Children of Fire (19 page)

The streets of Callastan's market square were always crowded, but during the high summer merchants and travelers swelled the river port's population to nearly twice its usual size. Scythe didn't mind the summer crowds, even though their humid heat made her already tight-fitting garments cling to her clammy skin.

She was used to the smell: the acrid stench of sour sweat from a thousand unwashed bodies mingling with the thickly sweet fragrance of a hundred varieties of perfume to form a heavy, noxious cloud that crawled slowly through the overstuffed city streets.

Besides, more people meant more purses, and the sheer number and variety of foreigners congregating in the square meant there was always something interesting to be lifted from an unwary shopper's belt or spirited away from a careless merchant's stall. There was no doubt in Scythe's mind: Summer was the best time of the year in Callastan.

People of all types filled the square. There were many in the crowd who shared Scythe's slight build, olive skin, and jet-black hair: The blood of the Islands was strong in Callastan's people. Because of this few gave her even a second glance as she made her way through the square, making her job that much easier. Besides, there were many things far more interesting to look at than an eighteen-year-old woman, attractive though she might be.

The square teemed with sailors on shore leave, men who drove the economy of the great port, each desperate to make the most of his brief time on land. Clad in colorful, billowing silk shirts accented by flaming red or yellow scarves, green- or purple-dyed hair, enormous glittering hoops of gold dangling from their ears, and the bejeweled cutlasses they kept strapped to their hips, the sailors would have stood out in any crowd—except in Callastan.

Here competition for the eye was far too fierce to be drawn by mere gaudy attire. Bare-chested jugglers danced in and out of the teeming masses, tossing glittering blades back and forth high above the heads of the constantly moving spectators. Acrobats painted in a mishmash of tribal, religious, and decorative tattoos flipped and tumbled and rolled in and among the shoppers and merchants, occasionally upsetting a fruit or bread cart in their reckless performance. Wandering minstrels strummed or blew or thumped their instruments, each valiantly struggling to be heard above the cacophony of the constantly haggling crowd. Of course, all of the street performers gave a wide berth to the snarling, club-wielding Enforcers: soldiers in the service of the city who constantly roamed the square in twos or threes, looking for any excuse to start smashing heads.

Witches and alchemists hawked philters and potions in the street, shouting above the incessant clamor of barter, many of their wares illegal anywhere in the Southlands but here in Callastan. Robed magicians conjured towers of fire in the palm of their hand or summoned sparkling crystal showers from the sky to demonstrate their command of Chaos, though Scythe knew how to perform similar theatrics with the right mix of powders, a deft hand, and a gullible audience.

Scythe herself had lost all but a cursory interest in the so-called wonders of the square. She had seen the darker side of Callastan; she understood how the city consumed and devoured people. The sights and sounds of the square meant little when you were starving, or living in the filth of a back alley. For many who dwelled here, life was a grim, never-ending battle. And only the strong survived.

Scythe was one of the strong. She moved through the crowd with confidence, seeking out marks among the merchants and shoppers while at the same time keeping an eye out for other thieves looking to stake their own claim on a likely victim. And though bored with the familiar, she still kept one eye open to appreciate the truly rare sights that materialized from the crowd from time to time.

Last year had seen an abundance of Dwellers in Callastan, brave explorers seeking adventure among the human cities far to the south. One young male had been particularly intriguing, tall and elegant with unfathomably deep sorrow in his violet eyes and striking features. She could still remember the cool feel of the smooth, hairless skin of his bare chest beneath her trembling touch, and the way the dying light from the fire in the corner of his room had brought out the pale green hues of his skin.

Her exotic lover had promised to take her back to his home in the North Forest, a wondrous city built high among the branches of the trees. But Scythe knew better than to believe such pillow talk. She imagined that even among Dwellers promises made in the afterglow of lovemaking vanished with the coming morn. She had slipped away while he slept, taking only her clothes and the memories of their passion, despite a wealth of interesting treasures scattered about his room. And now she couldn't even remember his name. Had she ever known it?

Earlier this morning she had spotted a small cadre of mercenaries in cobalt-blue chain mail, the weeping eye on the crests of their armor proclaiming allegiance to some unknown master in a distant land. As they marched past she had recognized the blond hair and square jaws of the Northern provinces in their faces. The seriousness of their expression had intrigued her, and she had started the day by discreetly following the armed men to discover what business they had in Callastan. And then she had spotted
him,
towering over everyone like some magnificent titan.

In all the time she had lived in Callastan, Scythe could never remember seeing a barbarian from the Frozen East among the crowd before. She had instantly decided he would prove far more interesting than the sober mercenaries in blue, and she had been following him ever since.

Scythe glided through the crush of humanity with a natural grace and ease that had came from several years of practice, her lithe form making subtle twists and turns to get her through the sea of bodies with a minimum of physical contact. The man she followed was not so skilled.

He lumbered through the throng bumping, shoving, and literally bowling people over as he rumbled along. The fact that he stood well over seven feet and had to weigh nearly four hundred pounds didn't make a smooth passage through the crowd any easier—though it did keep the people he knocked over from cursing him in anything louder than a whisper.

Tracking her target through the crowd was simple for Scythe. His enormous height and girth were not the only things making him stand out from the rest of the disparate crowd. It was blatantly obvious to everyone in the square that the enormous man was a savage from the Frozen Lands, even though most of them had, like Scythe, never seen an Easterner before. His style of dress was that of an uncultured brute, for starters. He wore no jewelry and sported no tattoos, nothing to adorn or accentuate his gruff and simple appearance. A tough leather jerkin that covered his torso but left his enormous arms bare, a short leather apron that came down to just above his knee, and a pair of hard leather boots were his only articles of clothing.

The giant's hair was a fiery crimson tangle, cropped to shoulder length but unstyled and wild atop his massive head. His face was all but hidden behind a thick bushy beard of the same color. The relentless summer sun of the Southlands had turned his skin to a blistering, angry red. Large chunks had peeled away, revealing ugly splotches of a pale and sickly white beneath the outermost layer of his sunburned flesh.

The hulking traveler was the lumbering embodiment of every Southland stereotype of the Eastern barbarian—large, brutish, beastly, wild, rough, uncultured, and unmannered. The only thing missing was a weapon, a great axe slung across his back or a heavy broadsword sheathed at his side. But as far as Scythe could tell, this particular savage was unarmed.

She had been following him for nearly half an hour, ever since spying him on the far side of the square and staking her claim with a series of quick hand gestures, a secret code used by the thieves in Callastan to communicate without drawing attention to themselves. The other pickpockets and hustlers who worked the area had acknowledged her claim, steering well clear of her mark. Scythe had earned their professional courtesy two years ago by killing a pair of thugs who had tried to move in on her fledgling pickpocket business.

The men had confronted her with knives drawn, demanding a half share of the day's take. She had paid them without protest, but the next day their two corpses were found naked in the street. Their throats had been slit, their eyes gouged out, their ears sawn off, and their privates removed. Scythe left it to public speculation as to which injuries had been inflicted before death.

The effects of the lesson had been immediate and enduring. Even now, two years later, Scythe had not had any trouble with the other operators in Callastan who also earned their living on the far side of the law.

The barbarian was lost, she decided. He wandered without purpose or any clear sense of direction. He would stop or change direction suddenly, wreaking havoc among those unfortunate enough to be caught in his path and leaving a wake of angry glares and crude but silent gestures directed always at his back.

Scythe didn't think there was much profit to be made from the savage. She hadn't seen a purse or money pouch yet, though it was possible he kept one stuffed deep inside his leather jerkin or tucked beneath the leather kilt. But she suspected he wouldn't be carrying more than a handful of silver, at best. The Frozen East wasn't known for its wealthy merchants. As far as Scythe knew they didn't even use currency in that forsaken land. What good was a gold coin when tracking a herd of elk across the tundra?

But she found his strange appearance and great size intriguing. She followed him out of a sense of curiosity, merely to see where he would go. She couldn't imagine him having business with the merchants within the city, and he didn't have the look of an ambassador or emissary seeking the ear of a bureaucrat or public official. The only logical assumption was that he was looking for the Pleasure District.

Everything was for sale in Callastan, including human flesh. Large, small, dark, light, male, female—whatever one desired could be found, for the right price. Most of the prostitutes congregated in the Pleasure District for the simple convenience of their customers, though there were always a few wandering up and down the busier streets of the square.

Scythe felt a twinge of sympathy for whatever unfortunate girl ended up servicing the giant beast of a man. Three years ago she had emerged alone and vulnerable from the Western Seas. With no coin in her pocket and no one to turn to for help she had been an easy target, and it wasn't long before she had found herself working in the infamous brothels and whorehouses of Callastan simply to survive. Though only fifteen at the time, she had been old enough to service the needs of the depraved men—and occasional women—who sought carnal fulfillment for a fee. From personal experience, she could well imagine the repulsive appetites of this brute from the frozen edge of the world. The savage would stink of sweat and herd animals; she could imagine him mounting his terrified harlot like a rutting bull.

Or perhaps he reveled in the kind of sexual perversity that had made Scythe finally decide she would prefer the life of a thief to that of a whore—acts so vile and brutal Scythe had realized she would rather die in a city jail or starve on the street than subject herself to such torture and degradation ever again. The pattern of scars across her breasts, hips, and back suddenly burned beneath her clothes, angry scourges of a metal-tipped whip that would never heal. Unbidden, her hand went to the razor-thin, almost invisible scar running the length of the left side of her jaw. Reminders of what she once was.

She shook her head and pushed these thoughts away. Callastan had taken much from her: her youth, her innocence. But in exchange it had made her hard and ruthless; it had taught her to survive. And for Scythe survival meant never dwelling on the past.

Only after the giant had ignored several courtesans who had been brazen or desperate enough to approach him and offer their services did Scythe admit to herself that her original guess had been wrong. He continued on his unpredictable path, unintentionally wreaking havoc among the other pedestrians with every change of speed or direction. He seemed oblivious to the events around him. Scythe recognized the bemused look; she had seen it on the faces of more than a few villagers who suddenly found themselves overwhelmed by the relentless sights, sounds, and crowds of the thriving metropolitan streets of Callastan.

A pair of club-carrying Enforcers made their way slowly through the crowd toward the giant. They stopped him and began to speak, casually using their clubs to point at the ever-increasing crowd of angry victims the man's great bulk left in its wake. Someone must have filed a complaint against the foreigner and his clumsy progress.

Bumping people in the street couldn't get you arrested, no matter how frequent the transgression. But a handful of coins in the right hands could buy a vicious beating. Scythe guessed someone had taken their anger toward the barbarian a step farther than glares and offensive gestures.

The savage was speaking to them now, responding to their questions. If he felt intimidated by the soldiers and the none-too-subtle implication of the clubs in their hands, he gave no sign. Of course, Scythe thought, if she was as big as he was she might not be afraid of them, either. She wanted to hear what was being said, but she didn't dare move any closer. It looked as though a fight was imminent, and she didn't relish being close enough to get caught up in the action when the brawl inevitably spread through the crowd. She expected the savage to put up a good fight, though—something worth watching.

Scythe backed away so she could safely watch the action unfold. But to her surprise, nothing happened. The soldiers were nodding their heads in unison, agreeing with whatever the giant was saying. One of them pointed to the far corner of the square not with his club but with his free hand. The giant nodded in response, the mound of unruly hair atop his head flopping with the exaggerated bobbing of his head. And then they left him alone.