The sound reached him first as he groped his way through the darkness. Someone was weeping in agony. Smell followed and Lander wrinkled his nose at the pungent barnyard stench. No matter how often that stink assaulted him, he could never get used to it. He gulped air, though, and forced the grimace from his face as his fingers touched rough wood. He stepped through a door to the wide alley behind the Eel and the pigsty Brin kept there.
Bitch Queen's mercy, most of the pigs were asleep. They made a great mass of quivering, snorting flesh in among the straw under the covered portion of the sty. The heat of their bodies kept the shelter comfortable even in the coldest weather; the snow on the roof was already melting in big, fat drops. The pigs hadn't had a chance yet to churn up what snow had fallen on the ground and the sty looked almost pretty. Lander knew better. He picked his way carefully, trying not to disturb the filth underneath.
To one side of the sty, there was a table with a lantern and a bench. Sitting astride the bench, his ankles bound together underneath it, was a man named Kiril. Lander knew him. He collected extortion coin for Brin from several shops on the east of dockside.
His right hand was tied around behind his back. His left was caught in a screw press. He was the one doing the weeping. Judging from the wet state of his hair and shoulders, he had been outside for some time.
Sitting cross-legged on the table beside the press was Brin. Barely three feet tall, the halfling might have been mistaken for a very slight child except for the pinched cruelty of his face. His mouth was narrow and harsh, and a patch covered his left eye socket. There were various tales of how Brin had lost that eye. Some said he put it out himself. Lander didn't believe that. He did, however, believe that Brin was fully capable of such a thing. "Brin," he said in greeting.
"Lander!" Brin's voice, rich and expressive, was a strange contrast to his face. No matter what was going on, he always seemed to be enjoying himself. Maybe that wasn't such a contrast after all. "Kiril, say hello to Lander." The man on the bench didn't respond. "I said, say hello!" Brin's tiny hand lashed out, swiping a pig switch across his prisoner's face. Kiril's head jerked around. For the first time, Lander caught a glimpse of his face in the lantern light. Both cheeks were streaked with fine, bloody cuts from the switch.
"Lander," he said in a quavering voice.
"Kiril." Lander took a step forward.
In the shadows beside the table, something stirred and snuffled. Lander froze as an enormous boar with wiry black hair and malignant yellow eyes turned around to face him. It looked at him with all the warmth of a feral cat, as if deciding whether to tolerate his presence or tear him up on the spot; great knife-sharp tusks curved up on either side of the boar's jaw. "Black Scratch," Lander said, barely able to keep distaste from his voice.
"Easy, Scratch." Brin's switch dipped down to tickle one of the boar's ragged ears. "Now, Kiril, I think you could learn from Lander. I ask him to do something for me and he does it. To the letter." Brin looked up at Lander. "I heard about the lynching. Good work."
Lander nodded. "I've got something else for you. Ran into someone tonight and took care of him for you." He walked up to the table and set down twelve silver coins. Brin's eye glanced over them.
"You had sixty off him or his goods. You probably told your men-what? Fifty?" Lander nodded again. Brin nudged the screw press, drawing another whimper from Kiril. "Did you catch that, Kiril? Lander might cheat his men, but he knows better than to cheat me. I get what's mine. Is that so hard to understand?"
"N-no, Brin," Kiril gulped.
"Are you going to try skimming from me again? " asked Brin. Kiril shook his head emphatically. "Good. I think that finishes our talk tonight." Brin stood up and heaved against the handle of the screw. Kiril let out a horrible scream that brought Black Scratch's ears pricking up and a flurry of alarm from the sleeping pigs in their shelter. "Sorry," apologized Brin, "I guess that was the wrong way."
He slapped the handle and sent the screw spinning up. As Kiril whimpered and held up a hand that was alternately red from the press and white from the night's cold, Brin hopped down and drew a sharp little knife, reaching under the bench to slash the cord that bound the man's feet. "Now get out of my sight," he spat. He drew back the pig switch.
Kiril didn't let it touch him. He was moving before the switch fell, leaping to his feet and stumbling away into the darkness, the back way out of the alley. Lander looked after him briefly. "What did he do?"
"Told a tailor and a cobbler that I wanted more coin and kept the extra for himself." Brin scooped clean snow off the bench and scrubbed his hands with it. The snow, Lander saw, came away flecked with red from dried blood. Black Scratch came out into the light and Brin finished wiping his hands on the boar's bristly coat. The huge pig acted as if it was nothing and began snuffling around. "Everything went well at the Wench's Ease?"
"I'll talk to Ardo's brother tomorrow. Boat or cash, Ton's debts will be covered, I think."
"And nobody caught on?"
Lander shrugged, trying to ignore Black Scratch. "Tycho figured it out. He didn't say anything to anyone, though."
"If he's smart, he won't. Sharp tack but sometimes too clever for himself." He climbed up onto the bench and reached for the coins on the tabletop. "Sixty silver. Pretty good. Who was he?"
"Just someone else looking for revenge. He couldn't have been in Spandeliyon too long-he just walked into the Wench's Ease and announced that he was looking for a former pirate." Brin's eyebrows shot up. Lander gave him a smile. "Then he named you. You could have driven your pigs through the Ease and no one would have noticed."
"You're kidding." Brin sat down on the bench, legs dangling over the edge. "Nobody is that-"
Black Scratch interrupted him by giving a loud grunt and butting hard against Lander's leg. The boar's weight sent him staggering. Lander gave the beast a hard glare, but when he looked up, it was to find Brin staring at him.
"Lander," asked the halfling, "what's that?" He pointed. Lander reached down. His hand encountered the Shou curved saber.
For a moment, his heart jumped. "It belonged to the man who came looking for you," he said cautiously. "You told me I could keep weapons that caught my eye."
"I remember. Let me see it!"
Lander struggled with the saber for a heartbeat before he got it undipped from his belt. He handed it to Brin, Black Scratch following his every move like a trained guard dog. Brin examined the weapon and its scabbard closely. "The man who was looking for me was a Shou?"
"Yeah."
"Did he give his name?" His voice was sharp as a knife edge.
Lander's heart jumped again. "Kang-no, Kuang. Kuang Li Chien." The man's words came back to him. And yet you would anger Brin by robbing someone who is looking for him. He swallowed hard. "Brin, you said you wanted me to take care of anyone who came looking for you without an invitation!"
"I know what I said," Brin snapped. "What happened to theShou?"
"I… my men and I took him for a walk. He put up a fight. We left him in an alley by Gold Lane."
"Go and get him. Bring him here." Brin rubbed his face with his free hand.
"Brin…" Lander hesitated then said, "he's probably dead by now."
Brin glanced up. There was anger in his eye. "Then bring me his body! I want to see him!" He thrust the saber back at him.
Lander snatched it and ran, following in Kiril's tracks. Filth from Brin's pigs splattered up around his boots. He ignored it. Out of the sty, out of the alley, twisting through the narrow gap that led back onto the street. Images of Kiril's mangled hand-of much worse things that he had seen Brin do to people who displeased him-kept popping into his mind. Lander tried to shove them away, concentrating instead on taking the shortest possible route back to Gold Lane. The snow dragged at his legs, making running hard. He didn't slow down.