... and every black hair on Esker’s body rose like a mad snake.
The man who had entered was little, by Esker’s standards, perhaps medium by most; he had thin arms and thin legs and a fat gut, all wrapped in a suit of some fine-grained white leather that moved strangely with his steps. By his lightness, he was a Rook, though there was some of Jaidar in his features; his hair was straight and sandy like a Rook’s, long but thinning, pulled back into a tiny tail where his neck joined his skull. Around his neck there was a silver-and-turquoise charm on a white leather thong, though Esker could catch the faint tracery of wires, straight and right-angled, over the veins of the turquoise—which stone was carved into the shape of a whorl and claw. “By the guts of the stars,” he uttered in a high voice, pungent with a Great Playa twang, “if it isn’t the Brothers Epseris, and their greedy fingers in my cookie jar again. Where’s your brother, Teos?”
Teos sang ush; the man in white held up a hand, its fingers contorted into a shape that made Esker’s stomach churn, and whatever would have transpired failed to do so.
“Teos don’t talk no more, Boss,” said Sethos Epseris. “Not since we lost Horos.”
“Oh, he talks,” said the man that Esker could only presume was Boss John Dream. “I can hear every word he gibbers in that poor addled head of his. Which one are you again? I always did mix up the lickspittle and the quiet one.”
“The lickspittle is Sethos,” said Epaphos. “I speak for the Epseris now, John Dream.”
“What an event,” said Boss John Dream in mock wonder, tapping his cheek with a forefinger in rhythm with the words. “And you think if you won’t call me ‘Boss,’ I won’t be boss?”
“Oh,” said Epaphos, “I know it.”
Boss John Dream examined Epaphos with a gimlet eye. “Will miracles never cease,” he said. “Evidence of intelligent life in the Epseris clan. Let this one bud off a couple more and I might commence needing to keep an eye on you. Well, I do enjoy a spell of badinage, but there’s killing to be done.” He turned his eye to Esker. “And what I need to know is, do I need to include you in the proceedings? Don’t play dumb with me, now, soldier; I see you standing like a damned weather-vane in the middle of this common room, which means you weren’t in the Epseris’ sights, and I think you know as well as I do that Epseris kill like dogs drool—that is to say, everydamnwhere, except where they’ve been trained they shouldn’t. What I’m getting at is that if you’re going to cause me trouble, I’m going to paint the remnants of this fine establishment with a thin film of what used to be your insides—but, if you’ll submit to a very small work of binding, just to assure your non-interference, then I’ll be happy to give you a ten-minute head start to fleeing my Souktown and getting back to whatever hick shithole burped you into a world that never wanted you.”
“I’m here on business,” said Esker. “I’ve got deed to a claim in south Jagaag.”
“This is your lucky day, then,” said Boss John Dream. “Instead of getting killed by a higher class of idiot, you get to saunter on back to [[Pigshit Village in scenic Incest Province]] and lament how the boss of Jagaag Souktown stole your claim-deed. With a tale like that, I bet you can have both your sisters in any hole you like. On three, soldier, am I getting shit from you or not? One…”
Through a window’s teeth, Esker saw a flash of motion—hand in a flat plane before a thick-bearded face, the forefinger tilted up—a sundial sign, the army signal for buy some time.
“You’ve called me ‘soldier’ twice now,” said Esker. “The man who had this staff found out what that meant, the hard way.” He twirled the staff once and poked its owner, trying to make the gesture look rougher than it was. “You’re a big sorcerer—all right, I respect that. You can handle a few runeslingers like a sackful of puppies—more than a little entertaining, I have to say, after taking shit from them day after day. But I’m a soldier of the Jaidari army, and I’ve been in charges through runic enfilades that would leave an Epseris brother nothing but ash and naked bones, ush staff or no ush staff. So, Boss John Dream,” and Esker dropped the staff and took a long step toward his swordspear, which lay on the ground in the middle of a puddle of strawberry brandy, “I think you’re bluffing.”
YOU ARE READING
The Claim
FantasyA young soldier comes back from a campaign and finds himself prospecting a claim -- a small territory in a dead city where he has the right to search for ancient technology, or possibly magic. What is he looking for, and how did he come to possess t...
