Paul Kemp: The Hammer and the Blade

He knew he shouldn't cross the watch, but he was irritable, and growing moreso by the moment.

"You know what…" the tall watchman began, his hand moving for his truncheon.

The watch sergeant, a towering, fat man Nix knew by appearance from a run-in with the watch years earlier, leaned out of the guard shack to one side of the gate.

"Let him pass," he said.

The men in front of Nix glared but didn't move.

"I said let him pass," the sergeant repeated.

Reluctantly, the guards stood aside. One of them spit at Nix's feet. Nix took care to bump that one as he passed. He nodded his thanks at the sergeant.

"We should arrest that prick," the tall guard hissed to the sergeant.

"Your job ain't to pick fights, boy," the sergeant said. "It's to uphold the law of the Lord Mayor and the Merchants' Council. 'Sides, I probably saved you an unpleasant meeting with sharp steel just then."

Nix left the guards behind and stepped through the gate into Dur Follin proper. The change was almost immediate and entirely palpable. Street torches blazed at regular intervals, well tended by the city's linkboys. Carriages and wagons moved along the muddy, cobbled streets. Pedestrians walked here and there. Candlelight poured from shop windows, laughter and shouts from taverns and inns.

The first time Nix had left the Warrens, he'd felt like he'd dug himself out of a dark hole and emerged into the light. He wondered if Mamabird had ever seen the light. He suspected not. It saddened him.

He was maudlin, moreso than usual after seeing Mama, and it kept him from playing his part as well as normal. Maybe it was the rain. He consciously pushed the sentimentality aside, and with each step he fell more and more back into his normal persona. By the time he found Egil where they'd agreed, at the corner of Teamsters Avenue and Narrow Way, under the towering shadow of the Archbridge, he felt more himself.

The priest stood with his back to him, hands in his cloak pockets, staring at the huge span of the bridge. Torches and candles and even a few magic crystals lit the shrines along the length of the bridge, illuminating a swirl of colors, languages, songs, and chants. A gong rang from somewhere, the tinkle of bells.

Ebenor's tattooed eye watched Nix approach. Nix put a hand on Egil's shoulder by way of greeting. The priest whirled and had him by the wrist in a blink, the grip painful enough to make Nix wince. Seeing Nix, Egil released him.

"Apologies," Egil said absently.

"None needed," Nix said, rubbing his wrist. "I should've announced myself." He nodded at the shrines on the bridge. "Thinking of switching faiths, are you?"

Egil ignored the jibe. "Is it done?"

"It's done. I left the deed with Mama. Dram license is filed with the guild. We're good."

"So you say." Egil flipped up the hood of his cloak as rain started to fall in heavy drops. "How is Mamabird?"

"Well as can be, I suppose. She asked about you. I told her you remained as surly as ever."

Egil smiled. "Handsome as ever, too, I trust?"

"Alas, I never lie to Mamabird."

Egil chuckled. "So let's go see this thing we bought. Gettin' on to the dark part of night. The ruffians ought to be filling the place by now."

"Indeed. Two more will go unnoticed."

By the time Egil and Nix reached Shoddy Way, the downpour sounded like sling bullets against the cobbles. The flames of street torches sizzled, smoked, and danced in the rain.

Shoddy Way was a soup of mud and manure and the storm had mostly emptied the street. Only a donkey-pulled cart occupied the otherwise empty road, and it looked stuck in the mud.

The rain thumped like the beat of war drums off the colorful tents and canvas-covered booths of the Low Bazaar, which filled the plaza nearby. Braziers sizzled in the rain, the smoke carrying the smell of roasted mutton into the slate sky. Raucous laughter carried from one of the tents in the bazaar.

"Gods are taking a piss," Nix said.

Egil grunted agreement.

The simple wood plank sign that hung from rusted hooks over the front doors of the Slick Tunnel rattled in the wind. Weather and time had reduced the lettering to The unnel, but left intact the salaciously drawn image of a cave mouth.

"Needs a new sign," Nix said.

Egil harrumphed from the depths of his cowl. "Needs a lot of new things."

"But not new owners," Nix said, and thumped Egil on the mountain of his shoulder. "Got those, now."

"Aye," Egil said skeptically.

They eyed the building they now owned — two stories of crumbling bricks and warped wood, capped with a roof of cracked tiles. A sagging second-floor balcony overlooked Shoddy Way and would give a good view of the plaza and the Low Bazaar, but Nix wouldn't have trusted its worn brackets to hold his weight.

The building had been the home of a wealthy merchant once. But Dur Follin's rich had long ago moved across the Archbridge to the west side of the Meander, leaving the poor to the east and the very poor to the Warrens. Since then the building had changed hands many times, slowly collecting unsavory neighbors until Shoddy Way was a virtual treasure trove of drug dens, pawneries, and all manner of establishments engaged in illicit mercantilism.

A quartet of cloaked men pelted across the street from the bazaar plaza and pushed their way through Egil and Nix.

"One side, bunghole," said the tallest of the men. "It's pouring out here."

Nix resisted the urge to sink his punch dagger into a kidney. Scabbards poked out from under the hem of the men's weathered cloaks, and each wore a boiled leather jack. The mouthy one threw open the door of the Tunnel. Faint lantern light, laughter, conversation, and smoke leaked out onto Shoddy Way.

"I see manners haven't improved while we were away," Nix observed, his hands doing what they always did when someone bumped into him.

"Fak you," the last of the men said over his shoulder, and the door to the brothel and tavern Nix now half-owned slammed in his face. He stared after them, rubbing his nose. He turned to Egil.

"Are you as offended as I?"

Egil raised his bushy brows and his eyes went to Nix's hand.

Nix looked down and saw in his palm the small leather coin pouch he'd taken from the tall mouthy one.

"I had to lift it," Nix said. "He bumped into me. And rudely so. At that point it's a matter of principle."

"Principle?"

Nix hefted the purse and put the weight at twelve or thirteen coins. "Principle indeed. I'll say twelve. Terns and commons only. Not a royal to be seen, not from those jackanapes. Take odds?"

"From you? On that? Do I look like a fool?"

"I won't answer that so as to spare your feelings." Nix fingered open the pouch and examined the contents. "Nine terns and three commons. Scarcely worth the effort."

They had no need for more coin, so Nix sloshed through the mud over to the donkey cart and driver. The cart was sunk halfway up to the axle in mud. The donkey, ears flat, coat steaming, seemed to have given up trying to pull it, despite the entreaties of the cloaked driver, an old man with a creased face and a wispy beard. Three sacks of grain and a barrel lay in the back of the cart. The old man looked fearful as Nix approached. Nix donned his best "I'm harmless" smile.

"For your trouble, granther," Nix said, and tossed the coins onto the bench board of the wagon. Two silver terns spilled out and the old driver seemed dumbstruck.

"What is this?" the old man said, his voice cracked with age. The donkey shook the wet from his fur.

Nix winked at the man and gestured at the slate sky. "Must be raining coin. Best collect what you can before it stops."

The man looked up at the sky, then colored, perhaps realizing how silly he must have looked. He gathered the coinpurse, hands shaking. "Are you mad, goodsir?"