guild rat? All Azoth had to do was wait until five minutes after Rat got back, then get up to piss. On his way back in, he’d kill him.
It was the only way Doll Girl would ever be safe.
He knew what becoming a wetboy would mean. Everything would change. Wetboys were knives in the dark. Azoth would learn how to fight, how to kill. He wouldn’t just learn how, he’d do it. Blint would expect him to kill. That niggled at him like a stare from Doll Girl that wouldn’t really count unless he met her eyes. But he didn’t think much about the specifics of murdering. He held onto that image of Durzo Blint, laughing at the entire guild. Durzo Blint, laughing at Rat and his little army. Durzo Blint, fearless. Durzo Blint, who Azoth could be.
Blint would take him away. Azoth wouldn’t lead Black Dragon. He wouldn’t even lead his lizards. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want the littles looking at him like he was their father, the bigs who towered over him looking at him like he knew what he was doing, like he would keep them all safe. He couldn’t even keep himself safe. This was all a fraud. He was a fraud. He’d been set up, and they didn’t even see it.
The unmistakable sound of the front door being moved aside heralded Rat’s return. Azoth was so scared he would have wept if he hadn’t told Badger to stay awake. He couldn’t weep in front of his bigs. He was sure Rat would come over to him, have the bigs lift him up, and take him away to some horrific punishment that would make Jarl’s look easy. But true to form, Rat pushed into his harem, lay down, and was asleep in seconds.
A wetboy wouldn’t cry. Azoth tried to slow his breathing, tried to listen to see if Rat’s bodyguards were asleep, too.
Wetboys weren’t afraid. They were killers. Other people were afraid of them. Everyone in the Sa’kagé was afraid of them.
If I lie here and try to sleep again, I might sleep here with nothing happening for another night or another week, but Rat will get me. He’ll destroy everything. Azoth had seen the look in his eyes. He believed Rat would destroy him, and he didn’t believe that it would be a week before he did. It’s either that or I kill him first. In his mind, Azoth saw himself as a hero, like something out of a bard’s tale: giving Jarl his money back, giving Ja’laliel enough to buy review, everyone in the guild loving him for killing Rat, and Doll Girl speaking for the first time, approval glowing in her eyes, telling how brave he was.
It was stupid, and he couldn’t afford stupidity.
He had to piss. Azoth got up angrily and walked out the back door. Rat’s bodyguards didn’t even shift in their sleep as he walked past them.
The night air was cold and rank. Azoth had been spending most of the collection money to feed his lizards. Today, he’d bought fish. The ever-hungry littles had gotten into the entrails and eaten them and gotten sick. His urine arcing into the alley, he thought that he should have had someone watching out for that. It was just something else he’d missed.
He heard a scuffing sound from inside and turned, lacing his breeches up. Looking into the darkness, though, he saw nothing. He was losing it, jumping at sounds when there were three score guild rats pressed together in the house, sleeping, moaning on empty bellies, and rolling into their neighbors.
Suddenly, he smiled and touched the shiv. There might be a hundred things he didn’t know and a thousand more he couldn’t control, but he knew what he needed to do now.
Rat had to die; it was that simple. What happened to Azoth after he did it didn’t even matter. Whether they thanked him or killed him, he had to kill Rat. He had to kill him before Rat got to Doll Girl. He had to kill him now.
And with that, the decision was made. Azoth held the shiv up along his wrist and stepped inside. Rat would be sleeping wedged in with his harem. It would only be two steps out of Azoth’s way. Azoth would pretend to stumble in case the bigs were watching, and then plunge the shiv into Rat’s stomach. He would stab him over and over until Rat was dead or he was.