Dangerous Games

Chapter 5

Three assailants or nine didn't matter to Sunbright, as long as he had Harvester in his hand. He'd killed more than that in one bad day in the underworld.

Briefly, he wondered if he should kill this lot. Cities were fussy about brawling and fighting with blades, and apt to throw everyone in a jail cell. And since the gnome (whatever that was) had fled, perhaps Sunbright should just flit around the corner and disappear too.

Then someone grabbed his sword arm from behind, another man stabbed a knife at his face, and a woman tried to kick his shins or groin. Smart or not, the fight was on.

His brawny sword arm was trapped above his shoulder so he tensed it to keep it from being twisted, then dealt with the kicker by lashing out with his own foot, blocking her kick and knocking the knife-wielder's arm away.

The narrow street was dark, the only light was the glow from a rose-colored lamp above the tavern door. Painted by the blood-red light, it was hard to distinguish his opponents, but the man looked rawhide tough, scarred, and knotty-jawed; while the woman looked young-still wrapped in baby fat. All three were drunk, which helped. Sunbright would have to test how strong they were.

Stamping his broad, heavy boot on the woman's toes, he pushed straight back to slam his rearmost opponent against the wall. The man, young and perfumed, grunted when he hit the wall, then again when Sunbright added to his grief by smashing his left elbow deep into the dandy's soft belly. When the lad doubled, Sunbright crashed an elbow upward into his teeth. Though the barbarian cut his own bicep, he managed to get his other hand free.

The closest attacker now was the woman, who was wailing about her injured foot. Sunbright distracted her by kicking her jaw out of shape. She whirled and slammed the cobblestones, moaning.

The tough man before him, coarse and smelling of onions, had stepped back when he lost his knife. Evidently he hadn't much stomach for fighting, or else waited for the reinforcements that were spilling from the tavern. They milled drunkenly, yelling, yet Sunbright saw a knife blade, a broken bottle, two or three clubs, even a trio of slim swords. Since he was free, the barbarian thought, now was a good time to disappear around a corner. Someone might get lucky with a quick jab, but Sunbright Steelshanks could run down a deer. He could certainly outrun this lot. He cast behind and left to see if the coast was clear.

A whisper from the dark alerted him. A metallic ching pinged by his ear. He had no clue what that portended, or how to defend against it. Suddenly, a weighted chain hissed around his sword arm. Before the cold steel had even wrapped fully, the man in the street hauled. Twisted links bit the barbarian's arm, and he was yanked forward.

He crashed on one hand and knees on the cobblestones.

"Kill 'im!"

"Kick his lights out!"

"He hurt Magda!"

"I'll pay for his hands! Cut 'em off!"

"And 'is eyes! Gouge 'em out!"

Boots, clogs, and soft shoes alike thudded into Sunbright's ribs, shoulders, and rump. Two clubs batted at his head, but the attackers were getting in each others' way. Sunbright didn't stay down long. Since they expected him to roll away, he went the opposite direction, charging them in a half-crouch, one hand guarding the back of his head.

Yet even in this desperate situation he was appraising his enemy and coming up blank. This mix of villains made no sense. There were perfumed fops with fine clothes and soft hands, men and women, and coarse working folk in near-rags. Sunbright knew enough about the classes to distinguish them by their voices and slang alone. Why were so-called gentlefolk associating with riffraff? Was everyone in this city as mad as the man it was named after?

Then he crashed among them, and left off questioning their motives.

One strong man still hauled on the weighted chain that ripped skin from Sunbright's arm. The man leaned back on his heels and hauled to keep the barbarian down and tamed, like a rebellious horse. The "horse" fought back. Since the chain-wielder was the greatest danger, Sunbright charged him. The man fell back, still hauling, but the barbarian was faster. As soon as he got slack in the chain, Sunbright dragged back Harvester and stabbed the blade straight as an arrow. The man dodged quickly to save his throat, but not quickly enough. Harvester's barbed tip seared his neck. He yowled once and dropped to one side, and Sunbright smelled blood like sheared copper and knew he'd delivered a killing blow.

Shaking off the coils of chain, the barbarian whirled on the rest And was smashed on his sword wrist by an iron-wrapped club.

The blow was perfect, completely stunning Sunbright. Harvester clanged on cobblestones. Others had fallen back. One young fop doubled over, vomiting stale beer at the smell of blood. But someone yelled to rush him and surged in. More than one would die in this street, the barbarian knew. It mustn't be him, lamed hand or not.

Scanning the red-splintered darkness, he inventoried his opponents' weapons. His right hand was numbed, perhaps broken, and pain flashed up and down his arm like a forest fire. He couldn't make a fist, but he could slap with it. His left hand snatched up the dwarven warhammer, almost forgotten in its belt holster, in time to block a jab at his gut. He batted a club aside with a clack, stepped back, kicked, and forced his opponent back temporarily. He stooped to retrieve his sword left-handed, but someone hurled a bottle at his head and he fell over in a squat. The hurler laughed and jumped to kick, then yelped when she sliced her soft shoe on Harvester's keen edge. Sunbright kicked to his feet.

A shadow crowded him, thrusting awkwardly with a long sword. He turned into the thrust, let the slim blade pass under his right arm, and clamped down on it. The wielder, an incompetent who shouldn't even carry a sword, tugged to free the blade. Sunbright snapped the warhammer at his face, felt a satisfying chunk of iron on bone, and the swordsman staggered. Sunbright ducked behind him as the crowd half-rushed, half-hung back. The woman in the silken cape who'd cut her foot thrust angrily with her sword, and skewered her broken-nosed drinking buddy.

She yelped, "Sorry, Jules!" but Sunbright heard the sob of a sucking wound: a lung puncture. He propelled the stricken man against the swordswoman. They tangled with each other and fell.

He still had to retrieve his sword, but still had to watch his back, so he angled for the stone wall. Stooping his great height-he was half a head taller than all of them-confused them long enough for him to move. Along the way, he smashed the warhammer on a thug's hand and club, downward so the man beat his own knee. Sunbright shouldered him into the crowd too. It helped that the fops panicked and milled, and the thugs cursed. As he thumped against the wall, someone whisked a knife at him, but he sidestepped and the blade snapped on stone. He punched awkwardly, left-handed, skinned his knuckles on a brow ridge, then punched higher and bowled the man over.

Not bad for an unarmed, one-handed barbarian against nine street toughs (or toughs and fops), but he couldn't fight forever. If he could circle, kick, and punch clear to his sword, he'd reckon it a good night's work.

Then light spilled around the corner like daylight, a half-dozen gasglobes lined with mirrors.

A commanding voice hollered, "Right! Everyone stay where you are! Hands in sight! We're the city guard!"

In a city of madmen, Sunbright thought, this could be bad.

After the darkness, the glare was blinding, and Sunbright hunched one shoulder and turned away-though he still tracked the mob.

His guesses made in semidarkness proved true. The contrast between the street toughs and the fops was enormous. There were four street toughs: three men and a woman, and five young fops, two of them girls. The toughs wore cast-off clothing, ripped and ragged, work boots and clogs, though two were barefoot. They were tough as rawhide, sharp-boned and skinny as starved wolves after a long winter. They'd probably never had a decent meal in their lives. The fops had brocaded shirts, silk neckerchiefs, small, elegant hats with feathers or pearls, satin capes, tight breeches made of some material with a high sheen, and hand-crafted shoes of red or yellow leather. Perfumed, painted with eye makeup and face powder, with the softness of baby fat still upon them, they looked like mischievous children dressed up and let out to play.

Not everyone was upright. One thug lay on his back, his neck sheared by Harvester's tip, his life's blood a pool on the cobblestones. The drunken fop, the poor swordsman, lay groaning and clutching his chest where the girl had accidently punctured him. She squatted to comfort him, then nagged him for getting in her way. Others had walking wounds. Sunbright had scored half a dozen hits.

Yet the tundra dweller still couldn't understand. Why would privileged brats hang with footpads? Surely they didn't need the money: their clothing could have bought out a marketplace. Was this some perverted sort of bounty hunt?

The six city guards wore polished lobster-tail helmets, blue-green tabards, and metal breastplates adorned with the fancy K sigil. They carried short swords on their belts and silver-tipped clubs in their hands. Nor did he miss the braided red cords tucked into their belts: lashings for recalcitrant prisoners, no doubt.

"Weapons down, or you're dead!" the captain of the guards bellowed. Clubs and knives clanked. But as the gasglobes illuminated the street, the officer refined his manner, became almost gentle. "Now, then. What's all this?"

A fop in a yellow shirt and red cape spoke right up. "This beast attacked us! Look here, he's stabbed Jules!"

The bald lie stunned Sunbright. He should have run when he had the chance. The guards surveyed the damage, dismissed the dead thug with a sniff, helped stem the bleeding of the punctured boy, and sent a young guard running for a stretcher. The captain stamped a foot on Harvester, studied Sunbright curiously, so much so that the barbarian wondered how many of his kind they saw in Karsus.

"You were just out walking with your friends," the captain stated as if from memory, "and this rogue jumped you. Is that it?"

"Yes, exactly," lied the boy. He sniffed, drew his cape closer, which made him sway drunkenly. He added, as if by rote, "We'd be obliged if you'd handle the matter, captain." With no shame at all, he handed over a fat purse of blue velvet.

"What about these?" asked the captain, nodding at the three remaining thugs.

Another sniff. "Never saw them before. They were probably helping him, lying in wait for us, to rob us."

"You hired us!" objected a scar-faced footpad. "You needed muscle for your hellraising! You ordered us to kick that bloke to death, and knock down that gnome-"

His words cut off as a silver-tipped club smashed his teeth in. He staggered back and another club crashed above his ear and felled him. Other guards waded in, taking turns smashing him down as if threshing wheat. The thug's face was pulped to bloody gobbets. A fop turned and puked up her ale.

"Keep your place! Don't argue with your betters!" chided the captain, though the thug was long dead by then. As he pocketed the purse, the officer addressed the fop. "My apologies, young master…"

"Hurodon," snapped the lad, "son of Angeni of the House of Dreng in the Street of the Golden Willows."

"Oh, yes, sir. I know that neighborhood well. Fine people live there. But down here the streets aren't as safe as they should be, and it's our fault. We'll redouble our efforts from now on. Please don't let this unpleasantness spoil your evening."

"Certainly not!" laughed the fop. "The night is young, and we'll have plenty of fun yet! Come on, friends!"

Prepared, the guards yanked the tired thugs' hands behind their backs, lashed their wrists with the red cords, and shoved them to their knees. Two strong men arrived in light blue tabards that sported red K sigils, and they bundled the stricken Jules off on a stretcher.

"Wait!" Sunbright had been rendered speechless by this calumny, by so obvious a bribe, such a callous abuse of privilege by this fop, and such a barbarous beating, the most brutal he'd ever seen, on or off the battlefield. Now the objection was ripped from him. "You'd let these rich snots go free after they hired these thugs to kill people? What kind of blasphemous, decadent hole is this city-"

Words were useless. The fops pranced off, laughing with excitement and the joy of buying justice. The guards encircled Sunbright slowly, clubs bobbing in the air. Harvester lay in the street behind them. Sunbright had only a warhammer in his off hand, and a wounded right that throbbed as if a badger had gnawed it. The captain intoned, "Keep your place. Don't argue with your betters," platitudes to distract him. Clearly, they intended to beat him to death.

Just as clearly, he couldn't defeat these canny killers in uniform. His brain raced for a defense. Instinctively, he grasped what he'd seen succeed moments before, when the fop invoked privilege.

"Captain, know that I'm a guest of Karsus."

One guard snorted, but the captain paused. Obviously he didn't know who Sunbright was. He spat, "Prove it, then."

Gritting his teeth, Sunbright played the game. "I and another wizard named Candlemas were brought here from Castle Delia, by Karsus's command, because we unearthed a shooting star. Karsus needs it for his experiments. We're to give him information on finding the star. I've talked with one Seda, in his workshops. You can ask anyone there."

"I know Seda," muttered a guard. "From the House of Zee. She does work in Karsus's close circle."

Still unsure, the captain frowned. But the magical name had worked. He nodded toward the wider street beyond. "Very well, good sir. Go, and good luck to you. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Wary as a cornered lion, Sunbright slid along the wall until clear of their semicircle. Slipping the war-hammer into its holster, he watched the guards as he picked up Harvester and backed into the main street.

His precautions were unnecessary. The guards had already forgotten him and had fallen to other work. As the captain divvied up the bribe, two guards slipped the braided cords over the heads of the two surviving thugs. Their bleats were cut off as the garrotes snuggled tight. Bug-eyed, the unlucky street toughs strangled.

Sunbright cursed as he sped off down the street, bloody sword in hand, after a certain foppish wretch.

He had debts to pay.

Hurodon and his well-dressed friends whooped with delight, carolled songs, and hurled jokes as they cut through a park lined with trees and gasglobes. They aimed for a brightly-lit ale shop at the opposite corner, but were interrupted.

A thick bush at Hurodon's elbow split open as if from a charging lion. A girl yelped, a boy cried out.

Sunbright Steelshanks burst from the foliage to grab Hurodon by the throat. The fop gargled as he was whipped off his feet and slammed against a rough-barked oak tree. His gang of friends dithered, drew their toy swords, yelled.

The barbarian's harsh cough cut them off. "Attack me, or call out, and I'll snap his neck!" He was panting from his quick run around vast blocks to get ahead of the party. His right hand, still numb, was tucked in his belt. He only needed one hand to tame this bunch.

Yet looking at them, he couldn't follow through on his plan, which was to kill them all. Certainly they deserved to die for their casual cruelty. They'd killed their hired thugs as surely as the guards had. But they were young and raised wrong, like puppies let loose to become wild dogs. Perhaps they could learn.

Hurodon hissed, "Let me go, you filthy muckraker, or I'll have you-"A squeeze cut off his wind.

In the lout's face, Sunbright rasped, "You sneaking milk-sucker! You nest-robber! You cache-thief!" Sunbright's tundra-born insults were lost on the boy, but not the berserker's intent. "You were born wrapped in sable! You think you can buy people's lives with your filthy coin?"

"I'll buy your death!" gasped the boy. "You'll be roasted over-"

Sunbright let go just long enough to backhand the boy, whose head snapped around so hard his ear was torn by rough bark. Then he was clamped and throttled again.

"You'll need to buy a new nose once I slice yours off and throw it to the dogs!" Sunbright assured him.

Never before manhandled, and always given what he wanted immediately, the boy blundered on, "You're a ghost, underling! My family will see you-"

This time Sunbright smashed him in the mouth hard enough to knock out a front tooth. Choking him again, so blood and makeup ran from the boy's mouth onto the barbarian's wrist, Sunbright shouted, "I'll knock out every tooth and then cut out your lying tongue!"

Finally, the boy was scared. Before, Hurodon couldn't imagine anyone hurting him, and now he realized that Sunbright was going to kill him then and there. But it was too late for Sunbright to kill him now, for the barbarian had decided to talk instead. Maybe he could teach this petty thug a lesson in honor. "Now, fish guts, for once in your miserable life you'll listen!"

Hurodon got the message. Mouth swollen and bleeding, he whimpered, "All right. But don't hit me again."

Sunbright was sickened both by his own actions and this poor excuse for a human. Yet he bore down. "You-and you lot too-you get yourselves back to the Street of the Golden Willows and you stay there! You're worse than those backstabbing blackguards you hired for your hellraising and left to die. They've been punished-at your behest-while you've gone on to more mischief. But you're lower than they, for you betrayed them, and that's the worse crime!"

Hurodon wiggled, and Sunbright shook him like a rat. Some of his friends couldn't meet Sunbright's glare.

The barbarian continued, "No longer. If I ever see any of you out after sunset again, I'll slit your throats and drop you off this mountain. Understand?"

"Yes," some of them murmured. Hurodon dripped warm blood on Sunbright's hand. He dropped the stripling onto the tree roots and, without another word, stalked off into the darkness.

His words were bluster, of course. He had no intention of tracking these dung beetles. But they'd sleep uneasily for a while, and might curb their ruthless hellraising in the future.

But not all. From far behind came Hurodon's mushy wail. "I'll get you! I'll see you dead! And all your family dead! I'll buy the finest assassins in the empire!"

Sunbright only shook his head. "Karsus's finest assassins and its finest youth," he said to himself. "This empire is naught but a rotten melon infested with insects. One good kick would crush it. And will."

He was more angry with himself than with the spoiled brats. This city life was infecting him, making him grow soft, for he'd committed the second-worst crime a barbarian knew.

He'd left an enemy alive.

Passing the narrow street where he'd fought, Sunbright paused a moment in curiosity.

The city guards had been efficient, at least. They'd laid the four bodies of the thugs at the head of the street, neatly in a line, heads out, even the pulped head of the man they'd beaten to death.

A bony mule hauling a long-sided wagon clomped to a stop near them. An old man and woman, both wearing gasglobe helmets, got out. Together they dragged the bodies and heaped them in the cart. The red lamp of the alehouse glowed as bloodily as before, and the noise from inside it was just as loud.

"What are you doing?" Sunbright asked.

"Eh?" The old man tilted his head. Sunbright asked again, louder. "Oh. Cleanup crew, milord. The local waste buckets are too small to swallow a body. We have 'ta take 'em to a locked room and drop 'em down there."

"Waste buckets? Locked room?"

The old man peered, as if to ask: where are you from? But he minded his betters. "Yes, milord. The city guard don't want no one stuffin' folks down the garbage chutes. So we take 'em to a locked stoneroom and slide 'em down there. The magic eats 'em up, makes more magic. Nothing left."

Sunbright still didn't understand how magic "ate one up," but it didn't surprise him the empire would feed on magic generated by its dead. A form of cannibalism, he reckoned it.

"Do you do this every night?"

"Eh? Oh, yes, milord. All night, every night. But we gotta be off the streets by sunrise or the straw bosses scream. But me and Mandisa, we're slow, but steady. Still, we gotta be off soon…"

"Why soon?"

"Oh," the man avoided his eyes, fussed with the dead men and woman in the cart. The old woman shuffled slowly, helmet lamp making a white blob bounce on the ground, and sorted through the trash on the street for anything valuable. "Some nights the city's more boisterous than others, is all. There's what, nineteen cleanup crews, all told. We're busy, but glad for the work."

Sunbright supposed they were. This man looked as starved as the bodies he'd loaded onto his cart. He didn't understand what "boisterous" might mean, but a casual comment had arrested his attention. "Nineteen teams work all night, every night, just to pick up corpses?"

"Aye, milord. 'Course, that's just the poor 'uns, you understand. Strangers or folks no one cares to give a funeral to. Good families take care of their own, of course. Some of 'em are even buried down on the ground, I hear tell. Now look at that, ain't that curious?" He took hold of a white object suspended around one tough's neck and broke the thong. Peering, waggling his head lamp, he still couldn't see, so he handed it to the barbarian. "What is that, good sir?"

Sunbright took the thing. It was yellowed by sweat and grime, but polished from lying between the dead man's skin and clothing. "It's a hunk of knucklebone. Too big for a deer's."

The old man waved a crooked hand. "Good luck charm. Worthless. Keep it. Ready, Mandisa?" He helped his wife climb onto the seat with creaking knees, checked that their next stop, according to the guards, was the Street of Lilacs.

As he clucked to the old mule, Sunbright asked, "Can you point me to Castle Karsus?"

The man squinted, nodded with the reins, indicating a yellow-lit structure high up in the distance. Sunbright nodded: he should have known. Of all the odd buildings in this city-state, it was the only one with tilted walls that met at odd angles.

The old man said another curious thing. "You better be off the street by sunrise yourself, young master. Rumors are milling again…"

"Rumors of what?"

"Oh, troubles in the marketplace. Same old same old…" The deaf man slapped the reins and rolled away.

The barbarian found himself still clutching the knucklebone, the only artifact left of a man he'd killed for no clear reason, except that the man had tried to kill him. Somehow, it didn't seem a good enough reason right now. He pocketed the polished bone and trudged on.

His opinion of the empire sank lower with every new sight, if such were possible. Before the doorway of a large meeting hall, citizens had dragged a man with pointed ears by his hair, lashed him to a signpost, and doused him with strong liquor, probably brandy, for when they applied a torch, the man (or half man) ignited, to die screaming while the crowd cheered.

Sunbright saw it all in the length of a block. His legs wanted to run that way, but he stood rooted. There were fifty or more villains, yowling men, and shrill women. He couldn't save the victim, could only get himself killed. Wondering what had become of his pride, or common sense, he trudged until the flaming pyre was past. Farther on, he saw a man and woman sprawled in the gutter, their throats cut, their clothing looted. He saw starved horses hitched to glittering coaches, saw a row of gap-mouthed heads spiked on iron pilings around a park, some of them children's. He saw more children pick through garbage and fight with dogs for a bone, and city guards chase both with silver-tipped clubs.

There was no end to the corruption of the empire, he saw. It was built on the bones of the unjustly-treated dead, and the hunched backs of the dying living.

Back in opulent Castle Karsus, Candlemas was learning the opposite. And the same.