The door flew open. For a moment it blocked Berren’s sight. Master Sy disappeared from view. The door began to swing to. Outside in the hall, two shouts and one clash of steel rang out. Then there was silence.
The door stopped, half-open. Something was in the way, stopping it from fully closing. Berren hardly dared to breathe. And then he heard his name. It was Master Sy’s voice, a low whisper.
‘Berren?’
Berren went to the door and pulled it open again. What stopped it from closing was a pair of boots. One of the snuffers was lying there, flat on his back. The thief-taker’s sword had ripped his throat out and there was blood everywhere. Berren gawped in awe. He wished he’d been standing somewhere else when the door had flown open so he could have seen what Master Sy had done.
Out in the hall, by the top of the stairs, a second snuffer lay still. Master Sy was standing over him.
‘Come here.’
Berren ran over. The second soldier had his throat slit open as well.
‘You want me to teach you to fight?’ whispered the thief-taker.
Berren nodded, almost salivating at the prospect.
‘Then take a long look, because this is how it ends.’ He ran down the stairs, favouring his good leg, leaving Berren behind to stare at the bodies and wonder.
When Berren was done staring at the bodies, he ran his hands through their pockets and helped himself to their purses. He’d been right about the jackets and they had good boots and good clothes too, and if he’d been with Master Hatchet there was no question: he’d have stripped both the snuffers of as much as he could carry.
There was a shout from below, another clash of steel and a strangled cry: ‘You? You’re dead!’ That was the man with the cane. Whatever Master Sy’s reply, it was too quiet to reach up the stairs. Berren took a sword from one of the snuffers. The usual old cavalry swords were too long for Berren’s arms, but this … this was perfect. A sword like Master Sy’s. The man’s belt was too big and he couldn’t get the scabbard free, but he didn’t care. Simply holding a real steel blade made him feel six feet taller. Made him feel like he was a man, not a boy any more.
Another yell came from below and another clash of blades. Berren bounded down. In the gloom of the hallway he saw the man with the cane, his back to the front door. He had a sword, but his hand was shaking. Between him and Berren stood Master Sy, his long coat hanging loose. He had a sword too and his was as steady as a rock. Two more snuffers lay slumped in the passageway, dead or well on their way.
‘No, no.’ The man with the cane was shaking his head. ‘No!’ He looked from side to side as though some miracle might save his life. He reached one hand behind him, fumbling for the door. Master Sy took a step forward; the man skittered sideways.
‘Deephaven is a long way from Kalda. What does the Headsman want here? What does Radek want?’
‘We should have killed you in Forgenver.’ The man was almost crying with frustration and fear and rage.
Quick as a snake, Master Sy lunged. The man with the cane darted back for the door. He turned the first blow away but he wasn’t quick enough for the second. Master Sy’s blade caught his hand, cutting it in two. The man’s sword, three of his fingers and a ragged piece of flesh fell to the floor. The man screamed.
‘Age making you slow is it?’ growled Master Sy. ‘I remember you. Radek’s Weasel, we used to call you. Made you the Headsman’s nose-picker did he? Never did your own dirty work if I remember, but you were quick. Not so quick now, eh?’
The man fell to his knees. He clutched his ruined hand. Blood ran steadily down his shirt. He was weeping now.
‘The temple. What business has the Headsman got with priests? Why does he keep bringing them here?’
Priests? Berren suddenly forgot about his new sword. Priests? Master Sy hadn’t said anything about priests or temples. Did he mean his temple?
‘Nothing! I don’t know anything about that! He doesn’t tell us!’
‘That’s very hard to believe. Very hard to believe.’
‘It’s true!’ The man’s voice grew shrill. ‘But he’s been to see the grey wizard too! They got their own thing going. I can tell you all–’
‘You’re a liar!’ Berren couldn’t see Master Sy’s face, couldn’t see much of anything in the gloom of the hall, but he heard the rage biting into every word. The thief-taker took a step forward and raised his sword.
‘Don’t! Don’t!’ The man’s cane lay on the floor near Berren’s feet. It gleamed golden in the moonlight. ‘There’s things you don’t know. It’s all different now. Listen to me! Gold! Sackfuls of it. Plenty enough to share. You could be a part of it!’
‘With you?’ A high-pitched tone of disbelief crept into the thief-taker’s voice. ‘Be a part of something with you and the Headsman and Radek? After what they did?’
‘Listen, damn you! You kill me, your life won’t be worth shit.’ He glanced at Berren. ‘You kill me, you’re dead, prince. Dead. Both of you are dead.’
The thief-taker leaned forwards and spat in the man’s face. ‘Even now you can’t help but show yourself for the turd that floats to the top of the sewer.’ He drew his sword back, ready to strike. ‘Besides, you said I was dead already.’
‘Radek knows you’re here! The Headsman already sent word! Kill me and you’re a dead man! But listen to me! It’s the black powder. Everything’s changed!’
‘Not for me!’ The thief-taker screamed something else, something that sounded like a name but was so contorted with fury that it came out as an animal sound. Then he drove the short blade of his sword down through the soft flesh between the man’s neck and his collar bone, with all his strength behind it. The Weasel lurched, gurgled, rolled his eyes and then fell forward, the weight of him tearing the sword out of Master Sy’s hand.
‘Boy,’ he hissed without looking round, ‘go find somewhere else to be.’
Berren backed away and crept up the stairs to the dead snuffers. For something to do he finished taking the sword-belt off the lanky one and put it on. He fumbled his sword back into its scabbard. Then he stood, imagining how he looked. The belt was definitely too big and the scabbard dragged on the floor however he tried to wear it. He could still take the sword, though, couldn’t he? No one else needed it.
Slowly, he drew it out of its scabbard again. This turned out to be a lot harder than it looked.
‘You want to start with something lighter,’ said Master Sy from the top of the stairs. He was leaning against the wall, watching. ‘It’s too heavy for you,’ he said.
‘Can I keep it?’
He could see the answer in Master Sy’s face at once. There were a hundred good reasons why he shouldn’t.
‘I’ll grow,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll get stronger.’
And then, to his surprise, Master Sy nodded. ‘Maybe you can trade it for one you can actually hold.’
‘They said something about a strongbox.’ He kept seeing the man with the cane die, kept hearing what he’d said. It wasn’t that it troubled him. Rather, it had thrilled him just as the time he’d seen Master Sy kill three men in an alley over a purse that had turned out to be filled with nothing but rusty iron and a few pennies. But priests? Black powder? A grey wizard? What did it all mean?
‘So he did.’
They went downstairs. Master Sy ran his hands over the dead body by the door. When he stood up, he had another key in his hand and a gleam in his eye. He led Berren back to the stone passage with the heavy doors. One of them was open now and the thief-taker moved slowly inside. The room beyond was pitch black, with no windows. They felt their way around, blind in the darkness. Pushed up against the far wall was a wooden chest bound in metal. It was too big and heavy for even two men to lift and carry away. Master Sy fumbled with the key he’d taken from the dead man with the cane. There was a click. Berren reached to open it.
‘Careful.’ Together they lifted the lid. Berren was sure it would be laden with gold and treasure, but when he reached inside, all he felt were bundles of parchment. Underneath those were round cases, hard and leathery, the sort you might use to store a map. Then his fingers finally closed on something hard and metallic. He couldn’t see what it was in the darkness but it felt like a buckle for a belt or a cloak. He imagined it to be silver or even gold, maybe even covered in gems! He slipped it into his pocket.
‘Come!’
At the far end of the strongroom passage there was another door. It was a heavy thing bound in iron, impossible to see in the dark until you walked right into it. Master Sy fiddled with his ring of stolen keys once more until he found the one that opened it. Berren sighed with relief – he could see his feet again. Shadows were one thing; shadows were for hiding and watching and he liked shadows. But full pitch dark where a man couldn’t even see where he was treading, that was a different matter.
He stepped out. They must have been in one of the myriad alleys that ran around the back of the docks and Reeper Hill, one that he didn’t know. He looked for the moon but it had dipped below the warehouses. The door, he saw, had no keyhole and no handle on the outside. In fact, from the outside, you’d barely know it was a door at all.
‘Stay here. I won’t be long.’ Master Sy trotted away down the alley. He was limping again, quite badly. When he came back, he was pushing an enormous handcart. A tarpaulin lay bundled up inside.
‘You’ll have to help me,’ he said. ‘We’re going to move the bodies.’
‘The bodies? Why, master?’ No one had seen the killings. ‘What if the watch stop us?’
Master Sy went inside. Berren followed.
‘Khrozus Blood! What a mess!’ The thief-taker started to laugh.
Three men dead on the floor downstairs, two more upstairs, blood everywhere and papers strewn about the place. ‘The soldiers and the snuffers – they saw us, master! They’re going to know!’
‘They saw Weasel and his men too.’ The thief-taker rounded on Berren. ‘Listen, lad: When the harbour-masters find this, they’re going to have fits. And yes, they’re going to know who was here, and yes, they’re going to want us all strung up – you, me, the Headsman, the lot of us.’ He pointed at the bodies. ‘One way or the other, we have to disappear now, lad. We leave them all behind us, everyone knows how it turned out. We all vanish, no one knows but us.’ The thief-taker shook his head. ‘With a bit of luck, people will think we’re dead. Maybe the Headsman might start wondering about Weasel and his snuffers, and how much can he trust them? Uncertainty makes for fear, Berren, and fear is always the thief-taker’s friend.’ He cracked his knuckles. ‘We can get Kol doing our work for us – your monks would string the Headsman up as quick as look at him. What business has he got at a temple though?’ He looked at the bodies again and sucked air between his teeth. ‘Kol could take the bodies to his catacombs and then try and get a priest to talk to them, but …’ The thief-taker was frowning furiously. ‘Or Kuy could do it. I dare say he’s not the only one. But these ones don’t know anything. Except about us.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘No, they’ve all got to go.’
Kuy! He meant Saffran Kuy, the witch-doctor from the House of Cats and Gulls. ‘So it’s true then? The witch-doctor can really make dead people talk?’ He’d never seen the witch-doctor in the flesh, but that was what the city whispers had always said: if the dead had secrets to spill, take them to the witch-doctor.
‘He really can. Now be quiet and get to work. We need to be up to Wrecking Point and back before it gets light.’
Whatever past Master Sy and the witch-doctor shared, the thief-taker kept it to himself. As best Berren could make out, they’d both come from the same place, a long time ago, both running from the same enemies. He shrugged and bowed his head, wise enough to know when there wasn’t any point in arguing, and got on with the job of dragging two corpses, bumping them down the stairs and out to the back door. He helped heave them into the handcart on top of the ones from downstairs; then Master Sy dragged the last corpse from the front door of the House of Records out to the back. It took both of them with all their strength to lift him in as well. When they were done, Berren’s hands were sticky with blood. It was on his shirt too.
‘This won’t do,’ growled Master Sy. ‘This won’t do at all.’ Berren ran around, arranging the tarpaulin on top of the cart. Master Sy circled a few paces away, pointing out where a hand or a boot or a lock of hair had broken free and was hanging out for all to see. All the while, Berren’s heart pounded. What if the watch came by? It was the middle of the night and the alley was dark and deserted, but still, this was the docks! And if not the militias, there were plenty of other gangs all ready to be full of trouble.
But no men came, no drunken sailors who’d lost their way, no shady men with cloaks and daggers and hoods to hide their faces, no gangs with padded jackets and big sticks. When the bodies were properly hidden, Berren and Master Sy went back to the strongbox. They scooped up the piles of paper and map-cases and went back to the cart. With five bodies, it took both of them to push it into motion.
‘Master, why are we doing this? What if someone stops us?’
‘Why would they?’
‘Because it’s the middle of the night!’
Master Sy shrugged. ‘But this is the docks. Is it that unusual to see a respectable citizen and his apprentice pushing a heavy cart up towards the Wrecking Point road in the middle of the night?’
Berren rather thought that yes, it was quite unusual indeed, but he held his tongue, and whatever Master Sy thought, the thief-taker kept to the alleys and the back-streets nonetheless. They pushed their cart into the warren of Reeper Hill, up steep narrow little roads that were never quite deserted, not even in the middle of the night. Here and there shadows lurked in doorways to let them pass, or else saw them coming and flitted a different way, out of their path.
When they reached the top they were both gasping for breath. The higgledy-piggledy houses of Reeper Hill fell away until there was nothing but the long crescent of broken cliff-top that was Wrecking Point. There was a road and then a path along the top, one that ran all the way to an old watchtower that no one used any more, except you couldn’t get there unless you brought a bridge with you because of the great cracks that ran right across the rock. No one came out to Wrecking Point at night. Not for anything good.
The path stopped abruptly. A chasm as wide as a man barred their way. Sheer walls of black stone fell forty feet down into the sea. The path picked up again on the other side, but only for those agile enough to jump the gap. The rest of Wrecking Point was an island.
Berren slumped against the handcart. He was drenched with sweat. The thief-taker already had the tarpaulin off, but it took both of them to lift out a body. Master Sy seemed all ready to simply hurl it off the edge into the water below; Berren had other ideas – he set to work on the man’s boots.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Good boots, master. Good armour, too. They’d be worth something. We might as well take it as not, master, especially if there’s no work to be had for the rest of the year. They don’t need them any more.’
‘Where I come from, looting the dead is a wicked thing to do.’
‘Bu–’
‘Besides, where will you sell them? The boots, perhaps, could go to someone like your old friend Hatchet. But the sword? The armour? They’re stolen. They’re bloody. Are you going to go wagoning in the night market? What if someone remembers your face? Think, lad! These aren’t chances you should be taking. There’s no need for it. The Headsman doesn’t know anything about you, might not even know you exist. Keep it that way. From tonight, we’re dead.’
With a heave, they tossed the first body over the edge and onto the rocks below.
‘The tide’s on the rise,’ said Master Sy. His limp was bad now. ‘With luck it’ll take the bodies out to sea. If fortune truly smiles on us, that’s the last anyone will ever hear of them.’ They tossed a second body over.
‘Won’t anyone go looking for them, master?’
The thief-taker laughed. ‘They were never there. The Headsman’s not going to admit he had his men in the House of Records in the middle of the night. You heard his man. I’m not sure they had any better right to be there than we did.’ Another body dropped into the sea with a splash.
‘What about him, though? The Headsman?’ asked Berren when they were done.
‘People like him don’t throw themselves on the mercy of the watch. They pay people like me to find the thieves who stole from them and bring them to justice. Which to those sort means a killing, long and bloody.’
‘People like you?’
‘Snuffers, lad. And thief-takers. People who hunt men. The Headsman knows I’m here, but he’s known that for a while now. He’s not going to know what happened tonight, perhaps not even where, but when five of his men don’t come back he’s going to know it was me. And we’re going to make sure it stays right where it is, between the two of us. Him and me. Don’t want anyone else near this, especially not you. There’ll be a price on my head after tonight, simple as that, and then there’ll be a reckoning. He’ll come for me, he’ll buy snuffers, but this is my city, lad, not his. Come on. And bring that. No sense in leaving a perfectly good handcart behind.’
Without another word, he began the long walk home. The cart seemed light as anything, now it was empty, and they made much better time. Still, as they walked, Berren couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder now and then. His head was full of things to think about. He had a sword. He’d seen the thief-taker cross a line, and do it without blinking. They were outlaws now, both of them.
And the witch-doctor down by the docks could talk to the dead.