“Sooo,” I intoned, trying to sound carefree, “you know each other, what a coincidence, and a pleasant surprise, saves me the introductions, now where were we? I believe we were negotiating.”
Vincha paused, then said a price, which was exactly eight times what I offered her.
“Bukra’s balls! What are you trying to buy, her soul?” asked Galinak. The guard groaned and moved and Galinak kicked him several times until he stopped.
“That’s a lot of hard metal,” I said. We could all hear the commotion coming closer. “It would be bad judgement for me to accept such an offer.”
“You showed plenty lack of judgement in employing an old burned-out Troll like Galinak.” I didn’t see Vincha’s face, but I could feel her smiling, “That’s my offer, take it or go rust in Tarakan Valley.”
“I’ll do whatever she does for half the coin,” suggested Galinak, “and I assume you’re not asking for sex, unless you have a really weird sense of—”
“Vincha,” I intervened, “it’s against my principles to pay that much for anything, even for your story, but I’ll accept it. Now put the damn blade away and let’s go.”
She obliged, releasing the blade from my throat but keeping it in her hand. Both warriors stared each other down, but Galinak was quick to smile and spread his arms wide.
“What? No hug?”
Vincha snorted a laugh, sheathed the blade, and busied herself gathering my lost coins from the table.
“You’re stealing from the Den,” remarked Galinak with the careful tone of voice one keeps for the suicidal.
“Never coming back here again, anyway,” she answered curtly, pocketing my hard-lost fortune.
“How is it going up there?” I asked Galinak.
“Hmmm, let’s see.” Galinak scratched his head with a bloodied hand. “Someone smuggled in a shock grenade and threw it, and when they raided the bar, the guards stationed above started sniping—and let me tell you, these guys never even heard of the stun button, so … it’s pretty bad, but I’ve seen worse.”
Walking through a bar fight involving four hundred participants was not a pleasant notion. “Is there another way out of here?” I asked Vincha.
“Sure, there’s a secret door leading to a safe house just around the corner. We can avoid all the fighting and mayhem,” she said drily, pocketing the last coin.
We looked silently at each other for a few heartbeats. “Are you serious?” I asked hesitantly.
“Of course I ain’t serious,” she shook her head at my gullibility. “One way into the Den and one way out. We’ll have to fight our way through.”
Galinak puffed a theatrical sigh of relief. “I thought for a moment you were serious about the secret door,” he admitted, and then we ran for it.
The gambling hall was now empty of patrons, but halfway across it we encountered a group of men disposing of the last standing guard. They homed in on us with greed and a lust for violence plain on their faces. Without saying a word, Galinak advanced casually to my left as Vincha took my right and the fight errupted. I paced cautiously between them, completely untouched, as if walking inside the eye of a storm, occasionally side stepping or ducking as people were flung, flailing and screaming, from one side of the room to the other. I couldn’t help but notice the different fighting styles of the two veterans. For Vincha fighting was purely business; short, economical gestures, arms close to the body, hitting vulnerable points for maximum damage. She cut through them like a hot blade through butter, breaking, twisting, gouging, and kicking without hesitation. Galinak, on the other hand, fought like it was an art form. He danced around, making broad gestures and finishing moves that occasionally used the Den’s few intact pieces of furniture and architecture as props. Very soon there was no one left standing but us. I suppressed the urge to clap my hands in appreciation as the pair brushed off dust and wiped off other people’s blood. Galinak was grinning broadly again.
We climbed the stairs and entered the main hall, which was now completely wrecked and with far fewer people in it. I could see at least three places, including the central bar and the wooden cage of the arena, where fire had broken out, probably ignited by a missed sniper shot. A few enthusiastic patrons managed to climb up to the elevated guard posts and were now engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the snipers. On ground level the guards were earning their pay, taking control of the area bit by bit, pounding every standing person they saw into a state of bloody unconsciousness. We avoided them by staying low and moving in the shadows as we headed for the door, thankfully without incident.
Outside the Den things were not much better. Many of the guards were lying among the wounded and dead.
The goggled Troll was standing alone, looking around nervously. For all his enhanced vision, he didn’t notice Galinak until he was tapped from behind on the shoulder, which caused him to spin around in fright, brandishing a blaster.
“I’ll have my weapons now,” said Galinak, surprisingly polite and calm.
“You can’t,” spluttered the Troll, “there’s a clampdown until the fight is done. You’ll get them back when it’s over.”
“I need them now,” insisted Galinak.
The Troll eyed Galinak with a sneer of contempt and steadied his blaster, pointing it at Galinak’s chest. “Rough rust, old snot. You’ll just have to cross your wires and wait.”
It was probably the wrong thing to say.
Sunlight rarely touches the Pit, so I lost track of time and it seemed like it took forever to get from the Den to Vincha’s home. We had to climb several ladders and cross a rope bridge to reach her wooden shack. It was indistinguishable from the hundreds of such structures, a neighbourhood built up against the base of the Tarakan towers in rows that rose above the lower market halfway to the Central Plateau and was adequately called Shackville. The word shack was perhaps an overstatement. It was a small, windowless hut made of rotten wood. Between the gaps in the warped floorboards, you could see the drop below. Even with the protection from the elements that the City of Towers provided them with, shacks would occasionally collapse, and the Pit’s residents would jump to help casualties—relieving them of the burden of their belongings at the same time, then using the leftover debris to build more shacks.
I sat down heavily on one of the only two stools available and massaged my temples. The air was hot, and there was a constant humming noise. Galinak wasted no time. He sat on the floor and began to dress a blaster burn with salve he bought from a Mender’s stall at the market, while Vincha poured us a drink from a flask she fished out from under her makeshift bed. To be precise, she poured two drinks, one for herself and one for Galinak, but did not offer me any, which, oddly, made me feel a little hurt. She downed the drink and busied herself chopping the eel we also bought on our way back. If the butcher in the ever-open food market thought there was anything odd about bloodied and bruised customers, she was wise enough not to show it.
There wasn’t much to look at, so I end up eyeing Vincha’s travelling bag while considering our current position. Vincha travelled light; her bag confirmed this. My guess was she planned to split town, but first she wanted to eat, gather her strength, and figure out the best way to hustle more coin out of me.
The cooker was powered by a cable she’d clearly attached without permission to a local power generator. Still, it was a blessing. Many residents of Shackville had no choice but to cook over open fires. Vincha brought two cracked ceramic plates to the small table. There were no forks or