Served in the wars, Gregor thought. He’d had training, certainly. But not enough.
Gregor flicked Whip out again, and the head of the truncheon sailed over the guard’s head, landing behind him, and brought the metal cable down with it. The cable fell over the top of the guard’s shield, which made the man pause—until Gregor pressed the lever to retract it.
The head of the truncheon hurtled back with its usual enthusiastic zzzip!, cracking into the guard’s shoulder along the way, which sent him tumbling forward, sprawling facedown in the alley. He groaned as he looked up at Gregor, who walked up and kicked the guard in the face.
Gregor Dandolo picked up the shield. The guard with the espringal tossed away his weapon and pulled out a stiletto with his good hand. He assumed a fighting position, crouching low. Then he seemed to reconsider his position, and turned and ran away.
Gregor watched him go. Then, with the air of someone on a quick errand, Gregor walked up the stairs of the taverna, lifted his shield, brushed aside the drape, and waged war on the Perch and Lark.
It helped that there were only five guards. It helped more that they hadn’t moved since he’d left, so he knew exactly where they would be. It helped even more that it was dark and loud, and Whip’s attack was fairly quiet, so Gregor took down two of his opponents before anyone in the room even understood what was happening.
When the second guard hit the floor, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, the whole taverna erupted into chaos. Gregor lowered his shield, which made him an obvious target, and skirted the edges of the screaming, drunken crowd until he came up on the flank of a guard with a spear. The guard saw him at the last minute, eyes widening. He thrust his spear forward, but Gregor had already raised his shield, deflecting the blow. Then he thrust Whip forward, smashing in the man’s jaw. The man crumpled to the ground.
Two left. The guard with the Daulo ax and one with an espringal—and this latter one, he could tell, had been trained properly with the weapon. Which was bad.
Gregor raised the shield and sought cover behind a table just as a bolt slammed into his shield. The point of the bolt actually pierced the damn thing, penetrating three inches through—any more and it would have almost certainly punched through Gregor’s neck. Muttering discontentedly, Gregor strafed to the right and flung Whip forward. He missed his target, but the head of the truncheon smashed through the wall just over the guard’s shoulder, which sent the man diving for cover behind the bar.
The two of them stayed low, waiting for the screaming crowd to evacuate. Gregor glanced up and saw a shelf of bottles above the bar, and, above that, a flickering oil lamp. He estimated the distance, and flicked Whip forward twice: once to smash the bottles of alcohol, and again to shatter the oil lamp.
Hot, burning oil rained down, which quickly set the pools of alcohol alight. There was a shriek, and the guard with the espringal came sprinting out from behind the bar, slapping at his smoking clothes. He never even saw Whip hurtling toward his face.
Once the man was down, Gregor crouched low and looked around. Antonin was still there, cowering in the back, but the guard with the Daulo ax was nowhere to be seen…
Gregor felt footsteps through the floorboards on his right. Without thinking, he turned and raised his shield.
There was a loud scream, and then his shield arm lit up with pain. It had been a long time since he’d been hit with a Daulo ax, and he found he didn’t enjoy it any more now than he had back during the wars.
Gregor rolled out from the bar and raised his shield again, just in time to catch another blow from the guard with the ax. His whole arm went numb with the strike, and he heard a snap—but it turned out to be the wooden slats under his feet, which could hardly bear the pressure.
Which gave Gregor an idea.
Keeping his shield up, he backed away. The guard with the ax charged at him—but before he could bring the ax down, Gregor flicked Whip at the slats at his feet.
The head of the truncheon punched through the wooden slats like they were water reeds. Before the guard could even realize what had happened, he’d put his foot in the gaping hole that Whip had created. Then he slipped, crashed down, and as he did, the entire floor collapsed underneath him.
Gregor leapt back as the wooden slats gave way. When the creaking stopped, he retracted Whip and peeked over the edge of the hole, wrinkling his nose. He couldn’t see the guard in the muddy darkness below—but he knew that the taverna latrines emptied into the filthy space under the building.
Gregor took stock of the situation. The taverna was now mostly empty except for the moaning guards—and the large, fat man trying to hide behind a chair.
Gregor grinned, stood up straight, and marched over. “Antonin di Nove!” he called.
Antonin shrieked in terror as Gregor approached.
“How did you like my experiment?” Gregor asked. “You said that might makes right in the Commons.” He ripped the chair away, and Antonin quailed in the corner. “But might is so often illusory, isn’t it?”
“I’ll tell you anything you want!” shrieked Antonin. “Anything!”
“I want the thief,” said Gregor.
“Ask…ask Sark!” said Antonin.
“Who?”
“An independent! Former canal man! He’s a fence, he sets up jobs and I’m almost positive he did the waterfront!”
“And why would that be?” asked Gregor.
“Because only a damned canal man would think of trying to use a damned sailing rig!”
Gregor nodded. “I see. So. This Sark. Where would he reside?”
“The Greens! Selvo Building! Third floor!”
“Greens,” said Gregor quietly. “Selvo. Third floor. Sark.”
“R-right!” said Antonin. Face quivering, he cringed and looked up at Gregor. “So. Will you…Will you let me go?”
“I was always going to let you go, Antonin,” said Gregor, sheathing Whip. “This is Tevanne. We have no prisons, no courts. And I am not going to kill you. I try hard not to do that anymore.”
Antonin sighed with relief.
“But,” said Gregor, clenching a fist and cracking his knuckles, “I do not like you. I do not like what you do here, Antonin. And I will show you how much I dislike it, using the only language men like you understand.”
His eyes shot wide. “N-no!”
Gregor raised his fist. “Yes.”
* * *
Gregor turned, shaking his hand, and walked back to the rickety stalls with the drapes. He pulled them aside, one by one.
Four girls, two boys. None of them older than seventeen.
“Come on, then,” said Gregor gently to them. “Come on.”
He led the children down the hallway, across the battered, broken taverna, and down the stairs to the alley, where the three guards were still whimpering. The children watched as Gregor searched the body of the unconscious, toothless guard for his fifty duvots.
“Now what?” asked a boy.
“You have nowhere else to go, I assume?” said Gregor.
The line of children stared at him. This question, clearly, was preposterous.
He wondered what to do. He wished there were some charity or home he could send them to. But the Commons, of course, had no such thing.
He nodded, and pulled out his satchel. “Here. This is five hundred duvots. You lot could put this to far better use than Antonin ever could. If we divide it evenly, we ca—”
But he never finished, because then one of the youngest girls snatched the satchel out of his hand and ran for it.
In a blink of an eye, all the other children were chasing her, screaming threats: “Pietra, if you think you’re keeping all that, we’ll cut your damned throat!”
“Try and catch me, you worthless stripers!” the girl howled back.
Gregor watched, stunned, as the children ran away. He started after them, about to shout at them to stop, when he remembered he had other things to do tonight.
He sighed deeply, listened to the fading sounds of these bickering children, so monstrously abused. He liked to imagine he was accustomed to such horrors, but sometimes the futility of it all overwhelmed him. No matter how I try, Tevanne remains Tevanne.
Then he walked down the alley to where he’d hung up his Waterwatch sash. He unfolded it, then slid it back over his head. As he adjusted it, he noticed a splotch of blood on his shoulder. Frowning, he licked a finger and rubbed it clean.
His shield arm hurt. A lot. And it was likely he’d made a good deal of enemies tonight. But it was wisest to move before word could spread.
Now, thought Gregor, on to this Sark.
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