THE BULLY BOYS
My strategem for keeping the girl alive was simple: find a place to hide and stay there until the week was over. Then she would be free to seek shelter from another noble family, or she could leave the city entirely. Either way, she would be alive, and that was a good enough outcome for me. Find a place to hide, wait until it’s over: nothing could be simpler. It was sometime around the third bell of our first night before I realised why it wouldn’t work.
Shiballe had assumed that he and his men would be more than sufficient to take out one man and a young girl, and that error in judgement had bought us enough time to make our way from Aline’s street, through the merchants’ quarter and into the Redbrick District. This had been one of the most affluent parts of the city two centuries ago, but over time the red clay used to make the bricks had begun to wear down, making every building a catastrophe waiting to happen. The richer merchants moved out and the poor moved into the fallen buildings and decaying streets. Those who squatted in the most broken-down buildings were the poorest of all. With broken sewer lines, no running water and with every strong storm promising disaster, it was a terrible place to live – but it would have been a perfect place to hide, if it hadn’t been for the magic. Saints, how I hate magic.
It took us less than an hour to find a suitable hiding place. The building had barely any walls standing and was next to a sealed-off alleyway. The top two storeys had fallen down completely, and the single remaining floor had one long wall and part of another exposed to the elements. But inside, enough debris had fallen to create a kind of fortress within the husk of the old building. There were good sight lines from inside, and at least two escape routes if necessary. Contrary to my expectations, the girl didn’t complain about the standard of accommodation. Instead, she looked around once and then walked in. I made one quick circle around the building to look for possible signs of ownership before I settled down next to her and started rubbing my leg. The wound I’d taken from the constable’s crossbow had mostly healed now, but weeks on the road made for a stiff limb. I supposed it would get all the rest it needed now, though we would soon have to find a source of water and at least a little food to survive the week.
‘They’re coming,’ Aline said softly.
‘They’re not.’ I was confident we hadn’t been followed, and I had taken the added precaution of circling back several blocks to make sure before we settled in Redbrick. And if they hadn’t followed us, then they couldn’t know where we were. And in a city the size of Rijou, the chances of Shiballe’s minions happening upon us were very slim indeed.
‘I can hear them.’
‘It’s the rats,’ I said, then realised it might not be helpful to a young girl to remind her of the likely other residents of the building.
‘It’s not rats. It’s people.’
I listened for a moment. My hearing isn’t exceptional, but it’s not that bad either.
‘There are lots of people living in Redbrick. Trust me, they want nothing to do with us,’ I said. Then I heard the slight sound of metal clanging against metal. Metal was, by and large, expensive, and besides, I know the sound a smallshield makes when it’s attached at a man’s hip and rubs against his sword.
‘Shit.’
When I peered around the corner I could see them coming: four groups of two, working their way in from separate sides of the building. So much for the escape routes.
I tried to think of a strategy for getting out of this without a fight, but nothing came to mind. It was obvious that they knew their quarry was in the building, and even if I could get by one pair, the girl wasn’t fast enough to outrun the others. I didn’t see any pistols or bows, just swords and clubs: bully boys; tough, stupid thugs that go from terrorising other children to killing for money, and sometimes just for fun. I swore under my breath. I could take any one of them – I could take any two of them – but even I can’t fight six at once. My plan for an open space that made for easy escape had just turned into a perfect place to snare us. Bully boys weren’t known for their tactical brilliance and this bunch were likely far too stupid to figure out a good way to ambush us; they’d needed me for that.
‘We should run,’ Aline said.
‘How fast can you run?’ I asked.
‘Fast enough to get to the alley if we can get past the pair on that side.’
‘Won’t work – the alley’s a trap. The one end’s blocked off and the sides are narrow. We’ll never be able to get by the others once they follow us.’
‘But they won’t be able to get around us, either,’ she said.
I thought about it for a moment and then marvelled that this little girl, still coughing from nearly burning to death and on the run for her life, had worked out for herself that we weren’t getting out of this by running. I’d have to fight, and I’d have a lot better chance if they could only come at me one or two abreast.
‘All right,’ I said, pulling a bracer of small throwing knives from inside my coat. There were six of them in all, each one about four inches long and weighted at the tip: not much for distance, but not bad for this situation. ‘As soon as we break through the pair at the alley exit, run straight for the dead end. From there I want you to stay four paces behind me. Do you understand? Four paces.’
Aline looked a little terrified now that she realised we really were going to try and fight our way out of this.
I showed her the bracer. ‘Each time I say “knife”, I want you to hand me one of these. You hand them to me with the flat end pointing towards me. Understand?’
As she held out her hand for the knives I heard feet scrape on the ground not far from us. Two of them would be coming to flush us out, so I planned to give them an easy time of it. I gestured to the girl, then pulled one of my rapiers and leapt out from our hiding place.
Exactly as I’d expected, there were two of them, quite close, both tall and stocky, with clubs at the ready. I could see the other pairs all stationed near the exits. I wanted to take the two nearest us out right away, but that would slow us down and was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Instead I swung my rapier in a wide arc, as fast as I could, and made them jump back.
‘Run!’ I shouted, and Aline followed close behind me as we ran straight at the two men waiting by the alleyway exit. These two also held thick clubs – a stupid weapon against a rapier, but then most bully boys don’t have money or inclination for a good sword, let alone the training in how to use it properly. But I didn’t want these two getting in a blow on the back of my head, so I couldn’t just try to scare them and run past. I feinted low at the one on my right. Always feint low when you can with an opponent with a heavy weapon: if he goes for the feint, it takes a lot more energy for him to get the weapon back up than it does to bring it down.
The feint worked, but the man on the left didn’t hesitate; he swung his own club at my shoulder. As I ducked under the swing, I stabbed the man on the right in the gut before he had time to get his weapon back up to a guard position. We were all so close together that I couldn’t get my blade back into guard myself, so I just pushed against the man’s elbow and threw him off balance, then kicked the wounded man back.
‘Come on,’ I said, and we ran through the exit and into the alley. The backs of the two-and three-storey buildings all pressed close together made for a dark tunnel, with no visible means of escape – no doors, no windows; people here were more afraid of someone breaking into their houses than they were of needing to get out quickly. We made straight for the dead end.
Six feet before the wall I turned. ‘Remember, four paces back except when I call for a knife.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ she said, taking up her position.
I didn’t have time to respond. The uninjured man came through and ran towards us with a yell, club swinging. I let the idiot get within four feet and simply extended my sword as his swing went past my face, missing it by inches. The one thing you don’t do when you have a shorter weapon is just run in and swing it at an opponent with a longer pointy weapon. All he has to do is extend his arm and you’re done. And he was.
The rest of the bully boys came through more carefully. Damn. They all had swords and smallshields and they smiled at each other as they came towards us step by step, knowing that they could make better use of the narrow alley if they held together.
‘Knife.’ I reached back with my left hand, palm up. ‘Knife!’ I said again when I didn’t feel anything. The men were about six feet away when I felt the cool metal against my palm.
‘I’m sorry!’ Aline said breathlessly. ‘It was stuck in the bracer.’
I hadn’t oiled the blades or the bracer for weeks; no wonder she had trouble getting it out. I cursed my own laziness as I threw the blade underhand. Some Saint must have favoured me for a moment, because it dug deeply into a man’s thigh. Greatcoat throwing blades are smaller than usual, but they have a quilled shape to the points that leaves a nasty mark – if you can even get it out.
‘Kest, Brasti, hit them with the crossbows!’ I shouted, glancing up towards the rooftops as I deflected a straight thrust coming at my face. The man in front of me ignored the ploy, but the one just behind him threw his arms over his head in a pretty vain attempt to protect himself from an attack from the top of the alley wall. When you’re fighting a crowd, it’s good to shout potentially threatening things like ‘Crossbows!’ or ‘Fire!’ or ‘Giant Flying Cat!’ every once in a while. When people are in the middle of a battle they’ll look more often than not, and in this kind of fight, every second is a chance to do some damage and otherwise avoid the inevitable.
I took a chance and slipped my rapier point past the man in front to skewer his more cautious friend in the chest. It’s a risky move, for two reasons: first, because your blade is now out of line and the man in front of you has a chance to straighten his point before you can guard against it. I was willing to take that gamble because my opponent wasn’t especially fast and he was using a heavier – and thus slower – sword. The second risk is that you should never stab a man in the chest – the gut, the groin, the sides where the soft-tissue organs are, even the face, they’re all good targets. But the chest has ribs, and ribs are wonderful things for trapping swords, especially when a man starts to fall backwards, and that’s exactly what happened to me as I found myself holding my dying opponent’s weight on my rapier.
His friend in front saw my predicament and smiled the big, dumb smile of a bully boy who’s got you trapped. But the poor man had probably never heard of Falcio’s Flying Blades.
You probably haven’t either, so it’s best if I explain. Early on in my career as a Greatcoat, I had the genius idea of having my rapier blades made with a type of heavy coiled spring in the guard, with a small lever that, if pushed by the thumb, would release the catch and launch the blade into your opponent at a distance. Brilliant, right? Unfortunately, however, as Kest, Brasti, the King, and most especially the King’s Armourer, Heimrin, all pointed out, there was never going to be enough force in such a small spring to launch a two-pound rapier blade very far. The result was that when I pointed my very, very expensive rapiers at someone and pressed the lever, the blades just sort of flopped out a few inches and dropped to the ground. So, as it turns out, Falcio’s Flying Blades became known as Falcio’s Floppy Fumblers. The damned things cost me a fortune though, and they were still perfect weapons if you didn’t hit the lever, so I kept them.
Which is why my opponent, standing just a few inches from me and ready to bring his blade down on my head, was very surprised when I pushed the lever with my thumb, pulled my rapier guard back off the blade and hit him in the face with it. The small studs that adorn the guard make an especially memorable impression, and he fell back unconscious with an expression that indicated he felt the whole thing was really quite unfair.
I dropped the rapier guard and then threw my hand back, palm up, towards Aline. ‘Knife,’ I said again as I unsheathed my second rapier with my left hand.
The girl put a throwing blade in my hand more quickly this time, and I threw it hard at the crowd in front of me. There was a pleasant thunk as it hit a man in the chest. Throwing knives in the chest are perfectly acceptable, by the way, since you aren’t likely to need to pull them back out right away.
‘Knife!’ I said again, twice more in succession, to give my opponents something to think about. Each time Aline was quick and ready and, by the time I was hurling my sixth and final knife, I was marvelling at the fact that I’d never before had this much good luck with throwing knives. Every single one had made contact and taken an opponent out of the fight. Except, of course, for the sixth one.
The remaining two men came straight for me, but by this time I was used to fighting against the alley walls and they had spent too much time with their juices buzzing in their ears while they had to wait for their friends to either win the fight for them or get killed. They were both about the same height, so I used a tight slash across their eyes, missing the first but catching the second. The blinded one fell back and his partner raised his shield-arm to protect his face, giving me the perfect opening to stab him through the groin. It wasn’t the most elegant finish to the fight, but we were alive and they weren’t, so for a brief instant all was right with the world.