The Hand That Takes Read online

  The Hand That Takes

  Fall of the Coward, Book One

  Taylor O’Connell

  Taylor O’Connell Books

  The Hand That Takes

  Fall of the Coward, Book One

  Taylor O’Connell

  Copyright © 2019 by Taylor O’Connell. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locals, or events is purely coincidental. Reproduction of this publication, whole or part, without express written consent is strictly prohibited. The author and all those involved in the reproduction of this work greatly appreciate you placing your time in our gentle hands.

  Please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased the book. Thank you for your support.

  For Anika,

  The love of my life.

  Thank you for all of your support and encouragement through this process.

  Contents

  I. The Locket

  1. The Heist

  2. A Ride on Lightning

  3. End

  4. The Bells

  5. Nabu Akkad

  6. The Flasher

  II. The Reading

  7. Recruited

  8. Red Smile

  9. Something for the Pain

  10. Mother

  11. South Bridge

  12. Banished

  13. A Bold Request

  14. Fitzen

  15. Lilliana

  III. The Hero

  16. Dinner

  17. The Truth

  18. The Rusted Anchor

  19. The Letter

  20. Uncle Stefano

  21. Bartley and Bessy

  22. A Flash of Lightning

  23. Requiem

  24. The High Keep

  25. Merely a Beginning

  Free Book

  A FOOL OF SORTS

  Afterword

  About the Author

  I

  The Locket

  Lo, men, harken a tale for thee, of a man and a man’s desires, this song I shall sing.

  —Balliel the Bard

  Those who want naught, have all.

  —Kellenvadra

  1

  The Heist

  P ale beams of moonlight shone through the black clouds of the storm-wracked sky. Rain fell sidelong, slapping flesh and cobblestones alike, soaking cloth clean through and sending a chill to the bone.

  Bartley cried out in pain, a wordless curse that hardly carried over the tumult of the storm.

  “Quiet,” Sal warned. “If those steel caps hear you, we’re dead.”

  Bartley said something about a Sacrull damned quarrel but was cut short by a boom of thunder. He was always talking, Bartley was, even when he didn’t have a crossbow quarrel jutting from his leg, but that’s the way Yahdrish were. Yabbers, Sal’s uncle called them, but Sal had never dared tell that to Bartley.

  “Just try to stay quiet,” Sal said, grunting as his friend leaned more weight on his shoulders.

  Bartley’s limp had worsened. There had been no time to stop and examine the injury, but Sal could tell the leg was hurting him. He only hoped it was a quarrel and not a bolt. There was nothing worse than digging out a broadhead.

  Bartley began to whimper with each step. His pace slowed as he shifted even more of his weight onto Sal. Had it not been for the ankle-high water in the streets, Sal might have carried him, but with the storm in full swing it was out of the question.

  “Don’t let them put me in the crow-cages,” Bartley said, his teeth chattering. “Please, I couldn’t—I wouldn’t last.”

  “No one is going to the crow-cages. You just keep quiet. Focus on walking.”

  Bartley gritted his teeth. “They knew. The whole time, they knew.”

  “They couldn’t have known,” Sal said. Hoping it was true.

  “I’m telling you, they knew. They were waiting for us.”

  “Right. Well, try and keep your voice down,” Sal said. He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t even want to consider what the presence of the City Watch implied. “Did you see what happened to Vinny?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

  Bartley shook his head. “Not after we crossed the outer wall. I was with Anton.”

  Anton. That son of a bitch had some explaining to do. Sal ran a hand over the bump in his jerkin pocket, if only to make certain the locket was still there. From the moment he’d first laid hands on it, he had known there was something wrong with the thing, something strange in the way it felt, something otherworldly. He found himself torn between outright repulsion and an irresistible attraction to it, but the instant he saw Anton, willing or not, Sal would be rid of the locket.

  When they neared the alley mouth, Sal put a hand on Bartley’s chest, signaling for the Yahdrish to stop. He poked his head from the alley and looked up and down the flooded street for any signs of steel caps. He searched the rooftops, though in this rain the threat of crossbowmen was well diminished. Catgut didn’t hold up to the wet.

  Nonetheless, Sal kept his ears open for the click of a crossbow crank or the clatter of steel on chain mail. As the Lady’s luck had it, he heard neither, nor any sounds that would indicate the presence of the City Watch.

  “When did you last see Vinny?” Sal whispered as they crossed the street and slipped into the next alley .

  “We split up once we were inside. Vinny was with Odie. I went with Anton. Bloody steel caps ambushed us before we met back up.” Bartley hesitated for a moment before he went on. “Anton didn’t make it.”

  Sal stopped short. “What do you—didn’t make—” Sal swallowed and took a deep breath. “What do you mean, Anton didn’t make it?”

  “There was nothing I could do. Took this Sacrull damned bolt and I could hardly think straight.”

  “What happened to Anton?” Sal asked, his heart in his throat, tears coming unbidden to his eyes.

  “Poleaxe,” Bartley said, shaking his head. “Steel caps came out of nowhere while we were on the bailey wall. It’s like they were waiting for us all along.”

  “Anton, he’s—”

  Bartley nodded. “I’m sorry, Sal, there was nothing I could do.”

  “What about the others?” Sal asked. He swallowed and wiped at his eyes. “Did you see what happened to anyone else?”

  “Sacrull’s balls,” Barley cursed, “how should I know? After I got hit by the quarrel, I fell off the wall. If I hadn’t landed in that hedge, they’d have killed me, sure as spit.”

  Sal took a breath to center himself. It was a lot to take in. A steel cap ambush in the High Keep, and now Anton was dead—but this wasn’t the time to think on it. They needed to get out of the open. He could worry about what to do with the locket later.

  “Right. Well, you can rest your mouth for a turn. Let’s just focus on getting you to the safe house,” Sal said.

  High Hill was as far from the Lowers as anywhere in Dijvois, a long walk even had they both been healthy. As they trudged along, Sal expected to see a pack of steel caps around every corner and a crossbowman on every rooftop. Yet the Lady’s luck held. From time to time Sal’s hand slipped into the pocket of his jerkin, but it was hard enough to keep Bartley upright with both hands free, so his fingers never remained on the locket for long.

  Still, each time he brushed the smooth gold, tendrils of energy surged up his arm and through his body, filling him with a sensation that was equal parts elation and dread.

  Bartley let out another cry of pain. “I don’t think—I can’t go on much longer.”

  “It’s not much farther now,” Sal said. “Just up ahead.”

  Bartley let out something halfway between a laugh and a whimper. “Don’t lie to me. I’m hurt, not simple. We have
n’t even crossed the bridge.”

  The Yahdrish was right, of course, but Sal needed to keep his friend’s mind off the distance and the quarrel jutting from his leg.

  “What bridge would that be?” Sal asked.

  “Suppose that doesn’t matter,” said Bartley. “Though I’d rather not cross at the Bridge of the Lady. Bound to be steel caps waiting.”

  “I think we’re best off taking the ferryman’s way,” Sal said.

  “In this rain? The Tamber will be flooded. I doubt if the ferry is even crossing. More than like, the ferryman is done for the season. Besides, what coin do you plan to pay him with?”

  “If we can’t cross by ferry, we’ll double back to South Bridge.”

  “South Bridge is bound to be guarded as well,” Bartley said. “I’m telling you, the City Watch knew we were coming.”

  Sal shook his head, but he was starting to wonder whether that was true. The steel caps had set an ambush, after all.

  The walk to the Ferryman’s Ford didn’t take as long as Sal had expected, though the downhill slope seemed to hurt Bartley more than walking on level ground. Still, with the lack of interference from the City Watch, it almost seemed their night had taken a turn for the better.

  The ferry was moored to the Tamber’s eastern bank, the High Town side of the river. Even better, there were no signs of steel caps waiting for them at the ford. Sal considered this irrefutable evidence that luck had joined their cause at last.

  “I told you the river would be near flooded,” Bartley whined. “The dock is underwater, and look at that chop. I don’t much fancy a swim. Not with this quarrel sticking out from my leg.”

  “Should we stop and pull it out?” Sal asked with a smirk. “Swimming would save us the cost of a ferry ride. ”

  Bartley reddened, his face pinched with irritation. “Go and knock. I’ll wait here.” Bartley had always been prickly. It stemmed from being small, and the inevitable japes about his size.

  As the ferryman wasn’t on the river or the dock, it stood to reason he was shut up in the shack, keeping himself dry from the rain.

  After the fifth knock, a wizened little man swung the door open. “Gods be dammed, I heard you the first time,” the old man said, jabbing a knobby finger into Sal’s chest. “You mean to bring down my door, boy?”

  “We need a crossing.”

  The ferryman scowled. “And so you’d better, if you come banging on my door at the hour of the wolf. But you’re not going to get no crossing, not this late in the season, not in no storm, and not when she’s near flooded.”

  “We’re willing to pay.”

  “I should think you were, but that don’t make a lick of difference. Like I done told you, ferry’s through for the season.”

  “One last crossing, that’s all we ask. We are more than willing to compensate for the additional risk.”

  The ferryman squinted at the river as though gauging the peril. Then he turned his wrinkled visage on Sal and gave a smile that showed far too many teeth. “Nine krom.”

  Sal nearly had to bite his tongue, but he dared not balk, no matter how excessive the rate. He nodded. There was no time to waste; they needed to cross the river before the City Watch thought to pay a visit to the Ferryman’s Ford.

  “Nine it is.”

  The ferryman held up a hand, his palm yellow and callused from years of poling his raft across the Tamber. “And another four krom for the boy. In this storm, I’ll need the extra hands on the pole to keep from going bottom up.”

  Sal nodded once more.

  “And two,” the man said shrewdly, “for waking me at this Sacrull damned hour.”

  Sal nodded a third time. To think, people called him a thief .

  “Silver is good, and gold’s better. If you’d like to pay in gold, I can do it for ten, but don’t think you’ll get away shimming no coppers, neither. Hard krom, or you can swim your way across.”

  Shimming the ferryman fifteen coppers was precisely what Sal had intended to do. Instead, he assured the old man he would receive his silver in full.

  The ferryman’s smile crept ear to ear. Clearly he was pleased with himself. He held out a hand palm up.

  When Sal didn’t respond, the ferryman rubbed thumb and forefinger together in the universal gesture of expected payment.

  Sal steeled his nerve, cleared his throat, and nestled his boot firmly beside the door frame. “We don’t have the coin—not now, that is, or rather, not here—but I assure you we’re good for—”

  The ferryman flung the door shut, and his scowl turned malevolent as it bounced off Sal’s planted boot.

  “No coin, no crossing!” the ferryman shouted. “Begone, or I’ll send the boy to fetch the City Watch. I will.”

  “There’s no need for that. We can pay you the coin. We just need to cross back to Low Town to get it.”

  “Cross back to Low Town so you can scamper off and short me my fair pay, is more like. Mayhap you’ll have better luck with the bridges.”

  They would have no such luck, a fact the ferryman would soon learn should any steel caps show.

  No doubt the news of an attempted burglary in the High Keep would already have circulated through every regiment of the City Watch. No one would be crossing the bridges before morning. If they tried, the steel caps would likely have Sal and Bartley thrown into crow-cages the moment they set foot on any one of the bridges.

  Sal put a hand over his pocket. The gold locket within felt abnormally heavy for such a small thing. He considered a possible trade, but immediately dismissed the idea. “Twenty krom, and you’ll have your pay by morning. My word is my bond.”

  “Keep your bond. No coin, no crossing. Now move that boot, or I’ll wake the boy. He’ll get the City Watch here, and them’ll move the boot for you. ”

  Sal stood up straight and did his best to feign confidence. Wet and bedraggled as he was, he doubted it was all that convincing. “Don’t go making threats you won’t carry out.”

  The ferryman’s eyes narrowed, his weathered face shriveling up like a prune. “Don’t think I would?” the old man snarled.

  Sal kept his boot firmly planted and tilted his head slightly, smiling as though they were having a pleasant chat. “We both know you’re not sending for any steel caps. Now drop the act.”

  “Oh, and why is that?”

  “Because I know what you move upriver, and if the City Watch shows up, they just might go looking in that shed there,” Sal said, pointing.

  “Don’t go threatening me, boy,” the ferryman said. “Have you any idea the people—”

  “What do you think would kill you first?” Sal said. “One of the magistrate’s crow-cages, or Don Moretti’s hired knives?”

  The ferryman remained stone-faced. “Get gone. This is your last—”

  Sal slipped a leather throng up and over his head. He pinched the silver ring that dangled from the throng and held it so close to the ferryman’s nose that the old man’s eyes went crossed as he backed a step away from the door.

  “I take it you know this sigil?” Sal asked.

  The ferryman gave only the slightest of nods, the apple in his throat bobbing as he swallowed whatever words had come to mind.

  “And you know he is good for the coin should my associate and I not return on the morrow to pay?”

  At the mention of coin, the fear drained from the old man’s face. “I ferry you over, you’d best pay my due.”

  Sal reassured him, holding the ring out like a shield.

  The ring bore the crest of the Commission. Each of the four quarters, and the center circle, was a different color, each color representing one of the five families of the Commission: black for Svoboda, blue for Moretti, white for Scarvini, red for Dvorak, and gold for Novotny. In the center of the crest was a falcon, a sigil that belonged to only one man in Dijvois, the underboss of the Svoboda crime family, Stefano Lorenzo.

  The ferryman stared at the ring as though he wanted nothing more than to slap the
thing from Sal’s hand. He stared for some time, his nostrils twitching. In the end he agreed to take them across, for eight krom, though not without some form of collateral. He insisted on the ring, and after a moment of hesitation, Sal agreed to hand it over.

  Once they’d shaken on the deal, the old man went back inside the shack, shouting for the boy to get out of bed.

  The boy was a head and a half taller than Sal, and the pole he retrieved was as tall as three men stacked head to toe. He was lean, with long sinewy muscles like wound rope. Unlike his employer, the boy seemed entirely untroubled by the rain.

  “Bloody hell,” said Bartley, as Sal and the boy joined him near the dock, the ferryman a couple of steps behind. “I thought you’d taken a wrong turn into the river, or did that old man coerce you into a payment of flesh for his services?”

  Sal made a face to show his distaste for the jape.

  “Best get on that raft if you’re wanting crossing,” growled the ferryman. “I’ll not suffer this wet all night.”

  Sal helped Bartley limp across the dock and onto the rocking raft. The boy followed, planting his pole into the river to keep the ferry from straining at the cord as the ferryman untied the moorings.

  The Ferryman’s Ford was one of the shallowest and widest segments of the Tamber. The width helped to reduce the speed of the current, making for a smoother, safer crossing. Despite that, the boy had his work cut out for him, as this late into autumn the current was strong. To Sal it seemed the boy was doing all the work, poling the raft across, while the old ferryman moaned about the rain.

  “Catch the rope there!” the old man yelled as the raft reached the west bank.

  Sal obliged and nearly slipped from the raft as he reached over the edge .

  The ferryman roughly took the rope from Sal and secured the raft to the dock. “I’ll be expecting my due at sunup. Eight krom silver.”

  “Eight krom,” Sal said, as he helped Bartley limp onto the dock.

  Without looking back, the pair made their slow trek across the dock, slogged through mud that sucked at their boots, and eventually found themselves on the slick cobblestones of Beggar’s Lane. They followed Beggar’s Lane and cut through a series of alleyways until they reached the outer edge of the Lowers.