Guardian of the Night

11

What Bilain needed was someone who walked in that world. Someone that would have a good knowledge and a keen eye for their fellow criminals. She wouldn't find them on the streets, or chatting to friends about the weather. Those kind of people kept to the shadows and the fringes of everyday life, preferring the darkness of night to ply their trade.

Gaming dens tended to move. Not because gambling had any prohibition against it, but because rivals were known to watch for any complacency and would raid a game with high stakes, taking the money for themselves. It was, in a very literal sense, a cutthroat business. Many was a time the Watch were called to stop those altercations, but, more often to clear away the bodies.

Bilain had seen enough bodies, of late. Not least over the night before. After a couple of nights of silence, the shadow figure had reappeared. More dead were found, beaten and broken. All thieves, rapists, murderers. Caught in the act or well-known but never proven. The shadow figure had returned with a vengeance and a brutality that did not look about to lessen. She had become a little obsessed about that vigilante to the detriment of the investigation into Yiladry's death and it had taken Ghusz from her.

A barging shoulder brought her out of her reverie as she turned into an unmarked alley. A couple of Bone coins had bought the location for her and now she wended her way through the tight confines, lowering her head as she passed beneath wet laundry, searching for the mark that would indicate the correct building. A passing drunk almost fell into her, but she dissuaded his clumsy attempt to steal her coin purse.

There it was, the mark. An upturned bucket beside an entrance where Bilain could hear the shouting, the groans and the triumphant yells of the game she searched for. Pipe smoke almost billowed through the doorway and she looked to both directions of the alley before slipping inside. She had come dressed as a normal Hathbadi, blouson jacket of deep colours, woollen hose and stout ankle boots. As far as anyone were concerned, she was not a member of the Watch today.

As she entered, she rolled a woollen hat over her short grey hair. She doubted it would stop anyone recognising her if they knew her well enough, but it would show she had come disguised and, perhaps, think her here for the game itself and not to carry any of them away to the cells at the Watch House. The raucous sounds of the game grew in volume as she took the stairs to the next floor, passing people sat, drunk or in despair, on the steps.

A roar broke out as she entered the room to see a large number of folks gathered around the table, a game in progress. Two men and two women sat opposing each other, a set of bone dice resting beside a painted, bone cup, ready for the next throw. It seemed more than obvious who was winning. The big Barathan man, long, black beard festooned with tiny skulls tied into the whiskers, a mane of black hair that cascaded down his back and a belly almost as big as the rest of him combined.

He swept up the dice into the cup with one smooth movement, placing two fat fingers over the mouth and began to shake them inside. The others watched that hand, alert to any cheating, but he passed his eyes across his opponents with a relaxed, smug smile upon his face. The pot in the centre of the table had become a small mountain of coins and the Barathan man had the largest amount left by his arm. Two of the others had nothing, everything relying on this last throw of the dice. The last, a ragged, aged woman that played the part of someone rougher than she was, only had a few coins left.

The dice continued to rattle within the cup. The Barathan man continued to smirk at the others and then he pushed into the pot the exact same amount as the last woman had to her name. She chewed upon her lips with a mouth more gum than teeth, flicked her eyes away from the cup to the Barathan before shoving her remaining coins into the pot. With a slam of her hand upon the table, causing the mountain of coin to cascade into a small avalanche, the woman sat back, glaring at the Barathan.