“Windbag thinks they can’t afford me,” Barney grumbled. “Show her. Bet that Delius bastard had a ton stored away. No one just gives their shit to the poor. They’ll say they do, but they never do.”
Dustin had already bought the man three drinks. He tossed him the copper, not caring that it rolled off the table and to the floor. For a moment, it didn’t look like Barney even noticed.
“What you want them for anyway?” he asked after a lengthy belch.
“Unfinished business,” said Dustin as he walked out of the bar.
The Eschaton estate wasn’t very far. It appeared Barney liked to drink close to home. Dustin kept to the shadows as he approached, his hand casually resting on the hilt of his mace. With its solid round head, it was more of an iron club than a mace. A good blow could smash a man’s skull like a pumpkin. Dustin always got a much bigger thrill breaking bones than by spilling blood. People bled all the time. Cuts were on the outside. Bones were inside, and the way people howled when he mangled their fingers or obliterated their kneecaps…it gave him shivers just thinking about it.
There was also one extra benefit to having the mace over a sword. He slipped around to the back, found the first window on the eastern side facing away from the street, and then smashed it in with his mace. Barney had made it quite clear that it was just Delysia and her grandmother, and that they had no guards. Even if they did awake to the sound of broken glass, what would they do? Fight back?
Dustin chuckled. He hoped so. He wasn’t much for old ladies, but Delysia was supposed to be nine or so. Hearing her plead and struggle would be damn exciting.
Once inside, Dustin pushed his back against the wall beside the doorway. If someone came to investigate the noise, he’d have an easy blow to the back of their head. No one came. He shook his head. Whoever these Eschatons were, they were a stupid lot. He walked silently into a modest kitchen, careful not to disturb anything. He had been sloppy with the window, he knew that, but making too much ruckus searching for the girl would be pushing his luck. Besides, if they tried to flee, he wanted to make sure he heard them.
He was not prepared for what he saw when he reached the other side of the kitchen. A boy dressed in Spider Guild grays knelt next to a door at the end of a short hallway. Dustin stopped, unhidden in the middle of the doorway, and wondered if he had somehow entered the wrong house.
So far the boy’s back was to him. Dustin glanced around, saw a crumb of hardened bread crust, and flung it. It smacked the boy in the ear. His tiny body jumped, and Dustin winced at the noises he made. They weren’t loud, but he guessed a bedroom was on the other side of the door.
“What the bloody abyss are you doing here?” Dustin whispered fiercely once the boy was with him in the kitchen. The boy looked back, only his eyes visible through the mask over his face. Dustin figured he was one of their younger thieves, but he didn’t have a clue who.
“What’s with the mask,” he whispered.
“I’m correcting a mistake,” the boy whispered back.
Dustin gestured to the door, then made a circular motion with his finger beside his head, showing what he thought of that plan.
“You’re a kid, now go home,” Dustin said. “I have work to do.”
When he tried to push him aside, the boy grabbed his wrist and held firm.
“She was my kill first,” he whispered far too loudly. The hairs on the back of Dustin’s neck stood on end. Something was wrong here. Those eyes seemed so familiar.
“Aaron?” he asked, tugging his arm free.
“No,” said the boy. “My name is Haern.”
Pain spiked into Dustin’s side. He spun on reflex, only dimly aware that the boy had stabbed him. His spin forced the dagger out, flinging blood across the lower drawers of the kitchen. He swung his mace, grunting as it broke the doorframe. Haern rolled underneath the blow, kicked off the table, and then lunged with his dagger.
Dustin parried with the length of his mace, stepped his left foot closer, and then swung back, hoping Haern would trip when dodging. Instead, the boy ducked underneath, looped his own leg around Dustin’s foot, and stabbed his dagger into his calf.
Choking down a scream, Dustin swung his mace back down. One good hit and he’d splatter Haern’s brains across the floor. Problem was, the boy was too fast. He darted side to side, barely avoiding every swing. How the noise had not attracted attention, Dustin didn’t have a clue. On his fourth swing, Haern parried the mace to the side, then cut back quick enough to slice a thin gash along Dustin’s hand.
The older thief abandoned all pretense at silence. Any underestimations of Haern’s skill were gone. He stepped back, hoping to go on the defensive to see if Haern made a mistake. Instead, Haern lunged, his sudden aggressiveness startling him. More dagger cuts lined his legs, which already throbbed with pain.
“Have her,” Dustin said, backing toward the window he’d entered. “You can have her, just fucking kill her afterward, alright?”
This only seemed to enrage Haern further. Dustin turned to run, knowing the boy would never let him leave. He took only two steps, and then spun. His knee slammed into Haern’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Before the boy could dart away, he followed it up with a vicious elbow to the side of his face. He felt grim satisfaction at the sight of blood spurting across the carpet, blood that wasn’t his.
“What is your problem,” Dustin said as he knelt down. Haern was on his stomach, his dagger laying several inches out of reach in the kitchen. He grabbed Haern’s leg and pulled him closer, determined to remove the mask. He had his suspicions about the boy being Aaron, but he had to know for sure. If it was Aaron, he’d leave and let Thren dole out whatever punishment he felt right. If it wasn’t, well…
He readied the mace in his other hand.
“Let’s take a look, eh?” Dustin said as he spun Haern onto his back. When Haern rolled, his leg shot upward, kicking Dustin in the chin with his heel. Haern used the momentary confusion to continue his roll, breaking free of Dustin’s grip. The mace missed and struck the carpet, breaking the wood floor underneath. The boy lunged for the dagger, scooped it up in his hands, and then whirled.
Dustin’s jaw dropped as the dagger whirled through the air and buried into his chest. Before he could react, Haern was already chasing it, his foot slamming into Dustin’s throat. Dustin retched for air as he fell. His mace smacked the floor twice, never once hitting flesh. Haern straddled him, his knees pressing in against his elbows. He felt the dagger yank free of his chest, then press against his throat.
“You can’t kill her,” Haern said.
“Your father will figure out, Aaron,” said Dustin, hoping his guess was right and the boy’s real name would startle him.
Instead, Haern’s whole face darkened, a frightening gleam in his eye.
“I’m not Aaron,” he said. “Not when I have a choice.”
The dagger stabbed downward, and then Dustin saw the gleam no more.
H aern sheathed his dagger and tightened his mask. His nose was bleeding from where Dustin had elbowed him and, with nowhere else to go, it was seeping into the mask and running down his lips. His stomach felt like it had a terrible cramp from being kneed there. Sniffling, he stood up and held in a shiver.
Now he’d actually killed Dustin, he had no clue what to do with the body. He thought about leaving it there for the old lady to clean up. Surely she knew some younger men to help deliver it to proper gravemen.
Haern frowned. That wouldn’t do. If Thren found out one of his men had died on the job, he’d send another to finish it. He never left things undone. He needed Dustin gone, that way he could claim the kill for himself and act as if Dustin had never shown. Thieves went missing all the time for a million reasons. Surely he could think of one that sounded convincing.
Something blunt struck the back of his head. His vision swam with dots, and his whole body lurched to one side. He spun as he fell, just in time to see something large and black come swinging in at his face. Right before he was knocked out cold, he wondered how many days until his father forgot he ever existed.
S tay back, Delysia,” said the older woman, holding a heavy iron pan. “These vermin are dangerous even at a young age.”
“Don’t be silly, Gran,” said Delysia. “You hurt him bad.”
Gran stood over both bodies, wielding the pan with both hands as if it were an ancient weapon of legend. She gently prodded the boy’s body with her bare foot before stepping back into the kitchen.
“He dead?” Delysia asked.
“Don’t look like it,” said Gran. “Maybe if I were twenty years younger I’d have sent his brains flying out his
