He'd be laid up for days and pissing blood for every one of them, but limping home with a bag of gold rims heavy in his coat, every blow was damn-well worth it. He hadn't stayed for the congratulations, the festivities, the lake of drinks that would have been brought for him, or the sly temptations for him to fight another day. He shouldered past all of them as soon as he wasn't bleeding quite as badly as he'd been over the sands, taken his money and left.
Never to godsdamn return, he thought, and Konrad smiled at the thought, even though it hurt every muscle in his face to do so. To all of it.
Of course that thought on spiraled and grew as he shuffled over the cobbles, heading south for his home. But not for much longer. Not any of it. The Casino and the Bay, the Reaches and the Den, the Quarter and the Tent City, the cobbles and the sewers and the smoke and the thousands of damned souls... he was turning his back on the whole lot of it.
Setting Sunberth squarely over her shoulder, just another bad memory that me might linger on now and then while he basked in the Syna of Zeltiva.
And I won't be alone.
Two hundred mizas, and he was already doing the numbers. Fifty mizas each for passage on a ship, maybe sixty. The rest for their luggage, which if Konrad had it right, could all be carried easily by Hansel. Whatever was left would have to last them in Zeltiva when they arrived, and that would be hard, as all new beginnings were.
But we'll make it, he thought with a lightness of soul his boyd sure as hells didn't feel. Hansel's muscle, and mine. Gran's nimble fingers. Three working hands, more than enough for a roof over our heads. Still have to talk the old girl around but-
He turned the corner and his smile flickered. Ticks slowed, as did his pace. There were people gathered around the front door to the house. Locals, neighbors. A couple of old biddies he recognized as friends of Bessy and-
They were crying.
Konrad's stomach turned to ice. His heart stopped beating. Something tightened and clenched in his lungs and all the blood drained from his face. His giddy thoughts were struck down and there was but silence in his mind. A horrible knowledge that he willed himself not to speak.
"... no."
He ran. He ran though medicine said he should not be able to. He ran though every step jangled broken bones and muscles that were nearly torn from their resting. He ran and didn't feel, didn't notice, just prayed to any and all, promised what soul he had with a "pleasepleaseplease" gasped out as he went.
Through the crowd that had gathered around the door swinging open. Into the doorway and then he saw, he saw all of it and-
Someone screamed in Sunberth. The city did not pause, nor stir itself from its fitful slumber. A tick later it's echo died on the breeze, and the city that had killed Konrad's family purred on.