Jay Kristoff - Darkdawn

O, he’d picked the winner, all right. Even the bookman who took the bet had told him he was thinking with his cock, but watching the gladiatii known as the Crow slice her former collegium mates to bloody chunks, Cloud had found himself admiring her form along with her legs. So confident had he been of the lass’s abilities, he’d wagered every coin he’d won over the previous five turns of bloodsport on her victory, along with a bunch more coin he truthfully couldn’t spare.

As the Crow had carved her way towards triumph in the final match, Cloud had been on his feet, hollering and howling with the rest of the mob. When she’d struck the final blow against the Unfallen, Cloud had danced a jig on the spot, grabbed the nearest comely lass and planted a kiss square on her lips (returned rather enthusiastically), which resulted in an all-in brawl with the lass’s sweetheart, a dozen of his friends, half of Cloud’s crew, and a hundred other punters who simply wanted a good dose of fisticuffs after a hard turn’s carnage. Truthfully, it’d been absolutely marvellous.

But then along came the first dose of the unexpected.

He’d watched it happen in slow motion. The Crow drawing her hidden blade on the victor’s plinth. Slicing the cardinal’s throat clean through. Stabbing the consul in the chest (or so he and half the crowd had imagined, anyway). Blood flowing like cheap plonk at a Liisian wedding. And even though the rest of the crowd fell to wailing, baying, panicking, watching that greasy fucker Duomo go down in a puddle of his own shit and blood, Cloud Corleone had found himself cheering at the top of his lungs.

The next dose of the unexpected had arrived in short order.

It’d taken Cloud almost an hour to shove his way to the bookman’s pits to collect his winnings, still riding high on the sight of the cardinal’s messy end. It was there that the scoundrel was informed by a scowling pack of Itreyan legionaries that because a slave had just topped the fanciest bastards in the whole bloody Republic, all bets were null and void. It wouldn’t do, you see, to profit from the death of the consul and grand cardinal at the hands of human property.

Cloud was tempted to inform the soldiers exactly what flavour of bastard the good cardinal actually was in life, but looking into their eyes, listening to the budding chaos in the city around him, he decided making a fuss would only make for further fuss. And so, with a flip of the knuckles towards the bookman’s shit-eating grin, the captain and his crew headed back to the harbour with tragically empty pockets.

With all the fistfights and fuckarsery and Scaeva’s announcement of his miraculous escape from the assassin’s blade in the forum (Cloud could’ve sworn she’d stabbed him clean), it took another three hours to make it back to the Bloody Maid . And now, in the office of one Attilius Persius, harbourmaster of Godsgrave[fn2], the final oddity in Cloud’s eventful turn had arrived in the form of the aforementioned Sister of Tsana.

Cloud had been putting the last touches on the Bloody Maid ’s paperwork and giving Attilius a friendly heaping of shit (his wife had recently given birth to their sixth daughter, poor fucker) when the nun had marched into the office, shoved Cloud aside, and slapped a hefty bag of coin down on the countertop.

‘I need passage to Ashkah. Swift, if it please you.’

She couldn’t have been more than eighteen, but she looked a few years harder. Dressed all in snow white, a coif of starched cloth and voluminous robes that flowed to the floor. Her cool blue eyes were fixed on the harbourmaster, her lips pressed thin. She was Vaanian, tall and fit, what appeared to be blonde hair dyed with henna peeking from the edge of her coif. Cloud idly wondered if her carpet matched her curtains.

In the doorway behind her stood a hulking fellow shrouded in dark cloth. A Trinity of Aa (of rather middling quality, Cloud thought) was strung around his neck, several suspiciously sword-shaped bulges were hidden under his robes.

Cloud shivered a little. The office seemed to have become cold all of a sudden.

The sister raised an expectant eyebrow at the harbourmaster.

‘Mi Don?’

Attilius simply stared, his stubbled jowls all awobble. ‘Apologies, Sister. I just … It’s not often one sees a Sister of the Sorority of Flame outside a convent, let alone in a district as rough as the Nethers.’[fn3]

‘Ashkah,’ she repeated, clanking her coin. ‘This eve, if possible.’

‘We’re headed that way,’ Cloud said, leaning against the counter. ‘Stormwatch first, then Whitekeep. But after that, through the Sea of Swords and on to Ashkah.’

The nun turned to regard him carefully. ‘Is your ship a swift one?’

‘Swifter than my heart beats looking into those pretty eyes of yours, Sister.’

The nun rolled the aforementioned eyes and drummed her fingers on the countertop. ‘You’re trying to be charming, I assume.’

‘Trying and failing, apparently.’

‘How much for our passage?’ she asked.

‘“Our” passage?’ Cloud glanced at her hulking companion. ‘I didn’t know it was habit for Sisters of the Virgin Flame to travel in the company of men?’

‘Not that it is any of your concern,’ the sister replied coolly, ‘but Brother Tric is here to ensure nothing ill befalls me on my travels. As the murder of our beloved Grand Cardinal Duomo illustrates, Aa bless and keep him, these are dangerous times.’

‘O, aye,’ Cloud nodded. ‘Terrible shame about good Duomo. Cleaves the heart, it does. But you’re safe aboard the Bloody Maid, Sister, you’ve no fear of that.’

‘No.’ She gave a meaningful glance to her thug. ‘I don’t.’

’Byss and blood it’s cold in here …

‘How much for passage, good sir?’ she asked again.

‘To Ashkah?’ Cloud asked. ‘Three hundred priests ought to suffice.’

In the background, the harbourmaster almost choked on his goldwine.

‘That seems … excessive,’ the sister said.

‘You seem … desperate,’ Cloud grinned in reply.

The nun glanced at the big fellow behind her. Pressed her lips thinner.

‘I can give you two hundred now. Two hundred more when we reach Ashkah.’

With a smile that had earned him four confirmed bastards and Daughters knew how many more besides, Cloud Corleone tipped his tricorn hat and extended his hand to the sister.

‘Done.’

A bigger hand engulfed his. It was stained black with what must’ve been ink, and it belonged to the large fellow. His grip was hard enough that Cloud could hear his knuckles grinding together. And it was cold as tombs.

‘DONE,’ the fellow said, in a strange, oceans-deep voice.

The captain pulled his hand free, flexed his fingers open and closed.

‘What name should I call you by, Sister?’

‘Ashlinn,’ she replied.

‘And you, Brother?’ He glanced at the big bastard. ‘Tric, I heard?’

The fellow simply nodded, features hidden in the shadows of his hood.

‘You have baggage?’ Cloud asked. ‘I’ll have my salts load—’

‘We have all we need, Captain, thank you,’ the sister replied.

‘Well,’ he said simply, snatching up the laden purse. ‘Best follow me, then.’

He led the pair out of Attilius’s office, down the crowded boardwalk, feeling the jitters in the air. He could see at least twenty other ships making ready to put out to the blue, the calls and cries of their crews echoing across the harbour. The whole city was of a mood after Scaeva’s announcement – overjoyed the new imperator had taken control of the situation, but dismayed at the cardinal’s murder. Cloud was glad to be leaving the city for a spell.