Tirak slowly glided along the cobblestones. It was his tenth rotation of the warehouse this afternoon. As he watched the sun slowly set on the city, his mind repeated the events of the last few weeks for the fiftieth rotation. That drunkard had known more than he had told Tirak—after Adrix had confirmed the stolen Company badge was a legitimate sigil, the squad had spent a few days tracking down the fool. After all, Tirak had forced him to lay low with that midnight bellow and broken front door.
Dealing with the cretin had been almost more than Tirak could bear without pulling his hair out—but the possibility that the lost-and-found belonged to the still-missing Ralist had been too large to ignore.
After a moderate beating, the drunk had revealed where he had allegedly found the badge. He had reported that it was bloodstained and left with a similarly soiled scrap of cloth. The squad—those who weren’t on shift at the warehouse, of course—had scoured the vicinity of the indicated alleyway. Only days after Tirak’s night-time assault on the drunkard, they had found a boarded-up bakery and the locked shed at its rear. The shed had quickly divulged its secrets: blood pooled around a rough wooden chair, stained rags littering the floor, and—after a closer inspection—torn fingernails lying in the dried blood.
Tirak had had to step outside. He had never been so close to this sort of torture.
The connection to Ralist had been hard not to make, but the trail had run cold.
As he continued his sunset patrol of the merchant’s warehouse, Tirak marveled that they still had not found Ralist or his presumed attackers. The district guards had been made aware, and Adrix had even reported Ralist’s disappearance to the Three Commanders—a report they had been loath to make. Now if Ralist did turn up, he might face punishment for desertion.
Suspecting the baker might’ve known something, Tirak had directed his nighttime adventures to tracking him down, only to find him at another, smaller shop, as innocent as any poor shopkeeper could be.
Tirak finished his dull loop of the warehouse and wandered up toward Zelra near the front gate. More of the squad was on shift during peak hours—for the show of it—but only two during the dinner hour. Zelra was whittling a piece of wood while she waited. It had been a lump when Tirak had left for his patrol, but now it began to resemble the curves of a woman. After the squad’s occasional trip to a brothel, Tirak was not surprised about her choice of art.
Zelra knew better than to chat with Tirak. The two stood in silence as the shadows lengthened—Zelra leaning against the wall, Tirak standing at attention. Tirak felt this wasn’t uncomfortable silence for Zelra. She preferred it, too.
Then Brellik appeared around the corner of the adjacent buildings, towing Hob behind him: the next shift. There was an energy in their pace that surprised Tirak, and Zelra rose from her brick wall, slipping her salacious woodcarving into her pack. Brellik called ahead: “They found him!” Then, as he neared, he added, “Ralist—he’s alive!”
“What!” Tirak barked. He had not expected that. After the torture scene, he had been even more certain of Ralist’s fate. “Where is he now?”
Zelra blurted the phrase word-for-word in unison with him.
“The Anchor’s Catch. Garn was drinking with a sailor friend in the harbour and spotted Ralist at a corner table. Hurried off to find Adrix,” Brellik reported. “The rest of the squad is there right now, trying to figure out what under the sun is going on. I haven’t heard more; they were leaving when I was. Damned guard duty.” The fellow mercenary waved his hands up at the bland masonry of the merchant’s warehouse.
“Let’s go!” Zelra said, hurrying past Tirak.
With a nod, Tirak fell into step with her. He turned and called back, “We’ll swing by here when we know more.”
They had to cross two districts to reach the harbour. Their badges got them through the gates quicker than the common folk, but it was still a long walk. Zelra expressed her confusion about Ralist’s reappearance, but aside from that, they continued to share their silence.
The large tavern offered two floors full of vices. No self-respecting sipper would find themselves in this, a place of hardest liquors and burly mugs. No barmaid in the right mind would work here without knowing she herself was on the menu. Smoke hung between the glowing lanterns in the decorative rigging and the cacophonous gathering of layabouts and sailors that churned on the common room’s floor. Ralist had chosen this place wisely if he wanted to avoid district guards or dutiful Company-men—or if he was intent on carousing his way to an early grave.
Spotting Adrix’s half-shaved scalp, Tirak pushed his way to the bar and ordered two pints from a barmaid with a plunging neckline and the dull eyes of someone who had worked here far too long. Once she had poured his drinks, Tirak navigated the maze back to the table that Zelra had cut towards.
Sure enough, Ralist was slumped across from the squad sergeant. Tirak gave Adrix and Marako a nod, but patrolled around the table to Ralist’s side. Ralist had a dappled arrangement of bandages, yellowed bruises, deep scabs, and fresh scars. His eyebrow was healing, but still looked deformed, as he lifted his face to regard Tirak with a faint smile.
Tirak slammed the drinks down—one in front of himself and one in front of his bedraggled friend. “Must-a been some fine woman you were chasin’,” he muttered. He made a show of looking Ralist up and down. “Looks like she kicked your sorry ass out.”
“Where were you?” Zelra asked, more earnestly.
Ralist looked between them sheepishly. “I’m done. I don’t know who they were, but they got Company secrets out of me. If the Commanders find out, I’ll be the next ‘deserter’ hanging over the Storm Fort gate. I’ve got to lay low. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you fine fellows. And the missus.” He gave Zelra a weak grin.
“With these wounds,” Adrix added, “he wasn’t on his feet for weeks after they released him. Whoever these damned cowards are.”
Ralist took a sip of his drink. “Thanks, Tirak,” he mumbled, before setting it near an already forming cloud of drinking horns, shot glasses, and deep mugs.
Tirak shrugged. He looked around the hazy common room once more. “Finish that pint, and then we’ll go someplace to talk more,” he told Ralist, looking to Adrix for confirmation. “Anchor’s Catch isn’t known for its tight lips.”
Adrix gave him a tip of the head, and soon the group of mercenaries filtered out of the intoxicated clientele and into the street. “Where did you have in mind?” Adrix asked, looking down the first alley they approached. A man and woman were tongue-tied in the shadows, both with their tunics torn wide open—it might have been private enough for them, but clearly it was not private enough for the squad.
“This way,” Tirak growled. Zelra stayed close to Ralist as they walked, while Adrix and Marako seemed intrigued by Tirak’s lead. Tirak had been in town for long enough—since enlisting—to do what he did wherever he went: he had built a network of contacts, and a mental map of abandoned shacks, locked up shops, and secretive back alleys.
He found them a room with a thrice-locked door—his own locks, in this case—which only admitted them through its side-alley window. As he showed them to the safe-house, he got a murmured word of approval from the sergeant.
“Thank you,” Ralist said, turning to him after sitting down on the flat cot for support.
“You’re welcome to stay here,” Tirak told him.
Ralist shrugged. “I’ve been staying with friends, but—”
“Friends have ties, and you don’t want them hurt if someone comes for you,” Tirak pointed out. He didn’t mention that he mostly considered friends to be liabilities. He’d take an unknown safe-house over someone else’s room-and-board—any day.
“Agreed,” Ralist replied reluctantly.
Tirak tested his weight on a cheap dresser in the corner. It held, so he pushed himself back against the wall while facing Ralist’s bedside. “Can you remember anything about any of the people involved in your disappearance? Anything would be helpful. You also need to tell us what you told them, in the way of company secrets. And also, where did they drop you off?”
Ralist looked up, his brow furrowing. “They wanted to know about the Whalestone Jail job. Specifically, who hired us for it, and if all the prisoners got out or only certain ones,” he explained. “I told them what I knew. We freed everyone, and it was Councillor Worlon who hired us. I’m sorry, to all of you.”
Unsure how the Company would handle the revelation of these secrets, Tirak glanced at Adrix, but only got a grimace for an answer. Imagining the war between Councillors, Tirak realized that naming a Councillor for a job was…was well worth the grimace.
“Ralist, did you get a glimpse of them?” Marako asked. The sergeant’s right-hand-man leaned on the simple post at the foot of the bed. “Any descriptors at all?”
“I saw one man’s face only, when I got grabbed and after. Someone was asking me about the Jail job near a pub. Raderan complexion, brown hair, clean shaven, mercenary clothes—but no badge. He was the same one who…” Ralist took a deep, shaky breath, “…who tortured me in that gods-awful shed. There were others around—his guards, I guess—but whenever I wasn’t in there, I was blindfolded.”
“Ralist…” Tirak muttered. “Do…do you still have your Company badge?”
“No, I lost it somewhere along the way,” Ralist said. His swollen brow lowered sadly. “For the best, I suppose.”
“I see.” Tirak nodded somberly. He felt like, once again, they didn’t have much to go on. “We found a badge outside of the shed. It must be yours, then.”
Ralist sighed. “Anyone have a flask?”
Tirak produced his own, but then blinked. Zelra, Marako, and Adrix had each offered their own in the same instant. They shared a bittersweet chuckle whilst Ralist took his choice of liquor. Tirak wondered if he would skip town—it seemed the safest option. He knew on the morrow, it would be back to work for the rest of them, and another slow hunt for answers.