The Hammer and the Blade (14 page)

  "Here," Egil answered, from Nix's left.

  Nix did not bother a go at the bonds. He'd never slip them quickly enough, and he had no desire to take another blow to the head. He resigned himself to the mercy of his captors, taking solace in the fact that if they'd wanted him dead, he'd already be dead.

  Unless, of course, he'd done something to earn himself a slow, painful death.

  Had he?

  He didn't remember anything, but he'd had a fair number of nights recently with which his memory had only distant relations.

  "Egil, we should drink less," he said.

  "Bah. We should fight better. Or use fewer damned gewgaws."

  "Fair point," Nix said. He turned his bagged head in the direction he'd last heard Beard speak. "So, listen, if this is about that job you mentioned back in the
Tunnel
, we've had some time to reconsider…"

  Dark chuckles from before him and behind, at least four men, all of them within a few paces. No doubt several more were within earshot, as they had been back at the tavern.

  "Gods, man," Beard said. "Do you ever stop blathering?"

  "He fancies himself a wit," said the hiresword. "Never knowing his mouth is full of shite."

  "I thought you said I was in the presence of my betters?" Nix said, blinking at a particularly painful ache behind his eye. "That hiresword with the eyeshine is two steps below the hindquarters of a horse. Hey, tell 'em how you got that eyeshine, Hindquarters."

  "You shut your hole," said the hiresword, and Nix heard him take a step toward him.

  "That's enough," said Beard, though Nix wasn't sure if he was talking to him or the hiresword.

  "Is that the Hindquarters I backhanded at the
Tunnel
?" Egil said, joining in. "I didn't recall his voice being so girlish."

  Nix chuckled, though it made his head ache worse.

  "Fak you both," the hiresword said sharply.

  "It is girlish," said Nix. "I hadn't noticed before. I suspect he was stabbed in the genitals at some point. Or perhaps was born without balls. Which is it, Hindquarters? We're all aflutter with curiosity."

  A sudden cuff to the side of the head caused Nix to see sparks. He fell to his side and balled up on the floor, expecting another beat down. Hands seized him by the shirt and jerked him off the ground.

  "I said that's enough," Beard said. "Enough, Jyme. And you, Nix Fall, you shut your godsdamned mouth. It runs like it has the fakkin' trots."

  Jyme ignored Beard and pulled Nix close. "Let me tell you something, Nix
the Lucky
. I knew these mates here from way back, when I was still watch. I saw them coming into the tavern while your big friend was showing me out."

  "Tossing you out, you mean," Nix said. "And I'm surprised you could see anything through that eyeshine."

  Egil chuckled. "Went down as easy as a child."

  "Fak you, priest!" Jyme said. Then, to Nix, "I waited outside to get at you two, see? But then these mates came out and Baras told me they was looking to nab you two. Well, I signed up then and there for that."

  Now Nix had a name for Beard – Baras.

  Jyme gave Nix a rough shake. "And it was just happenstance, see? Just the gods smiling on yours truly." He cast Nix back to the ground. "So who's got the luck now, Nix? Who's got it?"

  Nix sat up and his mouth kept going, as if of its own accord. "I didn't hear a word you said, distracted as I was by your breath, which, even through this sack, has stink enough to rouse the dead. You mind starting over back at the beginning?"

  Jyme growled and Nix steeled himself for another blow.

  "Jyme!" said Baras. "That's it. It's done. You're here on my word. You needed a job and now you have one. But you act professional, just as you did when you was watch. That, or you're out."

  "If you're watch," Egil said, "then you're also liars. You denied as much back at the
Tunnel
."

  "You mind your tongue, priest," Baras snapped. "Call me a liar again and I may let Jyme have his way."

  "What's he going to do, kiss me?" Egil said. "You want to kiss me, Hindquarters?"

  "Fak you," Jyme said.

  "Your mouth keeps tolling the same time, Jyme. Fak you. Fak you. That's all it says. Are you mentally deficient?"

  "Fak you! Er… Fak! Damn you!"

  Nix chuckled.

  "We're not watch," said Baras.

  "Then what in the Eleven Pits is this about?" Egil said.

  "Soon enough and you'll know," answered Baras.

  "Not even a hint?" Nix prodded. "Come on. A small one? Let's make a game of it. Maybe sing a song, too."

  "Shut up!" said Baras, flustered.

  Moments later, Nix heard murmured voices, as if from outside a building. A bolt slid through its housing and a door creaked open. A gust of wind hit him, ripe with the odor of the river. He heard a nightgull call and thought instantly of the Heap and Mamabird. He decided that it wouldn't do for him to die with a bag over his head.

  "My lord," Baras said, and Nix heard smart motion from the other men in the room, as if they were saluting.

  "Baras," said a resonant male voice. Nix did not recognize it. "Who is this?"

  "I'm Nix–" Nix said.

  "Not you, fool," said the man.

  "His name is Jyme, my lord," Baras said. "He served with me once, long ago. He was useful to us in our mission tonight. He needs employ."

  "Useful how?"

  "In capturing these two, my lord. He has no love for them and he's a good man."

  "Agree with the former but disagree with that last," Nix said, but no one acknowledged him.

  "And these are Egil of Ebenor and Nix Fall?" the man asked.

  "They are, my lord," Baras answered.

  "Nix is the mouthy one?"

  "Aye. Mouthy like few others I've ever heard."

  Nix heard the approaching tread of soft shoes. They stopped before him.

  "I didn't want things to go this way," the man said. "But you left me with little choice."

  Nix knew lies when he heard them. Whoever he was, the man had very much wanted things to go exactly as they had.

  "What is it you want?" Nix said. He felt ridiculous speaking through a bag, looking up from the ground.

  The man paced before him. "Right now, I just want you to listen. Will you do that?"

  "I've been known to listen from time to time. Egil?"

  "Speak, man," said the priest. "I can barely feel my hands. And this bag smells like shite."

  The man affected a heavy sigh that sounded as false to Nix as a wizard's promises.

  "Hear, then. I have two sisters, both young, lovely girls. They're all that's left of my family. And both of them are very sick. I need your help to heal them."

  "Lovely, you say?" Nix said.

  "Dog," spat Baras.

  "We're not healers," Egil said. "Talk to the priestesses of Orella."

  "Or maybe we
can
offer healing," Nix said slyly. "But only if you take off–"

  "Spare me such nonsense," the voice said, taking on a sharp edge before going dull once more on false sincerity. "I know quite well what you are. You're mere thieves and robbers."

  Nix tried not to feel offended by the "mere."

  "My sisters' sickness isn't of this world. They're cursed and it's the curse that caused me to seek you out."

  "We're not wizards, either," Egil said.

  "No doubt," the man said. "Further, the curse makes them… dangerous, to themselves and others."

  Mention of a curse and danger piqued Nix's natural curiosity about things magical. "How'd they come to be cursed?"

  Once more the sharp edge to the voice, and louder this time. Nix imagined the man standing directly over him, staring down daggers.

  "
How
, you ask? You? Here is
how
: the actions of ignorant miscreants caused it. Their mess is now mine to clean."

  "I have a fondness for miscreants generally," Nix said with a shrug. "Not so much for messes."

  "Nix…" Egil cautioned.

  "I told you, my lord," Baras said. "He never stops."

  The man continued: "You may find that your fondness for low things one day puts you on the wrong end of blade or spell."

  "Aye, that," Nix conceded with a tilt of his head. "Happens oft enough already. This very moment, for example."

  "That's truth," Egil said.

  The man inhaled deeply, as if calming himself. "The curse must be lifted before Minnear is full."

  "That's not long," Nix said. "Or?"

  "Or… my sisters will die."

  "A sad, sad tale," Nix said. "Well, a sincere wish of good luck to you and them. There's nothing we can–"

  A cuff to Nix's head from one of the guards quieted him. Probably came from Baras. Not hard enough to have been Jyme's hand.

  "Even when your life hangs by a hair you jest and make light?" the man said.

  "Habit," Nix explained. "One bad one of many, I admit."

  "Your purpose remains unclean," Egil said. "What help can we be to your sisters? And why would we offer any, given the lumps on my skull and the bag over my head?"

  "I can only lift the curse if I possess a certain item, a magical horn."

  "A gewgaw," Egil sniffed.

  "What horn?" Nix asked. "How can a horn lift a curse?"

  The man ignored Nix's question. "My research reveals that the horn can be found in the tomb of Abn Thuset."

  "Research?" Egil asked. "What are you? A sage?"

  "Oh, I see now," Nix said. "You need tomb robbers to procure this horn for you." Nix shifted on his backside, feeling more in control of matters. "Abn Thuset was, of course, one of the greatest wizard-kings of ancient Afirion. But his tomb is lost to history and sand. Many have sought it, but no one knows where it is. Unless…"

  "I know where it is," the man said.

  "Unless
that
," Nix said, though he was still skeptical. "How do you know you've found it?"

  "And if you have, then go get this horn for yourself," Egil said. "As I said to your man back at the
Tunnel
, we're not hirelings."

  "I'm not offering you employment," the man said, his tone cool. "I could, however, order you to do it."

  "Order us?" Egil said with a chuckle. "And just who in the Pits are you to order us?"

  A long pause, then a hand seized the burlap sack around Nix's head and tore it off, taking a few hairs with it. Nix blinked in the lantern light. Jyme held the bag and leered at him, all pockmarks, bad breath, and poorly groomed facial hair.

  "Bottom rung on top now, eh?" Jyme said.

  "Maybe for now," Nix answered.

  They were in a dirt-floored warehouse filled with barrels, amphorae, sacks, and crates. A block and tackle, and a net for loading transport carts hung from the ceiling. Nix looked for any trading coster marks, but saw none. It was probably a rented warehouse used to move illicit goods.

  Egil was on the ground near Nix, and Baras pulled the bag from his head. Like Nix, the priest blinked in the lantern light. Nix eyed the man who'd been speaking, the man who purported to have authority to issue them orders.

  He wore a tailored shirt of silk and trousers of velvet, with a high-collared fur-ruffed wool cape thrown over the whole. A thin sword – a nobleman's blade, not a warrior's – hung from a wide belt with a silver buckle. His narrow face, combined with his sharp nose and the widely spaced, deep-set eyes, gave him a reptilian cast. His short brown hair had a part in it as sharp and straight as a plumb line. Dark circles stained the skin under his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

  "You're the Lord Mayor's sorcerer," Nix said, recognizing the man's face. He searched his mind for a name, couldn't quite find it.

  "I'm the Lord Mayor's Adjunct," the man corrected, and then Nix had the name.

  "Rakon Norristru."

  Rakon held the ivory and pearl wand Nix had taken from the tomb of Abn Thahl, the wand with which he'd accidentally shrunk himself and Egil.

  Seeing it, Nix winced with embarrassment. Rakon pointed the wand at Nix.

  "My men say you know a bit about sorcery. History, too, I gather, from your knowledge of Abn Thuset."

  "I had a year at the Conclave."

  Rakon's thin eyebrows went up. "Really? And how might you have afforded such an education?"

  Nix did not bother with the sordid story that ended with him stealing an education from a dead man. "Well, that's a tale long in telling. I managed, let's say."

  "Hmm. And you dropped out after a year?"

  "No!" Nix said, trying to stand and nearly toppling himself sidewise in his irritation. "Dammit! Why does everyone assume I dropped out? I was expelled after a year.
Expelled
."

  Rakon nodded, not really listening. He tapped the wand on his palm. His hands were small, the fingers long.

  "Well, in that year you seem to have learned only enough to endanger yourself. I looked through your satchel. It's filled with magical trinkets you're probably too stupid or undereducated to use properly."

  "Listen, if you're trying to charm me with kind words…" Nix said.

  "A bag of gewgaws," Egil breathed contemptuously.

  "Unhelpful," Nix snapped at him.

  "Perhaps you should stick to plying the many blades my men removed from your person?" Rakon said.

  "Perhaps," Nix grumbled. "I'd give much to have one in hand right now."

  "I'd wager you would," Rakon said. He bent down and held the wand before Nix's eyes. He tapped the pearl tip on the end of Nix's nose. "You see that?"

  Nix went cross-eyed. "Well, no, not really."