Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [194]
There was no way Randur could rationalize his answer. It wasn’t simply a question of which one he loved more—there were different kinds of love involved. All he knew was that he must follow his current instincts. Maybe he’d regret it in the future, but he was someone who made this sort of decision on impulse. “It was her money to start with,” he mumbled.
Randur held eye contact with the old man, and something passed between their glances. “I really need your help, Den.”
“Aye, count me in. I never got to be a proper hero in the damn army, but maybe I can be to my girls instead. So, when d’you need these fellows by?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at the latest. The Council plan to execute Eir and Rika at sunset.”
They began to gather inside the Garuda’s Head, sixty-six of the roughest types money could buy. The landlord reckoned he had never seen such a profitable evening. Randur had paid for only one round though. Clear heads would be needed. Denlin mingled with the throng, a socialite among these down-and-outs. There were about twenty rumel, brown-skinned or gray-skinned, and thirty-four humans, their faces mostly concealed beneath their hoods. Some of these thugs were even meant to be from the underground anarchist group. There were weapons in abundance. Denlin had even managed to get hold of two garudas who had been sacked from Imperial duty. Fortunately, Denlin knew the hand-language they responded to.
As he murmured instructions to several of the gathering, every now and then the old man would gesture toward Randur. Scarred heads would turn in his direction, and Randur would shuffle nervously under their gaze. He had made a point of not carrying the rest of the cash on him. One payment up front, the rest securely hidden till later. Denlin himself had thought it best this way.
Denlin struggled to climb onto a table, clasping a spoon and a metal tankard. He rapped the one on the other to get everyone’s attention. A reluctant silence fell. “Right, you lot, I’ve gone through the details with all of you individually. Now, Randur here is going to say a few words.”
Randur leaped onto the table with his dancer’s agility, conscious of how sixty-six people looked four times as many when you were stood up in front of them.
He cleared his throat. “You know the arrangement. I’m betting most of you don’t care about that. But there’s something else I need to say. We have to save two innocent women from this bastard Council, the same one that uses its powers to keep you lot trapped down in the caves year after year. Here’s your chance to put one over on the fuckers, and to make some cash in the process.”
A cheer went up around the tavern. They liked that. Randur glanced across at Denlin, gave him a relieved grin.
Randur detailed what was essentially Denlin’s strategy. The old man had the better knowledge of the city, of how things worked, of how public executions were conducted. It wasn’t a wonderful plan. It wasn’t even a particularly well-thought-out plan. But Randur hoped it would suffice. The councilors themselves wouldn’t provide much opposition, being politicians, not fighters.
It was street thug against soldier, the rough stuff.
Randur himself would at least offer some fine sword skill, a little flair maybe where it was needed.
In response the hired men thrust their fists in the air, an eerie unison to the gesture.
One by one, the participants slipped out of the tavern till Denlin and Randur stood staring at each other in sudden emptiness, and the evening seemed to take on a new quality entirely.
“Your weapons,” Denlin said finally, heading behind the bar and returning with a small bundle of blankets.
“I’m not fighting with cloth,” Randur quipped.
Denlin heaved it onto the bar counter with a clunk, peeled back the material to reveal a couple of swords, newly crafted, simple and slender, without much ornamentation.
Randur lifted one to test its weight. “Shit, you’ve excelled yourself,