Weapon of Vengeance (Weapon of Flesh Trilogy) (3 page)

Lad nodded.  “I don’t want to disrupt business.  Go
ahead.”

Jingles looked relieved.  Descending the stairs, he pushed
aside the heavy iron-bound door and entered.  Smoke wafted out, along with the
sound of clattering dice and amused chatter.

Lad looked up at the empty windows of the shoe
factory.  It was nearing the dinner hour, and work had ceased for the day. 
Foot traffic was brisk, and two others entered the pub.  Lad followed them in.  His
eyes instantly pierced the dark, smoky atmosphere, and he scanned the room.  It
was still early, so the place wasn’t very busy yet.  About a score of patrons
played cards, threw dice, or drank at the bar.  Lad drew no attention, looking
more like a cobbler than a killer.

Jingles was sauntering toward the bar, jauntily
swinging his walking stick.  The two Enforcers, Korlak and Yance, were watching
Jingles, but didn’t look upset.  Lad moved to a table near the door where
patrons were throwing dice, watching the pair as he listened to Jingles hail the
one-eyed matron behind the bar.  Lad focused, and had no trouble picking out
their words over the noise.

“Evening, Lyghter!”

“Trouble, Jingles?”

“No, just need to speak to my people.  Some privacy
would be appreciated.”

“Fine.”  She tossed him a key.  “Last door down the
hall.”

“Thank you.  This won’t take long.”  Jingles strolled
over to his two Enforcers.  “I’ve got a change in your work assignment.  Come
with me.”

Though Korlak and Yance exchanged wary glances, Jingles’
casual manner seemed to put them at ease, and they followed him down the hall
to the last door.  When the door closed behind them, Lad moved.  He was down
the hall and through the door in a moment.  As the latch clicked behind him, the
two Enforcers turned at the intrusion.

“What the hell?”  Korlak’s hand dropped to the big
knife at his belt.

“Shut your mouths and listen up!” Jingles snapped. 
The tip of his walking stick flicked out as quick as a striking snake, hovering
an inch from the Morrgrey’s nose.  “This is your new guildmaster.  Show some
respect!”

Lad saw fearful recognition in their eyes; they had
obviously heard about him.  They both took a step back, and Korlak’s hand moved
away from his weapon.  Not that it would have done him any good if he had tried
use it.  Their blood contracts prevented them from even attempting to harm either
Lad or Jingles.

“What’s this about?” Yance’s wary expression
suggested that she already had a good idea.

“This is about a broken window, a beaten shopkeeper,
a threat of arson, treason, and fifteen gold crowns.”  Lad stepped up and
examined them carefully, though he had to crane his neck to look them in the
eye.  As Quebeck said, Yance stood as tall as Korlak, and the Morrgrey was not
a small man.

Lad read their guilt in the pulses pounding at their
throats and the sweat beading on their brows.  He could smell the rank odors of
rage and fear, see the desperation in their darting eyes as they searched for
an escape.

“Did Molsen order you to toss that shop, threaten
and beat Quebeck?”

“No,” Korlak said, and Yance shot him a glare.

“Good, the truth.”  The next answer, Lad knew, would
not come so easily.  “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to keep
telling me the truth.”

“Why?”  The defiance in Yance’s voice surprised Lad
as much as the puzzling question.

“Why am I going to ask you questions, or why are you
going to tell me the truth?”

“Both!”

Lad fought to keep his instinctive reaction under
control.  The urge for violence, vengeance for their transgression, welled up
in him, but five years as Mya’s shadow had taught him that punishment should
not be administered without explanation.  The Grandfather had killed on a whim,
and Lad had vowed to never become like the monster he had destroyed.  He took a
breath and let it out slowly, fighting for calm.

“I’m going to ask questions about why this incident happened
so I can prevent it from happening again.  You’re going to tell me the truth
because your lives are mine to spend.  Whether or not I choose to spend your
lives will depend on your answers.  But if you don’t answer, I promise you that
your lives will be spent right here and now.  Do you understand?”

They just stared at him.

“Answer him!”  Jingles’ command shook them out of
their silence.

“I understand, Master,” Korlak said reluctantly.  He
dropped his gaze to the floor rather than meet Lad’s eyes, though the muscles
bunching at his jaw revealed his frustration.  He was a big man, strong and
capable.  He’d undoubtedly beaten and killed many people in his lifetime,
probably even before he was in the guild.  His attitude was that of a life-long
bully, used to using force to get what he wanted.  He wasn’t accustomed to
being frightened of someone half his size.

“Well, I don’t!”  Yance’s face flushed, her hands
clenching in impotent rage.  She looked to Jingles.  “This upstart orders us to
be all nice and friendly to a bunch of lack-wit shopkeepers!  No more
protection rackets, no more beatings, and we’re supposed to roll over like dogs? 
Just because he put that ring on, doesn’t make him an assassin!”

Jingles stepped forward, but Lad raised a
forestalling hand, his left hand.  Upon it glinted the lustrous guildmaster’s
ring—the ring he had taken from Wiggen’s dead finger. 
Wiggen
...  “You’re
right, Yance.  Putting on this ring doesn’t make me an assassin.  What
does
make me an assassin…you wouldn’t believe if I told you.  What this ring does
make me is your
master
.  You’ll
answer
my
questions!
”

“Fine.  Ask.”

“Why did you extort Quebeck?”

The two Enforcers exchanged a look.

“We…didn’t like the changes,” Korlak answered.  Yance
just pressed her lips in a thin line. “They seem foolish.  We’ve taken
protection money as long as I’ve been with the guild.”

“So you broke your oath and went against my orders. 
Why?  You’re being paid the exact same amount you were earning before the
changes.”

“It’s not about the money, you little—”

Steel flashed to Yance’s throat, stopping just short
of parting flesh.  “One more word and it’ll be your last!” Jingles hissed.  His
wrist twitched, and the tip of the sword from his walking stick pricked her
chin.  “This is your guildmaster!  Watch your tongue, or I’ll cut it out.”

Waving Jingles back, Lad cocked his head, curious.  “If
it’s not about the money, Yance, what
is
it about?”

“It’s about
respect
!”  Her eyes spit knives
at him as Jingles sheathed his blade.  “If we don’t show these mealy-mouthed
peasants who’s boss around here, they’ll think we’re weak!”

“Respect?”  Lad was taken aback.  “You think a
shopkeeper will
respect
you if you beat him up?”

“He’ll bloody well respect my fist!  And next time
he’ll cough up the money without me havin’ to knock a lick of common sense into
his thick skull!”

Lad stared at the Enforcer, utterly dumbfounded.  “That’s
not respect, Yance.  That’s fear.”

“What’s the difference?  Fear
is
respect!”

Suddenly Lad realized what her real reason was—she
enjoyed meting out pain and fear.  With that realization came the memory of the
invasion of the
Tap and Kettle
by a team of Enforcers.  They had taken
pleasure in their work, far too much pleasure, delighting in the fear and
anguish they evoked.  Still blind to human emotion at that period of his life, Lad
had not understood.  Now he knew that there were people who enjoyed giving
pain.  Yance, apparently, was one of them.

Lad narrowed his eyes at her.  “Did you ever meet the
Grandfather, Yance, your previous guildmaster?”

Her throat flexed as she swallowed hard.  “No.  But
I heard about him.”

“The Grandfather killed on a whim and tortured for
recreation.  Did you respect him?”

“I didn’t know him,” she admitted.

“But he was strong, fearsome, and pitiless.  You
would have feared him, and been right to do so.  I imagine that means that you
respected him.”

“I suppose…yes, then.  I did respect him.”

“Do you fear me, knowing that I can kill you and you
can’t do anything to stop me?”

She swallowed hard.  “Yes.”

“So, you admit that you fear me, but your contempt
for my rules, and for me personally, clearly show that you don’t respect me.  You’ve
made my point.  Fear does not equal respect.”

“You’re
wrong
!”  The muscles of her neck
bunched and writhed with those two words.  Lad recognized the tension in her
body; it was exactly how he had felt when he wanted to kill the Grandfather…and
couldn’t.

“Explain how I’m wrong.”

“I don’t respect you because you didn’t
earn
that ring!”  Her face flushed scarlet.  “You don’t understand the guild.  You
don’t understand what we are.  People respect us because we’re strong.  If they
don’t respect us, we knock some sense into them!”

A murderous rage boiled the blood in Lad’s veins.  His
mind’s eye stared once more at Wiggen’s terrified expression as a knife pressed
to her throat. 
People should not have to live in fear because they can’t
fight back
!  That was the reason for his new rules, the truth he wanted to
shout in Yance’s face, but she would never accept that.  The guild would never
accept that.  He bit back his anger and focused on the one truth that the guild
might accept.

“It’s you who doesn’t understand, Yance.  Fear doesn’t
earn respect, it earns hatred.  The shopkeepers you beat into paying blood
money don’t respect you, they hate you!  They fear you, and hate you, and if
ever
an opportunity arises to harm you, they’ll take it! 
That
is the
position you’ve put the guild in with your actions. 
That
, even more
than your treason, is why I must now spend your life.”

Before Yance could even draw another breath, Lad
struck.

His kick smashed her ribs with such force that her
lungs ruptured and her heart was pulped against her spine.  Blood jetted from
her mouth as she slammed back against the wall, landing in a broken heap of twitching
arms and legs.

Korlak’s boots scuffed the floor as he backed away. 
Even over the scent of blood, Lad could smell the man’s fear.

Welcome to the world of the
average shopkeeper, Korlak
,
he thought sourly.

The blinding rage and urge to kill ebbed, replaced
by a flood of self-disgust. 
What would Wiggen have said?
 Yance would
never have changed her ways, and lenience would only have led to more
disobedience.  He knew he was right.  He also knew he was a murderer.  Self-loathing
welled up in him, palpable and nauseating.  He turned toward the door.

“The other one, Master?” Jingles asked.

Lad looked over his shoulder at Korlak.  He had
known the moment he entered the room which of the two had instigated the
assault on Quebeck.  Korlak would fall in line, and even more important, he
would spread the word of what Lad had said and done.  But that didn’t mean he
didn’t deserve punishment for his treason.

“Beat him exactly as you saw Master Quebeck was
beaten.”  He turned to Jingles.  “Do it yourself.”

“Yes, Master.”

Lad cast one more glance at Yance’s body.  Her
bulging eyes stared blankly back.  She’d been helpless, and he killed her. 
She
killed herself the moment she decided to betray the guild
.  Lad wondered if
the Grandfather told himself the same thing the first time he murdered a
helpless underling.

Lad looked back to Jingles, refusing to let his
disgust show.  “When you’re done, call in a crew to clean up the mess, pay
Lyghter whatever you think is fair, and get back to work.”

“Yes, Master.”

Lad was out the door and halfway down the hall
before he heard the first wet crunch of Jingles’ fist striking flesh.

C
aptain
Norwood rubbed his burning eyes and resumed pacing in front of the large
diagram tacked to his office wall.  He’d been staring at the damned thing for
three days now, and knew it line by line.

“Fat lot of good it’s done me.”

He stopped pacing and stared some more.  The diagram
depicted the battle site near Fiveway Fountain.  Quite detailed, it showed
every bush, tree, lamppost, and bench.  Stick figures represented the corpses,
twenty-eight in all.  Fewer than a dozen were stuck with yellow pins bearing
tiny cards printed with personal information: name, title or profession, and next
of kin.  But it was the five black pins that drew his attention, each representing
a corpse killed by a poisoned black dart.  The same type of dart and the same
poison they’d found on a dead woman in an alley not two weeks ago.  Like the
first dart, all these had lodged in the victims’ throats at a steep angle,
indicating that the killer had shot from a height.

The same assassin
?
  If so, how are these two
incidents related
?

He glanced to the vial-encased darts on his desk. 
He still had no information on their origin.  The duke had insisted that they
first concentrate their investigation on identifying the victims, since at
least three had been prominent citizens.  Only in the last couple of days had
Sergeant Tamir been investigating the darts.  The poison, white scorpion venom,
was common enough to be readily available, and therefore difficult to trace.  The
tiny spring-loaded missiles, however, seemed to have been custom-made.  Finding
the crafter of those darts had a high likelihood of leading them to the
assassin, but so far they had nothing.

The knock on his door came as a welcome
interruption.

“Come in!”

Tamir strode in, igniting a spark of hope in
Norwood’s heart.  “Did you get anything?”

“Oh, plenty!”  Tamir’s smile oozed sarcasm.  Reaching
into his jacket pocket, he withdrew several items.  “I got a solid gold pocket
watch for only two crowns that stopped working fifteen minutes after I left the
shop.”  He dropped the watch onto Norwood’s desk.  “I got a garlic peeler
that’s guaranteed never to need cleaning, though I haven’t tried it out yet.”  The
reeking device thumped down beside the watch.  “And I got this here pen knife
that has a cork screw, a pair of scissors, a toothpick, a nail file, a fish
scaler, and a little thingy that’ll trim your nose hairs!”  He peered at the
confusing contraption uncertainly.  “No blade though, and I’m not quite sure
which little thingy is which.”

Norwood looked at his sergeant with an utter lack of
amusement.  “So, nothing on the dart.”

“Not a thing.”  Tamir retrieved a glass vial from
another pocket and shook it, rattling the little black dart inside.  “Nobody’s
ever seen such a thing before, let alone made one.  The closest thing to real
information was a tidbit from that fellow who makes cuckoo clocks in a shop
down on Mullet Avenue.  He said he’d heard of something kinda similar,
something that injected poison, I mean, from a man who used to hunt big game.”

“Someone hunted big game with poisoned darts?” 
Norwood looked dubious.  “Sounds like a good way to poison whoever eats the
meat.”

“No, no.  He used poppy extract.  Just put ’em to
sleep.  He’d hunt weird critters for the Imperial Zoo in Tsing.  Used a
crossbow, though; the bolts had a spring and plunger.  Apparently the guy
dropped a pachyderm with one shot, loaded it on a wagon, and brought it back
for the crown prince’s tenth birthday celebration.”

Norwood sighed.  “The crown prince is over forty now,
so this hunter has got to be older than me.  I can’t see him running across
roofs to shoot darts down at people.  The hunter’s name?”

Tamir consulted his notebook.  “Wembly, but he moved
to a village north of Tsing years ago.  It’d take months to track him down to ask
him questions.”

“The clockmaker didn’t know who made those bolts?”

“No.”

“Anyplace you haven’t looked yet?”

“I’ve not done much in The Sprawls yet.”  Tamir
rattled the dart vial again and put it back in his pocket.  “Nothing much down
there but tinkers and pot makers.  I figure whoever makes these things probably
charges a few crowns apiece, and can afford to have a nice place in a better
part of town.”

“Well, we can’t take anything for granted, so you
can start slumming this afternoon.  On the way, stop at our temporary office
down by the docks and pick up Sergeant Maekin’s report on the Bargeman’s Guild.” 
Norwood returned to his diagram and tapped one of the pins with a note
attached.  “Youtrin…a damned guildmaster.  There’s got to be something deeper going
on here.  Smuggling, maybe.  Who knows?”

Guild war
…  Was this the culmination of
the Assassins Guild “squabbles” that his late night intruder had told him of?  Norwood
wondered if the man he’d spoken with had been reduced to a stick figure on the
diagram.  So far, they’d been unable to connect any of the known dead to
organized crime.  If these people were members of the Assassins Guild, they’d
hidden their illicit activities well.  Tamir’s voice intruded on his thoughts.

“We’ve been going through Youtrin’s warehouses for a
week, sir.  He might be involved in some tithe dodging, but we’ve found nothing
more illegal than that.”

“So far, Maekin’s only looking into his Bargeman’s Guild
connections.  Tell him to cast a wider net.  I want to know who owed Youtrin money,
who he was sleeping with, who he paid rent to, and who paid rent to him. 
Everything.   Do the same with the fencing master and the madam, and we’ll see
what connections we can make.”

“Yes, sir.”  Tamir picked up the trinkets he’d
bought.  “You want the watch?  It’s solid gold!”  He grinned at his scowling commander
and pocketed the worthless piece of junk.  “I know, I know.  Get to work.”

“You should open up a stall on Stargazer Street,
Tam, because you just read my mind.”

Tamir snorted a laugh and left.  Norwood turned back
to his diagram.

The three prominent Twailin citizens they’d identified
among the dead were the only leads they had in this case, besides the darts,
and all were turning up blank.  His mind automatically veered back to that
now-familiar train of thought.

What in the Nine Hells would a
guildmaster in the Bargeman’s Guild, a West Crescent madam, and a fencing
master be doing with the Assassins Guild
?

Gleaming steel flashed toward Sereth’s gut.  The Master
Blade parried the lunge easily.  His riposte rang off the quillons of his
opponent’s weapon, and he intercepted the counterthrust.  Steel sang on steel,
and the soles of his boots whisked softly as he danced away from his opponent.

By the gods, this is boring
.

He stepped back to disengage and assess his
student’s stance.  Though barely fifteen years old, the boy was a fair fencer in
a rote sort of way.  He knew the basic forms, but performed them without imagination,
no earnest threat, and entirely too much predictability.

In the neighborhood where Sereth grew up, this pretty
boy wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.  By his age, Sereth had already mastered
the art of fighting with dagger and short sword, and signed his name in blood
on a piece of rune-inscribed vellum, dedicating his life to the Assassins
Guild.

Never thought it would lead to
begging nobles to let me babysit their whelps, playing patty-cake with blunted
blades
.

Despite the irony, Sereth was secretly pleased that
his fencing studio had finally attracted its first noble-born student, the
young Lord Leonard Barrrington.  The rent in Barleycorn Heights was outrageous,
but he needed to project the right image to attract customers, and money wasn’t
a problem.  More students would follow, he knew, but he had to offer something
that other instructors didn’t.  He had to stand out, and as yet he didn’t know
how to accomplish that.  Unlike his former master, Horice, he couldn’t rely on
witty banter and high-class connections to bring in eager young nobles wanting
to learn how to duel.  After only two lessons with the young Lord Barrington, however,
Sereth was less than enchanted.

The boy stamped his foot in a poor feint and lunged.

Time for a real lesson, boy
.

Sereth stepped into the lunge with a twisting parry
that denied a stop-thrust, locked his quillons to his student’s, and pushed.  Barrington
strained to push him back, but Sereth’s rear foot was well planted, and he
outweighed his student by at least two stone.  For a moment they stood, neither
with an advantage, both knowing the first to break the clinch would be at a
disadvantage.  Then Sereth drew a stiletto from the back of his sparring jacket
and poked the tip carefully into his student’s belly, dimpling the boy’s padded
plastron by two inches.

“You’re dead, young lord.”

“What?”  The surprise in the boy’s voice was ridiculously
satisfying.  The strength left his stance and he stepped back, ripping off his protective
wire mask to glare down at the blade in Sereth’s off hand.  “That’s not fair!”

“No, it’s not.”  Sereth removed his own mask and leveled
a cold smile at his student. 
This is what he needs
, Sereth realized. 
This
is what will set me apart from the other dueling masters.
  “Life isn’t
fair.  Fights
certainly
aren’t fair.  If you think otherwise, then your
first
real
fight will be your last, young lord.”  He raised the stiletto
in a mocking left-handed salute and tucked it away.  “This is not a game.”

“But, to strike with a hidden blade…  It’s…”

“Dishonorable?”

“Meaning no disrespect, sir, but
yes
.”

“Your father’s not paying me to teach you honor. 
He’s paying me to teach you the art of dueling.”  Sereth racked his practice sword
and waved his apprentice over.  “Not all lessons are learned with the sword.  Enough
sparring for today, Lord Barrington.”

Sereth’s assistant, an eager young apprentice named Lem,
dutifully took his master’s mask, then assisted him in removing the padded
plastron, leather gorget, sword-hand glove, and underlying jacket with its
buckles in the back.

“But in a duel, you must fight according to rules,”
argued Barrington as he racked his own sword.

“And an honorable man will follow those rules.  But
what happens when you’re challenged by a man who has no honor?”  Sereth
stripped off his sweat-sodden shirt and accepted a towel from Lem.  “I’ve
learned to expect less-than-honorable behavior when life and blood are on the
line.”

The boy gazed wide-eyed at the scars that crisscrossed
Sereth’s torso before continuing his argument.  “But if an opponent resorted to
a hidden weapon to win, my seconds would avenge me.”

“If you choose your seconds well, yes, but being
avenged doesn’t make you any less dead, does it?”  Sereth grinned, but there
was no humor in it.  Scrubbing himself dry with the towel, he caught the look
of horror on the boy’s face and laughed.  “Do you think every man who calls you
out for kissing his sister will be
honorable
?”