Cold Rain

The clouds in the sky pressed down over what had been a fairly clear expanse, and Heka had no idea where the people from the Black Mountain Merchants would come from.

To avoid causing any unnecessary misunderstandings between the two sides, he simply sat down on the ground, tilting his head up to watch the sparkling droplets roll down from the eaves on either side.

The water here was truly clean. Unlike his homeland, where the rain was black. Whenever the rain fell, people could only put on heavy protective suits before daring to leave the underground shelters.

Heka held out his palm and thrust his entire hand into the rain falling before him. The icy sensation made him pull it back at once.

"Child, are you waiting for someone?"

Just as Heka was staring blankly at the rain before him, a scraping sound came from behind, like a door hinge that had gone unlubricated for a long time.

Heka shifted slightly, moving his back away from the source of the sound. When he turned his head, he saw an old man sitting on a little stool. The old man pulled open the door in front of him, revealing a bakery still carrying a warm breath within.

"Yes."

Heka put his smile back on his face and nodded at the same time.

"Come inside and shelter from the rain. It's too cold out there. You'll freeze."

Heka's gaze wandered around the old man's bakery for a moment. Then he stood and walked inside, but did not go any farther, stopping just beyond the threshold.

Although the people who had put a bounty on him had probably only seen him when he was filthy, he had washed his face and gained a little more physical strength. He no longer looked like he was nothing but skin and bones.

But wanted was wanted. He still had to respect people's desire for money.

The old man brought out a steaming kettle from behind the door. It looked ancient, and the strips of cloth wrapped around it had, after countless bouts of friction, completely fused with its iron handle.

"Sorry for the trouble, but my mother won't let me eat food from outside."

Heka watched as the teacup was placed on the table before him, then shifted his gaze back to the old man's deeply wrinkled face.

"Listen to your mother. That's a good thing."

The old man muttered, then dragged another chair out of the darkness.

The black night was strangely cold. Deko trudged forward through the puddles on the ground.

Although some people believed that the brat called Heka had most likely already escaped and that they should immediately block the harbor and the roads, Deko felt that the boy was not the sort to abandon his companion to the wolves. He had Heka's Tuft of Hair restrained, then followed the route the other man had taken to the library and searched all the way back.

With the arrival of the rainy night, the lights on both sides of the street gradually went out, and the colors of the street were consequently swallowed by blackness.

Just as they rounded the street corner, they saw a spot of lamplight beside the bookstore. The flame looked tiny yet steady, like a monster's single eye flickering in the darkness.

It was an oil lamp.

Deko immediately identified the type of light. He waved backward, and the people behind him instantly left the center of the street. They split into two groups, pressed close to the walls on either side, and advanced rapidly.

Beneath the lamplight, Heka placed a chess piece in the square before him. Then he saw the old man's lips curl upward. He had probably lost this move.

Heka examined the board once more, then nodded in understanding and raised both hands to show that he had admitted defeat.

"Another game?"

The old man put the pieces that had already been taken off the board back onto it. It had been quite some time since anyone had played chess with the old man.

"No. The people coming to get me are here."

Heka stood and smoothed the wrinkles from his trousers. Then he waited for the figures walking slowly toward him from the darkness in the distance.

Perhaps because of what had happened the previous day, when Heka rose as usual the next morning and began his daily sword training, he saw the man hanging from a frame near the wall, stripped completely naked save for a pair of underpants.

Heka's gaze paused on the man for a moment before he began today's practice.

As always, the wooden sword cleaved through the air before him. The sharp sound of it tearing through the air eventually woke the man hanging from the frame.

"It's you."

Kaso had sobered up considerably after being hauled out of bed.

Even after being drenched in rain all day, the stinging pain from the welts across his back had still not faded.

"You think you're so impressive. Once the job's done, you're still going to die. When that happens, I'll make you..."

Heka's indifferent gaze seemed to provoke Kaso's sensitive pride. He struggled to twist the thick hemp rope binding his arms, but the effort was futile, only making the rope, soaked through with icy rainwater, tighten further.

Before Kaso could finish speaking, Heka came to stand before him.

Kaso froze. Then a hint of contempt and frivolous arrogance appeared on his face.

"Go bring me breakfast, and some hot water. I won't hit you once I'm down.

"And get me some thick soup, too..."

"Do you need me to let you down?"

Heka stared into the man's eyes as he asked, then glanced at the clasp on the frame from which the other man was hanging.

The frame seemed to have been specially designed for punishing criminals. Heka remembered that when he returned, the man had been facing the wall. Later, probably to keep rainwater from landing on his wounds and causing an infection, they had deliberately turned him around so that his back faced the wall.

There should therefore be a mechanism here for adjusting the direction in which he hung. Otherwise, they would have to untie and rebind the rope.

Sure enough, Heka saw an iron pin above. It was connected to the rope below, and once the pin was opened, the ring suspending the man could probably be rotated.

When Kaso saw Heka staring at the rope binding him above, he immediately panicked.

"Don't undo it! If you undo it, not only will you get whipped, but my punishment will be extended too.

"Are you crazy? Stop! Somebody help! This brat's trying to screw with me!"

When Kaso saw Heka drag over a box and climb onto it to fiddle with the clasp above, he panicked even more.

Although the Black Mountain Merchants were a merchants' guild, they were more like a mercenary organization.

Compared with traditional merchants' guilds, their structure was much tighter, and the punishments within their ranks were far stricter.

Hadn't he been hung up and whipped all night? Yet he still didn't dare curse the person who whipped him. He could only vent his anger on this brat.

If the rope was undone, no matter the reason, his punishment would be increased. This was not the fair and impartial law of a city-state, but military law that valued absolute obedience above all else.

At that moment, Kaso was like a catfish hung aboard a ship, struggling desperately. But after being suspended for an entire night, he was already terribly weak and could not resist Heka's demonic hands.

Just as Kaso began wondering how he should explain things later so he could take fewer blows, the restraints on his hands did not loosen, yet his body rotated toward the wall.

Finally, accompanied by a grating screech of metal scraping against metal, Kaso abruptly discovered that all he could see before him were stone bricks covered in a layer of moss.