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  With a shake of his head Choss pushed away his loneliness and focused on the task at hand. Turning his back on the brothels he went deeper into the dark heart of the district, where the lights inside the buildings were dim and more windows were covered or boarded up.

  Even so he caught glimpses of horrific sights through shuttered windows. Outside one grimy building, with bars on every window, Choss saw a long queue of men waiting in the street. He circled around the back to avoid the crowd and as he passed a window risked a glance inside. A burly local man stood around a huddle of scantily dressed skinny women who all reached out towards him with greedy, desperate hands. Choss couldn’t see what the man passed out to each, probably black crystal, but the women all gobbled it up. Their eyes glazed over, a few just fell to the floor and the rest stumbled away. More jackals came in, took the women away over their shoulders like sacks of grain, shoving others who could walk ahead of them. He heard the front door open and the customers come inside. The clink of money followed and the whimpering and rhythmic grunting began soon after.

  A few street away Choss paused, leaning against a wall to catch his breath and swallow the burning coal of rage. Every fibre of his being told him to go back, to rush in there and do something to help. He had no illusions. Don Jarrow wasn’t a good man, but there were lines he wouldn’t cross. You could buy company for an hour in his district, but the Jarrows didn’t enslave anyone or get them hooked on crystal or venthe. He’d heard stories about it being worse in other areas, but hadn’t seen it with his own eyes until now.

  It took a while but eventually he calmed himself down. One thing at a time. As he turned a corner he stumbled into a teenage boy, sending him flying. A gang of six more youths laughed at their friend’s misfortune until they saw Choss’s mask.

  “Who are you supposed to be?” asked one.

  “Do you work for Don Kal?” asked another and Choss shook his head slowly. “That’s good news for us then,” said the chatty lad, pulling a narrow shiv from his pocket. The others copied him, drawing out sharp spikes of metal. “’Cos we do, and he don’t like outsiders. So give us your money and maybe we won’t cut off your balls.”

  If they really did work for Don Kal they would be Paper jackals, the lowest on the ladder in the organisation. They were just the eyes and ears for a Family on the street. It would have to do for now. Choss loosened his shoulders, cricked his neck from side to side and sank down in the cool and calm place in his mind. He shut out all emotion, ignoring the coal of anger that permanently burned in his gut. It was an eternal flame of rage that had never gone out. But he could control it. He was the better man and had proven it many times over. Instinct and experience would guide him, blind rage would only cripple his talent. Gesturing with one hand he beckoned for the boys to approach.

  “All right, big man, we’ll do it the hard way. Fuck him up!” screamed the youth, before he charged. Choss pulled his punches but still broke the first lad’s nose, smashing it across his face with a hard left jab. A right backhand sent the boy spinning into the wall. He deflected a clumsy stab on a bracer and kicked a second boy in the chest, breaking ribs and knocking him into two more bodies. Choss broke the leg of another lad, shattering his shin with a vicious kick, threw another headfirst into a wall, and snapped the forearm of the next boy. They had the numbers and crude weapons, but were untrained opportunists. Choss had been street fighting against bigger opponents since his tenth birthday. After that came years of training and countless professional fights. Over the years he’d lost many times, and had learned more about himself from those beatings than from any victory. The outcome today had never been in doubt.

  The fight lasted less than a minute and soon the ground was littered with crying teenage boys. Their bravado and arrogance had evaporated. Terror replaced it as Choss approached, lifting one boy off the ground until his feet dangled in the air. A bit of drama always helped at times like these. Suddenly his mask and black clothing weren’t funny. A wet patch spread across the front of the boy’s breeches as he pissed himself.

  “Where do I find the venthe dealers?” he asked. The boy hurried to answer so Choss grabbed one wrist, bending it backwards until the boy screamed. “Look at your friends and think carefully before you lie,” he said.

  In between cries for his mother, with snot bubbling out of his nose, the boy gave him directions. Choss dropped him to the ground, then moving slowly and calmly, he walked away and didn’t look back. Mercy in this place was worthless and it would be exploited. He couldn’t afford to show any weakness.

  He followed the boy’s directions and a few minutes later saw two people shuffling along the street. They were twitchy, one muttering to himself, and Choss recognised the tell-tale blue stains at the corners of their mouths. Venthe addicts. He trailed after them and soon saw the dealer, a Zecorran man wearing a red bandanna. When the last addict had shuffled away Choss approached. The man knew how to handle himself but even so he didn’t last much longer than the boys.

  The left side of his face was a bloody pulp, one eye swelling closed, and both lips were split. His collar bone was broken on the left and the arm dislocated from a hard collision with a stone wall. Choss held the man upright against a wall, casually leaning his forearm across the dealer’s throat.

  “Tell me about your new supplier.”

  “Same one. Hasn’t changed,” gasped the dealer. Choss shook his head sadly and delivered a hard punch to the man’s gut. The dealer fell to the ground, wheezing and gasping for air. Choss took the venthe powder from the dealer’s pocket, tipped it out of the little paper bags and ground it into the mud.

  He stalked the darkest streets of the meat district for the next hour and took out three more dealers. Each time they gave him the same answer. Nothing had changed. Same supplier, same routine. As doubt crept in, a new line of worry began to furrow the creases between Choss’s eyebrows.

  As he approached yet another dealer the inevitable happened. As soon as the dealer caught sight of his black mask he ran, but Choss didn’t chase him. Instead he followed at a slow walk and around the next corner he found five thugs waiting for him. All of them were armed, and stood in front of them with his arm in a sling was one of the boys from earlier.

  “That’s him!” he screamed. The biggest man, tall enough to be a Seve except for the pale colour of his skin, shoved the boy away, his eyes never leaving Choss. The others were two local men and two Morrin women who watched him with merciless amber eyes.

  “You work for Don Kal?” asked Choss and the big man inclined his head. That meant he was probably a Brass jackal. A street boss who ran one of the gangs. None of the thugs made any threats. They held themselves well and their weapons looked worn but sharp. A different sort of fight then.

  Choss drew both punching daggers from his belt and waited. The boy turned and ran. As the five came towards him Choss quickly studied his surroundings before focusing on the way his opponents moved. The big man held back, letting the others go first, probably to wear him down.

  One man on the left swung at Choss with a short-handled mace. The other on his right came at him with a sword. Choss dodged the mace and jabbed the man in the shoulder, his punching dagger biting into flesh, then he elbowed the man in the face. Deflecting the sword on his right bracer, he quickly jabbed the other man twice in the stomach with his left hand. Both men fell back, howling in pain and clutching their bleeding wounds. The others clambered over them never taking their eyes off Choss.

  He gave ground, moving his feet carefully to avoid tripping. The two Morrin came forward. One held a short sword and the other a local Yerskani cleaver blade. With a roar that startled them both, Choss charged, feinting at one and then ducking and sweeping the legs of the other. As the Morrin’s head struck the ground it bounced, but the Morrin rolled away before Choss could finish her. They had thick skulls which made it very difficult to knock them out.

  With both arms crossed Choss blocked a lethal blow from a short sword that
would have split his head in two. Sparks rained down from where the blade struck his bracers. Morrin had sensitive eyes, which bought him a second as she fell back.

  The other came forward again. Instead of trying to block the blow Choss lashed out at the same time towards her arm. His blade bit clean through the Morrin’s forearm, stopping her attack cold. As her cleaver started to fall from useless fingers, Choss grabbed it and threw it at the other Morrin. It was badly timed and the weapon wasn’t made for throwing, but it bought him a couple more seconds. He sawed the blade back and forth in the Morrin’s arm as she screamed and tried to shove him away. With his right fist he jabbed the Morrin hard in the thigh, then stepped back, leaving her bleeding on the ground in two places.

  The other swung at him wildly, enraged and determined to finish the fight quickly. Emotion had fired her up and made her clumsy. Perhaps the other Morrin was a relative or close friend. He ducked one blow, sliced off one of her ears and punched her low in the back. Such a blow would normally kill, but Morrin didn’t have kidneys in the same place. They did, though, have a thick nerve cluster there, which made her drop to the ground, twitching like a puppet with cut strings, head and ankles rattling on the ground.

  Choss waited for the big man to attack but instead he turned and ran. It was only when the adrenaline faded that Choss become aware of his heavy breathing and the sweat trickling down his sides. More ran inside the mask, making his face itch, but he didn’t dare take it off. Being this deep in another Family’s territory made him very nervous. It would be extremely dangerous for someone to discover his identity.

  Leaving the bleeding jackals behind, Choss went into the next street before finding what he needed. Someone had illegally dug out the basement of their house, creating the perfect place to grow venthe in dark wet soil. It didn’t happen in areas of the city where the Watch regularly patrolled, but out here it was common.

  Choss descended the three steps to the low door, but didn’t try to open it and force his way inside. He hunkered down and waited. A short time later his breathing had returned to normal and the sweat cooled on his body. A wave of fatigue ran through him, but adrenaline kept him awake and alert. The thump of many feet made him lean deeper into the shadows but no one was looking for him. They wouldn’t expect him to linger nearby.

  Ten more armed toughs, led by the tall Brass jackal from earlier, went past him and around the corner towards their fallen friends. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but the conversations were angry and short. The thugs stumbled past him in the other direction, taking their injured friends with them.

  Choss waited until they were out of sight before following at a discreet distance. The Brass had no need to move quietly. They ruled these streets, which made them easy to follow. Instead of moving towards the more populated area, they went further out, towards the edge of the district.

  About half an hour later Choss watched the jackals approach an old rundown warehouse. All of the immediate buildings surrounding it were nothing more than ruins, shells with gaping roofs and missing walls, tumbled stones and one or two wooden frames of projects half built. It created a lot of empty space around the warehouse and few shadows, which meant he had to watch from a distance. Even from his position Choss could see that several men armed with crossbows were patrolling outside the warehouse. There were a couple more on the roof and when the main door slid open to admit the Brass, four more armed thugs stood waiting.

  He only had a brief glimpse inside the warehouse, but saw a big table covered with a network of glass tubes and bubbling cauldrons manned by people with bandannas over the lower half of their faces. The injured thugs stumbled inside and the door slid closed.

  It didn’t make sense. Choss turned the puzzle over in his head but only came away with more questions. Either this was one of Don Kal’s farms, where they cooked up the venthe, or his Brass were secretly working for someone else. If they were loyal, then did the Don know about the lethal version of venthe? Had he been producing it in secret? Perhaps he’d been trying to make something more addictive and it had gone wrong.

  Or someone else had managed to turn some of his people and they were muscling in on Don Kal’s turf. It seemed unlikely, but none of the Brass had reported back about what had happened. If Choss had been in their position he or one of the Brass would have gone directly to the Gold or the Don himself.

  He needed more information and to get inside the warehouse, but couldn’t do it by himself. Choss desperately needed help and he knew exactly where to get it from.

  CHAPTER 16

  Talandra stared around at her rustic surroundings and smiled at its simplicity.

  All of the furniture, the two chairs, the table, the wardrobe, even the bed, had been handmade. If she was honest Talandra would’ve said the workmanship was fairly poor. Some pieces of wood didn’t quite fit together, and the head of a couple of nails stuck out from the top of an armrest on one chair. Talandra loved it all the more.

  Every piece was made by the same pair of hands. Every bit of wood sawed, varnished and put together over countless hours with one person in mind. Ursel had lost his daughter at sea when she was twenty-one. Since then no one had entered the small apartment above his tailoring shop. He could’ve sold it, or rented it out many times over the last ten years, but he couldn’t bear the thought of that. Talandra felt blessed to be sitting in Munlala’s chair. The amount of love Ursel still had for his daughter was a pleasant reminder of her own father. Many years ago the tailor had been a spy for her father. After hearing his story Talandra had been unable to refuse his generous hospitality.

  Alexis bustled into the room with another armful of cushions and, without being asked, Talandra stood up so that the taller woman could add them to both chairs. It was strange to see her out of uniform, but the sword on her hip was still there. Another of her royal guard came into the room bearing a tray loaded with bread and a huge bowl of steaming soup.

  “Alexis, could you—”

  “After the soup,” said the big blonde. “Whatever it is will wait until after you’ve eaten.”

  Both women hurried out of the room, leaving her to eat. Talandra could hear the other woman going back down the steps to resume her post while Alexis stood outside her door.

  The most difficult part of Talandra’s secret journey to Perizzi had not been the miles on horseback, but persuading other people to let her travel. After listening carefully to Shani and reading the latest intelligence report she had agreed to a body-double and the need for extreme caution.

  However, a formal visit required a lengthy caravan including a contingent of royal guards, wagons full of supplies so that her journey could be made in comfort. Then there were the people to look after the animals pulling her carriage, people to prepare her meals, scouts to check the roads ahead, and before long the number in her entourage had swelled to more than fifty.

  The pace at which such a large group could move each day, including time to break camp each morning and set it up each night, was incredibly slow. After a lengthy discussion and heated debate with her brother, Hyram, he’d eventually agreed to let her travel ahead of the official caravan with six of her royal guards. He’d wanted to send a dozen, but the larger the group the more difficult it became to go unnoticed. Perizzi had several gates into the city and all of them were being watched for the unusual, which someone could sell for a profit.

  While the royal caravan slowly crawled its way towards Perizzi, with her body-double doing a convincing job of pretending to be her, Talandra had ridden ahead. For the next few days she would be able to move around the city without her every move and word being reported and studied. For the first time in a year Talandra felt an easing of the weight of her responsibilities.

  As she absently rubbed her swelling stomach Talandra read the latest report from Roza. She was glad they had already set off before this information became available. Now that the plot had been confirmed Shani would never have let her travel, adding her voice t
o the others about it being too dangerous. So far the implied threats had only been directed towards Queen Morganse, but Talandra didn’t believe the danger for her had passed.

  A sharp double rap at the door announced the first of her guests. She took a moment to compose herself and adopt a carefully neutral expression.

  Alexis stepped into the room first and behind her came a short, spindly Zecorran man with thinning grey hair and a haughty expression. Valkrish was the Zecorran Minister of State and not someone Talandra would normally have the misfortune of meeting, let alone being forced to deal with. A wave of annoyance ran through her merely from the way he held his nose aloft while looking at the room.

  “Majesty,” he said, not bothering to bow or even incline his head. Over his shoulder Alexis frowned but left the room without incident. Talandra didn’t bother to stand up or greet him. Instead she merely gestured towards the other chair. Valkrish slowly lowered himself into it, as if afraid it might hurt him or break under his weight. “Very… rustic.”

  “Isn’t it charming,” said Talandra with a smile, ignoring the sneer in his voice. “Thank you for agreeing to this meeting, Minister.”

  Minister Valkrish finally looked her in the eye. “This is highly irregular, but the messenger indicated it was important.”