I let myself smile, really smile, for the first time since I boarded the steamboat below Thorncleft. “Orbek. Stud-daddy Black Knife.”
The hairless meat of the ogrillo’s brows drew together. “How come you go happy all the sudden?”
“You fucking knucklehead. Ever stop to think I might have something to say about Black Knives coming back to the Boedecken? Think about who I am, for shit’s sake. What’d you think I was gonna do when I found out? Throw you a party?”
The young ogrillo seemed to draw in upon himself: a smaller target. “Guess what? Don’t think about you.”
I inclined my head toward the steady stare of his bitch. “She does.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, “she’s got reason.”
“Shit, Orbek, I came all this way worrying I might have to kill you.”
The wary cold distance started to drain out of Orbek’s eyes, and he half-relaxed with a friendly snort. “No worry there. Champion’s got the killing part handled, hey?”
“Easy enough to fix.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. Walk into that arena and kiss her feet.”
Orbek’s head lowered like a boar’s. “Can’t do that.”
“Sure you can.”
Tusks swung side to side. “Black Knives don’t kneel.”
“My ass. That’s what knees are for.”
His head ratcheted lower. “Can’t.”
“What are you afraid of? The shit with Kopav? It’s handled, Orbek. I’ve squared it already.”
Orbek’s head jerked back up, and that wary light flicked back into his eyes. “You know about Kopav?”
“Everything I need to.” I cast a significant glance up toward the fog and the night. “I have a highly placed source.”
“Him?” Orbek’s nod was slow, understanding. His gaze still teetered on the edge of hostile. “Huh. What’s He want with me?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t give a shit. We’ll worry about Him after you live through this, huh?”
“I take a shot at Him once. You know that? Well, almost. On Assumption Day. Maybe He holds a grudge.”
“Maybe He thinks He’s doing you a favor.”
“And maybe khoshoi fly out of my butt. Needs to mind His own business, hey?” The young ogrillo’s arm tightened around the bitch’s meaty shoulders. “So do you.”
“You are my business, knucklehead. Give the cocksuckers what they want, then take your wife home and live happily ever goddamn after, will you?”
“Terlukk pagganik rez haggallo, paggtakunni,” the bitch murmured with an air of lazy malice. “Utoppik negge tesslent jeroppik Black Knife? Pok ler Limp Dick?”
“Black Knife ekk,” Orbek growled under his breath. “Paggano rez hagallo Black Knife. Keptarrol Black Knife.”
“What’s that about?”
He muttered, “She asks what she should tell my boys when they’re born. Is their clan Black Knife? Or Limp Dick?”
I scowled. “Doesn’t speak Westerling, huh?”
“Don’t ain’t same as can’t, little brother.”
“I get that. So what’s with Lady Macbitch? Why’s she busting what’s left of your balls?”
“She wants Black Knives to live free. So do I.”
“Free. Right.” I jabbed a finger at Orbek’s huge chest. “I know you, big dog.”
“You know shit.”
“Come on, kid, you’ve been talking about how you’ll never have pups since the day you adopted me. It was the reason you adopted me. Remember?”
“I remember lots of things.”
“What did she tell you? No fight, no fuck? Shit, Orbek. You don’t think this is a little extreme?”
He snorted. “Are you the right guy to jab somebody on going too far-” Lips curled back from long hooked tusks. “-for his wife?”
I had to look away. A second or two passed before I could squeeze the bloom of pain in my chest down into its usual fist-size ball of barbed wire. When I could talk again, I said, “You think she loves you? She doesn’t give a damn for you, Orbek. She’s playing some game of her own.”
“Love? She loves what I love. She dreams what I dream. That’s her game. Mine too, hey? That’s why we marry. She loves Black Knives. She dreams being free. Together, we dream Black Knife freedom. Together we make our dreams true. Forever.”
My headache came dripping back with each splash from the grille. “Maybe you’d better explain this to me. Small words, okay?”
Orbek disentangled himself from the bitch and rose. Suddenly the pit felt a lot smaller. “My fight with the Champion ain’t cause I don’t submit. It’s cause I don’t have to. We fight over whether Black Knives have to submit. To Khryl. To His Law. Get it? To say Kopav was self-defense, I gotta get down and kneel. Give my life to Khryl. Gotta say I live or die by your law.”
He shook his head, lips curling in a snarl of revulsion. “Kopav’s submission makes me Black Knife kwatcharr. If I submit, so does my clan. We belong to Khryl, then.”
“That’s idiotic.”
“You think so? When the Khulan Horde falls at Ceraeno, what happens to Boedecken ogrilloi? They got my same choice: submit or fight. They submit. And now here they are, hey? You see much of how Khryl’s ogrilloi live? It’s no fuck-me joke, little brother.”
“I haven’t been laughing.”
“But I am Black Knife. Now kwatcharr. Black Knives never make submission. Not then. Not ever.”
“Only because there weren’t any-”
“Yeah.” Orbek leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “Yeah. You do that for us, little brother. After the Horror we scatter to cities. Submit to other clans. By the time the Khulan Horde loses at Ceraeno, Black Knives aren’t Black Knives anymore. Kopav Crookback ain’t Black Knife back then; his sire gives him to Dust Mirrors. Kopav’s sire and his bitches’ other get die without submission. So my clan is free. Of all the Boedecken ogrilloi, only Black Knives are free. And they will be always, unless I hang chains on them myself.”
“What, you’re gonna die over a fucking legal technicality?”
“No technifuckinganything. The Champion is the Fist of Khryl. Stand against her, and I stand against the god. So I fight her, and I die. But I die fighting. I die free. Honor on me. Honor on my clan. Next year in Ankhana, there is my oldest boy, Orbek Black Knife: Kaiggezget, to be Black Knife kwatcharr. Black Knives live free forever.”
I shook my head. “Ever think it might be better for these pups of yours to grow up knowing you? Being with you?”
“Better than being free? Who am I talking to here?”
Somehow that’s always the question with me. I brought a hand to my eyes, trying again to massage the headache away. It didn’t work any better than it had before.
“My father runs to the city,” he said. “This is his shame: that he runs from the Boedecken. Those days, my father’s younger than me when you and me meet in the Pit. My mother dies in Alientown. Killed by a drunk headpounder. My father fever-chokes in the Warrens. My brothers die in the Caverns War. None ever sees the Boedecken. Until me. All we ever know of Our Place-all we know of Black Knives-is what my father remembers, from cub-time. Before the Horror. Before you. When Black Knives rule Our Place. When other ogrilloi circle from our track. When their bitches use magick to scuff out their scent because they nose ours. When men run from just our name.”
“People run from some of my names too, kid. It’s not something to be proud of.”
“You say. Easy for you. You walk like a king. More than a king-kings hide when you come to town. When you talk, God listens.”