could last long in swordplay.
“I strictly forbid selling whores to the Trifect,” said Thren. “All the others have agreed. The influx of mercenaries has kept them afloat. But you…your vaults overflow with gold.”
“I charged them triple,” Billy said. All false affection and worship was gone. He was pleading now. “I’m practically stealing from them. All that money I send to you, to help you. Gold spent on my girls is gold not spent on swords!”
Not even Aaron saw the next movement coming. Thren’s hand caught Billy by his fat throat and flung him back. He slammed into the railing, which groaned in protest. A kick knocked him to one knee. Before he could cry out, the blade of a sword pressed against his breast.
“When I give an order I expect it obeyed,” Thren said. “You broke your word to me. You succumbed to easy coin.”
“I gave it all to you!” shouted Billy. “Please, the girls needed work, and the Trifect was desperate! All of it I’ve given to you, I’d never cross you, I’d never…”
Thren grabbed Billy’s hand, pressed it against the railing, and then slammed his sword down. The sound the flesh made as it tore reminded Aaron of a butcher shop. As Billy screamed, Thren tossed the hand off the balcony.
“I checked your books,” Thren said. “And I compared that to what my men saw coming and going. You did give nearly everything to me, the rest to the girls. That is why you live, Billy. Now you listen closely. Are you listening?”
Billy nodded. He sat on his enormous rump, his hand pressed tight against the folds of his fat to stem the bleeding.
“I want the Trifect starved. I want them without drink, without drug, and without whores. They have made my life miserable, and I will do the same to them. Coin gains me nothing, Billy. Their suffering is all I want. Will you remember that the next time they send for your girls?”
“Yes, my lord,” Billy said. His jowls jostled as he nodded. “I’ll tell Red. I’ll remember.”
“Good.” Thren cleaned his blade on Billy’s shoulder and then turned to go.
“Thank you,” Billy called out as Aaron stepped in line behind his father. “Thank you!”
“Remember this,” Thren said as they descended the stairs. “I cut off his hand, yet he thanks me for not doing worse. That is the power you must one day command. Let them think every breath of theirs is a gift, not from the gods but from you. Do this, and you will become a god among them.”
Because of his father’s order, Aaron could not reply. If he could, he would have mentioned that brief flash of anger he saw in Billy’s eyes when his father turned to go. He would have spoken of the dogged determination lining the fat man’s pained face. But he could not, so he let the matter go.
Power was hurting a man without fear of retribution. That was the lesson Aaron learned.
8
T he road was quiet. On one side there was the small bakery. On the other was a smithy known for its owner’s teaching abilities rather than his actual work. Six men approached from the east. They showed no weapons, but their rust-colored cloaks hid much of their bodies. They split, three on one side, three on the other, and then hurried down the road. Each of the groups had a member carrying a small pail of paint.
On the sides of both buildings, hidden to be glimpsed in passing but not facing the entrance, was a smeared circle of ash. The men with the pail wiped it with their cloaks, then dipped their brushes into the dark red mixture. It looked like blood when they began drawing their symbol. They painted an unfilled outline of a hawk’s talons followed by three drops dripping from the foremost claw. The others stood about, watching for guards of both the royal and seedy kind.
They did not see any, for they did not look up. Crouched on the roof of the bakery waited Veliana and two of her men.
“This deep down Warden Street?” Veliana muttered as she watched them paint. “Have they truly grown so bold?”
“They’ve gone unchecked,” said Walt crouched beside her. His face was tanned and lean, his smile missing many teeth. By no means was she friends with him, but he was skilled in battle and reliable when it came to matters of stealth and shadow. For those reasons, she kept him close. Crouched shoulder to shoulder atop the roof, she wished the man would at least take better care of his teeth. Someday his breath would give them away, she just knew it.
“Unchecked?” Veliana said, her voice deeply bitter. “I’m surprised they haven’t encountered the rest of the guilds slicing through our territory. They’re like wolves fighting over a dead deer.”
“Tonight that changes,” said Walt. “Tonight the deer shows it’s not so dead after all.”
“They move,” said Victor, the other man atop the roof with them. He was young with short blonde hair and a scraggly mustache that failed to thicken no matter how long he went without shaving.
Veliana watched as the six men bolted around the sides of the buildings. She unsheathed her daggers as beside her Walt readied a crossbow.
“Six on three,” he said. “I’ll get two before they turn. That leaves two to one for you and Victor when you’re on the ground. Think you can handle that?”
“Don’t insult me,” Veliana said as she leapt off the roof. Her silent landing went unnoticed. High above her, a crossbow bolt whistled through the air. It struck one of the hawk thugs square in the back. He lurched gracelessly to the ground. The remaining five spun. A second died, a bolt piercing his throat. The others charged, weaving side to side in an attempt to thwart the crossbowman.
“Hurry,” Walt said to Victor. “Land behind them. The surprise will be their death.”
“You’re right,” Victor said as he drew his dagger. “Surprise usually is death.”
He stabbed Walt through the eye and then rolled his body off the roof.
The remaining four hawks were almost upon her when Walt’s body hit the ground. Her heart sank at the disgusting sound it made. She had only a moment to glance up and see Victor sneering down at her before daggers cut at her slender frame. She batted them away, but with four to her one, she was sorely pressed.
The hawks spread out further, trapping her in the center of a diamond. Desperate, she lunged at one of the men, thinking if she could kill him quickly she might escape. Her skill was great, and the man would have died under her assault, but then she felt a great weight slam into her back. Stunned, she looked down at the bloody bolt protruding from her shoulder. Blood poured across her clothes.
Her daggers faltered, her meager blocks batted aside like children’s defenses. Something hard struck the back of her head. She had just enough time to curse Victor’s name before blacking out.
W hen Veliana awoke, she was blindfolded and shackled to a wall. She felt uncomfortably warm, which made even less sense when she realized she was naked. As the rest of her senses came into focus, she heard the popping and crackling of a fire. That explained the sweat that covered her body. But where was she?
“Wake her up,” she heard a voice say. Hoping to hear anything she could use, she kept her body still and pretended to be asleep. To her left, she heard rustling, and then a horrendous heat pressed against her side. She cried out. The sound was just barely coming out of her mouth before a fist struck her. Blood dribbled down her lips. Her tongue ached from where she’d bit it.
Someone yanked the blindfold off her face. With blurred vision she looked at her captor. She saw the gray of his cloak and the shortswords swinging from his hips. She didn’t even need to see his face to know who had captured her.
“I was told you were a gift from guildmaster Kadish,” Thren Felhorn said.
“Forgive me if I’m not the present you were hoping for,” she said. She tried to turn her head to spit, but the shackles around her head and neck prevented it. Feeling horribly sick, she spat out the blood from her mouth. It dribbled down her neck and in between her breasts. Her stomach curled as she felt the blood trickle down her body.
“Whether wanted or not, no good man turns down a gift,” Thren said. A giant muscular man stood beside him. They were outside the city, somewhere near the north judging by the trees that grew within touching distance
