The Bloodless Assassin

Chapter 2 

CHAPTER 2

A few hours later, the five-o’clock cacophony began with the clatter of bells, as usual. It was quickly followed by a swelling of drums, steam trumpets, gongs, water chimes, and whatever other instruments the temples used to mark the hour. Timekeeping was as fluid a notion in Damsport as Rory’s age: each of the myriad of temples had its own concept of time so that every hour the o’clock was sounded for a good fifteen minutes.

When silence returned, indicating that it was some time after five, Rory got up and stretched. Time to go. The Starry Inn wasn’t far, but she wouldn’t take any chances. She kissed a couple of her talismans at random, not caring who she prayed to as long as whoever it was listened and brought her luck.

She gathered her meagre possessions: a silk line and grappling hook, which she wrapped around her waist, and a Talegian steel dagger. The dagger was unusual, fashioned out of a single piece of steel, the handle curved to look like a peacock’s head, the blade itself like the sweep of tail feathers. It was small, the blade thin, but it was as sharp as a razor, and Rory loved it more than anything in the world.

She was about to take her purse when she heard the whistle that meant Jake was outside. Grinning, she hurried over to lower the rope.

“Well, I’m flattered that you’ve interrupted your drinking to come say goodbye,” she called as she went back to pocket the purse, carefully making sure the bulge wasn’t visible through her tunic. She tucked as much of her threadbare trousers as she could into her boots, a token effort at looking respectable. “Or is it that you’ve come to escort me to the docks? I think an escort would be fitting for the — stone the gulls, what happened to your face?”

Jake hauled himself onto the roof with a grunt. His lip and nose were bleeding, as was a nasty gash on his eyebrow. An angry swelling shut his eye, and another bruise bloomed on his jaw like an ugly flower. He moved gingerly, in obvious pain.

“I’m sorry, Rory. I’m sorry.”

“What happened?”

Her stomach relocated to her boots when a second head poked out from the hole in the roof.

“Jake, who is that?”

Jake shook his head, not meeting her eye. The man came and stood next to him, and it was like a boulder settling into place. Jake and the man were as tall as each other, but the newcomer was even beefier, with no neck to speak of, so that his head seemed to be skewered directly onto his shoulders. Rory took a step back.

“I’m sorry, Rory, I really am,” Jake said. “I just need a little. Maybe half. You’ll still have plenty to go on with. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

Rory shook her head. “You ain’t getting nothing from me. I can’t pay for the steamer if you take half, and you know it. This is your s**t, you deal with it.”

As she spoke, another man climbed up to the roof, and then a third. They looked like copies of the first: neckless wonders with scowling faces.

“Alright,” said the first. “I didn’t come here to listen to a domestic with your girlfriend. She got the money?”

When Jake didn’t answer, the man swung a fist into his kidneys, and he groaned in pain.

“I don’t like silences,” said the man. “She got the money?”

Jake nodded miserably.

“You boys stay away from me, alright,” said Rory. “I ain’t got nothing to do with this. This ain’t my man, and this ain’t my business.” She stepped farther back, all too aware that she was cornered. There was nowhere for her to climb from where she was. She pulled out her dagger.

“Well, well, seems we have ourselves a kitten with a claw,” said the second.

“Rory, don’t make things worse than they are,” Jake pleaded. “I’ll make it up to you one way or another, I promise. Just give them what they want so they’ll leave.”

Two of the men advanced on Rory, the third standing menacingly next to Jake. When they were close enough to her, Rory lashed out at the first thug with her dagger. He dodged easily, moving his bulk with surprising speed. The other grabbed hold of her, pinning her arms to her sides. She squirmed and kicked uselessly.

“Get off me, you fish-brained cretin!”

The first thug patted her down, found the purse, and took it.

“Hey,” protested Jake, “you only need half of that.”

“Half of the purse is to pay my employer, the other half is my fee for inconveniencing me. Time’s a precious commodity, and I don’t like mine wasted.”

The thug released Rory with a shove, sending her staggering dangerously close to the edge.

“There now,” he said with a grin full of broken teeth, “that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

The two men turned back towards Jake, the third already making his exit. Rory felt a blinding flash of hot rage, and before she could consider what she was doing, she ran after them with her dagger at the ready. The man nearest to her didn’t even flinch. He turned just as she reached him, his backhand catching her jaw, sending her flying back. She rolled once heels over head on the sloping tiles, dropping her knife, and pitched over the side.

“Rory!” Jake rushed over.

Rory had caught a stray banyan root, and she dangled, her legs swinging beneath her, but all she could think of was her dagger. Had it fallen over the side, too? She craned her head to try and catch sight of it. Jake grabbed her arms and hauled her back up.

“Rory, you alright?” he asked in a shaky voice.

The thugs had gone, and so had her purse, but her dagger was there, resting on the tiles. She snatched it up, weak with relief, running her finger along it. Even though it was only a simple piece of steel, it was her first blade, and she couldn’t bear to be parted from it.

“Rory?” Jake touched her shoulder and she threw a punch, knuckles cracking against his already bruised jaw. She sucked in air between her teeth, shaking her hand against the pain.

“Stay away from me,” she spat.

“Look I’ll find a way —”

“I want nothing from you.”

“I know I messed up, I know. But I’ll make —”

“You’ll do nothing!” she yelled.

Jake stopped, startled.

“You’ll do nothing,” she whispered. “We’re done.”

She sheathed her blade and slipped it through her belt. Without another word or look at Jake, she left.

* * *

Rory sped through the streets, the wind streaming in her face. She wiped her cheeks angrily. Tears were pointless if there was no one to take advantage of. As she ran, her hand kept returning to the hilt of her dagger to make sure it was still tucked into her belt. Losing it on the roof earlier, even temporarily, had been an atrocious feeling.

She made for Six, the thoroughfare that led straight to Tinsbury Dock.

Six was busy as always, a steady flow of bodies, horses, and carts heading from the enclosed docks to the Great Bazaar. One of those new-fangled steam trolleys rolled past, ferrying traders and merchants. A boy banged the bell at its front to signal for people to get out of the way. Rory watched the trolley glide past, eyeing its passengers.

This wasn’t a suicidal affair like the traversal steam coaches that clattered by so fast it made your teeth rattle. No, the steam trolleys on Six and Twelve moved slowly, safely, with a kind of stuck-up, stately importance. She felt an overwhelming urge to jump aboard and hold them all at knifepoint for their money. They would have what she needed and then some. But she knew that Six crawled with guards, and any sort of hit here would mean a guaranteed trip to the galleys.

Rory continued down Six. The traffic was still oozing slow as mud, and even for one as tiny as her, it was slow going weaving through the throng. Cursing, she turned off into a side street. The lanes twisted and turned back on themselves so that there was no straight way anywhere, but here at least she was free to run. And right now she needed to feel like she was moving.

She ran faster and faster, until her legs felt like they were pumping independently from her, and her lungs burned. She almost careened straight into a cart as she reached Tinsbury Dock.

“Watch where you’re going!” the driver shouted.

An enormous four-masted galleon was disgorging its cargo, its crew swarming around it, crawling through the rigging like an efficient colony of ants. Next to it, hard and gleaming in the afternoon sun, a steam galley made its final preparations. The steam galley that she should be getting ready to board. Its articulated steam-powered oars hovered just above the water, bent midway so that they looked like the legs of an enormous metal insect.

She pushed her way through the crowd on the wharf, towards the Starry Inn. It was one of the nicer inns that fronted the docks: mouth-watering smells wafted from it, rather than the piss, rancid wine, and vomit that were the norm for dockside establishments.

She ran through the main room and bounded up the stairs at the back.

“Hey! Where d’you think you’re going?” shouted the innkeep.

“To see Master Xian,” she yelled back over her shoulder as she took the steps two at a time.

She ran to his room. The door was open, and he was slowly, methodically, folding up a tunic.

“No need to rush,” he said with his smooth, level voice. “We have plenty of time.”

“I ain’t… I ain’t got the money,” she panted.

“Ah. Then we have a problem.”

“It weren’t my fault, my partner screwed me over and —”

“That great lumbering i***t you were dragging around last time?”

“Yes — Jake.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Look, I know we had an arrangement and all that. But I can earn my way, right. I can work for free for however long you need. I’ll do anything. Anything. If you take me with you.”

Master Xian looked at her with a frown.

“Rory, do I look like a nurse? Or like one of the good sisters of the Exalted Consciousness? Hmm?”

“No.”

“Exactly. I’ve not been put on this earth to look after little girls. I don’t do charity. You want to come with me, fine. But you can’t get on a steam galley without paying and they’re expensive. You can’t hit the road without supplies, and for supplies you need money. So, if you don’t have money, you can’t leave Damsport. It’s very straightforward. Not only that, but you gave me that speech about wanting to be a warrior, about wanting to see the world. I was impressed by your ambition, and now look at what you’ve shown me. I gave you a simple task two years ago, when I was last at Damsport. I told you to beg, borrow, or steal the money to pay for your way. That’s it. That was all you had to do in exchange for my expertise and training. If you can’t even do that, then what exactly makes you think you’re ready for a life on the road, hmm? Better you find yourself a sword preceptor here in Damsport.”

“I tried, no one else will take me on account of me being a street urchin and all.”

“Stop your whining. What are you, a child? If they won’t take you of their own will, then make them! Gods, Rory, I have no time for this snivelling. I set you a challenge and you bring me excuses. You want to be a fighter, then fight! Don’t come to me crying about your problems. Now get out, I have to finish packing, and then I have a galley to catch. You can look out for me when I’m next back, which should be in two or three years. Price will stay the same, but if you’re still crying over people not taking you seriously, then don’t bother.”

He turned his back on her and went back to meticulously packing his bag.

Rory stared at his back for a while, and then without a word, she turned and walked away.