“Oh?”
“Sure,” Urek said, grinning again. “Understand, I’ll still have a drink from time to time, and I reckon beatin’ the shit out of people is a large enough part of the job, but Hale gave me a family, and that’s somethin’ a man like me ain’t ever thought to have. The men you see here—and those out on their own errands—feel much the same. We don’t mean to give up on the boss so easy, and that bastard Grinner might be sittin’ pretty now, but so do those noble ladies when they go to those travelin’ shows, see a bear in a cage.” He leaned in, an eager light in his eyes, “But if that bear finds his way out, or if, maybe, some foolish bastards with more loyalty than sense let him out…well, all the pretty words and likely lies in the world ain’t gonna keep him from feastin’ if he’s of a mind. And in my experience, swordmaster,” he said, giving Darrell a wink, “the bear’s always of a mind.”
“You mean to break him out.” It wasn’t really a question, but Urek decided to answer anyway.
“We do,” he said, then scowled. “Though how we’re to go about doin’ that is what we ain’t quite figured out yet. Oh, sure, the boy here’s got hands that’ll pick any lock and please any woman, but we’ve been doin’ some scoutin’ of the castle, and unless we can turn invisible like some stage magician he wouldn’t get anywhere near close enough to the boss’s cell to use ‘em.”
Darrell frowned, sharing the man’s frustration, for he had been to the castle on a number of occasions himself. Ever since May’s capture he’d been trying to think of some way of freeing her without killing several innocent guardsmen who were only doing their duty or, more likely, bringing half the soldiers in the city down on their heads. So far he had come up empty. “There must be another way,” he said, though whether it was to the big man standing before him or to himself he couldn’t have said.
“Maybe,” Urek said doubtfully, “but if there is one, I ain’t seen it. Still, I’m not known for my brains. Maybe you can figure somethin’ out where we couldn’t. It’s why we come lookin’ for you, after all. Figured you’d want that son of a bitch Grinner laid horizontal as bad as we do after the lies he’s been spreadin’ about you and yours. Was thinkin’ maybe you might know of somethin’ we ain’t thought of yet. What I can tell you is that ain’t no amount of coin we can lay hands on, nor fancy lies gonna get us in there. Whoever could be bought has been bought already, and Grinner’s got much deeper pockets than ours. As for lying,” he sighed, shaking his head, “that fucker could give lessons. So,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Darrell, “what about it, swordmaster? Got any idea of how we can get in the castle and get the boss and lady May back?”
The man said it lightly, as if he was half-joking and didn’t expect Darrell to have any solution. The problem was that he did expect it—Darrell could see the hope in the man’s dark eyes. The swordmaster gave a sigh of his own, wishing he had something to give the man, but hope, unfortunately, was in short supply these days. “I’m sorry, but no. I’ve been thinking about it since they were first taken and, so far at least, I haven’t come up with anything.”
Urek grunted as if he wasn’t surprised, but Darrell noticed the slumping shoulders and frustrated expressions from the other men in the room. “Well, that’s alright then,” the big man said, and Darrell respected him all the more for the fact that he spoke with a confidence the swordmaster knew he didn’t feel for the sake of his men. “We’ll just keep on lookin’, and either way I’ll be glad to have a man of your skill at our side when the blood lettin’ starts.”
Darrell nodded. “I will do what I can, you have my word.”
Urek grinned. “A man’s word don’t go very far around here, swordmaster.” He studied Darrell, seemed to consider him, then shrugged. “But I think yours just might, which is a relief.” A troubled look crossed his features, and he knelt, pretending to check Darrell’s bandages. “I ain’t stopped and told the lads as much, old man,” he said in a voice barely loud enough for the swordmaster to hear though he was less than a foot away, “but I’m thinkin’ that, the way things stand, we’re all pretty well fucked. That Grinner is a bastard, but the world loves its bastards more than any king ever did, and that’s a fact. I know you don’t know me from anybody, and I don’t expect you trust me anymore’n you have to, considerin’ you’re laid out like a pig for market and surrounded by a bunch of bastards who spend their lives thievin’ and muggin’ and worse. But I wonder if I couldn’t ask you a favor, if you’ve a mind to hear it.”
“I’m listening,” Darrell said, pitching his own voice to a whisper to match the big man’s tone.
Urek grunted, rubbing at his scruffy chin as if embarrassed. “Don’t expect it’ll amount to shit all, anyway, what with some mage from olden times out creatin’ the gods alone know what kind of fuckery and Grinner bringin’ his own brand to bear on us…I’d say we’re all pretty well headed to the grave. The way I figure it, the best we can hope for is they put us in a box before they bury us, and even that’s a long hope at best.”
Darrell considered trying to say something to give the man some comfort, but he did not. Whatever else the big man was, he was no fool, that much was obvious, and he would see through any such attempts easily enough. “You were going to ask a favor?” he prompted instead.
The big man nodded, obviously uncomfortable. “Now it comes to it, I feel a fool to ask. But, you see, these fellas here...well, I won’t lie to you and say they’re good men that deserve savin’ but…well, they’re my men. You understand? I’ve been with ‘em for some time now, and though they’re handy enough when their enemy’s lookin’ the other way, sleepin’, or, best of all, dead, they ain’t made for the kind of shit storm that’s comin’. When the real killing starts—I don’t say if, mind, but when—I was wonderin’ if you couldn’t…” He trailed off, shaking his head in frustration.
Darrell met the man’s eyes. “I will do whatever I can to protect them. If it is within my power, I will keep them safe.”
Urek sighed heavily, a wide grin of relief spreading on his face. “Well, now, that’s alright then.”
He started to rise, but Darrell grasped his wrist, forestalling him. “You were a soldier once, were you not?”
The big man’s eyes clouded over, as if remembering something he’d rather have forgotten. “Yeah, I suppose I was.”
“Why did you quit?”
Urek studied him for several seconds then gave him another wide grin. “We got an army of monsters marching at us, swordmaster, and there’s better than even odds we’ll all be corpses long before they get here on account of our own army has turned against us.” He let out a quiet laugh. “Who says I quit?”
He rose, glancing around at the other men gathered standing around the room, noting their expressions. Darrell knew that they’d been too far away to hear the words they’d shared, but their faces said that they knew the gist of them well enough.
“We stick with you, Urek.” The words came from a man with a hook-nosed whose name Darrell had not been told. “And if the gods decide to fuck you over then they’ll have to fuck us all over.”
Urek grunted. “I wouldn’t worry about it none, Shadow. If the gods got the sense they gave a pig, they’ll stop long before they make it to your ugly mug.”
The other man grinned wide at this, as if Urek had just paid him a compliment, and the youth, Osirn, stepped forward. “He’s right, boss. You’ve always done right by us, and…and, well, we want to do right by you too. Besides, you’re not, you know, like the only one that wants to get Hale out of that dungeon.”
The big man sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I am at that, lad.”
Another man started to step forward and Urek pointed a thick finger at him. “Not one more damn step, you. Much more of this, I’ll start bawlin’ like a baby, and I reckon I’ll have to kill the lot of you. Shit, ain’t you bastards got anythin’ better to do than stand around gawping and prattlin’ on like old hens?”
The hook-nosed man, Shadow, grinn
ed. “Well, boss, you told us to wait here with you. You said—”
“Damn what I said!” Urek roared. “All of you go find somethin’ to occupy yourselves before I start decidin’ I need some sword practice and you’re the likeliest targets.”
“You forget, boss,” Shadow went on, “I’ve seen you swing that sword of yours—way I figure it, the safest place for us to be is right in front of you.”
Urek scowled, and the man hurried over to the other side of the room to where a small table sat, followed by the others, but Darrell didn’t miss the smiles and signs of barely suppressed laughter on their faces as they did.
“Now then—” the big man began, but he cut off as the door swung open, and they all spun to see the woman, Beautiful, walking inside. “Gods, Beautiful,” Urek said, “but you scared me half to death. Tell me, what’s the point of havin’ a secret knock, if you don’t use it?”
The woman saw that Darrell was awake and let out a surprisingly girlish squeal of joy, rushing to his side and completely ignoring the big man who stared at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face. “You’re awake!” she said, and Darrell was able to answer with no more than a grunt of barely suppressed pain as she lifted him up—none too gently—and examined the bandage on his side. “Blood’s seeped through,” she said in a threatening voice, as if offended that Darrell’s blood had dared leak out of him. Truth to tell, he was a bit offended by it himself, but he was too busy focusing on not screaming in pain at the rough treatment to say so.
Frowning thoughtfully, she unwrapped the bandage from his side, studying the wound. Darrell himself chose not to look. He’d seen enough wounds on his body to know what it would look like well enough. Besides, there was always something disconcerting about it, about seeing a hole where your flesh had once been. It wasn’t an easy thing to realize that whether you lived or not—something he still wasn’t wholly convinced of considering the way the woman handled him—you would always be missing a piece of yourself, a piece that was once there and now was not.
“Now, Beautiful,” Urek tried again, talking in a slow, hesitant way as if the last thing he wanted just then was to get in to an argument with the woman but he’d reluctantly decided that a point needed to be made. “I understand you’re in a rush to help your new friend here, and truth is I’ve taken a bit of a shine to him myself, but about the secret knock—”
“Oh, to the Fields with the secret knock,” Beautiful said in a distracted, emotionless voice as she poured something—not the fire powder again, thankfully, for that surely would have pulled the scream out of Darrell that was even now so close to the surface—on his wound and began to rub it in. “And what good would it do anyway, Urek, considering the gods cursed door wasn’t even locked.”
The big man frowned at that as if only just realizing it. “I’m sure I locked it when we came in and—”
“And now Shits is out front, filling up a glass of water and complaining about how he has to do everything around here. Everything apparently,” she said, finally turning to look at the big man, “except locking the door.”
Urek looked as if he wanted to say more, to press her on the importance of their hiding place remaining secret, perhaps, but he heaved a sigh that showed he’d decided it wasn’t worth it and remained silent.
“Now this,” the muscular woman said to Darrell, leaning over him and brandishing a small vial of liquid, “is for the pain. It will make you sleep, for a time, but sleep is important for the healing process. Then, when next you wake, you’ll feel all better.” She spoke as if to a small child, her voice full of reassurance, comfort, and it was strange to see such a tone come from a woman of her stature.
“Thank you, lady,” the swordmaster said, “for all your help—you are truly a kind woman.” Beautiful beamed at that, and Darrell noticed several of the men in the room nod approvingly out of the corner of his eye.
The woman’s cheeks flushed, and she shyly avoided his gaze, as if embarrassed, as she examined his side. Finally, she risked a glance up at him, as if she would speak, but before she could get a word out, the door slammed open again. Someone—Darrell wasn’t sure who as his view was blocked by the wide-shouldered, muscular woman leaning over him—let out a shout of surprise, and they all spun, including Beautiful.
The man, Shits, rushed in. “Boss,” he said, out of breath, “I’ve got news.”
Urek grunted, staring at the door as if it had personally wronged him and then transferring the look to the man. “What about the damned secret knock, Shits? And damnit but we have got to start locking the door. Anyway, what are you rushing about as if your ass is on fire, shouting for all the world to hear? Might as well hang a sign up front that says, Hideout here, come get us.”
“But, boss,” the man said, breathing hard, his forehead covered in sweat, “you need to hear this. It’s about Hale.”
“Well?” Urek demanded as the other men began to gather around. “What about him? I tell you, if that son of a bitch Grinner has done for the boss, he’ll pay for it ten—”
“The boss ain’t dead,” the man interrupted.
When the big man spoke, his voice was quiet, and the swordmaster detected a hint of resignation in his tone. “Go on then, Shits. I reckon you better tell us what you know.”
The man took a deep breath. “Don’t have to tell you, boss. I can show you. Or, rather, he can.” He motioned to the door and for the first time Darrell and the others noticed another man standing anxiously in the doorway.
“Damnit all,” Urek said, scowling, “we’re gettin’ more custom than a brothel runnin’ a free day, and that’s the truth. Who’s your new friend?”
“I don’t know him,” the man admitted, “but he was outside in the common room of the tavern, asking after the swordmaster and—”
“And you figured it’d be a good idea to let him in?” Urek demanded, incredulous. Suddenly, the air in the room rang with the unmistakable sound of drawn steel, and several of the criminals moved forward, long knives appearing in their hands as if out of nowhere. Even Beautiful let off her ministrations and stood, grabbing the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon—it just happened to be a thick oak chair that Darrell would have struggled to slide across the floor let alone pick up—and brandishing it over her head as she moved between Darrell and the newcomer.
“You’ll not take him,” she hissed at the stranger, and once again the swordmaster was uncomfortably reminded of the possessiveness of a child defending a new favorite toy.
The man standing in the doorway blanched, and Urek gestured to two of the men. “Grab him and close the door—and for the gods’ sake lock the damn thing will you?”
The men rushed to do as they were told, and the newcomer let out a strangled yelp as he was jerked inside the room and unceremoniously thrown to the floor. His eyes were wide, wild, and he backed up along the floor, looking at the closing door like it was his only hope of salvation.
“Boss, wait,” the man, Shits, said, “it ain’t—”
“Quiet now, Shits,” Urek said, his voice full of cold, hard menace and for the first time since meeting the man, Darrell saw no trace of the easy affability the man usually showed. “There’s a fella here that needs to do some explainin’ and fast, but it ain’t you—not yet anyway. But don’t think we won’t be havin’ a conversation about this later.”
The other man—no doubt knowing his boss’s moods better than the swordmaster—chose to remain silent, nodding like a chastised child and throwing the man sitting in the floor what might have been an apologetic look as Urek stalked forward. “Osirn, Shadow, you’re on the door,” the big man said over his shoulder. “Any bastard comes through you don’t recognize, you poke him so full of holes he’ll never need to pull his trousers down to take a piss again, you understand?”
“Yes sir,” the men said in unison, rushing to comply with an alacrity that would have been impressive in trained guardsmen. Darrell began to see that, however rough and disorganiz
ed the group appeared on the outside, they knew their business well enough.
“Now then,” Urek said, kneeling in front of the wide-eyed stranger, his thick arms resting on his knees. The posture showed his muscles well enough, somehow made him appear even larger than he already was as he crouched over the other man, and the swordmaster was impressed by the surprising amount of subtlety the big man displayed for all his self-deprecation. After all, those thick arms, those knotted fists—scarred from the gods alone knew how many street brawls—seemed fully capable, just then, of tearing the newcomer apart limb from limb, if the big man took it in his mind to do so. “Why don’t you tell us just who you are, stranger,” he continued in a voice that sounded like two boulders rubbing against each other, “and why you’ve chosen to visit us unannounced on this fine evening. And I’d do it quick, were I you. I bore easy, you see, and when I’m bored I’ve a tendency of gettin’ a bit…well, let’s call it unruly.”
The man swallowed hard, glancing at Darrell as if hoping he might save him, and the swordmaster was struck by the vague feeling that he knew the man, had, at least, seen him somewhere before. “S-sir,” the man stammered, “I-I…that is, I’m sorry f-for coming u-unannounced.” The big man’s face seemed to cloud over in preparation of a coming storm, and the stranger’s next words came so fast as to be almost unintelligible. “M-my name’s Eric, s-sir. Captain Festa sent me, to find the swordmaster. I don’t mean no harm, I swear by the gods I don’t.”
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