PD.2.10 (Patreon)

The line of light under the door thinned again when he moved. Voices blurred into one low rumble. Cups thumped. Someone laughed too loud, probably on a winning hand. He let that sound sit behind him and turned to the corridor.

The hallway ran short and narrow. Three doors on one side, two on the other, and at the end an angle that led back toward the rear of the house. After the last doorway, the boards ran a short stretch more before giving way to a strip of cold stone in front of the back door. An iron bracket jutted from the wall halfway down, its lamp dark. Thin light leaked in from the main room and died before it reached the far end.

He walked to the nearest door and tried the handle. It turned. Inside, a cramped room held a bed, a table, and a crate that served as a chair. One set of boots lay on their side near the wall. A coat slumped over the crate. The bed held a man on his back, mouth open, breath rattling hard. One arm sprawled across his chest. Ouz stood in the doorway and listened.

The man’s breathing dragged and hitched, thick with drink. No one else moved. No one else shared the room. If the house woke wrong, that man would wake too. He would reach for the knife at his belt, shout for others, crash into the hall at an angle Ouz could not see.

Noise drew noise. Ouz stepped inside. His boots found the gaps between the worst boards, his weight placed where the planks held firm. Without Dead Step, every board here would have complained. The man on the bed shifted once, breath catching, but did not wake. Ouz moved to the bedside, set one knee on the straw, and clamped a hand over his mouth.

The eyes shot open. They never had time to focus. The knife slid under the ribs and up. He felt the small jump in the man’s throat against his palm when pain finally reached him, then the slackness that followed. Ouz held on a moment longer.

When he let go, the man’s arm slipped from his chest and dangled over the bed edge. The candle on the table threw just enough light to touch the mattress; anyone in the hall would see only shadow. He wiped the knife on the blanket and straightened.

On the table near the wall, a candle burned low in a stub of wax jammed into a chipped cup. He pinched the wick with damp fingers. The room dropped into full dark, shape only. He left the door open behind him and went back into the hall.

He took the doors in order.

The second door opened on a room stacked with crates. The smell of dried fish and old grain pressed out at him. Shelves ran along the walls; bottles and jars lined them. A small oil lamp burned on a crate near the door.

He took the lamp down, blew it out, and set it near the threshold. His hand brushed a small glass bottle. He picked it up and turned it in his fingers. The liquid inside moved slow and thick.

He tugged the cork with his teeth and sniffed. Oil. Thin enough to pour. Strong enough to cling. He pushed the cork back in and slipped the bottle into his coat.

On the shelf above, a line of cloudy bottles waited, some stained dark near the neck. He picked three and tucked them under his arm. He left that door open too.

The next room held a pair of bunks and a bucket in the corner. Empty. No lamp burned inside. He checked under the lower bed and behind the door. He moved on.

At the end of the hall, the wood changed under his feet. Boards gave way to stone. The rear door waited there, a dull rectangle of dark with a bar across it. He lifted the bar and eased the door open a hand’s width. Cold night air slid over his face. The yard lay unchanged. The table, the slumped man with his cheek on the wood, the two bodies on the ground. It would not stay that way.

He stepped out and pulled the door in behind him until it was almost closed. He wrapped the first bottle in a strip of cloth he had taken from one of the yard coats and brought it down on the stone step. The fabric took the sting out of the crack. Glass still broke in a dull pop, and shards scattered over the packed earth.

He crouched and gathered the larger pieces with care, turning them until he found the sharpest points. He carried the glass back inside. He stopped on the stretch of hall between the last door and the back way to the yard, where the boards still ran underfoot before yielding to stone. He crouched there and pushed the sharpest shards into the gaps between the planks, tips angled up, waiting for the first heel that ran that way. A careless foot would find them first.

The next two bottles he broke the same way and fed the shards into the wood until the strip in front of the threshold bristled.

He wiped his hands on his trousers and looked at the bodies. They lay where they had fallen. Anyone with half a mind would see them the moment they stepped outside for air.

He walked to Lin’s corpse first, the one he had sat at the table. The dead man's weight sagged easily when Ouz hooked his hands under the arms. He half carried, half dragged him across the yard to the back door and nudged it open with his shoulder. A short strip of stone took his first steps inside. Beyond that, the boards began again, seeded with the glass he had left there. He walked the path twice more in his head before he moved, marking the gaps where his own boots would land. He set his boots down between the shards as he hauled the body along the hall.

He pulled the body along the corridor to the first empty room and sat him down with his back against the wall, legs stretched in front. From the doorway, in the dark, it would look like someone who had slid down for a moment’s rest. He did the same with the other two from the yard.

One ended up in the storage room, propped on a crate, head tipped back, looking like he had fallen asleep sitting up. The other went opposite, near the bunks, shoulders against the bed frame, chin on his chest. All three had their arms placed loose at their sides.

If anyone looked quickly into those rooms, they would see slumped shapes and nothing more, and the smell of drink would do the rest of the lying for him. From the hall, the dark swallowed the worst of it; a quick glance would catch only men and shadow. He closed none of those doors.

The night had deepened. The sounds from other houses had thinned; dogs barked somewhere far off before falling quiet. The only real noise left was the steady murmur from the gambling room.

He moved back toward the rear of the hall. He took the room nearest the back door and eased the door almost shut, leaving a strip of dark between frame and jamb. He sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

They had sent three men outside. Three had gone and not returned. The drink inside would hold some of the rest a while, but at some point thirst, curiosity, or the need to piss would push another into the hall. If another few went missing too quickly, even these men would start counting.

He let his breath slow and his mind walk through the path he had laid. Open doors. Quiet rooms. Dark hall. Glass where he had seeded it. Oil where he chose to pour it. He touched the bottle in his coat and stood.

When the house felt ready, when the noise inside shifted from riot to the slow drag of drink, he eased the door open and stepped into the hall. He stayed on the side toward the main room, keeping the glass between himself and the back door. He set his back to the wall beside the nearest doorframe and waited.

The hall lay in shadow. Only a faint glow seeped from the crack under the main room door, enough to show the line of boards and not much more. His eyes had been working in that dark for a while. The doorframes and the fall of the boards sat clear in his head now. Death’s Awareness sat behind his eyes, pricking at every small sound and weight. The hall stayed dark. The skill pushed every scrape and breath forward until the space felt mapped.

Near his feet, a dented tin cup lay on its side. The sight of it pulled a small idea together. He turned the cup upright and set it where the sound would carry. He stripped the laces from one dead man's boots and tied them together. He threaded the thin line through the cup’s handle and knotted it. The makeshift cord ran to a nail in the wall near the first empty room. From there, another length of lace he had taken from a boot ran along the floor into the shadow where he planned to wait. A small tug would tip the cup. The scrape and clatter would be enough.

He coiled the end of the lace around his fingers and stepped into the empty room closest to the main room, the first doorway off the hall, the one with no one inside.

He left the door open a hand’s width and crouched beside it, close enough to smell the old straw. He had set the cup on the far side of the room from where he meant to wait, so anyone leaning in toward the sound would turn his back to the door.

The first man came sooner than he thought. Boards complained under a heavier tread than Ouz’s. A door inside the main room opened. The hall took the new sound and carried it. Boots came along the corridor in slow, annoyed steps. Whoever it was would be stepping out of the bright and into the dark. Ouz’s eyes had already chosen the dark.

“Lin? Gouba?” a voice called. “You piss yourselves out here?”

He drew closer. The open rooms waited ahead, dark mouths along the wall. As he reached the first doorway, Ouz let out a small cough into his palm.

The steps stopped. “That you, Lin?” the man said.

He moved toward the sound, hand brushing the wall, fingers grazing the doorframe. The door swung wider with his push as he leaned in, trying to see the bed and floor. Ouz pulled the lace. The cup on the far side of the room went over. Tin met board with a flat clack that bounced off the walls.

The man turned his head toward the noise, shoulders twisting, his back square to the door. Ouz rose behind him.

The knife went in under the ear and angled forward. The man’s body locked for a heartbeat, then the weight sagged. Ouz caught him around the chest, eased him to the floor, and nudged him fully into the room.

He let the body settle on its side, arm bent under the head. In the dark it would look like another man who had drunk too much and chosen the nearest floor.

He wiped his blade on the man’s sleeve and patted down the coat and belt. His fingers found a small purse at the back, light with a few coins and nothing else. He slipped it into his own pocket and listened.

He set the cup upright again and reset the laces. The Hermit had always said you didn’t walk into trouble with only one idea in your hands.

Time stretched. After a while he slipped back into the hall. The cup could wait for another stray. For the next ones, the glass would be enough. He moved down to the last doorway before the line of shards and stepped inside, leaving the door open a hand’s width. From there he would be only a few steps from where the first foot would land.

The next two men came together. Their voices spilled into the hall before their bodies. A joke, a half-sung line of song, a complaint about the cards. They walked shoulder to shoulder, boots careless. The first man’s foot found the glass. It went in deep.

He shouted and jerked back. The sudden shift drove another shard into his heel. He grabbed the wall with a curse, hands scraping wood.

“What the fuck is wrong with you now?” the second man said.

“Something in the floor,” the first hissed. “Get a light.”

He bent to try his weight again. Blood smeared the boards in a low shine between the shards. In the thin strip of light from the main room it looked like another run of shadow. Both men stared at the floor in front of the door. Neither watched the open room beside them.

For a breath the doorway stayed empty. Then Ouz stood in it.

He stepped in close. The first man caught the movement at the edge of his vision and tried to straighten. The knife took his throat before he drew breath. The second turned toward the new shadow and met the short sword instead, point sliding in under his ribs and up.

He yanked the blade free and stepped back. Both men went down. He grabbed their collars and dragged them into the nearest room. He stacked them against the wall, legs tangled, chests pressed together. From the hall, the shadows would show only a dark heap.

He ran quick hands over belts and pockets, working by feel. One man had a narrow knife tucked at his back; Ouz slid it free and set it on the table, blade turned away. Two small purses turned up as well, light with a few coins each. He took the money and pushed the leather back where it had sat.

In the quiet that followed, the oil smell crept up from his coat. He took the bottle out and moved to the middle of the hall, to the space between the door closest to the main room and the last doorway before the glass. There, where the boards dipped from long use, he pulled the cork and poured a slow, steady run from wall to wall and back again. The hollow in the floor took it in, turning into a shallow gleam of oil that stretched across the boards. In the thin light leaking from the main room door, the wood looked only darker, not wet. He pushed the cork back in and slid the bottle into his coat.

The third group took longer. By then, the night outside had gone thin around the edges. The city held its breath before dawn, that narrow stretch when even drunks began to feel the weight of morning.

Inside, the main room still clung to its noise. Chairs scraped. Someone cursed a bad hand. A cup broke and men laughed. A chair went over harder than the rest. He heard the scrape of it, followed by an irritated voice.

“Too many gone,” the man snapped. “Check the back. If they’re lying in the mud, I’ll crack their heads myself.”

By Ouz’s count, six men had walked out and none had walked back in. If he counted the one sleeping in the back room, that made seven men already on their way to whatever gods listened tonight.

Footsteps moved. This time, three men stepped into the hallway. The thin light under the main room door pushed out around their boots, smearing their shadows in a long line over the boards.

The first two walked side by side. The third followed a few steps back, hand on the hilt at his belt, more wary than the others. Even in the weak light Ouz saw the broad line of his shoulders and the faded knot of ink at the base of his throat.

The same man who had stood in Dafu’s doorway and told him not to stare.

They came down the corridor fast, not bothering with quiet. The first man hit the oil. His boot slid out from under him. His heel slammed forward. He crashed backward into his partner. Both arms flew out, fingers clawing for anything. They went down in a tangle, blades clattering from their belts.

The third man tried to stop short. His heel found the edge of the slick instead. He windmilled once, kept his feet by luck, and jumped back a pace to steadier boards.

Ouz came out of the side room. He closed on the only pair of legs still firm. The short sword thrust low, then rose, catching the man under the ribs before he could draw his weapon. The man gasped and doubled over. Ouz shoved him aside and let him drop.

The two on the floor scrabbled for footing on the boards. One pushed up on his hands, blood and oil smearing under his palms. The other fumbled for a knife that had slid away.

Ouz stepped back just far enough to feel his shoulder touch the wall. He drew two knives. Death’s Trajectory stirred in his chest again, that quiet sense of lines and meeting points. The first knife left his fingers and buried itself in the closer man’s neck. The second flew a breath later and sank into the other’s open mouth as he started to shout.

Both bodies went still. The hall smelled of oil and metal and the first copper thread of heavy blood, thin under the staler reek of ale and smoke.

He moved quickly. He dragged the three men into the same room as the last pair and left them in a rough sprawl. The dark would hide the details. No one was sober enough anymore to count limbs at a glance.

He collected his knives from throats and jaws and wiped them clean on whatever cloth lay nearest. As he moved, he checked belts and pockets. Two more purses turned up, heavier than the first ones, and a scatter of loose coins. He took the money and left the leather where it had sat.

When he stood again, his belt and boots felt heavier. Short sword at his hip. Three throwing knives. One small blade in his sleeve. Another in his boot.

Ten men gone since he had walked away from Dafu’s door. He stood alone in the hall for a moment and let that settle. The house felt different now. The rumble from the main room had thinned. A few voices only. Cards slapped softer. Laughter came less often. If they knew what was walking their hallway, they wouldn’t be laughing at all.

He ran back through the faces he’d counted through the keyhole earlier. Ten taken, and there had still been more at the tables. His guess put another handful inside, five, maybe six, and at least one of them was the girl with the tray. She had moved too easily between tables to be only a servant. He did not plan to leave any of them standing.