Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Continued from here



He wasn't willing to let this go. Not until the old man had heard him out.

For seasons now - hells, for longer than that, if he was being honest - he'd watched a man he'd grown up idolizing make stupider and stupider decisions. Not cautious or shrewd, which could be understood. Sometimes the way to success and power was not in endless aggression alone; the old man had taught him other ways, other angles. Like a master swordsman teaching a young bravo that there was more that one way to win a fight than heedless attack. There were arteries and tendons and joints and a myriad of tricks and dirty ploys one could deploy.

Ilos had learned every lesson, and well. He had grown, and Vorund had been the one to nurture him. But he could see the same board, the same vista of life and business that his boss could, now. He knew the alliances and plots and players and factions. And he knew that the damn-near volcanic eruption of violence that occurred trials before was still buzzing around the underworld. All to their advantage, if they played it right.

If Ilos had been one for introspection, he might find it ironic that such a boon had been tossed into their lap by a man he most sincerely hated. Well, had he understood what "irony" was, anyway.

"Sir, we need to move on this. Capitalize. Make more than what it is right now."

"Why do you keep picking at this scab, boy?" Vorund ignored the little flinch that puckered his lieutenant's face for a trill. He wasn't in the mood to be sensitive. His old eyes were tired behind his spectacles, and this parchment wouldn't cover itself in fucking ink. "I've told you, we don't need to do anything else. The story has been told and retold and by the next season it'll have been a dozen shadow bitches and Kas with a fucking arrow through his balls that bested them all."

The gang lord snorted and flicked a glance at the bartender on the other side of the office. Well, he fulfilled that function for tonight, anyway. Usually he'd have Ilos or one of his lumbering apes tend to him and his visitors. But tonight, someone more... competent was called for. The man methodically checked each bottle, sniffing the contents and arraying them. Brown, white, wine, stout, pale... then he moved on to glasses.

"Wouldn't have been the first time."

"What happened down in those tunnels was unprecedented, boss. The Fence's enforcer, her finest killer, bested and sent running like a cur." Ilos' voice slid a little deeper. He sat forward a little more. Urgency, intensity, a demand to be acknowledged and heeded, they radiated off him like heat. "Everyone's been nibbling at us for the best part of an arc now - not serious chunks, mind, but enough that they're doubting us. Now your man shows the whole city the quality of the men you have on your side. If we rally those men now, send them north, into their turf-"

"I am not going to war with those bastards. Not now, not with our friend in the Guard vanished and the city sweltering and on edge and Foster's on the brink of bloody war with these pirate-"

"Then this is the time for us to strike, crush the cunts, stop them now and show-"

CRACK

Vorund's palm came down so hard on the desk that a scroll rolled right off the edge. Something scurried frantically away under the floorboards. Even the bartender ceased polishing the glasses for long enough to toss a glance at the desk. All he'd see was an old man, face pinched and severe, glaring at a younger one who seemed... much the same. Less lines on his face, but the same anger etched onto it. Tired of being ignore,d tired of waiting and plotting and showing their bellies.

"Enough. I'm fucking well serious, Ilos."

"They're still talking about that message. y'know. The one from Ashan." Vorund admitted, he was stunned. For just a moment, he'd thought the boy had run mad. Would he really dare, to presume, to plow on regardless? "That Prince cunt calls you out, and you don't say shit? You know how that makes us look? This could turn that all-"

"'Us'? What the fuck is with this constant 'us' you keep fucking talking about?" Ilos should have known better. Were he not so set and focused, he probably would have caught that low, dangerous snarl in Vorund's voice. "Not me, or you, but 'us'. I'm getting tired of hearing it, and-"

"Because it's as much mine as-"

CRACK

"DO NOT FUCKING INTERRUPT ME AGAIN, YOU LITTLE CUNT!"

It was a hurricane in a bottle; a gale in an outhouse. A vast and furious explosion of noise that seemed to swamp everything in the room. The bartender was sure he'd seen papers across the room rustle as if buffeted by strong winds. Fuck alone knew how it must have felt to Ilos, presed back into his seat by the red, raging face of his master, mere inches away.

"'Mine'? You know what's mine, Ilos? YOU! I rose you up! I taught you how this business works! You were scamming Market stalls and passing dodgy coins when I fucking found you! A few arcs later and you think you own this?!" He swept his arms around his head, taking in the cavernous warehouse and the wide office. Ilos flinched again, as if waiting for a blow. "I OWN THIS! All of it! Forty arcs of my blood on these cobbles, and you think you're entitled to any of it? DO YOU?!"

The boy had no reply. All he could do was grip the arms of his chair and squeeze them until his knuckles were bled white. Stare at his crotch, bowing his head as if submissive... even though his eyes were wide and incandescent beyond words. He was so fucking tired of this. All his good ideas, all his bold strategies, that could save their firm and cast the fucking Al'Angryl back out of the city... and all this old man could do was rage and scream like some absentminded fool.

"Aye. That's what I fucking thought. Nothing to say." There was a long silence. Long enough for Ilos to look up into a face both drained and disappointed. "You don't know everything, Ilos. And you ain't me. Look... I'm trying to make sure when I'm out of this, there'll be some-"

There was a knock, and the shocking switch in tone was instantly forgotten by all. Spitting rage had turned to conciliation, as if Southside Vorund was actually trying to talk his young apprenctice around. Ilos blinked, uncomprehending, having never heard that tone before. But it went nowhere. The moment died when the door opened, and Little Tony poked his head around the door.

"They're here."

It took Vorund a breath and a blink to get back into his usual frame of mind. "What I expected?"

"Aye. To a man."

"Send them up." Tony lumbered away and Vorund looked to Ilos one last time. He sighed and shook his head. "I don't want to talk about his again, lad. Now button it, and get over on this side of the desk. Guests coming."

Ilos ground his teeth for a trill but he obeyed. They could all hear the footsteps trooping up the stairs. More than just a couple, that was clear enough. A careful, trained ear could hear the clang and scrape of metal, too. Swords in scabbards. Knives in sheaths. Maybe even the chink of armored vests. Vorund took of his spectacles and looked over to the bartender. He nodded at the table of refreshments the tidy little man was standing next to.

"Gin for Styes, mash for me. Ice for me, straight for him."

Kasoria nodded, and the office door opened.

"We're going our own way, Bangun. That's what we came here to say."

Knowing Styes as he did, it wasn't too hard for Kasoria to see what drove him to speak so bluntly. He'd started off as a gambler, nearly twenty arcs ago. He'd been a rather good one, too. Not just lucky and astute, but always willing to play the man, not just the game. He wasn't happy just being a sporting man, either. He'd invested his winnings into loans, to other gamblers and to associates who wanted to finance their own illicit little ventures. Within a few arcs, he was making more money from interest payments and percentages of those ventures than cards and dice, and so he'd done what one would expect.

Moved up into management. He had a well-chosen coterie of muscle protecting his personage and enforcing his will, and since he didn't waste man nels on frivolities, a big enough war chest to grease the Black Guard that came sniffing around. Which was bound to happen when a racketeer got big enough in Etzos: a bigger fish came along demanding a cut.

Like Bangun Vorund. Who'd made the same offer he made everyone that operated in his territory: pay me a respectable slice of what you make every season, or I kill you. What made him different from most, is that this wasn't a threat. It was a premonition, a simple statement of what the future most assuredly would hold.

Styes was a smart man. He knew the stories, listened to informed counsel, and paid what he owed every season without fail. He'd even become a de facto lieutenant for Vorund along the way, acting as his voice and will in his corner of South Etzos. But now that was changing, as everything else seemed to be. Now he was sitting across his master, drinking his gin, with a trio of hard-faced men standing behind him, staring at Vorund and Ilos and Little Tony, telling him the future with that same, knowing tone in his voice.

How quickly they forget.

"Could have sent a runner t'tell me that, Denis," Vorund said, punctuating his reply with a sip of booze and a slight hiss of appreciation. "In fact, might have been smarter if you did."

"I'm not a coward, Bangun. Neither are my boys." Styes' lips curled into a smirk, marring his smooth, well-kept features. Like most gamblers, he prided himself on his looks. His face, his hair, his clothes, his manicured hands... all spoke of wealth and success. Kasoria was almost sure he saw a light sheen of womanly gloss on his fingernails as he gestured behind him. "These men? They're loyal to me. Just like that little raggedy bastard you've got on a leash is loyal to you."

"Ah. Meaning, I can't just buy them out from under you like the whores they are?"

"Not all things are about money, sir."

That came from The Sellsword. Kasoria didn't know the man's name, but he could deduce plenty from what he could see. Tanned, weathered skin, not from the Western landmass of Idalos. No, that was skin that had seen arcs under the relentless suns of the East. Kasoria could smell spices and smoke, too. Things that had seeped into the man's pores in those same arcs, exotic and alien to the honest stenches of an Etzosi. The man wore armor to go with his bastard sword and dirk, too. Not mail or leather, but half-plate covering his chest, arms, and legs. The way he carried himself was the biggest giveaway, too. Alert and watchful, much like Kasoria.

Second biggest, actually. The first was that he hadn't stopped staring at the little "bartender" the whole time he'd been in the room.

You know your own, don't you?

"Fancy accent," Vorund said with a warm, friendly smile. Kasoria knew from experience that was not a safe or healthy thing. "Rharne, am I right?"

"By way of Yaralon," Styes cut in, reaching up to pat the big man on one armored forearm. "Memmio here's killed men in half a dozen countries, and now he's with me. Along with a couple of his... friends."

"And you think a couple of foreign merks is gonna tip the balance?" Ilos snorted softly and folded his arms. "We can snap our fingers and raise an army across South Etzos. Drown you in bodies and blood. And you know it, Styes."

Vorund's lieutenant had a point, but Kasoria still winced anew at that "we". It was never a good sign when the help started using that word. Well, sometimes it could be. When they knew their place and stayed loyal, it told you they believed in the bullshit of it all: the team, the guild, the firm, the family, whatever. They bought into the myth of belonging, and that made them more willing to sacrifice. But someone like Ilos? That made Kasoria twitch. Because he didn't want to belong; he just wanted.

Worry about that later.

"Few arcs ago? I'd agree with you. But now?" Styes turned his attention back to Vorund, still placidly drinking his mash, like one of the real movers in South Etzos wasn't openly daring him to go to war. "No... No, I don't think so. We all know what's coming. Who's coming. I'm pretty sure I can cut a better deal with them that twenty-five percent a season. Not only that, but that fairytale I heard, about your raggedy man in the underground? I'm not buying it. The Fence don't let shite like that slide. I think you're spreading bullshit to keep your head above water. Keep the wolves from the door. Make everyone think you're-"

"Forty percent."

That took the wind out of his sails. Styes was getting right worked up and sliding swiftly into the rhythm of a rant. But before he could get into the meat of his topic, Vorund's voice dropped those two slabs of shit right into his path. His lips worked silently for a moment, as the two men stared at each other. Even Memmio stopped his little staring session with Kasoria and frowned, eyes flitting between the sitting gangsters. Little Tony and Ilos remained expressionless, huge and slender respectively, as if this was all planned. The two other men who'd entered with Styes exchanged confused looks but had the sense to stay quiet.

"What?"

"Forty percent. That's how much you're paying now. For the insult you offered me today."

Vorund tipped back the glass of mash and let it burn like lava down his throat. Smacked his lips and smacked the glass, flat on the table, like he was a youth at some toping house, decades before. His face was fresh and his eyes bright. Kasoria managed to hide a smile in his twitching beard. The man knew how to put up a front, that was for damn sure.

"Leave now, pay the new rate, and never bring tonight up again."

The Sellsword took half a step forward, and placed his hand on his sword. At once, everyone else reacted. Ilos and Tony loomed closer, hands sliding for their weapons. The two others, nameless muscle Kasoria couldn't be bothered to remember, did the same, hustling closer to their master's side. Styes stiffened for a moment and Vorund just popped his eyebrows up to the top of his brow.

"And if we don't?"

Only Kasoria was still. Calculating. Working out angles and distances and timing and blows and counters, all in the trill or three for those words to sink in. Vorund smiled again. It was not warm, or friendly. Kasoria had seen that look on wolves and jackals and those huge, toothy fish he'd seen once or twice off the coast in Foster's Landing. Nothing but hunger and malice and black, black eyes.

"This isn't Yarlon. Or Rharne. This is Etzos." The old man's eyes slid to Styes, who was glaring back at him as stoically as his gambler's gaze could allow. "And you wouldn't be the first to make that threat. Nor the first I've buried for making it."

He didn't say anything else. Just let the threat hang in the air, seeping into the four men across the table. The Sellsword and The Gangster took it with slow, simmering anger. One of the other killers picked up on that a moment later, but the last... Kasoria frowned a touch at the last. He was paler. Skinnier. Had that hungry, furtive look of a born Etzosi, like a rat that had learned to walk upright and survive among men. He reminded him of Ilos, in fact. He looked worried. Like he knew the truth behind the cryptic threat.

Kasoria logged that away for future reference.

Styes raised his glass... then slowly, carefully, deliberately, poured it all over the floor.

"Thanks for the drink." He got up, and his men wordlessly cleared a path to the door. "Be seeing you, Bangun."

Vorund sighed as the man turned to leave, like a father dealing with a wayward son.

"No, Denis," he said, and the departing gambler paused just for a trill as he got to the door. "You won't."

Then he kept walking, his men following him out. The Sellsword paused as he left, though. Long enough to turn back to Kasoria, the simple bartender, and give him the ghost of a smile that told the little man he was in no way fooled. Something almost cordial passed between the two men, a cold, professional understanding. He nodded, curtly but clearly.

Kasoria returned the gesture, and the pact was made.

Until that day, you foreign bastard.

"Well, that went as expected."

"Waste of good grog, too. Couldn't he have just necked it and slammed the glass down?"

"Denis always was theatrical, Ill. Just his way."

Still he listened and did not speak, because that wasn't why he was kept around, was it? Kasoria knew his role; he knew it long before he ever even met Bangun Vorund, back when he was taking any bounty or purse offered to him. Conversation and sage counsel was... not in his skill set. Oh, he was far from stupid, that much was true. But you didn't have a Kasoria for those things. You had them for the nasty stuff. The stuff that plots and debate and deliberation inevitably spawned. Bells, maybe trials of weighing options and making plans, and it all ended up the same way.

A name. A face. A location. Kasoria would take care of the rest.

He soaked up the rest of the gin from the floor and tossed the towel into a bucket, without once feeling degraded in the doing of such a task. He could feel Ilos' superior sneer against the back of his head, and ignored it like he always did. The upstart could glare and smirk all he wanted: Kasoria didn't answer to him, after all. He got back to his feet and unconsciously brushed off his clean breeches. Neat and tidy, just like the rest of his outfit.

Disguise. That's what it really was. Something domestic and harmless that they wouldn't notice. Let you get in close and quiet, get your measure of them. Burn your faces into your memory. The killer felt a faint smile tug at his mouth. Hidden by his beard, but there nonetheless. One in particular.

So he was a bartender that night, but that didn't mean he was deaf. He noted the way Bangun was already referring to Styes as one already passed on from this mortal realm. Ilos finished his drink and shrugged, arms folded as he leaned against the wall.

"Bastard's gotta go."

"Obviously." Their mutual master spoke around the pipe stem jutting from his mouth. More concerned with getting a nice, even smolder going among the leaves packed into the bowl, than the strategy he had to decide upon. That's how it looked, anyway. How he wants it to look. "But he knows that, too. He knew the moment he walked out of here that he'd have a price on his head. That's why he got those sellsword wankers from over the water on his side. Don't know the city, the people, the players. Harder to get to them, make them an offer."

"We've got people on his patch," Ilos pressed on, hungry tone matching the look in his narrow, rodent eyes. He'd been clamoring for blood on the cobbles for seasons, and even if it was on the wrong half of the city, it was good enough for now. "They can tell us where to find him. Even where he'll be, if we're lucky."

Vorund snorted and a brief smoke signal sprouted from his mouth.

"Luck? Don't trust in that shite, lad. Gold and fear and brains take yeh much further." He puffed a few times, enjoying the flavor, the aroma, the delicious burn as he exhaled. Then he turned to Kasoria, still yet to utter a word since he'd arrived in the office. "Wadaya think, Kas?"

"About?"

"Styes. The lads he bought with him."

Kasoria was quiet again, but Vorund could hear the wheels turning under all that hair. Aye, Kasoria wasn't much for chatting. He spoke when spoken to, mostly. He focused more on watching, and listening... and taking it all in, should he need it. You didn't last as long as he did, in that line of work, by being reckless or ignorant. That was the whole point of Kasoria being present, of course. Not just as protection, which Vorund doubted would be an issue. Little Tony was one of a half-dozen men within a sharp cry from the office: Styes wouldn't have made it out of the building alive should he have tried that particular brand of insanity.

No. Vorund wanted him there to take measure of them. Because he knew that's just what the little man would do.

"He's a gambler. He's weighed the odds. Thinks you're weak, not going to push back. Or if you do, it'll be nothing he can't handle."

"See, this is what I've been-"

"Let him finish."

Kasoria flashed a look at Ilos. Saw a familiar flush of indignation that the younger gangster buried with a frown and a flex of his fists. Once that childish mood passed, he continued.

"He's a gambler, so he raises. He's waiting for you to see, and call. So he brings in those sellswords as extra protection, muscle if he needs it. Longer he stays alive after tonight, the worse you look. All he has to do is protect his patch, his businesses, and you look weaker every day. He waits long enough, others will do the same."

"Think that's when he'll have a go at me?"

Kasoria shrugged. He was perceptive, but he couldn't divine the future. That and when it came to the labyrinthine nature of the Etzos underworld, no great upheaval was without a snake's pit of other circumstances jostling around it.

"Maybe. Or he'll wait for someone with more balls and less brains to try it. Maybe even wait for Al’Angyryl to come down south. He just wants what's his, for now."

"What'd you make of the muscle?"

"Memmio's the threat. Tell that by the way he carried himself, way he took in the room, you and Ill and Tony. That... stillness." Kasoria knew he was meandering into more flowery prose than he was used to. Even Ilos looked surprised. "He's a killer. Knows himself, and what he can do. Doesn't hesitate before he does it, either. The one behind him, looks like he came from the same place. Same tan on his skin, backed him up without being told. The other one... a local boy. Probably Styes' second."

"And what'd you read off him?"

Kasoria paused again, and Vorund filled the gap with a knowing smirk. Trust the cunning old stoat to only ask questions he already knew the answer to. The assassin smirked back and nodded slowly.

"Didn't agree with his boss. Doesn't think you're weak, or not that weak. He's not like Styes, with the money and the reputation and the muscle he can order around like some fucking lord. He's not had any of that bollocks go to his head. Al’Angyryl aren't down here yet. None of the other big boys like Styes have broken ranks. Your word is still law on the cobbles, and whenever someone sticks his head up, you take it off."

More accurately, I do. But it's the same thing.

Vorund seemed to read his underling's mind and chuckled at his words, puffing out a minor cloud with every roll of mirth. Ilos just glared off in his corner, still smarting over his advice being sidelined for that of this cretinous little bastard, who should just stick to knifing people like a good fucking dog. Vorund jabbed the pipe towards Kasoria and twisted his head around to look at his underboss.

"You listening? That, there? That's the word on the streets? Straight from a man on the cobbles."

"Ain't just the cobbles we have to worry about," Ilos muttered darkly, like some doom-saying prophet. "It's the backrooms and the gambling parlors and the taverns and all those places they speak you name-"

"A'right, a'right, point fucking taken..."

Vorund covered his face for a moment, and Kasoria realized that his master was, in fact, getting old. Not just in years, but his endurance for this constant barrage of tribulations. Every trial seemed to bring a new pretender, a new threat, a new catastrophe that threatened to tear down all he'd worked for... or could one day grow into something like that. No matter how fast he stamped them out, more grew to replace them. The old gangster rubbed his forehead and sighed, taking a deep, grateful tug on his pipe.

Kasoria remembered what he'd hinted at, a season or two before. Moving away from this business. Going straight, legitimate, beyond the concerns of other criminal chiefs and the attentions of the Black Guard. Spending the last few arcs of his life running an office, and sleeping soundly every night. It didn't seem much to ask for... but the getting there, that made all the difference.

"A'right..." He said, in the tone of a man tired and wanting to his bed, but not before he'd hashed out this fucking hassle. "Here's what yer gonna do..."

Kasoria listened.

Continued here