The Box Read Free Page B

beast, to better control it. If they do that, your problem doesn’t go away. If you back me on this, what’s left of the Shoanti will turn tail and scatter and the Scales won’t press the issue. It’s the navedo way—they won’t blood feud over a pack of foreign gutter grubbers that they have already grown tired of.”
    Kostin paused, studying the kapteo as he sat motionless in the dim interior, the old man’s hands moving delicately over the ruined fabric of the Dalakcz kapenia.
    “Let it be Sczarni silver,” Kostin interjected into the silence that had fallen between them, “and a Varisian hand that accomplishes this task. That is our way.”
    The kapteo nodded, once, decision made. “Tomorrow you will have your silver, if what you say is true. Desna walk with you, Kostinnavolus, and may she light your path.”
    “And yours, kapteo. My thanks.” Kostin bowed and slipped from the tent, fighting to keep a grin off of his face.
    Outside the sky had cleared, and the first stars of early evening stood out like hard diamonds in the fading blue. A day ago he had brought the box into his home, the home he had watched burn from the fifth floor of the Rope Works building while bucket teams scrambled to douse it. A day ago his life had changed forever.
    It was time to hit back. Time to cash in some favors, make some promises, and build his team.

Chapter Three: Nothing Ventured
    The girls were, by any objective standards, far too beautiful for the Point. But in the dim glow of the dockyard lights they did the trick. Silently the trio gestured, gyrating hips that would make the women of the Keleshite Emperor’s harem seem bony lads in comparison, their impossible skin as smooth and silver as the moon above. Their black tresses—tinged with a seaweed green—hung in long clinging strands that managed to suggest more than they concealed. They were, when it came down to it, completely irresistible.
    If you were born yesterday, Kostin thought with a smirk.
    The pair of Shoanti thugs guarding the old rum joint moved toward the gorgeous trinity like fish pursuing a hooked worm. When they passed through the darkest and narrowest part of the alleyway, Kostin struck.
    He slipped in behind the leftmost guard and smashed across the base of his skull with a lead-filled sap. The man dropped.
    Opposite him in the dark a giant figure loomed up, felling the second Shoanti with a single blow from a sledgehammer fist.
    “Nice hit, Gyrd,” Kostin said, gritting his teeth as his voice came out too loud.
    At the end of the alley, the three nymphs gave a silent cheer, flinging their arms up and bouncing on their heels like schoolchildren.
    Kostin swiftly bound the arms of the unconscious Shoanti with rawhide tethers and gagged them with wads of cloth. Gyrd stepped in when he was finished, reeking of sour sweat and stale mead, and threw a guard over each broad shoulder. The Ulfen’s chainmail jangled under the load. Kostin pointed further down the alley and the big northerner stomped off with his cargo to dump them where they would not be found until morning.
    “Enough with the girls,” Kostin said through clenched teeth, noting that the illusory threesome was now engaged in activity fit to make a Calistrian blush. With a final, sensuous wave they winked out of existence—and a child-sized figure vaulted onto a nearby stack of discarded casks and gave a bow.
    “Not too bad, yeah?” Her voice was the very model of gnomish enthusiasm. “I actually met a sea-nymph once, you know. And so I took her likeness and this tavern girl that Gyrd used to know—well, everyone used to know, apparently—and—”
    “Yes, Shess. But we need to keep quiet—” Kostin was interrupted by the sudden flaring of a light behind him.
    Whirling around and drawing his sword in the same motion, he saw Aeventius and Taldara walking up from the opposite end of the alley. A glow like daylight emerged from the wizard’s left hand, from the onyx and platinum ring