Shadow's Son (4 page)

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."

A leader of the True Faith, supposedly sworn to vows of poverty and chastity,
keeps a house in High Town with a wife and children, and no one cares to comment. But why should they? Large sins are easily forgotten. It's the little ones that
gnaw at your soul in the lonely hours of the night.

"Of course," Ral said, "the fops up on Celestial Hill are terrified out
of their wigs that it's another movement toward rebellion."

Caim nodded, uncomfortably reminded of young Lord Robert. "If
you'll excuse me, I have business of my own with Mathias."

"I've no time for palaver myself. I'm heading out of town."

They passed each other on the stairs and Ral turned. "You know,
Caim. It's not fair."

Caim paused with a foot on the top step. "What isn't?"

Ral opened his hand and a slender throwing blade appeared, too fast
for the eye to follow. Caim tensed.

"Here we are," Ral said. "Two of the deadliest men in the city. We should
be running things, lording it up in the palace. It's all wasted on those powdered fools whose only claim is their family name." His eyes lit up as he spoke.

Caim looked down at the other man without a shred of empathy.
According to the rumors, Ral was a son of privilege who had enjoyed
many a night rutting in Low Town until his inheritance ran out. Then,
broke and desperate, he had weaseled his way into the assassination trade.
He must have found the taste to his liking, because he came back again and again between benders on Silk Street. Knifings in the merchant district in broad daylight, pregnant mistresses found floating in the
harbor-those were Ral's stock in trade.

What does that make you? A vigilante with bad dreams or a thug just smart
enough to stay one step ahead of the law?

Searching for a way to end the conversation without giving insult,
Caim decided on brevity. "It is what it is."

"I suppose so. Farewell, Caim. I'm off to a warmer clime to take care
of some business. We'll talk another time."

Not if he had any choice in the matter, Caim thought as he climbed
the last step. He was tired. He just wanted to get his money and go home.
Maybe he would take some time off. He approached the only door on the
upper floor, knocked twice, waited a heartbeat, and gave two more
knocks. He opened it without waiting for an invitation.

If Mathias acted the skinflint with his patrons below, he spared no
expense to make his living space look and feel like a mansion. Overlapping hand-woven carpets covered the floors. Silken arrays embroidered
with eastern-style hunting scenes decorated the walls, hiding the bare
panels underneath. Heavy furniture in glossy hardwoods cluttered the
room, along with marble tables and expensive bronze artwork.

Mathias came through the archway on the far side of the parlor, dressed
in a gaudy teal robe splashed with tiny golden cranes. He was a heavyset man
past his middling years. He still had most of his hair and employed dyes to
keep it black and lustrous except for a pair of silver wings brushed back over
his ears. An admission of inevitability, he called them.

"Our good friend returns from the north!"

They shook hands, and Mathias offered him a choice of seats. Caim sat
down on a high-backed chair with no armrests or cushion.

Mathias fetched a bottle and two glasses from a malachite sideboard.
"By the gods above and below, I am glad to see you back."

"Blasphemy, Mat? At your age?"

"Aye. I'm too old to care anymore what the Church thinks. What has
that prattle ever done for anybody? Nothing. But forget about that.
Everything went well, yes?"

Caim accepted a glass of amber brandy and settled back into the hard
seat. "Well enough, although trying to get anywhere in this country is becoming a right pain in the ass. The roads are a mess and tollhouses have
sprung up over every hill."

Mathias flumped onto a banquette and sloshed liquor on his expensive robe. "The realm is coming apart like an overripe melon. Every warlord who can put together a dozen half-trained men-at-arms is trying to
carve out a piece for himself. It's almost enough to make one long for the
good old days of imperial law and order. Almost."

"Anyway, I stayed in Ostergoth long enough to hear the bells ring His
Grace's departure from the world of the living before I left."

Mat lifted his glass. "To another job completed and another villain
vanquished."

Caim took a sip before setting the glass down. "I've gathered there
was some trouble in town while I was away."

"I had nothing to do with it." The rubies encrusting Mat's pinky ring
gleamed as he placed a plump hand over his flabby breast. "You know I
never touch that sort of smash-and-grab work. It's an unsavory business
and a trifle pathetic. Now we all have to suffer through a few weeks of
heightened security, but things will settle down. They can't stay on full
alert forever, eh? More brandy?"

"I'll just have my fee and leave you in peace."

Mathias smiled. "That's the man I know. All business-and business
is good!" He reached under his seat and tossed a bulging leather sack to
Caim. "Five hundred soldats, just as the contract stated."

Caim caught the bag and slipped it into his shirt.

"Not going to count it?"

"No need to. I know where you live."

"Right enough. You're acquiring quite a reputation, Caim. That's
why I know you're just the man for another job I'm sitting on."

Caim rose to his feet. "No thank you, Mat. I don't want to see anything you're sitting on. That cushion looks like it's had enough."

"It's not like you to pass up money, especially for a worthy cause."

"I'm sure. Another priest with a fetish for children, or a landlord who
squeezes every last crumb from his destitute peasants. No thanks. I'm
going to take some time off. Like you said, the city's heating up."