“It means you can bang as many women as you want, but you can never love one. I won’t allow you to ruin yourself over a girl,” Durzo’s voice filled with violence. His hands were claws on Azoth’s shoulders, his eyes predator’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
“What about Doll Girl?” Azoth asked. He must have been tired. He knew mentioning her was a mistake before he finished the question.
“You’re ten, eleven years old? You think you love her?”
“No.” Too late.
“I’ll let you know if she lives, but if you come with me, Azoth, you will never talk to her again. You understand? You apprentice to my fletcher or the herbalist, you can see her as much as you want. Please, kid. Take it. This might be your last chance for happiness.”
Happiness? I just don’t want to be afraid anymore. Blint wasn’t afraid. People were afraid of him. They whispered his name in awe.
“You follow me now,” Blint said, “and by the Night Angels, you belong to me. Once we start, you become a wetboy or you die. The Sa’kagé can’t afford to do it any other way. Or you stay, and I’ll find you in a few days and take you to your new master.”
Blint stood and brushed his still-damp hands as if washing them of the matter. He turned abruptly and strode into the shadows of an alley.
Stepping out from the niche he’d been standing in, Azoth looked down the street toward the guild home, a hundred paces away. Maybe he didn’t need to go with Blint now. He’d killed Rat. Maybe he could go back and everything would be all right.
Go back to what? I’m still too little to be the guild head. Ja’laliel’s still dying. Jarl and Doll Girl were still both maimed. There would be no hero’s welcome for Azoth. Roth or some other big would take over the guild, and Azoth would be afraid again, as if nothing had ever happened.
But he promised me an apprenticeship! Yes, he’d promised, but everyone knew you didn’t trust adults.
Blint was still confusing. It didn’t sound right how he talked about Doll Girl, but just now Azoth had seen something in the wetboy. There was something in him that cared. There was something in the legendary killer that wanted the best for Azoth.
Azoth didn’t believe that Doll Girl was worthless just because she wasn’t pretty anymore. He didn’t know if he could kill again. He didn’t know what Blint would do to him or why. But whatever that something was that he had seen in the wetboy, it was far more precious to Azoth than all his doubts.
Down the street, Jarl stepped out of the guild home. He saw Azoth, and even from that distance, Azoth saw him smile, white teeth brilliant against his Ladeshian skin. From the blood on the back porch and Rat’s absence, they must have guessed that he was dead. Jarl waved and started hurrying toward Azoth in the dazzling sunlight.
Azoth turned his back on his best friend and stepped into the shadows’ embrace.
12
W elcome home,” Master Blint’s voice was tinged with sarcasm, but Azoth didn’t hear it. The word home held magic. He’d never had a home.
Durzo Blint’s house crouched deep in the Warrens underneath the ruins of an old temple. Azoth stared in open wonder. From the outside, it looked like there was nothing here, but Blint had several rooms—none of them small.
“You’ll learn to fight here,” Blint said, locking, unlocking, and relocking each of three bolts on the door. The room was wide and deep, and crammed with equipment: various targets, pads filled with straw, and every kind of practice weapon, beams suspended above the ground, strange tripods with wood appendages, cables, ropes, hooks, and ladders.
“And you’ll learn to use those.” Blint pointed to the weapons lining the walls, each neatly outlined in white paint. There were weapons of every size and shape from single-edged daggers to enormous cleavers. Blades straight or curving, one- or two-edged, one- or two-handed, with different colors and patterns of steel. Swords with hooks, notches, and barbs. Then there were maces, flails, axes, war hammers, clubs, staves, pole arms, sickles, spears, slings, darts, garrotes, short bows, longbows, crossbows.
The next room was just as amazing. Disguises and equipment lined the walls, each painstakingly outlined. But here there were also tables covered with books and vials. The books bristled with bookmarks. The jars covered a huge table and were filled with seeds, flowers, leaves, mushrooms, liquids, and