up at the dark, open night and wished the Boss had been born with smaller shoulders.
“Thorn, you're next, then Henry. Me, Green an' Bones'll keep watch. When ya got her give us a shout up the chute, not too loud, an' Bones'll haul you up. Good?”
Again Betrim looked down the hole into the darkness. “Last fuckin' thing this is is good,” he grumbled.
“You reckon you'll fit?” asked Henry with an evil grin. “Looks tight as an arsehole down there.”
Betrim unfastened his cloak and dumped it next to the chute then looked down again. He took his coat off and dumped it with the cloak and then looked down again. Still looked tight. He put one leg, then the other into the chute and was just thinking of pulling out when Henry kicked him in the back.
Rough stone slipped past him on all sides, darker than black in the night. It scraped against his back, against his arms, against his legs and then he was falling. He hit the floor hard and crumpled. With groaning knees he picked himself off the floor and looked around. Was near pitch-black down in the basement, just a little sliver of light coming from underneath a door.
Something hit him in the chest and again he found himself on the floor, this time face up. After a moment he realised it was Henry. She'd come down the chute straight after him and he hadn't had time to move out the way. She was sitting on top of him, straddling him and grinning down at him.
“This seems familiar,” she whispered.
Betrim patted his chest with both hands. “Nah, there's no blood.”
She stood up and started looking around the room and Betrim picked himself off the floor for a second time.
Betrim glared at Swift's outline, couldn't see much else of him in the darkness but it felt good to glare. “The door, Swift.”
“Unlocked, no one on the other side, jus' a candle burnin' on a sconce.”
Betrim walked over to the door and pulled on the handle. The great hunk of wood opened with a soft squeak and light spilled into the room. In the light Betrim could see Swift was grinning, Henry watched him with wary eyes and for the second time Betrim wished the Boss could have fit down the chute.
In the room with the candle was a couple of empty bunks, two cheap wooden chests, a desk with a single chair and a body. The man had a slit throat and blood was running down his neck, soaking his clothing and dripping from his hands to pool on the floor, lots of blood, thick and red and shining in the flickering candle light.
“Thought you said no one was in there, Swift,” Betrim whispered.
“No, I said no one is in there. There was someone in there. I took care of him.”
“Well so much for no bodies,” Betrim said stepping around the pool of blood. “We move quick, quiet and careful. Kill any guards we find but do it quiet.”
Henry nodded and stepped past him, reaching for the door handle. She took one last look at the blood pooling on the floor, smiled and opened the door, stepping through with Betrim just behind and Swift following last. Betrim didn't quite trust having Swift behind him but then fact was Betrim didn't quite trust having anyone behind him. Nor di
d he trust having Swift in front of him, beside him or, in truth, anywhere near him.
Most gaols Betrim had been inside were busy. Lots of prisoners, all loud and dangerous. Lots of guards, less loud but even more dangerous than the prisoners. The gaol in Chade was a different matter altogether and that was something they had to be thankful for. There weren't much in the way of prisoners. A few folk too old to be slaves or too beaten up to be of any use to anyone. Almost no guards and Betrim thanked every God he could remember for that.
They found a guard with a sour face and features that seemed to be pulled down. The fool had opened an empty cell and was busy snoring away on the straw that passed for bedding. Henry snuck into the cell, placed a hand over the guard’s mouth and slid a curved dagger up under his chin into his skull. A nice, quick, clean kill. Not much blood and no noise. After that they were alone it seemed. No prisoners occupied any of the cells this far in and no guards were patrolling. Betrim was just starting to think they'd missed their target when Swift stopped and pointed to a door.
The cell was unlike the others. Stone walls instead of bars. A thick wooden door bound in iron with a number of heavy-looking locks. Betrim glanced through a shutter built into the door. Inside he could just make out a figure at the back of the cell; it was too dark for anything more though.
“You sure this is the right one?” he asked Swift.
“Aye. Me n' Bones found it while you was hiding from that Arbiter.”
“Get the door open then.” While Swift went to work on the locks Betrim pulled Henry to the side, just out of earshot. “You know what the Boss is up ta?”
Henry glared at him. “Eh?”
“Workin' fer Deadeye, the promise of a big job. I ain't ever seen the Boss look scared but tonight... somethin's up an' if any of us are gonna know what it'll be you.”
Henry spat. She looked far from happy. “All I know is he says this big job of his will be his last job, our last job an' that we need ta work fer Deadeye fer now.” She nodded behind Betrim and he turned to find Swift watching them.
“You done?” Betrim asked in a low voice.
“Of course.” Swift gave the door a shove and it swung open. “After you.”
Betrim set his jaw and looked into the room. It was still too dark to make much out of the figure at the far end but something about the room felt wrong. He pushed it to the back of his mind and stepped into the cell.
She was bound, hands and feet. Her hands manacled to the wall, her legs splayed out in front of her with ankles secured to the floor. She wore ripped and dirtied rags that smelled of urine and covered too little. Her head drooped from her neck, dirty hair clumping in greasy spikes. A leather thong was wedged into her mouth and a thin strip of bandage was pressed to her forehead. Fact was the girl looked to be dead, or at least very close to it.
“Swift, get in here. Pick those manacles.” Betrim moved closer to the woman and crouched over her. “Can you hear me, lass? We're here ta get you out. Save you as it were. Deadeye sent us.”
No answer. No movement. Nothing. Only the faint hiss of her breath in and out of her chest gave away that she was still alive.
“There's no lock,” Swift said. Betrim turned to find his grin gone. He was staring at the woman with a neutral expression. “These chains weren't meant to come off... ever.”
Henry stood watching from outside the cell. Her hands twitched towards her daggers but she made no move. Her dark eyes glinted in the low light. Swift stood and stepped backwards, away from the woman.
“Fuck this,” Betrim looked at the short chains holding the woman. “Listen, if ya can hear me, don't move.”
Standing, Betrim took his axe in hand and aimed it at the chain holding her left hand to the wall. He pulled back and swung. With a loud ‘ching’ that echoed through the empty halls and cells the chain broke and the woman's hand flopped free. With three more practised blows she was free.
Betrim had expected her to stand up, to move, to run, to do something, anything. Instead the woman toppled sideways and hit the floor face first and lay there unmoving. Betrim looked at Swift. Swift shrugged back.
With a groan Betrim reached down, plucked the woman from the ground and lifted her up in both arms. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The journey back to the basement was less eventful. Only empty cells and empty corridors watched them pass. One prisoner, an old man stinking of shit crawled towards the bars and begged freedom. Henry aimed at kicked at him and the man slunk back into his cell begging forgiveness.
Downstairs in the basement Swift didn't wait for a rope. He jumped, pulled himself up to the chute and scurried his way to the surface leaving Betrim and Henry to stare after him in stunned silence. A moment later a rope dropped down from the black hole. Betrim tied the rope around the woman's chest grabbing hold of a handful of tit as he did. She didn't respond at all, didn't even acknowledge she was out of her cell. Betrim called up the hole and a moment later she was hauled up into the waiting black above. Henry went next, Betrim didn't dare grab a handful as he tied the rope round her chest, not that there was much to grab. He watched as her feet disappeared above him and waited until the rope dropped down again.
By the time Betrim's head appeared up out of the chute Bones was panting and sweating as he pulled hand over hand. Betrim climbed out of the hole, turned and spat back down it. Last time he ever did anything like that again. Bones smiled at him and collapsed down onto his arse to catch his breath.
Two more bodies were sprawled out on the ground. Both were guards with their red doublets made redder by blood. Betrim nodded towards them. “The other patrol.”
“Aye,” the Boss said, angry. “Don't know where you learned ya numbers, Thorn, but that was not thirty minutes. More like fifteen.”
Betrim shrugged. “Now what?”
“Job was ta get her out then let her go. She's free.” The woman was propped up against the wall, still unmoving like some sort of life-size doll Betrim had heard that rich folk played with when they were young.
The Boss walked forwards and took the leather thong out of the woman's mouth. Betrim noticed them straight away. With her lips pulled back as they were he had a good view of her teeth and they were perfect. Bleached white and all of a size and shape, no gaps, no yellowing, none missing or broken. The most perfect set of teeth he'd ever seen.
It took him a moment to realise everyone else was also staring at the woman.
Bones was the first to speak. “She's blooded ain't she.”
Swift was the first to answer. “Looks ta be.”
It didn't make any sort of sense. The blooded folk ruled the wilds; each family owned a province and ruled all in it save the free cities. Why would one of the blooded, a woman too, be held prisoner in Chade? And why would the ruling council be treating her so badly?
“You're free now,” the Boss said. “You can go. Job was ta get ya out an' let ya go.”
The woman slid sideways and toppled, again landing on her face. The whole crew just stared at her. It looked to Betrim like she was broken. He'd seen it before; women beaten and raped so bad that they just stopped being there, switched their minds off or something. They would eat and drink and shit and piss but apart from that they were nothing.
The Boss did not look pleased. “Fuck,” he swore in a loud voice. “Bones, pick her up. Can’t leave her here fer the guards ta find. We'll keep her back at the house 'til Deadeye gets here. Move. Now!”
Even as late at night as it was the streets were full of guardsman looking for folk to be taken as slaves. The doors to the slavers guild never closed and more than one drunken layabout would no doubt find themselves waking up to an iron collar. The Boss' crew was too large and too well armed to be considered for slaves but six folk carrying an unconscious woman through the streets would peak some attention.
They stayed to alleyways and shadows as much as possible. The Boss let Swift lead the way, the lad had always seemed to be part homing pigeon and they we
re back at the house soon enough. Back with the rats and the fleas and the stench of corpse. Now they had the body of a woman who stank of piss as well, along with the smell of Betrim's hair dye and Swift's chewing leaf not even the dogs would come near the place.
Once inside the Boss set to examining the woman. He gave her a light slap on the cheek, poked around inside her mouth, pinched at a nipple and slid a hand up between her legs. All the while the woman did nothing, her cold blue eyes staring at the floor.
The Boss backed away shaking his head. “S'like a livin' corpse.”
“Give 'er ta me fer five minutes, Boss. I'll wake her up,” Green said, everyone ignored him.
“Somethin the Arbiter did, I reckon,” said Swift.
“What?”
“Word on the street is the council brought an Arbiter to deal with some woman they had in gaol.”
“And this is the first I'm hearin' of this?”
“Different woman, Boss,” Bones spoke up. “We saw the Arbiter leavin' the gaol with another one.”
Betrim approached the woman now slumped against a wall. He lifted her head and looked at the strip of cloth on her forehead. It wasn't a bandage. It had a symbol on it.
“Ya sure about that, Bones?” Betrim grabbed a handful of the woman's hair and lifted her head to show the others the piece of cloth. “This is one of theirs or I ain't the Black Thorn.”
Green opened his mouth to speak but the Boss cut him off. “Take it off, Thorn.”
Betrim took hold of a corner of the cloth and pulled. It made a horrible ripping sound like it was tearing the skin but it came away easy enough. As soon as it was off the woman's head her eyes flicked up and met Betrim's.
He felt a push against his chest and then something hit him in the back and he was down on the floor, a crumpled mess against the far wall. He opened his eyes to find the woman standing up and looking about the room. Her flat gaze went to each of the six crew members in turn and then landed on Bones who was, unfortunately for him, in front of the door.
