Inker and Crown

Chapter 6

6

Niko

The wretched stench of fish permeated the air. Laughter and shouting echoed through the streets, bouncing between the stone buildings. The combination was enough to make Niko wish he’d stayed in the Guilded section of Ilara, but not quite enough to stop his feet from carrying him forward.

“New coats in the best Guild colors!” a brazen man called from his stall. “Find a sorcerer purple for a lovely lady!”

Niko swallowed the words he longed to shout back at the vendor and crossed the road to walk right past the man’s stall.

“A lovely green for those who want adven…” The man’s words faded as he caught sight of Niko’s green uniform.

Niko bit back his grin. If he were one to anger easily, he’d call the soldiers and have the man hauled away for daring to copy the hues of the Guilds for commoners’ clothes. But there was no need for fighting and unpleasantness over a specific shade of green. The man would run and hide for the night and, if he was smart, be more careful about selling his wares tomorrow.

Niko gave the vendor a nod before moving on.

Stalls of food, candles, scents, and frie lined the streets. The poorer merchants and commoners moved from seller to seller, searching out the best prices.

Niko’s pockets rattled with more coin than most commoners could hope to earn in half a year’s time.

I should be afraid. I should be terrified of the lot of them tearing me apart to steal every coin I have.

But his map maker green protected him. Only a fool would attack a Guilded man, even as the night grew dark.

“To the King!” a voice shouted in the distance.

“To the King’s fleet!” a dozen men answered.

“To the King’s sword!”

“To the Arion Sea herself!” Niko shouted, though he hadn’t reached the crowd.

The men erupted into cheers as a fiddle struck up a lively song.

A group of men clad in blue stood under a sign that read The White Froth. The sailors swayed as they sang to the fiddler’s tune.

“If the crossing’s going rough,

And the storm’s tossed you about,

And your belly’s not so tough,

And your lady’s thrown you out.”

The lack of talent amongst the sailors didn’t stop them from singing along with enviable enthusiasm.

Niko dodged through the door, ducking between the sailors and commoners.

The stink of sweat and spilled ale overpowered the stench of fish inside the pub. A harassed-looking man and a woman with breasts pushed up level with her collarbone stood behind a long counter, doling out ale and frie to the horde of men.

A few brave women dressed in Sailors Guild blue or plain, unguilded sailors’ clothes had joined the chaos, shouting over the tune to be heard by their drinking mates.

Niko was the only one dressed in another Guild’s colors, and the stares of those around him were plenty of warning that he was out of place. Not that he’d been fool enough to expect any different.

“Niko.” Kai stood up from his table at the far end of the bar and waved a hand in the air. His black, curly hair bounced in his exuberance.

Head down, Niko weaved toward Kai, ignoring the tingling on the back of his neck as the stares of the crowd followed him.

“I thought you might’ve forgotten your way down to the docks.” Kai clapped Niko hard on the shoulder and pressed a glass of frie into his hand.

“Or maybe the fine map maker doesn’t want to be seen in such low company.” Drew raised his pint toward Niko.

“There is never low company at the White Froth.” Niko clinked his glass with Drew’s.

The sailor winked and took a swig of his drink. Drew was barely older than Niko, but a life on the sea as an unguilded sailor was harder than even a map maker’s lot. Scars cut across his cheek, and shining spots dotted the back of his left hand where his skin was still healing.

“And how was the shipyard today?” Niko took a swig of the frie, relishing the burn as it slid down his throat.

“Depends on who you ask.” Kai shrugged. “If you ask the sorcerers, the ship builders are a pack of lazy slitches unworthy of spitting in the sea. If you ask the sailors, the ship builders aren’t building the boats we need for what the King’s asked us to do.”

“And if you ask the ship builders?” Niko raised an eyebrow.

“Then the lot of the Guilders are fools and have no business telling the ship builders how to work their trade.” Drew raised a glass.

“And they may have a point,” Kai said. “I can tell you I need a ship for twenty men that will hold up to a storm with speed to reach the horn in less than two weeks, but I can’t tell you how to shape a hull.”

“The sorcerers want a fleet ready to sail south by fall, but it won’t happen if they keep lording over the builders.” Drew took a long drink of his ale. “The sorcerers should have learned by now that it’s best to leave sea folk to themselves. The waves have magic even the Lady Sorcerer herself can’t master. They should keep themselves to their tower and let the rest of us manage the real work.”

Niko’s neck tensed at the layer of anger in Drew’s voice. Sitting up straight, as though looking for another friend to join their chat, Niko slid his gaze around the room, searching for Guilded who might turn Drew in for speaking ill of the sorcerers. The sailor could lose his place on the ships for talking like that.

“And have they told you where you’ll be sent?” Niko asked rather more loudly than he’d meant to in his determination to not seem suspicious.

“To the horn if the ships are ever ready,” Kai said. “Running envoys round the coast in the meantime.”

“Sorry,” Niko said.

Two men in soldier black swung open the door to the White Froth, tightly wrapped scrolls clutched in each of their hands.

“Don’t be sorry.” Kai shook his head, sending his black curls bouncing. “It’s not exciting work, but I’ll get to run some of the tight little schooners. And I’ll be in and out of Ilara to keep an eye on Allora.”

“Right.”

The soldiers headed to the walls on either side of the bar, tacking up the papers without so much as a word to the White Froth’s owners, who glared at the intruders.

“Where are you going to be mapping?” Kai leaned sideways, blocking Niko’s view of the bar.

“Eastern mountains. Finding a new path through. The King’s right―the one road to Wyrain we have won’t be enough if they want to start trading in earnest.”

“So Mara’s going north then?”

Niko forgot to answer as he stood to look over Kai’s head.

The men in the bar had begun gathering around the notices. There weren’t faces of criminals sketched on the sheets. Just words.

Niko barely had time to read A Call to Commoners to Join the Soldiers’ Ranks before the gap in front of the papers closed completely.

“I think we may want to take our drinks elsewhere.” Niko carefully maintained his smile as he turned back to Drew and Kai. “A quieter place to discuss our new adventures.”

“What’s this supposed to mean then?” an angry voice spoke from the bar.

“It’s a notice written by the scribes at the King’s command,” one of the soldiers answered.

Niko didn’t know the soldier, couldn’t even say if they had ever met before. But he recognized the set of the man’s jaw. That soldier didn’t want to be standing next to the notice any more than Niko wanted to stay in the pub.

“They’re offering Guilding to common folk?” a hopeful young man asked from the back of the pack.

“I think a quieter place sounds wonderful.” Kai dropped a few coins onto the table.

“They don’t want us to join the Guilds.” A man with curling blond hair and broad shoulders shoved his way through the crowd toward the soldiers. “They want to set us up in a line and let whatever monsters the King’s angered kill us first.”

“The Soldiers Guild is offering fair wages―” the younger of the soldiers began, but the blond man shouted across him.

“Fair wages and a new pair of boots? Is that what the King offers us to betray our people?”

“We need to go.” Niko grabbed Kai and Drew by the elbows, steering them toward the door.

“The Soldiers Guild serves all the people of Ilbrea, as all the Guilds serve this great country.”

“And what of those starving in the south?” The blond man leapt up onto the bar. “The ones who rebel against the King’s taxes. Who refuse to watch their children starve so the Princess can have a new pair of golden slippers. Do the Guilds serve them?”

A group of common men stepped in front of the door to the street, blocking Niko and the others dressed in Guild colors from leaving.

“Will the King ask us to kill common folk whose only crime is refusing to starve?” The blond man surveyed the crowd. “Is conscripting boys when they’re only children no longer enough for the Soldiers Guild? Has the Lord Soldier grown tired of stealing our sons and twisting their minds so they believe the Guilds’ lies? Now grown men should offer themselves as living shields for the paun? It would be better to slit our own throats than to draw common blood for the glory of the Guilds who don’t even want us as members, just extra bodies to rot in the field.”

“Let us out.” Niko kept his voice even as he spoke to the common men blocking the door. “We have no quarrel with you.”

“The color of your uniform says different,” a man sneered. His breath stank of frie, and his splotched red face shone with drunken sweat.

If he were sober, would he be bold enough to block my path?

“I’m giving you one warning to get out of our way.” A friendly smile shone on Kai’s face. “You seem like a nice enough fellow, and I’d hate to have to hurt you just to get through a door.”

“We will not allow Guild paun to drag us through the mud so more common folk can starve!” A roar of approval greeted the blond man’s words. “If they want us to fight, then we’ll do it. But we will bleed and die fighting those who have ground the common folk into the mud!”

“What a chivving night,” Niko sighed as Kai shrugged.

“Don’t say I didn’t ask nicely.”

Mayhem devoured the pub in an instant.

One soldier shouted, “Rip that getch off the bar!” at the same moment one of the commoners hit the other soldier with a chair. A pack of men charged the sailors, and Kai punched the man who’d refused to move in the ribs.

“Kai!” Niko shouted as a fist hit him in the jaw. Before he could truly wonder who had punched him, something hard struck him in the back of the knees. Pain shot through Niko’s legs as he hit the floor.

“Leave him be.” Drew rammed his shoulder into a man holding a rough chunk of wood.

“Are you really pulling a knife on me?” Kai laughed.

Niko scrambled to his feet in time to see Kai kick the knife out of an older man’s grasp.

“We need to go.” Niko grabbed a heavy wooden chair and swung it at the men blocking the door as bells rang in the distance.

The soldiers would be rallying. In a few minutes, they’d be on their way.

The chair in Niko’s hands shattered as he slammed two men into the wall.

A few minutes to wait for the soldiers seemed like far too long.

“Kai, Drew!” Niko ducked as a bottle of frie flew past his head.

“Are the paun too frightened to fight?”

The question spun Niko around.

The blond man had climbed down from the bar. The shouts and clatter of the fight at the back of the pub nearly drowned out the man’s words. “Want to run back to the safety of your expensive bed and wait for a flock of soldiers to come handle us?”

“I’m not afraid to fight you.” Niko had reached the table right next to the door. His hands fumbled across its sticky surface. “But I am fond of the White Froth, and I hate to see damage done to such a fine establishment.” Niko’s fingers found something solid and metal. “But as you’ve given me no choice.” He swung the candlestick toward the man’s face. The flames streaked through the air, leaving a blur across Niko’s vision as he hit the man in the side of the head.

The man roared as blood stained his pale hair.

“Niko, get Drew!” Kai’s shout carried over the bedlam.

Niko easily spotted Kai who had a knife in each hand as he backed toward the door, flanked by others in sailor blue. But Drew wasn’t with the Guilded sailors.

The blond man shouted and lunged for Niko, who leapt to the side, shoving the man in the back so his forward momentum sent him face first into the wall.

Niko caught sight of Drew.

Blood coated Drew’s knuckles. He bared his teeth as he swung at a commoner who had backed him against the window.

Cursing under his breath, Niko leapt up onto the table between them, his feet barely touching the surface before he jumped down on the other side. Raising his candlestick high, Niko swung at the man closest to Drew.

He only caught a glimpse of his opponent’s face before his poor weapon struck.

He’s practically a boy. He shouldn’t be here fighting.

But two other men waited behind the boy to strike as he faltered.

“Sorry about this.” Niko grabbed Drew around the middle and leapt back, throwing them both through the window.

The pain of glass slicing his skin as the window shattered was only a pinprick compared to hitting the stone street on the other side.

“Niko!” An arm wrapped around him, dragging him to his feet.

The clomp of heavy boots thundered from the end of the street.

“Is Drew all right?” Niko blinked as his eyes drifted in and out of focus.

“I’m fine,” Drew grunted.

Niko’s feet fumbled on the cobblestones as Kai dragged him away from the soldiers.

The shouts inside the White Froth had gotten worse in the few moments they’d been outside.

Kai pulled him into the shadows between two cracked and shabby stone houses. “Everyone still breathing?”

“For now.” Drew leaned against the house opposite Niko.

Niko rubbed his eyes with his sleeves, but the red covering Drew didn’t go away.

“We need to get to the healers.” Niko pushed away from the wall, gritting his teeth against the pain that seared through his left side where he’d struck the street.

Kai bled from a gash across his shoulder, and even his tan skin couldn’t hide the bruises forming on his face.

Niko didn’t even want to know how bad he looked.

“You two go on.” Drew gripped the wall as he swayed. “I think a nice rest and a bottle of frie is what I need.”

“You need healing,” Kai said.

“If you go now, you’ll be clear of the common streets before word of the fight spreads,” Drew said. “The last thing you’ll want is to be caught around here in Guild colors tonight. I don’t think they’ll even be friendly to sailor blue.”

An itch of worry gnawed at Niko’s stomach. They were in no shape to fight again, and asking the soldiers to escort them back to the Guilded streets was more than his pride could bear.

And, if the soldiers saw him, word of his being in a brawl would reach Lord Karron and trickle right down to Allora.

“Best to move quickly then.” Niko took a step forward. Pain shot through his right leg. “Maybe not too quickly.”

“Come on, Drew,” Kai said as he joined Niko at the end of the alley, his gait showing no harm from the fight.

“All I need is a bottle of frie.” Drew waved a blood-covered hand. “You head to the healers. I’ll see you at the docks in the morning.”

“Don’t be daft,” Niko said. “You’re bleeding from more places than I can count. Come with us, and they’ll fix you up.”

“No, they won’t.” Drew shrugged, wincing in pain from the movement. “If I had been hurt on the ship, the Healers Guild would fix me up in a flash, but I got hurt throwing punches.”

“So did we―” Niko began.

“But I’m not Guilded,” Drew cut him off. “They’ll want nothing to do with me. I’m not going to limp across Ilara to be turned away by a bunch of scarlet-clad slitches.”

“Drew―”

“I’m glad you’ll get help. But the best help for me is to get off the streets and away from the two of you.” Drew gave a half-hearted laugh. “The last thing I need is to be caught with two bloodied-up Guilders. Caught by common folk or soldiers, I’ll be stuck up a chivving pole either way.”

Niko opened his mouth to argue, but Kai spoke first. “Be careful on the way home. And if you need anything, send word.” Kai pulled a silver token from his pocket and pressed it into Drew’s hand. “If the soldiers give you trouble, tell them you saved me.”

Drew smiled, creasing the drying blood on his face. “You be careful, too. The tilk in the White Froth might be louder than the rest, but they aren’t the only ones who are unhappy. Guild colors will be as good as a target soon, and even your fancy saints won’t be enough to save you.”

Drew limped through the shadows and out of sight.

“Wasn’t expecting a brawl when I came out tonight.” Niko shifted his weight onto his injured leg. The pain carried up from his knee as though something were out of place. “We all knew bringing in unguilded soldiers would cause trouble, but I thought it would start farther south.”

Kai wrapped Niko’s arm around his shoulder, helping him limp out onto the street.

“It’s bigger than unguilded soldiers.” Kai spoke softly. “You don’t see the common folk as much as I do. I work with tilk every day on the ships. I live in their district. The rumblings of trouble have been coming for a while. On the ships, in the streets, the common folk are angry. I don’t think this will blow away with the summer wind.”

“And what are we supposed to do?”

“We survive.” Kai gave a low and humorless chuckle. “We’re Karrons. It’s what we do.”