“Well,” Torval said, rising and planting one foot on Joss’s chest, “We came here looking for the two of you, in fact. As it happened, I came across this suspect and decided I’d apprehend him before seeing to the business that brought me.”
“And what’s he suspected of?” Frennis asked.
“Murder,” Torval said. “The murder of a watchwarden, too, if you must know.”
The Nightjar’s eyes widened, as though in surprise. He looked to Frennis. “Those are very serious allegations,” he said, “I suppose we should accommodate these good seekers and answer their questions, and sooner clear our good names and the spotless reputation of this establishment.”
“Aye,” Torval said. “That you should.”
“I have a better idea,” Frennis said to the Nightjar, loud enough so that all could hear him. “What say we bring all of these miscreants into more private quarters and have a little palaver with the lot of them? After all, these two claim to be watchwardens, even though they don’t wear their signets and they’ve clearly broken the rules of their office by pursuing suspects and prosecuting an investigation in a ward not their own.”
The Nightjar gestured toward Joss and spoke to a pair of bodyguards lingering nearby. “Get him up. Take him to the salon. Make sure the other two follow.”
The bodyguards—one a muscled, topknotted Kosterman, the other sporting tight curls and ruddy, angular cheeks that marked him as Loffmaric—did as they were told, shoving Torval off Joss and lifting the little red-headed thief as though he were a rag doll. He fought, but their grip was ironclad. Frennis led the way and the guards followed. The Nightjar gestured again, encouraging Torval and Rem to follow the five of them.
“After you, gentlemen,” he said.
Torval did as he was told and cocked his head, indicating that Rem should follow. Rem, not entirely sure he wanted to know what sort of salon this man was inviting them into, dutifully followed. The Nightjar did not join them. He simply stood in silence, among his customers, as Rem and Torval and Joss were led away by Frennis and those two burly bodyguards.
Rem shot an inquisitive glance at Torval. The frown carved onto the dwarf’s face did not inspire confidence.
Frennis led them into a dark and cluttered sanctum at the rear of the warehouse. This was nothing like the Creeper’s lair—no plush Shimzari carpets, no casks of ale or brandy, no friendly golden glow from a bevy of brass lamps and candles. No, the space that Frennis led them into was nothing more than a boathouse appended to the great warehouse, where the crime lord’s animal gladiators fought their battles. It was high-ceilinged, drafty, and filled with strange, shifting light and shadows from the ripples on the water and the wan light of a few torches left burning in the great, cluttered space. On all sides were stacked crates and barrels and casks of gods-knew-what, and every inch of the floor seemed to be littered with something potentially hazardous: old coils of rope or rusty anchor chains, broken glass or splintered wooden planks. Rem disliked the space the moment they entered it, because it felt like the sort of space that might hide an ambush. There were too many nooks and crannies, too many recesses, too many shadows.
As they all traipsed into the great, cluttered space, hulking Frennis turned and spoke to Torval. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” he asked. “Your face and name both seem familiar to me.”
“More than once, Warden, sir,” Torval said, his voice devoid of all courtesy.
“You had another partner, didn’t you? A northman?”
“Freygaf,” Torval said.
“And what became of him?”
Torval shot a glance at Rem. He was clearly impatient, suspecting—if not entirely sure—that Frennis knew damn well who he was and who his partner had been and what became of him. “He was murdered,” Torval growled through gritted teeth.
Frennis stopped at the edge of the dock, staring down into the murky-green waters beneath him. He searched his environs, seeming satisfied when he found a nearby bucket. It was too dark for Rem to see what was in the bucket, but whatever it was, Frennis bent, took out a morsel, and looked once more to the water.
“I’m surprised that knowledge escaped you,” Torval said, with just a touch too much malice in his voice. “I would think that the death of any watchwarden, in any ward of this city, would be cause for a fellow watchman’s grief.”
Frennis tossed whatever he held in his hands into the water. Suddenly, there was a violent roiling as a pair of swirling, shining gray shapes leapt and tumbled and rolled, trying to get at whatever the prefect had thrown them. Rem saw rolling black eyes, snapping jaws full of razor-sharp teeth, and skin like rough gray leather.
Sharks—not so uncommon in the waters of Yenara’s bay. The bucket held chum, and Frennis was summoning his pets for a feeding.
But what did he intend to feed them?
“Not my ward, not my problem,” Frennis said, turning and smiling at them. “As you can imagine, master dwarf, I’m a busy man and can’t afford to muddle my concerns with what goes on outside of my home ground … which leads me to the two of you and your interest in Joss here.”
Joss struggled in the grip of his guardsmen. “Frennis, you know I can repay you, if only—”
“Be quiet, Joss,” Frennis said calmly. “I’ll get to you shortly. Let brothers-in-arms talk now, yes?”
“Clearly, not so brotherly,” Torval muttered.
Frennis moved closer to them. “You know the rules, Torval. In this ward, I’m sovereign. If you wanted to operate here, you should have sought me out first and begged my aid.”
“Let us question him, then,” Torval said, nodding toward Joss.
“No,” Frennis responded. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, these are my men on either side of Joss, so that means he’s my prisoner. And I’d be quite remiss if I let the two of you question my prisoner before I had done so myself.”
“Is it such a trial?” Rem asked, suddenly impatient with all of Frennis’s childish posturing.
Frennis answered him by taking one long step toward Rem and punching him squarely in the gut. The prefect’s fist felt like an iron mace driven deep into Rem’s soft middle, and Rem doubled over under the weight of the jab, dropping to his knees. He couldn’t breathe. His innards felt as though they’d been shattered and liquefied.
Torval shot forward and used all of his strength to shove Frennis away from his partner. Frennis retreated, but only by a single step. Without a word of warning, he snatched up Torval by his tunic and lifted the dwarf off the ground. Rem, watching from where he knelt, struggling for breath and some end to his agony, could not believe his eyes.
A man had just laid hands on Torval in anger, and Torval, instead of fighting him, just hung there in Frennis’s grip, his feet a good arm span off the ground, his fists dangling at his side, white-knuckled.
“You didn’t need to hit him,” Torval spat into Frennis’s face. “He’s new.”
“Then he needs to learn, doesn’t he?” Frennis answered, and shook Torval as though he were a straw-stuffed scarecrow. “Just as you do, you bloody pickmonkey.”
The prefect released Torval and he hit the floorboards beside Rem. Rem was starting to regain the ability to breathe. The agony racking his insides gradually subsided from a raging inferno to a dull, smoldering ache. He looked up at Frennis. He really hated the man, and he counted himself lucky that he had ended up in Ondego’s dungeon and not Frennis’s.
“What brought you here?” Frennis demanded.
“A gambling mark,” Torval answered. “One of the Nightjar’s.”
“And who dropped this gambling mark?” Frennis asked.
“A knife man who tried to murder us while we slept,” Torval answered. “Perhaps he’s one of yours, Prefect, sir?”
Frennis bent closer, hands on his knees. “If he was one of mine, you’d be worm food, master dwarf,” Frennis said. “Now, why would someone be trying to kill you?”
“Because we’re trying to solve the murder of my partner,” Torval said. “And we think we’re getting close to the culprit because no one would be bothering to kill the likes of us otherwise.”
“Do you suspect the Nightjar?” Frennis asked.
Torval didn’t answer. Frennis grabbed one of the dwarf’s ears and twisted it violently. Torval roared and smacked Frennis’s hand away, but made no further move to threaten him. Still, Rem could see in his partner’s eyes the urge to murder the bulky prefect of the Fourth. Truly, Torval hated the man, as well.
“Answer me,” Frennis said.
“He has motive,” Torval said. “Ever since we broke up his little blood-sport ring in the Fifth Ward.”
Frennis seemed to consider that for a moment. “Bygones,” he said finally. “He’s no longer active in your ward.”
“But he’s active in yours, isn’t he?” Torval countered.
Frennis shrugged. “Ends and means, master dwarf. If I choose to maintain order in my district by issuing accomodations to specific business concerns, all in the name of peace and stability …”
Ginger Joss, thinking that maybe his captors had relaxed their grip, suddenly bucked and squirmed. The two bodyguards held him fast. The Loffmari even cuffed him headwise, then slapped his face in a most insulting fashion. Frennis wandered away from his prisoners, pulled another piece of chum from the bucket, and threw it into the waters below the dock.
“So, if you suspected the Nightjar, what’s your business with this piece of offal?” he asked Torval and Rem, gesturing toward Joss.
Torval threw Rem a sour glance. He didn’t like the fact that Frennis now had their suspect. There was no telling what he might do, or how he might make their lives more difficult.
“He’s a suspect,” Torval said. “We have reason to believe he knows something about Freygaf’s death. He also tried to have us killed this morning, in broad daylight. The fact that we found him here, in your gaming house, bodes not well for the Nightjar, nor for you, Frennis.”
Frennis nodded deferentially. “I suppose it wouldn’t. Nonetheless, let me be frank—I had nothing to do with Freygaf’s death. Nor, I suspect, did Joss here. Will you tell them, Joss?”
“Only if you get me out of this,” Joss answered.
Frennis took another one of those long steps forward and drove one ham fist into Joss’s jaw. Rem thought he heard the mandible joint crack. Joss spat blood and a few teeth. Frennis shook his now-aching hand and spoke quietly. “My goodness, Joss—do you actually think you’re in a position to dictate terms?”
“He’ll kill you for this, Frennis,” Joss suddenly spat, mouth leaking blood and saliva in long, pink ropes. “He’ll not just have your skin, he’ll have your soul—”
That’s when Frennis snatched Joss out of the two bodyguards’ hands and, with a single, roundabout shove, sent the thief headlong into the shark-infested waters below the dock.
Rem and Torval shot forward, instinctually, without hesitation. Only when they came to a rough stop beside each other at the dock’s edge did Rem suddenly realize that they were both now within easy shoving distance of Frennis. With barely an expenditure of energy, the prefect of the Fourth could reach out and send them both tumbling into the waters where Joss now splashed and screamed. Realizing this, Rem took a long step back—clear of the edge, but still close enough to see what unfolded—and silently urged Torval to do the same.
Joss, meanwhile, had regained some composure after the initial shock of hitting the cold water. With long, smooth strokes, he swam for the open entrance to the boathouse. No doubt, he thought if he could swim out into the open water and cut across the harbor, he might be able to drag himself back on shore and escape his captors.
But the sharks were, alas, too swift. There were two of them and they slid through the waters off Joss’s left. One of them hove out in front, rolled, and let its maw gape wide. Joss had time for a single, terrified scream, then the shark’s jaws closed on his rib cage and under he went. His hands and feet thrashed above the surface in short bursts, but in moments, there was no more than a swirling mass of pink foam floating on a crimson glut of blood.
The worst part, Rem realized, was how quiet it had all been; how silently those two sea monsters slid through the water and claimed their prey.
Frennis turned to Torval. “Oh dear,” he said. “We seem to have lost him.”
Torval lunged at the prefect, but once more, Frennis’s size and strength gave him an advantage. He snatched Torval up in his fists, then heaved him bodily back away from the edge of the dock. Torval hit a stack of barrels and sent them all toppling with a great, thunderous crash. Though it occurred to Rem that he should, perhaps, come to his partner’s aid—or at the very least, try to avenge his mistreatment—the simple fact was that Rem knew Frennis had every advantage: he was bigger, stronger, meaner, and most importantly, had no scruples regarding right and wrong. He was a petty but terrifying despot of a very small urban kingdom, and he ruled that domain with a smirk and steel fists.
So Rem simply retreated to Torval’s side, and helped the dwarf back to his feet. Torval, once he regained his feet, slapped Rem’s supporting hands away and lunged toward Frennis again, like a dog let off its leash. Rem threw himself bodily onto his diminutive partner and struggled mightily to keep him from once more engaging the red-haired prefect.
“You fat fool!” Torval growled, straining against Rem’s embrace. “He was our best lead! Our only lead!”
“Rules, you belligerent pickmonkey,” Frennis answered, still haughty and composed. “This isn’t your ward, so if you transact business here—any business—you come to me first. Being my ward, under my watch, I’ll decide which witnesses are material to which crimes and which are simply … fish food.”
“Regulations have nothing to do with this,” Torval snarled. “You just killed a man to prove a bloody point that had nothing to do with his crimes or his guilt! I’ll take this all the way to Black Mal and have your signet, you woolly bastard, I swear—”
Frennis looked to Rem now. “I suggest you see your partner out of my sight, boy, before I lose my temper and toss you both in the drink.”
Rem decided it was time to intervene. “Torval,” he said quietly, still using all his strength to keep the dwarf immobilized, “we should go.”
The dwarf relented. With barely a shrug, he threw off Rem’s iron-clad lock on his short, broad body, turned and marched away in sullen silence. Rem, a good distance from Frennis and well out of his reach, decided he couldn’t leave without a word of his own.
“You made your point,” he said, as calmly as he could. “And now we have nothing.”
“It would appear so,” Frennis said, as though he were teaching a lesson to a slow child. “Perhaps in the future, you’ll think twice about snaring your prey in my woods.”
The bodyguards, having been fascinated during this entire exchange with the still-tumbling sharks in the waters below and the roiling, spreading cloud of blood that engulfed them, finally seemed to snap out of their reverie and realize their leader was facing his enemies alone. One of them—the more muscled of the two—stepped forward. The other drew the sword sheathed at his side.
Rem slowly backed away from Frennis and his hired swords. When he was far enough away to feel safe, he turned his back on them and walked speedily after Torval, who was just disappearing through the door into the main warehouse. Behind Rem, there was a strange gloop-gloop sound from the water, the slap of a wet tail. He quickened his pace behind Torval, eager to be out of Frennis’s lair and far away from the dark waters of the bay.