A Discourse in Steel

  But seven it remained. He sniffed, kept the disappointment from his face. If he could just waste enough time—

  Trelgin was looking at him sidelong, a knowing look in his pig eyes. Rusk stared him down until Trelgin looked away. Rusk realized that everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to give an order. He cleared his throat, said, “What we do is we get the Upright Man back and we click those two slubbers who dared defile Aster’s house.”

  Ayes and nods around.

  Rusk decided to get out in front of the men’s thinking with some lies. Best if they thought he wanted Channis to survive.

  “Some of you may be thinking that Rusky sees this as an opportunity to grow an eighth blade. I don’t. I didn’t want a seventh but I’m content with it. I don’t want the arse aches that come with the eighth.”

  Some chuckles at that.

  He held up his hand, showing the men his tat, its seven blades.

  “The Upright Man is still alive or this tat would have an eighth, yeah? So we’ll get him back. And we’ll get payback from those slubbers.”

  “Turn them dusty,” said one man.

  “Eternity crates for the both,” said another, and so on with the men, most of whom seemed to credit Rusk’s words.

  But not Trelgin. The Sixth Blade wore a false smile, an I know better in his eyes.

  “We got eyes on the inn,” Rusk said. “Trelgin, let them know what happened. Get another pair of eyes out there, too, just to be double sure. And get eyes on the gates and reach out to our bought men in the Watch. Those boys get no safe haven anywhere in Dur Follin, yeah?”

  “Yeah!” answered the men.

  Rusk allowed that he enjoyed giving orders. Wearing an eighth blade would suit him, he thought.

  The men milled out of the room until only Trelgin and Rusk remained. Trelgin regarded him with his droopy-eyed gaze.

  “Those boys would have to be crazed to go back to that inn,” Trelgin said.

  “They attacked the guildhouse,” Rusk said. He turned and stared out the window, thinking, planning, giving Trelgin his back as Channis had given Rusk his. “They are crazed. And they’re fond of that faytor and she’s still there, last we heard.”

  “Maybe,” Trelgin said. “Could be they already took her and piked off.”

  “We’ll see.”

  A long pause and still Trelgin lingered. Rusk turned and regarded him across the expanse of the room.

  “Something else?”

  “Not so much. I was just thinking how it was shite luck when you jumped fifth to seventh direct.”

  “Aster’s hard to figure.”

  Trelgin nodded. “Aye. But some things ain’t quite as hard to figure.”

  Rusk walked up to him. “Something you want to say clear?”

  “I think I just did,” Trelgin said.

  “Which tells me you’re stupid,” Rusk said. “ ’Cause if this were inside work, Channis would already be dead, wouldn’t he?” Rusk held up his tat for Trelgin to see. “But he ain’t, is he?”

  Trelgin’s lips did their best to form a sneer. “Not yet. Maybe things just need to look right first. Then he’ll die.”

  Rusk tapped Trelgin’s head with a finger. Trelgin jerked back with a snarl, hand going to his blade hilt.

  “You got a lot of thoughts in that skull, Trelgin. The lot of them are shite.”

  “Don’t ever touch me again!” Trelgin hissed, spraying spit.

  Rusk stepped up to him, nose to nose. “Then keep your accusations to yourself, you bunghole, droop-eyed cunt. Next time it won’t be my finger I touch you with.”

  Trelgin licked his lips, his breathing coming hard. “You threatening another member of the Committee, Seventh Blade?”

  “Just us here, Sixth Blade,” Rusk said softly. “You take it as you wish. Accidents sometimes happen.”

  “Don’t they, though?” Trelgin said. “And I thought you and I were going to be friends, Rusky.”

  “I don’t need friends, Trelgin. And we’re done here.”

  “Everybody needs friends,” Trelgin said. “But yeah, we’re done. I’ll help with the Upright Man, though, me and my men.” He put a finger to his droopy eye. “Keep an eye on things, like. Make sure no accidents happen, yeah? Can’t hurt. We both want him back safe, yeah?”

  Rusk just stared.

  “Right, then,” Trelgin said, and turned to leave. Over his shoulder, he said, “Seventh Blade suits you, Rusky. Wouldn’t fit me, though. I heard it’s a shite job.”

  With that, he exited the room, Rusk making an obscene gesture at his back as he walked out.

  Trelgin wouldn’t be the only one who thought Rusk might have arranged for Channis to be taken. He had to walk softly for a time. He had to at least look like he was trying to get Channis back alive. If anyone could pin a half-assed rescue effort on him, he’d be as good as dusty. So he had to look like he was trying to get Channis back, all while hoping that Channis croaked and Rusk grew an eighth blade. And they still had that bitch faytor to kill. That was just business.

  It would be complicated, but Rusk could handle complicated. He had a few lads he could trust. He’d lead them himself. They’d have to navigate around Trelgin’s eyes, because the last thing a Sixth Blade like Trelgin wanted was to become a Seventh.

  But then again: Fak Trelgin. Rusk would find a way to manage him, too. He had no intention of handing back the opportunity Aster had just placed in his lap. Channis’s tenure as Upright Man would be short and bloody and Rusk would be the new Upright Man and that was that.

  He threw a pray at Aster and went to gather his men. They’d scour the city until they found Egil and Nix and Channis and that faytor. And if all four died in a scrum, well, that’s just how these things went sometimes.

  —

  Egil and Nix didn’t bother with one of the gates out of the Warrens. They didn’t want any questions from the Watch about the unconscious man they were carrying, so instead they picked a likely spot to scale the Poor Wall, a regular pastime among the Warrens’s urchins. Minnear had set and the thin silver crescent of Kulven cast little light. The hour was so small even the city’s rats were sleeping.

  The wall, cracked and pitted, rose half again Egil’s height.

  “How do you want to do this?” Egil asked softly.

  “What I want to do is throw him over,” Nix said, only half-jesting. “What say you?”

  Egil pursed his lips, nodded. “Probably wouldn’t break him. Much.”

  “What the Hells happened to him anyway?” Nix said. He lifted the guildmaster’s cold hand, the one with the eight-bladed tat. “He’s as limp as a corpse.”

  “Blackalley happened to him,” Egil said.

  Nix remembered the guildmaster’s words.

  It’s beautiful and I’ll help it.

  Nix also remembered the plea he’d heard the first time they’d escaped Blackalley.

  Free us.

  Whatever was in there certainly shouldn’t be freed, if freeing it were possible.

  I’ll help it.

  Nix resisted the urge to slap the guildmaster in the face for being stupid. He reminded himself to check over the guildmaster when they reached the Tunnel.

  “You go up,” Egil said. “I’ll pass him along.”

  “Aye,” Nix said. “Up I go.”

  The Poor Wall was more symbol than barrier. Nix had climbed it hundreds of times in his youth and it presented no more problem for him as an adult. He straddled the top.

  “Pass him.”

  Grunting, Egil passed the limp, floppy body of the guildmaster up to Nix. Nix didn’t worry over it when Channis’s head hit the wall a time or two or three during the exchange.

  While Nix held the guildmaster at the top of the wall with him, Egil climbed the wall and descended the other side. Nix handed Channis down to the priest and joined Egil on the street. They hurried toward the Tunnel.

  Keeping to the shadows, senses sharp, they walked streets as quiet and dark as the tombs t
hey often robbed. A few blocks from Shoddy Way and the Tunnel, they stopped. Both of them knew what came next.

  “You or me?” Nix said.

  “You.”

  “I’ve done it the last couple times.”

  Egil snorted. “That’s because you’re the sneaky one.”

  “Sneaky? Me?”

  “You. Sneaky. Yes.”

  Channis groaned.

  “Shut up,” Egil said, and shook him.

  “At least we know he’s alive,” Nix said. “But let’s return to the matter at hand. Sneaky you said? I think maybe you meant stealthy and dexterous.”

  “Stealthy and dexterous, aye. But also sneaky.”

  Nix sighed. “Fine, then. I go. Again. Being the stealthy and dexterous one.”

  “And sneaky.”

  Nix pretended not to hear. “If this slubber wakes up and says something stupid, try not to kill him. We need him alive.”

  “I could just hit him on the head now. Then he won’t wake up.”

  Nix chuckled. “My hands are clean of it. Just make sure you don’t kill him.”

  Nix stripped off his mail shirt and satchel and handed both to Egil. “How many, you think?” he asked Egil, checking his blades and axe.

  “Two,” Egil said. “Same two, I’d wager.”

  “Aye. Nobody would want to eat that shite sausage.”

  If the two thieves they’d ambushed and left in the alley earlier had regained consciousness, they wouldn’t have dared report their failure to the guild. Too embarrassing. They’d just return to the inn and sit on it, hoping for Egil and Nix to return. “I guess I’m off to see those boys again, then. Give me a half hour then head down Shoddy Way.”

  “Aye.”

  Nix sped off into the darkness. When he reached the muddy mess of Shoddy Way, he stayed out of the light of the dying streetlamps and surveyed the street. The Tunnel was dark, as were all the other buildings on the street. He didn’t see Veraal’s men at the Tunnel’s door, nor anyone on the balcony, though Nix wouldn’t have trusted that balcony to hold more weight than a cat’s. Probably Veraal had pulled everyone inside.

  Using barrels, walls, and untended carts for cover, he worked his way down the street to a narrow alley near the Tunnel. From there, he eyed the rooftops and alley mouths, trying to imagine where the guildboys might settle in to eyeball things.

  He saw several likely places, but didn’t need to scout any. A breeze carried the whiff of smoke leaf to him. He shook his head in disbelief. One of those dumb fakkers was smoking. Not a problem on a busy street in the day, but smoking while doing an eye job on a dead street in the small hours? He had no idea how the guild had gotten as much power as it had, given the quality of its people.

  Following his nose, he soon located the men. They were in the abandoned cooper’s shop across and diagonal from the Tunnel. The roof of the shop had long ago rotted and collapsed, exposing most of the second floor to the sky. The walls still stood in places, but leaned inward or outward as their decay had led them. Through gaps in the leaning walls, Nix could see that piles of debris lay heaped on the floor. A few support beams still stood here and there, the bared bones of the structure. The lower floor was sealed tight: door barred, shutters nailed closed. The vantage from the second floor offered a clear view of the block, and the debris and leaning walls offered good cover.

  Nix watched for a moment, trying to spot the men, but they’d at least hidden themselves well. Once he thought he caught the soft, small glow of a pipe, but wasn’t sure.

  Egil would be coming so he needed to hurry. Hugging the nearside buildings, he dashed along Shoddy Way. He circled around to the back of the building and looked for the rope ladder the men must have somewhere. Not seeing one, he shrugged, put a throwing dagger between his teeth, and climbed the wooden walls. He moved slowly, silently, using shutters, irregular edges, and a window jamb to get him up to the second story. A gap in the wall would get him inside quickly. He was about to heave himself up when a sound froze him, a footfall from right above.

  He flattened himself against the wall, sweating, holding his breath, and glanced up. The tip of two boots extended over the lip of the edge. For a moment Nix thought he’d been heard, but then the man grunted and started to piss over the edge.

  The man hummed while he worked, which made it worse. It went on and on, wearing on Nix’s patience, the stream missing Nix by a hand’s width. He had no intention of waiting for the shake. Drops would go everywhere.

  He braced himself, reached up, grabbed the man by the shirt, and pulled him over the edge. The man shouted as he fell, but the shout died as the man did. Nix hoped he fell in his own puddle of piss. Would serve him right.

  Nix quickly pulled himself up over the edge of the roof. Two guildsmen were in the middle of standing up from near one of the windows, one of them with a pipe dangling from his lips, both of them looking with surprise at Nix.

  Nix recognized them as the two he and Egil had brained in the alley earlier.

  “You!” the one with the pipe said, and fumbled to bring up a slung crossbow, while the other hastily drew his blade.

  “None of that, now,” Nix said, hurling the dagger he’d had in his teeth. The blade ended its whistling tumble by sinking hilt deep into the crossbowman’s throat. He fell backward, choking on his own blood, his crossbow discharging into the night sky, as if he’d taken aim at the stars. He toppled backward into a decrepit section of wall, which gave way immediately. Man and planks of wall went over the edge and hit the ground below with a dull thud.

  His comrade snarled and charged Nix.

  “I could use one of you alive—” Nix tried to say as he drew his falchion, but the man was upon him, blade slashing and stabbing.

  Nix parried, ducked, spun, and dodged, the two of them dancing through the debris on the sagging floor. With his boot, Nix flicked a small piece of lumber at the man and followed it up with a flurry of strikes from his falchion. The onslaught drove the man, wide-eyed and breathing heavy, back toward the edge of the building where the wall had given way. Nix bounded back.

  “Listen, you stupid slubber. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. I need you take a message back to the guild—”

  The man, his face twisted up in anger, lunged at Nix. His short blade slashed for Nix’s throat. Nix leaned back, avoided the steel, parried a second blow with his falchion, and ducked under a third.

  “You don’t have to die here,” Nix said. His footwork had turned him around. He was aware of the edge at his back, two strides. Possibly the man saw that as an opportunity.

  “Fak you!” the man said, and bounded forward. He stabbed for Nix’s abdomen, no doubt trying to force him to leap backward and fall, but Nix held his ground and slapped the smaller blade out wide. The parry knocked the man off balance, and his lunge carried him past Nix and to the edge of the roof. He pulled up, dropped his blade, tottered there for a moment, arms waving.

  “Shite,” he said.

  “Shite,” Nix echoed, and grabbed for him. He got a fistful of tunic but it ripped as the man fell, leaving nothing in Nix’s hand but a swatch of torn fabric. The man’s shout lasted only a beat, ending in a meaty thud as he slammed facedown on Shoddy Way. Nix leaned over the edge and looked down, hoping the muddy road would cushion the fall enough that—

  “Shite.”

  The man lay not far from his dead comrade and the fallen section of wall, his limbs at a grotesque angle.

  “That was your own damned fault,” Nix called down to him. “I tried to tell you.”

  Nix looked up and down Shoddy Way, wondering if any more guildsmen would emerge from other hidey-holes. He saw none and presently he spotted Egil moving along the sides of buildings as stealthily as he could while bearing the Upright Man.

  “I really am the sneaky one,” Nix muttered. He lowered himself over the side and descended the building. He glanced at the bodies as he passed, then gave Egil an all-clear whistle. The priest hustled forward out of the dar
kness of an eave, bearing the still-limp form of the guildmaster.

  “Find them?” Egil asked.

  “Aye,” Nix said.

  “Chat with one and send him back to the guild?”

  Nix pointed with his chin up the street to the bodies, a shapeless mound in the dim light of the streetlamps. “They weren’t much in a talking mood. What about you? Kill Channis?”

  “At some point,” Egil said. “But not yet. You just gonna leave the bodies there?”

  “Let the dung sweepers strip their coin.” Nix looked up and down Shoddy Way. “Best get out of the street now. The rest of the guild’ll be along before long.”

  Bearing Channis, they hurried to the Tunnel’s double doors. Tables had been laid on their sides to block windows. Egil rapped on the barred door.

  “It’s us!” Nix hissed. “Egil and Nix!”

  A long pause before movement sounded from within and the bar was lifted. The door opened and Egil and Nix found themselves staring down the points of three loaded crossbows in the hands of Veraal’s men. One of them pushed past Nix and Egil, glanced around outside, and pulled the door closed behind. Another thumped Egil and Nix on their shoulders and replaced the bar.

  “I never get the greeting I expect when I walk through that door,” Nix said.

  “We heard a tumult outside,” one of Veraal’s men said. “We thought it was the guild.”

  Nix turned to Egil. “Did he say ‘tumult’?”

  “I believe he did.”

  “Light,” Veraal’s voice said, and Gadd opened the shutter on a lantern set on the bar. The soft orange glow filtered through the common room.

  Veraal and Tesha stood at the bar, both holding pipes. Gadd stood behind the bar, grinning with his filed teeth, a huge tulwar hanging from his belt. Veraal’s men took station around the common room, cocked crossbows at the ready. Kiir and Lis sat at another table, heads on their hands, eyes closed, sleeping.

  “I’m glad to see you lads,” Veraal said, and planted his pipe in his mouth. “Bit surprised, too, I’ll admit.”

  “Is that a body?” Tesha asked.

  “A drink, Gadd,” Egil said. “And no need to kill it first with that length of steel you’re wearing.”