The barkeep gave them keys for two rooms, and Goll paid the man for two nights.
“No need to return right away. Pig Knot is in good hands.” Goll handed Halm his key. “Muluk and I will share while you get one all to yourself. And sleep. No drinking.”
“Of course,” Halm said. “Do you think he’ll make it?”
“Who?”
“Pig Knot.”
“You mean the training?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Goll said, “I don’t.”
“He’ll surprise you.”
The frown on the Kree’s face voiced his thoughts on the matter, and he directed them all to an alcove beside the one they usually drank in, which was occupied. Roast beef was ordered, along with water pitchers, and the three ate in relative silence, occasionally watching patrons interact with each other. Once supper was done, they retired upstairs.
Halm paused at the railing before his door and leaned over, watching the people below with a wistful expression.
“What’s wrong?” Muluk asked him.
“Just watching the crowd is all.”
Muluk stopped at his shoulder and gazed down. “It’ll be noisy here this night.”
“I’ll sleep all the same.”
“You better.” Goll left his door open as he went inside. “Bring that in here,” he called out to Muluk.
“Aye, bring that in there.” Halm pointed at the sack of coin. “What sort of guard are you, anyway?”
“The cheap kind.” Muluk scratched at his unruly head of hair.
“If I win tomorrow, I’ll shave that headpiece off your scalp.”
“If you win, I’ll let you.” Muluk disappeared into his room. A moment later, the door closed.
The sounds and smells from below wafted up and held Halm in rapt attention. He listened to the peals of laughter and bawdy conversation and even watched one couple climb the stairs to the second level and enter the remaining room at the end. Their door banged shut, and for a moment, he heard the muted giggle of the woman. The sound took the Zhiberian back to thoughts of another woman, not so pretty—but then again, he was no prize either, he knew—and what she might be doing this night. He hoped she was alone, perhaps even thinking of him in kind.
Miji with the dark hair tied back, the narrow face, and the hazel eyes reminding him of a cat’s.
He thought of her until weariness tugged him away from the rail and the dark doorway of his room beckoned.
Below, with his back against the wall and near the entrance, Ballan watched the big man turn away and close the door behind him. He’d watched the three men from the very instant he spied them outside marching down the street, and what truly piqued his interest were the sacks they carried. Ballan wasn’t a gambler—he didn’t have the luck for it—but he would wager that one of those cloth sacks held quite a bit of coin.
He lingered for a few moments, heedless of the growing revelry around his person. When he was certain they weren’t coming back out for the night, he moved outside and walked back to where Caro would be waiting. He cut across the street and walked for a short time before darting down an alley. There, draped in darkness, Caro sat upright and dozed with his chin down and his back against the stone wall of a tailor and weaver store.
“Caro.”
The agent’s head snapped up. Caro blinked at Ballan, and the henchman was close enough to see the shortsword laid by the waking man’s thigh.
“They’re back.”
Caro wiped his face and inhaled deeply. “When?”
“Just now. They’re at the alehouse.”
The agent’s eyes glittered in the shadow. “Go to the cellar. Tell Lantus and the rest what’s happening then come back here. Wait…”
Ballan paused.
“Wait… they’ll be fighting tomorrow. That’s why they’re here. Halm is fighting in the arena against one of Curge’s lot. This is a chance for us… to take what they have. In the morning.”
“Why the morning?”
“We can’t rob them at night. Too many people. But in the morning, whoever is in there will be sluggish. They won’t see Lantus and his louts go in, and if they do, they certainly won’t pay heed to them,” Caro whispered. “We’ll strike in the morning.”
“If we wait until after the fight, they might have more,” Ballan pointed out.
“And they might have lost everything. No, tomorrow morning is the time.”
Caro looked at Ballan.
“Go to the cellar and rouse the lads. Tell them they work at dawn.”
*
Since they had come into the city, Lantus and the other once-gladiators had been confined by Caro to the cellar of a nearby torchmaker, a man who wasn’t too concerned with whom he took gold from or for what purposes. Lantus didn’t like Caro. There was too much weasel in the man and too much loyalty to Grisholt, who was the mother of all weasels in his eyes. When Brakuss approached him and asked about doing some work outside the arena, Lantus took it. It wasn’t that he didn’t like fighting in the pit—he could fight, make no mistake, and damn Turst for thinking otherwise—but Lantus felt that all he’d learned at the Stable of Grisholt was simply going to waste. Outside the arena, he could do much more. So much more. It wasn’t until Brakuss that he’d realized the direction he had to take. And a robbery at that. He couldn’t believe his fortune. That idiot Grisholt didn’t trust in him at all, yet he had tasked him with something of this magnitude. But then he got thinking… perhaps Grisholt was counting on the presence and the loyalty of the other five men in the pack to keep him in line.
When Caro had packed them away in the cellar and told them to stay there until needed— whenever that was—Lantus saw his chance. There in the narrow confines with walls made of stone and timbers, with the lingering smell of shite and piss, the men sat, lived, and talked. He talked with Kurlin who also wasn’t entirely pleased with his lot in life. He was a schemer yet hadn’t thought of betraying Grisholt after the coin was stolen. Get the gold and be quiet about it, Grisholt had told them. Why not simply get the gold and leave? Divide it amongst the six? The light that sparkled in Kurlin’s cruel eyes informed Lantus he’d fishhooked the man. He was perhaps the one he most worried about going forward with his plan. Kurlin wasn’t stupid, and secretly Lantus was very wary of him. Kurlin possessed a craziness that unnerved most, something unfit that only surfaced in sparring sessions and in Sunja’s Pit. Once he started swinging, it was never a sure thing that Lantus would stop.
Then there was Plakus, who occupied himself by taking a knife tip and tracing the daggers inked into his flesh. Plakus agreed in even shorter time than Kurlin, a crooked smile growing on his face as Lantus informed him of his intentions. In less than half a day, Lantus had split the group and went after the remainder. The others agreed to the new plan almost immediately. Lantus wasn’t at all nervous about convincing jackals like Morg and Sulo. They lived only to hurt people. Golki didn’t care who he got to smash as long as he was being paid while doing it. Once all of them were with him, Lantus held a general meeting during which they all sat down and talked in quiet tones spiked at times with outbursts of impatience. They listened to the world above them as they waited in the cellar with a new awareness and a newer, much more exciting purpose.
Ballan arrived that night, just as the lamplight was almost consumed. The man threw open the doors to the outside world and stepped noisily into the cellar depths, screwing up his nose at the smell, which Lantus had grown accustomed to. The spy’s face was a murky orange in the meagre light, but his distaste could still be made out.
“You’re to muster before dawn,” he informed them all. “They are at the alehouse now.”
“Why dawn?” Lantus asked from where he squatted in a corner, fingers playing impatiently along the edge of his shortsword.
“They’ll be asleep. As well the rest of the city. Little trouble taking them unawares.”
That was met with silence.
“I’ll rouse you when it�
��s time. Be ready.”
“Ballan, is it?” Lantus called out.
He paused on the steps, looking puzzled. “You have something to say?”
Lantus’s smile erupted like stitches being pulled apart one by one, and he stared at the man. “Nothing at all. We’ll be ready.”
Ballan hesitated, apparently divided on something, and gazed at the shadowy outlines of the men in the cellar.
“Do that,” he said finally and climbed out of the cellar. A moment later, the solid slap of a closing door rang through the sour air.
Kurlin looked at Lantus. “What was that about?”
“Once we have the money, they’ll no doubt try to find and stop us. Grisholt will contact his eyes and ears in the city to find out what happened… but they’ll be dead. Ballan, I think, will be the first man I kill.”
Kurlin snorted in amusement. “Why is that then?”
Lantus shrugged. “No reason.”
37
Even though Muluk snored throughout the night, Goll slept well despite waking twice at throaty notes that roused him with a jolt. When dawn’s light seeped around the shuttered windows like gold poured from the sky, Goll awoke and felt the magnitude of the day. He lay in his bed, staring at the dim wooden beams above, and just thought. Whatever gold he possessed would be placed on Halm though he wasn’t positive of the outcome. Everything balanced on the Zhiberian and whether or not he could defeat Curge’s gladiator. If he failed, Goll’s plans would be set back to a point of starting over completely, and it was doubtful Clavellus would allow them any grace for using his facilities and trainers. He could ask, but that would only happen if Halm lost.
Halm must not lose. Goll rose and laboured in getting dressed, feeling the pull and yell of his wounds. He splashed water on his face from a nearby washbasin. As uneasy as he felt, he still felt the need to eat something.
“Get up,” he said to Muluk as he washed.
“Uhhh.” His countryman moaned and punctuated it with a half-dead snort. Goll stood back from the basin and took in the form of the man, sprawled in his bed as though he had leaped into it from a great height, with a single blanket somehow knotted about his limbs in a tangle rivalling anything a sailor might tie off.
“Get up, I said.”
A pause. “Why?”
“It’s dawn.”
“My point. It’s dawn,” Muluk moaned. “Why are you up so early? Damnation, man, don’t you sleep?”
“Up. We’ll buy some breakfast.”
“Where? It’s dawn, Goll.” He whined. “The tavern’s kitchen won’t be open.”
“Always someone awake and willing to sell something from the street stalls.”
“Where?”
“We’ll find something.”
“You go on,” Muluk moaned. “I’ll stay here.”
Goll frowned and went to the sack of gold tucked under the bed. He sat on the bed’s edge and bent over, counting out five coins.
“I’m not buying you anything if you stay here.” He pocketed the coins.
Muluk snored.
“Protect the coin,” Goll ordered him.
Muluk snored louder.
“I mean it.”
“Go eat or… something,” Muluk trailed off sleepily, uprooting his pillow and jamming his head underneath it.
Not pleased in the least, Goll gathered up his crutches, went to the door, and threw back the bolts. He closed it behind himself none too quietly and walked to the next room. He pounded on it twice before Halm’s sleepy voice inside stopped him.
“What?” the Zhiberian grated.
“Get up.”
“Why? It’s dawn, you punce.”
Goll took a breath. “Get up this instant.”
Beyond the door, groans and the sound of stumbling perked the Kree’s ears. Moments passed, and Goll was just about to yell when the door burst open, exposing him to the unpleasant gust of the Zhiberian’s morning breath. Halm had his trousers and boots on, with everything above the waist on display.
“Did you wash?” Goll asked him.
“Real men don’t wash,” Halm growled, half-asleep and making the Kree grimace at the revelation.
“Come along then, real man. Let’s find something to eat.”
“This early? The kitchen won’t be open.”
“You sound like old man Muluk.”
Halm squinted and looked about. “Where is old man Muluk?”
“Sleeping.”
“Why isn’t he coming along for breakfast?”
“Because we’re both real men, and he isn’t.”
“Real men aren’t very smart,” Halm grumped.
“Nor do they smell as if someone used their mouths as shite troughs during the night.”
Halm closed his jaws. “Uncalled for,” he muttered, appearing offended.
“Come on, and let’s see what’s what. I’m hungry, and you need to be up. Some boiled eggs would be good.”
That got an agreeing grunt from the Zhiberian, and both of them made their way along the walkway, past the first room, and down the stairs. Below, the barkeep slept behind the counter, his head in his arms and his back rising and falling with each breath. Scattered throughout the interior were other patrons sleeping in alcoves or passed out on the wooden floor. Bright sunbeams crossed the legs and torsos of some but weren’t yet strong enough to wake them. Goll and Halm made their way down the steps, which groaned, but that wasn’t enough to stir them.
“They’re all dead asleep,” Halm said, “like we should be.”
On one step, the wood squealed loud enough for Goll to wince. He half turned on the Zhiberian. “Go back and sleep if you wish. I won’t be listening to you complain about getting up so early all while I’m eating.”
“Doubt you’ll find anything out there anyway.”
“I’ll find something.”
Halm glowered. “All right, I’ll come along. Right after the latrine.”
Goll didn’t say anything to that, for he suddenly felt the urge as well. Sighing, he followed the bigger man.
*
Just before dawn, as promised, Ballan returned to the cellar and woke up the six.
He waited for the men on the cellar stairs, watching them emerge from the shadows of the place like dismal wraiths unleashed from their holes, caked in leather and metal and brandishing all manner of frightening weapons. The place smelled terrible, rank as rotting offal, and Ballan kept his hand close to his mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Lantus adjusted scratched leather bracers on his forearms. “Not flowery enough for you?”
Ballan didn’t answer. Lantus sneered and checked his weapons. The others mirrored him, slapping shortswords into sheaths and daggers into belts and boots. One hefted a huge battle axe, shocking Ballan. He wondered how he’d missed such a weapon when they first came into the city. None wore helmets.
“Now then.” Lantus smiled. “Where’s the meat you want us to carve?”
The one called Golki came up to stand on Ballan’s right, pig eyed, nostrils flaring. Ballan flinched, getting a round of dark chuckles, and backed away from the brute.
“Scares easy, doesn’t he?” the one called Kurlin observed.
“The sweeter the blood, they say,” said the lout with the daggers tattooed on his arms.
His unease growing, Ballan led them out of the cellar and into growing daylight. “This way,” he whispered and hunched over as he passed through an alley. The men behind him made no such attempt at being secretive, swaggering along with their leather and weapons creaking, breaking the morning stillness. Some of them muttered amongst themselves, and when Ballan turned to order them to be quiet, Lantus scowled hard enough that, for a moment, he thought he would be knifed right there.
When Caro came into view, standing just back from the mouth of the alley and keeping watch on the sleepy-looking alehouse, Ballan’s relief was enormous. Caro turned about at the sound of their approach and glared at the warriors.
“Why do
n’t you scream as well?” he asked acidly. “Rake your blades off the sides of the buildings? Let everyone know you’ve arrived.”
“Perhaps we will,” Lantus replied, and Ballan could see the pit fighter didn’t like Caro’s tone. “Or maybe we’ll just make someone scream.”
Caro ignored that. “Are you dogs ready?”
“Watch your mouth,” Kurlin seethed, sliding his shortsword free of its scabbard. Behind him, the others bared their own weapons.
Caro studied them all with greater attention, and Ballan had to admire his leader for having balls of sheer stone and doing so without so much as a flinch.
“Mind who you’re speaking to, dog,” Caro countered, unblinking. “Else you do your morning’s work without paws.”
Kurlin bristled, not liking the quip in the least.
“This one’s a scrapper,” Plakus threw in, nodding appreciatively.
“He once fought in the pit or something like that,” Lantus said over his shoulder.
“And moved on to better things,” Caro stated in a dangerous tone. “Now shut—”
Ballan abruptly slunk back into the alley, seeing something across the street and attracting the attention of all with him.
There, two of the men had emerged from the alehouse’s entrance.
The killers in the alleyway quieted, their audacity simmering.
“There they are…” Caro hissed from where he pressed himself against the wall.
“Only the two of them?” Lantus asked from just behind him.
“Only two.”
“There’re three,” Ballan supplied.
Caro raised a hand.
The pair of men stopped on the step, as if waiting.
*
“Now what?” Goll asked, turning on his crutch.
Halm blinked at him. “Forgot my blade.”
“Go on and get it then.”
Halm considered the open door but then waved a hand. “It’s all right. Lead on.”
131 Days [Book 1] Page 46
