15 - Kridick’s Little Friend

The hole where his nose ought to have been gaped at me. He dropped the chair and walked behind his desk. He glanced up at his mongrel thug. “Shut the door, Zarry.”

I heard the door click shut, and then a lock engage. Kridick reached down behind his desk and drew a short hatchet, shaped like a miniature version of an orc war axe. He rubbed his fingers along the haft thoughtfully. I opened my mouth to scream, and a cloth split my teeth and choked out my voice. Zarry’s fists held it taught on either side of my face.

“I seen a lot of fights since my days in the pits. This little friend of mine what I took off a veldt-mottle has been buried in three separate skulls.” He looked up. “It’s got a taste, it does. Fer’ the noble races.” he sneered. The noble races were what everyone but orcs and devilborn called, well, everyone but orcs and devilborn. Kridick walked back over to me, lips curled up in a teeth-bearing sneer. He put the blade under my chin, so sharp I felt the shave, and lifted my face up.

“Seems no one’s heard of you til three days ago. You show up in Barrowdown, start handing out fortunes, place one wager. Then, you cheat in one of my fights without permission—and I don’t know how, or why. What’s your game, boy? Did Daggertongue send you down here?” His eyes flicked up. “Let’s have it off him, Zarry.”

The pressure on my face disappeared, and I huffed and puffed. “I don’t know any Daggertongue.”

“Then he wouldn’t mind if I cut your throat,” said Kridick. The living lightning of his drakkyn half crackled behind his teeth with the snap and pop of electricity. The spines at his throat practically glowed with barely-contained anger.

“I swear it!” I said, as the blade pressed against my apple.

“Then who are you? Huh?”

“I’m an ex-Seeker. The guild kicked me out this week. I came down here to make my own way.”

“You believe him, Zarry?”

“Not a word, boss,” said Zarry, behind me.

The hatchet disappeared from my throat. “Never was good at sussing lies, my Zarry.” the hatchet reappeared at the joint of my first knuckle instead. “So what’s your angle? Every human’s got one. How’d you cheat?”

“Ah-h-h-!” I spat out. The edge of the hatchet bit into the flesh of my finger. Kridick poised his other hand over the back of it, ready to bring it down and complete the chop. “I-I’m a Soul Seeker!” I finally got out.

Kridick stared at me. “Bullshit.”

“It’s true!”

The hatchet disappeared and Kridick began to scratch his cheek with it. “A Soul Seeker? A bloody Soul Seeker? No way the guild lets you out of their sight.”

“I’m really bad at it,” I said. “Or, I was, until today. I used the Deck of Wills.”

Kridick looked up at Zarry. “You’re sure it was this lout?” he asked. I didn’t see the mongrel’s response, but the noseless drork growled. “The sniffer felt nothing. He swears it.”

“Sniffer?” I asked.

“He’s the one what makes sure no magic is used to affect the fights,” said Kridick. “Keeps things fair, like. So people don’t start to lose faith in the wagering.”

“Well then he wasn’t doing his job,” I said. “Someone else was cheating—for the elf, not for Annalisa.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Kridick rolled his head back and laughed. It made his nose-hole whistle. He leaned in close. “I know, genius. I paid ‘em both. He was making sure no one else was affecting the fight.”

“Shit. Is Jeedle in on it?” I asked.

“Kid, who do you think Jeedle works for?” he asked. He growled and looked away. “Cost me a pretty clipping, this did. Daggertongue won’t be happy.

There was that name, again. Daggertongue. Obviously a fake name. No one in sound mind would name their child that. Not even the orcs, whose names just got longer as they did more deeds.

Kridick’s eyes slid back down to me. “Well. If you don’t work for him, then we’ve got a problem. Because I can’t have a mage what can’t be sniffed running around Barrowdown, you see?” he raised the hatchet. My eyes got huge, and I tensed up and turned away as it dropped. It split the leather strap at my wrist. I heard Zarry tsk. “That was my belt, boss!”

“Was it? Sorry, Zar’.”

I opened my eyes. My left wrist was free. I used that hand to undo the binding at my other, and rubbed the skin where it had been cinched tight. I looked up at the mongrels.

“See,” said Kridick, “I can’t pay off every sniffer in town. But if I’ve got a Soul Seeker in my pocket, I don’t much need to. I can put any fighter in any ring, and they’ll never know you’re backing them—as long as you work on your three-card ante in the shadows.”

I couldn’t help myself. “I thought you didn’t believe in Seeking,” I said.

The mongrel drork waved the statement off with his axe. “I don’t,” he said. “Fortunes are volley, but magic is magic. And yours can’t be picked up. So here’s what we’re going to do. You work for me. You keep doing your little readings. But what you’re really doing is boosting the fighters I tell you, when I tell you. Under the nose of the sniffers. Tell you what, if you can make that shipwreck of a plane-touched able to trounce a bronzer, you could do pretty much anything.”

“Do I got a choice?” I asked.

“Boy, you don’t know when you’re ahead, do you?” Kridick buried his hatchet in the top of his desk and spread his palms like he was comparing two weights. “There’s always a choice. Here are yours: you get out of Barrowdown tonight, and if I ever see you here again, Zarry drowns you in the canal. It’s good deal, considering what you cost me. Because Zarry don’t like killing kids, do you Zarry?”

“Not particular.”

“—but don’t think he won’t! Twixt you and I, he’s got a bit of a mean streak. So you get out. Or, you work for me, and earn a little scratch while you make up for this non-insignificant financial clusterfuck you caused tonight. Hmm?”

I looked away. “In your pocket,” I said.

“Oh ho, kid, you want to be in the pocket. It’s warm and safe in the pocket. Out here?” he spread his hands, “Out here, all alone, you’re exposed, cold, friendless. I heard what happened with that other fighter that paid you a visit, and, hells, maybe you ought to be in the pits. Me? I got lots of friends. An’t that right, Zarry?”

“Boatloads,” the mongrel behind me replied.

“This is what you want, Darcent of Stitch Alley. This is how you make your own way in Dragonmaw without getting eaten alive.”

“Because Dragonmaw swallows all,” I said.

“Because Dragon-fucking-maw swallows all,” he growled through his teeth. He held out his thick wrist, still corded with muscle despite being long removed from the pits. “Don’t think about it too long. This offer expires when I lose my patience. And I ain’t got much patience. Do I, Zarry?”

“Not a drip,” he said.

I didn’t have to think about it long. I took Kridick's wrist, and he pulled me to my feet. The knaves in the deck were practically giddy—but I’d been coming to understand that wasn’t necessarily a good sign.

“Wise decision,” said Kridick. He grinned even wider. The skin at the corners of his nose tightened.

Before he could say anything else, a thundering roar out in the hallway drew our attention. Kridick’s hand drifted back to his hatchet, but all three of us flinched when something slammed into the door, nearly taking it off the fittings.Something hit the floor on the other side and began moaning.

Zarry looked at his boss. “You wanted the pine,” he scoffed.

“I bow to your superior sense of interior decoration, Zarry,” growled Kridick. “Now, see who it is.”

Zarry undid the latch and pulled the door open. A blue, tailed form writhed on the ground. But when she saw me, Annalisa leapt up to her feet and threw herself at Zarry. He caught her midair. She pummeled his head and horns, but the mongrel’s bracer flashed with each hit. It was magic, then. Some sort of defensive enchantment. He slammed her back to the ground. I winced. Annalisa moaned and struggled to rise again. Someone had seen to her cuts and bruises, but only just. I’m sure she was still completely exhausted and weak from the fight.

“Well, well,” said Kridick. “Our little blue devil of the hour. What under the dragons are you doing here?”

Annalisa looked at me.

No.

“I’m his bodyguard!”

“She’s really not,” I protested.

“I’m here to rescue him!”

“I really don’t need it,” I said. Though, until just a few minutes ago, I’d have said the canal was my final destination tonight.

Kridick looked between the two of us and grinned. “No, no. An asset like a Soul Seeker should be protected. Don’t worry, Darcent. We’ll just take the wages straight out of your cut.”