At this, the woman finally looked into Tretta’s eyes. No fear there, she looked calm and placid as ever. And when she spoke, it was weakly.
“May I,” she said, “have a drink?”
Tretta blinked. “A drink.”
The woman smiled softly at her manacled hands. “It’s hot.”
Tretta narrowed her eyes but made a gesture all the same. One of her guards slipped out the door, returning a moment later with a jug and a glass. He filled it, slid it over to the prisoner. She took it up and sipped at it, smacked her lips, then looked down at the glass.
“The fuck is this?” she asked.
Tretta furrowed her brow. “Water. What else would it be?”
“I was figuring gin or something,” she said.
“You asked for water.”
“I asked for a drink,” the woman shot back. “With all the fuss you’re making about how you’re going to kill me, I thought you’d at least send me out with something decent. Don’t I get a final request?”
Tretta’s face screwed up in offense. “No.”
The woman made a pouting face. “I would in Cathama.”
“You’re not in Cathama,” Tretta snarled. “You’re not anywhere near the Imperium and the only imperialist scum within a thousand miles are all buried in graves beside the one I intend to put you in.”
“Yeah, you’ve been pretty clear on that,” the woman replied, making a flippant gesture. “Crimes against the Revolution and so on. Not that I’d ever call you a liar, madam, but are you sure you’ve got the right girl? There’s plenty of scum in the Scar who must have offended you worse than me.”
“I am certain.” Tretta seized the papers, flipped to a page toward the front. “Prisoner number fifteen-fifteen-five, alias”—she glared over the paper at the woman—“Sal the Cacophony.”
Sal’s lip curled into a crooked grin. She made as elegant a bow as one could when manacled and sitting in a chair.
“Madam.”
“Real identity unknown, place of birth unknown, hometown unknown,” Tretta continued, reading from the paper. “Professed occupation: bounty hunter.”
“I prefer ‘manhunter.’ Sounds more dramatic.”
“Convicted—recently—of murder in twelve townships, arson in three freeholds, unlawful possession of Revolutionary Relics, heresy against Haven, petty larceny—”
“There was nothing petty about that larceny.” She reached forward. “Let me see that sheet.”
“—blasphemy, illegal use of magic, kidnapping, extortion, and so on and so on and so on.” Tretta slammed the paper down against the table. “In short, everything I would expect from a common Vagrant. And like a common Vagrant, I expect not a damn soul in the Scar is going to shed a tear over what puts you in the ground. But what makes you different is that you’ve got the chance to do something vaguely good before you die, which is a sight more than what your fellow scum get before the birds pick their corpses clean.”
She clenched her jaw, spat her next words. “So, if you’ve got any decency left to your name, however fake it might be, you’ll tell me what happened. In Stark’s Mutter, in Lowstaff, and to my soldier, Cavric Proud.”
Sal pursed her lips, regarded Tretta through an ice-water stare. She stiffened in her chair and Tretta matched her pose. The two women stared each other down for a moment, as though either of them expected the other to tear out a blade and start swinging.
As it was, Tretta nearly did just that when Sal finally broke the silence.
“Have you seen many Vagrants dead, madam?” she asked, voice soft.
“Many,” Tretta replied, terse.
“When they died, what did they say?”
Tretta narrowed her eyes. “Cursing, mostly. Cursing the Imperium they served, cursing the luck that sent them to me, cursing me for sending them back to the hell that spawned them.”
“I guess no one ever knows what their last words will be.” Sal traced a finger across the scar over her eye, her eyes fixed on some distant spot beyond the walls of her cell. “But I know mine won’t be cursing.” She clicked her tongue. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, madam, about Lowstaff, about Cavric, everything. I’ll give you everything you want and you can put a bullet in my head or cut it off or have me torn apart by birds. I won’t protest. All I ask is one thing.”
Tretta tensed and reached for her saber as Sal leaned across the table. And a grin as long and sharp as a blade etched itself across her face.
“Remember my last words.”
Tretta didn’t achieve her rank by indulging prisoners, let alone ones as vile as a Vagrant. She achieved it through the support and respect of the men and women who saluted her every morning. And she didn’t get that by letting their fates go unknown.
And so, for the sake of them and the Revolution she served, she nodded. And the Vagrant leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
“It started,” she said softly, “with the last rain.”
TWO
RIN’S SUMP
You ever want to know what a man is made of, you do three things.
First, you see what he does when the weather turns nasty.
When it rains in Cathama, the pampered Imperials crowd beneath the awnings in their cafés and wait for their mages to change the skies. When it snows in Haven, they file right into church and thank their Lord for it. And when it gets hot in Weiless, as you know, they ascribe the sun to an Imperial plot and vow to redouble their Revolutionary efforts.
But in the Scar? When it pours rain and thunders so hard that you swim through the streets and can’t hear yourself drown? Well, they just pull their cloaks tighter and keep going.
And that’s just what I was doing that night when I got into this whole mess.
Rin’s Sump, as you can guess by the name, was the sort of town where rain didn’t bother people much. Even when lightning flashed so bright you’d swear it was day, life in the Scar was hard enough that a little apocalyptic weather wouldn’t hinder anyone. And as the streets turned to mud under their feet and the roofs shook beneath the weight of the downpour, the people of the township just tucked their chins into their coats, pulled their hats down low, and kept going about their business.
Just like I was doing. One more shapeless, sexless figure in the streets, hidden beneath a cloak and a scarf pulled around her head. No one raised a brow at my white hair, looked at me like they were guessing what I had under my cloak, or even so much as glanced at me. They had their own shit to deal with that night.
Which was fine by me. So did I. And the kind of shit I got into, I could always use a few less eyes on me.
Every other house in Rin’s Sump was dark as night, but the tavern—a dingy little two-story shack at the center of town—was lit up. Light shone bright enough to illuminate the dirt on the windows, the stripped paint on the front, and the ugly sign swinging on squeaky hinges: RALP’S LAST RESORT.
Apt name.
And it proved even more apt when I pushed the door open and took a glance inside.
Standing there, sopping wet, water dripping off me to form a small ocean around my boots, I imagined I looked a little like a dead cat hauled out of an outhouse. And I still looked a damn sight better than the inside of that bar.