The Fly Guild (11 page)

Quinton continued staring at him,
his anger building. He was already tired of the guild and its rules and its
rotten boys. “What do you have to worry from me?” Quinton asked. The question
seemed to catch Lacoris off guard. The scars on his face and arms changed color
in the light, and his face grew red.

His hand drew the dagger from his
belt and he held the blade close to Quinton’s face. “I think I’m going to carve
me up someone tonight.”

“Easy, Lacoris,” said Vergoth, who
was staring at the knife. “You know that killing of maggots is forbidden. Only
masters can kill maggots, you know that! You’ll ruin your chances of being
named.”

The fire went out of Lacoris’ eyes.
Quinton noticed a few of the boys standing nearby looked disappointed. Whether
it was because he didn’t get stabbed or because they were hoping Lacoris would
do it so they could be rid of him, Quinton didn’t know.

Lacoris’ fist lashed out and caught
Quinton under the ribcage, sending him sprawling to the floor gasping for
breath. “Don’t show me up again, maggot. Lots of bad things happen out on the
street. Maggots fail to come home all the time. One more in the river ain’t
going to be noticed.” With that, he turned and walked back to his cot, where he
was surrounded by his close followers.

Quinton crawled over to a space
near the wall next to Huck. “Hey, at least you didn’t get stabbed,” said Huck
enthusiastically.

“Always a bright side, isn’t
there,” said Quinton flatly, still trying to catch his breath.

Huck just smiled in response.

The door opened again. Red eye was
standing there with Teli in front of him, who was looking even thinner than
usual, his skin very pale, his head down. Red eye pushed him into the room and
closed the door. Teli wouldn’t look up, he just slumped down to the floor.
Quinton went over to him and led him over to where Huck was.

“Teli, what happened?” Quinton
asked.

The boy continued looking down at
the floor, refusing to raise his eyes.

“Don’t ask him that,” said Huck
quietly. “You don’t want to know.”

“He lost a task,” said a boy nearby
named Slade, who was picking the dirt from underneath his nails in the faint
light as he spoke. “He paid the price. It’s our way.”

“Price?” said Quinton. Huck looked
away.

“Red eye takes his pleasures on
those who fail,” said Slade.

“It’s motivating us to be better,”
said another boy whose face was obscured in the shadows.

“The man has some sort of
supernatural abilities,” said Slade.

“And supernatural desires,” said
another.

“He’ll do things to you that you
couldn’t even imagine,” said Slade.

“Just shut up, all of you,” said
Huck angrily.

Slade cast a glance at Huck, then
at Quinton. “Just don’t fail, maggot, or you’ll be like him. Broken.”

“And once you’re broken, you can’t
be fixed again,” said the other voice from the darkness. “Isn’t that right,
Teli?” A tear ran down Teli’s face and dropped onto the floor.

“Lights out,” called Lacoris, and
with that, the room dropped into darkness as the flames were extinguished.

Chapter 3

Quinton came out of his restless
sleep to the noise of footsteps from the floor above him. There were lots of
them and moving fast. He could hear the other boys start to shift about and
whispering to one another about what was going on. The door suddenly flew open.

“Get up, maggots!” shouted Red eye,
his voice a shrill echo in the stone room. “To the slop room immediately.”

The boys who were still asleep
groggily stood up while Lacoris prodded everyone along, throwing in some slaps
and sharp shoves as extra incentives to those moving too slowly.

“You ’eard ’im, move it!” he
shouted.

“Yeah, move it,” Vergoth repeated
for effect, shoving a small boy to the ground who crossed his path on the way
to the door.

Lacoris grabbed hold of Quinton’s
arm as they approached the door, squeezing it tight. “Remember what I told ya,”
he whispered in a menacing tone. “Don’t show me up again.”

Quinton shook his arm free and
walked on, following the other boys into the slop room where the food was
handed out every morning and evening. Everyone filed along the walls and sat on
the benches as Red eye wrung his hands in front of him at the center of the
room. When everyone was inside, he started to speak.

“There’s something up in town,” he
said, slowly turning to glare at each one of them in turn. “The soldiers are
prowling about down by the gate, and everyone’s whispering something about a
murder.”

Quinton’s heart dropped. He did his
best to keep a straight face, and as Red eye looked at him, his eyes narrowed.
“Does anyone know anything about this?” He held his gaze on Quinton while
waiting for an answer. Quinton did his best to clear his mind and keep calm,
but he wondered if Red eye’s powers allowed him to see through his ruse. No one
answered.

“Then you will all go out and find
out everything you can,” Red eye said, his voice becoming more commanding with
every word. “You will go out and get every bit of information that’s out there
and bring it back to me. The soldiers are violating our treaty, which means
whoever was murdered was someone important. Find me answers!”

The boys didn’t need to hear any
more. The benches scuffed on the floor as everyone hurried to make their way
out of the room. There would be no breakfast this morning. Quinton could feel
Red eye’s eyes boring through him as he made his way out the door, but he
didn’t dare turn around to look.

“Murder, huh?” said Huck, who had
made his way up beside him as they moved toward the exit of the guild. “Wonder
who it was? Probably one of those pretty boys from inside the wall. What do you
think?”

Quinton didn’t say anything. He
wondered if Huck would figure out it was him and turn him in to Red eye. He
glanced over his shoulder and saw Teli trudging along with the crowd, head
down.

“Once you’re broken,” Quinton mumbled
to himself.

“What?” Huck asked.

“I said I don’t know who was
murdered. But it sounds like we better find out.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure,” said Huck.
“By the way he was acting, sounds like Fist is pressuring Red eye to get some
answers. How about we work together again today? We make a pretty good team.”

Quinton nodded. Without Huck, he
had trouble navigating the confusing city streets anyway.

“We’ll head to the gate first and
go from there,” said Huck. “Any action will start and end there as the soldiers
come and go, and we can probably pick up some information from the guards or
the people around the Pink Lady.”

“Sounds good,” Quinton said
absently, looking down at his hands as they went out into the daylight, hoping
there wasn’t any blood showing.

***

The boys made their way through the
maze of streets until they were across from the Pink Lady. There was a small
group of soldiers standing just outside the door on the street. Their round
helmets with broad rims dully reflected the early morning light. They leaned on
their spears and shifted under the weight of their chainmail shirts, looking
totally bored. Huck led them up the soldiers.

“Hey fellas, what are you doing
out?” he asked. One soldier glared at him, his beaked nose protruding from underneath
the brim of the helmet. The others ignored him.

“Run along, you little shit, before
I spear you like a piglet.” His eyes said that he meant it, too.

Huck shrugged and peeled off down
the street away from the gate with Quinton close behind. He turned down the
street alongside the Pink Lady and kept walking.

“Now what?” Quinton asked.

“We look for more soldiers. They’ll
lead us to the action.”

They hadn’t walked far when they
saw a small military procession making its way up the street toward them. There
were several men mounted on horses, their armor glinting in the morning light
leading a small mule-drawn cart that had something laid out on the wooden slab
making up the bed. Behind the cart were a dozen or so spearmen, dressed like
the other men they had seen earlier, and behind them were two men carrying
large crossbows. Huck stopped and leaned against a building.

“Let’s see what this parade is
about.”

The procession slowly made its way
up the street. The lead horses tossed their heads from side to side, impatient
with the mule’s pace behind them, their masters fighting to keep the steeds
under control. They passed by the boys, leaving behind the sweat and manure
smell that makes horses distinct. The mule was being led by a young boy, his hand
flipping a small stick against the mule’s rump every now and then to encourage
it to keep moving. He whispered words of encouragement and kept glancing up at
the mounted men in front of him with fearful eyes.

As the cart rattled by on the
cobblestone street, Quinton saw a body laid out on the wooden slab. He held his
breath. It was the man he had killed the night before. The man’s face was
pallid and looked much different than he remembered. The luxurious clothes were
blood stained around the midsection and covered in the dirt from the street.
There was some sort of priest hovering over the man as the cart rolled along.
He was working feverishly mixing herbs and dabbing strange liquids on the man’s
tongue and occasionally into the wounded area. Was it possible the man was
still alive?

The spearmen marched silently
behind the cart, one of them looking over at the two boys.

“There will be hell to pay for
this,” he said flatly. He turned back toward the cart and marched on.

Quinton waited until the two crossbowmen
bringing up the rear were out of earshot before saying anything.

“Why did the soldier tell us that?”
he asked.

Huck’s eye’s narrowed as he watched
the cart trundle around the corner and out of sight. “He knows what we are, or
at least suspected it. That man on the cart was the Lord Governor’s eldest son.
And he’s right.”

“Who’s right?”

“The soldier. There will be hell to
pay for this.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The truce has been broken,” said
Huck. “Fist had a deal with Lord Governor Wren. There would be no murder. It
was okay to rob the drunken richies when they ventured out from behind their
wall, but the royal family was supposed to never be touched. A few incidents
here and there never meant much other than a few lost coins. But this … ” He shook
his head in disbelief. “Not only has there been murder, it’s the governor’s
son.”

“But it looked like he might still
be alive.”

Huck shook his head. “He’s got a
belly wound. Even if he’s alive, he’ll die soon enough.”

Quinton thought for a moment, looked
down the street as the last of the crossbowmen disappeared from view as they
turned the corner by the Pink Lady and then asked Huck another question.

“What will the governor do?”

Huck stared blankly across the
street. “He’ll take back the streets. He’ll declare war on us and try to
exterminate us.” The boy balled his hands into fists and he started taking
quicker breaths.

“The guards and the guild used to
skirmish all the time, then Fist struck a deal. Part of the profits go to the
governor and no one ever crosses the wall. The governor got a safe haven for
all his rich friends plus a degree of protection outside the walls when they go
out whoring and looking for swamp weed to smoke. With no murder, the citizens
are relatively happy. Everyone wins. Until now.”

He paused, staring off into space
again. “When Fist finds out who did this, he’ll rip him apart.” Huck looked
right at Quinton, who momentarily panicked. “That is, unless the governor gets
to Fist first. Come on, we have to warn him.”

Huck turned and ran at a full
sprint down the street, with Quinton right on his heels. The two boys dashed
through alleys and streets, bumping into people and shoving them out of the
way. When they reached the entry to the guild, they stopped to momentarily catch
their breath, both of them bending over with hands on their hips, huffing and
puffing. “Let me do the talking, okay?”

Quinton nodded, then followed Huck
through the door and into the guild. They went down a hall and up some stairs
Quinton had never been up before. The guild here was nicer. There were
tapestries on the walls – they were worn and faded and of low quality, but at
least an attempt had been made to decorate the area. Most of them were of
random scenes from random ages. Quinton suspected all of them were stolen. They
came to a large oak door at the end of the hall with a large knocker on it.
Huck banged the knocker six times, letting the people on the other side know
that a maggot was requesting an audience to share urgent news. A deep voice from
the other side summoned them to open the door and enter.

“Remember, let me do the talking.”

Quinton nodded, then followed Huck
through the large door.

Inside was a large room with the
windows covered by heavy curtains that let in no light. There were several
groups of lit candles that cast a pale light across a large table with several
chairs around it. There were some nicer tapestries on the walls with faded
pictures on them and a roughly hewn wooden statue of a man displayed what
looked to be a crude breastplate and two metal gloves with spikes on every
finger, including a particularly long and barbed one that protruded out of the
upper knuckle of the middle finger on each hand. Sitting in a large chair
behind the table, his face partially hidden by shadows, was a man that Quinton
immediately knew to be Fist.

The man had dirty blonde hair
combed straight back from his ridged brow. His deep-set blue eyes penetrated
the gloom in the room to sear right through him. His massive frame took up the
overly large chair, and muscles bulged from every spot on the man’s arms.
Placed in front of him were his hands – hands that were so large they looked
like they belonged to an even bigger man, if such a thing were possible. They
were broad, and each finger looked like it was the size of Quinton’s arm. If he
wanted to, the boy was sure Fist could simply lift his hand and smash the oak
table with a simple flick of the wrist.

“What news, maggot,” the man said
flatly, his voice deep and stern.

“Forgive the interruption, Lord
Fist, but I bring urgent news.”

Fist snarled, revealing yellowed
teeth that were broad and straight. “You better have something good maggot, or
else. Now speak.”

Huck stammered before regaining the
courage to continue. The man was massive, and his stare told you that with even
the slightest misstep, he would murder you on the spot with no remorse.

“My lord, we observed soldiers
taking the dead body – or nearly dead body anyway -- of the Lord Governor’s son
back to the old city. A soldier said that there would be hell to pay for this.”

Quinton watched as Fist’s jaw
tightened and he squeezed his hands into massive fists, swearing under his
breath.

“Who would do this? Who would dare
defy my orders?” he said in a whisper, his face turning red. “Who!” he suddenly
shouted, causing both boys to jump. He stood from his chair, knocking it aside,
and leaned forward on both arms, first looking down at the table, then slowly
raising his gaze to the maggots, both of who involuntarily took a half step
backward. “This will mean war,” he whispered. “The end of things as we know
them. All my work over the years, all for nothing.”

He raised his fist and slammed it
onto the table, sending a massive boom echoing down the hallway. He looked past
the boys and continued, “I can buy time. The Lord Governor is a cautious man.
He will accept my negotiations and promises to find the killer all while
mustering his forces and sending his agents out to find our holes. But time
will help us more than him. We must have time.”

Quinton sensed someone coming up
behind him and glanced back at the door to see Master Sands, Red eye and a few
other masters he didn’t recognize standing there.

“We must send an emissary at once
to our beloved Lord Governor,” said Fist, his voice showing no hint of emotion
now. “We must buy ourselves time to prepare for war, and in the meantime,
perhaps we can find a sacrificial goat to throw into his fire of anger over the
death of his son. Or,” Fist continued, glancing at Quinton, “we can find the
killer ourselves and present him to the Governor and preserve our truce.”

“Who shall we send?” asked Sands.

Fist thought for a moment before
responding. “Send Glitter. He will be less threatened by a woman, and she has a
good eye for reading a person’s intentions.”

Sands bowed his head in
acknowledgement. “It shall be done.”

“Now,” Fist called out, “Leave me
so that I may think in silence about what needs to be done.”

All of the people in the room bowed
their heads and Quinton did the same, then everyone backed out of the room
before turning to go down the hallway. Sands walked beside him and pulled him
aside while the others continued on.