Chapter 3 Rathok
THREE
RATHOK
The door splinters inward and I’m already moving.
My axes clear my belt before the first piece of wood hits the floor. I shove the woman behind me—Ivalys, her name is Ivalys, and I shouldn’t care—and face whatever’s coming through that doorway.
Two enforcers. Krev and Maloch. I know them both. I worked collections with Krev for three decades before he transferred to another district. Maloch is younger, hungry, the kind of orc who enjoys the work too much.
They’re here for the woman. For me, now that I’ve hesitated long enough for the Ledger Master to notice.
Krev’s bulk fills the ruined doorframe. His axes are already drawn, blades catching the dim light from the landing. Behind him, Maloch grins with too many teeth.
“Grimshaw.” Krev’s voice carries the weight of disappointment. “You know the protocol. The woman comes with us.”
“She has seven days.”
“The Ledger Master wants her now.” Maloch steps around Krev, positioning for a flank. Sloppy. Obvious. “Something about her… interests him.”
Behind me, Ivalys shifts. I feel her move closer rather than away, feel her warmth at my back, and something in my chest constricts.
She should be running. Any sane person would be running.
Instead, she’s positioning herself to watch both doorway and window, cataloging exits the way I cataloged them when I first entered. Smart. Dangerous.
Interesting.
“The contract terms are clear.” I keep my voice flat. Emotionless. The mask I’ve worn since before Maloch was born. “Seven days to settlement. The Ledger wrote it itself.”
Krev’s brow furrows. He didn’t know that. The information changes something in his stance—uncertainty where there was none.
Maloch doesn’t care. Maloch never cares about anything except the hunt.
“Orders are orders, Grimshaw.” He takes another step. “Give us the woman, and maybe the Ledger Master forgets you hesitated. Maybe he doesn’t ask why you broke protocol for some bookshop clerk.”
Bookshop clerk.
The words don’t fit. Nothing about this woman fits the profile of a bookshop clerk, of a debtor’s sister, of anything small and ordinary. The way she faced me when I walked through that door—not afraid, not begging, just calculating. The way the Ledger itself changed its terms for her.
She’s not ordinary. The Ledger Master knows it. I’m starting to understand it.
And I’m not handing her over.
“She stays with me.” The words come out before I decide to speak them. “Seven days. The Ledger’s own terms.”
Maloch laughs. The sound grates against my skull. He’s young enough to think numbers matter, to believe two against one is a guaranteed victory. He’s never seen me work.
“You’re choosing a human over centuries of service?” His grin widens. “Over the Ledger Master himself?”
I don’t answer. Answers are for people who need to justify themselves.
Maloch takes my silence as weakness. He lunges.
I let him come. Let him commit to the strike, watch his weight shift forward, read the angle of his axes and the exposed line of his throat. A lifetime of collections has taught me patience. Has taught me exactly how much rope to give before I pull.
His right axe swings for my head. I step inside the arc, too close for the blade to bite, and drive my elbow into his throat. Cartilage crunches. He staggers, choking, and I bring my knee up into his gut hard enough to lift him off his feet.
He hits the floor. Doesn’t get up.
Krev hasn’t moved. Smart. He knows what I am.
“This doesn’t have to end bloody.” His voice is careful. Measured. “Walk away, Grimshaw. Take the woman somewhere else. I’ll tell them you were gone when we arrived.”
Tempting. Krev was always the reasonable one. But reasonable or not, he’s still an enforcer. Still bound to report. Still obligated to the same master I’ve served since before this city had gas lamps.
“You’d lie for me?”
“I’d forget for you.” He lowers his axes. Fractionally. “We’ve worked too many collections together for me to drag you before the Master like some defaulting merchant. But I can’t help you if you don’t let me.”
Behind me, Ivalys’s breath comes quick and sharp. I smell her fear now—finally, properly—but beneath it, that same thread of anger. That same steel spine refusing to buckle.
She smells like rage and honesty and something else. Something I haven’t scented since the last truth-speaker walked Gravebind’s streets.
Truth.
The realization hits me like a blade between the ribs. I’ve smelled it before. Once. On a woman named Maren who could speak lies into dust and free debtors with nothing but honest words.
The Ledger Master killed her. I was there when he gave the order.
And now her daughter stands behind me, marked by a contract that shouldn’t exist, protected by an enforcer who should have handed her over the moment he walked through the door.
Gods damn it all.
“Go.” I don’t look at Krev. Can’t afford to. “Tell the Ledger Master I’m conducting an extended assessment. Tell him the contract terms require observation before collection. Tell him whatever keeps him off my back for the next seven days.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“He’ll believe what he wants to believe.” I finally meet Krev’s gaze. Hold it. “And what he wants is her. If I’m bringing her in willingly in seven days, he’ll wait. He’s patient. He’s always been patient.”
Krev studies me. I let him look. Let him see whatever he needs to see—loyalty, madness, something in between. After a long moment, he nods.
“Seven days.” He sheathes his axes. Reaches down to haul Maloch’s groaning form off the floor. “After that, I can’t help you. No one can.”
He drags Maloch through the ruined doorway. Their footsteps fade down the external stairs, and then there’s only silence. Silence and the sound of Ivalys breathing behind me.
“You let them go.”
I turn. She’s pressed against the far wall, arms wrapped around herself, but her chin is up and her gaze is steady. The mark glows faintly in the dim light.
“I let one of them go. The other one’s going to have trouble swallowing for a month.”
“Why?”
Direct. No hedging, no softening, no attempt to make the question easier to answer. She wants the truth, and she’s not going to accept anything less.