Authors: Douglas Hulick

Among Thieves (50 page)

BOOK: Among Thieves

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Iron took a slow, calculating look at the men and women surrounding him. Degan simply stared at Nicco.

“Well?” said Iron to Degan.

Degan didn’t respond. He stood in the middle of the street, sword in hand, blood running down his arm. The silence radiated out from him, infecting the crowd until even the Purse Cutters and the water hawkers grew still.

Nicco met Degan’s gaze. “Don’t be stupid,” said the Upright Man, his voice sounding like a shout in the stillness. “He’s not worth it.”

“Shows what the hell you know,” said Degan. Then he moved, and the Cretin, who’d been a good four paces away from him, was falling over, Degan’s sword already on its way back out of the Cretin’s left eye.

In an instant, everything went from stillness to chaos. Knowing a bad situation when they saw it, the last of the crowd surged away from the imminent bloodshed. Two of the Arms got caught in the panicked tide and were swept away; the rest rushed forward to engage the degans. Iron laughed and waded in to meet three of the Arms outright, killing the front man with frightening casualness. When the remaining two shifted to keep him from joining up with Degan, Iron laughed again and waved them on with his free hand.

Degan hadn’t even paused in his assault. Without looking down, he’d caught the guard of the Cretin’s sword with his boot, kicked it up, and grabbed the weapon out of the air with his left hand. Now, with a sword in each hand, he was rushing Nicco.

Four Arms stepped forward to meet him. Degan cut with the left blade, parried with the right, feinted, and flicked the tip of his left sword. A gash appeared in the tallest Arm’s throat, pulsing red as he crumpled toward the ground. Another cut, a thrust, a stab with each blade, and another Arm fell.

It looked like Degan was going to wade his way to Nicco without much effort. I smiled at the thought. Then another Arm rushed in from the side, forcing Degan to shift his guard and work against two fronts. His advance stopped.

Nicco had blanched at the sight of Degan bearing down on him, but now he had enough breathing room to think. He thought of me.

“Get the damn Nose!” Nicco yelled to the square in general. He began circling toward me.

I didn’t need to hear him twice. Staying here only made me a target. If I wanted to do anyone any good, I needed to get out of this stall, preferably in a less than obvious fashion. The fewer people who knew where I was, the more damage I could do.

I drew my rapier and turned to duck back behind the curtain. That was when I saw Seri Razor Edge vaulting into the stall over a pile of crates, a nasty grin on her skeletal face.

Seri didn’t say anything when she landed—couldn’t, for that matter; she’d had her tongue cut out years ago. Rumor had it that her then-husband had done it because she had lied to him. Once she’d recovered, Seri had used the brace of long barber’s razors she still wielded to carve him up and sell him for pig fodder.

Seri clicked the razors open and closed, open and closed, in a blur of silver steel. Even though I had reach with my sword, I thought twice about attacking her—I’d seen her take apart better swordsmen than I in a matter of seconds.

“Go ahead, try her,” said a voice. I glanced right and saw another Arm, named Leander, standing outside the stall. He had a broad-bladed infantry sword resting across his shoulder—a souvenir from his days in the Imperial legions.

Two Arms versus me—I’d seen better odds at a fixed cockfight. If Ioclaudia’s journal hadn’t been filling up my left hand, I would have tried a drop-and-throw with my wrist dagger.

I saw the curtain shift slightly behind Seri, even though there was no breeze. I resisted the urge to smile.

I looked over at Leander. “How much?” I demanded.

His eyes narrowed. “How much what?”

“How much to let me go?”

Leander looked at me, dumbfounded for a moment, then laughed. “You mean how much to cross
Nicco
? I’m not—”

That was when Mendross’s staff thrust out through the gap in the curtain. It caught Seri behind the ear with an audible
crack
. Her knees buckled.

By then, I was already throwing the journal at Leander. I wasn’t happy about it, and my gut tightened as I did it, but it was either throw that or my sword, and I needed the sword more just now.

The motion caught Leander by surprise. Instinct made him block the book with his sword, which meant he missed the rapier thrust I sent immediately after it. My blade caught him at the base of the jaw. The tip bit deep, his head snapped back, and he was dead.

I was still recovering from my lunge and turning to thank Mendross when something collided with the side of my head. My first thought was,
What the hell are you doing, Mendross?
but as I staggered and fell, I saw Mendross still standing in the curtained doorway, a look of surprise on his face. Then I saw Nicco step over me, and I knew who had clicked me.

Mendross jabbed and swung with his staff, but the stall was too narrow for him to be able to use it effectively. Nicco reached out and took the weapon away from the Ear almost absentmindedly. He then grabbed Mendross by the throat and began to beat him with his own staff.

I pushed myself up off the ground. It bucked and swayed beneath me, but I didn’t have time to worry about that right now. I reached for where my rapier had fallen, missed once, twice, then got it on the third try. It felt clumsy and heavy in my hand all of a sudden. That couldn’t be a good sign.

Being this close to Nicco summoned a riot of emotions within me: fear, anxiety, hatred, panic, despair, even, oddly enough, elation. But underneath it all was a dark, seething need for vengeance—vengeance for Kells and his men; vengeance for the beatings I’d suffered; vengeance for what Mendross was suffering; vengeance for Eppyris and Cosima and their girls. I wanted vengeance for everything this bastard had put me through for the last seven years, for everything I had had to take because it was my job. Well, that job was done now, and it was time to take back my pride and pay him back.

I climbed to my feet.

As I rose, Nicco turned and let go of Mendross. Without the Upright Man to support him, Mendross collapsed to the floor. He was bleeding freely from more places than I could count, most of them on his head. When he fell, he didn’t move. Nicco dropped the staff across him without a second thought.

I brought my rapier’s tip up and got into the best stance I could. The world seemed to be leveling out a little bit, for which I was grateful.

Nicco grinned and slid into a wrestler’s crouch, his hands out before him. He was wearing a pair of Meat and Greets—leather gladiator’s gloves, their backs studded with iron, their palms and inner fingers lined with fine chain mail for grabbing blades. Looking at them, at him, I was surprised I was still conscious.

“Just us, little man,” rumbled Nicco. “No degans, no Oaks, no Arms, and no fruit peddlers.” He smacked his hands together, making them thump and ring at the same time. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said, and I lunged. Nicco must have been counting on his intimidation to work on me like it had in the past, since he seemed genuinely surprised when I attacked. He jerked his body back from the thrust and barely got a hand up in time to knock the blade away. I advanced, pressing hard with two more thrusts and a low slash in quick succession. Nicco blocked them all, retreating until he felt one of Mendross’s tables behind him. He blocked another cut, then lowered his head and hunched his shoulders. His eyes narrowed.

I knew that look. It meant I was about to be in trouble.

Before he could charge and use his greater mass to run me down, I stepped back and dropped to the ground. Two quick rolls and I was under a table and out in the square.

Nicco swore and came after me, throwing crates and baskets out of his way.

I glanced quickly around the square. Degan was backed up against the base of Elirokos’s statue, holding off multiple Arms with his two blades. Iron had taken his fight on the run and was ducking in and out of stalls and behind tent backs, using the terrain to keep his attackers off-balance and in pursuit. There were more bodies on the ground than there had been last time I looked, but both degans also seemed to be sporting fresh blood themselves.

More important, there were no Arms in my immediate vicinity.

I gave a quick scan of the ground for Ioclaudia’s journal. It was off to my left, not far from Leander’s feet. Not in easy reach, but not too far, either. Then a crate landed between it and me, and I was forced to turn my full attention back to Nicco.

He was in the square before me, pawing at the air softly, waiting for his moment. I closed up my guard and reached for the fighting dagger at my belt. If Nicco got in past my rapier’s tip, I’d need something to keep him at bay. The fingers of my left hand were just brushing the dagger’s handle when Nicco made his move.

He reached out for my blade, trying to grab it and push it high as he came in low, his fist at the ready. My hand fell away from the dagger, and I danced back, pulling my rapier in and then thrusting it back out at his eye. Nicco had changed up the timing of his attack, though, slowing himself down after his initial reach. That meant I was backing faster than he was advancing. My tip fell short, waving weakly in the air. Nicco batted at the blade and came on.

I’d forgotten how long his arms were, how fast he was with his hands. Rapiers aren’t very good for blocking punches in the first place, and with Nicco’s being so adept at protecting himself, I was quickly finding myself on the defensive. It wasn’t supposed to work that way; most times, three-plus feet of steel were enough to keep a brawler like Nicco at bay. Today, though, he seemed more worried about getting his hands on me than collecting a few stray stabs or cuts.

Worse, he was pressing me so hard, I couldn’t find time to draw my dagger. If he got in before I got it out, I was done for.

Something needed to change.

Degan would have doubtlessly done something deadly and flawless; me, I leapt back a pace and squatted down in the street. I thrust my sword out in front of me, ducked my head, and laid my left arm over myself for protection. A second later, I felt an impact along my rapier’s length. Then Nicco collided with me.

I was knocked sprawling on the cobbles. A sharp pain lanced down my right arm, running from elbow to fingertips and back. My rapier slipped from my hand with a clatter.

I sat up to find Nicco getting to his knees beside me. One hand was pressed against his right side. There was blood flowing out around his glove.

My left hand went for the dagger on my belt. Nicco leaned over and backhanded me. I fell back, sprawling, the dagger skittering away. I felt the knife taken from my boot, then a painfully heavy weight settle across my left arm just above the wrist sheath. I could feel the texture of the street pressing into my muscles.

Nicco leaned over from where he was kneeling on my arm. He was grimacing in pain, but still managed to summon up a nasty smile. “Out of toys, Drothe?” he said. “I know you too well—know where you keep all your sharps.” He reached down and punched my right leg, driving the knuckle studs on his gloves deep. “Boot,” he said. Then he punched my stomach. “Belt.” He rocked his knees back and forth on my arm. “Wrist. Did I miss any?”

I gasped at each new torment but didn’t cry out; I didn’t have the strength.

The rage was gone. I was hollow inside now, empty of everything, save a growing sense of despair. Eppyris and Cosima, Christiana, Degan, Kells, even Solitude—I’d failed to keep my word to them, failed to deliver on even one promise. I had thought that as long as I was out in the street, as long as I had the journal, I could outmaneuver everyone. That, even when cutting my deal with Solitude, I could somehow sidestep the costs.

It was arrogance, pure and simple. I only had to look around the square to see the consequences others were suffering because of me: Mendross, beaten and bloodied in his own stall; Degan fighting for his life against not only half a dozen Arms but against Iron as well; Nicco systematically crushing or damaging those people or things I had said I would serve; and all the others. I had been gambling with other people’s lives, and I hadn’t even noticed.

Fucking Nose.

Nicco shifted his weight, releasing some of the pressure on my left arm. Blood rushed in, pricking and searing the new bruises. “We’re going to have a nice, long talk, you and I,” he said. “
Very
long.”

He looked around the square, making sure neither degan was in a position to interfere, and then stood up. My blade had caught him in the side near the hip, doing little more than cutting flesh and maybe scraping the bone. So much for the hope of taking him with me.

Nicco reached down, gathered the front of my jerkin in his fist, and hoisted me to my feet. I hugged my sore left arm with my partially numbed right one. The action caused my hand to brush against my belt and the coiled roughness that resided there.

I felt a sudden surge of something. Not hope—not then, not yet—but maybe desperation; that, and a bit of darkest guile.

It was enough, though.

BOOK: Among Thieves

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