In an ordinary bounty-hunting case where the hunters were after a criminal, Galf explained, the usual procedure would be to consult the local law if there wasn't a specific plan of action. A person's name might be known, or some underworld hangout might be considered. Local guards were usually glad to cooperate because it meant one of their town's problems would be taken care of at somebody else's risk and expense. In Valhalla, however, this obviously did not apply. The local attitude was, if one didn't commit the crime in Valhalla, it was none of anyone's official business.
"In fact, if we get too pushy, odds are its us who'll end up in a cell for disturbing the peace. Of course, that's nothing now, since a hunter can't just bust heads and push innocent people around in any town, but at least we usually get some leniency. The upside is that if we keep our quarrels away from third parties, Derek and our private business will stay our private business. I figure the law around here isn't too nosy when it doesn't have to be."
Alys shook her head. Rules she could handle, and anarchy could be dealt with, but Valhalla seemed to be some of each.
They'd taken rooms at the Sailor's Surprise, whose sign showed a drunken pirate leering at the improbable figure of an elmelew in a pink dress. The Surprise was an inn only, without a taproom, but the innkeeper recommended them to the Blue Ruin for all the drink, carousing, and gambling they could stomach.
"Sounds like just our speed," Galf had told the woman, and that was exactly where they went that evening.
"What's the plan?"
"Keep your eyes and ears open, don't drink too much, and don't flirt. We'll end up in a brawl for sure if you do."
"I don't flirt," Alys snapped.
"I'm thinking friend Every would disagree. He told me the darts story."
Alys blushed.
"Right. No flirting."
If there was one thing Alys could not understand, it was gambling. The click of dice and slap of cards on wooden tables held no allure for her, and the whirr of spinners and the dazzle of turning wheels did not attract her eyes. The concept of taking one's hard-earned money and risking it on a game of chance was totally alien to her. Simple math would tell anyone that the odds were with the house, or in a person-to-person game with the professional gamesharp who knew the odds and had learned to read his or her opponent's expression and movements for clues to further shift the chances of winning.
A game of skill was a different story, of course. But betting on blind luck, risking wealth that an unlikely outcome would occur, that had no attraction at all. Still, a job was a job, and so Alys found herself with a mug of ale (no question of where she fell on the adult/child scale in Valhalla) at a table with six other people who seemed to share none of her objections. Ironically, having reasonable luck and working through one drink in the time the others took for three or four (and some of those rum) she made a head start on recouping their expenses from the trip.
Little else of note happened for the first hour, not even any serious cursing by the losers over their bad luck. Then one burly woman cast the dice and came up a loser, when suddenly the entire room started to shake. Drinks sloshed, bottles rattled behind the bar, and the dice jumped enough so that one of the roller's sixes flopped over to become a three.
"Ha!" she cried. "I win after all!"
"What're you talking about, Maud?" challenged a weedy man with leathery skin. "You rolled three sixes up. Pay over!"
"I'm counting two sixes from here, Jakk. Count 'em yerself."
"But that ain't what you rolled!"
"No one touched the dice or the table, and the bets weren't paid out yet."
"Yeah, but you can't win 'cause an earthquake changed the dice," another player pitched in.
"Why not?" argued one of Maud's shipmates. "We do if it's a wave at sea. This is just a wave on land!"
"So who's ever heard of earthquakes in Valhalla?" one of the challengers yelled back.
"Whattya mean? We've been getting them a couple times a day for the past three months!"
Alys eased herself back from the table as the shouting began to intensify. If a fight broke out, she didn't want to be part of it. Her back connected with another person and she turned to apologize, only to find Galf standing over her.
"Time to go."
"But I haven't learned anything."
"I have. Besides, you won't learn anything in the middle of a brawl."
Alys followed Galf's lead out of the Blue Ruin and onto the street.
"What did you find out?" she asked.
"The name of a fence, one of the biggest ones in town. If Derek is a Valhallan, she'll know him and probably how to find him." Suddenly he stopped and grabbed Alys's arm. "Wait a second!"
"What is it?"
"There."
He pointed, and Alys saw it too, a tall, lean man in a white hooded mantle just outside one of the inns. Even though his hood was down, she could only tell that the hair color was light, but she'd be willing to be that in a decently lit area it would show as pale blue.
"He's here," Alys murmured. "How is he here?"
"How was he on the beach?"
Good point, she thought.
"I think," Galf continued, "that we ought to try answering some of those questions."
"How? He made it clear he didn't want to see us again, and seeing as how he was pretty much wiping the floor with us--"
"That's why we aren't going to ask. We're going to follow our friend in the white mantle and let him show us what he knows. The fence can wait."
As towns went, Valhalla proved to be almost perfect for following someone. The houses were laid out in no particular scheme or pattern and there were no street lamps, so that hiding spots were plentiful, and on the larger streets there were still plenty of people around despite the late hour. Obviously, Valhallan sailors caroused hard when their feet touched land. The tech-user's white mantle was as good as a beacon; he was more than easy to follow. Indeed, he didn't even seem to be looking around to see if anyone was following, but striding briskly along with clear purpose. He only stopped when two large men stepped out in his path.
"That's far enough there, pally," one barked. "You've been sticking your pretty nose where it doesn't belong."
"You don't want to be doing this," the tech-user snapped scornfully. "Get out of my way."
"Now you see, that's where you're wrong." The man drew a long knife with a serrated blade.
"They really don't want to be doing that," Alys agreed.
"Not alone, no," Galf told her, "but they aren't."
A moment later Galf was proven correct as the alleys to the tech-user's left and right disgorged two additional men each. Alys was mildly annoyed with herself for not noticing the additional ambushers, even though they hadn't been stalking her.
"Get him, boys!" barked the lead thug. The blue-haired man had clearly not been wasting his time, but had been gathering his mental reserves while the goons were making their dramatic entrance. He raised his hand.
"Hewn!"
The wind technique struck all six of his enemies at once, swirling drills of air surging into them. Three went sprawling and a fourth bounced off a wall. The others, though, were not immediately stunned, and they lunged at him. Again, the tech-user showed decent combat skills, parrying the leader's knife with his wood cane, but the last man brought a sturdy club down on the side of his skull.
"Looks like that's our cue," Galf muttered as the tech-user went down. He led the charge with Alys on his heels, and bellowed out a challenge to take the leader's attention off stabbing the downed man. He barely got his dagger up to block Galf's sword, but the initial charge drove him several steps back from his prey.
Alys threw a slasher on the run, slicing a deep cut into the chest of the club-wielding thug. The man who'd hit the building was coming back at her, though, blades out while she was empty-handed. The only sensible defense seemed to be a quick technique, so she unleashed a Foi, hoping the fireblast would knock the man over and possibly out.
What she got, instead, was a deafening explosion of flame that knocked Alys herself over backwards. Her attacker, though, had been reduced to Murderous Goon Flambe, extra-blackened, while the other thug on his side, who'd just been getting up from the Hewn, was more of a medium-rare.
The surviving members of the rat-pack reacted with loud and colorful obscenities, then made a break for it. Galf would have given chase and probably grabbed the leader for questioning, but he'd been as shocked as anyone. Probably more than the thugs, because he knew darned well that Alys didn't have the ability to cast a technique that powerful.
Then again, no one had the ability to cast a Foi technique that powerful. Even a true techmaster's Foi didn't cause exploding fireballs; that was why there were Gi and Na versions of the technique.
The white-mantled tech-user, his previously immaculate outfit now stained with mud and soot, glared at Alys while rubbing his aching head.
"Now do you believe me when I say this doesn't concern you?"