Harbor Justice
Introduction
Genre: Urban Fantasy Word Count: 2400 Words
It’s a cold night on the hard, unforgiving streets of Terinu, and nobody seems to realize it’s a holy day.
Harbor Justice was first written in December 2014.
Harbor Justice
Dit could see the wisps of his breath in the white glow of the Harbor Bridge’s glyphlamps. Mother had probably let the boys build too big a fire while she set out preparations at home. Hopefully the house still stood. Maybe one day he could get one of those glyphstoves like Varino’s had, then he wouldn’t have to worry so much when he was gone. He took a deep breath, and sighed while looking down the canal to the black harbor beyond. If he buttoned up his worn brown coat, he could enjoy the quiet a few moments longer.
Work at Varino’s Fine Eatery had been busy that night, and he’d not even had a break after the morning shift at the docks thanks to a late ship. Gunthan, the little Thukish boy who washed the dishes for Dit to dry, had spent the whole afternoon humming some new song about a man who couldn’t decide if he loved his woman or the sea. Either way, Dit had wished he’d just pick one so the song could be over, but both the singing and his shift ended together.
A sudden gust blew in off the harbor, and sent a shiver down his spine. It looked like a fog was rolling in. Maybe it was time to get home after all. There were only a few hours left before Merogi, but nobody around seemed to care. The holiest of holy days was just another day here in Terinu.
Even though the buildings made a wall against the wind, Dit picked up his pace, careful to avoid the puddles of piss and filth that collected where the cobbles cracked. South Harbor was one of the most dangerous communities in the city, with a whore or cutpurse or incenser lurking around any corner. Completely separated from the other districts by a wide canal with only the single bridge going in and out, the Citizens called South Harbor a ‘vibrant immigrant community’. Dit knew what it really was: a ghetto. Even most Scriptors were afraid to cross the bridge, and more than a few of the glyphlamps in the area had been nothing more than chunks of engraved rock stuck atop poles for as long as Dit could remember.
Dit turned the corner into his alleyway to see the flicker of orange light and hear the sound of voices ahead. Two vigils, Terinu’s supposed keepers of peace stood outside his home, pikes resting against the shoulders of their heavy gray coats where a vertical band of red divided it, and short swords hanging from their belts.
“I wish these damn hagzags would learn Terin,” one of them was saying to the other as Dit came near.
“Halt,” the second commanded. “Who goes there?”
“Live here,” said Dit. “My home.”
The vigil looked to his companion, who nodded back to him.
“Damn he’s a big’un,” said the first vigil, a man with a low voice and dark eyes. “Looks like the rest of ‘em. Sure is dark enough, let him through.”
He brushed past the short men and opened the door.
“Musha!” he called. “Ii cham brea!”
He heard movement in the kitchen, and then his mother shouted, “Veres ahiri!”
Before he went to the kitchen, he stuck his head into the sitting room to check on the fireplace. To his surprise, his twin younger brothers had fallen asleep in front of a tame, well managed fire. Dit smiled to himself, glad they were finally learning, and then frowned wondering where the rug had gone.
There was another vigil in the kitchen with mother.
“Oh, good,” said the unusually tall man. There weren’t many people that could look Dit in the eye in this city, yet this vigil was one. “You’re the son? Maybe you can explain something to your mother for me then, because she’s not getting it.”
Dit exchanged a confused glance with his mother. She looked shaken.
“Maybe you tell me what happened?” asked Dit. “I just come home. Who you?”
The red haired vigil rolled his eyes. Dit balled his hand into a fist.
“Those men came, and they took everything! They even took our Mer-akai!” his mother said in the old tongue. The vigil exchanged a confused glance with Dit. He kept telling her that she’d never learn Terin unless she spoke it, but he always had to say it in Grahaz.
Dit turned to the vigil. “We robbed? By who?”
“Not like it really matters, it could have been anyone,” he said.
“Mother, who was it? Did you see their face?” asked Dit.
She nodded. “It was Hawknose and Batears.”
“Schaphai!” Dit swore. Abi and Rae, known as Hawknose and Batears after their most prominent features, were refugees like Dit but a little older. They had come to the City in the first wave, hardly remembering the rolling hills or the always blooming gardens of Haraz before the conquerors came. The two of them had always been troublemakers and took whatever they wanted from the other kids, but he’d never suspected they’d stoop this low.
“I know they where,” said Dit. “I show you.”
The big officer shook his head. “No. You don’t get it. I’m trying to tell your mother that there’s nothing we can do.”
“You mean will do.”
Dit glared at the vigil, and recognized that uncertainty even a man had when facing down a boy of seventeen as big as Dit was.
“Nothing we can do,” said the vigil as he stood. “My condolences.”
Dit followed the officer out the door, through the hallway, and into the Terinu night. A million Grahazi curses raced through his mind but the vigil wouldn’t have understood a single one. So Dit stood there, fuming as the three keepers of the peace disappeared into the fog. Are they laughing?
The heads of five small children vanished as he turned back to the door.
“Everyone bed!” he yelled.
Ten small feet clopped up the stairs to the bedrooms. Dit thought he caught the glimpse of his little sister’s nightskirt sweeping around the corner as he closed the door. The stairs creaked with each step, and he heard two small ‘umphs’ as he approached his bedroom door.
The twins pretended to sleep by snoring loudly, as if the will of their effort could convince him.
Dit went to his mat and lifted it, and didn’t see the heavy pipe he had stashed away there.
“Where is it?” Dit stomped over to the mat the little boys shared. “I know you’re awake, where is it?”
Neither Min nor Tue responded, but their snoring stopped.
“You were by the fireplace when I came in, and you two have never fallen asleep that quickly before. Don’t make me knock you together.”
Tue threw up the covers and jumped out. Dit watched his seven year old brother wiggle a board in the wall out of place, and pulled the pipe from behind, offering it to Dit.
“Why you take it?” asked Dit.
“We were hitting oranges with it,” said Min.
“And you didn’t put back?” asked Dit.
“Because we thought you’d find out we took it,” said Tue.
He pulled his arms through a second coat, and ruffled his brother’s hair. “Put back next time.”
“Where are you going?” asked Tue.
“Out,” said Dit.
“Can we come with?” asked Min.
Dit shook his head as he shut the door behind him. When he got to the steps, he found his mother waiting for him.
“You shouldn’t go,” she said.
“I know,” said Dit, the stairs creaking with each step.
“You’ll get hurt,” she said.
“I’ll be fine,” said Dit. He wrapped his arms around his mother and pulled her close. “I will be back before morning. Try to get some rest.”
He let her go, and was out of the house before she could say another word. Somewhere by the wharf a tower bell rang out twice, only an hour before midnight.
When Dit was little, foggy nights like this would scare him. It was as though the whole world had disappeared and there was no way to know where you were, or who was right behind you. Now though, he knew to stick to the walls and the sides of buildings. Over the last two years he had memorized his way around South Harbor as well as any long time resident.
Hawknose and Batears would not be hard to find. If they weren’t at Salamander’s they would be at home, the trouble was their lackeys. Everywhere they went younger boys followed after them, imitated them and hung on their every word. There was no telling how many would be around that night, thus the pipe. Home was closer, and so Dit decided to try his luck.
The smell of noxious incense hung in their alleyway. Through the door, it sounded like there were four of them inside, and they were excited about something.
Dit pounded his heavy fist into the door, and the voices stopped for a moment before they continued. He pounded again, and heard a commotion.
“Go away,” one of them shouted through the wood.
“No.”
As they fumbled with the locks on the door, Dit took a step back, hiding the pipe behind his back.
“We said go away,” Batears spat before he’d even looked out the door. “Oh, Dit. What do you want?”
No matter how he stood, Batears couldn’t block Dit’s view inside. Two younger boys from the neighborhood were sitting on the floor, passing a pipe of smoking incense and sorting through a pile of coins and valuables. Hawknose was sitting in a chair, a mug of beer in one hand and an incense roll in the other, and wearing Dit’s mother’s Mer-akai around his neck. It was sacrilege to wear the silver medallion, which was supposed to be hung above the doorway to ensure the Guard of Souls knew to account for the people inside in the coming year. To wear it was a selfish gesture and to steal it was even worse, but Dit doubted Hawknose knew that.
“I take my things back,” said Dit.
Batears shook his head and set the tips of his overlarge ears flapping. “Your things? What are you talkin’ about Dit?”
His grip tightened on the pipe.
“You come to my house,” said Dit slowly. “You take our things. I take them back.”
Batears narrowed his eyes at Dit. “You should go, Dit. You’re confused.”
As the other boy shut the door, Dit rushed forward and shoved his foot in the way.
“No!” he bellowed, and threw the door open.
Hawknose pulled out a knife and the kids were on their feet looking around for a weapon of some kind. Batears swung a fist at Dit from the left, and hit him square in the jaw.
Dit countered with a backhand that knocked Batears back against a table. He wasted no time, and thrust his fist into the other boy’s gut and knocked him to the floor.
Something wooden broke against his shoulder, and slammed Dit into the wall. One of the younger boys held the splintered end of a broomstick, and pointed it at Dit like a dagger. Dit brought his pipe around in a sideways smash that took the other boy in the side. He thought he heard a rib crack.
“Damn it!” shouted Hawknose. He climbed onto the table and launched himself at Dit.
It was pure luck Dit was able to divert the blade away from his chest and into his left arm. Hawknose lay on the ground from his failed leap, and Dit put his boot on the boy’s chest.
“Drop knife,” Dit commanded. Hawknose complied.
He bent over, and pulled the medallion off the other boy’s neck.
“Stay here,” said Dit.
He grabbed the rug and began to pack everything the neighborhood boys had been sorting. It wasn’t only his family’s things. He’d have to keep his ears open for anyone who was missing things in the neighborhood.
“You’ll pay for this,” said Hawknose. Dit stepped on the boy again as he went back out into the foggy night.
“Don’t make I come back,” said Dit.
All was quiet save for the distant lapping of waves on the shore as Dit made his way home. It was cold enough even the whores had taken shelter in some warm tavern, and Dit had the streets to himself. He noticed crystals of ice forming where the fog collected on the window when he stopped to check out the wound from Hawknose’s knife in a reflection. Luckily the thick wool of the coats had left him with only a shallow cut, nothing to worry about.
As he went, he stared at the silver medallions, and remembered years ago, when father had lifted him up to hang it over their doorway. It had been warm that day, and his mother’s garden had been in full bloom filling the whole house with the sweet smell of flowers. They had all been so happy, but so much of that was gone after the Vang came to conquer.
Dit wondered how long he had been gone, and quickened his pace, determined to make it home before the Lone Bell. If he could hang the Mer-akai before then, everything would be okay. For another year at least.
He managed to hang the silver medal on the old spike from last year just as the lonely bell rang out. Dit breathed a sigh of relief, and opened the door as quietly as he could. Inside, all was silent, and the fire was burning low in the fireplace. The flames sprung to life as he threw another log on and stirred the cinders. Dit set the bundle down gently and sat by the fire, enjoying the warmth while watching the frost creep up the window pane.
Even if I missed Merogi, he thought as he sat there in the quiet alone, thinking of his mother and brothers and sisters all sleeping upstairs. They don’t need the Guard of Souls. They have me.