A Discourse in Steel (9 page)

The man glared up at Nix, his rat nose twitching.

“What do we need from this slubber?” Nix asked Egil.

“Ask him where the guildhouse is,” Egil said.

The man guffawed.

Nix faced the guildsman. “You heard the big, intimidating, ill-tempered man. Where's the guildhouse?”

“I don't know nothing about a guildhouse.” The man's rat face turned sly. “But I wager that's not something safe to know 'less you're supposed to. I wager knowing something like that when you shouldn't might, I don't know, get your place burned down. Lot o' things like that.”

Nix grabbed the man by his hair. “I find it best not to anger the priest.”

The man glared and seemed inclined to keep talking, so Nix released him.

“As you will, then.”

“I hear the guild,” the man said. “They keep coming and coming until things finish up like they want them finished. And they come back for those that hurt their men. That's what I hear.”

“Nobody's coming for you,” Egil said.

The man jutted out his chin. “We'll see.”

Egil approached the man, and despite his superficial insouciance, the man quailed at the priest's approach. But Egil only turned him roughly around so that his back was to the door. Nix looked a question at him. Egil mouthed the word “Mere” and Nix understood. He nodded and Egil exited the cellar to get Mere.

After he left, Nix said, “I always heard guildboys were competent. Then I see a cock-up like this and have to wonder.”

“Fak you. You got lucky.”

“Tell you something else,” Nix said, his tone serious. He grabbed the man by the hair, jerked his head back, put his lips to his ear. “There were twenty people in this inn and I care about all of them. You and your crew will answer for that.”

“You have no idea what you're doing here, bungholes.”

Nix punched him in the head, knocking him on his side. He struggled to keep his voice under control. “I know exactly what I'm doing. The guild is shite to me.”

The man winced at the pain, blinked, licked his lips. “We'll see.”

“There's only one thing saving you, slubber, and that's that I've had enough of regrets in recent days. Hard to say with the priest, though. He's not as forgiving as me. Strange in a priest, don't you think?”

The man grinned. “No. I know a few priests just like that.”

The cellar door creaked open and Egil walked in, Merelda small behind him. Nix eyed Egil, who nodded, then Merelda, who eyed the prisoner. Nix gave her a nod of encouragement. Egil came around to look down at the guildsman.

“Where's the guildhouse?” Egil asked.

The man spit. “That again? I told you—”

Merelda closed her eyes, furrowed her brow. Nix imagined her reaching into the guildsman's mind.

“What is this?” the man said, blinking rapidly. “What is—”

“Where is the guildhouse?” Egil said. “Tell us.”

“I don't—” The man's words slurred. His eyes rolled. “I can't—”

Mere put a hand to her temple. Nix imagined her reaching in his mind, grabbing at his thoughts, unspooling them like weaver's thread.

Egil leaned over him. “Where. Is. The. Guildhouse?”

The man screamed, shook his head, rocked back and forth.

Merelda took a step closer to him, her pale face wrinkled in concentration. A drop of blood leaked from one of her nostrils but she seemed not to notice.

“No, no, no!” said the man.

“It's on Mandin's Way,” Mere said, her voice cold, her eyes still closed, her face still twisted up with effort. “Used to be an inn called the Squid. I can…see the layout.”

“I know it,” Nix said.

“Who is that?” the man said, trying to look over his shoulder. “Is that the bitch faytor?”

Merelda took another step toward the man. Blood flowed from both her nostrils.

The man shrieked, long and loud, and Nix hoped there were no Watch patrols on the street outside.

“There are many guards there, always. There are two levels under it, a chapel, training rooms, safe rooms, a torture chamber, cells. The sewers near Mandin's Way and a guarded tunnel in the bank of the Meander give access to the lower levels.”

She took another step closer to the man, who now moaned and writhed on the ground, blood coming from his own nose. Merelda's nosebleed worsened but she showed no sign of stopping.

Nix put a hand on her arm. “That's enough.”

She whirled on him, projected,
He tried to kill us!

He winced at the anger in her mental voice. “I know. You're hurting yourself, though. We have what we need. That's enough. That's enough.”

Egil took her by the arm. “It's all right. You did good.”

She stared at them, blinking, her eyes welling with tears. She looked down at the man, who moaned and muttered in a puddle of snot and blood and spit.

“Fak him,” she said, tears falling down her cheeks.

“Aye, that,” Egil said softly, and led her to the cellar door. He closed it behind her and he and Nix shared a look. Nix nodded, went to the guildsman and pulled him up and around. Blood smeared his face below his nose.

“You don't look half as amused as you did. Huh.”

The guildsman's eyes twisted into a glare. “Fak you. You don't know what you done here. Fak you.”

Nix sighed. “You'd think more people would fak me. I do have a certain charm. Alas, the world is unfair.”

The man spit snot and blood. “You keep on with this and it's gonna get more unfair for you and yours real quick like. You hear? Now let me go.”

Nix looked over to Egil, eyebrows raised. “He's an arrogant prick, isn't he? Even bound and bleeding and after what just happened and he still can't shut his hole. Is this what it's like to talk to me?”

Egil shrugged and grunted, his hard eyes fixed on the guildsman.

Nix looked back at the guildsman. “Usually I'm on the other end of this, hands bound, bloody, wondering what's going to happen next. I like this better.”

“You won't for long,” the guildsman said.

“This really is no time to get all cocky, yeah? Makes me irritable. And I'm not even easily irritated. My friend there, though, the big priest, he
is
easily irritated. He looks downright irritable this very moment. Irked, even. So.” Nix considered, made up his mind, and stood. “He's going to beat you now.”

The man's eyes went to Egil's hulking form, the priest's ham fists, and his arrogance crumbled. “What's that now?”

“Parts of you are gonna bleed,” Nix said. “Probably that nose again. Other parts will probably break. But unfair is the world, yeah? Woe and alack.”

“Wait, now. Wait,” the man said, struggling against his bonds as Egil stepped toward him. “That ain't necessary, is it? We could—”

“Oh, but it is necessary,” Nix said, his voice the soft, cold sound of a blade slipping its scabbard. “And I'm going to tell you why—because you fakkin'
deserve
it for what you did, you slubber prick bunghole.”

“There's no need for torture, now!”

Nix grabbed the man by his shirt and gave him a shake.

“This isn't torture, slubber. We already know what we need to know. This is
punishment.
” He stepped aside to make room for Egil, then put his hands on his hips and glared contempt at the guildsman. “Make it hurt bad, Egil.”

“They'll come for you! Both of you for this! And everyone else in this fakkin' inn.”

“No, they won't,” Egil said, grabbing the man by his shirt and jerking him to his feet. “Because we're coming for them. You boys fakked up, crossing us.”

The man grinned darkly, his teeth stained with blood. “You go at the guildhouse, you die. You won't come back from that.”

Nix said, “I was just telling someone the other day that our lot in life seems to be to go where others say we shouldn't.”

Egil's first punch put a few teeth and a lot of blood on the cellar floor. His second cracked ribs and left the guildsman crumpled on the floor, moaning.

Nix watched the rest of it unfold, knowing they were both giving themselves more to regret, more they'd someday have to look back on and face squarely.

He thought of what could have happened—Rose and Tesha and Mere and Kiir burned in a fire—and decided he could live with it.

“Pigs?” Gadd asked, when they brought the broken, bloodied form of the guildsman out of the cellar.

Instead Egil and Nix armed Gadd with enough silver terns to make a suitable donation, then had him drop the unconscious guildsman at the temple of Orella. Nix figured if the healer saints of Orella asked any questions, they'd get about as clear an answer out of Gadd as Nix usually got. And the beaten guildsman wouldn't be talking for at least a day, maybe two, if he lived. Egil hadn't been gentle. They'd earned themselves some time, but not much.

He and Egil sat the bar, the smell of the fire still heavy in the air. Egil rattled his bone dice in his fist. Both of them understood the weight of their situation.

“The sun'll be up soon,” Nix said, for no reason in particular.

“Aye.”

“They must think Rose saw something. Or maybe they know she read the clicked Upright's mind. Either way…”

“Either way,” Egil said, nodding. “The guild'll keep coming. Especially now. They got one burned dead and one in the temple.”

“Aye,” Nix agreed. “Limits our play. We could try a sit-down with the new Upright Man. Explain the situation. Get them to back off.”

Egil was already shaking his head. “They tried to burn down the inn, Nix. There were twenty people in here, including Kiir and Rose and Mere and Lis. And they won't let up on Rose if they think she knows guild business.”

Tesha came down the stairs and they fell silent. She wore a nightdress and no makeup and her hair was mussed and she looked more vulnerable than Nix ever wanted to see her again. She slipped onto the stool between them.

“How are you doing?” Nix asked her.

“Fine,” she said. “Merelda finally fell asleep. Will we have trouble with the Watch?”

Nix shrugged. “Doubtful. No bodies and a fire that was quickly contained. They'll come tomorrow. Maybe. If so, just tell them it was an accident.”

She nodded, ran a hand through her thick black hair. She looked like she wished she had her pipe. “What do we do now?”

“Huh? We have the damage repaired. It's not that bad. Then we—”

“That's not what I mean, Nix.”

“Ah,” Nix said. “I forgot I was talking to you. Well, Egil and I were just talking about that.”

“Mere said this was the guild.”

“It was.”

“That's not good. They won't come back tonight?”

“Not how they are,” Nix said. “Word won't even get back until later this morning probably. They'll plan, consider, then come again.”

“Shite,” she said. “And that man you two brought in?”

Nix nodded. “Guild.”

“Shite,” she said again.

“We have two days,” Egil said. “Maybe three.”

“They want Rose?” Tesha asked.

Nix nodded.

“I'm not even going to ask why,” she said. “But they can't have her.”

“Aye, that,” Nix said.

For a time the three of them sat at the bar in silence. Nix knew what they had to do, but he didn't want to say it aloud.

“We'll have to go at the guildhouse,” Egil said, saying it for him. “Tonight, I'd say. This new Upright Man must have ordered the burn and click. For that, we kill him and anyone else we find there. Maybe the next Upright Man gets reasonable about things. They want a fight, we give them all they can handle.”

“Attacking the guild?” Tesha asked. “Is that wise?”

“You're asking that of us?” Nix said, grinning.
“Us?”

Egil said, “They come at ours. We go harder at theirs. That's all they understand. We put a bunch of them in the ground and maybe they see that coming at us is bad business. But they've got to be taught that lesson with steel. Not even Nix can talk us out of this one.”

“I've talked us out of worse,” Nix protested.

“You've talked us
into
worse, too,” Egil said, smiling.

“This is so,” Nix conceded. To Tesha, he said, “You ought to send everyone away from the Tunnel, until things are resolved.”

Her mouth formed a hard line and she shook her head. “I don't run. And even if I did, I don't have anywhere else to go. I think the same's true of Rose and Mere. Gadd will stay, too. I'll send the rest off somewhere for a time. They won't like it, though.”

“We ought to get some men here in the meanwhile,” Egil said to Nix.

Nix nodded, and both of them spoke a name at the same time.

“Veraal.”

“Veraal?” Tesha said.

“He'll have some men he can trust,” Nix said.

“But how do you know you can trust him?” Tesha asked. “Who is he?”

“Veraal? He's an old colleague. And uncle. And he owes us one.”

“Or several,” Egil added.

Nix nodded. “Or several. And he has no love for the guild. They're the reason he runs out of the Low Bazaar.”

“We'll need armor, too,” Egil said. “Chain shirts, anyway.”

“He can help us there, too.”

“What do you have in that satchel?” Egil asked Nix, nodding at Nix's bag of needful things. “A few miracles, I trust?”

“Favor my gewgaws now, do you?” Nix said.

“I favor anything that puts my hands around the throat of the Upright Man. Put the flame to my inn? My friends? That demands recompense.”

Nix leaned back on his stool. “Recompense? You've been reading again, haven't you?”

Egil chuckled.

Nix turned to Tesha. “If by some unbelievable chance we don't come back from this by dawn tomorrow, Rose and Mere need to get out of the city. Veraal can help with that. Then you and everyone here just lay low. You're all in the cross shot. The guild will lay off if we're dead and Rose is gone.”

She bit her lip. “This is that serious?”

“It is,” Egil said.

“Bah,” Nix said, imitating Egil. He stood, stretched, and hit Egil on the shoulder. “This is fun. We'll be laughing about it two days from now, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“We go in through the sewers, I think.”

“Yeah,” Egil said.

“That's it, then,” Nix said, and turned to face Tesha. “So…this would be the time to declare your secret love for me. You might not get another chance.”

She stared at him, expressionless, and he told himself she was trying to hold back a smile.

“Secret lust, at least?”

Her smile won through at last.

“That'll do fine,” he said, and winked at her. To Egil he said, “I'll head out now. They'll get eyes on the inn by sunup. I want to be gone before that.”

“Plan?” Egil asked.

“I'll go to the Bazaar and try to buy a few miracles. I'll get Veraal in motion, too. You stay here in case something happens during the day. Then tonight we sneak into the guildhouse and kill everyone that gets between us and the Upright Man.”

“That's a good plan.”

“That's not a plan,” Tesha said.

“That's as good as our plans get,” Egil said.

“You,” Nix said to Tesha. “If something happens during the day, you keep everyone near Egil. The man's a tree and I haven't seen an axeman yet who can fell him.”

“Nix…” she said.

“Say it,” he prompted, smiling. “Come on. Say it.”

She smiled again. “Be careful.”

“Damn,” he said, and snapped his fingers. “Almost had it.”

“See you soon,” Egil said to him.

“Aye.”

Dool sidled
up to Rusk just before morning chapel. Rusk could tell something had gone hinky from the slump of Dool's shoulders, the way he avoided eye contact.

“It was a cock-up,” Dool said, finding his boots interesting.

“A cock-up?” Rusk said. “You telling me you fakked a simple burn job?”

Dool lifted his huge head, which melded seamlessly with his thick neck. “There were complications, Seventh Blade.”

“Spill it,” Rusk said, and his jaw got tighter and tighter as Dool related events in his slow monotone. They had one man down, burned to death, body's whereabouts unknown, and another missing altogether.

Dool looked into Rusk's face and licked his lips. “I can take a team back there today, right now. Walk in there and click the faytor and those two fakkers.”

“No,” Rusk said, his mind working on the problem. “The Watch will be looking into things today. And maybe tomorrow, too. Keep eyes on the inn and keep me informed, but otherwise stay clear.”

“Seventh Blade, they clicked Lenil—”

Rusk stuck his face in Dool's. “Lenil's dust because he was an incompetent member of an incompetent team that couldn't even put a match to an unguarded building.”

Dool swallowed hard and looked away.

Rusk put a hand on his shoulder. “They owe us a debt, yeah? And we'll collect, Dool. But it ain't gonna be today or tonight. Because now it's not just about the faytor.”

“Now it's about those two fakkers,” Dool said.

“Aye.”

Rusk had told Channis that Egil and Nix were players, but all Channis would hear was that the job had gone wrong and that the faytor still lived. Not a good start to Rusk's run as Seventh Blade.

“They know it was guild work?” he asked.

Dool shrugged. “I don't know how they could.”

Rusk had a missing man and a faytor with knowledge of the guild, so he thought it best to assume Egil and Nix knew the torch job was guild-ordered and that they knew why.

“They may try to sneak the faytor out. You have your eyes let me know right away if things look like that.”

Dool nodded. “Sorry, Seventh Blade.”

Rusk nodded. “Just keep it to yourself until I spill it to the Upright Man. We can fix this. Go on, now.”

Dool nodded and went into the chapel. Rusk stood alone in the corridor, thinking of how to present things to Channis.

In the end, there was no way to pretty things up. They'd had a cock-up. They'd just have to clean it. Rusk's knot to untie was that Channis didn't like messes, and would like them even less when they occurred just after he took the position as Upright Man.

Rusk held the news until after chapel, throwing prays at Aster throughout that the Upright Man would be reasonable. He met him in his wing of the guildhouse in the late morning. As usual, Channis had his back to him as he entered. The Upright Man stared out at the slow current of the Meander, the boats, the swoop of the river gulls around and under the Archbridge.

Rusk could tell from the visible tension in Channis's posture that he already knew. But he was going to make Rusk say it and own it, which made Channis a bunghole. Rusk decided he might as well jump in.

“The torch job went wrong.”

Channis turned to regard him across the expanse of wood floor. “Wrong how?”

“Went cock-up is how. Lenil was killed and his body's missing. Feegas is missing and no one knows what happened to him.”

Channis walked toward him, that predatory stride, his hands crossed behind his back. “And?”

“And the place didn't light. The girl, that faytor, is still alive.”

Channis came in close and circled him and Rusk could do nothing but stand there, as still as a sculpture. He felt like a condemned slubber at the scragging post.

“You chose that team, didn't you, Seventh Blade?”

Rusk nodded and did not give in to the temptation to tell Channis that three of the men on the team were part of Channis's personal crew before he'd become the Upright Man.

“Didn't lead it yourself, though?”

Rusk shook his head, resisting the impulse to tell the Upright Man that the Seventh Blade did not traditionally perform street work.

A punch to the stomach sent Rusk to his knees, gasping.

“Why the fak not?” Channis asked. He still hadn't raised his voice.

Rusk knew there was no right answer, so he held his tongue and shook his head. Let Channis interpret that as he would.