The Thorn of Dentonhill (28 page)

“Yeah,” Delmin said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Bad fish at dinner. I'll . . . I'll be fine, though. You said this thing is rare. How rare?”

“It happens only every forty-seven years,” said Eittle. “At least from Maradaine.”

“Right. Come on, Vee. The professor is waiting for us.” Delmin grabbed Veranix by the elbow and dragged him over to the stairwell.

“What's wrong?” Veranix asked when they were alone.

“This is bad,” Delmin muttered as they went down the stairs. “This is very, very bad.”

“Tell me.” They reached the bottom of the stairs and went out the door, where the prefect on watch gave them a cursory nod as they exited. Night had fallen.

“All right, this is pure speculation, pure theory, but it adds up.” Delmin looked up at the sky. The blood moon—Namali—was full, climbing in the sky, while Onali hung higher, a perfect half-moon. “Reading up on napranium, I pulled out a book called
Brenium's Northern Travels
. Brenium was a Kieran mage, from several hundred years ago, who traveled through the wild lands of northern Waisholm, and then to Bardinæ. Places where mystics practice Physical Focus.”

“Physical Focus?” asked Veranix. “I know I've read that somewhere.”

“Physical Focus, Veranix. Ancient arts like runecasting, reading entrails, blood rituals, astrology.” He said the last one pointedly, glancing up at the sky.

“You've lost me, Delmin,” Veranix looked up at the sky. “Are you telling me that this Winged Convergence thing is significant somehow?”

“At one point Brenium met an old mystic who claimed he could crack into
numina
and create a
jaäbousha
, a creature of pure, living
numina
. He needed animal blood, and the ritual could be performed only ‘when the red moon flies on its wings.'”

“That . . . that's ludicrous,” Veranix said. “Old tales of nonsense.” He quickened his pace to Bolingwood.

“I don't know,” Delmin said. “Some scholars have theorized that phases of the moons could affect
numina
flow, the degree of it has never been properly charted. Who knows what a rare convergence might do?”

Veranix looked up again. “Yes, but . . . Brenium never saw it actually done, right? There was no proof that the whole thing wasn't just the raving of a madman.”

“Right, the old mystic didn't perform the ritual, because he didn't have the proper things. ‘Clad to establish his power, and bindings to control the beast.' That's what it says.”

It hit Veranix like a blow across the head. “In other words, a cloak and a rope. This is very bad. Very, very bad.”

Delmin stopped for a moment and smiled. “But you don't have them, he can't get them. So that's all right, then.”

“Right,” Veranix said. “And how angry is he going to be about that? And what will he do to the professor and Kaiana in retaliation?” He looked up at the tower. “Come on, let's get moving. First we need to go to the professor's office.”

“Why do we need to do that?” Delmin asked.

“I told you. I have a plan.”

The Turnabout was full of sound and spectacle. Dozens of Rose Street Princes filled the tables that rounded the outer edge of the floor, everyone laughing and drinking. The small wooden stage in the corner housed two musicians, playing a raunchy number on the horn and fiddle about a city girl who got lost out in the country. Some people in the place were singing along. Others paid more attention to the open ring of the floor, where two hopeful recruits brawled fist-to-nose, hoping to earn prestige with the senior members of the gang. The most senior present, Hotchins, paid them no mind, focusing his attention on a game of flip-stone with one of his lieutenants. Hotchins wasn't a street cap, anyway. Basement bosses like him didn't care about new blood.

The only street cap in the place was Colin. He sat by himself in one corner at a table illuminated by a lone candle, his heckie pie barely touched. The gravy had gone cold, congealed and greasy. He tapped the pie tin absently with his fork.

“Oy, you see this?” Hetzer slapped a piece of paper down on the table and sat down next to Colin. “Red Rabbits are running all around papering this. Both sides of Waterpath, and along the campus wall.”

“Both sides?” Colin asked. That wasn't good news. The Rabbits were the weakest gang in Aventil. If they were running paper on both sides of Waterpath, they were doing it with Fenmere's blessing, if not for Fenmere. That was the kind of toehold into Aventil Colin didn't want Fenmere having. He frowned and looked at the paper. It was a lot of images, pretty complicated for a paper job, but the one that stood out immediately to Colin was the spiny thorn on the top. “You ask Tooser what he thinks it means?”

“He thinks it's a message to the Thorn,” said Hetzer.

“That I got, pike,” snapped Colin, scowling. “The rest?”

Hetzer pointed to the image of the scale in the center of the page. “He thinks it's about a trade they want the Thorn to make. There's a crown and a bag on one side, see, and two people on the other. Bloke and a bird. Maybe the Thorn is holding somebody's kids for cash?”

“No,” Colin said. He felt his chest tighten up, his mouth go dry. “They got somebody who matters to the Thorn, they want the money and merch that he took from them.”

“Who do you think they got?” Hetzer asked.

“Blazes should I know, Hetz?” Colin snapped, but the image of that dark Napa girl came right to his mind. He figured that skinny piece of hairy college scrabble Veranix was always with was the bloke. “The rest?”

“Twelve bells on the bottom, and a fish. Tooser thinks that's the time and place for the drop. Twelve bells at a fish market. Didn't we hear the Thorn had some scrap with Fenmere's boys at a fish market in Denton?”

“The cannery on Necker,” Colin said. “But this ain't a symbol for Fenmere or his boys at all. Or Red Rabbits.” He pointed to the last image, the hand in a circle, done in blue ink.

“Yeah, Tooser didn't know nothing about that neither. Thought you might have a clue.”

“Nah,” Colin said. “And this ain't nothing of ours, anyway. This business with the Thorn has been too much trouble in the street, anyway.”

“Trouble in Dentonhill, you mean.” Hotchins had walked over to the table.

“Trouble in Denton means Fenmere gives trouble here,” Colin said. “We don't need that kind of noise.”

“Right,” Hotchins said. “Last time Aventil made any noise, Fenmere rolled us all real good. We know how your father took that, Col.”

“Don't you start on my father again, Old Man,” Colin said, standing up, his blood boiling. “He did what he had to. Aventil gangs still survive at all because of that.”

“I know it,” Hotchins said. “I was there. Your father and your uncle, saints bless him, they did what they could. Did what they had to.” Colin eased off. “I was just thinking, though, I was also in Quarrygate for a few years. You ain't been there, have you?”

“No, man,” Hetzer said, shaking his head. Colin and Hotchins both stared hard at him, and he shrank away from the table.

“You do what you have to in Quarry,” Hotchins said, “just to stay alive. Plenty of blokes in there bite their lips while the big dogs and the guards roll them.”

“Even the guards?” Hetzer asked. “I'd thought they'd at least go after doxies.”

“A lot of guards like the power of treating another man as a doxy, boy,” Hotchins said. “That's the truth about Quarrygate.”

“Listen, Hotchins,” Colin said, “You don't need to tell us about this . . .”

“It's the truth,” Hotchins said, his bald head turning red. Colin wasn't sure if it was with anger or shame. “It's what happens in Quarry. I never bit my lip, though. When they got me, it cost them in blood and teeth, every time. And in the Quarry, that gives you respect. They call you a cat. But it's what Fenmere's been doing to Aventil for twenty years, and it ain't cost him a thing. We're all scared mice.”

“You saying we should start something?” Hetzer asked.

“I ain't saying that,” Hotchins said, getting up from the table. “I'm too old to be anything but a mouse no more.” He tapped the picture of the thorn on the paper. “But mice need to respect the cat.” He walked away from the table.

Colin looked down at the satchel at his feet. The one the Napa girl had given him. Veranix wouldn't be able to trade anything, because he didn't have it to trade. That Napa girl had counted on Colin to keep it safe. To keep Veranix safe.

That was the promise he had made when Veranix first came to Maradaine. That was a blood promise. To family and to Rose Street.

He grabbed the satchel and stood up, knocking the table and all its contents over in the process.

“Cap?” asked Hetzer, “What're you doing?”

“I ain't no mouse,” Colin said.

“What are you gonna do? Be a cat? Hotchins just said . . .” Hetzer followed Colin down to the doors of the Turnabout.

“Not a cat,” Colin said. He turned back to Hetzer and the rest of the bar. “Just a cousin, worthy of being called a Rose Street Prince. Come on.” He walked out. Hetzer glanced back at the rest of the Princes in the bar. He gave a nod over to Hotchins, thumped his chest with his fist, and followed after Colin into the night.

W
ILLEM FENMERE
did not like what he saw.

Fenmere had spent most of his life involved in all sorts of unsavory things. He'd killed more men than he could count. He'd seen eyes gouged from their sockets. He'd seen men so messed from drink and drug that they lost control of every bodily function. He'd destroyed lives. He'd sold stolen children. He watched five men force themselves on a wailing doxy all at once, and then took her himself when they were done. His stomach was iron. He was a bad man, and he made no pretense that he was otherwise.

This Lord Sirath and his Blue Hand Circle made his stomach turn.

When they killed the rabbit, Fenmere thought that was strange, but not disgusting. He found it rather disturbing when Kalas started painting circles with the blood. The final thing that pushed him over the edge was Sirath wearing the dead animal as a hat. Sirath had already proven himself to be far more disturbing and petulant than any amount of money was worth. Their business and partnership was not something Fenmere needed, and it was no longer desirable, regardless of how many crowns they threw around.

The worst part, he felt, was that it was all in his own warehouse. The place would need to be scoured clean after this business.

No,
he thought,
burned to the ground.

The old professor and the dark girl were tied up, back to back, dangling on a hook over one of the blood circles. Kalas had also put a sack over the old man's head, and told Bell to hit him several times. That struck Fenmere as excessive, but Kalas and Sirath both said the professor was dangerous, so he let it go. The whole business was too absurd to complain about how the hostages were treated.

Gerrick was over by the door, shaking his head in disbelief. Fenmere knew just how his old friend felt. He walked over to him.

“Let's divorce ourselves of this whole mess,” he told Gerrick.

“You sure?” Gerrick said. “I mean, I don't blame you, but . . . there still is the matter of the forty thousand crowns.”

“Thorn won't come with the money, I'll tell you that much.”

“You think?” Gerrick asked.

“I'm hardly convinced the old man and the Napa are people that matter to the Thorn, but even presuming they do, my gut tells me the Thorn isn't the type to let it go without a scrap. Remember what he did with Nevin. Or the Three Dogs. If they're his friends, he'll come get them.”

“So what do you want to do, boss?” asked Gerrick.

“Get the blazes out of this place. Tell Bell to stay with a few boys. If the Thorn does come with the money, they can bring it back. Otherwise they can clean up after this mess. Saints know
Lord
Sirath won't do anything of the sort.”

“Then we're going home?”

“Rutting yes, Gerrick. Unless you want to stay.”

“Not a chance, boss,” said Gerrick. “I'll let Bell know.” Gerrick went across the room to talk to Bell. Fenmere looked back over at Sirath, who was now kneeling under the trussed-up hostages, muttering and tapping the floor with a knife. The dead rabbit still oozed blood down his face, and a few flies had already started buzzing around him.

The Thorn might be a pain in my side,
Fenmere thought,
but I can at least respect that he's no freak.

“You are a freak, Veranix. I want you to know this.” Delmin said.

Veranix looked down at Delmin from the windowsill he had already climbed up on. Delmin stood down on the street, biting his lip to keep from laughing. He was alone down there. The streets of Dentonhill were eerily quiet. People had probably seen the paper job, and knew something was up, and chose to stay in. Even the Dogs' Teeth, down the way, was sedate this night. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Besides the fact you can jump and climb like some kind of monkey?” asked Delmin. He chuckled.

“When did you ever see a monkey, Delmin?” Veranix asked.

“I . . . have read about them,” Delmin answered, his face souring. “Why are you climbing up to the top of the shop?”

“Two reasons,” Veranix said, holding up two fingers at Delmin to emphasize the point. “One, I'm armed and dressed for a fight. That looks suspicious, so best I stay out of sight. Two, if I'm too close to you, it's harder for you to track what you need to find. So I'll follow you from the rooftops.”

“Fine, fine,” Delmin said, shaking his head. “Freak.”

“You're just jealous,” Veranix said. He flashed a grin while jumping up to the lip of the roof and flipping himself over.

“Someday you're going to tell me how you learned all that,” called Delmin.

Veranix leaned back over the edge of the roof. “Shh. Start tracking.”

“Tracking, right,” Delmin muttered. He started pacing around the road.

Veranix took a moment to stretch his legs and arms, get a sense of his body. “Before any show,” his grandfather used to say, “you've got to have a feel for your tools. And your body is your most important tool.”

“Big show tonight,” he whispered absently. He felt solid, ready. The injuries he had taken to his shoulder and leg hurt plenty, but he wasn't going to let them stop him. He'd have time to heal after Kai and the professor were safe. He checked the straps on his belts holding his weapons on tight to his back. His father's bow and quiver of arrows were secure. The bow had felt wrong when he practiced with it before he left the campus. He had remembered it being harder to pull, being bigger in his hands. The last time he had tried to use it was two years ago.
Perhaps I wasn't ready for it then,
he thought.

He absently ran his fingers over the arrows, feeling for the one with the notches filed on the end. He had to know exactly where it was, and be ready to pull that one in a moment when he needed it.

His new staff was secure in its strap. The staff was one of Kaiana's garden tools, with the head sawed off. He mused that she would probably be angry that he wrecked it, but it was his way of honoring her.

He was wearing his old maroon cloak. He was annoyed with himself that he had abandoned it, thought of it as “old.” He shouldn't have gotten used to the napranium cloak and rope so quickly. He had become cocky with them, thought himself helpless without them.

Not anymore. Tonight he was going in, muscle and bone, like grandfather used to say. His body was his tool, and he knew how to use it well.

On the street below, Delmin began to move in earnest, north, deeper into Dentonhill. Veranix kept him in sight as he ran to the edge of the shop. He launched his light frame into the air. No magic this time, just skill and training. Pure.

He landed on the next roof, his boots barely making a scuff as he kept going, not breaking pace.

He had forgotten how good that felt.

He restrained the urge to let out a whoop of joy as he continued along the rooftops.

Look out, Lord Sirath,
he thought.
Veranix the Thorn is coming for you.

Hetzer was scared out of his mind. It was a good kind of fear, though; a fear that drove him. It kept him moving, kept him aware of everything around him. He had never in his life been this deep into Dentonhill before. Rose Street Princes almost never crossed Waterpath, and they certainly didn't go out to Necker Square. Colin seemed to know where he was going, though, and he walked with determined confidence. Hetzer mimicked that.

Hetzer also mimicked Colin in rolling down his shirtsleeves. Habit was to wear them rolled up, so everyone could see the tattoo of the rose and the crown on their right arms. In Aventil, they wore their brand with pride. Hetzer bristled at the idea of covering up, but as tough as he felt he was, he had no intention of taking on all of Fenmere's operation. He wasn't the Thorn.

Hardly anyone was on the streets, though. Everyone who walked past them did it hurriedly, eyes to the ground. Hetzer could sense it in the air, that feeling that something big was going to happen tonight.

“All right,” Colin said as they approached the square. He pointed to a side alley. “You're going to wait in there with this, keep an eye on me.” He handed the satchel to Hetzer.

“What are you gonna do?” asked Hetzer.

“I'm going to meet whoever is here for the trade. The merch for the bloke and bird. But we gotta run it smart, see? We don't give them nothing without seeing the people they got, see?”

“What merch?” Hetzer asked. He looked at the satchel in his hands. “What the blazes we got here?”

“We've got the most valuable thing in Dentonhill, Hetz.” He patted the satchel. “Now you got it. Something takes a left turn, you run home, got it?”

“This ain't the Thorn's merch, is it?” Hetzer asked. He couldn't believe the words he was saying. “Colin, cap, how the hell you get . . . sweet saints, you are the Thorn, ain't ya?”

“I ain't the blasted Thorn!”

“But you know who he is, don't ya? He is a Prince, ain't he?”

“Shush,” Colin said, pushing Hetzer deeper into the alley. He looked around the corner into the square. “Not on his arm, he ain't.”

“But then . . .” Hetzer started. Colin snapped his fingers at him, hushing him again.

“You listening, Hetzie? You hold onto that merch, and you watch. I whistle, you come. They lead me somewhere else, you follow, but don't let them see you. You're good at that.”

“Blazes, yes,” said Hetzer. “And if its sours, I run.”

“You run like Ginny Thouser is waiting in your bed for a roll, get it?”

“Got it.” He clapped Colin on the shoulder. “Just another merch trade, deep in Fenmere's country. Let's do this, aye?”

“Aye,” Colin said. Without another word, he went out of the alley and walked across Necker Square. He stood in front of the cannery, where Hetzer had a clear view of him.

Hetzer glanced at the satchel. This was really the merch that Fenmere was going crazy for? This was what the Thorn pinched from him? He could hardly believe it. He snuck a quick peek in the satchel.

All he saw was a rope and some cloth.

Hetzer almost started to laugh. Colin was playing an angle here, he just didn't know what. There was no way there would be this much noise over junk like this. He trusted Colin knew what he was doing; that's why Colin was a street cap, and he wasn't. Some people thought it was because Colin was a Tyson, but Hetzer knew better. Blazes, he knew well how hard Colin needed to prove himself as a good captain, that he was more like his uncle than his father.

A strange thought crossed Hetzer's mind. What was it Colin had said back in the Turnabout? He had to be a cousin worthy of being called a Prince. That was rubbish, of course. There wasn't another man more worthy of Rose Street than Colin, as far as Hetzer was concerned. What's more, Colin didn't even have a cousin. For that to be true, then . . .

Then the Thorn would have to be the son of Calbert Tyson.

That was a ridiculous thought. Hetzer shook it out of his mind. He looked back over at Colin, who was still waiting at the cannery. Far off in the distance, church bells started ringing. Twelve bells for midnight.