Eight

Ivy.

"Listen Shade, ya slippery owl pellet, you can't tell me that on a night like this, no one's lookin' ta make some quick scales in protection money." I stood on my toes so I could get my face right in his. If he wasn't sitting at the bar, I would have had to find a chair to stand on. "Where is everyone?"

Personally, I wouldn't blame any merc for clearing out on a night like this, but the dodgy look in his good eye told me he knew more than he was saying.

" 'S like I said, Climber," he whined into his ale, "the muscle was hired this morning by some rich cutters wearing them scarlet capes. Bein' more of a windows man meself, I slid the muster. Few other gents got out too, but I 'spect they slid town or swam the canal long since."

"No one else come to market then? Quiet all day?" I pressed, snarling. I could smell a skunk at a hundred paces and Shade was tryin' to sell me striped fur at five. "There's no way Pike or that big konata bastard swallowed that line."

Shade gave me a sidelong look that said he was a heartbeat from talking.

"What?" I asked, real sweet like. "You gonna pass or do I have ta heat irons?"

"Truth is, someone with them was askin' about you," Shade said under his breath. "Mean cove. Scary. Your place, I'd slide, sure."

"Oh?" I said, surprised but passing it as weather. "Got news for ya Shade. Sooner or later they all come lookin' for me. Where's this cove now?"

There was genuine fear in Shade's eye as it slid toward the corner.

My heels thumped to the ground as I turned, my eyes sweeping over the mostly empty tavern, looking for someone 'scary.' If this was his big news, the rest of what Shade said was probably true. The Mead Market was as empty as I'd ever seen it. Normally its stale, sweaty air rung with the close-pressed sounds of a dozen different languages telling tales of caravans, river trade, or battles on distant shores. They vacated at dawn to seek work at the boardwalk meat market all day, and returned to drink away hard won coin all night.

Tonight it was empty but for a few scrawny rogues with nowhere better to go; the unhung-but-incompetent pick-pockets and beggars even the Connorton guild thieves overlooked. In a sparse turnout like this, the cloaked dwarf in the corner was impossible to miss.

He was incredibly fat, for one thing. It looked as if the chair he was torturing would scream what it knew any drip now. For another, his gauntlets gleamed of polished steel, and that just wasn't ordinary wear for a lowlife mercenary bar like the Market.

My boots thumped on the thin floorboard planks underfoot as I sauntered toward the corner. By the time I stood across from him at his table, I had his attention. His head raised, and to my surprise his beard was completely white. It framed lifeless black eyes in startling contrast.

"Aren't you a li'l old ta be terrorizing honest gents in a place like this?" I smirked.

"At last," he breathed, the snowy forest of hair on his face cracking open to reveal a craggy cavern of crooked or missing teeth. His breath smelled of age and decay, even two paces away. "I paid dearly for the chance we would meet again, Miss Tyne—or may I call you The Untamed? It always seemed a fitting moniker."

"Should I be flattered?" I asked, screwing my face up and raising an eyebrow by way of nonchalance. There was a familiar timber to his voice, but I couldn't place him. I hadn't seen a dwarf so large in years. Decades, maybe.

"Maybe this will help," he said, shrugging out of his cloak and standing heavily. The table creaked under his right arm as it bore part of his weight, and his chair practically cried out in relief. He was nearly my height and easily four times my width, but his size wasn't his most memorable feature by far.

His sleeveless tunic showed the bristly dwarf-hair coating his massive shoulders and upper arms, but his arms ended there. Just above the elbow, his arms gave way to lengths of scarred flesh and segmented metal ending in polished A'sheework fists nearly as bright as my sword. Not all his bulk was fat either, and I backed away warily as his biceps flexed to open and close his mechanical hands. They hung below his knees, giving him an ape-like appearance.

"By the Bastard Father!" I cursed, stumbling over a chair as I backed away. I heard folks clearing out. The tavern keep was nowhere to be seen.

"See?" Shade asked from the bar. "Scary, right?" The thief didn't take much time to gloat. Smelling a row, he took one last swig of ale, pocketed some coins from behind the bar, and headed for the door.

"Get the watch!" I called to him, keeping my eyes on the monster pacing me down.

"The watch? Me?" Shade snickered as he pulled open the tavern door. "That's a good one... I was friends with Gutterman and Crawler, you know? When ya gets to hell, tell them I said 'hi.' "

Gutterman? Crawler? My head spun. The door closed as I recalled hiring two lowlifes by those names and dressing them like desert folk to lay an ambush for Clasicant. Oh fuck.

"I paid out a lot of coin for rumors of your work in Migar and Renia," the dwarf-monster rumbled. His voice so low and dusty it was hard to understand. "Some shady jobs in Yolheim and Teldor, too. Imagine my surprise when I return and that one helps me for free because you'd betrayed a couple pals of his."

Not my best moment, I agreed privately. Clasicant's fault.

"Don't worry we'll be interrupted," he continued. "There's no watch in Harbor Ward tonight. This Ward was my task, so they were the first to fall. Every recruit to our cause was my pick, and every one bitten was loyal to me first, those humans and their red capes second."

"You're one of those scarlet society cultists?" I concluded, my voice probably betraying my surprise. All this time I didn't think they had been able to dupe any non-humans into their fool uprising. "Ya realize that only lowers my appraisal of yer intelligence."

"Hardly" the dwarf barked, laughing to one side in a gesture I found hauntingly familiar, but from ages ago. Maybe more than decades ago. How many dwarves have I known over the years...? A few freedom fighters in Migar; dozens in Swordock, but none that would wish me violence. A caravan owner maybe? A victim? But how did that explain the monstrous arms?

"I can keep a secret, but I'm hardly 'Society' material," the dwarf continued. "Just said some words and made a bargain a long time ago. I needed their unusual healing magic and A'shie surgeons to give me these, you see." He hefted a chair in one steel mitt and crushed its leg to pulp with a squeeze. "I have never been stronger or more powerful, and with my debt finally paid, I need you."

"Me?" I wanted to draw my sword, but knew the dwarf would attack. I wasn't sure I was fast enough.

"Aye, Untamed, you." He grinned menacingly, the craggy gap between mustache and beard widening. "Still don't know me, do ye? I have dim memories of that day—lost a lot of blood—but I still remember Tortelli's little toy. And you're a tilly wench; you don't forget, do you? You're going to take me to the three point-eared shits that rescued you and cut off my arms!"

"Boss Bhozak?" I gasped, as realization set in. He had to be nearly two hundred years old! "Fortune blind me—most diggers yer size woulda coughed up a heart an age past... lucky ya never had one."

He charged. By instinct alone I reached for my sword but was nowhere near fast enough. My hand hadn't even found the pommel before a steel fist caught my cheek and bashed me clear across the room. I hit the wall hard, seeing stars.

"I hoped I'd have ta rough you up a little," he leered maniacally. "It made the anticipation sweeter."

His bulk blocked the dim lamplight as he approached, each step cruelly pressing the groaning floorboards. I drew my scimitar in the dark, pausing to rest at intervals and hoping he was proud enough to give me that chance. My other hand stole toward my boot knife in case he wasn't. I needn't have worried.

"Gonna stick me with yer little fish knife, girl?" he grinned, fingers creaking like hinges as he opened and closed them.

"Yup," I said, and slashed him.

He caught the blade in one shield-sized mitt and held it up, squinting at it in the darkness. It was as if he'd forgotten I was dangling below, tenuously clinging to its handle.

"Smelt my kidneys...," he cursed, his cruel face completely overtaken by wonder. "This is Tortelli's blade!" he said, as if I wasn't aware. "What have you done to it?"

"Made it look a lot prettier'n I'm about to make you!" I hissed, dropping to the ground and cutting his stomach wide in a fierce arc. Without waiting for the spray of entrails I tumbled away, holding my blade backward in a knife fighting stance. I pulled a throwing dagger in my right as I returned to my feet, and began looking for a table to jump to.

"Arrgh!" he groaned, but after the initial shock of being opened like an over-ripe tomato, he returned his attention to the sword. He even sniffed it.

"You've plated it in silver!" he declared. "Never figured you for the sentimental sort, but it's nice to see you pay homage to yer roots. Tortelli was an obnoxious, greedy prick of a crime boss, but he sure taught you how to fight.

I crouched in stunned disbelief. I just opened the flabby bastard from hip to hip, and he's complimenting my hardware? A slow, evil suspicion began stealing over my slowly recovering consciousness.

Boss Bhozak was a lizard.

As if in confirmation, Bhozak's belly began to knit itself together, tendrils of black goo pulling the edges close enough to heal.

I was on my feet and running before the wound closed.

"Oh no you don't," Bhozak grumbled.

Wood scraped over wood as I reached the door; there was a whoosh of something large moving through the air behind me as my fingers closed around the brass latch. Pain exploded in my skull for the second time as my fingers went numb and splinters of a chair rained around me.

Bhozak's approaching footsteps woke me and I realized I must have blacked out for a moment. Steel fingers circled my throat and lifted me off the floor. He had to stretch to get me off my feet, but with his new arms he could do it. With his lizard strength, it seemed easy.

I was still holding my throwing blade and slashed uselessly at his arm. When I nicked bits of puckered and scarred flesh between steel bones, they healed again within moments. The former crime lord even seemed amused by my attempts. I remembered being held helpless by Balina the night before, only this time there wouldn't be a rescue.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" he asked. "The surgeons used a curse they called 'The Gift of Sethos' and some other liberties to experiment with my body. Turns out, with enough time and money, a handful of A'Shee tinkerers and Society necromancers working in concert can do almost anything." He paused to flex the steel fingers of his free hand in front of my face. "Of course, it was a painful process. They were afraid it would drive me mad."

"Wuzzunt ... a ... long ... drive," I wheezed between painful gasps. I didn't have long... could feel my left eye swelling closed where he'd hit me before, and was sure my scalp was bleeding badly in a couple places. Without air, I was done.

"Maybe," Bhozak sneered, "but, then, revenge can take one to great lengths."

That I agreed with, and he seemed to take my slumped shoulders and relative calm as a sign I wasn't going to struggle.

"Now... Shade tells me you were reunited with Captain Riposte Clasicant and that girly friend of his recently," he said holding Tortelli's scimitar to my face so lamplight flashed in my eyes. "Let's talk about where we can find them, and how many pieces of your pretty face they're worth to you."

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