Gutter Rats: Origins Chapter 4

The next day was a free day. Some of their squad mates announced their intention to sleep the day away. Others, those who hadn’t already spent their whole pay, were going back into the city to see what trouble they could get into.

Quyloc was puzzling over his book when Rome came to him.

“I’m going to see the boys. Are you coming?”

Quyloc jumped up instantly. He put the book in his footlocker and hurried after Rome.

They headed downhill, angling south and west towards the Pits. The neighborhoods got steadily meaner. When they were near, still in a civilized part of the city, not yet in the no-man’s-land of the Pits, Rome veered off to a market set up in a small square with a leaning statue in the center.

“What are we doing here?” Quyloc asked.

“I want to bring them some food. They’re probably running low by now.”

“You didn’t spend all your pay last night?”

Rome grinned. “I wanted to. I really did.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins. “But I held off.”

Rome haggled with the vendors for a time and finally came away with a sack of beans, a sack of potatoes, several loaves of bread and some wilted vegetables. “I wish I could buy more. I blame the ale. I wish I could buy more of that too.”

They continued downhill, both of them keeping a wary eye out for the crazies and the cutthroats. Even in the daytime, the Pits were dangerous.

They came around a corner and there it was, the rickety remainder of a building they’d holed up in for the last few years. Half of it had fallen down long ago after a fire swept through it. A tree was growing up through the burned remains. What still stood leaned badly to one side. It swayed in high winds.

Quyloc came to a stop. He felt a curious mixture of emotions welling up inside him. On the one hand, it was the closest thing to a home he’d had since his mother died when he was very small. There had been times when he almost felt safe there.

But, at the same time, he hated the place. He hated that he’d been forced to live like that. The constant, overriding fear. The knowledge that he was never safe, that violence and pain were always only moments away. Like some kind of hunted animal. All for the crime of being an orphan. He swore to himself that he would never go back to living like that. He’d rather die.

Rome was looking at him. “You okay?”

Quyloc forced himself to start walking again. “I’m fine.” Admitting fear or weakness to Rome was something he’d vowed never to do. Rome just didn’t really experience those things. He wouldn’t understand. Even worse, he might decide he’d been wrong about Quyloc. Quyloc couldn’t risk that.

“It’s good to see the old place again, isn’t it?”

“So good.”

Rome naturally missed the sarcasm. “We had some times here, didn’t we?”

Times of utter terror, Quyloc wanted to say. Like when the Maulers—a rival gang of older boys—ambushed them one night, and both Pim and Tim died. Or when the Skinner was hunting them. He got two of the boys—skinned them just like his name said—before someone killed him.

Rome waved at a small figure peeking out of the lone upstairs window. The figure yelped and waved back.

“It’s good to see they’re still keeping watch like I taught them.”

The other children came pouring out of the building as they approached. They swarmed around Rome, exclaiming over his soldier attire, trying just to touch him.

Rome greeted each one individually, patting heads and shaking hands. None of them so much as looked at Quyloc, who stood off to the side as he always did.

They carried the food inside. Stepping through the doorway was almost painful for Quyloc. The smell hit him like a punch, a mix of rot, sweat, and fear that he knew all too well. He stopped just inside the door, hoping this would go fast and they could leave soon.

But it didn’t go fast.

Every one of the children wanted to talk to Rome, generally all at once. Little Gleb was bouncing up and down, tugging on his arm, trying to tell him about some old thing he’d found. Effen and Herbig were on his other side, both talking at once. Even Gasparn, the new leader with Rome gone, seemed relieved to see him back.

Rome looked around and frowned. “Where’s Streak?” Streak was called that because he was the fastest among them, a wiry kid who could run.

Everyone went silent. In a low voice, Gasparn said, “We think the Maulers got him.”

Rome swore bitterly. “We should have wiped them out.”

How they would have accomplished that, Quyloc couldn’t say. The Maulers outnumbered them. Most of them were bigger, older. Their leader was an actual adult.

It was a relief when Rome finally stood and said he had to leave. The boys all clamored for him to stay, so their actual departure took quite a lot longer. It was afternoon before they were back on the street again, and a light rain had begun to fall.

Rome was talking about the Maulers as they walked, musing on ways to eliminate them as a threat, when Quyloc stopped suddenly and grabbed his arm.

“What is it, Quyloc?”

“We shouldn’t go this way. I have a bad feeling about it.”

Rome was instantly alert. His head turned, looking for threats. They were about to turn down a street they’d taken on the way in. It was narrow and shadowy. Like most streets in Qarath, it wasn’t straight but wound all over the place. They couldn’t see very far before the street turned.

“One of the Maulers must have seen us on the way in,” Rome said in a low voice. “They’re planning on jumping us on the way out.” He didn’t ask Quyloc if he was sure. He didn’t scoff. He’d spent enough years with Quyloc that he’d learned to trust his “feelings”. Sometimes Quyloc sensed things beyond what he could see or hear.

One instance, in particular, had made a believer of Rome. It was years ago, not long after Rome had taken leadership of the gang. They and the rest of the children were waiting in the darkness outside a shop they planned to grab. They were just about to go in when Quyloc told Rome he had a bad feeling that something was wrong.

“How do you know?” Rome whispered.

“I don’t know. I just do.”

“Are you sure? We really need this.”

“I am.”

Rome grimaced, thinking. Then he sighed. “Stand down,” he told the other. “Stay hidden.”

It wasn’t that much later four city watchmen came running up to the shop. They banged on the door loudly until the owner came out. Quyloc heard the words robbery and thieves before Rome called for them to withdraw.

After that, Rome always listened.

They passed by the street without turning down it. Quyloc looked back and saw someone standing on a rooftop, looking down at them. The person walked to the edge and yelled something to someone he couldn’t see down on the ground. It had been an ambush.

“You bailed us out once again,” Rome said. “I sure wish I knew how you do that.”

“So do I.” Of all the things Quyloc desired to know, this was the one he cared about the most. He was certain that his “feelings” were only scratching the surface of what he was capable of. There was a bigger world hidden behind the one he saw every day. If he could just see it more clearly, if he could just learn its ways, his whole life would change. There was a kind of power to be found there, far beyond the power of muscle and steel. If he could master that, he would finally be safe. The fear that corroded his entire life would be gone.

“The important thing is that you can do it.” That was Rome. What mattered most was the results, not how they were achieved. “We have to do something about the Maulers. If we could come down here with a few of our squad mates, carrying swords, we could take care of them in an afternoon.”

“And we’d all be in the stockade by night.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But there has to be something we can do. This time it was Streak. Who’s next?” He ground his fist into his palm. “I’m not going to let them wipe us out.”

“Why not just become king? Then you can fix it so orphans don’t have to live on the street.”

Quyloc hadn’t meant it seriously, but he could see Rome thinking about it as if he had.

“You’re right. That’s the only way to really fix this for good. There will always be other Maulers.”

Quyloc gave him a surprised look. “Are you actually thinking…?”

Rome shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Stranger than that? I don’t think so.”

But Rome was no longer listening. “It could happen. Once I’m a general, who knows how things might go?”

“Only the nobility can become generals.”

Rome still wasn’t listening. “King Rix is old. He could die soon.”

“He has what, eight sons with different wives? Wouldn’t one of them become king next?”

“I’m not worried about them. None of them amount to anything.”

“You do realize you are only a private, right? You only joined the army a few weeks ago.”

Rome looked at him and nodded. “You’re right. I’ve wasted too much time already.”

“Do you realize how crazy you sound?”

Rome clapped him on the shoulder. “When I’m king, I want you to be my adviser. You come up with the best ideas.”

All Quyloc could do was shake his head.

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