L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

Might need that? Kharl wondered as he took another swallow of the ale. With it and the fowl, he could almost ignore the stenches from the renderer and the tanner.

After they finished eating and drinking the last of the ale, Jekat took back the mug and crawled into his cubbyhole and curled up under a tattered and soiled cover that looked to have been a drapery or hanging many long years before, doubtless before the boy had even been born.

Kharl made himself as comfortable as he could under the makeshift roof between the two walls, using his pack for a pillow. He looked upward into the darkness. Eventually, he did drift into sleep, a sort of restless dozing.

Kharl woke with the gray light of dawn, and the crowing of a rooster that he could have done without. Every muscle ached, even muscles he hadn’t known he had.

The moment he moved, Jekat’s blond head peered out of the tattered hanging masking the cubbyhole. “We need to get some grub.”

“You have a plan for that?”

“You got coins, we can try the lower market, except everyone’s looking for you. Even be some Watch down there.”

“Got some smelly rags?”

“Most ’round here smell…” Jekat grinned. “I grabbed stuff last night. Got a really old cloak. You leave behind the undertunic and tunic. See if it’ll do.”

Kharl didn’t want to leave the clothes and the pack and staff, but neither would have matched the beggarly image. But he’d need to tie the pouch with the silvers around his leg, fasten it somehow to the inside of his thigh. While Jekat rummaged through the corner of the cubbyhole, he made the switch, but left the undertunic on, at least until he had something to wear. It was getting later in harvest, and mornings were chill. He probably should have pulled out the winter jacket for a cover to sleep under, but he’d been so tired he hadn’t even thought of it.

Then, after he took care of other necessities well down the wall in the place suggested by Jekat, he returned and donned the ragged hooded cloak that half concealed his face.

The urchin-in patched and shapeless gray-looked up from under a ragged thatch of curly hair, more sandy than true blond. “Let me go over the wall and look around first…”

That bothered Kharl, but he couldn’t say why. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

Jekat scrambled up the wall nimbly, vanishing silently over the top.

Kharl listened.

Then he heard a scuffling, and a single sharp cry, followed by low words.

“Been layin’ for you, beggar boy…seen you comin’ and goin’. You got coin hidden in there, and you’re gonna share it all with us…”

“Mmmmhph…”

“Hold him…goin’ over. Oh…now, what do we have here.” A laugh followed. “This is going to be fun…real fun…Geehm…you take a look-see what’s there.”

On the far side of the wall that was only a cubit more than head high, Kharl slowly took hold of the staff, far too long to be really useful in the narrow space between the walls, and probably beyond, but the staff was all he had, and he certainly owed Jekat. He stepped back, waiting.

A lean man in a grimy brown tunic and dark gray trousers, with boots bound together with strips of leather, scrambled down over the wall, a stubby knife shimmering in his right hand. Even before the man could register Kharl’s presence, the cooper drove the end of the staff into the other’s gut with all the force he could manage.

“Uuufff…”

“You all right, Geehm?” came from the other side of the wall.

Before the intruder could reply, Kharl brought the staff back and jabbed at the man’s knife hand because there was no room to do anything but jab, even with his grip halfway down the smooth black wood.

“Aeeii…” The knife dropped from the attacker’s hand, although Kharl hadn’t struck that hard.

Kharl shifted his grip on the warm wood.

“Not going to be easy…not now, you bastard…” The intruder bent down.

Kharl could sense…something, and almost without thinking he slammed the staff into the other’s shoulder. A second knife went flying against the wall. Kharl brought the staff up, then down, in an awkward sideways blow, but one hard enough to drop the man, because he pitched forward, clearly unconscious the way he sprawled.

Kharl half vaulted over the fallen figure and leaned the staff against the end and corner of the walls as he scrambled up to the top of the wall, then reached down and grabbed the staff. As he turned he could see a smaller man holding Jekat and a third man, somewhat larger, moving to meet him even as Kharl dropped down into the end of the ancient serviceway.

“Oh…so you had someone guarding your loot,” hissed the man holding Jekat. “Get him, Brot.”

Brot lumbered forward, a long knife in each hand.

The serviceway was wider than the space of Jekat’s hideaway, and that allowed Kharl to shift his hands inside the middle iron bands, so that he could use the staff properly. He hadn’t used one in years, although his father had taught him the basics years before, when he’d still been a boy, since staffs or cudgels were the only weapons permitted to artisans and crafters.

Still, it seemed like the staff had a mind of its own, because Kharl could almost sense what the bigger man was about to do, and within moments one of the knives was on the dirt-covered stones, and one of Brot’s wrists hung almost limply. Yet the man charged Kharl again.

Kharl struck once more, then again, and there was a sickening crack, and Brot clutched his arm and shoulder, then sank to the stones.

“Demon…” the smaller man started to thrust Jekat away, but his eyes went wide, then he crumpled, blood welling across the gray cloth that covered his guts. He started to moan.

Jekat bent, then straightened.

Kharl could see the redness across the fallen man’s neck. The moans had stopped.

“Go away!” Jekat snapped at Brot. “Far away!”

The big man Kharl had wounded staggered to his feet, arms dangling limply, and lumbered out of the serviceway, not even looking back, not saying a word despite what had to be great pain.

“What…?” Kharl blurted.

“Brot’s a no-mind. He lost it to a wizard years back. Did whatever his brother asked.” Jekat gestured to the dead man on the stones, then looked up. “The other one?”

“Knocked him out.”

“Let me look.” Jekat scrambled to the top of the lower section of wall between the tanner’s wall and the renderer’s wall. He peered over, then looked back down at Kharl. “Think you killed him. He’s not moving at all.”

“I didn’t hit him that hard,” Kharl said.

Jekat dropped back down to the pavement, eyes on the staff Kharl still held. “That’s a black staff. Must be something about it.”

Kharl had wondered, but he’d scarcely had time to think about it. He looked at the staff once more. It had certainly been well made, and of lorken and black iron…but that shouldn’t have given it any special powers.

“Anyway…we need to get rid of these two.”

Kharl looked at Jekat, taking in the shapeless gray clothes, the raggedly cut hair, the smooth skin, carefully smudged with grime. He’d never bothered to look closely before. Who studied urchins? A lot of things made much more sense.

“Maybe you’d better go…”

“What is your name?” he asked. “Jekai, Jekati?”

“Jeka. Easy enough to add a ‘t.’”

“Where do you want me to go?” Kharl asked. “You know I don’t know the alleys and serviceways.”

“You stay, nothing changes.” Her voice was wary.

“Do you really think I’d force anything?” he asked. “Besides, that was why you helped me, wasn’t it? You must have seen something.”