The sword disappeared, and Azoth scrambled out into the night. He didn’t stop running for miles.
2
F our coppers! Four! This isn’t four.” Rat’s face was so rage-red his pimples only showed as a scattering of white dots. He grabbed Jarl’s threadbare tunic and lifted him off the ground. Azoth ducked his head. He couldn’t watch.
“This is four!” Rat shouted, spit flying. As his hand slapped across Jarl’s face, Azoth realized it was a performance. Not the beating—Rat was definitely hitting Jarl—but he was hitting him with an open hand. It was louder that way. Rat wasn’t even paying attention to Jarl. He was watching the rest of the guild, enjoying their fear.
“Who’s next?” Rat asked, dropping Jarl. Azoth stepped forward quickly so Rat wouldn’t kick his friend. At sixteen, Rat was already as big as a man and he had fat, which made him unique among the slaveborn.
Azoth held out his four coppers.
“Eight, puke,” Rat said, taking the four from Azoth’s hand.
“Eight?”
“You gotta pay for Doll Girl, too.”
Azoth looked around for help. Some of the bigs shifted and looked at each other, but no one said a word. “She’s too young,” Azoth said. “Littles don’t pay dues till they’re eight.”
Attention shifted to Doll Girl, who was sitting in the dirty alley. She noticed the looks and withered, shrinking into herself. Doll Girl was tiny, with huge eyes, but beneath the grime, her features were as fine and perfect as her namesake’s.
“I say she’s eight unless she says different.” Rat leered. “Say it, Doll Girl, say it or I’ll beat up your boyfriend.” Doll Girl’s big eyes got bigger and Rat laughed. Azoth didn’t protest, didn’t point out that Doll Girl was mute. Rat knew. Everyone knew. But Rat was the Fist. He only answered to Ja’laliel, and Ja’laliel wasn’t here.
Rat pulled Azoth close and lowered his voice. “Why don’t you join my pretty boys, Azo? You’ll never pay dues again.”
Azoth tried to speak, but his throat was so tight that he only squeaked. Rat laughed again and everyone joined him, some enjoying Azoth’s humiliation, some just hoping to put Rat in a good mood before their turn came. Black hatred stabbed through him. Azoth hated Rat, hated the guild, hated himself.
He cleared his throat to try again. Rat caught his eye and smirked. Rat was big, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how far he was pushing Azoth. He knew Azoth would crumple, afraid, just like everyone else.
Azoth spat a wad of phlegm onto Rat’s face. “Go bugger yourself, Ratty Fatty.”
There was an eternity of stunned silence. A golden moment of victory. Azoth thought he could hear jaws dropping. Sanity was just starting to reassert itself when Rat’s fist caught him on the ear. Black spots blotted out the world as he hit the ground. He blinked up at Rat, whose black hair glowed like a halo as it blocked the noon sun, and knew he was going to die.
“Rat! Rat, I need you.”
Azoth rolled over and saw Ja’laliel emerging from the guild’s building. His pale skin was beaded with sweat though the day wasn’t hot. He coughed unhealthily. “Rat! I said now.”
Rat wiped his face, and seeing his rage cool so suddenly was almost more frightening than seeing its sudden heat. His face cleared, and he smiled at Azoth. Just smiled.
“Hey-ho, Jay-Oh,” Azoth said.
“Hey-ho, Azo,” Jarl said, coming to join Azoth and Doll Girl. “You know, you’re about as smart as a box of hair. They’ll be calling him Ratty Fatty behind his back for years.”
“He wanted me to be one of his girls,” Azoth said.
They were propped against a wall several blocks away, sharing the stale loaf Azoth had bought. The smells of baking, though less intense this late in the day, covered at least some of the smells of sewage, rotting garbage piled on the banks of the river, and the rancid bite of the urine and brains of the tanneries.
If Ceuran architecture was all bamboo and rice fiber walls and screens, Cenarian architecture was rougher, heavier, lacking the studied simplicity of Ceuran design. If Alitaeran architecture was all granite and pine, Cenarian architecture was less formidable, lacking the deliberate durability of Alitaeran structures. If Osseini architecture was airy spires and soaring arches, Cenarian architecture only soared above one story in a few nobles’ manses on the east side. Cenarian buildings were everything squat and dank and cheap and low, especially in the Warrens. A material that cost twice as much was never used, even