Kyrioc shook his head. “I hid it from you, for those times when you empty the petty cash and leave me with nothing to run the shop.”
Eyalmati looked crestfallen. “I do that?”
“Sometimes.”
The landlady returned. The glitterkind magic had already faded, leaving behind a long cut that was not as deep as it had been, and a lot of pain. “When I was a girl,” she said, brushing wisps of gray hair out of her eyes, “I joined the militia to fight the raiders from Koh-Benjatso. A lot of women did. Sometimes, my duties had me atop the wall, taking a hatchet to grappling lines, but most of my time was spent stitching Salashi fighters back together.” She held up a needle and thread. “Do you trust me?”
“Do it.”
First, she poured a bit of sharp brandy over the injury. Kyrioc bit back a cry. Passing the remains of the jug to Eyalmati, she said, “Dump out the extra somewhere, would you?” She didn’t look at him as he took several deep swallows. His hands seemed steadier after.
Dabbing at Kyrioc’s side, the landlady said, “This doesn’t look so bad after all, Broken, but you’ve lost a lot of blood.” Kyrioc clenched his teeth as the needle went into his skin and the gut pulled his wound closed. She didn’t look up as she spoke. “Is anyone going to be looking for you?” Kyrioc nodded. “Then you shouldn’t have come back here, should you?” He shook his head. The landlady kept stitching. “Busk, fetch some rags. We’re taking the back stair, and I don’t want to leave a trail of bloody footprints.”
Darkness closed over Kyrioc again. He had just enough time and energy to take hold of his black iron staff before the world went away.
* * *
Riliska had nothing to do.
Her paints had run dry, and while the other kids admired the work she’d done, they’d lost interest. The adults hadn’t even noticed. Her popularity had drained away like water in a cracked bowl, and she still hadn’t made friends with someone who could help her find her mother.
She spent most of her waking and sleeping hours in the baths. The other kids wouldn’t enter because of the smell—it did smell like old wet clothes—so none of them knew about the hidden glitterkind child. No one had told Riliska to keep her a secret, but she did anyway. This was grownup business, and snooping into grownups’ business was a good way to get hurt.
Besides, it was nice to have a secret.
She climbed over the side of the tub and crawled into the skywood slot beneath. The glitterkind child was still there. Riliska approached it.
Inch. That’s what she called the little glitterkind, because the second time she visited, it seemed to have shrunk by an inch. Her friend Kyrioc had told her that glitterkind needed sunlight in order to grow properly. Riliska was glad that she didn’t have the same weakness.
She whispered to it, telling it about her mommy and how they would soon be reunited. She also promised to find Inch a comfortable place to grow.
There was no response. There was never a response. Riliska fell quiet again. No one trusted her to run errands and she had no chores or lessons. She wished she could sleep until evening meal, then sleep again until morning. Anything to fill the endless hours.
The old man who had shown them into the building had told her not to bother with the baths, and he was right. They were gross. He’d also said…
He’d said the caretaker stayed in the exercise room and he didn’t like children.
But if the old man took care of the building, why did he call this other person a caretaker? Unless what he took care of was Inch.
It occurred to her that being near Inch could get her into serious trouble.
She walked through the building, visiting the empty spa and peering through the hole in the floor—it was daylight now, so she could see the empty plankway far below—then passing through the room where they ate, and looking out the windows. She was going to the exercise room because she wanted to see the sort of person who was supposed to be looking after Inch. Maybe she would ask him to do a better job.
It didn’t bother her that she’d been told the caretaker didn’t like children. In her experience, no one did.
But first, she wandered around the building to see if there was some reason to put it off. There wasn’t.
The door to the exercise room creaked when she pulled it open. A large window that faced Suloh’s hip bone brought in a lot of light, but it must not have been opened in a long time, because the room stank like moldy cloth. The floor was covered with a tattered mat, and a row of blunt metal swords leaned against the near wall. An armless wooden man on an iron base stood in the corner. His head, shoulders, and torso had been beaten almost into splinters.
The only place she couldn’t see was the far corner, beside the window where the light couldn’t reach. There was a long bench there, and a shadow—
The shadow moved. Riliska caught her breath as a figure stood off the bench and silently moved in front of the window. Backlit, the figure was hard to see clearly, but he was big and broad like a man. He wore steel. She’d never seen anyone in armor before, except the cosh.
Is this what he did all day? Sit quietly in the stink? No wonder he couldn’t take care of Inch.
“Good sir? Aren’t you lonely in here?”
The armored man laughed. A chill run through Riliska’s blood, and she fled into the hall.
* * *
Harl was not found among the dead.
That was good news as far as Onderishta was concerned, but she wouldn’t be satisfied until she confirmed he was still alive.
It was one thing to arrest him. From a cell, Harl would play at being the boss, but his grip on the city would be weakened. The gangs would be weakened and the bureaucracy would be free to shut some of the worst brothels, casinos, and dealers.
But if Harl was dead, Koh-Salash might fall into a shadow civil war.
Adleri had finished her work with unexpected speed. Most of those inside the weaver’s workshop had been killed with a single stroke, and only about half had their heads detached from their bodies. She found it easy to match them. The only body parts she could not account for were a left hand—and the bloody pawprints near the back door suggested a local mutt had stolen it—and a man’s head.
She explained all this in the same bored tone that Onderishta would use to describe the weather. Onderishta thanked her with exacting politeness.
Then she hunted down the one body that was missing a head. He was short, with pale Carrig skin, and he might have been Harl. By the fallen gods, she hoped not, but it was possible.
Fay hurried toward her. “I didn’t have much luck with the bystanders and the cafe employees. They were polite but all anyone would say was that a red-haired foreigner—with special emphasis on the word for my sake—drew a long-handled sword and entered the shop alone.”
“Alone?”
“One man against more than a dozen. I think it’s bullshit. You know what seems more likely? One of their own drugged a pot of tea or something and knocked them all out. Then this foreigner makes a show of drawing his weapon and marching in. One guy lifts an unconscious heavy, and the other chops him. Thwack.”
“Is that the sound effect for chopping a man in half?”
He shrugged. “That’s what I’m going with.”
“Red hair, you say?”
“And beard. He sounds like my buddy from High Apricot, Killer of Devils, who promised to turn over Second Boar’s package.”
“Promised the package but delivered something else.” Onderishta looked over the crowd. Their numbers had dwindled, but there were no foreigners among them. Least of all a man with red hair. “I wonder what they promised our friend from the pawnshop.”
“The boy is doing well,” Fay said idly, as though the pawnshop broker was old news. “I was watching. He’s got a knack for asking the right person and pretending to be interested. Plus, he’s got the right skin color. I bet he comes back with something. How’s the other?”
As though the question sum
moned her, Mirishiya emerged from the workshop with a small crate in her arms.
“You said I couldn’t go inside, ma’am, and you were right, because I just wanted to see. It was selfish and this profession is about higher things. But I do want to help.”
Fay grinned. “So, you thought up a better justification to do what you already wanted to do? You’ll go far, little one.”
The girl shifted uncomfortably, as though she was afraid of being dismissed. Onderishta spoke up. “Were you bothered by what you saw?”
Mirishiya looked up at her, then down at the lid of her crate. “I’ve seen worse, ma’am. Never so many at once, but definitely worse. And I found something unusual.” She fumbled with the lid of the crate. Onderishta couldn’t decide if she should buy her a sweet cake or send her back to the tower so she would disobey someone else. “I’ve also seen knife blades break in a fight. Cheap steel makes a cheap death.” From the crate, Mirishiya drew out a knife handle. The blade had broken off only an inch past the grip. “But this isn’t cheap steel at all. It’s very good. And there are three of them. Also…”
The girl removed a hatchet handle. The blade had been cut through on a slant like a piece of melon.
Fay took it from her, then fished the other half out of the crate. They fit together perfectly. “I’ve never seen a hatchet break like this.”
Onderishta scowled as she looked into the crate. The knives inside also looked like they’d been sliced in two. She thought again about the body inside that seemed to have been cut through the collarbone, breastbone, spine, and ribs.
Another ghostkind blade had come to Koh-Salash.
* * *
Tin slept, but not well. She dreamed that Harl’s lieutenants marched on Wild Dismal like four armies. Harl’s nephew stood at the front, a charred corpse with a hatchet in each hand. When her own heavies saw the numbers, weapons, and discipline of the enemy, they fled like rats from a house fire. The entire deck was empty except her, her brother—who wouldn’t stop admiring their enemies’ army uniforms—and her bodyguard. Then the Katr shrugged, said, Fuck honor, and turned his blade toward Wooden.
She woke with her face drenched with sweat and her guts sick with worry.
It was daylight outside. A bowl of clean water had been brought to her room—someone slipped into her bedroom while she slept and she hadn’t noticed. She gladly sponged the fear sweat from her skin.
Her plan was succeeding, even with this rushed timeline, but the closer she got, the shakier she felt.
No more.
She went to the window. The afternoon was fading, but the light from Suloh’s pelvic bones was still strong. She was far from the activity of the city in here, hiding out in the shuttered spa where Harl had hidden his glitterkind. Safe. All she had to do was open the window and lean over the sill, and she would plummet a hundred feet into the black mud below.
The part of her that longed for that scared the shit out of her.
The truly strange thing was that it didn’t matter. Either she threw herself out of this window, or some heavy knifed her in the back, or her own bodyguard—
Killer of Devils. That was his name. Yes, it was a boastful name—and boastful names were bad luck—but it didn’t matter. If he brought her bad luck, at least she’d be free of this awful uncertainty.
She would make her name, spend a shitpile of gold, and then die violently, hopefully with her hammer buried in someone’s skull. It was a good plan. The most difficult part, apparently, was convincing herself that it was working.
She closed the window and dressed in her plainest clothes. Today would be the last day of her life if she couldn’t bring Harl’s heavies into her organization. Her own people were next to worthless. But if her carefully planted seeds took root…
When she opened her bedroom door, she startled Ink Mouse. Apparently, he was supposed to be guarding her door.
“Awake already, boss?”
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“Right away, boss. By the way, it worked,” Ink said, grinning.
“Don’t just say It worked to me, shitwit. What worked?”
“I’m sorry. The purge against the foreign friends. It started.”
Well, who could have fucking called it? Harl’s Salashi heavies had moved at her orders.
She had them.
“Good. I’m going to eat. Get that little girl we took with that pickpocket in Woodgarden. It’s time I talked to her.”
He hurried away. Tin returned to her room, slung on her belt, and tucked her hammer into the right side. The weight of it felt good.
A plate covered with fried lamb steak and a hunk of rough bread awaited her in the common room. The meat was cold but delicious. The bread only reminded her of the smell and taste of the loaf she’d eaten in High Slope. Was that why Harl made his headquarters in Upgarden? The food?
Surprisingly, the girl took longer to present than the meal, but when she appeared, she came running. Once she reached the middle of the room, she paused and looked around. There were a couple of beetles lying in the corner, whispering to each other, and a table of heavies playing cards. Her bodyg—Killer of Devils sat on a stool near the wall.
Tin was not going to shy from that name any longer. Killer of Devils.
Then the girl marched across the room and stood beside Tin’s chair, waiting to be recognized.
While she chewed a mouthful of steak, Tin looked her over. Her cheeks were dirty and her shirt tattered, but that didn’t look like a new development. Her mother must have given her a whole lot of neglect and not much else.
“Do you know why I called you here?” The girl shook her head. “I want to ask about your friend.”
She furrowed her brow in confusion. “Do you mean the kids I painted? I just met them.”
“I mean the man in the pawnshop.”
Her smile was quick and bright. “Oh! You mean Broken.”
“Why do you call him that?”
“It’s his nickname. The Broken Man. I didn’t give it to him, though.”
“Who did? Why?”
The girl thought for a moment, then offered another bright smile. “I heard Old Inkiyenz say it first, I think. She’s the little old lady who sells buns. I’m pretty sure Sintaree said it next. Then Young Inkiyenz. Young and Old aren’t related, by the way. They just have the same name. The landlady’s nephew said it a lot, but he likes to be mean. I don’t know who started it, though. I think they called him Broken because he doesn’t like to talk to people. Or look at them, really.”
As far as Tin could tell, the girl was speaking openly and honestly, but nothing she said was remotely useful. “Do you know his real name?”
“Kyrioc, child of No One. I know that means he’s an orphan. Isn’t that sad?”
“Who does he work for?”
“Eyalmati, child of… I forgot.”
Tin didn’t recognize that name. Did Harl have operatives she didn’t know about? “Who is he? Tell me about him.”
“He’s the owner of the pawnshop and he drinks a lot. Eyalmati used to give money to my mom, but she says he’s too drunk for that now. He’s hardly even in the shop anymore. It’s usually Kyrioc all by himself, but I think he prefers it that way. I used to think he was an assassin in hiding or something, but…” She glanced over at the heavies, leaning against the wall and laughing, then at…at Killer of Devils, then at Tin herself. “But that’s kid stuff. I don’t think that anymore. Now I just think he’s a sad person who forgets to be nice, sometimes. I…” She forced herself to say one thing instead of another. “I like him.”
“Is Kyrioc your father?”
The girl shook her head, her expression serious. “My father was a gambler. He died when I was five.”
Tin leaned back in her chair. What was this shit? This pawnbroker wanted this little girl, supposedly. That’s what he’d told her beetle, and the beetle had no reason to lie. If he wasn’t her father, what did he want? Who did he really work for?
&
nbsp; Somehow, he must have figured out that she was living with the beetles, and he wanted the girl to lead him there.
The real question was how he’d kept such a low profile. Killer of Devils said the guy had godkind magic of a type he’d never seen before, and a guy like that doesn’t work in a low-end pawnshop, buying stolen bracelets from whores. His name was common enough to be fake, and the child of No One bit made it impossible to check. It was all too convenient.
Someone was running a game on her. She needed to find out who.
“You’ve been bored here, haven’t you?” Without waiting for a response, she waved Little Cinder over. “Put her to work.” To Riliska, she said, “Eat until you’re full. You’ll need fuel for your fire.” After the girl ran off, she gestured at Little Cinder. “Assign a heavy to follow her and make it someone quick and mean. If this pawnbroker shows up, he gets a knife in the back. No warning. No threats or challenges. Sudden, unexpected death. Pick someone looking to move up in the world. Send a beetle, too, in case the heavy fails. I’ll want to know where he takes her.”
Little nodded and approached the girl. She asked about her mommy, but he didn’t answer.
Tin gestured to her bodyguard. He slid from his chair and fell in step behind her. One more conversation, then it was time to head for Upgarden to take command.
* * *
“You must be fucking joking to come here. With him!”
At first, Kyrioc thought he was the unwelcome one, but the old fellow with the crooked back barely glanced at him.
His landlady said, “Keep your voice down, you miserable old— This man’s been stabbed, and we need a place to hide him.”
The crooked man squinted at Kyrioc’s injury. “He needs a hospital.”
“I can’t afford a hospital,” Eyalmati said. He was struggling to support his share of Kyrioc’s weight. “I’ve been robbed of everything.”
The crooked man’s expression turned malicious. “So! Now you know what it’s like to have someone steal from you!”
One Man Page 31
