A Discourse in Steel (18 page)

“They'll be looking for us, though,” Nix said. “They may hit the Tunnel. We need to get there before they do.”

Egil said, “There's probably another pair of guildboys with eyes on the Tunnel, or maybe that same pair, if they woke up by now. But they won't know what happened at the guildhouse.”

“Not yet,” Nix agreed. “We need to get Rose and Mere and get clear. Fast.”

“Getting out of the Warrens is easy, but exiting the gates is a problem at this hour,” Egil said.

Nix knew. “Let's solve one problem at a time, yeah?”

“Yeah. First thing I do when we get back to the Tunnel is strip off this fakking armor.”

“Aye.”

Bearing the unconscious guildmaster between them, they hustled through the dark streets.

Rusk pushed his way through the throng of muttering men in the hallway. Trelgin, wearing the sixth blade that Rusk had coveted, fell in beside him, cursing with every step. Both of them still wore their ceremonial robes.

At least a dozen dead guildsmen littered the floor of the guildhouse. They'd been hit, and hit hard.

“What in Aster's name happened here?” Trelgin snapped, spraying spittle. A palsy had afflicted Trelgin at some point in his life and caused half his face to droop like an old ma'am's tits. Every fourth or fifth word exited his mouth wet and sloppy. It aggravated Rusk no end, but that didn't keep Trelgin from yapping.

“The night after Channis gets the eighth blade the guildhouse gets hit? Feels like inside work, I'd say.”

Rusk stopped, turned, and stared Trelgin in his droopy face. They stood about the same height, but where Rusk was lean gristle, Trelgin was a thick layer of fat over bulky muscles. The Sixth Blade would've had an almost boyish face if it weren't for the droop. His skin was as pale as candle wax except where a bruise was rising on one cheek, his long hair as dark as a crow.

“You implying something?” Rusk said to him.

“I'm merely observing.” “Observing” came out in the company of some drool.

“That big fakker nearly killed me, too,” Rusk said.

Trelgin made a point with a long pause. “Didn't though, did he?”

Rusk made his own point with a long stare. “No. But then I'm hard to kill, ain't I?”

“I wouldn't know.”

With that, they walked on.

“Make way for the Sixth and Seventh,” shouted some of the men, and the crowd parted for them.

They walked through a shattered door, bits of it still hanging from the hinges, and entered one of the Committeemen lounges. Furniture, some of it toppled, stood massed near the door. A dozen sets of eyes turned to face Rusk and Trelgin, and beyond the crowd of men…

“What the fak is that?” Trelgin asked.

A curtain of black, somehow shimmering but reflecting no light, hung in the air where the window should have been. Two guildsmen stood near it, poking at it with their blades.

“Stop!” Rusk commanded. “Don't touch it! Don't go near it!”

One of the guildsmen said, “Nim, Gorse, and Deenis went in already, Seventh Blade. They was chasing them two that pinched the Upright Man.”

Them two. The men from the Tunnel, Egil and Nix. Probably they wanted revenge for the botched arson, and maybe for breaking that faytor. Rusk decided to keep that information to himself for the moment.

“It was them boys from the Slick Tunnel,” Trelgin said, making sure everyone heard, his words a wet mess. “Can't miss the big one with the eye tat on his head.”

Rusk cursed inwardly, but outwardly said, “You're sure?”

“Had to be,” said another man. “I seen that tat and that fakker was
big.
No mistaking him. They came up through the sewers. Left a bunch of good men dusty down there.” He named off a few, including Zren the Blade, which caused murmurs of disbelief.

Several men threw prays at Aster on behalf of the fallen men.

“And then those slubbers came up here and attacked the Committee while it was in session,” Trelgin said. “That's blasphemy and then some.”

Nods around, lots of men touching the charms of Aster they wore as signs of their faith. Trelgin continued: “For that we make 'em both dustmen, yeah?”

Angry murmurs, nods.

Rusk had seen almost nothing of the attack after the small one, Nix, had put on his show to distract them. The grand room had filled with smoke and fire so quickly that he'd not gotten a clean look at the big priest, who'd thumped him from behind while pinching Channis. Rusk had an egg-sized lump on his skull to show for it. By the time he'd regained consciousness, everything had already gone down.

“Thought you boys had 'em pinned in here,” said one of the men to another.

“We did,” said the other, and pointed at the black wall. “They went through there as we broke through. Took Channis, too. I saw it. Just stepped in and poof, they was gone. The three of ours that went hard after them are gone, too.”

A third man said to Rusk, “We can't just leave 'em, Seventh Blade. We should be going through, too.”

Nods around.

“Them're good men went through,” said another man.

“Went through to where?” Rusk said, eyeing the dark wall. He'd seen some sorcery in his life, but nothing like this. “Eh? Where? Where does it go? What is it, even?”

His words got through. Eyes found the floor. The mutters died down.

“Let's not be fakkin' idiots,” he said. “I want them men and Channis back, too, but that don't mean we all jump off the Archbridge now, does it?”

“What then, Seventh Blade?”

Before Rusk could answer, the black curtain started to pull back in on itself, a dark blanket being drawn back through a hole in the world that none of them could see. The men near it backed away, exclamations of surprise and fear running through them like the trots. In moments the black curtain disappeared entirely, revealing the window, the green glow of a low-slung but full Mage's Moon.

Soft curses all around the room. Wide eyes.

Rusk glanced surreptitiously at his tattoo, hoping to see it announce Channis's death by sprouting an eighth blade. He'd aimed for Sixth Blade, with the wealth that it brought, but he'd do even better as Eighth.

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.”