Gathering Clouds, Chapter 15

  • Chapter 15

     

     

     

     

                            Ambarro wandered aimlessly around the market square. The Imperial City guards had managed to put out the fire after a couple of mages were summoned, but by then the fire had already ravaged three buildings overlooking the square. Ambarro supposed he should’ve counted it fortunate that the buildings were only being used as warehouses and no civilians were hurt – after all, it was his own spell that started the fire – but he was feeling anything but fortunate.

     

                    Harrow was gone. Captured. And it was all his fault.

     

                    My fault, he repeated in his head as the sun rose. My fault. Really, I’ve been nothing but dead weight this mission… all right, that’s enough self-pity.

     

                    He wanted to run straight to Diia and ask her what they were supposed to do. She and Harrow were always the smart ones, though he would never have admitted it to the latter’s face. And look where that foolish pride got us.

     

                    The sack of Moon Sugar extract brushed against his side as he walked. Suddenly furious, he pulled it out of his tunic and glared at it.

     

                    ‘All this,’ he spat. ‘For a bag of dust and a fistful of sweets!’

     

                    ‘Eliminate the head of the snake and the body will wither.’ Instead I struck the tail, and only managed to make the snake angry.

     

                         ‘Make a diversion. Smoke pellets.’ Instead I tried to rush ten adult men all at once, and fed Harrow to the snake myself.

     

                    With that ugly thought in mind, he wound his arm back and prepared to throw the vile poison in his hand as far away as he could. So many things he probably told me, and always I refused to listen, just because he added ‘dunce’ to the end of his sentences! What else could he have-

     

                    ‘An entire pound of pure Moon Sugar extract… How much is it worth? Ten thousand septims? Five thousand?’

     

                    Ambarro’s eyes snapped wide open and his arm froze in the middle of his pitch.

     

                    I still have Coattails’ Moon Sugar extract.

     

                          The people who took Harrow were watching the dealer.

     

                          The people who took Harrow probably also work for the Adder.

     

                          Ten thousand septims is a lot of gold.

     

                          The Adder wants this gold.

     

                          The Adder wants the Moon Sugar extract.

       

                          The people who took Harrow want the Moon Sugar extract.

     

                          I have the extract. I have… what would Uncle Jorra call it? Leverage.

     

                          It took Ambarro five whole minutes to figure this out. He had never felt more blasted slow in his entire life, even counting the time he copied Diia’s assignment right in front of Master Torako.

     

                  Well, congratulations, dunce, Harrow popped into his head again, all silver-eyed and sneering. You’ve found an advantage. Now what are you going to do about it?

     

                          ‘Why,’ Ambarro said, grinning and ignoring the strange glances of passers-by. ‘I’m going to save your worthless behind, of course.’

     

                    The fire was dead, but the smell of charred wood and smoke still lingered in the area, masking all other scents. There were four exits out of the market square, including the alleyway the thugs came out of. Ambarro headed down all of them for five hundred feet, his nose to the ground all the while.

     

                    ‘Boy,’ an Imperial guardsman stopped him, looking utterly nonplussed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

     

                    ‘I hurt my back,’ Ambarro replied, still sniffing. ‘And I have a really bad cold.’

     

                    ‘You… what?’

     

                    Ambarro took a particularly long sniff, then his eyes lit up. The tangy smell of incense. Harrow always kept at least one stick lighted in his room.

     

                    He set off at a full sprint, bounded up a wall, and started running across the rooftops.

     

                    ‘Nice to see you’ve recovered so quickly,’ the guardsman yelled after him.


     

                    ‘Oi, elf boy,’ a gruff voice growled in his ear. ‘Time to wake up.’

     

                    Harrow shook his head groggily. His nose felt like it was three times its normal size, and his forehead was pounding. There was a bruise growing on his back. Cold iron was around his wrists, and he seemed to be hanging from the ceiling, given the sense of weightlessness in his feet.

     

                    Someone threw a pail of icy water in his face. Harrow’s eyes flitted open, and then a stinging slap woke him completely. He was in a rather dark room with only one door. Light streamed from the gaps. So it was morning. There were no windows as far as he could see, and candlelight flickered on walls thick with mould. His katana was sheathed and propped up on a desk beside him.

     

                    His topknot had been undone. A hand slid roughly through his hair and grabbed a patch of it, almost tearing it out of his scalp as his head was forced up.

     

                    He found himself staring into the face of the thugs’ leader, a brute of a Redguard, his right cheek still swollen from his blow. ‘You don’t look so well,’ Harrow said, his lip curling. He wasn’t going to take that well, but he did it anyway.

     

                    Sure enough, a fist crashed into his jaw for his remark. Harrow’s hands were shackled, but his neck was still free. He rolled his head with the punch to soften it. It still hurt.

     

                    ‘Shouldn’t you be crying for Mummy by now, boy?’ Eight of the nine other thugs were present in the room, and one of them spoke up. All of them were Redguards. Harrow remembered reading that many of them found work as mercenaries. Presumably this particular group was hired by the Adder to oversee important transactions and the like. One of them took a look at his face and scoffed. Actually, now that I look at him, hes really pretty, isnt he? Are we sure hes a-

     

                    ‘Don’t bother,’ the leader grunted, massaging his cheek. ‘I know his kind. They have them down in Valenwood, too, children raised to kill. Elves. Savages, the lot of them. What are you, eleven? Twelve?’

     

                    ‘Old enough to know that you want me alive, or else you would have killed me in that alley.’

     

                    ‘We don’t want you in any sense of the word. We want that sack your cat friend stole off Ennio. We also want to know who you work for. And you, my young friend, are going to tell us hopefully before you get irreparably damaged.’

     

                    ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to.’

     

                    He went for his already broken nose this time, and Harrow winced as his head rocked backwards. Any more and his nostrils were going to end up inside his skull.

     

                    ‘What, ten strong Redguards couldn’t manage to catch a wee kitten? That’s just path-’

     

                    The jaw again. A couple of ligaments tore.

     

                    ‘Careful with my mouth there,’ his speech began to slur. ‘You never know when I might decide to talk.’

     

                    ‘Your wee kitten burned down an entire face of Livius Square just to kill three men.’

     

                    Harrow laughed. The next punch dug into his stomach. His laughter stopped, but a mocking smile was still etched on his face. If there’s one thing the dunce is good at, it’s making trouble.

     

                    ‘Who hired you for the hit? Giraud the Fish? Finnius Shank? Mothbag? Definitely a major player in the game. No small fry could even think of going for the Adder like this.’

     

                    Harrow laughed again, crimson strands of bloody mucus spurting from his nose as he did. ‘Really? Mothbag? What kind of idiotic name-’

     

                    A thumb on his arrow wound. It pressed down. Harrow’s grin faltered as he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

     

                    ‘Do you think this is some kind of joke, boy? You seem to find the whole thing funny,’ the Redguard leant in so close he could smell the beer on his breath. ‘Well, go on then. Laugh some more.’

     

                    And he pushed his thumb all the way into the hole.

     

                    The world went red. Somewhere in the distance, Harrow heard a young boy howling. It took him a while to realise it was himself.

     

                    The Redguard worked his thumb around in a circle, then pulled it out. ‘Not so funny now,’ he said quietly. ‘Is it?’

     

                    Harrow hung loosely from his shackles, his breathing coming in ragged gasps.

     

                    ‘Now tell me,’ the ringleader leant close again, digging a nail into the wound. ‘Who are you working for?’

     

                    Harrow bit down hard on his lip, staring at the ceiling. He gave his chains a weak rattle. Of course they refused to give.

     

                    Sighing, the Redguard stretched a hand out behind him. ‘Knife,’ he commanded, and one was passed to him. A couple of the mercenaries went pale. They’d seen the chief’s knife-work before, though it was the first time they saw it used on a child.

     

                    ‘I take no pleasure in this, you know,’ he said, a touch of regret in his voice. ‘But you’ve left me no choice. It’s a pity none of us know magic, or this would be a lot cleaner…’

     

                    He took Harrow’s tunic and undid the belts. The light cloth fell away, revealing the boy’s slim, bare chest. The chief reached out with a thumb and forefinger, both dyed to the knuckles with gore.

     

                    He grabbed his right nipple and pinched.

     

                    Harrow could feel his pulse hammering away in the pink flesh. The blade descended, hovering over his hypersensitive skin. The wire-thin edge was cold as ice.

     

                    ‘Last chance.’

     

                    ‘I work for Giraud the Fish,’ he stammered, his breath hitching.

     

                    The leader of the mercenaries looked almost mournful. ‘Nice try, boy… but everyone who works for Giraud calls him the Shark.’

     

                    The knife slid down almost languidly and Harrow screamed. He screamed until his voice broke and screamed some more, as the Redguard released his breast and the white-hot point of agony expanded into a circle and a single red tear began to run down his abdomen. He screamed for almost a minute. Then his eyes rolled back, his head drooped forward, and he fainted.

     

                    The ringleader wrinkled his nose and dropped the severed nipple in distaste.

     

                    ‘Pah,’ he said. ‘Not a single peep out of him. Whoever or whatever trained this little elf boy did a good job of it.’

     

                    ‘What now, chief? The Adder won’t let us get away with this,’ one of the thugs said. ‘Not with losing him a seven-thousand-septim shipment.’

     

                    ‘Ennio was the one who lost it, not us.’

     

                    ‘I don’t think he would care. Besides, Ennio is dead, shivved in the back. He doesn’t have anyone else to blame.’

     

                    ‘Damnit,’ the chief said, pacing around the room. ‘Can nobody find that hellspawned cat?’

     

                    That was, of course, precisely when Ambarro chose to knock on the door.

     

                    The thugs blinked at each other. ‘What’s wrong, Halleck?’ The chief called, striding over to the door. ‘See somebody?’

     

                    He opened the door to the shack to find the hellspawned cat grinning at him, holding a hempen sack. ‘So his name was Halleck, then?’

     

                    The chief stared at him, then past him, to the lookout’s body slumped under a tree, his chair turned over, his mouth agape and a bloody hole on the side of his neck. He shouted in rage and lunged forward with his knife.

     

                    Ambarro hopped back smartly, raising the sack of Moon Sugar extract. ‘Ah-ah,’ he yelled, lighting his palm on fire and holding it under the bag. ‘Another step and your precious shipment goes up in smoke!’

     

                    The Redguard mercenary forced himself to a full stop.

     

                    ‘Tell your goons to stay inside the hut. I’m not here to fight.’

     

                    The chief paused, then grit his teeth and motioned for his men to stay still.

     

                    ‘I came to make a deal. My comrade for your Sugar. So either you turn him over to me now or you can explain to your boss how you managed to lose seven thousand septims in one night.’

     

                    ‘All right,’ the chief said cautiously. ‘Hand over the Sugar first and we can-’

     

                    Ambarro’s gaze hardened and he allowed the sack to slide a few inches down his grip. The hemp linen began to blacken and smoke.

     

                    ‘Stop! You’ve made your point,’ the chief yelped. ‘Someone carry the elf boy out.’

     

                    ‘No,’ Ambarro said. ‘Hand him his weapons and let him walk out on his own. You and your men stay inside.’

     

                    ‘I don’t think he can walk right now.’

     

                    Hate blazed in the pits of Ambarro’s chest as he registered the full implications of that simple statement. I knew I heard Harrow screaming. He forced it back down.

     

                    ‘Well, toss him out then. I don’t care, as long as none of you cross the door.’

     

                    The chief nodded slowly, then backed up through the doorframe, facing Ambarro all the while. One of the thugs unlocked the restraints around Harrow’s wrists and slung him over his shoulder. Another picked up his sword. Both were thrown unceremoniously out of the shack.

     

                    ‘All right, now all of you stand ten paces back.’

     

                    Harrow whimpered as he began to stir. ‘Dunce…?’

     

                    Ambarro snorted lightly. ‘Of course that’s the first word out of your ungrateful mouth.’

     

                    ‘Where… are we? It’s… too bright,’ he mumbled, squinting at the sun.

     

                    ‘Outskirts of the city. They dragged you all the way out to a little hut in the woods. Probably so nobody had to hear you squeal.’

     

                    Harrow groaned and tried to push himself to his feet. His arm gave and he fell back down.

     

                    ‘Don’t be so impatient,’ Ambarro said, extinguishing his flames. ‘I’ll be right with you.’

     

                    ‘All right, cat,’ the mercenary chief said, taking a single step forward. ‘The Sugar, now.’

     

                    ‘Here, catch!’ Ambarro lobbed the sack over his head. It sailed right into the middle of the hut. The chief dove back inside to catch it, praying it wouldn't burst open or catch on anything sharp. To his relief, the bag of fine powder landed comfortably in his hand, making a small rustle.

     

                    He turned back towards the door, only to see it slam shut with a bang.

     

                    Ambarro grabbed Halleck’s chair and wedged it under the latch. A split second later, the door rattled in its hinges. He could hear muffled cursing inside.

     

                    ‘Oh, get over yourselves,’ he called, slinging Harrow’s uninjured arm over his shoulder and picking up his katana.

     

                    ‘The chair… won’t hold them long enough,’ Harrow murmured, his voice growing stronger.

     

                    ‘Ah, don’t worry. I planned for that too,’ Ambarro said. Then his brow furrowed as if he just remembered something. ‘Hey, did you do much reading about Moon Sugar?’

     

                    ‘There were… a few books,’ Harrow struggled to his feet and began to stumble. Ambarro steadied him, and they both began to walk away from the shack. The pounding on the door took on a desperate tempo, then slowly began to fade. ‘Why do you ask?’

     

                    ‘What’s the lethal dose for inhaling pure Moon Sugar extract?’

     

                    ‘…ten to up to thirty grains,’ Harrow replied, looking at him suspiciously. His gait began to smooth as he recovered.

     

                    ‘And how many grains are there in a pound?’

     

                    Mysterious laughter rang out from inside the shack. Harrow understood, and he began to smirk. ‘What, dunce, you don’t even remember your basic measurements? One pound is seven thousand grains.’

     

                    ‘Well, then,’ a broad smile spread across Ambarro’s face as well. ‘I think we should be fine.’


     

                    The door slammed shut in the ringleader’s face. There was a small click as the latch fell into place.

     

                    ‘Oh, he didn’t,’ he growled, charging into the door with his shoulder. The door shook and jarred his shoulder, but it stayed stubbornly closed. He rammed it again. ‘That thrice-damned, Bal-kissed, scamp of a…’

     

                    ‘Uh… chief?’

     

                    He turned around and roared, ‘WHAT?’

     

                    ‘Is the sack supposed to glow like that?’

     

                    Taken aback, he snatched the Moon Sugar extract and repeated, ‘What?’

     

                    Then he saw the orange rune burning on the sack.

     

                    ‘No!’ He dropped the bag and ran for the door, snagging a hatchet and hacking away at the wood. Windows, he thought as he felt panic close around his heart. Then he remembered that the shack had none. It was practically airtight.

     

                    The rune burst, filling the room with white fumes. The Redguards took a single whiff of it and immediately felt an electric tingling from their nostrils to their toes. The chief swayed and his head began to loll. He spun in circles around the shack, the hatchet left buried in the door, forgotten. Why was he so concerned again? Ah well. It probably wasn’t important.

     

                    His tongue felt heavy and thick. Like an eggplant. He giggled. Eggplant.

     

                    ‘Hey,’ he said brightly. ‘Eggplant.’

     

                    Everybody in the shack began to double over and shriek with laughter.

     

                    ‘Eggplant! Eggplant! Eggplant!’

     

                    ‘Say, chief, why’s there a bird on your head?’

     

                    ‘You stupid,’ the chief cackled. ‘That’s my hair.’

     

                    The mercenaries started laughing again, laughing so hard they began to cough. The coughs were dry at first, but slowly, from person to person, they grew wet. Wet with blood.

     

                    ‘Now, now, m’boys,’ the chief waved, spinning around again. ‘Let’s all just… calm down… the cows aren’t going anywhere... and we’ve got enough cheese…’

     

                    Then he bent over and retched. ‘Cheese,’ he giggled again and dipped a finger into the mess. ‘Smells like cheese.’ He stuck the finger into his mouth and sucked. ‘Ye gods, that’s good cheese.’

     

                    He fell face-first into the puddle of vomit, smacking his lips. His men lay all around him. None of them seemed to be moving. Well, it didn’t matter. All the more for him.



     

     

     

        

     

     

     

     

     

Comments

6 Comments   |   Sotek and 6 others like this.
  • Caladran
    Caladran   ·  September 25, 2018
    Ambarro the hellspawned cat! :D Poor Harrow. I wonder if they tell Diia all about this.
  • The Long-Chapper
    The Long-Chapper   ·  January 30, 2017
    Well, damn, kiddo, my nipples hurt.  +o(
    • The Sunflower Manual
      The Sunflower Manual
      The Long-Chapper
      The Long-Chapper
      The Long-Chapper
      Well, damn, kiddo, my nipples hurt.  +o(
        ·  January 31, 2017
      *licks blood off knife*
      • The Long-Chapper
        The Long-Chapper
        The Sunflower Manual
        The Sunflower Manual
        The Sunflower Manual
        *licks blood off knife*
          ·  January 31, 2017
        That's just gross.  :D
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  October 29, 2016
    The first section alone was worth the read. Ambarro's emotions and the chain of thought was put together really well. 
    It set the scene for the whole chapter.
    • The Sunflower Manual
      The Sunflower Manual
      Sotek
      Sotek
      Sotek
      The first section alone was worth the read. Ambarro's emotions and the chain of thought was put together really well. 
      It set the scene for the whole chapter.
        ·  October 30, 2016
      The dunce is learning, I'd say.