Jon Sprunk: Shadows son

As he hopped over a fetid puddle on Prior's Cross, Caim caught a glimpse of the horned moon, perched over the roof of an abandoned dyer's factory like a silver sickle. Its otherworldly beauty, forever out of reach, always made him uneasy in a way he couldn't rightly describe. It was like being homesick, but for a home he had never known.

Othir had been his home for six years. He had originally begun plying his trade as a sellsword in the western territories. He'd done time in various mercenary crews during his teen years, earning his silver with one hand and spending it with the other. But after a bit of nasty business in Isenmere, his gang was run out by a posse bent on revenge. He drifted from town to town, always watching over his shoulder. When no lawmen showed up to arrest him, he passed into a new life.

A right turn onto Serpentine Way brought Caim to a tangle of back streets and alleyways known as the Gutters. Here the buildings were built of old, crumbling brick covered in dingy whitewash. Their sooty slate roofs tilted sharply, with tall steeples and shuttered gables. The Gutters were home to every sort of crook and deadbeat imaginable. It was a place to tread lightly, where anything could happen and often did.

Caim strode down the center of the street. Footpads slunk deeper into their hidey-holes as he passed by. Muggers found business elsewhere. He'd drenched these cobblestones in blood more than once. Still, he kept his cloak tight around his shoulders and one hand on a knife.

His first contract had been right here in Othir. Dalros was a luxuries trader whose business had suffered a turn of bad fortune. When he couldn't cover his debts to the local usurers, they decided to make an example of him. Caim was tapped for the job. It was a simple break-andstab, nothing fancy, but Caim would never forget the shakes he'd suffered that spring night as he scaled the low wall surrounding Dalros's home. He was in and out in less than fifteen minutes. With the merchant's blood on his hands, he'd crept past a lounging sentry, slipped back over the wall, and gone on his way. He was paid twenty gold soldats for that job, a fortune to him in those days.

A shout from behind made Caim spin around. His knife slid out of its sheath as a squadron of soldiers on horseback rode down the street. On their bloodred breastplates gleamed a blazing sunburst in gold, the symbol of the Sacred Brotherhood, or the Knights of the Noose, as they were called behind their backs-a jest about the manner in which their patron saint had gone to meet his Maker. Some in Othir said they were the real power behind the prelacy, but Caim paid little heed to politics. It made no difference to him who ruled as long as he could count on them to sow discord and corruption; unrest made for good business in his line of work. And over the past few years, business had been extraordinarily good.

Caim slipped into the shadowed doorway of a cobbler's shop and sheathed his blade as they rode past. The soldiers' presence in the Gutters at this hour made the skin between his shoulder blades itch. The denizens of these squalid alleys were typically left to their own devices after sunset.

Once the soldiers passed from sight, he continued on his way. Another three blocks brought him to Chirron's Square. A marketplace by day, it brokered a different type of commerce after sundown. Pimps and drug peddlers lounged amid the marble pedestals of broken statuary. Ladies of the night trolled for interested buyers. In the center of the plaza rose a scaffold. Its weathered timbers supported a massive crossbeam from which dangled five bodies, adult, probably male, but it was impossible to tell for sure. They had been burned before they were hanged, their hands and feet lopped off, their eyes gouged out. No one paid the bodies any mind. Who had they been? Robbers? Rapists? Or just some poor souls foolish enough to criticize the ruling powers in public? Caim continued on his way, but the spectacle lingered in his thoughts.

He turned onto Cutter Lane. Windows were thrown wide open down the length of the street despite the chill in the air, spilling the rosy light of a dozen taverns and festhouses onto the grimy cobblestones. Pipers and lutists competed with the din of hard drinkers.

He ducked into the third house on the left. The cracked placard over the door depicted three buxom ladies in short frocks. Bright light filled the Three Maids. Wooden tankards clanked on the tabletops, and rough hands clapped in time with a zithern while a scrawny girl clad in only her snow-pale skin and long red locks danced under the glassy stares of tradesmen and stevedores. A shore party of sailors-Arnossi by their accent and swarthy features-sang sea ballads in a corner.

Caim threaded his way to the bar. Big Olaf was tending tonight. He grinned through a row of uneven teeth as Caim approached.

"Hey, boyo. You should've been here last night. I had to toss out a pair of uptown rakes with a mean-on. Swear they flew a dozen paces before they hit pavement. Each."

Caim slid a silver noble, double-penny weight, across the bar. "Is he in?"

The coin disappeared, and Olaf jerked a sausage-thick thumb at the back stairs. Caim headed around the bar. Mathias, the owner of the Three Maids, also handled several of the biggest fish in Othir's murder-for-hire game. He was their broker, their middleman, the one who ferreted out the contracts and matched them with the right talent for the job. He lived above the tavern, he claimed, to be closer to the people, and always acted hurt when anyone insinuated he was a miser. Caim didn't know why Mathias continued to live amid the dregs of the city. With the commissions he'd made in the last year alone, he could afford a comfortable house in High Town. Some folks couldn't bear to leave their roots, no matter how high they climbed. Caim had never had that problem.

The back stairs were unlit. As he started up, Caim heard the whisper of leather glide over wood a moment before a shape appeared above him. An image flashed through his mind: clinging to the walls of Duke Reinard's keep, gazing up at a mysterious black figure crawling along the battlements. A twinge quivered in his chest. Both suete knives were out in an instant, held low and pressed against his thighs to hide their shine. His knees flexed, ready to leap back or lunge ahead.

Two white circles appeared in the gloom above him, a pair of hands held open. "Peace," said a low voice. "Good evening, Caim."

"Ral." Caim slipped the knives back into their homes, but he left an inch of each blade free. "If you've got business with Mathias, I'll wait below."

Ral descended a step. The faint glow from the common room highlighted his features. Bright blue eyes peered from beneath coiffed spikes of stark blond hair. Dressed all in black leather, he melded with the shadows of the stairway. The intricate silver cross-guard of a cut-and-thrust sword jutted from his belt. Glints of steel at his wrists, waist, and boots hinted at other weapons; Ral was notorious for all the hardware he carried.

"No, we are concluded." His lazy way of talking reminded Caim of a dozing cat, always a moment from showing his claws. "I heard you did quite well up north. Reinard and his bodyguards slain in front of a hun dred witnesses, but not a single person could identify the killer afterward. Not bad."

Caim chewed on his tongue. He didn't like discussing his business, especially where idle ears could overhear. He leaned against the wall of the stairwell, trying to appear casual.

"It's done. That's all that matters."

Ral came down another step. "Exactly, but you should be careful. There's been a citywide crackdown these past couple days."

"I saw the display in the square."

Ral chuckled. Despite his butter-smooth voice, it wasn't a pleasant sound. "A gang of roof-crawlers got pinched robbing a vicar's home. All involved were caught and hanged, but not before they tortured his entire family for the location of a cache of jewels. Word says they even cut off the youngest boy's fingers and toes."