Book 2, Chapter 27

In Frogmouth, the wind whistled up and down the canyon’s length, cooing constantly in a way Calay did not like. The noise was a distraction. The constant shiver of every branch and blade of grass was a distraction. The town was foreign enough and its plunging canyon and precarious walkways dangerous enough that he leaned upon his own powers of perception for comfort, and that wind had them all on the fritz. On his whole walk down from the cookpits to the wagonyard, his eyes leapt and jumped at every phantom movement. Apart from when the culprit was a bird or a single drunken pedestrian, the movement was always just the wind. And all the while, that shrill whisper of air against stone tickled his ears, as if beckoning him in a sentient way.

While he walked, he chewed on a sliver of dartweed he’d cut at the root, just enough to tingle his sinuses and keep him awake and alert. The danger of being so close to Nuso Rill’s territory was likely enough to inspire its own form of insomnia, but Calay enjoyed chemical reassurances when he could not rely on magickal ones.

Eber Hanley’s wagon loomed silently in the yard, a forbidding monolith with sixteen shuttered windows down either side. Adal had commented on the cannon ports when they’d passed by the first time, and now those ports were all Calay could look at. Hanley was a strange, unsettling man. Calay did not like to contemplate why such a man might need thirty-two cannons.

If nothing else, doing this favor for the Hanleys would at least lend them usable information in that regard.

Who were these people? Why were they here?

Calay had some experience with power, both wielding it himself and having it wielded against him. He’d observed the systems in Vasile, the structure that kept women like Rovelenne Talvace in power. She’d wielded it cruelly, first against the city and then against him personally. It was a different kind of violence than that of the gangs of his youth, but it functioned similarly at a basic level. He wondered what power had graced Hanley with his cannons. 

He took the two steps up to the wagon’s access hatch, then curled his fist. He didn’t hesitate, just knocked. The sound of his knocking reverberated through the wagon’s heavy wood, and the walls were thick enough they insulated any and all sound from escaping. He had no idea if anyone was even on the way until the door opened, swinging inward a scant inch.

Eber Hanley’s shrewd, wrinkle-framed eyes squinted down at him from almost a foot above. The man squinted out of the darkness like a hermit crab, then finally swung the door fully open, allowing Calay a glimpse of what lay inside: a bog-standard normal hallway.

“My apologies,” he said. “One can never be too careful.”

Calay put on a placid smile. “One cannot,” he said. “I’m the physiker Riss Chou mentioned.” He patted his gloved hand to his satchel for good measure.

“You’re a little young for a physik,” said Hanley, scrutinizing him. “But I’m sure I’m not the first to say so.”

Calay battled a reflexive snarl off his face, then simply chuffed a brief, demure laugh. It had been a while since anyone mistook him for young, but then again, Hanley looked fucking ancient. Maybe anyone on the right side of forty looked young when you were pushing what looked like eighty summers yourself.

“I started my education early,” he said. Hells, it was even true. “Now, Riss says you have a boy with a broken tooth?”

Hanley nodded, dispensing with the small talk in favour of leading Calay down the hallway in silence. With curious, ever-flitting eyes, Calay took in his surroundings as they walked. The narrow access hallway, which ran straight up in the middle of the wagon’s wheelbase, was so plainly unadorned and bare-bones it almost defied description by virtue of its boringness. It was the exact opposite of Mafalda’s wagon, no shelves or storage anywhere to be seen. It reminded Calay of a picked-clean carcass, just an empty ribcage of struts and beams. Every so often, small doors branched off into the wagon’s innards, though what lay beyond them was anyone’s guess.

Calay was loath to start up the conversation again himself, happy to engage in his silent study of the place, but there were practicalities to address.

“Do you have any—” he began to ask. He was about to say supplies on hand, curious as to whether the Hanley clan had anesthetics or even pliers to hand if the need arose.

But before he could speak another word, Hanley lifted a hand in warning. And he didn’t just lift it, he lifted it and whooshed it across the hallway, palm coming to rest mere inches from Calay’s face, level with his mouth. The only reason that withered palm did not connect with Calay’s face was Calay’s own wary, ready reflexes—he’d snatched a hand up and grabbed Hanley by the forearm before the hand could make contact. Which was fortunate for him, because Calay would have probably bit him.

“What the—” Calay began again.

Eber shushed him, hissing out a soft shhh.

Calay, perturbed, flexed his fingers warningly around the old man’s forearm. He could feel the definitions of muscle and sinew there, the loose sag of age—he’d been a venerable specimen once, but now all his meat and skin hung off him like too-large clothes. Calay could snap his ulna like a twig if he so desired it.

Hanley, knowing he was beat, instead lifted a finger to his own lips. He repeated the shhh, and it was just so fucking weird that Calay fell obediently silent by default.

Why did it matter if they spoke in the gods-damned wagon? Calay kept an ear out, wondering if there was some important orders being given that he’d accidentally over-spoke. Or perhaps there was a sermon going on somewhere. Strange, controlling types like Hanley were often religious. He released the old man’s arm, eyeballing him with a cautious squint, and they began to walk again.

Hanley only spoke when they’d reached the end of that narrow hallway, climbed a ladder to the second floor, then ascended to the third. Hanley then led him out onto an open-air observation platform shrouded by canvas tarpaulins, their lashings pulled taut against the constant canyon wind.

“My apologies,” Hanley said. “There are worshippers below who prefer their silence. I try to give it to them.”

Aha. So it was a religious thing. Calay filed that away for future reference.

“No harm done.” The edges of his mouth piqued in an even smile. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have spoken. I’m not a devout man myself, but I try to be respectful.”

Calay wondered at the worshippers: their number, their nature, the reason for their silence. But he didn’t wonder enough to ask, at least not until the business with the patient was resolved.

“I’m assuming I won’t be treating him out here…” Calay considered the platform. It wasn’t even long enough for a man to lay down.

Hanley shook his head. He wound one of his big, knobby-knuckled hands into a fist and rapped it rhythmically against the wagon’s wall. He drummed out six beats in a pattern, then waited. A short time later, six beats in the same pattern answered in kind, drummed from somewhere inside the wagon’s many-doored interior.

“The boy you’re treating has undertaken a vow of silence,” said Hanley. “We respect his wishes. We don’t speak around him.”

Calay’s eyebrows perked. “That’s a heck of a vow,” he said. “Last I heard vows of silence didn’t apply to everyone around you.”

“Ours is a special family, Mr. Maunet.”

Something about the way he said it made Calay’s skin crawl. Nobody who had a special family for normal reasons would ever phrase it that way. Still, this was a reconnaissance mission, and the things he was learning were valuable, heebie-jeebie inducing though they may be.

“I may have to ask him questions,” Calay warned.

“He won’t answer,” said Hanley.

Squinting his eyes closed for a single, frustrated moment, Calay checked himself. He exhaled, reminded himself that he didn’t have enough blood on his person to shank his way out through an entire wagon of religious loonies, then found a modicum of peace.

“All right then,” he said. “Show me to the patient.”

Hanley led him back through the wagon’s claustrophobic interior, past yet more doors. Calay had counted thirty-four doors so far, a staggering amount considering he’d only seen two of the wagon’s floors in full. There was no telling how many men Hanley had inside. Calay had yet to see a soul, but they’d known he was coming. If Hanley’s people were rivals to the Rill gang, he could see why they’d want to conceal the truth of their numbers.

“Through here,” Hanley whispered. He paused outside one of the many unmarked doors, a simple oval crafted of thick wooden planks. It bore no window, no distinguishing marks, only a simple brass handle, which Hanley fondled but did not yet open.

“We’ve been hit hard by illness of late,” he whispered. “The boy may be alarmed by your presence. I’ll do my best to calm him.”

Curious, Calay ran through his mental catalogue of maladies. Had it been something Nuso Rill’s physiks could have saved them from? How deep did that enmity run?

Hanley stepped in first, opening the door and stooping his tall frame through. It was a tight squeeze even for a man so narrow; he had to hunch severely to creep inside, moving like a spindly mantis balancing on a leaf. Calay followed through without even having to duck his head, flitting a curious glance around the room as he stepped over the threshold.

The patient’s chamber was a simple one, comfortable enough to host two sets of bunks without feeling overly cramped. A simple glass oil lamp sputtered on a squat wooden nightstand, gilding the room in gentle warm light. Calay wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting—the bare, ascetic chambers of a penitent, perhaps?—but the bunkroom was just a bunkroom. It could have existed on any of the half-dozen wagons Calay had ever set foot on, save for perhaps the chaotic clutter of Mafalda’s. For it was clean and tidy and the residents’ belongings were sparse.

Only one of the bunks was occupied, and the few personal effects scattered throughout the room all orbited the occupied bunk, hinting that perhaps he was the room’s only resident.

The boy in question, the one who was the cause of such grief and discussion around Rill’s cookfire, was more of a young man. Calay had been expecting something in the ten to twelve-year-old range, the way everyone spoke of him as though he were a child. But the teenager splayed out on the bottom bunk was closer to twenty than ten, already growth-spurted. He had the gawky, haphazard build that boys that age got when their muscle hadn’t figured out how to distribute itself evenly yet. No stubble yet shadowed his jaw but his features themselves were hardening up some, cheekbones struggling through the baby fat that still stubbornly plumped them up.

The sight of him caused Calay’s breath to unexpectedly catch in his chest. A painful scraping sensation accompanied his next exhale, the grate of bad memories brushing up against the present.

This silent, devout boy—he looked so much like Booter the last time Calay had seen him. The same awkward build, the same dark curly hair. He found himself thinking thoughts that felt so familiar: he’s just about grown, wonder how tall he’ll get, bet the ladies—or the fellas—will have their eyes out for him.

He was older than Gaz would have been when pressed into the service of his first gang. Another victim of the momentum of the streets, swept up and into the waiting arms of power.

Suddenly, he was glad for the youth’s vow of silence. His own voice had left him.

Blinking away Booter’s ghost, he focused on the pallid, dark-haired young man in front of him and the tell-tale bulge interrupting the smooth line of his jaw. Something in his mouth was swollen badly.

At first he wondered if his patient was sedated, but when he stepped close enough that his shadow passed over the teen’s face, his eyes slivered open. Not all the way open, though. And when Calay began his examination, it was easy to see why: a fever burned within him, his brow sticky with sweat and sickness. Opening his eyes must have taken monumental effort.

Calay took a seat on the edge of his bunk, looking down into the young man’s fever-rosy face.

A rare impulse surfaced, one that almost never grabbed him: he wanted to say hello, introduce himself, share some comforting words. Promise him that all the pain he was about to feel would lead to a better outcome. Calay could put on a good bedside manner when he tried, but it was rarely a priority with one-offs. Especially one-offs in creepy, cultish wagons. But those memories from Vasile had tugged at him and now he couldn’t help himself.

“Hello,” he said, voice soft and low. “Eber here informs me that you’ve taken a vow of silence. I’ll be working in your mouth, so it would be tough to speak to me anyway. But I do need one thing from you: if the pain gets too much, knock your knuckles against the bedframe. I have help for that, but I need to know you need it.” He paused, considered the age of his patient, and added a few more words of wisdom:

“Don’t try to be tough. There’s no need.”

He unpacked the things he needed from his satchel and got to work. First, he offered the boy a drop of his laudanum tincture, applying it sublingually. Then he explained that he needed to drain away the swelling to see which tooth it was that was causing the ruckus. Eber Hanley stood behind him like a watchful gargoyle, observing as Calay made careful, subtle cuts to the boy’s jaw and gum both, bleeding him into a bowl and then prodding around his gums to seek the abscess he knew he’d find.

It was interesting, how he started to think of him as the boy again once his eyes were watering with pain and Calay’s fingers were carefully palpating his gums. Like he’d grown younger. He found the abscessed molar in short order, felt a sticky seep of pus against his fingers as the boy shuddered and drew in a breath. He felt it even through the floral tincture, then. Calay coated a finger in heybrin powder and rubbed it all along the affected gumline, waiting a few seconds for the numbness to take hold.

He tried not to pay too much mind to the dribble of blood flowing into his bowl, but his heart sped up every time he remembered its presence. He was close, so close, to reinforcing his supply. It would splinter his heart a little to draw on this poor sod’s blood, but he’d do it in a heartbeat if he had to, resemblance to specters from Calay’s past be damned. 

Once he’d completed his examination, he said for both his patient and Eber Hanley’s benefit:

“I’m going to have to take the tooth.”

At some point, the molar in question had sustained a break that left the root exposed. Infection had taken hold, the kind that even good hygiene couldn’t fight back. The kind that Calay’s ministrations might not be enough to combat.

He looked down into fever-swollen eyes, found that the boy was watching him with a resigned, knowing intelligence. He knew what was coming. He didn’t fight when Eber took him by the shoulders, pinning him down.

Calay wasn’t a dentist. He had little formal training in that regard, but more to the point, he didn’t have the proper equipment, having never travelled with an elevator bar or any of the spidery, hook-edged little tools common to the trade.

He did, however, have a can opener. Which had felt like so much wasted weight in his satchel, given that food-tinning technology didn’t seem to have penetrated the continent’s pastoral inlands.

Well, it could be repurposed.

He got to work.

Later, when it was finished, he looked over his shoulder and asked Eber if he had fresh water so that he could wash his red-flecked hands. The patriarch, who’d said nothing during the procedure, gave a silent nod and unfolded from his seat, scarecrow-like body stalking out into the wagon’s silent halls. He closed the door, leaving Calay alone with the boy, whose name he still didn’t know.

The tooth sat in a small bowl on the bedside table, the cracked and broken mass of it no longer pouring its infection into the boy’s body. Beside it, the bowl of blood and pus was nearly half-full, no longer necessary as Calay had closed the boy’s drainage cuts.

Mild regret rose in him as he reached into his satchel, retrieved an empty flagon, and filled it from the bowl. He did not want to hurt this unfortunate adolescent caught in the crossfire between two feuding men. But as much as he wished to avoid causing that hurt, the sad reality was that the boy’s current predicament would give Calay superb cover were he forced to use the blood to his own ends. What’s that? The boy with the broken tooth is sick again? It would hardly raise an eyebrow.

Another feeling rose in him, crowding at that mild regret: the urge to snoop. To uncover something useful while he was aboard this rolling fortress.

He stashed his flagon away, hoping he’d have an opportunity to mix the boy’s blood with someone else’s to thin the side effects down the line.

Unpacking his herbs from his bag, he found some curls of dried bark and set them aside, as well as a small quantity of his powdered heybrin. The usual supplies, herbal mouth rinses and the like, he imagined Eber could scrounge up in Frogmouth.

“I’ll be going now,” he said to his patient, who had not moved or opened his eyes since the can opener had entered his mouth. Calay hoped he’d felt nothing. And it was a hope rooted in a solid, confident foundation given how deeply Calay had dosed him.

The boy made no sound, didn’t twitch an eyelash.

Calay turned an ear toward the door, had yet to hear any sounds of Eber returning. It was risky business, slinking out of here and having a nose around. He recalled the way Tarn’s people had turfed him out on his ass for skulking through the servants’ passageways at Adelheim.

And then he recalled that he had access to a fully sedated body and fresh, warm blood. Fresh, warm blood that—if used incrementally—could clue him in on the wagon’s goings-on without causing too much pain and stress to its owner.

He tried to make an internal show of weighing his options. Tried to pretend it was a debate. That was one of Gaz’s earliest lessons for him back in the day, when he’d first tried to temper the rage that had defined Calay’s childhood: at least ask yourself if it’s worth doing. Stop and ask the question. Sometimes that’s enough to stop you from doing it.

This time the question was not enough to deter him. The ends justified the means.

Mindful that Eber could return at any moment, Calay quickly dipped his finger into the blood bowl and got to work. He glyphed himself once beside the eye and once below the ear, the tiniest and most dilute sketches he could manage. Just enough to lend his senses an edge.

A soft, pained groan rose up from the boy on the bunk as the magick sizzled. Calay leaned down and brushed a strand of wayward hair off his feverish forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he meant it, really. But even as he said it and meant it, his knuckle brushed the boy’s temple and he felt the thrum of his pulse, that throb of too-warm blood and the power it promised. It had been a hard few days, feeling powerless and bloodless. His fingers tingled with a renewed purpose that all but chased away the guilt.

The door behind him opened. Eber’s footsteps approached him from behind, and soon the spindly man towered in his periphery.

Dipping a nod, Calay gestured to the supplies he’d left on the table.

“The powder’s for the pain,” he said. “Rub it into his gums if he’s still too weak to do it himself. Boil the bark and have him swish the liquid around in his mouth.” A brief, haphazard smile. “Better if he spits it out, but it won’t kill him if he doesn’t. Do warn him it’ll make his piss smell right unpleasant.” If people weren’t warned about that part, they tended to worry they were dying.

Eber thanked him in a distant, perfunctory way. Calay was used to it, the way patriarchs took it when you treated their children. He wondered if it was a universal trait among patriarchs. He hadn’t the personal experience to make a comparison. He then wondered if the boy was even Eber’s son. A father might have shared his son’s name.

“So he’ll make a full recovery?”

Calay pursed his mouth into a fine line. His tongue made a soft tch.

“I suspect he will,” he said. “Teeth stuff is funny. Can’t ever fully promise. Sometimes the root turns bad and you can’t fight the rot back. But he looks to be a stout one.”

“That he is.”

Calay rose up from where he sat, tilted his head up so he could look Eber in the eye.

“We’re in town ‘til further notice,,” he said. “If he worsens, send for me.”

The very edges of a well-suppressed flicker of surprise registered on Eber’s weathered face. Calay wondered why it might be that the man was unused to kindness. This place has a pecking order. He rolled it around in his mind, stretched it, tried to fit the pieces together. I’d have thought a man with a wagon like this would be at the top. But he seems stunned…

They left the boy to his slumber, ducking back into the strangely barren hallway. Calay’s shoulders felt looser, his chest less tight. Sitting down and treating a patient, actually treating someone he had the facilities to help, had released a tension in him that he hadn’t recognized was there.

But before he could enjoy that release for what it was, he heard it.

He had to catch himself, had to forcibly plant one foot in front of the other as he followed Eber down the hall. He clung to his own footfalls like a lifeline, like the soles of his boots were the only thing anchoring him to the ground. His calm depended on it. His lie depended on it. Because he absolutely could not let Eber know what he heard.

Breathing. All around him, breathing. Every blank, inert door he’d passed in the wagon’s silent halls held breathing lungs behind it. He could only hear it with his newly-augmented senses, the chorus of asynchronous rasps, in and out, inhale and exhale. Not the long, slow breath of those who slept but the calm and patient rhythm of someone sitting very patiently and very awake.

Dozens of someones. Possibly hundreds. Small someones with small lungs, the wet slither of pleural membranes that needed to take in air quicker than grown adults.

Calay shoved his hands deep into his pockets, clenched his knuckles tight, and focused on his footfalls.

Eber’s wagon was full of children. Children sitting in silence in the dark.

The moment he stepped out into the cool desert night, once he was finally free of that labyrinth of doors and raspy breathing, his heart battered against his sternum like he’d just run a mile. He swallowed, pried his hands open, and performed what felt like gross, inept puppetry: lift eyebrows, smile with mouth, offer hand for shake. Eber took his hand and shook it and Calay restrained the urge to twist the old man’s arm in its socket and rip it off.

“We never discussed payment,” said Eber, and Calay could not imagine himself taking money or material goods from a place of such oppressive, deep-reaching evil. Children with lungs that small did not take vows of silence. Not voluntarily. He did not want payment that came from behind one of those horrible doors.

He puppeted himself into motion again, polite and restrained.

“Pay it forward when you can,” he said. He could not make himself smile.

Eber again seemed surprised by the notion of charity. Calay knew why now. The people of Frogmouth must have picked up on it. Itinerant and free-flowing as the population was, there would still be rumors.

As Eber doffed his hat in parting, Calay studied his face. While there was a certain attenuated too-alert old man creepiness to him, he looked so… mild. But then, his last years in Vasile had shown him badness didn’t always manifest as a sharp-toothed, tatted-up criminal with brass knuckles and a shiv knocking on your front door.

He said his goodbyes and left the wagon looming silently in the yard, bristling with its cannon-ports and concealing its terrible cargo. He’d have to be cautious in how he passed this on to the others. Frogmouth was a small town and he sensed they’d only begun to probe the depths of its tangled allegiances.

He wanted to learn more about Eber Hanley. But he also never wanted to set eyes on the man again.

<< Book 2, Chapter 26 | Book 2, Chapter 28 >>

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Book 2, Chapter 26

Sure enough, Mafalda spotted Riss almost as soon as Riss spotted her. She waved, beckoning, and Riss motioned up the path for the others to take a seat. 

She had about fifteen seconds to warn them. And it was either warn them in a terribly ungraceful way or let them go in blind.

So she put on a bracing smile, did her best to act casual, and dropped the bomb:

“Salka told Torcha and I that the Rill Gang are putting on a cookout tonight.” She sounded admirably casual, all things considered. “Turns out that gal, Mafalda, who gave us a ride in? She’s a… colleague.” 

That part was still giving Riss some trouble. Mafalda and Rill worked together in some capacity. She knew that based on the crew they had in common. And by the fact that Mafalda was sitting here with Rill’s people, perfectly at ease. Since they were known the Continent over as Rill’s gang, she assumed Mafalda to be a subordinate of some sort, but she just… 

Frankly, she just didn’t seem hard enough to run with those sorts. The war had stifled Rill’s career as a highwayman, with its many roadblocks and artillery patrols and curfews. But the ease with which Mafalda moved among these people hinted at a long courtship. She was no recent acquisition. 

People could be surprising, though, Riss reminded herself. And besides that, they could always lie.

To her great relief, none of her crew did a physical double-take when informed about who they’d be dining with. Gaz took a half-step closer to the lot of them, a move that could have been subconscious. And Calay shoved his gloved hand deeper into the recesses of his jacket. Torcha met her eyes, upnodding subtly, and Adal simply gave her a look that said message received. 

And then they were in earshot. There would be no more discussion. 

“Glad you decided to join us.” Mafalda gave her a big smile that dimpled both cheeks. “Salka told me she invited you.” 

The cool calm of Riss’ smile did not quite penetrate deep enough to settle her nerves. But it would have to do.

“Looks like we get to thank you a second time,” she said. 

They all took seats around the heap of coals, Riss to Mafalda’s side and Torcha not far away. The others ended up clustered a bit further off. Calay appeared to be angling himself to the perimeter of the gathering, which Riss figured was smart. He and Gaz kept an observant eye on the crowd. Riss herself performed a passive, automatic headcount. Just shy of thirty people, any one of whom could be a close friend or loyal follower of Rill. Speaking off, the boss himself didn’t appear to be present just yet, but Riss suspected it wouldn’t be long. 

The twilights in Frogmouth were long, probably on account of how damnably flat the land was on either side of the plateau. Riss noted that lights glowed from within the wagon parked nearby. She watched it surreptitiously, unsure how many personnel a wagon like that could even conceal. Enough to turn this gathering from firmly in Nuso’s favour to overwhelmingly, she figured. 

She kept one eye trained on the crowd, passively scanning for Rill’s profile. She’d only had the one glimpse of him, and he’d been half-naked and soaking wet, but she was confident she could clock him from afar once he showed.

Soon, however, it was time to eat. The crowd thickened and tracking individuals became difficult. Mafalda and her crew used big, wooden-handled spits to lift the heavy tureens from the coals. Steam bubbled and hissed and escaped when they were cracked open, and on the heels of the hissing came a flood of aromas that distracted Riss entirely from her outlaw-spotting mission. 

Down the line, people passed out heaping plates of slow-roasted pork, so thick with sauce that it was borderline sludgy, if such a word could ever be used to describe food in a positive light. It fell apart into flakes when prodded even gently with a fork, all the connective tissue having melted away. The pork came on a bed of still-crunchy roasted root vegetables and big slabs of sheet-baked bread, dense and heavier at the corners and edges. Mafalda got up to mingle at some point, telling Riss and her people to have as much as they liked.

The bread was thick, crumbly, and not wheat-based. Riss was enjoying an exploratory chew of her slab, trying to figure out exactly what grain it was composed of, when someone slouched into Mafalda’s vacated seat. 

Reclining in the sling chair like his limbs just couldn’t be arsed to hold up his body anymore, Nuso Rill stretched out and kicked up his feet, now fully clothed and looking relaxed as could be. 

Riss quickly shovelled a bite of bread down her gullet, lest her face make some unwelcome expression. She chewed, cheeks bulging out, and when Rill looked her way she was forced into relinquishing a truly pitiable smile. 

He didn’t know her. They’d never crossed paths before. There was no possible way that this man, this notorious outlaw born in Vasile but exiled to the wilds, had ever occupied the same space as her. Yet when his eyes met hers, there was something there. A glimmer of recognition and interest. Excitable recognition. 

Rill sat up, his eyes alert and clear, and wagged a finger at her.

“You,” he said. “I’ve been dying to hear your story.”

Shit.

Riss stopped chewing. She could hear the whistle of her own breath in her lungs. 

At that moment, Rill noticed he had gravy on his thumb. He bent his head, licked it off, then gestured at her again. All the while, Riss tried to formulate a response to that statement that gave away nothing of her true intentions yet also didn’t sound completely absurd. It was harder than she thought it would be. She put on a show of chewing and swallowing, holding up a politely stalling finger to buy herself a moment’s time.

“My apologies,” said Rill while she chewed. “That likely didn’t make a whole lot of sense, did it. My Crew Leader told me she scooped a half-dozen mercenaries out of the desert, you see.” He tipped her a coy wink. “I had to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Fuss?” asked Riss, falling back on an old tradition. When completely lost and at the mercy of another party in a conversation, simply repeat one of their own words back to them as a question. “I wasn’t aware we caused a fuss.”

“She turned around in order to bring you here.” His eyebrows were animated when he talked, bouncing around to emphasize his words. “She wouldn’t do that for just anyone.”

Interesting. Riss assumed she’d been on the receiving end of common Flats emergency courtesy, not any kind of special treatment. 

“What I’m asking is what business do you have in Frogmouth that she decided couldn’t wait, hm?”

There it was. Though his exterior was affable and his manner was relaxed, Rill asked the question with a directness that spoke volumes. Not only was he suspicious as to her motivations, he felt powerful enough in this place to candidly demand she share them. All around the fire, chatter rose and fell. Were some of Rill’s crew watching her? Were their eyes lingering? Tough to say, but she felt observed.

“We had a wagon to sell,” Riss said, as blunt as his question. “Emphasis on the had.”

Rill pulled a face, then made a sympathetic noise. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Easy come, easy go,” said Riss. “The contractor’s life.”

That pried an appreciative laugh out of him, the sound of it big and booming. It was certainly more laughter than her mildly successful joke warranted, yet somehow his reaction didn’t seem forced. Riss decided it was because the laughter matched his face: mobile, open, expressive, all features of a man who felt he had very little to hide. 

He was not what she’d been expecting. She wondered whether it would be an unwise move to mention that. To mention she was aware of his reputation at all. 

“Good to see you two are hitting it off.” Mafalda arrived from somewhere in the firelit dark, a red clay jug in her hand. 

To Riss, she offered both a swig from the jug and playful squint. “He’s very charming, isn’t he?”

“He is.” Riss took the jug, wary to drink it. All the usual anxieties that surfaced when offered a drink by a stranger flashed through her mind, then all new ones considering the context: booze would be bad for her in this scenario. She couldn’t lose her edge. Not around these folks. But she couldn’t look like she was rejecting their hospitality, either…

The jug was halfway to Riss’ mouth when all conversation around the fire abruptly shrivelled and died. Mafalda turned away from Riss and squinted toward the fire’s edge. Whatever caught her eye stilled her mouth into a wary line. The motion was so subtle, so quickly repressed that a less skilled observer might have missed it, but Riss caught the way Mafalda’s hand strayed ever-so-slightly toward her belt. 

A man had appeared at the fringe of their little cookout, and some aspect of his person caused the entire party to grind to a halt. It was as though everyone seated by the fire had sensed a change in the weather, or had their spine chilled by some otherworldly current.

Riss studied what she could of the newcomer, though the flicker of the fire and the distance made it difficult. He was a tall, narrow fellow, so tall and so narrow that he almost looked more like a drawing than a flesh and blood human. Firelit shadows hooded his eyes and he wore a stiff, starched cape that was just as black. Riss had seen scarecrows in the Textile Districts with more flesh and fat on their faces. 

She did not yet feel chatty enough with Nuso Rill to ask him what was going on.

Fortunately, Torcha felt no such reservations. 

“Who the fuck?” she asked, leaning over in Mafalda’s direction.

“That’s Eber Hanley,” Mafalda said. “Looks like he wants something.”

Eber Hanley strode through the crowd, straight for where Riss sat. She tensed, but it became apparent after a moment’s observation that he was headed for Nuso.

Relaxed as ever, Rill eased up out of his seat and found his feet. He gave his shoulders a languid roll, like a man just rising from slumber, and put on a pleasant smile for the sunken-cheeked walking scarecrow that approached him.

“Mr. Hanley,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” His tone carried that surface-level friendliness that Riss guessed was characteristic, but an edge lurked beneath it that he hadn’t used with her, like hard metal eased from a sheath. 

Another realization occurred to Riss then: she had made a significant miscalculation when it came to the balance of power in Frogmouth. Anyone who could silence a room like this, leave Rill Gang’s leader on his feet, unoffended when addressed so directly, was a noteworthy player. And in all the research they’d done, the name Eber Hanley had completely escaped their notice. 

“I have a humble request,” said Hanley. He stood at arm’s length to Rill, the two of them sizing one another up. 

Rill’s eyelid twitched at the word humble. “Speak it,” he said.

“I’ve need of your physiker.” Hanley’s voice was a grave warble. “The boy has a bad tooth.”

Rill ticked his head sideways by a mere degree, eyeballing Hanley as if to say that’s it? Riss felt as though she had to be missing some context. It seemed a simple enough request. The collective pause around the campfire hinted at some old enmity, some antipathy that might mar Hanley’s request.

“And why not simply send him to a physic in town?” Rill asked, as though just making conversation. “Plenty of hands in Frogmouth can pull a tooth.”

Eber Hanley’s eyes tightened into thin, contemptuous slits.

“You know why,” he said. 

Nobody around the fire even seemed to breathe, all eyes focused on the silent stalemate.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Rill finally said, his pause deliberate and uncomfortable. “If your boy wanted my physiker’s assistance, he should have kept his hands to himself.”

Like the roots of some gnarled, withered tree, Eber’s hands clenched. His knuckles bulged with arthritis, bumpy and uneven with nodules. He took a half-step back, then reached slowly up toward his own head. He grabbed his cap, pulling it off and revealing a few thin, scraggly wisps of white hair. He crumpled the hat in his hand.

“Nuso,” he said. “If that tooth turns worse, he could pass on.” Then, quieter: “Don’t make me beg.”

Riss caught a glimpse of motion in the silent, firelit crowd: Calay leaned forward across his knees, seeking her eyes. He made an inquiring chin-lift in Eber’s direction. Riss knew what he was asking: if Rill turned this fellow away, should they offer their services? Riss waved a single finger, hoping he got the message to stand down for now. She didn’t feel comfortable committing Calay’s assistance to anyone until she knew just who they were and what they stood for.

“I won’t make you beg,” Nuso said. “Because I’m saying no. I’m sorry about the boy, but he put one of my diggers in a cast. Perhaps he should have thought with his brain instead of his fists.”

Hanley’s shoulders bunched together. He straightened, inhaled, and seemed to rise a few inches taller. Revulsion slithered through Riss’ stomach—something about the way he moved recalled the creeping-clacking crawling woods of Adelheim. The slow, creaky deliberation. Hanley’s hand clamped around his hat. His lips drew into a fierce sneer. 

Expression twisting into a hateful, vulgar thing, he spat into the dust at Rill’s feet.

“If he dies, it’s on you,” Hanley warned.

“Interesting,” Rill countered. “I’d have thought it was his own damn fault.”

Hanley actually hissed at him, hissed like a gods-damned animal, and for a split second the atmosphere around the fire hovered on the verge of something explosive, some great communal boiling-over of tension, but it fizzled rather than blew when Hanley decided to simply turn his back on Rill and slink off into the dark.

There wasn’t a single person by the fire who didn’t watch him go. Riss, eyebrows arched, hadn’t a clue what to say when Rill retook his seat beside her.

“Pardon the intrusion,” he said. “I do hate to be disagreeable, but sometimes people force my hand.”

Riss tried to relax. “We all have our codes,” she said. “I wouldn’t force my physiker to treat the hand that struck him either. Provided I’ve read the situation correctly.”

Rill nodded to her, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Got it in one,” he said. “Eber’s boys get restless and cause problems in town. Bunch of young idiots stuffed to the gills with piss and vinegar and religion. We’ll all be better off when they pack up and move on.”

“He runs a crew full of stroppy, repressed young men,” said Mafalda, who’d drifted back to Rill’s flank while watching their unwanted guest depart. 

“Recipe for trouble,” said Riss. 

“Mhm.” Mafalda gestured at one of the lantern-lit buildings behind them. “One of his folk kicked up a fuss at the inn, came to fists between his fella and ours. It happens, but tch, it’s just bad manners in a town this small.”

An idea percolated in Riss’ mind. She licked her lips, then cast a curious glance between the pair of outlaws. She surveyed their faces, tried to gauge just how much Hanley’s surprise appearance had put them on edge. Both Rill and Mafalda appeared to be fully relaxed again, posture slouched and eyes returned to their meal.

“You know,” Riss said. “Given the situation with our wagon, we do have a physiker who could use some work. But if this Hanley fellow is a sworn enemy or something, let us know and I’m happy to pull back. Times are lean at the moment, is all.”

She felt Rill’s gaze settle on her, an oppressive and critical weight. He had shrewd eyes. They glittered beneath a heavy, low brow that always looked just a little scrunched up in thought.

“Far be it from me to prohibit a man from earning a living,” said Rill. He exhaled disdainfully. “I don’t wish the boy dead just because he struck one of ours in what appeared to be a young-dumb-and-full-of-come type confrontation. Ol’ Eber’s just got to learn that there are consequences to his actions and he can’t come crying for help from the same hand he bit.”

Riss gave him a smile, meeting those calculating eyes. “Entirely reasonable,” she said. 

“When you think about it…” Rill shared with her a razor-thin grin, as though they were two close friends sharing a delicious secret. “You’re in an enviable position here. I figure your sawbones is the only one in town not affiliated with myself. That means you can charge ol’ Eber out the ass, should you feel so inclined.”

Riss tapped her nose a single time, registering that she’d heard him loud and clear. 

“So you’ll be heading off, then?” Rill asked. He hadn’t looked away from her despite the fact that Riss had thought their business concluded.

“Not just yet.” Riss sought out Calay through the flames, spying him and Gaz sitting so far out on the fire’s fringes that they almost weren’t touched by its light or warmth at all. “We had a rough go of it in the flats,” she said. “Like you, I’m not so heartless. I couldn’t yank my medic away by the collar in the middle of his first warm, civilized meal in days.”

Rill snapped his fingers, and though he looked away and called some instructions to one of his workers, Riss couldn’t help but feel that his attention hadn’t fully left her. She sat still, waiting for him to speak again. 

He did not. Instead, he waved someone over his way, and one of his crew deposited a hefty leather instrument case across his lap. Rill smoothed a hand across it, then dusted it off and flipped it open. At an acute angle, Riss could only just spy the polished wooden guitar that was nestled within, stashed with care in padding of crushed red velvet.

“You and your medic and all the rest can stay as long as you like,” Rill said, extracting the guitar from its case. He began to tune it, plucking one string and then humming a note to himself, a far more meditative and organized process than when Torcha did the same.

“I appreciate your hospitality,” said Riss, eyes on his hands.

Sedate and patient, the Continent’s most wanted man tuned his guitar beside her, his eyes drifting off to somewhere far away.

“It’s like you said.” He adjusted a tuning peg. “It’s a rough world out there. Hot meals and calm wind are too few and far between. There’s certain things you’ve gotta hold onto when the world serves them up to you.”

Something in Riss’ chest twinged uncomfortably. She thought of ballrooms and starched dress blues and uncomfortable, too-tight boots that stunk of fresh wax. She thought of rictus smiles for passing generals and tightly-buttoned collars and a dutiful if dreary insistence on sobriety. And she thought of how, through it all, she’d had Gaspard at one elbow and Adalgis at the other. Fine meals and mandatory socializing suffered through for the sake of her career, for the sake of her advancement, made tolerable by the people she had at her side. 

Loss was a hell of a thing. It snuck up on you when you least expected it. Riss found her wary tension at Rill’s proximity replaced by a bittersweet nostalgia, a contemplation of all that the world had served up to her and how holding onto it was easier said than done.

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