Beggar's Rebellion: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 1)

by L. W. Jacobs

  The noise of the market hit first: clang of metal on metal, shout of merchant and customer, the roar of forge and hammer, and mongrels fighting for scraps. Tai felt the heat next, rounding the corner to smithies ablaze in the summer sun. Smells came after, pastry meats and sour sweat and linseed oil mixing in a red dust that left your tongue with the tang of pig iron. Tai ducked left into the narrow row of armor merchants and dropped Curly’s hand. “Go! Get Aelya!”

  Curly nodded and vanished into the crowd. Tai slipped into the throng, Tulric still shouting behind them. Four years running for the resistance had taught him how to maneuver in a crowd, and this wasn’t the first time he’d had to lose someone in the Iron Market. This place had been the resistance’s biggest secret, making axes and broadswords under the guise of farm tools and cutlery. Now it was open and legal and duly taxed by the Councilate—but there were still secrets.

  Tai ducked low behind a corpulent pair of Councilate merchants, cradling Fisher as he crab-walked under the counter into a wooden stall. A swarthy blacksmith looked down at them and Tai forced a smile. “Brother,” he said in Achuri, “is there a back door around?”

  The smith winked and went back to polishing his wares, but his foot scraped a line backward toward the clanging forge at the back. Tai crouched under the counter, holding Fisher close, and offered a prayer to the ancestors for Tulric to pass without seeing them.

  He did, resonance thrumming past and deeper into the market.

  “Hold on, Fishy,” Tai whispered, and they scuttled into the back.

  The heat was intense, the roar of forge and clang of steel too loud to talk, but a lanky man in a worn leather apron took one look and motioned them toward him. A tool rack stood nearby, which the man slid aside to reveal a narrow tunnel. Tai smiled at him, locking arms in the old resistance style, and worked his way into the tunnel, pulling Fisher behind.

  Sometimes it paid to have a past.

  The tunnel was narrow and unpleasant, especially after the man slid the rack back into place. They came out in the market alleys, a long series of walkways connecting inner shops to the streets. Tai crouched down, brushing cobwebs from Fisher’s spangled hair. “You okay?”

  Her face still had that blankness, but she nodded. Ancestors, but he needed to get these kids off the streets.

  Let’s start by keeping them out of the mines.

  Tai sighed, some of the tension melting from his shoulders. “Come on, Fishy. Let’s go home.” The market alleys were a maze, with new walls built over old, and sneak holes filled since the resistance days. It took a few minutes to get oriented, but Tai had them headed the right direction, nearly out, when Fisher looked up at him.

  “Is my brother in there?”

  Tai smiled, feeling Hake’s pleasure. “He sure is.” Fisher liked to talk to her brother sometimes, and Tai was happy to make the connection.

  Hake smiled inside. What’s going on, Fishy? Tai repeated the words.

  “Hake, what will you do if I die?”

  Hake stuttered, taken aback. I—I don’t know, Fisher. That’d be terrible.

  “Can I be your spirit guide?”

  Hake laughed, and Tai echoed. “I’m not sure it works like that, Fishy. Guides don’t get guides. But don’t worry about that, okay? Tai’s going to take good care of you.”

  Fisher thought about this for a moment, Tai cheered to see the blankness clearing from her eyes. “When I start bleeding, can you be my voice, too? Can we share?”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart,” Hake said, but he sounded hesitant. Hake could be awkward around his sister—they hadn’t gotten much time together, growing up.

  She turned to him. “Tai, will you share him with me?”

  Tai smiled, seeing the light of a wider street ahead. “Anytime.”

  Tai and Fisher rounded a bend to find Tulric waiting at the mouth of the alley, a long iron rod in his hand. Tai’s heart dropped.

  Tulric smirked. “Thought I might find you here. I used to run for the resistance too, remember?”

  Tai’s bones started humming—Tulric had struck resonance. There was nowhere to go—he couldn’t outrun a brawler, not with Fisher there, or outfight someone with a brawler’s strength.

  “Nowhere to run to this time, eh? Wishing maybe you’d taken me up on that job offer?” Tulric winced in false sympathy. “Could have done it for you, but people have seen me now. Had to kind of make a scene, pushing through the market like that. Bosses are gonna hear about it. Can’t come back empty-handed.”

  Fear rolled off Hake, adding to Tai’s own. There was no way to get out with Fisher, no way he could leave her. Unless…

  No, Tai.

  “Fisher,” Tai said, surprising himself with how calm his voice was, “run.”

  She just stood there, the blankness back on her face. Meck. Tai found himself backing up, Tulric advancing, Hake moaning a constant no no no no no.

  “Can’t run, Tai,” the thug-turned-lawkeeper said. “I’ll catch her. Catch both of you. And that won’t be pretty.” He shook his head, enjoying his moment. “Not at all. Better if you just come easy.”

  If he could keep Tulric talking, he’d think of something eventually. “Look, Tulric, you know we go way back, before all this Councilate elkmeck, back to the resistance. What about if we just—”

  Tulric slashed a hand through the air. “No deals. I need a body, Tai. I can’t go back to them empty-handed, not with my quota and our little scene.” His face softened a little. “Look, I’ll cut you a deal. You give me the girl, and I’ll tell them you helped bring her in. That you want to be on the force.”

  Tai clenched his fists. “Never.”

  Tulric shrugged. “Your call. I just need a body. Doesn’t need to be breathing.”

  Tai tried pushing Fisher back, but she still stood there, frozen. He’d have to use his resonance, then. There was nothing for it.

  Hake snapped to. No, Tai. You can’t.

  I have to, he thought back. It’s that or we lose everything.

  At least we stay alive that way! Tai, you can’t control it—you could kill yourself or Fisher—

  Tai steeled himself, reaching deep inside, somewhere he hadn’t been in a long time. Maybe the threat would be enough. “You know what I can do, Tulric. You were there after the resistance. Don’t push me.”

  Tulric’s smirk slipped for a second, then came back. “Word is you lost the resonance after you started your gang. Ancestors left you. Brokespine’s what we call you now.”

  So be it. Tai took a deep breath and struck the resonance inside.

  It was like standing under the city gong. His body shook, bones buzzing, resonating with the energy rushing out. He sighed, something deep inside him relaxing despite the danger. It felt so right.

  Tulric’s smile faltered, his low hum drowned in the roar of Tai’s. “Tai don’t—don’t do this, man. You can go, it’s fine—”

  But it wasn’t fine. Tulric had tried to take Fisher, threatened to kill them both. Rage rose up, the rage that said there was only one solution to evil: death. “Ancestors guide you, Tulric.”

  Tai took a deep breath, air thickening around him—

  And Tulric crumpled under a ring-studded fist.

  A one-armed woman stood behind him in a leather vest and men’s shorts. “Tai!” she yelled. “Don’t be a meckstain.”

  He lost his resonance in surprise, energy rattling out of him. “Aelya? What—”

  “Curly said you needed help—not that you were about to mecking kill someone. What the hell?”

  “He— How did you find us?” Tai shook his head, trying to clear it.

  “Curly said you were in the Iron Market. I figured eventually you’d take an alley out, and I guessed it’d be the west one. Good thing I did. Stains.” She shook her head. “Thought we agreed you weren’t going to do that anymore?”

  “I—didn’t think there was any other way. He had us cornered.”

  Aelya frowned, running a hand through her messy
ear-length hair. “And you didn’t think about flying away from him? Tai, you’re a wafter. That’s what your resonance does. I swear you killed all those soldiers just ‘cause you were too stupid to run away.”

  He remembered Fisher, like a punch to the gut—she’d run during the fight.

  They found her a few corners back, crouched in a corner and shaking. “It’s okay, Fishy. It’s okay. Nobody got hurt, and we can go home now, okay?” She didn’t answer but clung to Tai for dear life. Stains. This was going to take some undoing.

  Aelya scrunched her nose, looking back toward Tulric. “We should probably get out of here. Not sure when he’s going to wake up, but we don’t wanna be here when he does.”

  They took the back alleys home, climbing out of Riverbottom to the bluffs separating it from the upper city. Marrem’s healworking shop was here, one of many bluffhouses built into the sloped earth, cool in the summer and warm during Ayugen’s long winters. Tai’s gang had been staying there for the past few months, in the smokehouse built around Marrem’s chimney on the hill above, named for the smoke that came along with the free heat in winter. If they were still in Ayugen, they would need to move before winter—not only to find better shelter but because it was dangerous to stay in one place too long. Gang wars were common between the Maimers, Mothers and Roughbloods. Tai’s reputation and the group’s small size had kept them safe so far, but there was no telling how things would change, with thugs like Tulric recruiting directly into the lawkeepers.

  Fisher was quiet but walking at least, one hand holding tightly to Tai’s. Aelya chewed a plug of dreamleaf—one of her many vices—and watched the streets around them, ever-vigilant. Tai was quiet, trying to sort out the morning—Tulric, the chase, the lighthaired woman. She was the one who’d started it, challenging Tulric. She’d also quickly found a secret only the street kids knew—that he could use his resonance without yura.

  Could if it didn’t make you a bloodthirsty wreck, that is.

  Tai rolled his shoulders. He’d earned his resonance during the last battle of the Achuri resistance, making peace with his former spirit guide, but his memories of the time were scattered. Dark. Of killing and taking revenge and wanting to die in the days that followed the defeat, attacking any and every Councilate soldier he saw, his resonance so strong it felt unstoppable. Marrem said when the ancestors granted you power, it should be a celebration, a coming of age. His had been nothing like that, but then, not much remained of the old ways.

  Still, those days meant everyone on the streets knew what he was capable of. Spirit-granted resonance was always stronger than what yura gave—like a full draught of dreamtea compared to a sip—but his had been stronger still, unheard of. They’d called him Blackspine, for the blood dried to the bare knobs of his backbone. He had been covered in it for days, uncaring, possessed.

  And then never used his resonance again.

  Because you know you’d lose yourself for good. Because you have people now. You’ve got my little sister to take care of.

  Tai nodded. Though sometimes, he wondered if the madness was tied to his resonance or just to that time. If things might be different now that he’d grown up.

  And if they’re not?

  Aelya spat green on the flagstones. “Think he’ll be pissed?”

  Tai started—he’d been lost in thought. “What?”

  “Tulric. Think he’ll be pissed?”

  He grimaced. “You know what it’d mean if he was still a Maimer.”

  She nodded. “Payback.” On the streets, if a rival inside your gang embarrassed you in front of the others, you either lost rank or fought them as soon as you could. If someone outside the gang did it, you came at them for payback with your whole gang behind you.

  “Probably should have let you kill him,” Aelya said, spitting again.

  “No.” Tai rolled his shoulders, still shocked he’d gotten as close as he had. It’d been what, three years?

  Since the day we found Fisher.

  Right. “No,” he said again. “If you hadn’t stepped in…”

  Aelya nodded. “You’d’a gone wild and killed him and a couple other lawkeepers, probably, just like old times. Then it would be payback for sure, but it’d be the Councilate this time.” She nodded and muttered something else, likely talking to her spirit guide.

  Tai grimaced, pulling Fisher out of the path of a curtained rickshaw making its way down the steep road, two sweating Achuri men at its poles. “Think he’ll want payback anyway?”

  She shrugged. “Hard to know. All’s I did was knock him out, and nobody really saw. But still, if it was me? Yeah, I’d come at us.” She spat again.

  “So, what do we do?”

  Aelya started flexing the fingers on her hand, the other arm ending in a stump just below the elbow. She’d grown up in the Maimers. “Cocked if I know. We can’t take on all the lawkeepers, even if you do go Blackspine on ’em. But maybe he’ll be too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. Maybe he’ll just come at us himself. We should probably lie low for a couple days, just send the kids out.”

  “Not Fisher. Or Curly. He’ll recognize them.”

  Aelya nodded. “Might have to cut into savings. Take longer to make passage.”

  Tai grimaced again. “Guess there’s nothing for it.”

  “Unless we try hitting those burnt ships, see if there’s any yura down there.”

  He barked a laugh. “Talk to Hake about that one.” Hake grumbled something inside.

  Aelya frowned. “Oh, cock Hake. If we were half as careful as Hake wanted us to be, we’d still be scrounging wild asparagus to sell at market.” She started, spirit guide likely saying something. “No offense, Fisher.”

  Marrem’s shop was coming up on the left, wooden sign painted with a pestle and ivy hanging above the door. One of her current kids was out front, a young girl twisting herbs into packets in the afternoon sunshine. She ran inside at the sight of them, and Marrem came out a moment later, dusting off broad hips. “Back early today, are we?” She eyed the group. “Trouble in town?”

  You couldn’t keep anything from Marrem. “Aye. Just a lawkeeper trying to cause trouble, but we ended up running, and…”

  “And Tai almost lost it,” Aelya finished for him.

  Marrem frowned, but her eyes were on Fisher. “I’ll get something for the girl. You’ll want to let her rest, after what she’s seen.”

  Tai nodded, and they took stairs to the smokehouse, the inside just big enough for the five of them to sleep, pots for cooking and a few bundles of herbs hanging on the walls. Marrem brought up hot tea for Fisher, and Aelya said she was going out, making the excuse that they needed more barley for supper. You couldn’t keep Aelya still, not for long, and Tai didn’t try. Instead, as Fisher settled down, eyes starting to watch for birds or other animals, Tai built a cookfire and tried to settle his thoughts.

  Pang and Curly came in later, Curly carrying a rabbit he’d caught in the woods. Tai skinned and added it to the stew, relieved to see Fisher talking to Curly, the light returned to her eyes. Still, he couldn’t help watching the street as they passed out bowls, told stories of the day, and bedded down in their usual noisy, messy, good-natured way.

  Tai and Aelya lay closest to the door, heads out to catch the breeze and watch the moons wheel overhead. After the kids’ chatter had quieted and Curly began his soft snore, Tai nudged Aelya. “You still awake?”

  “I am now.”

  “I keep thinking about Tulric. If he finds us here, or attacks with a couple more lawkeepers on the streets, we’re done for.”

  He felt more than saw her nod. “I know. But we can’t just sit here and let the summer waste, and it doesn’t make sense to leave without enough yura to get us through a couple months in the capital.”

  He nodded. Their plan was to smuggle yura with them to Worldsmouth, where policing was lax and moss sold for twenty times what it did in Ayugen. To buy a real place and get the kids off the streets for good. “Hake thinks I sh
ould go first, sell enough to bring the rest of you down.”

  Aelya laughed. “That’s exactly what Worlea has been saying. But with Tulric after us now…”

  He nodded. “We need to stick together. I don’t wanna think about what would have happened if you hadn’t been there today.”

  Hake grumbled at this but didn’t interrupt.

  “How much do we have, if we go now?”

  “Seven hundred and forty-two, counting today,” he said. “If I can still find that Seinjialese merchant, we should all be able to get downstream for six hundred. But a hundred and forty-three moons—”

  She shifted in her blankets. “It’s not enough.”

  “Not unless yura sells for even more than people say.”

  They were quiet for a time, Tai thinking over the possibilities. It came down to whether Tulric wanted payback or not. But even if he didn’t, the first time he saw any of them on the streets, trouble would start again.

  Aelya popped her neck. “So, what do we do?”

  Tai sighed, admitting what had been brewing in his mind all afternoon. “I think we have to go anyway. All of us. Get the cheapest passage we can, buy as much yura as we can, and go. We can’t risk staying.”

  “And if it’s not enough? Worldsmouth might not be as good as we’ve heard.”

  Tai rolled his shoulders, sleeping sounds of the kids at odds with his thoughts. “Better broke than dead.”

  5

  I found the bluffhouses especially ingenious: dug into the side of the hill, a single fire would keep them remarkably warm despite winters in which, I swear to you, no lighthaired man could survive. Making the most of their heat, smokehouses are built around the chimney above, providing a single warm room for commerce, recreation or animal storage. Connected by doors and earthen corridors with their neighbors, truly there was little reason beyond privy or marvel to venture out of doors.

  —Markels, Travels in the South: At’li and Achuri

  Things looked a little better in the light of day. Ella loved mornings on the ship, the sunlight through her porthole and the cedar smoke of cookfires above deck. She slipped on a gown and walked to the back rail.