The Man-Butcher Prize

by Charles X Cross

  Hoping to forgo announcing his name to the pair – lest he subject himself to a similar ribbing to the one administered by the young Scoldish lad – he pulled up his sleeve to show his assassin’s brand. Pink and slightly glossy, the fan of half-moons was as distinct as the day it had been seared into his flesh, though thankfully not so painful.

  ‘Well, I’ll be.’ The taller one pushed the brim of his cap up. ‘You really don’t look the sort lad, but I suppose that works to your advantage.’

  ‘Just need your name for the register,’ the short guardsman added.

  ‘It’s…’ William sighed, letting the pause drag a little too long between words, ‘William of Fairshore.’

  The little guard scratched the name down on his parchment.

  ‘In you go then, and enjoy the competition.’ The taller guard stepped aside.

  ‘Is that it?’ William pursed his lips, half expecting a delayed punchline from the guardsmen.

  ‘You have a nice day now.’

  Pleasantly surprised, William stepped into the cordoned-off area. While the press nearer the stage was even tighter than in the bleachers with the commoners, at the rear of the carpet there was some space to manoeuvre. He craned his neck to look for a good route to the front. He wanted to see the ceremony and prize committee more than he’d realised, and was actually quite excited about the prospect of entering the competition. The reality of what would happen should he lose had been conveniently pushed far into the dark recesses of his mind.

  ‘You’re not letting him in are you?’ A brutish guilder stood at the back of the crowd had noticed William’s exchange with the guardsmen, and once he’d been allowed entry, wasted no time in objecting. ‘Blackbile’s no place for you, William of Fairshore!’

  ‘You’re not here to kill the mayor are you?’ teased the brute’s unfortunately-identical twin sister. ‘Heard that’s all you’re good for.’

  The big brute let out a chuckle and didn’t stop when William set a hand on his flintlock, instead adding, ‘watch what you’re doing with that thing, you might have somebody’s eye out.’

  ‘No fighting, please.’ The taller guardsman set a hand on William’s shoulder. ‘Violence is prohibited until the competition starts.’

  ‘You won’t be laughing when your brains are scattered across this carpet, or when I win the damned prize.’ William shook off the guard’s grip and stepped towards the brute. He pulled the pistol from his belt.

  ‘Leave him be…’ Another assassin had arrived at the edge of the carpet and was giving her details to the note-taking guard. ‘He’s just here to enjoy the ceremony, watch the prize being won, why do you have to belittle him like that? It’s Genevieve Cholmondeley… Col-mon-de-lay.’

  She supervised the correct spelling of her name on the guardsman’s papers, then with a single hand – gloved to the elbow in finest kid-skin – pulled aside a loose lock of auburn that spilled from her fashionable bun. Behind it, only very small, just under her ear, was a tattoo of the guild’s mark.

  ‘You two toddle along now.’ Genevieve waved off the two brutes, who were more than happy to oblige given her sinister reputation.

  William, despite feeling even more embarrassed by her supposed rescue of him than he had been by the initial jibes, felt compelled to thank her, as he had also heard of her exploits. ‘You really didn’t need to…’

  ‘I did.’ She drew alongside William. ‘I hate it when cats toy with mice.’

  She stood taller him, maybe six feet in height and toned, despite appearing almost as slender. She wore a near-black corseted dress, with matching lace-edged skirts pinned up and the sleeves removed to allow better movement. She didn’t have any visible weaponry, but it didn’t ease William at all. Genevieve was known to be an excellent sniper – perhaps even better than the first Man-Butcher – and when she wasn’t sequestered away with a rifle, a companion was; ready to blow the head off anyone who dared challenge her.

  Against his better judgement he opted to pursue the conversation a little longer. Perhaps because he was still pining for a little companionship or because underneath the assassin’s cold demeanour she really was quite attractive.

  ‘What you said about me, that I’m here to watch, it’s not true.’ He grinned, unsure if he was intending to impress, or simply salve the embarrassment of earlier. ‘Actually, I am entering the competition.’

  ‘Oh dear…’

  Whatever William had expected her reaction to be, the withering look and sudden disinterest was not it.

  ‘Fear not, anyway,’ she added absently, studying the crowds. ‘I won’t be wasting a bullet on you.’

  ‘You might not get the chance,’ William scoffed, his confidence somehow bolstered from being thought so low. He could shoot better than most, he knew that, and if everyone thought he was the sum of his most public and embarrassing failure that might just give him the edge to win.

  Genevieve’s sour grimace twitched into a subtle smile – the first he had seen from her. She stopped studying the crowd, looked at him, and said, ‘you surprise me. Most daren’t talk to me, let alone talk back.’

  For one dreadful moment William thought he might be about to lose the contents of his skull, but Genevieve coiled a hand around his arm. ‘Let’s get a good spot, I’d like to see a little clearer.’

  The contact sent a shiver down his spine. Not because she was dangerous, although she certainly was, but because she was the first woman who had spoken to him in a long time who hadn’t tried to illicit a payment. He swallowed an abundance of saliva, and suddenly she was leading him through the crowd.

  It was interesting to see so many guilders in one place, and to get a measure of what kind of competition he would have for the prize. There were hundreds of assassins: gunslingers like William, furtive garrotte users, riflemen, and brick-house bruisers. But there was also a whole raft of oddities. From bombers with spark-powder grenades, flame belchers, and eastern rocketry, to the most insane who thought they might simply battle their way to the top with a whip or sharpened chair leg. These were people that could only exist in the guild, where logic was shunned in favour of foolish brilliance and bloody spectacle.

  Amongst them, William couldn’t relax, but felt he had the energy for anything. Although many a guilder had been pushed into such a grim profession by the darkest of histories, positivity and excitement spread through the crowd like fire across oil.

  ‘Have you been to Blackbile much?’ William asked as Genevieve skirted them around a group of robed cultists.

  ‘No more than necessary, I’m not over enamoured with the smell. Though, I do come every two years to watch the prize being won. I was actually here for the first. That was a blood bath, put me off ever entering.’ She cast a glance his way. ‘Obviously things are different now. Everything changes when you have a child.’

  The initial excitement William had felt when he heard Genevieve had been at the very first competition was hampered somewhat by the news that she was a mother. The line of questioning he was about to pursue about Lord Beechworth and Terrowin the Man-Butcher was curtailed before he could utter a syllable. He instead reconsidered his position, the short lived romance that had been tickling at the back of his mind faltered. This woman had a child, she might even have a husband, and what would he think of William linking her arm and hanging on her every word.

  He idly studied the rooftops for any winking sniper lenses, of course there were many, employed to put an end to any violence that might occur in the build up to the competition. Strangely, there were none on the town hall roof.

  ‘Have you been before?’ she questioned.

  ‘No, I always wanted to. Ever since Ojo won; but I always too busy working.’ He would have continued, but the situation that saw him here was entirely too depressing to keep dredging up.

  ‘Oh yes, Ojo, I was surprised to hear that he’d actually been alive all these years. I bet that was hard to keep a secret.’

  William nodded but didn’t say
anything. It was better for her to believe that he had known all along, rather than tell her the truth. He still couldn’t quite comprehend it himself, that his closest ally and mentor had completely abandoned him.

  ‘This looks as good a place as any.’ Genevieve unhooked herself from William’s arm and stopped behind a wheelchair-bound cripple and an elderly woman bent near double to rest on her cane. From here the pair had a good view of the stage, not too far away, and not too near that the crowd began to smother. The fact that they needn’t crane over the decrepit guilders in front of them was merely a bonus.

  While William watched the committee gather on the stage, Genevieve picked specks of ash from her gloves. Upon assessing that they were as pristine as could be, she asked, ‘why are you entering anyway? It’s one thing to come and watch, it’s another entirely to compete. Especially when your chances of winning are as slight as a threadsnake.’

  William reconsidered going into the detail of his downfall: how work had dried up, how he was desperate to prove that he wasn’t a failure – he needn’t bother.

  ‘M.K!’ A familiar accent picked itself out above the hubbub of the crowd. William turned with a sigh. Somehow, somewhy, the little assassin from the farm cart had found him in the crowd.

  ‘You found your way then?’ The little man stomped up, making room for himself between William and Genevieve. Although he barely reached her waist, he was able to give the female assassin a full appraisal.

  ‘Name’s Aler Goldin. Goldie to my friends.’ He tongued the cleft in his lip and cocked one eyebrow. It was inappropriate but also disarmingly pathetic. ‘What a pleasure it is to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Genevieve patted him on the head as she would a child, causing him to balk in utter confusion. It wasn’t that he didn’t realise she had no interest in him, but that he couldn’t fathom as to why. Too much time around ladies of the night often inflated a man’s ego like a pig’s bladder.

  ‘Not much of a spot you’ve got here. I can’t see bugger all.’ Goldin pulled on the cripple’s chair and tried to get his foot up on the rear wheel to boost his height. ‘Is there anyone on the stage yet?’

  ‘What the devil do you think you’re…?’ The cripple flailed his arm behind his head to try and alight the intruder, but the movement in the chair only caused it to overbalance further. Goldin, opting to save his own skin, hopped off the chair rather than set down a foot to steady it, and landed comfortably on two feet just as the cripple’s chair fell flat onto the mud-soaked carpet.

  ‘You imbecile!’ The cripple lashed out with the larger of two shrivelled arms. The hand only sported three fingers, covered in warts, and looked more like a chicken’s foot than any human appendage William had seen.

  ‘It’s diseased.’ Goldin recoiled, nestling his shoulder at the back of William’s leg so that he wasn’t the first in line should the cripple’s claw-like nails be tainted with sickness.

  ‘I’ll see you burn for this.’ The cripple spat foam, his bulbous head purpling with rage.

  Genevieve sank to a low crouch and took one of the handles of the wheelchair. With ease, she lifted the crippled man upright. He was still flustered, but calmed down drastically under Genevieve’s sombre gaze. Whether it was because of her striking appearance, or because he knew who she was, it was hard to tell.

  ‘Thank you, miss. Really, you didn’t need to.’ He took on an apologetic tone, clasping her hand in his chicken-claws.

  ‘Oh, I did.’ Genevieve shot a look at William, reminding him that she didn’t like it “when cats toyed with mice”, but this time added, ‘any upstanding assassin would do the same.’

  William pursed his lips, taking the dart of unspoken scorn. Though he hadn’t actually partaken in the toppling of the cripple, he hadn’t stepped in to help for fears similar to those Goldin had espoused. He thought he might have helped had he been the one wearing kid-skin gloves, but a point he wouldn’t dare vocalise was moot.

  ‘It eases my shrivelled heart to know that not everyone in our organisation is a self-centred dolt,’ the cripple sneered in Goldin’s direction.

  ‘You’re too kind.’ Genevieve smiled. It seemed a little forced to William and he couldn’t help but think that she was deceiving the cripple somehow.

  ‘I’m Genevieve.’ She offered her hand and the cripple shook it enthusiastically. William wondered if making friends before the competition began was a scheme on the markswoman’s part and if he had been caught up in a similar ruse. Now that he thought about it, he was less inclined to shoot her than he would have been before they’d met.

  ‘Genevieve Cholmondeley? I’ve heard much of your achievements in guild meetings, I’m so glad you’ve decided to enter. I know it’s a little defeatist on my part, but I actually have money on you to win.’ The cripple smiled wide and warm, though half of his teeth were missing or somehow misshapen like half-burned candles. ‘I’m Dr Barber.’

  ‘You’re Dr Barber?’ William blurted, suddenly very interested in the man he had dismissed as some plague ridden cripple. ‘Why aren’t you on the stage?’

  ‘Well, I took a step back from organising things this year. I thought, why not have some fun myself?’ The doctor shrugged affably. ‘I have too many doppelgangers cluttering up my surgery as it is.’

  William ignored the words he didn’t understand, too preoccupied and star struck to think of anything other than a hundred questions. ‘So, is it true you can bring people back from the dead?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t as simple as that.’ The doctor cringed as if the rumours of his prowess weren’t exactly true. ‘There is a certain kind of mountainside orchid that makes quite potent smelling salts and I have been known to work miracles with a scalpel.’

  ‘Yes, but didn’t you bring back Man-Butcher Karin?’ William’s thoughts suddenly pivoted. ‘Did you bring back Ojo Azul?’

  ‘Please, the details of my experiments are private – but no I didn’t.’

  ‘But you did bring back Man-Butcher Karin?’ William pressed, looking around at his new found companions in awe. Somehow, neither Genevieve nor Goldin looked all that impressed with the shrivelled little doctor.

  ‘Please be quiet, I’m trying to watch.’ The old woman – who was accompanying the doctor – leered at William.

  He looked to the stage just as a man – dressed in the finest silk suit he had ever seen – arrived among the collected committee members. William knew him to be both the richest and most skilled assassin the world had ever known. Lord Beechworth was not only imperial nobility, he was also a founding member of the guild, and the first ever Man-Butcher. Thankfully, William’s squeal of delight was covered by the rising cheer of the crowd. Moments later, before William had the chance to collect himself, the mayor appeared at the lectern.

  The mayor was just as William had imagined from reading about him. A suit reminiscent of the Garlish style, streaked with dust and ash. Two tufts of black and grey hair that remained resolute on a bald pate. Heavy golden chains of office and robe around his shoulders that made him out as an imperial senator. He wasn’t as imposing as the other assassins on the stage, but what he lacked in killing prowess, he made up for in enthusiasm.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, elses, and otherwises,’ the mayor boomed over the din of the crowd. ‘Welcome! To our eighth bi-annual competition, the Man-Butcher Prize!’

  In an instant, everything in the bounds of the velvet ropes erupted into raucous celebration. A few pistols clapped bullets to the sky. William was jostled by an over eager neighbour and Dr Barber’s chair was almost toppled again. This time, Goldin helped to steady him, which surprised and impressed William in equal measure.

  ‘This year we fight to show our strength,’ the mayor continued. ‘We fight to show our tenacity, and our adaptability. And much like my old friend Terrowin the Man-Butcher, we fight to show that we are fearless.’

  The crowd roused into a furore of appreciation. Somebody amidst the assassins let off an iron flute of gunpowder and co
loured streamers launched across the sky. The mayor left his lectern and began to pace from one side of the stage to the other.

  ‘Now, I’m sure most of you are aware, but some of you may not be, so it bears repeating.’ The mayor took on a slightly more official tone. ‘We on the prize committee have been considering this for many years now.’

  The mayor strode past the committee members – now sat in two neatly organised rows of chairs. William tried to pick out the ones he had heard of. He had seen Lord Beechworth already, and the Amarian Swordmistress was obvious from her unusual makeup and fine brocaded silk dress. The others were more difficult to determine from their appearances and looked more akin to money lenders than once-famous killers.

  ‘Every two years this competition is held, and while enjoyable, we lose too many of our best members.’ The mayor paused at the edge of the stage. ‘So, in an effort to encourage the return of previous champions, and entice more cautious blood, we have tweaked the rules – just a little.’

  William pursed his lips.

  ‘Every entrant is to have a sponsor. Someone who is willing, or not so willing, to stake their life for the entrant. Each of you will protect your sponsor and eliminate those of others.’ The mayor was building the drama in his voice a now. ‘If your sponsor is killed, don’t worry, you may still compete for the prize by staking your own life. But, and this is the important bit, you will be allowed to bow out with your honour and life intact should your sponsor perish. Enabling the continuation of fruitful business, and another attempt for the title in future events.’

  William gritted his teeth, his lack of sponsor pulling at him now more than ever.

  ‘Now, these new rules do have their detractors, I will be the first to admit. But don’t forget, twice the bodies in the competition means twice the carnage, twice the bloodshed, twice the heartbreak, and twice the excitement.’ The mayor’s voice was back to the almighty boom it had begun with. ‘Now get going, signups are open for the rest of the coming week, if you don’t have a sponsor, find one sharpish.’