Page 2 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

I hope, as I pivot on one foot, that someone’s at the slot and that they’re not quick. My boot connects with a splintering crunch and there’s a grunt that tells me my wish has been granted. The door opens a couple of inches, a broken bar visible in the gap. A second kick sends it slamming all the way ajar, catching a large man standing behind it in the shins. Already clutching a bloodied nose, he goes down in a heap, swearing.

There’s not much to the place. A few tables, benches and chairs, big jugs of rice wine and small colored bottles of liquor stacked against one wall. It’s too early for them to be open, so I assume the six people inside—seven, if you count the door guard with the broken nose—are employees. I size them up automatically. Two men are obvious toughs, broad-shouldered bruisers with short swords in their belts and scarred knuckles. One woman with a hook nose and a crossbow against the rear wall. Another woman in the corner also looks like muscle, dressed in battered leather, maybe a knife fighter or a grappler.

The last two, a man and a woman, are sitting. The woman’s in a kizen, not a real silk one but a cheap linen imitation, bright with gaudy dye, her face heavily painted. The man beside her has a silk shirt and a fur-lined collar. He wears a sword but doesn’t look like he knows how to use it. I read the pair as the brains of the outfit and his girl, probably not a threat. So figure four against three. Five if Broken-Nose stops blubbering.

“Watch the one behind us,” I tell Shiro, under my breath. He still needs minding. Hagan, a veteran, has already done the same fast analysis of the room and catches my eye. I nod, minutely, to the woman with the crossbow, and he nods back.

“One of you,” I say to the room at large, “is Ohgatani Firello.” I fix the fur-collar man with my gaze. “I’m guessing it’s you, but I’ve been wrong before. Anyone else volunteering?”

The woman in the kizen looks ready to dive underneath the table. Fur-Collar pushes her aside, angrily, and stands up.

“I’m Firello,” he says. “Who in the Rot are you?”

“I think you can probably guess,” I say. “But in case you’re forgetful, there’s money owing. You got a note saying there would be consequences if you didn’t pay. I suppose you can call me consequences.”

“Charming.” He eyes the broken door. “And this is your idea of a polite visit?”

“Yup.” I give him my best smile. I’ve been told it’s unsettling.

“Who exactly are you claiming to represent?”

His eyes dart around the room, taking the temper of his guards. After the initial surprise, they’ve relaxed slightly, confident in their numbers. I can tell at that moment, from the set of their shoulders and the smiles on their faces, that I’m going to have to kill them all. But we’ll play it out, for form’s sake.

“Does it matter?” I tell Firello. “What’s important is that I hold this turf in trust, which makes it my responsibility when someone moves in on it. If I let people get away with that, I might as well slit my own throat.”

“Really.” Firello’s eyes narrow. “Rotscum. I think you’ve got no backer but the pair of limp-dicks behind you and you’ve been getting away with talking tough for years.”

“From your point of view, does it make a difference?”

Firello smiles. “It means that if we slit your throats, nobody’s going to care about three rotting kids going missing in the slums.” One corner of his mouth rises. “Though I might save you to sell on to the brothels.”

I’m trying to decide if it’s worth wasting any more breath on this exchange when Shiro steps forward. His face has gone white with rage. I suppose he’s not as used to the posturing and dick measuring that seem to be required on these occasions. His hand is on his knife.

“You have no idea who you’re talking to,” he says. “We—”

I’m already turning, because I know what happens next. Six people in front of us, one behind us. Shiro was supposed to be keeping his eyes on the one, and he’s not. I don’t need to see Broken-Nose start moving, because I can read it in the eyes of the other thugs. But I’m not that fast, not quite, and Shiro has stepped too far away from me. He cuts off in mid-sentence as Broken-Nose’s knife slides into his kidney, point slicing clean through his leather vest. His eyes go wide, that moment of surprise before the pain hits.

Broken-Nose yanks his knife back, turning to face me. I can see he’s surprised to find me already moving toward him, and he begins to backpedal. He’s even more surprised when a blade of crackling, spitting green energy, emerging from my wrist, goes in through his eye and out the back of his head, his skull offering no more resistance than a rotten melon.

There are nine Wells of Sorcery, the pathways of magic the ancients burned into the fabric of the world. Most people can’t touch any of them. Those who can reach at least one are called mage-born. Most of them can only draw a trickle of power, from one or two of the Wells; they are the touched. A few can manage more, enough to matter, enough to kill; they are the talents. And a handful, the adepts, have full access to the power of their Well.

That’s me. My Well is Melos, the Well of Combat. War.

I should not exist. Adepts don’t frequent the Sixteenth Ward. They certainly don’t turn up at a rotscum gambling joint as gang enforcers.

So I can understand why Broken-Nose was (briefly) surprised.

Suddenly everyone is going for their weapons. Hagan’s the fastest, snatching a triangular knife from his belt and whipping it in a perfect throw at the thug with the crossbow. She half-turns, taking it in the shoulder instead of the throat, but it startles her, and the bow clatters to the floor.

The two bruisers draw their swords. The woman in the corner has a knife in each hand, moving warily. Firello is fumbling for his sword, and I write him off as a non-threat. I step away from Broken-Nose’s collapsing body and ignite my other blade. It snaps into existence with a distinctive crackle-hiss, about two feet of stuttering, shimmering energy, its brilliant bright green color characteristic of Melos power. The blades begin at the backs of my wrists and run parallel to my forearms, as though I’d strapped on a pair of glowing swords like bracers. They have no weight, but I can feel the heat of them, the power running across my skin in lines of crackling magic. Those lines get brighter and hotter the more energy I draw on. For an adept, it is entirely possible to burn oneself to death by drawing too much, as I can attest from painful experience.

Most people don’t know how to fight a Melos adept. This clearly includes bruiser number one. He raises his sword in a useless overhand swing that does nothing but give me plenty of time to react. Accordingly, I’m not there when it comes down, stepping to one side, but my left-hand blade is in position. His own momentum does most of the work of severing his hand neatly at the wrist. Hand and sword hit the floor with a clatter, green lightning playing briefly over the severed stump as he stares in horror.

I’ve already moved on. His friend, bruiser number two, swings his sword in a flat arc, a slightly better move, especially when you’re used to fighting people smaller and weaker than you. I’m very used to fighting people bigger and stronger than me, however, so I angle my parry, the steel edge scraping across the Melos blade with an earsplitting scree and a shower of sparks. He overcorrects, lurching backward, and it’s no great trick to step forward and plant the end of my other blade in his throat. His stumble turns into a fall, his hands coming up to claw at the wound. Green lightning crackles across him for a moment, quickly swallowed in a spew of crimson foam.

Hagan, to my left, is facing off against the knife-wielding woman and not doing well. They’ve both got blades in hand, but he has a long, shallow cut down one arm, blood dripping from his elbow, and his face is locked in grim concentration. As I close, something thrums through the air, just behind me. Crossbow bolt. I step between Hagan and Knives, who gives ground at the sight of my blades.

“Take care of Crossbow!” I tell Hagan, and he nods and spins away. Knives takes a second step backward. There’s uncertainty on her face—I figure her loyalty to Firello is a little shaky at the moment. I could probably talk the fight out of her, but we’re past that now. If the Immortals get rumors there’s a Melos adept on the loose, I won’t last very long, so the only people who have seen my blades are either my trusted associates or dead. Knives is not my associate.