Grit

Two

"What are you doing here?" Drudge grunted as he helped me down into a chair.

"Getting your money back, you miserly bastard," I answered, pressing both my hands back to my side. "Or trying to. The woman who stabbed me took my supplies, my weapons, and Gunpowder."

"You have nothing, then?"

"I have a gaping hole in my side, if that counts for anything."

Drudge rolled his eyes, then hooked his thumbs under the straps of his grimy overalls.

"How long have you been on the road?" he asked. I shrugged, then regretted the motion, as even the movement of my shoulders hurt.

"I set out at three this morning," I mumbled, suddenly exhausted. "It took me about an hour to walk here after I was jumped."

Drudge shook his head. "No wonder you look like hell."

He pressed a small wooden panel on the wall, and a few moments later, a thin, weary looking young man appeared in the doorway to one of the other rooms in Drudge's home – a massive building that had once been a warehouse, and was at the center of Murkrune.

"Mutt," Drudge ordered. "Bring some food, and get a bottle of fireshine from the back room. Send the girl with some supplies to patch up my friend here."

I pushed myself up in the chair, staring at the floor. Drudge's slaves – his mutts, as he called them – had always made me uncomfortable. They were men and women who had fallen so far into debt to him that they could only give their lives and bodies in payment. It was hard to be served by or look at them, knowing that they had once been like me, and that I had nearly been like them. Fortunately for me, the only thing Drudge loved more than his money and his power was the chance to win a bet. I still had the scars from that day, but I also had my freedom.

A girl who was just a thin as the other man slipped through the door. She was pale, her clothes hanging off of her, and had her hair cropped close to her head. A box was in her slender hands, and she knelt beside his chair. Drudge had continued talking after ordering his slave away, but after my lapse of concentration, I hadn't bothered to continue listening. Drudge moved over to one of the tables, flipping absently through a large book there while he kept speaking. I was watching the girl beside me instead. She didn't speak, didn't look at me.

"What's your name?" I asked quietly. She glanced up in surprise. I tried to keep the pity from my face – Drudge often punished his slaves if they spoke out of turn, and never bothered to use their names.

"Moth," she said, barely loud enough for me to understand her. "Where are you hurt?"

I grunted, reluctant to remove the pressure of my hands, but she pushed them away, drawing up the bottom of my shirt and helping me to pull it over my head – lifting my arms pulled the muscle of my side, and was almost too painful for me to do alone. Her fingers were gentle against my skin, but I still gritted my teeth, gripping the seat of the chair.

"Whoever did this to you wasn't trying to kill you," Moth murmured, moving my hand back over the wound as she picked through the box she'd brought. "It's not deep enough. This wasn't a careless attempt at ending your life either – it was precise. Not far in either direction, and any deeper, and you never would have made it to Murkrune."

I laughed dryly. "You're saying that the woman who robbed me and left me bleeding in the sand wasn't trying to hurt me?"

Drudge looked over at me in confusion – he'd been speaking the entire time – and I snapped my mouth shut, not wanting to get Moth in trouble. She went a few shades paler, not daring to look up at her master.