‘Just give me your fucking axe!’
Mason didn’t like it, but he made a living doing things he didn’t like. Wasn’t as if this crossed some line. His expression said, I’m real sorry, but he pulled out his hatchet and slapped the polished handle into Crandall’s palm anyway, turning away in disgust.
Shev twisted like a worm cut in half but could hardly breathe for the pain in her ribs, and the two bastards had her fast. Crandall leaned closer, caught a fistful of her shirt and twisted it. ‘I would say it’s been nice knowing you, but it fucking hasn’t.’
‘Try not to spatter me this time, boss,’ said Pock-Face, closing the bulging eye nearest to her so he didn’t get her brains in it.
Shev gave a stupid whimper, squeezing her eyes shut as Crandall raised the axe.
So that was it, then, was it? That was her life? A shit one, when you thought about it. A few good moments shared with halfway decent folk. A few small kindnesses done. A few little victories clawed from all those defeats. She’d always supposed the good stuff was coming. The good stuff she’d be given. The good stuff she’d give. Turned out this was all there was.
‘It is a long time since I last saw Prayer Bells.’
Shev opened her eyes again. The red-haired woman she’d dragged into her bed that morning and forgotten all about was standing larger than life in Shev’s smoking room in that ripped leather vest, peering at the bells on the shelf.
‘This is a very fine one.’ And she brushed the bronze with her scabbed fingertips. ‘Second Dynasty.’
‘Who’s this fucking joker?’ snarled Crandall, weighing the hatchet in his hand.
Her eyes shifted lazily over to him. Or the one eye Shev could see did, tangled red hair hanging across the other. That hard-boned face was spattered with bruises, the nose cut and swollen and crusted with blood, the lips split and bloated. But she had this look in that one bloodshot eye as it flickered across Crandall and his four thugs, lingered on Mason a moment, then away. An easy contempt. As though she’d taken their whole measure in that single glance, and wasn’t troubled by it one bit.
‘I am Javre,’ said the woman Shev found unconscious in her doorway. She had some strange kind of an accent. From up north somewhere, maybe. ‘Lioness of Hoskopp and, far from being a joker, I am in fact often told I have a poor sense of humour. Who put me to bed?’
Pinned against the wall by three men, the most Shev could do was raise one finger.
Javre nodded. ‘That was a kindness I will not forget. Do you have my sword?’
‘Sword?’ Shev managed to croak, the forearm across her throat easing off as its owner turned to sneer at the new arrival.
Javre hissed through her teeth. ‘It could be very dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. It is forged from the metal of a fallen star.’
‘She’s mad,’ said Crandall.
‘Fucking loon,’ grunted Hands-in-Pockets.
‘Lioness of Hoskopp,’ said Big Coat, and gave a little giggle.
‘I will have to steal it back,’ she was musing. ‘Do any of you know a decent thief?’
There was a pause, then Shev raised that one finger again.
‘Ah!’ Javre’s blood-clotted brow went up. ‘It is said the Goddess places the right people in each other’s paths.’ She frowned as though she was only just making sense of the situation. ‘Are these men inconveniencing you?’
‘A little,’ Shev whispered, grimacing at the dull ache that had spread from her side right to the tips of her fingers.
‘Best to check. You never can tell what people enjoy.’ Javre slowly worked her bare shoulders. They reminded Shev of the Amazing Zaraquon’s, too, woody hard and split into a hundred little fluttering shreds of muscle. ‘I will ask you once to put the dark-skinned girl down and leave.’
Crandall snorted. ‘And if we don’t?’
That one eye narrowed slightly. ‘Then long after we are gone to the Goddess, the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those who witness will whisper fearful stories of the way I broke you.’
Hands-in-Pockets shoved his hands down further still. ‘You ain’t even got a weapon,’ he snarled.
But Javre only smiled. ‘My friend, I am the weapon.’
Crandall jerked his head towards her. ‘Put this bitch out o’ my misery.’
Pock-Face and Big-Coat let go of Shev, which was a blessing, but closed in towards Javre, which didn’t seem to be. Big-Coat pulled a stick from his coat, which was a little disappointing since he had ample room for a greatsword in there. Pock-Face spun his jagged-edged dagger around in his fingers and stuck out his tongue, which was uglier than the blade, if anything.
Javre just stood, hands on her hips. ‘Well? Do you await a written invitation?’
Pock-Face lunged at her but his knife caught nothing. She dodged with a speed even Shev could hardly follow and her white hand flashed out and chopped him across the side of the neck with a sound like a cleaver chopping meat. He dropped as if he had no bones in him at all, knife bouncing from his hand, flopping and thrashing on the floor like a landed fish, spitting and gurgling and his eyes popping out further than ever.
Big-Coat hit her in the side with his stick. If he’d hit a pillar, that was the sound of it. Javre hardly even flinched. Muscle bulged in her arm as she sank her fist into his gut and he bent right over with a breathy wheeze. Javre caught him by the hair with her big right fist and smashed his head into Shev’s butcher-block counter, blood spattering the cheap hangings.
‘Shit,’ breathed Crandall, the hand he was holding Shev with going limp.
Javre looked over at the one with his hands rammed in his pockets, whose mouth had just dropped open. ‘No need to feel embarrassed,’ she said. ‘If I had a cock I would play with it all the time, too.’
He jerked his hands out and flung a knife. Shev saw the metal flicker, heard the blade twitter.
Javre caught it. She made no big show of it, like the jugglers in that travelling show used to. She simply plucked it from the air as easily as you might catch a coin you’d tossed yourself.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She tossed it back and it thudded into the man’s thigh. He gave a great spitty screech as he staggered back through the doorway and into the street.
Mason had just pulled his own knife out, a monster of a thing you could’ve called a sword without much fear of correction. Javre planted her hands on her hips again. ‘Are you sure this is the way you want it?’
‘Can’t say I want it,’ said Mason, drifting into a fighting crouch. ‘But there’s no other way for it to be.’
‘I know.’ Javre shook her shoulders again and raised those big empty hands. ‘But it is always worth asking.’
He sprang at her, knife a blur, and she whipped out of the way. He slashed at her and she dodged again, watching as he lumbered towards the door, tearing the curtain from its hooks. He lunged at her, feathers spewing up in a fountain as he hacked a cushion open, splinters flying as he smashed the counter over with his flailing boot, cloth ripping as he slashed one of the hangings in half.
Mason gave a bellow like a hurt bull and charged at her once more. Javre caught his wrist as the knife blade flashed towards her, big vein popping from her arm as she held it, straining, the trembling point just a finger’s width from her forehead.
‘Got you now!’ Mason sprayed spit through his clenched teeth as he caught Javre by her thick neck, forced her back a step-
She snatched the big Prayer Bell from the shelf and smashed him over the head with it, the almighty clang so loud it rattled the teeth in Shev’s head. Javre hit him again, twisting free of his clutching hand, and he gave a groan and dropped to his knees, blood pouring down his face. Javre raised her arm high and smashed him onto his back, bell breaking from handle and clattering away into the corner, the ringing echoes gradually fading.
Javre looked up at Crandall, her face all spotted with Mason’s blood. ‘Did you hear that?’ She raised her red brows. ‘Time for you to pray.’