Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 5)

Ky wrinkled her nose at that. Even when it was outlawed, he apparently seemed to think it was a valid ‘business’ that they conducted.

(Ha no Ky)

Gaius saw her expression and shook his head. "If I had my way they'd all be rotting in the ground or off my parapets by now. Any slavers I catch in my territory are relieved of their prisoners immediately and they themselves are relieved of their lives with extreme prejudice."

Ky relaxed a bit at that and nodded. Good. Her opinion of him could stay cautiously positive. “I’m glad to hear that.”

He thought then of Gol Nasa's frozen head atop his wall and wondered if Ky would be upset by that, should she choose to go with him and Sara and their children. He expected so; even if she'd heard what he'd done the sight of the head would be another matter. Perhaps he ought to write to have it taken down.

(Haha yes)

“I just don’t see why people want to do such terrible things to other people for no reason,” she continued, talking before she thought about what she was saying. “You can make money baking bread, you don’t need to kidnap little children and break their ribs.”

Perhaps she’d earned that one. But none of it would have happened if they hadn’t been trying — well, succeeding — to kidnap her. It was all their fault, regardless of what she’d done.

"Maybe they're self conscious about the length and girth of their bread," Gaius suggested dryly. He'd castrated a few men for whom that certainly may have been the case, but a few others had no excuse at all, if that pathetic reasoning could even pass for an excuse.

Ky blushed at that, not quite sure how to respond. She wouldn’t know. She’d seen a few over the years of her pretending to be a boy when she couldn’t avoid it, but the only one she’d ever had experience with was Aleth’s — and that’d been debatably more traumatizing than his knives. Either way, making dick jokes with her father’s big brother — her brand new, terrifying, uncle — was not at all how she’d expected to spend her morning.

Then again, she also hadn’t expected to get stabbed or to come off the brink of suicide. So the past 24 hours had been filled with plot twists that no one could have anticipated.

Still, she wanted his approval. So, blushing terribly, she offered, “Guess that explains why they didn’t become butchers.”

Gaius snorted. "They might as well be." Perhaps he'd overstepped; he was unaccustomed to innuendo but it had been right there. The ego stemmed from the groin, according to his father. That seemed to be true in the case of the slavers.

She sobered a bit at that, and nodded. They certainly had been. They enjoyed blood, anyways. And tears. And groveling. And generally every other negative thing in life that humans were hardwired to find appalling, yet they delighted in them.

The mood had soured again, as it always did. Wonderful. "Did you ever run across a Pratik Chrenko?" he asked after a moment.

Ky’s eyes went wide in an instant and her gaze snapped up to his face, heart racing. Gods, gods, gods, gods, gods — “He’s up here?”

"No." He could see the terror in her eyes. "He's at Serpent Keep, presumably. He's been doing some work for me. I take that to mean you do know him?" He hadn't expected that negative of a reaction, though. Ky seemed like she and Pratik had aligned morals.

Ky swallowed hard. Well that settled that. There was no way in hell she was going to Serpent Keep if Pratik was there. But she forced herself to take a deep breath. If he was there, that meant he wasn’t here. Which meant it was fine. For now. If he was after her then now he certainly knew where she lived. She nodded, forcing herself to compose herself a bit. “Yes. Aleth hired him from time to time.”

"He's a good man. Steadfast, with the heart of a poet." And that was much of his promise as he'd break. "I sent him to Wolf Keep a few weeks ago and he was meant to return to Serpent Keep around this time."

(Dammit)

“Oh.” Well, she supposed it was good Tomhas and Ash were on the same side of things again. Tarr was a complete moron and Pratik probably milked him for every last piece of intel he’d ever had in his life… he had probably also found Aleth’s chest, which was a whole other problem in and of itself. But, wait, if Ash sent Pratik after Tarr, then that meant — “So he’s dead, then?”