Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover

  Well, how about that? Happy birthday to me.

  I grin up into his smoldering eyes. "Tell you what, nutless: Give me a lift over to where I can get a clean drink, and I won't hurt you."

  "Hurt me, little human?" He holds one of his fighting claws up alongside one of his tusks, so I can see how sharp they both are. "You?"

  "Hey, Deliann," I say loudly, so that everybody in the Pit can hear me, "maybe you don't know this: In the Boedecken ogrillo dialects, the word for knife is the same as the word for fighting claw—which is a, y'know, a euphemism for penis. The Black Knife clan lived out in the Waste—up until I had a little fun with them a few years ago. By the time I got done, all the other clans were calling them the Broken Knives clan—the Limp Dicks. That's why most of them left the Boedecken and came to the cities. They can't get it up."

  "Hari—uh, Caine; he says, rising uncertainly, like he's wondering if he should get between me and Orbek. "Maybe you don't want to go into this right now ... ?"

  "What, because of dangledick here?"

  "Uh, well—"

  "My father tells me about you," Orbek begins, low and deadly.

  "Fuck your father," I suggest, then decide I should apologize. "Oh, shit, sorry—I forgot. You can't, can you, softie?"

  He reaches down and tangles one fist in my shirt. He hauls me off the ground, my useless legs dangling free, and brandishes his other claw in my face. "How limp is this?"

  I snake one hand over his arm from the outside and grab the claw he was waving at me. An ogrillo's fighting claw is like an extremely muscular extra thumb that's jointed to the forearm below the wrist; like the thumb itself, it's not so strong against force that vectors outside its normal range of motion. I twist it sideways and down, and Orbek gasps.

  "Hey, it's like magick," I tell him, showing my teeth. "I've just turned a Limp Dick into a Jack Ass. Carry me over to where that clean water comes out of the wall, and I'll turn you back into an ogrillo—one who hasn't had his fighting claw torn off at the root. You follow? Play nice, and maybe you'll get the chance to fuck your father after all."

  But he's in no mood to be reasonable; maybe hitting the father-fucker line again was over the top. He howls rage and pain and lets go of my shirt because he needs that hand to hit me with. When he releases me, the only thing holding me up is my grip on his fighting claw; my full weight sags onto the joint, forcing it sideways and out, and it snaps with a dull liquid pop. His howl chokes down into astonished gargling.

  I hold on, and for half a second I hang there while he supports me with the broken claw—damn he's tough—but my weight pulls him off balance, and we both go to the floor. He comes down on top of me, but I still have enough play to bend his arm like a chicken wing; then I can extend my other arm behind his shoulder, grab his wrist and grab my own wrist with my other hand, my forearm levering his elbow up and back. I use the leverage to push his other shoulder into the floor beside us, so he can't get a swing with his unbroken claw. I straighten my arms a bit to take up the slack, and he grunts with pain, since I'm only about ten foot-pounds shy of ripping every goddamn ligament in his shoulder.

  His face is right up against the back of my left shoulder; if he was thinking about hurting me instead of thinking about how much I'm hurting him, he could rip the fuck out of my armpit with his tusks. I draw back my chin so he can get a glimpse of my smile.

  "Think about what you're doing, Orbek," I say helpfully. "So far, you've got a busted claw; that'll heal. About ten seconds from now I'm gonna break your shoulder, which will chew the shit out of your rotator cuff and fuck you up for life. And if breaking your shoulder doesn't work, I'll kill you and start again with somebody else. You want to negotiate, here?" -

  His flunkies are all gathered round, shouting along with the other prisoners—a couple of them shove Deliann back out of the way—but Orbek's on top and he's wide as a house. One of them winds up for a kick, and I grin at him. "Even money says I can take that kick, kill him, and kill you, too, before you get in another. Go ahead, tough guy. Take your shot."

  The ogrillo decides he should wait and see. It warms my heart, how much mileage I can still get out of my reputation. "So, Orbek, no help there. What's it gonna be?"

  Pain-sweat drips off his forehead, and he snarls wordlessly for a couple seconds, then lowers his head by my ear and whispers, "I give, but leave me some face with my boys, hey?"

  I give his arm a painful-looking twist, and he snarls again, tossing his head in a pretty good performance of agony. "Think about it," I repeat loudly. "Ten seconds. Then you die."

  He gets close to my ear again. "You couldna fuckin' asked?" he whispers.

  "This way's better," I whisper back. "If they kill me, you're covered."

  He snarls and writhes and goes through some decent pro-wrestler thrashing. "Yeah, arright," he whispers, then he hooks one of his tusks into the back of my shoulder joint, just for a second. "But remember. You win this one? You remember I coulda hurtcha. Maybe I be dead, but you be hurt, hey? I want some fuck-me consideration."

  Reminds me of me at his age. "Deal."

  I switch my grip on his arm so that I free up a hand to get a forearm under his chin, take his collar, and lever my wrist against his trachea in a judo choke. His head comes up and his eyes bug out and he gasps, "All right—all right don't kill me ..." all nice and hoarselike as if I really were putting pressure on his throat.

  Together we negotiate the complicated process of getting up from the floor while making it look like I'm still hurting him, and together we manage to convince his boys of the dubious proposition that I can kill him before they can haul me off. We end up with me riding his shoulder, one arm around his neck like a choke from behind, one hand still on the broken fighting claw to keep his wounded arm bent in a half-assed hammerlock.

  "Caine—" Deliann says again, his eyes asking me if I want him to jump in.

  "Stay there," I tell him cheerfully. "I'm just going for a drink of water. My jackass and me, we'll be right back."

  As Orbek sets out toward the dot of Serpents and their hangers-on, I tip a wink over my shoulder at Deliann. I'm not sure he sees it; he's rubbing his face like he's got a headache.

  The water streams out a pipe in the wall and pours into a little round pool with three trenches leading out; the whole Pit floor slopes gently down from there. Everybody will get a good view.

  Almost like being onstage.

  4

  Prisoners scoot back out of Orbek's way, clearing a narrow path of bare floor. "Who's in charge up there?" I whisper in his ear.

  "The guy with the green rag on his head," he whispers back through a ventriloquist's grimace. "Calls hisself Adder."

  One of the lesser luminaries in the Serpent constellation stands in our

  path. "Hey, Orbek, you all right?" he says, thinking he's being witty. "Don't

  that hurt? Musta been real painful when he yanked your claw, huh?"

  I give him a hard look over Orbek's shoulder. "You want to find out?" He chuckles. "Where you think y'going, cripple?"

  "I'm thirsty. I'm going to get a drink."

  The Serpent points back at Orbek's feet. "Water's fine right there." "Are you kidding? It smells like your mother's ass."

  This gets a pretty good laugh from the prisoners, and the Serpent's face goes red. "You got a wise mouth for a cripple, old man," he sneers. "I wonder, will it still feel that smart when it's wrapped around my dick?"

  "Hey, all I want is a drink. A clean drink, kid. Is that a problem?"

  Here it comes: Adder and his lieutenants are into this now, making their way over, grinning. They can't believe I'm stupid enough to put myself into their hands. "No, no, no, no problem," the Serpent says broadly. "But we got some rules around here, crip. Everything's got a price, huh? Right now, going rate for a drink is, you gotta suck me off. Nothing personal. Rules, huh?"

  "You think you're gonna get some off me?" I give a horselaugh. "I'm not a child molester, kid. Come back when you grow
up."

  "I'm growin' plenty right now," he says, rubbing his pants.

  "Aw, for shit's sake, Dinnie," Orbek says, thin and hoarse past my elbow around his throat. "Lemme through, hey? He's fuckin' killin' me."

  "Not my problem," the Serpent answers, but Adder puts a hand on his shoulder from behind.

  "No, let them through," he says, playing Lord of the Manor. "Caine's a celebrity, Dinnie. We need to bend the rules a little to make him feel welcome." He offers me a slight, ironic bow and sweeps a hand toward the pool of clear water. "And you are welcome, Caine. Please, be my guest."

  "Hey, thanks. You're a prince," I tell him as Orbek lumbers past. "You want to make me feel really welcome? Keep this shit-eating Limp Dick off me once I get down."

  "Orbek takes my orders; Adder says, "and he won't bother you if I tell him not to. Right, Orbek?"

  "Like you say, Adder," the ogrillo wheezes.

  "There, you see? You're perfectly safe here, Caine. I'm only sorry you weren't properly announced; we would have put out the good silver."

  Christ, everybody's a comic. "Yeah, whatever. One knee, jackass." I enforce the order with what looks like an agonizing yank of the claw, and Orbek groans as he kneels. I slide off his back and he rises over me, snarling.

  "Bastard," he says. "Fuck your father!" He draws back his big clawed foot to bust some of my ribs, but Adder stops him with a sharp word. Wonder what he would have done if Adder had told him to go ahead. Killed me, probably.

  Guess I'll never know.

  Orbek backs off, cradling his wounded arm and grumbling obscenities under his breath. Adder leans over me, just out of arm's reach, hands on his knees. "You understand, don't you, Caine, that I can only bend the rules so far? Sure, I let you in here. But I am gonna have to get over on you." He gives me a winning smile of shit-colored teeth. "Hope you don't mind."

  "I don't give a handful of snot what you do, so long as I get some water."

  "First things first," he says, his hands going to the waistband of his pants.

  "What, you afraid I won't put out? What am I gonna do, run away?" I roll myself over so I can get a taste of the water. It's good: cool, sparkling clear, with the high mineral content that comes of filtering through a hundred feet or so of limestone. I take a nice, long, satisfying draft.

  The general quiet in the Pit drops to stone silence.

  "You know, Caine," Adder says, grinning like a friendly alligator, "I think in the mouth isn't enough. Not for you. I think I'm gonna have to do you. Do your ass. That's like a, a, y'know, a surcharge, y'know? For taking the drink on credit."

  "What is it with you guys?" I ask him. "This whole butt-raping thing, I don't get it. I mean, I don't have any quarrel with rump-humpers-whatever sharpens your sword, you know what I mean?—but what is it about nutballs like you that makes you want to fuck a straight? I mean, I don't go around raping dykes, do I? Where's the fun in that?"

  He straightens, still grinning, and starts to unlace his pants. "Maybe it's an acquired taste," he says.

  "Berne was like that," I say slowly. "You've heard of Berne? I never could figure out why. I was gonna ask him—" I push myself up onto my hands and show him my teeth. "—but he died."

  Adder mirrors my look. "Then I guess you're lucky to have me around to satisfy your curiosity."

  Some guys just can't take a flicking hint.

  "Yeah, all right, I've heard enough." I pull myself onto the stone bench at the foot of the wall next to where the pipe comes out. It takes a little maneuvering to get turned around so I can look out over the Pit.

  Everybody's on their feet now, almost breathless in anticipation—watching Adder get ready to rape me is probably the best entertainment they've had in weeks. Even the guards line up along the catwalks, grinning and nudging each other. Some of them probably can remember the last time I was here, and they don't like me any more than the Serpents do. I can see Deliann, not too far away, at the fringes of the Serpents who surround me. He looks worried, but he's holding it together and keeping his mouth shut. A few shoulders away stands t'Passe and her crowd of buttlickers.

  I take a deep breath and shout, "All right, asswipes! Shut up and listen!"

  Like I don't have their complete attention already .. .

  "People've been telling me how things work down here—telling me the rules." I roll my eyes at Adder, inviting him to laugh along with me. "You know what? Your rules suck."

  He starts to say something, but I hold up my hand and keep talking. "I've got some new rules. My rules."

  I fold down all but my first finger. "Rule One: Fuck with me, you die. No warnings. No second chances."

  This causes an astonished rumble to boil up from the mass of prisoners. Adder can only stare at me like I've gone bugnuts.

  I pop the next finger. "Rule Two: What I say, goes. It comes out of my mouth, it's law. Break a law, you get hurt. Break it again, you die." Adder snorts contemptuously. "Done yet? Anything else?"

  "One more," I tell him with a shrug. "Rule Three: Fuck with my friends, it's the same as fucking with me. When in doubt, see Rule One. So—" I lift one hand up above my-head and waggle it. "How many of you want to be my friends?"

  Adder gives another one of those snorts. Sounds like he's got a turd up his nose.

  "C'mon, don't be shy," I call. "Let's see some hands."

  The Serpents are holding down the crowd with hard looks. They don't even have to go as far as make a threatening gesture; a simple shift of weight, a coolness in their eyes, makes it goddamn clear what they plan for anybody stupid enough to take my side.

  Somewhere in the middle of the Pit, a hand goes up.

  Prisoners step away from him.

  "You're dead, you stupid shit," Adder says. "You hear me?"

  In the middle of a clear space of Pit floor stands Deliann, his hand high. "I would like to be your friend, Caine. I hope I already am." Well.

  I guess that cold courage doesn't wear off.

  Adder says, "Put your hand down, dead man."

  "Hey, mind your manners, shitbrain."

  "What?" Adder looks down at me. "What did you just say to me?"

  "I told you to mind your fucking manners. What d'you think I said?" Out in the clear space, t'Passe joins Deliann, and silently puts up her hand. Now one of her followers goes out there, and another, and another. "I thought—" Adder says, "I thought I heard you say, `Adder, tell your boys to kill every one of those dumb cocksuckers. That's what I thought I heard you say."

  I shake my head sadly. "If I were you, I'd be thinking pretty seriously about hiking my stupid butt-raping ass out there and raising my own damn hand."

  "And why would I want to do that?"

  `Because if you don't," I tell him, "I'm gonna fuck you up."

  Adder rotates his shoulders, loosening himself up like a boxer between rounds. "Bold words from a crippled old man."

  "Think it over, Adder. It's kinda humiliating. Ask Orbek."

  "Worse than being gang-raped in the ass?"

  I roll my head around and sneer at him with scalding contempt. "You got a move to make, shitbrain? Bring it on."

  He squints at me. "Man, you are asking for it—"

  "I'm begging for it. C'mon, what are you, afraid of me? Shit, what a puss."

  "Fuck it," he says, and lunges at me. He starts to grab for my shirt, then stops himself—he saw what happened to Orbek, and he's not that stupid—and he settles for a hard kick that thumps one of my legs where it hangs over the lip of the bench.

  "Yeah, that'd hurt—if I wasn't crippled dumbshit. I can't even feel it." I give him a better horselaugh than the one I used on Dinnie. "How'd a moron like you end up in charge around here, anyway?"

  "Feel this," he snarls, and grabs one of my ankles, yanking me off the bench. I slap the stone floor in a stinging breakfall. He twists me over facedown, and I let my arms swing high to open my ribs for his kick. The idiot goes for it: his shoe crashes in, but I'm ready for it and I absorb the blow with a mu
ay Thai hiss. I wrap his foot with my arm, locking his toes into my armpit. With my other arm I push into a roll toward him; he lets out a startled shout as my leverage on his ankle forces him to the ground.

  It takes me a lot less time to adjust my hold than it does for him to adjust to being thrown; before he knows what's going on I've got his ankle and heel in a jujitsu lock that makes him howl.

  "You win!" he shrieks. Not so tough after all. "You win!"

  "Fucking right I win." I bear down on the lock until his ankle shatters with a crunch like somebody stepped on a wet pile of broken glass. "I always win."

  He screams: a. rabbit in the jaws of a wolf. I pull myself up his leg and punch him in the balls.

  This chops off his scream and sits him up, gasping; I whip my right arm around his neck into a forward headlock, brace my left hand against his shoulder, and grab my own wrist in a figure-four. He flails at me, raining punches at random up and down my ribs and legs, but he can't get any weight behind them; the only place he can hit me hard enough to hurt is my crotch, and there's no feeling in my balls anyway.

  The gassy thing about the figure-four headlock is that it leverages both of my triceps—two-thirds of the total muscle in each arm—and a fair amount of pectoral and lat into the lock, and it twists his head so that the only muscles he can use to resist are those on one side of his neck. From the inside, it's a losing proposition. Even though I'm weak as a kitten with this chemical pneumonia or whatever, he doesn't have a chance. I apply a little pressure, and he squeaks when he feels his cervical vertebrae start to separate.

  "That's it, calm down," I tell him gently. "Fight's over, bubba. You lose." The other Serpents are closing in around us, uncertain exactly how to go about hurting me. "Tell your bitches to back off, Adder. Before I break your neck."

  I give him some slack in the headlock, and he gasps through his clamped teeth, "Back off—back off! For shit's sake, do what he says!"

  They press away some. "More," I tell them. "Keep going. Little more, that's it, go on." I chivvy them back until we've got a sizable open space in front of us—I want to make sure everybody sees this.