The Palace Job (2 page)

Tawyer chuckled. "Don't worry, boy. You two are good workers. We won't let
her
fall." He unlocked Kail's leg-chain, locked it back onto another pipe, and gestured for Kail to help Loch. "Byn-kodar's hell," he added with a laugh that echoed off the silent grid, "I had money on her to
catch
the bastard!"

Warden Orris huffed into the medical clinic where Prisoner Loch was being tended for cuts on her leg. Her hands and feet were shackled, as were those of Jeridan, a prisoner stocking supplies under a guard's watchful eye. Most prisoners hunched over a bit or shuffled when the shackles were put on, but Loch sat calmly, back straight, as a nurse applied the bandages.

This had to be handled carefully, she thought. Too soft, and he'd ignore it. Too hard, and he'd snap right here. She gave him a look devoid of anger or curiosity.

She knew Warden Orris didn't like her. It was probably her Urujar blood. Orris acted like he had Old Kingdom blood, and a dark-skinned woman who didn't act properly respectful would naturally put his back up. The fact that she was only half-Urujar would make him even angrier.

Orris waved the nurse and the guard out of the room, then stood before Loch, waiting expectantly. Jeridan put tools on the shelf, his shackles jangling.

"The guards tell me you lost a broom today," Orris finally said, pulling his jowly cheeks into a friendly smile. "Dropped your own and took someone else's to make up for it."

Loch said nothing.

"That's the story I heard, anyway. If you have a different story, I'd like to hear it." Orris gave her an encouraging smile.

She
still
said nothing.

"Loch, I want to help you here," Orris said, frowning. "I've tolerated this attitude... but that equipment you lost has to be paid for... one way or another." He tried a different smile this time. Across the room, Jeridan blanched and went back to stocking the shelves with jerky movements. His chains rattled more loudly.

A long and silent moment passed.

Orris wore a saber while at work, and he yanked the blade from the sheath now. It was a fine weapon, with a brass-plated guard, contoured mahogany grip, and a name worked into the blade in intricate calligraphy. He leveled it at Loch. "What happened to Soggs can happen to you! You will
give
me the respect I deserve!"

After another long moment, Loch gave him a low bow and shot him the tiniest suggestion of a smirk. He glared at her, so intent on catching the look that he completely missed the quick motion that sent several small tools into Jeridan's prison worksuit.

"Have it your way!" Orris shouted, and turned and left without a backward look.

When Orris was gone, Loch grinned. Perfect.

She tapped the metal frame of the bed gently, catching Jeridan's eye. She raised an eyebrow, and the other prisoner grinned, gave her a tiny nod, and went back to stocking the supplies as the guard and nurse came back in.

Back in his own office, Orris growled and tossed his grandfather's calvary saber onto the chair. Stupid, getting flustered like that. He was in charge. He could take care of her if she wouldn't learn respect. But he couldn't kill her—the Voyancy was already going to investigate the death of Soggs.

Orris hung his grandfather's sword back up and asked his secretary to send for another prisoner.

Akus arrived a few minutes later, a burly man shuffling jerkily in the leg-shackles. He'd torn the sleeves off the gray worksuit, revealing ropy masses of muscle and knife scars along both arms. Orris should have disciplined him for damaging his worksuit, but the big man bowed low, then grinned and said, "Afternoon, Chief," and Orris decided to let it slide.

"I need a certain woman to have an accident." Orris smiled. "She needs to live, and I'll have to dangle you for a night afterward, but it'll pay."

Akus snorted. "Pay don't much matter. She's gotta live, you said?"

Orris nodded. "But anything short of killing her is fine." He leaned forward.
"Anything."

Akus's mouth twisted into a broken-toothed grin.

The guards carried truncheons in the dining hall, since the dining hall was the only place aside from their own cells in which the prisoners were left unshackled. If the truncheons failed, the warden could activate a single crystal and send eldritch beams of energy sizzling across the metal floors, driving the prisoners to their knees in agony.

Riots ended quickly at the Cleaners.

Loch and Kail were waiting in line when Akus walked up and, without preamble, slammed his elbow into Loch's shoulder. "Hey!" he shouted. "Watch it! You messin' with me?"

"Watch yourself," Kail shot back. "She didn't—" Akus flung out an arm, and Kail staggered back. Kail grabbed for a sword that hadn't been at his waist since his old military days with Loch, then lifted a flimsy tin dining tray. He stopped when a guard's truncheon tapped gently on his shoulder.

"Settle down, son," Tawyer said affably. "You don't want more trouble." Using his truncheon, he gently steered Kail away from Akus and Loch.

"You messin' with me?" Akus blocked Loch's path as she tried to walk around him. "You say you're sorry real nice, maybe I'll forget about it." Seeing the crowd of prisoners slowly gathering around them, Akus grinned. "I like you breaking your vow of silence just for me."

Loch's eyes narrowed to thin slits, and she looked back at Kail. Kail gestured minutely at Tawyer, and Loch gave him a tiny nod, then turned around to walk the other way.

Akus's shove sent her crashing into a flimsy bench that shattered under the impact, leaving her face-down in a pile of broken wood. "Don't you walk away from me!"

"Got what you asked for," Jeridan murmured as Kail stepped back into the crowd, which was starting to yell encouragement now. "But it's going to cost you."

"I'm a bit shy," Kail said, not making eye contact, "but if you're interested in a wager..."

"Always." Jeridan was in the Cleaners for winning a lot of money from very important people.

As Loch pushed herself to her knees, Akus kicked her hard in the side. "You're not gonna say my name, now. You're gonna
scream
it!"

"I'd take twenty at four to one," Kail said by way of opening.

Loch struggled back to her feet, and Akus strode over, shouting for the crowd, and pulled her to her feet by her thick black ponytail. She lashed out as she rose, her fists bloodying Akus's nose, and then broke his grip and slammed a fist into his broad gut.

Akus grunted and took Loch clear off her feet with a single backhand. She rolled and came up shaking her head.

"You had your chance," Akus growled. "Pulling your hair's the
least
I'm gonna do."

"Two to one," Jeridan countered. "And at least a hundred, or why are we even talking?"

"Fifty at three to one. I'm no good for a hundred."

"Five to two?"

"I can do that," Kail said, and the two men shook on it.

Loch lunged in with high, fast jabs, but Akus had his hands up in a brawler's guard, and Kail heard him laughing as the smaller woman pounded his arms ineffectually. Then he ducked down, wrapped his arms around her knees, and yanked up. Loch slammed back onto the metal floor with a hiss of breath and rolled away desperately.

The crowd roared its approval.

"I'm impressed by your confidence," Jeridan said conversationally. "But really, against Akus?"

"Akus is the mighty oak," Kail said, "but Loch is the slender reed."

Pausing to acknowledge the cheers, Akus grinned, then looked to the dining hall doorway. Warden Orris was standing there, a mad leer on his face. He gave Akus a little nod.

As Loch pushed herself to her knees, leaning on the wall for support, Akus raised one boot to crush her spine.

The boot slammed into the wall a fraction of a second after Loch darted to the side, and Akus staggered. Loch's kick snapped into the back of his leg, and Akus crashed to his knees.

"And sometimes," Kail added, "the slender reed kicks the crap out of the mighty oak."

Loch slammed the heel of her palm into Akus's jaw with a crack that silenced the room, then hammered Akus's temple with an elbow. An uppercut snapped his head back up and sprayed blood across the room, and Loch grabbed a fistful of his hair and finished it by pulling him into a knee to the face.

Jeridan closed his mouth and looked at Kail.

Kail nodded thoughtfully. "So, about the one-twenty-five you owe me, and those items I wanted to buy..."

Akus wasn't moving. Loch pulled her blood-spattered gray worksuit back into place. She looked to the doorway, staring at Orris for a long moment. Then she sniffed, picked up her dining tray, and returned to the serving line.

Loch's silence since arriving at the Cleaners wasn't uncommon. The criminals who believed that the
lapiscaela
would catch the words and steal their souls often didn't talk for the first few weeks, until fear and loneliness and grim acceptance broke the barriers down.

In the small cell she shared with Kail, Loch kept her silence, saying not a single word.

Not aloud, anyway.

Are we clear?
she signed to Kail. He had top bunk—Loch hated hearing him snore
beneath
her—and had swung his upper body down over the edge to look at her from above.

"Jeridan will get us the goods tomorrow," he said quietly. "You okay?"

Fine,
she signed.
Hurry. Not much time.

"You think the warden will move that soon?" Kail frowned. "Seems fast after sending the thug at you today."

Tomorrow.
The sign-language she and Kail had learned as scouts didn't allow for nuance, but she put a fierce snap into each gesture.
He killed before.

"I'm sorry about Soggs." Kail sighed, then shrugged. "Did give you a chance to piss off the warden even more, though."

After a moment of silence, Kail's large eyes closed, two points of white blinking shut in the dim light. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

Soggs was a civilian.

"I know, Loch. I'm sorry."

Fight the enemy, not their people.
When Kail had joined her unit, that was the first thing she'd taught him. It was the first thing she'd learned herself when she'd joined, years before that. Every scout in the Republic's army learned that phrase, signed or spoke it before every mission. They were soldiers, not thieves, not murderers.