Dust swirled through the courtyard, flowing past the myriad of carriages and wagons seeking customers in need of transport. It scattered into the wind as Miyoko cast her scarf aside, catching the evening air and blowing toward port. A deer-boy in his twilight years sat above the dust, bundled in a baggy brown robe, smiling as he looked over a creased paper. Tonight, Becky was going to kill that man. Apparently, when you offered to help a wolf, it wasn’t implied that murder was off the table.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay in the cage?” Khukri asked.
“I can do this.” Miyoko smiled, checking the fittings on her oversized pack. “Maybe it’s different since I’m not usually befriended through fear, but usually, you’ve got to show your friends you’ve got their back, right?” She checked her collar, pulled her coat tight against her bust, and pressed into the courtyard.
A mark this easy had no way to check her ASN, so aside from being a slave, Miyoko had free reign to lie about anything. Her face twisted into a dumb smile as she slipped through the crowd and approached the man. “Um? Hello!” she said with a bright, perky disposition. “My name’s Rebbecca… but my friends all call me Becky!”
The older man studied her from his carriage with a sweet smile. “It’s nice to meet you Becky, I’m Rowan. Are you from around here?”
“No, sir… I’ve been runnin’ up the coast all day since Master sent me. I don’t think he knows rabbit-girls can’t run all day like your girls.” Becky held her hood down, coughing as a dusty breeze tried to pull the cloth away. “I’m real tired, and I still got a long way to go. So I’m hoping to get some rest in a wagon like yours! That way I’ll be closer when I wake up, ready to run!”
“I wouldn’t mind…” Rowan sighed. “Unfortunately, I can’t exactly let you ride for free… I have a family to feed, you know?”
Becky let out a string of barely suppressed chuckles as she set the giant pack down with a thump. “Oh... I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem... It’s super important I get this where it’s going on time.” Rowan climbed down, eying her suspiciously as she looked inside her pack. Hidden from Rowan’s view, it held a small crossbow, a pouch of crowns, and kilos of vaguely coin sized stones. She hastily retrieved the crowns and offered them as she closed the pack.
Rowan’s eyes swept curiously over the bag, then settled on the fistful of gold. Becky had dramatically overpaid. She was dumb, you see? Dumb and kind, and definitely dragging a massive bag of gold through the forest for a stupid master. “Quite right! This will be plenty Becky, welcome aboard!”
With a relieved sigh, Becky accepted Rowan’s help into the carriage. So oblivious she was to the danger at hand, she’d curled up on the seat with her bag to rest. In fact, she even gave a dramatic stretch and yawn when Rowan was nice enough to check on her. She was so sleepy, and trusting. What a silly girl Becky was. When the carriage lurched forward she sat up, settling in for the ride.
The road switch was sloppy. The evening light faded as they moved off the patrolled main road into some backwood trail, exactly as Khukri predicted. This ‘Rowan’ wouldn’t have lasted a day up in the Azure Syndicate. Sure, don’t fix what’s not broken, but robbing random travellers wasn’t exactly foolproof… especially when you had enemies.
Miyoko opened the pack and retrieved her crossbow, glancing out the window with a sigh. Marbled sunset slipped through the trees in rolling waves, pushed aside by the gaslamp flaring to life near the driver’s seat.
An angry, rolling growl echoed through the dense foliage ahead.
The creak of wheels and the thump of drake feet petered out as the carriage slowed to a crawl. “Hello?” Rowan yelled.
It’s time. Miyoko gently eased the door open, then set her hands atop the vehicle and slipped up.
Rowan stared into the dark down the sights of a crossbow. The drake snorted, shaking its head, leather groaning as the harness strained. After a long deliberation, Rowan shook the reins. They went taught as the drake pulled forward, nervous tongue flicking at every other step, while Rowan jumped at every lurking shadow.
Miyoko cocked her leg back and plowed into Rowan with all she could bring to bear. A surprised cry escaped him as he shot from his seat, bouncing roughly off the Drake’s back, and toppling to the forest floor. The weapon wrenched free from Rowan’s grasp as the beast panicked, dragging him through a cloud of dirt for dozens of feet before he let go and vanished from the carriage’s lamplight. As soon as she could wrestle them away, Miyoko grabbed the reins and eased the beast to a stop.
There was no need to run. After a minute of sitting with the drake, Rowan limped into the light towards her, dagger drawn. See? Amateur. Miyoko set the crossbow on her lap, calmly locking in a bolt. Once Rowan was close enough, she hopped down, leveling her weapon.
Rowan saw the weapon and stopped, tossing the blade aside. “Please... Let’s talk this through... What do you want?”
“You fucked over a man with the money to buy a wolf, idiot,” Miyoko chastised. “What did you think was gonna happen?”
Khukri growled as she stalked out of the forest, armour glistening in the gaslight.
It wasn’t lost on Miyoko that she had a loaded weapon and the one thing stopping her from running away was right there. It was a nice fantasy, but even without that fancy armour, any fight would start with a bolt hitting Khukri, and end with Miyoko hitting the floor.
“Rowan…” Khukri showed off her pointed jaws as he cowered in her shadow. “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you don’t answer, I’m going to hurt you.”
“Wolf?” Rowan yelped, transfixed.
“You took Master’s books,” she accused through clenched teeth. “You betrayed his trust and set his training back by weeks... Do you have any idea... No.” Khukri collected herself. “I almost wasted my question. Where are Master’s books?”
“Books?” Rowan held his hands up defensively. “I- I didn’t even know there were books in the trunk when I took it! B- but I can get them back! We brought them to our broker; she said they were banned so they’d need to keep them across the border! If we go meet her in Azure Junction we can get them back, okay?”
With a triumphant smile, Khukri walked past the man. “See? It’s the same trick and Master still would’ve fallen for it. Could you imagine if we’d brought him along?”
Rowan turned, looking hopefully from Khukri to Miyoko for understanding.
“Go ahead,” Khukri prompted.
Becky sighed as she raised the crossbow, only giving the deer a moment to register what was happening. His face moved from confusion, to shock, to horror. Sorry Rowan, it’s you or me. The bolt slammed into his chest, staining his robe red around the shaft as he fell backwards. A small cloud of dirt kicked up as he crashed to the ground, where he gasped and twitched. “What’s this ‘training’ Master’s supposed to do, exactly?”
“He needs to learn to fight as well as a knight of Sibir,” Khukri mused, dispassionately watching Rowan writhe. “It’s been difficult to get information on what a knight is… but I know he needs to have a lot of money and be really good at killing.”
Ashling didn’t strike Miyoko as a warrior, although she’d admit he was far more built for it than someone like Sean. True, no amount of training would ever let him match a deer-girl’s strength or endurance, but mercenaries of most species didn’t have those either and they got by. The stock pressed into Miyoko’s shoulder as she pulled the bowstring behind the latch. While she faced the downed man, her eyes swiveled behind to watch Khukri, who seemed pleased with the performance. “I think a knight’s like... a samurai, but from way back. They still have those down south?”
Khukri maintained her casual posture, but raised her voice to speak over the man spitting up garbled pleas through a mouthful of blood. “I know as little about samurai as I do knights.”
Another thing: why Sibir? What could anyone from up here get from a distant country that hadn’t been a world power in centuries? “The executives hire security companies to enforce the law. There’s no real standards for those. Some are better, some worse.” Becky moved closer, raising her weapon. That robe made it hard to tell exactly where she’d hit Rowan, but based on the gasping, the first shot probably punctured a lung. Without help, he’d die, but it’d be slow and painful. The second bolt thudded into his chest. Hopefully this time she’d hit his heart. “Samurai and metsuke are actually executives, so they get to bend the law. Metsuke mostly do investigative work and recapture slaves. Samurai show up when the executives want you dead. They’re basically rich assholes who spend their time practicing with all the best weapons and armour like it’s some kind of religion… he’s not getting back up.”
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Rowan wasn’t technically dead, yet. But, as his breathing grew weak and his eyes lost focus, the difference between alive and dead became a matter of patience. Khukri placed a hand on her shoulder with an approving smile. “Good job.”
Good job, really? Miyoko sighed, opening the carriage door. After tossing her crossbow inside, she hauled out her sack of rocks. “I shot an unarmed man at point-blank range. It’s hardly the kind of thing bards sing about.”
“It’s my first time bringing you on a hunt,” Khukri explained, relieving Rowan’s pockets of the gold he’d died for. “Master’s first hunt was against something weak too.”
Miyoko looked away. She wasn’t about to take the high road here; her hands were far from clean, but at least she saw the dark act for what it was. “I’m not a great driver or anything, but I can get us back to Isle Point. If we load up on sausages at the Ambition, this drake can take us all the way to the Azure Syndicate with those velkammer plates.”
“Good idea,” Khukri said, cheerfully slipping the coins into one of her pouches. “Although, this is all the money we have… we probably shouldn’t waste sausages when there’s fresh meat right here.”
Miyoko grimaced. “Feeding a man to his own drake? I mean, I know it’ll save us money, but, you get how that’s kinda messed up, right?”
“And yet…” Khukri said, drawing one of her knives and running a thumb across its blade. “The lizard hungers...”
* * *
“Here, hold him steady for a sec!” Miyoko instructed, handing the reins off to Khukri. Once she was sure the beast would behave, she hopped off the carriage. It was sometime before noon, and the Azure Syndicate’s border city was preparing for a storm surge rolling down the canyon. Rabbits under a dreary sky zipped from building to building on running paths, coats flailing wildly in the wind. There wasn’t any water yet, but the dry spell wouldn’t last. Winter was dead, and spring would have its way.
Miyoko hurried to the door and cracked it open, finding Aoi sitting on the couch with her face in a book and her feet in the air. “Hey!” Miyoko called. “We’ve got cargo out front!”
Aoi glanced over, then returned to her book. “Sean! Ghost’s back! Open the garage!”
The massive barn doors clicked and swung outwards. Sean leaned out, waving them in from beneath a wildly flapping blanket. Miyoko set a hand on the drake’s head and another on its harness, then gently guided the carriage inside.
“Welcome back,” Sean said, half-smile dimming as he watched the carriage roll by. “I… did you buy a carriage?”
“I stole it!” Miyoko yelled over the wind, grabbing the door with Sean to pull it back in place. “We’ll need to get Aoi to part it out and sell the drake. I’m sure she’s got people in the central corridor who wouldn’t mind getting materials on the cheap.”
“Hotaru says we’re not supposed to do anything illegal!” Sean pulled the bolt shut and stepped back, smoothing out his blanket as Khukri dismounted. “We’re laying low, and we don’t know for sure you’re not working with the executives. There’s no way I’m breaking the law for you.”
“Then it’s not stolen, dumbass,” Miyoko said, rolling her eyes. “Just super legally turn it into pieces and sell it without telling anyone where it came from. You’re Ashling’s-” A soft growl from Khukri made Miyoko stop and grind her teeth. “You’re Ashling’s-”
Khukri’s growl intensified.
“Tsu guide me, do you have any idea how stupid I sound to them?” Miyoko demanded, tossing down the saddle straps she was working on. “They’re gonna think I forgot the man’s name!”
“You don’t need to remember,” Khukri said, tapping Miyoko’s collar with one of her claws. “That’s why they wrote it down.”
Okay, fine. The arctic nightmare isn’t budging on this one. Miyoko turned back to Sean with a smile. “My master, Ashling...” She paused, holding up her hands while listening for Khukri. “Great. That guy is your client. Anonymously turning the shit he gives you into money is your job.”
“Right.” Sean bit his lip, looking over the plates strapped to the back. “Hotaru knows a guy in Continental Ironways who always needs quality plates to replace the ones that burn in Hell, but we’re competing with the Direwood Syndicate. I’m sure I can get a better deal from the Dusk Empire, but setting that up will take time. My usual contacts don’t do industrial materials.”
“They need money, now,” Miyoko said, pulling the drake from its saddle and leading it to a hitching post. “Sell it to the train company.”
Khukri let out a small growl.
“Sorry... We need money.”
“Thank you,” Khukri said, loosening a knot tethering the plates to the carriage. “Go talk to Hotaru. Sean and I can manage.”
Sean’s eyes drifted warily to Khukri. “Um… yeah. Yeah, we can handle it.”
With a grateful look to both, Miyoko pulled the tether shut and hurried up to Hotaru’s office.
Hotaru sat at her desk, mostly hidden behind piles of loose junk. After a quick peek, she rose to her feet and carefully navigated her way through the mess. “Ghost, thank Deianira you’re alive.” Funny, she had her new name less than two weeks, but her old handle already felt strange to the ear. “I talked to Sean. If you’re here to try and unload that yacht...”
“No, no, not a yacht,” Miyoko grumbled. “So, apparently, Ashling’s an idiot. I mean… eating paste levels of dumb.”
A doubtful look crossed Hotaru’s face. “This is the man who lifted a yacht from a Tythic royal in the middle of her birthday party?”
“He didn’t mastermind some carefully orchestrated ploy, he just flashed his Direwood Syndicate membership papers and grabbed it!” Miyoko protested. “There’s no way whatever his business is doesn’t get blowback.”
The doubt stayed as Hotaru opened her drawer, filling the room with clicks and clacks as she sifted through the tide of baubles. “I’m just saying... Man’s got business contacts on the islands, is a member of the Direwood Syndicate, and has a tendency for recklessness with his wolf bodyguard. Sounds like the kind of man I should be able to find information on. You want a hit?”
Miyoko hesitated, then nodded, Rowan’s last gasps running through her mind. “Half my usual, please. All that time without it made me sensitive; coming down was a bit rough.” When Hotaru nodded and flipped open the opium box, Miyoko pressed on. “You really think the executives would risk jacking a boat from Tythic royalty just to get your guard down?”
“Not the executives...” Hotaru held a lighter over the pipe and clicked the button. A stream of heavy magnesium gas fell straight down, bursting into a shower of sparks above the pipe and igniting its contents. Extra gas flowed around the pipe and fizzled to nothing before reaching the floor. “But Fleur would. She wants to stay on the executives’ good side, and we’re the last loose ends tying her to the coup.”
The handle threaded through Miyoko’s fingers as she pulled back an old wooden chair, sending the sweet, welcoming aroma through the room in wistful curls of smoke. “Really? Last season Fleur betrayed literally everyone we knew. Who in their right mind would ever work with her again?”
Hotaru’s eyebrow raised, then fell as a look of realization crossed her features. “Ah, I assumed one of the other girls would’ve told you... There’s rumours floating around that our old patron’s taken after dear old mum. Got herself a position as Secretary of Intelligence for Han Prefecture.”
With a bitter snort, Miyoko brought the pipe to her lips. “What Han Prefecture?”.
“I know,” Hotaru said, rolling her eyes. “But they call a group of cats a ‘pride’ for a reason. Apparently, it’s not enough to be wealthy and powerful, they want their prefecture back, so they’ve set up a government in exile.”
Smoke curled through Miyoko’s lungs, massaging her muscles loose and dulling the sting of betrayal from her mind. She knew all too well Fleur would choose power over money, but to end up like her mother? Really? Five years ago, Han was severed from the empire, and revolutionaries-turned-executives plundered its resources until it was a crime-ridden shell. And yet, it was somehow enough for Fleur to sentence Miyoko to death, rather than share paradise.
A swirling cloud billowed from her lips, obscuring Hotaru in the haze. That was the other lesson to remember. Fleur might have been that dumb, idealistic girl who couldn’t let go of her dreams of fixing the State, but Hotaru was practical. It hadn’t been long since Miyoko counted as a loss to be cut, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d become one again. So, maybe portraying her owner as a drooling imbecile wasn’t her best move.
“I get it,” Miyoko said. “You cover your bases, but money’s money, right? You'll get a cut from unloading that cargo, plus more once he ships in those crops... He’s even willing to pay for information on a broker named Lenn. Some rabbit-boy who worked with him on the islands. Maybe that’ll give you a lead.”
“Lenn, huh?” Hotaru dug through the desk again, then pushed the junk aside to make room for a paper. Several knicknacks clattered to the floor, though Hotaru didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll look into it... oh, and as for your other problem...” She leaned forward, setting a small wooden case between them. “This is an alchemical solution from the black markets of the Othelan Republic. The rich folks up there take it to fuck all night. They call it something different than the night girls using it to service extra clients, but it’s the same stuff. Without knowing what aphrodisiac he’s giving you, I can’t say for sure it’s safe, but this junk blocks out most pleasure. Interested?”
Miyoko took another drag as she opened the case, watching a swirling pink mixture dance in ten little glass vials. She much preferred putting her life in the hands of Othelan engineers over underworld alchemists, but... when she closed her eyes, that monster’s insidious lies still roiled inside her. That he cared, that he wanted to protect her, that she could trust him. Dangerous feelings. The kind that got dumb girls arrested.
Another cloud of smoke passed her lips as the lid snapped shut. “Yeah. Thanks, Hotaru. I’ll take it.”