“Are you done, my lady?” The black-haired landlord, Jan Tompkyns, loomed over the table. A gaggle of peruked Men in stained velvet coats hung at his elbows.
Razitshakra rustled the broadsheet, peered at her scribble, cleared her throat, and announced modestly: “An Ode to Jan Tompkyn’s Hostelry”:
One periwigged Man clapped his hands and the rest began to applaud, more in relief than appreciation.
“‘Tis well done!”
“Ay, you cannot say it isn’t. We are indebted to you, my lady.”
“If you are inclined to publish,” an elderly, prune-faced Man hung back and addressed Razitshakra as the rest departed, “I can offer you reasonable terms, and the anonymity due to a Lady of Quality…”
“I—” Razitshakra brought her fan up to cover her masked face, wincing. Ashnak, who had clawed her under the table, nodded affably at the Man.
“It is her pastime only, sir.”
It was unnecessary to show the decorated hilt of his short-sword. At Ashnak’s bass-voiced comment, the Man bowed and hurriedly departed to his comrades on the far side of the coffee-house. Ashnak drew breath, about to speak, and the landlord returned and leaned over and planted a jug of arrack and five mugs on the table. His black-browed face had cleared.
“Welcome, sirs and madam, welcome. I do apologise for my suspicions, but we have Justices come here in disguises searching out vice, and then it is myself and my wife who will be whipped at the cart-tail for keeping a bawdy-house, do you see, girl? Please drink this on the house.”
Ashnak, still leaning back out of the lamplight, said confidentially, “we are not Justices, sir, I warrant you. The very opposite, in fact. I hear the Guild knows this tavern, landlord. To tell the truth, we need to hire a servant or two—servants who shall know how to thieve, but not from their employers…”
Jan Tomkyns straightened, wiping his hands down his leather apron. Tall for a Man, he would have topped Ashnak only by half a head if they had both been standing; and Ashnak huddled into his cloak and coat so as not to have it noticed that he was himself four times as heavily built as the landlord.
“Ah, sir, now I appreciate…yes. The custom is for the house to recommend, and a small fee—why, thank you, sir. Very kind. Now let me think…Do you see her, yonder?”
Ashnak noticed one of his silk gloves had split, showing the granite-coloured skin and talon beneath. He tucked his large hands up into the cuffs of his frock coat. He peered through the smog. A female halfling sat alone in an opposite nook, her crimson cloak hood drawn up, shadowing her face.
“She is a thief?”
“What, Magda, sir? Lord, sir, no! But she’s the mother of two of the most ingenious thieves in the kingdom, and if you speak with her, I’m sure you can come to terms.”
Ashnak nodded to Razitshakra. “Write a note for the halfling Magda. Landlord, I would as soon leave this note with you to give to her. Here is silver.”
“Holloa! I’ve won!”
Captain Mad Jack Montague, Earl of Ruxminster, leaving the back gaming room riding on the shoulders of a stout whore, whipped at her with his crop. His boot swung round and caught the table, knocking arrack and lukewarm coffee into the laps of Ashnak and the orc marines.
“Faith, ye’re wet! Baptised ye, ye Lightless dogs!”
Lugashaldim stood, furious, wiping himself down, bandy-legged in silk breeches. Ashnak inclined his wigged head. “No harm done, sir.”
“Faith, a piss-britches coward!” The Earl Captain swung his sword above his head, knocking one of the lamps, and galloped his whore around the room, kicking at other tables and ducking the jugs and shoes flung piecemeal at his head.
Razitshakra finished writing. Ashnak took the letter. He did not read it, it not being a common thing in a Wit to have to spell prose out letter by letter, lips moving. Besides, the marine had her orders. He folded the paper and handed it to the landlord.
“You are to give this to the female halfling’s thieves. To the thieves themselves. Will you remember that?”
“To the thieves?” Jan Tompkyns looked puzzled. “But you may speak with Magda herself now, sir, at your pleasure.”
“No.” Ashnak stood up and moved out of the partition, not bothering to conceal his bulk or his quickness. A number of the patrons glanced over, and he saw how they took in five square-built, hunch-shouldered, supposed Men in frock coats and silk gown, features hidden behind domino-masks. At his back he heard the four other orcs scuffling out from the benches. He thrust the letter into the landlord’s hand. “You will remember, sir, I promise you. The thieves must have this letter. Do it.”
“Yes, sir. But sir—”
Ashnak casually backhanded the Man across the face, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconscious. The landlord fell across chairs and hit the floor. Ashnak caught Lugashaldim’s and Razitshakra’s eyes. He nodded.
“Now.”
Wading in swatches of silk, bow-legged and broad-shouldered, Razitshakra kicked over tables and chairs and coffee-drinkers on her way across the room. Lugashaldim shook his head, peruke and domino-mask flying off. Someone gasped and swore. In no more than fifteen seconds the two orcs ploughed across the room, snatched up the female halfling, bundled her in a cloak, and bashed their way out, demolishing one of the doorposts as they went.
A dozen or so of the less-drunk patrons drew sword. Ashnak clawed the cloak off his back and unholstered his concealed Uzi automatic submachine-gun. The two remaining orc marines dropped cloaks and masks and shifted M16s into firing position. Ashnak cocked the gun, moved the fire-selector to automatic, and let off a series of three-shot bursts.
“Aaiiiiiieee!”
The M16s opened up. Noise shattered the coffee-house. Ashnak scythed down Captain Mad Jack and his whore, the flaxen-haired dwarf, the table of Spectator journalists and then emptied the magazine through the back door. Bodies jerked, staggered, caught half-rising. The halfling bar-girl, picked up by the force of the shots, splattered across the back wall as it collapsed.
The big orc hit the magazine-release catch, snicked a full magazine home, and—firing on semi-auto to conserve ammunition—slewed a burst of fire around the room and fell in behind the remaining two orc marines as they left the Dancing Orc by way of the demolished back wall. Human, dwarf, and halfling blood painted the walls, spattered the ceilings; Men clutched at guts spilling through burned and tattered frock coats and lace shirts; faces minced, limbs shattered, bone-fragments flying like shrapnel.
In less than thirty seconds, and always firing above waist-level so as to avoid hitting the unconscious body of Tomkyns, the orc marines cleared the building and disappeared into the alleyways around Abbey Park.
Jan Tompkyns, eventually conscious and in great pain, did not think to study the letter until he had had a surgeon to his jaw, fled two streets away before the Justices should investigate the room of bleeding, stinking corpses in the Dancing Orc, and wept hysterically for close onto four hours.