“Ugo.”

Ugo flinched, sprawled in the gut­ter. A rent in his pur­ple lip oozed. He moaned, grit­ted the red-cored stumps of fresh­ly-bro­ken teeth. He cov­ered his face, curled deep­er into the bed of dead leaves and musky horse dung. 

“Ugo,” said the voice again, strong, insis­tent. A hand shook his shoul­der. “Vamos. Come now.” 

“Go away.”

“No. I do not think it true you want to stay here.” The speak­er, a well-cut man in a grey, col­lar­less suit and wide hat. He knelt on the lam­plit red­brick street, perched on shiny boots. He spoke to Ugo soft­ly in accent­ed but flu­ent Alagóran. “A shit­ty gut­ter is no place for you. Come.” He beck­oned anoth­er fig­ure, a broad rag­woman in leather, for­ward. They hoist­ed Ugo by the burst armpits of his shirt­sleeves, right­ing his bare feet on the bricks.

Ugo coughed, snort­ing pink phlegm. “Who are you peo­ple?” he said, stick­i­ly, hands shak­ing close to his chest.

“Your new friends. I am Paget, and this is Sevansa.” He ges­tured over Ugo’s shoul­der, to the woman who sup­port­ed him under one arm.

“What do you want? I have no mon­ey. They took it.” He point­ed for­ward, over a low, stone wall cov­ered in ivy, towards a yel­low-lit can­ti­na bustling with leather-clad cut­ters laugh­ing and bristling with steel. Cheer­ing voic­es, rude song, and the clink­ing of glass­es car­ried well out into the street.

“Yes, I know,” con­soled Paget. “We saw them throw you out. They mocked you and they robbed you for sport, did­n’t they? Beat you?”

“How do you know me? I do not know you,” said Ugo, blink­ing the one eye that was­n’t swollen shut. He tried to pry him­self from Sevansa, but wob­bled and failed. The stout chif­fonier gripped him tighter. 

“I asked the pro­pri­etor,” smiled Paget. “He said you were once a sol­dier.” He frowned, look­ing Ugo up and down. “This is no way to have treat­ed a sol­dier. If only we were here to stop them.” He shook his head woe­ful­ly.

“Why are you my new friends, then?” accused Ugo.

Paget smiled a smile that did not touch his sil­ver eyes. “Because we would like to offer you an alter­na­tive to ven­tur­ing. Some­thing equal­ly befit­ting a sol­dier’s skills.”

Ugo’s eye fixed on him. Paget con­tin­ued fer­vent­ly. “That’s what you got beat for, yes? For ask­ing to join them?”

Ugo hes­i­tat­ed. “Yes,” he growled.

Paget licked his lips. “What if I offered you an alter­na­tive. One that made you rich­er than any cut­ter…” He trailed, study­ing Ugo’s dis­pas­sion­ate bro­ken face. “And allowed you to take revenge on those ass­holes who beat you?”

At that, Ugo’s straight­ened. His nos­trils flared. “What is this alter­na­tive?”

Paget’s eyes gleamed. He lay a hand on Ugo’s shoul­der. “Have you ever heard tell…” he said, lean­ing close to the man’s ear. “Of the Sate of Ban­de­lier?”

Some­one pulled the blind­fold off. Ugo blinked in startle­ment at a lav­ish smok­ing par­lor. His one good eye sheared about, water­ing in the thick, ashen atmos­phere. He observed a hand, Sevansa’s, grip­ping his elbow, then low sofas, bil­liards tables, and mount­ed heads of spi­ral-horn oxen on the walls. Fat red lamps lent the tro­phies’ dead eyes radi­ence. Shad­ows of ris­ing smoke and flit­ting dox­bells wavered over the win­dow­less walls, papered in crim­son scroll­work.

Near­by one lamp sat Paget, a cig­ar hooked in his clean left hand. He nod­ded, smil­ing a flat-eyed smile at Ugo, and ges­tured to what lay before him. There, sup­port­ed on the car­pet by two half-meter wood­en stops, lay an ornate, pole-borne palan­quin of medi­um pro­por­tion. Smoke curled, throat-aching­ly sour, through the silk screen veil­ing its win­dows. Not the sweet smoke of pep­perelle, but the char of brim­stone and the stink of gore dripped on hot coals.

“Salu­dos, Ugo,” rasped a voice with­in the box.

Hair rose on Ugo’s arms, on the nape of his neck. He recoiled, tried to step back, but Sevansa’s grip locked him in place. Paget smiled at him.

“I am pleased to be in like com­pa­ny,” con­tin­ued the voice. Dry, deep. A South­ern noble­man’s accent. Well-intoned, but lack­ing cer­tain frica­tives, as if hissed through bared teeth. “For you know, Ugo, we share a lam­en­ta­ble sim­i­lar­i­ty.”

Ugo shiv­ered again, gulped. “What sim­i­lar­i­ty is that?” 

“We have both been wronged, you and I,” it hissed.

“How?”

“I think you know how. I, long ago; and you just this night. Maimed and dis­card­ed in idle cru­el­ty by mem­bers of a vio­lent caste.”

“Cut­ters,” growled Ugo. He used the Firl­ish word, spat it through his bro­ken teeth. 

“Yes,” it snarled. Smoke puffed through the mesh. “Cut­ters. You want­ed to become one, did­n’t you Ugo? Offered them your skills as a fight­ing man in good faith?”

“Yes.”

“And how did they respond?

“Laughed at me.”

“And?” asked the voice.

Ugo looked down to the car­pet and sneered. He winced in pain as his lip re-split. A fist balled at his side. He seethed, but gave no reply. “They beat you, robbed you for a game, did­n’t they?” hissed the smoky voice. Silent, Ugo raised his eyes and nod­ded.

“Cut­ters did the same to me, decades ago. Bru­tal­ized me in my home and left me a crip­ple. They do it—” said the hiss­ing voice, spit­ting and ener­getic. “Because, in the risk­ing of their own, they have come to place no val­ue in any­one’s life at all, save the plea­sure gained at its expense. They are mem­bers of a thug­gish insti­tu­tion cre­at­ed by greedy men, and they are a tax upon the life of the world.” It paused. “I and all my asso­ciates have seen the evil of the cut­ter. We have lived it and for­sak­en it, have been wronged by its ways. We are unit­ed by it.” On the sofa, Paget nod­ded. 

Ugo scowled. “I have no joy in play­ing the vic­tim, Señor de Ban­de­lier. Do not ask me to join in being one.”

“You mis­take me, Sol­dier.” A strange smile could be heard in the dry tone. “We do not play at vic­tim­hood…” In the palan­quin, vis­i­ble behind the screen, there flared two dots of cher­ry red, like coals stoked by breath. “But at vengeance.”

At that, Sevansa left the sol­dier’s side. Ugo did not watch her, for he stared at the palan­quin. “Tell me more.”

“My own lit­tle insti­tu­tion plays the cut­ters’ game, but instead of hunt­ing buried gold, we hunt them.”

“I am…” said Ugo, smirk­ing. “No stranger to hunt­ing men. I am also no stranger to entrap­ment. This isn’t some posi­tion I can’t escape, is it?”

“Not at all. You don’t even need to sign.”

“Then how do I start? When?”

“Here and now. Sevansa?”

A shad­ow appeared beside Ugo. Ugo looked, found Sevansa had reap­peared. She prof­fered the grip of a pis­tol loaded with a heavy coil and over­sized mag­a­zine. Ugo grinned. His bloody face reflect­ed in the black oxide fin­ish.

Inside the palan­quin, some­thing hissed, sat­is­fied. “I have a feel­ing you know where to begin.”

The Sate

Decades ago, in the hot, red-earth hills of far South­ern Ban­de­lier, there lived a young ser­pent.

A mild worm that dwelt in a dry well and nev­er once ate up the local shep­herd’s goats and hap­py chil­dren. It hurt not a soul at all, save the long-legged deer of Ban­de­lier’s sparse groves.

The chil­dren knew it. They feared it not at all when it flew at sun­set, like a great, scaly stream­er trail­ing behind bat’s wings. They point­ed at it, called it pret­ty. They sang hymns and lays into its well; sang so much they lit some small fire of cog­ni­tion in that ser­pen­t’s nour­ished brain. By and by, they taught it, by all their singing, of the tongue and folk­lore of their lit­tle town. It cher­ished this knowl­edge, and greed­i­ly con­sumed all their tales and sto­ries. These, it loved, even the tales of Aveth and of her holy ser­pent-slay­ers. It nev­er once asso­ci­at­ed itself with the mon­sters of those tales. For to the chil­dren, it was nev­er “ser­pent” but “friend.” In this way, the ser­pent fat­tened its mind and became a clever and intel­li­gent sate.

But years hence, cut­ters came to the well. Young, cun­ning cut­ters, eager to test their met­tle on an open boun­ty for mature ser­pents’ heads. They set a net over the well’s lip, and wait­ed for the sate to return at night. When it did, they sprung.

The sate fell eas­i­ly. Unde­vel­oped by a diet lack­ing in human flesh, and unac­cus­tomed to any­thing but affec­tion from humankind, it suc­cumbed to the cut­ters with lit­tle resis­tance. They tan­gled it, roped it down with ease, for its fire was insub­stan­tial, and broke its del­i­cate wings. They left it that way, still alive, for its head, still smooth and small like a juve­nile, sat­is­fied not their boun­ty’s require­ment.

That clever sate sur­vived, though not unchanged. It lives on today.

Vengeance

Amid the rough and gos­sip­ful spheres of cut­ters, there cir­cle rumors of fell con­se­quence. Tales of a force of hunters. Once-cut­ters who pun­ish with bru­tal dis­cre­tion mem­bers of the ven­ture­some caste.

 Tales tell of fool­ish cut­ters, mys­te­ri­ous­ly beset by assas­sins at a seem­ing­ly secret Tomb’s mouth. Of oth­ers jumped in alley­ways by mer­ce­nar­ies pro­claim­ing jus­tice, hired in vengeace for some will­ful, care­less slight in the past. Of count­less cut­ters made to pay for their way­ward and bloody-mind­ed ways. 

A name sur­rounds these mer­ce­nar­ies, these hunters: The Sate of Ban­de­lier. A ser­pent of con­tempt, they say, who wields its hate for cut­ter-kind as a twist­ed, venge­ful busi­ness ven­ture. A worm with bro­ken wings who curls in smok­ing dark­ness, orches­trat­ing wide-rang­ing revenge at the behest of all harmed by care­less ven­tur­ing-kind, and in per­verse ser­vice to its own bloody hurt.

Many a cut­ter oth­er­wise cav­a­lier in his wan­ton and greedy action, has stilled his med­dle­some, thiev­ing, vio­lent hand in hes­i­ta­tion; in fear that one day the Sate may apply to his actions sharp con­se­quence long over­due.

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