The four-part tale Moonshine continues this month. Unlike our previous tale, which highlighted some of Mal Nassrin's richest and most talented, Moonshine offers a glimpse of how the other half lives through the eyes of Klavel, partner in one of the city's illicit pitfighting rackets. Missed Chapter 1, or our earlier serial On the Fly? See our complete list of serials here.

Moonshine
By Sonja Littell-Trotter
Chapter 2

The morning is dark.  The heavy gray clouds breeze by overhead, hardly seeming to linger long enough to drop rain.  Maybe, like the gods, they're just too far away to care. 

The gods... Lord, Larius isn't the only one moody as a girl these days.  Why had that woman bothered him?  It could have been age and whisky mixing unkindly.  Old men do weep more; I'd seen it myself.  When they were my age they were hale and hearty, hearts like granite; but gray their hair and they'll spill tears for a dead leaf floating on water.  I had no clue for his concern. I hadn't recognized her, and Larius and I have been around each other since before my eye and I parted company.

It had been a bad night, anyway. Professionally, at least.  My hip was bad today, but not as bad as I'd feared it might be.  The overcast sky has captured some warmth under it and that helps. A little. 

I can't get Larius' face out of my head.  I remember the melting anger and pain in his expression.  I wonder about that. Doesn't matter, I guess. What really matters is whether he's nursing a grudge along with a sore head.  Gods know I've got enough to deal with today without having to coddle him.  Did he know that woman?  I admit that I don't care about much when I'm drunk.  Besides, I was having trouble recalling details.  Had the man told him her name?  Had Larius needed him to?  What had he asked that man, and what had he known?

The streets are quiet today. Still busy, still irritatingly crowded, but quiet too.  Subdued for some reason I can't see, but that I know is there. A current, some charge hovered in the air.  I used to like that feeling.  Knowing something was coming, bracing against it, and seeing what you could take from it.  Now, it just makes me uneasy.  

Last night, the fortnightly fights that Larius runs had barely drawn enough wagers to pay for the cost of feeding the fighters, and that's not even taking in to consideration the time I wasted on "training" them.  Larius is the one who finds the new meat, anyway.  He can spot them, the ones out of options, the ones that will stand and bleed for a few coins, but he needs me to make sure they look good doing it.  He wants somebody not quite good enough for the Arena, but tough enough to last in a real scuffle.  The hungry ones just stupid enough to think he's giving them a break, that he's helping them out.  Larius couldn't teach them how to fall if he pushed them off a cliff. I'd been lucky that I hadn't had to learn everything from him.  I took my training in the army, and, when I went rogue, I had nothing much else to do but slug it out weekly for a pittance.  I never tried the Arena back then, couldn't risk my face being seen in the real show, or so I thought.  I should've been more worried about getting my face wrecked beyond recognition.  

Yeah, Larius can spot 'em all right.

The street dead ends at Primarch's Walk, and I move with the overflow toward the hall where we stable the fighters.  I head south.  The Walk crests the spine of a small rise, and I can see the sprawl of the city whenever I pass a cross street.  The markets are on my right, the government buildings to my left--I'm not so stupid that I can't see the symbolism of where a Primarch's Walk is set in a city.

Larius liked it as well, he liked the mix, and he liked to see who thought they did, too.  Lately, he liked to wander the taverns with one of the lads in tow. Sometimes, he could find someone he thought had potential.  In days gone by, I was his stalking horse.  I'd draw the eye away from him and be just another bruiser out picking fights so Larius could eye their mettle.  His tactics have changed, and he prefers to walk his own talk now.  The lads have become just for show: look at what the big man can do for you.

I'm not down here for a constitutional.  I cut right down a curving alley that bisects the butcher's block. I see a young woman hurrying through a crowd that parts for her as if she were swinging a scythe.  I'm curious for half a moment until I see the cassock and the black bands on her hands and then I look away before some ill chance draws her eye to me.  I don't want to catch the attention of any priest out doing dead work, but I almost stare anyway. I can't believe my damned fortune.  It was a bad night and now a bad morning. Maybe the charge in the air is all that bad luck just waiting to drop on someone?  I run my hands down over the hem of my shirt, and when I find a hanging thread I quickly knot it.  It's an old superstition and a poor ward, but it will do.  

Halfway down the street I turn north again, and see the hall where we keep a few of the lads who can't be bothered to find lodging on their own.  I wouldn't live there.  The stink of the tanners is far too near, and the smell floats down here, breeding in the sweat and heat a stench never comes out of your clothes.

One of the men glances up as I approach. His spine straightens, and he ambles toward me like a big dumb dog.  The kid's called Knock; I've forgotten his real name if I ever knew it.  Knock is a nasty piece of work. If things start going bad for him in a scuffle, he goes straight for the eyes, a tactic of which I do not approve.  Knock hadn't gotten on well with Larius lately. He thought the old man was taking out too big of a piece of his prize monies.  Truth is, we had to bribe the other owners to keep them from kicking up too much of a ruckus about Knock's technique.  Larius and me had dues as well. Our bosses took their cut and there wasn't always enough left to soothe grandiose expectations.

"Boss," Knock says and takes a big deep breath.  I stop and take a judicious step back.  One never knew what Knock was going to blurt out.  "Boss," he said again and shook his head.  Great, he was trying to collect his thoughts.  Gods only knew how long this could take.  "It's the boss, Boss," he says.

"What about him?" I ask and refrain from sighing.

"He's not here," Knock says, his heavy brows lowering.  He's not really stupid though, no matter how he talks.  He can be savvy, which is why he's a pain in the ass.

"He hasn't come in at all today?" I ask.  Larius hadn't been that drunk had he?  He'd been worse earlier, but the walk home had settled him some, or so I had thought.  "Did you send a runner for him?"

"Yeah, Vijay went," Knock answered. His head swung around as if he'd heard something, and he looked up the street for a long moment.  I followed his gaze, but I didn't see anything worth looking at.  "He's not back yet," he added after a bit.

I didn't like the way Knock was acting.  He was lying. Maybe Vijay wasn't sent, or, hell, he could have any number of reasons to fidget, all of which eluded me.  For all his occasional slyness, I have no real idea what Knock is really capable of.  I'd always been careful with him, with any of the lads in truth. Even a dumb dog will bite if you kick it.

"I'll go," I tell him, and he blinks at me as I walk past him.  I angle my body so he won't have to move, and he doesn't, he just stands there looking up the street that I came down.  I feel that old youthful urge, the one that says I should slam a shoulder into him and make the son of a bitch move.  But I shrug it off, heading toward the White Hind Inn where Larius keeps rooms.  I slide a hand into my coat and remove the flask of brandy and take a long slug to warm me against whatever is to come.

Gillian, the fat woman who runs the place, looks up when I arrive.  Her eyes are a pretty grass-green in her moon-wide face.  She doesn't smile as I come in, and I wonder if I'll need to buy an ale to earn her good humor.  She motions me toward her.

"Gil," I say, and she half-smiles a lopsided grin that is grim, cynical and sort of cute.  

"I don't know what he's up too so late at night, coming in at dawn and in such a temper," she snorts delicately, "I suppose I should be glad that he wanders in so early.  He'll scare off the tourists if he came in any later."  She motions to the empty bar and sighs.  

"I thought you liked him around here?"  I say, leaning on the bar.  She reaches out for my hand.  Her soft dumpling palms pat the back of my hands resting on the bar.

"Oh sure, he comes in and plays the big man with one of those thugs lurking over him.  Going on and on about his fights, the bloody mess of it and all the money he makes at it.  Gives the regulars a real taste of the fine life before he retires to his room upstairs.  And he never pays for his drinks, the cheap bastard," she purses her lips disapprovingly.

"Larius does like to talk," I agree.

"Too much," she says. I slide my hands away, and she produces a stubby, rusted key.  She places it on the bar with a small click and pushes it at me.  "Go get him sorted," she says as she turns away.

I stand there knowing there is nothing in the world I want to do less than deal with a hung over and maudlin Larius just now.  I sigh, waiting for Gillian to ask me what's wrong so I can hit her up for a whiskey.  I rub my left eyebrow, over where my eye used to be.  It never stops hurting. For years after, I woke up every day thinking that that it would stop, but it never did.

Gillian doesn't turn, just keeps her stout back to me with an irritating air of resolution.  Maybe I'd have better luck hustling a reward on the way out.  I lean back and cross the floor toward the stairs at the back.  The door opens with a heavy creak, and I start the climb up the steep narrow steps cursing each and every one.

The hall is quiet. The rug that used to run from one end to the other is gone and the heels of my boots click on the wood floor.  Larius's room is the second on the left. I slip the key in the lock and push the door open.   The shutters are closed, and the room smells uncomfortably close and dank.  I start to say his name, but it dies in my throat.  

I see him.  He's lying on his back, like the woman last night. Unlike the night before, I can see exactly  what's wrong with him.  His eyes staring up at the dusty ceiling are full of blood.  His mouth gapes open with more than its regular fill of broken teeth, and his skin is mottled with fresh bruises.

Larius is dead, and here is not where I want to be.  I look at the room: the plain whitewashed walls and the swept floor.  There's nothing right about what I'm seeing.  I hurry to him, feeling the edges of the key press into my palm.  His clothes are clean, his shirt gapes open over his chest.  The old amulet he wore for luck is gone, and I feel a ghoulish smile stretch my mouth.  I bite my tongue to stop myself.  Being found laughing over a dead man would be very bad, but I can't help the feeling the irony.  His lucky charm is gone--of course he's dead.  But the moneypurse he wore on a strap around his neck is gone, too, and his hands are naked of his rings.

I back up from his body. I've been here too long already.  I need to return and be shocked for the fat woman downstairs.  Send for the Watch, deal with this, get back to the Hall before rumors got there first.  The thing that won't leave me is that tidy room.  

Gillian had said Larius came in at dawn.  Now, I have seen a lot of men killed. I've seen men die.  I've never seen a man beaten that badly who didn't leave even a drop of blood on the floor.

Continue with Chapter 3...