by Carmel Rechnitzer
Ren was going to die. She was going to be strangled to death, slowly.
“Yevgeni, my fine and fierce friend! My brother!” someone called out from the depths of the crowd. Yevgeni ignored them, and plowed his way through the dense city streets. Even hunched over, massive shoulders rolled in and elbows tucked defensively, he towered over the crowd. Men, women, donkeys, and horses, all parted before him as fast as they could.
Ren was going to die. She was drinking poison. Her life would end in a mouth-foaming instant.
“Yevgeni! O, tigerman who’s heart beat alongside mine across a dozen fields of battle! I am right behind you!” the voice called again. Whomever was shouting had a talent for it. The voice was a confident and choral tenor, each word pronounced with perfect clarity. Insane that anyone could do this. Yevgeni was running, presumably this idiot behind was, too… And somehow, only Yevgeni was out of breath. His barrel of a chest was sore and creaking at the ribs, the incoming wind rattled through his teeth, and all the muscles in his back heaved to pump the bellows of his lungs. He couldn’t stop. He mustn’t stop.
Ren was going to die. There were knives buried deep in her guts, tearing and pulling at her like chopsticks scooping out a bowl of rice.
“Who are we hunting today? Who invokes your god-like wraths?” came the voice again, somehow closer. Yevgeni pulled his mind from the green mists of the Syrneth Eye, discarding yet another view of some horrid future. He kept sprinting, but turned his head. He found the other man’s scent before his view… an overwhelming perfume of sandalwood and lemon. It was strong enough that Yevgeni gagged and lost his rhythm.
He stopped, coughing so loudly that he could feel the Syrneth Eye rattle in his socket. He hadn’t anticipated how his sinuses would take to the devilish artefact. My Theus spare him from any future cold or flu. Yevgeni collected his thoughts, and found the source of his nuisance: a well dressed gentleman, pale as snow, and with an immaculately square beard and crescent moustaches. The wax. The smell was coming from the three pounds of beardwax the man was wearing. Underneath it at all was the world’s friendliest smile.
Ren was going to die. Shot in the back of the skull before she even perceived her foe.
“My man, I am busy saving a life, I do not have time to help you, too” he said gruffly. Yevgeni didn’t sleep much. The business of the district had him running to and fro, volunteering all his time to undo the innumerable evils of this City. He just… did not have it in him to help another stranger. Not today. Not with Ren –
“It is me, my brother! Yepikhodov Yepikvidich!” the other man declared. He was short, with a bright red nose. He wore an Ussuran soldier’s uniform, still pristine some twenty years after the end of the War of the Cross. His kit would have been inspection-passing perfect, if he wasn’t equipped with so many weapons. No wonder Ussura lost so many battles. Clearly Yepikhodov was hoarding all the instruments of war.
“I am afraid I do not know you,” Yevgeni admitted, and turned to go.
“I was warned of your amensiastic ways,” Yepikhodov admitted, “but am stung deeply, non-the-less. We bled for one another, Yevi! Does your slumbering mind not stir at the music of my voice?”
Ren was going to die. She was going to die. She was going to die. She-
Yevgeni was running again, following the visions in the green mist, unwilling to abandon his closest friend and confidant. The little man was keeping pace with him. His feet shuffled at blurring speed, his back was ramrod straight, and not a hair was out place. Yepikedov was crisply military-marching at over ten miles an hour.
“Yevi and Yepi, at it again!” he said, smacking Yevgeni’s arm in good cheer. “What hill must we conquer?”
Yevgeni was forced to split his mind in two. Ren was important. Ren must be saved. Every life must be saved, if he could help it. But he remembered nothing of his life back in Ussura. No one remembered. Or at least, no one dared to say. Yevgeni made sure to ask at least one new person each day. Other than rumors native to Five Sails, no one had a word to offer. No one knew who he’d been before, except this charming little freak.
“We fought at the War of the Cross?” Yevgeni asked him, desperate to know more. Desperate to reach Ren. He had to. Ren was going to die. There was a spear aimed right at her, eager to ram through her throat.
“No, good fellow! We were too young in such troubled times,” Yepikhodov admitted. “But in the bloody aftermath. In the struggles for power and prestige, in a world born new through horrors. We almost conquered all Ussura, before the Matushki stole you away from me.”
Yevgeni let out a disbelieving grunt. A shame the man was lying, he’d let his hopes creep upwards for a moment.
They were at the heart of the District, now. Yevgeni came to a screeching, stumbling halt at the door of a tea house. One of Ren’s common haunts. A repurposed smith’s workshop, now bought out and repurposed by Khitai immigrants eager for a congregation spot. The door was flimsy wood, and should have opened easily. When Yevgeni pushed it, the wood scrunched against his weight. Whatever barricade was built behind it, though, bravely held its shape.
Yevgeni gave a bark of a laugh. He’d never met a barricade he couldn’t ram through. He stepped back some ten paces, and prepared to charge. What few people still in the street dove away, aware they wanted nothing to do with the upcoming demolition.
“Not without these, you don’t,” Yepikhedov insisted, furnishing leather hand-wraps. He pulled Yevgeni’s hands forward by the wrist, and slipped the wraps over his palms. There was an uneven weight to them. Yevgeni realized there was a four inch bar of iron slip-sewn into the leather, right at the knuckles. Any Kalushni boy caught wearing these would be disqualified from competition for cheating, assuming his opponent had enough of their jaw left to complain. Assuming they even lived after the first punch, to be honest. The strange weapon fit perfectly in the crease of his palm, settled over the hills of his knuckles, like it was made for him. He sniffed at it… hmm. It was certain. These no-quite-gloves smelled of his own sweat already.
“You… aren’t liying, are you?” he asked Yepikhodov. “These were mine. Made for me?”
“I’d never let anyone else wear them, brother,” Yepikhodov said with pride.
“Brother by blood, or metaphor?” Yevgeni asked, suddenly very confused.
“By sacred oath,” Yepikhodov confirmed, as if that meant anything.
Yevgeni took a heavy, confident step to the door. Without needing to run and charge, he simply pumped his arm back and swung his fist. The padding on the iron knuckled was thick enough to protect his bones, allowing him to drive his fist through the doorjamb like a cannonball tearing through a ship. Yevgeni took a quick look through the hole he’d created, and saw that every bit of furniture in the teahouse – and the old anvil for good measure – were pushed against the door.
Mercilessly, he punched the bricks beside the door. Top left, top right, middle left, low right… enough of the wall crumbled to reveal a new doorway.
“Useful,” Yevgeni commented on the handwraps.
“I always am,” Yepikhodov answered, taking it as a personal compliment. “Allow me to enter first, brother.”
Before Yevgeni could object, Yepikhodov shuffled through the makeshift entrance. Yevgeni made to follow, but the green mists of the future held him back a moment. Ren was going to die. The tea house was about to swarm with lead and-
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Yepikhodov began firing every gun on his person in methodic succession. There were quite a few. Yevgeni counted out the blasts, and just about lost his patience after the ninth. He stepped through the swirling gun smoke,placed a hand on his newfound friend’s shoulder, gripping tightly enough to force him to stop firing.
“Mmm mmm, mphhm mumm mmm,” someone said. Yevgeni picked at his ringing ears, trying to shake away the ringing pitch that blocked out the noise.
“WHAT?” He asked.
“I said! Hot damn! That’s a lot! Of bullets!” someone bellowed at full volume.
“I got! Lost! In my! Passions!” Yepikohov responded. “Did? I? Hit you?!”
“Only! Grazed!”
Yegeni stepped into the tea house, crashing his way through furniture. He paid no heed to the real world, only to the mists within his head. Ren was going to die. She was going to be thrown into a burning pit. He had to stop it.
He reached into the mist, and plucked Sanjay of the Cats’ Paw Gang from underneath one of the tables. He knew of the man, more by swaggering exaggerations than actual facts. Sanjay was as joyful as a songbird and as slippery as an eel, or so they said. Yevgeni wrapped a massive palm around Sanjay’s elbow. Squeezed enough to let Sanjay know he could snap the joint backwards if need be.
“You are playing with me, Cat-man. But I am not a mouse. Where is my friend?”
Sanjay gave a stunning smile, pure white teeth contrasting his umber skin. “She’s perfectly safe, unlike my dearest Maya,” he said. The smile did not reach his eyes, and did not mask the acid in his tone.
Yevgeni sighed, heavily. He’d been told about yesterday. Valeri successfully countered a heist, reverse-snatching the Syrneth Titan’s arm for the Ussura District. Another piece of the Colossus, bringing Yevgeni that much closer to creating a true and lasting peace in the City. Valeri promised him there’d been no casualties. So had Temnota, the Raven…. Or rather, Yevgeni realized… he’d been told all the thieves had walked away. Whomever she was, Maya might have walked away with a knife in her side and succumbed to her injuries out of sight and out of mind.
Yepkihodov tapped Yevgeni’s shoulder. He looked down at the well equipped man. Yepikhodov had unfurled a leather roll with about twenty pockets, each stuffed with an instrument of dentistry or gelding. He was already offering a pair of shears out.
“No thank you,” Yevgeni said. Yepikhodov seemed pleasantly surprised that his friend did not resort to torture.
“You’ve finally gone a little soft, brother!” Yeikhodov cheered.
“May Theus bless your mercy,” Sanjay said, in a particularly dry tone.
“You made a plaything of my Eye, little Cat-man,” Yevgeni insisted, insulted. “Ren is not here, and she is alive. How? You are safe, because I want your answers.”
“We know how it works, Boar-man,” Sanjay teased. “You aren’t the only one who knows the old legends. I’d say El Gato and my pios Padre may know more than you. The Titan’s Eye doesn’t see the future.”
Yevgeni grunted in agreement, but squeezed the elbow a little tighter.
“The Titan’s Eye only sees the futures your enemies scheme and whisper of,” Sanjay said quickly, eager to avoid further pain. “The plans they might enact. Shows you the futures you ought avoid, now that you have warning. Very useful, if no one knows you have it. Sticking it in your skull was a mistake. All it takes is a dozen of our gang, each whispering and ‘planning’ a scheme, to dive you mad. The Eye does not discriminate – or rather, does not discern liars from conspirators. It is a risk to take schemers at their word. Ren is safe, and hale, and healthy.”
Yevgeni grunted and tossed the fanciful young man out of his grip. Temnota hadn’t warned him this was how the Eye worked. The question, now, was whether the little crow didn’t know, or hadn’t bothered to share.
“The lesson is learned, the… jape… is well taken, and I am sorry for your presumed loss,” Yevgeni said, working hard to sound sincere instead of furious. He needed to thread a needle, here. He’d already made an enemy of the Voddace Don and the Eisen militants. He barely had a truce with the Musketeers. He did not need another enemy. He searched for fair and measured words.
“I will bring Valeri to tribunal, so we can arbitrate the violence, and move forward in peace. That’s the point of this Festival the Mayor’s running, is it not?” he said. “I’ll remind you, Cat’s Paw, that your Maya was not necessarily innocent. You lot are thieves, and my reports indicated Maya was not afraid to draw a gun and shoot. All is fair in love and war.”
“I know, I know,” Sanjay said, shaking the soreness from his bruising arm. “We take risks, and they don’t necessarily pay off. This meeting was a riskier maneuver than I anticipated, for example. I did not expect eleven shots from you lot. More of a… close and personal touch to your usual modus operandi.” Sanjay made for the window of the tea house.
“He’s new here,” Yevgeni objected. “If I knew he’d do that, I’d have stopped him.”
“My only regret is missing,” Yepikhodov shook his head in sorrow.
Sanjay parched on the window sill. Yevgeni considered whether letting him go was truly the wiser move. Ekaterina would certainly say so. Valeri and the Crow would screech for blood. Yevgeni did not need more enemies. Ren was not going to die. Anger did not have to rule the day. But somehow, Yepikhodov’s presence pulled rage out from Yevgeni’s bones. Called for him to stoop to evil. Is that who he had been, before losing his memories? So be it, but it must remain in the past. He was a new man, now. A better man. No need to wring Sanjay’s neck.
“Name the time, and we will sort our differences, and pay any debt owed for Maya’s life,” Yevgeni said. It hurt to say so. Itched at the missing and empty corners of his soul. He did not like diffusing situations. But he did not like hearing that some command of his led to a stranger’s death, either.
“No need to pay a debt,” Sanjay said, once again flashing a heartless, winning smile. “Today, I consider us even.” He planted one leg through the first floor window, shifted his weight to prepare to bolt. Yevgeni could have reached out and grasped him in anticipation. Smashed his gorgeous teeth in for whatever insolent insult was surely about to come dancing out over the thief’s silver tongue. He made a conscious choice not to escalate, to let the man say a final foolish thing and go.
“Or ledgers are even, Boar-man,” Sanjay said. “You’ve been fooled twice. We gave no whisper of our second scheme.”
“Which was?” Yevgeni asked, teeth grating in impatience.
“We killed Mori Daichi twenty minutes ago.”
Sanjay took flight through the window, faster than any of Yepikhodov’s bullets. By the time Yevgeni understood what the Cat’s Paw gangster said, by the time he ran through the window, shattering the header and sill alike as he trudged through the wall, the man was well and truly gone.
In the middle of the street, packaged in a neat pink bow, Sanjay left behind a bottle of vodka.
“Damn, that kitty is fast,” swore Yepikhodov, a new rifle drawn. He pointed the barrel down to the cobbles, too disciplined to aim at the bewildered bystanders in the street.
Yevgeni couldn’t speak. The fury burned too hot. If he had another enemy, so be it! Just more bones to grind to dust! The next time he saw Sanjay, he would kill without hesitation.
He glanced at the vodka. Someone had drawn a custom label for the bottle. It read An Eye for an Eye!
Yevgeni punted the bottle with enough power to instantly fragment the glass back into ten million grains of sand.
“A wise choice, brother!” Yepikhodov cheered, seemingly unaffected by the news of murder. “Probably poisoned, and no Castillian Vodka can be worth drinking, besides.”
Yevgeni roared in anguish.
Yevgeni huffed and puffed. Would have torn out his hair, if he still had any.
Yevgeni cried out in despair, louder than he meant to: “And now what to do now, damn it?”
“Same thing we always did, brother,” Yepikhodov said enthusiastically. “Go out and conquer.”