The notices appeared on the walls of taverns and brothels throughout The Second City. A sizeable reward offered by the mayor of Brume, City Under the Sand, for the removal of a Dalyan spider-witch who had taken up residence in their temple.

Most patrons of those taverns and brothels had other matters uppermost in their minds and ignored the notices or treated them as a joke. After all, only a fool believed in the existence of spider-witches.

An ancient cult of female assassins who swung from webs, climbed walls and ate the hearts of their victims? Ridiculous.

I, however, considered the chance to see proof of myth and magic in this dreary world, no matter how slim, well worth the journey.

This time of year, the sun hung over the sand lands without break, and the desert crossing would be a gruelling affair. But Allard needed little persuading.

The blistering heat and endless sunshine of the sand lands provided the perfect excuse for his favoured state of undress. He was shirtless, striking poses and flexing muscles, before we’d even ridden through the Second City’s ebony gates.

I swear, even his horse was rolling its eyes.

~*~

“Does everyone have one of these maps?” said Mayor Grantham, a portly man, bald except for a fringe on either side hanging over his ears.

He waved a piece of parchment at the ragtag group of men in front of him. We’d each been given a copy with detailed drawings of tunnels and stairways.

I stood at the back of Brume’s Grand Meeting Hall, a surprisingly bright and airy cavern far beneath the surface, cooling myself in the path of a gentle breeze. The ancient builders of Brume had found a way to bring fresh air and sunlight into their underground dwelling without visible sign of window or air vent — a remarkable feat of engineering.

“As you can see,” continued the mayor, “the traps on the way into the temple are marked. A word of warning—the maps are only a rough guide. Remain vigilant and you should have no trouble. Put a foot in the wrong place and, well, I’m sure you can imagine.”

Looking around, I can’t recall ever seeing as unimpressive a bunch of mercenaries as the men in front of me.

A shield party of three held centre stage, led by a bulky man nearly as wide as he was tall. Bits of stuffing peeked out from the rips in his gaudy red leather armour, scratched and scored from many violent encounters, and he carried an enormous iron shield painted in luminous colours. He stood between two smaller men tucked in close, like chicks underwing, each holding a long spear.

Off to one side, a skinny boy fiddled with a crossbow. By his rusty banded armour with the insignia sanded off, I judged him recently demobbed from one of the orphan armies. That, or a deserter. Not many child soldiers survived to do either, so perhaps he knew how to use his complicated-looking weapon.

And lastly, two chatty scruffbags who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a leper colony. A scrawny couple with patchy beards, oily hair and scabby faces, wearing rags that no doubt hid a multitude of sharp objects. They had gone round introducing themselves as Corgis and Andus, making jokes and wishing everyone well.

There are some people who can tell, just by the way you stand, how proficient you are with a weapon or how well you can throw a punch. These two looked like they only needed a glance to know where you kept your coin purse.

The mayor wrung his hands, but kept his smile fixed in place. “Now, please don’t think just because we’ve revealed our temple secrets that you’ll be able to come and go as you please in the future and relieve us of our sacred relics — don’t pretend you haven’t considered it, heh, heh.” His nervous titter received only cold stares. “We will, of course, be refitting our entire security system once you’ve cleared the temple of our unwanted guest.”

“Never mind the map,” said the beefy leader of the shield party, scrunching up the parchment in his hand and throwing it on the floor. “What I want to know is what he’s doing here.” Big Boy jerked a thumb in my direction, but kept looking straight at the mayor.

“Ah, well, I’m not sure what you mean.” The mayor glanced over to where I was leaning against a wall. His merchant’s smile remained on his lips, but his shifty eyes betrayed his anxiety. “The reward is open to anyone who helps slay the Dalyan woman. Is there some kind of problem?”

“Yes,” said Big Boy, “there is. I don’t want him in there with us.”

“Fine,” I said. “You go in first and tire her out. I’ll mop up once she’s done with you.”

He shoved his shield at one of his men, who struggled to hold it upright, and placed a hand on the sword hanging from his belt. Perhaps his girth owed more to fat than muscle, but he looked like he knew how to handle himself in a skirmish.

“Maybe I should take care of you now,” he pulled his sword an inch or two out of its scabbard, “before you get the chance to stab any of us in the back. That is why they call you Grin the Cheat, isn’t it?”

The problem with the killing business is that, generally speaking, the bigger the opponent, the bigger the beating he’s going to give you. Someone like me, slight of build and fairly short — taller than most women, which is the important thing, I like to think — doesn’t stand much chance in a fair fight. Which is why I never fight fair.

I pushed myself off the wall. “Just the two of us? Or will your snatch-puppies be joining in?”

They immediately took up their standard formation. Shielders use their largest, best-armoured member to soak up attacks while the others attempt to outflank and attack from behind. It works well against large, dumb beasts like snow bears or rock lions; less effective against anything with a brain.

Reputation helps me avoid most pointless altercations, but every now and again some cocky brute will take a look at me and decide the stories must be exaggerated. Especially if he has a couple of chums to back him up. That’s where having a brute of my own comes in useful. Unfortunately, Allard, my sword-wielding accomplice, was on the other side of the room inspecting the buffet that had been laid on for us: roast lizard, jellied insects and a range of other unidentifiable delicacies.

“I should say, for any of you expecting a show, sadly, I am travelling light.” I opened one side of my jacket. Hanging from the lining were three daggers, the blade of each glinting a different hue. “Each of these is coated with poison, obviously. This one is jupp berries. The slightest nick and you bleed from your eyes and ears and everywhere else, until you have no more blood in your body. A little monotonous, but gets the job done. This one is valodian root. You may not have heard of it, fairly rare. Brain fever, insanity, suicide all in a matter of seconds — can be entertaining, depends on the method of suicide. And this one is cheem tree sap. One stab and your heart explodes. Bang! You’re dead.”

I opened the other side of the jacket to reveal three more daggers.

“Now, on this side, we have the nasty stuff—”

“Enough,” said Big Boy, grimacing like he’d swallowed a quart of his own piss. “We came here to do a job, not waste time on you.” He turned and spat on the floor, leaving a large glob of phlegm on what had been a very nice rug.

The mayor gave the rug a good long look before returning his attention to the big shielder. “My friends, are you sure you don’t want to work together? She really is quite deadly.”

“I don’t know what you were thinking letting Grin the Childkiller into your town,” Big Boy continued. “I just hope you’ve got your families somewhere safe.”

I prefer Grin the Blade, or Grin of the Seven Knives. Grin the Cheat is what gets thrown at me most often. I can’t say it’s a name entirely without foundation. Grin the Childkiller is my least favourite moniker. In my defence, there are some men who just won’t listen to reason, not unless you wipe out their entire family.

“One last thing,” said the mayor. “It is our custom, before embarking on matters of great importance, to share a rare Brume delicacy. It is not something we normally allow strangers to partake of, but, for this special undertaking, an exception has been made. We call them desert pears. They are extremely refreshing and energising. Great luck and fortune falls on all those who consume them.”

The mayor turned and indicated the long table laden with food, and Allard, standing there with an empty bowl, the last of the desert pears disappearing into his mouth.

It took him a moment to realise we were all looking at him. “What?”

The mayor’s mouth hung open. “You ate them? You ate them all?”

Allard shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “No. Of course not. There’s plenty more food. Enough for everyone. I can’t eat any of the fatty stuff. I can in my bulking-up phase, but I’m in my cutting phase at the moment. See?” He raised his arm to show off his incredibly well-defined bicep. “That’s why I only had the fruit.”

“But they were for everyone.” The dismay was as strong in the mayor’s voice as it was in his face. “They are extremely rare and hard to procure.”

Allard looked horribly embarrassed. He was a tall man, taller than anyone else in the room, and carved out of granite. His head was shaved, and his shirtless body was devoid of any hair. A sword hung from either hip, the one on the left an iron longsword, the right one a curved sabre. Who would dare chide such a man for eating too much fruit? The mayor didn’t seem able to help himself.

“My friend, you have deprived your fellows of their delicious good luck.”

Allard lifted a platter of burnt and mangled critters off the table. “They can have some fried lizard.”

“Gah!” The mayor rubbed a hand over his bald pate. “What’s done is done. Come, let us depart for the temple. This way!”

He threw a last look in Allard’s direction, shook his head in disgust, and stomped off.

We followed him through a doorway and down a steep flight of steps cut into the living rock, spiralling into the depths of the earth.