Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Thirty Three: Nict

"Cover me."

"Huh?"

Arlen was already over the bar by the time Usk looked up from his drink. The underside was grimy and damp. Looking at the state of it, Arlen made a mental note to buy his next drink in a bottle.

"What are you doing?" Usk muttered, barely more than a murmur.

"The brat," Arlen hissed. "Get rid of him."

As if on cue, Silas's voice piped up from the other side of the bar at that moment.

"Where's Arlen?"

"Probably off doing something more important than whatever you have to say," Usk grunted. "Can I take a message?"

"I can tell you know where he is."

Usk snorted. "Got some balls on you tonight, kid. Better keep that tone in check before they go missing."

The bar stool creaked. Silas's voice was several degrees quieter and less imperious when he next spoke.

"Please," he said, "I really need to talk to him about something and he's avoiding me."

Usk barked a laugh, his tankard going down on the bar with a thump. "Sorry, kid. Don't know where he is. He doesn't routinely avoid people so maybe consider if you're being an insufferable pain in the arse before trying again, alright?"

"Yeah," Silas said, sullen. "Sure. Thanks anyway."

Arlen waited, crouched under the bar, for a full minute before he heard Usk's all-clear. He straightened and hopped back onto his stool, sighing.

"He didn't even notice your drink," Usk muttered, chuckling quietly.

"He's a waste of time," Arlen said. "He's useless. He's got so little potential it's almost funny."

"Don't mince your words," Usk said.

Arlen just grunted, draining the last of his beer and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He had been dodging the boy all day. At first he had appeared at the beer hall while Marick was absent, and that afternoon Arlen had avoided going back to his rooms because he'd sighted Silas heading in that direction. He had thought that one of the last taverns open in the dead quarter – the seediest one he could find – might at least deter the boy from looking, but he'd tracked Arlen there as well. He knew at some point he would have to set the kid straight on several things, but he couldn't bear the whining.

The dregs of the beer from his tankard tasted like dust. He grimaced and beckoned over the barman to ask for a bottle of something stronger.

"What was it Marick asked you to do again?" Usk said. He seemed unperturbed by his dirty drinking glass, but accepted a swig from Arlen's whisky.

"Find the dumb bugger who killed that Unspoken," Arlen said. The injustice of it still rankled. He had been nothing but loyal to Marick and the Devils' cause, and yet he was getting lumped with burdens like a whining fugitive acolyte and the most confounding murder case in a century, like he was being punished for something he hadn't been made aware of. "Like I'm supposed to know where to start with that. I make the crimes, I don't solve them, night take me."

"Maybe your old pal Yddris would help if you asked nicely."

"Bring him up again and I'll fucking cut you."

Usk held up his hands, chuckling quietly, and said nothing more.

Arlen scowled, still wound up and ready to pick a fight. Just the mention of the Unspoken had him fuming, and that made his anger even worse, that that freak of nature even had that much hold over him. No one had that much hold over him. Marick had his loyalties, but Arlen's emotions were his own.