Ten Arrows of Iron by Sam Sykes

Author:Sam Sykes [Sykes, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2020-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE CANED TOAD

In stories and other lies, you’ve probably heard of the Vagrant’s Code.

Some performer or rumormonger or drunk has probably told you about the rules. Vagrants don’t attack anyone who won’t give them a challenge, Vagrants won’t steal your last coin, If you utter the right lyric from the right opera just before they strike, Vagrants won’t kill you.

I’m not saying all of it is birdshit. For all I know, there might be some Vagrants who do those things. But overall, the “Code” is no more solid than the beer on a drunk’s breath. It’s considered rude among most Vagrants to attack without introducing yourself—and that’s mostly just so you can both figure out what your chances of killing each other are. Aside from that, there’s no guideline, no code, nothing that makes a Vagrant any different than any other outlaw except their magic.

The myth of the Code serves a purpose, though.

If a Vagrant attacks your village, burns your house, and steals your money, you give up. You stop working, stop laughing, stop living because a Vagrant can come after you whenever.

But if there’s a code, there’s order. There was a rule somewhere that you didn’t follow and, if you remember it next time, you’ll survive.

The idea that a collection of superpowered maniacs are all following some law is soothing to people. Even the maniacs.

And maybe, if I had thought enough, drank enough, lied enough, I could have convinced myself, too, that everything that had happened last night was all part of some code and not a bunch of people burning and dying for no reason.

Fuck me.

I tried.

I woke up two hours after I went to sleep, six hours after we had dropped the Oyakai off outside the city and snuck back in, five hours after I had lain in bed, aching and sore and dirty with my own blood, and failed to convince myself that last night had been anything but a lot of blood, a lot of fire, a lot of…

Well, like I said. I tried.

I hauled myself out of bed. Snow was still falling outside, observed by a bird that had perched on my windowsill to seek shelter. Cold gnawed at my wounds, sank teeth into my bones. Every part of me that wasn’t bloodied was aching, every part of me that wasn’t aching was freezing. It hurt, but I didn’t mind.

What came next would hurt a lot worse.

I felt his eyes on me. Two pinpricks on the back of my skull, burning red-hot against the cold. I’d tried to ignore him all night—his burning gaze, his hateful whispers. Even now, I wanted to just walk out, keep walking, never look at him again.

But we made a deal, him and I.

So I turned around.

And the Cacophony was still there. Staring.

Exactly where I’d left him—upon an old cloak on the room’s desk. The cloak had been burned to ashes. The desk now bore a black spot. Coils of steam peeled off his brass. My eyes met his brass stare.

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