The Golden Fool
Chapter 12: They Come In Quiet

Chapter 12: They Come In Quiet

Nik dusted his hands, then turned to the bloodied victim behind the table. "Up you get," he said.

The young man, still shivering with adrenaline, stared up at Nik with the dawning awe of a man who has just glimpsed the operating logic of the universe and found it both meaner and simpler than he’d ever guessed.

His mouth worked, but the only sound that came out was a wet, babbling gratitude.

Nik ignored it, brushing the blood from his knuckles. "Next time, pick a better place to hide," he muttered, and with a flick of his boot, nudged the young man toward the exit.

Apollo stood at the edge of the fray, feeling the heat of a dozen stares on his skin. The crowd had already started to close in, the way wounds do: eager to heal, but just as eager to leave a scar as a reminder.

A burly woman in a sea-soaked cloak began gathering bets, her ledger already half-filled with the names of victors and victims.

A few patrons eyed Nik with the speculative interest owed to either a future leader or a future corpse.

Before the mood could swing back to violence, a knot of militia in city blue pushed through the entrance, the iron studs of their tunics catching the lamplight in tiny, malignant flashes.

The tallest among them, a woman with a face like a knife and a nose split twice across its bridge, surveyed the damage with an expression of profound boredom.

"Which one of you started it?" she said, more to the room than to anyone in particular.

A babble of denials and finger-pointing ensued. The woman produced a small, notched baton and rapped it once on the bar, the sound as crisp and final as a death sentence.

"We can do this the quick way, or the broken way. Makes no difference to me."

Nik, who’d resumed his seat and was eyeing the beer with the longing of a man torn from his best friend, raised his hand. "Self-defense," he offered, voice syrupy. "Two to one, and they were about to gut the boy."

The militiawoman eyed him up and down, then cocked her head at Apollo. "And you?"

"Only an observer," Apollo said. It was technically true, he had touched nothing, and no part of the fight owed itself to his brief, bewildered presence.

She grunted, then dragged the whip-thin dockhand, still unconscious, from the floor by the collar.

She pointed to Nik and Apollo. "You two, outside. Now." There was no room for argument in her tone, even the hounds, who had crept back under the tables, cowered at the command.

The cold hit them like a slap as they stepped into the alley.

The other militia followed, flanking the two of them with professional efficiency.

The woman, her name, as stitched on her jerkin, was RUSKA, fixed Nik with a look that said she’d seen every trick he’d ever even considered.

"Names," she said, pulling out a battered slate. "And what you’re doing in Marrowgate. Use the truth, for a change."

Nik grinned, unrepentant. "Nikolaj Blackthorn, up from the salt coast. No warrants. I checked." He nodded at Apollo. "He’s Lio, a healer. Just passing through."

Apollo nodded. "Lio. No family, no papers."

Ruska’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment he thought she might arrest them just to save paperwork. Instead, she spat into the slush at her feet and returned the slate to her belt.

"Don’t start any more trouble," she said.

"Marrowgate has enough dead, and no one to bury them." She jerked a thumb at the alley’s end. "You’re barred from the stew house tonight. Go home, or to hell. Makes no difference."

One of the blue-jacketed men snickered, and Ruska cuffed him on the ear with the flat of her palm before shoving the insensate dockhand into his arms.

"And you, drop him at the sick-house. Nara owes me two."

She looked back at Apollo and Nik, her expression unreadable. "You walk the alleys after curfew, you answer to me. Understand?"

Nik gave a lazy salute; Apollo bowed his head in the old, deferent way.

The militia vanished, trailing their prisoner and the night’s cold with them. For a long moment the only sound was the distant laughter from inside the bar, and somewhere, the yowl of a cat scavenging for its last meal.

Nik lit a battered clove roll and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. "That could’ve been worse," he said.

"She didn’t even search us," Apollo said, a little in awe.

Nik grinned, showing the same ruined teeth. "She’ll remember us. That’s the trick: get remembered for the right reasons."

They walked together down the frozen gutter, past shuttered doors and the shadow-puppets of neighbors gossiping behind thin glass.

Nik led the way to a lean-to at the edge of the river, its walls shingled in old tin and its roof patched with burlap and hope. Inside, a single candle guttered, fighting against the cold.

Two cots, one occupied by a rolled blanket and the shape of a sleeping dog, the other empty.

"Not much," Nik said, "but the rent’s paid, and nobody comes around after sundown. You can have the cot. The dog’ll keep you warm; just mind his bad side."

Apollo hung his cloak on a nail and sank onto the cot, the exhaustion of the day, no, the week, the exile, the life, settling over him like a lead shroud.

He heard Nik moving about, pouring a cup of something bracing and cheap, feeding the dog a scrap of crust. He realized, with a dull surprise, that he was grateful.

"Why help me?" Apollo asked.

Nik shrugged. "You look like you need it. Besides, better you than the next band of brutes."

The dog, sensing a new hierarchy, curled by Apollo’s knees and commenced a slow, rattling snore. Nik sprawled on the other cot, hands behind his head, eyes glimmering in the candle’s uncertain light.

"You from the west?" Nik asked, as if the question had been waiting for the right moment to surface.

Apollo hesitated, then nodded. "Far west," he said, and the truth of it was so small and so immense that silence grew around it, a seed in the dark.

The candle guttered. They lay in their cots while the city breathed its cold and sour melodies, until even the dog’s snoring faded into the blankness of exhaustion.

In the deepest hour before dawn, the dog woke first. It let out a low, guttural whine and dug its claws into the thin straw mattress, sending a tremor down the length of Apollo’s leg.

He cracked an eye, saw the animal bristling at the door, hackles raised and gums pulled back in a silent snarl.

The lean-to’s only window was a slat of glass warped by generations of freeze and thaw. Through it, Apollo saw nothing, only blackness, the absence of city lanterns, the alley choked by fog.

But the dog’s body told a different story, it was a tuning fork for danger, and something in the dark was playing it.

Nik stirred, instantly awake in the way of those who have spent long years sleeping with one eye open and a weapon within reach.

He rolled off the cot and moved to the wall, flattening himself against it. "Lio," he whispered, voice tight as a tourniquet.

Apollo sat up, ignoring the knives of protest from every joint. "What is it?"

"Don’t know." Nik’s hands moved with an efficiency that was nearly beautiful, he drew a blade from under the cot, checked its edge, and slipped a brass knuckle over his left hand. "But it’s not drunkards. Drunkards don’t move that quiet."

The dog whined again, and the sound was so close to the note of a hunting horn that Apollo felt his heart stutter.

He reached for the walking stick that Othra had pressed on him, birch, stripped and smooth, its head carved into the crude shape of a wolf or a dog, depending on the angle.

It felt good in his palm, grounding.

The silence outside stretched, then snapped: a sudden, light scuff of boot against frost, followed by the almost imperceptible click of metal against wood.

Nik grinned, wild and happy, the prospect of violence a relief after so much boredom. "They’re coming in."

Apollo heard it now, the slick, calculated scrape of bodies maneuvering just beyond the door, the whisper of a practiced voice giving final orders.

Nik counted down from three with his fingers, each digit a brief, private history of scars and half-healed wounds.

The door caved not with a bang but a patient, deliberate pry, as if the attackers expected resistance but were in no hurry to meet it.

The first man through was slight, hooded, his hands gloved in what looked like butcher’s linen. He carried a garrote, its wire already taut, and a bone-handled knife clamped between his teeth.

Two more followed, one headless in the sense of faceless, black mask, black eyes, nothing but the narrow slot of intent.

The third was a woman, judging by the hips, but she moved with a heaviness that denied any softness.