The soldier bellowed his way through one more song before coming after me. While I waited, I slid both of my knives from their sheaths. I sank one into the wood of the privy wall just behind the door, the other I plunged into a rafter overhead, so that the handle hung down within reach. It was one of the strangest things I learned in my first years at Rassambur, this kind of willing disarmament, but I’d had plenty of chances since to see the wisdom: people, especially soldiers, are trained to watch for someone pulling a knife, trained to see the motion and counter it. Reaching past a man, however, or above him, sparks none of that training. Most people will turn instinctively to see what you’re reaching for, will only notice the knife after you’ve pulled it from the wall and started parting their flesh. I could have waited for the Neck with the knife already in my hand, but I figured he’d have a good look at me before actually entering the privy. He seemed more likely to come in and close the door behind him if I wasn’t brandishing a pair of naked blades. It took me only a moment to strip the sheaths from my thighs and tuck them into the thatch above.
Water sloshed and chuckled around the piers below; I could hear oarsmen farther out in the current, the slap of their broad blades as loud as their curses. Waves of shouting and laughter washed out of the tavern itself, gathering, cresting, crashing, then gathering once more. I could make out no sign, however, of the dull clomp of the Neck’s heavy boots. Only when the latch to the hallway door clinked shut did I realize he was coming after all, moving far more quietly over the squeaking boards than I’d expected from someone his size. His knock on the door to my stall was likewise soft, as though he had tapped with a single knuckle.
I pulled the door open.
He made no move to enter, scanning the inside of the privy with a careful eye before turning his attention to me. Close up, he looked even bigger, at least two heads taller than me and so broad I wondered if he would fit through the door without turning sideways. A pair of small scars creased his shaved scalp—too rough and jagged to have been made by blades. A jaguar, maybe. Or crocodile. Depended how long he’d been down here. His short sword looked more like a long knife hanging from his belt, and though he’d left the weapon in its sheath, one massive hand rested on the handle. He was pale, obviously not from Dombang, and his cheeks were ruddy with ale. He remained steady on his feet, however, and his gaze didn’t waver.
“What?”
I beckoned him in. “A message.”
“Tell me.”
“Ruc Lan Lac sent me.”
He sucked at something between his teeth. “Never seen you before.”
“That’s the point. Get the fuck in here before someone walks through that door, notices us both, and gets killed just for wanting to take a piss.”
“Killed?” He raised a brow. “Who’s going to do the killing?”
I bared my teeth. “You will, once you hear what I have to say.”
I held his stare while my pounding heart marked out its quick, silent tempo. This wasn’t training anymore, this was my Trial. I had little doubt I could survive the encounter, little doubt I could kill him, but I needed to do more than just kill. I needed time with the body after, time I wouldn’t have if I botched the cut, or if the big bastard managed to shout, or if it took so long to get him in the ’Kent-kissing privy that one of his friends came looking to see what was wrong.
I stepped halfway out the door, reaching for his tunic, as though to pull him in. It was the move of an idiot or an amateur, the kind of thing that left me off-balance and open to attack. That was the point. The less professional I seemed, the more likely he might be to drop his guard. He seized my wrist, then dragged me into the hall. I gave a small cry, loud enough for him to appreciate, quiet enough that no one outside the hallway would hear, then put up a vague and ineffectual struggle as he ran his hands down my sides, up my back, down each leg, then up over my ass.
“Ruc didn’t tell me I’d be molested for my trouble,” I hissed.
He rolled his eyes, shoved me back through the door into the privy, then followed a step behind.
“Save the outrage. I’ve been in this city long enough to know that even kids like you carry knives.”
The privy felt suddenly tiny with both of us inside. I held up my bare palms. “No knives, asshole. Now, if we can close the fucking door…”
I reached past him. As he turned to follow the motion, I plucked the knife from the post, then drew it back across his neck, opening his throat.
Even huge men die surprisingly easily. Chop off a cock’s head, and it will run circles, blood gouting fountains from the wound. The Neck, by contrast, just gave a rough, quiet cough, took me by the shoulder, his massive hand strangely gentle, leaned forward, as though to murmur a secret in my ear, then collapsed onto the privy bench.
“The god’s mercy upon you,” I whispered.
It was harder than I’d expected to shift him onto his back, but once I’d managed it, it took only moments to unbutton his leather vest. I found two wide pockets stitched inside. The first held half a dozen Annurian silver moons—enough to cover an evening drinking with his men, and then some. I left the coins where they were. The second pocket was empty. I fished inside my trousers, then slid free the note I’d composed earlier in the day. The paper was damp with my own sweat, and the ink had bled slightly, but the writing was still legible—two simple lines, no name or date. I glanced over it once more, hoping it was enough, then tucked it inside the Neck’s empty pocket.
I’d just finished buttoning his vest when the door from the tavern into the privy hall slammed open.
“Neck, you thick bastard, don’t think you can hide in here all night.” Boots thudding on the floor, a heavy fist hammering on the first of the stalls. “A bet’s a bet, and there’s no way in ’Shael’s darkest pit I’m letting you sober up before you face it.”
I retrieved my second knife from the rafters above, tucked the sheaths into my belt, glanced down through the hole in the bench, and grimaced. I’d been hoping to walk out the way I went in instead of bobbing out toward the distant sea with the shit. The Neck gazed up at me somberly, as though he understood. I patted him on the cheek; like me, he’d been hoping to walk out.
I sighed, checked over the tiny stall once more, then lowered myself through the hole. The water was a dozen feet below; I hit with a small splash, but managed to keep my head above the surface. Almost directly overhead, the soldier was pounding on the door to the final stall. It would be obvious soon enough how I’d escaped, but I wasn’t concerned. The night was dark and the current swift. By the time the Neck’s men got over the shock and thought to come after me, I’d be gone.
A few strong strokes took me out toward the middle of the canal. Fish-scale lanterns hung all around me—from decks, from fishing weirs, from the sterns of narrow, silent boats—lacquering the water’s black with a slick, red light. When I was well clear of the docks and wooden pilings, I rolled over and floated on my back, letting the current take me. After years swimming in the chilly mountain streams around Rassambur, the delta water felt blood-warm, at once welcoming and strange. From the balconies and windows above, from the gently rolling decks of the boats, I could hear voices, dozens of them, hundreds, testing the whole range of human emotion—a man growling the name of his lover over and over, children bickering over their bed, an old woman singing the same few notes of an ancient Dombang rowing song. I floated unseen, unknown between all those lives. After a while, I let my ears slip below the surface, where the only sound was the water’s bass thrum.