60

  Rufi had been bagged and dragged from the carriage as soon as they arrived outside a nondescript warehouse North of the Houses. After that he had been none too gently dragged to a cell, separated from Pug, and chained to a chair. The bag was removed, and Rufi guessed he was sitting in some sort of basement as far as he could tell. It was dank, dark, and windowless. He could hear nothing, but he could smell fresh blood. He had always heard underworld whispers of Triad torture chambers, but he’d always assumed they were more of a metaphor rather than actual rooms set aside for such activities. There were chains and manacles hanging from the ceiling and dark red patches across the floor with an open drain in the centre of the room he assumed was used for washing away blood. Rufi had been tied to a single wooden chair in the middle of the room with heavy manacles chaining him to the floor, facing away from the door. He had sat there for perhaps an hour when the door had finally slammed open behind him.

  “Explain to me why I shouldn't slit your throat and hang you from the ceiling until you bleed out.” The Yano's normally restrained and cultured voice came out as a guttural growl from behind Rufi.

  Rufi heard the scrape of naked steel and forced himself to remain calm.

  “Where is my man, Pug?” Rufi asked him.

  “He’s alive, for now, but I would be more concerned about yourself if I were you.” The Yano paced around the room to face Rufi.

  He was dressed in one of his immaculate black suits with a white shirt and a black tie. But he wasn't as immaculately groomed today. There were wrinkles in his shirt collar and loose strands of hair sticking out from his slick backed coif. He looked tired. His eyes were red rimmed and there were deep bags under them. He held a short rapier in his right hand with a golden gilt hilt that looked more like a showpiece than a weapon.

  “You just can't help yourself, can you?” The Yano said to him, pacing around the room. “What is it that you're after? Torturing Warlocks, being found at the scenes of murders, are you trying to start a war?" The Yano’s usually steady voice rose to almost a roar. “Do you not understand what you are doing, foolish child!”

  “I understand now. I know exactly what I’m doing… and so do you,” Rufi said, his voice icy calm.

  The Yano froze in mid-stride. He turned just his head, very deliberately, to look at Rufi. He was always the most implacable out of the Four Kings, the most chillingly composed. No one ever quite knew what the Yano wanted or what he was planning. The Triad was the most insular of the four main gangs. They were always involved in their own power politics and rarely got involved in what was happening in Valderia as long as it didn't affect their business. But today, the head of the Triad looked more frustrated than Rufi had ever seen him.

  “What is it you think I know?” The Yano said, his voice low and calm.

  “I think you know what me and Tiko were doing,” Rufi said carefully. “I think you've known for a while, and I think you're losing this war.”

  “What war?” the Yano said blithely.

  “I dunno what you call them—rebels, dissidents, separatists, terrorists, whatever, they’re here, aren't they?” Rufi said, watching the Yano carefully.

  The Gnome turned his body slowly towards Rufi, and he saw the knuckles on the Yano's hand whiten around the rapier’s handle. His eyes became two cold slits.

  “I would not speak on things you know not about boy,” the Yano said, his voice barely a hissed whisper.

  “Oh, I know more than you think I know. For example, I know where the Bad Batch came from. I know how they poisoned it. I even know where they've been housing the shit. I know they were supplying Cameron. I know they killed those Dwarves. I know they killed Tiko. I know they set me up to be killed by the Troll, and I know they’re trying to instigate a war between Goblins and the Gnomes. I'm guessing they can't come out and directly fight you, so instead they’re trying to discredit you. Make the other Kings distrust you, stir some shit between the Triad and Kith, and let us weaken you. Then they’ll come in and chop the head off the Triad and replace you like they did to your counterpart in Mahsh.”

  And there it was. Rufi saw a chink in the carefully composed demeanour of the Yano. He wasn't sure which piece of information it was, but something that Rufi knew had finally surprised the near-omniscient leader of the Triad.

  “I see you broke the Warlock then,” the Yano said after a few carefully composed seconds.

  “Don’t blame him, he lost a whole finger and almost his hand before he talked. Some of it I found out from him, the rest I’ve put together. That’s why you wanted to handle the investigation into the Bad Batch yourself, right? Root out these rebel Gnomes and take ‘em out before anybody got a peek at your dirty laundry?

  The Yano said nothing.

  “And I'm guessing you knew about mine and Tiko’s deal?”

  The Yano thought for a moment and then he nodded.

  “I suspected it had to have been one of my own. Burn doesn't just get into the city and distributed around so quietly without access to my network. Unfortunately, you and Tiko aren't as careful as you thought you were. The Prince of the Goblins meeting with a low-level black wing doesn’t go unnoticed. That raised suspicion immediately. And then your subsequent stomping around this city under the guise of investigation, popping up where you shouldn't be, asking questions about things you shouldn't, you all but showed your hand to someone who knew the game.”

  Rufi tried to keep his face as smooth as possible. He and Tiko had been careful, bordering on paranoid, in their dealings, but there was very little you could hide from the Kings if they took an interest in you.

  “But you didn't kill Tiko?” Rufi said.

  “No. I would have. Once things had died down and the city moved past this episode. He would have disappeared quietly without raising suspicion. Tiko's cards were marked.”

  “And mine?” Rufi asked.

  “No, Ruf'Gar. Your uncle’s sentimental attachment to you would have kept you safe from my hand. But I was always confident someone would eventually kill you. You have a habit of bringing out extreme violence in very dangerous individuals.”

  Rufi gave him half a smirk.

  “So I found all of that out,” Rufi said. “The thing that I couldn't find out was the why. I'm guessing it's got something to do with politics back home?”

  The Yano gave him a blank look.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “And what business is that of yours?”

  “Because,” Rufi said. “I'm gonna kill these rebel Gnomes for you.”

  The Yano's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but his face was such a carefully controlled mask that any small shift could be noticed if you were paying attention.

  “If it was so easy, do you not think I would have done it myself?”

  “Knowing you Gnomes, there’s probably a whole heap of political reasons why you haven't been able to go all-out war with these fucks. But me? I'll just go there and I'll cut someone's throat, and nobody can tell me not to.”

  “Why? Why would you do this for me?”

  “Things between the Triad and the Kith have gone south on the cobbles, and with it my name’s been dragged through the mud. I'm offering to get rid of these rebels for you, and in turn, you fix things out there. Ease tensions between our people and clear my name of any of this bullshit.”

  The Yano thought for a moment.

  “You're not wrong,” he said, sighing and leaning his rapier against the wall. “There are certain political considerations holding me back from stomping out these vermin.”

  “But if a big fucking Goblin out for well deserved revenge took them off the map…”

  “Then that would just be a Goblin behaving like a Goblin,” The Yano replied. “Your people’s proclivity towards blood debts are well known in my homeland.”

  “But I need to know what I’m walking into here,” Rufi said. “And I wouldn’t mind being unchained.”

  The Yano nodded and slipped a key from his pocket. He unlocked Rufi’s chains and then offered him one of his thin black cigars, which he lit for Rufi while the Goblin massaged life back into his hands. The Yano lit a cigar for himself, then leaned back against the wall, picking imaginary dust from his suit.

  “What you are walking into?” The Yano repeated. He looked suddenly tired, lines that weren’t there before creased his brow and the edges of his eyes. “You are walking into nearly five hundred years of civil war, oppression, brutality, and murder that borders on genocide. These rebels are dissidents, they do not recognise the Emperor nor the sovereignty of his Empire. Their rebellion started as nothing more than a collection of farmers and small villages on the outskirts of the Empire over matters of taxation and local rule. But, as it is wont to do, blood and murder have created generational trauma, vengeance, and anger passed from one generation to the next until no one even knows why they fight, but they know deep in the core of their being that they must."

  "Blood never washes blood," Rufi said, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke, and the Yano inclined his head in agreement.

  "Mostly, these rebels fought guerilla wars in the far reaches of the Empire where nothing important was ever won or lost," the Yano continued. "However, in recent centuries, thanks to the meddling of certain outside forces who wish to see the Gnomish Empire weak, the rebels have gained ground. With the rise of Free Cities and certain geopolitical games being played across the Forest, the Rebels have enjoyed the benefits. They have been funded by certain elements within the Forest. Now they are being armed, trained, and deployed against the Empire. This means their actions within the Forest and the Free Cities are under a certain level of protection. So far I've managed to keep them at bay and keep them out of Valderia. However, recent circumstances have allowed them to infiltrate, and this poisoned batch of drugs was just their latest attempt. They realise the Triad is too deeply entrenched in Valderia, and the city is too carefully controlled by the criminal element for them to simply wade in and do away with the Triad."

  “The second you lot aren’t here, the North is up for grabs,” Rufi said, and the Yano nodded.

  “They realise that in that small moment of transference between the rebels and the Triad, it would be very likely that one, if not all three, of the other Kings would swoop in and take the North for themselves. The rebels do not have the manpower or the understanding of the city to fight the Humans and the Goblins. In fact, it is your uncle’s presence that worries them the most.”

  “It is?”

  “Sam’Sun Chaw’Drak is well respected, and feared, across the Forest. He is not a creature anyone would go to war with lightly. Especially, considering your uncle has armed these rebels at different points."

  "He has?" Rufi said.

  "Yes. Sam'Sun Chaw'Drak and that demoness Halli Har are the biggest weapons exporters in the Free Cities. They have done business, indirectly, with my enemies." The Yano spoke with indifference, as if it was just a matter of business.

  Rufi said nothing. Of course he knew about Halli Har and Uncle Sam's weapon running, but he had no idea of the details or just how far their reach extended. That was way above his head.

  "So instead, the rebels have carried out a campaign of discrediting me and the Triad. Breeding distrust, and if they could damage our reputation enough by causing financial loss for the other Kings…”

  “Then it wouldn't be too hard for them to come in and create new partnerships,” Rufi concluded.

  “There is no love lost between myself and the other Kings, and in recent times a certain level of antagonism has begun to develop. Bill's a savage, and he would stick a blade in your ribs as quickly as smile at you. And the Firm..." the Yano snorted and rolled his eyes. "Without the Twins' hands on their leash, they're little more than a pack of vicious dogs, barely kept at bay. Your uncle’s unwillingness to unbalance the scales is one of the reasons I have maintained my seat. He does not know the rebels, and he does not trust them.”

  “Yeah, Uncle Sam is hardly one to be turned by a new skirt," Rufi acknowledged.

  The Yano simply bowed his head slightly at that.

  “So how many of them are in the city?” Rufi asked.

  “It's not a big group; they number a dozen or perhaps two. They move around frequently, and as I said, they've been well protected and well cared for in the city,” The Yano said. “Your activities have disrupted their organisation to a small degree. The destruction of their warehouse and the disruption of their distribution on the streets has certainly set them back in their plans.”

  “So where are they?” Rufi said.

  “They have set up shop on the outskirts of the city. They stick to the river mainly as it gives them a quick getaway and a way to easily import more soldiers, weapons, and drugs if they should need. They know the politics of the city well enough to understand it would be difficult for me to conduct a full scale operation South of the Houses.”

  “Which side of the river are they on?”

  “Of course they’re on Bill’s side,” the Yano replied, spitting the name like it left a foul taste in his mouth. “Bill is happy to engage in chaos, it is where he thrives.”

  “Fucks sake,” Rufi muttered.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he stepped on the Landlord’s toes, but he knew every time he did, he came closer and closer to being gutted by the psycho.

  “My intelligence says they are receiving a fresh shipment of Burn sometime tonight," the Yano said. “We had planned to try and intercept it. There was a battle out on the open rivers, and many of my men were killed. You need to understand Ruf’Gar, these rebels do not fight by half measures. They are brutal killers, the likes of which you have not seen before. These are not Villains making a name for themselves. They are hardened warriors, fighting a long, drawn out war. They will give no quarter and will kill without hesitation. There will be no rules of engagement, they don't care who your uncle is or what the laws of Valderia cobble's state. They will butcher and maim whoever stands in their way. And they will win by any means necessary.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen their handiwork a couple of times now,” Rufi said to him, the unwanted images of butchered carcasses flashed before his eyes.

  “And you must understand, if you're captured or killed, then I had nothing to do with this, yes?”

  “Don't worry, your name will be kept out of it,” Rufi replied. “But when I kill these rebels for you, we won’t be even.”

  “We can make arrangements for the future," the Yano said and gave a small bow of his head. “I will have you armed and given the coordinates and as much information as we have," the Yano said. "I will also give you a handful of my best men. They will assist you in this. I wish I could give you more, but I cannot be seen to be taking direct right action against the rebels at this point in time.”

  “All I need is a few of your best and a few more Goblins on top of that.” Rufi said, standing up and stubbing out his cigar.

  The Yano nodded and extended his hand. Rufi shook his hand firmly.

  “Why are you doing this?” the Yano asked, looking up at him curiously. “Is it just vengeance or for personal gain?”

  Rufi looked at him and curled his lip.

  “They tried to kill me,” he said. “Even worse, they dishonoured me, and they killed my friend. I'm doing this because it has to be done, and fuck where the pieces fall after that. This is Valderia, no one walks into this city and spills blood without any comeback.”

  Yano looked at him carefully and then nodded.

  “Well, happy hunting.”