David Chandler - Den of thieves

Ahead in the street men and women went racing in a panic to get out of the way of the runaway cart. Croy shouted out to warn them and waved his hands, but the only way he could avoid catastrophe was to get the cart back under control. Wounded as he was, that would take some doing.

Prosper Street ran down the length of the Golden Slope at a steep grade that only added to the horses’ headlong speed. It traveled straight as an arrow’s flight down into the Smoke, where it lost itself among a maze of byways. If he didn’t slow the horses before they reached that district, the cart would surely crash. As the maddened beasts threw themselves downhill, Croy stepped out onto the tongue between them and then threw himself over the back of the left-hand horse, the leader of the team.

“Whoa, whoa, easy there,” he said, trying to soothe the animal. He clutched to its mane and did his best not to be bucked off. The horse turned one wild eye to stare at him and bit at the air with its massive teeth. “All’s well, be at ease,” Croy crooned, but the horse merely redoubled its efforts to shake him free. This was no destrier, bred for war and trained by a horsemaster. It was a simple dray animal that had never known such excitement.

The horse on the right, the wheel horse, perhaps thinking its mate was under attack, nipped at Croy’s shoulder. He pulled back to avoid it and nearly fell off.

Clearly the horses had no intention of obeying his commands. By giving them a common enemy to face he had slowed them a trifle, but there was still great danger of a crash. To save his own life he might leap off the horse’s back-but at this speed he would hit the cobbles like a catapult stone.

He looked ahead and saw that the horses were only a few seconds from reaching the Smoke. The street there curved around a tanner’s yard. It would be impossible for the cart to turn at speed and follow the road.

“You have my apologies, fishmonger,” he said to the poor driver of the cart who was about to lose his livelihood. Then he drew his shortsword and sliced through all the traces that held the horses to the cart.

The effect was instantaneous. The wheel horse, riderless, broke for freedom and galloped down a side street. The leader, with Croy on its back, jogged out of harness and took the turn around the tanner’s yard at speed. Just behind Croy the cart slammed into a fence of wooden palings and disintegrated, its cargo exploding into the air in a rain of silver mackerel and cod.

The noise only frightened Croy’s horse more. It began to stand and balk, and it was more than Croy could do to hold on. His shortsword went clattering into the street and then his left leg got tangled in the harness. Trying to pull it free only unseated him and he was thrown to the ground, with barely enough time to tuck and roll so his neck wasn’t broken. He somersaulted out of the way of the horse’s flashing hooves and then fell back, beaten, bruised, and exhausted, and watched it run away from him, into the warren of convoluted streets that made up the Smoke.

There was nothing Croy wanted more than to just lie down on the cobbles and rest a moment. His body was wracked with pain and he was still bleeding from the wound in his back. Yet he knew it would be only moments before the watch found him there-he had hardly covered his tracks on the way. He rolled onto his side and put a hand down on the cobbles. His strength was faltering and he could barely sit up.

The wound in his back must be deep. He could not afford to lose any more blood. His shortsword lay in the street next to his outflung hand. He grabbed it up and used it to cut off a wide swath of his cloak. This he tied around his back, as tight as he could bear. It might help, a little. Then again, it might be too late. He had already lost a great deal of blood. He had rarely felt so close to death before. Never had its chill embrace seemed more welcoming, more to be desired.

Yet there was that within him that refused to give up. As tempting as it might be to close his eyes and let slumber take him, his work was not yet done. Cythera and her mother remained enslaved. Hazoth still had the Burgrave’s crown. He had to get up. He had to move from this place. He could rest, he promised himself, but only once he found a safe place to lie down. Where that might be, he had little idea.

As long as he lived, though-as long as Cythera needed his help-he had to make the best of what strength he had. And that meant standing up.

He regained his feet. He did not know how he did it-the simple act of putting one foot under him, then the other, made his vision go black and his brain howl in protest until he could not think. His muscles were trained to keep going, though, no matter what occurred. They got him upright and walking.

He struggled with the remains of his tattered cloak, managing to pull it over the hilts of his swords so they didn’t show. Down here, armed citizens were rare, and the swords would draw exactly the kind of attention he wanted to avoid. Not that he saw anyone about-or much of anything at all, really.

The air was thick with smoke and fumes, unhealthy vapors rising from the rendering vats in the tanner’s yard. Down the street a great pillar of ash and sparks rose from an iron foundry. The Smoke was shrouded in a poisonous miasma at all times-on an overcast day like this its air was as thick as porridge. This foul air and its characteristic stench would flow downhill, into the district of poverty and crime called the Stink. It was the fumes that gave the Stink its name. He headed down a long street with no doors or windows, only blank walls like a great chute. At its end was an open yard where Croy saw two men in a ropewalk, walking backward as they braided together stout cords into rope. One made a joke and the other laughed boisterously. As he staggered past they turned to stare at him. One called out, but Croy couldn’t understand what he said-the blood was pounding too loud in his ears.

He passed a cooperage where workers scorched the insides of barrels by swishing spirits of wine around inside them and then setting them alight. Red fireballs leapt from the mouth of each barrel as the lighter ducked down out of the way.

Next door was a brewery, the air around it thick with the smell of fermenting hops and steam off the great malting kettles. Croy started belching as he passed through a thick cloud of vapor. For a moment he could see nothing, the acrid cloud making his eyes water.

When he stumbled out of the cloud, someone put their arm around his shoulders.

“Careful now, friend! I mean you no harm,” the stranger cooed as Croy reeled away and tried to draw his shortsword.

He let his hand fall back. “I know you- urk — not,” Croy said.

“Ah, but I’m your best friend in the world, aren’t I? A fellow like you needs a good friend at a time like this. Here, lean against me, I’m solid enough.”

The stranger was a fattish man in a tight jerkin and leather breeches. His eyes were set close together and he had very little in the way of a chin. He was certainly no watchman, nor a palace guard. He had a belt knife but no other visible weapons.

“Don’t I have an honest face? Ha ha,” the man laughed. “Come with me now, we’ll see you safe and warm in a moment. I know a little place right around the corner.”

He thinks me drunk, Croy thought. “What kind of place?”

“A sort of temple,” the stranger told him. “A little shrine, for the right sort of devotee. Ha ha. It’s just up here.”

Had he been feeling stronger, Croy might have shaken the man off. He knew what game was being played out here. He lacked the strength to walk away, though. As it was, he had to lean hard on the stranger, but they managed to turn the corner. He had fully expected the man to lead him into an alleyway and there try to slit his throat, but it seemed this little temple was a real place: a tavern, where workers just coming off their shifts were spending the little pay they’d earned that day. It had an open storefront where an alewife poured ladles of watered wine for passersby. Behind her Croy could see a roaring fire and a crowded common room.