Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) (7 page)

Two figures picked their way across the sea of bones, blood, and mud that was the courtyard surrounding the castle’s gallows. There was no pattern to their movement.

They prodded bits of corpses with their boots, turned over errant body parts, occasionally stooped to lift a piece of clothing to see what might be left inside, and wordlessly glanced at each other across the courtyard.

The tall thin one in her early forties was Rayk. The shorter, older, shapeless one in the heavy cloak, was Fandrick. When they were originally partnered together, Rayk was still youthful and energetic. Twenty years under five castellans ground that out of her. Now there was little difference between her and the world-weary, born-cynical Fandrick.

They and their fellow watchmen were known to the city as the specials. The special watchmen. The special police force. Unlike the regulars, they had no district. They had every district. The watch captains petitioned the castellan for aid when things got bad, or weird, and the castellan dispatched some of his special men.

They were meant to be smarter, better trained, and with more authority than the coppers who patrolled the streets. But surrounded by three dozen-odd corpses, or bits of corpses, or whatever these things that used to be people were, neither Fandrick nor Rayk felt very special.

They would note things, grunt. Sometimes the regular watchman keeping the throng of people out of the courtyard would look in, see the two specials, wonder at what they were thinking.

Mostly they were thinking this was a mess.

A metal squeal indicated the gates were briefly opened. The two special watchmen looked as a small figure was admitted by the local constables into the courtyard.

Unlike both Fandrick and Rayk, this person didn’t wear leather. He wore woolen pants, grey, and linen shirt, light blue. He had dark brown skin and thick, short black hair. Keen black eyes that took in everything.

As he approached, they realized he was very young.

Eventually he stopped, and stood before them. He smiled.

“I’m, uh,” he began. “I’m Aiden,” he said.

Fandrick and Rayk looked at each other.

"What you want?" Fandrick growled.

"The castellan sent me," the young man said.

"All right then, give over," Fandrick said.

"What?" Aiden asked.

"What's the message?" Rayk asked.

"I get it," the boy said, rubbing his chin in thought. "The message is; I'm running this investigation."

Fandrick stared at the boy for a few seconds, then barked a laugh and turned his back. Went about his business.

"How old are you?!" Rayk asked.

"Ahh...seventeen? I think?” He watched Fandrick root around in the muck with the tip of his boot. “Around there, anyway. They say I was born the last time it snowed in the city, but then you ask people when that was and everything gets stupid and they argue and no one writes this stuff down apparently. Doesn't matter. Seventeen, basically."

Rayk looked at Fandrick who threw her a look back.

"You're about my parents' age," the boy said. "You want to come by for dinner tomorrow, I'll tell them you're coming. They'd love to meet the folks I'm working with."

"I bet they would," Rayk said mysteriously.

She just looked at him. Eventually Aiden shrugged. “Come on,” he said. “How old do you have to be?” Neither of them said anything. "How old were you?" he asked Fandrick's back.

"Older’n you,” Fandrick grumbled.

"How old were you?" Aiden nodded at Rayk, who frowned at the boy.

“Never you mind,” she said. “What’d the ragman send you for? I mean, why you?”

“Ragman?” Aiden asked.

“The castellan,” she said, drawing the word out.

“Oh, right. Because he wears…I get it. Well, he didn’t say why. I don’t really know what happened here.”

“Lotta people killed,” Fandrick said as he poked his boot into something.

"How many?" Aiden asked

"Thirty-seven," Fandrick growled.

Aiden looked around the black morass of vitreous bile and mud that was once a crowd. "That's a precise estimate," he said. "How do you...,"

"We count the boots," Rayk said, nodding to a pile of boots by the gate.

Aiden saw and was impressed. "Sensible."

"We know what we're doing," Rayk said.

Aiden looked at her for a moment. "So tell me what happened here," he said.

"Someone calls up a mess of ghouls," she said, "they eat everyone who couldn't get out. Stampede at the gate."

Aiden nodded as though confirming a suspicion. He strolled away, looking at the ground, at the remains of the people, at the black oily mud.

He crouched down and dipped his finger in the mud. Brought it to his nose, smelled it.

“Any corpses?” he asked.

“None,” Rayk said.

From his haunches he surveyed the mud field. It was flat and, except for the gallows, there was nowhere a corpse could be hidden.

“You’re sure,” he asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Come on,” Fandrick barked.

"Not ghouls then," Aiden said, standing up. Fandrick and Rayk looked at each other, and walked over to him.

"Ghouls are animated corpses," he said. "When they die they leave a dead body behind. Even if they ripped all the people apart and then ripped each other apart, there’d still be one corpse left.”

“There’s no corpse,” Fandrick said.

“So not ghouls,” Aiden said. “Two more reasons. One, ghouls don’t leave this black oily whatever,” he said rubbing his fingers together and showing it to them. “I don’t know what does. Shadows maybe. Shades. We can find out.”

“What’s the other reason,” Rayk asked.

Aiden turned to her, looked from her to Fandrick as though they might guess.

“There are no more deathless,” he said, as though it were obvious.

“People who saw it said deathless,” Fandrick said.

“They’re wrong,” Aiden said. “But whatever they were they look like deathless.”

“Sound like deathless to me,” Fandrick said. Rayk didn’t correct him. She just watched Aiden.

“We’ll find out,” Aiden said. “Maybe we’re meant to think they’re deathless. Throw us off the track.”

“Not throwing ‘us’ off anything. It’s deathless, so we brace the churches, see which cults they’re dealing with, follow the trail.”

“It’ll lead nowhere,” Aiden said. “It’s a dead-end. We…”

“We!” Fandrick barked a laugh.

Rayk just looked at him.

Aiden stopped and nodded. “Alright,  I get it.” He looked from Fandrick to Rayk. Rayk seemed more open, but he was willing to believe this was a trick.

“I’m thirteen, and I apprentice at my uncle’s scrivner’s shop,” Aiden spoke this very quickly. “I’m fifteen and the castellan comes in, he needs a copy made, I do it. I ask him questions about who wrote the thing. I’ve been looking at writing for a while, at people, at what they come in to have done, why. The castellan gives me this weird look, but he doesn’t say anything. I don’t even know who he is. He comes back a week later, more work. I ask more questions. I notice things. Like this was written under duress, that was written by someone writing down what someone was saying as they were saying it. I say things like ‘I don’t think this is what the guy said, I think he said something else, and whoever copied this down misheard him.’ He’s interested, but he never answers any of my questions and after a while he stops coming in, I think he said something to my uncle, I dunno. Too many questions, I thought.

“Couple of weeks ago he comes in, tells me who he is, asks if I want to come work for him. Doing what, I ask. This,” Aiden gestured around the trampled mud of the courtyard. “Just look at things, think about what might have happened.

“’Why?’ I ask.”

Aiden looked from Fandrick to Rayk.

“’Because you don’t think like a copper,’ he says. Ok? That’s the whole story. He hears about what happened here, he sends you two and a little while later, I don’t know why, he sends me. He tells me not to put up with any of your shit, I say ‘there’s not going to be any shit because I’m going to show up and start asking questions and they’re going to ignore me,’  no offense. I didn’t know who you were, I don’t know anyone, I just know how people are, and he says ‘tell  them you’re in charge and I said so and  if they don’t like it, good,’ and that was it and here I am, alright?”

Fandrick sneered at him, but said nothing. “Alright,” Rayk said, and nodded.

“So it’s not deathless, whatever it is,” the young special watchman said.

“If you say so,” Rayk said.

“But it seems like it to anyone who sees it and that’s good enough for now. So why does someone summon ghouls at a hanging in the morning.”

“They want to kill a lot of people,” Rayk offered.

Fandrick snorted. “Well they take the prize, then.”

Aiden pointed at Rayk and squinted.

“Rayk,” she said. “Fandrick,” she pointed to her partner.

“Fandrick what do you think?” Aiden asked.

Fandrick didn’t say anything for a little while.

“Could have been an accident,” Fandrick said. “Ritual goes wrong or…or maybe someone has something, a reliquary, an artifact, they don’t know how it works, they come down here and try it out.”

Rayk looked to Aiden.

“That seems alarmingly plausible,” he said.

“Alarming, why alarming?” Rayk asked.

“You tell the castellan someone in the city can make this happen,” he indicated the morass, “and they don’t even know how they did it or why. See how he reacts.”

“Yeah,” Rayk agreed. 

“Let’s try it another way,” Aiden said. “If it weren’t an accident, then why? Why would someone do this?”

Rayk sniffed. Pulled out a nail, fired it. “There’s someone in the crowd they want to drag,” she said, taking one herself, “and they don’t want anyone to know.”

Aiden nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “They have the means to indiscriminately kill a lot of people, so they use it here.”

“Indiscrim…what?” Fandrick asked.

“Means they don’t care who gets killed. All these people die, fine, long as their man goes down.”

“He went down alright,” Fandrick said.

“Or she,” Aiden said.

Rayk nodded. “Lotta women come to the hangings.”

Fandrick looked at her. “Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s mostly men getting hung.”

“Huh,” Fandrick said, as though that explained it.

“Maybe someone getting revenge on the hangman for someone he killed?” Aiden asked. “Kills people all day, that’s gotta make a lot of enemies.”

Fandrick and Rayk looked at each other. Aiden noticed. “What?” he asked.

“Hatchetman wears a hood,” Fandrick said. “So you don’t know who he is. There’s maybe twelve of them work for the watch. They got shifts, schedules. Just like ‘us,’” he sneered. “Wear the hood so no one knows who they are, which is which.”

“Oh,” Aiden said. “Well, that makes sense.”

“This is a lot of people,” Rayk said, surveying the area, the pile of boots.

“Most I’ve seen killed in one place.”

Rayk nodded. “Maybe. King hears about this, the Hart’ll show up.”

“Be long gone by then,” Fandrick said.

“Everyone’s going to come,” Aiden said. “The guilds, the orders, the churches. Us. Three dozen people die in sight of the king,” he looked up at the towers of the castle. The pinions of the family Corwell flying high, showing the king is in his castle.

“Right under his nose,” Aiden said.

Fandrick peered at the boy. “What’re you thinking, boy?”

“Doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do,” Aiden said, and it seemed like he was working something out. “Doing it like this is a statement. You’re making a statement. You’ve got something to say, you want to say it loud,” he looked at the black mud. “You want to send a message,” he said, almost to himself.

Fandrick and Rayk looked to each other, then the boy.

“A message,” Fandrick said. “To who?”

Aiden looked around the courtyard. The regular watch were still working to keep the gates closed, keep the throng of people at bay.

Then he looked at Rayk, then Fandrick. The three of them the only ones in the courtyard.

“Us,” he said.

The bench in the corner had a special cushion that allowed Aimsley Pinwhistle to sit at the same height as a man. If you only glanced over, you might not realize he was a polder.

He sat there staring at the shere board etched into the slate tabletop; stared at the black and white checkered squares and the simple carved wooden pieces, with one hand on his chin and the other on his hip. At one point, he bared his teeth and tapped them idly with a finger. There was no drink on the table.

The Mouse Trap was dense with smoke and noise and people. Thin rakes and thick bludgeons. It was hard to move around, hard to see. The smoke was so thick, a man only a few feet away looked like a ghost, and the place was so loud, so relentlessly loud, it was impossible to hear anyone talking unless they were looking right at you. Everyone liked it that way.

Aimsley pushed a lock of his curly blonde hair out of his eyes out of habit and shook his head at the board. A shadow fell across it. He glanced up, and then back to the board with a sigh.

He picked up a piece and moved it.

“Don’t know why you hem and haw, we both knew you’d make that move a turn ago.”

A large, bulbous, man dropped into the chair opposite. He sneered. Aimsley noticed the man looked old, his bald head had a few spots on it. Happened to everyone sooner or later. Probably was still the strongest man in the room, but for how long? Aimsley had personally witnessed him pick up a blacksmith’s anvil and crush a man with it. That was a sight you didn’t soon forget.

He had a pale, slimy appearance and newly minted apprentices in the guild had a tradition of calling him ‘the slug.’ But every master of the Cold Hearth held the same title, passed down for years with pride. The Brick.

Brick glanced at the board, picked up a piece, and moved it. Somehow, he made the wooden piece click against the slate board in an annoying manner. As though the act of actually having to move the piece was beneath him. He ran his tongue across his teeth and looked at the polder.

Aimsley looked at the move, his frown deepening, and leaned back. “Whatever,” he said.

A moment passed. The board did not reveal its secrets.

“Alret’s fixed,” Aimsley said.

Brick made some obscure gesture, like flicking something over his shoulder, and within moments a wench was there with two small drinks.

“Why don’t you have something to drink?” the Brick asked. The young wench delicately put the two glasses down, careful not to spill any. Expensive stuff. Only the best for the Hearth. Aimsley watched the amber liquid reflecting light in the glass, listened to the unique ‘clack’ of glass on slate that he’d come to associate with a lifetime of being with friends, being in the Trap, belonging, being respected, being good. Being the best.

Aimsley rubbed his nose and realized he was staring. He waved the drink away.

“Don’t need it,” he said.

“I know you don’t need it,” Brick growled. “Didn’t ask if you needed it. Who gives a shit what you need, for fuck’s sake? Have a drink. For taking care of Alret.”

Aimsley reached out, looking like he was sick. But once the glass was in his hand, he relaxed and drank and the warm liquid burned its way down his throat and everything was back to normal. He’d hate himself later.

Brick smiled. “What you got for me?” he asked.

Aimsley lit a nail and took a drag, rested it on his drink, and went back to brooding over the shere board.

“What’s the count up to?” he asked.

“Oh you heard about that too? Fast. News travels fast.”

Aimsley said nothing, fingered various pieces on the board. Placed a single, short, thick polder finger on one and idly tipped it back as though it might look more promising from a different angle.

“I don’t believe it,” Brick sniffed, filling in the silence Aimsley left. “Thirty odd people aced by the castle. I don’t believe it. Truncheon’s man said something about the count and a deal and some kinda little glass reliquary makes deathless. Didn’t make no sense. Count’s getting wily now that we’re all backed up against each other. I reckon he thinks he can get me and the Midnight Man to go at it. Fuck him.”

“Hey boss, what the fuck?” a high pitched scratch of a voice interrupted. Dugal. Aimsley ignored him.

The wiry toady who materialized out of the smoke with a drink in each hand was only a little taller than Aimsley. He looked down his sharp nose at the table where two drinks already sat.

“Thought we were going to ah…,” the Brick and Aimsley both ignored him. The little thief shrugged and turned, putting the two drinks on a wench’s platter as she walked by. He pulled a seat from another table and sat down.

“What’re we talking to this one for, boss? What’s he done for us lately?”

Aimsley looked up at the Brick, held out a hand, palm up, and gestured in the general direction of Dugal. “Really?” he asked.

“Hey you got something to say to me little man, you say it to my face.”

“When I think of anything worth saying to you, I will,” Aimsley said, turning his attention back to the shere board. He was going to lose this game. He finished his drink and immediately wanted more.

The Brick saw this and pushed his drink forward. The bastard. Aimsley pulled it toward him, but didn’t take any.

“Hey fuck you, yeah?” Dugal said, without much rancor.

“Shut up, Dugal,” the Brick said without looking at him.

“You ever get tired of this one’s shit boss, you just let me know,” Dugal said. “I’ll do it, yeah? I’ll drag him like a nail and leave his body for the cats.”

The Brick laughed a little at this. The only sign of laughter was his bulk shaking and some teeth showing. You had to know what to look for.

“I don’t know why you bring him around,” Aimsley lamented to the shere board. “He’s everything that’s fucking wrong here,” he said. They both knew he meant the guild, and not the inn. Dugal was dangerous. He’d use poisons no one else would use, he’d fight like a desperate rat. He’d do anything just to impress Brick, risk his own life, foolish stuff. No discipline, no training.

“I’d say I do it to annoy you, but you know that already,” the Brick said.

“You’re a piece of shit, Dal. You know that, right?” Aimsley said, giving his master a glance.

“Hey you can’t say that to him,” Dugal leaned forward, and looked as though he was going to point at Aimsley, then thought better of it and sat back. Looked up at the Master of the Cold Hearth. “He can’t talk to you like that boss. And he called you by your name, too. He can’t just do that, you got to earn that shit.”

“He can call me whatever he wants,” Brick said, a curl of his lips and a gleam in his eyes. “He can say whatever he wants and if you don’t like it,” the big man’s thick head turned to look at the little thief, “why don’t you make him stop?”

Under the gaze of the mountainous head and its tiny, all-seeing black eyes, Dugal shrunk.

“You’d be top man if you could do it,” the Brick said, turning back to the polder. He crossed his huge arms. “Get all the best jobs.”

Dugal sulked and started talking to himself. “He ain’t top man,” he said. He knew they were both listening. “Ain’t been top man for years, who gives a shit about him? Fuck him. Ain’t even in the guild anymore.”

“Why’d you ask about the count?” Brick asked.

Aimsley didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he moved a piece on the shere board and sat back.

Brick, without looking, picked up another piece and moved it.

Aimsley let out a defeated gasp, followed by a “fuck you,” and went back to looking at the board.

“Whatever happened at the castle,” the polder said, concentrating, “was real. Really happened.” Aimsley knew nothing about it, but based on his experience the night before at the priest’s inn, he knew enough.

“How the fuck you know that?,” Brick asked.

Aimsley reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the black marbles. He carefully placed it on the shere board with a tiny ‘clack’ and held it under his finger for a moment. Then he rolled it forward.

It danced along the shere board, bumping into and bouncing off the wooden pieces until it came to rest on the other side of the board in front of the Brick.

“Black gods,” Brick whispered, his eyes wide. He didn’t touch the thing. Aimsley made his move. Brick didn’t notice.

Brick looked from the marble up to Aimsley and grinned from ear to ear.

“Fucking fixer,” he said. “Best fucking fixer in the city. Count pulls this,” Brick nodded at the glass marble sitting on the shear board, “scares the Truncheon half to death, has him shitting in his pants, and you only go and fucking
get one
from him.”

He looked around the Mouse Trap. No one was really paying attention. That would be rude.

“Best fucking fixer in the city,” he said proudly to anyone who might listen. “Best the guild’s ever had,” he looked back at the marble. “How’d you get it?” he asked.

Aimsley told him.

Brick blinked. “Last night?”

Aimsley nodded. He glanced up at Brick. “Your move,” he said.

Brick grunted and quickly moved a soldier in, blocking Aimsley’s white Prelate.

“Yeah,” Aimsley said. “I hadn’t heard about the thing at the gallows this morning.”

“Cyrvis’ boiling bollocks,” Brick said in wonder. “He’s moving fast. Is it safe?” He pointed to the marble.

Aimsley shrugged. “I had it all last night, this morning. Just don’t drop it.”

Brick picked it up, examined it in wonder. Something occurred to him. He sucked his teeth in thought.

“No one made it out of the courtyard gallows alive,” he said.

“Not surprised,” Aimsley said.

“And this inn, this closed up in last night…any scarves make it out?”

“One,” Aimsley said. “I braced him for that. The rest got torn apart.”

“So the count don’t control these things. Whatever comes outta here,” he said looking again at the swirling black dust, “it kills what it wants.”

“I thought about that,” Aimsley said. “You might be able to use that. But you need to move fast. Count has enough of those, he’s not going to care about you or me or the Midnight Man or the ragman.”

Brick nodded.  “So where’s he get them?”

“No idea,” Aimsley said, still looking at the game. “I went to his club this morning, try and see him, talk to his men.”

“Count would love to get a visit from you,” Brick said smiling.

“Well he weren’t there in any case. He’s picked up.”

“Picked up what?” It was unusual for Brick to be slow, but this was an unusual situation.

“The whole thing. He’s not out of the club anymore. He’s moved his whole operation.”

“What the fuck?” Brick asked, more obviously affected by this news than by the rest. “Where the fuck did he go? What’s he playin’ at?”

“Hiding, best I can figure,” Aimsley said. He picked up a priest and then, obligated to play it, regretted it. “Getting ready to go to war.”

“Fuck him,” Brick said. He put the marble back on the board, rolled it back to the polder, who picked it up more out of annoyance, to clear the board.

“Work that,” Brick said. “Find out what it is, where he gets ‘em. Talk to Calvus. How many are there? Did he find them? Make them? Reckon Calvus owes us. We don’t got a lotta time.”

Aimsley appeared to ignore him, moved the priest finally, and said half to himself, “Calvus works for you, you fucking talk to him. Send Dugal. Send anyone. I don’t talk to your employees for you. I’m the fixer.”

Aimsley was a tight and didn’t mind. Picked up his second glass and drained his drink and when he put it down, the Brick smashed a hand into the table, causing Aimsley to jump. The Brick wiped the two empty glasses and all the shere pieces off the board, leaned into the polder’s face and shouted.

“Then fix it!”