Seven Blades in Black

by Sam Sykes

  “Renita.”

  But, for the moment, she was content to give me her name instead of a blade.

  “Renita Avonin,” she said, pride suffusing every syllable.

  “Avonin,” I whistled. “Like Avonin and Sons? The whiskeymakers?”

  “Avonin and Family, ever since I started overseeing production,” she replied sharply. “You’ve heard of us.”

  I had. Everyone from Lastlight to Lowstaff had heard that name. It was, after all, branded into the flesh of over a thousand would-be cheats, frauds, and debtors who got on their bad side.

  “And where’s your wealthy father?” I asked.

  “Entrusting business to his wealthy daughter,” Renita snapped. “One who can very easily afford all these autobows pointed on you and a very nice coffin for you, should you try anything more stupid than you already have.” She made a commanding gesture. “You’ve already made me late. If you’d be so kind to move, I’ll be on my way and spare you no bolts to go along with the spit I intend to hurl at you.”

  She seemed nice.

  “I’ve heard no stories about the generosity of the Avonins,” I replied. “But I like to think it’s never too late to make a positive change.” I glanced from beneath my hood, over her head, to the carts lined up and down the road. “Me, for example? I think I’d like to be a little reasonable tonight. Seems you’ve got plenty to spare. You give me what I want, I’ll be happy to move out of your way and you can fuck along to Lastlight.”

  The guards who heard this chuckled. It must have seemed funny, this dirty-looking girl in the middle of the road demanding favors from an Avonin. But Renita was not laughing. Renita, instead, looked like I had just asked her if she had delivered her baby out the wrong end.

  “You possess an abundance of nerve, madam,” she spat, frigid.

  “I won’t ask for much,” I said, holding up a hand for calm. “A bag of metal, a couple of bottles of whiskey, a healer’s kit…” I paused, considering. “Also a pen and some paper.”

  Renita quirked a single, incredulous brow. “What for?”

  “So I can write ‘Fuck you, don’t ask questions.’” I eyed one of the guards, let my gaze linger on the sword in her lap. “And one of those nice blades you’ve got there. That seems a reasonable request of an Avonin.”

  “I am corrected,” Renita said. “You do not possess nerve so much as a malady of the brain.” Her guards’ laughter grew louder. “Who, exactly, do you think you are to demand such of me?”

  I smiled.

  I tipped my hood up.

  And I told her.

  “Sal the Cacophony.”

  The laughter died.

  The guards went wide-eyed.

  And they looked me over.

  They searched me for lies, something to indicate that I was some punk using someone else’s name. But they saw the tattoos covering my arms. They saw the scars.

  They saw the Cacophony.

  Do this as long as I have, you come to savor the moments when people recognize your name. It starts with the wild eyes and the nervous shuffling. It becomes nervous glances cast toward each other, searching for support. It turns into fear spreading across faces, breath coming up short, eyes twitching as they look for a way out.

  Those moments? When you get them?

  “Fuck’s sake, that’s really her.”

  Better than sex.

  I could see them looking at each other, leaning over on their birds, whispering to each other. Over the mutter of the rothacs, I could hear them trade the stories.

  “She’s killed over twenty Vagrants with that fucking gun of hers.”

  True.

  “I heard she shot down a Revolution tank with that thing.”

  Lie.

  “She once shot the Bleakhollow Blackguards dead to a man because they stole a chicken from her.”

  Half true. There was bad blood between me and the Blackguards before that. But it had been a real nice chicken.

  “… killed twenty men in one night…”

  The whispers spread.

  “… that gun’s fucking evil, a demon…”

  Like poison in the veins.

  “… she’ll kill us all, just give her what she…”

  And music in my ears.

  “Enough,” Renita barked loud enough to silence them. She scowled down at the kid sitting next to her. “Spur the rothacs, Dennec. Run her down.”

  “I’m trying!” Dennec protested. “But, madam…” He looked at me with big, wide eyes and swallowed hard. “It’s like they know.”

  Well, to be fair, it was much more likely they knew the scent of Congeniality’s shit I had spread around the road. The reek of a predatory bird would make any beast nervous.

  “Your help seems to have heard of me.” I let the Cacophony dangle from my fingers. “You can ask them, but I don’t think they know any stories about how patient I am. Now maybe you’ve got enough of them to kill me and maybe you don’t. But if this gets ugly, I’ll be taking a few of them to the black table with me. And I wager it’ll cost more to replace them than it will to give me what I ask for.”

  I yawned, scratched my scars with the barrel of the Cacophony. You’d never have guessed, to look at me, that my heart was thundering so hard I thought my ribs might crack.

  “So, you know… up to you.”

  Renita fixed me with a glare that transcended anger, slipped right past hate, and went into an emotion so cold and vicious I don’t think I had a word for it. I could see the scales tipping in her head, weighing the number of her guards versus the obvious fear they had for me. Eventually, the rage on her face simmered away, leaving behind a bitter, resentful contempt.

  Contempt I could work with.

  She glanced at a guard, gestured with her chin. He pulled his bird to the back of the cart, rooted around in it for a few moments before emerging with a satchel. My wounds, hidden beneath my shirt, ached at the sight of it. I fought to keep the eagerness off my face. The fear wide on his eyes, he came forward tentatively to hand it over.

  Or rather, he had started to do that when his mistress suddenly spoke.

  “One moment.”

  I looked back at Renita. The contempt was gone now, replaced by something cold and analytical. She studied me carefully, as if she could suddenly see right through my cloak and onto the bloody bandages wrapped around me.

  “The healer’s kit,” she said. “What do you need it for?”

  “Road’s a dangerous place,” I replied, just a moment too late. “I like to be prepared.”

  Her eyes ran over me. That cold, appraising stare took in the red stains on the hem of my cloak, the tattered cloth, the tension of my belly.

  “You’re bloodied,” she observed.

  “I am.” I forced venom into my voice. “The last guy I asked for something was slower than you are.”

  She didn’t move. She didn’t even blink. “Surely, if it’s such a necessity, you’d have one already.” A frigid smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Unless you had such need of one you’d waylay a heavily armed caravan.”

  I narrowed my eyes. My heart raced. And, to see the look on her face, you’d think she could hear it.

  “I’ll tell you what, Madam Cacophony,” she said. “You can help yourself to anything in my cart”—she gestured to the kid beside her—“including Dennec, if you can climb up here on your own and get it.”

  I hesitated too long. I stepped forward too slow. My leg quivered just a little too much when I did.

  And she saw it.

  And she knew.

  “Ordinarily, Madam Cacophony, I’d have you shot and be done with it,” Renita said. “But, as you say, it’s never too late to make a positive impact. Or an example.” She glanced to Dennec. “Inform our passenger that we have need of his services.”

  Dennec’s eyes went wide, but he nodded weakly. He turned to the nearest guard.

  “Wake him up,” he said.

  The guard grinned, spurred
his bird to the last cart. My heart pounded.

  “Come on out, friend!” The guard thumped his autobow’s butt against the cart’s side. “Madam Avonin requests your presence.”

  Metal groaned. Wheels creaked. Something tremendous rose from inside the cart. My scars ached.

  The rothacs let out a nervous lowing sound. The guards scattered as their birds squawked nervously. The back of the cart bowed low as something heavy walked to its edge, then sprang up as it hopped off.

  The Cacophony burned in my hand. I held it up, ready to fire, but the guards only backed away instead of fleeing outright. Whatever they had in that wagon, they were more afraid of than they were of the Cacophony.

  Do this as long as I have, you come to recognize a different sort of moment. It starts with the birds and beasts going quiet. It becomes a great, shadowy shape trudging forward. It turns into your wounds aching and your body quivering and the realization that everything has gone horribly wrong.

  It’s not better than sex.

  But it does feel like you’re fucked.

  THIRTY-NINE

  THE REDWAY

  Like all the best killers, he arrived without saying a word.

  No threats, no boasts, no laughter. He walked across the sand, unpretentious. His eyes were clear and his back was straight. And though the guards fell quiet and the birds nervously edged away from him, he paid them no mind. He simply walked up to me and looked me straight in the eyes.

  And the man who had come to kill me spoke my name.

  “Sal,” he said, voice soft and emotionless.

  I returned his stare as well as I was able. He stood a head taller than me, his muscular body so lean and hard that he looked like the last masterpiece of a dying artisan. His dark skin was left generously exposed by the scanty kilt he wore around his waist and every inch of it, from his broad chest to his thick arms to his massive legs, was bereft of a single scar. All that adorned his skin was the craggy mountainous scene that was tattooed in a sleeve from his right wrist to his shoulder.

  Inclining my head to such a creature seemed a touch inadequate, but I did anyway.

  “Calto,” I replied.

  If you spent more than a month in the Scar, you’d heard of this man, even if you’d never heard his name. And you’d know why I didn’t shoot and abandon all hope of not angering him.

  The massacre at Fort Legacy, where a hole was punched through walls two feet thick and every last Imperium soldier was split apart? That was him. The seven-car Revolutionary train that was derailed and its stores looted? That was him. Jarva’s Concern, the town that was a freehold one day and a pile of smoldering wreckage the next?

  Every time the earth shakes. Every time a town collapses. Every time a lot of people die at once, everyone in the Scar with any intellect holds their breath and prays it isn’t a sign that Calto the Hardrock is in town.

  And if I thought any god could have helped me then, I would have prayed, too.

  “Master Hardrock,” Renita called down to him. “This Vagrant has insulted my caravan, my employees, and myself with her brazenness. I request that you handle her, as per the terms of our arrangement.”

  Calto didn’t look at her. Calto barely seemed like he was looking at me. His eyes were distant—not empty, but lacking something important. I got the distinct impression that, when he looked at me, he didn’t see a person so much as several layers of sinew and skin arranged over a skeleton.

  A wise woman would have run. And while I didn’t consider myself particularly wise, I would have done the same if not for three things.

  One, I’d never outrun him on foot. Two, my stitches would burst and I’d bleed to death. And three?

  Sal the Cacophony doesn’t run.

  I held my breath as he stood there, silently considering. Not considering whether he could kill me; there wasn’t a creature on two legs or more that Calto couldn’t kill. Rather, he was considering whether it was worth it, wondering what impression I’d left on him those few times we crossed paths.

  “Mmm.” He rolled his head from side to side, drew an audible cracking sound from his neck. “Ten knuckles.”

  Renita’s eyes bulged and her body tensed, the very thought of parting with a piece of metal causing a very small seizure.

  “Ten knuckles is no small price,” she said. “And not at all what—”

  “Gold.”

  That very small seizure became a very restrained aneurysm. “Are you fucking with me?” Renita growled. “We agreed to pay you for protecting us by transporting you.”

  “Vagrants cost extra.” Calto eyed me. “The Cacophony costs gold.” He waved a hand. “Or I can let your men handle it. It is of no concern.”

  I wanted to grin. But I didn’t.

  You can tell Calto the Hardrock what to do in the same sense you can tell a storm not to destroy your farm. You can go out there and threaten it, scream at it, offer it money, but in the end, the storm will do whatever it pleases. It might swoop in and destroy your life, it might pass you by with nothing more than a gentle rain, or it might simply dissipate and leave you be.

  I watched him carefully. And he watched me with passing disinterest. And I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that he’d decide the trouble of killing me wasn’t worth it and just walk away.

  “Fine,” Renita sighed. “Kill her.”

  But hey, fuck me for being optimistic, right?

  His eyes glowed purple. He raised one foot. His fists clenched. The glow brightened. His foot came down.

  I heard the Lady’s song.

  And then the earth screamed.

  The sands exploded up in curtains. The birds reared and fell to the earth, their riders tumbling with them. The carts rattled on their iron wheels. The rothacs let out frightened lows. The earth shook so hard I could feel my teeth rattle in my skull.

  And Calto had taken only one step.

  The guards had just started getting to their feet when he started running. They fell once again, the earth knocked from under their feet as he charged. The rothacs wailed and pulled against their yokes. The birds screeched as their riders tried to get them under control. And none of them could be heard over the sound of the earth rumbling beneath Calto’s stride.

  He rushed toward me, faster than a man that big ought to be able to move. I kept my gun steady, watched for my opportunity. He didn’t seem to think much of evasion, running headlong toward me. I watched until he got close enough. I watched him leap into the air. I watched him begin to come down…

  And I realized the flaw in my plan.

  I scrambled away, went running as he hit the earth like a stone. The earth groaned, shifted under my feet. I kept my footing only because I had been expecting and then, only just. I stumbled, staggered, clamped a hand over my stitches.

  No blood stained my fingers. Not yet.

  I turned and aimed the Cacophony at him. He was a black shadow against the cloud of dust that had risen in the wake of his fall, the dying gasp of the earth. Through the dissipating dust, I could see his face: unhurried, unconcerned, unimpressed.

  Siegemages were like that.

  The Lady gave them their power, made them heavier, denser, stronger. Siegemage magic could give a little girl the power to break down a fortress door with her skull and an old woman the power to hurl a man forty yards with one hand.

  Or, in the case of Calto, to break my skull with the flick of his fingers. Not that he seemed all that hurried to do so.

  See, in exchange for all that power, the Lady extracts a heavy toll. You get the power to be as heavy and strong as a stone, but you pay in your ability to feel. First, she takes your fear, then your happiness, then your sorrow, then your anger, then your pain, and so on. A Siegemage goes on living long enough, he eventually becomes an emotionless, empty husk, remembering nothing of laughter or tears or heartbreak or anything that isn’t killing.

  And Calto had lived longer than most.

  It wasn’t a man who walked out of th
at cloud of dust. It was a machine, cold-blooded and good for nothing but death and destruction. And, as he walked toward me, I knew the only way I was going to get out of this was with one of us in the ground.

  “So, how’ve you been, Calto?”

  But that didn’t mean we couldn’t be civil about it.

  “Fine,” he replied. “You?”

  The code, you might call it. We might kill each other from time to time, but Vagrants liked things to be done a certain way. And I liked every advantage I could muster, including keeping him distracted.

  “Been better,” I replied.

  He walked toward me, implacable and unblinking. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  I raised the Cacophony at him. I drew the hammer back. I aimed.

  “Thanks. That means a lot.”

  I pulled the trigger.

  Hellfire burst from his grinning barrel. The shell streaked through the sky in a second, planted itself in Calto’s chest. Flames erupted in an inferno, red jaws opening to swallow him whole. A pillar of fire engulfed him, swept over his flesh, and made him disappear behind a veil of flame.

  Any man, bird, or beast would have been incinerated by that kind of blast. It should have been enough to render anything inside it to ash.

  But if you’ve known me this long, you know nothing is ever that easy for me.

  The flames let out a final roar before they dissipated. What was left was blackened earth, coils of rising smoke, and at the center of it, Calto the Hardrock. Unscathed by the flame, he walked out of the scorched earth having lost nothing more than his kilt.

  You wouldn’t think that the most unnerving part of him walking out of a pillar of flame unhurt would be that he did so naked.

  But you’d be wrong.

  “Ah, fuck,” I muttered.

  “I agree,” Calto replied.

  He started rushing toward me, the earth screaming at his step. I tensed but didn’t run; he didn’t feel pain like I did. He’d chase me down in a few short, screaming breaths. I backed up until I felt a stone against my back, nowhere to run.