The Unwilling Aviator (Book 4) (5 page)

"Any objections to our staying there?" Ned persisted. Sins turned his head away and didn't reply.

"Then if nobody else wants to be ruining my fun, let's get going," Canto insisted.

"Do you happen to know where this place is in this large city?" Percy asked him.

"Aye. In the eastern part of the city against the cliffs. It's a bit rough in there, but that'll mean we'll get rooms," Canto replied.

"
If
we want rooms there," Pat rephrased.

CHAPTER 6

The party dismounted and squirmed their way through the thick crowds. Wheeled food carts lined many walls, and Fred kept a firm grip on Fluffy's reins to keep the cantankus from repeating the chicken adventure in Galaron. People were packed against each other and more than one fight broke out over who shoved who. The people of String had a curious way of resolving disputes, and Fred stopped to watch one of the strange resolutions. A fight broke out between two men over prime real estate atop a large crate.

"Get off! You've had enough time on it!" one of the men protested.

"I found it, it's mine!" the one atop the crate protested. The first man dragged the second from his fine perch and fists flew between them. A large crowd gathered around them and cheered on the brawl.

A third, and larger, man stepped between them and pushed the pair apart. "You settle your differences with the twinners!" the large man shouted at them. He took hold of the collars of both men and glanced over the crowd. "Is there a twinner around?" he yelled over the shouting and jostling.

"Here comes one!" someone shouted.

All heads turned to a side street where emerged a robed figure. The person was short, about a head taller than Canto, but walked straight and stiff. He wore multicolored robes that dragged the ground several feet behind him. His face was covered by a long, thick hood so that no one could tell which way his head was turned. The sleeves spilled over the man's arms and the cuffs scraped the dry dirt. Every few steps the robed figure tripped and waved their sleeved hands in the air to balance themselves. The strange man made it to the three men only because the crowd parted for the funny figure.

The robed person coughed into their sleeve and whipped their hooded head from one fighter to the other. "What is the problem, fellow citizens?" the robed man asked them.

The large man shoved the pair ahead of him. "They was fighting over a crate."

"Who had the crate first?" the robed man asked the pair.

The appropriate man held up his hand. "I did," he replied.

"Then share and let your fellow citizen have a chance at the crate," the robed man decided.

The large man turned to the initial occupant of the crate. "The twinner's decided, so get off with you!" The loser scowled and scurried away. The assembly broke up as quickly as it had come together, and the street resumed its normal chaos.

Ned stepped up beside Fred. "What do you think of their twinner trial?" he asked the young man.

"Twinner?" Fred asked him.

"The twinners are winners of past tournaments who are given positions as circuit judges in the city. They walk the streets settling disputes," Ned explained.

Fred glanced at the dust trailings of the twinner's robes and shrugged. "It's a little strange," he admitted.

Canto scoffed. "More like circus judges," he commented. "Those fools don't know their left hand from their right, but they decide who wins and loses."

"Not everyone wants agreements solved by combatants bashing each others' heads in," Percy chimed in with a laugh.

"I'm sure we can all agree it's an interesting sight to see," Ned pointed out.

"Like watching fools jump into a box of Diluvian bees," Canto grumbled.

Percy glanced around the street and furrowed his brow. "Ned, you have been here on past tournaments, have you not?"

"A few," Ned admitted.

"Do you recall seeing so many guards?" Percy asked him. There were guards at nearly every corner, and if there wasn't a guard a twinner was sure to be standing there.

Ned frowned and stroked his beard. "No, I don't recall ever seeing so many."

"And they are very tense," Percy added.

"Are you four coming?" Pat yelled at them. Ruth and she stood a quarter of a block ahead of them waiting on the corner.

"The ladies call us, gentlemen," Ned told the group.

Percy smirked. "At least they intervened in this argument before a twinner was needed," he joked.

The men hurried along and caught up to their better halves. The party journeyed onward and all were relieved when their destination took them into less crowded streets. The people thinned to where they hardly met anyone, but the buildings grew taller and less elegant. The wide, straight streets curved and bent at odd angles as the blocks changed from rectangular to something drawn by a six-year old student of geometry. Trash sat against the walls, having been tossed from nearby upper windows, and the dry ground turned to deep mud. The muck was made up of garbage, undrained rainwater, broken water pipes, and other things the party didn't want to think about.

Pat stepped ankle-deep into one of the cesspools of unknown makeup. She shuddered when the muck lapped against her shoes, and whipped her head over to Canto. "This had better be worth it," she growled at him.

Canto pulled his legs from knee-deep muck and scowled at her. "Ya think Ah'm enjoying this?" he snapped back.

"Patience, my friends. I believe we're almost there," Ned interrupted them.

"How can you tell?" Pat asked him.

Ned nodded to Sins. "Because our friend here is even paler than usual." Everyone paused in their struggles against the sinking wet earth and turned to the assassin. His pale slip of visible skin on his face was indeed whitish.

"Is something wrong, Sins?" Percy asked his guard. Sins stiffly shook his head. "Are you in need of a doctor?" Another stiff shake.

Canto frowned at the assassin. "If he wants to be secretive then let him die of a cold."

"That's a very cold thing to say," Ruth scolded him.

"It's because Ah am cold. This mud's soaked me through," Canto replied.

Ned pushed on a few yards ahead of the group and paused at the opening to a small square. "Then you will be pleased to know that we have arrived," he announced to the group.

The companions forgot their quarrel and sloshed forward. The way opened and they found themselves staring at a square surrounded on two sides by two-story buildings hewn from the cliffs. The other two sides were made of two-story structures made from half-rotten wood boards. The shadow from the tall, forward-sloped cliffs hung over the square like a perpetual night sky. The only reprieve from the darkness came from lamps hung around the outer edges of the square. Even during the day they burned their oil to provide light.

Their destination lay in the half of the square built from rotted material. An arched doorway stood open on the bottom floor, and above it swung a sign. In black, faded letters it read
Tracts of Land
. The tall, narrow windows that looked out on the square were so grimy magic couldn't make them clean, and through the door they glimpsed a dark, smoke-filled room filled with shadowy figures.

Pat frowned and her eyes dodged over to Canto close beside her. "This is where you want to sleep?" she asked him.

Before Canto could reply there was a noise inside the Tracts of Land. The party watched the shadows inside the building lift up chairs and bring them down on one another's heads. Men yelled and footsteps trampled across the wooden floor. The noise ended when two men flew through the door and landed face-first into the mud.

Ned chuckled. "It certainly has atmosphere," he pointed out.

A woman a head taller than Pat with thick arms and even thicker breasts stepped out of the doorway. She wore a red silk dress with a low-cut neck that showed off her ample assets. Her blond hair was pulled back in a braid and though her face wasn't entirely clean, anyone could see she was a beautiful woman.

The woman put her fists on her hips and scowled at the two men who were struggling to free their faces from the mud. "Don't come back here until you've got some gold in your pockets!" she yelled at them.

One of the men stood and whipped around to shake his fist at the woman. "You can't do this to us! We're honest men!" he shouted

"I honesty don't care. Go whine to a twinner, for all the good it'll do for you. You're not getting back in here until you pay your bill," she argued.

The man growled and pulled a knife from his boot. He leaned his arm back to throw it at her, but Sins pulled out his dagger and threw his weapon at the man. Sins' dagger sunk deep into the man's arm, and the stranger screamed and dropped his knife. He fell to his knees and clutched at his impaled arm.

Sins dropped his reins into Percy's hand, strode through his companions, and walked up to kneel beside the man. He grabbed his dagger and yanked it from the stranger's arm. The man screamed and scrambled back. Blood poured from the wound and colored the mud red. "D-don't hurt me! P-please don't hurt me," he pleaded.

Sins clutched his dagger to slice the man's neck open, but Percy frowned. "That's enough, Sins. He won't be throwing knives for a while," Percy called to him.

Sins paused and looked over his shoulder. His eyes were narrowed, but he wiped his dagger on the man's pants and placed his dagger back into his cloak. The stranger scrambled to his feet and escaped his companion. Sins stood and his companions strode over to him.

The woman stepped out from the doorway of the inn and peered at the group through the shadowy haze. Her eyes widened and a smile brightened her face. "Sinny!" the buxom young woman yelled. She scurried over to Sins just as he was standing and wrapped him in a tight, breast-crushing hug all the other men wished to be a part of.

Canto snorted. "Sinny?" he repeated.

The group expected the touch-sensitive assassin to kill the woman outright. Instead Sins pushed them apart and wiped his hands against the creases in his cloak. "Deadly Sins," he corrected her.

She laughed and knocked a hand against the back of his shoulder. He stumbled forward, but caught himself before he spilled into the mud. "Always with the act. You're just lucky I call you Sinny and not your real name. Now don't you at least have a hello for your little sister?"

The companions collectively dropped their jaws to the ground. They whipped their eyes from the beautiful, buxom, friendly woman to the cold, dark-clothed, sinister Sins.

Canto looked back to the woman with a raised eyebrow. "Yer joking, right?" he asked her.

The young woman turned to the group, but cast a side-glare at her brother. "Sinny would like you to believe he was born from shadows, but he was born like everyone else, and a full nine years ahead of me."

"They don't need to know that," Sins told her.

The woman sighed, crossed her arms over her ample chest, and shook her head. "I was hoping you'd brought friends to see me, but I see I'm wrong. Won't you ever trust anyone?" she asked him.

"No," was the blunt reply.

"You should. It's less dangerous than making enemies," she scolded.

"Friends become enemies," he argued.

"Spoken like a true bachelor," she returned.

Ned leaned forward on his staff and chuckled. "Does that prove it to you, Canto?" he asked the dwarf.

The dwarf scowled and glanced between the two. "Ah guess it proves something," he grumbled.

Ned swept off his hat, walked up to the young woman, and bowed. "It's a great pleasure to meet you, Miss-?"

She waved aside his gallant pleasantries. "None of that fancy stuff now. Just a good shake of the hand." She took one of his wizened hands and gave it a good shake that rattled him from the tip of his hat to his shoes. Her heavy arms weren't just for show. "As for who I am, Tits McGee is my name and bustling tables is my game," she replied.

Pat raised an eyebrow. "Is that your real name?" she asked the buxom woman.

McGee laughed and shook her head. "You're the first to ask that. Most don't get past the fake name, or past these, for that matter." She pushed up her breasts and released them so they bounced. The mens' heads bounced with the same rhythm. "As for your question, the answer is no. My real name's-" Sins slipped behind her and slapped his hand over her mouth.

"You speak too much," he scolded.

McGee tore off his hand and frowned. "And you speak too little, big brother. They seem like friendly folks."

Pat wasn't so sure. She looked at the males in her group and saw that Fred, Canto and Percy were mesmerized by the bouncing of McGee's assets whenever she moved. Sins noticed their gazes and pulled McGee behind him. "Many men are friendly toward you," Sins replied.

McGee pushed him aside and smiled at the group. "They know a friendly woman when they see one," she countered. Her eyes flitted over the party. "Now what brings you and your acquaintances here at this time? Come to see the tournament?" she asked them.