“I have to admit,” Victor Sade stated whilst stirring his tea with his metal straw, “I expected a worse result from a trio of apparent rookies fresh from the countryside. Well done, Four Claws.”

  “You’re welcome, Mister Sade.” Torrance replied with a congenial smile.

  The same morning as Arcos, Boras, and Reeva had returned from their three missions, Torrance quickly organised a meeting with Victor to discuss the resolution of their deal.

  The pair of them were now seated on the wide rooftop veranda of the Mercurial Den, in a private corner of the rooftop, walled off by four wooden trellises that draped sheets of fresh grape vine and green ivy. The spring sun shone down onto the veranda, gently heating the steel-wrought chairs and table they used for their meet.

  Nearby, Vanto sat on the edge of the rooftop, enjoying his second cigarillo of the morning. Victor partook of a hot teapot of fresh mint tea with a small jug of sweet honey whilst Torrance opted for a tall glass filled with ice, vodka, dry vermouth, tomato juice, and powdered chillies. A Bloody Maria, as they called it in the city.

  Torrance had volunteered to head over to meet with Victor and get the next update on their situation so that the others could rest and heal before the oncoming week.

  Torrance rubbed his wounded leg tenderly when they sat down before the meeting. Despite the liberal use of the Blood Bark, his injury took its time to properly heal. At least it didn’t bleed anymore. Torrance hated throwing away his bedsheets.

  The merchants down in the street below bellowed out their wares, horse and carts trundled along the cobbled streets, the seagulls overhead cawed and crowed. Life continued to roll on by, despite the bloodshed of the previous night. Such violence in Fennaposia is sadly expected.

  “It wasn’t an easy night, for any of them.” Torrance admitted. “It was a bit touch and go for the most part. But they have been trained well. I’m proud of them.”

  “I am certain that you are.” Victor tapped the side of his silver mask thoughtfully. “You are sure you cannot whisper to me where they were trained and by whom? It would be a useful contact to have in my pocket, especially now during these trying times…”

  “Sadly, that is a secret I must take to the pyre.” Torrance swirled his drink, hearing the ice clink in the glass. “You’re having more problems? Already?”

  Victor chuckled softly. He reached forth and picked up his teacup. After slurping up a gulp of tea with his straw, he looked at Torrance with those unnerving dark holes for eyes. “The Docking Fellows.”

  Torrance sighed deeply. “What…? Again?”

  “Indeed. You would imagine that the Gangs would adhere to the Street Peace. But it seems that Carrick is not a man for tradition or progress. He would rather it be the bad old days where the Lawgivers stayed inside their barracks out of fear or corruption and allow the streets to be mired in chaos. Fights on every street corner. Stabbings and Cheshire grins passed around like blood-soaked cookies. As you can imagine, I do not want that lifestyle. Far too stressful for my…complexion.” He chuckled to himself.

  Torrance sipped his drink. “I can imagine that.”

  “It is bad enough that Vanto and Arcos nearly died at the piers, but your recent discovery of the dead merchants working with Carrick in the child smuggling is a bar too low for me. I will give him a final warning for this outrage and it will not be pretty should he disregard it once more.”

  Torrance nodded grimly. “Is there anything I can help with?”

  Victor cocked his head curiously. “Oh? You and your friends risked your lives last night just so you could get out from under me. I believed that I would be the last man in all of Dargania you’d ever want to associate yourself with again.”

  Torrance upturned his hands. “Well, it’s something that I am trying to do. Establish connections and friendships across the board. There’s a change in the air, and I want to make sure that the people I care about are protected. And I have cultivated the correct allies.”

  Victor scratched his metal chin. “Hmm. I cannot disagree with you on that. There is a tension out in the country. My people have told me just as much.”

  Victor settled his straw on the table and eyed Torrance with an unerring and silent stare. “What game are you trying to play here, Four Claws? Making friends with all sorts is a curious move, even for someone as gregarious as you.”

  Torrance avoided the question with another. “Would you like to be our ally in the coming trials ahead? I can guarantee you will need quick minds, strong hands, and sharp steel. I have all three under my wing. Then again, it’s up to you.”

  Victor crossed his arms and leant his elbows on the table, still facing Torrance. Torrance sipped his Bloody Maria without batting his eyelid.

  Vanto smoked quietly, but his eyes were locked onto the two men.

  “Indeed.” Victor paused for a moment to consider this. Then he laughed, clapping his hands. “Ha! I like it. You are a bold man, Torrance.”

  Torrance smiled. But the smile did not reach his eye. “I’m bold because I have nothing much to lose anymore. You can thank the Barons for that.”

  Victor cocked his head curiously at that.

  “So… This is a revenge as well as a rescue mission?”

  “If it serves you, what does it matter?”

  Victor chuckled. “Very well, let us enter into a new arrangement then. A healthy one. You and your company work for me as my own private mercenary guild, and I shall have Vanto and Volstag provide supplies, armoury, and other logistics for the Waywards.”

  “Good.”

  They firmly shook hands before returning to their refreshments and lighter subjects like the weather and Sitra’s still-enduring anger towards Boras.

  ???

  “It’s settled then. We’re mercenaries for a criminal. That’s lovely…” Reeva moaned, rubbing her head and nursing the headache that did not cease since the merchants’ deaths.

  “It’s better than being his enemy. That man gives me the damn willies.” Boras remarked as he crunched on a juicy pickle. He still smelled hints of the sewage in his hair and fingers. He had hoped that strong flavours like this pickle could mask it. It did not; it made it worse.

  “If he gives us what we need for the mission, does it matter what his reasons are?” Arcos surmised, with him consistently looking over his and their shoulders.

  In the northern point of Fennaposia’s harbour, the trio sat within a sailor’s tavern called The Mako. The Mako was an open-ended building of clay and wood with a large canopy of wood extending halfway across the street and towards the piers and the boats coming in to moor. The tables with stools were spread out in a sporadic pattern with no clear system in place.

  At the side of the tavern was the bar, filled with glass bottles of dark and clear liquids with an iron black gantry built over the wooden counter. Lining the gantry were a row of shark jaws and fish skulls of various shapes and sizes. It was such a numerous amount that the row of skulls had begun to pile onto itself with a second and third row of bones. It was a wonder that the gantry had not collapsed yet. Working behind the bar was the owner herself.

  Lani Gols was an Easterner, one of a large group who had immigrated from the Isles during a rare month of calm waters and winds in the Eastern currents that allowed travel and trade to occur between the two nations.

  Lani was lanky, tall, and flinty of eye as she handled the sailors and dockyard workers like a strict parent. Her face was once an image of natural beauty, but now it was marred by a vicious scarring across the left of her face. On one of her first fishing outings when she was a child, she came under attack from a mako shark that drifted too close to the shallows of her island. During the fight, the rough skin of the shark bashed across her face, taking the skin off like sandpaper. In response, she killed the shark with a stone knife through its two eyes. She had since grown into a hardened woman, though fair as well as being strict.

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  Hanging on two adjacent chandeliers via fishing lines across the ceiling was the eponymous shark itself. It was cleaned and stuffed with lint and wool to fill out the hollow inside of the body after it was dissected and embalmed. Its ruined eyes were replaced with two black onyx stones. The glassy look in those sockets only made the twisting, open-jawed beast more unnerving. Lani would occasionally glance up at the shark, and she would smirk each and every time.

  Arcos didn’t like looking at the thing; he felt it was like a bad omen. Before the Black and all the chaos of the last year, he was not one for portents and prophecies. But now, he was coming around to understanding the signs in the world. The taxidermy shark was one of them, at least he thought it could be. In any case, he didn’t like it.

  Torrance appeared at their table, carrying with him a wooden tray holding four large ceramic cups with handles, filled with steaming dark-green water. “Four seaweed teas, just the stuff to get those bodies moving.”

  The trio looked up from within their hooded cloaks and devoured the hot teas gratefully.

  Boras eyed the contents with suspicion. “Is this shit going to make me vomit?” he asked.

  Reeva was already licking her lips and sipping the tea with clear satisfaction. “Ah… that’s the good stuff right there. One of the very few pieces of my memory in my fucked brain, and it’s this tea…”

  “Must be pretty good for you to remember it.” Boras glanced at her with some measure of scepticism.

  Reeva grinned. “Oh, it’s damn good.”

  Arcos raised his eyebrows at the drink. It was dark and murky and it smelled of brine and salt. He shrugged. “Can’t be as bad as the drink we had at the Guild.”

  He took a gulp.

  And gods above and Black encompassing, he instantly regretted it.

  His body immediately reacted to the sudden content of umami, salt and broth tones in his gut. His stomach sought to throw up the salt. Arcos clenched his teeth and tensed his neck muscles to hold down his bile. He shuddered as the nauseous sensation ebbed away and he swallowed his fill.

  Torrance and Reeva watched him with sympathy. “You’re supposed to sip it.” Torrance advised. He demonstrated as such, taking small gulps at a time.

  Arcos fixed the pair with a withering glare before setting down the tea. “No more for me, thank you.” he tersely said.

  Reeva shrugged. “Well, if you’re not taking it…” She reached over, took his tea and poured the drink into her already empty cup. “It takes some getting used to, but gods it’s a blessing when you’re having a rough start to the day. Like me…”

  “Soup in a cup,” Torrance added with a smile before toasting the tea with Reeva, “as a sailor once said to me.”

  As she sipped, Reeva felt the headache slowly ebb away. She let out a low breath, feeling the relief climb up through her brain. She reached up absentmindedly to rub her right temple.

  Torrance watched her, as did Arcos. She looked back to the two of them. “What?”

  “How are you feeling?” Torrance asked. “Considering what happened last night.”

  “Last night…” Reeva leant her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her propped hand. “I had a memory of my father… We were fishing at night, when the sea was supposed to be at its calmest. But a freak storm came. It smashed our boat. I couldn’t see my father in the water and I was rolling in the dark…”

  “Gods… But you… you were different last night.” Torrance took a hard look at her. “It was as if you became someone else entirely.”

  “I know…” Reeva rubbed her neck, dragging her fingertips over the birthmark. “Maybe it was a survival instinct. I was close to dying that night.”

  “Maybe…” Torrance scratched his chin. “You let me know if you get any more flashbacks. It may help you remember. Maybe that will get rid of your headaches.”

  “Fuck… I hope so. I’m getting sick of this…”

  Boras, who had not touched the tea even before Arcos's reaction to it and still refused to do so now, cleared his throat. “You think it’s wise to be out in the open like this? We could be seen.”

  Torrance shook his head. “Unlikely. This is Mercurial territory, even so we’re so close to the Docking Fellows’s turf. They won’t dare to try something here. And any spies working for the Barons, particularly the Ravens, they’d be sticking out like weasels in a henhouse. We’d seen them coming.

  Besides, the Mercury Gang owns this part of the city. Even the Barons don’t interfere with the streets, there’s a dynamic in place that keeps the city rolling on. We’re safe, as long as we keep a calm profile and not fracture the Street Peace.”

  “What is the Street Peace anyway?” Boras asked.

  Torrance leaned back, hands behind his back, to stretch his spine with a pleasurable groan. “Well… when the first proper gangs came up a couple of decades ago— this was when I was five or six at the time— it was a mess. Fights broke out constantly, shops were raided, and people got mugged or worse. It was bad enough that martial law was passed through by Baron Fosto. His Smiters roamed the streets for weeks, and anyone— gang member or not—was punished severely if caught out after curfew. Some gangs were broken up permanently as their members were arrested or killed. Then the previous leader of the Docking Fellows, Victor Sade, and other leaders of the gangs gathered a theatre to hash out a peace treaty and fairly divvy up the city’s districts. Baroness Francisca had secretly organised the meeting and was ultimately responsible for getting it resolved.”

  “So the Barons even have a hand on the gangs…” Arcos growled.

  Torrance raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, they have money, men, and influence. Be foolish not to have control over the criminals too.”

  “What is the word on the street though?” Reeva asked. “What we all did last night… Something had to have changed. Martial law again?”

  Torrance shook his head. His eye lingered on the table they sat at as he swilled his tea.

  “The Docking Fellows have been on the quiet since last night’s deaths. The loss of their men and those merchants, top earners I was told by Vanto, hit them hard. Hard enough that they actually sent a letter of apology to Victor an hour ago and a request for a truce to recover their strength in respect of the Street Peace. Of course, Victor doesn’t believe that for a moment. But he isn’t worried. He has all the cards in his hand, with us being his wildcard that he used last night. No one expected the deaths to be delivered so swiftly and efficiently. And because we did the job so well and there were no witnesses connecting Victor to the fights, it is now believed that infighting must have begun amongst the Docking Fellows. Which leaves The Mercury Gang innocent. As far as the Barons are concerned, they know nothing about the excursions. They have bigger things to be concerned with down south. So no martial law has been carried through, yet.”

  “Huh. Exactly what Victor was hoping for.” Boras assumed.

  “Yes and no.” Torrance said. “You lot understand that by securing us Waywards as his personal mercenary guild is his way of saying that he intends to strike back hard against the Docking Fellows. He is going to do it. Not now nor next week or even next month, though. He’s a patient man. He is a man of some principle; the child smuggling disgusts him. The Docking Fellows cannot be allowed to exist for that. Street Peace or not, there’s a fight coming. It’s going to be bloody.”

  Arcos made a long and sharp sigh that showed a lack of patience.

  “Yeah, whatever, but where does that leave us with Markus?” He chimed in, bringing the conversation back to the true matter at hand. “We need to plan. To act. We can’t afford to waste any more time!”

  Torrance looked to Arcos with understanding. “Kid, I get it. You’re worried about them. But we have to prepare. Boras's report tells us that much already. The Waywards are undermanned, so I need to recruit more bodies. Maraby needs to arrange food, armour, and weapons. And you need to train.”

  Arcos skewed his face. “Us?”

  Torrance cracked a cooky grin. “That’s correct. Look, it’s clear to me that the three of you have been getting good advice and mentoring from Tilda and the Guild. But you still need work on your skills, movements, and tactics, especially since we’ll be going up against the entire Bodyhunter cohort.”

  Reeva and Boras shrugged. Arcos kept his mouth tight and allowed a short breath to escape from his nose instead. “Alright, we do it your way.”

  “It’s the only way, but thank you for conceding.” Torrance finished the rest of his tea and rose from his stool. “Okay! Let’s head back to The Four Claws. It’s time to get serious.”

  The training was as serious as Torrance had promised. Up on the rooftop of The Four Claws, Maraby and a few of the Waywards spent the next morning clearing out and cleaning the open-air floor of old supplies, empty crates, and useless pieces of junk that no one would miss. They did find old, damaged armour that was previously thought lost, which served as useful mannequins for the training. Because they had a finite amount of time, the hours of training were early, long, and nearly merciless.

  Each day, Arcos, Reeva, and Boras were roused from slumber at five in the morning and drilled through the movements and steps of their weaponry till midday by Torrance. They would practice with their weapons, cutting through the air in the style they had trained in. They would practice their throwing skills, using the collection of swallowblades they had brought— well, stolen would be the accurate term— with them. And then finally, Torrance would fight each of them in close-quarters combat, either with wooden sticks for swords or punches and kicks.

  And they would lose to him, each and every time.

  Battered and bruised, they would then stagger down to the mess hall, devour the sumptuous foods prepared by the staff and supplied by the Mercury Gang, before returning to the afternoon’s session of training and working.

  Much to Boras's discomfort, Sitra was present for the training. She, too, was eager to strengthen herself.

  Torrance’s style of teaching differed from Tilda in terms of style and technique. While Tilda focused on grace, speed, and precision, Torrance was focused on brute force and dirty street tactics. And unlike Tilda, he felt there was no regard for honour in a fight to the death.

  Maraby, an adept fighter with a quarterstaff, sometimes trained the trio when Torrance would depart into the city to gather fresh recruits to the growing company. More often than not, he would return with a few men and women. Introductions would be made, names signed in the official catalogues managed by himself and Maraby, and the logistics for bed and clothes arranged.

  By the end of the fifth day, the number of the Waywards had doubled to thirty, and mostly all of the recruits were relatively well trained for the amount of time they had been allowed.

  Arcos, Reeva, and Boras took part in the training with the recruits. But as the hours went by, they found themselves teaching the rookies how to hold a sword, shield, or knife as they had more experience. It was surreal for them to be both student and teacher at the same time, but they learnt quickly. By that fifth day, the trio felt stronger. They felt ready.