Daniel Abraham - The Tyrant's Law

They pulled into port near evening, the summer sun flinging gold and crimson across the clouds. At the chain towers great fires burned, a guide to ships at sea and a warning. The air smelled of brine and smoke and the subtle homecoming scent of land and stone. Marcus found himself standing at the bow and watching the city as it fell into twilight. Windows flickered with candlelight all up the side of the mountain like an army of fireflies.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you look so content in weeks,” Kit said.

“I’m home,” Marcus said.

“I didn’t know you came from Kort.”

“Never been here before,” Marcus said. “But after that , it’s home.”

The inn sat at one end of a public square so small that only the thin cistern distinguished it from a widening of the road. Seven lanterns hung around the door, the ochre wall seeming to eat as much light as it reflected. The keeper was a Yemmu man with yellowed tusks and a friendly demeanor. Marcus stood in the street, letting Kit make the negotiations. The moon above was the blue white of snow. It was summer now, and Marcus had gone a full winter without seeing snow or feeling cold. It made time seem odd. He wouldn’t have thought that a rhythm so slow and deliberate would affect him from day to day, but looking up at the moon, he felt how much he missed cold.

The room was hardly wide enough for the straw ticking, and it had sawdust on the floor instead of rushes, but Marcus couldn’t help grinning as he lay down. Kit poured a cup of water from the earthenware jug and drank it, leaning against the wall.

“I’m not going to ask how we’re paying for this,” Marcus said, throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’m just going to be here enjoying it.”

Kit chuckled.

“I’ve proposed to the keeper that I perform in the common room. Songs. Stories. Nothing fancy, of course, since I don’t have props and the others aren’t here. But I would be surprised if I couldn’t raise enough to pay for the room and make good inroads toward a ship to the mainland.”

“Malarska?”

Kit made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat. “It’s farther south than I would like. I believe there are some fishing villages on the border of the Keshet that would serve better.”

“Borders of the Keshet,” Marcus said. “Didn’t know they had borders there.”

“I find the term has a more diffuse sense than they use in Northcoast,” Kit said, chuckling. “If you’d care to come down, it might not be a bad thing to have an ally in the crowd. Laugh in the right places. Quietly threaten the hecklers.”

“I’m in a real bed. I may never move again.” After a moment’s silence, Marcus moved his arm and squinted up. “No choice, then?”

“No choice,” Kit agreed.

After the cramped feeling that the rest of the city gave, the common room was a pleasant surprise. The wide wooden tables had benches enough for two dozen people, and a firepit—empty now except for a few blackened ends of logs—had enough for seven more. Kit sat by the empty fire, smiling and at ease as if he’d been there a thousand times before. Marcus took a place nearer the door, watching with admiration as Kit began speaking. There were sixteen people in the common room, men and women both, Firstblood and Tralgu for the most part, with two Timzinae huddling together in one corner. Their annoyance at the interruption lasted less than a dozen heartbeats, then, one by one, they turned, leaned elbows against the tables, and fell under Kit’s spell. The story was one Marcus had heard before about how Haris Clubhand had tamed the Haaverkin tribes and become the first Hallskari king. Kit’s retelling had more humor than most, and Marcus found himself enjoying the story for its own sake and joining in with the laughter more than leading it. There were no hecklers, and the keep dropped a plate of chicken legs and a mug of beer in front of him with a wink.

Marcus wondered, though, how much of Kit’s skill came from the taint in the man’s blood. When the actor lifted his hands, describing how Haris Clubhand walked up the mountain at Zanisstun with a mug full of Astin Look’s blood in his good hand and an axe strapped to his bad wrist, Marcus half believed it had happened. He knew he would shrug the feeling away once the tale was told, but in the moment it was hard to remember that it was only a story, and that sounded too much like the power the spiders held. Even after the performance ended, his rumination was so deep that he didn’t notice, when the door to the street swung open and four men in light armor stepped in, that he knew one.

“Well, Marcus Wester. As I live and breathe.”

The Jasuru man’s face had the lines of a map too detailed for its own legibility, the bronze scales falling into the folds of underlying skin. A white scruff of hair clung to the back of the man’s skull like frost hidden from the sun, and a black tongue lolled behind vicious pointed teeth. Scars from a life of violence seared the man’s thick arms and neck.

Marcus grinned.

“Merrisen Koke,” he said, standing and embracing the old mercenary captain. “God, but you’re looking old.”

“What I get for being the best,” Koke said. “No matter what contracts I take, I keep not dying, yeah? These are my boys. Terrin, Saut. That one’s Davian. You’ll have met him before at Orsen.”

“I remember,” Marcus said, taking the lieutenant’s hand in his own. “Good to see you again.”

“An honor, sir,” the young man said.

Kit stepped over from across the room, curiosity in his gaze. Marcus waved an open hand toward him.

“This is Kitap rol Keshmet. We’re traveling together.”

“A job?” Koke asked.

“Small size, high stakes,” Marcus said.

“Pay?”

“Miserable.”

“And that,” Koke said, slapping Marcus on the shoulder, “is the man I knew. You’re eating. You mind if we come join?”

“As long as I’m not paying for you.”

Between them, they took up the better part of one table. The keep’s initial surprise at his two actors falling in with fighting men washed away quickly as Koke and his men paid for sea bass in black sauce and good ale. For the better part of an hour, Koke retold the things that had happened since he and Marcus had last seen each other. Marcus traded stories of his own, many of them changed to omit details. The food was all eaten and the dishes cleared away when Koke leaned forward, his scaled fingers laced together.

“So Marcus, old friend,” he said, the softness of his tone meaning that the business discussions had now begun. Marcus felt a chill run down his back.

“Was too much to hope this was only a social call.”

“I’ve got a fair number of hired eyes in this town and one of them told me Marcus Wester had come ashore.”

“You were watching for me?”

“I was. Seems there’s people looking for you. Offering a bit of coin for information about where you are and what you’ve been up to.”

Kit’s gaze sharpened, his attention sudden and focused. The two Timzinae at the far table broke out into peals of laughter that no one at the table took up.

“Admirers or enemies?” Marcus said.

“You tell me,” Koke said. “It’s Yardem Hane.”

“Really? Imagine that,” Marcus said. He idly cracked a knuckle. “And what’s old Yardem doing these days that he wants to know about me?”

Koke’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze jumped across Marcus like he was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

“Don’t know what he wants with you. We’d all assumed he was still padding around in your footsteps trying to get square with you saving his life. Now the story is he’s hooked up with a bank in Suddapal,” Koke said.