Assassins After Dark

Five thousand years ago a great rock fell from the skies into the oceans of Earth. Waves fifty stories high crashed down on the shores of civilization, destroying the world men had made. From the ashes of destruction, New Earth arose...a brutal, hostile land...Shadowlands

Assassins After Dark

By

Mark James

i.

The banging on the door worked its way into Haken's head like a rotten, throbbing tooth.

"Alright!" he bawled out, throwing back the matted, filthy furs he slept in.

Where the hell was the bitch?

"The World ain't ending is it?" he said, drawing on his trousers.

The banging got louder, like maybe the man on the other side had decided to dance on the door.

"You fucking better have a Gods-cursed good reason for - ", Haken said, yanking the door open. The words died on his lips when he saw Diogo and Valak.

"Bright morning to you," Diogo said, smiling cheerily and walking past Haken.

The assassin was tall and powerfully built, with swarthy skin that looked permanently tanned. His dark eyes fell heavily on Haken. Valak followed close behind Diogo, tall, silent and deadly. His black eyes scanned the darkness.

"Find the bitch," Diogo said to Valak.

"Right," the other man said, disappearing into the darkness beyond the tiny room.

Diogo sat on a chair, tilted it back on two legs and put his black boots up on a rickety wooden table. He looked Haken up and down, a tall thick man whose bloated belly showed the ale he packed away nearly every night. His sleep bleary eyes were squeezed down to tiny points in the bright morning sunlight streaming in from outside. His scent filled the small room, stale liquor, piss and a nearly overpowering odor of sweat. Great oily drops rolled down the sides of his face as he stood looking at Diogo.

There was a thud in the other room, followed by a small, yipping cry, then Valak's low, grating voice saying, "No you don't, bitch."

Haken stood perfectly still as if to say, you're not here. This is a nightmare and soon I'll wake up and take a piss. You're nothing but a full, aching bladder, mister.

"Your payment's late," Diogo said, looking at the sack of shit in front of him.

"I been meaning to come by," Haken said. He licked his dry lips and tried a smile. He didn't quite make it and ended up bearing his teeth in an idiot grin instead.

"Yeah?" Diogo said, looking him up and down.

His dark brown eyes bore into Haken. Diogo's thickly muscled body always gave him the look of a crouched tiger, poised and ready to strike, even when he was sitting with his feet up and his arms crossed against his wide chest.

Valak came back into the room, dragging a pale, frightened slaveboy by the arm. He backed the frantically struggling boy into a corner and let him pull away, afraid that if he held his frail arm too tight, he would break his thin bones. The boy cowered in the far corner of the room, biting his ruby lips, looking from one man to the other, his dark green eyes round with fear. His hair, the color of new gold, gleamed in the shaft of sunlight that stabbed into the dank rooms and fell across his pallid face, giving him the wild look of an animal caught in a trap.

"You hear that Valak? He's been meaning to come by," Diogo said to his friend. He'd taken out a knife and now he used it to clean his nails.

"Right," Valak said, looking down at the boy in the corner.

His hard, angular face, nearly lost in dark shadows, showed no emotion. In the small room, he towered over the slaveboy, tall and built hard and compact somehow. He had a deadly air about him, like a cross bow always cocked and ready to deal death at a moment's notice.

He pulled the boy from the corner, dug his long fingers into his golden hair and pulled his head back hard. His other hand moved eerily fast, and a knife appeared from nowhere. He pressed the wickedly sharp blade to the pulse in the boy's throat, and looked at Diogo, waiting.

The slaveboy tried to pull back from the knife, but Valak paid no mind. He pulled the boy's hair tighter to keep him from cutting his own throat in panic. Unshed tears glistened in the boy's eyes and hung like gems in his long lashes. Tiny desperate sounds came from the slaveboy, but no words escaped his lips.

"Where's my fucking tokens?" Diogo said, looking at the tableau of Valak and the boy.

Diogo wasn't smiling anymore. His hard eyes had gone a cold shade, the color of freshly turned grave dirt. Haken glanced nervously from Diogo to Valak. The one time farmer turned veteran gambler and hopeless drunk, wished mightily that the earth would open and swallow both of these dark eyed assassins.

"My friends," he said, in his best let's-be-reasonable voice.

He smiled broadly, and this time it lit up his whole face, like sunshine coming out from clouds. He looked like the young man he used to be before he found his true calling at the bottom of a mug of ale.

"I can work this out, give me time."

"Cut the bitch," Diogo said in a low, irritated voice. He didn't look up from his work on his nails. "Make him scream."

Valak increased the pressure on his knife ever so slightly. A drop of blood formed on the boy's throat. He was used to using knives on men. That's why what happened next took him completely by surprise.

ii.

The slaveboy went purely crazy, thrashing and screaming, begging Valak not to kill him, to please have mercy on a worthless slaveboy. Valak was forced to drop his knife, or the boy's struggles would have slit his throat from ear to ear. Valak slapped the boy's face hard, leaving a brilliant red mark on his too pale cheek.

"Quit it, you stupid bitch," Valak yelled into his face. "Or you'll fucking kill yourself."

He grabbed the boy's too thin arm again, Gods, nothing's right about this bitch, he had time to think, and bent to get his knife, but the boy kicked out a scrawny leg and the knife went twirling across the dark stone floor. Valak glared at the boy. He wasn't stupid then, just scared.

Valak gave his arm a rough shake and the feel of the boy's bones just beneath his skin damped his anger. The boy grimaced in pain and cringed from the blow he expected.

Valak did something he never did. That's what kept him alive in his line of work. He acted without thinking. Without realizing he was going to do it, he swept the boy up into his arms and slung his impossibly light weight over his shoulder like the world's lightest sack of potatoes.

The boy immediately beat his small fists on Valak's back, but he was ready for that. The boy's tunic had pulled up and his naked ass stuck out over Valak's shoulder. He brought his big calloused hand down on the boy's naked ass, with not even half the force his hard, muscled arm could have given the boy. But it was enough to make the slaveboy yelp and scream, until his white ass turned beet red.

"Behave bitch, or I'll lay into you real good," Valak said in his hoarse voice.

The boy's struggles stopped as if a switch had turned off. Diogo saw something that gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his belly. A tiny smile touched the corners of Valak's mouth. He looked from that hint of a smile on his friend's face to Haken, who stood with his mouth hanging open like a door that's come unhinged. Oh Gods, I don't need this, Diogo thought.

Beads of sweat stood out on Haken's oily forehead. His hair was scattered helter skelter from sleep, like grass grown wild. He brushed at it, as if neatness counted.

"If you got a stash Haken, now's the time to dig it out of whatever filthy hole you got it in," Diogo said. "Down your pants, up your ass, I don't care. Get my fucking tokens. Now."

"I got half," Haken said, inching around Valak and the boy. "Half Diogo. I'll give you the rest come Good Day. Someone owes me." Haken's voice was desperate and somehow whiny at the same time.

"Nobody owes you nothing, you stinking drunk. You owe half the town and you're in hock to the other half."

"I swear. This sailor, he'll be back in town come Good Day. He owes me."

Diogo let the chair slam to the ground and dropped his feet to the floor. The sound was loud in the silence. The only other sound was the slaveboy's sniveling whimpers.

"I don't want half you lying shit sack. You got `til Good Day to get me all of it. Any later and I take it out of his ass," Diogo said, pointing to Haken's slaveboy. "Bring the bitch, Valak."

"Hey, wait," Haken said. "My bitch's worth five - no - ten times what I owe you." He started to go after the men and his boy.

Valak put the boy down and shoved him toward Diogo. He headed for Haken and both men met in the middle of the darkly shadowed room.

"No!" Diogo cried out. "Valak, back off him."

But it was as if Diogo had said nothing. Valak grabbed Haken's shoulders and jammed his right knee viciously into the other man's crotch. Haken doubled over, screaming. Valak grabbed his hair and whispered into his ear, "Don't pay shit sack. I'll enjoy coming for you." He let him go and stood back as Haken crumpled to the floor, holding his balls and gasping for breath.

Valak turned to the boy and grabbed his skinny arm. He bent so he was eye to eye with him. "You going to fuck with me?"

The boy shook his head back and forth slowly, watching Valak warily, like a lion that might pounce and eat him. He looked past Valak to his Master, still squirming on the floor, then tore his eyes away and looked at Valak again. The tears in his eyes slipped down his cheeks. Valak wiped the boy's wet cheeks with the back of his hand.

"Do what I say and I won't hurt you," he told the scared slaveboy. He picked up his knife and held it up in front of the boy. "Fuck with me, and I'll cut on you just for fun. You got me?"

The slaveboy nodded enthusiastically. Valak thought if the boy shook his head any harder, it might fall right off his body.

He held out his hand and after a moment's thought, the boy took it obediently and went out into Emyhr's bright morning sunshine with Valak. Diogo marveled at that. He could have never gotten the boy to take his hand. He would have to take him by force.

Just before they left, Valak gave Haken a sidelong look that Diogo knew better than he wanted to -- cutter's eyes. Haken was too busy writhing on the floor, trying to catch his breath, to see his coming fate in Valak's furious eyes.

iii.

"Jasari," the boy had said in a kind of oh Gods, I'm fucked voice when Diogo asked his name. He sat on the floor beside Valak. Diogo sat behind his writing table in the back room of The Pit, the whorehouse both men owned. It was a grotto like room, with a low ceiling, carved out of the dark red stone behind the whorehouse. Two torches burned on the wall behind Diogo. The walls and ceiling had a fine dusting of soot from countless torches.

Besides the massive table, the only other furniture in the room was two cherry wood straight back chairs that matched the table. The dark red wood glowed with a mellow gleam that made the stark walls look more like a room and less like a stone crypt.

Valak, who didn't hurt slaveboys for the sake of it, had bought the boy a plate of sausages, bread cakes and scrambled eggs. Jasari shoveled the food down his throat, with hardly a pause in his mouth, with almost alarming speed.

Diogo and Valak exchanged a silent glance.

"Gods boy, when's the last time you ate?" Valak said.

The boy paused a moment, a thick bread cake wrapped around a sausage that dripped oil poised at his lips, thinking.

"Yesterday Sir. Master had meat," the boy said. "He gave me bread and gravy." His face brightened. "All the gravy."

He popped the sausage and bread into his mouth, making his cheeks bulge comically.

"Well slow down. You're not worth anything dead," Valak said with a rough edge in his voice.

His boys were used to Valak's rough ways. They knew when their Handler was mildly annoyed, and when he was about to whip ass. But Jasari wasn't one of his boys. A shadow of fear crossed the slaveboy's pale face. The memory of Valak's cold knife pressed to his throat haunted his eyes.

"Go on boy, eat," Valak said in a softer voice. "I'll bring you more if you gobble it all."

The boy looked up at him, unbelieving. "You would do that Sir?"

Valak nodded. "Yeah. So slow down. I mean it."

Valak ran a gentle hand through the boy's soft, golden hair while Jasari ate. Diogo saw a look on his friend's face that he had come to know and dread.

"No," Diogo said, making the word two syllables. He shot up his forefinger, ticking it back and forth. "Don't be thinking of it."

"What?" Valak said, his eyes wide.

"Don't be looking at him like no stray pup. He's going back or we're selling him."

The stray pup look vanished from Valak's face and that hard, dangerous look that was never far came into his eyes. Cutter's eyes, Diogo called them. That's how Valak looked when he was carving up a screaming man like a Gods-Blessed Feast Day bird.

"Haken's scum," Valak said.

Diogo let it go. Long summers of friendship had taught him not to argue with those cutter's eyes.

All this seemed to go by the boy, who went on eating without looking up at the men. Outside, seven bells rang.

"Call them in," Diogo said. "Let's take care of this. Daylight's wasting."

The boy spared Valak no glance when he left. Diogo sat back with the air of a man at a particularly good magic show and watched the boy stuff another tremendous bread wrapped sausage into his mouth.

The moment the boy swallowed the last of the food, he looked afraid again. He wiped the crumbs from his full ruby lips and knelt between Diogo's legs looking up at him with his dark green eyes, more scared than ever.

"You going to sell me off, Sir? To Tooth n' Claw?"

The boy misread the surprise on Diogo's face.

"I'm sorry Sir. I didn't mean no disrespect. I know it's your decision Sir. Please Sir, I - "

"What makes you say that boy?" Diogo said, studying the boy close.

Jasari squirmed under his hard gaze, shrugged and looked down at Diogo's boots.

"Master's always saying he'd sell me if I was worth something. Always says a place like Tooth n' Claw is where a useless slut like me belongs." He looked up at Diogo. "Is that where you're selling me?"

Diogo was no good at handling slaveboys. Anything he said or did made things worse. He wished like hell Valak would hurry up.

"I ain't selling you nowhere. You're going home as soon as your Master pays me."

The boy fought back tears. Gods-curse it, Diogo thought, where the fuck's Valak?

"Softly boy. You'll be home before - "

"He won't pay you," Jasari shouted in a high screechy voice that grated on Diogo's nerves. "He probably left town already. He'll be on the first ship out."

"You're wrong boy," Diogo said quietly. "No one would do that to me. He'll pay, and come Good Day you'll be back home."

"Yeah," the slaveboy said, and sat at Diogo's feet and put his face in his hands.

Valak walked in. The relief on Diogo's face was ecstasy, salvation.

"They're coming," his Handler said. He was about to say more, but he caught the look on Diogo's face. "What's up?"

Diogo told him. In a few minutes, by some magic that made Valak the best Handler Diogo knew, he had the boy smiling. It was a small smile, but it was better than anything Diogo could have done.

Jasari knelt at Valak's feet, fidgeting with the man's trousers in a way that would have annoyed Diogo beyond all reason. He didn't know how Valak did it. Slaveboys all over him all the time, with their petty nonsense -- this one took that, he said this, it wasn't me, he got more cake than me - bawling, laughing, noisy. Diogo cringed inside at the thought.

Valak watched over the whores with a savage passion that was nearly frightening. The boys loved him. They obeyed Diogo out of fear, but they followed Valak's least command out of gratitude.

In the way of men whose friendship was born in the bloody brotherhood of the battlefield, the men had split the business between them without speaking of it. Diogo managed the money side, Valak managed the whores.

With men Valak was a murderer, a torturer and a ruthless enemy. With slaveboys he was a benign God who ruled fairly and whipped ass like the Devil Man himself. Every time Diogo thought he had Valak figured out, he'd see him with some new pretty he'd bought for the whores or a silly scrap of rug they'd begged him for.

Yet it was Valak who had talked him into the Kathara cut. When he and Diogo started the whorehouse, Valak convinced Diogo to part with over half their fortune to get the Kathara Sacrifice for the whores. It was only for boys who had been chosen to follow the Path of the Flaglent, or whatever the fuck they called it. But gold talked louder than the Gods in the ears of the Brothers, and the Temple had done the whores. The Kathara cut sewed up a boy's ass and left them with a deliciously tight hole that drove men into wild ecstasies of pleasure.

Valak took every boy they bought for The Pit to the Temple and had them pierced first, then took them back for the cut. Once a boy was pierced through the top of his cock, he never got hard again.

The piercing and the Kathara cut made the boys valuable slave whores, perfect for serving and giving pleasure. Men came from miles around to use the whores, even men with their own boys. Most men didn't have the gold to bribe the Temple for a Kathara cut.

Valak trained the whores they bought to take a good hard fuck without begging for it to stop or pleading for mercy. After a few hard ass whippings, they learned to take a man's cock with silent tears and whimpering moans.

iv.

The whores came trooping in, quiet and nervous, as they always were around Diogo. He leaned against his desk, watching them walk in and kneel in front of him in a half moon. He didn't know why they were so afraid of him. He didn't beat them any worse than Valak.

Nisha, a boy whore with shimmering copper hair, light pink lips and sultry blue-grey eyes that made men desperate, came too close to Diogo's desk. He brushed some papers off. The boy tried to save them and an inkwell went toppling to the floor, spilling across Diogo's trousers. The boy looked up at Diogo, horrified. He tried to clean the ink and succeeded only in making bigger stains, leaving handprints all over the trousers.

"I'm sorry Bahari," the boy kept saying. "Sorry."

The boys never called Diogo anything but Bahari. It was from the High Speech and translated roughly to Great Sir' or Lord'.

Diogo jerked his leg out of Nisha's reach. "Get off me bitch," he said through clenched teeth.

The boy paled and shoved his hands behind his back like Diogo's trousers had caught fire.

"Yes Bahari," Nisha said miserably. "Sorry. I'm real sorry Bahari. About your trousers and all."

Valak watched in silence. This kind of thing always happened to Diogo around the boys. He took pity on his friend, who looked ready to slap Nisha into roughly the middle of next week.

"Nisha," Valak said, snapping his fingers. "That's enough. Quiet."

The boy dropped his eyes. Anything was better than the look on Diogo's face. Even the beating Nisha was sure was coming.

"You whores like the life I give you?" Diogo said.

All four of the boy whores knelt on the floor in front of his desk. He sat behind his desk. Valak sat on the opposite side of the desk in the corner, watching over his boys, as always.

"Yes Sir," Yahsi said softly.

He pushed his wavy honey brown hair back from his face. His dark pink lips trembled with fear. All the boys knew what was coming. Or at least, they thought they knew.

"You treat us good Bahari," Reya said in a soft murmur.

The blonde highlights in Reya's straight dark brown hair gleamed in the torchlight. The boy bit his dark pink lips.

"You hear that Valak? My whores think I treat them good."

"Right."

"What about your Handler? He treat you good?"

The boys all nodded.

"Yes Bahari, real good," Taj said.

The boy's jet black hair framed a cinnamon colored face gone pale with fear. He licked his soft lips and tossed his hair, slipping a trembling hand into Yahsi's hand. Yahsi took Reya's hand on the other side of him.

Diogo leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, trying to ignore the ink soaking into his trousers.

"You're bathed, clean and fed everyday. That's more than some men in this town have."

Taj stole a glance at Valak, who looked right back at him. The boy dropped his eyes, sorry he'd ever looked up. Valak was serious and pissed. This was bad. Real bad.

"You're all prime slave flesh," Diogo was saying. "We paid a wagon load of tokens for every one of you."

Diogo put his feet down with a hard thump that made the boy whores stiffen and huddle closer together.

"You're all the kind of whores that make a man dig deep into his pockets, then sell what he don't have to fuck your ass."

All the boy whores were looking down at the floor. None dared raise their eyes to him. Diogo looked at his Handler over their bent heads and winked.

Jasari, silent and watchful beside Valak, saw it.

"Valak, there's one thing I don't ever do. I never force a boy to be a whore for me."

"It's not worth it," Valak said in his low, raspy voice. He always sounded like a man on the edge of losing his voice.

"No," Diogo went on, "I like my bitches to be happy."

Diogo looked at the slave property that he and Valak owned, half and half, all of them beauties that had cost them dearly. Not one boy would fetch less than five thousand gold tokens at auction.

"There's always Tooth n' Claw," Valak said.

A gasp of horror passed among the boys.

Taj, the slave whore closest to Diogo said softly, "Please Bahari."

"Who gave you permission to speak bitch?" Valak said, his voice soft and dangerous.

The boy cringed at the sound of Valak's voice as though he'd been slapped.

"Tooth n' Claw, down on the docks." Diogo went on, as if Taj had said nothing. "It's the first place sailors and soldiers hit to get some ass."

"He keeps his whores chained up in the day, but I hear he takes them out every three or four moons," Valak said.

"You think Kadiz would buy one of my whores if they didn't like it here?"

"I don't see why not. He's always looking for fresh slavemeat." He looked over at his boys. "You think they deserve another chance?"

Diogo shrugged. "That's up to you. And good thing for them. If it was me, I'd sell the bitch. Teach the others not to fuck with me."

The boy who had spilled the ink crawled to the front and knelt at Diogo's feet.

"Please Bahari. It was my fault. I refused him. Don't sell me," the boy said. He cried at Diogo's feet. "Please, let me stay."

"Why did you refuse a man?" Diogo said in a low voice that betrayed none of the anger that boiled in him.

"I already served four men, Bahari," the boy said. He wiped tears from his eyes.

"So you refused a man your ass?"

The boy nodded, twisting the front of his tunic into a bunch. "It hurts so much Bahari," he said in a small voice.

"No one gives a fuck how much it hurts you whore," Valak said in that same soft voice. You pissed me off bitch, that voice said. I'm going to make you pay.

Nisha pushed his coppery hair back from his tear streaked face and said nothing. It was safer to keep your mouth shut when Valak sounded like that.

"We hand picked all of you," Diogo said.

He leaned back against his desk. The boy at his feet took hold of his leg and wet his trousers with his tears, getting ink all over his tunic. Diogo let him stay like that, ignoring him. If he touched Nisha right now, he might beat his stupid face in.

"You got privileges most whores wouldn't dream of. In the day, you have the run of the whorehouse. You go out on the back balcony, instead of being locked in downstairs. On Festival Days, you eat sweetmeats. You don't have to kneel when I come in a room. You bitches live good here."

Diogo leaned down and grabbed the front of Nisha's ink stained tunic.

"You see this tunic?" He shook the boy and let him go. "I have to pay for another one. You're whores," he yelled at them. "That's why we bought you. I'm generous. I tell you only four men a night. But if a man wants your ass, how dare any of you refuse?"

"Bahari, please," Nisha said, raising his smoky blue-grey eyes to Diogo.

"Shut the fuck up," Diogo shouted into the boy's face. Spit flew from his lips and landed on Nisha's cheeks.

v.

"You cost tokens last night bitch," Diogo said to the boy. "I'm giving that man your ass tonight, free."

"I'll serve him Bahari. I'll obey," the boy said in a shaky voice.

"You're fucking right you'll obey. You're a whore. What do you think you're here for?"

"I'm sorry," the boy said. "I didn't know - "

"Didn't know what?" Diogo said, losing his temper. "That you're here to suck cock and get fucked?"

Suddenly, Diogo grabbed Nisha's silky, coppery hair and pulled the boy's head back, looking down into his scared eyes. Without warning, he undid his trousers and took out his thick cock.

"This is what you're good for," he said and shoved his hard cock into the boy's mouth.

All the boys watched Diogo's fat cock disappear between Nisha's light pink lips.

"You better not spill a drop or I'll make you lick it off the floor," Diogo said.

Diogo fucked Nisha's face hard, digging both of his hands into the boy's hair, holding him still while he drove his cock deep down his slave whore's throat. His balls hit Nisha's lips with every stroke.

"Fucking whore," Diogo said, thrusting his hips into the boy's face. "What the fuck you think you're here for?"

The slaveboys watched Diogo use their friend's mouth, too scared to look away. If they turned away, Valak would punish them. Nisha choked and gagged, but he kept his hands behind him. He didn't dare struggle.

Diogo fucked the boy's mouth hard, jamming his cock deep again and again, while Valak looked on impassively. The whores knew better than to piss off Diogo. The boy was getting what he deserved.

Finally, Diogo shuddered and arched his back urgently. He pulled Nisha's hair and thrust into his mouth, hard, moaning. All the boy whores saw Diogo's come trickle from their friend's lips.

Diogo pulled out of the boy's mouth and pulled up his trousers.

"Don't piss me off," he said, looking at his slave property. "Or you'll see how bad things can get."

He looked down at Nisha, who was wiping his mouth with a trembling hand. His tunic was stained with ink, and drops of Diogo's come.

"You're lucky I don't make you lick my come off the floor, you whore," he said to Nisha.

He raised his hand to slap the boy.

"Not his face," Valak said quietly.

"I'm sorry Bahari," the boy was saying, over and over.

Diogo threw his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"Whatever you do to them Valak, make sure you teach them a lesson."

"I'll take care of it," Valak said. "You done with them?"

Diogo nodded.

"Go downstairs and bathe," Valak said. "I'll be down."

The boys all rose to their feet and hurried out as fast as they could without running. Jasari looked up at Valak, unsure what he should do.

"Go with them," Valak said.

The boy followed after the whores, running to catch up to them.

Valak closed the door behind him and turned back to Diogo. A smile surfaced on his hard face.

"Tooth n' Claw? I wouldn't let you sell a rabid dog into that slime pit."

"They don't know that," Diogo said.

He sat at his writing table and pressed his tented fingers to his temples. "Refusing a man." He shook his head. "Who bought Nisha, you or me?"

"Doesn't matter," Valak said. "He's a good bitch. I'll take care of it before they go to sleep."

The laughter left Valak's face. He paced the tiny room. His long legs covered the small open space between the dark walls in three or four steps.

Diogo put his feet up again and leaned back in his chair. Coming in the boy's mouth had relaxed him. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Before Emyhr, Diogo and Valak had been what Diogo called purveyors of information. Sometimes powerful men needed information. Or needed things done. Things they couldn't risk getting dirty with.

That's where Diogo and Valak came in. Diogo negotiated the deals and Valak handled the blood work. Diogo softened up men with words that conjured such horrors that men fell to their knees, begging to tell anything, give up any friend, yield any secret. The men who didn't succumb to Diogo's words, faced Valak's knife. His talent was carving up men like a roast of meat, one screaming piece at a time.

Between the two of them, they had made a fortune, selling their talents to the rich and powerful. Eight summers ago, the two friends came to Emyhr and pooled their riches and bought The Pit and a couple whores. In two summers, they made all their tokens back. The whorehouse and the back room gambling had made them rich. Now they were business men by day, and assassins after dark.

Diogo opened his eyes and watched Valak pace the room. He had known his friend for too long not to know that something was eating at him.

"What's on your mind?" Diogo said.

Valak turned to him.

"You think Haken will pay?"

Oh Gods. Back to that, Diogo thought. He put his feet down and looked up at Valak.

"The bitch said he already left town, ran out on us."

"That's too bad," Valak said, sounding genuinely disappointed. "I was looking forward to slicing off a couple fingers."

"What's he done to you?" Diogo said, although he knew his friend well enough to know the answer.

Valak looked at Diogo like he'd turned suddenly stupid. "Did you see how he kept his bitch? The boy dirty, hungry and whip marks all over his back. What could a scared boy like that do to deserve scars on his back? Fucking drunk. Coward."

"If he ran out, we'll sell the boy at - "

But Valak didn't let Diogo finish. "No," he said.

"Valak, he'd be a worthless whore -- scared, skinny and all scarred up. We can't - "

"I said no." Valak looked his friend in the eye.

"Be it," Diogo said, giving up. There was no use arguing with Valak when he looked at you like that. "But he belongs to you, not the business. I don't want any part of him."

"Agreed," Valak said.

"I'm going," Diogo said. "Don't beat them too bad, I need them in the whorehouse tonight."

"I know how to take care of my boys," Valak said quietly.

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