was gone beyond recall.
He made what would surely be his final effort to pull himself forward. At first, nothing happened, then his chest popped clear like a cork from a bottle of that sweet white sparkling Saelmurian wine poor Kerridi had so enjoyed. He surged forward, only to jerk to a halt an instant later.
He told himself the grillwork hadn't really clamped shut around his ankles. His feet had simply caught on a crossbar. Resisting panic, the impulse to flail wildly, crazily, he tried to untangle himself from the obstruction, and succeeded. He struggled upward.
Desperate for air as he was, it was only at the last second that he remembered he couldn't surface amid a great splashing and floundering, or else one of the Red Axes would notice him. He took care to complete his ascent circumspectly, then breaststroked his way into the shadowy, shielded space between two moored boats.
Clutching at the side of a vessel for support, he sucked in air. It took all the strength he had left simply to make himself inhale and exhale quietly, and he knew that if anyone spotted him before he caught his breath, he'd be helpless to defend himself. Luckily, no one did, and when he recovered, he took a stealthy look around.
The river gate terminated in a stone platform at the far end, where an arched door led farther into the mansion. A walkway ran along either wall. Half a dozen boats floated in the water, tied up until someone should want them. Four were commonplace vessels for transporting passengers and cargo, the fifth a sleek galley equipped with a small ballista in the bow as well as other features useful to river pirates, and the sixth a gilded and ornately carved pleasure barge, aboard which Kesk sometimes chose to pursue his less unsavory amusements.
Two guards slouched on camp stools near the doorway, playing a game of cards for low stakes. The muscular bugbear with its hairy yellow hide was smirking, exposing stained, crooked fangs, and had most of the copper pennies heaped in front of it. The human wore a peeved expression that seemed at home on his pinched and sour face.
Neither one looked particularly alert. Evidently they trusted the portcullis to keep intruders out. Even so, it was going to be tricky.
Aeron drew himself up onto the walkway behind the bugbear's back. He readied the sturdy oaken cudgel he'd brought with him, then skulked forward.
He fancied that few people could have approached the sentries unheard, not clad in soaked garments that wanted to slap and squelch with every step. Fortunately, there was an art to moving silently under even the most adverse conditions, and he'd mastered that one, too.
Yet soft footfalls could only protect a fellow up to a point. He was still a few paces away from the gamblers when the human threw down his creased, greasy hand of cards in disgust, lifted his head, and looked straight at him. The Red Axe's eyes opened wide.
Aeron charged. The bugbear twisted around, and he clubbed at the hulking creature's square, brutish head. The blow cracked home, and the goblinoid jerked at the impact.
By then the human guard was on his feet and had his dagger out. Aeron dodged a thrust, grabbed hold of the little folding camp table that held the game, and flipped it upward. Cards and coins flew everywhere, the coppers clinking on the platform. The tabletop bashed the Red Axe in his face, slamming him backward.
Aeron whirled back around toward the bugbear. Its low forehead bleeding, the burly creature, taller than almost any human its attacker had ever seen, lurched to its feet, snatched its scimitar from its scabbard, and raised it high. Its sleeve slipped down its hairy forearm, revealing the ruddy axe brand Aeron had once declined to wear.
Sidestepping out from under the threat of the curved sword, he lashed the bugbear across the ribs and kicked it in the knee. It stumbled, and that brought its head low enough for him to bash it a second time, and a third. The goblinoid collapsed unconscious.
Aeron pounced atop the bugbear and poised an Arthyn fang at its throat. The human Red Axe, who was lunging forward, hesitated.
'Stay back,' Aeron panted, 'or I'll kill it.'
The guard spat, 'I never liked him anyway. I think he cheats.'
'If you're such a dunce that a bugbear can trick you,' Aeron shot back, 'you deserve to lose your coin. Now, you may not like the brute, but I'll bet your chief finds it useful. Useful enough that he wouldn't appreciate you throwing away its life when it can be avoided.'
'Maybe. What do you want?'
Aeron nodded toward the windlass and said, 'First, raise the portcullis.'
He had no intention of squirming through the bars again when it was time to leave.
The guard grumbled, 'That's a two-man job.'
'The damn thing has a counterweight,' Aeron said. 'Just put your back into it.'
Grunting with effort, or the petulant pretense of it, the Red Axe managed to do as instructed. The chain clanked as it wound around the reel.
'Now what?' the guard asked.
'Now you go into the house and tell Kesk to come out alone for a private talk. Tell him that if he doesn't show himself in the next five minutes, the cardsharp here dies, and he can forget about ever taking possession of the saddlebag.'
The sentry stood and stared at him.
'What are you waiting for? Go!'
The Red Axe disappeared through the door, slamming it behind him, and after that, Aeron had nothing to do but listen for approaching footsteps, at least until the bugbear stirred. He pressed the keen edge of his knife against his captive's throat, drawing the goblin-kin's attention to it.
'Don't move,' he said, 'or you're dead.'
'Don't matter,' the bugbear said, its bestial voice slurred. Evidently it was still dazed from the beating it had taken.
'You don't care if I kill you?'
'Don't matter you didn't do… what you was told. You're still going to die.'
Still? What did that mean, precisely? Aeron would have asked, but at that moment, Kesk Turnskull stalked through the door.
If ever a creature was born to rule a company of cutthroats, Kesk was surely the bully in question. Short and stooped as he was, his muscular body looked nearly as thick as it was tall. Patches of coarse hair bristled from his leathery gray hide, and with its truncated snout and jutting tusks, his face resembled that of a wild boar. Despite the oil lamp burning beside the door, the interior of the water gate was dark enough to reveal the faint luminescence of his scarlet eyes, which smoldered like coals beneath a low, ridged brow.
Aeron had heard that tanarukks hadn't always existed, that the race had emerged only in recent times as the result of crossbreeding between orcs and demons. He himself had no firsthand knowledge of such esoterica, but thought that anyone who laid eyes on Kesk would have no difficulty crediting the story.
As always, the founder and master of Oeble's most vicious gang carried a heavy, double-bitted battle-axe in his hand. Supposedly, he'd plundered the enchanted weapon from the body of a fallen foe, a gold dwarf champion who'd believed the axe, a cherished family heirloom, would only serve a pure-hearted warrior of his own race. Kesk liked to tell the story of how he'd proved the fool wrong by using it to slaughter the dwarf's own kin.
The tanarukk regarded Aeron and the bugbear. It was difficult to read the expression on that swinish face, with its protruding lower jaw, but he seemed to be sneering.
'What's the point of this?' Kesk growled. 'Why didn't you come to the house through the Underways, as I told you to?'
'If I had, would I be dead already? Did you have some of your murderers lying in wait for me?'
Kesk's red eyes narrowed and he asked, 'What are you talking about?'
'According to the bugbear, you meant to kill me.'
'You can't club Tharag over the head and expect him to talk sense. He doesn't do much of that at the best of times. Now, if he's smart, he'll shut his hole and let the two of us palaver.'
'You expect me to forget what he said?'
'Just use your own head, will you?' Kesk replied. 'Why would I hire a man to do a job, then kill him? To get out of paying? I buy stolen and smuggled goods all the time, and a gang chief has to deal fairly. If I picked up a
