Boss by Ken Lizzi

Author:Ken Lizzi [Lizzi, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aratus Scrivenery
Published: 2019-12-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Trunch hadn’t set foot in the Tanner’s District since the fire. The lack of construction surprised him. Empty lots didn’t stay empty long in Groft. Appeared to be an exception to that rule here. The focal point of the cleared expanse — what Peloni had told him went by the name of ‘the Counting House’ — had no rivals for attention. Not a single foundation, not a single framework marred the sightlines of the Counting House. Excellent defensive position.

But apparently not excellent enough.

The stone and timber bones of a building, charred and smoke stained from the long ago fire, remained standing at a corner of the clearing. An arm hung limp from a second story window. Trunch squinted, cast his eyes from that window to the Counting House. Good sniper nest, that window. He could imagine that arm cradling a crossbow not too long ago, commanding one approach to the Counting House. Then Trunch’s squint shifted to wide-eyed surprise as the arm jerked back into the ruins.

The fuck?

Trunch trotted through low brush and fireweed, feet treading crumbled bits of rubble, the debris too small and valueless to haul away. He reached the gap in the foundation where the doorframe once stood. Only blackened carbon remained. Hand on his sword, Trunch stepped through, taking in at a glance the fire-gutted interior. A third of the upper floor remained, reached now by a ladder. Two of Groft’s Corpsemen — clad in the official burgundy tunics and pantaloons, striped white down arms and legs and horizontally about the torso — manhandled a body down the ladder.

“Morning to you,” Trunch said, relinquishing his grip on his sword hilt.

“And to you,” said the one at the lower end of the ladder, one arm wrapped beneath the corpse’s legs, descending one handed. His partner, one hand bunched into the fabric of the corpse’s jerkin, merely grunted, the strain of the burden evident.

“Don’t normally see you outside a collection point,” Trunch said.

“Well, folks are mostly good about delivering the cargo,” the first Corpseman said. “But here, so near the Counting House...Well, I consider it lucky anyone was willing to report cargo before it started to stink.”

Talkative, this one. Then again, most people did not engage Corpsemen in conversation. They did not hold the status of pariahs, not exactly. But a stigma attached itself to the occupation. Good families steered the disfigured and feeble-minded members to the Corpsemen. The poor considered it a reasonable option for the able bodied; their disfigured and feeble minded traditionally filled the ranks of Groft’s beggars. The point being, Corpsemen seldom met with an opportunity for a chat with anyone other than other Corpsemen. Those inclined to gregariousness would naturally pounce on it.

“Just this one?” Trunch asked, gesturing at the body with his fork.

“No, we’ve already retrieved three more. This is the last.” They’d reached the bottom of the ladder. Trunch picked his way through the the debris to lend a hand.

“Only three in the Counting House?” Trunch asked, surprised.

“In the Counting

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