Tamora Pierce - Street Magic

He sat back on his heels, slow fury heating his belly. “What happened?”

“Found ‘im in the fountain at Cedar Lane and Street o’ Hares near dawn.” The speaker was a boy who had been pitching coppers with Hammit the day before. “He left to visit his ma last night, and never come back. He come around a bit near midday. Said he never saw who got ‘im.”

Briar tried to think of a way to tell them what was coming, without saying that if they’d gotten him to a healer right away, he might have lived. With the bleeding in his skull so gradual that it had only begun to kill him now, even the slowest Water temple healer might have fixed things if the Camelguts had taken Hammit in right away.

He was still trying to control his anger and helplessness when Hammit’s mouth opened impossibly wide, revealing shattered teeth and bloody gums. His body stiffened; his arms went straight as his palms turned out from his body.

The Camelguts shrank away. As tough as they were in the streets and in battle, this was unknown, alien.

“You’re a pahan —fix him!” cried the girl who had fetched Briar.

He clenched trembling hands. He’d seen this often enough to know it for what it was. Hammit collapsed. The air blew from his lungs in a last escape, bubbling through his nose and bloody mouth, until his lungs were empty. The Camelguts drew close as Briar checked the pulse in Hammit’s big neck vein. There was none.

“He was dead hours ago,” Briar said softly. “His heart and lungs kept going for a while, that’s all. That’s why one side of his face was all funny. His head was bleeding inside somewhere.” He closed Hammit’s staring eyes. Before they could pop open again, he drew two copper davs from his purse and placed them on the eyelids to keep them shut. He’d wanted to use silver—he’d liked Hammit—but that would have been asking too much of the Camelguts. This gang didn’t have enough money that they could afford to bury silver with their dead.

For the thousandth time Briar wished he’d been a healer rather than a green mage. Medicines only did so much. Sometimes it took a magically gifted healer to turn the tide. Briar was there too often when such times came around, and the only mage in sight was him. It was Lakik the Trickster’s favorite joke on him.

Two more Camelguts, a boy and a girl, lurched through the door. The girl’s face was bruised, the eye on that side puffed completely shut. To Briar it looked as if she had been clipped hard on the cheekbone.

“Vipers,” wheezed the boy, helping the girl to sit. “They was on her when I got there.”

“Will you try to help this time?” demanded the girl who had summoned Briar.

“He’s a pahan , Mai, not a god.” Briar’s defender was the one who’d said where Hammit had been found. “You do medicines, but you can’t heal, am I right?”

Briar nodded and went over to the injured girl. At least he could do something for her. With the balms in his kit Briar lowered the swelling and eased the pain of a shattered cheekbone. That was something, and it was more than the Camelguts would get from any local healers. Only the Living Circle Water temples offered free medical care to the poor, but Chammurans mistrusted foreign temples as well as foreigners.

No sooner had Briar finished with the girl than a third victim lurched into the room, one broken arm dangling. He, too, identified his attackers as Vipers. He’d also seen the weapons they had used, small, rounded batons that were far heavier than they looked. “Sounds like blackjacks,” Briar commented as he examined the newcomer’s arm.

“Since when could they afford those?” demanded the fiery Mai. “This is more of that takameri’s doing, I bet!”

“They won’t have hands to hold their new toys when we’re done with them,” snarled another member of the gang. They clustered together to lay battle plans as Briar finished his examination of the newest victim. His request for two long, straight pieces of wood for splints only distracted one Camelgut from the conference. As soon as he gave them to Briar, he went back to planning.

When the splint was secure, Briar told his patient and the girl with the broken cheekbone, “Look, I know the Living Circle Water temple is an eknub place, but the healers work for free and I’ve done all their medicines. You won’t have to pay so much as a copper dav. They’ll have someone who can do broken bones. It’s on the Street of Wells—let them know you talked to Briar Moss.”

He knew they wouldn’t go right away. By dawn, though, the painkilling balm he’d put on their hurts would wear off. They might decide even a visit to an eknub who was mad-brained enough to work free of charge was better than the ache of broken bones.

It was nearly midnight when the Viper tesku Ikrum and the three who had tried to capture Evvy made their reports to Lady Zenadia, who had returned late from a family supper. She heard them out in silence, though she smiled briefly when Ikrum described the first attacks on the Camelguts. Of the four Vipers, he was the only one unmarked by the day. Orlana’s, Sajiv’s, and Yoru’s faces glistened with burn salve. They still wore the clothes that Evvy had decorated with burn holes.

“An exciting day,” remarked the lady when Ikrum finished. “I hope that my other Vipers continue to harry the Camelguts.”

Ikrum bobbed his head. “Just as my lady ordered, cutting them out of the pack and giving them glory with these.” He stroked the blackjack thrust into his sash. “We haven’t talked to them yet about joining, though.”

“You must judge when the time is right to make an offer,” the lady replied. “With only a few down, they are most likely of a mind to fight. They will have to take more casualties before they will see where their best interests lie. Now, these two.” She pointed to Orlana and Yoru. “You will find the girl-child Evvy again. Follow her—do not try to take her now. In due time, we shall find a way to make her eager to join us. You two and Ikrum have my leave to go. Sajiv, I desire a private word.”

Once they were gone, the lady sat up on her couch, resting her sandaled feet on the courtyard tiles. “Sajiv,” she murmured, her voice soft and musical. “How you have disappointed me! Two errors in as many days—am I supposed to accept this?”

His forehead still pressed to the tiles, Sajiv muttered, “Not my fault.”

“But surely you can see that it is hard to assign blame elsewhere,” she said reasonably. “First you allow your nose ring, which I gave to you, to be taken by three mere thukdaks. Then you and two others who have never disappointed me fail to capture a girl I wish to meet. Do you see where I might be forced to wonder at your contribution?”

Sajiv forgot himself and glared up at her. “The astrologer said this week was not a good one for me.”

The lady clenched her hands. “Do not talk to me of astrologers!” she said sharply. “Only dirt-people who will be useless all their lives heed their babble. It serves as an excuse to avoid trying to better oneself, and I have no patience with it!”

Sajiv sat up on his knees, pale with rage. “Toss you and toss your patience!” he snarled. “You with your airs and jewels, telling us how to be a gang when you was never bound in your life!” He thrust out his right arm, pointing to a pair of deep puncture scars through the back of his hand and his palm. “I paid in blood to be a Viper—you never paid, you never will! We’re your festering toy whilst your own kids chase gold and power for themselves! You got Ikrum believing you’ll make us kings of Chammur, but you don’t fool me, and you don’t fool some of the others!”