Karadra's Shipwreck

Arsik exited the inn, slamming the door behind him. He trudged angrily through the mud, turned to the door again and spat on the ground. The rain fell on his copper-red hair and drenched his tunic shirt, making it feel like a sponge soaked in sweat and rum.   A moment later, the door opened again and Talos appeared. He glanced up at the clouds and then peered into Arsik’s eyes. His movements slowed as he recognized the anger overwhelming his friend.   “Easy, Arsik…” he cautioned and, gently, closed the door behind him.   Arsik snorted and swallowed a curse.   “He stole from me, that fuckhead, right in front of me! Can you believe it?” he spat on the ground once more.   The timeworn wooden sign with the inn’s name – “21 Seagulls” - hung over their heads, unmoving, the once clear letters now faded and hard to read.   Talos moved slowly towards him. He reached out his hand, the way one does when approaching a dog with the proclivity to bite.   “Of course I believe it, Arsik. He’s a crook. They all are. We all are. What did you expect?”   Arsik looked at him sharply and grumbled half a word. He lifted his tongue to the roof of his mouth and then explored with it the nearly empty cavity from one end to the other until he stumbled upon a tooth.   “s**t,” he lisped.   Talos shoved his hands in his breeches’ pockets. His hat protected him from the summer rain, but his mind still oscillated between the inn and Arsik.   “Why would you play dice with Phaelo, Arsik? He belongs to Golderim Veyr’s crew. These people never lose,” he said, lowering the tone of his voice, trying to appease Arsik’s anger.   “Obviously they’re thieves, Talos. So are we. I mean… There shouldn’t be such s**t between us… You understand?”   “Not really,” Talos answered honestly.   Arsik strode quickly to him and leaned over his head. His breath testified to the amount of rum that’d been consumed that evening – a hectic evening that had just taken a very unpleasant turn.   “We’re not foreigners, or tourists, or f*****g sailors. We have a reputation.”   Talos raised his brows. “A reputation? For the love of the Gods, what kind of reputation, Arsik?”   “The kind that should be enough to stop them from playing us like this, like common tourists that set foot on the Deck for the first time in their lives. Fuckers.” Arsik spat and pressed his temples with his fingertips. The anger felt like a small triangle between his eyes and over his nose.   It was getting closer and he knew it.   “How much money did you lose?” Talos asked. From the expression on his face, deep down, he already knew the answer.   “Everything… But I’ll get it back.”   Talos removed his hands from his pockets in one jerky movement. “Are you mad? How in the world are you going to get it back?”   Arsik held up one hand to stop him, while the other kept massaging his temples. “Go home, Talos, and wait for me there.”   “No. What are you going to do?”   Arsik finished soothing his forehead. With his yellow eyes half-shut and tired, he whirled around to look at his worried friend. The drinks he’d had allowed only half his words to escape his mouth, and even those were hard to utter through few teeth and rotting gums.   “Go away, Talos. Stop pestering me. We’ll talk later.”   His voice was now calm and quiet. Talos swallowed around his dry throat and kept looking at him, puzzled. “You don’t even have your knife, Arsik. It’s back in-”   “I don’t need a knife for the likes of Phaelo, Talos. Get out of here and let me be.”   Talos continued staring at him a moment longer before giving up. Taking a step towards the inn, he was immediately wrapped in the shroud of heavy rain.   “Your rope, your neck, Arsik,” he said. “But remember: if you find yourself at daggers drawn with these people, nobody can save you, not even the Judge.”   After a few more steps, his figure was lost in the city’s maze of alleys.   Arsik remained still for a while, staring at the ground. The raindrops cascaded from the roof’s wooden beams and formed little puddles in the mud at his feet. His eyes lingered on them as he contemplated his choices. Abruptly, he raised his eyes forward.   “f**k it,” he said and followed the road behind the inn.   ***   The rain intensified, even as the moon shone over Saraport. The water was rising in the roughly dug alleys of the Deck, spewing torrents of muddy water mixed with filth between the humble houses, reminding the locals of the chasm between the social class of the Deck’s inhabitants and that of those who resided in other parts of the city.   Arsik was quickly walking down the alley. His gaze fixed on the ground, he easily followed two sets of tracks in the mud – tracks from feet that trod slowly and unevenly in a pattern resembling the number eight, with many deviations; tracks that belonged to a smug fortune hunter and a local w***e, customarily received as a prize along with the gambling earnings of the night.   Turn after turn, Arsik crossed between brick-built houses and under clothes that’d been hung to dry and never been retrieved, abandoned now, at the mercy of the sudden rain. With the back of his hand, he wiped the water off his forehead –in vain– and then dug his fingers into one frayed pocket. He slipped his knuckleduster onto his right hand and squeezed it. He liked the feeling of metal against his skin, the familiar weight, the cold handle.   A faint, girlish laugh sounded through the raindrops, behind the squeaking of carriage wheels that were rolling by a street away, and through the voices Arsik was hearing in his head – voices that reminded him that a slight shouldn’t go unanswered and that even thieves should pay; at least sometimes.   He brought his hand in front of his stomach and buried his right fist into his left palm, gathering his thoughts.   As soon as he turned right, he saw Phaelo, his hand locked around a young girl’s throat in a grip of pleasure. She was responding with a slow, sensual moan, surrendering to the desires of this evening’s king.   Said king held a nearly empty bottle in his other hand, moving clumsily as he let the woman unbutton his breeches with dutiful hands. His pockets jingled with every motion, and each sharp, metallic sound made Arsik’s eyebrows twitch from the anger that was once again accumulating on his forehead.   The woman faced left; when she opened her eyes, a fierce scream shattered their moment.   “Who are you…” The man barely had time to form the question as he took two fearful steps away from the woman, who had ditched his breeches and grabbed her cheeks in horror.   Arsik leaped in the air and brought his right fist down on the man’s eye like a mighty hammer. Phaelo sprawled down on his back, in the mud. The woman shrieked again, and Arsik kicked her ribs, sending her flying to the opposite direction.   “Get lost!” he snarled and let her escape as he jumped astride his true target.   “Help!” Phaelo managed to cry out before a second punch landed on his nose, eliciting a horrid sound and a spurt of blood and fluids. "Aaaaaah!”   “Shut up already!” Another punch put an end to all the commotion. “You f*****g thief,” Arsik said and spat on Phaelo’s forehead.   Leaning away from the blood-stained man, he took a breath. The blood gushing from Phaelo’s nose trickled down his beard and merged with the water puddle that’d formed under his head. Arsik’s red fist glistened in the night sky’s pale illumination, and the triangle of anger on his forehead slowly started to melt away as fear and guilt began to tentatively invade his mind.   Arsik sat astride Phaelo’s body, feeling the rising and falling of his chest with every breath. Talos’ words from their conversation earlier circled back into his thoughts.   And what do I care who Phaelo is? He shouldn’t have messed with me. There are certain rules here.   “You hear me, you son of a b***h?” he said to no one and, naturally, received no answer.   He whipped his head around when he heard footfalls from further away, and a shrill female voice on the verge of hysteria.   I should have taken care of you too.   Arsik grabbed the pouch that hung from the unconscious man’s belt and shoved his hands in his pockets to steal whatever else lay hidden there. He sprang up onto his feet and took two steps forward. Then, almost as an afterthought, he turned around, picked up the nearly empty rum bottle, gulped down a generous swig, and then took off, passing through the damp laundry on the neighboring house’s clotheslines.