Salute the Dark

Then there were the internal purges. At the same time as all of that public activity, Latvoc was going through his own officers. Several men had already been made to disappear, and it all seemed the actions of a man who was either blindly committed to some ideal or else absolutely terrified.

Yes, business was difficult and yet business was booming. The resistance had never been stronger and Hokiak was happy to sell them whatever they wanted, so long as they met the high prices he charged. At the same time he had smuggled Wasp officers out of the city, or falsified papers to help others escape the continuing cull. The one thing he always made sure of was that his clients did not get to meet each other. He was not inclined to sell information these days, for each side was too prone to exact singular vengeance if betrayed.

Which brought his thoughts round neatly to the new arrivals waiting in his back room, the people who had been asking to speak with him.

A man tries to keep his books straight. He had known, surely, that the day would come when someone would ask him to take sides: Kymene herself had already thrown enough hints his way by declaring that she considered him a true citizen of Myna. The Wasps, too, would surely realize soon enough that a man of his activities must know more than he ever revealed. The day would surely come.

It had come.

‘What if I ain’t playin’?’ he asked, scratching the creased and baggy skin under his jaw with one claw. ‘I don’t have to go in.’

‘Then don’t.’ His business partner shrugged. He was an old, dishevelled Spider-kinden, skeletally gaunt and with long grey hair, going by the name of Gryllis. ‘Let them just kick their heels.’

It was an apposite image, signifying both waiting and being hanged, because Hokiak thought he had guessed the truth about his visitors’ real allegiances, but he didn’t know.

‘We ain’t goin’ to win out of this business either way,’ he complained.

‘We’ve always managed so far, old claw,’ Gryllis remarked, but there was a lack of certainty in his deep-set eyes. ‘Or do you think it’s time for us to move house?’

‘I been workin’ on this place a long time. Ain’t lookin’ to let it go to rack and rot just yet.’ Hokiak filled his pipe one-handed, by dint of long practice, and then lit it, taking comfort from the smoke. ‘You jus’ make sure you get the boys watchin’, in case things go wrong. I want the bodies out of there and into the river ’fore anyone can blink.’

‘Right you are.’

Hokiak pushed open the door and surveyed the little back room where his select clients came. He knew most of them gathered there by sight. The two Maynesh Ants were mercenary bodyguards, closer than sisters and waiting for their next patron. The young Mynan woman in the corner was a pawnbroker of rare articles, who paid Hokiak a percentage to keep shop on part of his premises. The rowdy card game between the Fly-kinden knife-thrower and the three local bruisers was just a cover for Hokiak’s own men, who were waiting for his word. The halfbreed facing the main door, marked with Mynan and Wasp features, must be the new smuggler in town who was reputedly trawling for business. Hokiak would speak to him later. This current business came first.

They were seated, the two of them, at a table near one of the corners. He recognized the girl instantly, because he might be old, but his memory for faces was still young. There she was, but what was she now, the one who had been Stenwold Maker’s niece?

Che rose from the table as the old Scorpion hobbled over. Beside her Thalric sat merely as a cloaked, cowled and brooding presence.

‘Hokiak,’ she greeted him. ‘Thank you for seeing us.’

He squinted at her through yellowed eyes. ‘Ain’t usually expecting to find any Lowlanders round here.’ His eyes flicked to Thalric briefly.

‘Do you remember me?’ Che asked him. ‘I’m Cheerwell Maker, Stenwold’s niece.’ She kept her voice deliberately lower than the murmur of the other patrons. A young Fly-kinden boy stopped at their table with three shallow bowls of beer. Hokiak nodded to him absently and then made a great show of lowering himself, creaking joints and all, into an empty chair.

‘You I do remember,’ he said. ‘So tell me, what’s his nibs’s kin now doing round old Hokiak’s place? Ain’t a good time, this, for social calls. You’re delivering messages? Perhaps a gift for the old man?’

‘I… I have some money,’ Che said, and immediately bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not really… Stenwold doesn’t know I’m here, Hokiak. He thinks I’m in Tharn, the Moth city. But I heard of how things were in Myna.’

‘And you jumped on a flier and decided to pay old Hokiak a visit.’ The Scorpion began relighting his pipe. ‘Good of you to think of me.’

‘Hokiak, you’re the only person I know in Myna that I could easily find,’ Che replied. ‘I need your help.’

‘Seems just about everyone does.’ He settled back in the chair. ‘But don’t get to reckoning that, just ’cos I know your uncle, you can get credit, girl.’