Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (27 page)

It was late and the girls asleep. There were only a few hours of night between their closing up and the start of business the next morning. It felt strange, to have the entire common room, the ground floor to himself.

He put
Solaris
on the bar and began arranging the chairs for the next day’s business. He enjoyed helping the girls. Feeling useful doing something simple.

He lost track of time. Then he realized the room around him, behind him, was unnaturally quiet. He turned around.

Aimsley Pinwhistle stood on the other side of the room. Several tables between them.
Solaris
on the bar behind him.

“You’re going after the girl,” the polder said. He was braced like he had a weapon in both hands, but they were empty. Heden knew this didn’t matter. When he needed then, the twin dirks would be there.

The polder’s face was red with controlled fury. He was coiled like a spring and in Heden’s eyes he seemed infused by drink. It was part of who he was. Whatever it did for him, he needed it. Whatever he needed to forget, whoever he needed to be, someone who did things that needed forgetting, the drink gave it to him. Let him be that person. Freed him from the pain and guilt while allowing him to accumulate more of it.

It was killing him. With Vanora in jeopardy, Heden's moral sense was heightened and he saw inside the master-thief. Didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. The drink was killing him and at the same time it was the only way he ever felt alive. There was no in-between here. There was no line to walk for the thief. No choice. Only a certain spiral of destruction.

Heden needed him. Needed him and needed to help him. Needed him to stop the count and needed to help him to banish the vision of Sir Taethan that lay behind his eyelids.

A month ago, a year ago, Heden wouldn’t have known what to do. It would have been an unanswerable riddle. But that man died in the mud outside a distant priory. The man who stood in the inn, the man who was going to save Vanora, knew exactly what he had to do. What he should have done for Taethan. What he
could
have done for Taethan.

“Yeah,” Heden said, answering the thief's question.

The polder gritted his teeth and shook his head once. “Don’t.”

“You could stop me,” Heden said. He looked down at the floor and with his boot, kicked idly at a bit of food ground into the floor. He wasn’t going to stare down the polder.

“Yes,” the thief said.

“But you’d have to kill me.”

“I know that!” the polder was furious. At who? Heden didn’t know, but he knew. He was furious at the Brick for sending him here. Furious at Heden for being someone who had to be killed, and furious at himself for coming.

Heden looked at the little man. It wasn’t pity he gave the polder, it was understanding. Not only an understanding of the creature before him, but of the future and what was about to happen.

“Brick sent you here to stop me.”

“Brick sent me here to kill you, you shit.”

Heden nodded. In this state, like this, the polder was unpredictable.

“If you have to do it,” Heden said with a shrug, “you have to do it. Nice of you to talk to me first though.”

The thief looked like Heden had slapped him. Heden’s acceptance just wound everything inside the polder up.

“You piece of shit,” the thief accused. "You don't get it, do you? You think you've got everyone figured out."

Heden stared at him blankly. What was he talking about?

The thief took a deep breath.

"
I
killed the abbot
,” Aimsley said.

Heden stood there, uncomprehending. The thief had done what five black scarves could not, he had stopped Heden dead in his tracks.

“You…," he said, blinking. Trying to absorb the information.

“You didn’t know that, did you?" the thief barked. "You think you’ve got everyone figured out, but you couldn’t see it.”

“
You
killed him,” Heden repeated.

“What did you think the Brick would do?!” Aimsley shouted, his face red, the veins and tendons on his neck standing out.

"You killed the abbot. You killed...and then you took Vanora to the count."

“You know the count has him over a barrel and you know he’s got his horn up for her and you knew they’d send me to find her!”

"You killed him," Heden repeated, and a bowel-freezing calm came over him. "And now you've killed Vanora. You took her to the count, and now he has her. And if she's not dead already...."

"I
told
you the girl wasn't worth it. I
told
you this would happen!" The polder was raging, furious, barely able to control himself.

"And now you've come to kill me." Heden felt detached from his body. As though he were watching a scene play out from the audience.

"I told him I wanted out!" Aimsley said. He was sick of the killing, Heden could see it in him, but it was all there was inside. He was made of it. "He said this is the price! The priest who fucked everything up in the first place."

Heden’s mind spun. He made a moral leap.

“You could get her back,” he said.

“What!?” the thief squeaked.

“You could do it," Heden urged. "You could find her where I can’t. You could find her, get her out and no one would know it was you!” He spoke the ideas as they came to his mind.

“Why the
fuck
would I do that?”

Heden pointed at him. “Because it’s the right thing to do!” he leveled this at the thief like a prayer of commanding. He was trying to will the thief into action through sheer weight of moral authority. The thief reeled in response. It almost worked.

Breathing fast for no reason, the thief steadied himself. “You’re living in a fucking fairy story!” he said.

Heden realized he was also breathing rapidly. Senses heightened. It would be difficult, beating the polder without killing him…or dying in the process. But the prospect of saving someone, anyone, this thief who needed saving more than anyone he’d met, made the attempt worthwhile.

“I won’t kill you,” Heden said calmly. Anger had fled. Only readiness now.

“You’ll wish you had,” the polder said.

“I doubt it,” Heden said, deliberately provoking the little man. “There’s nothing left inside you but the drink.”

That was enough. The thief ignited with rage. From Heden’s point of view, it looked like the drink took him over in that moment.

The shadow-magics master thieves practiced produced only short bursts of advantage, and took their toll, draining those who used them. Aimsley disappeared, and in a blink was six feet closer, on a table, as though he had leapt there through empty space. Another blink and he was above Heden, in the air, the two long, thin razor-tipped dirks in his hands ready to plunge down into Heden’s shoulder and neck, severing vital arteries.

Heden buckled his left leg, allowing gravity to pull him down, roll away out and under the polder’s attack. As the polder sailed over him, inches from where he had been standing, he felt one of the dirks sink into his back.

Heden’s right side clenched with pain, but he couldn’t allow himself to panic. Only then did he lose.

The polder landed and rolled away, knowing that even without
Solaris
or his breastplate, if Heden got his hands on him, things could be over quickly.

That first cut was deep. He forced himself to straighten and turn to face the thief. One of his legs buckled and he tried to brace himself on a table, which upended at the imbalance.

Aimsley leaped forward and everything moved in slow motion. A dozen prayers flew into Heden’s mind. It was getting easier to sort them all out now, purely a tactical exercise. But he forbid himself. He was going to save the thief. Either he was going to save him, or they would both die here on the floor of the inn.

As the thief danced past him, a dirk slipped between his ribs, and he let it. The prayer that would turn his skin to stone, unspoken.

Dull aches in his gut and back told him something important, some organs, had been damaged badly. He spun and feinted and the thief leaped to stab thinking Heden was stumbling. Heden took the advantage and put everything he had into the punch he knew he could land.

Heden was not a big man, but he was all muscle and he knew how to hit. The punch cracked the thief’s jaw and sent him spinning.

Before the thief had even hit the floor, there was poison on his blades. Where it had come from, Heden couldn’t see. Some secret pocket. That the thief could find and apply the poison while in the air, in the same instant his jaw was dislocated, meant he was better than any thief Heden had ever fought or campaigned with.

Aimsley Pinwhistle landed on his feet, catching himself before almost falling over, and threw a red-eyed baleful look at the priest.
This is it
, Heden thought.

The thief sprang into the air, his twin dirks poised to plunge into Heden’s heart and there was no way Heden could move fast enough.

“
Noxa
,” Heden said. Not a prayer, a curse. One of the most powerful he knew, and Cavall gave it to him.

Three feet in the air and halfway to Heden, the thief suddenly plunged straight to the ground. Like a rock dropping from the sky. He smashed into the wood as though he were heavier than a cask of ale. His dirks scattered across the floor.

Pinned there under some incredible weight, the polder managed to push himself up, the muscles in his arms and shoulder straining to the breaking point. All he managed to do, however, was flip himself onto his back before collapsing again. Gasping like the inn was resting on top of him.

Heden walked over to him. The pain forgotten. He was bleeding all down his trousers from where the thief had stabbed him. It didn’t matter.

The thief’s eyes spun wildly. He could barely move his head. He strained for any advantage, any clue of what was going on. He couldn’t breathe.

“Is a curse the weight of every evil deed you’ve ever done?” Heden asked, his voice coming from somewhere Aimsley couldn't see, couldn't move his head to look. The air was being crushed from his lungs, his face was bright red, his teeth bared with effort and hatred. He would kill this priest. If only he could find him, get close enough. Where was he?

“Or is it guilt? I don’t know. I’ve never known. Cavall knows.”

Heden stepped into his field of view and looked down at him.

“You know.”

As Aimsley struggled just to breathe, gasps exploding out of him, Heden walked over to the upturned table, righted it, and began taking off his shirt.

“You have no idea what I can do,” he said. Aimsley fought again to push himself up, but couldn’t move his arms. He couldn’t get any air. He was going to die like this.

“You killed a man I loved. I betrayed everyone I cared about and everything we worked for,” Heden said without feeling. He pulled the buttons from their loops at the neck of his linen shirt, and pulled it over his head, exposing his chest and arms, pale and scarred. Whips of black hair covered his chest. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.

He folded the bloody shirt and placed it on the table. “And the entire country of Aendrim died.” He looked at the shirt and the blood.

“A whole country,” he said, looking out the window at the empty street outside.

He turned and walked back to Aimsley, stood over the thief and looked down, loomed into the polder’s field of view again. The veins on the little man’s head and neck throbbed, his eyeballs bulged. He grimaced back with hate, about to die.

“Did you think I wouldn’t kill you?” Heden asked, his head cocked. “Or were you counting on me killing you? Putting you out of your misery?”

The priest began to fade, to swim in Aimsley’s vision. All he could think about was how badly he wanted to slip his dirk into the man’s heart.

Denied that satisfaction, without any breath, he tried to spit one sneering, last hate-fueled rebuke at the man. All he managed was some spittle that dripped down his cheek. He closed his eyes as the life ebbed from him.

Heden watched the polder dying. He looked across the floor and saw one of the thief’s dirks lying on the wooden floor. Then looked back at the thief.

He spoke a word, and the curse was released. Aimsley’s eyes flew open and he gasped, heaving air into his lungs.

Heden stepped over him and walked across the floor. Bent down, and picked up the dirk.

Aimsley rolled himself over, pushed his chest off the floor, but was too weak to get up.

“Gwiddon asked me what happened in the wode,” Heden said, looking at the weapon. “So did Vanora. I couldn’t tell them.” He turned around and faced the polder struggling just to keep his head up, drool dropping into a pool on the wooden floor. “Let me tell you.”

He walked back across the room, chest bare, dirk held in his hands like a wounded bird.

“There was a man,” Heden said, looking at the weapon in his hands, seeing something else. “A good man. A man I loved. I would have done anything to save him. I felt like…like that was the only reason I was here, the only way anything in my life made sense. If I could save him.” If he could save anyone.

He looked up from the polder’s weapon and saw the room, his inn. A dream he had. Dead. He saw Taethan, and wondered again at what he could have done different to save him, and sacrifice himself.

“When he died,” he managed to continue. “It was like…like it was happening to me. I was dying then. I didn’t have a choice, I was either going to give up and die…or find a new way to live.”

He went down on one knee in front of the thief, grabbing the polder’s hand, pressing the dirk into it. Gave him the weapon he needed to kill Heden. The polder looked up at him, eyes red swollen with tears and rimmed with hate. Heden locked gazes with the thief.

“And now I’m going to do the same thing to you.”

Aimsley reeled. The curse was gone, but it had nearly crushed the life out of the little man. He braced himself unwillingly with one hand on Heden’s shoulder. Heden grasped the hand the polder held the dagger with, and pulled it up until the tip was pressing into Heden’s flesh. It was sharp enough to draw blood, even as feeble as Aimsley was. Heden ignored it.

“Brick sent you here to kill me,” Heden said. “You failed. But now I’m giving you the chance.”

Aimsley leaned forward, seeming desperately to want to push the dirk into Heden’s bare chest, but did not. He grit his teeth with effort.

“If my death buys your freedom,” Heden said, and the thief lifted his head to look at the priest through bloodshot eyes. “If killing me means you’re free. Free from the guild. Free to do what you want. What you think is
right
….” Now he had the thief’s attention. Aimsley’s mouth hung slack as he absorbed the import of Heden’s words.

Eyes locked with Aimsley’s, hand wrapped around the polder’s, Heden pulled the dirk further into his chest. “Then you
have
to do it,” Heden said. Aimsley stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’ll help you,” Heden said, and pulled on the dirk, scraping his breastbone.

The thief looked down, saw what he was doing and yanked himself away. Fell over with a shout. A grunt. Tears were streaming from his eyes and he was still propelled by hate. But not for Heden.

Strength flowing back into his limbs, he got up, dirk forgotten and staggered to the bar. Heden watched him disappear behind it. He couldn’t see him, but he heard the sound of glass. The uske. Choking, coughing. The thief was pouring it down his throat.

Heden got up and went behind the bar. The thief was covered in alcohol, poured the last of a bottle into his mouth, coughing and spitting most of it up, weeping openly as he did so.

With one bottle empty he smashed it into the others and glass and amber liquid went flying. He grabbed another bottle and wrenched it open, sobbing as he did, gritting his teeth with concentration on the task at hand. He would kill himself like this. Deliberately. Heden saw it. He would consider it a fitting and just end to die finally at the hand of the demon who taken everything else away.

“No!” Heden said, and lunged forward knocking the bottle out of Aimsley’s hand. “Not like this!” He pulled the thief up by his jerkin and shouted into his red, wet, weeping face, inches from Heden’s. “You don’t get out that easy!” Heden slapped the dirk back into the thief’s hand and grabbed his wrist, brought it to his neck this time. The polder didn’t have the strength to fight him.

Heden produced the second dirk, and pressed it into the polder’s neck.

“You want out!?” Heden shouted. “We go together! But
you have to do it!”

The thief let his hand fall open, and the dirk fell from it. Heden was holding him up by his wrist now. The little man just dangled. Heden let him go, and he fell onto the floor of the bar unresisting. Heden tossed the second dirk on the floor.