Death's Reckoning (13 page)

“What is the amount they claim we owe?” Dollenger said. “Do we have the funds to pay it?”

Muldor took a deep breath. “We could. But the amount in my opinion is tantamount to extortion. It could cripple us, and day-to-day petty cash operations would suffer. The Guild’s operating expenses would run at a deficit for some months and require foreign loans from investors to stay working at peak efficiency until the capital is regained.”

Everyone at the table, even Crocker, started speaking at once. The conversation was not pleasant. The idea of taking out a loan from a foreign investor, paying interest and fees; it was absurd and abhorrent.

Muldor raised his voice above the swell. “There are other options.”

“Such as?” Dollenger said.

“We negotiate.”

Maggur snickered. “Naiveté is not a strong personality trait and one I didn’t think you had, Muldor. You should know better after all your years working with these kinds of people. This Grayme Lautner doesn’t wish to negotiate. He wants to dominate, destroy the Guild, take over our trade, and reap the rewards. I have dealt with him before.”

“What of the King’s regent?” Becket said. “We should be able to turn to him for leverage. No doubt he would be on our side in this discussion once he arrives and we tell him the situation.”

“The new Lord Governor is a week overdo,” Muldor said, and the tension in the room rose. “There’s been no further news of his arrival. According to some of my people, there is no order from the King, and his advisors have cautioned him in sending a regent.”

“They won’t send one, the cowards,” Lawson said and smirked. “Who would? This is a dangerous place for politicians.” A slight ripple of levity rang through the group, releasing some tension.

“In the meantime,” Muldor said without breaking stride, “there is a proposed prisoner exchange that may sweeten the deal with the Janisberg delegates.”

“A compromise,” Dollenger said.

“A cop out,” said Maggur.

“A smart move on our part,” Muldor said. “The only choice we have.”

Everyone sat back, deep in their own thoughts. Maggur snickered and shook his head, scribbling at his notes. Lawson and Becket exchanged a few whispered words while Crocker continued his nap.

Dollenger rubbed his chin. “This realm of politicians,” he said. “None of the Guild’s business.”

“You forget, Master Dollenger,” Muldor said, “that as Guild Master, I am afforded a place on this city’s council. Instead of assuming this post is nothing but an extra set of responsibilities, we will embrace it and use the subsequent leverage in our favor. It is what we must do.”

Dollenger nodded. “You are right, Muldor. Perhaps this is a boon for the Guild. We can use this position on the council. Keep us updated.”

Muldor agreed to do so. They set up a rotating schedule to where each of the Dock Masters would join him in turn for each meeting with the city council. He wanted them involved. It would keep them on his side.

“Do whatever you can, Muldor,” Becket said. “We’ll do whatever
we
can for the good of the Guild.”

Muldor thanked them all, and they spoke of other things; yet underneath a tension remained, set to release.

Chapter Nine

The chain pulled tight, and the man screamed. No one save the multitude of miserable wretches in the room could hear his cries. Screams in Murder Haven at this hour were commonplace and not worth investigating, even for those with an interest to do so.

Jerrod pulled the heavy chain harder, and the rusted contraption groaned as the man screamed himself raw and spent. The brutal man yanked again, and the man’s body spread to its limit by both arms and legs. He hung from the ceiling and stretched so far his joints popped. His left shoulder went right out of its socket in one hard snap. With one last scream, he slumped in exhaustion.

The other prisoners lined one by one on their knees. They were also in chains but smaller versions of the one he used on his latest victim.

Some of them with some fight left in them gasped in dismay.

“You’re mad, Jerrod,” one of the floor managers said. “You can’t get away with this. You’ll pay for this with your own life.”

Jerrod flicked his chin to the particular tough standing behind the man, and the young brute clubbed the ingrate on the back of his head, rendering him unconscious.

“I’m sorry,” Jerrod said. “Didn’t hear what you said, fella. Yeah, thought so. Anyone else got something to say?”

There were nineteen former betting tent employees in the room, and not a single one of them had a word to say. All of them were beaten and bruised, and most were cowed. Jerrod saw the flicker of defiance in some of the men’s eyes, only a couple, but it was enough to piss him off.

That could be fixed right quick. He slugged the man hanging on the chain and broke his jaw. The bone cracked, and an audible pop was heard. The tortured man sagged unresponsive.

Jerrod spit in his face. “Wish I could get all you cunts here. We’d have a proper celebration.”

The shackled men were all were cowed and stunned by the blatant display of cruelty. No matter how brave a man, there’s only so much a human body could take.

“Now,” he said and leaned back and crossed his arms. The room was dark and stuffy, covered with sconces on the walls and billowing smoke. “Besides this bag of shit hanging here pissing himself, which one of you bitches has the highest rank? Huh? Who’s in charge?”

No one said a word. Jerrod grunted and nodded to Marko. The man snatched up the next employee in line, undoing the chain that connected him to his co-worker. The victim struggled and cried out, kicking the next man in line in the back on accident. But Marko was far too strong and experienced to let him go. The man was also too weak and beaten down to win freedom.

The prisoner continued to kick at the man in front of him, and Jerrod realized then it was no accident.

“Jones!” the struggling man said. “Damn it, man! Tell them who you are, you fucking coward! You have seniority.”

Jerrod punched him in the gut, and he doubled over. Save for heavy coughing and choking sounds, he went silent. Jerrod glanced down at the one he had called Jones and tapped his foot.

“Get him on his feet,” he said to Marko. “Get him ready.”

“Yes, sir!”

Jones didn’t protest, perhaps the futility of his situation was too apparent. Marko dragged him to another set of irons hanging from the wall and strapped him in, tossing his wrist shackles over a large hook. The man sagged down into the weight of his own body. Wincing, he looked Jerrod in the eyes.

“What is it you want? We can work something-”

Jerrod kicked him in the groin. Then he grabbed his hair and yanked the head back hard. Jones grunted in pain and breathed through his teeth.

“I’m asking the fucking questions here, you little shit. You speak when I tell you to. You got that?”

“Yes… yes. Please, sir. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

Jerrod scoffed. Marko squatted down and strapped the prisoner’s feet to a metal hook on the floor. He then backed away and started cranking up the wench on the far side of the wall. The man screamed and begged for them to stop.

“Please! Tell me what you want. I’ll tell… I’ll tell anything. Whatever you want… please stop.”

Jerrod stepped to the side and slammed his fist between the man’s kidneys. Not as hard as possible, but hard enough to cause mind numbing pain. The man would piss blood for a week or two. Jones gasped, and his breath sputtered out of his lips like steam trickling from a tea kettle.

“P-p-p… p-please! St-st-stop this. I… I will tell you anything!”

Jerrod yanked his head back again and slammed his knee into his thigh. The hardy man would be crippled for a week. “You tell me, you tell me right now who told you fucks to start cheating me at the tables. Tell me or I’ll gut every single one of you right here and now. I’ll cut you so deep your spines will cover this floor. You got me, fella?”

An elbow into the man’s nose splattered it against the side of his face. Everyone in the room heard it crack.

“I… I don’t know. Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said a few moments later. His words were slurred and thick. Jerrod might have laughed had it not been so frustrating. He reared back his meaty fist to strike again but held off.

There was the hint of truth in the voice. This particular man didn’t run the dice tables. Jerrod hadn’t been able to track that swine down yet. But then again, it hadn’t been only the dice tables where they’d cheated him. And this man, a manager, had to know
something
about it.

Better to be sure.

They continued the torture. They had to kill a few men outright when their beatings got them nowhere. Then at last, after seven or eight meat sacks had been bled and left to collapse in their chains, one man screamed and hollered.

“I’ll tell, I swear I’ll tell you,” he said. He was a smarming looking young man with a scraggy beard and bad breath. “But not here. Somewhere in private.”

Jerrod jabbed him in the chest. “Out with it, you. No more holding back.”

The man winced and tried to cover his face, but his shackles clinked together held him tight.

“No, not here. I’m telling you, it’s for your ears only. Kill everyone else. I don’t care. They can burn, but they can’t hear this. I know who you’re really after.”

Jerrod eyed him and weighed the possibility of mischief. There was little chance for that. There was no way to escape.

“Take him to the next room,” he said to Marko.

“Yes sir!” Marko unchained him from the wall. Keeping a firm grip on the chain, he tugged him along to another room. Jerrod told another man to watch the other slugs. He followed Marko to another room and told the tough to beat it.

All the while he glared at the prisoner. “Okay, out with it.”

“It’s… it’s something I saw. I overheard it.”

Jerrod frowned. “Which is it? Did you see it or overhear it? You better start talking or I’m dragging you back to that other room by your balls.”

“No! Wait, listen. That city council man, what’s his name? Cassius or something. I saw him come and talk to my boss. He runs the tents.”

“What are you talking about? You better make some sense, or you’ll be choking on your own teeth.”

“Wait! I heard them say you were a marked man, finished. Everyone that had been associated with Castellan was gonna taken care of one way or another if you know what I mean.”

Jerrod’s eyes widened a bit. His bull-headed mental faculties, adept as they were for his grunt work, were thwarted as he considered the wide ranging ramifications of what this man claimed. But it rang true.

“Son of a bitch.” Jerrod shook his head and paced the room while Jones watched and sweated.

“I’m not lying,” he said. “I heard them talking. Laughing in the back room about how they were gonna get rid of you and everyone Castellan worked with, how they were gonna get the city back under control.”

Jerrod paced and let him talk, his mind whirling.

“They said they got this whole plan, and they’re gonna use the betting tents and arena to pool the money. They want to oust that Muldor fella and take over the merchants’ guild, so they can control everything. They said they have a couple people in the guild working for them, I don’t know who they are, I swear. That’s all I know, believe it.”

The man sweated and licked his lips as nervous as a human being could be. When he finished speaking, Jerrod was up against the wall staring at him. The brutal man rubbed his face, feeling the harsh stubble of his graying three days’ worth of beard. He needed a bath. And a drink.

These were momentous tidings, far beyond his station as a hired killer. As well trained as he was, it was beyond the abilities of his cronies to handle. For perhaps the first time in his life, Jerrod could think of nothing to say.

* * * * *

The days grew larger, and thus the night shorter, and the denizens therein used their time to the best advantage stalking, killing, and stealing with efficiency. Most of the rogue thieves, left over from the disbanded guild, stalked the same streets that Giorgio used.

It was easy to spot the amateur thieves by the way they worked. The evil men and women shouldn’t have been thieves in the first place. They had no pride. The guild should have listened to him. They should have fought sooner.

Pieces of humanity remained even as he ran the streets like a gruesome phantom. His faithful hound at his heels had changed as well, thanks to Malthus Benaire. It was his gift to them both. It trotted alongside its master, glancing around with a baleful glare at their surroundings. Flecks of spittle and blood dripped off its jowls.

Giorgio felt stronger and more certain of his current direction than he had in months, perhaps years. There was purpose in his stride. They stopped at a corner, and he knelt down to rub the flanks of the dog. He could feel the pulsing innards under the protruding ribs, the skin taut and paper thin.

“Plenty of work for us tonight, boy.”

The dog growled deep and long, and Giorgio grinned. Both of them were hungry, for different things, but hungry nonetheless.

The shipping yards had been a furious place of activity the last couple of months, and they skirted the edges on the way to the western docks. To their right lay giant, skeletal frames of new war ships, commissioned by the city council since the utter destruction of every vessel Sea Haven’s former navy. Janisberg was responsible, and tonight came their comeuppance.

The vessel under construction looked like the colossal skeletons of ancient beasts out of legend, forgotten myths thrown away, bed time stories Giorgio heard from one of the orphans he grew up with. A boy named Joshua had regaled the others with stories of ocean monsters that frightened the younger children, but it enthralled Giorgio to no end. He knew better than the younger children that were afraid of the stories. The only real nightmares were the ones people created for themselves.

He and the dog continued west, the city a quiet watcher to their course, the buildings a sharp yet hazy façade of flat angles and high rooftops. Fog crept in from the watery sweep of the shipping yards’ inlet. The sway of the sea pushed the small schooners and paddle boats still available. The crowd was gone for the day. The work crews left their tools and various paraphernalia where they lay. Security men patrolled the shipping yards, keeping an eye out for any unsavory elements. But why anyone would want to steal tools was beyond Giorgio’s capacity for creative thought.

The two phantoms skirted around them and kept to the shadows. He felt more comfortable there. It was where they belonged. There were more covert ways to reach the docks, but Giorgio preferred this route through the shipping yards. It gave him pride to recall the destruction dealt to the ships anchored by his hand. That’s all he had ever been good for, mayhem and death. He had no other skills worthy of thought. Giorgio hadn’t been an elite thief, like Marston or Coleson, but he was better than all of them.

The docks beckoned. The increased activity there called to him, drew him closer. Even at this late hour, there were men working. Several dozen off-loaded a large vessel, getting extra pay for their trouble. The tall masts of the galleon stretched away beyond the eerie light of the smoldering torches on the piers and warehouses below.

Men spoke and huddled for warmth near these buildings. Giorgio had once admired the hardworking attitude of the dock workers, a cadre similar to his own trade. They were a pillar of the city’s industry. Now he thought them worthless, whittling away their lives for low pay and lousy treatment. There were better ways to make a living.

The dog trotted a few feet ahead as they wound around the mighty storage houses. Giorgio followed right behind, keeping in rhythm with its tracking paws, threading through the crates and boxes lined up on the sides. The animal’s paw prints made tracks outlined with heat, a tri-shaped red and orange print. They hurried by the first warehouse, the closest one to pier eight and continued down a few doors to another building.

A few men were close, laughing and drinking like slovenly children. Four of them armed and bored on guard duty. Had they been more observant, they might have seen the grayish skinned figure of Giorgio and his hellish hound, feral and dangerous. They crouched there in the darkness and watched them with hungry stares.