Solitaire POV: Day 86

  Current Wealth: 307 gold 2 silver 33 copper

  I loved gambling. It was one of those wonderful pleasures in life, like blowing up a building or taking a limb off with a machete. Had all the right synapses screaming at each other for more, electrical ecstasy running through the brain in a nice clean circuit. Particularly, I liked doing it early.

  My mother took me betting a few times as a kid, and eventually the fun always evaporated. Spend enough time seeing horses race, and I’d learn what the actual odds were for each one winning, more or less. There were always unseen factors of course, I wasn’t capable of observing every particle in the universe- yet- but it meant that I could place a bet and be reasonably sure I’d win. The major limit of course was not wanting to get my head cut off by a bunch of gangsters.

  Thing was, we already had a bunch of gangsters trying to cut our heads off, so I had no incentive not to bet away to my heart’s content. Life was good.

  Elizabeth, the new join Beam had found the other day, was helpful for a lot of it. She’d learned all the right people to go to for information on things like this a long time ago, flitting from place to place, needling out the relevant information.

  Of course we didn’t have nice, big seasonal display boards to compile and record people’s previous win/loss ratios, and there were a lot fewer repeat fighters from what we’d gathered. What I was doing was basically no more than guessing, but I was a pretty good guesser, and the money started flowing in.

  A few silver here, a few gold there, and patterns started to emerge. Big guys had less of an advantage in weapon fights than brawls, but reach was far more of a factor. Stamina became the decider between people who were both well armoured, and polearms reigned supreme. By the time Beam’s fight came, I’d started to get some hint of what was happening, and I only grew more confident as we watched more. Helena surprised me by fighting on the same day as him.

  However much I enjoyed betting around in the smaller pools, Helena’s fight was one I had to see with my friends. Particularly when her reputation, as a member of the Belahont Company, was big enough that a few nobles might’ve actually been putting some cash on the outcome.

  Shango was already seated amongst them when I returned, Elizabeth in tow behind me, and the two of them couldn’t have had different reactions. Shango was evidently pleased to see me, and I was pleased to see him. Since his marriage with Phelia had been finalised, the Dead Edge had seemed to quieten down a bit, perhaps worried about making themselves a pressing issue for the people who owned a magic boomstick. Even so, it was always a relief when nothing came of us venturing out for things, in spite of our ongoing rule not to do so alone anymore.

  Elizabeth on the other hand looked as if I’d dragged her into a shit-filled lower intestine, only for her to find it crawling with tapeworms. Which was to say, she was a working class girl dumped in the middle of a noble’s gathering. I sympathised.

  It’s not that I don’t like people, of course, I just understand them. Which means I fucking loathe the cunts. Their stupidity, their casual, vicious cruelty, their animalistic selfishness. Most of all, their possessing the precise amount of intelligence needed to impede any effort to better them.

  Give me a dog, and I’ll have it obedient and trained within a week. Give me a human and there’s not a force on earth that could guaranteeably move them out of whatever arbitrary evils they felt like, not even the force of my towering intellect.

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  “You alright?” Shango asked her, making mistake number one. Phelia wasn’t with him, which was something, but I’d learned enough about our new friend to predict her response even before it came.

  “Shut it, bauble.” She grunted. Shango looked utterly baffled, and just a little bit wounded. Eyes suddenly creased with a frown, face wavering as if he were about to cry. It might’ve been cute, had it been a little boy’s expression rather than a grown man’s. As things were, it just irked me.

  “Don’t be so surprised.” I sighed. “Beam told us she was based, now move along, I want to sit down.”

  Truth be told, there was easily enough space on the couch, but asking for more gave me an excuse to bring up something that wasn’t Elizabeth’s entirely justified classism. It seemed to work, Shango shifted his position rather than ask any questions or hurl any retorts.

  “Lovely.” I grinned, looking out into the arena. “Elizabeth, tell him what we found out.”

  She did, quickly, without needing any clarification on the topic. Elizabeth, I’d learned, was a very clever person, and Shango had taken a peek at her stats when she’d first been introduced. Intelligence seven, one of the only ones we’d seen of such a level. She certainly spoke like she had a mind found only in one among every few thousand.

  “The Warhound.” She said, throat tight. “Also known as the Pit hound, also known just by his name, Aja. Presumably signed up under another name beginning with H. He’s a Vittonian, like Helena, and used to be a slave in one of their city states, fought as a gladiator. Won. A lot. Ended up here eventually, where he serves the Anophes family- the City Governors- and continues to win. Also a lot. Only one who’s ever beaten him was the King of Blades. That’s the most I know.”

  I did like that about her, the way she’d proclaim her information dump as all she knew, but throw in that little twisty smile. Letting a perceptive eye see that she knew full well how impressive she was, and agreed with whatever praise might be about to get shoved her way.

  Well, Shango certainly agreed with it too, and he grinned.

  “Bloody brilliant addition to the team, you are.” He noted, which seemed to stun Elizabeth. I supposed she’d had even less experience around nice rich people than me. Come to think of it, it was bloody weird how both of my best friends were in the top percent.

  Shango’s approval didn’t last long, though. Soon eaten by the dawning facts of what Elizabeth had told him.

  “Helena’s fighting a guy like that.” He breathed, frowning. Drawing the same conclusion I had.

  “I don’t see why she would be.” I noted. “If the only name that’d put them together alphabetically was one Elizabeth didn’t even hear.”

  Shango eyed me.

  “You think it’s a set up?” He asked. I nodded without hesitation.

  My friend was about to say something, I thought, but a new voice rang out before he got the chance. Prim, glass-sharp and silk-soft, all sleek and slippery like oil on waves, reaching my ears with about as much aristocracy as a genocide. I shuddered, head turning around to gaze upon a short, plump man with a pencil moustache, bright eyes and a smile so false it made me want to claw his tongue out.

  “Remarkable.” He grinned, jaggedly. “I’d heard the tales, of course, of the famous Solitaire Belahont, but to see you in action is…Why, I’m humbled, truly.” He took a seat on the end of our couch without asking permission, and turned to look at Shango that way people often did after finding out he was the one with the connections and money. Peering through me like I was transparent.

  Perhaps he’d feel inclined to pay me more attention if I started twisting his nuts off.

  “Do I know you?” Shango asked, with the tone he used when he thought he did know someone, and hoped he was wrong. The man only smiled wider. I had my suspicions already, of course, my brain tended to generate such things before even I knew it’d done so. But it still made my heart sink to hear them confirmed.

  “Lord Joshuit Val Byror.” He proclaimed, dripping with false pomp. “At your service. Might I be the first amongst my most esteemed class to congratulate you both on your unprecedented ascension, crawling one’s way up from street-rats to nobility in only a few weeks? Remarkable.”

  Everything he said, I thought, was some sneering little mockery, but there was no use in bringing it up. Shango evidently thought the same, because he was all business with his answer.

  “What do you want?” He asked, coolly. “Run out of gangsters to throw at us?”

  Byror smiled.

  “Oh, believe me, I haven’t. But I shan’t be throwing anything at you again, not unless my hand is forced, I’m afraid I was…Hasty in doing so as quickly as I did. I am merely here to watch your subordinate’s match.”

  I went cold, as he turned to the arena, and Helena strode out in her plate.

  “After all.” Byror continued. “I’ve sunk rather a lot into it.”