Something in the conversation had attracted Resalet's attention. "Whandall, how do you reckon we keep the Placehold when everybody wants it?"
"We watch. We can fight-"
"We can fight," Resalet said. "But we couldn't fight everyone."
"Serpent's Walk," Whandall said.
Resalet nodded gravely. "But Serpent's Walk can't fight Bull Pizzle and, Owl Beak and Maze Walkers all together. And what happens if Lord Pelzed wants to live here?"
Whandall had never thought of that.
Resalet grinned, showing as many black spaces as teeth. "We're smarter than they are. We have rules," he said. "And the first one is, don't start tights you can't win. Don't even start fights that will cost you strength. But once you do get in a fight, win it no matter what happens, no matter what it costs. Always win! Always win big. Make an example of your enemies, every time."
"Lords do that too." They'd done it to Whandall. "What if you can't win?"
Resalet's grin widened. "You never think about that once it's started." I le went back to his soup.
Whandall was about to say something, but Wanshig put his bowl aside and stood up. "Show you something."
"What?"
"Come on." Wanshig pulled a burning stick from the cook fire and ran, whirling it round his head.
He was through the courtyard's narrow entrance with Whandall just behind him. The flame gleamed pale in the dusk. Wanshig skidded around another corner, crossed the street diagonally, and...
Whandall, running behind him, saw Wanshig hurl the torch through the window of Goldsmith's wire jewelry shop. The owner was just about to pull the shutter down for the night. He screeched as the torch went past his ear-
And the flame snuffed out.
Wanshig kept running past the store, whooping. Whandall followed. In the shadow of an alley they stopped to breathe, then to laugh.
"See? If the Burning isn't on us, indoor fires just go out. Then maybe you get laughed at and maybe you get beat up, depending. So don't be the one to start the Burning. Let someone else do it." Wanshig grinned. "You were about to get a beating," he said.
"I just wanted to know-"
"You wanted to know what happens if so many come after us that we can't win," Wanshig said. "Whandall, you know what would happen. We'd run away. But Resalet can't say that! Not even inside the Placehold. If the story got out that you could take the Placehold without killing every one of us, that any of us even thinks that way-we're gone."
Chapter 14
One day a fire began in the brush behind a kinless house just outside Serpent's Walk territory. All the kinless in that area turned out. They brought a big wagon pulled by the small kinless ponies. It had a tank on it, and kinless men dipped water from it and threw it on the fire until it was out.
Whandall watched from behind a flowering hedge. On the way home he gathered an apple to give Resalet.
"Why do they bother? The fire would go out. Wouldn't it?" Whandall asked.
Resalet was in a mellow mood. "Kinless don't believe in Yangin-Atep," he said. "So Yangin-Atep doesn't always protect them. Against us, yes, unless there's a Burning. Sometimes against accidents. Not always, and the kinless don't wait to find out."
"Those wagons-"
"They keep them in the stable area," Resalet said.
"What if the fire is too far away?"
Resalet shrugged. "I've seen them turn out with buckets when there's water in the River of Spirits."
The River of Spirits flowed out of the forest and down through Lordkin territory before it reached the kinless area. It stank. Whandall thought he'd rather see Placehold burn than have a fire put out with what was in that river.
There was much to learn about Yangin-Atep, and one could ask. Mother's Mother told him some. When she was a girl she had heard a tale that the kinless had once been warriors with a god of their own, before Yangin-Atep and the Lords brought the Lordkin to Tep's Town. She couldn't remember who had told her the story, and she thought the days were hotter than they used to be.
Days were long for Whandall. He was smaller than other boys his age, and the months spent healing, and afterward doing children's work, had lost him what friends he might have had. His best friend was his older brother Wan-shig, and Shig didn't always want a smaller boy hanging around with him.
There was little to do. His uncles were content to have him hang around Placehold in case of need, but that was no life.
His younger brother Shastern had grown while Whandall was recovering. Now anyone seeing them together took Shastern for the elder. Shastern was deeply involved in Serpent's Walk activities. He was leader of a band that gathered from the kinless in Owl Beak.
"Come with us, Whandall," Shastern urged. "Lord Pelzed wants us to look at a street in Bull Fizzle territory."
"Why? I can't run fast."
"No, but you can lurk. If you don't do it, I'll have to."
Whandall thought about that. "You didn't used to be very good at lurking."
"I'm learning. But you're better."
"What are we looking for?" Whandall asked.
"Dark Man's Cup Street. It's right at the border-"
"I know where it is," Whandall said. "There's nothing there! Shaz, there's nothing to gather. What would Lord Pelzed want with that place?"
Shastern shook his head. "He didn't tell me. He said to find who's living there now. When was the last time you were there?"
Whandall thought back. "Six weeks? I was following a kinless, but maybe he knew I was behind him." Whandall shrugged. "I lost him in the trash on that street. It's that bad."
"Come tell Lord Pelzed."
"I think he's mad at me-"
Shastern shook his head. "Not that I know of. Whandall, you have to see him sometime. This way you can do him a favor."
"All right." Whandall felt his heart beat faster. Suppose Pelzed-Lord Pelzed!-wanted him to pay for the cart and clothes? Or the roof Tras Preetror had promised? But Shastern was right-he had to know sometime.
Pelzed found time for the boys that afternoon. "Shastern says you followed a kinless to Dark Man's Cup," he said. "Have some tea."
The tea was weak and didn't do anything to Whandall's head. He sipped and found it good. "He was kinless," Whandall said, "but he didn't live there."
"Who does?"
"I only saw some women."
"I.ordkin?"
"Yes. I think so," Whandall said. "Lord Pelzed, Dark Man's Cup looks
like there hasn't been a kinless there for years! It's all trash and weeds in
the street, and it stinks."
"Children?"
"Two babies," Whandall said. "Dirty, like their mothers."
"No men?"
"I didn't see any."
"Go find out," Pelzed said.
"Lord-"
"Go find out. There'll be men. Find out who they are."
"Lord, why? There's nothing there!"
"But there could be," Pelzed said. "And I'll send Tumbanton with you. Have some more tea."
Dark Man's Cup lay on the other side of a small gully that had running water during the rainy season but was usually dry. The creek bed was filled with trash and sewage, and there was no bridge. Three boys and an older man picked their way through the trash, with Whandall in the lead.
Tumbanton was usually seen at Pelzed's right hand. He was the whip hand, the trainer, when a boy joined Serpent's Walk. He'd saved Pelzed's life twenty-six years ago, when they were both no more than gatherers. He'd defended their retreat when a raid on Maze Walkers went disastrously wrong. Six had died. Tumbanton and Pelzed had escaped. Tumbanton usually went without a shirt to show the maze of scars from that event. He loved to tell the story.