PD.2.11 (Patreon)

He walked to the main room door. This close, he heard individual sounds slide out of the noise. Someone counted under his breath. Someone else sang the end of a line with no tune at all. Glass rang against glass.

He stepped back half a pace. His short sword waited at his hip. He chose his knives, metal warm from his fingers. He weighed each one, feeling balance and edge. He pictured the room beyond the door as he had last seen it through the keyhole. Tables. Chairs. The angle of the nearest man to the entrance.

Dafu’s slap landed in his mind again. The sharp crack. The way the older man had staggered but not backed away. The hand that had done that sat somewhere inside now, wrapped around a cup or a pile of cards.

He wondered, for a breath, what would be left of Dafu’s shop if he walked away. Then he kicked the door open and went in with it. Wood slammed against the inside wall. Light and smoke burst out around him. The noise in the room broke into startled shouts. For a heartbeat the doorway framed him, then his weight carried him forward at an angle between the nearest table and the wall.

For a moment, no one moved. He saw them clearly. One thick-shouldered man at the nearest table, chair tipped back on two legs, hand halfway to his belt. Another by the far wall, cup in his fist. Two more at the dice corner, hunched forward. The man who had hit Dafu sat nearer the center, one leg stretched, weight lazy. The girl stood between tables, tray in hand, eyes gone narrow instead of wide.

He threw the first knife at the thick-shouldered man. It caught him clean in the throat. He toppled backward with his chair, gurgling, cup spilling foam. The second knife went to the corner of the dice table. It took a man under the eye. His hand flew up, still holding the die. He dropped out of sight. The third flew for the man with the cup near the wall and sank in under his collarbone, deep toward the heart. He slammed back into the plaster and slid down it, cup breaking in his fingers. The fourth knife found the leg of the man who had slapped Dafu in the bakery. The man had just started to push up from his chair. The blade buried itself in the meat above his knee. He shouted and went down hard, table crashing aside. Cards scattered over the floor.

By the time the fourth knife left his hand, Ouz was already a couple of steps inside, boots finding space between the tables.

The fifth man had been moving even before the first knife struck. He dropped low, shoulder hitting a bench and sending it over, rolled behind it, and came up with a blade in his hand. The girl moved with him, tray clattering aside, her fingers already closing on the hilt of a short knife hidden at her waist.

Four men lay on the floor now, three who would not rise again and one pinned there by the knife in his leg. The pinned man howled, teeth clenched around a curse as his hand reached for his wounded leg.

The last man and the girl faced Ouz. The room contracted. The ones who could not stand anymore made small sounds: choking, moaning, a broken word. The rest of the air belonged to three people.

Ouz let his breath settle into the rhythm the Hermit had drilled into him and the room sharpened.

The last man stepped around a fallen chair and brought his sword up. He held it like someone who had used it before, not just worn it to look dangerous. His stance was narrow, weight forward, blade point aimed straight at Ouz’s chest. He had seen better sword work when the Roundtable came for the Hermit; this man stood a long way beneath that, more noise than threat.

The girl came at an angle. Her knife sat low and ready, grip firm. Blood on the floor did not slow her much. She had bare feet, toes curled for balance.

Ouz shifted his footing until the doorframe no longer boxed him. His own short sword left its sheath with a short rasp. He kept the smaller blade in his left hand, elbow tucked close.

The swordsman closed first. He slashed for Ouz’s shoulder, testing reach. Ouz slipped aside, felt the wind of the steel pass close, and answered with a low cut toward the man’s thigh. The swordsman turned his leg and caught the edge on the flat of his blade instead.

The girl moved in the same breath. Her knife darted for Ouz’s ribs from the side. He twisted. Her blade scored his coat and scratched skin beneath, a hot sting rather than a deep pain. His elbow came down hard into her forearm. The knife jerked. She hissed but did not drop it.

The swordsman pressed again, swing sharper now. Steel struck steel near Ouz’s temple. Sparks jumped. The shock bit up through his arms. He brought the smaller knife up against the back of his own blade to brace it. Cheap steel bent under the strain and slipped from his grip, vanishing under the tables. The force drove his sword closer to his face. He stepped into it instead of away, closing the gap. Their forearms locked. The man’s breath stank of sour ale.

Ouz snapped his forehead forward. It met the bridge of the other man’s nose. Bone crunched. The man’s head rocked back. His grip on the hilt loosened. Ouz tore the sword aside and drove his knee up into the man’s thigh.

The girl used that opening. She came in low, knife hand cutting for Ouz’s side again, trying to get under his guard. He pivoted. Her blade slid along his ribs, just missing anything deep. He caught her wrist with his left hand, turned it, and slammed her hand down on the edge of a table. The knife clattered away. She snarled and swung with her free hand, fingers clawed for his eyes.

His short sword punched forward. It sank under her collarbone and down. Her breath left in a choked sound. Her body folded over the blade. He stepped back and let her slide off it to the floor.

The swordsman staggered in again. Blood ran down from his broken nose, over his mouth and chin. He swung high, wild now, strength over form.

Ouz ducked under the swing. He brought his sword up in a tight arc that opened the man from hip to rib. The man’s breath came out in a harsh burst. He dropped his own blade and pawed at his side, fingers slipping on blood. Ouz stepped in close and pushed his sword once more, higher, under the ribs this time. The man’s knees went loose. Ouz pulled free and let him fall.

Silence took the main room in pieces. Cups lay on their sides, contents soaking into the floor. Cards drifted in spilled drink and blood. The dice rested where they had fallen, one showing a single dot.

Ouz stood in the center, chest lifting and falling, sword hanging low at his side. The cut along his ribs smarted. Sweat stung where the skin had opened. He already knew it would not slow him. He turned.

The man who had hit Dafu lay on his back among the wreckage of his table. One leg stuck out at an angle, knife buried to the hilt above the knee. His hands pressed around the wound. Blood seeped between his fingers and pooled under his thigh. His eyes had found Ouz. Fear fought with rage there.

Ouz walked toward him, each step steady on the wet floor. The man tried to push himself back with his good heel, dragging his wounded leg. The movement smeared blood in a wide arc.

“Who are you?” he rasped.

Ouz let a breath slip out through his nose. He didn’t answer. He set the flat of his sword against the man’s thigh and wiped the blade clean on his trousers, slow enough that their eyes never broke apart. The man flinched but didn’t pull away.

The house around them creaked softly, boards settling under new weight. The night outside leaned close to listen.

He thought of the flour dust on Dafu’s apron and the way the baker had kept working with his lips split. Dafu had drawn his own line with an open hand instead of a blade. This man had answered it with a slap. Ouz looked down at him and decided the line would end here. The man lay half propped against broken wood, coat fallen open over a plain shirt. A throwing knife jutted from his thigh, its hilt dark with blood. Sweat ran along the scars on his shaved scalp.

Ouz’s gaze drifted to the man’s right hand, the one that had slapped Dafu. He could still hear the sound.

“I know you,” the man said. His voice rasped through broken teeth. “You’re the kid from the bakery, right?”

Ouz did not answer. His eyes flicked to the man’s face for a breath and went back to the right hand. The fingers shook. Blood from the thigh wound had run down to the boot and formed a small pool, yet that hand still looked ready to grab, to hit, to take.

The man swallowed. “I’ll leave him alone. I promise. I promise I’ll leave him alone.”

Ouz listened to the words and let them slide past. Men like this always had promises. Work waited in every street. Walls needed repair. Wagons needed pushing. Grain needed lifting. He could have done any of that. Instead he lived in places like this, leaning on the weight of men beside him, hurting people who kept their heads down and worked. He had helped kill Dafu’s son. He had walked into the shop and laid hands on a man who had done nothing.

Ouz watched him and felt no reason to speak. His shoulders moved in a small breath. He shifted his grip on the sword.

“You know who I am?” the man said. Desperation pushed into his tone. “I’m Lubau’s bloodbrother. Once he hears what happened here, you know what happens to you and that old man and his family?”

Ouz’s eyes moved from the hand to the man’s face again.

Lubau. The name tugged at a memory. Cold wind at the city gate. He saw the city entrance again, boards stained with old ink. He saw the wanted posters in his mind, the heavy lines that marked Lubau’s cheekbones, the bounty written under the sketch.

The man in front of him did not have a poster. Lubau did. That meant something. Ouz drew a slow breath through his nose.

He had come here for a simple thing: find the men who hurt Dafu’s family and make sure they did not walk away. Now the road stretched further. A man with a price on his head ruled over men like this. That man could reach deeper into the city than this one room.

Ouz’s jaw tightened. What would the Hermit do, standing in this place?

He pictured the old man, eyes half closed in thought. The answer felt plain. The Hermit would not leave a loose threat behind. He would finish what he had started and make sure no loose piece crawled back to cause more trouble. He also would not waste a chance to pull more information out. He wasn’t the Hermit, but the lesson fit.

Ouz heard the Hermit’s voice in his memory. “There are a couple of ways to make men talk. You drown them in good wine until their tongue forgets to lie. Or you scare them and hand them a rope that looks like hope.”

Ouz shifted his weight and bent, fingers finding the edge of his right shoe. Leather rubbed his knuckles. He worked two fingers inside and closed them around a small blade he had hidden there. His last spare knife.

He drew it in one smooth line.

“Hey,” the man said. “We can talk, right? No need for—”

Ouz stepped in close and caught the man’s right wrist with his free hand and drove the small knife straight through the top of that hand into the floor. Bone resisted for a heartbeat, then parted. The blade bit into the board beneath. The man screamed. His body jolted, heel drumming on the boards. His pinned hand clawed at nothing.

Ouz waited for the first burst of sound to thin out.

“If you answer my questions,” he said, “I’ll let you go.” He heard his own promise and let it pass. The rope was for the man, not for him.

The man panted. Short, harsh breaths. “Ask. Ask, I’ll answer everything.”

“First,” Ouz said, “if I let you up, you will not bother the baker again. Or his family.”

“I promise,” the man blurted. “Promise, I swear. I swear on my blood.”

Ouz watched his eyes. Fear sat there, heavy in them. No shame. No regret. Only pain and a wish to escape it. He did not bother to speak. A man who needed other men beside him to slap one baker meant nothing on his own. Oaths from that mouth had no weight.

“Last question,” Ouz said. “Where can I find Lubau?”

The man groaned. His face twisted as another wave of pain came up from his leg and pinned hand. “You can’t find Lubau. Nobody just finds him. I can take you to him.”

“How?” Ouz asked.

“There’s a tunnel. Smuggling tunnel.” The man tried to lift his shoulders and failed. “From here. I can take you through.”

“Is that tunnel under this building?” Ouz said.

“Yes.” The answer came without pause.

Ouz let his eyes leave the man for the first time since he had driven the knife down. He glanced around the room. The main floor spread out around them, crowded with tables and overturned chairs, bodies tangled with broken glass and scattered cards. The door to the street stood behind him. The back door lay on its hinge where he had come in earlier. No open hole in the planks to a cellar. No rough-cut stone ringed in dirt. He had already walked past the outside walls. There had been no trapdoor in the yard, no covered pit.

He looked up. A staircase hugged the far wall, climbing to the second floor. He had heard no footsteps from above during the fight. No doors had opened. Empty, or full of people smart enough to stay gone. The room they stood in held no other visible door.

“Hey,” the man said. “What are you waiting for? Pull the knife out. Help me get wrapped. I’ll show you. I’ll take you to him.”

Ouz looked down at him again. The man tried a weak smile through the sweat.

“Right,” Ouz said softly.

He stepped in close, reached toward the hilt in the man’s hand as if to take it, and shifted the sword instead. One short stroke across the throat. No second cut.

Blood poured over the front of the shirt. The man gurgled, mouth opened and shut without words. The right hand twitched around the knife in the floor. The leg with the throwing blade jerked once. The sound faded into a wet rattle.

“Quiet,” Ouz said. “You’ve said enough.”

He had given the man a promise he never meant to keep. A promise to someone who wouldn’t live the hour didn’t weigh much. The man at his feet wouldn’t carry his words anywhere. He waited until the last breath rattled out, pulled the shoe knife free of the wood, and wiped it on the dead man’s coat. The throwing knife came out of the thigh with a wet sound. He cleaned that as well and set both blades back where he could reach them. At last wiped the blade on the man’s coat and straightened.

The room smelled of blood, beer, and sweat. Ouz moved from body to body, checking for movement. None of them drew breath. He searched their belts and pockets. Coins clinked into his hand. A few purses held more. He kept the money and left the rest where it lay.

At the end, he went back to the man who had called himself Lubau’s bloodbrother. He searched along the belt, under the open coat. His fingers found a small key.

He turned it in his palm. The metal felt cool, edges worn smooth from use. Nothing in this room had been locked. No doors with latches, no chests in plain sight. Which meant the lock sat somewhere out of view.

Ouz stood and walked behind the bar. Shelves lined the wall, mostly empty. A few bottles remained upright, their contents sloshing near the bottom. He pressed his palm along the boards, searching for gaps or seams that did not match. Nothing shifted.

He crouched and studied the floor. Everywhere else, the boards lay bare. Scuffed wood, stained in places by old spills. Here, inside the curve of the bar, an oval of patterned cloth covered the planks. A single rug, in a house where no one had bothered with comfort. That felt wrong.

Ouz took hold of one corner and tugged. The rug came up with a rasp, dust puffing into the air. Underneath, a square cut into the floor showed clean edges. In the center of that square, a metal ring sat beside a keyhole. He fit the key in. The metal turned with a soft click. He hooked fingers through the ring and lifted. The trapdoor came up on hidden hinges, and a breath of cooler air rose from the dark below. A ladder dropped down into the dark. A damp smell drifted up, old stone and stale air. The light from the room died a short distance below.

Ouz crossed back to one of the tables. An oil lamp lay on its side near a dead man’s hand, barely big enough for his palm, glass cracked yet intact. He righted it, checked the wick, and found enough oil left to burn. A spark from flint brought a thin yellow flame to life. He carried the lamp to the open mouth in the floor and set a foot on the first rung.

Below, a narrow passage waited, darkness running deep as it stretched out of sight.